Claire finds him lounging in the midst of his timepieces. She can't help but think he looks oddly at ease, considering how knotted-up she feels after what transpired last night.

"Well . . . I'm back," she says awkwardly, stopping in the doorway.

"I heard you come in," he replies, focusing on prodding a minuscule screwdriver into the back of an open watch. Though he was on pins and needles waiting for her to return, he didn't rush to greet her at the sound of her entrance, and now he keeps his tone nonchalant. Seeming overeager would be a mistake. "Where did you go?"

She shrugs and steps into the room. She isn't sure she should—somehow, this room feels private, almost creepily isolated. Her footsteps sound foreign, but he doesn't seem to mind as she strolls up and peers over his shoulder.

"Just out," she says. No reason to mention coffee with any new, charming male acquaintances. "I just felt like stepping out for a while—I mean, after last night, I—"

"I don't remember a thing," he cuts in. Give her a chance. Take it and run with it.

Claire is quiet for a moment. She wishes she could study his face, try and locate traces of dishonesty. But he seems so relaxed. Maybe he means it.

"Yeah, me neither," she says at last, walking around the table to get a better view.

Sylar feels her lie wash over him, followed by a warm wave of relief. This is good. They can work with this. He pulls off his eye loupes and looks at her, smiling.

"I told you it was overrated," he says.

"As far as I know," she agrees. She can't quite look him in the eye, so she reaches out and brushes the watch. "Must be nice, being able to fix things so easily."

He rims the open watch delicately with his finger, missing hers by a mere centimeter.

"Sometimes it's too easy," he remarks. "If you get too good at something . . . Even a hobby can become boring."

When it's all you ever do. When it's your life, your love, your reason for living. What's the point of being good at something if there's no one around to marvel at you?

"Is that why you eased up on the whole lobotomy thing?"

He considers for a moment.

"It did get a little old," he admits. "I mean, after I got all the really good ones . . ."

His eyes hold hers as he wonders if he should say it. But it's what they're both thinking.

"Yours," he admits. "Let's be honest, once you've got the ability to come back from a shot to the face, other abilities just don't hold the same spark. There's just no urgency anymore."

"Yeah, you really hit the jackpot with me," Claire says. He can tell she means it as a joke, but there's an underlying bitterness there. Whether it's directed at him or at herself—or both—he doesn't know.

"Claire, do you believe in fate?" he asks suddenly.

She looks at him, then down, away from his eyes. Pulling the watch toward her, she feigns interest in its tiny gears as she mulls over the question.

"I believe certain things are inevitable," she answers slowly.

"That's not . . . quite what I meant."

"You mean real fate—predestination, providence, something like that?"

"Sure. I guess."

"Do you?"

"I think so. More and more these days."

"Why these days?"

He merely offers a shrug. The only answer is another question, and he can't very well reply, Why would I want you so much if you weren't supposed to be here?

Claire is peering at him closely, looking up at him almost secretively from beneath her brows. Part of her wants to catch something on his face, some hint of remorse.

"Does it help with the guilt?" she asks softly.

His brow furrows.

"Guilt?" he responds.

"I mean, believing you were meant to do everything you did, that it was fate—does it make it go away? Make it easier to sleep at night?"

She isn't trying to jab him. She really wants to know—wants him to answer in the affirmative, if she's honest with herself. However:

"I don't have trouble sleeping, Claire. You should know."

Didn't think so.

Sylar's still Sylar. Just because he's let up, that doesn't mean he's repented, or even stopped fully. Hell, it just means he's not in the mood.

Claire realizes now that she made up her mind coming back from the coffee shop. There is no starting afresh here. She doesn't want to hurt him, to spite him. She'd like to be friends. But she can't stay.

In fact, Sylar does believe he was truly fated to hurt one person, and that person is Claire Bennet. The years before he ever heard of her were miserable, an affair of drudgery and monotony, day after day of dim self-loathing. And then Chandra came, like providence incarnate, and everything fell into place. He fell into place, a square peg fitting at long last.

He remembers his headlong pursuit of that wonderful ability, possessed by that wonderful, astounding girl. That, he believes, was his chrysalis phase. The emergence occurred when he pinned her in her home, carved into her, extracted the nectar of her life-force.

That bloody day. Beautiful day.

Of course, he could say all this to her, but he's positive she'd send his nose crashing up into his brain.

And he'd still want her here.

You and I were born to keep each other company.

He's glad Rutherford showed up, after all. Glad he sent him running scared. Now they can stay here, unbothered. Together.

Claire resolves to find her own apartment.

[] [] []

She seems distant that night, and he finds it grating. He understands that she still feels strange about her tequila-induced flirtations—all in all, that was a bad, bad idea on his part—but they've decided to pretend it never happened. What the hell is her problem?

"I'm tired," he professes at last. And a little bored. And annoyed. "I'm going to bed. Are you—?"

"Think I might read for a while," she says. She's curled up on one end of the couch. Far away from him. Radiating iciness as even a certain long-legged, long-dead blonde could not.

Maybe it's just his imagination.

"All right," he replies with a lift of his shoulder. "Anything in particular?"

He'd even find it reassuring if she'd tease him about that damned Sex and Your Sanity book again. But she doesn't. No, it isn't that. She won't.

"Not really. Have any classics?"

"Hm-depends on your use of classics, I suppose." There have been plenty of new additions to the literary hall of fame over the years. He goes to the shelves and scans them, his face slightly moody.

"Anything I might have read in high school, probably with a gun to my head?"

It pops out of her mouth before she thinks, and they both wince slightly at the touchy imagery, each unseen by the other.

"Let me see . . ." he says, running his finger over the spines of the myriad books. "Persuasion—Austen really isn't my thing, too formulaic . . . You might like it, though."

"Anything else?"

"Well, of course, you've got your classic classics. Homer's The Iliad, Romeo and Juliet—that's a good one."

"Not too formulaic?"

"It ends with a stabbing, Claire. You can't ask for much more than that out of a sixteenth century love story. I only read Persuasion once, but I have a creeping suspicion they survived."

Claire chuckles. It makes the corner of his mouth quirk up and his shoulders ease slightly.

"I take it you're not a fan of happy endings," she remarks.

Sylar considers this for a second.

"They die," he says, glancing over at her. "They always die. The happy ending is just a cop-out, because the author knows we don't want to see the ecstatic couple careening toward death and decay. Shakespeare, at least, knew how to get around that."

"By killing them young. Leave a good-looking corpse, and all that. Yeah, that's much better."

He bristles.

"They die in each other's arms. It preserves the integrity of their love—an element all fairytales and Austen strive for—while at the same time lending a note of finality. So it's rendered both perfect and complete—a dual quality that fairytales and Austen fail to offer."

Claire raises an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure what you just said, but I'm positive you read it in the foreword."

He rolls his eyes and tosses her the volume of Shakespeare. It's tattered, several pages loose in the leather binding.

"The footnotes come in handy," he advises, walking away.

She flips through it, fanning the scent of old, crisp pages to her nose. It causes her eyes to drift shut and brings to mind another aroma: the subtle, masculine scent detectable when she nuzzles into his chest sometimes at night.

No use in denying it, she's going to miss that.

"What if they didn't both have to die?" she asks, catching him before he vanishes into the bathroom. "I mean, in fairytales, say Cinderella was immortal. Wouldn't that make for a better love story?"

Well, a less formulaic one, anyway. Better is taking it too far. She lived that situation, after all, and it didn't end in a fairytale fashion. In place of a fairy godmother, she got a serial killer. Instead of a prince . . . Wait, who is the prince in this situation?

"That's not a love story," Sylar replies, a bit coolly. "That's a tragedy."

He shuts the door behind him, and she's left staring down at the copy of Romeo and Juliet in her hands.

Isn't it both? she wonders.

[] [] []

He can't sleep. The clock ticks by the minutes, the hours, and Claire still hasn't come to bed. He turns this way, that way, he curls his knees up and straightens his legs. He puts his arm out, and there's a huge, cavernous space there on the mattress.

It's . . . vexing.

Therefore, he's wide awake and fully aware when the light in the sitting room goes out. He sees it disappear in the crack over the bedroom door.

And she still doesn't come to bed.

Water, he thinks at last. I need water.

So up he gets, and in his quest to slake his non-existent thirst, he finds her lying on the couch in the darkness.

"Claire?"

She hears him approach. Clamps her eyelids shut and tries to breath convincingly.

"Claire." His hand falls on her shoulder, and he's shaking her lightly. It's no use. God, he can't take a hint, can he?

"Mm-yeah," she answers, opening one eye in what she hopes is a groggy manner. "What—what is it?"

"W—" He steps off a bit, lifts his hands, looking down at her. "Why are you out here?"

Because she has a silly urge to comb his tousled hair with her fingers. Because of the way he smells. Feels. Because she came onto him last night, and she remembers it even if he doesn't, and she has to get out of here, or it might happen again.

Or it will happen again.

"Oh—I just figured you were asleep. Didn't want to wake you."

"I wasn't—" he begins, then shakes his head. "Since when do you care about waking me, anyway? You generally sleep like you're being tortured with a cattle prod."

But he likes the way she moves around, shifting positions. The way she starts on the edge of the mattress and invariably ends tangled up with him.

"Um . . ." Claire tries to think of a decent excuse. She can't very well say, I'm sorry, but my husband left me, and I haven't had a decent physical relationship in months, and if you keep on cuddling up against me, I'm going to jump on you, you crazy bastard. To hell with it all, I'll do it, and I just dare you to try and shake me off.

So she says:

"Well, I wound up sleeping here last night, and you know, this couch—it's actually pretty comfortable. I thought, hell, no point in letting it go to waste. And this way, you can have your room back again, to yourself, I mean. And, you know . . ."

She pats the cushion.

"It's nice. It's cozy. It's, um . . . cushy."

Sylar scowls, glaring down at the couch.

"I don't—" Again, he stops. I don't want my room back. "I don't see why that's necessary. I didn't have a problem with you being there. You know that."

"I know," she says. "It's just . . ."

Claire proceeds with caution.

"Honestly, I thought I ought to get used to sleeping alone."

The statement is like an icicle being driven through his rib cage, but his only outward response is a slight tilt of the head.

"Well . . . I mean, once I move out, I'll be on my own all the time, so—"

"Once you move out?"

She sits up, fearing this might be a long one.

"Yeah," she confirms casually. "I think it's time I started looking around for my own place. Actually, I was hoping you might help me there—help me find something, I mean, not, you know . . . I mean—it's . . ."

She trails off in the wake of his silence.

"I see," he says finally, his tone like gathering thunderclouds. "And how do you plan on paying for it, exactly?"

"Oh, well . . . I have some money in the bank. I could use the ATM till I found a job."

"What kind of job?"

She's staring to squirm a little.

"I don't know. Anything, just—"

"Anything, well, that's comforting."

Just wait until her savings run out, or until Rutherford learns she's withdrawing money and gets a jump on it. She'll be working a pole.

"Sylar—"

"You realize you've been out of the work-force for thirty years, of course. And you realize you look about nineteen. Are you going to jot down fifty-year-old phone numbers on your resume? The fact that every one of your references is now deceased probably isn't going to help your case."

"Well, at least I didn't kill them personally," she says, tone hardening. "I can get a job."

"Sure. Pull out your birth certificate, you could probably sell cosmetics."

Claire's face twists in indignation.

"You think I'm totally incapable, don't you?"

His expression is none too pleasant, either.

"I think I had to un-stick you from your carpet last Tuesday because you had a bad day," he snaps. "And now you're just going to throw yourself on the mercy of the city. Brilliant. Those blonde genes are really paying off. Tell me, Claire-Bear: How long, do you think, until I have to take a shovel over to your new apartment building so I can scrape you off the sidewalk?"

"Screw you, Sylar!" Claire darts up from the couch, begins to push him back, and then flinches as her palm connects with his bare chest. It's a subtle movement, but he sees her falter.

"Oh, god damn it," he mutters. "This is all because of last night, isn't it? You know, you came onto me! I'm the one who stopped it."

Her eyes widen, and their bodies are close enough that he can look down and see her face color even in the darkness. For a second she looks like a deer illuminated by headlights, and then outrage floods her features.

"You said you didn't remember a thing!"

"I was trying to be nice. Silly me, I forgot who I was dealing with."

"Shit!" Claire turns and stalks away, her shoulder bumping his torso. He wants to reach out and catch her arm, pull her back to him.

"I don't see any reason to be so mortified," he attempts to reason. He can still save this. He can fix it. He can fix anything. "We're adults, Claire. We had a little too much to drink, and . . ."

He shrugs, glancing down at the carpet, remembering how she looked looming above him, coming down for a kiss that never happened.

"It happens all the time," he continues a bit hoarsely. "People wake up with hangovers, wondering Who the hell is that stranger next to me? Wondering how they got to Thailand without a passport. It happens. You and I—it wasn't even that bad, really. We didn't go through with it."

"Through with what?" she retorts loudly, spinning to face him. "Good lord, you can't possibly be crazy enough to think-!"

She steps closer, levels him with a look that screams Read my lips.

"I was not going to sleep with you." She emphasizes each word, her voice shaking with the effort it takes to actually vocalize such a ludicrous notion.

He said it once before: It does kind of tingle.

Blood rushes up to his face, and he falls back a bit so she can't see it.

"You say that like I tried to take advantage of you somehow," he says. "And that's why you're sleeping out here on the couch, instead of . . ." He gestures pointlessly toward the bedroom door. "And that's why you've developed this—this—I don't know, independent streak, this ridiculous idea about moving out—"

"I am moving out!" she insists. "I don't give a damn if you think it's ridiculous. And just so you know? The only reason I ever crawled into bed with you is because I was having trouble sleeping by myself. Not because I couldn't stand the thought of missing out on your irresistible charm for eight hours out of the day."

Sylar's lip curls.

"Really. So who's going to keep you warm when you're all set up in your own little rat hole? Hm?"

"I'll get an electric blanket," she grinds out.

"Why not just take all my blankets? I mean, I guess you'll be taking all your things with you, the ones I paid for?"

"God damn it, you see now? I knew it—I knew the instant I did something you didn't like, you'd throw that up to me!"

Sylar doesn't need her to tell him he's being petty. He doesn't care.

"Look." Claire breathes deeply, trying to calm herself. "You've done a lot for me these past couple of weeks. Hell, you saved me. I get that, okay? And I'm grateful for it."

Oh, yes, he can hear the grateful pouring out of her mouth in torrents. He never knew thank you and screw you could sound so similar.

"But it's time for me to step out on my own. I'm a big girl, you know." She offers him an uneasy, insincere smile, and he can't tell whether he'd garner greater pleasure from slapping it off or kissing it off with an even greater violence.

"Fine," he replies. He needs to vent the anger bubbling in his chest before it overflows, so he proceeds spitefully: "Then you can don't need my help. You can find an apartment yourself and leave with whatever you brought from Texas."

As if in demonstration, he snatches his copy of Romeo and Juliet from the end table. A little piece of paper flutters out of it. Claire watches it twirl to the floor, her eyes going a little too round.

They both lunge at it simultaneously, and Sylar wins, crumpling the scrap in his long fingers. He holds her at bay and opens it. Stares at it for a long moment.

"What is this?" he asks quietly. Though it's obviously a phone number.

"It's a bookmark," she replies in clear insult to his intelligence, making another swipe at it.

Sylar sends a spark up through his fingers, and the little paper bursts into flame. He holds her gaze while it burns, and when he puts it out, he can't resist sending the ashes flying at her face, the gesture a mean parody of a lover blowing a kiss.

As the dust settles, they stare daggers at each other.

Claire breaks the silence with a short, brittle laugh.

"Well," she quips, "at least I didn't dog-ear the pages."

He shakes his head ruefully.

"I should have left you in Texas," he says. "Back there with your washed-up marriage, shattered skull, and your sad little sob-letter on the mantel—"

"Oh, you read it—of course you did."

"I burned it, too."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Too busy being relieved, probably. I'm sure he and Sharon would have had a nice laugh reading it in bed."

"No, you just can't stand me having any kind of control in my own . . ."

Claire trails off abruptly.

"Whose number did I burn?" Sylar asks quickly, taking advantage of her sudden silence.

"How . . . how did you know her name?" Claire asks slowly, ignoring his question.

There's a long pause. Sylar chews on his lower lip.

"You told me," he lies. "When you were stabbing me."

She shakes her head, lips pressed tight.

"I never say her name. Ever."

He puts his hands on his hips. Realizes he's standing there in his boxers. Feels exposed. Cornered. Like he needs to murder something.

"I wish . . . I had killed him," he laments softly, turning away. "I don't see what difference it would have made now. Well, they say hindsight is twenty-twenty."

"Did you meet him? What happened?"

She sounds angry, but also frightened. Sylar laughs.

"Are you worried about him, Claire? Don't be." He stops at his bedroom door to toss her a final, resentful smirk. "I only hurt him a little."

Shutting her out, he settles uncomfortably on the bed, above the covers. He should have left her in Texas.

He couldn't leave her in Texas.

God, what was that number? He reaches for his phone on the nightstand, then tries vainly to remember the digits. Damn it, he burned the stupid thing too hastily, as soon as it fully hit him that she was hiding someone from him. He should have held onto it, or at least studied it a few more seconds.

Swearing under his breath, he flings the phone aside.

The door isn't locked. Sylar stares at it, waiting on her to barge in and resume the argument. But she never does.

He hopes she's gone in the morning.

He hopes she's still there.

Fate, honestly. He scoffs slightly. If fate exists, then it's a crazy, conniving, cackling old bitch.

Romeo and Juliet could attest to that.