Coming Forth

"I don´t believe it." Lassiter gasped, sitting up.

"Dude. We made it." Shawn cheered. "We beat them."

Lassiter looked at him still startled. "It was really just a dream?" he asked in disbelieve. "That is … so odd."

"Tell me about it." Shawn agreed. "I already woke up a second time now after I´ve got shot and now look at me. There isn´t even blood on me."

"You´re seriously complaining about that?"

"No. Just … well, it´s odd." "You sure we´re awake this time?" Lassiter asked uncertain.

"Ehm …well, ehm." Shawn hesitated. Then he reached out for the detective and pinched him.

"Ou." Lassiter cried and dragged his arm away from the fake psychic. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Does that hurt enough to be real?" Shawn asked and pinched him again, to be sure. Harder this time. Lassiter lost his patience and pinched him back – into the bad shoulder. Shawn opened his mouth at the unexpected pain and cried out. Lassiter was satisfied.

"Yeah." Shawn finally commented, hitting the back of his head against the wall. "That hurt enough to be real."

Lassiter nodded in agreement. "Great. Now that we settled this …"

"Let´s go and find Jules and the others." Shawn agreed.

After he didn´t see colored stars dancing before his eyes anymore, he followed Lassiter outside.

...

"No. Please no. This can´t be. There has to be a way out." Gus stumbled along the corridor.

"Gus." Juliet cried, desperately trying to keep up with him.

He just tried another door but it was locked just like the others. Finally he had enough and aimed the gun at the lock. Juliet tried to stop him but he´d already shot the door. It went open and Gus stormed through it. But all he found on the other side was another hallway, exactly the same as the one he just came out of.

Shocked and disturbed by what he saw, he halted and stumbled back. That was impossible. Next to him Juliet stared into that new corridor with the same amount of disbelieve. Gus didn´t even notice her. All he could think of was: Out. There has to be a way out. Corridors can´t go on and on forever. This building was only so big and even the cellar couldn´t go on forever. On some point they just had to reach an end.

He turned around, to the door opposite of the one he´d just broken and shot at that lock too. The effect was the same. He kicked it open and stared into another hallway. No difference at all.

"Oh, dear god." Juliet exclaimed.

Gus didn´t hear her. He went to the next door, shot the lock and broke through. Another hallway.

"No." he cried and ran to the next door.

"Gus, please." Juliet cried after him. "Stop that."

"There has to be a way out." he cried and fired at the door.

Again there was the sound of cracking wood when he kicked the door open. And again. And again. How often had she heard that sound by now? She couldn´t remember. Gus was panting. His breath was going too fast and on his forehead was sweat, making it shine in the bright and cold light of these endless hallways.

"It can´t be." Gus cried and finally lost his strength, going down to his knees. "Please, god, no. This is not possible."

Juliet walked over to him. Her own legs had started to shake long ago. How long were they already in here, looking for a way out? She couldn´t remember. It felt like years. The hope to find Shawn and Carlton had been left behind hours ago. After a while the instinct of the trapped animal had taken over everything else, eliminated every other thought but this one. Getting out. Getting free. But they hadn´t found a way out. Only these endless self-repeating corridors. And now she was tired. So tired. If it hadn´t been for Gus, she would have stopped running around long ago. But he had just not stopped. He´d panicked more and more and now his limit was finally reached.

Juliet dropped to the floor next to him. He had his head on his arms and his shoulders were shaking with desperate sobs. Juliet wanted to cry too but she was just too tired. She lay her arm around his shoulders, to let him know that he at least wasn´t alone in this endless hell of corridors. She didn´t understand it. How was it possible that there was no way out of here? How could they end up here? How? Why?

"Gus!" a voice echoed through the hallway. It was far away. "Gus! Jules!"

Gus raised his head, holding his breath and listened. "Shawn?" he gasped and immediately struggled up to his feet. "SHAWN, WE´RE HERE!" he yelled and started to run.

Juliet couldn´t do anything but follow him.

"WE ARE HERE!" Gus yelled and his voice was like a foghorn in these hallways, that it hurt Juliet´s ears.

At the end of this damn corridor, Shawn and Lassiter came running around the corner. Gus increased his speed one more time when he saw them and when he reached Shawn, he practically jumped at him, clinging to his friend like a drowning cat.

"Oh, thanks god." he gasped. "Thanks god that you found us. We couldn´t find the exit, we were looking like forever. Thanks god. Thanks god."

"It´s all right, dude." Shawn croaked. "Please, I can´t breathe. Literally."

"How can he strangle you, Spencer, if it isn´t real?" Lassiter argued.

"What do you mean it isn´t real?" Juliet asked confused. Lassiter noticed her tired face and supported her so she wouldn´t faint or something.

"We were running around for hours." Gus told them frantically, finally releasing Shawn. "These hallways, they are endless. I thought we´d never find the exit. Please tell me that you know where the exit is. Please."

"We do." Shawn said.

"Where is it?" Gus cried, looking around hectically.

"Dude, dude, dude." Shawn tried to gain his attention again. "I need you to calm down. Take a breath. In. Out. Okay? In and out. Calm down."

Gus obeyed and took some deep breaths, slowly getting a little calmer. "Where is the exit?" he asked again, his voice a little more even this time.

"It´s right here." Shawn said.

Gus looked around in confusion. So did Juliet.

"I know this will sound completely crazy." Shawn admitted, looking at both of them. "But all this … it´s not real. We´re in a dream."

"Shawn!"

"You´ve got to listen to him, Guster." Lassiter demanded sternly. "This time it´s not crazy what he´s talking. It´s true."

"How is that possible?" Juliet asked her partner but Lassiter could only shake his head.

"No idea." he said. "All I know is that I saw him getting shot in the face and when he stood up, he was fine and he told me about an … illumination or … close encounters of the third kind. I don´t know."

"It was a message." Shawn corrected. "Somebody tried to help me. She explained to me how to get out of this. We need to concentrate. All together. To wake up from this nightmare. So let´s just … take each others hands and … close your eyes."

"Are you serious?" Juliet asked uncertain.

"Believe me." Lassiter said. "I can´t believe it myself but yeah."

"Just trust me, Jules." Shawn said, looking into her eyes.

At last she nodded. Shawn looked at his friend and Gus saw the same seriousness in his eyes.

"All right." he said. His voice was still shaking but Shawn could see that he´d try it.

Shawn closed his eyes first, Lassiter almost simultaneously along with him. Maybe it was that what finally convinced Gus that this was not a joke. Shawn might be able to pull of something as ridiculous as this in such a situation, but Lassiter would never go along with it. When the detective was doing this, there had to be something about it. So Gus closed his eyes and tried to listen. A dream, Shawn had said. What to do to wake yourself up from a dream? But in the end he didn´t need to wake himself up.

"Wake up, dude." Shawn called him. "Come on, wake up. Dude. Wake up."

Faintly Gus could hear Lassiter´s voice too, how he said similar things to call Juliet. Neither of their voices came from beside him. They were somewhere in a distance, Gus could not name, and even less explain. Eventually he opened his eyes. Shawn´s face was hovering over him and when he saw that his eyes were open, he grinned.

"Dude, you made it." he cheered.

Gus sat up, looking around in confusion. He lay on the ground of a cell. The one cell where he´d found Juliet. But … they´d left this cell behind hours ago. He turned his head and saw Juliet sitting on the edge of the cot and she looked as confused as he felt.

"Crazy." he exhaled.

"Dude. Tell me about it." Shawn agreed and helped him to stand up.

Gus immediately ran to the door and looked out. The panic was already coming back.

"Oh, god." he breathed. "It´s starting all over again. It looks exactly the same."

Shawn was by his side at once and pinched him. Gus cried out in surprise and pain.

"Shawn. Are you out of your damn mind?"

"No, out of yours." Shawn said. "That´s the point. That´s not the dream anymore. We´re awake." He pinched him again to prove it and Gus instinctively hit out, hitting Shawn´s bad shoulder completely randomly. Shawn held his breath and squinted, his face turning reddish.

"Gus, you hurt him." Juliet cried and lay a caring hand on Shawn´s shoulder.

"He was pinching me." Gus defended himself.

"He´s right." Lassiter agreed. "But you panicked and he´s right too. So stop it now. The both of you."

At last Gus lowered his gaze, looking somehow ashamed of himself.

"Don´t worry, dude." Shawn said, finally breathing again. "The door to the staircase is right around the corner."

"Then let´s go." Gus left the cell as fast as a bolt of lightning.

"Not just yet." Shawn objected and stopped him in his tracks. "There´s still someone we have to get. They´re not far from here. And please …" he looked at the two detectives. "Don´t kill me, when I tell you who it is."

...

"Help me." Sylar tried to convince the mutated man that was crouching on the floor. "Help me stop them."

Just as Mohinder was about to give up on his desperate howling and turned his head around to him, finally considering his words, right in this moment, something new happened to him. Sylar only heard a gruesome tearing sound, as if cloth was torn apart and then Mohinder started to scream, writhing in pain.

Something came out of his back, pointy scales that looked like claws. The screams of the man were almost as awful and impossible to stand as the sound these scales made by breaking through the man´s skin. Dear god, how far could this mutation go?

Sylar started to struggle in this cocoon the scientist had spun him in. He had to get out of here. At last he could feel his hands again and a moment later they started to glow. The stuff, whatever it was the cocoon was made of, caught fire and soon Sylar was in the middle of a torch. The heat ate away his skin but he couldn´t afford to pay too much attention to it. It was the only way out of this goddamn thing. At last the cocoon tore open and Sylar fell down to the ground.

His skin was burning like hell, but somehow he managed to summon the willpower to pad out the fire on his shirt. When he struggled back to his knees, he could already feel the healing process kicking in. A few meters from him, he could see Mohinder writhing on the floor, still screaming in this agonizing pain his mutation must cause him. Sylar had no idea what to do.

And then something else happened. Something he had expected even less. The four dead people that lay by Mohinder suddenly opened their eyes and sat up. When they noticed the screaming thing next to them, they immediately jumped up and pressed themselves against the wall. Lassiter pulled his gun and aimed at Mohinder but Shawn hit his arms down before he could shoot.

"Don´t." he cried. "That´s Suresh."

"What?" Lassiter cried and looked at the thing before him, disgusted and shocked.

Shawn turned around and met Sylar´s eyes. The killer was still kneeling on the ground, totally taken aback by what just happened.

"This is going to be a little more complicated." the fake psychic found.

"Did he do this to him?" Lassiter asked, now aiming at Sylar. The killer had still no idea how to react to all of this.

"No no." Shawn cried. "At least … I don´t think so. Listen, this whole dream breaking thing is not an exact science, okay? I know only a little more than you do."

"Ehm, Shawn." Gus spoke up, touching the back of his head. "Why do I have a hole in my head?"

Shawn halted and looked at his friend, examining his forehead curiously. "Yeah, right." he found and couldn´t restrain a grin while looking at that hole.

"Shawn!" Gus snapped.

"What? I was shot in the face. Do I complain?"

"Shawn!"

"Dude, it´s just a dream. It´s not as if you would hear a whistling sound every time you walk on a windy day from now on."

"I´ll slap you, Shawn."

"What the hell is going on here?" Sylar shouted when he finally found his voice again and struggled to his feet.

The four dead people turned their heads to him.

"Oh, right." Shawn cried. "Sorry. All about you guys. Sorry. Ehm … It´s a little complicated …" he started a try to explain but in this moment the mutated man had given up on the business of just writhing and jumped at Shawn, grabbing his foot like a biting dog. The fake psychic skipped back in fear, screaming in a high pitching voice.

"Bring him off me, bring him off." he yelled and when Mohinder bit into his ankle, he screamed even louder, falling down on his butt.

Lassiter and Juliet tried to grab the raging man but he threw them off. He was just about to jump at Shawn again, when an invisible force grabbed him and pushed him back against the wall.

Shawn stared at the struggling mutant on the wall in shock. His mouth was still open but he had stopped screaming. Eventually he noticed Gus´ eyes on him. His friend had arched one eyebrow and looked down at him as if he were an idiot.

"Who is the baby now, Shawn?" he asked. "It´s just a dream, remember?"

"Dude, he bit me." Shawn cried. "I´m not even a postman. I mean what the hell?"

"Are you okay?" Juliet asked and helped him sit up.

"Sure. Sure." Shawn claimed. "I mean … it´s not real, is it?" He tried to grin but ended up grimacing when the very real pain shot up his leg from the not real bite wound.

"What are you guys talking about?" Sylar demanded to know.

He was still holding the fighting and hissing doctor in his telekinetic grip. His eyes rushed over the whole group of supposedly dead people and eventually came to a rest on Juliet. That was just impossible.

"How can you be alive?" he asked her. "I touched your skin. You were cold. Dead."

Juliet exchanged a glance with Shawn and then turned back to Sylar, trusting her feeling that he would believe her more than any of the others.

"I know this is hard to understand." she said stepping forward. "But this is not real." she looked around and at the thing that was Suresh. "He´s not … well … whatever he is."

"What happened to him?" Gus asked bewildered.

"A mutation." Sylar said. "His own invention. Long story. And I know only half of it. But I´m pretty sure that it wasn´t that bad the first time around."

"He was like that once already?" Gus cried in disbelieve.

"No." Sylar cried back. "Not like this. I …" he shook his head. "I don´t know what´s happening. He´s the scientist."

"It´s the dream." Shawn said. "The nightmare. This guy Roth wants us to go mad in here."

"Roth?" Sylar repeated.

"He had us imprisoned as well." Juliet spoke up again, first facing Sylar and then turning around to Mohinder. "But it wasn´t real and we got out." she told him, doing her best to make him look into her eyes. "We can get you out of here too. If you trust us, we can bring you back … where you are still … normal. Human."

The wild look in the eyes of that trapped animal became calmer. Somehow Juliet had gotten through to the part of him that was still Mohinder Suresh, the scientist. Her ability was working, even in the dream. People just had to feel for her. Mohinder was listening to what she said and Juliet stepped closer to him.

"Careful, Jules." Shawn warned but she just shook her head.

"He can´t hurt me." she stated. "This is just a dream. He is no monster. We can bring you back, doctor. Please. Let me help you."

She reached out a hand as if she invited him for a handshake. By now the dark eyes of the monster had taken on a human expression again. Desperate but human.

Sylar carefully released the beast from his invincible grip and allowed him to move again. Just a little. Juliet didn´t even seem to notice. She was looking into the doctor´s eyes and wouldn´t change that only for a second. Eventually the black eyes started to blink rapidly. There were tears running out of them. Juliet nodded understandingly.

"Come with us." she whispered. "We´ll help you."

"Listen to her, Mohinder." Sylar supported her. "You´re a scientist, man."

The mutation looked into Juliet´s eyes and then he broke down at last. Juliet caught him, wrapping her arms around him in a motherly way and went down to her knees, along with him. It was impossible but it really looked as if the monster was crying on her shoulder.

"It´s all right." she spoke to him in a soothing voice. "You can wake up now. Wake up. Wake up."

Everybody just stood around the two of them, watching Juliet strike Suresh´s back, even rooking him a little, in her effort to comfort the desperate man.

"It´s all right." she whispered. "Everything is all right now. The nightmare´s over. Wake up."

After a while Suresh finally looked up and around in astonishment. His whole face was wet. When he saw where he was, he looked at his hands. His skin was human skin. He started to breath rapidly at this discovery. He touched his hands and his face in disbelieve, only to find that it was real. He was normal. No sign whatsoever that spoke of any kind of mutation, no scales, no web between his fingers, nothing. A smile of pure happiness spread on his face and he started to laugh, embracing Juliet, so gratefully.

"Thank you." he sobbed relieved. "Thank you. Oh god, thank you. Thank you."

Juliet smiled, simply swept away by this overwhelming gratefulness, crying with him.

Next to Shawn, Gus started to sob too. Lassiter threw a glance at him and rolled his eyes.

"That´s unbelievable." Sylar said quietly. "We never left this cell? Nothing of this was real?"

For a moment, the others only looked at him without any reaction. But then Shawn made himself nod at the killer. Sylar mirrored his nod, almost grateful for the fact that he´d gotten an answer in the first place.

"How can we know that it´s not another dream again?" he then asked him.

Shawn exchanged a brief glance with Gus before he said: "Well … I would offer to pinch you. But …"

There was a tiny smirk on the killer´s lips.

...

The monitor in Roth´s office showed the hallway in which the fight between the security guards and the intruders had ended rather unconventionally and yet so simple, only a few minutes ago. Bennet watched the guards taking in Lauren and Gretchen. Both of them had been shot and were bleeding.

"What are you going to do with them?" he asked Roth.

"What do you mean?" Roth asked.

"They´re wounded. Will you give them some treatment? Or will you let them suffer?"

"You must think I´m a monster." Roth replied in a mocking tone.

"You ordered to kill people all over the country." Bennet recalled. "People of your own kind."

"As far as I know these two women are no Specials. Why should I want their death?"

Bennet studied the face of the man before him for a moment. "What about Claire?" he asked. "And Peter." But in this moment, he noticed a subtle change in Roth´s face and realized something. "You don´t have Peter yet, do you?" When Roth didn´t give an answer he just knew, that he was right.

"We´ll have him soon." Roth foretold him.

Noah smiled at this new information. "He´s still fighting you." he spoke it out.

"He won´t for much longer, I can assure you that."

Noah threw a look at the guard that had taken post at the office door. "Why do you keep me alive?" he asked Roth.

"You´ve proven resourceful in the past, Noah." Roth told him. "I want to offer you something. The life of your daughter for your services."

"You can´t kill Claire anyway." Bennet pointed out.

"But I can lock her up, for the rest of her life, what could be quite a while, we both know that. I offer her a better alternative than that."

Noah hesitated, trying to think the whole thing over. Surely there was a catch somewhere.

"Why should I believe you?" he asked. "You know I would demand that you´d let her go and you know what happens when you do that. She´ll keep fighting you."

"You misjudge the situation." Roth replied unimpressed. "You don´t have anything to demand. I offer Claire a better alternative than to be locked up in a cell. She can live on a … a mansion. Secured and watched of course but she would be free to move around that place as she pleases. Within a certain radius. And you could visit her once in a while."

"She´d never agree to that."

"She doesn´t have to. You do. Either that or I´ll put her in a tiny gray cell, a hose in her nose that pumps drugs up her pretty little brain. Or even better. I lock her within her own mind. Either way, she´ll never get out again. So think about it Noah, and think hard."

Noah did. He at least tried to, in the short time he had had at hand. "What about Lauren?" he asked. "And Gretchen?"

"What about them?"

"I want them too." Noah said, daring to raise the pot. "They are no threat to you. They don´t have abilities. Let them go."

Roth looked him over and there was a tiny twinkle in his eyes as if he enjoyed this bargaining. "You think you can control them?" he asked Noah.

"I guarantee it."

Roth nodded, still with this subtle smirk around his eyes. "All right." he said. "You´ve got them. So we have a deal?"

"We do." Noah said, hoping, praying to all gods that there were, that he was doing the right thing. The way things looked right now he didn´t see any other way out of this. At least this way he could save some of them.

"Good." Roth commented, his voice now cold and hard. "Then you may go out for your first assignment, Mr. Bennet. Bring me Peter Petrelli."