AN: As English is not my native language, I apologize for any past and future grammatical mishaps. Also thank you for taking the time to review, I appreciate it greatly.
"So you own all this land?" Claire asked conversationally. And because she was generally curious.
"Yes," he allowed staring at the horizon his face lit up with something that oddly seemed like pride.
"Huh." So Sylar lived alone in a house pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Can't get much stranger than that, Claire thought. "What about not wanting to die alone?" she wasn't entirely sure she was allowed to mention that particular fear of his but then again it had been him who wanted to brainstorm for solutions all these years ago.
He didn't turn his gaze from the landscape. "What about facing fears?" he asked small smile curving his lips. "Since I'm going to live forever-" he stopped for a moment looking at Claire almost gently before he turned back to appreciating the view. "I suppose living forever means being alone a lot-" he fell silent again as if lost in his train of thought. "And you know I love a challenge," he finished in a brighter tone.
"So this-" Claire gestured her surroundings "-is like some kind of a survival challenge?"
"You could say that," he chuckled lightly. "It's nice here. People are friendlier." Yes, that's because they don't know about the people you've killed.
"Well anyway, as I said already, I'm not here to chat exactly," Claire switched back to more formal tone. "Just come back with me, do your thing and you'll be back in your lair in no time."
"Lair?" he drawled, clearly amused now. He set his mug on the small round table between them growing serious again. "But honestly, Claire, I'm done with the Company. I know what they want me to do and my answer is no. You can tell them that when you get back."
He didn't know. Why would he? Clare dismissed the comment.
"One way or the other you will go back, you know that. It's up to you whether it'll be willingly or with you strapped to a table." She felt a wave of what resembled sadness washing over her, mostly because what she said was probably the truth. They'll never let him go and if she herself was to resign she wasn't sure they'd let her go either. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out. Maybe ignorance was bliss and she liked feeling on top of things, even if it was only an illusion.
"Okay, I'll admit," Claire sighed, "not everything they do is moral and honest but they're helping people like us. Somebody has to stand up for our kind and, yes, to do so, you can't always play clean."
"You call locking up people and experimenting on them helping people?"
"Not everybody can handle their abilities. Now that the world knows about us, it's more important than ever to show average people that we can all live in peace," Claire's voice went up defensively as she spoke.
"My God, do you actually believe what you're saying or did you recite it from some Company textbook?" Sylar looked like he was trying to explain something elementary to a small child without any success. "You sound exactly like your father. Ironic," he chuckled humorlessly.
"Ironic?"
"Ironic that faith is such a twisted bastard corrupting you and redeeming me." And there it was! That smug and so unbelievably irritating grin that it made Claire grit her teeth. "Do you even know what they want me to do?"
Of course she knew. The real question was how did he? Well, there was no harm in telling him. Once his little rebellion was squashed she would have to tell him anyway. "We need to get to Boston once we've made an appearance in the main facility and-" she stopped when she got a glimpse of Sylar's face, the grin still firmly in place. But now that Claire looked at him more closely, she noticed that his infamous smirk was different, somehow gloomy.
"That's just a detour. What they really want?" What they really want? Claire felt like somebody had hit her in the head with a frying pan, both incredibly furious and completely idiotic at the same time. Had the Company left her in the dark? Unbelievable…
"I don't know what you're talking about," she admitted resignedly dropping her empty coffee mug on the table. Don't you dare blush, she commanded herself mentally.
She had never actually bumped into Sylar whenever he happened to be in the New York facility but she was familiar with some of the work he'd done for the Company. Nothing special really, mostly detective work using psycometry, sometimes retrieving more troublesome targets. She had automatically assumed that that was all the Company wanted from him and it seemed like their arrangement had worked pretty well until he'd thrown a rather childish tantrum refusing to obey the rules in place. Evidently she'd missed out on something.
When Claire finally raised her eyes she expected him to look ecstatic since he was obviously holding information that could potentially shatter her comfy little world but the smirk was gone and instead he seemed oddly tired.
"They want me to cut open somebody's head so the heroic doctor Suresh could see exactly in which part of the brain their ability lays," he explained monitoring Claire's reaction closely.
She kept her face plain but inside she felt her heart sink. That was nothing less than monstrous. But no, that was not something Mohrinder Suresh would do. He was a man of science, true, but always compassionate and, uh, sane? "You're lying," she told as much to herself as to him.
"You can keep telling yourself that and never take off the blinders or you can face the truth," he shrugged simply.
"I don't believe you," Claire said more confidently.
"I can still tell when someone's lying," he reminded her. "What do they have on you? Seriously, tell me why you're still buying their nonsense? I mean, you can see as clearly as I can that they've long ago strayed from the original purpose of the new Company. Why can't you admit it?"
Sylar's gaze had turned so scrutinizing Claire felt a sudden urge to hide somewhere he couldn't see her. His questions had wandered to a territory she did not want to explore. The Company. The assignment. Her only concern was to complete what she had come for and she knew that in the end it would serve the greater good.
If the Company truly asked Sylar to scalp someone then it was probably some psychopath and for a good reason.
"So what then, Sylar?" she threw her hands up in frustration. "You want to collect dust on the outskirts of a small town in Texas? I thought you wanted to be the hero, give a little back since you've taken so much already."
He froze just for a split second before falling back to a relaxed form. "I've told you to call me Gabriel," he said calmly, making Claire roll her eyes. He'd always be Sylar to her whatever anyone else called him, least of all himself.
"But yes, I wanted to be a hero…" he continued, "once upon a time. Unfortunately life isn't a comic book. You see, in a comic book a hero always has a villain to fight. In real life there are no villains. There're corrupt politicians and greedy CEOs who, yes, often make selfish decisions that only serve themselves but do they deserve to die? And does it make any real difference when there's a line of people ready to take over their positions should they disappear?"
"They want to treat us like criminals or use us, I'd call that villainous. And we're not talking about politics right now, that's Tracy Strauss's domain. Mine is controlling possibly dangerous evolved humans."
"And there I thought you'd transferred to Research and Development – Suresh's division." Was that supposed to be funny? "Face it Claire, there are no heroes. Even you have resigned from saving the world to plainly take orders."
"Peter is a hero," she said simply.
"Yes," he laughed softly, eyes lighting up to the mention of his only friend. "But a retired hero. Eventually even he realized it was a fruitless fight."
Claire forced herself to ignore his last remark. "Do you know where he is?" she asked warily. It still stung a bit to know that he had become closer to her uncle than herself.
"No." He looked numb. "All I know is that he and Emma are safe somewhere even the Company's tracking system can't find them."
They stayed silent for a while, both staring afar, lost in thought. Claire missed her uncle. He was the only person in the world who could make her feel like all her problems had disappeared, even if just for a moment. She missed Emma too. Before the two of them had vanished, Claire had become quite good friends with her.
She shook her head slightly to snap out of her trip down memory lane. "We need to go," she said decidedly, standing up and motioning Sylar to do the same.
"I told you I'm not coming," he said, not even bothering to look at her.
"Alright," she said in a tone that made him turn his gaze on her with unease. She suppressed a satisfied smirk and started towards the back door. "I'll burn down the house if I have to but you are going to come with me. Then you'll have no reason to stay here anyway."
It wasn't the nicest thing to threaten him, obviously, but during her time working for the Company she'd learned several tricks that came handy in getting what you need. One of them was finding something the target loved and threatening to destroy it. Cruel, but incredibly effective. Sylar had apparently developed some sort of love for the place so why not to use it to her advantage?
She put her hand on the doorknob giving him a determined look.
"You must be joking," he sounded absolutely astonished.
"Though, it would probably be enough to mess up your music collection to break you," she laughed wickedly. She was well aware how much he liked order ever since he'd been Peter's roommate.
"Seriously, Claire. This is childish, not to mention I'd never let you follow through."
Claire laughed again as she let go of the doorknob and straightened up. The whole situation was rather absurd – her trying to convince an ex-serial killer to do something he clearly didn't want to, and him not yielding an inch.
"I suppose I'll have to prepare myself for a camp out with a canister of fuel and some matches at hand until your watchfulness falters," she quipped and she could swear she saw his lip twitch.
"But in all seriousness," she continued, sighing. It was time to use her trump card, her best threat, though she'd hoped she wouldn't have to result to that. "As I said before, one way or the other. If you don't come with me the next visit won't be so friendly. You might be powerful but they're powerful too. Either Parkman screws with your mind or Suresh gets an excellent excuse to try out his new set of suppressive drugs, they will eventually get you and it will be far messier than simply coming with me."
Sylar stared at her, wide-eyed and somewhat shrunken, probably working through his options. He was wearing that distinctive scowl of his that made him look like he was working on an especially complicated equation.
Claire noticed that the sun had sunken further down, its edge touching the horizon now. How long had they debated about this? She glanced at her wristwatch to find out it had been quite a while. "Great," she muttered, irritated again. Even if they'd go right now they'd probably still miss the plane she meant to catch.
"Fine, I'll come with you," Sylar finally breathed, smart man, "but tomorrow. I have things to take care of. And I won't be slicing up any heads."
"Thankfully the Boston job won't require it." Despite the one day delay they would have, Claire was fairly satisfied with the outcome and, moreover, relieved that her assignment was nearly completed.
"Come on," he said absent-mindedly, getting up from his chair, "I'll get you set up in the guestroom." And once again Claire felt that strange confusion she had whenever he said something so normal and innocent. She really should be used to it by now.
As she followed him upstairs she found herself wondering whether she'd face the morning with a sharp object lodged in the back of her head or would he keep his word and come quietly. Guess you can't be exactly sure when you're the houseguest of a former serial killer.