"Lovely accommodations," Claire mocks from the shoddy little bathroom. There's something on the floor of the shower that looks like a dead cockroach. She hopes it's a dead cockroach. Other possibilities boggle the mind and turn the stomach. Flipping on the faucet, she washes it down the drain.

She has to admit, it feels good to get the dried blood out of her hair. And the hot water on her skin is a curiously pleasant mix of punitive and soothing.

Once she's rinsed, she realizes that she forgot to grab a change of clothing from her suitcase. Her bloody shirt and pants are lying in a wet heap in the shower, where she undertook an extremely failed effort to stomp them clean under the water.

"Damn it," she whispers, wrapping the skimpy towel around her torso. But when she steps out, her favorite pair of pajamas are waiting for her, dangling over the doorknob—which, she sees now, is equipped with a broken lock.

When she emerges, clean and still faintly pink from the heat, Sylar suggests they try to get some sleep. She takes the bed, and he grabs a pillow and makes himself as comfortable as possible on the floor. It's only chivalrous . . . not to mention easier to play watchdog from that position. He's not convinced she won't try to bolt the instant he's out.

The motel has only single rooms. It's the sort of establishment that rents by the hour and caters to philanderers who want to squeeze in a quick screw before going home to their spouses. As if in testament to that, about ten minutes after Sylar and Claire turn off the lights, a couple staggers in next door and starts going at it raucously, the headboard banging up against the wall. Sylar's half-afraid they're going to pound their way right through, but he tries desperately to pretend he can't hear them. They have to stop soon enough—he's sure of it—but on and on they go, the only change a steady rise in enthusiasm. He's just decided that this situation could not possibly be any more awkward, when Claire muses from the darkness:

"You know, I was just thinking about Rob."

At which point he rolls over and crushes his nose into the pillow. Death by suffocation has never seemed so attractive.

"Are you awake?" she persists softly.

"Yes," he reluctantly answers. That's not exactly a lullaby they're playing over there.

"It's funny," she continues. She's lying on her back, and as her eyes adjust to the darkness, she studies the brown water-leak stains on the ceiling. "The habits we form without even knowing it . . . You go to bed with someone for thirty years, night after night, and then suddenly they're gone, and the bed just feels so empty. You just feel so empty. And you can't sleep—you almost don't even want to. It's like having an addiction. Like withdrawal."

Sylar sits up suddenly and props his arms on the side of her mattress.

"Hey, Claire—"

"That wasn't an invitation."

He glares at her.

"I wasn't—that's not what I was doing! Honestly, the things you assume . . ." He picks idly at a snag in the blanket. "I was curious . . . What exactly did Rutherford say? Before he took off, I mean."

The question hangs suspended in the space between them. What ensues can't really be called silence—not with the dynamic duo next door. It's more of a pressure, an increased density to the air. He's about to pull back and lie down again, forget he asked, when Claire shifts onto her side, facing him. Some of her damp blond hair falls over her face, but he can still see the pinpoint shine of her eyes.

"He said I made him feel old."

Sylar snorts.

"I see," he says. "So it's like a midlife crisis, only in reverse. . . How does that play out, exactly? He goes out and spends all his money on older women and—what, some kind of used minivan?"

He wants her to laugh, but she's just not having it.

"More like he just dumps his ditzy-looking little wife so people will stop calling him a cradle robber."

"Claire . . ." Sylar shakes his head, eyes still fastened on hers. "You have got to stop sulking. Do you realize—? No, look at me."

Claire rolls her eyes at his lack of sensitivity and begins to turn away, but he reaches out and grasps her arm, drawing her back. She meets his eyes again, indignant.

"Do you realize," he continues, his tone harsh, "that I nearly lost my sanity, my freedom, my life, for god's sake, trying to get at your brain? Has that part of our history slipped your mind?"

"Oh, you did lose your sanity!" she snaps. "Trust me."

"And do you realize," he says, ignoring her remark, "that you put a bullet in that wonderful brain because you made some man feel exactly what he should feel—old, insignificant, ordinary?"

"You mean 'not special,' right, Sylar?"

"Absolutely."

Her eyes flash, and there's an odd expression on her face, a cross between regret and fury.

"You never did know what that meant," she tells him. "Rob's special because he's special to me."

"Your sentimentality doesn't make him special," he disagrees with a smirk.

"You're only insignificant if nobody loves you," Claire states firmly, enunciating each word, and she pulls out of his grasp with a jerk of her shoulder. Rolling onto her back, she adds somewhat cruelly, "I guess that means we're the insignificant ones, after all, you and me. Pretty funny punch line, isn't it? Mother nature's one hilarious bitch."

Sylar isn't sure how he should respond to that. Part of him is insulted-an old, old part of him that still bristles at the memory of Gabriel Gray's humble reflection. Another part is a little hurt, and he tries to shun that part, because it makes him feel small and foolish. His face is hot, as if he's blushing, so he's thankful for the lack of light.

You're wrong, he thinks with a vague sense of resentment. You might be stupid, but you've never been insignificant and you never could be—not even as you define it.

Finally, he opens his mouth to speak, but:

"Oh, GOD!" screams the woman next door.

"Oh, god," Sylar echoes through clenched teeth, his hand over his face. "Please let that be the end of it!"

He thinks Claire let slip a short, involuntary giggle at that moment, but he isn't certain. Maybe it's just the woman again. In any case, whatever he was going to say . . . The moment's over. He can't say it now. Not that it would matter, anyway.

Thankfully, the couple next door has, in fact, expended all their energy. Sylar sprawls out on the floor again, and it's a long time until Claire's voice pierces the silence a final time. She sounds groggy, as if she's drifting off at last.

"How long until somebody misses me, do you think?" she wonders. "Rob has to come home, eventually, even if it's just to get his things . . . and he'll find my letter . . ."

Sylar doesn't bother to enlighten her on that point. He simply feigns sleep, and soon afterward the sound of her steady, deep breathing tells him she's out for the night.

The couple next door leaves. They drive away in two separate cars, and don't seem to have much to say to each other after finalizing their physical exchange. Another group arrives, but they're quieter. Soon, the stink of marijuana smoke finds its way through the thin walls. It's entirely tolerable, compared to the earlier performance.

All these people, thinks Sylar, before his eyes close of their own accord, They come and they go.

Insignificant.