A/N: So I have to say that this had been planned and damn Kiring for ruining my plotline. RIP Nathan Petrelli- may he live on in our memories for his sad puppy dog eyes and in our hearts through fanfic where he can suffer any number of deaths but always find a way to come back (kinda like the show).

Oh yeah, and damn Sylar. I used to like him, but he has crossed the line with this one. I count Peter's go with the nail gun as fair and would like to see a little more of his sadistic side…it's kinda sexy, really.

Chapter 18- Run!

"I'll sing it one last time for you

Then we really have to go

You've been the only thing that's right

In all I've done…

To think I might not see those eyes

Makes it so hard not to cry

And as we say our long goodbyes

I nearly do…

Have heart my dear

We're bound to be afraid

Even if it's just for a few days

Making up for all this mess"

"Run" –Snow Patrol

Sylar was quite surprised that he was able to wander the halls of a powerful spaceship so freely without so much as a second glance. On second thought that wasn't entirely true: almost everyone he had passed took a long look over their shoulders at the man they had no doubt been warned was a monster- he could see it plainly in their wide eyes and suddenly pale complexions. And the more he saw the more he hated it.

What he hated more was the fact that he couldn't deny it.

He thought back to the days when he was just Gabriel Gray, a quiet man who preferred sweaters that made him look like a young Mr. Rodgers and long hours in solitude among the softly ticking clocks in his dusty shop. He had become so far removed from that life he felt as though it belonged to another person or perhaps it was a story he had read somewhere. But deep down he knew he had lived the life of a simple man who expected nothing but wanted everything.

He had spent so many years becoming desensitized by the suffering of others in the pursuit of abilities that would enhance his superiority he had become some hideous boogeyman parents tell their kids about to keep them in line. Except he really did exist and with each new acquisition he was forced to rationalize his actions to ever greater extents until this moment when he could no longer justify his actions.

Simply put, he was tired. Tired of the mental acrobatics, the running, even his very existence. How many powers would ever be enough? What was the point of it all anyway? He had no ambitions of world domination; he didn't want to be the god of his own country with natives that worshiped at his feet night and day. At the outset he thought that he had to become powerful so others couldn't hurt him- the way that Bennet had- the way his family had- the way Elle did. But it was beginning to dawn on him that no power he could ever acquire could prevent that from happening. His current situation was proof positive. He couldn't stop Hiro and Bennet from capturing him and bringing him to this isolated place where he had nowhere to go.

Suddenly, green man be dammed, he couldn't care less if the species died out. He no longer wanted to play the game and if his own survival didn't matter, why did anyone else's?

The only ability that was of any value to him at the moment was his aptitude. For the time he had been walking, it quietly hummed along in the background taking notes and making plans. The complete lack of any firearms or weaponry of any kind was problematic to his mission, but his intelligence gave him another option. He had to find Peter.

He wasn't lying when he told Hiro and his sidekick that he didn't know where he was, but his best bet was the medical area on the 5th floor. Of course he could be wrong and he was actually somewhere teaching kids how to make Christmas cards out of macaroni and glitter, but it was the best place to start.

If he lacked the direct means to carry out the deed by himself, he would just have to figure out how to get Peter to do it for him and he had a pretty good idea how based on the day's earlier confrontation. If he managed to do it once at Kirby Plaza, he could do it again.

Noah stretched out on his bed and placed his hands behind his head as he stared at the plain white ceiling. It was like a projector for his thoughts and what he was watching was something like a horror movie. He knew going into this line of work that there would be times when he would have to be comfortable with morally grey and for the most part he was; but something felt very wrong with Peter going back for Claire. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he had a very bad feeling that there was something that he overlooked. What disturbed him more was that his gut was usually right.

He was man enough to admit that his motivations for this escapade were anything but noble. It was selfish and put Peter in a potentially dangerous situation, but in his mind getting Claire back outweighed anything that may happen to Peter along the way. He could justify this line of thought by virtue of Peter's regenerative ability. If he suffered some physical harm in the process, he would survive although Noah knew as well as anyone that his ability did not extend beyond the physical realm; Peter's empathic tendencies almost ensured that the mental wounds far outlasted the physical ones, but Noah liked to believe that he was resilient. He had to believe it because for all the times that he had his heart ripped out of his chest be it by Angela or his beloved brother, he always found a way to forgive. In some ways, that was his downfall.

Noah hated himself for being so nonchalant about Peter's situation. He hated the fact that once more he was powerless to help his little girl just as he was when Sylar was intent on killing her at homecoming. He had done all he could to stop it, but in the end had it not been for Peter's courage and blind faith he would have succeeded. He just hoped he could pull it off once more and protect her when he couldn't.

"Sir, I wanted to alert you as you had requested that Sylar is moving about the ship unescorted." The voice of the beta shift security guard called from the intercom.

Jim sighed deeply as he watched streaming video of Sylar stalking the halls with a purposeful gait through the twisting hallways on his monitor across from his bed. He sat heavily and whispered, 'what are you up to?' as he remembered Noah's dire warning about this very thing.

"Sir?" The voice called hesitantly. "Should we attempt to stop him?"

"No!" Jim ordered with a little urgency as he imagined the resulting pile of red shirts with slashed throats. "Just keep an eye on him and make sure all restricted areas are locked down so he can't access them."

"Aye, Sir." The guard curtly replied.

Not everyone knew what he was truly capable of and Jim wanted to keep as much of it a secret as possible. He treated the situation as he would approach a poisonous snake- tread lightly and slowly so as not to provoke an attack. He just wished he had the means to kill it if things got out of hand since Peter was gone. He at once found himself both fascinated by Sylar's otherworldly abilities and angry that he was barely in control of his own ship because of it.

More and more the icy, barren planet of Delta Vega seemed like a fine destination for him, a place where he could do no harm to his crew. His very presence seemed to upset the delicate balance of the ship's staff and that was no easy feat considering most of them had stared down Nero without batting an eye. But then again, Nero was never on the ship and without the red matter he had stolen from Spock Prime, he wasn't shit. At least that was his humble opinion.

Spock. In a way, he understood how Peter and the others must have felt. He had experienced the oddities of time travel himself, both from Spock Prime's perspective and his own accidental adventure and it was enough to make his head swim like it used to when he was thrown over a table at some backwoods bar and beaten mercilessly while he was stone drunk. Even speaking about it was hampered by confusing personal pronouns and tenses, which was the primary reason he never talked about it with Spock. Well, that and he promised Spock Prime he wouldn't for fear of screwing up the space-time continuum. He was never really sure what would result if he did; perhaps Spock would spontaneously explode like a delayed doppelganger effect or maybe the entire universe would just blink out of existence.

He may very well have screwed up the temporal fabric this time, but he didn't promise squat to anyone. Besides, there was no point in looking back. What's done is done even if it wasn't the way fate had planned. But hey, even she deserved a surprise now and again and who better than James T. Kirk to put a smile on her face? And if she was less than thrilled, she would no doubt pay him back someday. It wasn't like he didn't have several checks in the mail already.

Peter used the napkin that came with his water to wipe the sheen of sweat from his forehead. The oppressive heat brought back those terrible memories of when he was sick. He was so dehydrated from days of vomiting and diarrhea that he didn't have enough fluid in his body to sweat in the first place. He swore even his eyeballs were sticky from lack of moisture, but one look across the table at Nathan reminded him of the relief that washed over him when his older brother appeared in the doorway to his small and unclean room where he lay on a threadbare mattress. Peter didn't believe in angels, but if they did exist he was convinced they would look like Nathan did that day.

Nathan's large brown eyes wandered from the multicolored fiesta lights that hung from the roof of the patio to his brother who seemed to be far away at the moment. "Pete?" He called leaning across his beer. "Are you feeling ok?"

Claire glanced at her uncle, but seemed unconcerned. He often looked that way but then again, people didn't label him as a dreamer without reason. She was just happy to hear his voice on the phone and even more relieved to see him in the flesh and know he was indeed ok. He had always occupied a special place in her heart since the day he appeared out of nowhere to go toe to toe with Sylar back in Odessa.

A slow, lopsided smile slid across Peter's face. "Yeah," he confirmed, "I'm good."

"Ok then…" Nathan drawled completely unconvinced but not willing to dwell on it, "mind telling me where you have been for the past few days? I was starting to feel like a stalker."

Peter's muddled eyes narrowed somewhat as he struggled with what to tell him. He didn't want to lie to his brother, but the truth didn't sound very appealing either. Finally, he settled on a half truth. "Noah and Hiro found a safe place for us to hide and I went too, but I had to come back." He bit his lip and felt a sickness churning in his stomach that his regenerative ability couldn't touch when Nathan's thoughts sounded clear as a bell. "You came for Claire…..not me."

"That's…that's great news, Pete." Nathan hummed without letting on he was secretly crushed inside. Ever the poker face. But it's ok, because I know I don't deserve it.

Peter wanted to scream that it wasn't true although he knew the others would likely want to kill him on sight. He had forgiven his brother just as he always had, probably as he always would because he knew it was all a mistake. He knew his brother wasn't a bad person. In his mind he was still the hero that rescued him from that dreadful hellhole of a hospital, and the one who stayed with him when he had hurt himself trying to fly by jumping off a roof even though having a 'mentally ill' relative was damaging to his political aspirations, and he was the one person who stuck by him even as he was being burned alive when he couldn't control his radioactive power. Nathan, his hero, was determined to spend his last moments with him as they flew up into the stratosphere. Nathan wasn't just his personal hero, he was to millions although they could never know it. "You should come too, Nathan." He choked out in a barely controlled voice. "You can help us figure this whole thing out."

"I don't think so, Pete." Nathan quickly smiled although his heart was aching. In a way he envied Peter for being able to wear his heart on his sleeve; there was never any doubt as to how he felt, no lost moments, nothing left unsaid, no regrets. "I think it is better if you just take Claire and don't tell me where you are going." He took a long hit of his warm beer to dull the pain inside that threatened to tear him in two over the reality that if all went well he would never see them again.

There was some kind of ruckus in the main dining area that thankfully broke the tension at the table until men dressed like a SWAT team stormed the patio with guns aimed at Nathan yelling "Policia! En el piso! Ahora!" Although his Spanish was rusty, Nathan reflexively put his hands up and whispered to Peter, "Run!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Peter spat defiantly as he reached for his brother's wrist to whisk them all away. He never got the chance because some of the men fired their weapons when they interpreted his movements to be aggressive. Peter staggered backwards and looked down at his chest to what looked like four tranquilizer darts clustered around his heart. Initially he thought nothing of it and trusted his regenerative ability to take care of things except for the fact that it clearly wasn't.

He began to stagger as his vision went blurry and he felt weak all over. He tried to pull the darts out in the hopes of stopping the reaction, but he pawed at them awkwardly until he lost his balance and fell to the ground. He could barely hear Claire's frightened scream or Nathan calling his name frantically. As he lay on the dirt path by the cantina, he struggled to breathe and a calmness came over him. He was dying, but he wasn't afraid. He felt his mind slip into a murky confusion and from out of the darkness came Hiro's voice. "Peter Petrelli?"

Hiro had quickly taken stock of the situation when he arrived and had frozen time for everyone except he, Peter, and Claire. He cursed himself for being late but he had to do some research into where Peter went for his junior class trip and that took longer than expected given his difficulties. Peter looked very sick then, but he looked almost worse now as his body was taken over by sporadic tremors and each breath was a struggle. He held Peter's head in his lap and bowed closely to make out what he thought Peter was trying to say.

"Na..." Peter gasped, "ple…"

"I think he wants you to take Nathan too." Claire whispered as she held his hand in an attempt to offer what comfort she could. He already had her healing ability, but it clearly wasn't working which left her with nothing else to do.

Hiro watched as Peter fought to keep his eyes from rolling into the back of his head and he knew he had a choice to make. He was almost certain he could not take all three with his failing powers and Peter was in dire need of medical attention. He would have to ignore his friend's wishes for the time being and come back for Nathan at a later time even though he deserved to die for what he had done.

Nathan turned once more and was relieved to see that for once Peter listened and got Claire out despite being shot. He hoped that the effects of whatever was in the darts was temporary, but that was a bigger reaction than he was expecting and he felt a rage boil up inside of him at the men who had harmed his brother.

Figuring he had nothing left to lose, he relented to all of the repressed anger and primal aggression that had lay dormant for years and attacked the men because he knew that if he didn't die fighting he would die in a lab in a cornfield in the middle of Iowa for his treachery. With each blow he landed, his basic combat training he had learned in the Navy came back and each punch was more powerful than the last, fueled by the mental image of his brother's suffering that had been seared into his memory.