Claire dreams.
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This is familiar. Kirby Plaza, she's been here before. Not under pleasant circumstances, of course, and this time is no different. Something is wrong. Several things, actually.
New York is a ghost town, for one. The buildings look old, ancient even, and many of them are crumbling. Bricks scatter the sidewalks. The windows are broken; the jagged shards that remain are dusty. Claire looks down at her shoes, and there in the street, cracks have opened up in the asphalt, allowing unkempt blades of grass to spring up. She steps away, unnerved, and turns a full circle.
Where is everybody? Somebody?
"Rob," she whispers. Her throat feels tight with anxiety. She swallows and calls more loudly, "Dad? Peter!"
Somebody, please, God. Even a stranger.
Next comes the real kicker. There's a flickering from above, a great waning in the sky, and when Claire turns her face up, she knows this is it, the big finale.
Claire Bennet has outlived the sun.
The stars come out in the middle of the day. They come out forever.
Alone in a never-ending blackness, she begins walking. She has no knowledge of where she might be headed, nor does it seem to matter. There are hot tears on her face, and her breaths begin coming fast, sharp. Something close to panic is rising in her, but she doesn't fight it off. It has forever to pass, quite literally.
Slowly, she becomes conscious of a second set of footsteps closing in behind her. She stops and turns toward them. Hope leaps inside her, and when a hand closes hard around her wrist, the jolt she feels is overridden by jubilation.
The strange hand begins to glow, blue-white. It illuminates the two figures standing there in the bygone city, and the instant Claire sees him, she rips her wrist out of his grasp and flings her arms around him.
"Oh, my god!" she half-sobs with relief, her tears rubbing off on the front of his shirt as she tightens her embrace. "Please don't go anywhere. Please stay with me . . ."
His hand comes up and cups the back of her head, fingers going into her hair to stroke her scalp.
"Stay with you?" His exasperated tone is at odds with the soothing motions of his fingers. "You're the one who's always running away."
"Never again," she promises with a slight sniffle. "It's all over, anyway. Where would I go?"
His hand leaves her head and takes her arm, pushing her away so he can look her in the face.
"We can go anywhere," he states simply. "Why are you so negative? Nothing's over—it's just different." He shrugs a shoulder. "This was always inevitable, Claire."
Her lips part slightly as she stares at the utter confidence in his shadowed features, the untroubled curve of his mouth.
"How can you say that?" she asks with incredulity. "You do realize the sun just went out like a giant light bulb, don't you? How can you be so . . ?"
He raises his eyebrows questioningly, waiting on the accusation. But it never comes, because Claire reaches up, grabs his hair, and pulls his face down to hers.
Kisses him.
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Sylar is already up and out of the shower by the time Claire awakens. He steps out of the bathroom, finishing the top buttons of his shirt (black, of course—he lives in black). When he glances at the bed, he blinks, startled. Claire is watching him, lying completely stationary beneath the sheet with her knees drawn up.
"You're awake," he observes, caught off guard, then feels like a bit of a fool for stating the obvious. He brushes it aside deftly: "Good morning."
"Not even if you really were the last man on Earth," she mumbles quietly in return, sleep still in her voice.
"What?"
"Nothing." Claire stretches, then throws the sheet back, sitting up and draping her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her hair is disheveled, her pajamas twisted from her tossing. "Showered, huh? You must've given me—what?—ten whole minutes to make my big escape. Damn."
He gives her a derisive look, then crosses the room to rifle through her suitcase. As he bends over it, his black hair falls wetly over his forehead. She watches him, remembering her dream. If she embraced him now, he would feel hot and vaguely damp, lingering after-effects of the shower. He hasn't shaved—presumably he didn't bring a razor. If she kissed him, the dark stubble on his face would scratch her.
My ass, it was a dream, she thinks, running a hand over her face to wipe away the images. Nightmare is more like it. Night terror.
A change of clothes lands in her lap.
"Get dressed," he says. "Let's get out of this heap."
Heap, she knows, could mean the motel or Texas, probably both. Just anywhere he doesn't want to be.
"Am I not even allowed to dress myself anymore?" she asks, examining what he threw at her: a pair of jeans and a dark green blouse. Along with, dear lord, a pair of lace underwear, upon the discovery of which she cringes, folding it in her fist. She'll stop wearing it if it means he'll stop touching it, she thinks. Honestly—son of a bitch.
"I'd like to leave as soon as possible, that's all," he explains nonchalantly, closing up her bag. "When we get back to New York, you can wear whatever you want. Go crazy. Go shopping."
He glances over with a smile when he makes the suggestion. Claire doesn't return it, but stands, turning the clothes in her hands.
"Shopping," she repeats. The word brings up a point she's yet to consider till now. "Did you happen to pack my and Rob's joint bank account in there, too?"
Sylar rolls his eyes.
"I have money, Claire," he says, as if it should be obvious.
"Well, everyone has some money," she answers, scoffing.
His response is to reach into his back pocket, remove his wallet, and take out a single bill. Holding it up between his middle and index fingers, he stares at her with a deadpan expression, and before her eyes the paper bill flashes, solidifies into gold.
"I have a lot of money," he clarifies.
Claire nods slowly. He can't tell if she's impressed.
It's giving her an uneasy feeling, this assumption he has. As if he's going to set her up, pay for everything, make it all better. As if he wants her to be dependent on him, like a dog—like Mr. Muggles, may he rest in peace. She has a creeping idea that he didn't come down here to save her at all, but rather because, with Rob throwing in the towel, business was slow and she was a bargain.
Claire maintains her silence until she reaches the door to the bathroom, clothing in tow. There, she turns to him and opens her mouth. But when he lifts his eyebrows like that, her dream punches its way back into her mind. He looked like that right before . . . She falters.
"It's weird when you do that, you know," she says instead of voicing her main concern. "I mean, it's disturbing."
He shakes his head, perplexed.
"When I do what?"
"Show off," she says, her voice hard. She nods toward the now-golden dollar in his hand. "Those little tricks you love so much. None of that belongs to you."
He frowns after her as she disappears into the bathroom. She turns the broken lock, out of habit, he supposes. He runs his thumb over the bill, turning it in his fingers.
Showing off . . . She asked, didn't she?
He tosses it onto the bed. It seems a shame to leave it in a place like this, but it's no loss to him. To allay his boredom while he waits for Claire, he tries to calculate how many hookers or milligrams of crack some random patron will undoubtedly be thrilled to buy with it.
"Are you hungry?" he asks when she emerges. He keeps his tone light. There's no reason to let her know he took offense at her remark. Doing so would serve no point but to make it seem accurate.
"Yeah, a little," she answers, running her fingers through her wet hair. Now that he mentions it, her stomach does feel like a tightly crumpled ball in her abdomen.
"We can eat at the airport." He hefts her suitcase and opens the door.
They leave the sad little motel behind, heading for the airport, heading for New York. At the same time, Robert Rutherford climbs into his car, pulls away from far better lodgings, and heads homeward.