Last chapter, mates. A big, fuzzy thank you to those who reviewed, alerted, and favourited! :D

Rating has changed to M because of a wee bit of cussing. Better too high than too low, I always say.

~3~ Save the Cheerleader...

"Bad decision," Sylar hissed, shoving her back.

Arms pinwheeling for balance, Claire then tried to flee even though she knew the endeavour was wholly fruitless. Sylar lashed out and an invisible whip snatched the Exacto knife from her hand. She gasped, then screamed as she was shoved face first into the wall near the mouth of the corridor, pinned once more.

"Not a very good host, are you?" Sylar forced Claire around to face him, and she saw that he was trying to staunch the blood from the wound on his stomach with Peter's shirt. It was proving difficult, so he went into the kitchen, out of her view, for a dish cloth. Claire was secretly pleased to see that she'd managed to injure him as well as she did, not that it did much to help her situation.

"Well, I'll just have to try harder next time, won't I?" she said flatly, glad that her tears had finally stopped and her voice ceased to tremble. She fought valiantly against Sylar's telekinesis, to no avail as usual, glaring daggers at her captor as he came around from the kitchen. "You should learn how to play fair!" she snapped, feeling an odd thrill at the sight of the bloodied cloth held at Sylar's stomach.

The murderer shrugged. "Hm. Guess you're right." He indicated the wound. "But I won't get the chance if this kills me. Not without the eternal blood." The finger pointing at his belly turned to point at Claire's forehead instead. "To live forever..."

Claire screamed as she felt the first drill cut through flesh and bone.

A loud crash, then a blast of air and sound and Sylar was gone. Claire collapsed onto her hands and knees, already feeling her skull heal itself, and she turned her head to see Peter wrestling with Sylar on the living room floor.

Peter's white undershirt was stained red from an angry gash on his back, the wound that had blemished the shirt Sylar stole for his disguise. He seemed oblivious to the pain as he rolled away from his archenemy, vanishing with the speed of sound before Sylar could immobilize him. An instant later, the nurse was back, swinging fists at the stunned serial killer and moving almost too fast for the eye to see.

Claire was captivated by the speed. It was astonishing, surreal. Sylar was knocked flat several times, his nose broken and skin split in the places where Peter's aim proved true. For a moment, the cheerleader thought that Sylar was finally beat.

Kill him, Peter, she thought venomously. Kill him!

Sylar lashed out with telekinesis, and his assaulter had to retreat. The brief reprieve allowed him to turn to Claire, vengeance in his eyes. The cheerleader screamed as a bolt of electricity leaped from his outstretched hand and engulfed her, burning her from the inside out.

Peter, charging back at Sylar with the gun from Noah's office in his hand, slammed to a halt at his niece's shriek.

"Claire—! Ow!" An unseen force grabbed him by the middle and threw him to the ground, the gun spinning from his hand. He lay there, gasping, and was helpless as the force then dragged him across the floor into the kitchen, to bash his skull against the fridge. He groaned, head spinning.

Sylar stood over him, breathing heavily through his mouth. His teeth were bloodied from Peter's attack as he grinned down at him. "Interesting. No more need for bus tickets."

Glaring, Peter was about to bolt, but Sylar's hand flicked before he could. A knife from the wooden holder flashed before Peter's eyes, reflecting the fear within, and then he screamed as it was driven through his right hand, into the floor.

Sylar leered as his quarry struggled to pull the knife out. "Ah ah ah!" he said, daintily waving a finger and shoving him flat on his back. A second knife, with a serrated edge, slid out of the holder on the counter and plunged into Peter's other wrist. The nurse howled in utter agony, writhing against his restraints in spite of Sylar's warnings.

The serial killer sighed at his efforts, already picking up a third knife. "Don't make me do it, Peter," he said, letting the blade hover at the base of his enemy's throat, point down for a fatal thrust. Finally, Peter stopped squirming, his chest heaving for breath as he glowered, lip curled in a soundless snarl. His dark eyes were aflame with disgusted rage, disgust at his own weak helplessness, rage at Sylar's perverted existence.

Stifling his triumph, Sylar took up a tea towel from the oven door handle and wiped his face with it, trying in vain to clear the blood oozing from his broken nose. He sighed again.

"I almost wish you had your original powers," he said coolly. "You were more fun to play with then."

Peter glared, trying not to picture the blood that would be gushing all over the floor from his left wrist and right hand. His vision was swimming. From the pain? Blood loss? In either case, he was running out of time.

"Leave—Claire—alone!" he growled lamely, and Sylar's eyebrow twitched.

"We are in Raphael's paintings, Peter," he said, "not Michelangelo's. The world is an imperfect place, no matter how hard you try to smooth it with a paintbrush."

"What the fuck!" Peter snarled. "Stay the fuck away from her!"

Again the eyebrow perked. "...Is that it?" he said. Then he turned, turned away, turned to confront Claire.

"Sylar!" Peter tried to rip his hand free, howling as flaming razor blades stabbed up his arm with every movement. "SYLAR!"

Claire screamed even louder than him, and his voice split as his hand slid up an inch along the blade, closer to the handle. The kitchen ceiling swirled before his eyes. All he could hear were his niece's shrieks of agony as Sylar did his satanic work.

A wolf may chew off its own paw to escape a trap, he thought, finally turning his head to look at his stabbed hand, muscles straining to yank it up and free it. His whole arm jerked as something gave—

And then he must have passed out, for all he remembered next was Claire's silence and that Sylar was at the kitchen sink, washing his hands.

"I left the knives in," he was saying, now splashing his face. "I'm no nurse like you, but I know that taking them out would have done you a whole lot more damage." He turned, smiling down at Peter with the charm of a fox as he dried himself on a towel. "Can't have you bleeding to death, now can we?"

Peter realized that the knives were indeed still in his wrist and hand, but they were no longer driven into the floor. There was a hot, red stickiness everywhere, and he knew he was going to bleed to death anyway.

He struggled to hold his eyes open. He felt so tired.

"W're 's...she?" he moaned sluggishly, and Sylar put a mocking hand to his ear.

"Sorry. What was that?"

"Where is she?" Peter realized that his enemy's nose was no longer crooked. The blows he had dealt him, the bruises and the broken skin, were no more. Sylar had Claire's ability. Sylar was now indestructible.

The murderer almost seemed to purr as his head ticked to the side. "Oh, where I left her. Don't worry—she'll make a full recovery, doctor." He smiled once more and stepped over Peter, casually letting the towel fall onto the counter. Wandering to the front door, he checked out the peep hole, smirking at what he saw. He turned back around and watched Peter dragging himself after him. His eyebrows rose inquiringly.

"You are most interesting, Peter," he said. "Strong. Determined. We should have coffee sometime." He made for the back door, moving slowly but still too fast for the nurse to catch him. "But right now, I think I'm about to intrude on a little family reunion."

Peter moaned, having gone so far but watching his window of opportunity close itself from him with every passing second. He saw Noah's gun in the shadows of a houseplant pot, but Sylar was getting further and further away.

"I'm saddened that I don't get to try out your power yet, too, Peter," the mendacious man was saying, slowly opening the sliding glass door. He shrugged, turning. "Well, life's full of disappointments—"

BANG BANG!

The bullets were stopped before they had reached two thirds of the way to Sylar. Peter sagged where he lay, still holding the gun up and aiming for what he'd hopped was his enemy but knowing that the metal cylinders had not met their mark. It was simply his last valiant attempt of revenge.

Sylar tisk-ed, hand twisting as he turned the bullets back around. "Peter, Peter, Peter," he said, and flicked his fingers.

Claire isn't sure why Sylar put her skull back on her head like a cap, for, frankly, his explanation didn't make a whole lot of sense. She wasn't "special" – at least, not special in regards to other people with abilities.

She lay in the hall uselessly for several minutes, marinating in her own blood, oblivious to the world until she heard the twin gunshots. The sounds whipped her out of her trance, a state that was probably due to the fact that her attacker had been playing with her brain, and she sat up in the hallway in shock. She heard Sylar's tisk-ing, then, "Peter, Peter, Peter." There were two small swishing sounds and then her uncle's pained grunt.

The sliding door was opened then and someone stepped outside. The last Claire heard of Sylar for a long time was his warning: "You guys have raccoons, you know that?" And he was gone.

Peter was bleeding, not only from the knives in his hand and wrist but from two bullet wounds in his chest. He gasped and coughed, then gasped and coughed again as his punctured lungs struggled for air.

Claire pulled herself across the floor towards him, her chest heaving peculiarly. She realized that she was sobbing.

"Peter," she gasped, the world blurring before her eyes into a hot salty mess. "Oh God..."

The nurse hiccoughed painfully. Was he trying to speak? His body jerking erratically, he seemed to want to lift his head to look at her, but it was too much effort. Blood. There was so much blood.

It was then that Sandra, Claire's mother, burst in through the front door, a Pomeranian yapping in one arm and a cellphone in the other hand. She must have been alarmed by the gunshots.

"Claire! What's going on...? Oh my—"

Sandra gaped, wide-eyed, at the sight of her daughter kneeling on the floor beside a dying man, blood bleaching her blonde curls crimson and pouring down her face with her tears. Mr Muggles yapped and squirmed in Sandra's arms, and she dropped the Pomeranian puff ball before he peed with excitement.

Claire said nothing, weeping silently as she shook her head. Words were as useful as throwing a pail of water at a dead fire.

Peter had some, though. "Claire," he croaked, raspy and weak. His eyes wavered hazily. "I'm so sorry—"

"Shh." Claire wiped her face furiously, sniffing and trying to slip on a brave face. "It's not your fault, Peter. No, Mr Muggles!" She shooed the dog away as he tried to lick Peter's bloodied face.

"I'll call an ambulance!" Sandra was already dialling.

"No! No, Mom, it's okay." Claire looked down at her uncle, whose eyes were starting to glaze over beneath the wings of death. His breath was weaker, still irregular. "Peter? Peter, look at me." She was trying to keep a level head, trying very heard. "Look at me."

Finally, he did, hazel eyes flickering vacantly to meet hers. He was choking on his own blood but still trying to smile.

"Never got any of that popcorn," he said feebly, and Claire angrily grasped his hand.

"Take my power, Peter," she retorted flatly. "Take it."

It would be incomprehensibly foolish for him to refuse. Focusing the rays of his mind like sunlight through a magnifying glass, he concentrated on the hand holding Claire's. The contact grew warm as he willed his body to take on the ability, draw it in like a sponge. He felt the familiar buzzing in his head as his nerves responded accordingly, a tingle in his fingertips and a pinprick behind his eyes. A moment later, the sensations were gone, the pain was fading, and his muggy mind was clearing like a spring day after April showers.

Never had pulling in a lungful of air felt so good. As the bullet slugs were pushed out of his body, the delicate fabrics of his chest swiftly smoothed over, draining the fluids where there should be none and refilling the places that should be full. A dull ache remained in each healed bullet wound for another second before his body realized that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, not so much as a broken blood vessel. As for the knives in Peter's wrists and arms, he kindly asked for Claire to pull out the one in his wrist as fast as she could. The serrated edge tore more flesh away, and his cry of pain triggered Sandra's wail of horror.

"Mom! Mom, just be quiet!" Claire hissed as Peter used his now healed limb to remove the other knife quickly. He flexed his hand a few times, satisfied.

"Thank you," he said, pulling her into an embrace. "Are you okay?"

"What happened?" asked Sandra softly. "It...It wasn't...Was it...?"

Claire pulled away from her uncle, head down. Peter knew she was experiencing the common but completely irrational feeling that it was her fault she was attacked and violated.

"Sylar," she said just as quietly, as though afraid uttering the name would summon the watchmaker's son back.

Sandra, wordless, hastened forward and hugged her tightly.

"Don't tell Dad, please?" Claire said, voice muffled by her mother's coat.

"He has to know—"

"Why?" She pulled back. "Mom, he'll never trust me to be by myself again!"

"Claire." Peter's voice penetrated the tension like a glowing blade. "He must be warned. Sylar...he's indestructible now. Noah must know this."

The cheerleader gritted her teeth, treacherous tears slipping out from beneath her eyelids. "I know, I know. Just...don't tell him...until he gets home, okay? Wait for him to get home." She fell back into Sandra's embrace. Mr Muggles started to yap again in that airy way of his, like he had a frog in his throat.

For a while, all they heard was the end credits of Batman: The Dark Knight. It seemed like forever ago when Claire went upstairs to find it, unwittingly leaving Peter alone to be incapacitated by Sylar in Noah's office. The nurse still remembered the gash Sylar sliced on his back when he tried to escape, the sheer terror in the knowledge that he was unable to protect Claire.

"I'll stay here tonight," he said meaningfully. Even though the immediate threat was gone, it gave him no reason to lower his guard. A wasp can sting even when dead. "I don't think he'll come back, but..."

They all heard the sirens simultaneously and jerked like guilty vandals.

"Oh, yeah," said Sandra. "I called the cops before I came in."

"What? Mom—"

Peter interrupted. "Wait! We can cover this. Do you have, like, champagne or anything?"

"Champagne?!" Claire sounded incredulous.

"In the cellar," said Sandra, rushing to get a bottle.

"Claire, help me clean this blood, quickly!"

Peter and his niece wiped up the red mess that coated the kitchen and living room floors with old towels, which they threw down beneath the basement steps. Sandra returned with a bottle of champagne, unopened.

"Give it here." Peter took the bottle and tore off the foil before shaking it vigorously. "Heads up," he warned, and yanked the cork out. The resulting pop was loud, but not loud enough for the police pulling up, with their obnoxious, wailing sirens, to hear.

Sandra tried not to gasp in protest as fizzled champagne sprayed everywhere, making a real mess in the kitchen and foyer. Peter put the bottle on the counter just as someone banged on the front door.

"Police! Open up!"

"Claire, go upstairs, use the shower and clean yourself off." Peter hastened for the hall bathroom to use the sink. "You understand what's happening?" he hissed to Sandra, who nodded.

Both pretending to be cleaning of no more than champagne foam, the exchange between Sandra and the cops had to be retold to Peter and Claire later, after the patrol cars dissipated.

"I'd told him I was just outside when I heard the shot," Sandra said, feeding Mr Muggles a few pieces of popcorn. The four of them were sitting in the living room, ignoring how close the hour was to shifting into the next day. "When I called, I never specified how many I'd heard." She rolled her eyes. "You should have seen the look on the officer's face when I said that it was only you two popping a champagne bottle. I thought he was going to explode!"

"Good thinking," Claire said to Peter, who looked away, sheepish. He was, after all, the one who'd shot pointlessly at Sylar. Then she added, "You're going to be late for work tomorrow."

Peter grimaced. "Yeah, probably. I guess I could call Nathan. Free flights. First class." He grinned for a moment, but Claire's reflecting smile was hollow no matter how hard she tried. His grin faded, and a muscle in his jaw jumped.

What happened to her is going to haunt her for a long time, he thought angrily, haunt her like circling buzzards in an arid land.

So much for saving the cheerleader...

"This isn't over," he said, determination reinforcing his words like solid marble. "Claire, he will pay for what he has done. I swear to you."

His niece simply smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. One hand reached for the snack bowl. "Perhaps. For now, I've yet to get my popcorn fix."

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