Chapter 8: Saturated

Still a little bewildered by the whole unusual situation, Claire stepped into Sylar's hospital room assured by the two guards outside that there was no visible change in the prisoner's condition, or the readings on the monitors connected to him. Slowly moving forward, the young woman took in the sight of the bed, dominated by many wires, pipes and tubes, most notably to her, a tube leading a whitish reddish mixed liquid out Sylar's exposed abdomen.

Startled by the sight, the young blond didn't know whether to laugh or cry. State affairs, politics, all these things her biological father was so much into once, was decidedly a funny business. For what so many instruments, machines and drugs were necessary for someone who could heal himself in minutes was beyond her. If the president was so openly trying to make a no more death rows case of the serial killer, he shouldn't be so freaked out about allowing him to regenerate. They were all covering their asses, the whole lot. And in the meantime...

Claire didn't dare to touch him. She had no aversion to coming into physical contact with the man who had hurt her in the past. Given recent developments, that had been a distant memory. But she had absolutely no wishes to experience first hand how much he was suffering. She didn't need special powers to that. Her eyesight made it evident. She studied his colorless, dull skin, the barely noticeable, unconscious frown that marred his face, the soft, quiet, moanlike sound that came through his slightly open lips every time he took a breath. Touching his midsection would've meant certainty and she didn't want certainty. She didn't want to be right and know that a handful of people who she loved or wanted to find it in herself to have a high regard for, would do this to another human being: her father, Peter, her grandmother. How could they? Have they no compassion, no pity, no shame or sense that something was amiss?

The blond didn't know when her hand reached out and why and how she's ended up squeezing Sylar's unresponsive fingers, but one thing she was certain of: "can you hear me? Sylar, it's Claire. I'm going to help you, I promise."

She spent the rest of her shift sitting by his side with an occasional rub of his arm to let him know she was still there and drawing up a plan of action in her mind on how to proceed. It was going to be difficult to contain him and his powers without the company's methods and facilities, but with them she was done with for once and for all. She will continue with her shifts only until her plan could be put into action so that nobody got suspicious. Perhaps she could even contact Rebel. There must be plenty of evolved humans like him out there who didn't trust this new version of the company either, and with good reason. How keen they'd be on Sylar, she didn't know, but it was one of the options she worked out in her mind and could try.

Claire got the shock of her lifetime (one the many shocks of many lifetimes) when Rebel text her back immediately and disclosed that he considered he owed Sylar one for having saved his life. It was not long before he assured her that he could send a certain Rachel Mills to teleport the prisoner out there any time she was ready for the move.

After some reassuring messages where Claire was trying to make sure the Rebel knew what he was getting himself into, she was happy to find that the messeger on the other side of the phone line had agreed with her on the importance of not just Sylar not being tortured, but also that he will not be able to hurt anyone or avenge what has been done to him.

Thus came the offer. If she waited a little more, LAWR, the team Rebel was working with could set up a place where they could keep the killer for a while, under Claire's supervision. He could be drug free, contained by walls operated by machines manipulated by the Rebel's own power. A magnetic field, that was ability proof.

Knowing she would never get a better proposal, Claire text back: "THE SOONER THE BETTER".

Tbc