(no subject)
Title: Define Dangerous
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2357
Chapter: 7/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
The road was dark. Only a few car headlights lit the way down the four lane highway. If it could in fact be called a highway. Claire lay on the back seat, letting the white noise of the car's engine relax her and watched the moon up ahead. It was surprisingly cold tonight and a halo hung around the moon. Myths Claire heard long ago said that a halo around the moon meant trouble or snow, depending on who you asked. She figured both fit the situation.
She hadn't seen the night sky in ages. She used to go up into the troposphere with West on clear, cloudless nights, much like this one. They'd be so close to the stars, it felt like she could reach out and touch them, letting stardust cover her fingers like fine gold.
That was so long ago, when Claire was just a cheerleader and life was complete. All the pieces fell into place once she moved to Costa Verde. She met her first boyfriend, a boy who would always hold a special place in her heart. He was cute, protective and never let her get hurt.
Her parents also started breaking down the walls of secrecy and silence after they moved to Costa Verde. Before that time, there were things that were off-limits to talk about in the Bennett family. Dad's work with Primatech. Claire's continuing attempts to test the limits of her powers. Lyle's growing jealousy and desire for his parent's attention.
Claire closed her eyes and memories flashed across her mind. She missed her brother. Oh god, how she missed her brother. Even when he was making gagging faces when he accidentally walked in on her and West making out. Even when he was threatening to sell videos of her freaky death attempts to YouTube. The last memory of him that she could think of was his body, riddled with bullets with the Playstation controller still in his hands. Her words screamed through the house that night, even as the company men dragged her from the house. “I'll come with you just give him my blood. Please. Save his life. Don't let him die. Please.”
Claire sat up and inhaled deeply. Forcing her thoughts back to the present day, she eagerly fought to forget such memories. The past was an unkind demon, leaving little after devouring everything she loved. She watched Sylar look in the rear view mirror, watching her as she calmed herself. After a moment, she asked, “Where are we?”
“Route 70. We passed through Little Rock about fifteen minutes ago. I was going to go a different way but there was some sort of police activity going on the interstate.” Sylar glanced back to the road. “I didn't think we needed the trouble.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “I thought you enjoyed trouble.”
“Not when I don't want them to slow me down.” Sylar had on his resolve face, that familiar dark brow and slight smirk. He had a plan; anyone who got in the way was making a stupid and possibly fatal, move. However, he had yet to divulge this secret plan to her in between grabbing her and whisking her away on some hunt for the golden goose.
“Are you ever going to explain why we're traveling east or where we're headed?” She grabbed the bag of clothes from before, sorting through the garments to pick out something to change into. Past a couple of pairs of jeans, she found the cozy red sweater she'd bought at one of the small boutiques. “Or am I going to have to continue to guess while hoping that the serial killer is not leading me to my death?”
“Leading you to your death? Oh, come on, now. You don't think I'd really do a thing like that, do you?” Sarcasm dripped from his voice like deadly poison, leaving his question punctuated by a challenging laugh. Before escaping Primatech together, Claire wouldn't put it past him not to leave her in pieces in a ditch on the side of the road. A strange sort of trust was building between them now. Not that she wasn't wary of his new kindness but this alliance kept her alive. He switched lanes and finally replied with the answers Claire was looking for, “I used to know this guy, Mohinder Suresh--”
“The geneticist?”
“Yes. A few years ago, him and I traveled around the country in search of other special people, people with abilities.” He paused, before deciding to go ahead with the rest of what he was going to say. “People that I killed. He didn't know who I was back then.”
“So, what, you lied to him and then betrayed that trust?” Claire slipped on her new sweater. The warmth of it did not help distracting her from the fact that she was sitting in a car with someone who had murdered a number of people in the past. How many met their end at Sylar's hands and powers, Claire did not want to ask. Some things were better left unknown. “What makes you think he'll want to see you now?”
“Yes. I betrayed him if you want to get technical about it.” Sylar rolled his eyes and answered with no more regret than most felt when crushing a bug. “He had it coming to him. He was weak with too many emotional attachments. He wouldn't let the search for his father's killer die. He thought getting revenge would make him the perfect son. It was pathetic.”
“Haven't you ever had a family, Sylar?” She pulled at the arms of the sweater until they were covering her hands, warming her up and giving her a place to hide. “Don't you understand that this is the way these things work? If someone attacked anyone in my family, I wouldn't rest until they were brought in by the police,” her features darkened as she added, “or worse.”
“Is that what you plan on doing to the people who murdered your family, Claire? Are you going to take down the company single-handedly?” Sylar replied, changing topics. They both knew the war against the company would be one long fought. People had tried to take down Primatech before, many of them. Each had failed in their own way, their small rebellions brushed aside like ants in the way of a giant.
“Give me time.” Claire watched the trees pass by, deep in thought. Even if she was one person, one insignificant human against the hundreds that existed within the company, Claire wouldn't be able to rest until their whole world toppled down around them and their power fell to ruin. They took so much from her and she would take some much more from them. Brightening up, she jumped back into the conversation. “So, your plan is to go to Dr. Suresh.. and then what? Even if he decides he wants to help us, what good will a geneticist do?”
“Ah, Claire, this geneticist happens to have a daughter.” Sylar said, getting to crux of his plan. “An adopted daughter by the name of Molly. I tried to kill her once--”
“Did you try to kill everyone once?” Claire cocked her head to the side. All his stories seemed to start this way. It would have almost been laughable, had it not been so very disturbing.
“Some more than once.” He smiled. A car passed them, its light shining into the Rogue and lighting up Sylar's face for a brief moment. Claire wasn't sure whether it was what he had said or the eerie glow of bright headlights, that made him appear all the more evil. “But, this Molly, she is a remarkable young lady. She has the nifty little ability of being able to track anyone, anywhere. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but from what I hear she's better than a GPS tracking system. Much.”
“I can see why you would have wanted her ability.” Claire knew the faint details of why Sylar went on his murder spree years ago. Her father told her that Sylar collected abilities from other people, taking apart their brains to see what made them tick and then arranging his DNA to adapt that ability to his own body. With Molly's clairvoyancy, Sylar would have been able to find advanced humans faster, pin pointing their locations and then sweeping in for the kill. Somehow Molly had survived and the world had been saved from an even worse timeline. Not like the current one wasn't bad enough. Claire leaned into the front seat. “But what good will that do? Who are we going to find?”
“Claire,” he started slowly, approaching the subject with some care. Through the dark, she could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see how she would react. “We're going to use Molly to track down Peter. From the conversations I picked up in Primatech, I'm guessing he's the one who escaped. He's alive, whether you want to believe that or not.”
She sat back and crossed her arms, debating on kicking his seat. No, that wouldn't be a good idea. Kicking the driver when they're steering the car you're sitting in is never a good plan.
Neither was Sylar's plan though. Going on some wild romp around the county in search of someone who would never be found would do little but get her hopes up and then crush them later. After all, even with all of Peter's abilities, there was little chance of escaping. That Sylar and her made it out of the facility was little more than a fluke and most likely unable to be duplicated. Primatech had been around for a long time, they'd perfected their cages and their techniques of breaking someone's spirit.
Claire almost hated Sylar for bringing her along before letting her know what they were searching for. Almost. Deep inside behind that anger the barest traces of faith lingered. Faith that this world was not as bad as she thought. Faith that the universe would not leave her all alone. “I'll play along for now, Sylar, but I doubt we'll find him.” She bit her lip and pondered her choices. Nothing too bad could come from following along on this crazy journey but if she went off on her own, Claire wasn't sure she would make it that far. “Besides, Dr. Suresh probably won't let you come anywhere near Molly again.”
A long silence came in reply, as Sylar thought about how to dodge this particular hitch in the plan. Then, he replied as he made a turn towards the exit ramp, “I'll figure out a way to see her again. Mohinder and I go way back. I have ways of making him cooperate even if he doesn't want to at first.”
“Cooperate?” Claire didn't like the sound of that.
“Don't worry.” Sylar told her as the car drove up to the toll booth. He tossed some change into the basket and continued driving, heading toward the signs pointing to Memphis. “I won't kill him unless it's absolutely necessary. But I will find a way to get what I want. I always do.”
Claire liked the sound of that even worse. She knew Sylar was only trying to help her, which may have been the first sign of humanity he'd shown to anyone in years. Still, the means were steep and the ends were possibly not even out there to be reached. Even if Sylar's idea lead her to Peter, if anyone got hurt while they attempted to make this plan work, Claire wasn't sure she could live with herself. There were geneticists involved now, and young children, families who didn't need to have their safe little worlds interrupted like this.
It seemed that Claire was always interrupting the peace and calm of somebody's life. So many people had been hurt or killed in order for her to survive.
The first sacrifice to Claire's safety was Jackie Wilcox, the captain of the cheerleading squad at Union Wells High School. She'd died because a murderer mistook her identity and thought she was Claire. She shot a look at Sylar, remembering the night they met back when they were both leading very different lives. He snuffed out Jackie's spirit with little afterthought.
More sacrifices were needed to be made on Claire's alter following that first one. Her father was shot three different times trying to protect her. The latter of those bullet wounds was fatal. He was only trying to protect her, always trying to protect her.
Her mother came close to having a brain aneurysm when the Haitian kept erasing her memory of Claire's abilities. She'd gotten so sick before the truth came out. She remembered helplessly walking around the hospital, praying for her mother to be there the next day, to just live through the night. She'd survived only to be killed with the rest of the family when the company came for Claire two years ago.
There were those in the hotel, whose corpses she could still see when Claire closed her eyes. Mutilated human bodies, even if they were the enemy, crept into her mind in vivid colors. Somewhere their families mourned for them tonight like she would have mourned her father, if he died while working for the company. Sylar told her it was better this way, they had deserved it, it was either the company's men or their freedom. All Claire heard was excuse after excuse for death after death. All because of her.
This doctor and his daughter now stood between Claire and her goals. Or the goals others had set for her. She prayed for their sake that they would provide the needed assistance and play along, because Claire knew Sylar wasn't the type to accept failure so readily. She starred out the window as the buildings grew taller and the city started rising up around them. How many deaths needed to rest on her shoulders?
Too many had died already.
All because of her.
Save the cheerleader; destroy the world.
...to be continued..
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2357
Chapter: 7/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
The road was dark. Only a few car headlights lit the way down the four lane highway. If it could in fact be called a highway. Claire lay on the back seat, letting the white noise of the car's engine relax her and watched the moon up ahead. It was surprisingly cold tonight and a halo hung around the moon. Myths Claire heard long ago said that a halo around the moon meant trouble or snow, depending on who you asked. She figured both fit the situation.
She hadn't seen the night sky in ages. She used to go up into the troposphere with West on clear, cloudless nights, much like this one. They'd be so close to the stars, it felt like she could reach out and touch them, letting stardust cover her fingers like fine gold.
That was so long ago, when Claire was just a cheerleader and life was complete. All the pieces fell into place once she moved to Costa Verde. She met her first boyfriend, a boy who would always hold a special place in her heart. He was cute, protective and never let her get hurt.
Her parents also started breaking down the walls of secrecy and silence after they moved to Costa Verde. Before that time, there were things that were off-limits to talk about in the Bennett family. Dad's work with Primatech. Claire's continuing attempts to test the limits of her powers. Lyle's growing jealousy and desire for his parent's attention.
Claire closed her eyes and memories flashed across her mind. She missed her brother. Oh god, how she missed her brother. Even when he was making gagging faces when he accidentally walked in on her and West making out. Even when he was threatening to sell videos of her freaky death attempts to YouTube. The last memory of him that she could think of was his body, riddled with bullets with the Playstation controller still in his hands. Her words screamed through the house that night, even as the company men dragged her from the house. “I'll come with you just give him my blood. Please. Save his life. Don't let him die. Please.”
Claire sat up and inhaled deeply. Forcing her thoughts back to the present day, she eagerly fought to forget such memories. The past was an unkind demon, leaving little after devouring everything she loved. She watched Sylar look in the rear view mirror, watching her as she calmed herself. After a moment, she asked, “Where are we?”
“Route 70. We passed through Little Rock about fifteen minutes ago. I was going to go a different way but there was some sort of police activity going on the interstate.” Sylar glanced back to the road. “I didn't think we needed the trouble.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “I thought you enjoyed trouble.”
“Not when I don't want them to slow me down.” Sylar had on his resolve face, that familiar dark brow and slight smirk. He had a plan; anyone who got in the way was making a stupid and possibly fatal, move. However, he had yet to divulge this secret plan to her in between grabbing her and whisking her away on some hunt for the golden goose.
“Are you ever going to explain why we're traveling east or where we're headed?” She grabbed the bag of clothes from before, sorting through the garments to pick out something to change into. Past a couple of pairs of jeans, she found the cozy red sweater she'd bought at one of the small boutiques. “Or am I going to have to continue to guess while hoping that the serial killer is not leading me to my death?”
“Leading you to your death? Oh, come on, now. You don't think I'd really do a thing like that, do you?” Sarcasm dripped from his voice like deadly poison, leaving his question punctuated by a challenging laugh. Before escaping Primatech together, Claire wouldn't put it past him not to leave her in pieces in a ditch on the side of the road. A strange sort of trust was building between them now. Not that she wasn't wary of his new kindness but this alliance kept her alive. He switched lanes and finally replied with the answers Claire was looking for, “I used to know this guy, Mohinder Suresh--”
“The geneticist?”
“Yes. A few years ago, him and I traveled around the country in search of other special people, people with abilities.” He paused, before deciding to go ahead with the rest of what he was going to say. “People that I killed. He didn't know who I was back then.”
“So, what, you lied to him and then betrayed that trust?” Claire slipped on her new sweater. The warmth of it did not help distracting her from the fact that she was sitting in a car with someone who had murdered a number of people in the past. How many met their end at Sylar's hands and powers, Claire did not want to ask. Some things were better left unknown. “What makes you think he'll want to see you now?”
“Yes. I betrayed him if you want to get technical about it.” Sylar rolled his eyes and answered with no more regret than most felt when crushing a bug. “He had it coming to him. He was weak with too many emotional attachments. He wouldn't let the search for his father's killer die. He thought getting revenge would make him the perfect son. It was pathetic.”
“Haven't you ever had a family, Sylar?” She pulled at the arms of the sweater until they were covering her hands, warming her up and giving her a place to hide. “Don't you understand that this is the way these things work? If someone attacked anyone in my family, I wouldn't rest until they were brought in by the police,” her features darkened as she added, “or worse.”
“Is that what you plan on doing to the people who murdered your family, Claire? Are you going to take down the company single-handedly?” Sylar replied, changing topics. They both knew the war against the company would be one long fought. People had tried to take down Primatech before, many of them. Each had failed in their own way, their small rebellions brushed aside like ants in the way of a giant.
“Give me time.” Claire watched the trees pass by, deep in thought. Even if she was one person, one insignificant human against the hundreds that existed within the company, Claire wouldn't be able to rest until their whole world toppled down around them and their power fell to ruin. They took so much from her and she would take some much more from them. Brightening up, she jumped back into the conversation. “So, your plan is to go to Dr. Suresh.. and then what? Even if he decides he wants to help us, what good will a geneticist do?”
“Ah, Claire, this geneticist happens to have a daughter.” Sylar said, getting to crux of his plan. “An adopted daughter by the name of Molly. I tried to kill her once--”
“Did you try to kill everyone once?” Claire cocked her head to the side. All his stories seemed to start this way. It would have almost been laughable, had it not been so very disturbing.
“Some more than once.” He smiled. A car passed them, its light shining into the Rogue and lighting up Sylar's face for a brief moment. Claire wasn't sure whether it was what he had said or the eerie glow of bright headlights, that made him appear all the more evil. “But, this Molly, she is a remarkable young lady. She has the nifty little ability of being able to track anyone, anywhere. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but from what I hear she's better than a GPS tracking system. Much.”
“I can see why you would have wanted her ability.” Claire knew the faint details of why Sylar went on his murder spree years ago. Her father told her that Sylar collected abilities from other people, taking apart their brains to see what made them tick and then arranging his DNA to adapt that ability to his own body. With Molly's clairvoyancy, Sylar would have been able to find advanced humans faster, pin pointing their locations and then sweeping in for the kill. Somehow Molly had survived and the world had been saved from an even worse timeline. Not like the current one wasn't bad enough. Claire leaned into the front seat. “But what good will that do? Who are we going to find?”
“Claire,” he started slowly, approaching the subject with some care. Through the dark, she could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see how she would react. “We're going to use Molly to track down Peter. From the conversations I picked up in Primatech, I'm guessing he's the one who escaped. He's alive, whether you want to believe that or not.”
She sat back and crossed her arms, debating on kicking his seat. No, that wouldn't be a good idea. Kicking the driver when they're steering the car you're sitting in is never a good plan.
Neither was Sylar's plan though. Going on some wild romp around the county in search of someone who would never be found would do little but get her hopes up and then crush them later. After all, even with all of Peter's abilities, there was little chance of escaping. That Sylar and her made it out of the facility was little more than a fluke and most likely unable to be duplicated. Primatech had been around for a long time, they'd perfected their cages and their techniques of breaking someone's spirit.
Claire almost hated Sylar for bringing her along before letting her know what they were searching for. Almost. Deep inside behind that anger the barest traces of faith lingered. Faith that this world was not as bad as she thought. Faith that the universe would not leave her all alone. “I'll play along for now, Sylar, but I doubt we'll find him.” She bit her lip and pondered her choices. Nothing too bad could come from following along on this crazy journey but if she went off on her own, Claire wasn't sure she would make it that far. “Besides, Dr. Suresh probably won't let you come anywhere near Molly again.”
A long silence came in reply, as Sylar thought about how to dodge this particular hitch in the plan. Then, he replied as he made a turn towards the exit ramp, “I'll figure out a way to see her again. Mohinder and I go way back. I have ways of making him cooperate even if he doesn't want to at first.”
“Cooperate?” Claire didn't like the sound of that.
“Don't worry.” Sylar told her as the car drove up to the toll booth. He tossed some change into the basket and continued driving, heading toward the signs pointing to Memphis. “I won't kill him unless it's absolutely necessary. But I will find a way to get what I want. I always do.”
Claire liked the sound of that even worse. She knew Sylar was only trying to help her, which may have been the first sign of humanity he'd shown to anyone in years. Still, the means were steep and the ends were possibly not even out there to be reached. Even if Sylar's idea lead her to Peter, if anyone got hurt while they attempted to make this plan work, Claire wasn't sure she could live with herself. There were geneticists involved now, and young children, families who didn't need to have their safe little worlds interrupted like this.
It seemed that Claire was always interrupting the peace and calm of somebody's life. So many people had been hurt or killed in order for her to survive.
The first sacrifice to Claire's safety was Jackie Wilcox, the captain of the cheerleading squad at Union Wells High School. She'd died because a murderer mistook her identity and thought she was Claire. She shot a look at Sylar, remembering the night they met back when they were both leading very different lives. He snuffed out Jackie's spirit with little afterthought.
More sacrifices were needed to be made on Claire's alter following that first one. Her father was shot three different times trying to protect her. The latter of those bullet wounds was fatal. He was only trying to protect her, always trying to protect her.
Her mother came close to having a brain aneurysm when the Haitian kept erasing her memory of Claire's abilities. She'd gotten so sick before the truth came out. She remembered helplessly walking around the hospital, praying for her mother to be there the next day, to just live through the night. She'd survived only to be killed with the rest of the family when the company came for Claire two years ago.
There were those in the hotel, whose corpses she could still see when Claire closed her eyes. Mutilated human bodies, even if they were the enemy, crept into her mind in vivid colors. Somewhere their families mourned for them tonight like she would have mourned her father, if he died while working for the company. Sylar told her it was better this way, they had deserved it, it was either the company's men or their freedom. All Claire heard was excuse after excuse for death after death. All because of her.
This doctor and his daughter now stood between Claire and her goals. Or the goals others had set for her. She prayed for their sake that they would provide the needed assistance and play along, because Claire knew Sylar wasn't the type to accept failure so readily. She starred out the window as the buildings grew taller and the city started rising up around them. How many deaths needed to rest on her shoulders?
Too many had died already.
All because of her.
Save the cheerleader; destroy the world.
...to be continued..