Fic: Ghost in the Machine

[katsfic]

Title: Ghost in the Machine
Author: kathrynthegr8
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Sylar!Nathan/Claire
Rating: R
Word Count: 3000 or so
Warnings: Spoilers through season 3, speculations for season 4. Language, Murder, Implied Sex. (You know, the usual.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing you see here.
A/N: Written for the current Sylaire exchange for blueskypenguin. Hope you like it! :) I am forever thankful to eeyore9990 and sinverguenza for being beta rock stars! All mistakes are mine.



He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.
-From "Death Barged In" by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno-

The blonde is riding him, her body writhing in a slow, delicious rhythm. Her face is hidden behind long tendrils of her hair, but she reminds him of Claire.

Except he's Claire's father and only a sick fuck would have sex with his own daughter. The girl speeds up her movements and opens her eyes; they're blue, not green, and relief washes across him in a cool wave. He reaches up and touches her cheek with his fingertips. She moans and leans down...

Wake up. A voice hisses in his ear. Wake up.

Nathan sits up in bed when his alarm clock buzzes. Reaching for it without looking, he knocks it to the floor and swears under his breath. The dream is still there in his mind but fading fast. The blonde. He doesn't know her, hasn't ever seen her before, but there was something about her that was familiar.

"Her name was Elle." His voice is dry from sleep, and he doesn't realize he's speaking out loud until he snaps his mouth shut.

He takes a cold shower, and under a frigid stream of water he pushes thoughts of women, all women, from his mind. He doesn't have time to contemplate the wanderings of his sub conscience or the meaning of half remembered fantasies. That's the hobby of his brother Pete, not him. Nathan has a job to do, things to fix and situations to manipulate. It's what he's good at, what he's meant to do.

He ends up calling in to work late when he realizes that in his clumsiness he broke the alarm clock. He sits on his bedroom floor in his suit and tie and takes the thing apart. It's not expensive. He could buy another one and save himself the trouble, but he doesn't. For the first time in what feels like years, he smiles while he works and happiness swells in his chest. When he's finished, it runs better than before. Nathan adjusts his tie and whistles as he leaves for the office.

His assistant greets him with a pissed-off look and barely disguised contempt. "Your brother is here." She continues talking about meetings and deadlines, but Nathan ignores her and keeps walking.

Peter is sitting at his desk, the fingers of one hand idly tapping on the dark polished surface; in the other he holds a framed photograph of Heidi and the boys. He looks up when Nathan enters and straightens his back, stops tapping his fingers. "Morning, Pete. Did we have a meeting that I'm unaware of?" Nathan removes his jacket and hangs it on the coat rack in the corner.

He's spying on you. And the funny thing is, he doesn't even know why.

Nathan shakes his head and rubs his ear; where was that voice coming from? But when he glances at Peter, he realizes it's just him. He's hearing voices now, only instead of Linderman playing God, it's a sinister whisper that only he can hear. Lovely.

"Can't I just stop by and say 'hi'?" Peter asks, standing up and walking towards him.

"Well, that depends.” Nathan extends his hand, only to have his brother pull him into an awkward hug. "Did Ma send you out to check on me?"

"She worries, you know how she worries, Nathan." Peter pats his back twice, and then moves away with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Nathan rolls the sleeves of his shirt up and avoids looking at his brother; he feels the need to hide something, though he's not sure what. "I've been busy. It's taken weeks to catch up on work here and rebuilding The Company."

Peter nods in agreement, lets his gaze wander around the room. "So are you coming up this weekend?"

"I'll have to check my schedule, Pete," Nathan murmurs, voice noncommittal.

"When was the last time you had a break? Or talked to Heidi and the kids?"

It's a trap, tread carefully. Poor puppy just isn't as good at this as he should be.

Nathan rubs his forehead, tries to stop the headache he feels building at his temples. "I'll see what I can do, okay? No promises. Tell Ma to stop worrying so much."

The phone on his desk buzzes and then his assistant's voice speaks through the speaker. "Senator, your ten o'clock is here."

Peter shakes his head as he walks to the door. "Good seeing you, brother. I hope you can make it."  And then he is gone. Nathan sits at his desk and moves everything back to where it belongs. His eyes linger on the picture of the family that used to be his. He thinks he should probably miss them, but his memories of that time are too dim and far away.

"Something’s wrong with me," he says to himself.

Nothings wrong, you’re a psychopath. This is normal.

The voice in his head answers back, and Nathan thinks he should be frightened, but he's not.

The house is large and impressive; he didn't expect anything different. His brother, mother, and Noah Bennet are already gathered in the sitting room discussing the absence of Matt Parkman in hushed tones.

"You said he would be here." Bennet is irritated, he removes his glasses and polishes them with a cloth pulled from his pocket before sliding them back on his nose and squinting in Nathan's direction. "You're late."

Gang's all here. Well, mostly.

"Bennet, good to see you, too." Nathan forces a smile but decides against extending a hand to the other man. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic."

His mother rises from where she's seated and pours him a glass of Scotch. She smiles when she hands it to him. "Welcome home, Nathan."

He thanks her and sips his drink, listening to the silence descend all around them. "Just the four of us this weekend?"

"Matt Parkman couldn't make it, he's still settling his family somewhere. But he agreed to head up security for us. He'll need to talk specifics with you and Noah next week." Angela sits down next to Peter on the settee and pats his arm affectionately. "Sit down, Nathan. We have much to discuss."

"Come into my parlor," said the spider to the fly.

Nathan coughs to cover a bark of laughter and sits across from Noah.

He tries to pay attention as the discussion goes on around him. He speaks up now and again, but mostly he watches Noah watch him. The other man's eyes cut to him when he thinks Nathan isn't looking and the emotion he reads on Noah's face is unadulterated hatred.

He wants to kill you. Right now he's thinking about doing it. Fantasizing about your death at his hands.

Nathan has no doubt that it's the truth, but for the life of him he can't figure out why. He and Bennet had been a team just a few months ago, had shared confidences; he had started considering him a friend. Something has changed, shifted between them. The threads are there but invisible to his mind. He hates not being able to pick apart the obvious. Frustrated, he finishes his drink and pours himself another. He waits for the alcohol to take affect, wants it to relax his muscles and dull his mind; instead nothing happens.

"Go easy on those, Nathan," Peter chides him.

"Don't be that way. Your brother is stronger than you know." It doesn't sound like a compliment, not really. Angela beams at him from where she's sitting and easily steers the conversation back to matters at hand.

He filters them out and listens to the big antique clock in the corner tick away the seconds.

It's running slow.

Nathan has the urge to fix it so it runs on time. He suppresses it and tries to look like he's paying attention. Peter is talking about Mohinder Suresh and the part the good doctor will play in the new 'family business'. He nods in agreement whenever it seems appropriate, but really he doesn't even feel like he's in the room with them.

That's because you're not.

After eating dinner, he finds himself wandering the big house with no purpose in mind, taking in each of the rooms in turn. His bedroom from childhood has changed little. The bed is made neatly because the maid changes the sheets once a week, and even though he knows she airs it out, it smells musty and un-lived in. Nathan takes in the sports pennants on the walls and the books on the shelves in the corner. The model airplane hanging from the ceiling catches his attention. He guesses he always dreamed of flying.

Not really. You had bigger plans.

He nods in agreement with this. It sounds true enough. What boy doesn't want to grow up and be president?

In the sitting room, he stares at the array of family pictures displayed on the mantle. One in particular draws his gaze. He lifts it from its place next to the others and runs his fingertips across the glass surface. Claire and Peter smile at the camera. She looks carefree and happy, her long blonde curls spilling over her shoulders. Peter has one arm around her in a protective gesture. Frigid tendrils of jealousy wrap around Nathan's heart in a painful squeeze.

They look cozy. Do you think he's kissed her?

He studies the photograph for hidden meaning, answers to the questions that keep nipping at his mind. Nathan hasn't felt normal in months. Not since he'd last seen Claire that fateful night when they'd killed Sylar and burned all their secrets. His mind has been in a fog for so long that he can't remember anything different. And now he's hearing voices… Well a voice. A whisper, really. His conscience? He doubts it; he's never had one before, why would he develop one now?

Sweet, sweet Claire. What do you think she tastes like?

Nathan nearly drops the picture, but manages to catch it before it slips from his grasp. Definitely not his conscience then.

They keep hiding her from you, but it doesn't matter. She belongs to you. You and no one else.

What the hell does that mean? Claire's his daughter, of course she's his. Have they been keeping them apart though? It's a possibility he hasn't considered until that very moment.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" His mother touches his shoulder and stands beside him. "I took it last time she came to visit me. The garden was in full bloom." She pulls the photo from his hands and sets it back in its place with the others. All those smiling faces, but only one haunts him.

"Nathan, one of the staff found this in the den." She clasps his hand and drops a wedding band into his palm and then closes his fingers tightly around it. "You must have left it here last time you came to visit me."

The metal bites into his palm, cold at first and then warms with the heat of his skin. "Thanks, Ma." He drops it into his pocket and steps back from her.

"I've always believed that it's the things we surround ourselves with, our trappings, that make us who we are." She touches his forehead lightly and stares at him for a few moments and then walks away, heels clacking across hard wood floor.

One day you will destroy her for what she's done.

Nathan catches Noah in the foyer as they are both leaving. "Not spending the weekend?" Noah asks.

"No, I have work to catch up on." Nathan clears his throat and palms his keys. "How's Claire doing? I haven't seen her in awhile."

Noah stops walking but doesn't turn around. "She's fine. Busy with school."

"I'm surprised she didn't come today. I was under the impression she wanted to be a part of this."

"Her mother and I decided she's given enough of herself already." His words are sharp and nick at Nathan like a paper cut.

"Well, give her my best, will you?" Nathan strides past him and out the door, barely controlling urges he doesn't understand in the first place.

"I will."

Liar, liar.

That night he dreams about the ocean, a lost ship at sea that is battered by the waves and never makes land. The water rages on forever and he is a castaway that drowns again and again. He wakes up screaming.

In the morning he ignores his alarm clock, but doesn't fall back to sleep. The face he sees in the bathroom mirror is unrecognizable as his own. He forgoes shaving altogether, but showers and dresses quickly. He needs to find her, see her in the flesh.

Touch her, taste her, own her.

He knows little else about her life, but he does know that she attends Georgetown. A few phone calls later and he learns which dorm she's living in and directions to it. Nathan briefly considers driving, but it would take too long and he can't get there fast enough. Instead, he opens his bedroom window and shoots into the sky.

She opens the door at his first knock; the smile on her lips is like the sun breaking through the clouds.  Nathan's heart trip hammers in his chest, and he's sure she can see it about to burst forth from his ribcage.

"Hi, Claire." The words whisper across his tongue like a prayer from a sinner.

Time to make you mine, love.

Claire moves out of the doorway and waves him in. Her hair is tousled and curly; the sight of it makes his skin feel warm and too tight. He longs to reach out and tangle his hands in it.

"It's been too long." She envelops him in a hug after he shuts the door; her soft curves fit against him, and he lowers his head and breathes her in.  "I know you've been busy, and God! I have too with school and getting settled. I wanted to call you, but Dad told me not to bother you. I kept expecting to see you at Angela's..."

"Yes, been busy." Nathan manages to answer, but it gets lost in the nearness of her, her scent, her body heat radiating against him.

"This is my room. I managed to get a single, probably Angela's influence." She steps back from him and presents the surroundings with a wave of her hand. Nathan notices a bed, desk, and four walls. The rest is lost on him and doesn't matter. Claire is the center of this world and everything else is meaningless.

She clasps his hand and leads him over to the bed where they sit hip to hip. Claire's laughs softly and tosses her head. "Do you remember that awful hotel in Mexico? I thought the cockroaches were going to eat us alive!"

I can understand the sentiment.

"We should do it again soon." All this struggle and need to see her, and Nathan finds himself tongue tied. His memories of Mexico aren't great. Everything before the fight with Sylar seems foggy and far away.

“Except a better hotel…” Claire giggles. “With two beds.”

“Whatever you want, Claire.”

"I've missed you," she says, suddenly shy and not quite as animated as before. "I was hoping we would get to spend more time together once I started school here."

Nathan closes his eyes and tries to concentrate. He listens to his heartbeat and her steady breathing beside him. She wanted to see him, too. Then why had everyone conspired to keep them apart?

She is what you need. She is your anchor. She is the answer.

He doesn't feel fatherly towards her; did he ever? She's pretty, but it's more than that. He can imagine touching her, throwing her back on the bed and kissing her breathless, parting her thighs and fucking her until they are both senseless with lust. Sweat breads on his forehead and he drops Claire's hand where he held it against her thigh. Something is desperately wrong. He waits for the voice to whisper again but it's silent. No answers come to him in a rush of clarity, except that the voice he's been hearing all this time is his own.

"I'm sorry, I have to go now." He stands up and walks to the door, room spinning around him.

Claire lowers her face in disappointment but opens the door for him with a small smile. "Work, work, work. It's a Petrelli thing, isn't it?"

He doesn't look at her as he leaves, knows he won't control himself if he does. "Someone has to build the bridges."

Back at his apartment, Nathan paces until he thinks he'll collapse. Nothing is right. Not his name, his face, his thoughts. Everything fits wrong and is out of place.  Drowsiness starts to pull on his mind, making him feel drugged and listless. He tries to fight it, but finds himself in his bedroom not remembering how he got there.

The glint of gold draws his eyes to his nightstand. His wedding band is where he left it days before, next to his alarm clock. He didn't want to wear it again, or even feel it against his skin. It's a talisman of his old life and things better forgotten. Except now he remembers. When his mother had pressed the metal into his palm days ago, he had awoken the next morning with his wedding to Heidi fresh in his mind.

He thinks this must be what going crazy feels like. Nathan presses his head to his pillow and gives in to the sweet narcotic of sleep.

The next morning Sylar wakes up and remembers everything.

He wears Nathan's face as he does the Senator's job for the next week. He does it better, actually. Sylar buys his assistant Starbucks and lets her leave early on Friday. He gets more done on the job in a few days than Nathan had in months.

The first person he kills is Matt Parkman. He doesn't do it himself, of course. If he's learned anything from being Nathan Petrelli, it's when to get your hands dirty and when to let others do the heavy lifting. It takes one phone call and two untraceable transfers from a secret bank account to end the life of the former cop and put his body in a shallow grave that no one will find. Confirmation comes in the form of an e-mail embedded with a rather graphic video of a beheading. Sylar watches it twice, his teeth glinting and his lips parting in a slight smile as he watches blood seep from Parkman’s soft, white neck.

Matt’s death is satisfying, but it's the others that hold his interest. Noah Bennet and Angela Petrelli occupy his every thought and deed. He doesn't want revenge. He wants a reckoning.

Sylar doesn't bother to knock on her door this time. Instead he lets himself in and waits for her. Touches her things, lies on her bed.

When she opens the door and flips on the light an hour later, he's standing in the middle of the room. Waiting. He likes the fear in her eyes when she realizes what's happened.

"You killed Nathan." Not a question, a statement of fact. She's clever and he approves of that.

"Come in, shut the door. We never did finish that discussion we were having at the hotel."

Claire slams the door and crosses her arms over her chest. She's defiant, eager to fight. Like he expected anything less from her, his brave little princess in a pink sweater and blue jeans, ready to do battle with all the evils in her world.

"Your father's death was unfortunate, and I knew you'd be mad." He circles the room and opens her closet, runs his hands across the clothes hanging neatly on hangers. "But even I didn't suspect the lengths Angela and Noah would go to." At her small desk he reads the titles of books stacked in the corner and scrutinizes her pen collection and the Bulldog coffee mug that holds them.

"What are you talking about? When Angela finds out-" He silences her with a flick of a finger. It makes him feel powerful so he does it again and then she's pressed against the wall, unmoving.

"You aren't paying attention." He loosens his tie, Nathan's tie, and unbuttons his collar. It's going to be a long night. "Someone once told me that to survive I needed to find an anchor. I decided that you would be that person. The one thing that would always lead me back to myself."

Sylar sits on her bed and gets comfortable. He watches her face but she's doing her best to be stoic and not give anything away. Her eyes water and while he watches a tear escapes her lashes and drips down her cheek to the corner of her mouth.

"Don't cry for him. It was quick and painless. Better than he deserved." He sighs before continuing, "But that's not what I want to talk about. It's time we discussed us."

Claire's eyes go wide and she struggles against the invisible bonds that hold her captive.

"Your father and grandmother have been lying to you, to me, to the world. They thought they could control me, subdue me. Bend me to their will." He shakes his head in disbelief. "They succeeded at it, too. For a little while."

Sylar notices that her nightstand is a mini-fridge and flips open the door with curiosity. It's filled with diet sodas and yogurt cups. He grabs a water bottle from the corner and holds it up. "You don't mind, do you?" He twists the cap off and takes a swallow. The cold liquid soothes his dry mouth, clears his throat and he sets the bottle down before continuing. "And now I'm going to use their treachery for my gain. You're going to help me."

He raises his hand and Claire falls forward, catching herself at the last minute. "I don't believe you, and I will never help you." Her eyes are murderous and she's telling the truth, but none of that matters now.

"Have I ever lied to you?" he asks simply. He waits for her response and only gets a glare. "Answer me!"

"No."

"I won't start now." He stands up and takes a step forward, invading her space and staring directly into her eyes. "And I never will. They did this to me. Your precious daddy and grandma. So moral, so righteous, don't you agree?"

She doesn't answer, but she doesn't have to. Her silence confirms that she believes him. It's a small victory and it's one of many to come.

"I'll never help you. I hate you. I'll always hate you and wish you dead." She wipes her cheeks with the back of her shaking hand and stands fast, not backing down from him.

He leans forward until he feels her breath bloom across his face. "You will do exactly what I tell you to do or I will kill everyone you love and lay their corpses at your feet."

When she lowers her eyes, he knows he's won. He goes to his knees and presses his face to her abdomen and holds on tight. When she responds with a sob, he pulls her to the floor and wraps his body around hers, holding her close.

Sylar whispers all his secrets in her ear. He tells her that she brought him back from the dead. He makes her understand that she is his home.

In 2016 Senator Nathan Petrelli runs for President of the United States with his daughter and most trusted advisor, Claire Bennet, at his side.