Author´s Note
All right. Before I start this, one more time: If you haven´t read the story yet, don´t make the mistake to spoil it for yourself. Go back and read it first.
Okay, so now I can start. If you read the Author´s Note of the first story, you might know that I didn´t know the show Heroes before I wrote "Identity". Well, that has changed. I use to go wild when I do research and in this case doing research meant watching the whole show almost back to back to back. So yeah, I know the show now. But if you read the story, you might have guessed that already.
Since I wrote Sylar as the typical killer in my first story, I had to think about a way to work that version into the canon of the show Heroes, where, we all know that, Sylar changed back to the good side in the end. So how to explain that he was back in the killing business when he had already had his happy end? Easy. I just made up that it didn´t work out the way Claire had hoped when she jumped off that ferris wheel and that Sylar was again left behind and chased by everybody.
Following his nature and his personality, he would run and fall back into his old habits. I guess that´s not too hard to imagine. Everybody would be pissed if you saved the world and then they come to arrest you and kick your ass for what you did. If they want me to be a criminal, I´ll give them what they want, he would think. At least that´s what I imagine.
Anyway. Back to this story. What I had in mind when I started, was some kind of mysterious enemy. That not Sylar was the enemy (not the most dangerous one at least) but someone else. I also wanted him to get away from the Company with Mohinder´s help and that the two of them would be forced to work together.
The idea to let Sylar and Shawn be connected in their dreams was more like an intuitive thing. I knew I wanted some outside force to be the reason for that, but when I started to write the story, I didn´t know what kind of force that would be. Only that it was supposed to be an antiforce to this mysterious enemy. Like a guardian angel or something. But what it would be exactly, I didn´t know back then. I just trusted the story and went along as it all happened.
What I did know was, that Shawn and Sylar were supposed to learn to trust each other throughout these dreams. Sort of. They should see the memories of the other and understand that they had a lot in common. That´s why I let their memories switch during these dreams. For better understanding what I did with that, I´d like to recall them briefly:
The first dream after Sylar was already escaped: An episode Psych watchers will recognize. Shawn as a teen gets arrested by his dad for stealing a car. I went along with the well known storyline of that, but I already had Sylar´s personality in mind while writing that. So it was Sylar who dreamed that dream, not Shawn. He was in his position and somehow in his head too but he was still Sylar. I tried to underline that a little by mentioning that the dream-Shawn knew how to provoke his father and that he could hear it ticking behind his forehead. When Henry started to accuse him of being a disappointment, he attacked him and then the dream became a different version of how Sylar´s mom died. Over the struggle with the scissors.
The transitions between dream and waking up was a lot of fun to write. I hoped to confuse people with that, so you guys wouldn´t know for sure what was real and what was a dream. But essentially Shawn dreamed what Sylar experienced and sometimes his dreams mixed with memories of Sylar. Same goes for what Sylar dreamed of Shawn.
The second dream that started with one of Shawn´s memories, was also from an episode of Psych. Shawn talked to his mother about his relationship with his dad. I changed the end of it again and mixed it with Sylar´s memory of the talk he had with his mother, just before she died. After that I let Shawn wake up (still in the dream) in Dr. Manny´s office, to reflect these dreams. I just wanted to let Shawn have a therapy session of some sorts even if it was only in a dream. The second gain we all had from that scene, was another insight Sylar got on our favorite psychic. And vice versa, Shawn would see another part of Sylar´s way to Santa Barbara, before they would actually meet again.
So much for the more confusing dream sequences. I´ll get back to the others along the way.
About the case Shawn and the others were working: I wanted this case to be related to what was going on and to Mohinder´s and Sylar´s mission. But I didn´t want you guys to know that from the start, so I disguised it. My goal was it to let them work the case but let the case seem minor and unimportant for the real story. In case this detail slipped your mind, the two dead people were Sasha, Mohinder´s assistant (he sent her out to prepare the ground for him, so they could get the virus into the Company´s system) and Juri Takolov, who worked for the Company. Maria Takolov, his wife, was also working for the Company. She killed her husband and Sasha to prevent this infiltration.
But with all the other things happening around them, the case became minor while the story developed. At least it seemed so for them – and you readers I hope.
The boy that approached Shawn and Gus in San Francisco was a member of Claire´s community. His ability is to tell if someone has an ability just by touching him. Claire and her friends had known about what the Company did and they tried to warn Shawn. As we saw, they came a little too late and he got shot by two hitmen. When Lassiter arrested the two culprits, two people in police uniform took them out and he was just to distracted with the dying Shawn to realize that these two cops were no cops, but Noah Bennet and Lauren Gilmore in disguise. Two people he would learn to know later on.
After Shawn died in the hospital, I knew that Claire´s blood was the only way to bring him back to life. I considered to let her get in there herself but then I figured that this wouldn´t work so well. And since Peter is a nurse, there was no question of who would do it instead. And that´s how Peter came into my story. That was something totally random, that I didn´t plan. He just showed up and then I had to run with that and somehow work him into the rest of the story. Thanks again for the extra work Pete. But that goes for Claire as well, when I´m honest. No idea how she made her way into the story, for more than just a reference I mean. All I want to say is: nothing of this was planned.
Well from that point on it was totally about following the characters. Of course they would arrest Peter after what happened in the hospital and of course they would question him. It´s true, the way Lassiter asked him, he would have never said anything. It was the way Shawn asked the same question in a totally different way, that made Peter tell him what he knew. I for myself liked the transition between Shawn´s last line to Peter and Henry´s first line. That Shawn promises Peter not to call him crazy and the first thing Henry has to say is: "This guy is totally crazy." I think that´s what he would say.
I´m also quite proud of the fact that I managed it to work in this last scene of Claire jumping off the ferris wheel. It was always the image of Heroes to have her looking into the camera after such a jump and saying those lines, while her wounds are healing. I still admire the writers of Heroes for ending the show with that image, the one thing that we all knew almost from the start, coming full circle with everything in the end. That´s just some great stuff.
The following episode between Sylar and Mohinder was something special to me. There they got into their first real and open fistfight and stopped pretending that everything was fine. I wanted them to fight to the blood and then as soon as the Company men arrived, they would have to switch back into being partners again. Almost without any transition. And I think it worked. I for myself liked that part of their trip.
By the way: that I let them be on a road trip to Santa Barbara was no try to relive that famous road trip from the first season. That just happened, just like so many other things. I knew they would have to cross a certain distance to get from New York to Santa Barbara but I lengthened their trip as the story went.
When they were at the gas station, I almost let them meet up with Shawn and Gus in San Francisco. But then I decided to stretch it a little more and made it a gas station near Chicago and not near San Francisco.
I figured that everybody would need a little more time to come to terms with what was going on, and especially these two guys, who would definitely need some more time to work out their differences. They were supposed to work together after all. So I delayed their arrival in Santa Barbara a little and it became a longer road trip than planned. But it was fun to write that. It´s always fun to write these two together. Not to indicate anything …
I also wanted to resurrect Mohinder´s transformation from season three, when he brought that creepy mutation on himself. In order to let him understand Sylar a little better, I had to let him go through that nightmare again. Who´d be better to lure out that monster in Mohinder than Sylar?
After I finally brought all the elements together that already were in Santa Barbara (Noah, Peter, Claire and all the others) I figured that the time was up to let Shawn and Sylar meet again for real. The dream Shawn had, started as a part of reality. Sylar and Mohinder reaching Takolov´s house. When Shawn woke up, Sylar was already there in his apartment.
By then I had figured out which force it should be, that was behind the dreams. But for Shawn and the others it would need some more time to get an answer. First they had a mission to accomplish. And of course the first try would fail. I needed a reason for them all to be in there and a rescue mission was the perfect scenario for that.
So I sent them all in there and made them separate. Roth, our villain in this story, knew that they would come all along and let them get in, so he could take them down one by one. The illusions he created for them, were supposed to put everybody through his biggest nightmare. For Mohinder this was to mutate again into this monster he´d almost become once. For Claire it was to be betrayed by her father and see all her friends die. Gus and Juliet got trapped in an endless labyrinth of corridors and Lassiter had to watch Shawn die without being able to do something about it.
But luckily for our favorite psychic, there was still this guardian angel that had caused him so many weird dreams.
I came up with someone that was able to manipulate dreams, with the goal to let Shawn and the others understand how they could defeat Roth. That someone like him could only be defeated by a strong alliance of all their minds. How else to defeat someone who can let you see whatever he wants? So I let Marylin tell them to concentrate and to support each other against Roth´s illusions. And as you all saw, it worked. In the end she did the same thing to him that he did to them. She put him in a prison he could never escape from. His own mind.
About the last chapter, I was so happy that some people acknowledged how Mohinder went a little badass in there. That was one of the things I wanted to make happen, no matter how. I mean seriously. I know he´s usually the nice guy, the scientist and all that, but seriously. He has this superstrength, then he is ought to use it once in a while, dammit. And that line he said to the Company guy, was inspired from a youtube video. It´s called heroes nonsense. In the first three seconds they made it look as if he was really saying that. It´s not his voice but it just fits so perfectly to his lip movements that I just had to use that. The rest of the video is truly just nonsense but those first three seconds totally made my day. So yeah. Had to do it. My inner child wanted to play and I let it.
After Roth was defeated (I hope you all got the reference his first name was: Freddy?) all that was left to do, was to decide what to do about Sylar. I was pretty satisfied with my solution, especially since it promised more Sylar Mohinder storyline for the next story. So many things that I can play with. And enough for you guys to look forward to. So if you want to know how it will go on, come back for the next story.
Hope to see you then.
Leave a review if you like. I appreciate all kinds of constructive criticism.
And thanks for reading.