"You Shouldn't Go Home Again" - Part One
Title: "You Shouldn't Go Home Again" (part 1)
Author: pale_septembrr
Rating: PG/PG-13 (this chapter)
Pairing: Spock/Sylar
Spoiler: If you've watched up to the Heroes first-season episode called "The Hard Part," you're safe.
Warning: Not much in this chapter but a little angst
Summary: This takes place at the time Sylar visits his mother's apartment. In this version, though, Hiro has an extra passenger when he time-jumps. Sylar finds himself stranded aboard a strange ship.
That heartbeat, that heartbeat he had heard only hours earlier, now sounded beside him. And another sound--that of a finely honed blade slicing the air of his mother's apartment. Dark eyes sliding to the left, Sylar's hand reached for the sound and stopped it.
"That hearbeat... You were in the loft. Why are you following me?" And how did you vanish when I know you were behind that painting?
The man, Asian, trembled visibly. "I must stop you," he replied in a quavering, thickly accented voice.
"Then do it!" Sylar shouted, not sure where the rage was coming from. Its rise in his chest had been sudden, explosive. Unafraid, and almost hopeful, he pulled the sword toward his own body. "Do it! Kill me!"
Please... please kill me...
The hand that had minutes ago created a living snow-globe for Virginia Gray now froze the blade trapped in its grip. With the frozen blade in one hand, Sylar gripped the Japanese man's throat with the other. So soft... so easily crushed... Already the man's face was clenched in a grimace of pain.
"You can't. You coward." Gabriel had never called anyone a coward. But Sylar did. "Now I'm going to have to kill you."
Another man crashed through the door, drawing Sylar's attention from the trembling man in front of him. The shorter man reached for his companion and gripped his shoulder; Sylar's grip tightened on the shorter man's throat.
The familiar scents and sounds of his mother's apartment disappeared as quickly as the blade had snapped off in his hand. Sylar tore his cold gaze from the other man's childlike face, but not before registering there the same surprise that must surely be on his own face. A long corridor curving out of view on both ends had replaced the small, messy apartment. Strange panels--stranger even than the electrical controls of the place Claire's father had recently detained him--hugged the gray walls at regular intervals where portals and intersecting corridors broke the flow of the walls.
Sylar turned again to the Japanese man and his un-special sidekick. "Where have you taken us?" he demanded. "Where are we?"
It was evident by the other's dumbfounded expression that he did not know. But he took advantage of Sylar's disorientation and with a lucky, well-placed kick, the small man caused Sylar to stagger back in winded surprise, thus breaking the stranglehold that had been weakening since the jump.
Before Sylar could recover, the little coward gripped his friend's shoulders, squeezes his eyes shut again in what Sylar had mistakenly believed to have been a grimace of pain, and winked out of existence.
Sylar stared at the empty space where they had stood. "No... NO!" He slammed his fists against the wall, spun, raked his fingers harshly through his dark hair. Feeling like the proverbial rat in a trap, he turned again as if the answer to his escape would present itself. Maybe that little man hadn't gone completely away. Perhaps they had just gone--
"Stop right there!"
Moving only his head, Sylar turned toward the voice. Two men, one black and the other with light brown hair, barred the corridor with wide stances and stern expressions. Each of them pointed a small, plastic device at Sylar's chest. Though they looked it, Sylar doubted they were toys.
"Who are you?" the black man barked. "How did you get aboard this ship?"
"This is a ship?" Sylar allowed the disarming charm he knew he possessed to sweeten his already soft voice. His fingers trailed along a panel. He had always assumed ships to be nothing but gun-metal gray and military-issue fabrics. This corridor appeared to have carpeting. "Interesting."
Opposite him, one of the men mirrored his movement--or so Sylar thought, until he realized the man was thumbing a switch on a small red box hung about shoulder-height on the wall. "Bridge, this is Lieutenant Joseph."
Go ahead, Lieutenant.
"Captain, the intruder has been found on deck twelve between sections D and E."
Deck twelve? A large ship. An aircraft carrier, perhaps? But the uniforms were unlike any he had ever seen before--certainly not U.S. Navy. Some other English-speaking Navy... but they didn't sound British... Strange. Did the Canadian Navy have uniforms like this?
"Let's see your hands, mister." The white man glared at him.
Sylar's eyes narrowed. This situation certainly proved amusing. He could cause the panels to fly from the walls with incredible speed and brain the two red-shirted men, but then what? Where would he go? He could be in the middle of the Indian Ocean for all he knew. It would be nice to have the ability to fly, but he hadn't yet harvested that ability. He would need these sailors to get home, then.
The voice from the speaker brought Sylar's attention back to the present. Make sure he's unarmed. Then escort him to the brig. We'll meet you there presently.
Even as the voice spoke, the men had turned Sylar against the wall and were patting him down.
"Sir."
Sylar looked at the darker-skinned man. "Yes?"
"Sir, please come this way."
Summoning Gabriel's unassuming countenance, Sylar tilted his head and smiled in a gosh-but-I'm-just-as-confused-as-you-are fashion. He felt pretty certain that the 'please' had merely been a courtesy. "Certainly."
With one guard leading and another following, Sylar strode along the gently curving corridor of the strange ship.
* * * * *
The air smelled clean and sterile... almost like the air of a hospital. Something about it dried Sylar's nostrils, but at least it didn't stink. Not like his mother's apartment. That place stank of poverty. Of weakness. Of failure. He had stayed away from his mother's apartment for years, hoping that the stink would leave him for good--and he was pretty sure that it had. He was special now--no one could change that. And that was why he had felt comfortable enough going back... comfortable, but desperate. He needed answers, answers that Mohinder had refused to give him.
A darkness clouded Sylar's thoughts as they traveled back only an hour ago to his mother's apartment. It had started out so good... he felt loved again... but then things had gone wrong... then the Japanese man came... but something else had happened. What was it? The darkness held its ground and would not let him pass.
Sylar blinked, realizing that he'd been staring at but not seeing a realistically rendered painting of a violet planet with rings in three layers (or could it be astro-photography?). He walked casually to the other side of the room with the air of a museum patron off to see another Monet. Potted plants squatted in the corners of the room, adding a bit of life to what was otherwise a rather plain room completely lacking in personality, almost like a hotel lobby. Sylar smiled at the guards, who stood at either side of the single door, then stopped in front of another painting. "Amazing what they can do with digital art these days," he noted amiably to his two companions. He chuckled softly. "I remember thinking that a Nintendo 64 was the end all, be all of technology. But things just need time to... develop. To mature into what they are supposed to be. Or are these actual photographs? I'm a city boy. I don't really know what telescopes can pick up these days. Heh, I should be glad that the city's ambient light doesn't wash out the moon. Who knows. Maybe one day it will." He turned to the guards. "By the way, I thought this was a brig. Isn't this... a little lush?" Perhaps the lavish entrance was intended to create a cruel contrast to whatever holding cells lay beyond the arched portal which opened on the far side of the room. Sort of like how department stores blast a torrent of hot air at you just before you walk through the exit into the bitingly cold January night. Or how a mother caresses your face before turning her back...
"This isn't the brig proper," Lt. Joseph replied brusquely. "We'll wait here for the Captain." He then added darkly, "As long as you don't give us a reason to throw you in a cell."
A soft swish accompanied the opening of the door, and through it walked three men and a woman. Before the door closed again, Sylar saw that more guards had been posted outside in the corridor. The woman wore the same style of uniforms as the others, but it instead formed a tunic that barely covered her buttocks. Black nylons and boots were all that covered her lower half.
A bit sexist, Sylar mused.
The older of the three men wore a blue tunic with short sleeves, almost like hospital scrubs. The next wore a gold tunic. And the tall man next to him...
Sylar blinked.
The dark-haired man had severely angled brows and... pointed ears.
"My name is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise.," the man in the gold tunic began. His tone seemed annoyed. "I would like to know who you are and, more importantly, how you got aboard my ship."
'Gabriel,' somewhere inside Sylar, winced. How he had gotten aboard the ship was more important than who he was? I'm not important. I'm not important. What's important to this man is the security of his ship. I--
No. That's not how it was any more. He was no longer a simple watchmaker. But USS? United States Ship? Surely this wasn't the American Navy. He knew at least that much of military uniforms.
"Your first question is easy enough to answer. My name is Gabriel Sylar."
Many pairs of eyes watched him carefully, expectantly.
"As for how I got aboard your ship..." 'Gabriel' gave a nonplussed chuckle. "...that I do not know, Captain."
The tall man raised an eyebrow. "That is rather unlikely."
Sylar shrugged. "It's true. I was brought here against my will only a few minutes ago."
The strange-looking man spoke again, his tone giving nothing away of what he was thinking. "By what method were you brought here?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What Spock means," Captain Kirk cut in, "is how did you get here? Were you beamed aboard? Was some... craft used in your transportation?--though how that would have gotten past our shuttlebay is impossible to imagine." Something clicked behind his eyes. "As is your beaming aboard."
The short-sleeved man turned toward the captain. "He couldn't have beamed here, Jim. We're traveling at warp!"
Sylar glanced from one face to the next and the next. He had heard several nautical terms he had never heard before... not that he had ever been a sailor. The faces before him were so different from each other, yet they had one thing in common: they were a team. And he, Sylar, did not belong.
The man called Spock spoke again. "You have not answered our question. How did you come to be aboard this ship?"
"I... I'm not sure exactly," Sylar replied truthfully. "I was in one place, and then I was here. If I knew how I'd gotten here, I assure you that I would tell you."
The others watched him in silence; the woman seemed to be making notes on some strange sort of notepad.
"I'm telling the truth." Sylar remained calm. Getting frustrated never made it easier to fix a watch. Patience, slow steady patience, was the key. Slow and steady like the cogs of a finely engineered German pocketwatch. "If I were an enemy intruder, would I come here unarmed? Without some way to contact whoever might be outside? What would be the point of just... coming here only to be captured?"
"You might be a diversion," the older, short-sleeved man retorted with some vehemence. "While we're in here talking to you, others might be scouting our ship right now!"
"I disagree, Doctor," Spock said calmly. "Our security systems would have alerted us if more intruders were aboard the ship. I believe this man to be the only one."
Sylar caught the strange man's dark gaze, and for a brief moment he also caught the glimpse of the man's inner workings... the soundness of it! Something about it reminded him of the timepiece that had taken so long for him to repair... that he had finished just before learning he was special. All the cogs were so... perfect... so beautiful! The arrangement of them could be described as nothing other than art.
"Hold it right there!"
Jerking out of his reverie, Sylar saw that a guard had stepped forward, weapon raised. He then realized that he himself had stepped toward the strange man, hand outstretched in wonder as if to caress him. The man had tensed slightly, eyebrow quirked again in bemusement.
"I... I'm sorry," Sylar said. "I... your ears."
"My ears?"
Captain Kirk broke in. "Mister Spock is a Vulcan. Surely you can see that?"
"A Vulcan?" The sincere note of confusion caused more blank stares. Sylar wished they would stop looking at him like that. "What's a Vulcan?"
"I am a Vulcan," Spock replied. "An inhabitant of planet Vulcan. Thus, I am a Vulcan."
Now it was Sylar's turn to stare blankly. He ran a hand over his brow as he started to feel a wave of dizziness wash over him. "Planet? ... Where am I?" The room grew hot. No... that line of thought was... crazy. ...The Japanese man could teleport... but could he time travel as well? "No... it can't be... WHERE AM I?"
"As I said before," Kirk said, "you are aboard the Starship Enterprise."
The vertigo worsened as Sylar spun, gazing frantically now at the images of galaxies hanging on the walls. They were just astro-photography, right? Taken with the aid of a telescope? But the Vulcan... Where the hell had that Japanese man brought him? And how, in God's name, would he ever get home again?
Feeling left his body. He heard a thud, the sound of feet shuffling toward him, the doctor's barked orders, his heart thumping in his own chest...
* * * * *
...soft beebs ... softer voices, distant ... clearer voices, closer ...
"Doctor McCoy?" A woman's voice. Low, intelligent, confident. "He's coming around."
With effort, Sylar forced his eyes to flutter open. The world appeared blurry before him... above him, really. Faces came into view over him and slowly clarified. He recognized the fatherly face of the doctor, then focused on the lovely face of a woman with ash-blonde hair.
"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked. "Any dizziness? Headache? Nausea?"
Sylar moaned, shook his head. "A little light-headed."
"Your red blood cell count is down," the doctor announced. "Have you recently lost a lot of blood?"
Sylar's thoughts shifted immediately to Claire, the high school, that meddling man who took him over the roof. How his body had pained him, betrayed him, failed him. If only he could gain the cheerleader's ability to heal, life would be so much easier! In the mean time, all he could do was stop himself from dying. But he couldn't prevent himself from suffering. "Yes," he replied. "I... was injured and lost blood."
"And you didn't receive a transfusion?"
"I was sutured," Sylar replied, "but no... no transfusion."
The woman spoke in surprise. "Sutures? Sutures haven't been used for--" She broke off in thoughtful silence, a frown on her face.
"Sutures are still occasionally used in cultures that do not have advanced medical equipment, Nurse Chapel." The Vulcan approached the bed, coming into Sylar's view. "However, the spores, dirt, and bacteria found on Mr. Sylar's clothing are all indigenous to Earth. North America. Eastern United States."
Three sets of eyes turned toward him again. The beeping increased.
"Why do you keep staring at me like that?" Sylar snapped, raising himself up on his elbows. "I'm not a freak."
"Easy, easy," Dr. McCoy said soothingly, hands gesturing for Sylar to lie back down. "You need to calm down. You're still weakened from the blood loss. Get yourself riled up again, and you'll faint dead away in no time. And I don't like having patients fainting in my ward."
"At least not until you have injected them with one of your chemical concoctions and rattled your beads over their supine bodies."
Dr. McCoy threw the Vulcan a bleary-eyed glare. Sylar resisted the urge to grin.
"Is there something you want, Spock?" McCoy asked irritably.
"The Captain has asked me to interrogate the intruder when he regained consciousness. Since it is apparent that he has regained consciousness, it is my duty now to interrogate him." Spock paused. "With the doctor's leave, of course."
"...Take it easy with him," the doctor replied. "And you!"
Sylar jumped at the sudden bark. "What'd I do?"
"I want to see you drink that water, mister. You need to stay hydrated. We'll get a unit of blood into you as soon as you're done with the goblin." With those orders, he stalked off with the befuddled nurse in tow.
"...Can I sit up?"
The Vulcan considered for a moment, then moved toward the bed. He reached behind Sylar's head, pushed a button, and the head of the gurney began to rise slowly. "Tell me immediately if you experience any dizziness. It is possible for your blood pressure to drop suddenly."
Sylar nodded, then closed his eyes, willing the light-headedness to pass. It grew a bit stronger, into dizziness, but faded again. The movement of the bed stopped.
"I would not have the doctor accuse me of depriving one of his patients of water." Spock took the container of water from the nearby table and offered it to Sylar.
"Thank you." His lips molded around the straw and he drank, relishing the cold water that hydrated his throat as if the tissue there consisted of a dry sponge. He began feeling a bit better instantly. "Thank you," he said again with more strength.
Spock nodded once, closing his eyes briefly as he did so. The darkness of his eyelids almost looked like applied make-up, but Sylar, with his watchmaker's eyes, could see that it was not. No powder, no glistening... just the smooth, alien skin. "Is something troubling you?"
Heat came briefly to Sylar's cheeks. "I'm sorry. I... I've never seen a Vulcan before. I shouldn't stare. It's rude."
"Staring is a natural response when confronted with something new or different," Spock said calmly. "It's the body's way of committing the new experience to memory for later recall, were the memory needed. However,"--he paused, considering--"I should not be the first Vulcan you have ever seen. Many thousands of Vulcans travel each Earth-year to your planet. There are many high-ranking Vulcans whose faces are well-known on many planets, including your own."
Sylar gave a half-smile. "You're the first I've seen."
Moving with a grace borne of an utter lack of self-consciousness, the Vulcan pulled a black stool to the bedside and sat. His gaze seemed to study every line, every curve of Sylar's face, causing Sylar to feel nervous at the scrutiny. At length he spoke again. "I shall repeat my previous inquiry: How did you come to be aboard this vessel?"
The beeping of the monitors quickened momentarily when Sylar heaved a sigh of frustration. "I've told you. I was brought here against my will." He returned an equally dark gaze to the Vulcan. "Believe me, if I could come and go at will like that, I would. Because I want to return home."
"Arrangements can be made to return you to Earth. However, there will likely be penalties for your trespass--perhaps even incarceration."
If this was a bluff, it was good. The Vulcan's face revealed absolutely nothing.
Mouth suddenly dry again, Sylar drank more water. He remained silent for several moments. "Even if you do return me to Earth, that's not home to me."
An oddly shaped eyebrow raised. "Explain."
"I... have the feeling I'm in the future. Far in the future." Sylar turned an imploring, frightened gaze toward Spock. "I'm not supposed to be here."