I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't mean to kill him. It repeated over and over in his head like a mantra as he sat, slumped, on the front porch in the cold February air. If he'd intended to kill him, he would have done it right away. He'd only tied the man up to keep him from interfering, from getting the police or doing something stupid and heroic like Peter was wont to do.
Gabriel didn't spare a thought for Samson Grey. Killing the old man didn't bother him in the least, not even the parts of him that were more certainly from Nathan. Nathan had done a lot of things in his life, in his military service, and although killing was still wrong and a sin, he also understood that sometimes it was necessary and justified. Samson Grey was terminal and he deserved it. His conscience hadn't given him a twitch. The young hospice worker he'd killed had been innocent. That was giving him fits.
I can't be around people. It's not safe. I've got to get control. I can't live like this. I can't live like a hermit in the woods like my father. I can't! I'm a senator, for Christ's sake! What will people think? Maybe I can get control? Maybe if I know it's coming? What if it was just the once and it's sated? His mind flashed to all the different animals in the house. No, just one will not work.
I need to test it. I need to make sure. I overcame the other Hunger, I can overcome this one. I'm strong enough. What was it Peter said? 'You're stronger than that.' Yes, I am. I can win this. But how many people will I have to kill first? How many people had Sylar had to kill for their abilities before he had the power to be choosy and careful? How many more did he have to kill before he could walk away and leave someone alive and intact? Too many. I can't kill that many people - that many innocent people. I have to stop this Hunger now. I can't go on a rampage like that. Not again, not again. I didn't mean to kill him.
I'll have to test it. It occurred to him that someone in Mr. Grey's condition would have around-the-clock service, so there should be someone else showing up eventually to relieve the young man he'd killed. It bothered him deeply that he was testing his control on someone who spent their life caring for the helpless. He'd much rather have had a criminal or a homeless person or a trucker or a waitress or almost anyone! Just… not a health care worker. He'd admired his brother, secretly, for his choice. It wasn't a path he'd wanted to walk, but he admired his brother's desire to help others, naïve though it was.
He sighed. He didn't get to be choosy tonight, though. He might as well get into his disguise. He concentrated and transformed himself into the black man, but this time, with the shift in appearance came a shift in thinking. He felt his personality change and flow, his way of thinking alter and his perception of the world distort. In a panic, he reversed it, grabbing at his face and running inside to the bathroom, where he stared into the mirror. He felt… different. The feeling faded quickly, but for a long moment there it was - that same, sickening out of body experience he'd had for so long after he'd died in that hotel room.
He didn't want to go through that again. Weeks of not being himself, culminating in… what had happened. The fight with Peter, the rape by Parkman, the betrayal in Omaha. Had his father's ability somehow contaminated his other abilities? Hesitantly, he shifted his face to that of Nathan Petrelli. Nothing else changed. His face was different, but not his mind. He tried Peter's face - no change. He tried Samson's - no change. He tried his first and so far only victim of the Hunger, and his mind shifted with his features.
He threw it off again. Well, this is disgusting! "No wonder you did so many animals, Dad," he muttered to himself. It wasn't that his identity changed, but how he thought changed and it threw him off-balance. He didn't like it. He was very clear on who he was. His identity as… Sylar? Nathan? Gabriel? was very important to him. He shook his head. Who the hell am I? Must be some effect of the Hunger.
His father's ability was like an unevolved version of Sylar's. Sylar's ability had been cleaner, more efficient, more targeted. It didn't come with so many disadvantages. Come to think of it, Peter's ability is an evolved version of mine then - no disadvantages at all, at least not with his original power. He's a lot younger than I am. They must have refined it, somehow. Twelve years younger. I wonder if that gap is significant? Gabriel decided he could manage looking like the hospice worker for a few minutes at least without unsettling himself too much, but he certainly didn't like it. He'd just wait until the replacement showed up before shifting. The faint strains of the other man's music kept running through his head as he sat back down on the porch to wait. I didn't mean to kill him.
He saw the headlights coming down the winding driveway some time later. I've got to get a watch. Should have got one while I was at that jewelry store. Somehow though, getting a watch would be admitting defeat, that he'd lost his ability, something that was an integral part of himself. He wasn't even sure when he'd lost it. Pretty sure Parkman did it, but how? He can't take abilities. He brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand and shifted into the black man's face as the car approached.
A stout, cheerful looking middle-aged woman got out of the car, getting a bag out of the back seat. He walked forward tentatively and stopped about twenty feet from her. "Hi," he said and smiled nervously. He was supposed to be more confident than he was being. Fearfulness and timidity were not strong features of the young man's personality. Gabriel felt a profound disjunction between his feelings.
"Oh, hi Paul. How's Mr. Grey this evening?"
"He's fine. Sleeping." Again he felt the words he was saying weren't the words he should have been saying. He had an urge to shift back to Gabriel's face but resisted it.
"That's good. Maybe a quiet night, then? I brought some knitting again. I'll get that shawl done if it's…" she trailed off, looking at the expression on Paul's face, which was indistinct in the darkness. "What's wrong?"
"Your music."
"My what?" She looked at the car. It was off; the radio was not on. "What are you talking about?"
He shook his head, brows pulled together in distress. "I can hear it. I don't want to hear it."
"Are you okay?" She started for him, but he backed up a step and put up his hand, forcing her back against the side of her car with telekinesis.
"Don't come any closer!" He was panting. He wanted to do it. He had to do it. He had to have her, to add her to his collection, to have two of them next to each other in harmony. He tried to fight it, but he found himself walking towards her, hand upraised, despite his wishes.
"Paul!" she screamed, struggling against his immaterial hold on her.
He knew exactly where to put the cuts and it wasn't across her forehead. His fingers flexed and he saw the blood. She screamed in terror and pain. He heard a sound like fingernails across a chalkboard as he finally found the strength to launch himself from the ground, throwing himself in the air and away from her. He flew as fast as he could, erasing the image of the black man and turning into Nathan. It seemed fitting, since he was flying.
XXX
He was truly miserable, depressed and suicidal. He was also freezing cold, but for now that was fine. He wanted to freeze to death. Maybe an animal would find him and eat him before he revived and that would end him. He hoped so. He just couldn't bring himself to do it more directly.
He'd found a tiny island in the Great Lakes. It was a jumble of rocks with a few dozen trees on it, covered in snow and ice. He was alone with his thoughts. Well, alone with his thoughts and a handful of rats, two of which were sitting in front of him in the ice cave he'd made for himself. He'd cleaned the bones with telekinesis and wrapped them in their skins. It was a sickening reminder of what depravity was lurking in his mind now. Killing rats didn't bother him, but he couldn't be around people.
He had to get control. He'd gotten control before, of the first Hunger. That his father had ended his days in solitude, surrounded by the bodies of his animal victims and was still busy adding to his collection distressed Gabriel. His father hadn't found a solution to it. But then again, his father had been weak. Angela had taken him down. He'd been obsessed with his schemes, with Pinehearst, pretending to be his father.
Wait… what? He tried to work that out. He was his father, and yet he wasn't his father. How had that happened? That he'd killed his father at Pinehearst and yet he had still been alive, dying of cancer a few days ago didn't bother him. After all, his mother had killed him too and Arthur had come back. It seemed to be a family trait. Gabriel had lost track of the number of times he'd died and that was without counting the fleeting moments of death after being shot or concussed.
No, what bothered him was the clear memory he had of holding a bullet in the air, a bullet fired by Peter, and asking his father if he was really his father after all. Arthur had said he was, and Gabriel had known he was lying, so he pushed the bullet along its path and killed him. He tried to pull up memories around that time at Pinehearst. Just a little later, he and Peter had an argument in a destroyed lab and Peter had saved him, flying him out in the nick of time. That didn't seem relevant. So his father had lied about being his father, but it was true that he was his father. He massaged his temples. His head hurt. Brain's frozen. Confused. Parkman. Hate him.
He shook his head to clear it and looked at the sky. There was a storm blowing in. The temperature was dropping even further. He wondered if he'd be able to stay here and let it freeze him to death. That was a really nasty way to die. He wasn't sure he could summon the will to stop breathing and make it faster. Even if he did, as soon as he died, his body would start repairing itself and he'd wake up minutes or seconds later. So he'd have to freeze to death in the time between stopping breathing and waking up, otherwise it was pointless. He sighed.
Hypothermia would be faster, if he could bring himself to dive into the frigid waters and stay there. He was concerned though that he'd just float around, wash up somewhere and someone would pull him out and he'd revive. Too bad there weren't sharks in the Great Lakes. Hm, they probably wouldn't eat me though. Professional courtesy, since I passed the bar exam. Come to think of it, it was unlikely that animals would find him out here that would eat him enough to kill him. More likely, eventually some boater would come by and notice him. Or even more sure, the weather would warm in spring and he'd thaw out. Then what would he have gained? Nothing but a long, horrible time and probably a lot of rat bites.
This is useless! I have to get off this island. I have to get control. I have to. But how? He needed someone who could take away his Hunger, without taking his powers. He thought about each of the people who knew who might be able to help him. The Haitian - he couldn't trust him. Not after the incident in Omaha. Bennet might know how to help him, but all he'd do is shoot him. Strange - he thought he could trust Bennet, just not talk him into doing what he wanted. Peter - he couldn't trust him either, and Peter couldn't take powers. Angela might know, but how would he talk to her without turning her into a mannequin? He'd already tried to kill her once and it had hurt him so badly that he still felt awful about it. Still need to apologize.
Parkman seemed most likely to be able to do it, but he was even surer he wouldn't be able to stop himself from murdering the telepath. He didn't have enough regard for Parkman's life. While entertaining to do him in, it wouldn't help his control. Maybe if he just killed him and took his power he could use it on himself and make himself think he was someone else, someone who didn't have the Hunger. Would that work? How insane do you have to be, to be successfully deluded into thinking you're someone else? I can't imagine I'd buy it for very long, anyway. He shifted his weight. His feet were frozen.
What was it that Parkman had done to him, anyway? He'd been avoiding thinking too much about that violation for a very long time - pretty much since it had happened. It was too hard to process, too painful, and in his mind it was a large blank spot of no memories. But here he was on this island, freezing his ass off, literally, and he might as well face all his demons at once. He thought about it. Even in the cold, it made him sweat and tremble. He simply couldn't remember what had happened. He'd… died. He'd been in a hotel room, fighting another man, someone he hated, but who he couldn't focus on for some reason. His throat had been cut, he'd fallen and he'd died. He remembered the feeling of blood running down his chest, just like it had run down the chest of the hospice worker a few days ago.
He'd killed Paul the same way he'd been killed, he was certain of it. With the same practiced move, too. He raised his numb hand and made the motion. He knew that motion. It was his motion. But how could that be? He remembered… he remembered being the man who made that motion, fighting Nathan Petrelli in a hotel room, sure that he would win. What good was flight against Sylar's entire arsenal of powers? Gabriel cocked his head. What the hell did Matt do to me? How am I both of these people?
Maybe he wasn't either one. Maybe Matt hadn't done anything to him. Maybe something else had happened. Maybe he just had their memories, like he had a shadow of Paul's memory, like he had a sense of a rat's life (not something he really wanted, but there it was). I can… absorb memories? And then I can't tell who I am? I must have absorbed Sylar's memories and Nathan Petrelli's too. And this Gabriel Grey guy. Maybe Paul didn't take because he wasn't special, or I don't get the full memories from people I kill during the Hunger. His mind worked at it, trying to make the gears mesh, trying to figure it out, trying to make the pieces fit.
He felt like a jigsaw puzzle that had been put together with a hammer. No, two or three jigsaw puzzles that had been put together with a hammer and all the extra pieces thrown away. Maybe that's what Parkman did - put me together. Maybe he… healed me. He blinked. The idea that what Matt had done to him might have been done with an altruistic motive had never occurred to him. It was so foreign and difficult to believe. No, that's ridiculous. He shied away from the thought.
Who the hell am I then? I'm some sort of Frankenstein's monster: fabricated. What was it Adam did at the end of that book? Didn't he go out to some island to live out the rest of his life alone? He looked around at his current abode. Weird. His memories went back to childhood for both Gabriel and Nathan, although it was maddingly difficult to tell which was which. He was sure he grew up in two different places and that was the best he could manage. They merged and flowed like a dream. Family members seemed to shift from one environment to the other, though Peter didn't show up in the less affluent upbringing. Sylar was a more recent arrival. There was no serial killer childhood of torturing animals or stalking other children. Sylar just appeared… but he couldn't tell when, why or how. It was too blended with Nathan's past, or rather, with his past. It was one continuous narrative, knotted with contradictions and impossibilities like Arthur being his father and not.
This isn't doing any good. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I have to get control of the Hunger. Then I can work on… this other problem. The wind was picking up. He went back over the problems of control. What I need, is someone I can't get to, can't kill, but is close enough that I can feel the temptation. Maybe someone to stop me from finishing. God, who would volunteer for something like that? Who could work with me that I wouldn't turn on and destroy anyway? Someone I can't kill… Aha!
He knew the who. Now as to the how. After a few minutes, he had a plan. Nathan's memories provided him with all the information he needed. He staggered out of his cave, balancing on frozen legs and took off into the storm, heading south.