Redemption is a Process Chapter 26
Title: Redemption is a Process
Verse: Heroes
Characters: Sylar-centric, ensemble cast
Pairings: Sylar/Claire, References to Sylar/Mohinder, Sylar/Elle
Rating: Mature, may contain adult situations, language, violence, sex
Plot: Story picks up midway into the idea that Sylar is trying to live the straight and narrow working for the company.
Sylar has been given his freedom, tentatively, and things are going back to normal. Well, as normal as life can be for a power hungry, brain sucking, company agent who's trying to make a life for himself...
Sylar and Claire try to form a deeper bond, while Noah obssesses. Meanwhile, Sylar is generating powers that could tempt him back into darkness and Angela is growing desperate.
Master Post
...THIS IS PART ONE OF CHAPTER 26..MORE TO FOLLOW
Angela Petrelli, PrimaTech Facility
The phone rang, its insistent buzz not helping her growing headache at all. “Yes.”
“You should know that Bennet and Suresh are in Vermont,” an official voice intoned.
Angela pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course, they are. Noah doesn't know when to quit... he’s going to get us all killed. Thank you for informing me.”
“Instructions?”
She paused. She couldn’t worry about Noah and his Sylar fixation. She had to keep her eye on the bigger picture or they would all suffer the consequences. Noah knew what was at stake and still chose to disregard her warnings for the sake of his petty vengeance. He was a fool. “Stay out of it unless Noah pushes the issue. If he does... back Sylar.
“Understood.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
“No, the subjects have stayed to themselves. Not much outside interaction.”
A child’s laughter tinkled like bells in her head. Maybe it was happening now, Angela considered. The child in her dreams hadn’t been more than about four. If Claire became pregnant on their trip then the world had less than five years. And she had less than five years to make sure that future never came to pass. “Let me know right away if anything happens. I don’t care what time it is, you find me, and let me know.”
“Yes, Mam.”
Angela placed the receiver down. Something was going to happen, something bad. She knew that as surely as she knew her name. The problem being, she didn’t dream about everything that would happen. It didn’t work that way. She was only given guideposts to follow. You always ended up in the same place but depending on the path you chose, your destination could end up looking a lot differently.
She had seen Noah’s broken, bleeding body. It was easy to infer how that might happen. If Sylar killed Noah, Claire would never forgive him. If that happened, there would be no happy family, no child, and no future. And without that future then Sylar would truly become an unstoppable monster.
Unless, of course, the child in question, had already been conceived.
Angela put her head in her hands. Too many possibilities, so much that could go wrong, she was playing such a dangerous game. The stress was immeasurable. She didn’t know how much longer she’s be able to keep it up before her mind and body just gave out. She desperately hoped it would be long enough.
Sylar and Claire
The afternoon had skipped by pleasantly. There were no interruptions and no disagreements just two young lovers exploring each other for hours.
Claire threw the leftovers on the counter. “I repeat I am stuffed.” She patted her non-existent belly.
Sylar tugged a shoe off, tossing it with casual disregard.
“I think I’ll take a shower.”
Sylar smirked, “Need any help?”
Claire looked at him incredulously. “You can't possibly still be..”
“Horny? Big appetites, remember.”
She shook her head and chuckled, “I won't walk straight for a week as it is. How about TV instead?”
Sylar shrugged and the TV turned itself on. The channels began changing until a football game came up.
Claire looked at the screen. “You know, I think if you don’t mind, I’ll take a long hot bath. You can watch your game.”
Sylar raised a brow, “You sure?”
“Yep,” she grinned, “Have fun.”
Sylar waited until the bathroom door closed and he could hear the water running before putting his shoes back on. He was glad that Claire hadn’t taken him up on his offer. He didn’t think he’d be getting anything up for awhile. He was exhausted. But this was a perfect opportunity, he couldn’t waste it.
He honed in his hearing and waited until Claire was well settled into her bath before heading out to the shed in back of the house. The structure was small but well constructed and would be the perfect place to practice for an hour or so while Claire soaked. He slipped out the backdoor and adjusted his eyes to “night vision”. The landscape lit up into sharp relief. A few small animals hovered around the parameter but no nosy father-in-laws or ex-whatevers on the prowl. Angela’s babysitters would be parked in their customary position a tenth of a mile down the road watching the front of the house. They wouldn’t be able to see or hear anything from their vantage point. Perfect.
The darkness wrapped itself around him like a comfortable cloak. He felt the energies inside him waking up, reaching out... becoming. But what was he becoming? Sylar entered the shed and drew the bolt across the door. He looked around at the windowless structure. His choices were limited but he could at least flex his muscles a bit. He was already so amped up that his fingers were sparking lightly. He needed calm.
Standing in the middle of the space, he started relaxing his body bit by bit. He rolled his head and shook out his arms... then closed his eyes. When he opened them they were glowing softly. Organic equations played out behind his eyes, cells morphing, energies building. He had only to guide it, make it into what he wanted it to be. This wasn’t an ability that he had learned through absorption. There was no template to follow. No, this was his own creation. This was something that had never existed before. He had reached into his own DNA and altered pathways, bringing himself into alignment with the world that existed behind the world.
Logically, he knew, it wasn’t supernatural. He wasn’t touching upon heaven or hell though he sometimes very much felt that way. No, the fact was that human beings had limited ways of perceiving the universe. There was so much more to existence than just what the five senses could discern. Not even man’s best inventions had yet to touch upon the layers he had discovered with his ability. These things existed all around everyone, all the time, but unless you were “special” you couldn’t even begin to fathom them. He couldn’t explain it even he if tried. There just weren’t any words that could describe the sheer magnitude of creation.
Bennet and the rest, with their small minds and insignificant lives could never hope to understand. They were being replaced by evolutional process. They could fight it all they wanted but in the end that choice had already been made. The world was changing... forever.
Sylar reached out, cupping his hands, a pinpoint of red light appeared in the dark... and grew. Like liquid fire, it poured its way into reality, gaining mass and structure as Sylar’s hands caressed it countenance. The energy pulsed and stretched until it was the size of a baseball. Sylar smiled. It was quite simply, beautiful. A miniature sun held in the palm of his hands. He wasn’t actually generating the energy, only directing it, using his cells to harness and refine what was needed from a quantum level. The amount of expendable energy he was using from his own power structure was negligible. He could maintain the sphere almost indefinitely.
His eyes pulsed from within and the sphere enlarged until it was the size of a basketball. The urge to turn it loose and see the damage it could cause was teasing at him. It would be so easy. Once released the energy would expand outward in all directions engulfing anything in its path. Sylar inherently knew that a sphere of this size was capable of serious damage before it dissipated. Anything caught within its influence would be disintegrated. He smiled, level five would never hold him again.
Sylar lowered his hands and the bobbing orb faded away. Looking at his watch, he figured he could risk another half an hour before he needed to get back inside. He reached out with this heightened senses to confirm that Claire was still in the bath. Satisfied, he began again.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bubbles floated around her in a sweet aroma of vanilla. Claire’s eyes drifted closed. This was heaven. All things considered, this trip was turning out to be wonderful. What a perfect day it had been. After lunch and love-making, they had actually talked a bit and Sylar had shared some of past with her. He had talked how ordinary everything had been until the eclipse and how he hated the banality of it all. Monster or not at least he now had purpose. It was a telling, if not sad, notion.
He also asked her if she could go back to the way she was before... would she? That was a difficult question. For all the bad things that had happened, there was so much wonder and beauty in these gifts. She had long since stopped whining about being the indestructible girl and come to see it for what it really was, a choice. She could choose to see it as a curse or she could use it to do some good. She chose the latter and here she was, a little more than a year later, married to the most notorious “special” walking the face of the earth.
She marveled at what Sylar might accomplish if only he could tame his urges and use his abilities to help rather than harm. She sighed and rubbed at her arms with a bath sponge. He was completely self-absorbed, not seeing the forest for the trees. She drew her leg up and slid the sponge along her thigh. There was a light ache between her legs. Claire smiled, it was a good ache.
There was a time when she no longer felt anything at all, when she didn’t even feel human anymore. While she had hated Sylar for his attack on her, she hated him far worse for taking away her pain. It was torture.
Then suddenly, everything changed again. Angela came up with a crazy scheme to bring Sylar into the company fold and put an end to his evil. No one ever thought it would work, not in a million years, but Sylar had stunned them all by accepting Angela’s offer of help.
Claire blew on the sponge sending blue bubbles floating through the air. She still wondered what the details of that “deal” had involved. Both Angela and Sylar claimed that there were no secret terms but she wasn’t naïve, contrary to what her dad might think. Angela had paid Sylar in blood in order to secure him. But she had to hand it to Angela, she knew what she was doing. Once Sylar was willing to work with her, Angela started working on him. Nothing too forceful, just small changes over time meant to create connections between Sylar and others. Changes meant to remind him of his humanity.
That had been the first break-through between them, when she had finally made him understand what he had really done to her. He had made the connection, he had empathized. Then with the same power he so brutally used for destruction had “fixed” her. That had been the turning point... for both of them. She stopped seeing Sylar as an inhuman monster and instead saw a deeply flawed man that had been overwhelmed by circumstance. And here they were...
Verse: Heroes
Characters: Sylar-centric, ensemble cast
Pairings: Sylar/Claire, References to Sylar/Mohinder, Sylar/Elle
Rating: Mature, may contain adult situations, language, violence, sex
Plot: Story picks up midway into the idea that Sylar is trying to live the straight and narrow working for the company.
Sylar has been given his freedom, tentatively, and things are going back to normal. Well, as normal as life can be for a power hungry, brain sucking, company agent who's trying to make a life for himself...
Sylar and Claire try to form a deeper bond, while Noah obssesses. Meanwhile, Sylar is generating powers that could tempt him back into darkness and Angela is growing desperate.
Master Post
...THIS IS PART ONE OF CHAPTER 26..MORE TO FOLLOW
Angela Petrelli, PrimaTech Facility
The phone rang, its insistent buzz not helping her growing headache at all. “Yes.”
“You should know that Bennet and Suresh are in Vermont,” an official voice intoned.
Angela pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course, they are. Noah doesn't know when to quit... he’s going to get us all killed. Thank you for informing me.”
“Instructions?”
She paused. She couldn’t worry about Noah and his Sylar fixation. She had to keep her eye on the bigger picture or they would all suffer the consequences. Noah knew what was at stake and still chose to disregard her warnings for the sake of his petty vengeance. He was a fool. “Stay out of it unless Noah pushes the issue. If he does... back Sylar.
“Understood.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
“No, the subjects have stayed to themselves. Not much outside interaction.”
A child’s laughter tinkled like bells in her head. Maybe it was happening now, Angela considered. The child in her dreams hadn’t been more than about four. If Claire became pregnant on their trip then the world had less than five years. And she had less than five years to make sure that future never came to pass. “Let me know right away if anything happens. I don’t care what time it is, you find me, and let me know.”
“Yes, Mam.”
Angela placed the receiver down. Something was going to happen, something bad. She knew that as surely as she knew her name. The problem being, she didn’t dream about everything that would happen. It didn’t work that way. She was only given guideposts to follow. You always ended up in the same place but depending on the path you chose, your destination could end up looking a lot differently.
She had seen Noah’s broken, bleeding body. It was easy to infer how that might happen. If Sylar killed Noah, Claire would never forgive him. If that happened, there would be no happy family, no child, and no future. And without that future then Sylar would truly become an unstoppable monster.
Unless, of course, the child in question, had already been conceived.
Angela put her head in her hands. Too many possibilities, so much that could go wrong, she was playing such a dangerous game. The stress was immeasurable. She didn’t know how much longer she’s be able to keep it up before her mind and body just gave out. She desperately hoped it would be long enough.
Sylar and Claire
The afternoon had skipped by pleasantly. There were no interruptions and no disagreements just two young lovers exploring each other for hours.
Claire threw the leftovers on the counter. “I repeat I am stuffed.” She patted her non-existent belly.
Sylar tugged a shoe off, tossing it with casual disregard.
“I think I’ll take a shower.”
Sylar smirked, “Need any help?”
Claire looked at him incredulously. “You can't possibly still be..”
“Horny? Big appetites, remember.”
She shook her head and chuckled, “I won't walk straight for a week as it is. How about TV instead?”
Sylar shrugged and the TV turned itself on. The channels began changing until a football game came up.
Claire looked at the screen. “You know, I think if you don’t mind, I’ll take a long hot bath. You can watch your game.”
Sylar raised a brow, “You sure?”
“Yep,” she grinned, “Have fun.”
Sylar waited until the bathroom door closed and he could hear the water running before putting his shoes back on. He was glad that Claire hadn’t taken him up on his offer. He didn’t think he’d be getting anything up for awhile. He was exhausted. But this was a perfect opportunity, he couldn’t waste it.
He honed in his hearing and waited until Claire was well settled into her bath before heading out to the shed in back of the house. The structure was small but well constructed and would be the perfect place to practice for an hour or so while Claire soaked. He slipped out the backdoor and adjusted his eyes to “night vision”. The landscape lit up into sharp relief. A few small animals hovered around the parameter but no nosy father-in-laws or ex-whatevers on the prowl. Angela’s babysitters would be parked in their customary position a tenth of a mile down the road watching the front of the house. They wouldn’t be able to see or hear anything from their vantage point. Perfect.
The darkness wrapped itself around him like a comfortable cloak. He felt the energies inside him waking up, reaching out... becoming. But what was he becoming? Sylar entered the shed and drew the bolt across the door. He looked around at the windowless structure. His choices were limited but he could at least flex his muscles a bit. He was already so amped up that his fingers were sparking lightly. He needed calm.
Standing in the middle of the space, he started relaxing his body bit by bit. He rolled his head and shook out his arms... then closed his eyes. When he opened them they were glowing softly. Organic equations played out behind his eyes, cells morphing, energies building. He had only to guide it, make it into what he wanted it to be. This wasn’t an ability that he had learned through absorption. There was no template to follow. No, this was his own creation. This was something that had never existed before. He had reached into his own DNA and altered pathways, bringing himself into alignment with the world that existed behind the world.
Logically, he knew, it wasn’t supernatural. He wasn’t touching upon heaven or hell though he sometimes very much felt that way. No, the fact was that human beings had limited ways of perceiving the universe. There was so much more to existence than just what the five senses could discern. Not even man’s best inventions had yet to touch upon the layers he had discovered with his ability. These things existed all around everyone, all the time, but unless you were “special” you couldn’t even begin to fathom them. He couldn’t explain it even he if tried. There just weren’t any words that could describe the sheer magnitude of creation.
Bennet and the rest, with their small minds and insignificant lives could never hope to understand. They were being replaced by evolutional process. They could fight it all they wanted but in the end that choice had already been made. The world was changing... forever.
Sylar reached out, cupping his hands, a pinpoint of red light appeared in the dark... and grew. Like liquid fire, it poured its way into reality, gaining mass and structure as Sylar’s hands caressed it countenance. The energy pulsed and stretched until it was the size of a baseball. Sylar smiled. It was quite simply, beautiful. A miniature sun held in the palm of his hands. He wasn’t actually generating the energy, only directing it, using his cells to harness and refine what was needed from a quantum level. The amount of expendable energy he was using from his own power structure was negligible. He could maintain the sphere almost indefinitely.
His eyes pulsed from within and the sphere enlarged until it was the size of a basketball. The urge to turn it loose and see the damage it could cause was teasing at him. It would be so easy. Once released the energy would expand outward in all directions engulfing anything in its path. Sylar inherently knew that a sphere of this size was capable of serious damage before it dissipated. Anything caught within its influence would be disintegrated. He smiled, level five would never hold him again.
Sylar lowered his hands and the bobbing orb faded away. Looking at his watch, he figured he could risk another half an hour before he needed to get back inside. He reached out with this heightened senses to confirm that Claire was still in the bath. Satisfied, he began again.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bubbles floated around her in a sweet aroma of vanilla. Claire’s eyes drifted closed. This was heaven. All things considered, this trip was turning out to be wonderful. What a perfect day it had been. After lunch and love-making, they had actually talked a bit and Sylar had shared some of past with her. He had talked how ordinary everything had been until the eclipse and how he hated the banality of it all. Monster or not at least he now had purpose. It was a telling, if not sad, notion.
He also asked her if she could go back to the way she was before... would she? That was a difficult question. For all the bad things that had happened, there was so much wonder and beauty in these gifts. She had long since stopped whining about being the indestructible girl and come to see it for what it really was, a choice. She could choose to see it as a curse or she could use it to do some good. She chose the latter and here she was, a little more than a year later, married to the most notorious “special” walking the face of the earth.
She marveled at what Sylar might accomplish if only he could tame his urges and use his abilities to help rather than harm. She sighed and rubbed at her arms with a bath sponge. He was completely self-absorbed, not seeing the forest for the trees. She drew her leg up and slid the sponge along her thigh. There was a light ache between her legs. Claire smiled, it was a good ache.
There was a time when she no longer felt anything at all, when she didn’t even feel human anymore. While she had hated Sylar for his attack on her, she hated him far worse for taking away her pain. It was torture.
Then suddenly, everything changed again. Angela came up with a crazy scheme to bring Sylar into the company fold and put an end to his evil. No one ever thought it would work, not in a million years, but Sylar had stunned them all by accepting Angela’s offer of help.
Claire blew on the sponge sending blue bubbles floating through the air. She still wondered what the details of that “deal” had involved. Both Angela and Sylar claimed that there were no secret terms but she wasn’t naïve, contrary to what her dad might think. Angela had paid Sylar in blood in order to secure him. But she had to hand it to Angela, she knew what she was doing. Once Sylar was willing to work with her, Angela started working on him. Nothing too forceful, just small changes over time meant to create connections between Sylar and others. Changes meant to remind him of his humanity.
That had been the first break-through between them, when she had finally made him understand what he had really done to her. He had made the connection, he had empathized. Then with the same power he so brutally used for destruction had “fixed” her. That had been the turning point... for both of them. She stopped seeing Sylar as an inhuman monster and instead saw a deeply flawed man that had been overwhelmed by circumstance. And here they were...