MAY 2518

Life has taken on a pattern in the last few centuries. But then, that's what civilizations are made of, isn't it? Every civilization I've seen has followed a pattern. There is the struggle for independence: independence of thought, of culture, of religion, or economy. Following this struggle, there is a sort of glory period in which the nation begins to assert itself as culturally different from its predecessor. This can come in many ways. Some have changed their language; others have done away with old religions. One even burned everything associated with the written word (except, of course, for my own private collections). This assertion naturally leads to a period in which the new culture flourishes, becoming a power in its own right and not by virtue of its parent nation. It's amazing how many civilizations have come and gone in the last half-millennium, how many new schools of thought and old technologies have been born and reborn since the United States of America fell. Today's society has lost its past. The USA is a legend to the children of this age. No history remains to document its existence for this future, only rusted buildings and archaic roads mapping out a civilization that once existed. All the modern inhabitants can do today is guess at what existed before them, just like my generation did with the Romans.

My life has taken on this pattern.

I trace my existence in decades, and each one follows the same blueprint I gave before. My struggle for independence comes when Sylar does, encroaching on my proverbial territory and making me itch to remake myself. Then comes the glory, when he leaves and I'm left to plot and devise new ways to achieve my goals… only I never quite reach the flourishing aspect of the whole thing. I'm stuck in limbo, trying to reassert myself and create a raison d'être. I'm failing miserably.

Still, it is this pattern that reminds me I haven't seen the last of my one enemy, the man who has followed me for ages. The one I lived with for ten years in captivity; the only man who knows the secrets of my body, how to make me scream in pain and how to make me moan in pleasure. The only constant I've known in the 500 years I've been alive.

Computers around the world crashed, and Sylar was there. Nuclear weapons were destroyed, and Sylar was there. The English language was dropped from use and eventually lost completely, and Sylar was there. The supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park erupted, leaving just 1/10000th of the world's population alive, and Sylar was there. The bastard is my own personal night-light, reassuring me every ten years that I'm still alive, and still, I hate him.

He used to tell me that I would love him. He told me that a few hundred years would cool my temper and I'd learn to forgive him and miss the things he could do to my body. I'm still waiting for that to happen, half hoping he's right. Sometimes the way I'm living my life makes me shiver. I've been hunting him since he cut me loose, waiting for him to find me so I can have my next shot. It's like I rely on him to affirm myself.

The realization is startling and not at all welcome.

The bastard killed my family and half of the population in the United States when he united people with powers against the helpless in society, starting his own personal revolution. I suppose that's why mostly everyone on earth today has an ability. Sylar and the many evolutions of society and nature have made the regular human an oddity, breeding them out of existence necessarily. Some days I catch myself wondering if that's a good thing, then I look at the great evil my kind are capable of and I long for the days when the government came into our homes and workplaces and locked us up in facilities where we'd spend the rest of our lives sedated and useless.

I make my way down the remains of Fifth Avenue in New York City. I don't know what brings me here. I live in a settlement on the outskirts of Manhattan. It's made up of abandoned buildings that haven't crumpled, and new wood structures taking the places of forgotten buildings. Civilization as I knew it hasn't completely fallen, but there's something very futuristic-horror about the world I live in today. There are no flying cars or computers, but we have not regressed to the Middle Ages. There is still plumbing, houses, and roads (though the lack of fossil fuels or the capacity to engineer alternative energy sources since humanity began to dwindle has made cars next to obsolete). Mostly, it's abilities that make life these days livable. People trade the use of their abilities like they used to barter livestock and grain. A woman the other day offered to let me experience a tour of the past 100 years in exchange for a meal. I laughed and walked away. Not that I wouldn't have liked to feed her, but I hadn't found my own meal yet, and the thought of reliving the past century made me sick to my stomach.

I reach the place where our high-rise used to stand, and my stomach turns. I'm not quite sure whether it's in fear, anticipation, or disgust.

I half miss the life I used to live there. It was so easy. I smiled and waved as the former first lady of the United States, I learned to cook, I made love with a man I hated… but it was calm and I was always fed. And I was a prisoner in my own body, capable of only the acts he deemed necessary and appropriate.

I stare at the ruins of that former life for a while before I sigh and begin to turn. It's then that I realize he's there, as the old familiar strings begin to tug at me and I am caught in his web.

"You know, Claire, if you miss it, I can take us back." He lets me finish the turn, keeping my hands at my sides as he waves another hand and my knife flies into his waiting palm, hilt first. "I'll rebuild the high-rise and we can live like we used to. I'll even control you again if that will make you feel less guilty." I grit my teeth and try not to react to the feeling of utter helplessness he so easily evokes in me.

"You know I don't want that, Sylar." His own dark jaw sets into a scowl as he stalks forward, his thick hair windswept and one strong hand outstretched. He backhands me without a word and I feel one of my back molars knock loose in my mouth momentarily before reattaching itself. I spit out the blood, watching as it lands in the dirt and sends up a tiny cloud of dust.

He looks down at me, his gaze tender as he reaches out his hand again, this time to caress my smooth cheek. I don't even flinch. His touch is as familiar as my own.

"How many times do I have to ask you to call me Gabriel?" he says softly, as if speaking to a child.

"You know it irritates me when you forget."

I smile sarcastically at him in response and he chuckles.

"Still so defiant. I thought you'd cool down sooner, but I'm a patient man, Claire. You know this about me." And I do. I remember quite well his capacity for patience. He once waited almost an entire week to let me come, keeping me in a heightened state of arousal and bringing me down right before I reached the edge, until I was literally begging him for it. He had promised me I'd plead for him to be inside of me, of my own volition. He'd been right.

"So what brings you to this side of town again?" he asks casually, sitting down on a nearby bench and motioning for me to do the same. I, of course, comply. It's not something I can help when he's charting the course my body must take.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "Maybe I thought it'd make it easier for you to find me. We've still got a few more appointments before you leave for the next decade."

He laughs again. "I don't need help finding you. I know exactly where you are, all the time, and you're lying." I receive a gentle jolt of electricity around my midriff, making my back arch and my teeth grit as he puts an arm comfortably around my shoulder.

"Now why are you back here?"

"I was thinking about you," I say, grudgingly. There's no use lying to him or myself. I don't fancy myself much of a masochist. Sadism's really more my style these days, especially where it concerns him. "And of the old life. My feet brought me here."

There's silence for a while as he seems to contemplate what I've said, and then he speaks.

"Do you remember Freud?" he asks, pensive. A chill makes its way down my spine. He used to talk like that to me all the time. We had surprisingly deep conversation for a couple whose only reason for being together was his use of force.

"Of course I remember Freud. The nut job with the repression fetish." I say, my body relaxing itself to his control out of habit. Constantly fighting was tiresome and impractical.

"Yes. Repression. He said that it's the things we say and do when we aren't paying attention that show our true feelings. He'd say you miss me, Claire." I let his words sink in for a while, seriously considering them as he waits for my response.

"I did miss you," I say. "But next time I'm sure I'll find the spot."

"There you go lying to me again. When will you learn?" The electric volts rip through my body, spiraling along my skin and ripping my clothes to shreds. I curse him for ruining them even as my screams echo across the deserted city.

By the time I stop convulsing, he's gone. My knife sits beside me on the bench along with a silver locket on a long chain. I pick up my knife and let the locket sit there; afraid of what I'll find when I open it.

But I can't help myself.

As I sit there, staring at the two photos inside of it, I begin to shake.

Damn him. Damn him to hell.

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Love, Mel and Chuck.