Fic: Only My Hands to Guide Me (Heroes)

[cerebel]

One, two, three, four, five. Turn, step.

One, two, three, four, five. Turn, step.

Featureless grey concrete. One wall made entirely of glass. No bare piping. One cot on each side, a toilet in the corner. And utter, utter darkness.

One, two, three, four, five.

Five steps across.

Mohinder is going to go crazy. Any more of this, and he will, he’ll snap. There’s nothing here. No one has come to talk to him. He’s been alone for - for he doesn’t even know how long, and these four walls are…driving…him…completely…insane.

Mohinder hisses a breath of air, through his teeth. He has to calm down. It won’t do any good to confront these people angry, hotheaded. He’ll make mistakes. Give away secrets.

He doesn’t even know who they are. This could be a standard government cell for those with dangerous abilities; on the other hand, he recalls that the Company had a fondness for glass and concrete. And grey.

And Molly - where is she? What are they doing to her?

Mohinder collapses on one of the two beds, his head in his hands.

-                       -                       -                       -

Molly combs wet hair out of her face, carefully, strand by strand. It’s the only way to make her hair behave, especially when she doesn’t have the right conditioner - plus, it’s a task, a manual task that requires concentration, and that means she doesn’t have to think.

Impatiently, she rubs the collected moisture on the mirror, enough that she can see her face. The water from her hair is starting to drip down her back, so she wrings it out over the sink, rubbing the comb dry with an edge of her towel.

She has to admit, the President didn’t skimp on luxuries. This is a very, very nice hotel, and he gave her a night to recuperate, recover from being drugged and kidnapped.

The comb drops from her fingers to the ground, and Molly rests her palms against the edge of the sink.

“Goddamnit,” she says, to the empty air, but it doesn’t make her feel any better.

Taking a breath, she picks up the comb, and starts again.

-                       -                       -                       -

Something’s wrong.

Sylar wanders between curtains, the fabric rippling around him. Red and black, but he keeps drifting, drifting towards the black.

He can almost hear, almost hear a heartbeat beyond the red curtain - a heartbeat, maybe, and a voice -

But no, he slips into the black, deeper into his sleep.

Something’s wrong.

And Sylar dreams on.

-                       -                       -                       -

The car drops Molly off in front of the new Homeland Security building. She steps out into the sunlight. The over-intense light scrapes across her sensitive eyes, and God, it hurts…

Maybe she could run away, right now. It’s a public place, and it would look a little strange if they tried to chase after her, at least.

“It probably wouldn’t be the best idea ever, but you’re welcome to try.”

Molly frowns - did she say that out loud? No, she definitely didn’t, and the voice was familiar, so -

“Officer Parkman?” Molly asks, in disbelief.

“Special Agent,” Matt Parkman laughs. “Haven’t been in the police force for - well, a while, let’s just leave it at that, huh?”

Molly can’t quite stop gaping. Of all the people she expected to see-

“Hey Molly,” says the woman beside Parkman, stepping forward. Blonde hair, brilliant smile - “Remember me?”

“Claire?” Molly breathes.

-                       -                       -                       -

The door groans open, and Mohinder snaps awake, too quickly, his heart racing.

“Against the back wall, Dr. Suresh.”

Blinking, Mohinder obeys, staggering against sleep-weak muscles. The silhouettes in front of him resolve - three men, holding guns square on Mohinder’s chest.

“Who are you?” Mohinder asks, his voice trembling. Taking a breath, he raises it. “I want to talk to a lawyer. You have no right -”

His voice catches in his throat when they wheel the stretcher into the room.

Mohinder makes half a move towards the prone occupant of the stretcher, but he’s greeted with the sound of three guns cocking, in rapid-fire succession, and he stops in his tracks. He watches, instead, as two medics transfer the unconscious form to the second bed in the room. As they retreat out the doors, followed by the guns. As the door shuts, shattering the dim light from the hallway into all-pervasive darkness.

Mohinder dashes over to Sylar - his skin is warm, but greasy, and the limbs are too relaxed, muscles too limp. Breath too deep.

Pulse is steady, though. If slow.

Mohinder shudders, and he falls next to the bed, his head against the mattress.

-                       -                       -                       -

As soon as they’re inside the building, Molly makes an excuse and escapes to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. All three stalls are empty, and Molly climbs up, to the wide counter in between sink and mirror, curling her legs to her chest.

Her neck is tense. She can feel it knotted up, spine to skull, shoulder to shoulder. It’s not helping - and her temples ache, her eyes ache. Now is not the time to force her power active. It would hurt, hurt so badly, but does she really have an alternative?

Molly groans, her head in her hands.

Long minutes pass, but she can’t seem to summon the will to move. She can’t imagine herself getting up, stirring, doing anything at all but settling, so still, the only movement in the bathroom the dust motes through the light from the window.

Eventually, the bathroom door opens and shuts, and she hears footsteps move past her.

“Oh god!” says Claire, startled, “there you are.”

Molly half-laughs. “Sorry.”

“Is everything okay?” Claire moves a little forward.

The flinch must have shown, Molly supposes; Claire backs off again, just as quickly.

Molly shakes her head. “No. It’s not.”

Claire pauses, for a moment, and then she hops up onto the counter, opposite from Molly. “Why don’t you tell me about it?” she asks.

“Tell you?”

Claire shrugs. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Molly rests her head back against the wall.

“You know, Molly,” says Claire, “if you want to leave, I can help you get out of here, right now.”

Molly’s heartbeat jumps.

“You don’t have to go through with this,” Claire persists. “You don’t deserve to be forced into this kind of deal.”

“If you know the deal,” says Molly, softly, “then you know why I’m here.”

Claire pauses, for a moment. “Sylar tried to kill me when I was sixteen years old,” she says, bluntly. “He’s a murderer, and the only thing he’ll get is what he has coming.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Saying you’re sorry doesn’t bring those people back to life.” Claire takes a breath. “People like your parents.”

Molly’s head snaps up.

“Why are you protecting him?”

“What about Mohinder?” asks Molly. “Does he deserve to die, too?”

“Peter wouldn’t kill someone who hasn’t done anything wrong,” says Claire. “He doesn’t do that kind of thing.”

Almost idly, Molly traces the mirror with the edge of her finger. She can touch her reflection.

Something twitches, in the back of her brain. Something about mirrors.

“It hurts to use my power,” says Molly. “I have nerve damage, from a disease I contracted when I was eight.”

…the best way to tell the difference…

“Oh,” says Claire, taken aback. “What do you need us to do?”

“Give me four ibuprofen and half an hour,” says Molly, “and I’ll be good for whatever you want.”

…press something to the mirror, like the tip of a pencil…

Claire’s mouth twists. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Molly flattens her hand against the mirror, frowning.

…and if the pencil touches its reflection, the mirror isn’t a real mirror at all,” said Sylar, demonstrating on the bathroom mirror. “See here how the pane of glass is in between?”

Molly’s blood freezes.

…isn’t a real mirror at all.

They’ve been watching her. This whole time. And listening to the conversation between her and Claire. It was a test.

No one. No one can be trusted -

“Molly?” asks Claire. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” says Molly, and she slips down to the tile floor.

-                       -                       -                       -

“Philadelphia,” says Molly.

The base of her skull throbs; around her, the office leaps into motion.

“Call the airport, get us on the first flight out,” says Parkman, “contact the local office in Philadelphia, tell them to have backup ready.”

He continues, but Molly doesn’t pay any attention. The orders fly over her head, but inside her, she’s gone quiet.

She knows what she has to do.

-                       -                       -                       -

Sylar won’t wake up. It’s not sleep - sleep has regular patterns, of REM and calm, and this has none of it. Sylar is just unconscious. Maybe in an artificial coma…

The next time they come in, Mohinder backs against the wall, without being told, and he watches as they slip a needle into Sylar’s arm, and inject.

The door slams shut, and Mohinder slides to the floor.

-                       -                       -                       -

Molly dashes up the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. It’s awkward, with the gun holster at her hip, but the key, right now, is to keep Parkman and his team a little off-balance, and her mad sprint into the building definitely took them by surprise. They follow her, right now, and at the landing for the fourth floor, she calls back at them - “Come on! He’s here.”

She pushes open the stairwell door - perfect. The locking mechanism has a safety feature built in - when it’s locked, those in the stairwell can get out, but they can’t get back in again. And Molly can use that.

Molly stops in her tracks, just outside the stairwell door. Parkman moves up beside her, barely breathing hard.

“Where is he?” asks Parkman.

Molly narrows her eyes, as though she were concentrating. “Men’s bathroom,” she says. “End of the hallway, on the right.”

Parkman raises and eyebrow, and he half-laughs. For an instant, Molly is afraid that he saw through her - but then, no. He gestures for his team to form up, and she watches as they move up the hall, past offices, past conference rooms.

But she waits, next to the stairs, and she trips the locking mechanism under her palm.

At the end of the hall, a man steps out of the bathroom. The Homeland Security team hustles him to the side of the hall.

It’s as good of an opportunity as any. Molly hesitates, counts to three, and she screams.

“Matt!” she shrieks, and falls backwards through the door.

The lock makes a very satisfying ‘click’, and Molly stumbles, rights herself, and runs.

Upstairs, upstairs, he’s upstairs, help me, help me, she thinks, frantically, because her voice was the first one Matt Parkman ever heard, telepathically, and he ought to be able to hear it now, even without being within eyeshot.

Molly reaches the ground floor and starts towards the exit, and then grinds to a halt. No, that’s an emergency exit, it’ll trip the alarm, the game will be up - we’re on the roof, on the roof, SOMEONE HELP - so she turns, hops up the four steps to the ground floor, tears across the hall, to the left, girl’s bathroom, one with a window, yes - NO DON’T KILL ME PLEASE -

She forces open the window, and she senses Parkman pushing impotently against the locked door, yelling for his team to get to the elevators, get to the other stairwells, they’re going to the roof.

The ground is further away than Molly expects and she hits too hard, tangling herself in the bushes bordering the building. Another stumble, her ankle throbbing, but she doesn’t have time to pay attention to that, no - oh Jesus, he’ll be on the roof, he’ll be able to see her on the ground, she has to get to cover, get to cover now.

Another building, just across the way. Shared parking lots. Molly pushes inside, up to the ground floor, around the corner -

-into a huge ballroom?

Empty, luckily, or there would have been some explaining to do. Molly cuts across the middle, towards the huge entrance on the other side, and out it, through this building’s front doors.

Can’t see here from the roof of the other building. She’s safe, for the next few moments, but she has to get going now.

Her footsteps faltering, Molly takes a moment to focus.

Claude -

Close. Very close. Molly knew she couldn’t travel far, not on foot, and so she led them here. This way she’ll be able to find Claude before Homeland Security catches up with her.

Molly takes a couple deep breaths, and she starts running.

-                       -                       -                       -

The rooftop looks completely empty, but luckily, Molly isn’t an idiot.

“I know you’re up here,” she says, spinning to follow the silhouette she can only sense. “Listen, Claude,” and she’s still breathing hard. Her heartbeat is still too fast. And she can hear sirens in the distance. “I just want to talk. Stop it, I know where you are.”

“Oh, you can see me, can you?”

Molly jumps. The voice was a little closer than she was expecting. “I’m a clairvoyant.”

“I know.” The air ripples beside her, and then she sees him.

Older than his picture, is all she can think.

“The President’s pet clairvoyant.” Claude cocks his head to the side. “Got you running errands for him, does he?”

Molly grits her jaw. “I’m no friend of Peter Petrelli,” she snaps.

“Everyone’s a friend of Peter Petrelli,” drawls Claude. “Sweet little empath. Question is, is he a friend of yours?”

“No.”

“Then why’re you doing his dirty work?”

“He has hostages,” says Molly, “and I need your help to get them out.”

Claude shrugs. “Why should I help you?”

“Because I didn’t lead them straight here!”

“Seems to me that should make me feel less obligated to help you.”

“What?”

Claude raises an eyebrow. “You don’t seem to want to lead them here. I doubt you’ll follow through on any threats you might make. So, you don’t have any real leverage.”

He pushes past her, to the door.

“Wait!”

He turns.

“You’re the President’s enemy, right?” Molly presses on. “Then you should help me! The two hostages are really important -”

“I told you already, pet,” says Claude. “No one’s the President’s enemy. Probably thinks he’s doing me a favor, capturing me this way.”

“Claude -”

“Don’t try and find me again.”

He starts to go, and Molly pulls out her gun, clicking off the safety. “Stop,” she snaps.

Claude looks her up and down, in utter disbelief. “No way. You don’t have the guts to shoot me.”

“You have no idea how much guts I have.”

Claude crosses his arms. “You just said you need me to help get your pals out. You won’t kill me, if that’s true.”

And in that instant, it clicks. So clear, crystal clear. She understands. She knows how it all works. The brain, the nervous system, it all locks together, just like clockwork -

“No,” says Molly, “I don’t need you,” and she shoots, twice.

-                       -                       -                       -

Sylar twitches, and he moans, weakly. Mohinder moves to reassure him, but before he can get there, the door opens.

“You can’t keep doing this!” Mohinder snaps. “Continuous sedation is dangerous!”

The medics don’t pay any attention to him. Another injection, another retreat, and Mohinder checks Sylar’s pulse. Thready, now. Not as strong as it was before. And he’s cold to the touch, his skin pale.

“Don’t die,” Mohinder whispers. “Please don’t die.”

-                       -                       -                       -

Claude dies on the fifth shot; by the time the police get onto the roof, barely ten minutes later, there’s no one to be seen. They don’t hear the quiet footsteps, slipping past police officers and emergency medical technicians.

Molly washes her hands off in a gas station bathroom, numb in shock.

“Sylar,” she whispers.

-                       -                       -                       -

The problems in her plan, Molly thinks, mostly lie in the type of invisibility that Claude possessed. If it’s psychological - simply the shunt of attention away from the physical form of the invisible person - then it won’t be long before she’s caught. Video cameras don’t have brains to influence.

On the other hand, if Claude physically bends the light around him - which is what it feels like, when Molly masks, there shouldn’t be a problem. She feels certain that she can make others invisible, that all she has to do is touch them, keep touching them. It’ll take concentration, but concentration she has.

It’s almost ten minutes before Molly knows, for sure, that she hasn’t been caught.

A few taps is enough to tell that they haven’t broken the encryption on Mohinder’s files. The computer smashes easily - almost too easily.

The files irretrievable, Molly slips out of the room, moves along the edge of the hallway.

“…interrogation going?”

“We’re still on the first phase. The Dr. Suresh is responding very well - Sylar is dying, because of the overdose of sedatives, and it seems very effective as a psychological lever.”

“Excellent. Stay on the President’s orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

Molly steps past the conversation, and thinks of sedatives.

Medical wing.

-                       -                       -                       -

Mohinder automatically moves to the far wall, when the door opens, but he stops when he doesn’t see anyone there.

They never open the door, not without guns, not without backup, not without -

To Mohinder’s shock, Molly appears, before his eyes.

“Come on,” she says, holding out a syringe. “This should wake him up. We have to go.”

-                       -                       -                       -

The alarm goes off while they’re still in the building, Sylar groggy and weak, braced against Mohinder’s shoulder. Molly flattens them against the wall, and directs them, murmur by murmur, to the nearest emergency exit.

An hour later, they’re safe.

-                       -                       -                       -

The gun barrel is unwavering, though Mohinder has wild red eyes and tangled hair and a shaky voice.

“Who are you?”

Molly looks up. “What?”

“You’re not Molly,” Mohinder bites out. “Molly can’t go invisible.”

Molly glances over Mohinder’s shoulder - on the bed across from her, Sylar’s eyes subtly widen. “I never taught that,” he breathes. Then, stronger, almost snarled, “I never taught you to take powers!”

Molly grits her jaw. “You didn’t have to, did you? You handed me the ability, you didn’t need to teach me how to use it.”

And now the gun barrel drops. “He handed you…?” Mohinder twists, to look back at Sylar.

“So he wouldn’t kill again,” says Molly, lowly. “So that he’d have to stop.”

Sylar lifts his eyes to Mohinder’s.

“He couldn’t give it to you,” continues Molly. “It’s not like you have the genetic markers to carry an ability like ours.”

“Molly,” starts Mohinder.

“You can’t protect me forever, Mohinder,” Molly cuts him off. “I’m not the helpless little eight-year-old girl you rescued from your sister’s virus.”

“You were never supposed to use it,” says Sylar. “Never.”

“Then why did you give it to me?” snaps Molly. “You had a choice, to keep the talents that made you murder, again and again, or give them to me. You chose me. And I used everything I had to get you both out of government custody. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

“It’s not a choice you should have had to make,” Sylar shoots back.

“It’s too late for that, isn’t it!”

Sylar looks up to Mohinder. “Mohinder, I’m so sorry.”

Mohinder takes a step back.

“Can I get a little gratitude here?” asks Molly. “I did rescue you both.”

The hotel room is silent, for a moment.

“Who was it you killed?” asks Mohinder, finally.

Molly drops her eyes. “His name was Claude Rains.”

-                       -                       -                       -

When Molly is in the shower, Mohinder sits, too heavily, next to Sylar.

“What happened?” he asks.

Sylar closes his eyes. “I killed someone,” he rasps. “Remember the kidnapping case, with the little girl - and the kidnapper, the super-powered kidnapper, who escaped?”

Mohinder nods, his eyes fixed on Sylar’s face.

“He didn’t escape.” Sylar swallows, looks to Mohinder. “Molly caught me, and drew her gun. Wouldn’t let me go until I swore I’d never do it again. Didn’t believe me until I told her I’d give her - give her my power.” Sylar’s jaw clenches, and Mohinder reaches out, brushing fingertips along the skin of Sylar’s cheek.

“I thought you were going to die,” Mohinder confesses. “In prison. And I thought that if you did, it would kill me too.”

Sylar reaches up, and their fingers slide together.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sylar shakes his head. “Molly didn’t think you’d understand.”

“She was right.”

In the bathroom, Mohinder hears the shower turn off.

“Will she want to kill again?” asks Mohinder.

“I don’t know,” says Sylar.

-                       -                       -                       -

In the middle of the night, Molly wakes up with cramps, sweats, shivers so bad she can barely move. She stumbles into the bathroom, landing on the floor.

She can’t really sense the transition, but somewhere, the shivers turn into sobs, and she feels the first tear slip down her face. Wracking, horrible sobs, and her nose runs, and she curls up, trembling. Holding it back. Because Mohinder and Sylar are in the next room, and she shouldn’t wake them, she shouldn’t -

“Molly?”

It’s Sylar’s voice, soft and inquisitive.

Molly buries her head in her hands and chokes.

“Molly.” An arm around her, pulling her into Sylar’s embrace, and she doesn’t even resist. He understands, he has to understand, because he regrets too, and all Molly can see is the blood, oh god, the blood.

“I,” she gasps, “I - did it - for - for you. You both.”

“Ssh.” Sylar’s hand strokes her back. “I understand, I know, it’s all right.”

“No, it’s not,” she whispers.

She feels Sylar shift, feels him pull away. She glances up, and Mohinder is there, framed in the doorway, an odd, uncertain kind of look on his face.

Sylar stands, and closes the door.

-                       -                       -                       -

“So, what was that about, last night?” asks Mohinder, as they sit down at a table in the hotel’s breakfast area.

Sylar and Molly exchange a glance.

“I don’t think you can understand,” says Molly.

“Oh, because I’m not a murderer?”

Molly knocks her water glass off the table.

-                       -                       -                       -

The next morning, in the next hotel room, Mohinder and Sylar wake up alone. Molly’s bed is neat, made up in crisp corners and straight, clean sheets.

Mohinder picks up the note from the rightmost pillow, scribbled on the last of the hotel stationary.

-                       -                       -                       -

Molly is invisible when she slips into the lobby of the Homeland Security building. She materializes in front of the receptionist, who half-shrieks and drops the phone.

“I’d like to turn myself in,” says Molly.

-                       -                       -                       -

“She’s gone,” Mohinder breathes.

“What did you expect?” Sylar asks. “You rejected her.” His eyes are downcast, towards a ragged and stained carpet. “It’s a rare person that will stay in the face of that.”

-                       -                       -                       -

The interrogation room is five degrees too cold for comfort; Molly shivers, and she rubs the rapidly forming goosebumps on her arms. It seems a long time before Matt Parkman steps in, hands Molly an open cell phone.

Hesitantly, Molly puts it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Why did you do it, Molly?” asks Peter Petrelli, from the other end of the line.

Molly bites her lip, and she hesitates. “I thought I had to,” she says, finally.

-                       -                       -                       -

“I’ve ruined it,” says Mohinder, to the empty air. “I’ve ruined everything. Molly is gone,” and he claps a hand to his mouth, as though to hold himself back, as though he’s already said too much.

“She’ll come back,” says Sylar. “When she’s ready.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

It’s so quiet - the words swallowed whole by the tiny hotel room.

“She will.” Sylar moves, crouches in front of Mohinder. “If there’s anything we taught her, it’s how to take care of herself.”

“Why do you keep leaving me?” Mohinder asks. “Molly, my mother, my father, everyone I’ve ever cared about-”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Sylar’s palm catches Mohinder’s cheek, smears the tears he finds there. “Mohinder.”

Mohinder reaches out, blindly.

-                       -                       -                       -

“Are you sure, sir?”

Molly looks down at her manacled hands. Even invisibility won’t let her get out of these.

“Yes, sir. Consider it done.”

The phone snaps shut. Molly glances up.

Parkman crosses his arms. “Molly, how’d you like to work for the Department of Homeland Security?”

-                       -                       -                       -

Mohinder’s tears soak into the shoulder of Sylar’s shirt; Sylar closes his eyes.

In grief, acceptance. In pain, redemption -

Sylar holds Mohinder tighter. Never, he thinks, never, but he can’t find the rest of the words.

-                       -                       -                       -

Molly’s chest loosens, and she takes a breath, a wonderful, long, sweet breath. It feels like the first of her life.

A smile curls the edge of her mouth. She knows what she has to do.