Author's Note: Anybody watch the season four episode 'Ink'? Well Ginny's bunny actually made a frickin appearance. In Sylar's story none the less! I got so freaked out because that's how I imagined it. Also how seriously evil was he?

Okay little rant over. Enjoy an emotional Luke story.

LUKE GRAY: Mother

"Are you sure about this?" If I had money every time Gabriel said that to me I'd be filthy rich. I wasn't counting, but it had to be more than ten.

"You didn't have to come Gabe." Something I've said to him at least five times. Something I was serious about. We waited outside the asylum in his car. I still didn't like that he had taken time out of his busy schedule to make sure I didn't go psycho killer on any one.

Me? Psycho killer? Please, Elle should have worried about her husband killing me on a road trip to the New Jersey asylum. It had only been a four hour drive without traffic and us stopping to get a couple burgers at a diner he had saw on Diner Drive-Ins and Dives. It was amazing what Gabriel had found on TV when tending to his four month old. He claimed to be staying up for Elle's benefit and I could understand why. Elle was close to losing every bit of her sanity due to lack of sleep.

Not like my nephew was crying a lot. Noah just had a cold. Elle over worried. Gabriel over worried. Which led to a slew of doctor appointments and late nights watching over the baby. I was surprised he had taken me all the way here, though I drove a good portion of the way.

"You should call Elle. Let her know we made it here." I suggested knowing she'd be worried sick about him at the very least. He rubbed his eye curling his fingers around his phone.

I sat back looking at the bar windows and fluttered shadows. So we had road tripped to New Jersey to come to a facility. A place where my mother resided. Sure Elle had put her here. Sure I had changed a lot, but that didn't mean I didn't want to see her. I did. Despite the kind of mother she was. I had grown since then. I wasn't a whiney kid anymore. I was a man. A guy with a brother and family. An adorable little nephew and serious use of my ability. I was special. Different. I was Luke Gray. The name change would cause some trouble in order to see her, but I changed it legally.

"Hey Elle." I saw the wide hint of a smile as I heard the wailing of crying through the phone. Noah was being loud due to his fever. "Still sick huh?" He had a laugh in his voice. I couldn't exactly hear what my sister-in-law was saying, but she seemed to be hurrying in a fast paced tone. "Just keep giving him fluids, okay baby?" I heard her become calmer. He sighed leaning back in his chair. "Okay tell him Daddy will be coming home soon. Maybe that will cheer him up." Elle gave in. "I love you. Keep that boy safe."

Usually when Gabriel said I love you to tell it hit my heart like a pang. Guilt or jealously. Something like that. It had changed when Noah was born like I knew I was never going to look at Elle like that again. She was a mom. I wasn't into the whole MILF thing. Older girls yeah, but not moms. Not Elle. Not anymore. Sure I had mommy issues and yeah I had daddy issues too, but I never once felt to act on those by filling a void. I focused on my ability in order to fill it.

"Noah still thrashing?" I asked remembering Elle crying because the boy kept clawing at his face. I told her to put mittens on him and she actually listened. The mother must have been at the end of her ropes to listen to a crazy kind like me.

"She can't watch him suffer like this, but she can't sleep knowing he's in pain." He explained and I knew he wished he was by them. I could see it in his eyes.

"Gabriel, dude, seriously, you didn't have to come." Again I said it nearly wincing at myself. Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"No, this is a ground breaking moment for you." He established running his hand over the steering wheel. "Not missing it accept if they kick me out for not being related to the patient." His lips curled into a decent smile. "Got to hand it to Elle she does better work than I ever could as Sylar." I laughed at the pride and malice in his tone.

Slip of the tongue. Slip of the evil man inside crawling to get out only subdued by family. By his baby and wife mostly. I was third. Peter was fourth. Still I could hear him actually admire Elle. She had in fact caused my mother to go into cardiac arrest to which she was rescued from when a neighbor called the police. When she woke up she had little to no memory. She knew her son had been in trouble. He had run away she claimed. Good old Mom saying I ran off alone after beating up a kid. Not run away with a smoking hot blonde who showed up at our door step. She had been committed soon after her heart attack. Remained here ever since. At least that's what her records told me.

"Okay," I accepted his help. What could I do? He had left his sick kid and his unstable worried wife to make sure I didn't flip out. I owed him my support. "Let's go see my crazy ass mother."

--

"Mary Campbell please." I said in a tone that retreated from my own. Gabriel lingered behind me like a annoyed child. He didn't seem to like the asylum. He had stated it as soon as we walked in. Too white.

The dark skinned lady at the front desk shuffled through some papers before typing away at her computer. She looked over my mother's file. If she said I couldn't see her there was nothing I could do. I just wanted to try.

"Your name?" She asked. Apparently my mother had given a list of visitors before she had plunged into insanity. I was a bit surprised trying to think of other people who would want to look at her. Talk to her. Friends? She had some. Family? Grandma and grandpa disapproved of my mom and grandpa had died four years ago.

"Luke Gray. I was formerly named Luke Campbell though." I shuffled through the messenger bag slung around my shoulder, which had once been filled with school books. "I have the paper work if you-"

"No need Mr. Gray. Your mother gave us a picture just in case you showed." She stated watching me shuffle about. She looked as if I was wanted here. Like her and my mom were good friends. "I'll call to schedule a visit for you." She lifted the corded phone to her ear. "She's a little violent, but she'll be happy to see you." I turned to peer at Gabriel than back at the woman. I nodded raising my finger telling her one minute as I walked to Gabriel.

"They're letting you see here." Gabriel managed a smile.

"Yeah, but I want to talk to her alone. She's violent and I'd like to show her I'm not the biggest screw up on the planet." I started in a hushed whisper.

"What better way to show her you're not a screw up than bringing the world's biggest screw up in there?" He laughed admitting he had issues. Bigger issues than an abused child with mother/father issues, a compulsive liar, and determined depressive killer. Hey Gabriel and I were pretty closed in the race for most screwed up Gray. He was only winning because he killed more people, but he was also older by me by years.

"Funny, but I think she'll try to kill me. If she goes at you you'll probably kill her. Like your wife almost did." Gabriel just smiled as I mentioned Elle almost killing. Like it turned him on or something. I'm pretty sure anything would turn him on now. He and Elle hadn't had sex since Noah was born. It was ordinary, but for my brother it was starting to become disturbing. Former serial killers who didn't get laid tended to lash out a lot.

"Hey, it's your call." He insisted looking about the white room with a shudder. "Just know I am here for moral support." He flicked his eyes into mine. "And only that."

"Mr. Gray." We both peered at the woman, but Gabriel soon realized she wasn't speaking to him. "We're ready for you." I nodded and took a breath to see the woman who raised me into insanity.

--

I felt like I was going to be committed as well. The room was white like all the others with soft plush gray carpeting. I sat in a dark chair waiting for her to be brought in. I watched the guards pass the door. My mother's voice shouted. Frantic and unable to understand. I swallowed hard putting my hands on my lap.

I watched too nurses, male nurses, dressed in white brought the woman in loose fitting white clothes in. I was starting to agree with Gabriel about the too white thing. My mother's hair was cut short. A bob that was uneven and unprofessional. She had tried to cut it herself. A short red mark was slashed to her neck. I swallowed seeing the mark of suicide, something I was familiar with. The face was the same worn face I knew and vaguely loved. Her eyes were wide with hunger though. Crazy as I knew they had become.

"Hi Mom." I said softly looking at her with little concern. I came here for myself not her. Because I felt guilty.

She let out a low sound that sounded animalistic. She hurled herself at me, but the guards held her. A little violent was an understatement. Her knees buckled as her mouth flew open to speak.

"You bastard!" She screamed allowing her body to thrash.

"In more ways than one." I laughed and I saw her body relax. Whether it was my words or a drug the nurses had slipped her I didn't know. "I know Samson Gray is my father." She shrunk down turning to the nurses. They moved her to the seat putting hand cuffs on her. She was being handcuffed to the chair.

"Why did you come?" She asked in a throaty voice I didn't recognize. She had been screaming. Maybe night terrors. Yeah Gabriel would be so turned on his wife had given a woman night terrors.

"I felt guilty." I had come for myself after all. She laughed and just smiled.

"It was always about you wasn't it Luke." She said my name as if it were some sort of unknown word. Something she had said too many times it lost all meaning. "Everything I did was for you. I worked hard and you run off. Leaving me alone and crazy."

"You were glad to get rid of me Mom." I explained trying to keep my composure. "You wanted me yeah, but only for your own selfish reason. You wanted me because you needed someone to love you. I did love you Mom. I still do, but you have to admit what you did was selfish. You kept someone around who didn't want to be for your own benefit. Me, Dad, Samson. All people victims of your abuse." She swallowed closing her eyes.

"I'm in here because you left. I can't shower anymore because I feel the electric inside me." She tried to scratch her skin. The handcuffs resisted her intent. "I needed you to make me whole Luke."

"Give you a reason?" I asked shrugging my shoulders. "Why did I have to be? Why couldn't you live for you? Have your own goals and not try and steer me in a direction you thought right." I looked into those dead eyes. The eyes that pleaded with me every time I tried to leave. Blood running down her arms. Dad had finally beat her too much for her to focus on him though he had been trapped in her cage too.

"Want to know what I'm doing now?" I asked recalling how my mother found me disgusting last I saw her. She didn't nod or shake her head. "I'm going to college. I have two jobs. Call that unambitous?" I gloated with a grin. She tried to hurt me, but the cuff stopped her. The nurses looked at me as I stood up. "I succeeded despite you. Despite Dad. Despite abuse. And you know why?" I asked getting about a foot from her. "Because I found people who accept me for me and not the me I tried to keep buried."

She didn't move. Mary Campbell just stared at me with those eyes. Not my eyes. They never would be. Doll eyes. Full of nothing and emptiness. This where she belonged. A place where she couldn't hurt herself. I left knowing that in truth I did love my mother, but I would always love my new family more.

Because they cared. They kept the real me safe and that's all I would ever need.