Well, it's happened. Sylar has cracked.
And not cracked in his favorite let's smash it with a blunt object and run off with all the nice gooey things inside kind of way. No, this is cracked in the other sense, as in hallucinations, Doctor, auditory and visual, thank you very much. As in, Jeez, you sure you want to just give me this tight white jacket with the chic little padlock in back? It looks expensive.
"Oh, my god," he mutters. "Oh, my god."
And is the room spinning? He feels as if he's seated on the tip of a whirling second hand, with Gabriel perched on the axis, glaring at him.
"Calm down," Gabriel suggests, turning the watch over in his palm, running his thumb over the face and feeling the crack edge over the ridges in his fingerprint. "It's just the pills you took."
He picks up the bottle and rattles it before Sylar's face. Or maybe he doesn't, because when Sylar glances over at the table, the bottle is still there, on its side with the cap off. But then he looks back, and Gabriel's examining it, sniffing at the rim as if he'd have any idea. What a joke.
"You know," Gabriel says, one eyebrow drifting above his thick black frames, "if you hadn't killed Mom already, this would probably do it."
He pitches the bottle at Sylar, who blinks and makes no attempt to catch it. It lands on the table, on its side, by the cap. Or maybe it simply disappears. In any case, the duplicate bottles are once again a single, solid entity.
"I'm a little disappointed, myself," admits Gabriel, sticking his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "You've gone from crazy to crazy and pathetic. And I thought you felt sorry for me."
"Sorry for you?" Sylar echoes, with a valiant attempt to scoff. "Please. You were beneath pity."
"Says the lowly cockroach," Gabriel mutters, before reasoning, "You've been thinking about me a lot lately. Big Jim's, John Michels . . . Elle. If it's not pity, what is it? Maybe you're just trying to distract yourself from the issue at hand, is that it? This ungodly mess you've gotten yourself into?"
"What are you talking about? I've got it all under control, I'm—"
"Failing miserably, I know. It's a shame, too. This whole situation, this little experiment in domesticity you two have been running, it's just precious."
Gabriel laughs at him. Gabriel laughs at him. It seems so ludicrous that Gabriel Gray-who comported himself with an air of perpetual apology, as if his very existence was somehow offensive-should laugh at anybody. And yet he was always hardest on himself, so perhaps it's appropriate, after all.
Nevertheless, heat floods Sylar's face, and his temples tingle.
"What would you know about it?" he snaps contemptuously. "The only woman you ever lived with was Mom. Please—remind me if I'm forgetting somebody."
"No, you've got me there," Gabriel admits, unbothered. It's not exactly a point he can argue. He was even careful with the attractive women who ventured into his shop, careful with how he looked at them, because he had an odd (unfulfilled) phobia that one might see him looking and misunderstand. That she would think he was, well, looking. So he was very practiced in keeping both his tone and his gaze professional, unaffected. Sexless.
"Beautiful women paralyzed you," Sylar ruthlessly drives home the point. "You couldn't even have spoken to Elle if she hadn't come onto you like some kind of school girl straight out of a porno film."
"Well, we always did have a thing for school girls, didn't we? Never quite shook it, from the looks of it," Gabriel jabs back, tone filled to the brim with implications. "I think it's because we never got laid in high school, what do you think?"
"I would really, deeply appreciate it if you'd go away."
"That's probably why you got such a kick out of toying around with Claire," he continues. "She was just another cheerleader with something you wanted, but for the first time in our life, you had the power to take it. She was scared of you. And you liked it. A little too much, if you ask me . . . but I won't go there."
"That's all in the past," Sylar insists. "Claire and I are fine now."
"Oh, really? Because, correct me if I'm mistaken, but you still haven't managed to wrangle an I love you out of her."
Sylar fidgets, his expression a clear admittance of guilt.
"I shouldn't have said it first," he grumbles. "You never say it first. It makes you the weaker person. Even I knew-"
"She wasn't going to say it, you moron."
"She might have," Sylar argues hopefully. "Eventually."
"Never," Gabriel says firmly. "Not ever, in a million years. You've done too much. There's no such thing as the past, not really. Nothing ever goes away." He gestures at himself. "The evidence is right in front of you."
"What did I ever do that was so unforgivable?" Sylar asks bitterly.
"You're joking."
"I—"
"You killed her friend." Gabriel lifts a hand and begins ticking Sylar's offenses off on his fingers.
"Who? The cheerleader? Come on, she was a—"
"You killed half her parents, and she's got more than most."
"I left her a pair."
"Not for lack of trying."
Sylar shrugs. Bygones.
"You sliced her head open and molested her brain—"
"Whoa, whoa, now, hold on . . ."
"—and then had the audacity to come onto her."
"I wasn't coming onto her! Wait, you're talking about the Stanton, right?"
Gabriel rolls his eyes.
"Right," Sylar continues. "I told her already, that was just—it was a game. A joke."
"A joke. That makes sense. It's too bad you stopped just short of humping her leg, because that would have been hilarious. Building bridges. Colorful way of phrasing it."
"How dare you—"
"And all this before she turned eighteen. So, it all winds down with your little rescue, which is what we'll call your lame excuse to kidnap her, after which you got her fired and erased her new friend's memories out of spite. And what happens next? Hm? Anyone?"
Sylar blinks. Gabriel slams his palm down on the table. Nothing rattles. Sylar, however, jumps, his heart lurching into his throat. He'd almost forgotten how hard it's pounding in his chest.
"You still get her into bed! Quite frankly, bravo. But here's my point, Sylar." He leans in. "Did you really think all that history was contributing to a healthy relationship? Did you think you were on a roll or something? Everyone has a breaking point. I mean, look at us. You have to assume that this is hers. If she loses that kid, you become utterly useless. Just. Like. Me."
He wants to believe the shudder is a product of the stimulants. He doesn't.
"And it's bye-bye Claire Bennet. See you on the other side of forever."
Gabriel pauses to let it sink in.
"But you know all that, don't you? You know what I think? Do you?"
"No, and I don't give a flying f—"
"I think you're failing on purpose."
Sylar's face contorts in disgusted incredulity.
"How can you say that?" he demands.
"Easily. Jealousy. It all comes down to jealousy."
"Of what?" He scoffs. "What, the baby? The one that isn't even born yet?"
"Uh, yeah." Gabriel lifts an eyebrow, and Sylar wonders if he looks so god damned bookishly arrogant when he pulls that move himself. He wants to slug the smug little prick in the face, but he can't, because the smug little prick is him. On top of which, he's not sure he's really there.
God, he's confused. He wants to put his head down on the table and go to sleep, escape it all, but that's what put him in this mad situation in the first place.
"Why not?" Gabriel expounds. "You're acting as if jealousy is a foreign emotion to you, or one you only feel in so-called appropriate situations. The fact is, you spent most of your childhood and adolescence turning green with envy—"
"You did," Sylar corrects accusingly, his head snapping up.
"Fine," Gabriel allows, and the two men who are, in fact, one man stare each other down for a few seconds. At last, he continues, "And it never stopped. Let's be honest—it's worse where Claire Bennet is concerned, isn't it? You get within a mile of her, and it ratchets your envy straight through the roof."
"That's ridiculous." His voice lacks conviction.
"Sure . . . That's why you went all Haitian on that coffee shop kid. You just couldn't stand it if she had an ally who wasn't you."
"Ally, my ass," Sylar sneers. "He was trying to get in her pants."
"You were trying to get in her pants!"
"That's . . . different."
"Why, because you were the one who deserved it? Because you stalked her for—" Gabriel pauses to flick a glib glance at the broken watch. "What is it, going on eighty years now? That's dedication, all right." He smiles at his scowling counterpart. "If she was a bird, you'd keep her in the nicest cage you could find. And if she pecked you when you tried to hold her, you'd feel betrayed. Isn't that right?"
Sylar is squirming with anger and—what is that? Exposure. He wants to throw it back at Gabriel, grab the back of his head and rub his spectacles into it.
"That's—that's a nice bird analogy," he says. He smirks. "That's very Dad of you."
Gabriel's nostrils flare, but the smile remains, steadfast.
"You said it, not me," he returns. "I'd almost forgotten how jealous of her you've always been. Is that what it's really about, then? Our unhappy history?"
Sylar shifts his shoulder and faces forward, away from this incredibly annoying apparition. His fingers feel restless, like they want to wrap around a throat and squeeze until someone blacks out. Even if it's him. Maybe especially if it's him.
"Does she know?" Gabriel asks in that snide, knowing tone. "Did you sit her down and tell her all about Mom and Dad? Cry in her lap and all that?"
"Screw-you-god-I-hate-you," Sylar breathes in a rush, dropping his forehead into his hands. Then, with feeble, desperate dishonesty, he swallows and says: "She saw my photo album. With the picture of Mom and me. So I think that renders your entire point pretty much moot."
"Right, because the picture you're talking about is the one of our real mother, taken right after our real father killed her with that little move you perfected thirty-odd years later, oddly enough without even realizing you were—"
"Shut up!" Sylar half-screams, whirling to face Gabriel once more, but he isn't there. Looking across the work bench, he finds him sitting on the opposite side. "Get. Your god damned feet. Off my table!"
"It's my table," Gabriel replies in a low, even tone. "It's my room. You should have let me sleep. Do you still feel sorry for me, you jealous, serial-murdering sad sack?"
If he weren't so hopped up on pills, his shoulders might sag in defeat. As it is, Sylar's mouth works soundlessly for a moment.
"What do you want?" he finally gets out. "Why are you here?"
Gabriel's face twists. The timidity inherent in the watchmaker's features is overridden by something dark and hateful. To Sylar, who has experience in such matters, it looks a lot like murder.
Is this how I looked right before I killed Brian Davis . . ? he wonders. He hopes not. What a god damned goofy final sight.
"You," Gabriel begins slowly, "are ruining everything I ever wanted. Everything we ever wanted. You have the power, the significance. You have the immortality. You have her. You've got the life I always wanted, and you're letting it slip like sand through your useless fingers. When all you've got to do is snap them, and everything's back in place."
"It's not that easy."
"Oh, yes. It is." Gabriel drops his feet to the floor and rises. "Move your ass. Get away from my timepieces. Go save your kid."
"How?" For god's sake, what is this four-eyed idiot blathering about?
"How?" Gabriel repeats incredulously. As if in awe of Sylar's stupidity, he removes his glasses, shuts his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose. He answers in a tone of slow explanation: "Someone out there can't sleep tonight. He—she—it—has a very chronic, very bizarre case of insomnia. You can help."
He opens his eyes, looks pointedly at Sylar.
"You can fix it."
In dumb response, Sylar's mouth drops open.
"Are you actually saying what I—? Shouldn't you be telling me to, I don't know . . . repent or something? Let Claire go, turn off my abilities, and die in atonement?"
Frustrated, Gabriel rakes his fingers through his hair. It sticks up, askew.
"Who are you confusing me with?" he demands. "Mom? Have you even been listening to me? You know, I brought us here. I made you. And like it or not, we are the same machine. I'm Gabriel—you're Gabriel 2.0. And I—"
For the first time, he halts and glances off at the wall, clearly uncomfortable.
"What?" Sylar demands.
"I like her, too," Gabriel admits with a nonchalant shrug, face burning. "Even if she never . . ."
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he steps back. Gestures toward the door.
"Go do the voodoo that you do so well. And Sylar?"
"What?"
"Einai kalitero anthrop apo ton Patera tou."
Sylar stares dumbly for a moment. Then:
"The hell?"
"It's Greek. My god, you've got Greek books in your shelves. You read Greek."
"Well, not when I'm high as a kite."
"Oh, never mind. You can be so hopeless sometimes. Just . . . don't lop Claire's head off in front of the kid, okay? Or, you know, at all? Don't pawn him for a quick buck, don't make a late night cigarette run and forget the way back, just don't be . . ."
"Dad."
"Right." Gabriel swallows. So does Sylar. They stare at each other darkly. "Either one of them."
Sylar isn't certain when Gabriel takes his leave, or how. The cacophonous symphony of his pulse swells still louder in his ears, and he looks away, losing himself in it. He sees visions behind his eyelids, the mad flickerings of a projector over which he has no control. Things he hates. Faces. Things he could have been. Things he doesn't want to be.
"Maybe you're right," he murmurs after the display ends. "Maybe the past is just a pipe dream, and nothing ever really goes a-"
But the watchmaker is gone, and when Sylar bends to retrieve the damaged piece from the floor, he finds it already encased in his fingers.
[] [] []
"Claire."
She almost doesn't answer, sprawled there on her side in the darkness of the bedroom. They say Don't go to bed angry, but she's not angry. She and Sylar might benefit from a night of mutual silence.
"Yeah," she says after a moment's decision.
She hears him approach from the doorway. Feels the mattress sink as he seats himself on the edge. She's cuddled into his typical spot, nearer to the wall, because she likes the way it smells. His tone is gentler than it was before he left, and she wonders what he's going to say now.
"You didn't . . . hear me talking to myself . . . or anything like that, did you?" he asks.
Which is really not what she was expecting. Claire rolls over and stares up at his back, wary.
"You were talking to yourself?"
"Yes, but—no, actually, I'm a little unclear on that." He cocks his head, considering. "Well, never mind. I just thought you may have heard. I didn't want you to think I was cracking up."
"So . . . you're not, then. Cracking up."
"No, I was just on drugs. I'm over it now."
Claire quirks an eyebrow.
"How . . . comforting."
Seconds tick by. He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and she hears a slight click in his throat as he swallows. The noise functions as a cue, and the apology over which she's been ruminating pours from her lips.
"Look, I'm—sorry about earlier," she begins, shamefaced. "I mean, I keep blaming you or—providence or some stupid goddamn thing, but the truth is this whole situation is my own fault, and—"
"Listen," he interrupts her, as if she hasn't spoken. His voice is low and faintly gravelly. "I need to tell you some things. About my mother and father."
He fights down the urge to preface the revelation with some childish request—Can I tell you something, and you won't get mad? He can almost recall saying that as a boy, can almost wrap his memory around that childish dread of breaking or otherwise ruining something, that sensation of looking down and seeing the remains and feeling his innards draw together in his stomach. The ultimate weakness was in being small, like one of his father's rabbits.
Claire isn't sure she wants to hear.
"You know, I had this gnawing suspicion she didn't really move to Florida," she supplies in a lame attempt to quell the seriousness thickening the air around them.
"Hm," he laughs softly. "No, I didn't mean her. She raised me, but she wasn't really my mother. I thought she was, but . . . And I think she did her best, honestly. She really loved me, you know . . . in her own way."
Claire almost asks What way is that? but she doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to know any of it. Why is he doing this, purging all over her like this?
"For a long time, I didn't remember my real mother at all," he persists, despite her discomfort, as is his eternal habit. "It was after I met you, after Primatech burned."
You mean after you killed my mother. The barb rests between them in the space on the bed, unused but nevertheless sharp.
"Angela Petrelli had told me I was adopted, so I went looking for answers. You know how it is—sometimes you get an answer so ugly, you wish you'd never asked the question."
I didn't ask, Claire thinks, and she sits up.
"You don't need to do this," she tells him hastily. "I mean, find me one person who doesn't—I mean didn't have a screwed-up family, and—"
"Don't do that," he snaps over his shoulder, emotion at last leaking into his words. "You have no idea what a screwed-up family can look like. Your family adored you. Noah would have died for you."
"Sure, and also kill for me and constantly lie to me, and—"
"Yeah, to protect you! Just . . . shut up."
Okay, so Gabriel had a point. He is jealous. Jealous as all hell, as a matter of fact. But he didn't wake her up merely to exhibit all the petty envy that should have evaporated years ago. In fact—
"I thought you'd be asleep," he admits, glancing around the dark room. "And I'd wake you up, and it would be easier, because you'd be half-aware the entire time."
"I couldn't sleep," she replies, slightly miffed at his outburst. "Sorry to disappoint you."
"That's all right," he forgives her, and she never fails to marvel at his vanity. "Anyway . . . where was I?"
"Looking for answers. Which I gather you expected to be prettier."
"Right. Okay. Well." He links his fingers together. "I found my father. Both of them, actually, adoptive and biological."
"Wait, you didn't know where your adoptive dad was, either?"
"No," he answers shortly. "I found him first, and he told me he was actually my uncle, and my real father's name was Samson Gray."
"All these people are related?"
"Yes."
Some family.
"So, from there, I . . ."
Sylar trails off. Realizes what he's doing by relating the rather pointless sequence of events.
"Samson Gray was like me," he relates, coming to the crux. "He killed people for their abilities. One day—I was still just a kid, a small one—he drove with my mother and me to this diner . . . My mother stayed in the car. I was sitting in a booth, playing with this toy car. You know, just driving it back and forth across the table—"
Claire doesn't know what he may have looked like as a small child, but she has a sudden, stark mental image of a dark-haired boy sitting by a window, milkshake forgotten as it drips condensation, up on his knees in the booth, arm on the table, zipping a car around and making quiet little Vroom! noises. The idea pierces her with its normalcy. She wants this boy to be, in his entirety, a product of her own imagination. She wants the child Gabriel to have been an antisocial hellion who amused himself by picking the legs off grasshoppers.
He's still speaking. She zones back in, shaking the image.
"When I realized what was happening, that he was actually going to leave me there . . . If he had been leaving me and my mother, that would have been fine. I think I would have been happy, actually, but I didn't even know these people, so I ran outside. My mother looked like she was having doubts-"
"Your mom knew?" Claire blurts.
"I don't know," he answers quickly, dropping his head lower, running his hands over the sides of his head. The position makes him feel better somehow, safer, as if he's taking cover from an overhead attack. "It's the only clear memory of her I have. But if she did, she was having doubts."
He hangs onto that like a lifeline. It's important that she was having doubts.
"He killed her in the car and dumped her out before driving off. That's my earliest memory."
Holy shit! Before Claire even knows what she intends to do, she's up on her knees, folding herself over his broad back, one arm around his chest and the other crooked on his shoulder, her hand stroking his hair back from his face.
"Son of a bitch!" she exclaims in amazement. "How come you never said anything about that before?"
Sylar blinks, eyes turning to the side in vain, trying to see her. This feels nice, the sympathy that isn't too much like pity, the horror that isn't disgust. He hates to ruin it.
"He killed her by cutting open her head," he finishes.
Claire's hand stills at his hairline.
"Oh," is all she says.
He looks down.
"And since I started doing that before I even knew he existed . . . Well, I think you see where I'm going with this. Claire Bear."
She doesn't quite know what to say, so she says nothing.
"I know what you're thinking," he muses.
"No, you don't," Claire returns hollowly.
"I had two fathers named Gray, and by the time I was thirty-four, I was a serial killer who wanted to make both of them suffer. So, am I going to screw it up to that extent? That's what you're thinking."
"Sylar, come on—"
"Best case scenario, I traumatize the kid for life. One way or another. Worst case, he turns up a shiny new ability, and I carve his head open so I can see how it works. Don't tell me you haven't considered that before."
To her credit, she doesn't tell him that.
Taking her arms, he looses her hold on him and stands.
"Those questions zigzagging around inside your head right now . . . Will the kid be like him? If he's not, will he make him like him, will he hurt him? I don't blame you for asking them. I wanted you to. Otherwise, I wouldn't have told you. You should think about it. Really think about it. Whether it's worth the risk . . ."
Sticking his hands in his pockets, he ambles toward the door.
"I'm going away for a couple of days," he informs her bluntly. "A week at the most."
"Where?" she asks, and he watches from the door frame as she pulls the sheet up around her body, hiding her nakedness from him. He pretends she's doing it because she's cold.
"I'm not sure," he replies. "I have to find something."
She doesn't want to ask. She won't.
"An ability?" She does. Shit.
"Mm-hm."
Claire sucks in a deep breath.
"Wow," she says shakily. "Okay."
"I might not have to kill anybody," he tells her to soften the blow. "If I do, it'll be out of necessity." His head tilts. "Like yesterday, when you asked me to take their memories. You didn't want to do that, did you?"
She shakes her head and can't bring herself to do more than that, because to vocalize it would be to condone his intentions.
"You had to," he agrees. "You see, Claire Bear, I've decided the mark of a good set of parents is their willingness to do reprehensible things for their child. As opposed to doing them to him. Noah understood that."
Here Claire nods. Feels as if she's acting out a script.
"Think about what I said," he advises. "Ask all the hard questions. We're not just playing house anymore. If you still want to have the baby, all you have to do is be here when I get back."
Because she doesn't want to see the change on his face, she waits until he's turned to go before asking:
"What if I'm not?"
He sees it in his mind, the little bird flying out of her golden cage, and he wants to catch it hard in his fist, rip out feathers, clip wings. How dare-
"If you're not, then you're not," he states, and though his fingers have clenched within his pocket, he believes he's being honest. "Eternity is a long time. I'm sure we'll bump into each other now and again."