Karma
Some days, Sylar longs for a time where he wore his own face, smiled his own smile, and lived his own life. Most of the time, however, being not only one of the most powerful people on the planet, but one of the most respected, one of the most loved was worth the deception. The reward for being Nathan came in the (drug free) teas Mohinder bought up for him, in the almost tender, worried looks he shot him after he was forced to make a ‘difficult’ decision. It came in the unquestioning obedience he got from Parkman. It came in the simpering, false admiration Bishop and Petrelli bestowed upon him. It came in the looks of abject terror when he let his mask slip and his victims saw who he really was.
It did not come in the form of Molly Walker. ~*~
The cameras are turned off before he steps inside. He can hear her heartbeat, quick and light, and her deep, deliberate breathing. She knows he’s here. The thought bothers him more than he cares to admit.
It’s why he’s here.
His concerns are validated when he walks into the room. The words are out of her mouth before the door is even fully closed.
“Hello Sylar.”
At least he can tell that she’s frightened of him. Heartbeat aside, her pupils are dilated, her skin is pale underneath faded freckles, and sweat clings to her hairline. She’s putting on a brave face though. She barely shakes as she stands.
“Hello Molly,” he replies. “It’s been a while.”
She juts out her chin. “You can’t kill me.”
“Not here. Not now,” he concedes. Too many questions would be raised, and all that lovely concern from Mohinder, all of that delicious submission from Parkman, would vanish. The price of playing politician is the politics, of having to act merciful when mercy is the last thing on your mind. “But I’ll get you eventually. You know that.”
She sways slightly. He frowns. He can’t be scaring her that much; they’ve barely begun.
Something’s wrong here…
“All I know,” she quavers. “All I know is that if you’re scared of one thing, it’s of been found out.”
Something’s wrong with her.
“Of being seen.”
She sways again, and sinks back down on the bench, shaking all over. Sweat pours out of her body.
“I can see you. I can see everyone.”
He can’t kill her. He gets the guards instead.
~*~
There wasn't anything wrong with her; if anything, something was too right. Her power had grown, too fast, too quickly, for her body to adapt. She spent four months in a coma, and came out of it ‘astrally omnipresent’. The theoretical intellect Laplace had hypothesized about had been realized; now there was girl locked up in prison with the knowledge of the where-about and activities of every person, place, and thing on the planet.
And that power is not his own.
He still can’t kill her.
It isn’t fair.
~*~
He can do other things, though.
After briefing his staff on the break-out on Moab, he pulled Parkman and Mohinder aside.
“There were casualties,” he says. “And your daughter…”
So, she thought she could fight him? So she thought that by joining the resistance she could bring him down? Well, he can't kill her, but he can have fun watching her trying to avoid killing her fathers as they worked their hardest to bring down a dangerous criminal.
Vengeance is sweet.
~*~
Fifteen years later, she storms into his office. She's Martha by then, and he's gone back to being Sylar.
“Well look at you,” he coos. He still can't kill her, but this time the obstacle standing in his way is not anything as abstract as needing the favor of her parents. His powers are muddied, distorted, wrenched from his control, and every time he figures out a way to restore them, she somehow finds another way of blocking them. He can't kill her, but she can kill him. “Little Molly Walker, all grown up and killing things.”
“Life has its poetry, doesn’t it, Sylar?”
He's mildly surprised that she remembers that.
It's the last thought he forms before he dies.