"I came back," says not-Rob. "Aren't you happy?"
Claire's face is contorted with rage.
"Stop it," she forces out.
"I got all the way to the Mexican border," he continues, unperturbed. "I thought getting out of the country might put things into perspective. I thought, sure, I'll hang out, have a few tequilas, maybe a margarita or two—and then, of course, I thought of you. You always did love margaritas. I can still see you sipping one at our wedding . . . Remember the wedding? How happy we were?"
Claire rises up at the waist, rigid as a board, till she's sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. The look she levels on him is deadly.
"You piece of shit—you came to my wedding?" She specifically asked him not to.
"Claire—I was the groom."
"You promised you wouldn't come!"
Why can't she play along? He lapses back into his own body for a moment.
"Actually," he says, raising a finger, "I promised I wouldn't show—and clearly I didn't. It's your own fault, really. If you knew me at all, you would have been on the lookout for loop—"
"Would have known not to trust a single word that came out of your lying mouth," she cuts in. "Right."
He lowers a brow.
"Who're you talking to?" He shifts back and forth momentarily, Sylar to Rutherford and back again. "Say when."
She clamps her lips into a hard line.
"You know, killing is cathartic," he tells her. "So, c'mon—kill me a little. Just try it. I bet you like it." He sing-songs the last bit to her like a pusher trying to coax her into her first trip.
Nothing. Well, she's slowly turning the color of a beet, but aside from that, crickets.
"Hmm . . . Oh." He chuckles. "You want to know something else about your wedding, Claire? It's funny. I think you'll laugh."
She highly doubts that.
"Do you remember cousin Gordon?"
"Who?"
"Tall fella, pretty forgettable, I admit—you danced with him at once point when they were handing you around like a cheap hooker."
She shakes her head, uncomprehending, and he smiles a dark yet infinitely smug smile. Leaning in conspiratorially, he drops his voice.
"Guess who doesn't exist."
A cold wave sweeps through her body. He danced with her—he danced with her. At her wedding.
"I didn't like using this ability," he says. "I never did. But it seemed only fair I be there to dance with you—give you away, if you will."
Claire starts up from the couch, the knife suddenly feeling custom-made for her hand.
It's a reaction, at least.
"Tell me, sweetheart," he says, shifting into Rutherford again. "Does this look right? Do I look old enough? Maybe I should throw in a little decrepit for good measure . . . What about now?" Sylar truly isn't certain. He hasn't seen Rutherford in decades. Never found him particularly interesting, aside from his unfortunate familial connection.
"That's enough," Claire bites off. "I'm not going to play your weird little game, Sylar. God, you are sick, you know that?"
"Mm, I guess you're more used to seeing the back of me these days," he presses on, doing an about-face. "Is that better? Well, it's better for me, anyway. I don't much like looking at you—you make me feel so old."
The word tumble off his lips, and he feels odd for a split second. Dirty, almost. The way remorse feels. It passes.
Meanwhile, Claire feels as if she's been stabbed.
He hears her breath hitch, and he turns his head, cocking his ear to reap the full effect.
"I can't believe you—" Danced with me, you bastard "—and now this, and . . ."
Quickly, she crosses over to him, shoving him around so she can look him in the face—well, Rutherford's face.
"You ruin everything."
To her chagrin and his immense interest, she is close to angry tears.
"That's all you know how to do—violate things. And people. Take something good and make it—make it—"
Again, he wants to ask her who she's stammering at. If anyone ever failed to realize he had something good in front of him, it's Rutherford. Where Sylar is a god among men--and he is, though Claire may scoff at the notion--Rutherford is the king of all fools.
Claire ceases her search for words and draws the knife back, almost without thinking. Then, she halts, her arm trembling. His eyes flick to it, and she sees him slip for a moment. He has the nerve to look excited. At that moment, she wants the violence so badly she can taste bile rising in her throat. She's going to do it. Gut the son of a bitch. Spill him all over his own floor.
But a part of her remains hesitant. He looks like her husband, and can she cut her own husband? Even if, possibly, a minuscule part of her deep, deep down . . ?
Her arm swings forward. She sticks him instead of slicing him as she intended, burying the blade in his shoulder.
He cries out. It's what he wanted, but holy hell, it still hurts.
She cries out, too, and that's encouraging.
"Claire—darling—what did I violate?" Slipping into Rob is easy, more fun now that he's finally got her all revved up. "Oh, are you referring to—her?"
It's a shot in the dark that might fall wildly astray. But her face changes, and he knows he's hit the bull's-eye.
"She didn't mean anything, not really," he says.
"What do you know about it?" Claire breathes, and he can see she's trying to keep a grasp on the situation, remember who's taunting her. She gives the blade a small but vicious twist as she rips it out. He grunts.
"You were the one I cared about," he continues, the wound healing even as he speaks. "You were my rock—weren't you? You always were . . ."
He pauses, catching his breath. The truth of the words flood him as thoroughly as the pain, and he has to remind himself he's playing a part. Crushing any and all kind sentiments, he locks on her eyes to deliver the killing blow.
"But let's face it, Claire. I need variety. All men do. And that's the one thing you can't provide, because—well—you never change, do you?"
A tiny but furious screech bubbles it way up and out of her throat, and dear lord, but it's electrifying. He watches, almost rapt, as her hand arcs up again, and she cuts him right across the face, tearing a jagged Glasgow smile into him. Nerves shocked and burning, his eyes watering, he doesn't see her nip around to his back. When she plants the bottom of her foot flush on his backside, he goes down without a fight. Blood rains onto the floor with numerous, minute taps.
On his hands and knees, he looks up at her as she rounds him again. The cuts are disappearing, but the smile stays.
"I was just using her, Claire," he informs her in a voice of mock reason, the lower half of his face a mask of scarlet. "Why can't you see that? She was just there to take the edge off when you couldn't quite do it anymore. It's you I—"
"No, you went to her," Claire cuts in, her voice strangled, the color high in her face. Squeezing her eyes shut for a second, she shakes her head fiercely, rebuking herself. "He went to her. When he left me. I'm positive."
"I didn't . . ." he denies with a heavy dose of I totally did. And it's probably true.
"Stop lying!" she blurts, then claps her hand over her mouth. Brows raised, not-Rob rises up on his knees, observing her. Feeling herself teetering on the edge of falling into this mad charade, she tries to turn away, retain her sanity. She doesn't quite make it.
He gasps, stunned, when the toe of her shoe catches him under the chin. It's not quite as painful as being stabbed, but it's every bit as disorienting, because despite her short legs, she packs a damn fine kick. Must have been a wonder to behold as a cheerleader. His head rocks back and the rest of his upper body follows suit, colliding with the floor. For a second, he blinks up at two of her. Twice the amount of Claire Bennet, striding around him, circling like a feline predator and swinging the knife at her side like a pro.
Dear lord, Claire . . . If she could see herself now, see what he sees, the mere memory of that frail domestic life in Texas would send her into uncontrollable peals of laughter.
"You always were a liar," she states heatedly, the dam of tears having finally ruptured. "You never said exactly what you meant. I do clearly didn't mean shit to you, so who knows about anything else you told me? Like those three times, every singe one—you said it didn't matter, but did it? And how did it matter? Were you sad? Angry? God, were you happy about it, you bastard?"
Three times? What? He doesn't even know what she's talking about anymore. Somehow, she's the one in charge now.
"And what about I love you, was that real—ever, even once?"
As if to let him know the question is rhetorical, she brings her heel down on his knee. Hard. It dislocates.
"Ow!" He bends instinctively toward the injury, hearing it grind back into place, but she pushes him back down.
"Or did it just get you off to be with me? Huh? Nailing some circus freak like me?"
She stomps on him. In a sensitive area.
The world goes white for a moment, and he may scream, he isn't certain. Surely a long stream of profanities are issued via Rutherford's vocal cords.
"Oh, god . . ." he groans. And she complains about a lack of pain, she actually does. . . "Oh, god."
When she drops to her knees with clear intent on cutting him again, Sylar feels a tinge of relief. He never thought he'd relish the idea of being stabbed, but damn it to hell and back, her foot is getting old.
"The worst part of it," she says, crawling up beside him to bring their vision level, gazing at him from beneath the severe set of her honey-colored brow, "is that I knew you were a liar and a cheat, and I loved you anyway."
Disheveled hair about her face, she drags the point of the blade up his thigh, around his hip, across his navel, splitting threads and just barely breaking the skin.
"Every way you found to hurt me, and I still loved you, and you couldn't accept one tiny little flaw."
She slings one knee over his thigh, angles the knife over his chest.
"Immortality?" he rejoins hoarsely. "Pretty big-ass flaw, don't you think? Puts a whole new spin on till death do you part—and you called me a cheater."
She leans forward, grabs his hairline in her fist and looks down into her husband's face, her nose an inch from his. There's a slight sheen of sweat on is forehead, and she can feel his breath against her lips. It's coming quick, whether from pain or anticipation of it or something else entirely, she isn't certain. And doesn't really care.
"Maybe I'll always love you, Rob," she professes. Might as well say his name--in for a dime as a nickel, as the saying goes. "Because maybe I'm just that goddamned stupid. But you were telling the truth about one thing."
He can feel the tip of the metal against the front of his shirt, pressing into his skin.
"We're through."
She pierces him right through the heart, looking at him as she holds it there, hilt to the gash. He feels the muscle spasm around the blade. Eerie, as her face goes dim before his eyes.
"Claire . . ." He struggles to maintain consciousness, his fingers digging at the floor. "Claire, pull it out."
His heart struggles to keep pumping, shredding in the motion even as it attempts to heal around the foreign object. He's never felt anything like it—and he suspects he won't be feeling it for much longer.
A rippling sensation runs the course of his flesh, his final accomplishment before he loses her, the room, everything.
Claire blinks, and it isn't Rob lying beneath her anymore. Her eyes widen, and her lips part.
"Oh—oh, shit." She plucks the knife out and tosses it aside. Slaps him across the face—twice, and with a sharp crack, because honestly, shame on him—then shoves his shirt up.
The stab wound is healing. Thank god.
Wait, should she be relieved, particularly after a stunt like that?
"That was . . ." he speaks quietly, coming back to himself. Quickly, she moves from him, standing and walking away on wobbly legs.
Amazing, he finishes inwardly. You were ruthless. He just wishes it really had been the other man. Without the accompanying agony, he might have enjoyed the surprise assault on Rutherford's groin just a touch more.
"Huh," says Claire, swallowing.
"Huh?"
She glances over her shoulder at him, where he still lies sprawled on the floor, generously swathed in his own blood.
"I guess I do feel a little better," she grudgingly acknowledges.
He grins, the white of his teeth shocking in the red mask of his face.
"I told you so."
She allows a short, incredulous laugh. Sylar would find a way to brag about being the victim of a brutal stabbing.
"So, what now?" She looks around, trying to smooth her hair down. She's referring to the state of the room, distancing herself from the previous chaos by focusing on stains and glancing about for the gory knife.
"Um . . ." Twisting, he finds one of the clocks. "Well, we haven't eaten since the airport. What do you think—ice cream?"
Licking the hot fudge off the spoon later that evening, Claire realizes it's the first thing she's truly tasted in days.