Chapter 25: Tourniquet

Claire stared blankly at the clear blue sky above her head, she was numb, physically and emotionally, for which she was oddly relieved. The trauma of Sylar prying her skull open was only slightly lessened by the fact that this time she couldn't feel a thing... and that strange certainty that she wasn't going to die from it. But just as before, it was a violation, as much as physical rape would have been... was there a more intimate an act than murder? He was inside her, his fingers ghosting over her brain once more, causing signals to flare, lights danced across her eyes, sensations and taste burst across her tongue, all bleeding into the sense of wrongness.

His face hovered over hers, his eyes catching hers, unlike the first time he had done this, where she'd pointedly looked at anything but him. She didn't ask what he was doing, wasn't sure she wanted to know. If he was trying to turn off her ability then she wouldn't survive the procedure... and she was certain there were simpler methods of disposing of her. No this was something more precise...

"Claire." His voice was soft, gentle, as if he was afraid to startle her out of her trance like state that was the only thing holding her together. His fingers ghosted down her cheek, sticky and warm, no doubt blood slicked. "I need you to focus for me." He whispered pressing a chaste kiss to her nose that made her blink and daw in a rattling breath. "I want you to tell me when it hurts." He added quietly and she flicked her eyes back to his; seeing finally the truth in the grim set of determination on his face. Her heart faltered and she fisted her hand at her side, trying not to let tears leak out... he was fixing her; giving back what he'd forced her body to rip away.

"Will it work?" she whispered, not daring to hope.

"Yes." Was his simple reply as her right arm twitched and her mouth went numb as he manipulated something unhelpful within her brain. "For a while at least. Trauma severe enough to effect the brain will likely cause a shut off of sensory perception again." Claire digested that through her oddly fuzzy sense of hearing and tried to process it.

"Try not to get hurt then..." she reasoned.

"A difficult concept for you I'd imagine." He quipped, his dark eyes catching hers once more and drawing her gaze to the tension that locked his jaw.

"Is it different now?" She breathed, hearing her breaths labouring as she struggled to stay conscious. "From the last time I mean."

Sylar paused and glanced back at her, "Only in the way I feel about doing this." he whispered, and she had to look away, she didn't want to sympathise with the man with his hands in her brain. "But even then... the last time we did this." he sighed, "I was eager, excited, desperate... and dying. But still, it was the most connected I'd ever felt to someone. Your brain Claire, your power, I was in awe of it... of you, I always am. This." he breathed stroking a finger along her brain reverently, "This is truth Claire... power, this is who you really are, and there are no secrets here between us."

"Does it answer your questions?" she managed around the numbness creeping over her mouth and the heaviness of her tongue; recalling the last time they'd been like this.

"Yes... a hundred times yes." He pressed a kiss to her forehead that forced her eyes shut. Something pressed down and her whole body spasmed, her teeth knit together and bit straight through her tongue, causing blood to spill into her mouth as she struggled to breathe past the scream that tore free.

"It hurts!" she screeched, clawing at the gravel beneath her as she tried to fight the sensation, "Stop, it hurts!" she managed before the sensation faded into nothing. Tears pricked her eyes as she took in a lungful of air. "It hurt..." she managed quietly, stunned.

Sylar held a scrap of cloth out over her head; she glanced at it, recognising material that had once been part of her shirt; before he'd clearly torn it free. "Bite down."Sylar snapped; she eyed it warily and the implications behind the offering, before opening her mouth and letting him slide the rag inside as she settled her teeth around it. "It'll hurt right up until the moment the skull heals over, once I start it." Claire blinked at him, nodding was beyond her body at this point as was speech with the rag in her mouth.

"I want you to know." He paused, and once again she felt his hands slide along her jaw as he lowered his head until their noses were almost touching as he stared over her; upside down in her line of sight. "That this..." he moved and she felt a rush of sensation pool low in her abdomen, curling her toes as she gasped shutting her eyes fiercely not wanting to see Sylar's face when desire was racing through her so violently. "This you'll never lose." Claire felt a tear leak out, she'd once confessed to Ethan her fears of losing even something as simple as the sensation as touch, apparently he'd listened. "I know how you feel about me Claire... all too well. I've spent the better part of half a millennium fighting to have you feel something else. But consider, would any other man ever be able to fight so long for you?" he sighed, "And since I have you like this, where you have to listen, I'm going to tell you something that my Claire and I had to learn the hard way... because I know me. He will never stop pursuing you once he figures out just how important you are to him, to his future. And he'll make the same offer I did... maybe not now, or in hundreds of years, but eventually he will come to you, and he'll offer you a child. Just like I did to my Claire."

Claire froze, the sensations of pleasure vanished and left her cold and empty, her eyes opened and she met the wet sheen of his, the rag falling free of her slack mouth. The agony on his face was too much and she wrenched her eyes away. He'd accused the other Claire, her future self of still grieving...

"He died." Sylar picked up on her line of thought, "He'd barely lived, but in seven years he was loved 700years worth."

"How?" she pressed loathing her own curiosity and the sense of heartache that bloomed in her chest, threatening to crush her.

"Fates a bitch." Sylar replied coolly. "It wasn't meant to be; but then he wasn't mine, not biologically ..."

Claire felt relief wash over her, that her future self hadn't committed that last act of betrayal and brought Sylar's spawn into the world.

"Don't." Sylar snarled, sounding torn and enraged at her internal thoughts. "You have no idea what we went through, how long we tried for. But I was..." his eyes grew distant.

"Impotent?" Claire smirked despite herself and watched as his anger only magnified, but she couldn't help herself, she wanted him to suffer, was glad he had.

"Contaminated." He snarled bitterly, "Because I could never deny you anything... I twisted my own genetics, let those things into my mind, my body. I saved the human race at the cost of my own humanity."

"I wasn't aware you had any to start with." Claire hissed feeling sick to her stomach with every barb she landed and the crumpled look that swept over him in response... this was supposed to make her feel better.

"The point." He hissed through his teeth, trying clearly with everything in him to reign in his temper, despite her best efforts to make him loose it. "I still think it's possible for you to have a child, with him, with me. But the risk..." he closed his eyes and she felt the way his whole body shuddered.

"Was it worth it?" she whispered, feeling tears strangle the hatred from her voice, leaving it only wispy. "All the pain, the trying... for only seven years?" She couldn't imagine.

Sylar opened his eyes and stared hard at her. "It's the one thing in my life I will never regret."

He didn't give her time to process that, he lifted the rag and shoved it back in her mouth, automatically her teeth clamped around it not a minute to soon, as a wave of agony tore through her body sending her ridged. In a moment of lucidity when the pain receded for a blissful moment she imagined he probably found this easier now after the things she'd just said to hurt him.

"It's not!" he gasped effort straining his voice, but she didn't dare open her eyes, couldn't as even her eyelids seemed to hurt as fresh waves of biting, shearing nauseating pain rolled over her. She felt on fire... only this time she wasn't healing over, her skin was one raw nerve of sensation. "Almost there." He promised her panting with whatever strain he was putting on himself to alter her biology, to alter her brain.

Something clicked and Claire fell slack. Her skin lost the sensation of burning, but her head... her head screamed in agony, sharp and bone deep. She felt him shift and opened her eyes to see him replacing her skull cap, feeling and sensation rushed back into her extremities, returning movement as the pain in her head finally disappeared. Claire paused, simply lying in a pool of her own blood, staring up at the sky and listening to Sylar's heavy breaths as he collapsed to the floor somewhere behind her. Slowly carefully she lifted a hand to her face and grasped the thumb with the other, she didn't hesitate wrenching with as much force as she could muster, as fast as she could until the bone cracked and hung at an odd angle. For a second there was nothing... then pain shot through her violently and she cried out, feeling tears stab her eyes as she cradled the damaged digit, until it realigned itself and reformed, only then did the pain vanish. It was such a simple thing, but it was everything to her, a connection to her body, to everyone else, the relief washed over her and she blinked away the tears, feeling the hysterical need to laugh.

Sylar rose, she felt him before she saw him looming over her, watching her with an odd mixture of loathing and love on his face that left her deeply unsettled. His hand extended out to her, she glanced at it, longing to simply slap it away, she didn't want or need his help... only he'd helped her anyway. He'd given her back her humanity.

"You once did the same for me." He shrugged nonchalantly, but she wasn't fooled she saw the fear that flashed in his eyes at whatever dark memories he held. "Several times in fact." He added, resolving himself to expecting nothing from her as he leant forward and grasped her hand anyway, yanking her effortlessly up to her feet, before attempting to drop her hand.

Claire stared at their joined hands, and tightened her grip, feeling him pause clearly startled that she'd prolong contact with him for any reason. Although, he was in her head, which meant that he was probably more aware than she was the reasons she was doing this.

"Thank you." She told him quietly, not quite able to meet his gaze, choosing instead to stare at his bloodstained hand in hers.

He didn't say anything and she risked a glance, he was quiet, even his expression refusing to give anything away as he merely watched her. She wondered if that kind of stillness was something that was just him... or if it came from being so impossibly old. Perhaps he was dancing on the inside, maybe there was a sarcastic remark he longed to make but had bitten down on instead. His thumb brushed across the back of her hand, reminding her that he could hear her as clearly as if she were speaking, before he tugged lightly on her hand, propelling her forward against his chest. His arms went around her and she tried not to freeze or flinch, holding on to the feeling of gratitude for as long as her rage at him would let her. Her feet left the ground as he took them up once more.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked quietly, barely hearing the words herself as the wind whipped past them, his arms shifted, holding her closer than she thought was probably necessary.

"Out of harm's way."

"I'm not a child. I can fight!" she snarled, gratitude evaporating as anger once again flooded her, it rose too easily these days.

"You shouldn't be in such a hurry to grow up Claire, stay young for a while. You have an eternity to grow hard and cold." Sylar's voice was so embittered and honest that it stole the argument straight out of her lungs in a rush of air at those words. What was she supposed to say to that?

She fell silent, only stirring when she recognised the town they flew over, the residential houses. He was taking her home. He settled them down gently on the back porch of her mother's house in Costa Verde, instantly Mr Muggles could be heard barking behind the back door, scratching in an attempt to get out to them. Sylar's hands slid away from her and she dropped to her feet, stepping away from each other a respectful distance and both turning to eye the other warily.

"He'll always follow you... but he'll never hurt you Claire. Not anymore." Sylar told her quickly, hearing just as she could, the sounds of someone coming to investigate. "When he returns he won't be the same monster. Just try to bear that in mind." Claire nodded, not willing to trust her voice; to have the future Sylar tell you, you had nothing to fear from his younger self was oddly liberating.

"I can't forgive him." She told him pointedly.

"Not yet." He added that smirk sliding back onto his features. "And maybe never this time around. But it's something worth considering; we do make a good team." He didn't give her the chance to respond, he was simply gone, winked out of existence... teleported. She frowned, he could have used that ability to bring her here, or to that rooftop, instead he'd chosen to carry her the whole way, to hold her close. Claire felt her lips thin... same old Sylar.