As he walked through different rooms and hallways, went up a staircase, into an area he had never been before, his curiosity began to grow to the point that he could no longer take it. Someone had come to see him, talk to him, perhaps even ask for his help and he couldn't wait to find out who it was. He didn't know why, but the fact that someone was there, in that room, waiting for him, meant that he had not been forgotten and that felt pretty darn good. It was that little sparkling of hope he had been avoiding for so long, knowing from experience it could be false hope, but could no longer be avoided.

There was always that scenario playing in the back of his head, where one of the good guys (it didn't even matter which one) would come looking for him and ask for his help. It had happened before, so who said it couldn't happen again? He was still (and always would be) trying to prove that he was no longer the man he used to be, that he also wanted to be one of the good guys. All he needed to do was wait for someone to give him a chance, like Peter did, to show how much he wanted to prove it.

What if today was that day? What if he was given the chance to prove himself again? Would he take it? Would he abandon his current (more selfish) plans for the sake of other people? What was more important? What if the world depended on him? Sylar pondered about these questions as he walked, feeling rushed into making a decision before coming face-to-face with his visitor.

They came to a halt when they reached the end of the hallway. There were two doors, on his left and one on his right, but they turned him around so he was facing the one on his left. The door was closed, which made him all the more curious as to who was waiting behind it.

He waited and waited, and then waited some more. He waited quite some time for someone to finally open that door for him. Nobody told him to go in or to stay put. Nobody told him how long it would take and he hated it. He hated being kept waiting. He didn't show how much he hated it, because he didn't want to lose his one chance to actually talk to someone from the outside, but it was so, so difficult. They just left him standing there for what felt like an eternity.

"Turn around, Mr Gray."

Another thing he hated, being called by his surname. He rolled his eyes and slowly turned around. "Yes?"

"Before you go in there," the same agent from before said, "we have to go through a couple of things first. I don't know how she made this happen, but her timing couldn't be worse."

She? Sylar glanced over his shoulder and found himself wishing he had taken an ability that allowed him to see through walls. He still had no clue who it could be. Knowing there was a woman waiting for him only excluded half of the world's population. There were a few people he had in mind, but definitely did not expect either one of those people to visit him, let alone ask for his help.

"Of all days they had to schedule this one today." She saw Sylar's face and suddenly couldn't resist the urge to smirk at him. "Don't worry, Mr Gray. Her visit doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. I think we should use this opportunity to finally get our message across."

"What kind of message?" Sylar looked down and raised his brows when he saw that they were putting chains around his ankles. As if the handcuffs weren't enough.

"That there is no place in this world for people like you," she answered. "People have been asking questions about you, about where you are. Your existence frightens them. The possibility of another super-powered serial killer walking the streets frightens them. We can now use this chance to let them know there's absolutely nothing to worry about."

I'm not the only one, Sylar thought bitterly. "And how are we going to do that?"

"Talk to that woman. Make her understand that this is the only place that can keep you contained and far away from doing potential harm. You and I both know that that's not true, but we can make it look like it is, can't we?"

Depends on who's waiting behind that door. "We can."

"You do understand that we cannot continue with the program if she finds out about it?"

"I do."

"You wanted this, let's not forget that."

"I won't." Just open the damn door already.

"Thirty minutes, that's how long you have. If she starts asking questions about why you're here or how you're treated, you either lie or keep your mouth shut. Just don't feel obligated to tell her anything about what you've done for us." The woman looked down at her watch and sighed. "You and I have somewhere else to be, Mr Gray. We don't have time for some human rights activist breathing down our necks, so... whatever you do, make it quick. Scare her, lose your temper, I don't care. Just get out of there as soon as you can."

Somewhere else? "Where are we going?"

"Let's just say that we've got a couple more tests scheduled for today and we'd like to get to it as soon as possible."

"Sounds promising..."

"Yeah, well. Don't get too excited."

The woman looked down at her watch again, and Sylar couldn't help but take a peek at it as well. He recognized the brand, but the model was one he had never seen before. It was a painful thing, to be confronted by his past like that. He hadn't had the time nor the desire to combine that part of his life to his new one, thinking it wasn't important enough, and gradually left his knowledge of watches and other timepieces go to waste.

But times had changed. He had changed. Abandoning his new life and going back to his old one was not possible, but not having to think about who to kill next did leave room in his head for other things. This woman's wristwatch for instance. His fingers were just itching to have a better look at it, a closer look. He was desperate to see what it looked like on the inside. Even from a distance he heard that it was running exactly on time, and that didn't happen often.

It was in good shape. No scratches on the surface whatsoever, the silver frame was spotless, and even the leather wristband seemed to be in perfect condition. It was either brand new or treated with great care, but Sylar didn't care either way at that point. He just wanted to get his hands on it as soon as possible.

The woman cleared her throat and Sylar backed away immediately. He didn't know whether to apologize, explain why he had been staring at her wrist for who knows how long, or to say nothing at all. The latter seemed the wisest option.

"It's time," she said.

One of the men went inside first and held the door open for Sylar, another gave him a push in his right shoulder and stayed behind as he tried to walk into the room without tripping.

It was a relatively small room, quite similar to the one he just came from. The only difference was the glass wall that divided the room in two halves to ensure the safety of the visitor on the other side. Which really made no difference for Sylar. If he wanted to hurt the person on the other side of that glass wall, he would do it in the blink of an eye. No problem. He had done it before. He had used Eden's head to break the glass in his cell at Primatech. He wanted to take her ability, but she had been smart enough to shoot herself in the head before he even had the chance to cut it open.

Failing to take that girl's ability had been quite depressing. First Claire, then Eden... Not being able to kill and take the abilities of two girls in a row made him feel more like a loser than ever, and his self-esteem had suffered big time.

Focus. Sylar shook his head, clearing his mind of all thoughts about the dead girl, and looked up to see that his visitor was already there. He had to squint his eyes to see who it was and it took him a good couple of seconds before he finally recognized that face, but once he did, he felt quite disappointed. It was not what he had hoped for. "What are you doing here?" he asked in the friendliest tone he could muster.

Madeline stood up from her chair and greeted Sylar with a smile. Friendly but professional. "I'm here to help you, Gabriel."

That was the last thing he needed. "That's... very thoughtful of you." I'm screwed. He was being lead to the stool opposite from his visitor and sat down, with his feet still in chains and his hands still cuffed behind his back.

The message they wanted to get across, was more than clear.

"You have thirty minutes," the female agent told them before she and her colleagues left the room and closed the door behind them.

Sylar watched as the woman on the other side of the room sat down on her chair again, a chair that looked a lot more comfortable than his own did, and noticed a look of pity on her face. That was a look he hadn't seen in a long time. Nobody looked at him like that in here. Those suited pricks all saw him as some sort of monster. Those lab rats, the people who performed the tests on him, usually didn't show any emotion at all. And yet, he preferred their faces over this one. He didn't want her pity. He didn't want anyone's pity. There was nothing pitiful about his situation.

"I'm sorry that we have to be talking like this," she said in that British accent he remembered so well. "I've asked for a different room, something less restricted so it would be easier for us to talk, but it was out of the question."

Sylar nodded, but remained silent. The room didn't bother him. There were tables on both sides of the glass, the stool was small but comfortable enough to sit on for the thirty minutes they were given, he was able to hear and see his visitor just fine. The room was exactly what is was meant to be. It was all about sending the right message. That Sylar was nothing more than a wild beast, locked in a cage, too dangerous to come near or to leave unrestrained. A normal, less-restricted room wasn't going to make much difference. All they were going to do was talk.

"I could ask them to unlock those cuffs if that will make you more comfortable."

"No, it's fine."

"Are you sure? I know how much it bothered you the last time we talked."

"I said it's fine." Last time? How could she possibly compare who he was now to how he was when he had lost all of his memories? Of course he didn't feel great being handcuffed after being buried alive, being stuck between two personalities and having no memories at all of how that happened. He had been so lost, even using his own abilities had felt strange and unnatural.

"What's going on here?" she continued to ask.

That didn't take long. The woman wasn't going to waste any more time than necessary, obviously knowing how to use her thirty minutes as efficiently as possible. Sylar understood why she had come to see him. She had her suspicions about his whereabouts and the conditions in which he was being held captive, and now she wanted him to confirm those suspicions. She wanted to hear it from him first-hand.

His existence had become quite a mystery, he was aware of that. He knew they had taken a mug-shot after he got arrested in Baltimore, that there was a video of him and Peter flying and of course the press conference where Claire and Bennet had talked about everything he had done in the past, but that was about it. Nobody had heard of him since.

It was perfectly understandable that there were people like Madeline Gibson who wanted to know where he was and what kind of measures the Government had taken to keep him from harming innocent people. The only problem was that Sylar couldn't tell her anything, because if he did, she might try to put a stop to it. He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let her help him, so he decided to play dumb and frowned at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

"The amount of time and effort it took for me to get in this room with you isn't normal. Why is that? Why are they keeping you here?"

Sylar shrugged and gave her the most logical answer he could think of. "I'm a danger to society."

"You don't have to be here," she continued, ignoring his answer as if she hadn't heard it. "I can arrange for you to go to a place more suitable for someone like you. A place where they can offer you help whenever you need it. Just tell me what I need to know and you'll be out of here in no-time. I promise if there's anyth-"

"There's nothing you can do for me." Sylar had to do something and he had to do it fast, otherwise that woman was going to screw up everything. Everything he had worked so hard for would be all for nothing. He appreciated her going to such lengths just to talk to him, but he never asked for her help. He didn't want it and he had to find a way to make that clear to her. "Nobody can help me. I'm always going to be like this."

"Not if you don't want to."

"I'm not who you think I am." What does she know about what I want? "That man you found beside the road a few months ago, that's not me. I've got my memories back. I know what I've done, I know why I'm here and I know why I need to stay here." And there was no way in hell that he was going to tell her. No way. "I know who I am."

"And who might that be?"

Sylar opened his mouth and then closed it again. He knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to figure him out. She still saw him as a victim, someone who needed help, like before, but she couldn't be further from the truth. He was not a victim. He had made his own choices, good and bad, and he knew perfectly well what the risks were when he made them. There was no need to psycho-analyze him.

He wanted to tell her that she had to forget about him, that he was a lost cause, but then realized she wouldn't leave him alone if he did. He had to try something different, something more convincing. He needed to make her understand that she was wasting her time. "You..." he bent forward and lowered his voice, "you can't take this away from me."

"This?" she whispered, also leaning forward a bit. "What do you mean?"

"This." He couldn't use his hands to gesture at the walls surrounding them, so he used his head and eyes instead. "This is where I need to be."

"Why?"

"Because this is the only place that's capable of keeping me from going out there."

"This is not a prison. This is no place for a..."

"A what?"

Madeline sat back and breathed in heavily. "You think you deserve to be here? Is that it? You think that this is your punishment? Whatever this may be. Let me tell you something. I have spoken to a lot of people over the years, people who have done terrible, unforgivable things, power or no power. Do you really think that the things you did are any different from what they have done?"

"I never-"

"It's not," she answered for him. "You may be powerful, but power comes in many ways. Believe it or not, but there are lot of people who are a lot more powerful than you are."

Then I'd really like to meet them. "What do you want from me?"

"What you've done is wrong, but it doesn't mean that you deserve to be treated different from those who've done the same or worse. You are a human being and thereby deserve to be treated like any other human being."

Sylar shook his head. "You know what I'm capable of. You've seen it with your own eyes."

"I saw you hurt a man by accident."

"So even when I have no idea who I am, or how to use my powers, I will still hurt the people around me, whether it's by accident or because I want to. It's. Who. I. am."

"You're not hurting me. Or them. Look, I don't know what's going on here," she said, tapping her finger on the table to make a point, "but the fact that they won't say one thing about it tells me there's more to it than meets the eye. I'm going to get to the bottom of this, with or without your help."

Oh, no. Sylar ran a weary hand through his slick hair. It was time for a different approach. "I don't think you understand. This is where I need to be. It's the right place, the only place I can be. Who knows what might happen if I leave this place. I can't trust myself, don't you see that? I mean, only the thought of what's out there, all those abilities, so much power I haven't been able to get my hands on yet. It makes me wanna..."

"What? Makes you wanna do... what?"

Sylar bowed his head. "Kill," he replied with a slight growl.

"I don't think that that's what you want."

"You think you know what I want?" Sylar asked with some level of incredulity. She didn't know anything about him, apart from what she had read in his criminal record. "I didn't even know what I wanted until, not so long ago, someone told me something that completely changed my perception of life. I didn't believe it at first, but see... I've got this thing that lets me know when someone is lying to me and I wasn't being lied to. I know exactly what I want now." Shit. Sylar looked away and cursed himself for opening his big mouth. He knew he had to leave before he told her anything else. "I'm sorry you had to go through so much trouble. I appreciate the gesture, but you are wasting your time."

"You have other options, Gabriel."

She's not backing down. Sylar gave up. He stood up from his stool, ready to leave, but then all of a sudden, he felt the handcuffs slip from his wrists. He heard the sound of metal collide with the stone floor beneath his feet and looked down at his hands. Looking past his hands, down at his feet, he saw that the chains around his ankles had fallen off as well. What the...

It wasn't him. He couldn't have done that, not unintentionally. Which meant that it had to be someone else. He looked up and saw that his visitor was just about as shocked by what happened as he was. So it wasn't her either. One of the agents? What if they loosened his chains on purpose...?

There is no place in this world for people like you, Sylar remembered the agent telling him. Scare her, lose your temper... They were enabling him to do something that would scare the living daylight out of that woman, and not just that. He could do some serious damage here, not that he wanted to, but he could. Were they just going to let him do that to her? Harm an innocent woman? Just to send a message?

He wasn't going to hurt her, but he had to make her understand that she had absolutely nothing to offer him. "I think you should go."

"This isn't who you are," she told him.

Sylar shook his head, no longer feeling the need to explain himself to her. "You should go." There were sparks coming off his hands now, a final warning for her to step away and leave for good.

"Gabriel-"

"My name is Sylar!" he shouted and then watched as the sound waves of his voice crashed against the glass wall, making it break and shatter to a million pieces. The whole thing just collapsed and fell apart. Shards of glass, big and small, covered the entire floor on both sides of the room.

It was a bit over the top to yell at her like that, he normally wouldn't have done that. And the words he used might as well have been something totally different. He was just so fed up with the formality and the way she kept saying his name. Even if that meant that he looked like a complete lunatic. He just had to get rid of her somehow.

And so he stared at her. His chest was heaving fast and his breathing was out of control from the sudden adrenaline rush, but he kept looking at her. He needed to see her reaction. He needed to know if his sudden outburst had done the trick.

She had taken a couple of steps back and watched with her back against the wall as a group of agents entered the room on Sylar's side, trying to get a hold of him, but he barely noticed. He only had eyes for her. It worked, was all he could think as they dragged him out of the room. The look on her face had changed from pity to fear.

"That went well."

Sylar turned to face the wall, using his hands for support and started breathing even faster than before. "There is something seriously wrong with you people," he said as he balled his fists. They don't trust me, and yet they put me in that room knowing fully well what I'm capable of. He took a deep breath and turned around. "I could have killed her."

"You wouldn't have killed that woman."

"How can you be so sure?"

The woman took off her watch and handed it to Sylar. "Because I know what you want."

"Which is?" Sylar asked as he took the silver wristwatch in his hand and looked at it with the utmost admiration. It was such a beautiful piece. The craftwork, the details, the sound... Holding it in his hands already made him feel calmer and allowed him to focus his mind again. He wondered if there was enough time left to sit down and have a better look at it.

"There is."

"There is what?" Sylar asked absent-mindedly.

"Time. You can take it with you in the car if you like."

How did she... Sylar turned his eyes back to the woman and felt like he had been slapped in the face. How could he have missed it? Agent Reynolds' sudden disappearance, the handcuffs, her watch, and the fact that the two of them were all alone all of a sudden. He never saw it coming. "You have an ability," he said with a hint of shame in his voice.

"Don't feel too bad. I've known about mine a lot longer than you've known about yours. There's no way you could have known."

Sylar straightened and took a step back. "How long have you been inside my head?"

"Since you first came here."

Fuck me... Someone had been hearing all of his thoughts since the beginning, the insults, his memories, his fears, his hopes and dreams... He was feeling very sick all of a sudden and not because there was someone inside his head, but because telepathy was not just about reading minds. "Who were these people?"

"I'm glad you're asking. I was hoping you'd recognize them at some point, but I should have known that that was just too much to ask from someone like you."

Sylar had indeed not recognized those agents. He hadn't even looked at their faces, not interested in finding out who they were or where they came from. What he did recognize was that tone of voice. He had obviously done something bad, but it hadn't been important enough for him to remember. "Well...?"

"I was with the Company for a couple years."

Why doesn't that surprise me? "And?"

"So were they."

Great, another reason for her to hate me. Sylar rolled his eyes and wondered if it was even possible to still meet someone who wasn't in some way related to the people he killed. "People who tried to kill me too."

"I'm not going to discuss their deaths with you."

"That's good to know." I thought we were in a hurry. "What about my conversation with agent Reynolds?"

"Never happened. You were talking to thin air."

"The tape?"

"Not real."

"The tests?" Please, don't say... Everything he had worked for, his suffering in exchange for their research. Was it all just in his head? Did they know what he wanted and then just used it against him? There was no reason for him to stay if he had nothing left to give.

"Calm down, Mr Gray. The tests were real."

I fucking hate telepaths, Sylar thought and he didn't care if she heard him. Pretending to be okay with everything was one thing, but pretending to be okay with everything even in his thoughts was just no do-able. If she wanted to be in his head, she had better get used to hearing his opinion about everything and everyone.

"Ready to go?" she said, returning to the matter at hand.

"Oh, I'm ready." Everything just got a lot more interesting. "Wait, did say car?"

"Yes, that's what I said. We are going out." She pursed her lips as she regarded Sylar's appearance. "But... you're not going out looking like that."

Sylar frowned and looked down. He was wearing a white cotton shirt, pants made of the same fabric and a pair of plain black shoes. Those were the clothes he'd been given. The outfit strongly reminded him of the Company's dress code for prisoners, which turned out to be no coincidence after all, but he never had a say in it. It was more than uncalled for to criticize what he was wearing. "Then give me something else."

She shook her head. "I meant you can't go out looking like you."

Oh... Of course. Was it naivety that made him think he could actually go out in public as himself? Was it the prospect of finally catching a bit of fresh air after being inside for so long, that made him forget about his notoriety? Or was it just another test? I don't know what's real anymore. "Who do you want me to be?"

Next chapter: Crash Dive