AUTHOR'S NOTE: Vaguely frustrated because this fic won't quit being mediocre and start being good. But whatever. I like it enough to try to finish it. After all, I need something to keep me sane until 1.22.07. XD
I'm going to try to write some of the other Heroes; as in, the ones I haven't already killed off because I'm tired of them. XD; Am I a bad person?
DISCLAIMER: Rynne (and Lauren, I guess, threw her in for the heck of it) are mine. Nobody else. 'S a shame.
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My Iron Lung
Chapter Three
Monotony
"Molly!" Rynne cried, running toward the child standing in the doorway. The girl's dirty blonde hair was brushed and straightened, and she had bangs, which was new. Her eyes were bright, and she looked healthy and happy. Satisfied after inspecting her for a few seconds, Rynne knelt down and pulled the girl into her arms, refusing to let go until the girl laughed and wriggled away.
"Why were you and Sylar fighting?" she asked, her eyes big and wide. "Is he going shopping? He always looks sick when he comes home from shopping. I've tried to tell him to stop because it is not good for him, but he must if he is to bring father back. I –"
"Molly, Molly, Molly," Rynne said over and over again, until the girl hushed and simply stared at her babysitter, holding on to one of Rynne's big hands with her two small ones. "Molly," the older girl said finally. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. But anything he's said about your father coming back is not true. Sometimes … sometimes people have to go away, and they cannot come back, no matter how much you want them to. That's just the way it is."
Molly smiled and shook her head. "No, Rynne," she said happily. "That's the lovely thing! Father told me about death, but Sylar told me that death isn't real. He said that if I wished for father to come back, I had to make it so. And even if it's too late for father, he said that he would take care of me."
Rynne sighed, unsure of what she could say that would make the girl understand without breaking her heart, shattering her world. "Molly," she said softly, "you must understand that not everything Sylar says is the truth. He –"
"That's what they said!" Molly shouted, throwing Rynne's hand away from her. "Sylar is my best friend! He said that whatever I wanted, I could make it so! All I need is to learn … to learn … and he can teach me!" She made childish fists and planted them on her hips. "Sylar said that you would say this and that I was not to hate you for it, that I was to understand that you were wrong but you didn't know better. It's like when I hit my friends when I was younger. I didn't know better, and I did it."
"You're only just seven," Rynne said shortly. "Don't say 'when you were younger,' you still are young, and he's telling you whatever he can to convince you that he knows what's best. Honey," she said, gently as she could, "he is the one that doesn't know better. We must be careful not to make him angry, or we don't know what he may do –"
Molly stamped her foot. "You don't see!" she yelled. "Do you know what he said when he came for me the first time? He told me that he was not going to hurt me, that he only wanted to help me find my … my father…." She paused, and looked away, battling with herself. "Rynne," she said, finally, "can I tell you a secret?"
Rynne blinked. "Of course," she said. "Any time, Molly. You can trust me, you know that."
Molly let her hands fall from her hips, and she clasped them together. "I know what he did, Rynne," she said.
Rynne was silent. She didn't know what to say.
"He doesn't think I do," Molly said in a sudden whisper, "but I do. I always have, from the day it happened. But I trust him, and you should, too." She leaned forward and put her lips next to Rynne's ear, her voice getting quieter and quieter. "Do you know why?"
"Why?" Rynne was getting chills, and she couldn't explain what was causing them, only that something was different about Molly. She seemed older, more intelligent. She had been through a lot, obviously, but this intelligence … it was different. Less gained, more … given.
"Because he believes in me," Molly breathed, before standing up straight again so her face was level with Rynne's. She smiled her angelic smile, the one Rynne had never been able to say no to. But this time was different. The girl was talking nonsense. Sylar had already gotten to her.
"Believes in you," Rynne repeated. Molly nodded. "Believes in what, exactly?"
"He believes that I am the end to his sadness," Molly said. "Or, at least, that I am going to bring it to him. Why did you think he went to find the painter? He wants to know when the end to his sadness will come." She smiled a bit less, memories coming back to her. "He was told by my father that he had a spark," she continued, "before he … he did what he did. My father had hidden me away, but I heard everything." She looked down. "My father could see people's hearts," she said softly. "That's why he trusted you, because you have a good heart. He could see Sylar's heart, and it was in pain, but there was a spark." She looked at Rynne again. "That made Sylar angry." She crossed arms over her stomach and bit her lip. "I don't want to talk about it."
"You don't have to," Rynne whispered. "Soon, Sylar will let us forget. Can you last until then?"
Molly nodded, but looked troubled. Rynne figured she knew why, but she asked anyway.
"I don't think I want to forget, Rynne," Molly whispered.
Rynne was stunned. "Why on earth not?" she asked. "Our life will be so much better when we wake up, Molly! All of this will be behind us…."
"I like who I am," Molly said unhappily. "I like you who you are. And I like … I like Sylar. A new life means he won't be in it. I think I'll miss him."
Rynne decided not to point out the obvious flaws in logic of that statement. "Well, dear," she said, "I'm not well, just yet, so you won't have to worry about it for quite some time." Rynne tapped the girl's nose with one finger, and smiled. "What do you say," she suggested, "that we make some food? You must be hungry after all this sleeping you've been doing."
"We have to talk about it some time," Molly muttered, but her belly chose that moment to let out an unholy grumble, which canceled out any arguments she might have had about not being hungry. Rynne scooped her up and carried her into the kitchen to see what they could find.
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Molly was right. When Sylar came back an hour or so later, he looked extremely ill.
His face was white as paper, and the skin beneath his eyes looked almost transparent. He was carrying a plastic bag on one arm, which he threw aside with a careless air. He walked wordlessly past Rynne and Molly with hardly a backward glance, and went into the bathroom. Rynne debated for a moment over whether or not she should go and inspect the bag, but she decided that she'd rather not know; apparently, so did Molly. The two of them sat quietly, avoiding each other's eyes, Molly swinging her legs against the bottom of her chair, Rynne sitting motionless, unsure of what on earth she was supposed to do.
Sylar emerged again almost immediately, having changed into something that wasn't stained, the color already coming back into his face. He smiled a thin-lipped smile at the two, and went to the bag he had dumped on the kitchen counter.
"Look what I got," he said, sounding more alive than he looked. "Paint." He pulled some very nice acrylic paints out of the bag, along with some paper and a palette. "I'm going to be in my room for a little while," he added. "Please don't bother me." He took his new possessions with him and promptly locked the door.
"He's always like this after he goes out," Molly said quietly. "It's best not to be near him for a while. He gets angry." She bared her teeth and made claws with her fingers, a mockery of child's play. She smiled desperately, clinging to her youthful fortitude, avoiding thoughts of experiences that she had done nothing to deserve.
Rynne smiled a bit as well, silently amazed that the girl had gotten so used to this already. She supposed that the younger you were, the more adaptable you were. Molly was simply coping with the situation the best way she knew how – by getting accustomed to the dysfunction of it and learning to live.
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"Peter. You have to come out of there sometime."
The man in the bed made no reply whatsoever. His overgrown bangs were tangled in front of his face, and he looked like he hadn't slept in days. His lips were thin, his eyes sunken and glazed. A man in the deepest pit of depression.
Claire Bennet walked into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed closest to him. "Peter," she said again. "Wasting away in here isn't going to bring her back."
Peter looked at the pretty girl, and shook his head. "I just need time," he said quietly, hoarsely, as though he hadn't used his voice in a week, which he hadn't. "I can't go through the motions. That just doesn't work … with me."
"Look," Claire sighed. "Everybody's been worried about you."
"Let them worry," Peter said belligerently, in childish defiance. "I could care less."
Claire bit her lip. "Is this what she would have wanted?" she asked softly, clasping her hands together in her lap. "I don't think so."
Peter sat up, which was obviously not an improvement, judging from the look in his eyes. "What Simone would have wanted," he snapped, "I have no idea. I didn't even know her. You have no idea what it's like to find out that you've been living a lie."
"You haven't been living a lie, Peter," Claire said, tentatively putting her hand on his shoulder, scrambling for something, anything to say that would make him stop looking like a man who had lost his way. "You don't know what you're saying. She loved you, I know she did!"
"I don't think she would have died for me," he said bitterly. "But she obviously felt the need to die for somebody."
"She and Isaac were close," Claire said carefully. "Of course they were. I mean. You don't just break off a two-year relationship like that." She snapped her fingers. "But the fact that she was willing to … to die for a friend … doesn't mean that she didn't care for you, and it doesn't mean that you can throw the rest of your life away when she would have been in here pullin' you out by the ears."
"We've been over what she would have done," Peter said with a tone of finality, falling back on the pillows again. "Get out of here. I'm tired."
"Peter." Claire put her hand back in her lap and looked at the door, checking for the shadow of somebody listening in. She saw nothing. "Peter, is there anything I can do? Please, tell me – anything. I can't stand to see you like this. I … none of us can. Anything…."
"Yeah, sure," Peter growled. "Prove to me that the one woman I've ever loved gave a shit about me, and I'll come out skipping."
Claire opened her mouth, closed it, stood up, and walked briskly out of the room.
"God damn it," the ex-cheerleader hissed as soon as she got into the living room. "I'm going to slap him soon. In there on his throne all high and mighty, actin' like he's the only one that deserves to be miserable, like we all have to dote on him, I swear…." She scowled at the hallway and sat down hard on the couch, crossing her legs and pouting a bit. Only a bit.
"Give him a break," a polished man said from across the room, where he was sitting, reading a book about genetics. "That's my little brother you're talking about."
"You talk to him, then," a bigger man in an armchair said snappishly. "He'll listen to you."
"Are you kidding?" Nathan actually put down his book for that one, looking skeptical. "What can I say? Why don't you just go in and read his mind, that'll solve all our problems."
Matt made to stand up, but the handsome, dark-skinned man next to him planted a hand on his shoulder, keeping him down – if not through brute physical strength, then psychologically. "Relax," Mohinder said. "You're being ridiculous. He's going to be unhappy for quite some time, and the lot of us arguing about it isn't going to make him feel any better." The man paused, brushing his thick black curls out of his eyes. "DL," he asked, finally, "where's Niki?"
"She's making eggs," the tall man replied promptly (as though he had answered this particular question quite a few times) from his position leaning on the doorframe. "For Micah. He's got a cough. He didn't want to get out of bed all day, so he's hungry at eleven o'clock at night. He didn't get that from me."
"If he stays up all night working on his computer as often as he does, it's bound to catch up with him," smiled a pretty brunette, about twenty, with her legs tucked up under her. She leaned back against the wall and wiggled her toes into the carpet. "I can go check on him, if you want," she added, glancing at the stairs with feral green eyes, obviously rather eager to get out of the testosterone-charged battleground the living room was threatening to become.
"You're okay, Lauren," DL grinned. "He's supposed to be asleep right now, anyway, though I doubt he is. You can help Niki, if you want."
"Cool," Lauren chirped rather quickly, glancing shyly at Nathan across the room before getting up and dashing into the kitchen, where the vague sounds of sizzling could be heard.
"Newbie," a roundish Asian man commented from his seat near the television. His face had smile lines all over it, but they were fading, as though they hadn't been used in a while. His friend, sitting beside him, appeared to be dozing off, completely oblivious to anything that was going on.
"She's been here a week and she's already scared of half of us," Mohinder sighed, resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the arm of his chair. "Are we that frightening? That we would scare a girl that could turn into … into a grizzly bear, if she wanted to?"
"No comment," said Claire with an impish grin. "No, listen, guys, I'm going to go to bed. It's late, and I still need to call my dad and tell him my skull is in one piece. See you in the morning, okay?"
"Good night, Claire," Mohinder said, waving lightly after her as she half-skipped toward the stairs, her long blonde hair flouncing all about around her shoulders. She was still perky, even after all that had happened to her over the past few months. Insanity.
Then again, the Indian man thought to himself, wasn't this all insanity? Two months ago, he would have laughed if someone would have come up to him and informed him that, in just seven or eight weeks, he would be living in the loft of a dead painter with a mimic, an anthrometamorphic, a phaser, a woman with super strength, a technopath, and a girl who could spontaneously regenerate, with random visits from a telepath and a man who could fly. The whole thing was beyond him. He had decided long ago to simply go with it; after all, that seemed like the other Heroes' sentiments. Just roll with the punches and see where they wound up. It had worked in the past, and Mohinder hoped to God that it would work again.
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Claire leaned over the sink, wincing in momentary discomfort. She had been brushing her teeth so hard that she had made her gum bleed. Again. Damn it all.
She watched as the minute stream of blood flowed very quickly for half a second, then bubbled and abruptly ceased as the wound closed up. She swished water around in her mouth to get rid of the salty taste, and kept resolutely brushing, a shade more carefully this time around.
Quite frankly, Claire felt like kicking something. She had, in fact, kicked the cabinet under the sink the moment she entered the bathroom, but that had only resulted in her halfway breaking her toenail, which had been less than satisfying.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She rinsed her mouth again, this time to get rid of the toothpaste, and splashed some water on her face. She was flushed under all her makeup, and she never got flushed. She couldn't believe she was this frustrated about her inability to get one angry guy out of bed.
She shouldn't have such high expectations of herself. After all, convincing Peter that nothing had been hidden from him in his cruelly-terminated relationship would be difficult; not only had Simone and Isaac been hanging out together in the empty apartment, but Simone had been thrown up against the wall when Peter and Mohinder got home, her limbs all akimbo, an expression of frantic worry still on her face. Claire knew exactly what had happened, and, in her naivety, she had told them. Sylar had done the same thing to her when she had jumped in to save Jackie; just swatted her away like a bothersome insect.
She could have said that Simone must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, that Sylar hadn't wanted any witnesses, but no; she had had to go on about how Simone must have been so brave, trying to save Isaac's life. Peter was already upset – understatement of the century – about seeing his girlfriend all sprawled out in her own blood. He didn't need the added blow of 'yeah, she must have been trying to save her ex-boyfriend.'
And then Claire had the nerve to come prancing into Peter's private sorrow, trying to cheer him up with smiles and assurances to combat worries that she had helped create in the first place. Who did she think she was? The hero that was going to come in on a white horse and deliver him from his pain?
Claire already owed him. She owed him big time. She could still remember that night; when she had bumped into him in the hall, exchanged smiles, unaware that he had arrived to save her life with absolutely no idea whether or not he would walk away with his own life. When they had sat together in a jail cell and he had told her that she wasn't alone, that she wasn't the only one. He'd been a mentor to her over these long months, putting up with her questions and fears when he had a ready supply of his own to deal with. He was the one who had convinced her father to let her leave high school and stay with him and the others, telling him that she would be perfectly safe with others watching over her. He was the one who had convinced her that she wasn't a freak, that she could use her powers for good, to protect others the way he had protected her.
And now, look what she'd done. She'd gotten them all into another mess. Peter hadn't come out of his room for any more than five minutes at a time for the past four days, and it had added mountains of stress to the already ample burdens of all the other residents. All because of her big mouth. Stupid.
She pulled her hair back rather more roughly than she had originally intended, and blinked her eyes rapidly, wondering why on earth she was crying. She wasn't the one that should be crying. She should be in, begging Peter for forgiveness. Or trying to figure out some way that she could help the others, instead of being an unnecessary burden, something that needed nurturing and protecting. Or doing something productive instead of standing in the middle of the bathroom in her pajamas, feeling sorry for herself.
Sighing in a manner which proved she hadn't quite lost her girly streak yet, she opened the door and wandered to her bedroom, pushing all thoughts from her mind so she didn't sound like a mess when she talked to her father. He had to be assured that everything was okay, and he wouldn't believe her for a second if he heard the tears that were behind her eyes.
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Sylar barely left his room for the next five days. Rynne had to admit that she was getting worried – not for him, but for her. Every so often, she would hear some manic noise of frustration coming from behind his door, and she would automatically go find Molly and make sure she was doing all right. He could say whatever he wanted about not harming something so innocent; she didn't trust a word that came out of his mouth.
Rynne had never thought that, in a situation such as this, she could get bored. But she did. She wandered listlessly around the house, making food when she was hungry, drinking something – anything – when she found herself desperately missing her old habits. Sylar didn't keep any liquor around the house, of course, and she couldn't leave to get some. She had tried. The door was locked.
The monotonous routine settled down upon Rynne's shoulders, and she felt her fear slowly ebbing away to be replaced with a vague nagging that appeared whenever Sylar screamed some unintelligible string of profanities that could be heard all around the house and probably outside as well, or when Molly smiled and said something about how she couldn't wait to see her mother and father again. Perhaps, Rynne mused, her mind was learning to cope like Molly's had; it was adjusting. It was unhealthy, she was sure, but she didn't mind. Her only worry was that it wouldn't adjust back when she finally got out.
Getting out, itself, became less of a priority and more of an eventual goal. Priorities became feeding Molly, feeding herself, staying healthy and, bit by bit, realizing that she could walk across the room without her legs threatening to give out, or that she could pick something up and be completely confident that she wasn't going to drop it before she could put it down again.
After the five days, which felt like a week, a month – Rynne lost count of everything but the time, of which she was constantly reminded – Sylar emerged. He had, apparently, failed to clean himself or change his clothes for the duration; he looked completely emaciated and feverish. His shirt was splashed with every color Rynne could think of and then some. He stared at Rynne and Molly for long moments, then staggered into the bathroom, where he remained for at least an hour. The shower was running the entire time, and, every once and a while, Rynne thought she could hear vomiting.
She tried going into his room, but the door was resolutely locked.
"Rynne." Molly was sitting on the couch, looking terribly frightened. "Rynne, is Sylar going to be okay?" She bit her lip, and wrung her hands. "I don't want him to be sick. He gets so awfully sick." She looked at Rynne with big, liquid eyes. "Promise he won't get sick?"
"There's not much I can do," Rynne began, tentatively, but Molly looked so incredibly upset that, for the billionth time at least, Rynne caved. "I'll make him something to eat," she said. "What does he like?"
"He doesn't eat much," Molly replied. "He makes me sandwiches."
'Sounds good," Rynne sighed, completely unable to believe what she was doing. She got up, went into the kitchen, got bread, butter, and meat, and assembled them in the proper order. When Sylar came into the kitchen, she held the plate out to him with a little half-smile.
"Molly thought you might like this," she said hesitantly. "You look like hell, man. Sit down."
She didn't exactly get the reaction she was going for.
Sylar's eyes got wide; wider than Molly's had ever been. He slowly backed away, shaking his head ever so slightly. "No … no,' he said, his voice tremulous and faint. "No, I'm not hungry. Not … not hungry."
"Bullshit," Rynne said, seeing Molly's immense concern painted all over her face from across the room. "You've been holed up without anything to eat for ages. Unless you've been eating paint." She proffered the sandwich again. "Eat."
Sylar wavered for a moment, then turned and sprinted for his room. He flung open the door, stared at Rynne once more in profound horror, and slammed it shut behind him.
Rynne and Molly stayed exactly where they were for some time; it seemed like forever before Molly finally moved ever so slightly, shifting position so she could rub her foot, which was falling asleep. Rynne slowly put down the plate, straightened her coat (which she had been wearing almost constantly; Sylar liked to keep it cold, and she knew better than to argue), and crossed to Sylar's door.
"Get away," he said the second she knocked. "I don't have to explain myself and I'm not going to."
"You can't stay in there forever," Rynne replied, looking at Molly, who was close to tears for worry for her 'friend.' "I don't give a damn what's driving you off the deep end. Come out and eat the fucking sandwich. Act like a normal person for five seconds. Molly doesn't want you to waste away and die."
No response came from the room.
Rynne paused, then laughed bitterly, fuming. "My God," she said to nobody in particular, "why the hell am I doing this? I'm trying to convince a murderer to come out of his room, eat so he doesn't die, and behave like a normal person. Honestly, Sylar, I'm afraid you're rubbing off on me! Maybe I should go out and start eating people's cerebrums, as well, might come in fucking handy—"
The door swung open, and Sylar was staring down at her. Rynne stopped talking very quickly, and looked up at him, more than a little concerned. There were little splashes of blue paint on his cheek. His eyes were purple underneath; he must not have slept at all since he got home. His hands were shaking.
"Move," he said quietly, and he shut the door behind him before Rynne could see inside. He walked briskly past her, muttering something unintelligible, sat down at the table, and took a voracious bite out of the sandwich.
"See?" Molly said in pure, unabashed delight, hopping up and running over to Sylar. "That wasn't hard!" She was beaming, but Rynne didn't feel terribly satisfied. She felt like she had made a pact with the devil. Which, at that particular moment, didn't seem like all that bad an idea. Might get her out of this place.
She leaned on the door, arms wrapped around her stomach, and watched the two of them interact. Molly was smiling and saying something; Sylar was eating and listening to her at the same time. He reached down and tapped her nose with his finger, and she laughed. He looked for all the world like a father talking to his enthusiastic daughter; the façade would have been complete had he not been so terribly frail, with his skin seeming as though it had been stretched over a skeleton, his wrist bones jutting out, his cheekbones pronounced and deeply shadowed. But his eyes were still brilliant, and, when he glanced over at Rynne, she got the feeling that they were boring into her brain, that they could read everything she was thinking like an open book.
Which, of course, was ridiculous. If he'd found somebody that could read minds, she was sure she would have heard about it before now. Of course.
Why did she even care? She wasn't thinking anything he wasn't allowed to know about. Just the thought of him having killed someone else, having someone else's power drilling into her through those dagger eyes, was making her stomach twinge like it was. More blood on his hands that Molly didn't need to know about, didn't need to deal with. More questions that needed answers.
She put her hands in her pockets, and walked away from the troubling scene. She needed to figure out how to get into Sylar's room without burning the door down.