Chapter 47:

Immediately after getting home on Monday, Elle changed into Claire's track pants and flopped down in front of the television to watch whatever came on. The syndicated shows went from one to the next, but Elle did not really notice. She just wanted to kill the time until she was able to be with Sylar again.

After work on Tuesday, she did the same thing, this time keeping her phone close just in case. Surely, it had been long enough for him to get the ability back and memorize a few simple phrases. Wednesday night, she fell asleep on the couch before primetime programming even started. She woke in the middle of the night to the sounds of an infomercial, with the controller in one hand and her phone in the other. No missed calls.

Thurday, the television turned itself on when she walked through the door, which really freaked Elle out at first. Then she realized that it could not possibly do that and that she had a man in her apartment. She walked slowly into the bedroom and waited for him to appear to her.

Sylar was already in the room when Elle got there, probably having come through the adjoining wall. He gestured at the door, and it closed behind her. Then he said something in rapid, fluid Russian that Elle did not understand at all.

At that moment, Elle saw the flaw in her test. Her own Russian skills were less than conversational. It had been years since Ivan taught her what little he did. She shrugged and said one of the few phrases she remembered. " Я не понималa. Я очень плоха понимаю по-русский."

Sylar narrowed his eyes at her. "Did you just say that you don't understand Russian very well?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I said. And that mean you do understand it, which is amazing." She put her arms around his neck. "And that means that we are officially, no probation, back together."

Sylar nodded. "It's probably better that you don't know Russian that well, because I'm not quite conversational. I just memorized some phrases from the book."

She put her hand on his chest and pushed him back a little. "But you learned how to read Cyrillic, right? You memorized the phrases with that amazing memory you got from the waitress?"

"Yeah." He said it as a throwaway that did not instill confidence in Elle that he was telling the truth. He sat on the bed. "In fact, it's incredible because there were all these things that I read and learned about philosophy, evolution, everything. And after I woke up in Mexico, it all started fading away. Just pieces that I couldn't remember anymore. Like I could remember the concept of the peak experience, but I couldn't remember the name of the psychologist who coined the term. It's Abraham Maslow; it's just all coming back without me having to learn it again."

Elle watched Sylar's face as he talked about the memories he had lost and regained. She believed that was real, that he had the had the ability back. He did not even seem aware that she had been doubting him. Elle sat next to him on the bed. "Well, now that you're back, we should call Peter and let him know."

Sylar did not appear to be a fan of that idea. "Can't we just have tonight to ourselves, call him in the morning?"

"Yeah, that's fine." It did not matter much to Elle, and she certainly did not want to come across as eager to see Peter. She stuck her thumb between the waist of her skirt and her stomach. The skirt had been cutting into her all day, and sitting there, she could not take it any longer. She knew that it was time to switch to looser clothes, but it was so difficult for her to let go of her waistline. She stood. "I need to get out of this skirt; it's too tight."

"I can probably help you with that," Sylar said with a slight smile.

Elle had not said that to be suggestive. She was just explaining why she was about to change into track pants. However, now that he had put the idea in her head, it seemed like a really good one. She unzipped her skirt and let it drop to the floor. Then she pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him. She sat back on her heels and went to work on his pants.

Sylar put his hand over hers. "Do you ever worry that our entire relationship might be based on sex?"

That was something that had concerned Elle from time to time. Other than that week in Prague, which was cut short actually, they had hardly spent any real time together. She knew that there was more to the relationship for sure. They understood each other in a way that no one else ever did. Still, she worried about how well them living together was going to work out. She did not want to let that show though. Doubt was counterproductive at this point. She pushed his hand away so that she could finish taking off his pants. "I would be more worried if it wasn't."

–

In the morning, Elle went into work as usual. Even though her phone had always been in her possession, she could not be completely sure it had not been bugged. She did not want to risk calling Peter and having Nathan overhear what they said, so she was hoping to run into him at work.

After about an hour of work, before Elle had the chance to try to serendipitously bump into Peter, he found her. He came into her office, closing the door behind him. "So he's back."

Elle was a little startled by his statement of that as a fact. "Yes. How did you know that?"

Peter shrugged modestly. "I can tell where people are just by thinking about them. I can read your mind. I have lots of ways of finding these things out. Over the last week, I've been paying attention to where he is. Why Texas?"

Elle smiled, feeling almost giddy. "He was getting an ability back. Enhanced memory."

"Huh." Peter nodded. "I didn't know about that one."

Elle waited for Peter to say something else, but he didn't. She prompted him. "So he's back, and he's done what I asked of him. What's the plan?"

Peter leaned back against the door and folded his arms. "I want to run it by both of you together. And we can't do that here or at your apartment, so I was thinking that when you leave for lunch, we could meet up and the three of us could talk somewhere."

"So are you going to--"

He did that annoying mind reading thing again. "Yeah, you just go wherever you're going to go, and I'll find you, and I'll bring Sylar."

Elle tried to imagine Peter and Sylar in the same room together, which she had just seen the week before. That encounter had been fairly brief, but it was still incredibly awkward. She imagined Sylar would balk at being led anywhere by Peter. "Just remind him that this one act of acquiescence might get you out of his life for good."

Peter seemed confused by this. "Why does he hate me so much? I have never done anything to him except defend myself."

Elle did not really know everything that had gone on between Peter and Sylar, so she was not in a position to comment on that. She still firmly believed that it had very little to do with her, but there was one little tidbit Peter might not have been aware of. "He did have a dream of the future in which he was dead and I agreed to marry you. Oh, and you said that you loved me more than he did. I don't think he hates you; I think he just wants to keep you away from our relationship. In fact, what you should probably say is that it's going to get you out of my life."

Peter had grimaced at hearing about the dream, but he did not seem particularly surprised by it. "I'll keep that in mind," he said as he pushed himself away from the door. He opened it to let himself out. "I'll talk to you later."

–

Elle had trouble thinking of a place where the three of them could have a conversation without having to travel as far as Noah did for privacy. It could not really be a restaurant, so she got herself fast food and sat at a picnic bench in the park.

When Peter walked up, Sylar was not with him. Instead, Peter was with another man who looked vaguely familiar. Elle tried to place where she had seen him before, but it was not coming to her. Until she could figure it out, she just greeted both of them by saying, "Hi."

The other man slid onto the bench next to her. Apparently realizing that she did not know who he was, he held out his hand. "I'm James. I've been to Calgary."

"Oh!" That was where she had seen him, the bar in Brooklyn. Elle should have realized that Sylar was not going to be walking around Hartsdale, looking like himself.

Peter sat on the bench across from them. "It's not that much of a plan; it's basically that you're going to go away together. We just need to give Nathan a reason for that. So I want that decision to be made on tape, and..." He hesitated and then took a couple folded papers out of his pocket. "This is what I want you to say."

"You wrote us a script?" Elle glanced at it and then pushed it back across the table. "I think we can handle it, Peter."

He pushed it back at her, and Sylar picked it up to read it. "It's not a script," Peter said. "It's just some guidelines, points I want you to hit. I'm really sticking my neck out for you two, and I need to make sure that you do this in a way that will convince Nathan that there was nothing else going on. Because you might not believe this, but Nathan is really smart, and he'll see through it if you're just going through the motions."

"This really isn't that bad," Sylar said to her. "We can do this."

Elle reached for the papers, and Sylar handed them over. She skimmed the beginning. It was a loose script, so she was right about that, but she figured if Sylar was okay with it, there was no reason for her to complain. "Okay, how do you want this to go down?"

Peter raised his eyebrows a little, as though he was surprised by the ease of her giving in. "Well, it would take place in the living room so that Nathan could hear. I believe he'll be at the company tonight, so if it works for you, you could do it then. I need to know the general time to make sure he's listening at the right moment and so that I'll be there to remind him that he'll get himself killed if he tries to do something. But if you do it tonight, you need to be ready to leave immediately after, just walk away from everything."

Elle nodded. "That's fine." Everything in her apartment was just stuff that she had recently acquired. Anything that had sentimental value had been disposed of by Angela after Elle's death.

"One more thing," Peter said. "You only have one chance to do this. It's live, so you might want to rehearse it in your room beforehand. I like how you've been leaving the television on everyday so that it doesn't send up red flags when Sylar's there. But whether you rehearse or not, there's just one shot. You have to go with whatever happens."

While Peter was talking, Sylar had been eating Elle's food. He swallowed and said, "Okay. We'll be ready tonight."

Peter nodded and got up from the table. "I'll let the two of you discuss it. Just have Elle let me know for sure before she leaves for the day."

Elle watched him leave and then turned to look at Sylar sitting next to her, which she had not really done since he sat down. She was aware that he was not going to look like himself, but it was still unsettling to see "James" there. She pushed past that. "Do we have anywhere to go if we leave tonight?"

"Yeah." Sylar took another fry. "I've taken care of everything." He reached for the pages. "I should take these. You don't want to be caught at work with them."

Elle initially found it unlikely that anyone at work would go through her purse or desk, but it really was a possibility at this point. She handed over the pages, and Sylar put them in his pocket. While he was doing that, she moved her food farther away from him.

Even if it would mean having to share more of her lunch, and even if she had to look at "James," Elle would have loved to spend her break with Sylar, but it was not the best idea for them to be seen together. "You came with Peter, we probably shouldn't spend too much time talking alone, in case anyone's watching me."

"Well, do you have any problem doing this tonight?"

Elle was tired of being stuck in limbo. She was looking forward to a time when things would be much more straightforward. "No, as long as I get a chance to look at the script first."

Sylar pressed his hands against the table and stood. "I might tweak the script. No matter how much he gets inside our heads, I think I have a better idea how to make this realistic for us than Peter does." He waved at her. "Bye, Elle. It was great seeing you again. Maybe we could do this again sometime."

Elle smiled. "Calm down, James. My slutty days of hooking up with guys I meet at bars are behind me."

He looked her up and down, as much as he could with her seated at a picnic table. "Mmm, that's too bad."

Elle watched him go, thinking of all the things she could and would eventually do to that man. Four more hours of paperwork and she was all his for the rest of her life. That was an exhilarating and terrifying prospect.

–

Having gotten the go ahead from Elle, Peter waited after hours at the company for Nathan to show up. He knew that over the weekend Nathan had some sort of event in the city that involved pandering to his constituency. He believed that, since he was already in New York, Nathan would want to stop by the company to maintain as much of a presence as he could and monitor the surveillance he was running. Peter wanted Nathan to hear the conversation unfolding live, but if he did, it was necessary that Peter be there with him to make the situation easier to control.

Once Nathan did arrive, Peter talked with him in the office under the guise of appraising Nathan of developments at the company, most of which were relatively trivial. He managed to stretch out the conversation until word came that that something was going down at Elle's apartment. Nathan rushed to the control room with Peter behind him.

The first thing they heard was Sylar say, "I hear congratulations are in order."

"Thanks," Elle said warily. After a beat, she added, "You can go now."

"Have you told the father?"

Peter noted that they were already off script, which was fine as long as they knew what they were doing.

She answered slowly. "No, he's not actually going to be involved."

Nathan made a move to leave the room, but Peter grabbed his arm. "You're not going there," Peter said. "He'd kill you without a second thought. Let's just see how she handles this."

"Hmm," Sylar's arrogant voice came from the speaker. "I know if you were carrying my child, I'd at least want to know."

"I'll keep that in mind if I'm ever carrying your child."

"He could kill her!" Nathan hissed.

Peter shook his head. "You should have thought of that before you spread word that he was the father. If it sounds like anything is going to happen, I can be there in a second, but right now it's better to let Elle deal with him."

While Peter was talking, they missed something, but it did not seem to matter. "Fine, technically, you are the father," Elle said, exasperated. "Okay, so now you know, and you can leave me alone."

"That's not what's going to happen," replied Sylar. "I want to be involved." Nathan raised his eyebrows at this and gestured for Peter to do something. Peter ignored him.

"No. Just because you happened to be there when I got pregnant, it doesn't mean anything. It was just a one-night stand."

"It was a little more than that. It was a one-night stand with the only woman I ever really cared about. And it resulted in a pregnancy." With that, Sylar hit the first of the points that were important to Peter, that he cared about her.

"The only woman—You're crazy! You tried to kill me! Whatever you might feel, I don't have any feelings for you at all. I just took pity on you because no woman in her right mind is ever going to let you touch her, you horrible, crazy... psycho!"

There was a brief silence before Sylar spoke again. "Okay, I was there that night, and I know when you're lying to me. So it wasn't pity, but the rest of that was fair. Of course, you're a little crazy, too. When you get mad at someone, your first reaction is to threaten to kill them, and just as often as not, you do kill them. I think a woman like you needs to be with a guy who's psychotic."

Elle sputtered. "Are you—But—Okay, that's... one thing, but you murdered my father."

"Yes, and I am so sorry about that."

"He's lying," Peter murmured just to stay involved in the conversation. On a personal level, Peter found it a little interesting that Sylar was unable to truthfully say that he was sorry for killing her father.

Sylar continued. "I think since you're pregnant, we should try to make peace." Making peace was another point Peter wanted them to hit. "I didn't kill him to hurt you, and I'm sorry it had that effect. Your turn."

Elle sighed heavily. "Fine, I'm sorry I ruined your life, even though I was just following orders."

Peter could almost see Sylar roll his eyes. "Close enough."

No one said anything for several seconds after that, and Peter took the opportunity to speak. "Well, I'm pretty sure he's not going to kill her."

Nathan was standing in a corner with his arms crossed. It looked like he wanted to say something, but then they heard Elle's voice. "So because I got pregnant, you want us to be a family now? That's really messed up, Sylar."

"Look, Elle, if I want to be in this child's life, there's really nothing you can do to stop me."

"We can stop him," Nathan whispered.

Peter just shook his head and held up a finger to keep Nathan from talking over them. He had a feeling they were finally getting to the important part.

"So this is all about the baby? You're going to go back to trying to kill me after it's born, right?"

"No, Elle, if I was here for the baby, I would have waited seven months and taken it then." That was a line Peter had written, and it sounded even better the way Sylar said it. "This is about both of us getting a second chance at a family."

"You killed my--"

Sylar did not let her finish that. "It doesn't have to be like this, Elle."

"Like what?"

"We don't have to hate each other. Yes, I killed your father, but I also gave you a child."

Peter liked the way the twisted logic of that implied that they were even on that point. He wondered if Elle actually thought that evened things out.

"That was a fluke," Elle said.

"Or it was fate."

Elle paused. "Okay, so how is that going to work? I continue working for a company that's trying to kill you, and you just drop by here whenever you want and take the baby?"

"You could leave the company and go with me."

Elle laughed incredulously. "I don't think we've made that much peace. Or do I even have a choice about this?"

Sylar groaned. "Yes, you have a choice. If I have been clear on one thing, it's that I don't want to force you to do anything. I want you to--"

She interrupted. "You don't really hate me, do you?"

He sighed, and it took him a moment to answer. "For the longest time, I had very mixed feelings about you. I definitely hated you, but I also really liked you. And recently, that balance is coming down firmly on the liking you side. I think I might... I think I might be in love with you."

Peter had wanted Sylar to use the word "love" at some point. He watched Nathan's reaction to this pronouncement now, and it seemed to land with exactly the right weight. He had to give them credit; they were doing a pretty good job with it.

"Wow," Elle said, sounding stunned. "Because I got pregnant?"

"No," he replied thoughtfully. "It was before that. I think it really started in Angela's office. And I wouldn't have even shown up here that night if—If I still hated you, I would have tried to kill you that night. But I can assure you that I did everything I wanted to do to you that night."

Elle laughed, but then she cleared her throat. "Be that as it may, there is far too much bad blood between us for us to be able to live together and raise a child. I mean you say that you love me, but that's not—but what do I do when the balance shifts back to you hating me?"

Peter felt the need to interject something again. "Okay, right there, she wants him to convince her that it could actually work out."

Nathan moved to the center of the room. "So you're going to let her go with him? I thought you two were... close."

Peter wanted to respond to that, but first he wanted to hear how Sylar dealt with the shifting balance. "This changes everything. The scales will never be the same. You're no longer the woman who ruined my life; you're the mother of my child."

"That's very little comfort considering that you kill your own mother."

Peter wanted her to stop fighting Sylar. This was difficult and drawn out, but Peter supposed it had to be. He was the one who insisted that they could not make it seem too easy. "We're not 'close;' we're just a little friendly, and you've been warning me away from her for weeks. If she goes with Sylar, she won't be trying to get me to raise her child."

He talked over the part where Sylar claimed that killing his mother was self-defense. Nathan shook his head. "I don't understand you, Pete. Why would you--" He stopped to hear Elle speak.

"All right, here's the truth. I really liked you back then too." Her tone had changed. She no longer sounded hostile. "I didn't want to hurt you or ruin your life, but at the time, it was just more important for me to follow orders."

"And now? Because I think you're orders are to kill me." He did not sound worried.

"Yeah, those are the orders, but I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to, and I'm not so sure I want to anymore. I definitely don't want to have to tell my child that the reason he or she doesn't have a father is because I killed him. And it's really tempting to go away with you. If I stay here, this baby will have the same kind of upbringing that I had, and that does not appeal to me at all. I really like the idea of giving this baby a nice norm—sort of normal childhood, a stable family. But that's not you. And then on the other hand, I... I might not hate you anymore either. I think you had a good point about a guy like you being well suited for me. I don't think I'd even be hesitating right now if you hadn't killed my father. I'm definitely the kind of woman who could fall for a serial killer, and then for you to claim that you love me... I have waited my entire life for a man to claim to love me, and it doesn't surprise me that it would be a man like you because I think we might be perfect for each other. But I have this nagging feeling that I should be holding out for a nice man, someone not psychotic. But I'm not sure whether I'd really want someone like--" She stopped talking abruptly.

"What was that?" Nathan asked. "What just happened?"

"I don't know," Peter said.

The man at the desk turned around. "It's not technical. We're still getting a signal."

Nathan gave Peter an accusing look. "Great, he killed her."

That was a ridiculous leap to make, Peter did not think that Nathan really believed that. "He did not kill her. That wouldn't make any sense. He wants that baby. He might have been lying about being sorry he killed her father, but the rest of it was true. He has no reason to kill her." Peter tried to think of why they would suddenly stop talking. "Maybe he kissed her. Yeah, she's so close; he just wants to push her over the edge."

Nathan and Peter stood there in silence until finally some sound came from the speakers. "Someone like what?" Sylar asked.

"Um..." Elle seemed to have lost her train of thought. "Like Peter. I don't think I want to be with someone like Peter."

Nathan looked at Peter, and Peter tried to shrug it off. That definitely was not in the script.

Elle continued. "I've thought about it, trying to seduce him. He is normal and stable and all those other things I said I wanted. We could be a perfect little nuclear family, but he's just so good. He's all about helping people, and... God, it would just be so exhausting to have to pretend for the rest of my life that I'm a good enough person for him, when, in reality, my true nature is something much closer to yours. I have killed people just because they made me mad. Why would I want to raise my child to condemn everything that its biological parents stand for?"

"Probably because you don't want him to end up becoming a serial killer like his father."

"Oh, that's a good point," she said slightly sarcastically. "Murder is bad. That's definitely something I want to impart onto my child. Do you think that's a lesson he or she could learn having you as a father?"

"Well, I wouldn't have killed anyone if it hadn't been for this ability. You're the overindulged sociopath with no excuses. So, yes, I think I can do at least as good a job as a father as yours did."

To Peter, it seemed like the wrong time for a low blow like that, but apparently Sylar knew Elle better. After only a short silence, she said, "Okay, I might be crazy, but I think we should try it."

That was all Peter needed to hear. He reached over and turned off the transmission. "There you have it. No point in listening in on their private conversation anymore. She's going to go with him, and I'm going to let her."

He tried to leave the room, but Nathan blocked his way. "What happened to trying to kill Sylar?"

"Have you ever even met Sylar?"

From the way he shook his head, Nathan did not seem to think that mattered. "Not really, but I know enough to know that he needs to be eliminated."

Peter managed to sidestep his brother, and he stood in the doorway. He thought about how to explain this to Nathan. "I'm not so sure about that anymore. Do you realize that he hasn't killed anyone since that night he slept with Elle?"

"Why should that matter?"

The question took Peter by surprise, and he really thought about it. That was when Peter saw that, while he felt bonded to Sylar in an almost fraternal way, he had other reasons for not wanting to kill Sylar. He could just focus on those. "I'm the only person here who is even remotely equipped to fight Sylar. You can give all the orders you want, but if he has to die, then I'm the one who has to do it. And even with all my abilities, I've lost to him more than I've won. I don't like that he's going to get away with killing all those people, especially Ma, but it's not worth the risk to me, unless it's necessary to save lives. And that's why it matters. That's I've been paying close attention to make sure that he hasn't been killing anyone. I'm not going to kill him merely as a form of punishment, only if it's necessary to stop him from doing it again."

Nathan tried to say something, but Peter held up his hand. "No, the conversation's over. That's my position on Sylar. You can do whatever you want, but I'm not going to have anything to do with it." He turned and left the control room. As he did, he heard Nathan give the order to turn on the transmission, but Peter did not wait to hear what else Sylar and Elle would say.

--

--

Author's Note: There are a few things I wanted to comment on: One, Elle's Russian should translate as "I didn't understand. I understand Russian very poorly." It might not have been entirely grammatically correct, and if not, I'm saying it's intentional. (It's close.) Two, I'm taking a death penalty class and it occurs to me now that Peter's whole attitude could be explained by him being against the death penalty as a means of retribution. And as a nurse, he might have a stronger bias toward rehabilitation, and the point is that I really spared you a lengthy conversation between Peter and Nathan on their differing views of valid uses of the death penalty.

Three, when I write, I always think about how the scene would happen if I had done things differently earlier on. Basically, in my head, I'm constantly writing AUs to my stories. This story, because of the dreams and the lying, allows me to do even more of that and subject you to that. One of the reasons this took so long was that I was trying to avoid having the last scene be too gratuitously alternate. I did that by framing it in Peter and Nathan's perspective, which made it so much more difficult to write.

One more chapter and an epilogue!