Out of Time
Title: Out of Time
Author: cameroncrazed
Rating: PG (for cursing)
Word Count: 2306
Pairings: Sylar/Claire, Peter/Elle
Spoilers: none
Warnings: hopeless fluff
Disclaimer: Ain’t mine, none of it. The concept and characters of "Heroes" belong to someone else (NBC? T. Kring?) Any brand names mentioned - soooo not mine.
Note: Written for Fic Challenge #4: Run at
sylaire_chall
A/N: So… “run” brought a lot of ideas to mind, like all the phrases and sayings like “take the money and run”, “running on empty”, etc. I’ve tried to work in a good number of these. Sequel to Shotguns and Roses in the “Merrily, Merrily” series. I hope you enjoy (and yes, I left the end very open-ended on purpose - who knows, we may see a fic with a whole army of mini-Sylars running around loose on the world as a sequel ;) )
When the first contraction hits, she gently rubs her belly and grabs her ever-trusty bottle of Tums from her desk, thinking that she’d known better than to eat a chili-cheese dog with extra onions for breakfast. She glances at the clock; nine a.m., and if all goes well with their mission, the rest of her team will be back in less than twenty-four hours. She hates missing the missions, but since Sylar and Noah had finally bonded in their mutual desire to keep her safe during her last trimester, she hadn’t entirely minded switching over to a desk job.
- - - - - - - - - -
An hour later, when the pain comes back, again and again, ever twenty minutes, and she thinks nothing of it, chalking it up to Braxton-Hicks. She’s still eight days away from her due date; it can’t be anything more than just false contractions. Another Tums disappears from the bottle, and she turns back to her online sudoku; desk jobs are just so tedious, she doesn’t understand how her father can stand it on the days he runs out of bourbon.
- - - - - - - - - -
And then the contractions had started coming faster, harder, more intense than she’d ever expected, and before she knows it, she’s in the bathroom wondering why her daughter had picked this day to be born, why she’d picked now, wondering how she’d managed to miss the fact she’d been in labor for three hours.
Claire braces her hands against the countertop, head bowed, as she bites her lip in a desperate attempt to not scream; she hadn’t believed any of the horror stories she’d heard, not until now. Another flash of pain spreads across her abdomen and through her back, running along her spine, and this time she can’t contain the shriek. When a minute passes without someone coming to check why exactly there’s a woman screaming in the ladies bathroom - she supposes it’s just become too commonplace - she yells on purpose. “Help! Can anyone hear me? Please, help!”
When she realizes that no one is coming to her rescue, she wonders just how exactly she’s going to get out of this situation. Her team’s three states away and her father’s two floors and half a building away, and she knows that there’s no way she’s going to be able to waddle all the way to the infirmary without assistance; she mentally curses herself for forgetting her cell phone, today of all days when she most needs one. She takes a few hesitant steps towards the door, trying not to slip and fall, but has to stop and lean against the cool tile walls to ride out another contraction, one that comes sooner than expected, before she can escape from the room. Looking around the room, trying to catch her breathe, she wonders why they’d never thought to install panic buttons in the bathrooms before - she makes a mental note to suggest the idea to her father as soon as she can.
With a muffled groan, she pushes the door open and lurches into the hallway. Looking around, she doesn’t see anyone - techs, agents, escapees, anyone that could be of any assistance. Another contraction hits, and she slumps to the floor in pain, wondering if she’s going to have to deliver her child by herself in a Company hallway.
- - - - - - - - - -
“In a rush to get back?” Peter asks as he helps Sylar load their supplies into the van. They’d finished the assignment in record time, mostly due to Sylar completely disregarding the game plan.
Sylar doesn’t bother answering, just finishes securing everything and slamming the rear door shut. “Get in the damn van,” he snaps at Peter. He hadn’t wanted to come on this assignment, not with Claire so close to her due date, and he wasn’t about to waste any more time out in the field than he had to; he’s still on edge from the painting he’d drawn this morning at breakfast, of her all alone in a hospital room, and all he wants to do is get home. She’s not due for another week, but he just knows that it’s going to be sooner than that.
“Okay.” Peter holds up his hands in defeat, and Sylar realizes that Peter knows him well enough not to push him, not now, not in this mood. He doesn’t even give Peter time to get his seat belt on before he’s got the vehicle started and in reverse. Peter’s a big boy, he’ll live, Sylar tells himself as he spins the wheel, smoothly backing out of their parking spot, accelerating as they back out into the road.
“God, Sylar!” Elle yelps as she falls over into Matt as the van jumps the curb and runs all over the sidewalk. “Are you trying to kill us?”
“If I were trying to kill you, Elle, do you really think I’d do it by crashing a car? Especially one that I’m in?” Sylar jerks the car into the far left lane, and hits the gas. Mohinder, who’d been unlucky enough to have to ride shotgun, closes his eyes and starts praying as they run through a red light and just about run over a jogger.
- - - - - - - - - -
As she crawls down the corridor towards the infirmary, Claire wonders when her luck had run out. Everything had been going so smoothly, her family had welcomed Sylar with far less violence than she’d expected, they’d conceived without any trouble - without even trying, it seems now, and they’d managed to get married without anyone dying; she knew the idyllic life couldn’t last.
She tries screaming for help again, but just like before, no one answers. She makes another mental note; tell Dad to not allow any more three-hour lunches; it’s ridiculous that she’s the only one in the building at one in the afternoon.
- - - - - - - - - -
“So, Matt,” Sylar casually asks as he tries to avoid rear-ending the slow driver in front of them, yanking the van over into the grassy median and into oncoming traffic, “how far away do you have to be for your powers to work? What’s your range?”
Matt can only whimper as the van hits a speed that he would have sworn was impossible.
Sylar notices neither the traffic nor how horrified his passengers are. “You don’t know? Could you try contacting Claire for me? She’s not answering her cell phone; probably ran off to work this morning and forgot it.”
Finally looking up from where she’d been hiding her face against Peter’s chest, Elle exclaims “Oh my God, you are trying to kill us,” as she spots him fiddling with the cell phone and the radio dials at the same time. She clutches at Peter again, closing her eyes again, preferring not to see her oncoming death. “Mohinder, I’m so sorry about Vegas. I thought maybe I should apologize now, before we die a horrible painful death from fire and sharp pieces of flying metal when Sylar crashes the car. And Matt, I’m sorry about the prank I pulled on you with the hair dye and the plastic wrap and the fire ants. And Sylar, I’m sorry for posting those pictures of you online and signing you up for that gay porn site. Oh, and for poking holes in all the condoms you keep in your room. And could someone tell Noah that I’m really sorry about switching his migraine medicine with ex-lax and Viagra? Oh God, I’m too young and pretty to die!”
Sylar rolls his eyes at how melodramatic his sister-in-law can be, and hits the accelerator again, annoyed at how slow the van is; they’re only running one-twenty, but he’s sure they can do better than that. He realizes that he’d missed their turn during her little diatribe, so he throws the vehicle into reverse to get back to it. “So, Peter, how about teleporting there?”
“Think about the inertia, Sylar,” Mohinder responds before Peter can, “he’ll be going from 100 to 0 in the span of about a second; it won’t end well.”
Smirk firmly on his face, Sylar repeats his question. “So, Peter, how about teleporting there?”
“Up yours.” Peter tightens his hold on Elle.
“Fine. What about teleporting the entire van to the airstrip behind the building? That should give us plenty of time to brake without running into anything.”
“I can’t do that!” Peter doesn’t mention that the last time he’d tried teleporting, he’d left his clothing and shoes behind; he knows there’s no way he can transport an entire van full of passengers if he can’t transport his own boxers. The power only seemed to work half the time, and he didn’t dare run the risk of something catastrophic happening.
“God, you’re useless. Can you make us fly?”
“No! Eyes on the road! We just sideswiped that car!” Thinking that maybe Elle had the right idea, Peter closes his eyes too.
Sylar doesn’t even bother looking in the rear-view mirror. “It was going too slow, and I didn’t like the bumper stickers - damn politicians, hope I never see another Petrelli for President sticker ever again - it deserved to be hit. So, do you think we could combine our TK to propel the car?”
Elle whimpers.
- - - - - - - - - -
Tears running down her face, Claire finally manages to find an open office door; no one’s inside, but there’s a phone that she can reach. Panting, she pulls herself up into the desk chair and grabs the phone.
“Bennet.” Her father answers the phone with his typical gruffness.
“Daddy,” and she realizes it’s the first time she’s called him that in years, “help.”
“Claire-bear, where are you? What’s wrong?”
She can almost see him jumping up from his desk, jacket and gun in hand as if he can just shoot the problem away. “In labor. Can’t get to the infirmary.”
“Where are you?”
“Someone’s office… um…” She’s not entirely sure, somewhere between her office and the infirmary, but she can’t think. A quick look at the desk gives her an answer. “J.G. Wilson’s office.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Claire finds the sudden clang of klaxons and her father’s bellow over the intercom that the emergency medical team needed to meet him in Wing A, Floor 3 right now the most comforting sounds she’s ever heard.
- - - - - - - - - -
“You know, if you’re so worried about her, why don’t you just call Noah?” Peter asks as the van goes airborne briefly after hitting a speed bump.
When they start to run off the road as Sylar reaches for his phone again, Peter sighs. “Never mind, I’ll do it.”
He tries three times, but Noah isn’t answering; Peter’s starting to think that Sylar might be right to worry. “Um… just wondering, but if something were to happen, where would they go - Odessa General or the infirmary?”
“Infirmary. We’re not sure how fast she’s going to heal, and if she has to have a C-section…”
“I’ll call the infirmary then.”
There’s no answer there either. Peter really starts to worry, and leans up to tap Sylar on the shoulder. “You know, we probably could go faster, if you want to.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Noah winces as Claire grabs hold of his hand; he’s fairly certain that she’d just crushed some of his bones. “Have you got Sylar yet?” he calls out to the medical technician he’d co-opted as an assistant.
“No, sir. We’re calling your wife first.”
“Claire, dear,” the doctor directs, “watch your breathing. We’re going to start pushing on the next contraction.”
Noah’s not expecting it when Claire grabs his tie and yanks hard, pulling his face down to hers. “Get my husband here now, Dad,” she growls.
“But sir…” the technician starts, but as Claire increases the pressure on his tie and screams, Noah yelps. “Sylar. Now. Call Sandra later.”
“Yes, sir.”
- - - - - - - - - -
The phone starts ringing, and Mohinder grabs at it before Sylar can; he doesn’t want their driver to be any more distracted than he already is. “Yes?”
“Dr. Suresh?” The voice is hesitant, but vaguely familiar. “I need to speak with Mr. Sylar, it’s an emergency.”
Sylar grabs for the phone when he hears the word emergency, and everyone in the van screams as he loses control of the wheel and they start to spin. He manages to regain control of the van just as he growls out “What is it?” into the phone.
“Mr. Sylar? Um… this is Cindy in the infirmary, your wife’s here and well…”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” They’re still twenty miles from the facility, but Sylar no longer cares. He runs off the side of the road, slamming the transmission into park and jumping out of the van. “Peter, come on.”
When Peter doesn’t move fast enough, Sylar sighs and opens the van door, grabbing Peter by the neck and pulling him out of the van. “Infirmary. Teleport us there now.”
“But…”
“Now, Peter.”
“I’m warning you that I still don’t have that much control over this.” With that, Peter grasps Sylar’s arm and blinks them away.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire almost doesn’t notice when Sylar comes running into her room barefoot, Peter hot on his heels, too wrapped up in the bundle in her arms. When she does look up, she’s confused. “What happened to you?”
Sylar glares at Peter, and then at his new all-too-small clothes and Peter’s suddenly baggy attire. “Someone has issues.” He notices what she’s holding.
“Is that…?”
She nods, and holds up their daughter for him to see.
“Goddamnit!” He curses, then looks sheepish. “Sorry, probably should watch that in front of her. I just was trying so hard to get here in time, but time just ran out, babydoll.”
“It’s okay.” Claire graces him with a small smile. “Just don’t be late for the next one.”
Sylar tentatively sits on the edge of the bed, running a finger along the side of the baby’s face. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Author: cameroncrazed
Rating: PG (for cursing)
Word Count: 2306
Pairings: Sylar/Claire, Peter/Elle
Spoilers: none
Warnings: hopeless fluff
Disclaimer: Ain’t mine, none of it. The concept and characters of "Heroes" belong to someone else (NBC? T. Kring?) Any brand names mentioned - soooo not mine.
Note: Written for Fic Challenge #4: Run at
sylaire_chall
A/N: So… “run” brought a lot of ideas to mind, like all the phrases and sayings like “take the money and run”, “running on empty”, etc. I’ve tried to work in a good number of these. Sequel to Shotguns and Roses in the “Merrily, Merrily” series. I hope you enjoy (and yes, I left the end very open-ended on purpose - who knows, we may see a fic with a whole army of mini-Sylars running around loose on the world as a sequel ;) )
When the first contraction hits, she gently rubs her belly and grabs her ever-trusty bottle of Tums from her desk, thinking that she’d known better than to eat a chili-cheese dog with extra onions for breakfast. She glances at the clock; nine a.m., and if all goes well with their mission, the rest of her team will be back in less than twenty-four hours. She hates missing the missions, but since Sylar and Noah had finally bonded in their mutual desire to keep her safe during her last trimester, she hadn’t entirely minded switching over to a desk job.
- - - - - - - - - -
An hour later, when the pain comes back, again and again, ever twenty minutes, and she thinks nothing of it, chalking it up to Braxton-Hicks. She’s still eight days away from her due date; it can’t be anything more than just false contractions. Another Tums disappears from the bottle, and she turns back to her online sudoku; desk jobs are just so tedious, she doesn’t understand how her father can stand it on the days he runs out of bourbon.
- - - - - - - - - -
And then the contractions had started coming faster, harder, more intense than she’d ever expected, and before she knows it, she’s in the bathroom wondering why her daughter had picked this day to be born, why she’d picked now, wondering how she’d managed to miss the fact she’d been in labor for three hours.
Claire braces her hands against the countertop, head bowed, as she bites her lip in a desperate attempt to not scream; she hadn’t believed any of the horror stories she’d heard, not until now. Another flash of pain spreads across her abdomen and through her back, running along her spine, and this time she can’t contain the shriek. When a minute passes without someone coming to check why exactly there’s a woman screaming in the ladies bathroom - she supposes it’s just become too commonplace - she yells on purpose. “Help! Can anyone hear me? Please, help!”
When she realizes that no one is coming to her rescue, she wonders just how exactly she’s going to get out of this situation. Her team’s three states away and her father’s two floors and half a building away, and she knows that there’s no way she’s going to be able to waddle all the way to the infirmary without assistance; she mentally curses herself for forgetting her cell phone, today of all days when she most needs one. She takes a few hesitant steps towards the door, trying not to slip and fall, but has to stop and lean against the cool tile walls to ride out another contraction, one that comes sooner than expected, before she can escape from the room. Looking around the room, trying to catch her breathe, she wonders why they’d never thought to install panic buttons in the bathrooms before - she makes a mental note to suggest the idea to her father as soon as she can.
With a muffled groan, she pushes the door open and lurches into the hallway. Looking around, she doesn’t see anyone - techs, agents, escapees, anyone that could be of any assistance. Another contraction hits, and she slumps to the floor in pain, wondering if she’s going to have to deliver her child by herself in a Company hallway.
- - - - - - - - - -
“In a rush to get back?” Peter asks as he helps Sylar load their supplies into the van. They’d finished the assignment in record time, mostly due to Sylar completely disregarding the game plan.
Sylar doesn’t bother answering, just finishes securing everything and slamming the rear door shut. “Get in the damn van,” he snaps at Peter. He hadn’t wanted to come on this assignment, not with Claire so close to her due date, and he wasn’t about to waste any more time out in the field than he had to; he’s still on edge from the painting he’d drawn this morning at breakfast, of her all alone in a hospital room, and all he wants to do is get home. She’s not due for another week, but he just knows that it’s going to be sooner than that.
“Okay.” Peter holds up his hands in defeat, and Sylar realizes that Peter knows him well enough not to push him, not now, not in this mood. He doesn’t even give Peter time to get his seat belt on before he’s got the vehicle started and in reverse. Peter’s a big boy, he’ll live, Sylar tells himself as he spins the wheel, smoothly backing out of their parking spot, accelerating as they back out into the road.
“God, Sylar!” Elle yelps as she falls over into Matt as the van jumps the curb and runs all over the sidewalk. “Are you trying to kill us?”
“If I were trying to kill you, Elle, do you really think I’d do it by crashing a car? Especially one that I’m in?” Sylar jerks the car into the far left lane, and hits the gas. Mohinder, who’d been unlucky enough to have to ride shotgun, closes his eyes and starts praying as they run through a red light and just about run over a jogger.
- - - - - - - - - -
As she crawls down the corridor towards the infirmary, Claire wonders when her luck had run out. Everything had been going so smoothly, her family had welcomed Sylar with far less violence than she’d expected, they’d conceived without any trouble - without even trying, it seems now, and they’d managed to get married without anyone dying; she knew the idyllic life couldn’t last.
She tries screaming for help again, but just like before, no one answers. She makes another mental note; tell Dad to not allow any more three-hour lunches; it’s ridiculous that she’s the only one in the building at one in the afternoon.
- - - - - - - - - -
“So, Matt,” Sylar casually asks as he tries to avoid rear-ending the slow driver in front of them, yanking the van over into the grassy median and into oncoming traffic, “how far away do you have to be for your powers to work? What’s your range?”
Matt can only whimper as the van hits a speed that he would have sworn was impossible.
Sylar notices neither the traffic nor how horrified his passengers are. “You don’t know? Could you try contacting Claire for me? She’s not answering her cell phone; probably ran off to work this morning and forgot it.”
Finally looking up from where she’d been hiding her face against Peter’s chest, Elle exclaims “Oh my God, you are trying to kill us,” as she spots him fiddling with the cell phone and the radio dials at the same time. She clutches at Peter again, closing her eyes again, preferring not to see her oncoming death. “Mohinder, I’m so sorry about Vegas. I thought maybe I should apologize now, before we die a horrible painful death from fire and sharp pieces of flying metal when Sylar crashes the car. And Matt, I’m sorry about the prank I pulled on you with the hair dye and the plastic wrap and the fire ants. And Sylar, I’m sorry for posting those pictures of you online and signing you up for that gay porn site. Oh, and for poking holes in all the condoms you keep in your room. And could someone tell Noah that I’m really sorry about switching his migraine medicine with ex-lax and Viagra? Oh God, I’m too young and pretty to die!”
Sylar rolls his eyes at how melodramatic his sister-in-law can be, and hits the accelerator again, annoyed at how slow the van is; they’re only running one-twenty, but he’s sure they can do better than that. He realizes that he’d missed their turn during her little diatribe, so he throws the vehicle into reverse to get back to it. “So, Peter, how about teleporting there?”
“Think about the inertia, Sylar,” Mohinder responds before Peter can, “he’ll be going from 100 to 0 in the span of about a second; it won’t end well.”
Smirk firmly on his face, Sylar repeats his question. “So, Peter, how about teleporting there?”
“Up yours.” Peter tightens his hold on Elle.
“Fine. What about teleporting the entire van to the airstrip behind the building? That should give us plenty of time to brake without running into anything.”
“I can’t do that!” Peter doesn’t mention that the last time he’d tried teleporting, he’d left his clothing and shoes behind; he knows there’s no way he can transport an entire van full of passengers if he can’t transport his own boxers. The power only seemed to work half the time, and he didn’t dare run the risk of something catastrophic happening.
“God, you’re useless. Can you make us fly?”
“No! Eyes on the road! We just sideswiped that car!” Thinking that maybe Elle had the right idea, Peter closes his eyes too.
Sylar doesn’t even bother looking in the rear-view mirror. “It was going too slow, and I didn’t like the bumper stickers - damn politicians, hope I never see another Petrelli for President sticker ever again - it deserved to be hit. So, do you think we could combine our TK to propel the car?”
Elle whimpers.
- - - - - - - - - -
Tears running down her face, Claire finally manages to find an open office door; no one’s inside, but there’s a phone that she can reach. Panting, she pulls herself up into the desk chair and grabs the phone.
“Bennet.” Her father answers the phone with his typical gruffness.
“Daddy,” and she realizes it’s the first time she’s called him that in years, “help.”
“Claire-bear, where are you? What’s wrong?”
She can almost see him jumping up from his desk, jacket and gun in hand as if he can just shoot the problem away. “In labor. Can’t get to the infirmary.”
“Where are you?”
“Someone’s office… um…” She’s not entirely sure, somewhere between her office and the infirmary, but she can’t think. A quick look at the desk gives her an answer. “J.G. Wilson’s office.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Claire finds the sudden clang of klaxons and her father’s bellow over the intercom that the emergency medical team needed to meet him in Wing A, Floor 3 right now the most comforting sounds she’s ever heard.
- - - - - - - - - -
“You know, if you’re so worried about her, why don’t you just call Noah?” Peter asks as the van goes airborne briefly after hitting a speed bump.
When they start to run off the road as Sylar reaches for his phone again, Peter sighs. “Never mind, I’ll do it.”
He tries three times, but Noah isn’t answering; Peter’s starting to think that Sylar might be right to worry. “Um… just wondering, but if something were to happen, where would they go - Odessa General or the infirmary?”
“Infirmary. We’re not sure how fast she’s going to heal, and if she has to have a C-section…”
“I’ll call the infirmary then.”
There’s no answer there either. Peter really starts to worry, and leans up to tap Sylar on the shoulder. “You know, we probably could go faster, if you want to.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Noah winces as Claire grabs hold of his hand; he’s fairly certain that she’d just crushed some of his bones. “Have you got Sylar yet?” he calls out to the medical technician he’d co-opted as an assistant.
“No, sir. We’re calling your wife first.”
“Claire, dear,” the doctor directs, “watch your breathing. We’re going to start pushing on the next contraction.”
Noah’s not expecting it when Claire grabs his tie and yanks hard, pulling his face down to hers. “Get my husband here now, Dad,” she growls.
“But sir…” the technician starts, but as Claire increases the pressure on his tie and screams, Noah yelps. “Sylar. Now. Call Sandra later.”
“Yes, sir.”
- - - - - - - - - -
The phone starts ringing, and Mohinder grabs at it before Sylar can; he doesn’t want their driver to be any more distracted than he already is. “Yes?”
“Dr. Suresh?” The voice is hesitant, but vaguely familiar. “I need to speak with Mr. Sylar, it’s an emergency.”
Sylar grabs for the phone when he hears the word emergency, and everyone in the van screams as he loses control of the wheel and they start to spin. He manages to regain control of the van just as he growls out “What is it?” into the phone.
“Mr. Sylar? Um… this is Cindy in the infirmary, your wife’s here and well…”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” They’re still twenty miles from the facility, but Sylar no longer cares. He runs off the side of the road, slamming the transmission into park and jumping out of the van. “Peter, come on.”
When Peter doesn’t move fast enough, Sylar sighs and opens the van door, grabbing Peter by the neck and pulling him out of the van. “Infirmary. Teleport us there now.”
“But…”
“Now, Peter.”
“I’m warning you that I still don’t have that much control over this.” With that, Peter grasps Sylar’s arm and blinks them away.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire almost doesn’t notice when Sylar comes running into her room barefoot, Peter hot on his heels, too wrapped up in the bundle in her arms. When she does look up, she’s confused. “What happened to you?”
Sylar glares at Peter, and then at his new all-too-small clothes and Peter’s suddenly baggy attire. “Someone has issues.” He notices what she’s holding.
“Is that…?”
She nods, and holds up their daughter for him to see.
“Goddamnit!” He curses, then looks sheepish. “Sorry, probably should watch that in front of her. I just was trying so hard to get here in time, but time just ran out, babydoll.”
“It’s okay.” Claire graces him with a small smile. “Just don’t be late for the next one.”
Sylar tentatively sits on the edge of the bed, running a finger along the side of the baby’s face. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”