"Epinephrine, now!" the doctor called. The nurse slapped it into his hand and he administered the drug. Hearing the grating, monotonous hum on the monitor, he knew that it had no effect.

"Get me the paddles. Lowest voltage first. Clear!" Their John Doe momentarily jumped off the table as the jolt of electricity went through his heart. Still no effect.

"Again. Clear!"

That time it worked. A weak pulse emerged, only to gain strength. The doctor wiped his brow. "Damn. That's the most action we've had all night. I hope that's all."

The team left the room. Patty stayed behind and monitored the patient's lifesigns. Before she left, she stared down at his sallow face and sighed. "What's going on in there?" she asked.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It had been dark, silent and empty for a while. But eventually, the sun came out again and he was able to see. He took in a deep breath, and found the air was cool and calm. He was back in the forest.

He turned around to find Sylar standing behind him, a determined look on his face. "We've got to hurry," he told Gabriel. "You're deteriorating in the outside world. We've got to get this done."

"Get what done?" Gabriel asked.

Sylar turned and started walking towards the rising sun. "You probably don't remember this yet, but you were struck by lightning. When you were struck, all the different parts of your mind separated from one another. Because you're special," Sylar smiled with satisfaction when he said that, "Your mind isn't made like a normal person's. You're fragmented right now. What I'm trying to do is get us back together. Once we're whole, you'll wake up in the outside world and everything will be fine."

Gabriel thought it was a good idea, but then he remembered what happened right before it all went black and silent. He had watched Sylar kill that man, and it had terrified him.

Gabriel stopped in his tracks. "You murdered Brian Davis."

Sylar turned back and looked at him as if he had said the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course. He gave us our greatest ability, the telekinesis."

"But—but didn't you feel any remorse? Any guilt?"

His double smiled. "Evidently I need to show you what happened after that…ugly little scene."

Gabriel turned and they were someplace different, an apartment. Then he spotted Chandra Suresh. He was walking up to him and smiling.

"To think I rejected you—to think I almost overlooked such a great power!" he was exclaiming. He clapped Gabriel on the back. "Can you ever forgive me? Will you—will you still help me?"

Gabriel's heart leapt. Not only did he have this great power, but this doctor was now considering him to be his vital tool! Oh, and they were going to find more people with powers—more that were probably just like Brian Davis: sniveling, cowardly fools who didn't deserve such abilities in the first place. Just think what he'd be able to do once he got those new powers!

He could hear Sylar's voice in his ear. "Yes! Remember that giddiness, that overwhelming joy we felt! Hold on to that!"

His joy was only compounded when he began spending more time with Chandra Suresh. The days they spent together flashed before his eyes. Chandra was the father Gabriel wished he'd had: intelligent, accomplished, ambitious. And he was so open and honest! He told him about his marriage to Chitra; how she would rub his feet on evenings when he was tired, how she made the best mango chutney and how he'd personally take Gabriel to India someday so he could try it. He told him about his secret pain from losing Shanti, his first born, his little girl. How he and Chitra had Mohinder, who was supposed to save Shanti's life but was born too late. Mohinder had a good heart, Chandra told him. But he was fragile, and he wasn't able to handle the darkness of the world. And although Chandra never actually said it, Gabriel felt like he was the son the Indian doctor never had.

His heart was swelling with joy and tenderness. He cared about Chandra Suresh deeply.

"No!" Sylar hissed. "Stop thinking about Chandra. Focus on your mission, your mission!"

But it was too late. Even filled with joy and love, Gabriel realized something was wrong. He put his hand to his ear, and found there was a telephone in it. He could hear Chandra's voice on the other end.

"This is the end, Gabriel. I want nothing more to do with you," the older man was saying.

Gabriel felt his heart drop. It was like being disowned by his own father. And he was angry. This was all Chandra's doing. In fact, he decided to tell him that. "You made me this way, Chandra," he told him. "I was nothing until you found me. You…gave me this craving, this hunger!" his voice was beginning to rise. "You can't abandon me!"

There was a pause. Gabriel felt his heart pound with hope. Perhaps Chandra would see his mistake.

Then came his voice again. "Gabriel, my only advice to you is to turn yourself in for the things you've done. If you come near me again, I'll do it for you." Then there was the sound of the dial tone.

"Arrrgghh!" Gabriel screamed, kicking the fecund dirt of the forest.

Sylar stood there calmly. "Didn't I tell you? We need to move past Chandra, to the important moments."

Gabriel wiped his eyes. "But what happened to him? What happened to Chandra?"

"He's gone, Gabriel. He served his purpose to us, and now we have to move on!" Sylar circled around him, facing him. "Look. Remember: you're lying in a coma in a hospital. Your heart already stopped beating once. You don't have much time!"

"I can't do anything until I know what happened to Chandra!" Gabriel exclaimed. "Please. Show me."

Sylar sighed. "You're weak, Gabriel. You'll be so much better once we're back together." But he did as his counterpart asked.

Sylar and Gabriel were sitting in a taxi cab together, huddled behind the front seat.

"What is this?" Gabriel whispered.

"This is the end," Sylar whispered back.

Then the door opened, and Chandra got in. Gabriel and Sylar were staring at the back of the Indian man's head.

After a while, Sylar spoke. "Funny thing about the neck. So fragile, so deceptively strong looking." He held up a piece of leather. "You wrap this around his neck, and he's dead in minutes."

Gabriel looked at him in horror. "I can't do that!"

Sylar smiled knowingly. "Yes, you can. He's betrayed you. He's thrown you away, when you needed him the most."

Sylar was right. Gabriel felt the anger, the pain well up inside of him. He now looked at the back of Chandra's head and he was enraged.

This time, Gabriel did it himself; Sylar didn't step in for him. Like a flash he wrapped the leather around Chandra's neck and pulled with all his might. Chandra gasped and struggled, but he was no match for Gabriel's rage. Just as Sylar predicted, he was dead in minutes.

As Chandra slumped forward in the seat, Gabriel gasped and shuddered at what he'd done.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The day nurse, Theresa, noticed when she came to check on the patient in 703 that a tear had dried on his cheek.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Claire opened her eyes to a few weak rays of sunlight streaming through the window above her head. She brought her arms above her head and stretched. She actually felt good this morning. She'd been living in Jeanne Anderson's basement for two weeks now, tidying up around the house, doing some gardening, decorating her room. It felt good to be doing the small things again. She'd forgotten how much pleasure there was in planting flowers, or hanging sheets to dry in the sun, or cooking a meal.

Thinking of cooking a meal brought Claire out of bed. She remembered that today and tomorrow Jeanne was in San Francisco and she had invited Zach to come over for dinner. But it wasn't quite dinner. He was coming over right after school was over, so he'd be there around three. So technically it was between the usual lunch and dinner time. They'd had a bit of fun trying to think of the right name for it. If a cross between breakfast and lunch was brunch, what would their meal be called? Linner? Dunch? Finally they decided to call it dinner, since lunchtime would be over.

Right after breakfast she went out to the gourmet market a few blocks from Jeanne's house and bought everything for dinner. She decided to wait until the very day, because she wanted everything to be fresh. She was going to make the best meal she cooked: shrimp diavolo with a fresh spinach salad and a chocolate cake for dessert. It was extravagant, she knew, but she wanted to show Zach how much she appreciated everything he'd done for her.

The first day she'd been in Jeanne's house Zach brought her a lamp for her night table, a mirror, and a TV. The latter item had really floored her, but he tried to slough it off by explaining that a friend of his that he sometimes did freelance video editing for had an extra one he was trying to get rid of. Nevertheless, Claire was grateful for all that Zach had done, and this was her way of thanking him.

After she finished marinating the shrimp and putting them in the fridge and rinsing out the spinach, she started on the marinara sauce. She'd bought the best roma tomatoes, basil and garlic the market had, and she brought out the cutting board and a paring knife and started on the tomatoes.

She hadn't thought about him for days, but then, right then and there, cutting tomatoes, he emerged. Where was he now? What was he doing? Did he ever think of her?

She hated him. He'd turned her life upside down, moving her from terror, to anxiety, to passion, to hope, to disappointment. He didn't even say goodbye. The last thing he said to her was "go find the boy." No explanation. Nothing. He just left her to take care of Corey. He didn't care how she felt. He didn't care about anything but himself. What did she expect? What else could she have possibly expected?

She was so distracted by her thoughts she hadn't realized that she had cut up all of the tomatoes, and how her fingers were in the direct path of the knife. With one thoughtless sweep of the knife, she took off the tips of her index and middle finger.

She screamed and clutched her fingers, the blood spurting from the wounds. She hadn't even had time to feel the pain when the ragged ends of flesh on her fingers began to grow and cover the gaping holes. Within a minute her fingers looked exactly the same as they had before she had cut them. She was about to take a deep breath of relief when she saw the tips of her fingers lying on the counter next to the cutting board. She screeched, then took a paper towel and tentatively picked them up and threw them in the trash.

She was shaking. But she couldn't understand why. Things like that had happened to her before. She'd fallen from great heights and broke her bones. She'd been badly burned several times. She'd been shot. She'd even had her heart pulled right out of her chest…

"Oh God," she said out loud, covering her face. How could she have forgotten that? It had been easy to do for a while. When that one copy-cat case was over, Claire and Sylar threw themselves into finding Corey Perredine. But now there was no case to solve. It was now that Claire realized how quiet it was in the house. Now, the quiet really bothered her, in a way it never had before.

Zach was right on time. At 3:01 he knocked on the door. Claire answered it with her best smile.

"Hi!" she said as brightly as she could.

"Hey," Zach said shyly, then he looked at the way Claire was dressed. She was wearing her sky blue button down shirt and navy blue slacks, the ones she wore the day she and Sylar had gone on their stakeout in Portland.

He looked down at his army green t-shirt and jeans. "Should I go home and put on a dinner jacket?"

"Ha. No," Claire said. "Come on in, dinner's almost ready."

Claire walked into the kitchen, while Zach sat at the dining room table. She loaded two plates with angel hair pasta, sauce and shrimp, and two bowls with spinach salad. When she brought them over, Zach's eyes bugged out and he exclaimed, "oh yeah, baby."

She blushed. "So how was school?"

Zach shot her an odd look while chewing his first mouthful. "You sound like my mom, Claire. School's school. Don't you remember?"

Her smiled faded. "It seems like it was a long time ago."

"You should go back. I mean, school's a bitch sometimes, I know. What with all the asshole jocks and the bitchy cheerleaders—no offense."

She shook her head. "None taken."

"But you should at least finish high school. You're not going to go anywhere if you don't."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Yeah. According to someone, the only thing I'm qualified to do is cheer high school jocks. And…solve crimes committed by freaks like me."

"Who said that?" Zach asked.

Claire froze. Sylar said that when she was bandaging his wounds. She didn't want to bring Sylar into this. They were having a nice dinner—she didn't want to have to spend the evening explaining the nearly unexplainable.

"Just, um, just someone I met in my travels," Claire said with the most casual smile she could muster. "Um…can I get you more pasta?"

Zach stared at her deeply for a few moments. Then he said, "No. Uh, no, this is enough for me."

They finished their dinner mostly in silence. Claire was afraid that as soon as he was done, Zach would make some excuse and leave. But, to her surprise and relief, he pulled a movie out of his bag.

"Whatcha got?" she asked cutely.

"The Forbidden Zone. The weirdest, most fucked-up movie you'll ever pee yourself laughing at."

Claire grinned. "Well, with a description like that, how can I refuse?"

They'd dug into the chocolate cake while watching the movie, just taking handfuls of it and wiping their mouths periodically. Claire burst out laughing when Rene complained of having menstrual cramps and the chicken wings grew out of Squeezit's head. Zach only grinned. He'd seen this movie a dozen times before, so some of its delicious lunacy wasn't as fresh to him. The greater entertainment came in watching Claire's face light up as she watched it, whether it was a puzzled grimace or a grin when something idiotic was said.

He wanted her to open up to him, to allow him to comfort her. But so far, she'd put up very clear and strong barriers. He knew that if he was ever going to get to her, he'd need to be patient.

After the movie was over, they ended up watching old TV shows on cable. Eventually they were sitting right next to each other, their shoulders and arms pressed together. By the time they'd realized it, it was nearly eleven and they were halfway through their third episode of I Love Lucy. Zach turned to Claire, slowly.

"I guess…I should be going. I need to be up early for school," he said reluctantly.

Claire nodded, trying to look nonchalant. "Yeah. Well," she quickly got off the couch and walked him to the door. "I had a great time. I'll, um, see you tomorrow?" she asked hopefully.

Zach opened the door and looked back at her, smiling. "Yeah. I'll swing by in the evening. I'll call first."

Then came the awkward moment. Should he just leave? Should they hug? Should they…kiss?

Finally Claire couldn't stand it anymore and she moved forward and gave him a short, awkward hug.

"Well, um," Claire said, smiling nervously. "Good night."

Zach gave her a similarly nervous smile. "Night, Claire."

She shut the door and sighed. Then she walked to the kitchen and began to clean up from their dinner. When everything was neat and clean again, she went downstairs to her room, changed into her pajamas, and got into bed.

She knew the moment she lay down she wouldn't be able to sleep. She really had had a good time that night. She felt…so at ease with Zach. It was like being at home again, before all of this mess with her powers and her parentage had begun. She'd laughed like she hadn't laughed in nearly a year. Even their awkward goodbye had felt good. She wondered if Zach felt that same sort of nervous, giddy feeling she was having.

But as she turned in bed, someone else crossed her mind. Someone insensitive, arrogant, thoughtless. But he challenged her, he saw something in her. She shut her eyes and remembered their fleeting moments together, his hands in her hair, her legs wrapped around him. She almost wondered if she had dreamt all of that; he was so far away.

But now she had a new life. With a groan, she rolled to her back again and stared at the ceiling.

Zach's a great guy, and he cares about me, Claire thought. And I'm finally home. So why can't I be happy?