I am fully aware that I went an entire month without updating, and I am filled with shame over it. SHAME. I beg your forgiveness. However, should you be kind enough to leave a comment, feel free to verbally pummel me (AGH, not the face!).


If he'd known this would be her reaction, Sylar would have played his Haitian card the instant he saw Joshua. Or maybe just brain-wiped everyone present. He held out as long as he could, convinced her only response would be fear and a hasty flight, never dreaming it would be just the trick to get her back where he wanted her.

But here she is. He feels almost giddy, a far cry from the restless irritation that's dogged him since her departure.

If he's giddy, it's nothing compared to the restless energy whipping through Claire's veins right along with her death-defying blood. After all this time, she's finally found an out. Sylar—by far one of the stranger aspects of her life—is suddenly her greatest shot at normalcy.

Not that he knows it. This will require some tact.

"I can't believe you had that ability all these years," Claire says, launching directly into the issue as soon as they're upstairs, "and I never even knew about it."

"To be fair, I probably have a lot of powers you don't know about," he reasons.

Claire takes a seat on the couch, crossing her legs on the cushion and leaning forward eagerly. Her eyes are fixed openly on his face, as if she's trying to mesmerize him. Maybe it's working; he can't look away.

"Is that what you wanted to talk about?" he asks dubiously.

"I just . . . wish I'd known, that's all," she admits with a shrug.

"What difference would it have made? I mean, I always assumed you'd be completely horrified if you ever found out." He frowns. "And you were. So what happened? What's going on?"

Claire considers, licking her lips.

"Sit down," she suggests.

"Hm?"

"Just sit down." She scoots to the side, making room for him. "I can't get my words straight with you looming over me like that."

Looming. She makes it sound so threatening. He's just standing there, for god's sake. Nevertheless, he complies. Passing up a chance to sit so near her seems foolish. His arm falls along the back of the couch, and he trails his index finger surreptitiously along the bun in her hair. The little tortoise-shell clip annoys him, and he wants to pull it out, send her hair spilling around her shoulders.

"Seated," he prompts her.

Claire shifts, turning toward him. .

"I was upset," she admits. "When I found out, I mean. You didn't have to do that to Joshua . . ."

His face clouds somewhat, so she hastens onward.

"But then it hit me . . . the Haitian's ability—"

"My ability now," he points out, since she insisted on bringing Joshua's name back into his home.

"Yeah—well, I was focusing on the memory aspect of it. But you can suppress abilities, too."

He nods.

"Any ability," she elaborates.

"Where are you going with this, Claire?"

She seems to turn her eyes up a notch, so that they're positively brimming with optimism.

"Even my ability."

Optimism he now must dash. Dash—stomp upon . . . set alight.

"Are you insane?" he returns, scoffing. He leans in closer, searching her face for traces of rationality, and implores in a low voice, "Tell me you aren't asking me to kill you, Claire."

The optimism dims, but isn't as thoroughly stamped out as he would like.

"No," she replies. "Not kill me . . . just let me be normal. That's all I want. I want to age, Sylar, I want to catch a cold, I want to experience that little flicker of fear when a car swerves too close, I—I want to feel like every day is important. For time to stop running together."

Sylar laughs ruefully, not the sympathetic response she hoped for.

"I see," he mocks. "You want me to perform an act contrary to your nature and watch you slowly die because of it. No, that doesn't sound like killing you at all . . . And I'd know, of course. I have so much experience in the field."

Claire glares for a second before closing still more ground between them. She gets up in his face. Looks irritatingly obstinate.

"Doesn't it appeal to you at all?" she asks quietly. "We could have a normal life." Because she can't yet bring herself to say it outright, she tacks on, "Me and you."

I know you want that. Well—part of it.

But he shakes his head.

"No, normal doesn't appeal to me. Never has and never, ever will. You know that, Claire." His brow furrows. "Although, if you think about it, this is our normal. It's a hell of a lot better than the sorry hand most people are dealt, don't you think?"

Claire grits her teeth.

"I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying," she expresses slowly and deliberately. "I'm saying me and you. We could be normal. Together. The way normal people are when they're together."

You goddamn idiot. Do I have to hammer it into your skull, right between your giant eyebrows?

"You know . . ." Claire reaches up and runs the back of her fingers airily along his the line of his jaw.

She expects him to reach up and take her wrist, the way he did during their painful exchange in the hotel room. But he sits oddly frozen, and when she meets his gaze after a hesitant few seconds, she finds his eyes black and hard.

Blinking, she retracts her hand hastily.

"What?" she asks, inserting a faux casual note into her voice.

"Oh, nothing," he returns on the same note, though his face belies his nonchalance. "Just wondering how Noah would react if he could see his Claire Bear now. Sitting here in my home. On my couch. Trying to get what she wants by—hmm, how to put it . . ?" One corner of his mouth quirks up in a bitter smirk. "I know—trying to get what she wants by whoring herself out to me. I think that sums it up pretty well."

The smirk splits into a grin, while Claire's mouth twists.

"I don't know . . . I think he'd be appalled. What do you think? I bet you're glad he didn't live to see this pitiful spectacle."

"I'm not—whoring myself!" she snaps. "And even if I was, you're hardly one to get all righteous about it. You know goddamn well it's what you want."

His incredulous laugh isn't entirely convincing.

"I'm sorry? That's what I want, trading death for—for—what, favors? At what point during the last eighty years did I express one iota of interest in such a weird, twisted arrangement? You know that's what you're talking about, by the way—an arrangement. Not a relationship."

"You can call it what you want," she shoots back. "But you can't sit there and pretend you never even thought about it. I mean, first First Lady, what was that about?"

"That—that was—I wasn't serious!" he stammers, grimacing at the memory. "My god, you weren't even legal yet!"

Claire snorts.

"Your ever-present concern for legality didn't stop you from plying me with wine, feeling my face up, and sniffing my hair."

"I was high, okay?" he protests, grimacing.

"On what, Viagra?"

The look he levels on her makes clear exactly how little amusement he finds in the quip.

"On power and plans," he says. "I finally knew what I wanted, everything was coasting along smoothly, and then there you were, the cherry on top. You know, if nothing else, you were always my favorite toy, Claire. And that's what I was doing. I was playing with you." He shrugs a shoulder. "That's all."

Maybe a part of him had to restrain himself from tasting the wine on her lips—maybe—but that was part of the entertainment, nothing more. Bullying a reaction out of her . . . Her reactions to him were always so much more interesting, so much more genuine than what she gave everyone else. They made him feel special, in a different way than the one he spent his life chasing.

"Fun game," she remarks.

"For me, it was," he admits soberly.

She stares at him for a moment, taking in his deadpan honesty. Then, placing her hand on his knee for balance, she cranes upward.

Denial dies on his lips when she claims them, pressing her mouth firmly over his, and a sharp, jagged jolt ricochets down his abdomen.

It would be good for his case to pull back, or at least refrain from an obvious response. But his eyelids flutter closed, and his hand finds the underside of her chin, tipping her head back so he can kiss her harder, more deeply.

When Claire draws away, settling back onto the cushion, he takes it as an invitation and begins to follow, moving over her naturally, but she lifts a hand to his shoulder, halting him. Their eyes meet, his hazy but questioning.

"Now, are you really going to tell me," Claire whispers, "that you don't want what I'm offering? You don't want to live with me, eat with me . . . sleep with me?"

Asinine question. Of course he wants that. Of course he wants to sleep with her. But it's still hard to admit it out loud. He was hoping to sort of segue into that type of relationship without ever being required to request it. Shame she ruined all that by leaving.

He supposes this conversation was bound to happen. If he denies it now, poised over her, he'll feel awfully silly when the topic comes up again in fifty years.

"No," he says huskily.

"No . . . what?" Claire asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"No, I'm not going to tell you that," he clarifies grudgingly. Drops his head and nuzzles into her collarbone, inhaling the subtle scent of her skin. "But the way you're using it, like . . . currency . . . It's not fair."

She laughs softly at the juvenile statement.

"Well, you may have heard, life's not fair," she tells him, but her hand drifts to the back of his head as his lips find the hollow of her throat. "Besides, I figure I owe you a little unfair, after all you've done to me."

Please. He can't even think about all he's done to her. Those memories have momentarily run dry under the heat of all he wants to do to her.

He reaches around and pulls the clip out of her hair, tossing it over the back of the couch where it resounds with a small clatter. Then he pushes her backward, his shoulders nudging aggressively into hers as he nips at her ear.

"I'm not going to kill you, Claire," he murmurs into her temple before moving to kiss her again.

"Yeah, you are." Her soft breath dampens his lips. "You were born to kill me. Everyone else was just practice . . ."

So she does believe in fate. Sylar mulls that one over, dropping his forehead against hers for a second and searching her eyes.

"God, what an awful thing to say," he decides.

His mouth crashes against hers, hungrily, and when she parts her lips for him he releases a low, involuntary rumble from his throat. His hands find her legs, unfolding them, and it's when he feels her thighs slide along his hips, when the situation turns overtly sexual, that he recalls the ugly word he uttered earlier:

Arrangement.

Cursing harshly against her soft, supple mouth, he leaps up from the couch and from Claire, striding away on legs that feel too flimsy to support him.

"Kind of an odd time to take a walk, isn't it?" asks Claire, her breathing nearly as shallow as his.

"This isn't happening, Claire," he replies hoarsely, hating the words, hating himself for saying them and really meaning them. Hating Claire, a little, for offering up such a tempting bargain. "I'm not going to trade for you. Even if it didn't make a damn bit of difference to me if you dried up and died, I wouldn't do it. It's one step up from a pity fuck, and I don't like it."

Claire blinks, sitting up.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't want this," he bites off, adding inwardly, You don't want me. "You're putting on a great big show—and you're doing quite well, by the way. I never would have expected it from you, but I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. God knows, you must think I'm desperate if you think I'm going to be content with crawling all over you while you lie back and fake for me to get it over with faster."

He says all this in a rush, contempt dripping liberally from each syllable, contempt aimed mainly toward himself, because as much as he despises the idea, his body is screaming to take her up on the offer.

God, I want to feel you. You're killing me.

"Well, I can get on top if it helps," Claire replies dryly. Extraordinarily unhelpfully.

"God damn it!" He squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on quelling that train of thought, thankful his back is turned to her. He imagines clocks, taking them apart cog by cog.

"How the hell do you presume to know what I want, anyway?" Claire stands, hands on her hips. "What, did you kill Parkman, too?"

"No," he says tightly. "Thank you for reminding me." Perhaps he can pull up a chair, and she can list all his failures.

"Look . . ." She sighs. She's going to have to say it. "Just because I'm asking you for something, that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to."

"But if I don't agree to what you're so delicately suggesting, then—"

"Well, yeah, but—" She laughs. "That's just because I'm a manipulative bitch."

He turns to face her, a sour expression intensifying his strong features. Claire rolls her eyes.

"So I'm trying to wrangle a little something extra out of it," she acknowledges. "So what? Like you don't have any ulterior motives . . . I mean, why do you want me? Be honest—is it because you can handle me pretty much any way, and you know I'll be back to normal afterward?"

Sylar gapes at her, appalled. Disgusted. Highly offended.

"Son of a bitch, Claire, what the hell do you think I want to do to you?" he blurts, looking her up and down. "I'm a serial killer, not a pervert."

Claire blinks, momentarily surprised. She simply assumed that was part of it. Remove that bit of weirdness from his physical infatuation with her, and she's not sure she sees the appeal. She's just a short, blond, former Texan housewife, after all.

"Fine," she replies nevertheless. "Then you really shouldn't have a problem with turning off my ability for a while."

"A while?" He lifts a skeptical brow.

"Just for a while. All I expect is a year or two of normalcy, okay?" Claire smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "You should be sick of me by then. I mean, I'm not naïve. Anymore."

He knows she's remembering her marriage.

"You're underestimating me a bit, don't you think? Took Rutherford three decades."

I know, he admits to himself. I was counting.

"The point is, you're holding all the cards here," Claire explains. "All I can do is ask you to turn it off, for as long as you feel like humoring me. When you say it's over, it's over. I walk." She shrugs. "Not like I can force you."

It sounds so cold. Icy, he thinks. Well, he envisioned snowglobes, didn't he?

"All right."

The words crawl out of his throat, reluctant, gravelly. He still doesn't like this. Not one bit.

But he likes Claire.

She raises her eyebrows hopefully.

"Yeah?"

"Only . . . I need you to say it one more time. To my face."

"What?" At this point, she appears ready to say anything. If he replied The United States Constitution, she'd probably recite it verbatim.

"That it isn't just about your ability." He looks hard at her face. "Tell me we're not just exchanging goods here, Claire."

She approaches slowly, but with determination, stopping an inch or so from him.

"It's not just about my ability," she says dutifully but honestly. "I—" Her lashes flutter a bit in hesitation. "I want it. You. When I slept in your bed, I used to lie there imagining what it would be like to kiss you and touch you till you were so turned on you'd just . . ."

Her face is nearly crimson, and it's one of the most beautiful sights he's ever beheld.

"It's why I left, for the most part," she admits.

The tingle that accompanies falsehoods is conspicuously, wonderfully absent. He nods.

"One more condition," he says. "And this is important."

"Shoot."

"You cannot hurt yourself," he states emphatically. "I don't care if you're depressed and you feel like ending it all or if you're just curious to find out what it's like to lose an appendage without instantly sprouting a new one. Don't. Promise me."

"I thought you didn't put much stock in promises."

"Claire."

"How will I know, if I can't test it?" she asks stubbornly.

Sylar wavers.

"You can test it once," he allows. "Then you have to trust me."

Claire looks down at herself, at her arms and hands.

"Now?" she asks, her voice small.

His lips thin for a second. Is it really worth it, just to have her here to talk to and touch when he wants, instead of following her around picking fights and trying to cover up the fact that he wants to jump her?

"Let me do it," he says.

Taking her hand, he turns it palm-up and, placing the tip of his index finger to the center, draws a small, superficial cut along her skin. Claire chews her lip and watches the scarlet line of blood swell up in her palm, holding her wound like a prize, while Sylar studies her face. He could do without the fascination he sees there. It reminds him of something . . . someone.

Finally, she laughs softly and looks up at him, her eyes overflowing with delight. For a brief moment, all is forgiven, or at least forgotten--her job, her friend, her shattered adolescence . . .

"You could have put it somewhere more convenient," she complains, but she sounds happy enough to kiss him. So he takes advantage.

"I thought you could keep an eye on it there," he tells her, in between tracing the contours of her neck and jaw with his lips. "Watch it heal . . . Good god, you are short."

"That's the great thing about beds," Claire murmurs, tilting her head and standing on tiptoe to push her skin up into his touch. The silk of his lips and the scratch of his stubble feel exquisite on her neglected nerves. "Doesn't matter who you're with—when you're horizontal, you're the same height."

Her words and her stance, the way each seems to invite more from him, serve to unlock whatever barriers remain between them. Suddenly, they're attacking each other.