Fic: The Chronicle of Perdition

[vespaer]

CHAPTER TWELVE: Courage
Characters: Sylar/Claire
Summary: It was a far tougher thing to face the death than the dead.
Rating: R for some language and a little teensy bit of gore
Spoilers: Season 4 stuff

A/N: Wheee this chapter took forever! But, in my defense, I was practicing for an audition, and I ended up getting the gig - YAY for professional music! Anyhoo, I'm SO GLAD I finally finished this one so I can catch up on all my READING! Specifically, I'm lookin' at all the shiny new ficathon fics =D Mmm Mmm! I do have to warn, though - this chapter, while I'm very happy with how it turned out, does contain the dreaded character death - dum dum dummmm! And while it isn't readily apparent, there is a very good reason behind it. Well, enough stalling - on with the show! And thanks for reading, guys!
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes or anything remotely related and I bow humbly before the television gods, please have mercy on me.

Read Chapter Eleven | Read Chapter Thirteen

Reading lips didn’t come naturally to Emma, but, possessing the adult memory of spoken speech, she had to admit she did have at least one advantage over those who were born deaf. Well… okay, two. Her waistline had been getting quite the workout as she swiveled to follow the perplexing discotheque of blinking purple and red that zipped between each surrounding conversation. Just as she began to feel dizzy, Peter - bless him - made himself her sole focus and began to interpret everything her frenzied attention span couldn’t compete with. Lauren was disinfecting the white enemy van from aft to stern of every smudge of evidence that depicted their presence while Noah was on the phone with a rental car company, procuring for those who were to remain behind a replacement mode of transportation. Tracy had just placed several plane tickets to Houston on the Hands for Hope expense account, and was currently speaking with Micah Sanders, trying to get the transaction electronically scrubbed, making it more difficult to trace. Naturally, a heartsick orphan like so many of their kind, he found it impossible to say no to someone who was, in many ways, identical to his dead mother. Though the two shared no true familial connection, she promised to ease his suffering by paying him a visit when her messy business was resolved.

“Houston?” Emma interrupted Peter’s winded explanation, which was hastened by the need to catch her up and listen at the same time. The destination seemed a tad ambiguous considering she, Peter, Sylar, Claire, and Molly were teleporting back to New York.

“Yeah, that’s where Molly said Janice Parkman is located, as well as that marketing company they’ve been talking about and the weird church - it seems like a good place to start their -”

Like a switch had been turned off, the swirling diorama of colorful serpentine tendrils fell away from where they hung in the air as every sound - every word, every sigh, every laugh - abruptly ceased to paint its reaching, trailing vibrations across the sky. She searched the circle of their peers for signs of distress, but found only stern faces silenced by what appeared to be a mixture of shock, ferocity, and wary anticipation. She turned once more to follow Peter’s distracted, anxious gaze where it landed near the hotel room on the left. All previous activity having screeched to a halt, no further noise met her eager eyes, squinting against the rising morning sun, outside of a slight rustle of cool, springtime breeze wafting cottony spores and wispy pollen to where it could collect on windshields and crevices.

Sylar had stepped out of the building.

Tensed like a disgraced and submissive wolf with his hand still lingering on the doorknob, waiting to bare his teeth, tuck his tail, and take the bruises he knew were coming to him, he exposed himself to the scrutiny of those who would condemn him. Emma didn’t need to be a mind-reader to correctly translate Peter’s expression - this was either going to go well… or very, very badly. Neck and spine stiff with the tension of someone trying to dismantle a nuclear bomb, Peter craned to catch the other’s attention, hopeful to diffuse an equally volatile situation. Judging by the pervading sense of heightened paranoia combined with what little Peter had told her of the man’s history, she guessed that these people had legitimate grievances to address. She didn’t want to imagine the amount of courage and humility it took to come out and face them. Fortunately for everyone gathered, however, Edgar’s well-timed reappearance did a fine job of squashing any mounting aggression before it had a chance to manifest. Dusty light billowed from him as he addressed the general audience.

“Wait a second,” Peter begged her as he held up a finger to shush her immediate questions so he could listen. “He… Oh yeah, of course, that’s our luck. The cops are hot on our trail, looking for this van - think the shooters turned it in as a red herring. Doesn’t help much that they impounded the other one.”

“Noah,” Edgar implored to his partner, “we should get moving, quick. I’ve got a rather lengthy Interpol file…”

“You and me both, friend. And Lauren.”

“I, uh…” Tracy spluttered, “I’ve got some charges I’d rather not face, too…”

The environment was once again stilled, this time by the pulsing, sparkling staccato of Sylar’s languid, barking laughter. He dug one fingertip to prod at the gathering moisture in the corner of his left eye.

“So, help me understand something, because I’m genuinely confused,” he chuckled devilishly with a sarcasm that shone with a sickly ochre yellow. “Is there anyone here who hasn’t killed a human being?” Looking around, aside from the obvious Molly and Claire, Emma couldn’t find anyone who looked as innocent as she did with the exception of Peter. “Oh my god that’s awesome. Just… just great. So tell me, again, just so I’m clear - why the hell am I the bad guy?”

“Because you’d be hell-bent on cannibalistic genocide if you had the chance,” Noah rebuked, famously incapable of holding his tongue.

“Dad -”

“Sylar, don’t,” Peter pleaded.

“No, Bennet. Aren’t you responsible for your own share of crimes committed against our kind???”

“Sure, I’m not too proud to admit that I’ve destroyed some lives -”

“Destroyed some lives?!?”

“- but I’ve saved FAR more than I’ve ever taken.”

“Yeah?!? Then that makes fucking two of us! The only difference is that I actually WANTED to save them!”

“And there’s no telling what you hoped to gain from that!!!” Emma wondered if he was referring to New York, when Gabriel had saved so many through the course of saving her. “You’re not fooling anyone here, you psychotic -”

“Hell, I even saved YOUR life!!!”

“Guys, please, this isn’t help-”

“You really think I’m the only person here who remembers your last fabled attempt at redemption?” Noah prodded. “I was there for that! Remind us all, again, how exactly that ended for you!!! How do you think Elle felt about that?!?”

Emma felt like a spectator at a tennis match played with scintillating missiles of multi-hued brilliance.

“Fuck you, you self-righteous prick! Fuck you, and fuck Elle! We both know how different things would’ve been if you’d never -”

“Are you kidding me?!? You can’t possibly hold me responsible -”

“Of COURSE you’re fucking responsible!!! You didn’t show up to ‘save my life’, or whatever bullshit you wanna spew -”

“You had already killed!!!”

“You KNEW I was no threat!!! You KNOW what I was doing when Elle found me!!! You were there to create a monster! Your bullshit fucking Company just HAD to have its monster! You made me what I am!!! I never had a chance!!!”

“Dad…?”

“Don’t listen to him, honey, he’s just doing what he always does - trying to twist things so they make sense to no one else but him.”

“You really think she believes you?” Sparking little blue shockwaves rippled from his harsh guffaw. “When have you ever told her anything truthful???”

“Now you leave her out of this!”

“Noah, we’ve gotta -”

“I mean, do you ever stop manipulating?!? Have you EVER come clean to your little girl about just how many bodies you’ve put in the ground?!?”

“You shut your mouth, you worthless piece of -”

“So why are you okay? Why are you the hero? Why do YOU never suffer? Not even when I know for a FACT that you’ve got a count that’s a hundred times bigger than mine!!!”

“Yeah?!? So why don’t you try explaining that to your mother, then, GABRIEL!!!”

“DON’T FUCKING CALL ME THAT!!!”

Stumbling in fright, Emma reached for Peter when Sylar flung a hand out in front of him and Noah Bennet sailed backwards, as if his middle was attached to an invisible zip line, to crash into the side of the van. His first reaction, before even moving to right himself, was to draw his formidable weapon like grease lightning, cocked and loaded, shaking at the end of his outstretched arms.

“WOAH!” Claire cried as she stomped into the line of fire, creating a barrier between their wild-eyed and turbulent stalemate.

“Noah - don’t!” Lauren leaped out of the van, alarmed by the sudden commotion.

“Hell in a handbasket,” Tracy muttered to herself.

Claire dipped under Sylar’s seething, hovering fingers and pushed a purposeful hand into his chest.

“Step back, dammit - back!”

“She’s right, buddy,” Peter calmed, presenting an open palm in a placating gesture, “you can be the bigger man here, just walk it off…”

“Bigger man?!?”

“Noah, shut up!” Lauren chastised her lover.

“Saved your fucking life,” Sylar growled, scuffling back on his heels through the gravel, “should’ve just left you there…”

“He’s already agreed to go along with your plan,” Lauren continued, “and you are screwing it up. Now, put that gun down - people are starting to stare.”

Ignoring the soft, enveloping orbs of perpetuating conversation, Emma’s eyes returned to Sylar. His fists were clamped at his sides as he quaked with internal warfare, determined to control his homicidal rage. Disarmed by Claire’s plaintive touch, he stood with his shadowed face parallel to the ground before he turned it to examine the girl, Molly, as she cowered in tearful terror behind Mohinder’s back, his shirt bunched in her gripping fingers. At the sight of her, his anger further evaporated like rising steam rippling off a simmering pot.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the gradually increasing calm. “I’m sorry I scared you. It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt anyone.” It was the most valiant thing he could’ve said. “Peter,” he turned to his friend, “isn’t there someplace we should be going?” She didn’t blame him for being anxious to create some distance.

“Yeah, come on, Molly, let’s go.”

Reluctant yet brave, she released her foster father from the strangle hold she had on his clothing as she ducked around to face him, shining a final parting glance up to him, filled with adoration and sluggish, child-like unease. She managed to pull herself away and join the semi-circle of her new travel companions, accepting Peter’s offered hand in her own.

“Guys, be careful, and let us know when you find Janice,” Peter told the others, to which Noah only somberly nodded.

“You take care of that little girl,” Mohinder called with half-hearted warning, lingering between the protective instinct to race after her and the good sense to let her go.

“I will, Mo, it’s okay. She’ll be safe. Call us if you need us.”

And with that, the scene before Emma winked out of existence to be replaced by the ostentatious yet cheerful exterior of the Petrelli matron’s estate. Soured only by a tinge of guilt that she should still be in Texas helping those who might need her, she couldn’t help but feel relieved to be home and in one piece, having only missed a minimal amount of time away from her job and her studies, and there was also a miniscule fraction of her that was excited to be introduced to Peter’s mother.

Lazy butterflies flitted on springtime haze through the tranquil, fragrant gardens that framed the circle drive and lined the walkway leading to the home’s stolid entrance. What she really wanted was a cup of tea and perhaps a bath, definitely a change of clothes - in civilization, she’d have a more difficult time explaining the dried blood that speckled her clothing following her recent internship in a makeshift trauma center. Perhaps the notorious Angela would be a gracious enough host to allow her the opportunity to get cleaned up. If how Peter turned out was any indication, the woman was likely a saint.

Emma trailed behind Peter’s confident footsteps as he led them toward the front door when a sudden burst of red halted her progress and whipped her lover around on a dime.

“Stop!”

Turning to face the same direction, she found that Gabriel hadn’t moved from where he’d stood, braced with one hand on the finely-sculpted, happily bubbling fountain that proudly stood as the focal point of the property’s opulent first impression. He brought around his other hand and slid it across the smoothly chiseled stone.

“Peter… don’t go in there.”

“What are you -”

“It’s a trap.”

“What do you mean ‘it’s a trap’?”

Gabriel closed his eyes and angled toward the hefty object to which he clung, bearing down in laborious concentration.

“Your mom is gone,” he hushed a prophetic whisper, “and there was a man here… he came to talk to her… they have him… they’re here.” Swiftly, his eyes shot open and he straightened. “Matt Parkman’s here.”

The creeping sense of foreboding escalated into certain threat when tufts of blue and pink sparkled in her periphery, alerting her to sounds perhaps no one else could hear but she could see. Holding her breath she drew her chin to her right shoulder, peering around in time to watch a troop of militiamen rise from their positions, hidden amongst the ornamental trees and topiaries, to take aim with fearsome looking guns.

They were surrounded.

~*~*~

“Molly… no…” Matt breathed an icy chill at the unexpected sight of the girl, so close yet so far away on the other side of the burgundy silk drapes dressing the classically paned window. When he’d probed Virgil’s mind for information and had discovered that his captor’s prey would, in fact, be coming to them instead, the images he’d gleaned had been a little vague… and yet, here he was watching an innocent girl cringe in horror, the target of an angry herd of hillbillies pointing an armament of repugnant weaponry in her sweet face. He became a sulking stone when he felt Jim’s irksome proximity at his shoulder.

“I recognize the Petrelli whelp,” he sneered, “but who’s the other blonde?”

“I dunno,” he told the truth, “I’ve never seen her before.” But then he remembered… when Peter had come to his house looking for a carefully concealed Sylar… he’d mentioned something about rescuing ‘Emma’, someone special to him. He’d come to find out later that rescuing Emma had also meant rescuing thousands of other people, ones that she’d -

“You know, I’ve been in the intelligence business a long time,” Jim mentioned nonchalantly, picking at a fingernail in a manner that suggested his remarks weren’t intended to be offhand. “I’ve heard a lot of excuses, I’ve seen a lot of facial ticks, giveaways, that sort of thing. I’ve performed countless lengthy interrogations.” His impactful eyes snapped to attention. “I know when I’m being lied to.” Two steps brought him closer than Matt found comfortable… if such a thing was possible. “And here we are, with that little girl out there, got a gun pointed at her head. Isn’t that your little foster kid?” Matt didn’t dare answer, afraid he’d blurt the words that were currently stuffed in his mouth - words that would be detrimental to Molly’s health and welfare. “You see this?” Jim continued, lifting the cellphone he cradled in his meaty paw to where it could be more easily seen in proper light, the cuff of his dress shirt straining against the button. “This is the lifeline of your wife and little boy. All it takes is one phone call and... well, let’s just say, with the cost of the average funeral today, I don’t think you can really afford two.

“Now, I realize you could test me. I realize you could convince me not to punch in the numbers with your spooky little mind powers, but here’s the thing - I have a message programmed to a hot-key, a message I promise you don’t want anyone to get. It’s like it’s on speed dial. All I have to do,” he wiggled the digit in patronizing portrayal, “is flick my thumb. Are you that fast? Are you fast enough to interrupt the nerve impulse between my brain and my thumb?” Matt simply glowered - he didn’t want the man to know that he was actually considering it. “Yeah, didn’t think so. So, now I’m gonna ask you again - who is she, and what does she do?”

He hesitated. Jim was unarmed - Matt could brainwash him into killing himself, if he only had a suicide weapon. And in the time it would take to persuade a gunman to do the trick for him, the aforementioned message would already have been sent.

“Need I remind you,” Jim pressed, “that your foster kid has a bullet with her name on it. Right out there. Right in front of you.”

“Let her go and I’ll tell you.”

“Hmm, no, how about this - you tell me, and I’ll let her live.”

There was no way he could possibly win.

“Alright, alright. Don’t, just… I… I think her name is Emma, although I’ve never met her. If she is Emma, then I believe she’s capable of, I’m not sure how to describe it… some sort of mind control. She can lure people to her, and I think she can repel also.”

“How many people?”

“Dude, I’ve never met her, how should I know??? Two people? A hundred? I don’t know!”

“But she makes people come to her.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Well. Now that’s very interesting. Was that so hard?”

~*~*~

“Sylar?”

There was an edge to Peter’s voice that seemed almost maniacal and oddly permissive… although admittedly it could’ve just been wishful thinking, he was probably just scared. Sylar leashed a worn-out, exhausted restraint over his scarcely-contained murderous trend toward retaliation and afforded his friend a generous forty percent of his frenetic awareness. Just one twitch of a finger, all it would take… if anyone made a bad move… Some ancient demonic impulse maligned his face into a feral, anticipatory grin - these guys did not want to rub him the wrong way, not with the day he was having. Although a part of him hoped someone would - he had some unspent aggression he would liked to have released.

“Can you do something for me?” Peter asked.

“Will it involve breaking bones? You know how I love flinging people.”

“Whatever it takes - just take care of the girls.”

The plea caught him off guard and he whirled about just in time to see Peter grasp Molly’s hand before they both disappeared. He had no spare second to process the tiny puff of relief he exhaled at the thought that the child had been transported someplace safe - the heavily armed ring of thugs broke out into a din of raucous shouts, not quite understanding what they’d seen, as they collapsed inward on their quarry demanding answers and threatening violence. He didn’t hear a single one of them.

“Kill me,” a voice filled his head - a voice he knew far more intimately than he was ever going to say out loud, “it’s the only way to end this. They can’t do anything without me to make their illusions for them and you to take the blame for it. They want to hide the one person who represented all of us and replace her with a man that everyone in tv-land is terrified of - can’t you see? That’s their agenda - if you’re out there terrorizing people, regardless of whether or not their ours, people will forget all about Claire and start voting ‘yes’ on legislation that treats us all like something worse than sex offenders. And there’s no telling what lengths they’ll go to do it - they’ve got my wife and my little boy. My little boy, Sylar, he’s just a baby, I know you know this. And I know you know I lied to you - I did see something in you, something has changed, I just… look, think about what happened, okay? How was I supposed to tell you that? With everything you did? I mean, the guy with the crowbar? Whose only crime was helping us change a flat tire??? I think you know what I’m saying, but Matty’s innocent, Sylar, and I know this means something to you. Please, if I’m right - if what I saw in you wasn’t a trick - then I’m begging you to do what’s right and take one more life - take mine. It’s the only way to stop them and free my wife and child. Please. Make my life the last one and it’ll all be over. Please.”

Sylar kept his face passive, unwilling to condemn the man and accidentally indicate he’d received any sort of telepathic communication. The task was an arduous one, however - in spite of the appalling acts he’d committed while sharing a body with Matt Parkman, and despite the bitter betrayal he’d received in response to an honest cry for help, the resulting deceit… changed his life. It woke him up, taught him lessons no one had ever cared enough to teach him, and shaped him into someone that could get better. There was no way he would ever fulfill Matt’s request - he could never take his life.

“I told you I don’t KNOW where they went!!!” Claire’s desperate bellow shattered his thoughts. “And leave her alone!!! She’s deaf - she can’t hear you! You’re just scaring her!” She nudged a little closer to his side, piercing him with a private, protective thrill. “Sylar - do something.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“I’m not sure I care…”

“I think you do…”

“I -”

“It’ll probably end up bloody…”

“As bloody as what they’ll do to Emma?”

The statement was sobering, but it gave him an idea - they couldn’t hurt Emma if they didn’t have any guns.

“GET HER DOWN!” he cried as he raised his arms. Everything moved in slow motion. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Claire launching from her position to tackle the other blonde to the ground just as a series of deafening shots sprayed a swarm of searing bullets that ripped agonizing holes through his arms and torso… yet miraculously missed the one spot that counted. Roaring with excruciating determination, he tunneled through the pain and strengthened his will, reaching out with a dozen invisible hands that he yanked backwards unceremoniously, tearing the blazing firearms from their owners to land in a molten hot pile of smoking metal at his own unsteady feet.

“Take your pick,” he breathed to Claire as he faltered, nearly toppling as his tortured body slowly rejected the amorphous lumps of lead that had been pumped into it. “Shoot anyone who tries to get close.” He needed a few minutes to recover, but the wary and agitated mob wasn’t going to allow it, opting to strike while he was down, even if that meant using ineffectual fists. Reluctantly, Claire promptly bent and picked up a shotgun that was far too big for her, but wouldn’t require a well-practiced amount of aim and was something formidable enough that no one really wanted to be hit by it. Emma, however, whose hands were more accustomed to far more intricate, delicate things, appeared as if she couldn’t quite decide what she wanted to do.

A younger man in a red t-shirt near the front of the crowd - one who reeked of too much testosterone and misspent youth, and maybe a chilidog - was too impatient to think the situation through clearly. Temper bloated with foolish ambition, his sneakers pounded against the asphalt as he charged toward the still-healing Sylar… who was still amazed that people could be so woefully ignorant about what ‘telekinesis’ really meant. Two fingers slicing hastily through the air meant the man became a projectile that mowed down a few more of his companions like bowling pins, but it turned out he was merely the stopper on the bottle. The minute his course was thwarted, three more took his place. Sylar didn’t exactly want to keep this up all day, and was about to make the switch from pushing to slashing.

“Claire…? You have more weaponry than a redneck during deer season, what are you waiting for?!?”

“I…” He flung two more. “I - OH my god!” Red-shirt was back on his feet, blinded by prideful animosity, lasciviously grappling for her, calling her bluff - she wasn’t going to shoot anyone, she was too scared. He was wrong. Through a clouded fog of elbows and distraction, Sylar had missed him stagger toward her and courageously tug at the barrel of the shotgun in a reckless attempt to take it away from her. Whether it was by accident or on purpose Sylar would never know, but the trigger got pulled and a resounding boom filled the sky followed by shrieks of grisly anguish - she’d blown a hole in his right leg large enough that the limb was likely irreparable.

She quivered in shock as Sylar sent a few more attackers sailing to land in ungraceful broken heaps on the lawn, and she stumbled away from the man’s crumpled form toward Emma’s bracing hands. Pale and shaken, she lifted the intimidating firearm a second time, slinging it around as if it provided a layer of protection. A second demonstration of the girl’s tested limits, however, wasn’t necessary - Emma had a different plan.

It started with a benign, pacifying hum - as off-key as a deaf person could muster, but likely a tune that was recognizable in her own soundless head. Her hands remained firmly at her sides, but her fingers splayed as if they were conducting some sort of force or energy. And then, one by one, as if unconsciously beckoned away by an irresistible call of the wild, all of the men turned and shuffled like mindless zombies down the drive and toward the gates that exited the premises. Sylar leaned his hands on his knees, panting as sweat coated his brow, breathlessly watching them go.

“Absolutely brilliant.”

“We should probably get outta here,” Claire mumbled as the steel she held grew heavy and its muzzle clanged against the ground. “Do you remember, back in the cave, how you levitated me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you can fly us out of here?”

“Where would we go?”

“Anywhere - the Empire State Building, I don’t care - just away from here.”

“Claire, you’ve got blood all over your pants.”

“Okay, fine, not there, but -”

“It’s alright, no problem, chill! But be aware, I’m gonna have to zip us outta here quick, so -”

A small ‘click’ emanated from a gnarled and sprawling oak tree just behind and to his left - one that bore absolutely no similarity to squirrels chattering or twigs snapping. Acting on animal reflex, he spun around and never hesitated as he lit the spreading branches with sizzling, white hot electric bolts, startling Emma into a crouch with a gasp. One covert sniper fell to the ground with an ungainly ‘thud’, his body still convulsing with blue sparks, while yet another dropped, cat-like, to his feet, weapon drawn. Claire was faster - she blasted a thunderous shot at him, but missed in her inexperience. Rather than bother with reloading, she scrambled crazily at her feet for another gun, hopelessly trying to arm herself before the other man could fire off another shot, but the scope on the rifle had already met his eye… before it sagged and became misshapen, and was hurriedly hurled as it disintegrated into a puddle of nothingness thanks to yet one more of Sylar’s amazing stolen abilities.

In the pandemonium, however, he never noticed the third sniper on the roof of the house - not before his acute hearing caught the sound of a bullet entering a chamber. He heard one ‘crack’ before Emma grunted and splattered his shirt with blood.

“No…” Claire choked as she tumbled forward to crawl toward the woman, reaching for her with trembling hands that were too rigid with disbelief to touch her. His pulse draining from his numbing lips, Sylar grew faint, nearly retching at the sight of the gushing hole in her forehead.

And then, as the air hissed from his lungs through grinding teeth as if he were caught in an ear-popping vacuum, the whole world became a blackened shroud of red and he was overcome by blind, malefic wrath.

“Sylar,” Claire’s sobs echoed to him across a widening and inescapable void, “they’re coming…”

It was true - the men Emma had enchanted were freed from her spell the instant her lifeless body hit the ground. Swimming around again to consciousness, they remembered their objective and scampered over each other to return and fulfill their duty. What met them instead was a furious angel of hell.

Colliding with each other, they drew up short as they watched the body of a man leave the top of the mansion to disappear into the sky, never to be seen again. Their cowering shapes cast flickering shadows across the yard as they faced Sylar’s hovering frame - towering over them, glowing with leaping, spider-legged tendrils of deadly, raw power, eyes alight. To make his point even more succinct, gathering at his waist level like a menacing, gunmetal halo floated every pillaged firearm, each one holding a dauntless steady aim. A gleaming snarl split his lips, and a chorus of lethal hammers sang as the guns readied themselves to fire.

“You had better fucking run,” his voice broke with heartache, but it was all the warning he allowed before he let loose with everything he had, devil may care.

Twenty minutes later the barrage finally ended when a small tug at his ankle woke him from his lethal trance. The ground crunched as his feet touched it, pavement glittering with the casings of countless spent rounds and the manicured gardens in ruins, gouged with smoldering scorch marks. When he finally turned his hollow gaze on Claire, who was stunned into ghastly silence, he saw something else that made his skin crawl with superstitious fear.

Emma’s body had mysteriously vanished, leaving behind a sticky sanguine puddle of gore.

“What on… earth…?”

“I don’t know how it happened,” Claire bawled, blood still smeared over the palms that had briefly nursed Emma’s destroyed head, “I swear to God I just blinked and she was gone…”

Before he could conjure a coherent response, the air popped beside them and Peter reappeared.

“Oh, wow… they’re gone… uh,” he surveyed the carnal destruction, “what did you do…?” Sylar couldn’t answer him… couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe for the suffocating pressure building in his chest. “You wouldn’t believe how many places I had to go until I found somewhere they weren’t waiting to ambush me… where’s Emma?”

Ashen, Claire could only mutely weep. Sylar reeled backward a couple steps, caught between flight and responsibility, grief and guilt. He let the evidence glistening in the hateful sunshine - coating the grass and seeping into the soil - tell the tale for him. His stomach turned as he watched his only friend be struck by a truth so harsh it might as well have been a brick. He had failed him.

The three wheeled about as noises sprung from within the house - they still weren’t quite alone.

“Quickly,” Peter rasped through an aching, closing throat, “we have to go.”

The battleground before them then changed, to be substituted by thin, mountain air, balmy evergreens, and a log cabin situated by a crystalline lake in the middle of what Sylar guessed were the Canadian Rockies. Peter limply released Claire’s hand and wobbled faintly to where he lowered himself to a loud yet sturdy rustic porch swing. Somewhere distant, carefree geese called for each other, carrying out serene, untroubled lives as his heart just withered and died. One hand raked though black, disheveled hair while the other hid his face.

“Peter?” a voice spoke as the door opened.

Sylar pitched himself off the porch, completely displaced and oppressed by the specter of everything he’d robbed from this man, unable to even fathom a single place in the universe that could welcome the likes of him. As he watched Angela Petrelli emerge to check on her son, he knew that this place was likely the last on the list… especially after he identified it in Nathan’s bothersome residual memory. The cabin belonged to the Senator… it was a place for escape for when the filthy side-effects of his profession’s requisite life-style became too much for his family to handle. Not many knew about it.

And then her raptor glare speared him accusingly.

“You.” She flapped an arm at him as if she were shooing away a stray dog that might be rabid. “How dare you show your face here - you get out of here! GO!”

Possessed by a streaking pang of cowardice, saddled by insurmountable remorse, he found that no amount of enmity he still held toward the woman could keep him from denying her wishes. Eager to let the sky swallow him whole, he took to the air and left everything behind.

~*~*~

*** day six hundred…ish, still perpetually March, in Hell ***

Sylar sat at his kitchen table, his fingers steepled at his lips, watching the dismal morning creep past the window in the living room. Chilled by quiet and futility, mindlessly destitute, he sat as motionless as the dust-covered furniture for what would’ve felt like hours if his concept of time hadn’t become as anesthetized as everything else. His fierce grasp over rational thought having long ago been relinquished, he became a droning slave to this… routine. A heartless automaton.

Well, probably not completely heartless. Hence the dreams he kept having.

Echoes of mortal screams, snapping bones, and revving engines haunted him from the moment he drug his feet off the mattress to plant them on the cold floor, staring him in the face as he brushed his teeth, and were now hushed in comparison by the crispy ‘pips’ his cereal made in the milk waiting unconsumed between his elbows. He could sit like this for days and the puffed bits of rice would never get soggy, regenerating as quickly as he did, just like the rest of the world. Just like him. This place was him. He got that now.

It took everything he had to pick up the spoon and put it in his mouth. Doing so meant initiating another step in a ceaseless, monotonous, unbreakable cycle that only served to provoke the torment that continued to obliterate him from within. There had already been so much missing, having been deprived of a proper childhood… unable to recollect a life that existed before she died… And there they were again. Echoes. What sat here now, choking down tasteless cereal, was a lost and discarded empty shell.

He did, however, find satisfaction in knowing that the barren landscape that used to mock him through the glass no longer stripped his sensibilities as it failed to hold any interest for him, having been sterilized of any sign of life ever since he threw a speaking watch out the window of an abandoned office building. There were no white piles of pigeon droppings on the sidewalk, no scurrying paws of feral cats in darkened corners, no rustling leaves of busy squirrels in swaying trees. The chatty flocks of gulls had moved off to find more pleasant shores. He no longer strived to feel rejected by them. What greeted him each morning instead was a relentless and persistently fruitless search and nothing more.

Going through the motions of rinsing out his bowl and placing it with the spoon diligently in the dishwasher, he once again summoned the courage to keep moving - keep breathing, keep thinking, keep surviving - for one more day.

He toed his sock feet into sneakers he was too lazy to lace before he shuffled dispiritedly down the stairs into the shop below, where a growing collection of broken watches sparkled on a workbench in the misty waxing light. Within each lie dormant the potential for… something. He didn’t know what it was, but he could feel it - it was important. And in the place of being unable to die, it passed the time. Admittedly, however, the practice of repairing the timepieces was made more demanding with the lack of access to his innate ability. Perhaps working with them was a refreshing reminder that, while insufferably alone, he was living without the ostracizing hunger that put him there in the first place.

An hour later, neck creaking from his rigorously stooped posture, he removed his magnifying headpiece and rubbed at his eyes. As if it was hiding behind his eyelids, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, the lingering residue of his dreamscape lit up his consciousness with images he couldn’t chase away, as if he had drifted off to another place in time like an out of body experience.

It was the desert - arid and gritty, making his skin feel like scales as the hot, unimpeded wind throttled his body with his clothes. The puddle at the edge of the dusty parking lot triggered an unrelated image - one of brownie batter just after the milk and eggs had been added to the dry ingredients - her blood turning the powdery dirt into lumpy paste where it leaked from her open skull, partially obscured by one arm that had awkwardly twisted over her head when her body had landed. An overpowering urge tugged at his feet, restlessly begging him to run to her - to turn her over and look at her face - but he couldn’t make them budge. He couldn’t understand why the demand was so insistent.

It was a far tougher thing to face the death than the dead.

What did he hope to find? Was it hope, in that learning their similarities - did he have her eyes? her cheekbones? her smile? her quick wit or sense of humor? her much needed self-control? - he would further discover how dis similar he was from his abhorrent father? Or was it that finally being able to banish the blankness of her features would grant him the ability to reclaim all that he’d lost - a coveted childhood of which he had no memory… or at least one that was viciously suppressed?

While he was unable to deny either of these things, craved them badly even, he couldn’t shake this feeling that there was something… else. That studying her was tantamount to peering into each and every bland and lifeless face that currently cluttered the pitted and stained expanse of his workbench. He hoped to find a voice. He hoped to find a beacon, or a compass - something that would part the enshrouding fog that held him trapped and point him in the right direction, home. Hell, he was looking for a home - someone who knew him, wanted him, someplace he could belong. He was looking for the person he could become.

He… he was looking for himself.

Thick grey light drowned the daydream when he opened his eyes, jolted back to reality by the realization. It wasn’t enough to vow that he’d never hurt another human being again as long as he lived - it wasn’t enough to plead openly to a deaf, indifferent sky that he’d learned his lesson and that he could change. Who would he change into? What would become of ‘Sylar’? Who was he?

What if he failed?

And, if he plainly knew what questions to ask… why did he feel so lost?

Finding no solace in the defunct yet exquisitely intricate mess of cogs and springs, he pulled on a jacket hanging patiently by the door before he stepped out for some air and another taste of claustrophobic ennui delivered by the unchanging familiarity of his surroundings. Performing a solo balancing act on the painted line that separated the vacant lanes of absent traffic, he chewed at his upper lip in deep, pensive thought.

What did he still have left to learn? What was it a voice had said to him once, months ago? Something about trying some faith? In what - himself? What did that mean? Was he supposed to learn to have courage? Place his trust?

Believe in himself? Was that it?

His tracks halted immediately as he watched it scurry across the pavement in front of him. It stung his eyes and watered them, leaving him at a loss for breath, disbelief having ripped it from his lungs. Secure in knowing that there was no one to witness the event, he allowed two or three tears of awe to spill over his soft cheeks as he bestowed his penitent face to the clouds…

Just as he watched them break for the first time in over a year and a half.

And a warm ray of majestic sunshine - an undeserved caress of holy grace - drifted down from the whispery heavens to kiss him on his epiphanous forehead.

~*~*~

Claire closed the book when the setting sun illuminating the westward facing window no longer provided enough light to brighten Sylar’s looping scribbles. Spring was a climate shock in the north over where they’d just come from in deep Texas, so she tucked a blanket under her arm after she slipped the journal back into her pocket and stood to acknowledge the tension in the forcibly hushed room. The last thing Angela had said before retiring to the kitchen to brew a kettle of tea was, ‘this place still smells like him.’ That was half an hour ago, yet still she leaned against the counter, steaming mug in hand untouched, an icy statue watching the fading sun recede from a thawing lake outside the windowpane over the sink. Unavailable to comfort her twice grieving son, Claire took the job upon herself and moved to join him by a mirthlessly crackling fire - the same one Molly eventually traded for a bed in a back room, finding the lingering death on the air a tad too stressful. Claire couldn’t blame her - they’d all seen their fair share. Draping the cottony throw over Peter’s shoulders, she drew her knees up to her chest as she lowered herself next to his transfixed form. She gave him a moment to react and then sighed when he didn’t.

“I know you feel like you’ve always had to be the strong one for your family, for everything they’ve gone through,” she told him lowly, keeping her words discreet, “even me, some. And I can’t thank you enough, but… you don’t have to do that this time. I’m here for you now. In fact, I’m the only person who can honestly say I’ll always be here for you.” There was a bright side to every curse.

At first the gentle weight of his shoulder against hers seemed as if it was only given to accept her sentiment and nothing more, but then it grew, and grew heavy. Feeling small and surprised, she slid an arm up his long, broad back to thread fingers through his hair when the crown of his head cuddled against her neck and he shook. She held him while he cried for as long as she could, until at least three of her limbs were numb and one of her nerves was pinched. She stamped some feeling back into her legs after she smoothed the moisture away from his face, then rose in search of a cup of tea with which to submerge his sorrow in sleepiness.

Wondering if she’d overstepped some sort of unspoken boundary, she was unable to turn Angela’s frosty eyes from the glass as she trickled still-hot water over an aromatic tea bag, but then it dawned on her that the woman was actually looking at something.

Someone.

A tall, straight, dark lone figure that adorned the shore of the lake, stark against the deepening sky.

This house was a tomb for everyone in it. And out.

Leaving Peter to nurse his mug, Claire swaddled herself in a grimy old Mexican sarape that had covered the back of a rocking chair and stepped out into the damp, cool evening. She knew he heard her coming - her shoes squeaked with every step on the dew-dotted grass - yet even as she drew up short behind him, just inside his right periphery, he made no sound. In the distance, a lonely elk lent one last call to the craggy miles for the night. Claire wished she were here under different circumstances, and briefly pondered over what it would’ve been like to have grown up as Nathan Petrelli’s daughter.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she offered, breaking a useless train of thought. “Angela’s just Angela, nobody’s blaming you.”

It was the wrong thing to say - she’d inadvertently implied that there was initially a question over whether or not he was to blame. But why would he expect any different, given who he was? Was that what made him so sullen? He certainly made no mystery that it weighed heavily on his mind when they were trapped together in the cave. But this… this just seemed so much worse. She could hear him breathing hard over the lapping ripples that crisscrossed the surface of the water, and his fists had balled up so tightly over the sleeves of his jacket, arms pulled strenuously across his chest, that the knuckles had gone white from trauma.

“Sylar, as powerful as you are, you’re not psychic - there’s no possible way you could’ve known -”

“I should’ve been there,” he finally muttered.

“What do you think you really could’ve done -”

“I betrayed him - betrayed her. I could’ve done more.”

“Done what???”

He chewed his lip for a moment, debating what part of himself he was going to show her, if anything, battling for control over his spiraling emotions.

“She was everything that was good in this world, Claire - she never judged me. She was kind to me when I didn’t deserve it. I should’ve been there for her, I should’ve - I…” He fought and he lost. “I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!!”

A family of ducks took to the sky in panicked flight at the sudden outburst while Sylar bent at the middle as if he’d been injured, a concealing hand clapped over his mouth as he gulped back his bitterness and shame. A confused maelstrom of loathing, humiliation, and a million other things, he took two steps toward the lake making it very clear he intended to work this out on his own - it was the only way he knew how. Three or four months ago, if Claire had found herself in this exact same position, she would’ve been happy to let him - in fact, she’d have had several choice words to go along with his whole diatribe. She might’ve even tried to push him in the water in the futile hopes he’d freeze or drown or electrocute himself or something. But now… things were just… different. Complicated.

“If that’s the logic you wanna use, then fine,” she argued, spitefully closing the gap he created. “It means that I could’ve just as easily turned around and noticed the guy on the roof and shot at him. You wanna take the blame, then great, do it - but I’m just as much to blame. WE weren’t the ones with the guns, alright? And they were coming from everywhere - you did the best that you could.”

“And she’s still dead.”

“And you didn’t have to do anything at all! And honestly? I don’t think anyone really expected you to. But you did.”

“I just wanted to do something right.”

His dejected toe kicked a rock free from the earth that held it to where it tumbled past the muddy shore to plop into a cloud of wriggling tadpoles. Then, like a marionette on a set of strings controlled by a whim that was too impulsive to understand, her hand stretched out before her, unbidden. She held her breath and did nothing to stop it as it curiously led her to its destination - planted flat and firmly between his warm, taut shoulder blades. She could feel the ridges of his spine beneath her fingertips, felt it jerk with bewilderment at the unexpected touch. She envisioned him pulling away, or flipping around to strike her like a wild and cornered predator, but he did neither. Strangely docile, he tamely accepted her consolation before he sniffled and dragged a defeated elbow over his face.

“Don’t you see,” she told the back of his head, “you did do something right - you tried. It’s more than anyone can ask of you.”

This stoked a fire in his damp eyes, turning him around to face her at last.

“More than… anyone…? Claire! How can that possibly be true?!? Of course I can ask for more than that - I can ask for her to still be alive! Don’t you understand??? He saved me! Regardless of everything I’ve done to him, he rescued me when there was NO ONE! I owe him my life! And now she’s gone, Claire - did you see him? Did you see all the things I’ve taken away from him, just written all over his face?!? And this is just one more?!? Seriously, ask yourself - how much can one man stand to lose before he just… he just…”

“Snaps?” she interjected at his apparent frustration. He huffed his answer as his hands dropped, spent, back to his sides. Before her brain had a chance to filter the statement, her mouth took a risky gamble. “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”

Speechless and derailed, his brows narrowed into something alarmingly more fierce and unpredictable for one frightening moment before his eyes slowly drifted closed and his chin fell toward his chest. They stood in uncomfortable silence while she waited for him to form a reply or fly away again, but he stuffed his cold fingers into his jacket pockets instead, tilting up to follow a chevron of geese as they painted their shapes across the rosy, dimming clouds, drawing up his shoulders to warm his neck.

“I want to kill them, Claire,” his voice hung still on the moist air. “I want to kill them all.”

And he would, too.

She contemplated this, and found she couldn’t help herself.

“So do I,” she gave him her honesty. “But right now Peter needs us. If there’s something you want to do, then he could really use a friend right now. He’s looking for you, whether either of you want to admit it or not.”

“How can I face him?” he asked, eyes brimming with unshed contrition. “How… how can I do that?”

“The same way you’ve faced a lot of people today,” she answered easily, feeling something sage and wise surging in the back of her throat. “With courage.”

Drying his eyelashes with the heels of his palms, he nodded his timid acquiescence while modestly refuting her claim.

“Why are you being so nice?”

“Really… I have no idea.”

He blew a surly chuckle at the uninvited return of their usual banter before he retreated toward the cabin, a convicted man facing his final mile. Upon entering, they found Peter had joined Angela in the kitchen, perhaps finding unity with each other by spying on the exchange taking place outside. The matron started indignantly, ready to protest at the thought of her worst nightmare (which was saying a lot for the dreamer) setting one damned foot inside this house, but was given pause when her only living son’s hand had found her arm. Reassured, Claire released the death grip she had on the front of Sylar’s shirt - the only tether that managed to keep him in the room - and shuffled off to join Molly in well-deserved exhaustion for the night.

Tomorrow’s struggles were exactly that - for tomorrow.