You are the dark ocean bottom/
And I am the fast sinking anchor/
Should I fall for you?/

Candice could tell from Linderman's face that Nathan had hung up on him, and she couldn't keep a smirk from her face. "That's classy," she said. "What a sweet guy."

Linderman put the phone back on its cradle, disappointed but resigned. "It was worth a try," he said calmly.

"Do you really want the kid that badly?" Candice asked, trying to understand how Peter Petrelli fit into the grand scheme of destiny and destruction.

"No," Linderman said honestly. "Not so very badly. What I want is for Nathan to give him up. I want him to see that he can."

"Huh," said Candice. "And what if he can't?"

Linderman sat down behind his desk, eyes shuttering to businesslike glass. "Then we might have to give him a little help."

Candice laughed, a slashing brittle sound. "Now there's a plan I can get behind. I don't trust these Petrellis—they've got too much damn nobility." She said the word like it was something viral and pitiable, a terminal disease. "Where'd that come from, anyway? Their father never had any."

"Ah," Linderman said sadly, "you only knew him at the end of his life, Candice. You only saw him after I'd gotten to him. David Petrelli was, at one time, the noblest soul I'd ever known—but that changed. I've always suspected that was why he disliked poor Peter—Peter was a carbon-copy of that old honest self, a constant reminder of the better man he used to be.

Incidentally, that's why I've never tried to turn Peter. I know now what a disaster that ends up, twisting a fundamentally good man against his better nature until he hates himself, but can't escape what he's become, and tears himself apart from the inside out. It's not a pretty thing to see, Candice."

Nathan is a much better choice—he's the other side of his father, the cold professional I made him into. He's the part of his father that learned about the world and how to survive in it, without the troublesome instinctual goodness to ruin it. Instead of a good man struggling to be good, Nathan is a bad man struggling to be good—and that kind of man is much easier to take down."

Nathan is perfect—it's Peter that's the problem here. While Nathan was conveniently born without a conscience, he was given his brother as a substitute. I've only been successful in turning him against Peter a handful of times, and each time, Nathan has nearly wrenched himself out of my control with the guilt. They cannot be separated voluntarily, I don't think."

Candice was fidgeting with a paperweight—an elaborately carved wooden spider—looking like a student in a boring history lecture. "I know, Candice, you're not particularly interested in anything I'm saying. I do, however, have a reason for telling you all this. I'm simply giving you background on a target—I'm sending you after them."

Candice started in surprise, accidentally snapping a leg off the spider. "What? Are you sure?"

He raised his tufted white eyebrows at her. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

"No," she lied. "There's nothing."

"Good. Now, they're leaving soon for New York City, so we'll get you on a plane as soon as possible and put you in position. Your target will be Peter—we must get him away from his brother. I want him alive, if at all possible, but you're authorized to do anything that's necessary. Jessica Sanders has been killed, so your only ally in the field will be Jonathan—he's placed within the group, and will be making regular calls to you. He will—Candice? Candice," he said patiently, taking in her intense, inattentive stare, "have you heard a word I've said?"

"Yeah," she said absently. "New York. Jonathan. Peter Petrelli."

He sighed. "Well, at least you've got the basics."

---

Mr. Bennet was actually glad the doorbell rang when it did, because he'd let Jonathan suck him into another argument—over whether or not his playing music too loudly was actually hazardous, not only to their ears but their safety—and he'd been feeling quite capable of murder when then two-tone bell cut into the moment.

His first thought was oh, perfect, I was actually right, someone's come to see about the music. Instead, he opened the door on a harassed-looking trio of fellow fugitives, bags in hand with downturned, stress-lined mouths. "What happened?" he asked resignedly, a veteran of unforeseen disasters and Plan Bs.

"Sylar," Nathan said shortly as he walked in, dropping his suitcase on the floor. "We had an encounter with that Sanders woman, and when he came at us, he found her first and killed her. The police were everywhere trying to find him, and we don't know where he went, he's run off."

"Needless to say, we didn't stick around," Katie told him.

Claire wandered out of the bathroom, hair damp from showering, and her eyes lit up at this sight of their visitors. "Peter! What are you doing here?" She rushed over to give him an enthusiastic, if slightly wet hug.

"Oh, some stuff happened," he said vaguely. "We're staying with you now."

"Fantastic," Jonathan chimed in from the other side of the room. "Maybe you can convince this crazy man that The White Stripes are not noise pollution, and they don't need a bass."

"I really think we have more important things to discuss," Nathan said condescendingly, making Jonathan bristle as he'd intended. "For example, whether or not we can stay here. At the Marriot, we got an in-suite call from Mr. Linderman."

"Linderman?" Mr. Bennet bit back an obscenity, conscious of his daughter's presence. "How does he always know where we are?"

"Couldn't tell you," Katie said grimly, "but if we found us there, he'll find us here."

"And if we go somewhere else, he'll find us there," Jonathan said. "What's your point?"

They were silent for a moment, festering under the good sense of his comment. "He's right," Mr. Bennet said, looking as if the words made him sick. "We might as well stay here—there's nowhere safer that we could go."

"All right," Peter said, "but how are we going to know if Linderman comes after us?"

"We can set up some kind of a watch," Nathan proposed. "We'll go to the airport in the morning, but till then someone should be up at all times."

"Two-hour watches should be fine," Mr. Bennet said. "There are enough of us."

"I'll take the first one," Peter said. "I'm too wound up to sleep anyway."

"I'll take the second one," Claire said, and everyone promptly turned to her, as surprised as if she'd told them she was getting married to Linderman in the Bahamas next week. "Don't act so shocked," she said irritably. "I'm not here to stand around and bat my eyes—I can take care of myself, and I can take care of the rest of you in the bargain."

Mr. Bennet reached out and took her hand—he'd missed the majority of her forced growth and hardening, and he was still unused to this new, adult Claire. "Are you sure, honey?"

Her eyes glittered, ready to tear into anyone who questioned her. "Yes, I'm sure."

He wondered what he was to do now. He'd become the person he was—a man totally unlike what he'd been ten years ago, confusingly good and moral—because of one reason alone, and that reason was Claire. Every good decision and admirable trait had grown from protecting her—if she didn't need protection anymore, then what was he? Good or evil?

He did not say any of this—he knew her better, even now. "All right," he said.

---

Claire was not afraid of the dark—but she was afraid. She was afraid of the things that might be hiding in the dark, of the impenetrable cover that concealed so much from her. She told herself that she didn't care, that nothing would happen, that her monsters-under-the-bed mentality was ridiculous and childish. She couldn't quite convince herself—because in her life, there were monsters, real ones, and they were in the closet and under the bed and they wanted to eat her and spit out the bones. No one could tell her she was safe, because she wasn't.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled herself in as small as possible. Eleven o'clock. One hour left. She was starting to regret this.

She looked down at the still, dark forms surrounding her on the floor. Six people in a two-room suite, they'd gotten rather creative with their sleeping arrangements—she could reach out and touch people on either side of her. As she looked at them, she felt comforted at the nearness of these people, who were so willing to protect her despite her insistence that she didn't need protecting. She caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye, and jumped to her feet instantly, nerves humming with attack and alarm, but when the figure straightened she realized it was not Sylar, not some evil minion of Linderman's—it was Jonathan.

He came to sit by her, uncharacteristically silent and still, casting shadows into the moonlight, black hair blending into the dark. She found herself sitting suddenly straighter, alert against his presence—she was not in the mood to fend off his unsubtle forays. But he didn't speak, only gazed out the window at the teeming nightlife of Las Vegas with a peace that soothed her own fearful tension.

When he finally spoke, it was quiet, a hushed thrum of teenage tenor. "Are you afraid?"

"Afraid of what?" she responded defensively.

"I don't know. Getting caught. Linderman."

"My dad won't let him get me," she said, no longer bothered by dark possibility now that she was not alone.

"No, I guess not," Jonathan said, with an odd inflection that she couldn't identify. They were silent for another long interval, watching the golds and purples of the city lights blink for attention. Finally, he said, "Claire, do you believe in Hell?"

She had to think about this, somewhat surprised that he could provoke such deepness in her. "I don't know," she concluded. "I think I believe in God, but there are a lot of things I'm not sure about. I think there should be somewhere for the bad people. I don't want to see them after I die." She broke off. "I shouldn't say that. If there's a Hell, I might be going to it."

"No, you won't," he said, quietly confident. "You're good, Claire. You're the kind of good that spills out from your eyes and makes people want to be around you, and makes them want to throw themselves in front of bullets for you, and want to kiss you so badly that they think they might die."

She wasn't sure what to say to this—she was too tired to be uncomfortable or upset. Instead, she told him, "I killed a man. I shot him right in the heart, and I kept shooting him even after he stopped coming, until there were no bullets left and he was choking on his own blood. And then he was just…dead."

"Is that what makes you a bad person?" asked Jonathan. "Is it what you do, or is it inside of you already? And what if you make a choice and then regret it—what if you regret the choice even before you make it?"

"You mean redemption?" Claire said thoughtfully. "I don't know. I'd like to think there's a way to fix it all."

"My dad died before I was born, and I never knew my mother," Jonathan told her evenly, emotionlessly. "I never had anyone to tell me I was special, Claire. I never thought I would be anything but another human sob story, another speck of dust screaming to be noticed." Claire wondered why he sounded like he was trying to explain something to her—like he was pleading for her to understand and forgive.

For reasons she couldn't have explained, she reached out and took his hand, slipping her fingers lightly into his. He responded instantly to her touch, gripping her hand so hard it hurt, white-knuckled and somehow holding on for his life. They stayed for a moment like that, two small figures clinging to each other in the middle of a hurricane, anchoring against the wind and rain in the only way they knew how.

Then it passed, and he pulled away, not looking at her. "I bet it was self-defense," he said.

"What?"

"Then man you killed. I bet it was self-defense."

"Yeah," she said, feeling suddenly better; absolved. "Yeah, it was."

---

Jonathan set the phone down on the carpet, staring at it as if the force of his brooding could make it disappear. This was getting harder every time. He was too far in and he was starting to lose his sense of direction.

It was her. He could feel her slow-simmering in him, the bewitching Salem she-devil of open hearts and sad smiles. She was the weakness and the flaw, the California fault line running silent under his poured concrete foundations. She was destructive and wrong, and far too pretty He thought of Claire, letting himself sink down slowly into the attraction and amazement of her, till he couldn't hold his breath any longer and was drowning in her. Then he breathed out, shoving her out of his mind and his life and his thoughts, locking the door firmly behind. He stood in taut stillness a second longer, ensuring she was gone.

Then he picked up the phone, pressed a button, and made the call.

---

"—understood, Mr. Linderman. I'll be in contact."

Hana sat forward in her chair, leaning into the signal. This was it. She'd been tracking calls near her friends for two days now, alarming calls to Linderman's offices full of dangerous revealing words. She'd only been able to catch snippets of conversation so far, enough to make her frantic with worry, desperate to know who was betraying them all.

"Thank you. You're doing excellent work, Jonathan."

Jonathan.

Well. That explained a lot.