AUTHOR'S NOTE: So. Now I get to write Sylar being stark raving mad. XD Which really shouldn't be nearly as fun as it is. Anyway, Rynne isn't going to do any more stupid things, because she's no longer allowed to be drunk, which is a relief.

But, really. She passes out more than a chick in a Victorian novel.

DISCLAIMER: I'm going to introduce a new character or two, and mention a few more. None of them are mine. I have no qualms in killing them off, though. :D

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My Iron Lung

Chapter Two
A Spark

Rynne woke up shivering. She pressed her hand to her head, and found that it still stung where she had hit it. So it hadn't been a dream. Well. That complicated things.

She sat up and rubbed at her legs absent-mindedly, trying to rid them of the goose bumps that had involuntarily sprung up all up and down her skin. Her boots were gone, which was the first thing she noticed about anything that was going on around her. The next thing she noticed was that she must not have been mugged, per se, because she was sitting on a surprisingly comfortable couch, the pillows pressing against her back, supporting her exhausted body.

So, then. What had happened?

The room was dark, so she couldn't see much beyond a low glass table and a beat-up leather armchair about a yard from where she was resting. She was beneath a big window with Venetian blinds opened to reveal a damp, splattering rain outside in the (how long had she been out?) early evening sunset. She could hear a soft ticking sound somewhere nearby, like a clock or a wristwatch held up against the ear.

Beyond that, she could hear the softest hint of a voice. Two voices. A deep voice, and a small voice, speaking in turn.

Rynne swung her legs over the edge of the couch so that her feet rested on the floor, and let her head sort itself out. She could feel a dull throbbing sensation springing up just behind her eyes, making her vision even fuzzier than it had been a moment ago. Damn it. She gripped the arm of the couch 'till her knuckles turned white, and finally hoisted herself up onto her feet.

She promptly fell backwards again, her legs shaking.

"Hell," she muttered to herself. She'd felt worse than this before. Why couldn't she stand up? It was like something in her head wasn't working right anymore. Like she couldn't completely tell herself what to do.

She didn't need this forced upon her. She could have this sensation whenever she wanted to, if she could get cash and a ride to Avenue G. She forced herself up again, and stayed up this time. There, better already.

Rynne hobbled toward the place where she assumed the voices were coming from. They got louder as she walked, so she was eventually able to understand enough. Enough to get her good and confused.

"...brain," the deep voice was saying, "so she's going to be sick for a little while. I can't let her see you until then. But I promise, as soon as she's well, you'll be able to play as much as you want. I brought here just for you, you know?"

"Thank you," said the small voice, and Rynne had to catch herself on the wall to keep from collapsing. She knew that voice. She had said good night to the owner of that voice, fed the owner of that voice Pop-Tarts and ice cream, given the owner of that voice band-aids and stickers more times than she could remember. She hobbled faster.

"I think the three of us will get along famously," the man was saying, and there was a smile in his voice. "You said she has a special power? Just like your daddy di-- does?"

"Uh huh," said Molly. "She used to show it to me all the time. She could light a candle without doing anything with her hands or anything. Are you going to borrow her powers like you borrowed my daddy's?"

"We will see," said the man. "We will see."

"When is daddy going to come and pick me up?" Molly asked. "It's been ..." she paused ... "nine whole days. You said he would come back soon." The slightest hint of a pout. Rynne wondered why her legs wouldn't move properly. Was she going backwards or something? She couldn't tell. It was so dark, so dark... Her eyes burned.

"Your daddy will come as soon as he can," the man said. "I don't know when. But I promise it'll all be okay, Molly. I'll take care of you."

"Good night," Molly sighed, and Rynne heard the click of a light going off.

"Sweet dreams," said the man, and then he was beside Rynne in the hall.

Rynne's legs shook, and she found that she could no longer keep herself standing. She nearly fell, but arms circled her waist and held her upright. She was pushed into a sweater that smelled like ashes, and had no choice but to lean into it, lest she collapse and lose consciousness completely. She shivered.

"You're still sick," the deep voice said, quietly and without feeling. "You shouldn't be up when you're like this."

"You," choked Rynne. "How long have you had her? What have you done to her? --"

His hand materialized in front of her mouth and pressed against her face, effectively silencing her and reducing her to half-hearted murmurs and wrigglings.

"I haven't touched her," he said. "Not even the hardest killer could take the life of something so innocent. Remember?"

Rynne's eyes opened wide, even though it burned terribly, and she wriggled even more. "Sylar," she gasped, when he removed his hand from her mouth to hold on to her properly. "Let me go. Let me go, I'll call the cops, I swear to God!"

"Drop the God bit," Sylar whispered. "Stick to what you know."

Rynne let out a little sob and stopped struggling, leaning back and closing her eyes. It was useless. She'd have stabbed him to bits with her stilettos, but they were gone. She'd have fought back with teeth, but her entire body was doing exactly the opposite of what she wanted it to. "Just do it," she said. "Just do it, and let her go. She's not ... special, not special like me. I won't fight, just do --"

"It's all right," Sylar murmured. "I've already done it." He stroked her bangs back from her forehead, ran his index finger along a thick ridge bursting out through her skin. "The bump will go away after a few weeks," he added, his chin on the top of her head, holding her in place while she whimpered in complete disoriented shock. "But for now ... you need to rest. You want to rest."

And Rynne knew nothing for long hours.

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Blue. Endless blue.

And a child. A child in the blue. His – her? – his. His hair was black, he was looking intently at her, smiling like an angel but his eyes were like the devil.

Stick to what you know.

She looked into those eyes, and they were like pools of liquid black darkness, extending forever into the distance. He was holding out his hands now, and she barely noticed herself take them in her own. And then she was somewhere else entirely, the child all but gone, standing on a table. This seemed more familiar. She thought, in a spasm of confusion, that she ought to start dancing, but then she saw Molly and dancing left her mind entirely.

The girl was scraped everywhere, afraid, bleeding on the floor. She was fighting off policemen, of all the things she might have been doing. Demanding that her father be brought to her at once. The policemen were trying to explain to her, while parrying her childlike blows, that her father wasn't going to be able to come anymore.

"Yes," she would insist. "Yes, he can. Sylar can make it so!" And she would lash out with her little fists, keeping them back, holding out for hope.

"Sylar can't help you," the men were saying, and she was saying it, too. Listen to them, Molly. Listen. He wants to hurt you. Listen!

"Sylar can help me!" the child screamed. "I can do it, I know I can! I can do it this time! It's not just a dream, I can do it, I know I can! He told me I could!"

Anything he said to you is a lie. He promised you things to get you to come with him. He wants to hurt you. He hurt your mother and father, he'll hurt you, too. You have to stay where you are safe.

But she is safe with him.

No. It's not possible. You don't know who you're talking about.

She could save him if he would only let her.

He wants to hurt you.

He'll save you.

Listen.

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Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Rynne opened her eyes because someone was stroking her forehead again. She looked up, and there he was, looking down at her. Before she could gather herself enough to react, he placed a cool washcloth over her eyes. She tentatively felt around her surroundings, and her hands brushed over blankets and pillows. Bed.

"Molly heard you," he said, quiet, emotionless. "You were having a bad dream. She was worried."

"Let me see her," Rynne whispered, pleading. "Please. What is it about me that she can't see someone she's known for … forever?"

Sylar shook his head. Infuriating calm. "Do you own a mirror?" he asked her. "Have you looked at yourself once in the past five years?"

"What are you talking about?"

Sylar reached over to the bedside table, and picked up a hand-held mirror, the kind Rynne used to put her makeup on every day. He held it in front of her, removed the washcloth, and she looked at herself.

Her eyes. They were sunken in, shadowed, beady and glazed over from sleep, among other things. Her skin was ashen, her lips were nearly the same color as her ever-so-slightly flushed cheeks. And there was a huge scab, as thick as her ring finger, running across her face, just above her eyebrows. The skin above it was paler than the skin below it. She shuddered.

Sylar brushed his fingertips just below her eyes, and her lids fluttered out of instinct. She flinched away from him, and he took his hand away rather abruptly, crossing his arms and looking off towards the door.

"I look like shit," she said, finally, lying back down and closing her eyes. "And you didn't help." She opened her eyes again. "Why the hell are you keeping me here? You're going to kill me, anyway. Just do it now."

Sylar looked back at her. "Do you have a death wish?" he asked, brushing his bangs out of his eyes and staring at her incredulously. "Would you rather I kill you than let you live? I don't need you to be alive. It would probably be easier, in the long run, if I simply ended your life and left it at that. It's going to be a hassle for me to rehabilitate you enough for a memory wipe."

"A memory wipe," Rynne repeated. "You mean … you're going to erase my memory?" She laughed. "Fuck, that's brilliant. What makes you think you can do that?"

"Because I did it to you already," Sylar shrugged. "Can you remember what happened on the bus?"

"I blacked out," Rynne said immediately and confidently. "I … I …." She trailed off. "I didn't black out, did I," she finished quietly, sitting up slowly, her mind reeling. This guy … this guy was a basket case. If he hadn't been sitting between her and the door, she would have made a break for it. Well … maybe she wouldn't have. She would have to run through the kitchen to make it outside. She knew what this man could do with forks.

"I performed," Sylar said, sounding oddly pleased with himself, "an impromptu surgery in the aisle." He smiled for the first time since Rynne had realized who he was, and it looked decidedly different than it had under the streetlamp. It simultaneously brought life to his face and made him look completely and totally manic. Rynne unconsciously drew back into the pillows.

"It was very uncomfortable for both of us," he continued, as though Rynne had done nothing. "You have the Haitian to thank for your sanity."

Rynne rubbed her eyes. "I don't know who the hell you're talking about," she said. "Just make me forget this … all of this. Let the two of us go. I'll take care of her."

"That's what I had in mind," Sylar said matter-of-factly. "But you are not nearly healthy enough to have your memory altered in such a catastrophic manner. Your purpose for me is to provide a proper caretaker for Molly. To do that, Rynne, you must be clean and healthy, and that means that I'm going to keep you around here until I am satisfied with your good state of mind."

"And then?" Rynne stared at him skeptically, disbelievingly. Mad. That's all he was. He was a madman.

"And then I shall wipe both your memories in the same instant," he said. "You will wake up in a new town, with new identities, new lives. She'll be enrolled in the public school, you'll have a job, and I'll make sure you're settled in. You will, most likely, never see me again."

Rynne shook her head. Humor him. "So you're going to set up a detox for me and make me a fit parent?" she asked. "And then I'm going to wake up in suburbia, with a perm and a law degree?"

"If you'd like," Sylar shrugged. "I could arrange that."

"Never mind," Rynne said. "I need to sleep."

"You can come out and eat something whenever you're feeling hungry," Sylar said, standing up. He was tall. "Molly is asleep. I made sure; that's the only reason I risked waking you. You like pasta, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," Rynne grunted, "when my skull feels like it's in one piece."

"Rest assured that I took great pains to ensure that it is," Sylar said, standing in the doorframe. "Whenever you're ready." And he left.

Rynne rolled over and went to sleep. She couldn't keep her eyes open for another second.

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About twenty-one and a half hours later, Sylar got irritated.

Rynne woke up on the floor, being dragged by her ankles into the kitchen. This was not the least startling position in which to wake up, and she spent her first five seconds of full consciousness trying to figure out why the wall was sliding about like it was. Once she figured out that she was being pulled, she spent a few more seconds processing the fact that, when she looked up at her feet in the air above her, nothing was holding on to them.

She squeaked. It was the only thing her brain would allow her to do at that particular moment. She wanted to light something on fire, but she figured that, as she was indoors around multiple flammable objects, such action would not be wise. The fiery heat in her fingertips died away, and she waited to see just where she was headed.

As soon as she reached the kitchen table, she was jerked into a sitting position and landed firmly in a chair. Sylar was standing on the other side of the table, staring at her. She crossed her legs.

"I was asleep," she said.

"You've been asleep for days," Sylar snapped. "Eat."

And he shoved a bowl of pasta at her. It smelled like sauce and spices, and Rynne felt herself salivate, even though she knew perfectly well that she could no more accept food from this man than she could climb into the back seat of a 1978 Chevy with three men who looked dirtier than the sewer drain….

Well.

A fork drifted over to her and hovered by her plate, innocently, as though waiting for her to pick it up. When she did not oblige, the fork flew down into the pasta, swirled around in it until a mouthful had collected around the tines, and hovered in front of her mouth. She opened her lips just a bit, and it shot in, seizing opportunity, coating her taste buds with the best seasoning job she had ever tasted in her life.

"Where the hell did you learn to cook like this?" she asked around the silver kitchen utensil that was currently busy behind her teeth.

"It's much like making a watch," Sylar said. "You know what goes where; you only have to make it so."

"Mm," Rynne replied, swallowing in spite of her logic telling her that this was entirely the wrong thing to do. She took the fork out of the air and used it by herself, shoveling the stuff in, realizing with every bite how extremely hungry she was.

"I'm glad you like it," Sylar said. Rynne ignored him.

"More," she gasped, shoveling down the last bite. "Please." She wiped sauce from the corners of her mouth and looked up at him; he was eating noodles out of the pot with a ladle.

"No," he said simply. "You haven't eaten a proper meal in days. Just wait, in a few minutes you won't feel so hungry."

Rynne sighed and rubbed her eyes, purposefully keeping her fingers away from where she knew the scar was hiding, waiting to catch her unawares.

"Don't pick at it," Sylar said, as if sensing what was going through her head. "It's important that you let it heal properly. I'm sure," he added, "that it is obnoxious."

Rynne didn't comment. She looked back toward her bedroom; her stomach was starting to hurt. Maybe she shouldn't have eaten that. Shit.

"But," Sylar continued, "you are alive, and I think a scar is a proper price to pay. Don't you?"

"Going to bed," Rynne mumbled, pushing herself out of her chair with her hand on the table and making for her bedroom door. There were three clocks in the kitchen, one on each wall. They all said twelve thirty-seven. In the bloody a.m. Augh.

"Not after you've eaten," Sylar said matter-of-factly. "That's bad for you." And, in an instant, he had her arms behind her back, keeping her from going anywhere at all. He stopped talking and didn't show any signs of moving; Rynne relaxed. She knew that struggling wasn't going to work. She just had to bargain her way back to sleep … that was all there was to it….

"Please get off of me," Rynne said slowly. "I feel sick. I don't want it to get worse. And you don't want to wake Molly, do you?"

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm a madman," Sylar whispered. "I'm not mad. And you can't go to sleep because it's not good for you to lie down with a full stomach like this. You just need to sit up for a while, digest. I'd let you sit up in your room, but I know that if I leave you unattended in there for even a second, you'll drift off. It'll be much easier for you to stay awake out here."

"I'm going to go to my room," Rynne murmured, trying and failing to pull her arms away. "Or not. You, either way, are going to let go of me. This is inappropriate."

Sylar paused, then laughed. It was cold and humorless, just like Rynne would have guessed it would be, had she ever speculated on the matter. "It's a bit presumptuous to assume that every man in the world is going to fall all over your feet. Believe me," he sneered as Rynne continued to lean away, "you have nothing to worry about." He let go of her wrists, and she pulled them to her chest, rubbing them with her fingers. They were white bordered in red where he had been holding on to them. "You can watch television if you want to," he added. "Though I don't know what's on at this time of night. Do what you like, I'm going to go check on Molly. Stay out here. You want to stay out here."

The next thing Rynne knew, she was sitting on the couch. The television was on, and she was watching the news.

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"It appears," said the pretty newscaster, "that the infamous Sylar has struck yet again in the Texas area. The victim's name has yet to be released, but the marks of Sylar's involvement are impossible to miss; the top of her skull seemingly sawed off with perfect precision, the contents removed. Sylar's uses for the brains of the victims are undisclosed, and the FBI appears to have very little to say on the subject. Family and close friends of the victim state that she had become very withdrawn in the weeks before the killing, and it is possible that she was fully aware of being followed.

"The FBI would like to take this opportunity to request that any viewers who feel they might have any information regarding Sylar please call the hotline displayed on the screen. A substantial reward is being offered for any evidence that assists in the successful capture of Sylar. He is responsible for at least nine murders and one kidnapping to date.

'And we'll be back right after this."

Rynne muted it and forced tears back inside. Sylar didn't appear to have any desire to hurt her at the time, so, why worry? Right? Right. That was all there was to it. Just don't worry. Everything would work itself out. It always did, with Rynne.

Or was this the time when it wouldn't? There was a first time for everything.

Well. The first time things hadn't gone Rynne's way was when her parents had gone to sleep with fevers and woken up with boils and chills. The second time was when she had shown up for babysitting, only to have her clients dead, their daughter gone, snatched out from under the noses of the FBI by the man who was now holding them both prisoner. And now she had been kidnapped, her skull sliced open in the middle of the aisle of a public bus and sewn back together again by an insane murderer, trapped in this apartment with no way to escape and ensure that she would make it down the stairwell alive.

Bad things came in threes. Perhaps that meant that no more bad things were coming. Or that there were three more to look forward to. Rynne liked the former. Yes. She would bank on that.

It had been half an hour. Fuck this. She laid down on her side, put her head on the arm of the couch, and closed her eyes. She was asleep in seconds.

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"I'm going out shopping."

Sylar smiled again, and it sent chills up and down Rynne's spine, because she knew exactly what he meant. He was holding a slip of paper in his hand. It had an address on it, and a name – Isaac Mendez – a name that she didn't recognize.

"You're disgusting," she said quietly.

"Be that as it may," Sylar said in a singsong tone. "He can paint the future. Think how handy that will be!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rynne said, turning away, folding her arms on the table.

"Yes, you do," Sylar taunted. "Or, at least, you knew all about me a few nights ago. You knew exactly what I do. How, may I ask? Who told you? There isn't a living soul that knows what I do."

"I guessed," Rynne said. "You took me, after all. And you killed Molly's father. He had … he was special. It didn't take much for me to figure it out."

"You're smart," said Sylar. He seemed to be in a particularly good mood; he had a twinkle in his eye. Rynne wondered if he always got like this before he went out and did … whatever he did. She didn't like to think about it.

"Coincidentally," said Rynne, "there's something even my smarts can't work out." She looked up and stared at Sylar's eyes; those big, brown, piercing eyes. "Why'd you kill him? If you can do what you need to do and keep the person alive, why take their life and have that on your conscience?"

"Conscience?" Sylar asked. "Must be some new philosophy. A new philosophy from the twentieth-century bitch." He grinned. He was wearing that black baseball cap and Rynne wanted to tear it off his head. "Quite frankly," he sighed, crossing the room and sitting down at the kitchen table across from his captive, "I didn't have the skill. I couldn't mend the skull properly back then, and anyway, I couldn't wipe memories yet. That skill took some … difficulty to acquire. I can't have my helpers blabbing about my methods, now, can I? Everyone will want to try."

"Helpers," Rynne repeated dully. "That's how you think of it."

"I don't think of it much at all," Sylar said airily. "They're broken, and I fix them. It's like mending a watch. If the parts are out of place, you need to put them back right. I break myself so they can be made right again."

"I'm still broken," Rynne commented, and a little flame appeared on the tip of Sylar's hat. It was snuffed out in the next second, but by no will of Rynne's own; Sylar smiled and waved his hands in a flourish.

"I couldn't fix your brain after tampering with it like I did," he said with a shrug. "It would have killed you. I'll fix it before you leave with Molly, so you never have to feel abnormal again. If you plan to live in suburbia with a perm and a law degree, there'll be no room for abnormalities, now, will there?"

"Why the hell do you need to paint the future, anyway?" Rynne asked desperately, standing up, determined in that instant to stop another murder from joining the growing list. "What good is that going to do you?"

"You never know," Sylar beamed, looking positively mad beneath the brim of his black baseball cap. "I might want to see where to go for dinner a week from now! I might want to see who's going to win the game so I can bet with confidence." He shrugged again, exaggerated movements solidifying Rynne's impression that he was completely intoxicated with the prospect of killing again.

"You're sick," she spat, spinning on her heel. "Leave, then. I'm going to go wake Molly. She's been asleep almost straight through the last few days." She smiled to herself so he couldn't see her; judging from past experiences, that would keep him home.

"Fine," Sylar chirped. "You have a happy reunion together. I'm off."

"No, wait –!" Rynne shouted, but he was gone, and the door clicked shut behind him. Locked from the outside. How, she had no idea. Damn him.

"Rynne?" called a small voice, and Rynne forgot all that.

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