JUNE 2525

"I don't want to!" Dani shouts. I told her we couldn't go for a walk until she picked up her toys. That was thirty minutes ago, and she's still having the same temper tantrum.

She's been like this for the past couple weeks, as though her terrible two's were delayed a couple years. I feel like we can't get anything done without a fight anymore. I'm still trying to convince her to just put her damn toys away when her father walks in the door. He closes it behind him and heads to the kitchen as I continue my battle with Dani. He reappears several minutes later with a mildly irritated expression.

"Danielle, pick up your things or I will make you do so." His voice makes it clear that he is not in a good mood. Dani does as he tells her, pouting but obedient. "Now go sit on my bed. Just because Mommy is incapable of making you obey her doesn't give you the power to do as you please." He is speaking to her, but his meaning is meant for my ears, not hers.

I shut the door behind Dani and turn to glare at him.

"I don't need your help disciplining our daughter, thank you very much. I was doing fine on my own, and I don't want you undermining my authority," I tell him frostily. His brow furrows as he leans against the wall.

"You've been having problems controlling her recently, and it's wearing on me. Learn to deal with her, or get used to having your 'authority' subverted," Gabriel says. He muses for a moment. "You aren't exactly the model of perfect parenting."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Your track record is far from spotless, and letting her act out this way is only teaching her to ignore your wishes," he cocks an eyebrow, "I'm assuming that's not your intention?"

I tense at his words. "Excuse me, but you're not exactly a faultless dad, either. I spend all day with Dani, every day, while you go out and do God only knows what. If your idea of discipline is scaring my little girl into submission, then I don't like it. You have no right to call me a bad mother."

"Your little girl?" His other eyebrow joins the raised one in an expression of disbelief. "Are you forgetting again, Claire?" His hand shoots out and my body is pulled across the room to stand in front of him. "I am the one who found her, pulled her out of the orphanage, and brought her to you so you could play mommy. You owe her life to me," he says in a low angry voice.

"So that's what I've been doing for the last four years? 'Playing mommy?' You are the only person on the planet who could come up with such a crazy idea. I'm not you, I don't have this sick need to twist things around into perverted games to amuse myself. Do you have any idea of what I do for Danielle? What I would do for her?" I am furious with him. He can't tell me that I'm screwing my daughter up when I'm doing the best I can, and I am not a bad mother.

"And what can you do for her, Claire? You're rather limited, overall." I am locked in place as his hand caresses my throat, pressing lightly. He steps closer and I can smell him as he restricts my airway just enough to make breathing difficult. "You're defenseless. Soft. Pathetic."

My mind is filled with such rage that for a moment I almost feel as though I could break the bonds of his control on my body to punch him in the face. He snickers as I find that I am not, in fact, that strong.

"See? You're full of a lot of talk, but there are promises that you ultimately can't keep," he murmurs before stepping back. He relinquishes hold of my neck, but keeps most of my body in check.

"I am not weak, Sylar!" I spit at him, deliberately using that name. Gabriel—my husband—wouldn't say these things to me. This is the voice of the monster that haunted my nightmares for so many years.

He smiles to see my anger, though.

"Are you not? Shall we take a look through the past and see if you have shown yourself to be strong enough to take care of yourself, let alone a child?"

"Let's start with the most recent episode of foolishness. You left a toddler alone in the kitchen with a pot of boiling water. Upon finding her injured, you frightened her further by panicking like an inexperienced babysitter. But we'll rewind a little faster. In the past several hundred years, you have engaged in unsafe and casual sex more than once as a means of begging for attention. After you miscarried, you attempted to kill yourself. You deliberately anger a dangerous serial killer, because you are a masochist and have an unhealthy addiction to pain. You lie frequently, even to yourself. All of this evidence suggests that you are mentally unstable and quite possibly insane." He finally stops and I am actually speechless for a moment.

"You…I have made it just fine on my own for hundreds of years. I am not helpless," is the only reply I can come up with.

"No?" Sylar asks. "For hundreds of years, I have been watching over you, protecting you, and providing you with the things you need and can't get for yourself. How hard is it to survive when I've practically spoon-fed you? I've given you so much that you can't even remember how to fend for yourself. What happened to the snotty, self-important, morally righteous teenager? Do you even remember the defiant little cheerleader from our ancient history?" This argument is no longer about Dani; I am under personal attack and we both know it.

"Fuck you, Sylar. I know damn well who I am," I spit at him, wishing with all my heart that I were not still frozen.

"Ah, but I'm not finished," he says in a mocking tone. His voice grows harder as he speaks. "That girl told me that she would kill me, but look where you ended up instead. Married, in the arms of a killer who made you slice up your own father; fucking your family's murderer every night. You've gone soft, Claire-bear."

His control loosens on me as he delivers this final blow. Everything inside me twists and burns and I scream, a primal guttural cry that tears from my throat. My knife is in my hand before I even think and I bury it in the left side of his chest, right where I imagine his heart to be. I am stunned and confused as he sinks to his knees. I fall with him to the ground and I swear I can hear "I love you" from his lips in the millisecond before his eyes shut.

I must be wrong. He couldn't have said that. Not after what just happened.

What did just happen? Why is he not getting up? It takes me a long moment to realize the obvious: I found the spot. I finally stabbed him in his Achilles' heel.

I hear a creak behind me and turn, wild-eyed. It's Dani, forgotten but still in our bedroom.

"Mommy? Can I come out now? I'm sorry, and we can go on our walk." My heart freezes as I remember her tantrum from what seems like forever ago. It takes me a second to clear my throat so I can answer her, and she doesn't wait for my reply before asking another question: "Why is Daddy on the floor?"

"Sweetie? I need you to go back to my room for a little bit. Daddy's not feeling good right now, and Mommy's going to be here with him. I'll come get you in a few minutes." Dani nods and heads back to our room, closing the door behind her.

I turn back to my dead husband. I can't believe I killed him. The odds were astronomical. I think back to his last seconds. He made no attempt to ward off my attack, had set me loose in the first place…maybe the odds weren't stacked as high as I thought. Maybe...maybe he let me kill him.

That was just stupid. Of all times to let me actually end him, why now, after he'd done everything in his power to infuriate me? Unless he didn't believe that I was really a bad mother…did he really say he loved me?

I've given you so much that you can't even remember how to fend for yourself. That girl told me that she would kill me, but look where you ended up instead. You've gone soft.

He's wrong.

I am not a broken woman. I can take care of myself and my daughter, and I'll do whatever I have to if it will keep us safe.

END VOLUME ONE

And so we reach the end of this volume. Please let us know whether you'd like us to post the next volume (which is completed, and from a different persons point of view). You can do that by clicking on the comment button and leaving us your thoughts/questions/ideas/pleas. We've love hearing from you and hope to continue doing so. Hope you've enjoyed Claire and her Interesting Hobby.

Mel and Chuck