They found a table at the back of the bar that allowed them a sense of privacy. Rose had been right, there were maybe ten patrons in the bar.

"We'll take a bottle of your whiskey of the night and two shot glasses," Rose told the barmaid.

"Alright, I'd like to know what you meant about making my night?" Sylar demanded.

"I said might," Rose corrected "I haven't exactly tried this before but I have a theory."

"What is it?"

"Give me your hand." Rose said, extending her own. Sylar tentatively placed his hand in hers. "Okay, try to relax, this won't hurt a bit. I think."

"Great." Sylar said sarcastically.

They sat like that for a few moments, holding hands over the table. Sylar was about to comment when he felt heat begin to spread between their hands. He looked down at them, half expecting there to be light emitting from them but what he found was just their hands. Rose released a deep breath and slid her hand from his. A second later the barmaid laid their bottle and glasses on the table.

"So you want to explain to me what just happened there?" Sylar suggested.

"No" Rose answered " I want us to drink."

She grabbed the bottle and poured the first shots, then pushed Sylar's over to him. Lifting her glass in a salute, she downed the shot and waited for Sylar to finish his.

Shaking off sting of alcohol, he looked at her, "Can I please know why I am being forced to drink this sickening liquid?"

Rose shook her head, "Wait for it."

After two more shots, Sylar began to feel it. "How the hell?" He asked in surprise. He looked at her accusingly, "What did you do?"

"A favor, one that can be easily remedied, don't worry. " Rose answered. "What I've done, basically, is manually tapped into your brain's hardware and shared a little file I got from the Haitian. "

"You said you couldn't suppress other people's abilities, that wasn't a lie."

"True, I can't. What I did was more of a file exchange with you. See, I plugged into your brain through touch and copied this ability from my brain into yours. Then before I got out, I opened it like a file, making the ability active for you. You can turn it off anytime you like just by visualizing yourself closing the file in your mind. " Rose explained. "Do you want to try?"

Sylmar smiled, meeting her eyes, "Nah, I think I'll enjoy this for a little while."

"By all means, I make a pretty lousy lone drunkard, anyway."

Two thirds of the whiskey bottle later they were both in a cab on their way home.

"Listen," Sylar started, with a bit of a slur, "I really am sorry about Elle. I sometimes think that if things were different," he paused "if I had handled things differently, then I really think I could have, maybe …………….. loved her."

"No, you couldn't have," Rose said sadly "Elle was dependant on assurances of acceptance. That's all she would have done in her life, tried to make you proud, in love with her. You were just replacing her father in her life. In the end, someone like you wouldn't have been able to handle the dependency issues she would have had. It wouldn't have worked out."

"Maybe she wouldn't have ended up dead, though," Sylar said soberly.

"That would have been nice. Look, I'm not saying what you did is acceptable, because it's not. She didn't deserve for that to happen to her."

"But?" Sylar asked

Rose sighed, "But you had so many people manipulating you, at the time. It was pretty screwed up how they played you. I guess, what I'm trying to say is, sometimes it's hard to know whether or not someone is out to get you; especially in a world like ours. You had just found out that everyone had been lying to you and Elle still kept up the charade afterwards. I don't think she was doing it maliciously but she was lying. That doesn't excuse her death, at all, but it at least shows that you're not as horrible a monster as you would be, if say, you had just killed her to watch her die. Though that shouldn't make you feel much better."

They stared at each other for a second, soaking in what had just been said. When the cab pulled onto the curb, neither one seemed to notice.

"That secret you're hiding from Peter…" Sylar began.

Rose broke their stare, "This is my stop." She opened the car door and began to dig for money in her bag.

"I can take care of this when I get to my place." Sylar offered.

"Are you sure?" Rose asked "cause I don't mind splitting."

"You can get the next one." Sylar answered. As she turned to walk up the curb he called to her. "You will have to tell me one day, you know. I don't just keep secrets without knowing why. I've found that's a good way to get screwed."

Turning back, Rose asked, " Just give me sometime, okay? I promise I'll explain once the weirdness of all this starts wearing off."

"Weirdness?"

"This, the being back in the game and working in the same circles as these people again."

They gazed at each other for a moment before Sylar nodded and signaled the driver to go on.