A/N: Oh. My. Gosh. This is it. This is The Largest, Most Important Chapter in the Story So Far - Vol 1 & Vol 2 Combined - officially. There will be more cute domestic!Sylar for you to enjoy. There will be more Sylaire banter - like the old days - for you to enjoy. There will be fun Sylar/Shadow Man banter for you to enjoy. There will be the glorious return of omgikillu!/Sylar for you to enjoy. There will be much mayhem and excitement! On with the show!
I don't own Heroes or anything remotely related and I bow humbly before the television gods, please have mercy on me. Rated "M" for language, some violence, some blood & guts, and eventually some sexual imagery. And please review! If I've massively screwed something up, I'd like to know =D
11) Just One Shot
*** four months later ***
Gabriel awoke the same way he did every morning they were lucky enough to have off together: in an empty bed, but wrapped snugly in the smell of brewing coffee and the sound of joyous violin music. He smiled, in spite of the fact that sometimes he secretly wished he could wake up to arms that weren't empty, and he pushed the blankets away, slipping his naked body into blue pajama pants and a grey F.I. t-shirt. A few minutes later, bladder empty and teeth brushed (but bed-head left untouched because she liked it – said it made him seem more 'natural'), he made his way into his living room to kiss his girlfriend's neck – the side not occupied by the chin rest of a gleaming mahogany stringed instrument, currently being vigorously sawed over by a bobbing and weaving bow. Her eyes remained closed, wholly engrossed in the moment, but she acknowledged his affection with a warmly spreading smile. He wandered from there into the kitchen where he intended to fully exploit his own talents – for the culinary arts. He was going to make her the best damned pancakes she'd ever had, and this time (since he obviously wasn't alone) he was not going to flip them perfectly with telekinesis. He was ready to try it – it was time to take off the training wheels. He gulped down a cup of coffee (which was absolutely scrumptious because, well, the girl'd had a lot of practice) and got to work.
So, this. This was life. This was that crafty, snickering thing that had managed to tease and elude him for so long… for centuries. This was happiness. This was love. Somewhere inside him, Sylar was sprawled out – ankles crossed, hands behind his head, eyelashes brushing his cheeks – in a grassy clearing interrupting a field of red blossoms, smiling ear to ear with a butterfly on his nose and a faithfully ticking 1917 Sylar World War I Field Edition strapped to his wrist – merrily conceding defeat. He had been wrong the whole time. Normalcy and the mundane were perfectly okay. He loved washing dishes by hand while she dried. He loved picking through his laundry to make sure her bra didn't end up in the dreaded dryer. He loved using measuring cups to make sure he cooked for two. He loved the way she'd let him buy candy when they went to the market together. He loved finding her lost earrings while vacuuming the carpet. He finally loved his desk at the office – because it had an actual picture frame on it, with an actual picture inside. He loved life. He… he even put the toilet seat down.
Maybe Beth was right – maybe there was something magical about this planet. His bills were paid, he had a comfortable, modern home with a big kitchen, he had the love of a beautiful girl, and he made a living doing something he enjoyed.
Something Beth knew nothing about. Something no one knew anything about.
He reminded himself he wasn't really living a lie, there was a lot of Gabriel in Jonathan Kendrick. He wasn't really trying to live as someone he wasn't, he just had to keep his job a secret. Lots of people had classified careers they had to keep secret, even from their families, and they still had families…
But they didn't have whole other facets of themselves living inside their heads, unknown to those who loved them. And those people would also ultimately age. Beth was eventually going to notice that little piece.
He lost his train of thought when the music stopped and the red-head in question sashayed through the archway separating the kitchen from the living room. She ruffled his already mussed hair on her way to the holo-display on the table. She flipped it on to check out the morning news.
"Wanna see something cool?" he asked her, grabbing her attention.
"I'm looking at him!" she flirted, to which he merely smiled.
"Watch this." He loosened his elbows and wrists, keeping his eye trained with purpose on the circle of batter bubbling thickly in the pan. With a quick snap, the golden pancake flipped a graceful arc through the air to land smack-dab in the center of the hot surface, soft side down. Circus performers couldn't have done a better job. His rapt audience squealed and clapped her hands before leaping up to mush an excited kiss into the fleshy apple of his cheek. She left her arms around his waist as he turned to pour another dollop of batter into the pan, and she rested her head between his shoulder blades.
"… further violence in the Leo sector…" he heard a voice say as he became vaguely cognizant that there was a breaking story on the news in which he might be mildly interested. Beth left his space to dig in the refrigeration unit for some juice, leaving him to let his confection cook a little longer before sliding a spatula underneath it to add it to a growing stack on a nearby plate. He turned to look at the display just in time to see a very familiar blonde whip out a handgun nearly as big as her arm as she ran, and with a vengeful war cry splitting her face in a hateful expression he'd rarely seen her make (as it was usually only for him), she lined up her sights and fired just one shot, quickly and effectively dispatching her pursuer. Because it was galactic television, the carnage she unleashed as the man's head presumably exploded was deleted from view by a large blessed blur. He was numb with shock – he couldn't believe what he'd just seen. The spatula left his stunned fingers to crash to the floor. Beth stopped what she was doing, collecting glasses from a cupboard, and pivoted to face him.
"Honey… you okay..?"
He looked like he'd seen a ghost. Suddenly aware of what he was giving way, he bent at the middle to pick up the dropped utensil and made up a quick lie, which buzzed gratingly down his spine as it left his lips.
"I just can't believe they'd show something like that on tv…"
"Aww, you're so sensitive. Here, I'll turn it off."
The display popped out of existence as he crossed the floor to the sink, turning on the water and letting it cascade over the dirty surface of the spatula. Beth set her glasses and the juice on the table before sidling up next to him, encircling his shoulders and kissing his other cheek.
"I'll be right back, gonna put my violin and stuff away."
She left him staring out the window above the sink, wondering what could have happened to his old friend to produce such a change in her... Was it the fact that she couldn't be a mother? Was it that she'd outlived her latest husband? Was it grief? What could turn the purest, most forthright creature he'd ever known into a murderer? Lord knows he'd done enough to her without testing her faith in her own convictions… What could possibly make her live such a lie…? Was it simply no more than the passing of time? He almost didn't want to know the answer… doing so might require he face the same questions himself… even though he knew a thing or two about murderers. It had been a while since he'd talked to Claire – he thought maybe he should check in on her.
Meanwhile, in the other room while Jonathan's mind was someplace light years away, Beth placed a very private phone call.
~*~*~
"STOP! GO BACK!!!" Olivia Terry's holo-display obeyed the voice command transmitted by the Shadow Man's neural tap. The owner of the display had been sleeping peacefully with her head resting on his lap, stretched out luxuriously on the couch, swaddled in a soft blanket. The sudden commotion roused her.
"Baby, what's going -"
"HOLD!!!"
His pants tugged a little at her hair as he tore his legs from underneath her. He tumbled forward into the middle of the living room floor, crawling toward the display on his knees. One finger reached out and marred the surface, causing the light to flicker and distort for a moment, but not enough to remove from him the slack-jawed gaping shock of recognition.
"What… what thuh…"
That same finger rippled across the frozen face of a very angry blonde girl – arms outstretched and hair whipping around her – firing a very intimidating looking weapon straight into the face of the man chasing at her heels.
"What the holy fuck…"
"What are you – who is that?"
"You're telling me you don't recognize her?!?" He jabbed his finger back into the display. "Olivia – that's my niece! She… She's been dead… for centuries… Sylar killed her…"
"Peter," she stated his name plainly, fully awake now, sitting up and crossing her arms over her chest.
"I… I don't understand…"
"You're telling me I'm supposed to remember some girl I barely knew almost four hundred years ago???"
"I…" he couldn't answer her. All he could do was breathe… and stare straight into the eyes of the rigid hologram, a still portrait capturing an image he hadn't seen in forever, thought he'd never see again. "We… we had a funeral," he whispered, voice tight with a freshly wounded sense of old grief. "I said goodbye… Her mother was never the same again… her father… she… she just left us… She was murdered – why would she just leave us…"
Seeing the tears in his eyes, Olivia couldn't sit still. She slid off the couch and crossed the floor to console her lover. With an alarmingly manic change of mood, he gripped her by her shoulders and held her at arms' length, eyes bright with the clarity of a sudden realization. They bore into hers.
"Sylar didn't kill her," he muttered, almost seeming to teeter at the edge of madness, stating the obvious. "He killed someone though – there had been a body, and he had been arrested there. Spent twenty years in prison before he disappeared…"
"You've never been completely alone, you know," Olivia tried to soothe him, running her fingers down the side of his face. "Please don't dismiss me like I haven't -"
"They were in on it together! She'd just lost her husband and her baby… she wanted to die, he gave her what she wanted… only he didn't…and oh my god!" He brought a finger in front of her face, waggling it back and forth. "On the space station, back at Earth, just before the Zephyr left – there had been a woman! I had seen her – in a hallway, talking on her fet! I think… I think that was her! That was just before Sylar got on that ship – she had to have been helping him! He couldn't have gotten away from me without help! I mean, I woke up out cold on that shuttle…"
"Peter -" She wanted to ask him how he could possibly remember all of this, but then was aware he did have a lot of abilities…
"No, Liv, listen – I've been doing this all wrong. I don't need to chase Sylar. All I have to do is find Claire. Sylar will come to her! And I already know she's in Leo…"
"Peter."
"And she's not a shapeshifter – I should be able to just walk right up to her…"
"Peter."
"And she's not an F.I. agent – I've been getting whiplash with as often as they transfer Sylar around…"
"Are you serious?!? You're going to use your niece – your only remaining family – as bait?!?" She snapped her fingers and grabbed his attention. "Just like that?!?"
"No. No, there's a lot more to it than that. You work for F.I. Central, you know why there's so much going on in the Leo sector, why there's always been bombings and assassinations…"
"Because they've been experimenting on the mod injection formula there, for a long time."
"Right. Trying to make it super resistant to rebel tampering. Liv, the original cure for the Shanti virus, which makes the injection essentially what it is, was made with Claire's blood."
"But isn't that why you've been chasing Sylar all this time?"
"Yeah, because he's the only living survivor – he was the reason the injection was created in the first place, and he's the only person who still carries that cure in his blood stream, or was until Claire just showed up alive and well… Liv, I can't let F.I. get their hands on her – they'll ruin everything!"
Understanding, she nodded.
"It's like this: if I can get Claire, I can get Sylar. And if I can get both of them, F.I. won't have them. With your help we can get access to central labs and try to create a formula that cures every infected mod in the galaxy. All of them! We can make the last injection they'll ever need – they can live free of the Feds!"
"We'll always have to fight them Peter…"
"Yeah, but at least this way we'll have a chance." He took her hands and squeezed them. "And I would never dismiss you so easily. I would never have made it this far without you." He leaned his forehead toward her for a brief touch, closing his eyes. "I know I've never been alone, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Will you still be with me? When this is all over?" And he truly believed it would be. His faith was infectious.
She tilted her face under his to grace his lips with an adoring kiss. "You know I will. I'll go get your suit out of the wash and punch in your flight details."
~*~*~
The principal colony of the Leo sector had for decades been housed on a planet named after the Earth's original 'bread basket', Sumeria (a fact which prompted her denizens to commonly refer to themselves jokingly as 'Sumans'). Because the world had, ever since Claire's first introduction to her native soil, always been key to humanity's galactic agricultural system, she was appropriately named. As a result, she was also famous for her open-air farmers' markets – capable of moving an astounding amount of goods, catering even to the rarest and richest, most acquired tastes. There were some in the more densely populated areas that seemed to carry an almost carnival-style atmosphere to them, bartering more than food staples, organically pastured meats, and exotic spices – these were areas where people sold services, made their living with art and music… or dabbled in drugs and… exploding textiles. The kind Claire's husband – well, late ex-husband – had been investigating years before.
Not nearly for the first time in the past few hundred years Claire wished she'd been born with some other ability. Particularly, shapeshifting. She and her compatriots had worked diligently during the previous months to put together a foolproof plan that would enable them to raid a laboratory suspected of performing experiments on mods from a local camp. Their activities had drawn a lot of unfortunate attention, however – including a small army of news reporters and press – and her work wasn't nearly finished. There was still the question of the mod camp itself, which would be an expected next move. There was a certain amount of danger in her job that Claire had come to expect, and then there was a point where she had to say no… or find a way to mitigate the risk. In essence, she'd needed to change her appearance somewhat drastically.
Which was why she was now wandering through a heavily crowded market wearing dangerously tall heels, a straight dress underneath which she'd stuffed a whole rack of hotel towels to give her the appearance of being overweight, and sporting a cute but short little bob cut consisting of very brown, freshly dyed hair. Her unusually wide hips brushed tables as she pushed her way down a narrow aisle, trying to dig her way past leather ladies' hair accessories and hand-made jewelry until she reached a cloth vendor in a shadowy corner of a carefully constructed tent, shading its owner and his small, not to mention select, group of patrons from the harsh midday sun… or prying eyes. She entered innocuously enough, perching her large sunglasses on top of her head while she ran her fingers down a lovely bolt of shimmery mauve-colored silk, just inside the entrance.
"I know you're not here looking for something pink…" the vendor growled – he was an obese man sprawled to one side in a nearly flat bean bag chair with a small table at his elbow supporting the weight of an ornately bejeweled hookah pipe. Oddly colored smoke billowed from his lips as he bared his teeth in a sinister, lecherous grin. It was hard to imagine being on the same side with this guy. He had spoken in code: 'You shouldn't be here, you've caused too much trouble.'
"I need to be thorough," Claire replied, boldly dropping the code, feeling a bit brave with Harley's cold length pressing against the small of her back. She was doubly reassured with the additional presence of 'Sandra' at her ankle. She'd named the smaller, golden pistol after her mother because, due to its diminutive size, it was often underestimated and indeed packed a powerful, masterful punch. It was also a smart weapon, only responding to a user who possessed Claire's unique fingerprints – the gun knew her the way only a mother could. "I'm very wealthy – you can't afford to turn me away."
"Well… in that case, I might have something special for you." He didn't get up, but produced a fet from somewhere she wasn't quick enough to see (and probably didn't want to know). After punching in a few keystrokes with his meaty fingers, a small old woman joined them from outside, carrying a wrapped bundle. She placed it in a sack after taking the money from Claire that she had been instructed to leave with them.
"Renegade…" she heard the man whisper as she turned to make her way out. She turned her eyes over her shoulder, glaring venomously. "That's what you are…" more smoke seeped from between his chesire cat teeth. She didn't appreciate the term one bit. She was just doing her job, and a little bit of bloodshed was going to save countless lives – lives that depended on her. She was their only…
"…hope," she whispered back.
A few paces down the street, having successfully put some distance between herself and her transaction and remained at present currently unscathed, her fet chimed at her. Osiris had logged in.
~*~*~
It was the next morning and Gabriel had, once again, woken up alone, but this time he'd expected to – Beth had to work, and work for her came bitchin'-ass early. Unlike everyone else, he wasn't going to sleep when he was dead so he was content to continue snoring while she showered and kissed his forehead before hurrying out the door. Becoming a creature of habit, however, he eventually rose, did the bathroom thing, laced up his runners, grabbed his fet and earbuds, and allowed his feet to carry his burning lungs to the coffee shop to grab his eagerly waiting espresso and say 'Good morning' to his blushing girlfriend. Once business had begun to pick up a bit he grabbed a table and flipped open the device attached to his hip, giving the appearance he was perusing feeds and acquainting himself with the rest of the universe. In truth, he immediately logged onto his messaging client.
"Morning," he began when he saw his newly deranged old friend join his conversation.
"Howdy."
His thumbs angrily pounded out, "What the fuck are you doing, have you lost your fucking mind?" but he thought better of the question and quickly erased it. He made a couple more attempts at initiating a coded conversation with her, but couldn't think of anything tactful to say. About the time he remembered this was Claire he was talking to, and tact had never really be a strong point in their relationship, she'd beat him to the punch.
"Did u see the news?"
It was an innocent enough question not to require any code. She could've been referring to anything – only the two of them would know for certain what she was talking about.
"Yes." He wanted to say so much more. "It was frankly disturbing." So he did.
"Ur disturbing," she joked back to him in the same way she had for decades.
"Srsly." He wasn't going to let her change the subject.
"I have to go. L8tr." So she didn't want to deal with him, huh? Fuckin' wench…
Feeling more than just a little brushed off, he grit his teeth to keep the snarl off his face, snapped shut his fet with a little more force than was necessary, rushed the counter to give Beth a quick peck on the lips, and jogged out the door to head home. Once showered and dressed, he made his way into the office…
To be immediately called into a meeting with his partner and their field operator. More aggravated violence was expected in the Leo sector, and a missive had been sent to all offices requesting help from any unassigned agents. It looked like Gabriel was going to be paying Claire a little visit whether she wanted it or not, and could expect a posting that would potentially last up to three months in the field. See how she likes that!
It wasn't until later that afternoon, as he was packing his bags, that reality set in.
He wasn't an idiot. He was fully aware that he was a human being; while not a complete facsimile of any other he was pretty damned close. He'd known for a long time – since he was roughly fourteen years old – that there were going to be certain biological imperatives that would produce resulting behaviors. Mammals are born programmed to seek mates, and humans are born programmed to seek companionship, hopefully accompanied by intellectual stimulation and a deep and lasting emotional bond. He knew he was looking for love – knew he'd been looking for it for centuries, knew it was his ill-fated search for the shifty substance that had stoked a fire of unquenchable and bloodthirsty fury in him, caused him to make severe mistakes and had ripped countless bitter tears from his swollen heartbroken eyes. He was surrounded by walking, expiring meatbags everywhere who settled for an incomplete and ultimately unhappy or faulty version of love because they would never have the time to wander the universe in the way he had, to eventually find that one perfect place in which they could belong.
And here he'd found her. He was destined to outlive her, but she was in his life anyway. He may never find her again. He had just one shot at this, and he was going to make it count. He'd lived his whole life for this – acceptance, belonging, and perhaps a family. He'd decided, since they were going to experience the longest separation they'd seen since they'd started dating, that he didn't want Beth to miss Jonathan Kendrick. He wanted her to miss Gabriel. He needed to know that if she was still going to be here when he got home, it was to throw her arms around a super-powered victim of Dissociative Identity Disorder who may or may not have put behind him a rather unsavory past through years of intense psycho-therapy – not some façade.
He wasn't wrong for wanting to be loved for who he was.
So why was he so terrified…?
Before he could process the realization that he was scared of loss, he heard her key jiggle in the door and his stomach leapt into his throat. There was no turning back.
"Honey, I'm home!" she called before stepping into the bedroom. "Oh good, you're already in here," she continued, taking off her shirt before noticing the suitcases that were going to interrupt any activities she'd had planned. "What's going on…?"
"I've got bad news and more bad news."
"You're not gonna make my concert on the nineteenth, are you."
"No, I'm not. And, I'm being shipped out to Leo for a little while."
"How long is a little while?"
He didn't know how to answer – part of him didn't want to put it into words. His jaw just dropped and stayed.
"… I see. Are you gonna have to… hurt anyone?"
"I don't think so. I'm just there to investigate." Suddenly he was extremely reticent to mention anything about the multitudes of people he'd hurt in his life. Maybe his plan wasn't such a bright one.
"That's good," she answered, "because… I mean, I know the mods are locked up because they can be dangerous and all, but they're still people, right? And I just can't believe all of them are dangerous… and there are still really dangerous baselines running around free… it just seems unfair. I guess I just have this vision of you in my head, and I really hope you aren't that kind of agent…"
His cautious reluctance began to disappear.
"No, no, I'm not that kind of agent. But… there is something I need to talk to you about." He repressed the fleeting thought telling him to remove the suitcase from the bed using telekinesis. He used his hands instead, recognizing the wisdom in working her up to the idea slowly. Once the mattress was clear he sprawled across it and drew her to him. She'd gone pale, sensing they were about to discuss something of monumental importance – the kind of thing that might change them forever, and not necessarily in a good way. She allowed herself to be rigidly molded against him, but her eyes didn't leave his, wide and anticipating. Smoothing a lock of unruly hair behind her ear, he went for it, and let the hammer fall.
"I need you to keep a secret, just between us."
"Of course, baby," she answered, her tawny eyebrows knitting together in concern.
He took a deep breath and reached his hand toward the stargazer lily lying on the dresser, the one he'd picked up for her on the way home in an attempt to sweeten her up. He watched her face as the lily floated a slow trajectory across the room to stop, gripped between his waiting fingertips. He presented the bloom to her with a small flourish under her nose. Only momentarily stunned, the spell broke and she jumped to her knees. For a panicked moment he thought she might flee, but holy divinity shone down upon him and she stayed where she was, hands held out in front of her as if the world were spinning, trying to wrap her head around what she'd just seen.
"You're… you're a mod…?!?"
"No," he replied, "I'm actually a natural born, and I'm not going to hurt any mods," he grew very serious. "But there's a lot more than that. For starters, my name… it's not Jonathan."
~*~*~
Just as Olivia was about to tap her finger on the 'Submit' button glowing in the lower right section of her holo-display, confirming the purchase of Peter's flight ticket (using a fictitious account linking back to F.I.'s own databases), the air was split by the sound of his fet, enthusiastically chiming.
"Wait," he called, gesturing to her. The contingent of the Black Guard to which he belonged was being sent with a cadre of F.I. agents, being asked to investigate the recent rebel activities in the Leo sector. Several arrests were anticipated and the likelihood for violence was high. He was to report for 'reprogramming' immediately. If he didn't move with his squadron instead, he'd be acting suspiciously.
"That was shaving it kinda close," Olivia muttered as she watched Peter rise and check his inventory. "Be careful."
"Don't worry about me, you just be ready. We might have to lie low for a little while before we contact you."
"Of course," she replied as she pushed herself into his arms for a final good luck kiss, one he accepted greedily.
Three days later, adorned in his characteristic black suit, Peter marched in formation off of the transport ship onto a disembarkation platform, pleasantly warm sunshine toasting his shoulders and the sounds of native insects singing in his ears. A large white tent, similar to the ones seen at the circuses of his youth, had been erected outside of town to provide the Black Guard temporary quarters. While he was happy for the mild, balmy weather and the accommodations, he wasn't sure exactly how he was going to get away. During the chaos of trying to get a large crowd of mindless drones organized and settled in, he managed to slip off to a covered outdoor latrine where he flipped open his fet and brought up a city-wide view on his GPS.
Though Claire had been missing from his life for hundreds of years, and there were a lot of faces during that time that had easily slipped from his endlessly eroding memory, hers could never be considered one of them. She was the reason he still took breath into his lungs and she was supposed to be here with him, as a family – and now she would be. He focused on her sunny face, the same one that had looked up to him so long ago and had graced him with the good fortune of being called her friend, and scoured the map for her presence. He found her easily on the far side of town… the side closest to the mod camp.
Exiting the facility, he fell in line with a group of Guards already being dispatched for the first shift of duty standing watch outside the camp. He thought for certain, as he stepped up the rear of a large hoverbus, that he saw a car pass him by carting a passenger who bore a striking resemblance to Sylar. It was incredibly difficult to swallow decades of instinct begging him to leap to the chase, but he stuck to the plan.
Several disappointing hours later, with no sign of Claire, clenching his jaw in response to the abysmal conditions under which the mods in the camp were kept, his squad had been ordered to respond to a call placed by an F.I. agent named Michael Hornsburg, requesting backup on what was to be a very difficult arrest. Angered that his time was cut short, and he was being dragged away when he was this close, he vowed that he'd sneak back with a later squadron to continue his vigil. If he'd ever had just one good shot at seeing his ancient and arduous plan finally come to its fruition, he truly felt that this was it.
~*~*~
Belinda couldn't have been more than twenty. While she looked to be approximately the same age as Claire, she carried none of the centuries of wisdom and life experience that Claire had. They shared an umbrella-covered table enjoying sandwiches at a deli on a busy corner, and despite appearances they were polar opposites: Claire took her time with her roast beef, savoring the nuances of the locally ground organic brown mustard accentuated by crisp lettuce and a native vegetable that resembled a Chinese water chestnut – she gave each individual flavor its due because her perpetual existence held no more meaning than exactly that, just a good sandwich; meanwhile Belinda swung her legs under the table, fidgety with anticipation, and gulped down her sparsely dressed turkey and swiss devoting more of her attention to the watch on her wrist, checking it every couple minutes. Claire didn't have much to say, having become a bit apathetic with her speech, more content to observe the world turning around her than to actively participate and pass her judgment on the event. Belinda, on the other hand, couldn't stop bubbling. It was obvious that the girl was simply thrilled to be on a real mission at her age, with someone who knew what the hell she was doing, someone she looked up to. Claire wasn't comfortable being a role model, especially given how much blood was on her hands with this trip, and was glad that her companion was typically in and out before the real feathers started to fly. Jason had been twenty when he'd started running big boy missions too – secretly Claire knew that the bigger the universe got, the more camps were built and the more mods and rebels alike kept falling prey to their capture. They needed all the hands they could get.
"We've got ten minutes," Belinda muttered under her breath. Claire had already been aware. Ten minutes was long enough to watch a flock of flying creatures dance an alien yet colorful sort of aerial ballet across the sky. The shop had really good tea – not as good as her mom's sweet southern special, but enough to awaken a misty bloom of nostalgia. She noisily slurped at the watery dregs in the bottom of her cup. Belinda swung her legs even faster, chewing her nails – for her, ten minutes was a lifetime. Claire would've laughed at that thought if she hadn't been slightly annoyed. Ironically, a lifetime felt more like ten minutes.
"Alright," she said when the time was up, "let's go."
The girls picked up their shopping bags, maintaining the guise of two friends spending time away from home someplace warmer and a bit more… pastoral, then crossed the street to their hotel. Once inside they turned on some music and drew some bath water, creating the noises one would normally expect to hear in an occupied hotel room. Amidst the din, standing in the middle of the room, Belinda closed her eyes as she focused on her destination. The eyes that then opened glowed a strange, luminous milky lavender, and her left arm shot out at her side, perfectly parallel to the ground.
"Draw the door…" she whispered to herself, entranced, as her finger began to turn a circle in the air. A crackling violet portal through space opened next to her, starting small and expanding until it was wide enough for Claire to crawl through. Fists drawn white-knuckled against involuntary unease, she took a deep breath, thanked Belinda heartily, and stepped through the door.
When she popped through the other side, she discovered they'd been successful – she'd ended up exactly where she'd wanted to: inside the generator building that operated the force dome over the camp, keeping mods in and, they hoped, rebels out. They were wrong. The camp was lined with a thick perimeter of black suits, anticipating the typical rebel mode of offense – bombing the place from the outside. Today, Claire was going to take care of business from the inside.
The structure was small, consisting mainly of one hallway leading from a main entrance down to a control room which looked out onto the large generator chamber. On either side in the hallway were restroom facilities and a break room. Claire padded forward on silent feet as she slowly pulled Harley from his normal resting place underneath her light denim jacket. Rigid arms holding the weapon steady, she shouldered open the doors to the restrooms and the break room to find them blessedly vacant. All of her unsuspecting victims would be waiting in the control room. She would walk in, dispose of her opposition, place her bomb, and bring down the dome. She would send her coded signal to Belinda and she'd be home free. She'd leave Leo behind one more time, and try a new life somewhere else… again. Maybe someplace new this time. Maybe she'd go back to Earth.
She should've known it wouldn't be that simple. The very instant she put her hand on the doorknob she felt his breath on her neck. She dropped low to one knee and whipped Harley around, not hesitating to take just one silenced shot. She heard the bullet connect to her target with a wet thud before her eyes truly saw what happened.
"GOD DAMN IT, Claire, how many FUCKING times have I got to tell you I HATE that shit!" her assailant hissed as he doubled over his injured shoulder, almost as inaudible as Harley's muffled kick over the sound of the generator's constantly humming turbines.
She would still know that hiss anywhere. She couldn't keep the smile from her eyes.
"… Gabe…? Is that you…?"
"Of course it's me, and you need a smaller fucking gu-"
He was interrupted as she rushed him, Harley swinging dangerously as she drew him to her in a choking strangle hold, threatening to hug the life out of him. Well, sort of.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she whispered directly into his ear, tickling him with her breath. "You've got really shitty timing."
"Actually, that's just the thing," he said as he brought his arms around behind her, snapping the inhibitor collar to her neck. She reared back away from him in surprise, but not quick enough to escape the prick of a syringe on her thigh. "I'm just in the nick of time."
The last thing she could recall before she lost consciousness was the feel of his deadly arms encircling her – they had been warm and tenderly gentle. She breathed in his familiar scent as she rested her head against his chest, allowing his heartbeat to lull her to sleep.
~*~*~
"Belinda…" Claire spluttered as she came to. She could hear trickling water, she thought it might be a now-overflowing bathtub in their shared hotel room.
"She's safe," she heard him respond, suddenly aware of the blinding sunshine on the other side of her closed eyelids. She drew an arm across them and sat up with a groan. Dragging the crook of her elbow down her face, she slid her fingertips around her throat – the collar was gone.
"You asshole… I'm SO not sorry I shot you by the way… what the fuck -"
"What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck are you doing?!?"
Suddenly quite awake, she spun around to face him.
"Hello, rebel! My job! What, are you a fed now?!? I don't know if it's escaped you, but all of those people are still locked up in that camp!"
"Do you really think they all would've gotten away with those zillions of Guardsmen there? Claire, it would've been a massacre."
"I see, so you came all this way to -"
"I was sent here with my partner to investigate the shit that presumably you have been up to. You've been drawing a lot of attention, Claire."
She leapt to her feet, noticing for the first time they were perched on the rim of a lovely stone fountain in the middle of a secluded park, possibly near a cemetery.
"I really don't need the lecture, thank you very -"
"Your handler was informed that I was coming here," he continued, ignoring her outburst, "and asked that I make an appearance in case your partner needed help with your extraction."
"Oh, yeah, you're REALLY good at the extraction part…"
"Claire…" he reached for her unconsciously and she smacked his hand away.
"No!" she cried, but sat back down beside him anyway, a tad dizzy, rubbing her forehead in her hands. "All those people…"
"Are going to get out, just not today."
Knowing he was right, she held her tongue. She felt him shift beside her, the way he usually did when something was eating at him. She rubbed a bit more vigorously while she irritably waited him out.
"What happened to you?" he finally asked once he'd summoned the courage. She pulled her lips into a grim line as she marveled over their change in position. It seemed like forever ago she'd asked him the same question, for very likely the same reasons. "What happened to Claire? The girl who used to look down her nose at me because she didn't kill people… and I did..?"
It was quiet where they were – a significant enough distance from civilization that she could hear every whispery sound the trees made, and the small animals who made their homes among them. The muted chirps and rustling leaves could do nothing to mask the hitch in her throat. She sucked her bottom lip while she held fiercely onto her composure, but one look into his dark, fathomless, safe, familiar eyes, brewing with genuine concern, obliterated her control. She dropped her face back into her hands
"I don't care if any of these people live or die," she sobbed.
"I know that's not -"
"All that matters is that I have a job to do, so that I'm occupied. I mean, really… what else is there? All of these people are just gonna be dead on their own in a blink of an eye, anyway," she sat up, cheeks soaked, and made a wide gesture, encompassing the world around them. "So what does it fucking matter? What does anything matter?!? Why do I love?!? Why do I have this useless fucking womb?!? Have you had any children? Do you know???"
"To be honest, I haven't really had a lot of -"
"Everything I touch… everything… withers away. The only certainty I have is death. Everything around me will die. So… I guess it's my gift to the world." She threw her arms in the air before they landed heavily in her lap.
"Not everything is gonna leave you, Claire. I'm just…" he turned his face to the ground, inspecting a small blue bug as it tried to make off with a piece of plant detritus twice its size. "I'm just sorry I haven't always been what you wanted."
She breathed a shaky sigh as she ran her hand down his arm, smiling a sad, wet smile.
"You're right, you know. You did save me today. And I am sorry I shot you."
"I know."
"Do you know what you are?"
"The Lord of the Afterlife?" he grinned.
He met her eyes as she leaned into him, her strange dark, short hair sliding along her chin, failing to hide from him everything she really was.
"You're a light in the darkness," she whispered intimately. She held perfectly still as he blew a sweet, airy laugh then reached with a trembling hand to wipe the moisture from her left cheek. Slowly, trying not to spoil the moment and frighten his tentative touch away, like trying to hand-feed a wild animal, she reached to touch her fingertips to his.
It was then that she really saw him for the first time. The way his cheeks had filled out a little, the way his eyes didn't cling to her so desperately, and there was a little extra softness around his middle. He seemed more… kempt than usual… ordered. She gave the hand on her face a small squeeze before she pulled away. A sour feeling tugged at her gut, one she couldn't explain, and the knot in her throat grew a tad sharper. She decided to put her discomfort to words.
"So… what's her name, loverboy?"
A dimple tugged at the corner of his mouth for a brief flash before he angled away from her, leaning his elbows on his knees and hanging his clasped hands between them. He paused before answering.
"Beth."
"Beth," she repeated, nodding, amused that he'd been in time to save her from her mistake but she couldn't save him from his. Soon he'd know the pain that she knew, and she'd have given anything to protect him from it, no matter how unfair it was to him. Or maybe she just didn't like that she'd have to say goodbye to him one more time… so she could send him home to her.
The serenity was shattered when Gabriel's fet went crazy.
"That'd be Mike," he guessed, "my partner. We're supposed to be apprehending you. I'm gonna have to tell him I got teleported by some weird mod I never saw…"
"You're taking some pretty big risks too, Gabe."
"I know… but you're prettier than me."
"That doesn't make any sense," she laughed, swallowing back how much she wanted to tell him she could look at him all day if it meant they could just get away from all of this. "Please be careful," she managed, bringing her fingers to her lips in mock prayer. "Please. I don't know what I'd do if they got you."
"Only if you stop killing people."
Wonders never ceased… now they were making deals to get her to put aside her bloodthirsty ways. She only smiled and nodded. "I'll see you later," she told him before she turned and ran away, unwilling to risk him getting caught with her. She could almost feel him waving his fingers at the back of her head as she disappeared from view.
Once she was sure she was alone yet near a recognizable landmark, she placed a call to Belinda… who didn't answer. Rebel or not, there was one thing Claire knew about twenty-year-old girls beyond the shadow of any doubt: they always answered their phone calls. Disconcerted, she walked a winding backwards path returning to the hotel. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, and had Harley, safety off, clutched at her trigger finger the instant her feet touched their floor. Outside the door to the room, she paused and drew a calming breath before asking her neural tap to send the security code to the lock, opting not to use the old-fashioned (yet arguably more secure) key card. Flattening herself against the wall beside the door frame, she pushed the door open with a quick push of her flattened hand.
"Callie…?" she heard Belinda's voice call Claire's alias. Something was wrong with the girl.
"Step out where I can see you, Lindy," Claire responded, not willing to walk into a trap without some assurance. She'd played this game before.
Belinda let half of her body lean out where it could be seen, but her face was pale and she wasn't walking any farther. The girl let her eyes slide closed for a quick moment at the sight of the menacing firearm in Claire's hand.
"Let's go back in slowly," Claire instructed. She followed closely behind Belinda, with Harley blazing the path over the girl's right shoulder.
"Stop," said a voice when they'd entered, and Claire was vaguely aware of a presence behind her, closing the door and sealing them inside. This was going to go only one of two ways, neither of which were going to be clean. On the far side of the room, sights lined up on Belinda's forehead, was a trim red-headed girl holding an equally impressive gun. "I will shoot. Stop where you are and put it on the floor. I know you don't want her to die."
Hoping she'd still have time to reach Sandra before any bullets hit her partner, Claire complied. The pair of black suits behind them, one of which had closed the door, approached silently, placing inhibitor collars on their necks with solid snaps. Claire's mind began to whirl with possible escape routes, teetering at the edge of mounting panic, while the red-head took a couple steps closer.
"It would seem you and my boyfriend share a long history."
"You… you're Beth…?" Oh holy hell… Gabriel…
"My reputation precedes me, it would seem. I've heard a lot about you as well. Gabriel can be fairly loose-lipped when he decides to trust someone." Her eyes seemed honestly apologetic. "It's a real shame, I do feel truly terrible – he seems like the kind of person who doesn't trust easily. Such a sweet, charming thing… He's a tremendous lover, a good catch for someone. I'm going to miss him. I followed him here, you know. He got this girl to take him to you. He made a pretty big gamble to save you. The two of you must share something special."
"Look, I don't know what this is -" Claire began but was interrupted when the black suits pushed her and Belinda down onto one of the beds.
"That's okay, it's alright, it's okay," Beth replied, replacing her pistol to a hidden holster under her jacket before retrieving a tranquilizer gun. She loaded it and held it outstretched before her. "He doesn't, either." She fired twice. As the blackness rose to drown her, Claire could hear the girl's voice telling someone, "he didn't come back here, but I got the girl. Yes, that's correct, you have a go. Bring him in."
~*~*~
"Dude, where you at?"
"I got removed from the scene."
"Removed from the...?"
"Don't ask me, the little shits are capable of heinous crap - I woke up miles away, I got removed. From. The scene. I'm on my way back now."
"So the individuals our sources were tailing did turn out to be rebels."
"Yeah but I couldn't tell you what happened after. I think it's safe to assume they aren't gonna try anything on the camp today, though. I'm headed into HQ."
"Meet you there."
Mike Hornburg disconnected the call with his 'partner', who was also the subject of his lengthy private investigation. After months of continuous work, Beth Preston, his real partner, had finally maneuvered a confession from Gabriel – aka Jonathan Kendrick – regarding his natural heritage, but had not been able to procure him in the flesh once the act was done. It was up to Mike – he was their last resort and he was going to have just one shot at it, so he called in for back up. Calculating for the delay while his signal travelled faster than the speed of light across impossible distances, he prayed his reinforcements would arrive before his quarry.
Too quickly, he reached the local F.I. office. Desperate to maintain the guise of normalcy, he rushed down to the basement level where the company gym was housed. He changed into the gym clothes he'd stashed in a locker, but left his standard issue utility holster strapped to his chest under the shirt. Knowing a nervous sweat would seem more natural if he were actually doing something to produce it, he picked up a ball and headed out onto the half court to shoot some hoops.
"I see how you are, pissin' off responsibility while I'm supposed to file all the logistics," he heard 'Jonathan' call after a few minutes, voice dripping with mischief. "I'd hate to be your wife." Mike dropped down to a lazy dribble and turned to face the man.
"Think you can take me, one on one?"
"I think we're a couple nerds about to make asses out of ourselves failing miserably with hand-eye coordination," Gabe responded.
"I think you should put your money where your mouth is," Mike stalled, hoping to keep him in the confined area until the Black Guard arrived. He was trying to bounce the ball under his right knee when he saw Gabriel straighten and take a step backwards, an unreadable expression on his face. He had forgotten what Beth had told him – one of the man's abilities made him a human lie detector. It was a miracle he hadn't caught onto them before…
Without a second thought, he tucked his hand under his shirt, going for anything that might buy him some time, banking on the belief that Gabriel wouldn't react, reticent to do anything that would give him away. He yanked his pistol free from the fabric just as the door to the court banged open, the thundering of footsteps echoing off of the concrete walls as they were surrounded by over two dozen black suits. Gabriel's fingertips flexed at his side, an errant spark escaping to roll like an electric mouse, scurrying away across the glossy wooden floor.
"What is this…" he murmured anxiously.
"Don't make this harder than it has to be, Gabriel."
"How do you know my na-"
"Beth told me."
Mike gripped the gun a little tighter when he saw the man's face darken, eyes closed as he breathed a heavy sigh. He almost felt sorry for the fool, having fallen prey to the charms of a winsome female many times himself.
"You had to have known something was up, buddy," he placated. Gabriel kept his face downcast, but let his shoulders fall, and his arms hang limply at his sides. "Seventy years ago an agent named Tom Krtek went missing, showed up nine years later floating in a shuttle that was out of air, yet miraculously authorities were able to revive him. He had been accompanied by a Guardsman who had a set of fingerprints literally melted into the side of his utility belt, yet neither one of them had any burn marks. He had some kind of story that he'd been held captive in the Cancer sector by rebels. So, decades later, I've got this new partner and we're investigating the old safehouse site, and we're cataloging the evidence we found, right? Well, a little while later I get this private call from Central – they called me on my holo at home – saying they found the same fingerprints on some stuff you collected and they ran 'em. No big deal, I mean, if the story checked out, we should've expected to find Tom Krtek all over the place there. But then they sent me over the face that matched, and-"
"And you're lookin' at him."
"Weird, huh? I mean, you haven't changed at all, not a single fuckin' day. Seventy fuckin' years – that's enough time to go from diapers back to fuckin' diapers. I mean, we're not an Intelligence office for nothing, right? So, of course we were gonna figure all this out. Anyway, I got a visit from the field director – again, at my house – telling me I was being reassigned and I was to tell absolutely NO ONE. He brought with him this cute little undercover transfer from Aries, said he had a plan to take down a suspected rebel. Double. Agent."
"Beth…" Gabriel whispered, leaving his eyes shut but tilting his chin to shake his head in disbelief.
"Yeah… don't be pissed at her though – I think she still kinda liked you, even after she got you to tell her what you really are -"
Gabriel's arm shot out and Mike hit the wall. There was a rushing sound as every black suit in the cramped and suffocating space lifted their weapon and halted, waiting for the command to be given to fire. The place grew deafeningly quiet as they watched their target's face contort with fury. When his eyes reopened, Gabriel was gone.
Sylar's shoulders heaved with hurt and the promise of certain death. Mike slid down the wall to land on his butt, almost losing his firearm despite his years of training.
"You're gonna need a lot more than this, buddy," the killer growled, bolts of lightning leaping from his body like a brewing thunderstorm. Before Mike could do much more than flinch, Sylar dropped to one knee, his long black jacket billowing around him, and swung both arms in huge arcs drawing a perfect circle in the air. There were a few wet grunts before all of the shadow men began to fall over, one by one, spilling their insides into writhing, slimy red, pink, and blue piles of organs, slopping as they hit the floor. He had cut them all in half.
"H-h-holy shit…" Mike whispered before he began to wretch.
Sylar left charred black footprints in the wood as he made a slow, menacing approach toward his betrayer. Gathering his wits, Mike raised his gun and fired four shots, all of which grouped beautifully into Sylar's chest, but ultimately proved a futile waste of time and energy. He lost control of his bladder when the madman stopped at his feet, lifting him with an unseen force and causing his urine to drip down his legs and into his shoes, which elicited a cruel chuckle from his attacker.
"You know what I find funny about this whole situation? I just think it's hysterical that an Intelligence agency can expect to mess with the bull… but not receive the horns."
Mike screamed as his belly began to split open.
"STOP!" a voice bellowed from somewhere behind Sylar. He turned to see a singular Guardsman miraculously rising to his feet. The invalid nearly lost his balance as he tossed out his hand, acting quickly before Sylar had the chance to react. Mike tumbled sideways with a loud thud and slid across the floor until he disappeared into an adjacent locker room, whose door then slammed shut and locked as if by a disembodied spirit.
"You again," Sylar sneered as he slammed the Shadow Man back down to the floor where he was pinned, motionless.
"I know you didn't kill Claire!" he cried.
Sylar halted, dumbfounded. Of course he didn't… although there was that one time, like, four hundred years ago or something… "Whuh…?"
"Just… just lemme go for a second, will you dammit?!? I know she's here, and I know you do too! Look, it's not rocket science, they're after her and -"
"How do you know Claire…? Who are you?"
"Let me go and I will show you." Famously distrustful, Sylar hesitated. "Goddammit, fuckin' let me go!!! She's in trouble!!!"
"She's a rebel, she's always in trouble," he replied, but managed to release his hold out of curiosity. The Shadow Man touched an unseen mechanism at his throat, disabling the masking device and revealing a face Sylar hadn't seen in centuries – that of Peter Petrelli. So that was unexpected. His jaw hung open. "Holy…"
"Quick, put this on," Peter instructed as he began to strip one of his fallen brethren.
"… where the hell did you come from…?"
"You just gonna stand there?!? We gotta go – here, take this!!!" He tossed a newly liberated yet hideously sliced suit in Gabriel's direction.
"Peter fuckin' Petrelli…?"
"Dude!!!"
"Right. Uhh… you know I can shapeshift…"
"Yes - intimately. I don't care. Put it on."
Complying out of completely bewildered bemusement, he stripped to his underwear and pulled on the suit, activating the masking device in the same manner Peter did. He followed as they fled the building at a brisk, businesslike walk before anyone would have the chance to discover the mess they left behind.
"Two suits are less suspicious than one," Peter whispered once they got outside, pounding feet putting distance between themselves and the scene of the massacre. "We need to get someplace secluded so I can try to get a lock on Claire's location."
"How're you gonna do that?"
"Do you remember little Molly Walker?"
"No."
"She's the one who could find people? Used a map?"
"Oh yeahhhh… I killed her family."
Peter stopped walking. "You know, you could just left that part -"
"I know where Claire's hotel room is."
"… you do?"
"Yeah! We're friends!" If Peter's face hadn't been made featureless by an inky black mask, Gabriel would've seen him gaping. "… and her handler called me."
"That makes a little more sense. By all means, lead the way."
"So, uhh" Gabriel began after a few paces, "what's the deal with the suit anyway? And why the fuck have you been chasing me? Why didn't you just tell me who you are?"
"For starters, I didn't think it would matter. And then… you weren't gonna like where I was going to take you."
"If you're saying you were gonna turn me in, then yeah I gotta agree… I would've probably put a stop to that," he huffed with bravado.
"You need to understand something," Peter insisted, tugging Gabriel's elbow and drawing them up to a stop one more time. "The mod injection – the same one that's killing them, making them subservient to the Federal Government – the same one that forces them into camps unless they're fortunate enough to be rescued and supported by the rebel network – it's the complete brainchild of a woman who found a virus floating around in your bloodstream. The Shanti virus. Can you imagine what the world would be like if there was a cure? What would it be like if suddenly, all the mods in the universe didn't need shots anymore to stay alive…? We could get them out of these fucking camps and they'd never have to go back! Do you get it??? But here's the thing, right? The original cure came from a mixture of Claire's and Mohinder's blood. So, for all I knew for the past four hundred years, Claire's been dead. Mohinder committed suicide out of guilt while held in captivity. So what now? Well, alright, no problem, there's two people running around – just two – who've been cured of the virus – who now carry both the virus and the cure in their hot little bodies. But one of those people – Molly – escaped never to be seen again. And I looked, using her ability… which doesn't bode well for her outcome. That leaves -"
"Me…"
"Yeah. You're the only person in the universe who can save us." Peter paused for emphasis, looking around them and watching for prying eyes, and took a deep breath before continuing. "So, a few years after people started getting injected I escaped, but I didn't leave. They had experimented on me, enough that I regained the full use of my original ability… so I saw an opportunity. I put on this suit… and became a shadow. I thought I might try my hand and taking them down from the inside. They had all this technology, and all these abilities… I thought maybe if I could use them to get you, I could also gain more than just a cure to the virus – I could gain your ability… I could understand how to make a cure. The only problem was… by that time you were no longer in the facility in Indiana… in fact, you were nowhere to be found. You were missing for three hundred years."
"I was underground. In Leavenworth."
Peter pushed himself a bit closer, incredulity lacing his whisper. "You… spent three hundred years… in prison…?"
"Three hundred and twenty, and a few extra months I think."
"Huh."
"At least ten of that in psychotherapy."
"Wow."
"Yeah. And Claire and I are friends. She said so. You can ask her."
"Yeah, okay…" Peter drawled as they started walking. "Claire got her face all over the news, you know – s'how I found out she was still alive -"
"You really did think she was dead this whole time…?"
"Yes, but -"
"I can't believe that actually worked…"
"Anyway, it's gonna be a lot easier for them to find her. So much of the injection formula is based on Mohinder's work – and for the past several decades, especially here, they've been messing with the mixture which tells me they've dusted off his old notes. It's not a far step for them to discover what they'd truly have in their grasp if they got a hold of her…"
They quickened their pace.
They charged into the hotel lobby once they arrived, carrying the assured gait of two men who owned the place. Still feared and seen as a necessary evil in many societies, people recoiled slightly at the sight of them, mothers clutched their children a bit more tightly than necessary, people purposely averted their eyes, trying to avoid their eerie aura. It made their passage to the proper floor move more smoothly – no one stopped to question them. Peter followed Gabriel to the door he'd passed through earlier, when he'd asked sweet Belinda to transport him wherever Claire had gone. Peter produced a frequency-jamming keycard from his utility belt, making swift work of the lock.
They stepped into an empty room – luggage gone, towels folded, bed made, chocolates on the pillows, small soaps and shampoos still packaged and ready for use. Peter sat on the bed and steepled his fingers in thought… until he noticed an object sticking out from under the bed by his left foot.
"Looks like they've already gone," Gabriel began, "which is g-" and stopped himself when he leaned with one hand against a dresser. Images flooded his mind… Guardsmen… and Beth… Beth had been here… Beth shot her…
"Sylar," Peter called, breaking his trance. He spun to face him with fright. "Look at this."
Pinched between his fingertips was a spent tranquilizer dart.
"Son of a bitch…"
A/N #2: Omg he's gonna have to save her!!! =D