Chapter 36

When Elle did not call Sylar back, he headed for her apartment. Since he was not in New York, it took him a few hours to get there, and when he finally did, the apartment was empty. That did not particularly surprise him. On some level he had expected to find that she ran away, although he hated the thought that she might be that scared of him. He went into the bedroom to try to figure out the odds that she had actually gone into hiding. They seemed fairly low since it did not appear that she had packed up any of her clothes or toiletries.

He found her calender open on the bed, so he knew she had been at home when he called. He thought about where she might have gone. Even thought it was a Saturday, it occurred to Sylar that Elle might be at the company, working, and if that was the case, he was going to have to wait to talk to her. He certainly could not show his face there without causing a major incident. On the other hand, after just five minutes of waiting, he was starting to go crazy.

Sylar was relieved when he heard the front door open, but upon coming out of the bedroom, he found that it was not Elle at the door. He sighed. "Peter. Of course."

Peter walked into the living room, showing no concern about Sylar's abilities, which was a little annoying. It did not escape Sylar's memory that the last time they had really fought, Peter had put him in a coma. "Why would you come here?" Peter asked.

Despite the fact that he could not see any swords hiding in Peter's possession, Sylar got a wicked sense of deja vu, and he found himself getting a little worried about where this might be going. "I came to see Elle. She's pregnant, you know."

Peter nodded and narrowed his eyes at Sylar. After a few seconds, he jerked his head back a little. He chuckled and shook his head. "I keep forgetting that you think I'm trying to steal your girlfriend. Believe me, the last thing I want is to raise your child as my own."

Although Elle mentioned it a lot, Sylar had underestimated how irritating mind reading could be. He also noted that what Peter said was not a denial that he wanted Elle. "Did Elle send you to kill me?"

Peter leaned against the arm of the couch. "She wants me to talk to you."

Sylar did not know what he could possibly have to say to Peter. "Why can't I just talk to her? Where is she?"

"She's safe." Peter seemed to think about what he had just said. "She's on a plane to somewhere safe."

It tingled, and Sylar realized that Peter had lied purposely to get that ability. He felt that he had been outsmarted, but there was nothing he really could have done to stop Peter from lying. "What are we supposed to talk about?"

Peter looked around nonchalantly. "Elle wanted me to find out whether you're going to try to kill her again. This whole time she has insisted that she's not afraid of you, but she's lost faith, and she's scared now. You know, I could just kill you now and tell her whatever I want. She doesn't expect this to work anyway."

Sylar thought about the fact that Peter had put a whole plan into motion just so that he would not have to try to kill him. In theory, Peter wanted things to work out between Sylar and Elle. "Why would she be scared of me?"

"You threatened to kill her baby."

Sylar was shocked because Peter really believed that. "I never said anything like that."

Peter looked at him with narrowed eyes again. "How will I know when you're lying?"

Sylar had no intention of helping Peter use his ability against him. "Why would she tell you that?"

He thought about it. "She believes you said that. You threatened to... destroy it or something."

That did jog Sylar's memory, but he had to think about when he had said that. "Oh, that was... before."

"Before what?"

Sylar did not want to talk to Peter about this. He wanted to explain it to Elle directly, but that did not seem to be an option. "Before I killed her."

Peter made a face. "What was that?"

"That's how you'll know when I'm lying. So I have to convince you that I don't want to hurt her or the baby, and you'll run it through the lie detector, read my mind, and report back to her? Is that how this is going to work?"

"Probably," Peter replied noncommittally. "You might have to convince me of a few other things too."

Sylar sat on the couch. "We don't have to be enemies, you know."

Peter remained at his perch, looking down on Sylar. "We do if you're going to keep killing people. Especially if you're going to hurt Elle or the baby. I'm responsible for them. I put her in that position."

"You did not put her in that position. I wasn't an assignment to her." Sylar knew that there was something he could say to make Peter stop feeling responsible for Elle, to make him stop feeling anything for her. One little fact would cause Peter to cut her loose and force her to rely on Sylar for protection. "We were together before you came to the company. In fact, it was her idea to kill your mother."

Peter did not look as surprised by this news as Sylar had expected. Instead, he looked at most mildly interested. "Well, I didn't know that, but I did know that she was involved. It was pretty obvious that night. Her mind is like an open book. It's surprising because she tends to be a little stoic, but that just means that she's keeping everything on the inside, and it's constantly swirling around in her head. I also know that there was some plot to kill Nathan that seems to have been abandoned, which is good. Don't kill Nathan; you won't get away with it."

Sylar tried to hide his shock. "If you know all that, why did you keep her working at the company?"

Peter shrugged. "I guess I wanted to learn from my mother's mistakes."

Sylar did not know exactly what he meant by that. "How so?"

"I got to know Elle a little bit when I was locked up for four months."

"Right." Sylar did not really want to talk about that time since that was when Peter kissed her.

"So I got to see firsthand how crazy she is early on. Then she killed a friend of mine in Ireland. And I heard about what you guys did when you were working for my father. She's trouble, and it would have been a really bad idea to cut her loose and send her back to you. At the time, Noah was thinking about locking her up and rejecting the idea because if you broke her out, it would be worse than if he fired her. We needed to keep her close." Something occurred to Peter. "Just so you know, I was never using her to control you; I was just trying to control her. It was Noah who made the connection between your relationship and the future I saw."

All of this meant that Peter was still going to act as a gatekeeper between Sylar and Elle, even knowing her part in his mother's death. "Yeah, speaking of the future, that's what I meant when I said I would destroy the baby. I didn't mean directly. And I said that before she got—I guess she was already pregnant, but I said that before I knew she was pregnant. I was telling her that getting pregnant was a bad idea. I wasn't threatening anyone."

"You didn't do anything to your child in the future. You were great with him."

Sylar stopped himself from laughing at this. "Until he died and I blew up Costa Verde."

Peter cocked his head a little. "I—How did you know about that?"

"It doesn't matter. The point is that having a child is not going to fix all my problems. Your future didn't end so well for my family."

"But that was my fault. They were there for me. Your family was perfectly safe until I led them to your door. I got your son killed. And I know that hasn't happened yet, but... he was real." Peter paused, lost in thought. "I can't explain what it's like to go into the future, but when you're actually there, it is so much more real."

In the future, Sylar had not blamed Peter for the death of his son. It was not really Peter's fault anyway, but Sylar could understand why he would blame himself. Sylar was starting to understand Peter's motivations a little better. "Can I talk to Elle now?"

Peter snapped out of whatever good will he had been feeling for Sylar. "You still haven't convinced me of anything. This isn't just about Elle. If I let you walk out of this apartment, I need to know that you aren't going to start hunting people down again."

Even if that might be all it would take to be able to live his life with Elle and the baby, Sylar was not willing to tell Peter that he was going soft. It struck him as ironic, since Peter of all people would understand empathy and would not think him weak at all. "Let me walk out of here?"

Peter pushed himself up from the arm of the couch. He flexed his hands a couple times. "I think we've already established who is the most powerful."

Sylar tried to throw him against the wall, but Peter only stumbled backwards a couple steps. "You should know," Peter said, "I've been around the Haitian."

Sylar looked down at his hands. That was not good. He remembered that the Haitian had only been able to hold off Arthur for a few minutes. Sylar had witnessed the conflict while waiting in the wings for the Haitian to go down, not wanting to strike while his own abilities were compromised. He tried to calculate what the Arthur/Haitian struggle would mean for him and Peter.

Peter nodded. "Yeah, we could fight. But why don't you tell me why you think you're going soft instead?"

"Okay, that's just annoying." Sylar figured that if he was going to have to do this, he might as well make it good. "It started when I—It started the night I told Elle that I loved her. I mean, yeah, I killed your mother after that, but that was personal. And I didn't even really think about killing anyone else. But then we started talking about the future, the one you saw and the one where I kill Nathan. It was all marriage and babies, and I had to get out of here. But when I got to South Carolina, it was different. It was harder to do than it use to be. And by Daytona... I haven't killed anyone since Daytona. I thought about it with a couple people, but I never even got close to doing it." He looked at Peter to see if any of this was landing. It seemed like it might be. "The hunger just isn't there the way it used to be. And then in Europe, I..." He conjured the freezing ability in his hand.

Sylar was a little surprised to see his hand turn blue, and he could tell that Peter was too. Peter started, and the hand quickly returned to it's normal color. Peter's lack of vigilance might work in Sylar's favor if it came to that. He decided to go on. "I got that from James Walker. I shouldn't have it after the Shanti Virus, but in Europe, it just came back. I think it was empathy. I felt so much regret about what I did to that family that I accessed my empathy." He took a deep breath, knowing that he needed to do this all the way. "After the first time I killed someone, I was so horrified that I tried to commit suicide. That was the telekinesis, and that's the only ability I got back when I was cured of the virus. I got Elle's ability through empathy too. I just felt so bad for her, how much pain she was in, what I'd done to her, and I just wanted to take the pain away. And I did. I'm not like you, Peter. I think it's really difficult for me to feel that for another person, but when I do, I have empathy."

Peter took a few steps and stopped, as though he wanted to pace but did not want to turn his back on Sylar. "So are you saying that you aren't going to kill any more people?"

Sylar shrugged. "Sure."

Peter shook his head like he was trying to clear it. "Apparently that's not what you're saying."

"I'm not making any promises, no. But what I'm saying is that I don't feel the urge to kill anymore, and I feel remorse when I do kill someone. I think that part of my life might be behind me, especially with a kid on the way. So was that good enough for you to let me walk out of here and talk to Elle?"

Peter came the rest of the way and sat next to Sylar on the couch. "There's something you should know about Elle."

Sylar had not expected Peter to say yes. He still had not said anything about not wanting to hurt Elle. "What?"

Peter hesitated, and Sylar could tell he was trying to choose his words carefully. "Yesterday, she told me to kill you, but she didn't mean it. She was really angry at you, and I thought her method of lashing out was a little extreme, but she didn't really want you to die. This morning when she told me I might have to kill you, knowing she was pregnant, she really meant it. She really wants me to kill you to stop you from hurting the baby."

Sylar was going to respond to this by saying that he was sure he would be able to smooth things over. She had forgiven him for a lot worse than what happened in Prague. He would have said this, but he could tell that there was more, so he waited for Peter to finish.

"She's started thinking of you as a serial killer, as someone who needs to be stopped, someone who could never change. She doesn't believe that you have a future together anymore. She's terrified, of you, of raising a child alone. She's in a very vulnerable place. So I think that you need to really take stock. If you don't think that you can do this, marriage and babies, then you don't need to talk to her; you need to walk away. If you go back to her, you need to be ready to make a real commitment to her and the baby."

It really grated on Sylar's nerves the way Peter was telling him how to deal with Elle. No matter what he said, Sylar could not shake this feeling that Peter was ready to step in if he was not willing to give Elle the life she deserved. "I understand why you would want to keep her with the company, but why are you so protective of the woman who had a part in killing your mother?"

Peter sighed like he was wondering the same thing. After a few seconds, he said. "It's like Noah says, she's been treated really badly in her life. And that's not an excuse. It does not justify anything that she's done, but she's just so needy and vulnerable, and when you see that side of her, it just... She's like one of those abused dogs that needs to be rescued. And yeah, they're going to bite you, but you still want to help them."

There it was, exactly what Sylar had suspected this entire time. Peter wanted to rescue Elle. "But if I take her in, that will absolve you of all your responsibility to her, right? You won't need to help her anymore."

"But if you hurt her again, it'll be worse. So just take some time, make sure you can do this. You only found out she was pregnant a few hours ago, and you've run away from that possibility a few times now. You killed her once. I think you should wait to talk to her until you know whether you're ready for this."

Sylar hated to admit to himself that Peter had a point. He had spent the month alternately wanting her to get pregnant and wanting her not to, and he had landed firmly on the side of wanting her not to get pregnant. He left her in Prague because he did not want to hurt her again, and rushing into this before he was sure would have that same effect. He realized that he had come to her apartment without even thinking of what he was going to say to her. He stood. "You're right."

Peter rose to his feet as well. "One more thing, if you kill anyone else, this unspoken truce we have is over. You're getting a free pass that you don't deserve because you kind of saved my life at Pinehearst and I believe all that stuff you said about going soft and empathy. Also, if I kill you, I will have to take in Elle. She's already—Um, she's already leaning on me, and she just found out she's pregnant. But if you kill anyone... Keep in mind that by then, I'll be better at the Haitian's ability, and I didn't even need it to beat you last time."

"Well, I was going easy on you because I thought we brothers."

Peter shrugged. "And I wasn't trying to kill you then. Besides, working at the company, I've come in contact with a lot of people. I know what you've acquired since, and I don't think any of that is particularly helpful in a fight. If you went invisible, I would still be able to see you. The illusion might be good, but that's about it."

Sylar remembered that the company had not known what Tracy Chobham could do, which seemed like it might be useful too. It took Sylar a second to realize that Peter should not know about his illusory power. "How did you find out about that?"

Peter started backing toward the door. "Elle told me about Calgary, but I had to call Noah to find out what that meant. He always suspected that you killed that man anyway."

Sylar knew what Peter was doing. He was trying to prove that he had the upper hand and make a point about how much Elle had lost faith in Sylar. As he watched Peter walk out the door without another word, leaving him alone in Elle's apartment, Sylar recognized that the part about Calgary had been more effective than not.

He hated the idea that he would never kill again. It was something that had already occurred to him in Prague and even before then, but it was different knowing that Peter would come after him with the Haitian's ability if he killed just one more person. Sylar had not felt any cravings for a while, and he did not particularly want to kill anyone right then, but the idea that he never would seemed daunting. He knew that he could not think of it like that or it would not work. He needed to approach it on a day to day basis.

He needed time to think about his future. Peter was right about that. So Sylar took one more look around Elle's apartment, and then he left too.