Chapter 21: Gamechanger

Not everyone could make it to Noah's apartment that evening. Nathan had a fundraiser he couldn't get out of and Angela had elected to stay in New York City, asking that the Haitian stay with her. Micah and Claire returned from a busy day of house hunting and clothes shopping, with great success in both, to find Peter and Noah waiting for them. All four of them were engaged in packing when a knock came at the door. Noah scanned the room and adjusted his gun by habit, then opened the door. Sylar stood outside, a stack of pizzas in hand.

"We didn't order any pizzas," Noah grumbled, then stepped aside to allow Sylar inside.

"Very funny, Bennet. Seeing as how I was engaged in a deep cover operation against an organization of fanatics bent on my capture and death, I didn't have time to grab dinner." Sylar brushed by Noah and tossed the pizzas down on the kitchen table. He opened one and demolished a slice in about three bites. Sylar's sarcastic jabs were familiar, but they lacked force, as if delivered only by habit. Sylar swallowed his pizza and took a deep breath, before turning to the group.

"Matt Parkman is dead."

The words fell on them like a weight, knocking their breath away. Claire felt her throat close up, and she shook her head for a moment to deny Sylar's announcement. Peter's face expressed the same chaos she felt. She remembered Matt's bright smile and tears started flowing down her cheeks.

"When? How?" Noah managed to choke out.

"Today. Danko killed him."

"Since when has the President mandated killing specials?"

"He hasn't. Orders now are to observe and track, not bag and tag and certainly not liquidate. Building 26 had located Parkman's bus on the way in from Los Angeles and Danko was waiting with a sniper rifle when Parkman stepped off the bus." Sylar mimed a gunshot and smiled sardonically. "I guess you could call it an extracurricular activity, Danko really didn't like Matt Parkman."

"You think this is funny?" Claire grated, her face red with anger and grief. "Matt Parkman was a good man and now he's dead and you think that it's a joke?"

Unease erased Sylar's smug expression, leaving only uncertainty in its wake. He turned from her and took another slice of pizza. He didn't quite slink away to lean against the counter, but it was close.

"How could you let this happen! You're supposed to be helping us protect people!" Peter stalked into the kitchen after Sylar and waved a finger in the taller man's face.

Sylar shot Peter a disgusted look, but otherwise ignored Peter's violation of his space. "He didn't announce to his agents that he was setting off to murder an unarmed man in violation of Presidential order. I only found out because I touched his jacket when he was coming back in."

Peter made a disgusted sound and withdrew, pacing the room erratically. Noah stood behind Claire, holding her tight against his chest. Whatever emotions he had felt upon learning of Matt's murder had been firmly shoved aside, and he was clearly on the job. The agent's steel blue eyes were fixed on Sylar as he waited for him to continue.

"So what is he saying about it?" Noah asked as he released Claire so that she could sit in a kitchen chair. She made little hiccuping sniffs every so often, but she'd recovered enough to be paying close attention to the conversation. Noah took one of the chairs himself, sitting on the corner and hunching toward Sylar.

"He's saying it was probably a vigilante responding to Parkman's so-called terrorist act-"

"When Danko drugged him and strapped him with high explosives then threw him out of the back of a van in front of the Capitol Building," Peter interrupted impatiently, and Sylar tipped his head in acknowledgement.

"Everyone at the Building knows Danko killed Parkman and most of them approve. Nakamura's little stunt brought everyone there around to Danko's way of thinking."

"We have to stop him, we can't wait anymore!" Peter argued passionately. Tears still stood in his eyes, Parkman had been a good friend for a long time.

"And what would you suggest we do? Kill him? If Danko dies now, the government believes he's right about people with abilities. Instead of shutting down Building 26, we take the chance that things will only become worse." Noah's logic was clear and inarguable, and his calm voice defused Peter's wrath. Defeated, Peter went to sit on the couch next to Micah, who had been silently listening to the conversation.

"So what do we do, just wait for Danko to kill somebody else?" Claire asked the question, her voice still husky with tears.

"Nothing right now. We keep to the plan. Rene is back from Haiti, he's with Angela in New York. When he gets here, we start deleting peoples memories, while Rebel," Noah paused to smile at his new charge, "starts deleting their evidence. Only after transferring it to our files, of course. Then, when the time comes, Danko can be dealt with."

Her father's chilly tone and flat killer's eyes unnerved Claire. He moved so smoothly from her gentle and loving father to ruthless agent. In some ways, it reminded her of Sylar and his unpredictable personality changes.

"There is one more thing," Sylar continued, causing Claire to clench her jaw in uneasy anticipation. He was just full of good news tonight. "The Department of Homeland Security is sending another auditor to inspect Building 26."

"Didn't they send one already? She cleared the operation after Danko set up the murder of an agent by a special for her benefit." Noah didn't mention that it was Tracy Strauss who did the murdering, it wasn't something Micah needed to know.

"Given the President's new misgivings, they have decided that her report was...flawed. Apparently it's someone higher up the bureaucratic food chain this time. Danko is in a fury about it."

Noah had to chuckle over that, he could imagine that Danko's reaction had been expressed at high volume. "That's our chance to prove that Danko is a fanatic spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a wild goose chase. We have to take advantage of the opportunity."

"How?" Peter asked, resuming his pacing around Noah's apartment.

"I don't know yet, we'll have to think of something. How long until the auditor gets there, Sylar?"

"Sometime in the next few days, probably the day after tomorrow."

"So we have some time. Let's just stick to the plan for now and see what we turn up, and how much we can ramp up Danko's paranoia."

Everyone nodded in agreement, it was as much as they could do for now. Peter left immediately, saying he had to talk to his brother and mother to let them know what had happened. Noah waited for Sylar to get out, but the man appeared to be in no hurry and chewed meditatively on another slice of pizza. When he was finished, he turned to Noah.

"I need to talk to you." Sylar's eyes flicked over to Claire, where she sat on the couch next to Micah, wiping tears for Matt Parkman from her face. "Alone."

Noah's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he gestured towards the patio and followed Sylar as he walked outside. Sylar leaned his back against the railing, his dark eyes sharp on Noah's face.

"All those years working for the Company, you lied to your family. Maintained two identities. How?"

"Well, that was abrupt. What brought this on?"

"Being Talb every day, it's becoming...confusing. I live in his place and everything I touch has a memory, one of his memories. I'm shifting and reshifting my DNA so much I'm losing track of where I end and he begins. I need to know - how did you maintain a balance between yourself and the job?"

"My job did not include shapeshifting."

"Oh really? Loving husband and doting father in one life, cold blooded agent in the other. Sounds exactly like shapeshifting to me. So how did you do it, tell me."

Noah took in Sylar's shadowed eyes and the tight line of his mouth and swallowed his harsh retort. The man seemed grave and honestly in need of the answer to his question. Unfortunately, he didn't have a good one.

"Look, I'm probably the wrong person to ask. You pointed out my failure in that regard yourself back in Costa Verde. I've separated from my wife, my son barely knows I'm alive, and my daughter doesn't trust me anymore."

"I'm not talking about your family life, I'm talking about your...." Sylar paced rapidly around the small confines of the patio deck, running his hands roughly through his hair. "Your identity, I guess. How did you know who you were in the middle of all those lies?"

"I always focused on what was important. No matter what I said or did, I knew I was doing it for my family. To keep Claire safe."

"For Claire." Sylar turned his eyes from Noah's face and looked in the window at Claire. Micah had finally managed to coax a smile from her as he acted out a story.

"In part, yes."

Sylar nodded thoughtfully, eyes fixed on the middle distance. Without another word he lifted himself from the ground and darted into the sky.

"Nice talking to you," Noah muttered, and went back inside..

***

Peter could not get a call through to his mother that night, because she was on a plane flying back to New York. Rene sat beside her, silently comforting, as she gazed out the small window. The darkness outside showed her nothing but her own memories of the day. She'd gone to see her brother.

"Well, here's a surprise. What brings you all the way out here, Angela?"

The sight of her younger brother cut Angela like a knife. His face was gray, and his eyes were yellow. He was thin to the point of emaciation, and Angela thought she could probably lift him up and carry him. His voice was guttural and came between deep gasping breaths. Death stood over his shoulder and would obviously take him soon. Despite all that, his eyes were as sharp as they had ever been, and as cruel. He smiled at her discomfiture, at her grief for his incipient death. He hadn't really changed at all.

"Gabriel told me he'd been here. He said you were dying, and I wanted to come and see you."

Samson laughed, a hacking and bitter sound. "To make sure it was really true, that you'd finally be rid of me. Well, I don't blame you, I guess."

"How long have you got left?" The question was cold, but Angela's eyes clinging to her brother's face were not.

"Days, maybe. I hope."

"I told you that you shouldn't have started smoking."

"I shouldn't have done a lot of things." That was so true it burned them both and left them in silence for a little while. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock and the sizzle of his cigarette as he drew in another puff.

After the silence had stretched long enough that Samson had to light another cigarette, Angela took a deep breath and spoke. "I came to tell you that Alice is alive."

"What did you say?" For a moment, his eyes reminded her of her precious little brother, before the massacre at Coyote Sands and the insistent demands of his hunger had destroyed him.

"She's been there, at Coyote Sands, all those years. I told her we'd come back for her, that she had to wait for us. So she did."

A haunting sadness reflected itself in Samson Gray's dying eyes, but it lasted only a moment. He shrugged it aside with the callousness built up over a lifetime of cruelty and violence. "That makes two of us you abandoned. Some sister you are."

Angela closed her eyes against the familiar pain of it. The talent for twisting guilt and fears until they cut like knives and made more sense than your own perspective seemed to run in the family. God knew that she had used her tongue as a weapon more than once in her life, and Sylar was even more talented at it than she.

"I've been wondering something for more than twenty years, Samson. Why did you kill Laurel? You seemed so happy together, you seemed to find a way to deal with your Hunger. I thought you loved her."

"I did love her. That's why I killed her. That's all I am, you know, a killer. It's all I ever was or ever will be, I just let myself forget it for a few years. My son is just the same." Samson paused ruminatively, pulling smoke from his cigarette again. "So you've taken him in, have you?" Angela nodded, her eyes guarded. "Do you think that's a good idea? He's got my power, y'know."

"I know that. He doesn't have to go the same way you did. We can help-" She was interrupted by Samson's choking laugh, which trailed off into a painful series of coughs.

"Don't bullshit me, Angela. You've been dreaming of him since we were kids, and I know it. I recognized him from your description as soon as I laid eyes on him."

Angela stood, brushing cigarette ash from her skirt. "I guess there's nothing left to say. Goodbye, Samson"

His voice caught her before she reached the door. "You'll fail him, Angela. Just like you failed me."

Angela paused in the threshold and looked back at her dying brother. "Maybe. I've failed at so much in my life, hurt my family so much. Alice, you." She turned back to him, her eyes as green and hard as emeralds. "But I will not fail my family anymore. You didn't want to change, not really. You wanted to be cruel, you revelled in it – the blood, the power. Gabriel can change. I've dreamed it."

"You've dreamed other futures for him, you told me of your nightmares about him long before he was born."

"I dreamed other futures for you too, Samson. Nothing is written in stone. I won't give up, not this time."

He took that in silence, his eyes full of old pain and dried blood. "Goodbye, Angela." She nodded and took her first step away before his voice caught her. "Look after him. My son, I mean. I...I hope you're right."

She didn't look back at him, and the tears did not start to fall until she reached the truck. Rene sat behind the driver's wheel, face etched with concern. He was the one person in all the world she would allow to see her like this.

"Get me the hell out of here." The Haitian nodded, silent as always, and drove away.

Now she sat in a plane remembering her siblings. She would see neither of them again, she would know it was true even if she hadn't dreamed it. They had been happy once, cared for by loving parents. The world had made sense then, as it never had since. She ruthlessly wiped the tear trickling down her face away and steeled her heart. She would not let her family down again.