Finally getting to the chapters that this song inspired, yay!

"Cry little sister. Thou shall not fall.

Come to your brother. Thou shall not die.

Unchain me, sister. Thou shall not fear.

Love is with your brother. Thou shall not kill."

Cry Little Sister (Aiden version)

April 30, 2006

A bloodcurdling scream could be heard echoing down the sterile halls. "How does it feel, Gabriel? Being carved apart?" Noah inquired softly in spite of the sardonic grin adorning his lips and the gleam of the scalpel he held aloft.

"I don't know," he stammered in between ragged gasps for air. "Why don't you ask him?"

"Now, now, Mr. Gray," Bennet clucked his tongue in disapproval, the shine of the overheard fluorescents glinting off of his glasses onto the subject's sweat beaded brow. "This is no time to be smart." He leaned in until their faces were mere inches apart. "I'm really curious, Gabriel. What does it feel like to be cut open? What does it feel like to be on the other end of what you've done to poor Mr. Zeitlan and Mr. Davis? What does it feel like to experience what you've done to Claire?"

"I never hurt Claire."

"Really?" Noah leaned away with another sinister grin and disappeared from his limited range of sight. Another picture was placed on the projector that spot lighted the ceiling for his viewing convenience. It was an image of Claire with her arms curled around her knees and her face resting behind their protection. He could tell by the flushed puffiness of the parts of her face that were exposed that she had been crying for some time before the photo had been taken. A bloody line was drawn over the length of her forehead. He couldn't shy away from the image with his head strapped to the table as it were so he clamped his eyes shut tightly enough for multi-colored spots to float behind the lids.

"Oh, no, Mr. Gray, you're not getting out of this that easy." Rough fingers probed his eyes and forced them open so that he had to stare at the broken Claire above him until his eyes stung from the hot tears that warded away dryness. "So tell me, Gabriel, what does it feel like?"

"You killed Gabriel Gray," he laughed without humor. "He doesn't exist anymore."

"Gabriel…"

"My name is Sylar!" The technician hovering at the edge of his peripheral view jumped at the intensity of his shout but the master of cool never betrayed a muscle twitch. Sylar coughed up a blood clot and mustered the strength to spit in Bennet's face, and still, he remained the uniformed Company man.

"Mr. Bennet," the technician spoke up, "I have to sedate this patient. It's protocol." She approached to nearly be within reaching distance, retrieving a syringe of clear liquid from the pocket of her white lab coat.

"No," Noah objected. "I want this one to know exactly what's happening to him every step of the way." He waved her off and the timid woman shuddered at the sight of him picking the scalpel back up before she disappeared from view. "I think Mr. Gray is ready to have another skin sample taken."

Sylar had woken up strapped down to the steel surgical table that he had continued to occupy for the last sixteen hours. His arms had been restrained to his sides by thick leather straps cinched tight enough to cut off the blood flow so that his extremities had gone numb. The same treatment had been done to his legs with another belt looped around his waist. Sensory cables were attached to his scalp and chest feeding vital information to the bank of computers that rested off to the side. Two IV bags were set to drip on the other side, one he suspected was a standard mix of saline solution to keep him hydrated throughout the extensive testing process, and the other he couldn't be sure of as it was darker in appearance and vaguely resembled muddy water. His clothing had been stripped off before he had regained consciousness and been replaced with a paper thin pair of white pajama bottoms.

Bennet had done his best to break Sylar down, utilizing various methods of torture from water boarding to a middle eastern tactic that involved precision tapping on the nerves of the feet to simply taking pleasure in repeatedly punching him in the face until both of his eyes were blacked and the split in his lip widened with every grimace of pain. He had the temperature of the room turned down to just above freezing so that Sylar's body trembled uncontrollably, his fingers, toes, and lips turning a dangerous shade of blue. Taunting him with pictures of Davis and Zeitlan, before as well as after their deaths, telling him stories about their families that would miss them, attempting to provoke an emotional response or maybe just a plea for mercy. And then there had come the scalpel.

Noah had been moderately amused by the cutting of Claire's name into his arm and had decided that he must have enjoyed the experience of his flesh being sliced so much that he needed some more. Incisions of varying lengths and depths decorated the expanse of his body, the blood that oozed from the wounds allowed to congeal and dry on the skin or beneath him on the table until he felt like he could scratch his epidermis completely off if given the chance. But every cut, every drag of the razor sharp blade was controlled so that he felt the full extent of the pain without succumbing to trauma or blood loss. And there was a grim pause in time between each and every one where Noah would look down on him, watching the scalpel hover over its next area of attack, and knowing what was coming. He had never been so exhausted in all of his life, but Bennet would wait until his eyes were nearly closed and then stab the end of his weapon of choice underneath a finger or toe nail so that he couldn't get a second's worth of rest.

Noah chuckled darkly at the strained expression on Sylar's face as he carved a smiling face into the space over his left kidney, a thin line of blood escaping from of the corner of his mouth as he bit into his lip to keep from screaming again. "Speaking of Claire…" He waited for Sylar to open his eyes again knowing the mention of her name would draw his attention. "Did you decide to push her off the roof before or after she told you she was pregnant with your son?"

"A boy?" Noah gave him that shark's smile again and he knew he was being baited. But there was nothing that the agent could do to him that could possibly hurt more than knowing he had lost his son. On the other hand, the set of iron knuckles that were driven into his side where the smiling face had been drawn came fairly close, simultaneously forcing him to scream again and sucking the air from his already haggard lungs.

Bennet tossed his scalpel to the side and leaned back down to invade Sylar's personal space again. With their noses almost touching and his hot breath fanning over his victim's face Noah thought up another round of taunts. "She was in on it the whole time you know. Claire?" He laughed vindictively. "It was her idea in the first place to come after you. We didn't even know you existed until she fed you to us."

Claire it seemed was one part of his life that they could reliably use against him. However placid on the surface he meditated himself to be, she always struck a nerve. "Fuck you!" Sylar made a show of struggling in his restraints and Noah just laughed harder. Until another heavy handed blow landed in the same spot as the last.

"Oh, yes, Gabriel. My Claire Bear wanted nothing more than to put a pretty little bullet right between your eyes." Sylar coughed and wheezed some more, spitting a fine spray of blood from his mouth. "She knew that you would never be anything but a pathetic nobody that had to steal the powers of others to be special. You actually have me to thank for being alive today because she would have killed you dead a long time ago." He twisted his head as far to the side as he could to shy away from the cruel words so Noah just came closer to whisper in his ear. "She used you, Gabriel. Manipulated you. Lied to you. You were just a shiny new toy to play with… And then you killed her for it!" he shouted into his ear.

Pulling back to admire his handy work, Noah slipped another shark's grin for the tear that rolled down his subject's temple to disappear into his hair line. "How about we take a little break, Mr. Gray? I wouldn't want you to get too tired to enjoy our fun together." Bennet shrugged back into the suit jacket that he had draped over the back of a chair and moved to leave the room, clicking off the light as he opened the door. "Why don't you spend a little time reflecting on how Claire never loved you. Not that it was her fault really. No one could ever love someone like you, Gabriel. I don't think there's even anyone left to notice that you're gone." He muttered something to the tune of 'sweet dreams' before he exited, closing the door behind him and plunging Gabriel into darkness that was only broken by the dim glow of computer screens running in the background.

"I never thought he'd shut up," he muttered to himself under his breath. "Arrogant jackass." Sylar worked at turning his head a little more to the side against the strap so that he could see the tubes leading into his arm. It took him a few minutes to gain enough motor control over his fingers again to twitch them on command, but once he did the tubes jumped out of his skin and the leather straps binding him in place flew off the table. The water boarding that he had been subjected to was almost more comfortable than waiting for the sensation of white-hot pins and needles to subside as regular blood flow returned to his body. Not the best idea I've ever had, he laughed internally. He felt like a breathing mass of bruised hamburger that had been splattered over the New York pavement by rush hour traffic and then collected for the creation of a pin cushion.

Thankfully the lab technicians working the room where he had been placed had underestimated him somewhat. They had either never attempted to test what someone with telekinetic ability could do with an IV, or they had never had one smart and, or crazy enough to try what he had. The bag containing the substance that resembled the muddy water had just been hung when he was coming around to the waking world and he had been cognizant for its placement. Once it had been allowed to drip freely for a few minutes he had started feeling a strange, almost existential weakness start to come over him. Deducing that the liquid was some form of ability suppressant he had immediately set his concentration on stopping the flow of fluid about where it was meant to enter the vein before he lost his powers completely. To the casual observer he seemed to be under the effects of the medication and Noah, being so hell bent on cracking him had never paid attention. All he had to do was maintain that fragile line of resistance through more than half a day of a excruciating mental, emotional, and most importantly physical torture until Noah left to eat or use the bathroom or shoot at people, whatever it was that he did in his spare time. He would have patted himself on the back in victory had he not been sure that the motion would result in acute pain. If I'm lucky I'll die so I won't have to feel this in the morning.

Sylar slid off the table once he thought that he could keep his balance and crept to the door. Poking his head out to make sure that no one was passing by, he prowled out into the hall in search of well deserved vengeance.

Her bleary eyes blinked in unfocused confusion at the overhead lights that shone so brightly down on her. Where am I? This isn't home. "Gabriel?" she rasped weakly from a dry throat. What happened… Where is he? Claire's stirring steadily grew more alert until she registered the astringent scent of antiseptics and the presence of people around her. Her memories were a little foggy at first but gently came back to her. She had been on the roof and… jumped over the side… Because of Gabriel. The hand holding hers moved and she jumped to a sitting position in panic.

The room she was in appeared like one in a hospital or private clinic with sterile white walls and shiny tile floors. Her bed was an adjustable one poised in a half inclined position so that she could look around and she felt like she had been sleeping for ages. There was a harsh crick in her spine that popped when her body decided that it was time to stretch and yawn of its own volition. On one side the Haitian was perched tensely in a chair, his being the warm hand that she had felt, and which he had politely dropped upon noticing her waking status. In the opposite chair was Angela with an all too casual smile on her thin lips like a cat that had caught a canary.

"Gabriel!" Claire cried out. "He's - he's Sylar! He killed Brian Davis -"

"We already know, dear."

"I have to stop him." Claire hopped out of her bed and almost tripped over her own feet. Her center of balance felt out of whack and… what the hell is that? She glanced down at her stomach, being covered by a rather thin hospital gown. She had known that she was gaining some weight, but… Her hands felt around the rounding bump of her midsection, mystified by the sudden and oddly firm bulge.

"Congratulations, dear, it's a boy."

Claire's jaw dropped as she looked back to Angela. "You've got to be shitting me."

"Now, Claire, that's no language for a young mother to be using." Her grandmother slid out of her chair with all the charisma of a toxin loaded cobra and brought her hand to rest over the burgeoning growth as well. "He's perfectly healthy."

"Angela," she started slowly and enunciating every nervous syllable. "How long have I been here?"

"Almost two weeks. Twelve days to be exact."

"And where's Gabriel?"

"He's here."

"Here as in…?"

"Primatech. Your father brought him in last night after he killed Mr. Zeitlan. What do you think about using yellow for a nursery color? I know that it's traditional for boys to have blue, but -"

"Angela?"

"Hmm?"

"What the fu-?" Her grandmother brought her finger to rest over her mouth for silence before she could finish asking what was going on.

"Language, Claire. The baby can hear you."

Claire snapped at her finger with her teeth to get the offending appendage away. "You've plotted to destroy the world how many times now? And you're worried about my language?" She whirled around on the Haitian and snatched the Company standard issue pistol from his holster, dropping the magazine to make sure that it was loaded.

"Claire…"

"I don't have time for this shi-tuff," she tossed over her shoulder as she rooted around for some kind of real clothing to put on. Somehow the thought of facing Sylar with the crack of her ass exposed to the world didn't seem amusing. "I have lives to save and an ex-boyfriend to kill."

"Claire." She looked back at the older woman to see a set of clothes waiting in her outstretched hands.

"You're not going to try and stop me?"

"I hadn't even dreamt of it," she smiled again with a hidden agenda. Glancing down at her watch she also added that, "Fortunately for you and Mr. Gray, we have some unfinished business to attend to with your grandfather and we're on a bit of a timeframe."

Claire yanked the clothes into her possession, noting that the oversized black articles must have belonged to Gabriel with their dimensions, familiar scent, and she hung her head for the blood spatters on the sleeves. The pant legs had to be rolled up multiple times but with her enlarging waist size they were nearly right at the hip. She rolled the sleeves of the shirt over as well for function, but was happy to let the rest hang about freely. There were more pressing matters than fashion in that particular moment.

A gleam of silver caught her eye and she looked up to find Angela dangling the watch necklace that Gabriel had given her in a gentle swaying motion. Claire took the piece, fingering the inscription on the back before flipping it over and seeing that the time had been changed from the original setting. "Don't forget to tell him that you love him."

She jammed her acquired gun into the waistband of the jeans and stormed out of the room into the abandoned halls of Primatech. Claire fiddled with the dials on the watch face until the little hands had turned from 11:53 back to the 3:51 that they belonged at and looped the pendant around her neck, stuffing the chain beneath her shirt for protection.

"And Claire…" she heard Angela call out one more time from behind her. How's this for something that the baby won't hear? Petrelli scoffed and waved away the crude hand gesture that her granddaughter had carelessly flung over her retreating shoulder. The lights of the hall flickered and dimmed for a second before the hum of electricity came to a still and they began to systematically shut off one at a time plunging the building into darkness. "He won't follow you if he doesn't believe that you love him."

To be continued...