Chapter 19- Past, Present and Future

Sylar entered the sickbay and immediately noted the flicker of fear on a nurse's face at the sight of him. On any other day he would have felt a small burst of pride, but today it just disgusted him. She couldn't have been any more inconsequential to him than if she had never been born; she had nothing he wanted. She could rest easy knowing he would ignore her so she could go about her pathetic little life without so much as a second passing glance.

He stopped short as he passed the entrance of Mohinder's lab when out of the corner of his eye he spotted what looked like DNA kayrotypes lining the wall. Male, if he was not mistaken and something told him it wasn't Peter's building blocks he was looking at. There was something inexplicably familiar about it; his aptitude told him so although it didn't bother to explain why.

He silently approached the busy scientist while he was completely engrossed with looking into his microscope. He stood behind him peering over his shoulder and smirked despite himself when Mohinder said, "Nothing yet, but I believe the maps may have been depicting a normal X chromosome…perhaps it was from a preliminary phase of the project." He suddenly straightened and Sylar took a step to the side and danced around him to remain in his blind spot while he approached the illuminated wall. "If you look closely at Sylar's X chromosome, there is a slight variation just here." He explained pointing to a sliver of light colored material on one of the films. "Now, we don't know anything of his biological parents, but in order for him to have this variation he must have inherited it from his mother. Which can only mean that she also had an ability."

"Is that so?" Sylar asked in a low, growling voice that nearly sent Mohinder out of his skin in shock. "You really shouldn't gape like that. You look like a fish gasping for air." He chided as he casually hopped up on a nearby counter. "But I am intrigued by this theory of yours. You think my mother had an ability?"

"I…well." Mohinder stammered trying to regain his faculties. He really couldn't help it, it was like having Satan sneak up on you. "If the variation is indeed responsible for the manifestation of abilities, then I would have to say yes." He cleared his throat and tentatively asked, "Did she?"

Sylar's eyes fell to the floor and remained there for an uncomfortable length of time before he finally gave a desperate laugh. "I don't know. I don't really remember her. When I think about her, all I can see is her lying in the gravel parking lot of the restaurant with a line cut across her forehead…the look of complete shock on her pale and bloody face." He shook his head slowly and mumbled, "I thought she was just sleeping."

Mohinder shifted his weight and thought desperately of something to say, but he just couldn't make himself offer comfort to the man that had murdered his father. Still, he couldn't ignore the obvious parallel of his mother's death and the way he often chose to dispatch his victims. He wanted to think that Sylar was cold enough to have done it himself except that it seemed it was a very early recollection, perhaps even that of a child, and he doubted his abilities would have appeared by then. From what he knew, Sylar's abilities had only come about around the time of his father's death. And while he had come to see Sylar in a different light, he still couldn't find it in himself to show compassion.

"Dr. McCoy!" The nurse in the main bay screamed. "Come quick!" Sylar and Mohinder instinctively ran to the door to see Peter convulsing on the floor surrounded by Hiro and Claire looking on with frightened expressions. "Oh my God." Mohinder breathed. He had never seen Peter in such bad shape and honestly he never though he would which made it all the more shocking.

"My God, man!" McCoy exclaimed sliding to a stop next to him from a dead run. "What the Hell did he get into?!" He demanded of Hiro.

"I do not know!" Hiro protested. "The men shot him."

"Who shot him?" McCoy pressed trying his best to wrestle Peter onto a biobed. With all his shaking and flailing it was like trying to hold onto a greased pig. Suddenly his patient became weightless and floated onto the bed of his own accord and McCoy looked across the room to see Sylar with his hand outstretched. He gave a quick nod of thanks before returning to his duties.

"I don't know who they were." Claire answered hovering over her uncle nervously. "But no doubt they were part of the same outfit that was hunting us." She glanced to her right to see Sylar and a knot twisted tight in her stomach. Peter said he was taking her to a safe place, if Sylar was there it wasn't safe.

"Well it doesn't matter now, Missy." McCoy growled bumping her out of the way to give him more room to work. "And if you want to see him standing and breathing on his own again you will get out of the way." He briefly frowned down at the man he swore was invincible and set to work by pulling out one of the darts and handing it to a tech. "Get that analyzed so we have a better idea of what we are dealing with." When he returned, the bed was empty. "What the…."

"He just disappeared." The nurse mumbled in complete disbelief.

After a tense moment, a blue energy crackled along the form of a person on the bed and slowly Peter reappeared before partially fading a few more times. "It's like he has lost control of his powers." Mohinder observed. McCoy had a lot of very difficult patients in his time, but he was at a complete loss on how to treat an invisible man. Sylar quickly made his way to Peter's side and threw the hardest right he could manage. McCoy was about to yell at him when he noticed that Peter had finally fully materialized. Sylar held up Peter's hand which still lingered with a faint yellow light before letting it drop with a warning glare and returning to his post.

If he hadn't cold cocked him they would have all been burnt to a crisp. McCoy found himself giving the killer a second thank you nod and he found it was one habit he wouldn't mind forming. He then turned his attention to the monitors above the bed and was dismayed by the information they held. "Dammit." He sighed as he watched Peter lapse into a coma. He quickly but efficiently began the procedures to maintain him on life support until a solution could be found and mumbled to himself, "What the hell did you do, kid? God so help me you are just as bad as Jim."

Even though he was desperately weak he was never one to let down a friend; to do so would bring dishonor and shame. It was especially important not to go against the wishes of a now dying man. Hiro watched quietly from across the road as Peter, Claire, and Nathan sat at a table on the patio of the cantina sharing drinks in the small Mexican town.

The hospital where Peter had stayed years before was just down the road, boarded up and abandoned. It was almost a shame, Hiro thought as he wiped the blood from his nose. Then again, maybe not as he remembered seeing Peter mumbling to himself in a delirious state while the staff ignored the young American. He knew that even the smallest of changes could have cataclysmic consequences, but he couldn't stand to watch the man who he would come to consider a friend suffer because no one spoke his language. While no one was looking, he froze time and lifted young Peter's head to tip a glass of water to his chapped lips. Luckily, he was so delirious he took the Japanese man for one of the nurses and when he had sipped all that he could hold for the moment, he took leave to continue on with his mission of saving him again from a far worse fate in the future.

He watched the armored men swarm the front of the building and come out the side door, guns pointing at Nathan. Then Peter suddenly lunged forward and was shot before falling to the ground. He chuckled when he watched himself appear and gather he and Claire. Even though he had watched himself from a distance before, it was always strange. As he made his way across the road, he was startled to see Nathan throw an uppercut worthy of Rocky at one of the men. He had never considered Nathan a violent man, at least not so overtly. The mêlée thickened and Hiro found himself near the throng completely unnoticed. He reached out and grabbed the hem of Nathan's pants from under a table and in an instant, he and Nathan were the only men aware of motion.

Nathan looked down at the hand that held a wad of his clothing from under the table. He narrowed his eyes as he panted from spent adrenaline. "Hiro?" He called somewhat confused looking around at the static forms that surrounded him. "You can come out now."

Hiro crawled out from his shelter and straightened his shirt before greeting with a small bow, "Flying Man."

Nathan smirked slightly remembering the first time he met the time traveler outside of a diner in Las Vegas. That was the day he really tried to fly and ended up sliding into the gravel parking lot wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and an embarrassed smile. He glanced around and noted that Peter was still absent which in his book was a good thing. "What are you doing here, Hiro?" He asked taking a drink from his beer which somehow miraculously hadn't been spilled in the fray. "Is Peter ok? He went where you were, right?" He fought hard to keep the panic out of his voice although he had a sinking feeling in his gut.

"He did." Hiro confirmed quietly. "But he is not well. With his last breath he asked me to come for you."

Nathan slammed his glass down on the table. "What…what do you mean his last breath?!" He demanded. "What the hell happened to him? Is he dead? What happened to his healing ability?" The questions steamed out of him at a pace that made Hiro's head swim trying to translate the torrent.

"No, no, not dead." He reassured the anxious man. "But he is very sick. Very, very sick."

Nathan swallowed hard and forced the words to pass his lips although it was the last thing in the world he wanted. "I can't do that, Hiro. I can't put you all at risk more than I already have. If you have found a safe place to hide then you should stay there." He sighed deeply and debated. "Tell Pete…tell him…"

"No, Flying Man." Hiro said sensing that whatever he was struggling to get out was of a profoundly personal nature, "You tell him." He edged his foot forward until his shoe touched Nathan's and closed his eyes tight.

Spock sat back in his chair and let out an uncharacteristic sigh of exhaustion. If he were not alone in his quarters he wouldn't have dared be so…human, but he was legitimately fatigued with all that had taken place over the past few days. He glanced down at the PADD where he had been running comparisons of brain wave activity and physical action down to the nanosecond on Sylar's data and he felt he had found a sufficiently high enough correlation to call it evidence.

Simultaneously he had also been working on the genome project with Dr. Suresh to identify mutations within the human X chromosome. As the ship's science officer it was his job to oversee all research, but he usually didn't take such a direct, hands on approach and it was starting to take its toll.

He stood from his chair and slowly stretched his languid muscles until they came back to life. He readied himself for bed and as he lay in the dark, his mind began to question the ethical considerations of this research. While it was a unique opportunity that may well open the door to advances in medicine for humans and practical applications of scientific achievements, something felt misplaced.

He knew from personal experience that possessing a unique genetic makeup could sometimes draw unwanted attention. He spent the better part of his first year at Starfleet being studied, he was told, to better serve him in the event he required medical assistance. He had no reason to doubt them then and his thoughts on the matter hadn't changed since, but he could see how less altruistic entities may have ulterior motives in mind.

It had always lingered in the back of his mind that Starfleet may well order them to turn over the evolved humans to study them and this is why he suggested Jim delay notification. While as an enlisted member he didn't have grounds to protest, the specials were not and had basic rights that may not be respected if the potential gain were great enough. It was only logical to him that Starfleet would want to gain as much knowledge as they could from them to enhance tactical capabilities and perhaps, it was a big perhaps, create abilities of their own if they understood the exact mechanism of expression creating a race of super soldiers.

As disturbing as this thought was, it was a near certainty that other nations such as the Klingons and the Romulans would if they got wind of their presence. Of course, they would not be so sophisticated as to do it in a lab, they would probably force them to breed like livestock. If Vulcans and Humans were genetically compatible enough to produce offspring like himself, he could only guess that Romulans, being a more recent evolutionary offshoot, would be as well.

He took a deep breath and tried to repress the selfish thoughts that surfaced in his mind. Jim had asked him if he would change the course of events on Vulcan if he had the chance and he denied it. While he couldn't justify such a large rift in the space-time fabric, he found himself entertaining the possibility that he could go back with the help of the evolved humans to see his mother just one last time. He wouldn't try to save her. He would just look into her eyes, so much like his own, and hold her gently while he whispered to her how much he loved her. Surely such a small thing would not disrupt the future. She would still perish, but she would do so finally hearing the words of her son who tried so hard to hide his human inheritance.

She had always told him how proud she was of him no matter which path he chose, but he regretted never once telling her how proud of her he was to have been given the choice to begin with.