A/N: I think this was the toughest chapter to write yet. This one took a while. It's massively important because it will conclude what I've started terming "Volume One". Look for this story to continue in "A Far Distant Future - Vol Two". The reason I'm splitting the story is because going forward things will be quite different from everything that came before. It kinda just makes sense to divide it.

I don't own Heroes or anything remotely related and I bow humbly before the television gods, please have mercy on me. Rated "M" for language, some violence, some blood & guts, and eventually some sexual imagery. And please review! If I've massively screwed something up, I'd like to know =D

12) You Can Never Go Home Again

The head detective entered his office with a tense, stiff-kneed gait. He allowed the door to slip shut behind him but he left the lights off, needing the darkness to mitigate the blinding headache that was already building behind his eyes. He slumped heavily into his chair and dragged a hand over his harrowed face. He was lucky to still be on the case after the mess that was made in Georgia. He'd just left a meeting with his superiors that was nothing short of a witch hunt – they were eager to blame anything or anyone in order to have some explanation to provide to the press and the families of the fallen officers, but the detective found it odd that no one was blaming the actual individual who was truly responsible. Having been raked over the coals with questions like "What could you have done better?" and "What other resources could you have pulled together?" he wanted to scream, "guys, this is SYLAR we're talking about," but maintained a stoic silence. He only allowed his indignity to strengthen his resolve.

Opening his desk drawer to find a pencil in the dark, he set himself to the task of marking on his calendar all the wakes and funerals he had upcoming to attend. He also wanted to find time to visit Chad, his young partner, in the hospital. He wasn't looking forward to the words he was certain Chad's wife had for him. A small cough snapped his attention to the far corner of the office. He stood immediately, his chair rocketing backward into the wall, his pistol drawn in a flash and sights lined up on one of two man-shaped shadowy pillars that flanked a seated woman. A severe-looking blonde woman. How had they escaped his notice? Was he really getting that old?

"Detective," she stated, "there's no need for that weapon. I'm surprised you haven't already come to the conclusion that we're on the same side."

"Ma'am, with all due respect, I've seen your tactics first hand and I gotta believe you're on a side all your own…"

She stood and approached him ignoring the firearm, entering the soft, dim sunlight escaping through the blinds over the window, taking for granted the lawman's chivalry.

"We both want to see him apprehended, don't we? Do we not both conclude that the sooner he is incarcerated the sooner we put an end to his seemingly endless killing spree? Do we not also agree that you do not possess the proper tools with which to contain him?"

The detective lowered his gun but continued to eye the woman suspiciously.

"Are you proposing -"

"An alliance? I know this isn't an activity the US Government traditionally engages in," she replied, nudging the oppressive mound of paperwork in his inbox, "but I suppose I'm wondering how many more situations need to escalate beyond your control before you realize you don't really have any other choice."

"Lady, I've been propositioned by worse characters than you enough times in my life to know this ain't an 'alliance' we're talking about – this is a negotiation. So what is it, exactly, that you want?"

Dr. Rogers steepled her fingers and tilted her head to the side, lowering her eyelids and pulling her lips into a wicked grin.

"I want him for forty-eight hours observation in my private laboratory before I deliver him to your holding facility."

"My apologies, ma'am, but that would be considered aiding and abetting a fugitive, which incidentally breaks a pretty big law in this country. I'm not gonna lie, he's not gonna be an easy catch and damn straight my job's on the line here, but I made an oath decades ago that every move I make in this position is within the confines of the law, and I'm gonna uphold it."

Dr. Rogers nodded slowly and regretfully before adding, "Then it seems we have no more to discuss. Thank you for your time and I do wish you luck."

The detective remained by his desk contemplating his predicament for several minutes after his unannounced visitors had left.

~*~*~

She looked like she was locked in prayer, and truthfully she probably was. Her back was stiff from sitting at the edge of her seat, her elbows leaning on his mattress, hands clasped beneath her lips. To change her position would be to turn her eyes from him, however, and if these were his final moments she didn't want to miss any of them. She only wanted him to wake up – just long enough to tell him she loved him if that's all she could have. She'd never seen his eyes closed this long. Ever. Another muscle spasmed in protest so she decided perhaps it really was time to move around a bit, maybe to slip into something a bit more comfortable while she waited for Craig's parents to arrive. Their flight wouldn't land until the morning, so she figured she had a long night's vigil ahead of her.

Rubbing at the small of her back, she dipped the fingers of her free hand into the duffle to have a peek at what Tall, Dark, and Psycho packed for her to wear. She hoped it was decent… She was surprised when her hand closed around something soft but firm and definitely not intended to be worn. Her jaw dropped a little when her favorite childhood teddy bear – the one that had been sitting on the dresser – emerged from the open zipper of the bag. Sylar was such a weirdo sometimes.

"Bart, is that really you?" she asked, holding him close to her face. She ruffled the tufts of fur around his ears a bit before nuzzling his nose with her own. "You're lucky he left your head on, you know…"

She placed Bart in the crook of her husband's elbow while she slipped into the pink cotton pajamas she'd found resting beneath the bear inside the bag. Returning to her chair after changing, curling deeply into it, she entwined her fingers with Craig's and let her mind wander through her memories, reliving significant points in their relationship.

She remembered their first kiss. They were still in Boston, having rescued Dominic Jones and sent him off in her rental car. Micah had secured them flights back to New Jersey, but on such short notice the best he could get was a red-eye leaving them with several hours to kill. Cardboard take-out chowder cups having been discarded, they had spent a large portion of the evening wandering along a quiet pier listening to chatty gulls try to settle down for the night. The Atlantic lapped over craggy New England rocks in a rhythmic lullaby as they sat shoulder to shoulder, dampened by a cool misty sea spray. They'd counted stars and told each other stories and laughed at each other's jokes and held hands. He'd put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulders to keep her warm, not realizing (or caring) that discomfort wasn't really something she felt. She appreciated the gesture anyway.

Once it came time to leave their magic place to make their way to the airport, the moon ducked out from hiding behind a copse of trees and rocks to hang enchantingly in the open air above the sea. The hazy, golden halo had been mirrored softly on the water casting a spell on her heart, and before she could stop herself she'd claimed his mouth with hers. He'd made no protest, only chuckled softly and returned her affections, threading his fingers through her hair.

She wasn't sure she'd ever be able to stand on that pier again.

~*~*~

Sylar had never been afraid of the dark, at least not that he could remember. The kind of darkness he was most commonly familiar with, however, wasn't usually this sticky. He was ensnared and immobile, like being caught in a spider's web – one he couldn't see. As a rule, he was generically abhorrent to most emotions that didn't include amusement, menace, gratification, and victory. Fear didn't make the list of his exclusions. Like, not even close. In fact, it was way the hell down there with weakness or vulnerability, or maybe was even a part of that. As a result, he clamped down on the urge to scream in wild panic as the inky black claustrophobia gripped him, holding him down, preparing to have its way with him despite his thrashing, kicking fight to the contrary.

He stopped instantly, his heartbeat pounding ruefully in his ears, when he heard the low hum. Blinking red pinpoints of light winked into view, surrounding him in a flashing crimson sphere. There was a spark somewhere in his periphery to the right, and the web that trapped him ignited. Blazing energy like electricity and flames crackled and hissed up the threads until it reached him, searing and blistering his skin. At that point he abandoned his efforts to ignore his fright and succumbed to screaming, paralyzing agony. He twisted and writhed against his scalding restraints in a primal, instinctual attempt to free himself and get as far from the pain as possible, yet he had little success.

"Hush now," a voice called to him. The darkness before him parted like a curtain allowing a severe-looking blonde woman to step through. "This will all be over soon. I just want to see how you work."

She was suddenly very close to him, eclipsing his view, and the scorching of his flesh reached a new fever pitch. Tubes and needles impaled him, stung him from every direction, clouding his eyes and turning his stomach. His whole world was closing in on him, collapsing around him, crushing him against some white hot, razor sharp fury and he couldn't get free… couldn't escape. She cupped his face with a hand that was unnervingly cold and dry, and the gaze that she presented him carried no tenderness – it was studious. She let one finger trail lazily up his right temple to where it curiously stroked his eyebrow. Then, with blinding quickness, she slashed her fingernail across his forehead. His vision flared white, as if he'd been struck, and a deafening 'crack' rang through his senses, like the breaking of a bone, as he finally pitched forward and tumbled into the endless dark below him.

He gasped awake, hurling himself to one side, completely amazed he didn't fling himself off the bed. The man in the bunk above him stirred a little before resuming his rhythmical pattern of snoring sleep. His roommate at the New York City hostel was kind enough though he spoke somewhat broken English. He was a little vehement in his dislike for American-style "Belgian" waffles, being a citizen of Belgium and all, but he was quiet and witty and generally left Sylar alone. To pay the man the same respect, and not disturb him in the wee hours with his bothersome night terrors, he crept from the room to visit the lavatory down the hall.

Even at four a.m. he was a little surprised to find the space unoccupied, and he was grateful. He was typically very private about the things that unsettled him and preferred not to have an audience, strangers or otherwise. It was a cold winter that year, making the water that flowed from the tap feel like ice, constricting the blood vessels around his eyes as he splashed some over his face. He caught a small amount in the cup of his hands from which he slurped a drink before drying himself off with scratchy brown paper towels. Leaning with his hands against the counter, he let his head hang and his mind drift in an attempt to dislodge visions of darkness and blinking lights.

Being back in New York was bittersweet – it meant he could visit his favorite sandwich shop and enjoy what he thought to be a real cup of coffee, and he could even walk past his apartment… but he couldn't go inside. Being someone who'd never truly understood the concept of 'home', having grown up in a situation that'd never truly been quite 'real', he didn't immediately recognize the sensation that crept over him, like crawling skin, as homesickness. All he knew was that he thought of Gabriel's watch shop for the first time in years, and he didn't want to kick himself. Of all the things he'd wanted at that place in his life, looking back he realized Gabriel'd had one thing for which Sylar would happily have given it all up: rest. Peace and quiet. As seductive was the pull of a new ability and as riveting was the terror shining in the eyes of his prey reflecting the awesome power he held over someone, those things didn't fill his bed, they didn't win him love, and they didn't make him complete. His eyes drifted closed as the cheerleader's voice whispered in his ear once more, asking him what it was all for, why was he really chasing these abilities? Did he really think he was going to solve the world's evils? Did he want to become the world's greatest evil? Or was he just trying to fix something that was broken… like a watch that had just stopped ticking…

He opened his eyes and sighed, shoulders growing taught, when the first sounds of commotion rose to greet his ears. A high-pitched whine sliced through the night and people screamed in alarm before growing suddenly quiet. Smoky tendrils of green gas slipped beneath the door. Pulling away from the counter he rose to his full height – there were no exits from the lavatory save one, and he was going to have to fight to be able to use it.

He turned to face his adversaries as they burst through the swinging entryway, and he unleashed a maelstrom of lightning with enough force to push himself backward onto the sink counter. A netting device was launched in his direction where it landed in one of the sinks at his feet. Kicking on the faucet, he disposed of it in a violent spray of shocking sparks. He deflected another using a telekinetic slap, slamming it back down where it came from. It erupted into the same blinding blaze that had haunted his sleep mere minutes before, except this menace ensnared four or five of his enemies instead – enemies that had been quickly replaced, filing through the door to join the crushing throng mashing him against the mirrored tiles.

Watching the exit disappear behind a seething wall of blackness, all grasping arms and featureless facelessness armed with more tools than he could count that would trap him or puncture him or burn him or commit any other act of ruthless torture, he knew his chances of escape were growing slimmer by the second. Brow damp with concentration, he sharpened his telekinetic blade to a fine point and began to slash. He hacked at limbs and throats, felt bone and tendons snap and give way, and the floor became a slippery red trough funneling down to the flood drain. Many cried out and fell back, but others only strengthened their resolve pressing onward even further. Overcome with desperation, he made a final act. Pulling back his elbows, drawing the same kind of strength he had when he'd slowed a shuttle upon atmospheric re-entry or launched an entire vehicle over an enormous hole in the road, he elicited a fierce battle cry and pushed forward.

Every standing creature before him had been flattened.

He leapt from the counter and hit the ground running in a frantic dash to get outside the building. If he could just get out he could disappear, could hide, could keep running…

Hands were on him, sticking like cobwebs, yanking back on his ankles. His teeth rattled when his chest crashed to the floor. He swung his invisible blade around to free himself, scrambling to his feet and propelling himself down the corridor. A few paces landed him face to face with a hovering drone, one that flashed a blinding flare in his eyes. He could see nothing past the spots of angry light scarring his retinas, and the flying machine began to emit a frenzied screeching. He sank to his knees, hands clamped over his ears, having had two of his vital senses removed. He growled in murderous frustration and pushed outward in all directions, knocking the drone from the air and temporarily halting its effects, providing him the instantaneous opportunity to escape.

Reinforcements were waiting at the end of the hall. He wasn't quick enough to stop his forward momentum, and he'd seen them too late. He skidded on his heels and landed on his butt, hands grappling for any purchase to pull himself back up and away, when searing red energy exploded all around him. He barely registered his left cheek pummeling against the floor before the lights went out.

Three days later he woke up naked and curled tightly in a ball… on a bed. His bed. In his old apartment, one he'd vacated at least a year prior. Sitting up and rubbing some sense into his eyes, he was still for a few moments grasping at threads of memory as they unraveled too quickly to grab. He eventually gave up and wrapped his comforter around his body, padding barefoot into the kitchen. On the counter was an envelope, containing a brief note:

'Rent covered, courtesy of Dr. Judy Rogers.'

Still feeling violated and more than a little confused, he lamented once more over the choices he'd made that'd left him with no one to turn to. And again… he missed the brusque wisdom of his old, sweet, little blonde nemesis.

~*~*~

She remembered the first time they'd made love. It had been her birthday. He'd taken her out someplace fancy, a restaurant that served buttery food in large portions, ordered from a completely unpronounceable menu. Well, unpronounceable for her, Craig eased through it like everything else – with humble grace and a dimpled smile. The dessert had been decadent (not to mention free – yay for birthdays) and the wine had given them both a heated blush, even though it would've taken considerably more than that to knock her off her feet.

It had been raining buckets that night, so that as they entered the foyer to his apartment building the air conditioning hit them like a sailing block of ice. Although Claire didn't feel its sting, her teeth involuntarily chattered and her nipples were digging holes through every layer of fabric that attempted to contain them. She bounced impatiently on the balls of her feet while Craig had fiddled with the key in the lock. Once inside, and the door had clicked shut behind them, Claire dripped in place with her hands rubbing her elbows while Craig breezed down the hall to collect some towels. Even looking back on that moment, she couldn't identify what exactly had come over her.

All she knew was that she'd wanted out of those wet clothes. She had kicked off her shoes and peeled her sopping shirt over her head. Craig had re-entered the room carrying a small stack of terrycloth bundles, including a robe that had been draped over his arm, just as she shimmied her pants over her hips. His jaw dropped as they pooled around her ankles. While he had expected her to disrobe, he didn't exactly think he'd get to witness the spectacle.

She had surrendered to the wave of arousal that slid over her as she stood exposed before him. Capturing his eyes with hers, she held him motionless as she slowly approached him. Once they were standing toe to toe, she reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra, then slid the straps over her shoulders allowing the garment to fall away.

Craig dropped the towels.

A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth as she bent at the waist, her eyes never leaving his, tracing a hand down his thigh and placing her nose precariously close to his groin as she reached to retrieve one that he'd dropped. She then straightened and made a grand show of drying herself off, being sure to rub several circles, over and over, around and under her breasts. She could hear a lusty breath shake in his throat. She hung the towel over the back of the couch.

Not wanting to press herself against his cold, wet shirt, she tucked her hands under it and began to strip it off. He aided her by pulling it over his head while she continued her exploration of his abdomen and chest. Her ministrations eventually led her up his neck and twisted into his hair as she pulled him down for a deep, hot kiss. Unable to contain himself, he picked her up and wound her legs around his waist – she could feel in no uncertain terms that he was ready to go. They tumbled around the side of the couch before sinking into it, and he eventually stumbled out of his pants before he sunk into her. Claire discovered that night, for the first time, that while Craig accomplished a great many things in his life because of his incredible speed, he was capable of excelling at some things slowly.

Her reverie was broken by a soft whisper and a finger stroking her hand.

"Hey, honey-head…"

Her eyes shot up and drank him in. He had one eye open and one side of his face sagged uselessly toward the pillow, but he was awake and he was alive. She grasped both of his hands firmly.

"Mornin', hot rod," she beamed at him. "Everything's gonna be okay. My blood, it has healing properties, all you need is a transfusion. I tried explaining it to the doctor, but he said we needed your perm-"

"Shhhhhhh…" he silenced her with a finger before caressing her cheek. A white shot of anxiety speared her when she realized the gesture seemed somewhat… dismissive.

"You know what I love about you?" he continued. "You're everything that I'm not, but we still have so much in common."

"Craig, I can fix this, I -"

"Shhhh, baby, no you can't. You can't take away my ability. This is always gonna come back to get me."

Stunned and numb, she couldn't feel the tears that blinked from her eyes. The doctor had mentioned something about his physiology being affected by his strange ability – something he didn't know how to treat, something he'd never seen before, something about his brain existing in a constant state of motion. Rarely able to rest, it had aged prematurely, and now it was…

"You… you knew. You've always known…"

"That I'm dying? Yeah, I guess so. My only regret is that I never told you. I'll understand if you hate me for not being honest with you, and I won't even try to defend myself – I was selfish. And crazy – crazy for getting myself involved with a girl who'll live forever, right? But I thought to myself, 'maybe we're perfect for each other,' you know? I mean, I'm the only person on earth you'll never have to watch grow old and wither away before your eyes…" he laughed weakly.

"Craig, please…"

"Shhhh," he cupped her face in his hand until he lost the strength to hold it up. "I need to be able to tell you this. There's two huge things that you and I share, Claire Dalton. The first is something I think you'll find you share with anyone who's dying too soon – we live our lives obsessed by the things we haven't done. I'm not gonna do that anymore and I want you to stop too, alright? Promise me you will."

She nodded mutely.

"Did you know I'm fast enough to run on water?"

"No," she sniffled.

"Yeah. I am. I've been all over the world, Claire. And I never stopped learning things – new things. Somehow I earned the love of the perfect woman, too, though I'm still not quite sure how that happened. I may never get to meet my child, but I became a father. And that's the second thing we share." He dipped his fingers low to graze across her belly. "Our baby, in you. Don't stop living your life, okay? And give our baby a good one."

A sob escaped her lips no matter how hard she tried to bite it back. She didn't have the strength. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath to try to find some calm.

"Don't cry, honey, don't cry," he soothed, "it's okay, it's just nature. You know that I've loved you with every breath I took, right?"

She nodded strongly.

"I love you too," she managed a hoarse whisper, "every breath…"

"Five hundred years from now you'll look back on me and smile, and it won't even hurt anymore, I promise."

She didn't want to imagine. She laid her forehead on his chest and listened to him breathe, cherished every heartbeat. He rested his hand on her back, warming her shoulder blades.

Later that night, with his parents pressed against her for support, Craig passed away. He slipped from her quietly with humble grace and a dimpled smile that never failed, brandished in her memory forever.

Two hours later Claire was admitted to the emergency room with what should've been crippling abdominal pain.

~*~*~

He didn't know why he was here. He'd actually been holed up in a hotel down the street for several days, observing the comings and goings from the apartment. Her parents had arrived home with her. They all left together, presumably to reconvene with the in-laws for the funeral. She had arrived again with her parents who had left shortly thereafter under the premise that her father would be returning in a matter of days with a large truck to help move her back 'home'.

'Home,' he mused while standing outside her door, convincing himself he was merely waiting for the right moment to break in and that he wasn't a great big chickenshit at all. 'You can never go home again.' With his hands stuffed in his pockets, toeing a circle in the carpet while the elevator dinged somewhere in the distance, he recognized they were now both in the same place – limbo. Purgatory. In-between-land. Stuck in place while the universe whirled around them, and 'home' was a slippery concept, like a ghost – intangible and elusive and prone to disappearing. They only had two constants: the act of breathing and a constant, lingering homesickness. He telekinetically aligned the pins on the lock before turning the knob and walking inside.

He knew she heard him walk in, and he knew she knew his identity, either by his gait and the weight of his footsteps or maybe his scent. She did not look up from where she sat, however – cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a sea of items that she was meticulously organizing before wrapping and packing in boxes. The only acknowledgement to his presence that she made was a pause and a glance over her left shoulder before she silently resumed her task.

The seconds stretched like years while he tried to think of something to say. 'I'm sorry your husband died, although I thought he was a miserable ponce who really only served to stifle your true potential and, oh, by the way, I didn't kill him,' didn't really seem to cut it. He could've also tried, 'I woke up naked and missing time and feeling like I'd been raped so I figured you'd appreciate the laugh at my expense seeing as how I'd done something similar to you once,' but thought that sounded too needy. Sylar wasn't the kind that dealt well with awkwardness so he abandoned his attempts at vocalization and opted to kneel beside her, investigating a picture in a frame. Before he could make sense of what it was she ripped it from his fingertips to send it smashing against the far wall. She stood then, suddenly, and he watched her wide-eyed. She lifted the whole box she'd been packing and with a bellowing scream launched it, in its entirety, at the same wall. The crash was deafening, shards of glass and pottery exploded everywhere, bouncing back to coat her in tiny nicks and cuts that healed instantaneously. She looked down at herself and her curse, gasping and shaking with rage.

"What the hell are you doing here," she growled between her teeth.

He'd already asked himself that question. He still had no answer. "I don't -"

She spun on him and – POW – punched him in the face with all her might. He tasted blood as he flew onto his back and she attacked him, pouncing knee-first into his stomach knocking the air from him. He raised his hands above his head in surrender as she continued to pummel him, pounding large gashes above his brow and cheekbones and cracking his nose in several places. If a punching bag was what she needed, then that's what he'd be. Again. She shifted her assault to his throat as she circled her small hands around it, choking him and bashing his head against the floor over and over. She wailed a long, heartwrenching, howl of a wail before she collapsed against his chest. Coughing and sputtering, he clamped his arms around her shoulders. She beat against his collarbones with her fists in protest as he held her to him until finally she gave in and let him. She pressed her face into him and drenched him with long, wet, guttural sobs that shook her entire frame. She dug her fingers into his flesh and he squeezed her until his arms ached while he rocked her slowly.

"The baby," she hiccupped, trying to calm down, "I lost the baby…" She rubbed her face against him but didn't move away. "It's like my body sees it as a wound or an infection, and it keeps trying to 'heal' it…" She continued to cry. "It's… it was all I had left of him!"

This was a loss he understood well. To have her entire life ripped out from underneath her with no warning, leaving nothing to hold onto, nothing to reach, bereft of any memory except the ones that would fade with time in her faulty human mind. Or, in his case, become instantly suppressed and erased, but whatever. The endlessness of her existence was cruel, for now she was faced with no other choice but to find a way to move on – she was going to keep moving on whether she liked it or not, this was her gift – when really all she wanted to do was find a way to hurt someone as badly as she hurt. He knew this intimately and completely, and the tie that now bound them haunted him.

Before he could dwell on it further, she dawned to the realization that the man whose arms surrounded her would've caused her an equal amount of pain a long time ago had she not struck a deal with him. She shoved against him, grinding his shoulder blades painfully into the carpet, then stumbled backwards nearly toppling herself over in her hasty attempt to get free.

"What are you doing here?!?" she yelled the same question again, finding her feet. For the first time he could truly see the toll her husband's death (and, additionally, the loss of her unborn child) had taken on her. Regardless of her regenerative ability it was obvious she hadn't been eating or sleeping: her pallor was pasty and pale, dark circles like bruises ringed her eyes, and her hair was as limp as straw.

"Claire, I… I don't -"

"What, Craig's out of the way now so you can just swoop on in here and fill his shoes? Sweep me off my feet?" She made wild hand movements to illustrate her point.

"Dammit, Claire, I told you last time, that's just stupid -"

"I need you to do something for me," her tone changed, suddenly very serious. The manic mood swing alarmed him. This wasn't like her – not at all. He rushed to his feet and backed away from her instinctually as she approached him once more. She was quicker than he'd anticipated, though, and she twisted a fist into his shirt pulling herself close. Her free hand stroked his shoulder kindly and she gazed up at him through watery eyelashes.

"Kill me."

"Claire, you know that isn't gonna -"

"Don't fucking tell me what I know and what I don't!!! Don't pretend you don't want it!!! You have always romanticized yourself as my own personal reaper, the only one who's gonna be here for me when everything else is gone. Well?!? Everything is fucking gone!!! Congratulations! You were right, you always have been – fate finally brought you here, it's our destiny or whatever, so get on with it! Right here," she pointed to a place at the base of her skull. "Just sever the head here and it'll all be over. Nice and quick."

Realizing how serious she was and that she was right, he had at one point in time professed to be her one way ticket to the afterlife… he was horrified.

"Claire, I don't think I can…"

"Oh my god, are you kidding me?!? Are you serious??? Are you punishing me or something? Is that it?? Sylar! You are a murderer!!! This is what you do!!! Do you even know how many people you've killed? You've wiped out half my family, you've wanted to wipe out the whole damn thing, so you choose now – NOW – to get all impotent on me?!?"

"What about your family, Claire?"

"I… I can't…" She rubbed the back of her hand across her face. "I can't watch them die too…"

"So you're gonna let them watch you die."

"Fuck you! What do you care?!? You don't care about them!!! You don't care about anyone! What do you know?!? Who've you got to lose?!? You've got NO ONE!!!"

Her words were barbs and he wasn't going to let her see it, but he must've blinked or something because she squinted her eyes at him accusingly, formulating the perfect plan to get what she wanted. She knew how to play him like a fiddle.

"… Except me. Isn't that right, loverboy?" She sneered an ugly face when she said it. "Let me tell you something I've learned about love. It doesn't stay – not for us. It DIES, just like everything else. And WE DON'T. But you don't know anything about it. No one loves you, no one ever will. You destroy everything you touch." She barked a mocking laugh. "But now you won't destroy me."

His natural empathy began to buzz at the nape of his neck, tensing all the muscles down his spine, clouding his judgment. Her hatred, her anger, seeped into him like a frigid, icy leak.

"Because you think you love me," she continued.

He tried to suppress it, clear his mind, and failed. That's all he was… a giant failure.

"Heh. Your poor mother. Did she have any idea what you'd become?"

He clenched his hands into fists with the effort.

"A monster? Is that why she gave up her life? So you could turn into this??? So you could fuck up other people's lives to try to make yourself feel better? Poor Gabriel," she sing-songed, "un-wanted, un-loved, heartbroken and destined to be forgotten…"

He could feel his heart pounding and his breath came in short gasps.

"Do you really hope that someday I'd learn to love you? You said that, you know – did you really believe it? Everything you said about 'building bridges' or whatever? What bullshit. I could NEVER love you! Look at you! You can't LOVE! You have no idea how to satisfy me! You have no idea how to satisfy yourself!!! You're still a seven year old boy wrapped in a man's body! What am I supposed to do, take you home to mommy and daddy and say -"

He saw red and snapped.

Through a wet haze of crimson emotion he lifted her in the air and slashed at her, severing her left arm, first, above the elbow. He hacked off her other arm at the shoulder. He disemboweled her then removed her lower half at her pelvis. He chopped at her somewhere between her neck and her right collarbone, allowing her head to hang unnaturally limp behind her. Her face was still smiling. He painted a gruesome sanguine masterpiece over the walls and the carpet. He took her to pieces.

When he was done, he sank to his knees in exhaustion. He pressed his forehead to the floor balling his hands into fists underneath him, and he allowed himself a moment to softly cry. He knew this feeling, the one that had put a vice grip on his stomach and had felled him like a mighty tree. He'd been pushing it away for so long it was really only a matter of time before it raised its ugly head to finally claim him.

It was guilt.

~*~*~

The first sensation she was aware of was the act of inhaling. Claire took one huge, long pull of air and held it – it tingled everywhere as if her body was reacting to oxygen for the first time. She released it slowly and opened her eyes. Everything was blurry, as if her eyes were gooey. She tried to reach up and rub them but found she couldn't move her arms. And then there was him, peering down at her, slowly coming into focus…

"Why…" she croaked, "… why can't I move my arms…"

"Because you haven't got any yet." He walked away.

What she didn't know was that at the time she was nothing more than a head, a neck, one shoulder, a spine, a rib cage, one heart, and two lungs resting on a cookie sheet on the kitchen table.

"Gabriel..." she called, finding her voice lacked volume without a diaphragm. "Gabe..."

He leaned back into her view, but this time he was much clearer. His arms were crossed and he was sullen.

"You... missed," she said.

He rolled his eyes in response and walked away again. She could hear a commotion kick up from his direction.

"I did not miss."

"I'm supposed to be dead." There was a loud bang then he was with her again, picking her up. He gave her a good shake as he pointed her toward the mess in the living room. She gagged at the sight of her own diced remains out of reflex - if she'd had a proper stomach she'd have thrown up.

"I'm not so stupid I don't know when I'm being coerced," he said. "You are, in fact, as dead as you wanna be. All I've done is give you a way to change your mind."

He set her back down and disappeared again. Claire heard something shatter, two somethings, three... like glass.

"What are you doing?"

"Making it look like a struggle, and shouldn't you be concentrating on, like, I dunno, say, growing a liver or something? Something quiet?"

Growing a liver? Right. He'd chopped her to bits all the way up to her chin. She tried not to think of the itch on her nose. She tried not to feel her bones stretching as they grew. She tried not to think of growing another useless womb… and not saying goodbye to her family…

"Gabe…" she whispered. She heard another crash and he loomed over her again.

"What?!?"

She parted her lips but couldn't find any words to express…

He looked angry, hurt, and impatient. It was painfully obvious he was still quaking with discomfort over the whole situation, under the surface. His jaw worked and his nostrils flared – he fumed as he stared at her, waiting for her answer. She returned his gaze full of sincere apology, full of an equal amount of hurt, full of desolation and deep despair. He softened around the edges and averted his eyes, mutely nodding before moving off to continue his task.

"Gotta get stuff, I'll be back soon. I wanna see at least one kidney by the time I get back."

An undeterminable amount of time later she awoke (she'd fallen asleep?) to the overpowering smell of gasoline. She had been moved to the couch and wrapped in a sheet… and joy of joys, she had arms. And legs. She sat up and the sheet fell away. The skin that covered her body was a strange whitish pink – the kind that lives under scabs or makes up scars, signifying a state of healing. She quickly clutched the sheet to her chest when Sylar entered the room, carrying a packed duffel and backpack. He tossed a separate bundle into her lap.

"Here, get dressed. It's time to fake your death," he said evenly, without sparing her a glance. Picking up a red gas can, he marched into the kitchen where he loudly began sloshing the substance over every conceivable surface.

Twenty minutes later they both stood outside staring up at the apartment building, shivering in the freezing wintertime darkness, shoulder to shoulder in a weird but comfortable silence, their breath mingling in foggy clouds. They watched with reverent finality as the first puff of smoke escaped a bedroom window. Soon there would be screaming and fire alarms and sirens and flashing lights and investigators and police reports…

"You know, the whole point of this was that I'd actually be dead, right?" she poked at him.

He folded his hands behind his back as he slowly metered out his response.

"Both of us are gonna walk away with a clean slate, Claire."

"Clean? Clean. Okay, sure. Clean. Because grieving the loss of my husband and child and becoming homeless in the middle of winter is so -"

"No one knows you're still alive. You don't ever have to watch another death if you don't want to. You can wander the universe and be who or whatever you want to be. This is the last pain you'll ever have to feel if you don't want to. You can spend eternity being numb."

And there it was, his condescending humor. And the way he saw straight through her like she were made of water. No matter how badly she missed pain, craved that loss of sensation… what she had of it she couldn't wait to get rid of, even if it meant forsaking the ones that still loved her. She felt like a hypocrite.

"Okay, and you then?" she asked. "You lost your taste for blood, just like that?"

A shrill ringing broke through the night. Lights flipped on in all directions and flames began to climb up the outside wall of the building. He dropped his hands to hang at his sides, but squared his shoulders and leveled his gaze on the burning windowsill. He was resolute. She knew what he meant to do.

"Sylar, you can't stay here. You can't let them take you – they'll kill you! Capital punishment is alive and well – this is suicide!"

He tipped his head toward her and glared at her incredulously from the corners of his eyes, raising an eyebrow.

"That little weak spot at the base of your skull? I don't exactly have that anymore, which makes me even harder to kill than you are. They're not able to kill me."

"No, but they'll -"

"Lock me up? Toss me in a cell to rot and throw away the key? Imprison me in a place so far underground that not even Molly could ever find me again, let alone an army of shadow people and crazy scientists? And since when did you care?"

He turned to face her and was surprised when she met his eyes with acute understanding and something that resembled affection or respect. He savored the expression for a few moments before he took a gamble and placed the fingers of one hand lightly under her chin. When she didn't bite them off, he continued.

"There's also… something I have to fix, and it's gonna take time."

Then a wondrous thing happened. It was just a small flash, possibly nothing more than a quick movement at the corner of her mouth, but it happened nonetheless. Standing before the backdrop of a towering inferno, hushed by a screaming alarm and panicked voices and haloed by a million icy stars, she had smiled at him. And she'd meant to.

"You'd better get going before any witnesses see you," he begrudgingly killed the moment.

"Yeah," she sighed, shouldering her backpack and picking up her duffel. She reached with one arm, placing a warm, gloved hand on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. She didn't know what to say to her old enemy, so she said nothing at all, not even goodbye. She parted with a final look and then disappeared into the night.

~*~*~

The head detective jerked awake when his phone bellowed at him in the middle of the night. That same thing had happened so many times over the years that his wife didn't even twitch, but still, somehow, he managed to be overcome by the obligatory wave of adrenaline. It was Michelle, his acting partner while Chad was out recovering.

"Rivers, do you know what time it is…?"

"Yessir, but this is important."

Of course it was, it always was when they called at 2:30am. Get on with it already…

"We received a call from the scene of a structure fire in Jersey. Fire originated in an apartment leased under 'Craig and/or Claire Dalton'. Records state the husband as deceased of natural causes several days ago, but we've got a body, sir… a pretty messed up body… of what appears to be a female. The fire obliterated most of what would I.D. her, along with most of the evidence that would've told us what happened, but they were able to find part of her lower jaw…"

He sat up and kicked his legs over the side of the bed, sliding into house-shoes and hunting for his robe.

"Dental records say it's her, huh…" he said, closing the bedroom door behind him, heading toward his study.

"Yes sir."

What a shame. So young. Forever young. Immortal if left to her devices, but certainly not invincible. Incredibly unique.

"But that's not why I'm calling, sir. They've got our guy."

He stopped dead in his tracks.

"'Our guy'? What do you mean 'they got our guy'? How exactly did they get 'our guy'??? Did they call in the National flippin' Guard???"

"I dunno, sir, they just said that since it's a federal case they don't wanna cart him off til you get there."

It sounded too good to be true.

"I'm on my way."

~*~*~

The acrid burn of charred concrete and wood cinders singed his nostrils as he stepped out of the car and onto the scene. It was almost a morbid carnival with flashing lights, crowds of dazed people in blankets, and spraying waterworks. Two officers flanked him as he approached the building, attempting to drag him inside to collect samples from the body. He wasn't a coroner, he wasn't forensics, they didn't need him. He had only one purpose there, having been drug out of bed in the middle of the night to be subjected to the long car ride.

"Where is he," he asked. Everyone in earshot knew who he was referring to.

"This way," one of the officers acquiesced.

A few paces brought him to a squad car – he swallowed when he locked eyes with the very familiar face concealed in the back seat. The last few flames from the building behind him reflected off the glass making his expression difficult to read. He opened the door, yanked up a pant leg, and knelt down on one knee.

He paused a moment to collect his thoughts before asking, "You gonna kill us all?" When he received no response, he continued. "You'd've done so already, huh… unless you were waiting on me. But then, I wasn't exactly chasing you. Hell, I was asleep!" He laughed and dragged a weary hand behind his neck. He sighed. "Nope, I think you killed that poor girl to get my attention. You wanted to bring me here. So what do you want?" He used one finger to lightly tap the handcuffs clamped around Sylar's wrists. "Is this what you wanted?"

Sylar maintained an unnerving silent calm, eyes never leaving the seat in front of him.

"So yer gonna take me up on my offer, eh? Just like that?"

He received a slow, methodical nod.

"Something happen? Figure out you can't run from shadows forever?"

"S'part of it."

"Yeah? Well now I'm curious. What's the other part?"

"…A cheerleader."

A/N #2: Wheeee fun fun fun! And now, at last, off into the future!!!