(Untitled)

[simon_doctor]

The more he thinks about the situation, the more uneasy it makes him. Especially about not having insisted on telling Kaylee everything before she went to visit Peter.

He is not going to go in after her. He'll wait until she comes back, and tell her everything then.

In the meantime, there are dishes that need washing.

Comments

[gonna_live]

He looks good. He doesn't seem too -- too --

Kaylee isn't sure.

She does go straight back to their bunk after leaving the Milliways cells; a thirty-minute nap later, and she goes to find Simon.

Simon, apparently, likes to wash dishes. Kaylee hangs in the door of the kitchen. "Hey, handsome." Soft, and a little tired. "Need any help?"

[simon_doctor]

He looks up at her, a quick searching glance that turns into a small smile after a moment. "Xiexie. If you want to dry the cups?"

[gonna_live]

Without another word, she steps over the threshold and goes for a clean dishrag.

"I brought him pie."

[simon_doctor]

Softly: "How did he seem?"

[gonna_live]

The glaze on the cup she's holding feels good -- smooth, and warm from the hot water. Kaylee doesn't reply immediately.

"There came a point," she says, with some delicacy, "when he didn't want to hear so much about... what he was before. With the Sylar thing. Not the -- not the lighter stuff, I mean. I guess..."

"I don't know. Not bad. Not terrible. But..."

She shrugs, half a shoulder. "I don't know." Beat. "I'm goin' back to check up on him."

[simon_doctor]

He nods, and pours water out of the bowl he's holding.

"Before you do, though," he says. "I need to tell you the rest of it."

Beat.

"Did Sylar speak to you at all, while you were there?"

[gonna_live]

Kaylee glances up, and shakes her head. "No, he -- he stayed asleep, the whole time. Or if he was fakin', he didn't comment."

Kaylee's pretty sure he wasn't faking; she didn't exactly trouble to mince words when it came to anything Sylar-related.

[simon_doctor]

"Good," and it's an undertone, almost inaudible under the running water.

A little louder: "Did it strike you as strange that he attacked Peter with his bare hands? And teeth?"

[gonna_live]

Kaylee blinks. "We didn't exactly discuss the attackin' bit, but -- "

It's starting to sink in. "...why'd he do that?"

[simon_doctor]

"That's what I was wondering."

He's almost certain of his own conclusion. Almost. But he wants to see if Kaylee will reach the same conclusion, given the facts that caught his attention.

"When he didn't strike back at you when you pushed him, I thought it might be just that he didn't want to commit violence in the bar in front of witnesses. But if that was true at the time, it certainly doesn't seem to be the case now."

[gonna_live]

"...and I can see him not... with me..." Her hands stop working; she drops the rag on the counter, bracing herself, palms flat. "But it don't -- why wouldn't he with Peter? Because -- if he's sayin' that Peter's abilities only flare up when he loses his temper, which ain't ever been the case, and I should know -- why would he do that?" Kaylee looks up. "Because it ain't like it's easy to take out somebody with, with a bite, unless you're -- "

She stops.

Straightens.

"Anyway." Very calm. "He was hurt. You said. Which is why I was able to shove him off. Right? Maybe he's -- not feelin' up to it. With what he can do."

[simon_doctor]

He bites his lip at her pause. Knows, or suspects he knows, what she's thinking.

(The last time he dealt with human bite marks, there were rather more of them.)

"The interesting thing is," and his voice is as calm as hers, "that Peter did use his abilities during the fight -- and that in the cells, Sylar seemed to be trying to goad Peter to do it again."

He finishes rinsing a second bowl, puts it into the drain in the space recently vacated by the cup Kaylee dried.

"But that wasn't until after he noticed that Peter's injuries didn't seem to be healing."

[gonna_live]

Kaylee picks up the rag again, and another cup, and she doesn't speak immediately.

When she does: "If I'm followin' you."

She's speaking very, very steadily. "If I got your line of thinkin' right. Sylar don't have powers no more. And -- and Peter might not, neither."

[simon_doctor]

"I can't be sure," he says. "On either point. But ... that is what it looks like to me."

[gonna_live]

She keeps working on the cup.

"You tell him yet?"

She's not talking about Sylar. Kaylee doesn't much care about Sylar.

[simon_doctor]

A small sigh. "I didn't realize at first that there was anything wrong with his memory, and I asked him whether he shouldn't be healing faster. And he didn't remember having been able to."

He puts a little more soap on the scrubbing sponge, and picks up a small pot that's been used to cook rice.

"So he's aware that something's wrong, but I don't think he realizes the extent."