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10/19/11--09:13: And Now These Three Remain - Prologue (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Prologue:  2010-2019
The following selection of moments occurred over the nine years following the Wall.



Claire, 2010, Noah's apartment, New York

"They hate me."

"They don't hate you; they're just afraid.  You have to be reasonable, Claire."  Noah sat down across from her, setting down two cups of coffee.  "Every special on earth has been struggling with that question:  whether or not to tell anyone.  You just answered that for a lot of people who might not have chosen the answer you did."

Claire picked at the tablecloth.  "I guess I would probably hate me, too.  But we couldn't keep going on this way.  All these secrets… people were dying for all of these secrets."

Noah looked at her for a moment, his face uncertain.

Claire sighed.  "Just say it, Dad.  You officially can't treat me like a child anymore, I have to get used to people saying unpleasant things to me, and fast."

"Okay, then.  Well, you should know that the overwhelming majority of people would rather die to hide a lie than die to uphold a truth.  And the fact that you can't die at all… that's a slap in the face, Claire.  I know that you can be taken and horrible things can be done to you, but most aren't going to think that way.  To them, you just put a gun to their head that can't be put to yours."

Claire looked at him with wide eyes for a moment, and answered him in a near-whisper.  "What do I do?  How do I answer?  Defend myself, or just… say I'm sorry?"

"Don't say you're sorry.  Ever.  Whether or not you defend your actions is up to you.  Some will be persuaded, some won't."  Noah took a sip of his coffee.  "Show me what else you've got."

Her eyes narrowed.  "I can help them."

"That's an even harder thing to do with a group of people who don't trust you, but it's also the best way to get them to trust you.  And I was hoping you would say that.  Taking an active role in the world will be healthier for you.  Claire…" he took her hand.  "You've always been itching to get out there, to do some good, to learn the truth and make a difference.  Well… now you don't have any choice but to do just that.  Are you ready?"

"Nope.  But I haven't been ready for any of the things I've done for the past five years, so that's hardly a requirement."  She smiled.

"Fine.  But I would at least suggest you not go about this alone.  You need to get in contact with Peter; he's already trying to form a coalition to help specials."

She looked away.  "He and Sylar are friends now.  I'd have to deal with… that."

Noah nodded.  "And ordinarily I'd say, 'Claire-bear, please stay away from that awful man until I can shove an AK-47 down his gullet,' but this is not ordinarily."  He smiled and she laughed, softly.  "This is a case of you and Sylar, both immortal, and hopefully both on the same side.  And if he ever changes sides again… you'll need to be near Peter, because you may be the only person who can stop a Sylar gone bad."

"Talk about the single act of heroism on earth I did not want."

"You're not a real hero until you face the one thing you don't want to.  Haven't you read the comic books?"

Claire shrugged.  "No, but if I spend much time with Peter, I'm sure I'll end up reading all of them."



Peter/Sylar, 2011, Sylar's watch shop, New York

"I do still think about it, sometimes."

Sylar glanced up, his expression lighting at the sight of Peter in the doorway.  "Peter.  You think of what?"

Peter walked in, looking serious and drawn.  "About asking you for him back."

Sylar's face drained of all color.

Peter sat down across from him, reaching out to finger a watch on the desk.  It was open, tiny spools of wire twisting from it like metallic organs, waiting for the surgeon.  "It's okay, I wouldn't ask that of you, not permanently.  But."  His face crumpled a little, and he recovered himself.  "I miss him.  I need something."

Sylar looked down at the watch in his hands, and placed it carefully on the table in front of him, dusting his hands off.  "Peter, I would never refuse you what I have to give.  You just... you don't really want it.  You know you don't."  He looked at his own hands.

"Give me one memory.  Just one, and I'll go."

Sylar sighed.  He stood up and walked around the desk, taking Peter's hand and pulling him to his feet.  "That's not what you came here for.  Close your eyes."

Peter wanted to argue, he wanted to rail and scream and lash out with his fists... he wanted to tell Sylar that he'd just come from the Capitol, that all of the specials were looking to him for leadership, for protection, for representation, that he didn't have even the first idea of how to start advocating for them, that amid the general public he had no power whatsoever, that Nathan had always been the politician, not Peter.  Never Peter.  Peter only wanted to help people, and he was shit at doing it from a podium.  He wanted to explain to Sylar just exactly how useless everything had to feel to drive Peter here to beg for a fake word from his brother.  But Peter didn't argue.  In this world, the real world, Sylar understood things, and Peter decided to defer to him.  Wasn't that why he'd come here, after all?  He closed his eyes and tried to sweep away the anger, and leave himself open to whatever would happen.

Peter heard Nathan's voice say, "It's okay, Pete.  It's gonna be okay."  And then Nathan's arms were around him, and even Nathan's smell... that smell that Peter would never entirely forget, the smell that said family and home and trust and safety, even at the times when Nathan had been none of those things... and Peter kept his eyes screwed tightly shut, and clung to his brother, and tried not to cry, because so many lives were depending on him, because he'd already failed so many times, because Nathan was dead and so many other people were, too.

He gasped, "Why the fuck did you have to die on me?  I need you, Nathan.  Everybody thinks I'm strong enough to handle all this on my own.  Where the hell did they get that idea?"

Nathan said, softly, "You can do this, Pete.  I'm sorry, you know I wanted to be able to take care of you.  But you can do this.  You're strong enough."

Nathan held him until the storm passed, and Peter kept his eyes firmly closed, letting himself drift.  After some time, Nathan guided him back into the chair, where Peter gratefully collapsed.

He waited a few minutes, for the dream to pass, and he opened his eyes.  Sylar was sitting across from him, tinkering with a watch.  Peter scrubbed his face with his hands, roughly.  It was very quiet in the room.

Peter said, "I guess I'll see you around."

Sylar waved a hand at him.  "Don't be a stranger."

Peter paused at the door.  "Sylar..."

"I won't expect to see you any time soon."



Peter and Angela Petrelli, 2013, Nikos restaurant, Washington D.C.

"It feels like they're grooming me."

"That's because they're grooming you," Angela said, drily.  "Be glad that it's happening.  They'll finally get some ears turned your way."

"But…"  Peter shifted uncomfortably, the suit still uncomfortable even after six months spent wearing the things, "Nuclear Energy?  Fine Arts?  Defense?  I don't even know who to be groomed by.  I don't want to be subject to any of them!"

Angela sighed.  "If you aren't, you won't have any power.  With some political machinations, Peter, you could work all of them and turn them against each other, but you're not capable of that even if you wanted to do it.  Which helps you, here, because you're meant to be a figurehead.  You're intended to be the bright, trustworthy face of the specials, Peter.  I've seen you on stage after stage, earnestly speaking your very heart through your eyes at audiences of suit-jacketed, hard-jawed Federal barracudas, and I've seen their tiny, cold eyes fix on you and see the specials through the person that you are."  She sniffed.  "Let them groom you.  God knows I've tried to groom you into the things I've wanted you to be, and you have always and irrevocably remained yourself… I laugh to think of the oil lobby trying to make you their boy.  Not you, Peter.  You are pure of heart, intention, and deed, and if anybody could go swimming in the waters of D.C. and come out dry on the other end, it would be you."

Peter blinked.  "Wow.  I think I'm flattered?"

"Be flattered, my sweet boy.  You've made your hardened, mean old mother love you more than life itself.  Which is why I'm going to be working the political wheels myself, and getting assistance wherever I can get it.  And which is why you're going to talk to any ears that want to listen, for whatever reason they want to listen."

"I'm just, I'm not a politician," Peter said, miserably.  "I'm a healer, Ma."

Angela smiled.  "No.  You are whatever the people who love you, need you to be.  And right now, all we need is for you to be yourself, in front of a few people who happen to have the power to track all of us down and lock us into tiny boxes.  Can you do that for us?  Just be the man you are?"

Peter shrugged, laughing in confusion.  "I'm pretty sure that's about all I can do."  He reached over and took her hand.  "Looks like you finally have a son in politics."

"I do.  And if you think I'm going to lose this one too, you don't know me very well."  Her brow creased, and Peter knew she was thinking about Nathan.  "I'm not sending you into any danger you can't handle.  And the reason I'm so sure of that is because I'm positive you'll be taking your watch dog with you every place you go."

Peter blinked.  "Sylar?"

"You think I haven't noticed you attempting to domesticate him?  Whatever.  If he's still a killer, so much the better, so long as he's as devoted to you as he seems to be."

"Mom, that's a terrible thing to say.  Sylar's changed."

Angela paused, and her face softened, but there was still a kind of pain there.  "Well, it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.  Time will tell, I suppose."



Claire, 2014, Baltimore

"Look, I've always pushed my limits… I thought you loved that about me."

"Claire, I did, back when we were both stupid enough to think that running around to carnivals full of crazy people and jumping out of windows was a good idea."  Gretchen sighed, her eyes patient as always.  When Claire thought of reasons to love her, those eyes always topped the list.  So full of patience and welcome, understanding and mercy…

"Gretchen, I have a job to do, it's something that only I can do.  How can I say no?"

"Easy.  You can say that you are a person as well as a special.  Isn't that what you wanted from the beginning?  For specials to be able to live normal lives?  And here you are, dashing off to Washington again for more… tests or experiments or whatever, which I was fine with.  I really was, Claire.  But this new Communal Enforcement stuff?  You'll be gone nine months of the year!"

Claire reached out, caught just the fringe of Gretchen's hair as she turned away.  "Listen—"

"If I want to hear you defend all the things you can do for the good of humanity, I can just listen to my recording of that Nightly News interview."  Gretchen sat down at the table, and began to grade papers.

Claire sat across from her, at a loss.  And that was when she realized it... a note of silver, glinting through Gretchen's hair.

They were still young.  It was only one hair.  But Claire suddenly saw how Gretchen's face had changed, deepening into itself, the softness of her college years whittled down by time.  It was breath-taking how much more precious she seemed in transit than at rest.

Gretchen looked up, her eyes surprised.  "Oh, sweetie..." she touched Claire's cheek, wiped the tear away.  "I'm sorry, it's just... I never prepared for this kind of a life."

"It's not that," Claire said.  "It's just... you're so beautiful."

Gretchen smiled at her, confused.  "Thank you.  We both know you're the beauty, though.  Eternally perfect."

Claire swallowed.  "You actually sound like you meant that as a compliment."

Gretchen's eyes were sad.  "Once upon a time, you didn't have to pick apart everything I ever said to you."



Peter/Sylar, 2016, Sylar's workshop, Washington D.C.

Sylar heard Peter come into the room, and Peter could see the change come over his face.  Sylar was smiling, nearly beaming.  "Peter.  Come and look at this, it's remarkable."

Peter almost felt surprised every time he found Sylar there.  Not on a dark corner, not in an abandoned warehouse or a rooftop, but here, amid the quiet tickings and chimings that were somehow so calming and steadying.  No matter where Sylar set up shop, it always seemed to gather this same aura.  Peter wondered how on earth a murderer could come out of an occupation like this.  It was so... dutiful and organized.  Such a useful, cloistered little place.

He walked around Sylar's desk and listened politely as Sylar explained the workings of the latest foreign model he was working on.  And Peter saw the moment that Sylar realized that Peter was merely paying him the attention that came with affectionate indulgence for the quirks of a friend.  Sylar finally looked up.  "But you didn't come to hear about this."

Peter grinned back, shaking his head.

"Why do you do that?"

Peter was puzzled.  "Do what?"

Sylar shrugged.  "Allow me to bore you like that."

Peter smirked.  "What makes you think I'm bored?  I may not be paying attention to the watch, but I'm definitely paying attention to the miraculous fact of 'Sylar is happy'… I never get tired of it.  Anyway, I wanted to borrow your lie detector.  I'm meeting with some Representatives tonight, and I need all of the advantages I can get."

Sylar nodded.  "Sure.  But would you maybe prefer Parkman's mind reading?"

Peter shook his head.  "It would just confuse me.  Yours is simpler, just gives me a little nudge here and there."

Sylar sighed.  "Why couldn't I just—"

"No.  And no," Peter said, holding his hands up in negation.  "I don't want you out there.  I don't want your face anywhere near the news, and I don't want you copying the bodies of known politicians, and I don't want you getting that taste for power again.  No."

"Peter, I hate it that you're unprotected in a world I'm far more familiar with than you are.  And…"  Sylar gritted his teeth.  "Happy as I may miraculously seem, I can't spend the rest of my life cooped up with time pieces.  You could use me, and you won't.  I mean, you could use me as..."  He paused, and they shared a look.

Peter sighed.  "You mean I could use you for more than a surrogate brother and a power library.  Look… I know.  But you and I discussed this.  You've been doing well for years, now.  Better every day.  Outside of politics.  I know you're better at this than I am; I know I suck at it.  Which is exactly why I'm not going to lose my head out there… because I don't want to be out there."

"I understand the logic.  I'm just being wasted here, Peter."

"Try to think of it as being put into storage for a little while, okay?"

Sylar paused, fighting with the idea.  "Fine."  He held out his hand, and it shook the tiniest bit before Peter took it.

The habit of long years kept them clasping hands for a little longer than they needed to.  Peter took what strength he could from this; just the knowledge that if Sylar could change, anybody could.  Things weren't boding well for any of them right now, but Peter had to believe in a happy ending.  "I... might have another favor to ask you."

"You typically do."

"Actually, this one might make you happy, because it's an outdoor activity."  Peter shared a grin with Sylar and released his hand.  "I wonder... could you maybe check in on Claire once in a while?  She's been taking a lot more risks lately, especially since she and Gretchen split up, and I'm starting to think... I mean, she's tough, but she has trouble anticipating outcomes, you know?"

"I do know.  And anticipating outcomes is my particular skill."  Sylar lifted an eyebrow.  "I'll do it, but... not too often.  She has a peculiar way of knowing when I'm there.  One might almost think she had special powers."

"Well, if she sees you, just tell her I sent you so she can be pissed at me rather than you."

"At both of us equally, you mean."

"... Probably, yeah."



Claire, 2017, Washington D.C.

Claire adjusted the focus on her camera, crouching, hoping that her knee would be steady enough to suit.  The shot was too good to miss, and she'd left her tripod at home.  The sun was perfect across the abandoned stock yard, and the sun was reflected off the feathers of the raven who seemed to be posing for her on one of the old rusty barrels, his feathers thick and glossy.  She focused on him carefully.

Out of the corner of her view, she glimpsed a flicker of shadow.  She turned the focus back, and swept to the side the tiniest, bit, and swore so explosively that the raven took off in a startled burst of feathers.  Claire lowered the camera, glaring balefully out at the lot.  She saw the silhouette now, backlit by the sun for a mere instant, and then Sylar was retreating into the shadows.  She slowly capped the lens and put the camera away.

Prickles ran over her shoulders on the drive home, and she didn't know if he was still there or not, but her anger needed some kind of an outlet.  She got home and ran upstairs to her loft apartment, slamming the door behind her, and barely stopped to throw off her camera and jacket before she went to her desk and rifled the drawers for a pad of legal paper and a pen.



Sylar,

I will never want you in my life.  I don't care that you say you've reformed, you will always, always be the man who killed my father.  I don't care to hear anything you ever have to say again.  I won't actively try to hurt you or find you, but stay the hell out of my life, and QUIT STALKING ME.

Peter's over-developed sense of misplaced parental responsibility toward you aside -- yes, he really does believe he single-handedly re-created you back when you had that little mental retreat together -- he doesn't need you in his life, either.  I watch the way you look at him, the way you feed off of him, and it's disgusting.

We're under enough public scrutiny as is, and Peter and I are both working hard every single day to reassure people that specials won't hurt them, and that we don't deserve to have to skulk in the shadows, which you persist in doing even though you don't have to.  If you screw up this close to either one of us, you will ruin our lives.  And you will screw up, Sylar.  You'll get hungry, or bored, or lazy, or whatever it is that you get, and you'll kill again.  Since Peter and myself are the most public specials and de facto spokesmen for all the others, you will ruin the lives of specials everywhere by tainting our reputation.

I will say this once, and then I will do my best to ignore your existence for the rest of our very, very long lives:  GO AWAY.  I don't care where, so long as you get far enough away that you can't endanger the lives of thousands of people every minute of every day.


She didn't bother to sign it.  She shoved it inside of an envelope, wrote 'Sylar' on the outside, went to the dining room window and yanked it up, and reached awkwardly outside it to tape the envelope to the outside of the window before carefully shutting it again.

Claire went to bed.  When she woke up the next morning, the envelope was gone.  When she stepped out into the parking lot, she felt his absence.



Peter/Sylar, 2018, Peter's apartment, Washington D.C.

"I need to get away from the city, Peter."

Peter looked up from his sketchpad with a mild smirk.  "Is it Thursday already?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm terribly predictable, whatever."  Sylar came fully into Peter's apartment, closing the door behind him.  He sat down at the small table and exchanged a rueful smile with him.  "It's time.  I keep getting closer to being able to do it."

Peter shook his head, turning back down to his drawing.  It was just a rough outline right now, a figure leaping from a building, spreading a black cloak that looked like wings behind him.  He knew he'd never be as good as Isaac, but he liked drawing, and he expected he'd have a long time to practice.  "Sylar, you like the city.  Why do you keep trying to go do the wilderness retreat thing?"

"So I'll try the suburbs.  We both know I shouldn't be around this many people, Peter.  There are too many temptations.  I start to think of how everything would be better if I were in control..."

"You haven't been feeling that way, have you?"

"Not lately.  But there have been times when it got so strong I could taste it."

"Yes.  I remember.  When you left the city."

"So that's my weak point.  I don't like having that kind of vulnerability."  Sylar shook his head.  "Peter, this is a long-term prospect.  I can't die.  I have a very long time to get used to being isolated, but every bit of practice will help.  Before..."

Peter blinked at the unspoken words:  before the shit hit the fan and the specials all had to go into hiding.  Peter decided to leave the old argument alone for now; Sylar clearly hadn't come here to discuss politics.  "How long do you think you'll stay gone this time?"

"I need to stay gone permanently."

"That wasn't what I asked."  Peter was frustrated.  Sylar hadn't been showing any signs of danger recently; in fact, he'd been better than ever, learning new ways to use his gifts, meeting people... there were days when he seemed normal.  "And I still think you're wrong.  You've been doing well, here.  Really good.  I guess I just thought..."

"Ever the optimist."

"Sylar.  How long?"

Sylar looked into Peter's eyes, and then down.  "I will be gone for as long as I can be."



Peter/Claire, 2019, Mercy Heights Hospital, New York

The scent of coffee made him open his eyes and lift his head.  "Claire."

"Take it."

Peter took the cup of coffee and it warmed his cold hands.  He swallowed.  "Thanks."

Claire sat down, her face weary, but not nearly as marked with exhaustion and grief as Peter's face, as he knew from looking in the hospital bathroom mirror.  The halls and lights here were so cold, skin turned green and ill-looking.  Claire still looked perfect.  She always looked perfect.

Claire said, softly, "I suppose you were planning on doing this entirely on your own."

Peter shrugged.  "Nobody can watch my mother die for me.  And even if Nathan were here… I'm just glad he's not here."

"I can't watch Angela die for you, though I'd do it if I could, Peter.  But I can help you somehow."

Peter sighed.  "There's no help you could give me.  After the blood…"

She sighed.  "I am so sorry about that.  I don't know why the transfusion didn't help her."

"It's not your fault," he replied, vehemently.  "I know you did what you could, and she… she's fighting me, for some reason.  It's like she doesn't want to get well, and I… there's just nothing left for you to do."

Claire lifted an eyebrow.  "Really?  Because I'm pretty sure I could help you field the flood of correspondence that's piling up back at your office in D.C.  I can bring you food here, and tell you to go home and get some sleep when you can't seem to tell yourself that.  I can help you make the case to get Angela turned over to Home Care, since you're already licensed for that.  I can bitch out a few of these estate lawyers who are already trying to crawl down your throat, and make them leave you alone.  Actually, I'd even enjoy doing that."

Peter blinked at her.  "When you put it that way… huh."

Claire took Peter's arm and leaned against his shoulder.  "Let me help.  You need someone, and… and I know he would be the one you usually turn to, but Sylar's not here."  Her lip curled at his name, but her voice stayed even.

Peter's throat tightened, and he turned to her and put his arms around her, pressing his face into her hair.  Unspoken were the words, You're right.  I do need someone.

"There are things I can help with," Claire said softly, rubbing Peter's back.  Unspoken were the words, I can love you.



Letter from Angela Petrelli, 2020, New York



My dearest Peter,

I know you will not understand what I have done.  It is with a heavy heart that I write you this note; you, of all people, who I had always wished to protect.

The disease I suffer from will kill me in a slow and meticulous manner.  I have dreamed this, and I know that you will not be able to save me, despite the surely Herculean efforts you may take on my behalf... despite the efforts you have already made.  I do not look forward to this process, but I do not fear it, either.

The contents of my real fears at this time are beyond your understanding.  As well the contents of my real regrets.  Perhaps it is my regrets which are killing me now.  I have finally seen, firsthand, the evidence that my own choices have been instrumental in a great wrong, which can never be undone.  And the worst element of my guilt is, I could not wish it undone.

Peter, so many of my good memories have arisen from having been your mother.  I can not find it in me to regret any of those memories.

I hope that you may forgive me someday.  I hope that the others harmed by my actions may as well.

I love you.  But it is time for me to leave, now.

Sincerely, and I do mean this,
Your Mother



Continue...


10/19/11--09:20: And Now These Three Remain - Part 1 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Present Day:  March 2020, Ten Years After the Wall, Washington D.C.


"The inescapable issue we have here is that these individuals can be very dangerous.  So dangerous, in fact, that any measures taken against them at this juncture may already be too late.  So dangerous that perhaps we never stood a change to begin with.  Do you gentlemen understand what I'm saying to you?  Are you prepared to consider the notion that my concerns are more than mere paranoia?"

- Rep. Saul Barrows, October of 2015


"Peter, come in.  Sit down."

Peter came in and scanned the office; large mahogany desk with Noah Bennet leaning against the edge, suited and professional as always.  Desktop littered with legal documents, thin sunlight coming through the window blinds, carpet plush and dark, shelves full of legal tomes.  Peter took it all in.  He could still hear Nathan's voice sometimes... Scan the corners for any hint of ninja activity, Pete.  I'll be in right after.  He said that once at a party their parents had hosted... Peter, an unusually small, quiet nine year old, had been too shy to go in alone, but when Nathan gave him a job to do, well, that had been enough.  Peter suppressed the urge to smile, and wondered at himself for a moment.  Mom is dead.  Dad is dead.  Nathan is dead.  I would have thought smiling would be impossible for at least another ten years.  The most surprising thing wasn't that life went on... it was that life went on even as quickly as this.  One day after the funeral...

One day after putting Angela into the ground.

Peter looked up at Noah and blinked away a sudden burning in his eyes.  Noah was waiting for him, waiting for him to sit down.  Peter dropped into the heavy leather guest chair, pinching his nose for a second.  "Okay, I'm here, I'm doing the shady clandestine thing, but really Noah.  Why couldn't you just tell me whatever it was over the phone?"

Noah looked deeply worried, and that was always unnerving.  "Peter, certain documents have come to light with the settling of your mother's accounts.  I was contacted by your lawyers regarding some old company information.  Angela listed me as the point of contact... I don't know, I guess... I'm not sure what she thought would happen, Peter."  Noah rubbed his chin with his hand, an uncharacteristic gesture.  Peter had never known Noah to fidget.  "I've been sifting through old records, trying to figure out what can be dumped, what information might be useful, and what needs to be buried so deeply nobody will ever find it again."

Peter leaned forward.  "Come on, Noah.  What is this?"

Noah let his hand fall.  "It's about Gabriel Gray."

Peter laughed bitterly.  "Jesus.  Sylar.  My family's dead, but I'll always have him... fuck, I guess that's a comfort these days."  He shook his head.

"Peter, I didn't say Sylar.  I said Gabriel Gray."

Peter glanced up at Noah.  "What's with the name game?"

Noah paused, looking almost uncomfortable, and that was enough to make Peter very nervous as well.  Noah was not the type to be coy.  "Have you heard from him recently?"

Peter took longer than he should have to process and answer the question.  He decided that it still sounded far less direct that Noah's usual style.  "I haven't.  Sylar's been off the radar for months.  Went on another one of his sabbaticals.  The last time we talked was a year ago."

"What did you talk about?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary.  He wanted to leave the city, felt like he needed to be away from people, I told him he was being an idiot, and he left anyway."  Twelve months… it was the longest Sylar had ever been gone, and Peter wished he had any part of his heart to spare worrying about him.  "We talked about immortality a little."  Peter felt a lump rise in his throat.  It was too soon, thinking about that after the funeral.  Too soon.

Noah sat down in the chair opposite Peter, wearily.  "Peter, do you remember a certain ill-advised phase your mother went through when she attempted to use Sylar by convincing him he was a Petrelli?"

Peter shrugged.  "In a lifetime of tough decisions, that was one of her worse ones."

Noah looked at him with keen eyes.  "She did it to save you, as I recall."

"Well, it set him back by a lot.  But I'm not going to roast my mother when her grave is still fresh.  What is it you're dancing around without saying?"  Peter pressed his lips together.  "Noah, if you're about to tell me that she was actually telling the truth..."

"No, I always knew the story about the Gray family, Peter, I knew she was lying.  But I did always wonder what possessed her to tell such an insane story.  And now, I think I know."

Peter felt sick in the pit of his stomach.  "You know, I thought I was tired after the night we cleaned up after Mom... so tired after I read that note from her, and tired... tired after the funeral, after all of those relatives and well-meaning, rich, indifferent, high-rent assholes telling me what a wonderful lady she was.  But now you're about to tell me another horrible thing that I don't want to know about my life, and Noah... I don't even know if I can listen.  I might be too tired to even... take another breath right now."  His throat was locking up a little, so he stopped talking.

Noah nodded.  "If I could avoid telling you this, I would."  His voice was slow and measured.  "But I am not your mother.  Her tolerance for lies and avoidance always outstripped mine."

Peter pressed his hands flat together and waited.

"Angela told Sylar that she gave him up for adoption.  Let's just say that story is adjusted a little... in fact, you were the one who was adopted, Peter."

Peter shot the words back and forth in his mind, testing them.  On the outside, they seemed ridiculous, but mostly they just made him feel numb.  "You're saying I'm not a Petrelli."  Not Angela's son, not Nathan's brother.

Not Nathan's brother.

"You're not a Petrelli.  You're a Gray."

Peter's eyes blinked open.  His heart was a hollow rock in the center of his chest, pumping ice through the rest of his body with dull, scattered thuds he could feel in his fingertips.  "A Gray.  As in, Gabriel Gray."

"Peter, you are his twin brother.  You were born to Gilda Corveira and Samson Gray... Peter and Gabriel Gray.  I have your birth certificates right here if you would like to see them."

Not Nathan's brother.  Sylar's brother.  Is it irony?  Peter shook his head.  "I'm having trouble seeing what this has to do with me, Noah."  Not me.  Some other Peter.  Just empty words in a room.

Noah paused for a moment.  "Peter, I want you to go home.  I'll send along any paperwork you need to see over the next week.  Take a few days and process what I've told you."  Peter stood up, and Noah reached out.  "Peter, it doesn't have to change anything you felt for your mother, you know that."

Peter stared at Noah.  "Do you honestly believe it's not going to have any effect?"

They regarded each other for a moment, and Noah inclined his head.  "Fine.  But get some rest."



Behind the Wall - Ten Years Ago


Peter knew what it was to be alone, and he knew what it was to be angry.  But this was something he'd never felt before:  the absolute conviction that the universe was trying to punish him.

Sylar was avoiding him for now, letting him sulk... even Peter was forced to admit he was sulking, though he gave himself plenty of leeway for it.  If anybody in the world deserved a good sulk, it was him.  Especially since the only other person in the world was Sylar.  Peter shook his head with disgust.  Stop it.  This isn't real.  You're going to find a way out, and you're going to drag him along with you.

Somehow.

So Peter stewed and simmered, and Sylar kept an eye on him, but from a respectful distance, and that alone was annoying in a way.  True, Peter wanted to be left alone; he needed to sort through this situation.  But a large part of him resented Sylar's respectfulness, his docility, his bizarre and apparent sanity.  For years now they had danced around each other like opposites on magnetic poles, hopelessly attracted and repelled at once, and Peter had never felt this way about another human being... this hatred that tried to consume him, that burned and lashed and ate and grew larger every day until the day he'd woken from that dream of Sylar saving Emma.  Since then his feelings had twisted sickly on themselves.  The sight of Sylar's face, so frequent, so close, so silent... Peter could no longer sort out his emotions, he just knew that they were powerful.

Peter could still see Simone's face in his mind.  He remembered Caitlin's face.  He remembered Nathan's.  He was no stranger to harsh scenes, to powerful emotional events and trauma.  But Sylar's face gave him a jolt that was unmatched by any other image.  He resented it.

You are the person I hate the most, and the person most important to me in my life now, and the one person I can not escape from.  Peter grimaced.  He was definitely being punished for something.  Or maybe someone in charge just had a really sick sense of humor.

He looked down over the false city, and there on the periphery of his vision was a man in black, creeping across the roof of another building.  Peter watched him walk to the edge and look over, and then cautiously step back.  Peter wondered if he'd tried jumping before.  Was Sylar still able to heal himself, here?  Peter didn't think that Parkman would let him die.

Sylar looked across the rooftop and seemed to spot Peter watching him.  He promptly backed away from the edge of the roof as though stung, wandering aimlessly back, running his fingers through his hair.  He looked embarrassed.

Something about it tugged at Peter's empathy.  Are you worried I'll think less of you, to know you considered it?

He felt his brow furrow.  He didn't want to empathize with Sylar, or to feel sorry for him.




March 2020


"Dr. Vinrabe, I understand your concerns, but after speaking with the girl, I can't come to the same conclusions you have.  She doesn't seem rebellious, but she does seem offended, and can you blame her?  We've known each other for over ten years, and so I can say to you what many of your colleagues won't:  just because she has a particularly beneficial biological ability does not make her your pet."

- H. Thayer, MD PhD Neuro, November 2017


Claire walked into the office and sat down, rubbing her eyes wearily.  "Still going through the estate?"

"It's a neverending morass of potentially explosive information," Noah said.  "You look exhausted.  Are they still running tests on you?  I thought they had agreed to scale them back."

"They did agree, but... I can't take the time off anyway, Dad.  Every time I spend a day developing photos or out riding, instead of doing something that, to quote Dr. Futou, 'Will aid all of humanity in ways that are needed, not ten years from now, but now,' I feel like a scumbag."  She stretched.  "Besides, so what if I get tired?  Or sore?  Really, so what?"

"You're not an inexhaustible resource, Claire."  Noah moved around the desk to sit beside her.  "It worries me that you agree with them on that point.  We know you can regenerate; we have never known for sure that your cells are incapable of wearing out."

Claire gave him a dry smile.  "Then if there's a chance I could die, I need to do all I can before it happens, right?"

Noah narrowed his eyes.  "I don't like it."  He paused.  "You know, there's still—"

"Dad, we've been over this, okay?  No."  Claire sat up, angrily.  "Why do you keep bringing it up?"

"Claire-bear, I only see things getting worse and worse.  If you'll recall..."

"I recall just fine, Dad."  Claire sighed.  "I know."

"Perhaps you could give an old man some reassurance, at least.  Assuming things get worse, can you tell me that you still remember how to hide?"

"I will never hide.  What kind of a life would there be for me in hiding?"

Noah's voice was gentle.  "Claire... what kind of a life has it been for you, being put on display?"

"A truthful one."  She paused.  "I don't ever want to hide again.  I hope that it won't get much worse.  But if it does... Dad... do you remember how to hide?"

"I do.  But I'm getting too old for it.  If you ever go underground, I would ask that you go without me, and that you never tell me where you've gone."

Claire glared at him.  "I never knew you to be dramatic."

"I've been taking classes."  Noah smiled.

"From who?  Peter?"  Claire smiled softly.  "You were going to meet with him today."

"You just missed him, actually."

Claire tried to conceal her disappointment, and knew that Noah probably saw it anyway.  "I hate that he has this to deal with on top of everything else he's been trying to accomplish with the State Department.  Despite the China debacle, he was really making progress."

"Doubtless he'll continue.  I've never known anything to keep Peter down for long."  Noah's voice betrayed a hint of doubt.

Claire was pretty sure she knew what lay behind that doubt.  "He's not good at being careful.  Or at choosing the right friends."

"And you're sticking around to protect him?"  Noah's eyes twinkled.

"Why not?" she said.  I'm better at setting boundaries than he is, but then, I've had harder training.  "Peter's resilient, not tough," she mused.  "But he's good with people.  Better than I am.  We need him to keep doing what he's doing, and he needs me to protect him from the things that go bump in the night."

Noah said, gently, "For all we have no genetic connection, I see so much of myself in you.  Too much, some days.  Claire, I never thought you would become a soldier."

Claire gave Noah a level look.  "What else was I ever going to be?  For me it's always been hiding or fighting.  And I prefer to fight."  Her eyes softened marginally.  "Dad, I know that the Company used you and trained you like a tool... but Peter doesn't run that kind of a ship.  He doesn't do that to people.  I'll be a soldier, but I think I'll be fighting the lions rather than working for them."



Behind the Wall


Peter drew Sylar for the first time behind the Wall.  He drew him falling off the building he'd first seen him on, but not falling... flying.  He was a superhero, or perhaps a supervillain, taking off from the building to light on the streets below and fill them with stories.  His black cape was made of wings, somehow.

"What are you doing?"

Peter had an instant in which to decide whether to hide the drawing or to show it, and with a wrench that nearly hurt, he decided to show it.  "Drawing some version of you, I think."

Sylar leaned over Peter's shoulder, examining the picture.  "Some version of me."  He studied it quietly for a moment, and chuckled.

Peter turned around to stare at him.  "What's so funny?"

"How badly do you hate me, Peter?"  Sylar stepped around Peter and sat down next to him on the concrete bench.  His eyes were filled with humor, but challenging, as they always were... always taunting somehow.

Peter sighed.  "Do we have to get into that right now?"

"I have a reason for asking."

Peter looked at the drawing, and then back up at Sylar, feeling the way his breathing changed with just the other man's presence in the room, the way it made his vision blur and pulse with the rise in blood pressure behind his eyes.  "I hate you a lot."

Sylar smiled.  "And yet you still try to save me.  And when you couldn't pull me out of this land of nightmare, you drew me a pair of wings.  They always symbolize freedom, Peter."

Peter glanced down at his drawing.  "Always?"

"I don't understand you.  How on earth can one person be so self-sacrificing?  What is it that drives you?"  Sylar leaned forward.  "I almost think I could explain my own existence if I could explain yours."

Peter stood abruptly, closing his sketchpad.  Saving people is what I do.  It's who I am.  Just like destroying people is who you are... unless this crazy dream pans out.  "Existential philosophy sounds like a waste of time.  You exist and I wish you didn't.  That's enough for me."




March 2020


"If I am to understand you correctly, Senator, it is your position that armband identification be necessary that the public not be tempted to – if I may use the indelicate but implicatively correct term – breed with specials?  I'm sure that we can all recall the Eugenics movement.  But after your statement, I'm not sure that all of us have left it behind."

- Prof. Jaysen Heworth, January 2013


Peter walked eight miles home rather than taking a cab.  He watched his feet walking, wondering if they would ever leave the pavement again.  Ten years after Nathan's death, and it still burned inside... the fact that he hadn't saved him, or failing that, touched him one last time, taken that precious power of flight.  If he'd only known, he would have hoarded that power jealously, refusing to ever touch another human being.  Borrowing West's flight had been a pale imitation; nobody could fly like Nathan could, shooting through the atmosphere like a rocket.

Except Sylar, now.  But he's gone to the middle of nowhere and needs to stay that way if what he says is true.  Anyway, it's still not the same.

And I need to be able to heal people and help them, not fly around like a dingbat.

Peter knew that wasn't what was bothering him the worst right now.  What was bothering him more than losing Nathan, was the fact that he'd asked Sylar to become Nathan for a little while – again – about fourteen months ago.

Sometimes he waited a year, sometimes two, but he couldn't seem to resist getting Nathan back again.  Afterward, he always avoided Sylar like a plague, ridden by his own guilt and the horrible roiling of feelings it caused.  He knew it was sick.  He was putting himself through the loss of his brother over and over again, and forcing Sylar to be an accessory to that.  It wasn't healthy, and it wasn't right.  Sylar almost always left the city for a while afterward, also trying to get away from Peter's guilt and possibly the shame of becoming his murder victim again…

And now... what on earth had Peter really been doing?

Sylar's new life had left him feeling desperately conflicted half the time.  Peter still wanted to want Nathan back.  That terrible bargain Angela had once made haunted him with the notion that Nathan might still be inside of Sylar, still there enough to take his place.  But Sylar's right to live aside (which was possibly a matter of debate), Peter couldn't ask that of any human being.

These days, Sylar might do it.  If Peter asked him.

Peter trudged up the stairs and went into his apartment, stumbled to the bed, fell into it.  He was too tired to think anymore.

Not Nathan's brother.

Peter realized he wasn't too tired to cry.



Continue...


10/19/11--09:26: And Now These Three Remain - Part 2 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Behind the Wall


Distances were deceptive, here in the faux-world.  Sylar would look down to the pavement below him, wondering how far it was.  He had jumped before.  He had jumped many times.

Sometimes it didn't hurt at all.  Sometimes the ground swallowed him for a brief moment, and then spit him out as though he were something noxious.  But once... once he fell through the air and then hovered, wafting like a leaf in a nonexistent breeze.

That had been terrifying; more so than the ground eating him, more so than breaking limbs or the road rushing up to meet his face, more so than leaping off and landing in a different part of the town.  That floating, that hesitation of air around his body.  Unable to lift up, unable to fall down... hovering in eternity, no way to die.  He had been stuck that way for days before managing to flap his coat and generate some air resistance; enough to make it to the fire escape, enough to grab something and pull himself free of the air.

He had been unable to try a jump since that day, but still he looked, and dared himself.  Anything terrifying was a break from the numbing dullness of the passing days, here.

Sylar glanced over and saw Peter on a facing rooftop, watching him.  Sylar backed away from the edge.  He could push me.  And leave me there, floating in stasis.  Leave this place without me.

Parkman, you were so much smarter than I gave you credit for.  No matter how bad the isolation gets, there's always some little wrinkle in this world that reminds me that it could be worse.




March 2020


"... some simple precautions:  keep to well-lit areas when walking; do not walk at night; do not walk alone; if possible, drive your children personally to school; and take note of the emergency notification stations located every three city blocks.  Law enforcement officials claim to be confident of apprehending this individual soon, making our streets safe again, but questions of whether these new killings have anything to do with those of the infamous Skull Killer seven years ago, are met with 'No comment'.  Next up:  we'll be talking to Dr. Alice Strehn and the author, Ian Moorton, as they debate the question, 'Are specials more prone to violence because of their altered genes?'  After this short break."

- EBC News anchor Madison Smith, May 2011


Sylar was faltering.

He was remarkably familiar with the process, to the point where he knew the instant it began, and how it would progress, and roughly how long the duration, the intensity.  The instant it began was a morning on which he woke, memory hazed, throat raw from shouting in his sleep, wondering who am I? and fearing the answer.

Once upon a time, the look in the eyes of his victims had been his mirror, reflecting a god back to him, a peerless demon in power and ruthless domination.  That had been a remarkably simple mode in which to operate.  He could still feel it sometimes, in the back of his mind, or maybe the front of it... wherever secret, dark thoughts liked to hide.

He could still feel it like the itchy void of an amputated limb; two holes in his mind.  One of the holes had been created when Peter had so inexpertly attempted to suck all of Sylar's memories of himself away, trying to force Sylar to become Nathan... the other was the vacancy left by the phantom illusory consciousness of Nathan.  He still had bits and pieces of Parkman hinting around in there.  Several consciousnesses, conglomerating into what might still be considered one man.

Sylar had been able to achieve control over his own mind, but keeping Nathan dead was another matter.  There was a tiny part of himself that was always struggling sickly against the rest of him, a tiny interior voice that came from somewhere other.  It was no more a fully realized Nathan than a printed diary or a photograph, but it was there, and it accused him each second of every minute of every day.

He hadn't killed in ten years.  Some days it was easy, moving through life as if breathing a new kind of air, interacting with people, trying in his own embryonic way to touch the lives of others, trying to reckon what might be valuable about cultivating regular humans.  Now, though, he could feel it again.  The old madness, the hunger.  He ran from in it in his dreams and sometimes in his daydreams, and he shouted at it, I defeated you.  I'm not that person anymore.

Who am I?

It felt like he was losing his mind.  He had always been more than simply a murderer, there had always been a purpose to what he was doing, a theme of sorts.  But now that the blood and the screams were gone, his substance appeared thinner than paper.  He walked, he spoke when necessary, he did what was needed in order to maintain his body... or not, since his body would persist in living even without his efforts.  His eyes became vacant, his fingers restless.  He tried a human life, within limits.  He took jobs, forgot to show up to them, lost them.  He made friends, forgot them.  Everything steadily became less real than the hunger.

It made no sense.  He had been so sure that it was an addiction, and that like any other addiction, its hold on him would loosen the longer he abstained.  But it seemed to grow stronger, and this after years of resistance.  Sylar didn't know what strange hold the city had on him, but he resented it.  Why should moving away make everything so much harder?  What was it in New York, in Chicago, in D.C., that he was feeding off of, and who was paying the price?

Inside of his mind there was a raging beast that never stopped tearing at him with an agonized, contemptuous certitude:  You are nothing.  You are NOTHING.  It wanted blood, and he couldn't appease it.  And on the other side, that quiet, alien presence, accusing him, accusing him.  This wasn't like the terrible dreams that he had behind the Wall; this constant needling and laceration, this was a waking nightmare.

He wished he could see Peter again; Peter would know what to do.

Sylar marked the internal lie immediately.  No, Peter will not know what to do.  He'll simply appear, and I will feel more capable, some bizarre sort of dependence or conditioning.  I won't do that to him.  All of the rightness in the world that Sylar had felt inside of himself had somehow been by Peter's side.  At what cost to Peter, he couldn't begin to guess.

I won't subject him to that again.  I swore I wouldn't.  Claire was right.  He's done enough.  This was to be the last time.

Out in the peaceful suburbs, wandering the hillsides, moving in and out of the boroughs, but just barely managing to stay outside the city.  Sometimes he slept for days at a time.  Sylar wondered if his mind was attempting to convince his body to die.

He wondered if that was even possible.




Behind the Wall


The Wall sprang up from the ground and launched itself toward the sky, red bricks worn but sturdy, building themselves up so tall and straight that the eye warped them, making a curve of a flat surface as they breached the sky.  Peter and Sylar stared at it as it grew.

Sylar thought, Parkman, just when I think you're clever, you pull out the world's most obvious metaphor and clonk us over the head with it.

Peter reached out to touch it, and so did Sylar.

Perhaps a metaphor, but a very solid one.




March 2020


"If you're asking what I think, well, I think he's a boy scout.  Sweet smile, ready to shake your hand and you just can't help but know he's telling the truth, that he's probably always told the truth, and probably never made a dime or gotten anything but shitty treatment from the people around him.  Do I believe him when he says the specials are not a danger to society?  Yes, I do believe him.  Then he walks out of the room or off the podium, and I'm forced to remember the fact that Petrelli would have been squashed like a bug in the real world before even making it to my office, without his special abilities.  And because we're responsible for the safety of the people, folks, we all have to see that and know that anyone less scrupulous than him could squash us in turn.  Do I believe him?  I do.  But if it were me standing there, I'd sure as fuck not believe me.  Yeah, laugh all you like, and it IS funny, but it's true.  And I'm not even a bad man.  Am I, Jess?  Hey, shut the fuck up, I grandfathered you into this office and I can grandfather you right the hell back to Wichita.  Who needs a drink?"

- Judge Walter Adeggiano, July 2019


Peter opened the door to Claire Bennet's face, and he couldn't help smiling at her as he always did, but she was the last person on earth he wanted to see right now.  Especially now that…  "Claire.  What are you doing here?"  He swung the door wide, letting her in.

She gave him her trademark tight little smile.  "Playing courier."  She held up a thick accordion file case.  "Dad was going to bring it by, but I offered... I wanted to see if you were okay."

Peter sighed.  "And did he tell you what's in that case?"

Claire nodded reluctantly, but didn't drop her eyes.  "Peter, I'm so sorry.  It must be... it has to be like losing them all over again."

Peter felt an unexpected rush of heat behind his eyes.  He blinked the tears away.  "Yeah, it kind of is."  He dropped his head, not knowing where to look.

Claire set the files on the table, and came to Peter and put her arms around him, tightly, pressing her head into his chest.  He held her for a moment, swallowing against the lump in his throat.  Claire said, softly, "You're still my uncle.  I don't care what any piece of paper says.  You're my uncle just as much as Noah is my dad, and that's final."

Peter, startled and grateful, closed his eyes for a moment and let himself drift.  Claire's hair smelled like roses, and was soft beneath his fingertips.  He buried his nose in her hair and breathed in, feeling her pressed against him.  He knew he wasn't her uncle.  "That's right," he answered her, in the same soft tone she had used.  "Always."

Claire pulled back and took both of Peter's hands in her own, smiling sadly at him.  She lifted an eyebrow expectantly.  Peter was surprised into a laugh.  "What, now?"

"What better time?  You need a pick-me-up."

Peter shrugged, but Claire was right, and there wasn't any good reason not to.  He let her power flow into him through their hands, feeling his body rejuvenate itself, aches and pains disappearing as it flushed with health; their little routine.

She tilted her head.  "Feel better?"

"Life is shit, but I could run ten miles without breaking a sweat."  He tried to make it sound like a joke.

She touched his cheek.  "Peter, what are you going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

She sighed.  "Are you going to go and look for him?"

Peter blinked.  "I hadn't thought about it.  This has all happened so fast."

Claire went over to the table, opening the file.  "Well... I know you, Peter.  Once you recover from all this shock, you're going to want to go and track him down.  And you won't tell us, either, you'll just disappear.  You don't know where he is any more than the rest of us do, which means you'll waste a lot of time and energy."  She looked up at him.  "Tell me I'm wrong."

Peter went and sat at the table.  "Sounds like you know me."  He thumbed the edge of the stack of papers.  "I guess... yeah, if he's my brother, I want to find him.  I need to find him.  But Claire, today is not that day.  I'm still in shock.  I can't believe Mom – Angela – that she never told..." he drifted off.  Because Angela knew me, too, and once upon a time, running after Sylar would have been fatal.  And I would have done it anyway.  Claire sat down next to him and took his hand firmly, continuing to rifle through papers with the other.  Peter smiled, weakly.  "Claire, thanks for coming over."

She glanced up at him, that same wary little smile on her lips.  It suited her better at thirty than it had at twenty.  Claire still looked young, but her eyes showed her age, as guarded and wry as that smile, now.  "Peter, you've been holding down the Petrelli name singlehandedly since Angela got sick, you have meetings with legislators five times a week and five online bulletin boards devoted to keeping specials in touch, you're – let's say – a little overextended, dealing with Sylar as well.  You know, it might not kill you to actually ask for help when you need it.  You still have a family.  That's why I'm here, okay?  I didn't want you..."

He squeezed her hand and finished for her:  "... jumping to conclusions and running off because of my own issues, I get it.  And I couldn't anyway.  Too many responsibilities."  He sighed.  He wasn't as young as he'd once been, either, immortality aside.  He didn't have the heart to go on a useless search.  "But this... this isn't me diving into hero work again.  Sylar."  He swallowed.  "He's family.  I guess to both of us in a way, now."

Claire looked down, shuddering slightly.  "I could have lived perfectly happily without ever seeing his face again."

"Have you seen him lately?"

She hesitated.  "Once in a while, I used to spot him.  Like he was checking in on me or something.  He never came close enough to talk... but if he did want to get close, how would I know?  Anyway, I'm pretty sure I scared him off, though it still seems odd to say that."

Peter was frozen.  "You... scared him off?"

She laughed, tightly.  "I just told him to go away, Peter, okay?  He couldn't possibly have had a reason for following me around."

Peter winced.  "What if he were following you around because I told him to?"

Claire didn't hesitate an instant before shaking her head.  "No."

Peter sighed, rubbing his forehead.  "I did tell him to, Claire.  I'm sorry… I thought maybe you were alone too much, not taking care of yourself."

"Doesn't matter.  He followed me around before the Wall, I hardly expected him to stop.  Peter, you may have sent him, but all you did was give him permission to do it more frequently and openly."  Peter stared at her, and she lifted an eyebrow at him.  "You've been thinking you had him trained, all this time.  Peter, come on.  He's still a hunter, even if he's recently been stopping just before tearing someone's throat out."

Peter didn't know whether to concede the point or not; so many of his assumptions about Sylar were muddled now.  "Well, then, he had some of his own reasons for tracking you down, Claire, but I don't think he wanted to bother you.  I used to see him every few weeks when he was off on his disappearing trips."  Peter shook his head.  "I don't think he knows that I know.  He was always buried in a crowd or in the shadows somewhere, and I always still knew he was there... I thought it was because we'd spent so much time together I'd developed a sixth sense for him.  But now, I wonder.  Maybe it was something else."  He pulled the top sheet toward him.  It was a his own birth certificate, the edges slightly stiff and curling.  Peter Hugh Gray.  That's not my name, my middle name is Ethan...  He shook his head.  Nothing seemed to belong to him anymore.  "This past year he's really been trying to stay away for good.  He hasn't appeared any time recently."

"The one year out of ten that you most needed everybody's support, he finally falls off the map completely."  Claire bit her lip.  "Bastard."

Peter let go of Claire's hand to rub her shoulder.  "At least he hasn't hurt anybody."

Claire leaned on her fist, contemplatively.  "That we know of.  It's driving me a little crazy, honestly.  What is he doing with himself?  Sylar was never one to sit still and do nothing."  She flapped her hand in irritation and then quickly dug a few more documents out.  "Dad flagged these for you, I haven't read them yet.  Here, take a look.  I'm not sure what they're about, something from Primatech's research."




Behind the Wall


Peter moved into Sylar's apartment after the first few illusory months together.  He had been staying in a building down the street, moving from room to furnished room, trying to find one that felt comfortable.  He realized that he kept seeking out smaller and smaller spaces; sleeping in corners on piles of blankets, back to the wall, defensively.  More defensively than he would have been against a world of people.  This was a defense against the terrifying emptiness.

At night, this place was frightening.  Everything seemed to waver, to shift.  Sleep could be risky, you might wake to find you were sinking into the bed; Parkman's reality seemed to depend somewhat upon the consciousness of the target.  For the first month, Peter had often used the nights to wander, and he'd sometimes found Sylar wandering too.

Sylar didn't yield to the temptation to barricade himself in, but he had been betraying his desperation for contact another way; following Peter around, flickering in and out of his field of view any time they were not deliberately together.

That sight, just a shadow passing, felt like someone else.  It didn't necessarily have to be Sylar.  Just another human being; just someone else.  And Peter gravitated toward it.

Sylar said nothing when Peter appeared with a bedroll on his back, but mutely helped him move his things in, such as they were; each of them had a small collection of objects, detritus from the phantom city picked up here and there.  Sylar had his books, his watches, his tools.  Peter had found a battered Rubik's cube one day and wordlessly handed it to Sylar; the puzzle now had pride of place, high on one of the bookshelves.  Sylar liked mixing it up and re-solving it now and then.  Peter had less need for objects, but he had a few comics, some pencils and paper, a comb, a toothbrush.  He set himself up in the bedroom next to Sylar's, and dragged and pushed the bed flush against the adjoining wall.

If either of them noticed that Peter's actions had them sleeping at night with nothing thicker than a layer of sheetrock and insulation between them, neither mentioned it.  But the first night there, Peter woke up from a dead sleep to a muffled noise, barely audible in the other apartment, and he rolled over and placed his hand against the wall.  The noise quieted.  Peter knew that Sylar was awake, that the noise had been some kind of distress... whether tears or bedsprings twitching in the violent awakening from a nightmare, he couldn't say... and he knew that Sylar had his own hand pressed to the wall.

No, not Sylar.  A human being had his hand pressed to that wall.  It could have been anybody.  The wall obscured whoever it was in a way that was comforting; Peter fell asleep soundly with his hand still lightly pressed to the surface.

They both wandered far less with the new sleeping arrangement, and each night, Peter would wake once or twice, roll over to lay a hand on the wall, just to feel the touch of reality and humanity on the other side.




March 2020


"And what would you do, if it were your son?  Your daughter, born with these abilities... yes, these gifts, I will call them gifts.  They don't know where it comes from.  Maybe it was inside me, but I have yet to hear a single scientist come forth to tell me what gene did this, whether it was me, whether it was my husband, or our parents.  Maybe it happens spontaneously.  Maybe it's the touch of God.  All I know is, it could be your baby.  And if that happens, you'll be where I am, crying for equality and protection, in whatever words you can find."

- Thymina Jallston, the Mercy Rally, August 2018


Peter scanned another page, his eyes starting to cross from the bad handwriting and degrading photocopies.  "Looks like we have some case studies done on... oh.  Twins."  He paged through the document.  "They only have two, but they reference other studies to siblings..."  Peter had a grasp of medical jargon, but some of the genetics material confounded him.  He flipped past the theoretical abstracts and moved to the case studies.  "Joanna and Alexander Jackson, age 12, clairvoyance and..." he glanced up.  "Have you ever heard of 'shielding'?"

Claire lifted an eyebrow.  "No, but have you ever noticed that half these words seem to be made up?"

Peter half-smiled.  "I've noticed."  He kept scanning the page.  "If I understand this correctly... Joanna Jackson was clairvoyant, she could send sense the presence of people and locate them, and she could astrally project herself, but she couldn't turn it off, she drifted a little outside of her body all the time.  When she was with Alex, her gift stabilized.  So he was grounding her, I guess."  He flipped the page, read another paragraph.  Peter's brows knit together over darkening eyes, and he abruptly shoved the papers violently away from him.  "JESUS!"  He got up.

Claire looked startled.  "What is it?"

"Just... read it."

Claire pulled the document toward her, her eyes flickering back and forth over the page.



Day 13 - Aug 7 12:05 Observation 3-38C

Variable:  Isolation

Notes:  Subjects exhibited signs of intense emotional distress upon being separated; subject A kept in cell C, subject B moved to 2-28A, care taken to ensure subjects were kept at a maximal geographical distance with psychological emphasis:  subjects informed separation to endure permanently, upon which subject A exhibited SUI...


Claire looked up.  "I think this says they split up the twin sister and brother?"

Peter replied, harshly, "It says they told a young girl that they were taking her brother away from her forever, and she was so terrified she wet herself.  At the age of twelve.  That's fear for your life."

Claire looked sick.  "What happened?"

"They did it anyway and she killed herself the next day."

Claire tried and couldn't find the words that said it explicitly, but there were some stats recorded and a very boldly scribbled Subj. A Term Aug 8 03:32 more study needed in the bottom margin and a few other impenetrable technical terms.  She pushed the document away from her, slightly more delicately than Peter had done.  "Why would Dad send you this?"

Peter ran a nervous hand through his hair and tried to think.  "Give me that..." he grabbed the paper and flipped to a different case study.  "I wonder if it was just them."  He looked at Claire.  "Or do twins always have related abilities?"

Claire's eyes widened.  "I thought you and Sylar had the same ability.  Kind of different now, but you were born the same, right?"

"It's hard to say.  I wish there were more of these case studies... but it looks like..." Peter was reading ferociously now, his brows furrowing.  "Here's another pair of twins, 25 years old, and one of them is... what the hell is ekrixikinesis?"  He scanned down.  "Whatever it was, it was so dangerous they kept him in a lead-lined cell fifty feet underground.  And his sister... also a shielder, apparently.  Or a ground.  They wouldn't even separate these two."  He flipped another page.  "Terminated it says, five weeks later, it doesn't say why or how."  He looked up at Claire.  "One twin is the unstable element."

"The other is the ground."  She blinked.  "Peter?"

"And what if there's always one unstable twin?"  He felt himself paling.  "What if something always goes wrong when you separate them?"

She pressed a hand to her forehead.  "I knew you were about to say that.  Hold up."  She held up one hand and dug her phone out of her pocket, hitting the speed dial and pressing it to her ear.  Peter knew who she was calling before she even spoke.  "Dad?  What's this about twins with abilities?  If there was something you wanted to tell Peter, you should have just told him."  She paused.  "Well, why don't you tell him now, then?"  She held the phone out.

Peter took it.  "Noah, talk to me, do these case studies mean what they seem to mean?"

Noah's voice was calm, but that meant nothing.  "We've only found a few twins during the course of Primatech's history, Peter, and every time we find a twin pair, their abilities complement each other in some way.  I didn't want to push my own conclusions on you because, well, so far I'm probably the only living person who's drawn them.  Nobody's looked at this research for probably thirty years."

"There haven't been any twins since then?"

"Apparently there was a dry spell, or else we just weren't finding them.  There was a rumor some years back that a pair of twins had surfaced and had contact with Pinehearst, but as you know, all of those files went up in flames.  Aside from that, nothing.  There's another possibility, that worries me... your mother could have been concealing twin cases.  She's one of the few who would have been able to do it."

"That's insane, but it seems insane that she took me to begin with.  Why?  Why would she do that?  How did she even know the Grays?"

"Well, we had been keeping tabs on Samson Gray for some time, that much I know.  I don't know why she took you, Peter.  And I'm sorry, but I can't tell you the answer to the question you really want answered."

Peter closed his eyes.  "Did Gabriel become Sylar because we were separated?"

Noah paused.  "No, that's not it.  Peter, the question you really want answered is whether or not you could have saved Nathan."

Peter shook his head, even as he knew Noah was right.  "Would that be such a bad thing to wonder?  But more than that, I do want to know if I could have prevented... Sylar becoming what he was.  You don't know him that well as he is now, Noah..."

"He's a killer, Peter.  Personally, I've never known one to change his stripes."  He sighed.  "Although I suppose I have very little room to talk.  Peter, I don't know that your presence has helped him.  After so many years spent being what he is?  He has to be irrevocably damaged, and it doesn't matter how long he's been quiet out there... Sylar is still a very dangerous man.  And that research... it's inconclusive.  You know that any medical journal on earth would require far more evidence before drawing any kind of conclusion."

Peter nearly shouted, "Then why did you give it to me!?"

Noah answered quietly.  "Because it's the truth."

Both of them paused, and Peter found himself thinking about Nathan again, wishing he could just fly away.  The truth.  It was more than Angela would have given him, and Peter had to give Noah credit for that.

Noah said, "Peter, whatever you decide to do, my only request is that you keep me and Claire in the loop about it.  That's a part of why I'm telling you about this.  You would have found out anyway, but this way, we can all tackle this together."

Peter laughed a little, bitterly.  "What, as a family?"

"At least as a team.  But I know Claire still sees you as family, and that's not a small thing."

Peter opened his eyes and gazed across the table into Claire's clear hazel eyes, which were amber in the light from the setting sun.  "No, it's not a small thing."  He sighed.  "I want you to send me everything you have on twins, and even siblings, with abilities.  I need to study this."

"What are you going to do, Peter?"

"Learn as much as I can while I wait."

"For what?"

Peter set his jaw.  "For him to find me again.  Regardless of how you feel about him or how 'inconclusive' this research is, I think we all need to pray he finds me soon."



Continue...


10/19/11--09:31: And Now These Three Remain - Part 3 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Behind the Wall


Sylar awoke to the sound of repetitive impact.  Sounds were strange in this wasteland of his mind; reverberations crept through surfaces they shouldn't have been able to, snuck around corners, sought the ear like the deceptive whine of a cricket in the walls.  It had something to do with the fact that Peter was the only other reality, he suspected, but without his intuitive aptitude, Sylar could never be sure.  It felt like Peter's reality that caused the effect, though.  Peter would hammer away at that wall, or yell in frustration, or take a step, and the sounds he made were close as a breath in Sylar's ear; as though they were trapped together in a space impossibly tiny, as though all this maze of empty streets was nothing more than an illusion in truth.

Sylar got up and rubbed his eyes, twitched at his clothing to straighten it.  He would need to wash it, soon... Parkman had paid closest attention to the details that would emphasize the passage of time; the accumulation of dirt, of wear and tear, sweat stains, dust.  It was funny, though.  Every time Sylar washed an article of clothing, it came out of the dryer looking brand new.  He supposed there were bound to be inevitable glitches in such a complex world.  It was just as well; he didn't relish the idea of hunting through the vacant shops for a new pair of pants or socks.  He'd never liked shopping in real life, stores were creepy, filled with false promises.  They were far eerier in this place.

He walked out to the Wall.  The walk never took the same amount of time or the same number of steps.  He knew, because he always timed his steps to the sound of the hammer, and counted by default; he'd always had a facility for numbers and timing and counting.  Sometimes he suspected he kept counting in his sleep.  Had Peter asked, Sylar could probably have told him exactly how many hammer strokes he'd perpetrated upon those bricks from the first day.

Peter wouldn't have wanted to know that.

Sylar approached the Wall, and sat down ten yards back, watching the bunch and stretch of the muscles beneath Peter's shirt.  It was marked with even blacker patches of sweat.  Sylar made a mental note to ask Peter to let him wash it soon.

Peter didn't turn around, but Sylar knew his presence had been noticed.  Neither of them could surprise the other here, not really.  Each maintained a faint awareness of the other that ebbed and surged, but never disappeared, and whenever Peter entered a room or a street corner where Sylar was, Sylar would feel his presence in such a subtle way that the inevitable touch or word or sound that established contact always seemed the amplification of a different kind of touch.  Sylar had never experienced anything like it.  It had been a year now since Peter had arrived in this place, a full year of feeling that constant mild touch of another's living presence.  Peter was close enough that Sylar was never without him, yet far enough that it was still distinctly apparent that they were two people.  Sylar had never realized before that you had to have both of these qualities in order to feel companionship.  You had to be close to someone and yet distinctly separate from them in order to not be alone; too close and they were merely a figment of your imagination, a piece of your own mind; too far, and you could not interact at all...  The idea made sense to him in a way it never had before.  It was almost unbearably sweet, after the long, dry, empty time he'd been trapped here alone.  He mused upon it often.

It was more reliable than his brief, volatile experiences of love, and less suffocating than his knowledge of family.  Had Sylar any experience of close friendship, he might have compared it to that, but it didn't appear to be that because they so seldom spoke, or smiled... so he merely felt it for what it was and basked in it like the first feeling of sun on his skin after a lifetime spent in darkness.  I'm not alone.  Peter is here.  Sylar sat quietly, watching Peter with unwavering eyes, listening to the rhythmic sounds of the hammer hitting the cruel, unbreaking Wall.  The rhythm was perfect.  Peter was as marked and steady as a well-tuned clock; Sylar knew how unusual it was, and wondered why Peter of all people would have such a gift.  He wondered if Peter knew, if he'd perhaps played drums in the high school band, or tapped out endless patterns on his thigh while waiting in a doctor's office, or annoyed his family by tossing a ball against the wall and catching it for endless hours, the same way he was hammering so tirelessly now.

Sylar waited patiently.  He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, but at least he wasn't waiting alone.





April 2020


"And why do we condemn the witch-burners?  Don't even talk to me about Salem, that whole debacle was child's play compared to hundreds of years of witch-hunting before it, across Europe.  But why condemn it?  Because of its brutality?  Surprisingly, no.  We condemn it because nobody believes in witches anymore, and so we know that they were tormenting and killing innocent women and men, and even animals, that were claimed to be seeking the favor of Satan.  How silly, we think now.  How brutal, how ignorant.  And now, today, I ask you:  would we be so condemnatory if the witches had been real?  Would we be scoffing at those Puritans and Priests and Inquisitors of old, had we some kind of proof that Satan truly had granted powers to some, powers exchanged in vile agreements, powers intended to harm God's children?"

- The Reverend Emmy Lacent, October 2012


"Keep an eye on him.  I'll be there in a few minutes."  Claire closed her phone and spun the steering wheel, switching on her bar light.  The siren was twitchy, so she did the best she could to navigate traffic with the flashing signal alone, and managed to get to the scene in under half an hour.

There were tiny, blazing blue fires flickering around in the air, seemingly unattached to any fuel or other object.  They floated or swung or spun in little circles, and the officers at the scene were either ducking and weaving to escape the flying flares and sparks, or staring in numb, paralyzed fear.  Claire skidded to a stop and flung open her car door, sprinting toward the seeming source of the fires.  A couple of officers tried to block her way and she flashed her I.D. at them.  "Claire Bennet, Communal Protection, let me through!"  Her face was more recognizable than the I.D. was, and they let her through once they saw who she was.  Claire Bennet:  the cavalry on-call when a dangerous special went haywire.

"Claire!  Over here!"  Hydencker waved her over, his face grim.

She trotted over to him.  "Pyrokinetic?"

"At least.  But he just lets them loose and sets them flying like this.  I can't tell if the guy's even sane."

Claire was already pulling her hair back.  "I'll go talk to him.  Get your guys well back, okay?  It looks like the flares are just random, I don't think he wants to hurt anybody."

"Well, we'll figure that out at the psych profiling.  Go get him, gorgeous."

"Flirting won't get you anything you're not already getting from me."  She smirked and began to walk purposefully toward the alley, where, presumably, a frightened, defensive, possibly crazy special was lurking, waiting to unleash balls of flying fire if provoked.  Possibly he'd be open to an offer of help.  Possibly he could be reformed, a case could be made for him to live out on one of the Retreats.  Claire's best hope at all times was to ensure that as few specials as possible were hospitalized and put on 24-hour sedation.  Anything she could do for them, she would.  Anything she could do to help the public feel safer, she would do.

There wasn't anybody else who could do what she could do, as well and as publicly as she could do it:  survive anything and reach out to frightened specials and norms.  Even Sylar, immune to damage as he was, didn't have Claire's biggest advantage:  people tended to trust her on sight.

There he was.  Claire took a deep breath.  "Hi there.  May I talk to you for a few minutes?"

"Don't come any closer!"  He was barely outside his teens, and looked terrified.

Claire stopped and dropped to a half-sitting position, trying to look as non-terrifying as possible.  "I'll stay right here, then.  What's your name?"

He paused.  He was confused by her; a tiny, fragile-looking girl had no place in this situation.  "I'm… my name is Joey."

"Hi, Joey, I'm Claire.  I'm here to help you, okay?  I'm here to tell you that you don't have to be afraid."

She wished she could say it more truthfully.  He had a few reasons to be afraid.  Most of them were Sylar's fault.

* * *

Sylar shook himself from sleep, his heart pounding, his throat dry and sore, his eyes watering fiercely.  He blinked a few times and shook himself, trying to calm his breathing.  I'm not alone.  Peter is with me.  How long had it been since he'd felt that?

He sat up, feeling the way his body was fighting itself; his muscles wanted to be sore and tight across the shoulders, but the regeneration kept the cells from stiffening, prevented the de-oxygenation of the muscles.  It was a strange sensation, but it was the only way Sylar could know of how hard his mind and his body were fighting each other.  What had he been dreaming of?

Sylar realized there was a sound outside his window, hard and repetitive.  He listened.  They were doing some work on the water main just across the street from his motel room, and just now, someone was chiseling away at something, digging through the concrete.  Sylar folded his arms around himself, chafing against the roughened unwashed fabric of his shirt, which would need to be replaced soon.  He was in the real world now; clothing deteriorated, it had to be changed.  And Peter was here somewhere, but so far away.

It felt like nausea creeping up through his body, but Sylar was immune to nausea now.  Still, it was a sickness.  You are nothing.  He shuddered, feeling it eat away at his mind, removing anything that wasn't itself, its own insanity of hunger and need, a void crying to be filled with lust and power.

I'm not that person anymore.  I changed because of that place.

Think.  Quit being so afraid of your power that you stop using the first one that ever served you:  think, Sylar.  Figure this out.

With an abrupt snick of a puzzle piece falling into place, Sylar felt his analysis of the past change into the more correct configuration.  Perhaps I didn't change because of that place.  What if I changed because I was trapped there with Peter?

Sylar stood up and walked out the door, not bothering to lock it behind him.  He kept nothing in that place which he valued.  Everything in the world that he had ever loved was in D.C. right now, and for the moment, the only insanity he could feel inside of himself was whatever had impelled him to leave.

He felt the ache of the broken unspoken promise bleeding into every footstep.  I am sorry, Peter.  I know that if you hear my reasoning, you will never let me leave again.  I am the last person on Earth you would ever wish to be tied to, and yet, here we go again.




Behind the Wall


They didn't talk about Nathan.  They never talked about Nathan.  Sylar tried not to bring it up, and Peter couldn't so much as breathe Nathan's name in a whisper without his eyes betraying the desire to pound Sylar into bloody shreds… and watch him regenerate… and tear him apart again.

But he was always there.  Echoing between them like the painful eardrum waver after a gong tone, nearly aching.  You stole my brother from me.  My brother, who I loved more than anybody in the world.

And perhaps it was the solitude, the years of agony that had changed him, but Sylar looked back on his many killings, and couldn't... quite... make any sense of them.  He had killed Nathan Petrelli.  Why?

Sylar had a nearly perfect memory, but none of the memories seemed to make sense in this place.  The deaths were real in his mind; he himself was not.  Somehow, he was a different person here.  He couldn't remember who that other Sylar was.

It can't be that simple.  He wouldn't simply evaporate and float away.  Perhaps I left him floating by the balcony, and only this thing that I don't feel is myself made it back down to the ground.  That would mean he was lost inside my own head.  Which doesn't exactly make him gone.

I've thought that I was rid of him before, after all.




April 2020


"Of course this program isn't a perfect solution.  When you think of a perfect solution, let me know.  In the meantime, the public has been resoundingly clear about this:  normal, law-abiding citizens want to be able to see them coming.  And I don't think that's unreasonable."

- Larry Fitman, FBI Headquarters, June 2016


Peter burst out the door of his apartment, running down the stairs.  He couldn't bear to peruse one more page of the so-called research anymore, and anyway Noah had been right... there was so little of it, and Peter had already read and analyzed everything from that box of horrors so many times he felt he could recite the case studies in his sleep.  None of it helped him with the question he desperately needed to answer:  where was Sylar?  Was it already too late?

The front door banged back into the wall as Peter stormed through it, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he strode angrily down the street.  People drifted before him like parting fog, only half seen.  The look on his face wouldn't have scared the usual bystander, but the bright green band on his arm frightened many of them... it marked him as a special.  The armband was annoying and more than a little sinister in its implications, but Peter felt it was a fair concession given the potential of Sylars in the world.  He didn't bother to point out the obvious flaw, the fact that malicious specials would simply refuse to wear the armband (Sylar had never once worn his).  People in high positions liked registries and identifiers.  They made the public feel safer.  Or else concentrated their paranoia, maybe...

Sylar would be able to explain it.  Peter could readily admit that he'd depended on Sylar's knowledge of power and manipulation to keep himself afloat in his new and very public role.  And after ten years of coaching, Peter still fumbled as a politician.  Ambassador, they called him.  The Face of the Specials.  Young, handsome, entreating, caring, good, enthusiastic.  With only one dark shadow falling over his life.

Peter swore.  Where IS he?

He thought about visiting Emma, maybe asking her to fly down and try her summoning power, but decided against it.  She was keeping a low profile ever since her door had been painted with death threats... she had moved to a different New York condo, and she didn't leave her new home very frequently.  He didn't want to endanger her, and he didn't want to stray too far from the boundaries of his own neighborhood, he wanted to be here so that Sylar could find him.  Please, please find me.

He walked into a secluded alley and slammed his hands against the brick, looking up, letting his eyes travel up the expanse until finally they met sky.




Behind the Wall


Sylar woke from the dreams again, blood and screams, a monster chasing him endlessly, endlessly through the night.  Its hands were closing on his throat when he finally woke, jolting up, gasping for breath and tearing the sheet away, his arms and legs flailing.  His wrist hit the wall with a sharp crack and he winced, rubbing it, blinking in the darkness, still not quite awake.

He fell back onto the pillow and groaned a little.  Sometimes he wondered if the nightmares were his own personal form of withdrawal; his internal killer, with no victims sacrificed to it and no powers to feed on, was coming to claim him.

All those faces...  They had looked so terrified.

That's what this felt like.  The feeling of knowing something was coming up behind you, that it was going to find you, that there was no escape.  He knew the same look was on his own face now.

A sound came through the wall, a knocking sound so gentle that it almost sounded like a brush rather than a rap.  Sylar hesitated, and then pressed his ear to the wall.  There were five soft taps, in perfect, even rhythm.

He swallowed bile down in his throat, and tapped five even knocks back, replying to Peter through the wall.

But you're not going to be left to the monster.  You're going to be saved.  You, the worst monster of all, you're the one who will be saved in the end.  Sylar closed his eyes, tears flooding behind his eyelids and spilling hotly out, down the sides of his face and into his hair.  He swiped at his temples, rubbing the wetness off.  Peter was knocking again, six taps this time.

Sylar turned on his side to face the wall and balled up his fist.  He tapped ten times.

When Peter tapped back, before he finished whatever number he intended to send, Sylar interrupted him, tapping an uneven beat in between the taps, a counterpoint.  Peter paused for a second, and then started to tap back steadily.  Sylar varied his rhythm, and after a few moments, Peter began to improvise as well, the two of them drumming in syncopation across the wall at each other.

After a few minutes, Sylar realized he was sitting up, tapping with both fists, and the two of them were clearly drumming toward a kind of crescendo.  He had begun to smile without realizing it.  He knocked a furious rhythm with his fists, the wall vibrating with both of them until they finally stopped with a resounding thump on both sides, and Sylar collapsed on the bed, laughing so loudly he knew he could be heard on the other side of the wall, because he heard Peter's voice, too, laughing.

Faintly he heard it, but clearly enough:  Peter yelled, "Now get some sleep for chrissakes!"

Sylar tapped shave and a haircut, Peter sent back the two bits, and Sylar closed his eyes, his lips still stretched in a smile, the skin beside his eyes still damp with tears.




April 2020


"I don't give a shit what Denmark's laws are!  There are plenty of countries with stiffer penalties than ours, there are countries where they're being dragged from their houses and flayed alive, their hides tacked out in the streets like a fucking banner!  And that's what humanity at large always wants to do!  So quit bending my fucking ear about fucking Nuremburg, and find a way to appease those bloodthirsty masses without us having to go that far!"

- Jackson Santez, Special Activities Division, CIA, 2017


Sylar breached the city limits driving, but as soon as he made it within a few miles of Peter's apartment, he abandoned the car and took to his feet.  He wanted to feel the city.  The hunger inside of him had reached the level of a dim roar, it made his ears ring and his vision double slightly, but something was eclipsing it -- the feel of Peter nearby.  And Sylar wondered to himself if he would have ever been able to really kill Peter, if he kept fighting him and engaging with him because of some other irresistible thing that bound them together.

It felt like some horrible kind of addiction in and of itself, and he shuddered.  But this close, he could almost smell Peter, and he couldn't stop, because Peter could somehow make the hunger go away.  Already he was having an effect.  Sylar felt it with every step he took; desire for something other than more powers, more control, more specialness.  Just let me have him back, please, I don't care what it means or what it costs.

He reached the neighborhood and his feet felt light.  He drew himself in, attempting to focus, managing not to electrocute the crowds around him.  He took one step, and then another, and another, knowing he was close.  He looked up and knew Peter's apartment was there.

But Peter wasn't in there, he was somewhere else.  Sylar could sense it, without knowing how.  Where are you?

He stood still before the entrance, baffled for a moment.  Immortal as he was, something inside him said he didn't have very much strength left.

It was then that the hunger and the madness rose up inside him and tried to eat his mind again.  You are NOTHING.

"Sylar!"

Sylar gasped, and then Peter was holding him, he was falling but Peter was holding him up, guiding him down so that he sat gently on the ground, and Peter was gripping his shoulders and then Peter's arms were around him.  Sylar closed his eyes, overwhelmed for a moment, his body going absolutely lax with relief.  "Peter.  I'm nothing," he murmured, dull with exhaustion.

"Sylar, you're my brother.  Can you hear me?  Gabriel... Sylar... whatever."  Peter's voice was shaking.

Several people were gathered around now, asking if the man on the ground was okay.  They backed away when they saw Peter's armband.  He hoped that none of them recognized him.  Sylar's eyes fluttered open.  "Peter?  Can you say that again?"

Peter kept his head down.  "He's fine, he's just traveled a long way.  Hey, can you stand?"

Sylar nodded, struggling with his legs.  He stood, leaning hard on Peter.  They moved toward the door.

An agony of time later, Peter finally got Sylar up the stairs and into the apartment, and they collapsed onto his sofa.  Sylar caught his breath, waiting.  He was leaning against Peter's shoulder, his hand on Peter's arm.  He inched closer, breathing him in.  He waited.  There was something... but it couldn't be...

Peter put his arm around Sylar and pulled him into a rough embrace, speaking into his hair.  "You're my brother, Sylar.  Do you hear me?  We're family."

Sylar shook his head, uncomprehending.  He clung tighter.

Peter sighed.  "Just rest, okay?  I'll tell you more when you're rested."




Behind the Wall


They stopped pretending to ignore each other, eventually.

Peter wanted to strangle Sylar every time Sylar tried to distract him.  Peter knew perfectly well that the passage of time here was an illusion, but Sylar persisted in making him eat, drink, sleep at regular intervals, wash his clothes.  Peter didn't see the point in any of these things if they didn't chip away at that wall, but Sylar kept on, not trying to convince him of anything, but not letting up, either.

One day Peter rounded on him and nearly did strangle him.  His hands were twitching at his sides, and Sylar merely looked down at them, and then up into Peter's eyes, and Peter read it there:  I know exactly what you're feeling.  Who would know better than Sylar the urge to kill another human being?  Peter suspected he couldn't permanently injure Sylar in this place, but just the idea of becoming like him in some way was enough to keep him from trying it.  Peter counted to ten and tried words.  "Why.  Do you keep doing this?  Why are you distracting me from what we have to do to get out?  You said you were going to help me."

"I'm trying to, Peter."  Sylar took a deep breath.  "Please remember that I was here for three years before you arrived, and I was totally isolated."

"And?"

"You have to eat.  You have to sleep.  You have to develop a routine."  Sylar touched Peter's shoulder, almost absently.  Peter noticed that he did that sometimes, as though constantly reminding himself that another person was still there.  "What do you think I did when I first came here?  I wandered, I broke things, I ran for days trying to find someone else or a way to escape.  I went... I went mad.  And then I would wake up, and nothing had changed, and I would go even crazier... wake up again, with the same madness."  He coughed roughly.  "I finally learned.  You have to have a routine, something to do.  What you're doing, hammering at the Wall all hours of the day and night... if I didn't interrupt you, you would lose yourself."  They were walking together now, back to Sylar's apartment.

Peter looked up into the sky.  The sunlight had a late afternoon feeling.  He tried to imagine being here alone.  "I guess I lose track of time because I know it's not real.  Admitting that it's really passing... it feels like giving up, giving into the illusion."

"I never lose track of time."  Sylar blinked.  "I can't."  He glanced at Peter.  "Do you, really?"

Peter blinked, and knew he'd been hammering for five hours.  He wondered how he knew that.  "I guess not."  In real life his arms and shoulders would be burning, the muscles locking up, giving out, he would have blisters rising across his palms and fingers.  Soreness flickered through his body as though trying to catch hold, and then drifted away.  All he felt was a mental weariness, a depressive, gray feeling.  The Wall would never chip or wear and he would never get through it.  There was nothing in this tiny little world that could lift or ease this feeling; defeat, he was feeling the defeat of years stretching ahead of him...

"I'm making lasagna," Sylar said as they mounted the stairs.

Peter caught a little bit of the rich smell wafting out as they opened the door, and imagined that he could feel his stomach rumble… hunger, but not soreness?  But just like that, the image of the despair of years stretching out before him was shattered, effectively nullified by the more present wants of his body.  Even if those wants were illusory.  Even if the food itself was.  He blinked.  "Thanks."  He wasn't entirely convinced yet, but Sylar might have a point.

Sylar steered Peter to the table and sat him down.  "You're welcome."

When Sylar's hands left his shoulders, Peter felt it like an ache.  He supposed he craved any piece of reality there was in this place, even if the only real thing here was Sylar.



Continue...


10/19/11--09:36: And Now These Three Remain - Part 4 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



April 2020


"And you're saying that this Noah Bennet has inside information on technology that can be used to nullify specials?  So why, exactly, have we not brought him in yet?  Retired?  You don't say.  Retired.  Sammy, unless he's been retired from this earth, you need to get in touch with him and dig out everything he knows."

- Dana McDougal, NSA Headquarters, March 2020


Claire walked in and stopped dead, her heart rising into her throat, years of training placing her in a fighting stance before she even realized she had shifted.  Sylar was on Peter's couch, his long arms and legs curled up ridiculously, in fetal position.  He appeared to be asleep.

Peter came from the bedroom and put a finger to his lips.  He walked to her and put an arm around her shoulders, shepherding her back out the door.  "Come on."  Claire went willingly enough, her legs moving awkwardly, clumsy from shock.  They stepped out into the hallway.

Claire swallowed.  "So he found you."

Peter nodded.  "It's okay, he hasn't hurt anybody, but I think he came to the same conclusion we did... I'm not sure how, but he does have a way of figuring things out.  He decided to come find me just in time.  He wasn't making much sense; I got him upstairs and he was out like a light.  He managed to tell me that nothing bad happened, and he said that he needed me, but didn't know why... I don't think he really understands yet what I tried to tell him."

"What are you going to do now?"

He sighed.  "What would you do if you were me?"

Claire closed her eyes and hugged him.  "I would do the most heroic and selfless of all possible things if I were you, because that's what you always do."

Peter's arms were tight around her, and she could feel his heartbeat, wild and unsteady as though he were still in a state of alarm.  His smell was comforting, but she also smelled Sylar on him, a faint, dangerous scent that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck.  "Claire, he may have to stay here."  She heard the pained note in his voice and knew what it meant.

Claire felt her breath catch in her throat like a sob.  "Well, I'm not letting him scare me away from you.  I'll still be coming here a few times a week.  You better tell him to behave."

Peter nodded, and she felt him relax.  "You're quite the hero yourself."

"I only learned from the most noble."  She pulled away, looking up into his eyes.  "Peter, you've found him, so you can relax now.  Don't do anything crazy."

He blinked, half-smiling.  "What do you mean?"

"I mean you still haven't processed your grief for Angela and you have a bad history with things like this."  She held his eyes.

Peter seemed to wilt a little.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I guess I need to go back to thinking about that, now..."

Claire nodded.  "I'll be keeping an eye on you.  No crazies?  Will you promise me?"

"No crazies, except for the one on my couch.  I swear."  His eyes twinkled.

She laughed.  "You really are relieved!"

Peter shook his head, his eyes lighting with a strange excitement.  "I think it's more than that, Claire.  There's something about me that's more whole when he's around.  I never wanted to admit it before, but I can now... I don't think it's just him that needs me.  I hated the past year, Claire.  I hated it."  His vehemence seemed to surprise him.  "And it's been more than… Angela's… Mom's… death.  More than the politics, and the public fear I keep trying to beat down every day.  I just… the only times I've felt any peace at all in the past year was when you were with me, reminding me to get out of my own head."  He cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand.

Claire felt a flush rise in her cheeks.  "I… I think you may be right, you really haven't been... well."

Peter was looking at her with eyes that were faintly troubled, or confused.  "I've been numb."

She poked him in the chest.  "You feel that?"

He smiled.  "I did."

"No more numb, then."

"No more.  I think I'll be feeling things a little bit more, now."  Peter kept looking at her, mixed emotions in his eyes, but not moving any closer.

Claire ran her hands up and down the sides of his sleeves until she realized she was only continuing to stand there in order to touch him for a little while longer, and then she shook herself and gave him her little smile.  "Time for me to leave.  Let me know when Sleeping Beauty wakes up."

And Peter finally moved, kissing her on the forehead, a quick but soft press of his lips, warm on her skin.  "Will do."

She walked out into the street, quiet defiance radiating off her in waves to strike anybody casting a second glance at her armband.  Let them wonder.  Let them wonder if I could kill them.  Nothing had gone the way she had planned it; well, then, she would roll with things the way they were.




Behind the Wall


Sometimes Peter woke up to the same nightmare, Sylar's nightmare of eyes and clutching, tearing hands and monstrous teeth, a voice that turned you hollow and beat you into nothingness... and he would fling himself up from the bed, twisting and sweating, looking around for the monster, and for a brief moment, there it would be in the walls, looking out at him.  And then it vanished.  In Parkman's world, you could make some things come true, even if just for a moment, with just the right mindset.  And so Sylar brought forth the monster from his dreams and made it real.  It was terrifying at times like this, but it also gave Peter hope that the Wall might be breached somehow, mentally.  It wasn't made of brick, he knew that much.  If they could only manifest a way through it... maybe by believing hard enough that the hammer would break through...

His thoughts were interrupted by a light tapping on the wall.  After so many nights, Peter could practically hear in the sound how terrified Sylar was.  This had been a bad one; only the really bad ones leached over into Peter's mind from Sylar's.  Peter quickly knelt on the bed and tapped back.  It's gone.  It's not real.  He wondered if Sylar had always had bad dreams.

He wondered if Sylar realized that Peter knew what he was dreaming about.  Or if the Wall was there to keep the monster in.  Peter blinked, on the cusp of a new thought, but then the pattern of knocks returned, and he had to answer it.




April 2020


Address:  1612 Sycamore Lake Drive
Neighborhood:  Dewittling North
Date:  3/2/19
Zone:  3
Beat:  37
Incident #:  A23-3990
Description:  Ms. A.H. defr. school, daughter special, attended without registry
Charge:  Harboring Unreg. Sp.
Action:  Daught. expelled, fine lev'd., search proc., reg. comp.
Court Date:  5/9/19


Sylar woke to the feel of someone rubbing his shoulder.  "Hey, look who's awake," said a friendly voice, and Sylar sighed.  He didn't want to wake up completely, didn't want to become so painfully aware of everything in the world around him.  He didn't want to know things.  This was good; this touch, this voice, this feeling that he'd somehow landed in a safe place.  He curled up more tightly.  The voice spoke again.  "Sylar, wake up.  It's okay, you're safe here."

Sylar let his eyes slide open, and looked blearily up at Peter, crouched down beside him, so close that their breath was mingling.  Sylar reached out and put a hand on the side of Peter's neck.  "Real."

"Yes, I'm real.  Does it feel better to be back here?"  Peter's eyes were strangely intent.

Sylar said, "I think so.  I don't remember most of yesterday.  I lost..." he squinted, "over eight and a half hours.  Then I heard your voice saying I was your brother.  What did you mean?"

Peter rubbed his forehead.  "I would tell you to sit down, but you're already flat."

Sylar sat up instead.  "Peter."

Peter looked at him for a moment.  "Angela's dead.  She..." he choked for a second and looked away.  "It happened two weeks ago."

Sylar felt something numb and ugly settle in the pit of his stomach.  Carefully, he said, "I'm sorry, Peter."

"No you're not."  But Peter put a hand on Sylar's knee, even as he still looked away.  You're not, but I know why, and it's okay.  But don't lie to me.

Sylar nodded.  She had been sick when he'd left, but he had been certain, with no particular stake in the outcome, that she still had years of life left.  He wondered what happened.

Peter cleared his throat, still crouched on the ground beside the sofa.  He rose up and sat beside Sylar, turning to face him, but kept his eyes resolutely down.  "Noah Bennet found some legal documents after the funeral, and."  He took a breath.  "I was adopted, Sylar.  I'm actually your twin brother.  I was born a Gray."  He said the sentences with soft amazement, as though he hadn't quite processed them himself yet.

Sylar felt as though he'd just been dipped in an ice bath.  He started shuddering.  "That's impossible."

"I know, look, I went into shock when they told me."  Peter kept his eyes on Sylar's.

Sylar looked back at him in horror, and said the first thing that came into his mind.  "Peter, I am so sorry."

Peter stared at him, blinking, and then he seemed to rise out of himself and see Sylar clearly again.  He took Sylar by the shoulders.  "Why?  This isn't a bad thing."

Sylar mutely shook his head, unable to answer.  He couldn't explain it, but there was something terribly wrong about this... it was wrong that Peter should be linked to him, in a way that was so much stronger than what they'd shared behind the Wall... it was inextricable, close as blood and flesh.  He took a shuddery, gasping breath, and realized he had shared a womb with the man in front of him, nurtured by the same blood, stayed as close to him as two meshed gears in the mechanism of one of his watches, linked in every movement.  That Peter should be like him... the same genes, the same blood... the same tainted blood, the same murderous blood... Sylar rose from the sofa and backed away, flickers of blue lightning rising over his shoulders.  "No."

Peter stood, and Sylar saw that he was in medic mode now, analyzing, cautious.  "Sylar?  Why don't you take a deep breath for me."

"I'm breathing."

"Okay, then, do me a favor and count your breaths for me."

Sylar gritted his teeth.  "I'm fine, I'm not some patient of yours!"

Peter smiled at him, uncertainly.  "Yeah, I know.  I know you're not.  Sylar?"

"What."  Sylar realized he was breathing again, and actually did begin counting the breaths in his head.  One.  Two three.  Four.  Five, six.  Seven.  Eight.

"Sylar, are you... okay.  Are you apologizing for your family, or for you?"

Sylar shook his head as though rejecting the entire premise of the question, but already his lips were answering for him, "Both."

"Our parents weren't our fault."

Sylar stared at Peter, stunned.  "Our parents."  He shook his head again, "No."

Peter's eyes were dark and liquid now.  "Yeah.  It's okay, Sylar, just... take your time with it."

Sylar covered his face with his hands, realizing that he had been spared Peter's initial reaction to this news.  It didn't matter that much; he knew what it must have been.  But it was a mercy, even if small.  If he had... if.  "Peter," he said, almost silently.  And then it all rocketed its way home, deep into his bones, and he felt it, every moment of his life, the way he'd constantly reached and pulled and dug and flew up and searched high and low and the way nothing had ever been enough, because some part of him had always been missing.  Would always be missing, now, because they couldn't be brothers.  Not the way they had been intended to be.  Not the way they'd been born.

Rage was filling him like a hot, dark flood, and that had always meant death, in the past.  Sylar couldn't look at Peter's face any longer.  He staggered down the hall to the bedroom, locking the door behind him and sliding down it to a crouch.  A flicker of blue electricity danced around the doorknob.

* * *

Peter pressed his forehead to the door, knowing somehow that Sylar was laying against it.  He ran his fingers over the wood.  He had given Sylar some time in there, time enough to think, but he wasn't comfortable with Sylar being alone, even with Peter as close as a door panel away.  Sylar sounded like he'd come very close to losing it, out there on his own.  Peter's gut churned with the knowledge of what might have happened if he'd stayed gone another day.

I could have lost him forever.  Mother and both brothers, gone.  I can't afford that much.  I can't afford what I've lost already.  Peter thought about Angela's note, and closed his eyes, bile rising in his throat.  He had no intention of letting Sylar out of his sight now that he was so close again.

Peter closed one hand into a fist, and gently rapped on the door with his knuckles, five times, evenly.  He smiled reassuringly.  Maybe Sylar would feel the reassurance, even if he couldn't see it.

He waited one minute, and two minutes.  He tapped again, five times.

Sylar tapped back, five times, unevenly.  Peter was shocked.  They'd played this game for years behind the Wall, and in all of that time, Sylar had never tapped any rhythm that wasn't perfect.  Peter reassuringly sent six taps back.  Come on, come back to me.

He felt a rustling and then got six perfect taps back.  Peter relaxed.  They were uneven because he was tapping with the back of his hand, over his shoulder.  Now he's turned around.  Peter began tapping in a slow, even rhythm.  Sylar responded in counterpoint, and soon they were mixing it up, but it stayed slow and quiet and tentative, not rising to an enthusiastic pounding like it sometimes had before.  Peter kept tapping along, playing.  He had a sudden, crystal clear memory, a memory of something that never happened:  the two of them as small boys, tapping rhythms and codes to each other in the dark of night, hating to be split apart into two bedrooms.  A memory that should have been real.  Peter felt a hard lump fill his throat, and he pressed his forehead to the door, and whispered, "Gabriel."

Peter felt the door give against him as Sylar unlocked it, and he leaned back, listening to the sounds on the other side.  Sylar was scooting across the floor and pulling the door open, staying on his knees.

Peter crawled in on all fours, feeling the same exhaustion that he knew Sylar was feeling.  He closed the door once he was in the room, and collapsed back against it, and Sylar fell beside him, their shoulders pressed together.  Peter looked at him.  Sylar's face was covered with tears, and his chest was hitching, but he was quiet.  Peter said, "You... yourself, the way you are... it isn't your fault, either."

Sylar didn't look at him.  "The Company made me a killer?  Save it.  They encouraged tendencies that were already there.  I had so many chances to stop, Peter."

"No, that's not what I mean.  There's more you don't know.  Twin specials aren't supposed to be separated."

Sylar looked at Peter with confusion, seeming to wake up.  "Twin specials."

Peter nodded.  "Listen, I can explain it to you more later, but I need you to promise me something now:  Sylar, you can't ever leave me, okay?  We have to stick together.  I'm your ground."  He took Sylar's hand firmly in his.  "Promise me you won't leave again."

Sylar blinked at him.  "The twins.  They were the same."

"What?"

"I've seen this before, and the twins… but her power was changed, and him… he…"

Peter shook his head.  "Look, we can talk about it in a second, but seriously, swear you won't leave!"

Sylar looked down and up again at Peter's face.  "But... I can't stay with you."

"You have to.  People will die if you don't."

Sylar shook his head, bewildered.  "You keep me from killing people?  Just like he did with her..."  Peter let go of Sylar's hand, took him by both shoulders and shook him.  Sylar refocused on him.  "I... promise.  I won't leave you.  I don't think I can, anyway."  He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the door.  "Claire's not going to like this."

"Claire already knows what I know, she'll be fine."  Peter relaxed.  Sylar had slumped down, and was muttering something to himself.  Peter looked at him, and every mental image he'd worked so hard to beat down back at the Wall was still there.  He could see the killer, the enemy, the merciless monster he'd fought for so long.  But behind it he could also see a little boy whose large brown eyes had never met his own over the dinner table, whose hand he had never held one last time before leaving the car to walk the lonely halls the first day of school.  And he reached out and took Sylar and pulled him forward and wrapped his arms tightly around him.  Sylar's arms rose tentatively, and then he was clinging to Peter, shaking.  Peter stroked his hair.  "Hey, Gabriel."

Sylar said, muffled, "What?"

"I'm your older brother, did you know that?  By eight minutes."  Sylar sobbed, and Peter rocked him back and forth.  "I'm sorry I wasn't there to look out for you.  You should never have been alone.  Never, never.  And you're never going to be alone again."



Art by davincis_girl



Continue...


10/19/11--09:40: And Now These Three Remain - Part 5 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Behind the Wall


Peter didn't have it in him to stay completely serious all the time, sober and depressed and boring.  Years of time spent mentally trapped with Sylar might have put a damper on, well, everything, but years was a long time.  Enough time to sketch, and learn to play chess (he was terrible at it, but Sylar didn't make an issue of that), to learn to whittle, to do gymnastics off the street railings, to recite every limerick he'd ever heard.  And then more time spent hammering at the Wall, but they had to take breaks from that.  Time, and time, and more time.

"Come on, let's go to the store."

"We don't need anything."

"Yes we do."  Peter slapped Sylar's shoulder and headed outside, knowing Sylar would follow out of simple curiosity if nothing else.

There was a grocery, a few corner diners, with food that was more or less edible.  And there were a few department stores, including one big one, with two levels and an eclectic collection of lamps, furniture, house wares, kitchen wares, yard equipment, sporting goods... he headed in that direction first.  "Ever play touch football?"

"Touching was something that one tended to avoid, where I grew up."

Peter rolled his eyes.  "Basketball?"  He picked one of the balls off the shelf and tore open the box, bouncing it a few times.  "I bet they've got a net in here."

Sylar looked less than enthused about the idea.

Peter shrugged.  "You're supposed to be the genius.  What kind of trouble could we really get into in here?"

Sylar considered it for a moment, and then his eyes twinkled.

The Turbo Kayak Rocket (on skis) 2010 saw its maiden voyage up an escalator at the big Save'n'Go on the corner of 22nd Avenue and 8th Street, West Side of Sylar's Brain.  It was a splendor of combustion forces (they used up most of the propane) and cataclysmic noise as it shot up the escalator, all the way to the top where it was launched off the skis (its single occupant whooping in delight, its designer standing by and regarding it with cool satisfaction), making a perfect arc over the kitchen electronics section and plowing with a terrible crash into curtains and bedding.

Peter crawled away from the smoking wreckage and laughed, crazily as he got to his feet.  "Holy shit, your aim was perfect, it was perfect!  Right into the comforters!"  He picked a few shreds of 500-threadcount cotton off his shoulder and walked up to Sylar to pound him companionably on the back.  "You have GOT to try that, man."

Sylar staggered forward a step and gave Peter an assessing look.  "You're an incredible idiot."

"But I'm fun," Peter pointed out.

Sylar cocked an eyebrow.  "So what now, Mr. Funtimes?"

Peter tilted his head.  "I saw a helium tank downstairs."

The barest hint of a smile flickered over Sylar's lips.

Peter grinned.  "I saw that.  Come on, let's go.  We should do this more often."




April 2020


Pt. has become difficult to work with.  Tempted to discharge; already have plenty of skin, ample blood.  The results of Study 13 are inconclusive; I warned you that this would be the outcome.  98% cellular lysis if you want to kill her.  If more than 2% cells remain, regeneration remains possibility; 10% brain tissue, regeneration assured eventually.  Other projects still ongoing.  You mentioned another specimen but provided no data on him; can you elaborate?

- Sirvanh Vinrabe, MD PhD Neuro, ABPP, July 2020


Sylar woke, and Claire's eyes were on him.  He froze, staring.  "Hello, Claire."

Her gaze wasn't angry, or frightened, or sad.  It was very fixed, though.  "Sylar."

He didn't know whether to sit up or to stay supine.

She leaned forward, her arms crossed, elbows meeting her knees.  She was dressed in black, and her hair was pulled back, severely.  Sylar realized he'd almost forgotten what her eyes looked like, so changeable, so wary.  But only wary, not accusatory.  He spoke again.  "I wouldn't have come back if there were any alternative."

Claire nodded.  "Peter's happy to have you back."

He sat up, slowly.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

Her eyes snapped.  "What do you think it means?  I'm not the one who likes to play word games, asshole."

Sylar paused, not wanting to start a fight.  "Why are you here?"

"Because I care about him."

"And?"

Claire faltered for a moment.  "And what?"

"You care about him and you don't want me tainting him."  Sylar spit the words out as though they had a bad taste.

Claire opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped herself.  "No.  This isn't what I'm here for.  This isn't about me, okay?  I just... you and I have to be able to coexist somehow."

Sylar let his legs drop to the floor, running a hand through his hair.  "I've wanted that for a long time."

"I'm not talking about forgiveness.  Just coexistence."  Claire frowned.  "I know you need to be here, I know how important it is, and I'm not going to fight that.  If you're with Peter, you won't kill again."

Sylar took a deep breath.  "Nonetheless, I can leave if I have to—"

"Shut up," Claire said, firmly.  "You and I both care about Peter, right?"

Sylar nodded, warily.

"Then you're going to stay right where he tells you to, and you're going to do what he says, and you're going to help him by taking care of yourself, because I'm not listening to another second of this martyr crap.  I can believe you're brothers now; he's the only other person I have to have this conversation with."  There was a glint of humor in her eyes.

Sylar half-smiled.  "Alright."

"And in case you get restless, please remember that Peter will break his own neck going after you if you run off.  Alright to that, too?"

Sylar nodded.

"Good."

Sylar said, "It's going to be hard, you being near me without trusting me."

She shook her head.  "Trusting you would be impossible.  You're still my nightmare.  Every night, you're my nightmare."  Claire's eyes were hard, not frightened at all, and Sylar could almost feel what it cost her to admit to any fear.

Sylar held out his hand, not touching her, merely offering himself.  "I have nightmares, too."

Claire waited for a moment, and then touched his fingertips.  Sylar swallowed.  Her touch had always seemed special, somehow, even when it had been nothing more than a means to an end.  She pushed his hand away.  "Tell me about your nightmares."

"And will you tell me about yours?"

"Let's try to take this one step at a time, Sylar."




Behind the Wall


Frustration was difficult to deal with, behind the Wall.  You could run and run without breaking a sweat, and without having a body to tire out and flush you with endorphins, that was no way to break out of a bad mood.  Masturbation was, at best, a strange experience in a place where the least loss of focus on the real world could cause things to shift... you couldn't enjoy it too much, or suddenly you'd be three seconds in the future.  Peter had never realized how orgasm could depend on a reliable sense of consecutive moments of time.

Sylar cooked and read, and Peter sketched and did jigsaw puzzles.  They explored, sometimes together, sometimes apart.  They occasionally built impossible machines at the Save'n'Go, though nothing ever beat the Kayak Rocket.  They played board games.  Peter tried to get Sylar to learn a few sports, but that quickly turned more frustrating than relaxing.

Peter thought about the times in his life when he'd been stressed, felt trapped.  As a child, he would creep close to Nathan's room, sometimes hovering just outside, sometimes creeping in (Nathan was rarely there, anyway) to sit on the bigger bed, dangle his feet, experience the feeling of something bigger and more powerful than he was.

There was nothing like that, here, and there were days that Peter just climbed buildings, launched himself from roof to roof, ran like a madman.  And then there was the Wall to hammer at.

Sylar, however, appeared to be a bottler.

His calm was inhuman for over a year, and then, one day, hacking away at the Wall, he lost it, without making a sound.

Peter turned to see that Sylar wasn't there anymore, and it wasn't until he heard the screech of tires that he realized just exactly where he'd gone.  A car sped its way around the alley curve and bore straight at the Wall, gas pedal evidently pushed to the floor.  Peter dove out of the way, but the car hadn't been aiming at the section he was working on, so he ended up twenty feet distant when it slammed into the Wall, a scream of metal and glass and the compression of fumes and fluids, the car crumpling and tearing.

Peter swore, and went to see if Sylar was okay, thinking he would probably punch him if so.

But Sylar was already pulling himself out through the back windshield, blood and scratches marring his face.  You could get hurt, here, no matter your powers on the outside.  But it wasn't real hurt... and it didn't tend to last long.  Peter tried to help Sylar pull free.  "Jesus, what the hell are you trying to do?"

But Sylar merely shoved Peter out of the way and took off at a run.

Seconds later, Peter heard another shriek of abused tires.  He fled from the street and climbed the stairs of a nearby building, watching below as Sylar slammed another car into the Wall.  And then another.  He drove them, one after the other, into the Wall and into each other, creating a nightmarish pile of steaming, flaming automotive bodies and guts all over the road.  He dragged himself out of each car, sometimes crawling until he could walk again, at least once with an open wound tearing his face nearly in half, and he kept going.

He wrecked ten cars, and then pulled himself from the wreckage of the last one, and collapsed on the sidewalk, his chest heaving, staring at the sky as wounds began to close all over his body.

Peter walked slowly down the stairs and skirted the smoking heap, kneeling by Sylar's side.  "This will win for stupid question of the year, but are you okay?"

Sylar took a deep breath and firmed his lips.  "Just the tiniest bit irritated."

"And nobody around to kill, right?"

Sylar gave Peter a wry look.  "I'm looking into alternate methods of anger management."

Peter glanced at the wreckage.  "Yeah.  I'd suggest something else."




June 2020


"This file is classified.  It contains the records of an investigation into murders committed by the serial killer Sylar, back in '06, so named because of his habit of marking the word somewhere on the crime scene.  We believe this man was a special, and we believe him to be still at large."

- Sgt. Angela Cadaea, May 2020


It was different.  Of course it would have to be.  When they had been behind the Wall, they'd come to each other because of a need that they didn't like to admit existed at all, and they'd fulfilled it with small touches here and there, brief eye contact, short conversations, shared work.  They had been so careful with each other.

Then they'd gotten free, and Sylar had proven himself out in the real world, showing himself to be more than just a reformed man; he was a friend, a good person to talk to when you had a problem, honest and intelligent and creative and insightful.  Peter realized that he liked Sylar as a person.  They made excuses to be with each other, but there was always that edge between them, and the edge was Sylar's history, that edge was Nathan, it was Claire, it was so many lives.  So they also made excuses to avoid each other.  Peter could see it now, so clearly.  They'd been connected with such a powerful, elastic bond; they could pull apart, it would stretch, but it would always pull them back together.  Even when they had hated each other, they had been constantly drawn together.

Now every time Peter walked into a room with Sylar in it, he had to consciously resist the urge to go and throw his arms around him.  The hesitation was gone.  His care for Sylar had been fully legitimized in his own head... and while he would always miss Nathan, and always grieve for his loss, he no longer looked at Sylar and wished that he were somebody else.

There were still guilt feelings, still occasional anger; mostly, Peter felt a steady, burning rage at the wastefulness of it all, the destruction wrought by their separation.  So many dead.  But some part of the wound Nathan had left behind him was healing, it seemed.  Peter felt an awful guilt over it; some part of him still wanted to be angry, some part of him still wanted to venerate and worship Nathan's memory, and yet...

Peter wanted his brother.

It seemed in some way he had always wanted his brother.  Sylar, the missing part of himself, the part that made him make sense, just as he made Sylar make sense.  Peter had been missing his brother since he was born, and everything about Sylar satisfied that need, even in some ways that Nathan hadn't.  He winced even to think it, but it made sense.  Nathan had been so much older.  Nathan and Peter had always been so different; Nathan had been a true Petrelli, but Peter had never fit into the family, and now he could see how the desperate attempts of his mother -- of Angela -- to make him fit in and fly right were the attempts to make him more hers, less adopted, somehow.  While Peter had always been hungry for something, going from job to job, nursing, becoming a hero, working as a medic, saving lives.  Helping people.  Always helping people.

Some part of him had always known there was someone he was supposed to be helping.  And he had spent his entire life, searching everywhere for that person.

Sylar and Peter fit together in a way that Peter had never felt before with any human being.  Within days of their new dynamic, merely the lack of any resistance to each other, they were finishing each other's sentences.  The first week, Peter couldn't sleep at night without going and checking on him.  Sylar had been broken down by the prolonged absence, he was inclined to strange silences and tears and rages at random moments, wanting to still somehow apologize to Peter for their connection, to find some way to sever it, as though it could be done by logic or effort.  Peter didn't like for him to be alone.

Peter canceled his meetings for the first week, gave up his public engagements, citing bereavement, an illness, whatever it took.  For all his work to maintain positive relations between specials and norms, he had never felt anything more important than this.

There were nights he stayed up with Sylar, keeping him in the same room, just enduring whatever it was that was trying to tear Sylar away again, out of the city... it was exhausting, and it was all Peter could do to get Sylar to sleep, safely unconscious so that Peter could relax again.  But it was the kind of emotional work he craved; just having someone need him that much, who he needed in return.  He would wake up in the morning, sit up in bed and looked at Sylar, curled up on his side, and Peter had to remind himself that it had all really happened..  You're back.  I got you back.  And Sylar would wake up because Peter was awake, and turn over and look at him, sudden fear easing in his eyes as he saw that Peter was still there.

Sylar took over the spare room, and that was fine, once he was more stable.  It seemed they could feel each other's nearness in the apartment.  And when Peter finally went back out, went to work, went to visit friends, he could feel Sylar in the back of his mind, and it felt like a safety net... a kind of quiet, easy confidence.

Sylar didn't like using his powers so soon after averted disaster, but Peter knew that it would come in time.  Now was the time to fix what had been broken between them, even though it would likely be the work of years.

There was a niggling sense in the back of his mind that he was diving into this new familial link to distract himself from things that troubled him about the other relationships in his life.  He and Sylar were family; that was final.  He and Claire...

Peter had enough to think about with Sylar, right now.




Behind the Wall


It only happened once.  Just once, in the entire duration of their imprisonment... they lost each other.

Sylar went to the Wall, and Peter wasn't there.  Sylar could sense him, vaguely, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, Peter was at the Wall, looking around, and cursing.  He began to run through the streets at a steady trot back to the apartment.  He had a faint sense that Sylar was near, but the sense faded as he left the Wall, which was puzzling.

Each was alone and looking for the other, in the same places, at the same times, and for each the trace of the other could be sensed, but less and less.

Sylar went back to the Wall and stared at it, his eyes darkening with numb horror.  He stumbled back and sat, and then lay back on the ground, looking up into the false sky.  He breathed in, and out, and told himself not to think, not to think, not to think.

Peter tore through the apartment and then the building, his fear making him impulsive, running faster and faster, panicking.  "Sylar!"  He called and yelled for him, running down the street and up, checking all the rooftops.  "Dammit, where are you?"

Each ended up having to spend that night alone.  Peter spent it fitfully, bunched in a pile of blankets in the corner of a closet, feeling sick and cold, constantly waking.  Sylar spent it lying in the street, perfectly still and focused on a single point of existence, a point where nothing existed, not even himself.

By dawn, Sylar was a stone inside of his mind, encasing his fragile sanity in layers of cement so thick that no hint of reality could touch them, all emotion tamped down to nothing.  He relinquished himself to the monster:  Yes.  You are right.  I am nothing.

Peter woke with a start to the gray morning light, clutching sheets to his chest and staring around the room.  He felt wrecked, barely rested at all, his heart pounding.  He jumped up and dashed through the door, checked Sylar's room and found nothing.  He ran through the apartment, screaming for Sylar, Jesus, where the fuck is he?  He has to be here!  Parkman wouldn't have released him and left me here!  Unless something went wrong, oh please, please let nothing go wrong here...  He burst out into the street and made a run for the Wall...

"Sylar!  I've been looking for you everywhere, christ, don't ever do that to me again!"

Sylar opened his eyes and could barely think for a few seconds, believing it a dream, but then Peter was pulling him up, roughly, his eyes enraged, and Sylar's fingers closed around Peter's arms and he pulled him close and said, "Maybe I went mad again, and that's how you disappeared.  Maybe you're not real after all.  So I'm not touching you now."

"Sylar, come on."  Peter shoved him roughly away, but still gripped his arms, looking hard into his eyes.  "Look, all I know is that yesterday I tried climbing the Wall... I dunno why, just for something else to do, I guess.  But I kept climbing and climbing and it just kept going up, so I finally gave up and let myself drop.  And when I dropped... I could feel you, but you weren't there.  Did you do something?"

Sylar looked at the Wall, and back to Peter.  He took a deep breath, and slapped Peter, hard, across the face.

Peter shook his head, staring in surprise.  "What the fuck?"

"Peter, do not ever climb the Wall again.  Do you know what just happened?"

"What?"

"You made it to the other side of the Wall."

Peter turned to look at the Wall in horror.  "That's impossible."

"Nonetheless.  On the other side of this Wall... is just exactly this same place.  Except..."

"Except parallel?"

Sylar coughed a bitter laugh.  "I don't know, but Peter, don't expect anything about this to make any sense!  I lived inside Parkman's head for months.  And I can tell you one very salient fact:  he's not very good at logic puzzles, and he is terrible at math."

Peter took a breath that sounded hesitant.  "So... if we break the Wall we might still get free."

"I suspect so.  But not climbing."

"I won't do that again."

"Seriously, Peter, no more climbing.  Ever."

"Sylar.  Chill.  I am officially schooled on the climbing thing.  Give me my hammer, okay?"



July 2020


"Look, forget the armbands, okay?  You have to look at their eyes.  Specials have weird-eyes.  I have two in my neighborhood, no, shut up, listen to me!  What I'm telling you might save your life someday.  Their eyes are different.  You can see it.  It's like they glow a little bit.  But you have to get good at it, it takes practice, which is why we're setting up the surveillance operation."

- Caleb Monlorrs, age 11, February 2018


Peter and Sylar tossed the ball of lightning between them, just like catching a baseball.  Sylar had fancier tricks, he would twirl it around his fingers and slingshot it, trying to catch Peter up, but Peter had been schooled by Claude, and strangely enough, Sylar was a far more merciful teacher.  For one thing, when Peter screwed up, Sylar would laugh quietly and gleefully correct him, rather than finding some way to torture him.  The laughter was annoying, but it was also strangely brotherly.  Peter looked at Sylar and saw a man who had never gotten a chance to be a rowdy, offensive adolescent.  He half expected Sylar to give him a noogie some days, but whenever it came to physical contact, Sylar was still strangely shy.  And he still avoided conflict.  Which meant he was still a bottler, and Peter didn't like that at all.

Peter managed a toss that caught Sylar unawares, sending an arc of lightning straight into his eyes.  Sylar ducked barely in time.  It hit the wall and made a sharp snap at the contact, creating a char mark, and Peter and Sylar both winced.  Sylar turned back to Peter.  "Not bad, if you want to burn the apartment down."

Peter flourished a tiny whirl of lightning around his fingers.  "See, now, eventually I'll be schooling your ass on abilities too, not just on social skills and dating."  He knew it was a little too harsh, a little cruel, and he waited.

Sylar took a step toward him, his eyes darkening with rage.  "You think that's funny?"

Peter let a tiny ball of blue flicker from hand to hand, juggling.  "Nope.  It's a terrible tragedy.  I mean, dude.  We're related."  He shook his head, sighing dramatically.  That was an even lower blow, and Sylar stood still in shock for a moment, tears coming into his eyes as his face creased with more anger, not knowing how to fight back without killing.  He peered at Peter closely, and Peter looked back at him, a small smile on his face, totally nonchalant.  Come on, man.  Learn another way to deal with it.  Everybody has to learn.

Sylar took two steps forward, his eyes fixed firmly on Peter as though expecting him to explode.  Peter lifted an eyebrow.

Sylar slammed a fist into his shoulder nearly hard enough to dislocate it.

Peter reeled back from the blow, grunting, quickly fixing his stance, swearing as he spun his arm, checking the shoulder.  He looked at Sylar, whose eyes were still dangerously dark and glassy, as though he were hypnotized.  Peter threw a punch back, but lightly, barely a stinging tap on his chest.  Sylar staggered back; his balance was crap.  He was still staring at Peter, and Peter danced around him a little, willing him to figure this out.

Peter reached out and slapped Sylar on the back of the head, and Sylar punched him again, this time in the gut, but not as hard.  Peter still felt the wind leave him and danced back a few steps.  Sylar followed him, grabbing Peter's arm to keep him from getting away.  He still had that taut, focused look in his eyes as he watched Peter's body, trying to calculate where he was going to move next.

Peter hooked a leg around Sylar's knee and floored him, following him down, and then Sylar's face abruptly changed, showing a kind of anger that was eager and competitive, a kind of anger that was more normal.  He and Peter grappled, and Sylar gritted his teeth and rolled over, slamming Peter into the floor.  Peter kicked up, nearly getting Sylar in the groin, but intentionally missing, and Sylar arched up, looking down and then up into Peter's eyes, narrowing his own.  He slapped Peter in the face.

Peter was surprised enough to laugh.  "Jesus, Sylar, you gonna pull my hair next?"

Sylar flushed.  "Shut up."  He punched Peter in the stomach again.  Peter curled up, gasping, and kicked up with his knee into Sylar's ribs.  Sylar got him in the jaw this time, and Peter had to blink for a moment before returning the hit; Peter noticed that Sylar waited, as though it were a game, as though it had rules; as indeed it was, and did.  Peter looked at him and head-butted him unexpectedly, and Sylar swore loudly, falling back.

Peter laughed, crowing.  "That always got Nathan, too!"

Sylar shook his head.  "I should have remembered that."

Peter immediately lunged for Sylar, fist clenched and eyes enraged, and stopped himself only just in time.  Sylar scooted back hastily at the look in Peter's eyes; he had gathered enough of the rules to know that this wasn't a part of the game.  Peter shook his head, gritted his teeth.  "Sorry.  But don't…"

"I know.  I'm sorry.  It's just, I wasn't thinking, I was distracted…"

"By my beating the shit out of you."  Peter cocked an eyebrow at Sylar.

Sylar's eyes narrowed.  "By you managing one hit via cheating methodology."

"Hey, in some towns, 'cheating methodology' is fightin' words."

Sylar looked at Peter for a moment longer, analyzing, and suddenly launched himself on top of Peter, grabbing both of his wrists.  Peter thought about kicking again, but Sylar abruptly began smacking Peter's head with his own hands, and that was the moment in which Peter realized that everything was going to be okay.

"Agh, god, stop!"  Peter laughed, struggling to get away.

Sylar didn't let up.  "Say you're sorry, asshole."

"Never!"

Sylar slapped harder.  "You want to be let up?  You apologize and admit that I am the master."

Peter considered this as well as he could, buffeted back and forth between his own arms, and finally spluttered, "I'm sorry!  Geez.  You are the... fwuh, stop, let me say it at least!"  Sylar held him still.  "You are the master."

Sylar gave him one last slap, and let him go.  "Bested without my having to use a single power."  He looked satisfied.

Peter snorted, pretending to look affronted.  "You want dinner, dickface?"

Sylar sat back on his heels, and there was that look on his face again, as though he were interpreting a foreign language.  "Not if you're cooking it, spooge-mop."

Peter threw back his head and laughed so hard he fell flat and couldn't get up for a full minute.  By the time he recovered, wiping his eyes, Sylar was also grinning, offering a hand to help him up.  Peter clapped him on the shoulder.  "Mind if I nab that healing ability?"

"Wimp."  Sylar held out his hand, cooperatively.

"Gonad."

"Dwarf."

Peter blinked.  "Sylar.  That's offensive."

Sylar blinked back at him, his face turning serious.  "What?  Peter… I'm…"

Peter grinned.  "You're such an idiot."

Sylar paused, gauging the situation, and then wrapped his arm around Peter's neck and gave him a thorough noogie.  As in everything, he was a fast learner.



Continue...


10/19/11--09:45: And Now These Three Remain - Part 6 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Behind the Wall


Nathan was not a safe topic between them, but Claire was a little more of a gray area.  Still, Peter would never have brought her up at all had it not been for the tattoo.

"Is that who I think it is?"

Sylar looked down at his arm, and reddened slightly.  "It's not what you're thinking."

Peter lifted an eyebrow.  "That's good, because what I'm thinking is pretty sick, and could get you a busted nose."

Sylar sat down at their kitchen table, rubbing his eyes.  "Samuel... the Carnival leader... Jesus, there really isn't any way to make this sound good.  I didn't choose the tattoo.  I took an ability from someone who could sift out subconscious desires.  That's a little different from mind-reading, not so straightforward.  She uses ink, apparently; takes it into her skin and shows images that lead the way, so to speak.  Samuel suggested I try it."  Sylar sighed.  "The ink gave me this."

"You're right," Peter said, tensely.  "That doesn't sound a whole lot better than fetishizing a teenage girl to the point where you deliberately get her face stenciled on your arm.  You just did it subconsciously."

Sylar grimaced.  "Claire had something that I needed to know.  A different approach to power than mine."

Peter snorted.  "Yeah.  It's called not wanting it at all; whereas you wanted not only yours but everybody else's, too."

Sylar paused.  "Well, exactly."

"So?"

"I visited her and we had a conversation."

Peter's hand closed convulsively into a fist, his eyes darkening.  "Did you."

"And she told me what I needed to know... and then I came here."

They sat in silence for a moment.

Sylar said, "I won't deny you the right to use that fist."

"She's my niece, Sylar.  She's a sweet, beautiful, innocent girl, who you have violated in almost every possible way."  Peter took a deep breath, and relaxed his hand.  "If we... no.  When we get out of here, if you ever lay so much as a finger on her again..."

"Understood."  Sylar peered at Peter with curiosity.  "It was never... dirty.  My fascination with her.  She's just special, somehow.  It was never even just her power."

The threatening look rose in Peter's eyes again.  "You need to stop talking."

"I'm trying to say that I wouldn't hurt her."

"Okay, then, you said it."

"She means a lot to you as well, I know."

Peter stood up.  "I'm going to go work on the Wall.  We're not going to talk about her again."





August 2020


"If he's a dead end, then find us someone else who knows them.  What about the ex-wife?"

- Howie Venn, NSA Headquarters, August 2020


Dr. Vinrabe and Claire had always had their differences, but this was really something else.  After years of subjecting herself to tests and experiments, all of them invasive and many of them humiliating and more than a few of them unbearably painful, suddenly Vinrabe was cold and arrogant toward her in a way that he had never been before, discharging her from the research program with no warning and no explanation.

She wasn't sorry to leave, but there was something about it that bothered her.  Claire wanted the abilities of her body to be able to help someone.  How could they say that they were simply done with her?  She had hundreds of years to give them if they needed it, and the times she'd fought over a test or a surgical scheduling had been only by necessity.  Claire's time constraints had been punishingly unforgiving for years; she spent a lot of time in Communal Protection, and even did a little diplomatic work for Peter when he couldn't be spared.  It had all been worth it, not just to feel that her ability was useful, but to also know that she was building support for Peter among the city police and along the cutting edge of the world's top medical researchers.

Claire had been rampantly, eagerly, almost ferociously useful.  And Dr. Vinrabe shuffled her off with a, "My apologies, but your usefulness to our researches is finished.  I will expect you have many other duties to attend to.  Goodbye, then."

And that was it.  Half her life's work, dismissed.

She supposed it wasn't that big of a deal, in the end...  I have plenty of time, they'll come back to me and want to poke around and find more miracle cures.  Something about it just... troubled and tugged at her.  The medical community had been practically fighting over her at first, doctors asking her question after question, reporters swarming, lab technicians eagerly showing her the results of her own tissue sample cultures.  Claire was always mildly afraid, with all the little chunks they kept carving off her, that someday there might be a few thousand tiny Claires wandering around, reproduced from biological shavings like the brooms in The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  Fortunately all the samples ended up destroyed, one way or the other.

And then Vinrabe had taken over, as though ushered through the door by divine right, and he had begun to oversee all experiments done upon any part of Claire Bennet.  And they had dropped off immediately to only a couple a week.  No more enthusiasm; all tight protocol and no more interviews.

She simply couldn't believe the entire medical profession would cool off that fast; there was a government hand in this, she just didn't know to what end.  Vinrabe didn't like her, she knew that much.

Claire had grown so accustomed to people not liking specials that it hadn't surprised her.

Noah would probably have been more careful.  And Claire intended to consult with him about this.  Just as soon as she could find him.

* * *

When Claire had gone to Noah's apartment and found him gone, that had been worrying; she didn't like him working such long hours at his age.  When she had gone to Angela's old office and found him absent from there as well, that had been disturbing; she wasn't sure where he might be.

Now, two days and seventeen unanswered cell phone calls later, Claire was fighting belly-clenches of panic.

Once upon a time, she would have called Peter and had him sort out what was going on.  But that wasn't his job, anymore.  Claire was the one who sorted things out, these days.  She had been that person for years.

Her contact at Internal Affairs was less than useful, Hydencker appeared to have been transferred to a different division, and her friend Nevvers at the FBI was mysteriously unavailable; his phone service had been disconnected.  It took a few hours' walk to determine that the local beats had been shifted around, and she no longer knew by name every enforcer in a three-mile radius.  Changing those would have taken some serious clout.

Everybody seemed to be running scared.  She went to her apartment and set up a secure connection, doing a brief search of specials in the area, and was stunned by how many of them had left the city under recommendation from Shiva, the statistician – her gift was evaluating risks inherent in complex situations, and while seers only gave you images, she could actually predict (within certain margins of error) the future.

Her latest note to Claire was, "You have a 30% chance of making it to March of next year before apprehension.  Please inform Peter that his efforts are failing.  It's time to send the order."

Claire stared at the note, horrified.

She picked up her phone.  "Peter."

"Claire.  Are you okay?  You don't sound okay."

"I'm... well, things just got complicated.  Peter, Shiva's saying it's time."

Peter was silent for a long moment.  "How long?"

"She's strongly suggesting that you and I in particular need to leave the city before March.  I think.  You know how she talks.  Our chances of making it 'til then are one out of three.  She didn't even quote me the chance of avoiding another government crack-down."  Claire sighed.  "I already know what you're going to say."

"Claire, you know I can't leave.  I'm counting on that tiny percent of a chance.  I have to."

She closed her eyes.  "I know.  Well, I'll count on that chance, too."

"Claire, I've been thinking..."

"You've been thinking that I should leave town without you, go off into hiding on my own, and survive the apocalypse while you nobly die with the hopes of all the specials nailed across your chest," Claire said, wearily.

"Maybe not quite that dramatically."

"Peter, shut up.  You're my family.  I'm not leaving you.  Especially since the other part of my family appears to be AWOL."

That stopped him cold.  "Noah?"

"He's disappeared," Claire said, calmly.  "And so have half my contacts in law enforcement.  And something tells me that if you try to contact Justice Cassel or Senator Barnes, you'll find they're no longer taking your calls."  She drummed her fingers on the table.  "Shiva wants us to move everybody out, and if she says we should do that, then that's what we should do.  It's why we hired her.  Even if you and I don't leave... Peter, we're responsible for all the others.  In fact, in a way, we can provide a screen for them leaving.  Make some public noise, flap our hands and act like we're making a difference, give them some time to run."

"Claire."  Peter's voice was warm.  "You know I value your... practicality, I guess, but you're talking like it's already decided."

Claire pressed her lips together for a moment.  "I wouldn't describe myself as a woman of faith."

"Well, can you keep believing in me?  Just a little longer?"

Claire closed her eyes.  "Peter, you're the only thing I would always believe in."

He paused.  "Believe it or not, I really needed to hear that right now."

"I..."  Claire broke off, shaking her head.  "I still want to get the specials out of the city."

"Then I trust your judgment.  But Claire, we have to find Noah."

"You think I don't know that?"  Claire sighed.  "Just... I need to think of a way.  He would have left me some kind of message if he had gone away deliberately."

"We'll find him," Peter said, firmly.

Claire was silent.

"We'll find him, okay?  Do you believe me?"

No.  "Don't I always?"

She hung up the phone and looked around the room.  Once upon a time this place had been hers... and hers had meant decorations, mementos from high school and college, curtains, quilts, her own framed photographs – birds, landscapes, city alleyways.  Now it looked like a base station for a stake-out.  Computers and electronics, piles and piles of graphs and printouts, sticky notes clustering the wall.  Maps.  Claire thought about the map of the specials, so many years ago.  This map was less vindictive, but no less frightening:  it was a map of incidents.  Beatings, hospitalizations, murders, rapes.  Anything horrific that fell under the vast heading of conflicts between specials and norms.

Claire sat down wearily, pushing a stack of files to the side so that she would have a clear space to write, but instead the clear space revealed the edge of a framed photo, face down on the desk.  Claire picked it up and looked at it.  Gretchen's merciful, patient eyes looked back at her.

There was no more mercy or patience in the world.

Claire set the photo face-down again.  It was always a mistake, looking at it, because Gretchen's eyes would capture her and pull her in, trying to soften her, seducing her with the idea of normal.  And all Claire could think about from that day of their last fight, had been the fact that she was going to watch Gretchen age and die.

And she had envied her.  Horribly.  Not for the ability to die, but for the ability to live; to prioritize, to say that life was too short and choose to ignore many of the world's problems.  The ability to be happy, and to know that you could be forgiven for it, because you were only human, and had to grab at every bit of happiness you could find in life before it was taken from you.

Claire wiped her eyes and plucked sourly at her armband.  It's just as well I left.  Nobody too close to me is safe, now.  And Claire felt a dim gratitude of knowing that much... somewhere out there, Gretchen was living, maybe enough for both of them.  While Claire was slowly, slowly preparing herself to transition from the life of a fighter, to the life of the hunted.  That grated worse than anything.  So much effort to come forward, and soon they would all be forced right back into hiding again.

She thought about Peter, and the hesitant way he touched her and looked at her, as though afraid to do it for too long, and she desperately, desperately wished that she could say that life was too short to not just admit to him how she felt, and see if he could ever let go of that parental viewpoint of her.  Five months was probably too short a time to get there, after ten years.

But life itself wasn't too short for anything.




Behind the Wall


There were times when Sylar caught the thread of Peter's dreams as well, but only once with the same stark, visible clarity with which Peter could see Sylar's recurring nightmare.

Sylar was awash in warmth, thick, oozing humidity, and the press of female skin.  It was richly scented, not with perfume or soap, merely with the ripe, somehow hidden smells of a woman, alternately sour and pungent and spiced and sweet, roiling around him like a whirlpool of thick, sopping fluid... he jerked himself awake, gasping, and his erection was throbbing hard as iron and nearly painful.  The room was full of women's voices, their touches, half-invisible glimpses of breasts and bellies and thighs, soft hair and kissing lips surrounding him in the dark.  Sylar groaned, and realized... Peter.  This is your dream.  Peter wasn't waking up from it, apparently, but then again, there was little reason to as it wasn't exactly a nightmare...

The phantom women surrounded Sylar, petting him and stroking him, easing beneath his skin and he bared his teeth and arched his back and they were touching him and it was ecstasy in the darkness and oh... oh... he was surrounded by pulsating heat and he thrust, hard, and again...

They evaporated, leaving an empty darkness behind them, and he took a moment to catch his breath, his hips still jumping a little from the force of his release into that illusion of flesh.  He put his hands to his face, smelling them, but they only smelled of himself, and he felt an ache in the center of his chest so sharp he nearly cried out.  Women.  Peter was missing them, and Sylar guessed that if the passage of time were real here, if their very healthy and fairly young male bodies were given the chance to feel true glandular sexual frustration with no outlet, they would be suffering dreams like this every night by now.  What Peter felt was a purely psychological absence, but it was real enough to be painful.  The now-empty room seemed chilled.

Sylar sat up.  Women.  Peter was used to being around them, sexually, companionably, he was used to having them in his life... friends, his colleagues, but girlfriends as well.  Sylar had spent long years growing accustomed to frustrated yearning since he'd finally given up on female contact for good.  When women had finally come into his life, it had been an utter surprise.  When he had gone back to murderous solitude, he had gone right back to assuming there would be no female contact for him again in this particular eternity.  They smelled like Heaven.

He looked at the wall, wondering if Peter would knock on it this time.  One minute passed and Peter didn't, though Sylar heard shifting in the bed across the wall, and knew that Peter could probably hear him as well.

Sylar took off his stained shorts, wiping the traces from his skin before laying back down, and grinned into the darkness.  He reached over and knocked shave-and-a-haircut on the wall.

The voice was faint, but audible.  "Fuck off."

Sylar curled over himself, laughing silently, and finally relaxed enough to go to sleep again.





October 2020


"We found him.  Send backup; the place is practically militarized and we need a SWAT team to get past the entryway."

- Sgt. Terrence, September 2020


Noah's signal had been amply informative:  his apartment was torched.  Claire knew that was a positive sign… had he been taken without a fight, he wouldn't have been able to trip the switch before getting the hell out of there and the apartment would have been left empty and spotless.  Naturally they had the whole thing cordoned off, and even Claire's credentials couldn't get her past security, but it was impossible to disguise the damage to the building, the plastic sheeting poking through holes in the walls.

So the fire was a sign that he might still be alive, and in hiding somewhere.  But the fire was also a sign that the government had him targeted, and Claire ground her teeth.  Why now?  When Noah was no longer publicly affiliated with specials?  When he was even barely affiliated with the Company, only working with the office long enough to clean up the mess and then get back to his life?

Why, when he was over sixty, and had a bad leg and a back that bothered him every time it rained?  What the fuck could they need him for?

Unless it's to get to me, somehow.

Claire went to her car and shut herself in, trying to hold it together.

She wasn't sure just how many more lives she could bear on her conscience.

* * *

Peter came home to find Claire and Sylar in a screaming argument, objects flying around the room like crazed remote-control aircraft.  He held out his hands and shouted, "HEY!"

Five books and a few dishes dropped to the ground, and there was a faint crashing noise as something broke.  Sylar coughed.  "Sorry."

Claire was glaring at Sylar with tears in her eyes, clenching her fists.  "You do NOT do that!  You don't!  Ever!  How dare you!"  Her breath was coming in short bursts, shaking the entire frame of her body like a hurricane gale.

Sylar looked over at Peter, and back at Claire, and promptly walked into the back bedroom, shutting the door.

Claire said, "Don't you walk away--"

"Claire!" said Peter, firmly.  "He's walking away to calm down, and you're going to do the same thing, right now, if I have to tie you to a chair.  What happened?"

She shook herself.  "He.  Turned.  He..."

Peter felt a sick drop in his belly.  "Tell me it wasn't Nathan."

Her face crumpled.

Peter sighed.  "Jesus, Claire, I'm so sorry.  Shit."  He pulled her close and held her tightly, hushing her tears against his shoulder.  "I am so sorry.  He knows not to do that."

She shook her head, pulling away.  "He.  He was trying to."  She pressed her hands to her face.  "No, okay, I know what he was trying to do….  He was trying to say something reassuring, I was going on about the new government sanctions, wondering how much worse it was going to get, and whether… whether everything I was trying to do was just making it worse.  He was."  Her breath hitched.  "Nathan said he was so proud of me."  She burst into tears again.

Peter helped her sit on the sofa, and held her.  "Well, he should know better, and after this, he will.  And I hate to say it… but Claire, it was probably a kind of… reflex."  Peter swallowed.  And mostly my fault.  "Sylar still has most of Nathan inside him, including his emotions, it was just… it was a really bad reaction.  But it had to be Nathan's real feeling.  He would have been proud of you, Claire."

"Maybe."  Claire shook her head.  "I can't get used to Sylar.  I can't.  It's hard enough to not fly at him with a knife every time I see his face, but then he makes something float into his hand, or his face shifts when he's not paying attention or he's remembering somebody, or he catches me in a lie, and... it's too much, Peter."

"I know it's hard, Claire, he startles me too…"

"No.  This is too much, Peter."  She covered her face with her hands.  "He's gone.  It's the same thing all over again, I… not again, not again, not again—"

"Whoa, whoa, Claire."  Peter took her by the shoulders.  "Look at me.  No, look at me.  We are going to find Noah."

She gave him a look of absolute despair, and Peter blinked.  He had never seen the look so openly displayed on her face, but he realized now that there had always been some color of it there.  For ten years, watching the results of an open existence of the specials, that look had been growing behind her eyes, and that was where her true age lived:  not thirty, but hundreds of years' worth of grief and guilt and terror at how things had turned out.

With a heavy voice, Claire said, "Peter.  No.  We're not going to find him.  He would have found a way to get word to me by now; I know he would.  I know it absolutely.  Which means they may have had to work for it… but they found him, and they have him."  She paused, and her eyes dimmed.  "And the worst thing is not that he might be dead.  The worst thing is that he might still be alive."

"Claire…"  Peter hesitated.

"I told you.  I'm not a woman of faith; I'm a woman of reality."

"Claire, this is not your fault."  Peter saw the words hit her, and he knew it had to hurt like hell, but… "Fuck, you can't keep doing this to yourself."

She hunched over, her face creasing in pain.  "I'm not going to sit here and not take responsibility for what I've done to all of us, Peter.  We were safe in hiding, but now…"

"No, we weren't!"  Peter shook her, lightly.  "We were chased by covert agencies, we were getting arrested for crimes we had no way of preventing, because none of us had any kind of training, any way to contact others.  We have training programs now, and we're gonna carry those into the underground if that's what it takes.  We were living, and all of us thinking we were alone, and most of us thinking we were freaks.  All you can see of what you did were the bad consequences.  Claire, you just told the world the truth.  You didn't create that truth.  If the world reacted like shit, that's because sometimes the world is a shitty place.  But this is not your fault."

Claire gazed up at Peter with unguarded eyes and said, "We can't know any of those things, because I did, in fact, do what I did."

Peter sighed.  "You did.  Because you, more than any other person, hate lies and secrets.  Claire, you are always, just, yourself.  So… authentic.  Why do you think I love you so much?"  He caught himself, and then realized there was nothing wrong with him saying that as her family and her friend.  It only felt wrong because he wasn't saying it that way.  Claire stiffened a little, and he knew she heard it the way he meant it.

He pulled her close, and felt her shaking, felt her heartbeat and his own get faster, and he closed his eyes.  This would be a bad time to do this.  I have Sylar to take care of, this worldly disaster to figure out…  He almost laughed.  Peter Petrelli/Gray/whatever, trying to save the world yet again.  And Claire was right.  Noah was gone, and they, whoever 'they' were, had him, and it was horrifying, and there was exactly shit that Peter could do about it.  And to know that she knew that, to know that she had no faith in Peter to do this one thing, was almost shattering to him.  I need you to believe in me.  "Claire, I'm so, so sorry."

She shifted against him, and then she was crying.

It was awful, but just to know that she trusted him this much, to be this vulnerable with him and with nobody else, made him feel stronger.  He stroked her hair and held her close until the storm passed.

Finally, she pushed him away and dug into one of her pockets for some tissues, blowing her nose before looking up at him again.  "I guess it's just… I can't even grieve.  He's gone, but I can't know.  There's not even anything to let go of.  And…"  She broke off, and then whispered, "Life really is short after all.  Life is so short.  Do you think… after a few decades, or maybe a few centuries, that I'll stop feeling this way when the people I love die?"  She paused.  "Or will I just stop loving people?"

Peter laughed, and then stopped himself at the anger in her eyes.  "No, I'm taking you seriously, Claire, and I know you've got to be hurting so badly to say something like that, but you?"  He shook his head.  "Maybe you should say that to someone who hasn't seen how hard you can love."

She looked down, blushing, and Peter felt it again, and wanted to push it away.  And there was another reason to push it away.  She and Sylar were never going to get along, it seemed.  Peter lifted Claire's chin and said, sadly, "Claire, you don't have to keep coming here, you know; you don't have to keep dealing with Sylar.  He has to stay near me.  He doesn't have to stay near you."

She looked away, and sniffed.  "I won't leave you."

"Claire, this is going to be a problem for a long time."

She looked at him, and Peter finally had to face her eyes, see the love and trust in them, and he had to wonder why he had been dreading it.  "Peter, I am not going anywhere you aren't."  Her eyes had shifted to green, and they almost glowed.  She said, "Life is short, Peter.  I want every second I can have with you."

He didn't feel it when their lips met at first; or rather, he felt it in his chest instead of on his mouth, a hard, quivering shock that made his hands shake as he pushed his fingers into her hair and pulled her in deeper.  Then he drew away, holding her, unable to let go, their foreheads pressed together as he tried to breathe his way through it.  "Claire."

She sighed, wilting, her eyes creasing with long-withheld pain; embarrassment, disappointment, fear.  "Peter.  I know you don't... that you never felt that way..."

"It's not that," he said, a little helplessly.  He could feel her question without her asking it.

If it's not that, then what is it?

Why, Peter?

"Because," he whispered.  "Because."  She tried to pull away, to hide, and he pulled her back.  "No.  Stay, okay?  Stay right here.  Claire… you were so young when we met."

She looked at him, angrily.  "I'm not anymore.  And I wasn't then, not really.  It's just my face; you'll never see past it!"

"There's nothing wrong with your face."  He cupped her cheek in his hand, lightly sweeping the pearly softness of her lower lip with his thumb.  "You've always had the most beautiful face I've ever seen."  She still smelled like roses, this close, and the street air, and that strange intent energy she carried with her everywhere she went, that refused to endure dishonesty or inaction.  Just like now.  Peter had been reluctant to act.  And now, that reluctance was edging over into dishonesty.  "Claire, I just never wanted anything bad to happen to you.  Not even me."

Claire sighed, exasperatedly.  "Peter, I've had a lot worse happen to me than you."

He smiled.  "Wow, that's flattering."

She smiled back, the last of the tears clearing away, finally.  "Tweaking your ego isn't in my contract."

Peter kissed her again, and in her body he felt a strange, surprising softness that she kept so carefully guarded from everyone, a slight surrender in her movements, the opposite of the aggressive way she did everything else.  And Peter, the soft cajoling voice of reason, the diplomat, the deeply caring nurse, the passionately impulsive martyr, gripped her with hard, greedy hands, and pushed her into the sofa cushions, pressing himself hard against her body.

She sighed, moaning softly, but suddenly tensed and Peter lifted himself off her.  "What is it?"

"He's in the next room," she whispered.

Peter thought about going somewhere else, and realized that it didn't matter.  Sylar would be able to sense this happening from a mile away, and that was a bad thing, but it was also a thing they'd have to learn to live with.  And, in a way, it was something that had happened before.  He looked into Claire's eyes.  "What if he's always in the next room?"

Claire glanced at the wall, and huffed, lightly, looking back up at Peter.  "You're lucky you're cute.  I wouldn't tolerate this kind of shit from anybody else."

Peter smiled, caressing her hair softly until she stilled, so that he could shift into ferocity and cage her again, hard and unyielding, giving her a safe place to soften and to feel.



Continue...


10/19/11--09:50: And Now These Three Remain - Part 7 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



Behind the Wall


Cabin fever had nothing on this.  Peter hammered away at the Wall, gritting his teeth, and watched the face of it simply… stay.  He often stopped and stepped forward to rub at the brick and mortar with his fingertips, testing its solidity, wondering at the fact that it felt like nothing more solid than ordinary bricks.  Parkman, dammit, your illusion is perfect.  Why couldn't you make bricks made of brick?

He started again, and realized Sylar was beside him, hammering in counterpoint.  There were days when that was comforting, but today wasn't one of them.  Peter swore and threw his hammer away from him and stalked off, running his hands through his hair and wanting to scream.  Instead, he started running.  He ran through the streets, the dingy back alleys, the crumbling facades, brownstones and skyscrapers, a downtown area and a section of the projects and a suburban mall all jumbled together like a city sprawl condensed into a single thought.  Peter ran through all of it, as fast as he could, fast enough to keep his exhaustion real, his heart pounding, his breathing labored.  Parkman's buildings were perfect.  Maybe that was something he was fond of; architecture… or maybe his time as a beat cop had just given him ample opportunity to look at buildings.

There were trees here and there, and they were less distinct.  And the insides of some buildings shifted and changed a lot; the video arcade, the shoe shop, the hobby store.

Peter stopped, gasping, picked up a rock and threw it through a window.  The glass shattered.  He knew it might be whole by morning; or maybe not.

He had come almost full circle in the town, and his head felt clearer, but the anger slowly burned beneath the surface.

He walked the last block, back to the Wall, and picked up his hammer.  Sylar was looking at him with concern.

Peter sighed.  "What?" he said, more sharply than he intended to.

"I'm glad you came back," Sylar said, simply.

"I kind of had to, there's nowhere else to go," Peter growled.

Sylar turned and began to walk away, slowly.

"Sylar, stop.  Get back here."  Peter walked over as Sylar stopped and turned to face him slowly, with a blank face.  Peter sighed.  But somehow, the idea that his anger had the power to hurt someone else made him feel better; like something he did had some kind of an effect.  Any kind of power was power.  But he'd always believed the power to heal was better than the power to hurt.  "Look, I'm not someone who gives up just because I'm pissed.  Okay?  I'm not giving up on the Wall, and I'm not giving up on you."

Sylar's forehead creased.  "How does that work, exactly?"

"What?"

"The desire to help someone and keep helping them.  No matter what.  Is it just the stubbornness?"

Peter quirked an eyebrow at Sylar.  "Stubbornness would seriously not keep me trying where you're concerned.  Sylar, we're stuck with each other, but I chose to come here.  I chose to come, and I'm not leaving without taking you with me.  And once you're out in the world, I'm not leaving you alone, because the world needs me to keep an eye on you.  How's that for motivation?"

Sylar looked down.  "Look, Peter, if you ever need a break from me, just tell me to go away.  And I will."

Peter huffed a breath, and reached out and took Sylar by the shoulder, the contact as reassuring as it always was.  He'd never quite conceived of the idea of somehow fixing Sylar.  But… as the years passed, it almost seemed like a thing that could be done.  Sylar was so normal here, somehow.  So quiet and analytical and occasionally enraged, occasionally irritated, but never obsessive, never lethal.  He never even attempted to manipulate or strike out.

Maybe all it would take was one person not giving up.  Peter didn't like that idea, because he knew perfectly well how codependency worked… but if any two people had an excuse to be codependent at this point, he figured he and Sylar were the top contenders.  If Peter stayed with him, kept talking to him, kept interacting with him, and Sylar kept getting better, then maybe it could be done in the outer world as well.  "Sylar, you know something?"

"What?"

"I'm never going to tell you to go away."

Sylar looked at Peter in amazement, as though the sentence were Greek.  "That makes no sense.  As soon as I save your friend, you'll want to get away from me as fast as you can.  Anyone would.  I represent every bad thing that's ever happened to you, and I'm responsible for half of those things."

Peter shrugged, and he went to pick up his hammer, began to attack the Wall again.  He spoke between strokes, "You know what?.... Maybe… Just maybe… Even with all of that… Even with everything you've done… There's still… Something inside you… That deserves a commitment."  He paused and looked at Sylar.  "I'm not just saving you for your potential.  Maybe there was always something in you that deserved saving."

Sylar turned to the Wall, and back to Peter.  "I think I murdered that thing the first time I ever killed a man for his powers."

Peter shook his head.  "You can kill bodies.  Not souls."  He went back to hammering, and after a few seconds, he heard Sylar's strikes in counterpoint.





October 2020


"I stand here on this podium because I have no choice.  Those who you call 'special', to me are merely human.  You see them with fear; but they are my family.  I have to speak for them.  And I say this:  we are not that different from you.  I can not say that all specials are perfectly safe to be around, because I can not say that all humans are perfectly safe.  I've worked as a paramedic, I've seen what humans can do to each other with nothing more than the inventive abilities of a so-called normal brain and imagination.

"When you talk about facing and fighting specials, you are talking about facing and fighting humans.  Your brothers, your sisters, your closest kin.  What you are talking about is the most fundamental civil war that this planet has ever known:  humanity turning on itself, in fear.

"As long as we fear you, and you fear us, there can be no peace.  Not for us, not for you, not for the future.

"I believe our children deserve better than to be divided into groups and labeled.  They deserve better than to inherit a world torn by war and terror, a world where humans distrust other humans, where there is no safe haven for any of us.  I believe we deserve better than to have to exist in that world.

"We, as a society, have gotten this basic equation wrong so many times, but we have also gotten it right more than once.  We have the ability to make the right decision.  I can only leave it in your hands; I, as a lone human, voted for you to represent my rights.  Please consider them just as much your responsibility as the rights of any other constituent.  I ask this for me, and for my family, specials scattered across the world... who are also your family."

- Peter Petrelli, House of Representatives, February 2021


Peter leaned forward and pulled on his hair, the tingling in his scalp only a mild distraction from the overbearing collection of non-physical headaches currently crawling over his life.  So many things were going right, and yet so many things were going wrong.  Every day was a roller coaster.

He had been terrified that things between himself and Claire would be awkward, that she would change, that he would be forced to push her away somehow, but that hadn't happened.  She acted the same way she had before, always practical, always guarded.  He was the one who had to make the next move, he realized.  He went to her apartment two nights later, they met, they talked.  And Peter looked into her eyes and saw the desire there, and he wanted it to be there.  She wasn't a girl anymore.  She wanted to be his partner, she wanted to stay his family, and it was all that he wanted as well.  When he reached out to touch her face, suddenly all that Peter could feel was lucky.  "I never let myself think about you that way, Claire."

"And now?"

He blushed, grinning.  "It's hard to think about anything else."

She laughed.  "Good."  He spent the night with her, and had reason to regret the public and political lifestyle he'd created for himself, that had kept him so isolated for so long.  They were good together; relaxed, affectionate.  Her body felt like a haven, and Peter had been alive long enough to know that havens in this life were few and far between, to be treasured.  And the shadow of sadness in her face lifted a little when she was with him.

But when he spoke with Sylar, he immediately knew that something was wrong.  What was worse was, Sylar tried to hide that something was wrong, and Peter knew that if their relationship were even the slightest bit less close than it was, Peter would easily have missed it.

Peter sat down next to Sylar at the table.  "Hey.  Look, I didn't... I didn't know.  You're in love with her, aren't you?  I was never sure, Sylar."

Sylar glanced down at his hands, his eyes exhausted.  "It's not that simple."

"So what is it?  Look, we have all the time in the world, right?  Claire and I can hold off."

Sylar shook his head violently.  "No, you can't put your life off because of me."

"Sylar."  Peter put his hand on Sylar's arm.  "At some point you're going to understand that you are my brother.  The only family I've got!  I can't put a price on that.  And the way you feel matters to me, whether you want it to or not."

Sylar wouldn't meet his eyes.  "I need time to figure out how I feel, but that has nothing to do with you and Claire.  Please... be happy together.  I just, I might."  He pressed his lips together.  "I might not act as if I'm at the height of ecstasy, alright?  But it's not your fault, and it's not something you can fix by avoiding her.  I promise."

"You promise."

"Merely an issue of time, Peter."  Sylar quietly took back his hand.

That had been the end of it, and then Sylar had been a little quiet, and little preoccupied, but still as friendly as he normally was.  Peter tried to give him his space and his time, and tried not to give in to the instinctive worry.

There were plenty of other things to worry about, anyway.  The curfew was getting earlier and earlier, and the restrictions tighter.  Peter noticed fear in the eyes of some people around him when they saw his armband, fear that hadn't been there before... it wasn't the fear of his ability, he gradually realized.  It was the fear of being associated with an untouchable class of human being.  Stores began asking for ID even when he paid in cash, double-checking it against his face suspiciously.  Peter's face, which he had thought was so famous.

And yet, specials had not been causing any undue problems.  Peter couldn't understand it.  He had always thought that societies lashed out at minorities most during times of national stress, looking for a scapegoat, but things in the country were relatively normal.  And yet there was a crackdown, either beginning or on its way.  He could feel it closing in from the distance, inexorable as a vise.

Peter pulled his hair again.  Too many highs in his life, too many lows, all of them at once.




Behind the Wall


"You think that I've changed."

"I think you've got some possibilities, yeah."  Peter put down the hammer and looked at Sylar, who was gazing up the expanse of the Wall with sad eyes.  "I saw you saving someone.  And not just that… I saw the look in your eyes, like you wanted to save her."  He brushed his hands off and slid down the Wall to sit.  "I've seen you bad, and I've seen you try to be good, and it looked like you were trying to be good in my vision."

"You've seen me try to be good, to elevate myself, get beyond these… compulsions, and you've seen me fail."  Sylar sat down, mimicking Peter's weary slouch, forearms on bent knees.  "I always go back, Peter."

Peter shrugged.  "Maybe you won't, this time.  Maybe you're different.  I've seen you do some crazy stuff here, but in the entire time we've been around each other, you haven't done anything I'd say was evil."

Sylar shrugged back.  "Lack of opportunity, maybe.  You can't really get hurt or killed, here, and my powers are nullified.  Once they come back, who knows?"  He paused.

"What?"

"Peter, we need to discuss whether or not you'll be able to kill me if I turn bad again."

"What?"  Peter straightened, glaring.  "No we don't."

"Peter…"

"It's not gonna happen, Sylar.  Period."

Sylar closed his eyes.  "Could your optimism nudge itself out of the way long enough to at least admit that it's happened every single time before?"

"Sylar, you could be someone new after this.  Don't you think so?"

Sylar grimaced.  "We are going to talk about this, Peter, because you're not a planner, and I am.  You're an optimist; I'm not."  Sylar looked intently at Peter.  "You need me to help you work these things out."

Peter looked stubborn, but said, "Fine.  What do you want from me here?  I don't want to kill you."

"Well, it may be a moot point, because there might not be any way to do it in the end."

Peter looked at his hands and said, reluctantly, "You're supposed to have that kill spot, right?"

"Sure.  And I could tell you where it is, but I promise you that once I turn evil, I'll just move it again.  Perhaps you could obliterate me with fire or an explosion…"

"Fire, no, I happen to know that Claire walked right through one and wasn't touched."  Peter grimaced.  "I can't believe you've actually got me thinking about this.  Drowning?"

"I doubt it would be fun, but I'm certain I would resuscitate the moment I left the water.  If you could find a way to keep me there permanently…"

"Sylar, that's living death."

Sylar nodded.  "Matt Parkman's own solution.  I give him credit for its effectiveness.  But, as you are so elaborately and mule-headedly proving right now, I might always be rescued by some do-gooder with more heart than sense."

"If you're the sensible one of us, I take that as a compliment."

"There is another variant of… living death."  Sylar swallowed, hard.

"What, bury you?"  Peter grinned.  "Didn't they already try that one?"

Sylar shook his head, and felt himself stop.  He didn't want to say this.  He didn't want to give this to Peter, to put it into his hands.  But if not Peter, then who?  Who else could be trusted with it?  "Follow me."  He stood and started walking to the near high-rise, climbing the fire escape to get to the roof.  He heard Peter's steps beneath him, and tried to keep his mind blank until they reached the top.  They walked out onto the concrete surface, moving toward the edge, the cornice.  Sylar placed his hands flat on the concrete and looked down at the drop, breathing in deeply.  "You've seen me up here."

"Yeah," Peter said, softly.  "I've seen you.  You always get real close to the edge and then back off."

Sylar nodded.  "I used to jump from them, just to see what would happen.  Once I… I got stuck."

Peter frowned.  "Stuck how?"

"I just… I hung in the air.  Floating.  There was no way to go down or up, nothing to grab onto.  I don't know how long I was trapped there; fortunately there was still some air resistance and I was able to use that, but it took hours to push myself even an inch… I was absolutely powerless."

Peter touched Sylar's shoulder, gently.  "Wow.  No wonder you back off from it, now."

"I want you to understand what I'm suggesting, Peter."  Sylar looked at Peter, feeling chills up and down his spine.  I have to do this now.  While I'm sane; while I still care about what happens to the world.  Once I get out there... anything might happen.  I have to do it right now.  "I wouldn't be much of a danger to anybody in space, now would I?"

Peter smirked incredulously.  "You want me to shoot you into space?  In what, like, a space pod?  A deep freeze?  I thought I was the comic book fan, man."

Sylar kept his face tight and blank.  "No space pod.  No deep freeze.  Find some way to get me out there... if I go bad enough, I'm sure that even the government will cooperate... and just shoot me out bodily.  To.  Float."  It was sickening, saying it out loud.  The only thing in existence worse than this.

Peter's eyes were wide and horrified.  "That's... why?  Sylar, I mean, come on, that's ridiculous on the face of it, okay?  And anyway, you could just... fly back down to Earth, or push yourself back home telekinetically, right?"

Sylar shook his head, forcing the words out.  "No.  In the void of space?  Even if there were anything to push against…  My body would be deteriorating and regenerating at a furious rate.  I'd be too distracted by... dying... to use my powers.  I wouldn't be able to see, or detect where I was.  I would be.  Nullified."  He swallowed.  "Disposed of.  Eternally torn to pieces and regrowing.  It would be..."

"Stop," Peter said.  "Sylar.  Jesus, you're dead white, sit down."  He helped Sylar slide down to a sitting position against the wall, holding onto him, crouching over him.  "Sylar.  Sylar.  Listen to me.  That, is not, going to happen.  Okay?"

"I did it to myself," Sylar gasped.  "Immortality is such a difficult problem to solve..."

"Okay, when I tell you to shut up this time, do me a favor and shut up, okay?"  Peter shook Sylar's shoulders, looking fiercely into his eyes.  "What Parkman did to you was one thing, but that?  It's... unspeakable, okay?  Which is why we're not going to speak about it, okay?  Hey."  Peter patted Sylar's face.  "Why would you even come up here and think about jumping after that happened?"

Sylar clutched at Peter's arms and took a deep breath, his vision clearing.  "I honestly have no idea."

"Closest thing to a death wish I've ever seen on you.  Come on.  Up."  Peter pulled Sylar to his feet, keeping him steady.  "Don't look over the side again, we're going downstairs now."

They made it halfway down when Sylar whispered, "You have to plan for the inevitable, Peter."

"Bullshit.  You believing that you were somehow destined to be evil and all-powerful was what started most of this mess.  Screw the inevitable.  We're going to do what humans do, and live with the inevitability of mistakes and still hope for the best, okay?"

Sylar frowned.  "That's never been my way."

"Well, you've got an eternity to figure out some new ways to be."



Continue...


10/19/11--09:55: And Now These Three Remain - Part 8 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 9 ~ Epilogue ~



November 2020


Information regarding the criminal known as Sylar acquired.  Source terminated.  Alert Haney; reasons for hoarding this particular individual don't match to their stated desire to assist law enforcement wherever possible; given the nature of the powers described, Sylar is in fact a perfect and possibly unstoppable vehicle for crimes of the highest Federal order.

- memo to Howie Venn from Intelligence Unit 5-C, February 2021


Claire stepped through the door with her arms full of grocery bags, kicking it shut behind her.  Sylar jumped up.  "Let me help with those."  She took a quick step back, nearly dropping her armload.  He held his hands up.  "I'm not going to hurt you, Claire."

She huffed a breath out through her nose.  "Sorry.  Reflex."  She nudged one bag toward him and watched him with the eyes of a hawk as he took it from her, carrying it quietly to the kitchen.  She followed, and they began putting the groceries away.

He glanced at her.  "Claire."  Sylar's voice was soft, almost tender.  "Are you sure it's a good idea, your staying here?  I know you're not comfortable around me."

She looked down at the bag of grapes in her hands for a second before reaching up into the cabinet for a colander and dumping them into it.  "It's not ideal, but I'm safer here.  Since Community Protection was disbanded, and… well.  It's not like I have that much to do, anymore.  And quit assuming you know how I feel."  She looked him in the eye.  "Your little mind reading games do not help me feel comfortable around you."

He nodded.  "Okay.  I'm still a little rusty on my social graces.  But if it makes you feel better, I'm going stir-crazy here, too.  I have nothing to do but advise Peter.  And to try not to worry Peter by going anywhere.  And to try to be invisible because Peter doesn't want me to get hurt."  Sylar pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, and then shook himself and started emptying one of the bags.

"So I guess it's good to have someone to talk to."

"Yes," he breathed.  "Very.  Much.  So."

Claire rinsed the grapes in the sink, putting them to the side.  "Sylar."  She paused, gripping the edge of the sink in her hands.  Sylar looked down at them... such tiny hands.  She pursed her mouth tightly.  "I'm sorry."

"For what?"  He turned to lean against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.

Claire still felt uncomfortable at the way he smelled, the way he moved, the way he leaned against a counter.  It would never go away.  "I'm sorry… for trying to drive you away from Peter.  I didn't know."

Sylar sighed.  "I stand here, having killed people.  Slaughtered them, mercilessly, and you're sorry for being mean to me that one time."

"It's not that," Claire said, quietly.  "It's that we just have more in common than I thought we did.  And you're not the monster I thought you were, or at least, not by choice.  You did those things, yes.  But I've… I've turned the entire world against all of us, there's this tightening chain encircling us and I did that, Sylar.  I did it on purpose and by choice.  I created an underclass!"

"Claire… can I touch you without sending you running back out into the street?"  His hand hovered over her shoulder.

She looked at it.  It just looked like a hand.  "If you must."

He took her shoulder and turned her toward him.  "Look at me."  His eyes were dark, and sympathetic, and half amused.  "Tell me.  Tell me all of these horrible things you've done – purely by accident, Claire.  By accident.  And I'll tell you all of the things I've done that, while certainly encouraged by my proclivities, were, in fact, cemented by my choices.  And I know that, because there were times when I made the right choice.  I was capable of it."

Claire swallowed.  "So are we at fault, or aren't we?"

Sylar pulled his hand back, and shrugged, helplessly.  "Who knows?  We've done things.  I have done terrible things, you have done things with terrible consequences.  Claire, do you know why I think people believe in God?"

"Why?"

"Because if there is a God who sees our minds, then our intentions actually count for something.  Our fuckups can be seen for the potential they originally had to be vast accomplishments; if there is a God, then there's room for error.  If not… any voice that says that the only thing that matters is the result, well, that's not a voice you can put a reasonable argument up to."  His mouth tightened.  "I've been considering the whole belief thing, lately.  It's.  It's not easy to live with…"

"It's not easy to know you're going to live forever with the things you've done," Claire said, quietly.

He looked at her.  "As paltry comfort as this likely is, you're not going to live that forever alone, and you aren't going to be the only one feeling the way you do."

Claire thought about the years stretching ahead of her and half-smiled.  "Maybe it's a comfort.  At least the notion of someone to talk to."

"But in the interim…"  Sylar frowned.  "Expiation.  Is it deserved, or is it mandatory despite that?  Is it even possible?  The things I've done to you alone would have me sent to a well-justified death."

She sighed.  "So we're both sorry… that doesn't seem to cover it, somehow.  But I still feel like it's necessary to be sorry; even to you."

Sylar smiled down at Claire.  "You're sorry for the letter.  And for thinking of me as a monster for all of these years.  And for jumping off a Ferris wheel in front of a crowd.  I know, I'm not supposed to be reading your mind, and I'll try not to, but... Claire... get real.  I killed people.  Horribly.  I killed people who begged me for mercy and I enjoyed it.  You will never, for the rest of eternity, owe me an apology for anything."

For a moment, she felt sixteen again, before knowledge had aged her; she was just exploring ideas with a friend again.  And trying to explain her thoughts.  She looked up at Sylar, and knew he could see that difference in her eyes.  "Sylar, we apologize for ourselves, not for the people we're apologizing to.  That's what expiation is, and why nobody can agree on whether it's enough.  It erases nothing, but… it convinces us that we're capable of doing better, I think.  Don't you think so?"

Sylar thought for a moment, and nodded.  "I suppose I do."  He looked at her eyes and she could almost feel the thought, You're so beautiful.  But he stayed where he was, his hands still, and she didn't shudder.  He said, "I suspect that we forgive for ourselves, too, not for the people who've hurt us.  So that we don't have to carry the burden of a thing that someone else did.  Have you forgiven me?"  She shook her head, sadly.  "That's okay, Claire.  I forgave you long ago.  For the fucking letter."  He rolled his eyes.

Claire was startled into a laugh.  She reached out to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and squeezed it, lightly.  "I do want to forgive you, Sylar.  Someday I would like to be free of the things you've done to me."

His eyes turned sober, and sad.  "I would, too."

She felt tears come to her eyes.  "I know."  She let go of him and went back to the sink, wiping her eyes brusquely.  Sylar watched her for a moment and turned back to the ice cream, melting on the counter.

After some silence, she said, "There's a thing you could do for me… in terms of… well, not expiation, but what would be a better word?"

"Reparation, maybe?"

"That.  You could look after Peter.  I can't… I can't protect him anymore; not without my squad behind me and my medical fan club.  You can."

She heard Sylar's intake of breath.  "It would mean disobeying a direct order and leaving this apartment."

"And I'm just horrible enough of a person to play the you-owe-me card to get you to do it."

"You're not a horrible person.  But I'm just enough of a horrible person to let you think I'm forced into doing this, when the truth is, if I spend another day here, I'll probably eat the windowblinds."

Claire smiled.  "We'll both say it was me.  And… Sylar, I can't lose Peter.  Not after… I just can't--"

"You won't," he said, cutting her off.  "Nobody is going to lose anybody.  Not in this little trio, anyway."




Behind the Wall


Sylar had never in his life spent this much time this close to someone, and it was starting to have a strange effect on him.  He felt that he had the lines and motions of Peter's body memorized; knew every inflection of his speech.  Reflections in his mind of memories from others built the picture up more, formed a history of this man, a notion of his character beyond even what Sylar had experienced in this place.

Peter was impulsive, occasionally moody, occasionally careless, and his temper could be terrible... Sylar still remembered the pain of nails driven through his hands, the rage in Peter's eyes.

But for all that, there was something strangely perfect about him.

He was good.  Sylar couldn't even put his finger on one particular thing or act that translated to that.  Peter was merely good, all over; when you spoke to him, you knew he would try his best to listen.  When you were hurting, he would do everything within his power to help you.  He agonized over the world's problems, obsessed with finding some way to help everybody weave their way through everything that was wrecked and obstacle-ridden in their lives.  He made the tough choices, he never shrank from anything.

It was confusing, and it was irritating, and Sylar couldn't stop trying to figure it out.

No conjoinment of fates could ever have designed a situation like this:  Sylar, the irredeemable beast, trapped in hell, and this... strange, irate little angel flying in to try and drag him out and make him useful.  Only to get trapped right along with him.

The only person on earth who would ever, who could ever, make Sylar into a friend.

They still touched each other, every time they saw each other after an absence.  And if Sylar watched Peter for hours as he drew, Peter no longer mentioned it... it was all-too-explicable, really; live creatures wanted to observe and study other live creatures.  Objects were never as fascinating.

Sylar watched Peter, and was troubled about him.  His mind itched with the need to peer inside of Peter and see what was there; not Peter's gift, not inside his brain, but into his thoughts, his motivations.  I could explain my own existence, if I could explain yours.

Peter glanced up at Sylar one day, and smiled at him, as easily as at a friend.  He winked, and then returned to his drawing.

Sylar was startled by what came over him.  He stood quietly and left the room, feeling the phantom pounding of his heart.

He realized that being out of the room was no help.  He mind was able to paint Peter's face in memory, perfectly rendered, perfectly him.  And, perfect.  The most baffling, frustrating, persistently confronting, perfect human being.  Even his flaws were perfect.

Sylar's heart ached, and he felt profoundly sick.  Not him.  For the love of god, please, not me.  Not that.  He would be disgusted if he knew.

He would be right to feel disgusted.




January 2021


"What precedent could we possibly call upon?  What truths do we have that are self-evident, here?  Tony, there's no precedent.  We are finally and impassably blocked by a terrible truth:  not all men are created equal.  And it's a terrible moment in history, because the only possible following thought is that not all men have the same inalienable rights.  We're at a precipice, ladies and gentlemen.  And we stand to lose as much by hesitating as we do by making an impulsive move.  It's the very redefinition of everything we stand for, and as it always has been, the decision will be made by men and women, mortal, flawed.  And the wrong decision might be the last one we ever make freely."

- President Alex Whestley, February 2021


Peter found him at the edge of the roof, out in the bitter cold and wind, and once he finally thought to go up there, it immediately fit.  Yes.  He would have gone here.

Sylar still wore his black coat, and for a second, Peter felt a flicker of fear that those in the street below might recognize that tall, black silhouette… but that had been in a different city.  Somehow, the roof tops here felt the same.  Perhaps it was just the cold.  For an instant, Sylar's coat collar moved with the wind, and Peter thought about great black wings, and wanted to rush forward, wanted to hold on before something bad happened.  "Sylar?"

When Sylar didn't turn around, Peter realized -- oddly enough, from experience with his girlfriends over the years -- that it was Peter himself who was somehow the problem.

Peter moved up beside him, leaned onto the lip at the edge.  "I need you to tell me what's wrong."  Sylar said nothing, but his coat moved in the wind again, and Peter reached out and took hold of him, firmly.  "Don't."

Sylar looked at him, confused.  "As if it would matter?  It would only hurt for a second."

"It would matter to me."

"Why?"

"Because the instant you hit the pavement and start to heal, people are going to know what you are, and that puts you at risk."

Sylar looked down at the street.  "Ah."

Peter shook him, lightly.  "No, that's not it, okay?  I don't want you jumping off this roof, okay?"

"I've been following you, some days."

Peter stared.  "No.  No, you haven't…"

"Peter."  Sylar looked at him.  "Neither Claire nor I can handle the idea of something happening to you, and you are the only one of us who is permitted outside the apartment, and exactly when did we all decide that you can dictate our actions, body and soul?"  Sylar smiled, sadly.  "Who elected you president of the specials?  The only three of them left in the city, at any rate."

Peter coughed down a surge of anger.  "I'm the one who goes out there because I'm the one with any chance left of saving specials from going underground, from having to fight a war to get back above ground again.  Okay?  And I'm the leader because I'm the only one of us who doesn't think he somehow destroyed the whole world, and hence I'm the one of us with a clear head!  And don't you fucking follow me again!  Sylar."  He clenched his teeth, growling through them in rage.  "I've spent."  He shook his head.  "I've spent ten years trying to put wings on you.  Please.  When is it going to stick?"

"Wings?" Sylar said, incredulously.  "Peter, you've locked me in a room!"

"You know, Sylar, for once, I'm the one more capable of abstract thought, here."

Sylar shut his eyes and tilted his head back into the wind.  "Freeing me from who I was, or from my various spiritual and psychological dooms, or… whatever."  He sighed.  "I just don't know how much longer I can do this, Peter.  I can't leave you, I can't protect you, and… it's reached the point where, I can't be here, either.  It's wrong for me to be here.  There was actually never a moment when it wasn't wrong for your life to have me in it."

Peter felt the change from anger to despair.  "I thought we got past that.  When will you just… be my brother?"

Sylar looked at Peter, his eyes dark.  "It's not that.  I just need to be away."

"Look, don't start that, okay?  We need to stick together."

Sylar shook his head.

Claire's voice rang out across the balcony.  "Peter.  I've been looking for you everywhere..."

Peter looked back at her.  Sylar kept his head down, facing the street below.  Peter said, "Hey.  We were just admiring the view."

Claire smiled at him.  "Likewise."  They kissed, and when they parted, Claire looked at Sylar curiously.  "You okay?"

Sylar nodded.  "Fine."

Claire said, "Yeah.  You look great, aside from the whole tilting yourself toward the street thing."  She went to his other side and took his other arm.  Sylar looked down at her, surprised.  Claire tugged at him.  "Want to come back downstairs?"

Sylar let himself be pulled back inside.  He glanced at Peter, and smiled painfully.  "Wings, eh?"  Peter nodded, firmly, and he and Claire walked Sylar back inside.

* * *

Sylar opened the sketchbook.  Page after page, all of them sketches dark, charcoal and firm lines, all of a man in black flying off of a building, a cape spreading back behind him like wings.  He ran his fingers across the drawings.  Maybe he's right, and wishing hard enough will make it true.

He heard her come up behind him.  "Sylar."

"Claire."

She sat down, seemingly more comfortable than she had ever been, this close to him.  "You don't know enough about being around people to hide the look in your eyes, Sylar.  I, unfortunately, still remember both junior high and high school, and I've seen those eyes before.  You're torn up over someone.  And there are only two of us in your whole sphere of existence.  Is it me, or is it him?"

Sylar's eyes widened.  She had said it so matter-of-factly.  Or is it him?  As though that weren't the most abominable horror possible.  As though it were a perfectly innocent little handful of words.

Sylar watched her face, watched her expectant expression, her fear, and couldn't tell which answer would frighten her more.  He wondered what the truth might gain him.  Perhaps some tiny part of her trust.  He tried to quell the sick feeling that had been lingering in his chest for months.  "Both of you."

Her eyes widened.  "That was the one answer I didn't expect."

He looked at her, waiting for some kind of judgment, and none came.  "Is what you expected open to discussion?"

She looked at her hands.  "Well.  You always had some kind of a…" she paused.

"Just say it," he said, softly.

"You always had a sick thing for me.  Since I was a teenager."  Claire swallowed, hard, her eyes haunted.  "So it might have been me.  But Peter… you know, it makes more sense to me than you might think.  You aren't two typical brothers, and you didn't have years of childhood together to make you feel like family instead of two newly-discovered, amazingly compatible people.  Regardless of orientation, or choice, or blood type.  You need him, you really need him, and.  He."  She stopped, tears in her eyes.  "He needs you back.  The two of you, you're like two halves of one person, and I'm… I'm just…"

"Claire," Sylar said, chidingly.  "I'm not the only thing in the world he needs."

"But…"

"I still have it, you know."

Claire looked at him, distracted from her thought process.  "You still have what?"

"Your letter."  He reached into his breast pocket, and pulled it out, the paper thin and fragile from being handled.  Claire looked at it, and one of the tears slid down her cheek.  Sylar unfolded the letter, his eyes resting on the familiar lines again.



Peter's over-developed sense of misplaced parental responsibility toward you aside -- yes, he really does believe he single-handedly re-created you back when you had that little mental retreat together -- he doesn't need you in his life, either.  I watch the way you look at him, the way you feed off of him, and it's disgusting.


"I agree that it's disgusting," Sylar said.

"I was angry," she whispered.

"You were right."

"No, I wasn't."

"You were about my leaving you alone.  Claire."  Sylar looked into her eyes, looked with all of the force of honesty and will he could manage.  "There is no feeling, no emotion, no amount of need on earth that could induce me to ever… approach you that way again.  Do you understand?"  He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, "If we stay in each others' lives for an eternity, I will never touch you more than this."

She looked up at him, and he saw the passage of feeling in her face… mild horror at such a drastic promise, the guilt of being the cause of it, sadness, and then, relief, and the guilt of feeling so relieved.  Something tight and guarded left her eyes, something that Sylar had never seen absent from them.

And he thought, It's worth it.  Just to see her look at me without fear.

She said, softly, "And what if I touch you first?"

He smiled.  "Do you really think you would want to?"

"Maybe."  Her eyes turned introspective.  "Maybe… in some very far future time… maybe."

"You'll understand if I prefer not to live with that hope."

She said nothing, but took his hand.  "And Peter?"

"Peter…"  Sylar sighed.  "He and I have already suffered a lifetime of high drama.  Peter is, at heart, a very simple man.  You always wanted to be normal and not have any powers.  Well, Peter has no issue with his powers… what he always wanted and never had was a normal relationship with his family.  Love, support, mutual trust."

She nodded.  "And what have you always wanted?"

"Certainly not what I'm wanting now.  But you know, I think I may have had an inkling, long ago, long before any of this started, back when my entire job and life were centered around mechanisms and perfecting them.  I think I've always wanted to fix everything that was wrong."

Claire looked incredulous.  "Are you trying to tell me that you're a people-pleaser at heart, Sylar?"

He smirked.  "Repeat that to another soul and I'll deny that I even know you."

"Okay, I'll keep your dirty little secret."  She smiled.  "But the other secret… Sylar, you should still tell him.  He would want to know."

"Why tell him something that would only make him unhappy, and that he can't fix?"

Claire cleared her throat, looking away, thinking for a moment.  "I did always want to be normal.  So badly.  I don't, anymore… I finally realized that I wasn't the one who was wrong; the standards for normalcy, those were wrong.  But that took years for me to work out.  It's so hard to reject what you grew up thinking was right.  And so many people… they have a rebellious period, and then go back to what their parents believed, and what their grandparents believed, because it's just so much easier.  Fighting that certainty… that's hard."  She looked up at Sylar.  "You and I and Peter are going to live for a very, very long time.  Long enough to watch those standards and all of those rules change, and change, and change again.  We'll all have a different perspective in a hundred years.  And we'll know each other in ways that few people ever could."

Sylar nodded acquiescence.  "Astute.  And the time may come.  But bear in mind that if I tell him, I can never take it back."

"And if you wait, you always have a choice."

"There we go.  But right now… it would be wrong.  Wrong because he's my brother, and because he so desperately wants a brother, and because, after all he's given up, he deserves that.  Wrong with you, because I've only ever frightened and forced you, and even if it could be justified for us to be together, it would be decades before we can connect that way without it being… sick."  Sylar indicated the letter.  "You still feel this way, some days."

Claire dropped her eyes.

"And it would be wrong in a third way.  Claire, you and Peter are good for each other.  I've seen it.  I don't want to disturb that.  Something tells me we'll have a shortage of good things in our lives in the near future."

Claire looked back up at him.  "You think about things so differently from the way you used to."

He nodded, feeling more exhausted than a simple conversation should have been able to make him.

She leaned in and put her head on his shoulder.  "You need a brother just as badly as he does, though.  And a friend.  Will it be enough for you?"

"Claire, the entire planet wasn't enough for me.  I'm trying to operate according to a different standard, now.  But.  I'll try not to leap off any buildings."  He paused.  "It's easier to at least have one of you know."

"I thought it might be.  I can't tell you what a weight off my shoulders it was when Peter and I finally cleared the air."

Sylar winced.  "I wouldn't say you cleared the air.  The air was decidedly musky in the apartment for those first few weeks."

"Oh, shut up."



Continue...


10/19/11--10:00: And Now These Three Remain - Part 9 (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Epilogue ~



Behind the Wall


It was after the last time Peter had exploded to Sylar about bringing up Nathan's memories again, and they were swinging away at the Wall together.  There were things Peter hadn't liked admitting to in the beginning, but after four years, or perhaps five, and no more hope of escaping than they had in the beginning, he could admit to almost anything now:  Sylar's presence beside him was a comfort.

They swung together, hitting in a syncopation, but somehow in perfect complement.  Lately it seemed that they had been even more in tune than ever.  They swung in counterpoint, took breaks in shifts, ate together.  They spoke less than ever before, and there seemed to be no need for it.  When Peter woke in the morning and dressed, the first thing he went to do was find Sylar, who would be dressed and waiting for him, and they would touch each other on the shoulder, not making eye contact.  No acknowledgment was needed.  You didn't talk about breathing, you just needed the air.  They didn't talk about needing each other, but they touched like this, frequently.  Sylar might put his hammer down, signaling Peter to drop his own, and then Peter would feel a hand on his shoulder, and he would stand quietly until the moment they were both sensed they were ready to continue.

It seemed that they even breathed in tandem, moving together like two horses harnessed to a carriage and keeping in perfect step.

Each of them sensed they were getting closer to finding a way out.




March 2021


"It weighs on me, it weighs like a hell of an anvil, it just tries to suck the life out of me, do you hear me on this?  Here, we trusted him.  Here, we listened.  All the time to that face, that boy scout fucking face that never got any older, and did we suspect a damned thing?  No.  And all that time, he was protecting a known special serial killer, inside his own home.  One of the most brutal, merciless specials we've ever known.  All the while, all that talk about mutual trust and responsibility.  Oh, God, it kills me.  It kills me.  And so help me, if I see his face again, I won't be responsible for what I do to him."

- Trey Juhilan, outside the Capitol building, April 2021


Claire stood before the window, a tear sliding down her face.  She heard the door open and shut behind her, and she somehow knew it was Sylar.  There was something tentative about the sound.  Peter was never tentative.  Whereas Sylar always sounded as though he were being careful with her, as though she might break.  And these days, she was ready to acknowledge the possibility.  "Hi," she whispered.

"Brooding over it isn't going to help."

"Even he has to admit that we need to leave.  Why won't he?  I think he's honestly gone off the deep end, Sylar."

"I know."  He was at her shoulder now, and Claire wondered at what point the feel of his presence had changed from a looming threat to something more familiar and dependable.  "If I could convince him, I would."

"I'm worried that he won't make it back today.  What if he's already out there, dead somewhere?  Did he even have the invulnerability with him?  I know he uses other powers of yours, and he just doesn't think…"

"He's alright.  I would know if anything happened to him."

Claire turned around and looked up into his eyes.  "How?  How would you know?"

"Claire."  Sylar smiled down at her.  "I would feel it, okay?  Our abilities are linked.  I can feel him now.  He's a couple of miles away.  And if anything were to happen to him, I would fly to his side in an instant."

"Why don't you go to him now?  Why weren't you with him, protecting him today?"

Sylar grimaced.  "Because he knows where I am, too, and he wanted me here."

"Sylar… we already talked about how ridiculous it is for him to decide things for us.  Why are you still listening to him?"

Sylar gave Claire a dark look, and then gazed out the window, his eyes growing hard and calculating, a shadow of his old self emerging.  "I might not listen to him.  Claire, you must know how much I will lose if something happens to him."

She was silent, wanting to back away from the sinister energy he seemed to be gathering to himself.

"Peter has, you could say… domesticated me.  Wouldn't that be what most people would say, Claire?  That he's pulled my teeth?"  Sylar paused, his lip curling, and the glint of revealed canine did actually look sharp.  "And perhaps he's done this because he's still convinced that he can build a peace.  You and I both know just exactly how unlikely that has become.  I stand here, a weapon.  A powerful one.  And I'm sitting in a box, playing with toys."  Sylar looked at Claire with eyes gone black.  "I could have made his mission so much easier.  I know how to play the game.  I could impersonate any man of power.  I can kill.  I am invulnerable, and very, very hard to keep in a cage or back into a corner.  Do you think that Peter made the wrong decision, wanting me to stay here in my nice little home, where my big brother can make sure that nothing happens to my fragile psyche?  Do you think I enjoy this; cooking, carrying, walking furtively through the streets and then ducking my way back home, hiding, controlling myself… being just another burden in his life?"

Claire took a tight breath, and said, "If staying here isn't who you are, then why aren't you already out there, tearing the world apart to keep him safe?"

Sylar's eyes softened, and he raised an eyebrow at her.  "Because he told me to stay here."  He looked out the window again, and just like that, he was smaller, just as worried and human as Claire was.

If what they were could be called human.  Claire moved closer to him, and Sylar touched her arm briefly, like an apology, and they looked out the window, as though it could show them what Peter was facing, and whether he was in danger.  And Claire remembered her words to her father, about Peter.  He doesn't use people like a tool.  Not even when they want to be used.

Claire felt Sylar stiffen beside her.  "What is it?"

He turned, heading for the door.  "Pack."

"Wait, Sylar, what's going on?"

He looked into her eyes as he opened the door.  "Claire.  Go get us ready.  Peter needs me.  I will bring him here, but then we need to leave."  He left and the door shut behind him.
Claire clenched her fists for a moment, and then went to pack.




Behind the Wall


And when Sylar couldn't push Peter away, and couldn't scare him away, and couldn't lose him, and couldn't fight him, and couldn't escape him, he finally realized that the only way to keep protecting the world and paying for his own crimes was to imprison Peter inside the solitary, dreamlike city with him forever.  Peter, the one person Sylar knew that could never deserve that kind of a hell.

Nobody did, in fact, except for Sylar himself… but Peter especially did not belong here.  But there was no other way.

Sylar kept him there for years, desperately trying to expiate all of it, until the day he realized just exactly what was happening.

And the only way Sylar could set Peter free, was to let himself be saved.  Sylar decided not to understand it.  He surrendered.

The massive Metaphor crumbled.




March 2021


"Aim for the head.  The most dangerous specials always had a vulnerable spot somewhere deep within the brain.  Shoot, and do not stop shooting until the head is pulverized, and if you see it growing back, bring out the grenades.  I do not want a single one of you men to die because you made the mistake of underestimating these people."

- Sgt. Conn Shilavski, April 2021


Peter and Sylar burst through the door, and Claire stood up, her face pale.  "Peter."

He ran to her, holding her close, kissing her.  "I'm okay."

She kissed him back, clutching his face and his hair, making sure that he was all there.  "You're sure?  Sylar said you were in trouble..."

Peter's eyes fell.  "I should have listened to him.  Or to you.  Well, it's past time now.  We have to go."

Sylar's eyes were dark and angry.  "Peter, I still think—"

Peter whirled on him.  "I said no!" he shouted.  Sylar stared at him defiantly, but wilted a little.  Peter sighed.  He went to Sylar and put his hands on his shoulders.  "No, okay?  Just... no.  Listen to me.  For the last time, please, please listen to me, okay?"  He paused, biting something back, his eyes shining.  "I gave you wings to get you the hell out of here, Gabriel.  Not out of that prison, but out of this one.  All that blood, that power hunger, everything that keeps you from being human."

Sylar said, "I'm not human!"

Peter shook him.  "Yes, you are!  And for once, for just fucking once, I would like to keep some member of my family off the front lines!"  He coughed, hoarsely, his eyes shining.  "Just... please."

Sylar gazed at him, his eyes sad, and then he looked at Claire.  Claire said, "Peter, does that mean we're agreed that you're no longer trying to save the whole world?"

Peter nodded, looking back and forth between them.  "Only the two of you.  And myself."

"For a wonder," Sylar remarked.  "Fine.  We'll fly away this time, and rank family above the Cause for once."

They waited for nightfall, packed everything into bags, tying what they could to Sylar, and then he held them both and all he could of their belongings, and flew them all free.

He flew as fast and as far as he could, but they still barely made it out of the city sprawl before having to drop and walk, and then Sylar had to lean on Peter for a while, his powers briefly exhausted.

Claire still had her old knowledge of the underground to pull upon, and she guided them to a safe house on the outskirts of a suburb, fortunately abandoned.  It took the entire night to walk there, following the sides of roads, hiding from headlights, looking for road blocks, but they reached the house just as dawn broke.

They hid in the basement and tried to work out further plans, huddling together like fugitives, and despite the bright sunshine outside, shivering.  Claire couldn't seem to get warm; she knew it was psychological, but it felt real nonetheless.  She pulled Peter closer on one side, and Sylar closer on the other.  Peter just wrapped his arms around her, and Sylar held one of her hands.

"We should try to sleep," Peter said.  "It'll be easier to travel at night.  Wherever we decide to go."

They spread out on the dusty pallets, relics of a time soon to be repeated, still huddling together, and tried to sleep.

* * *

Claire woke into a dark hot closeness, the air pressing against her lungs.  It was true night now, and they would need to leave soon, for a life of wandering, perhaps, of hiding, of never being able to relax again.

So close to death, Claire felt her own body want to thrash and fight and kill for itself, want to declare itself alive, somehow.  Her breath rasped in her throat, and she blinked into the darkness, her eyes adjusting.  On one side, she saw a glint of another pair of eyes, open.  She turned to Peter and reached for his hands.  "Are we going to make it?"  She barely even knew what she was asking.  Would they live?  Well, they were pretty hard to kill.  Would they escape?  Surely not forever.  Would they ever have any peace or happiness again?  Perhaps that.

Peter said, "Yes, we will," in answer to all of her questions.  Firmly.  And Claire believed him, because he was still the only person she would always trust.

She struggled to sit up, and felt Sylar move into sitting position smoothly as a cat beside her, holding himself a little apart from the other two.  Peter reached over to grip Sylar's shoulder reassuringly, and Sylar made a soft sound and bowed his head.

"What is it?  Are you okay?"  Peter scrambled closer.

"You know something?" Sylar said, quiet and low.  "I never apologized to you, Peter."

"For what?"

"For leaving you to deal with your mother's death alone.  I should never have left the city.  I knew you needed... I knew you were going to need me last year, and I just..."

Peter sighed.  "You knew I would ask for Nathan all the time."

Claire gasped.

Sylar shook his head.  "Only a few times."

Claire said, tightly, "That was why he came out last year.  You kept him so near the surface all the time because… Peter.  Oh, Peter, you didn't."

"I did.  And more than a few times.  Don't make it sound excusable, Sylar."  Peter rubbed Sylar's arm.  "And for that, I'm sorry.  I know how sick it made you to do that.  I knew it, and I knew it was driving you away."

"It shouldn't have.  I understood."  Sylar paused.  "Do you need him now?"

"Oh, god," Claire said, scooting away slightly.

"Claire, it's okay."  Peter took a deep breath, and let it out.  "Sylar… Nathan is dead, and I'm done punishing you, and you need to be done punishing yourself.  Tell him that he can go."

Sylar drew his knees up and pressed his forehead against them.  His breath was slow and uneven, loud in the closeness of the room.

Claire pressed her hand to her eyes for a second, and then crawled over to Sylar's side, rubbing his back.  She felt Peter on Sylar's other side, wrapping him up in a hug and squeezing Claire's hand in passing, and she heard Peter whisper a few quiet words in Sylar's ear.  All she caught was a quiet, "Okay?" at the end.

"Is this the time for big truths, then?"  Sylar whispered.

"I think so," Claire said.

Peter said, "What is it?  You can tell me anything, okay?"

Sylar's shoulders shook, and he lifted his head and turned to Claire, stroking her hair gently.  She closed her eyes, willing him for once to read her mind, and she thought, Tell him.  We're about to go to a place where we can't escape each other, for who knows how long.  We'll live and breathe each other.  He'll find out anyway.  Just tell him.  And then a final thought that escaped her lips, barely audible, "I can't watch you suffer like this anymore."

"Really."  Sylar pressed his forehead to hers for a moment.  "The both of you are always and forever making my reality into something different from what it was."

She smirked.  "We're interesting like that."

Sylar chuckled, and then he turned to Peter, and pressed his cheek to Peter's, and whispered a few quiet words.

Claire felt Peter stiffen for a moment, and her eyes strained in the darkness to see his face, but it was unreadable.

Peter shook himself, seemed to recover, hesitated, leaning in and saying something that sounded like a question.  Sylar hesitated, answered.

Peter took Sylar's head firmly in his hands and kissed his forehead and then pulled him close again, rocking him back and forth a few times.  Claire barely caught the edge of the whisper... the word nothing, and then, remember, and then, okay.  And Sylar nodded, and breathed out in what felt like relief.  And the entire room breathed.  Claire shut her eyes and tried to relax; she had been holding as much tension as Sylar.  And she realized just how very important both of them had become to her, and how badly she needed them to be okay with each other.

Peter said, softly, "Let's just sit here and think about the fact that we're together and alive, okay?  Just for a minute."

They sat in the darkness, tangled together, and waited for the moment to settle around them and turn into something more prosaic... the feeling of sore shoulders and noses that needed to be wiped, and eyes that needed to be rubbed, and the desire to get up and move around.

"So.  Plans?" Peter said.

Sylar stretched, gingerly, his shoulders popping.  "Plans.  Now.  I've hidden successfully in Central America... warmer areas are more pleasant, but they're also more pleasant for anybody who happens to be looking for you.  And when you want to hide, you head for the jungle.  Which is… honestly, let's go somewhere else."

"There were those cabins in North Dakota, I think," said Claire.

"Then we have some decisions to make," said Peter, in a heavy voice.

"I think we should get a dog," Claire said, brightly.  She felt them both looking at her in bafflement.  "Whenever we get to wherever we're going.  Just something to keep in mind."  She paused.  "Maybe a pony, too."

Sylar started chuckling.  "I always wanted a pony, you know."  The dark mood was broken.

"Okay, guys, we'll just hide out at the zoo, how's that?  Seriously, though, this is why I keep ending up the leader!  Gimme the atlas and a flashlight, and if we forgot a flashlight, I hope you can give us a little light without electrifying the floor, Sylar."

Claire snorted.  "As if I would forget to bring a flashlight.  If you're the leader, I'm the brains, remember?"

"What does that make me?" Sylar asked in a hushed voice.

"The muscle," Claire said.

"Huh.  Never quite saw myself that way."

"Life is about to get very different for all of us," Peter said.  "Assuming I can keep us alive."





Behind the Wall


The instant they had broken through the Wall together, it had been a moment of remarkable accord.  The seeds of acceptance had been sown, and they were prepared, and in fact practiced, at working together to bring things to a state of rightness.

They both hammered at the Wall, watching the growing patch of light, feeling the way it pulled and tugged at them as they struck against the brick in a perfect rhythmic counterpoint... and then they were through...

When Peter opened his real eyes to the real world, the first feeling was a shock of absolute loss.  He could feel Sylar's absence; he could physically feel it like a stab wound.  It was like being blinded or deafened.  He reeled for a moment, unable to focus.

And then he heard the rumbling against the bricks behind him, and Sylar's presence slammed back through him like a wave of feeling, and Peter felt Sylar breaking through the wall, felt him coming through, and Peter jumped up and moved forward to escape the explosion.  When he turned back and staggered to his feet, looking at Sylar in the real world for what felt like the first time, he knew things would never be quite the same, but he didn't know why.  He saw the same awareness in Sylar's eyes, that look of fear and familiarity.  Ah, there you are.  Aren't you?

"Does it make it any less real?"

Peter tasted the new awareness of himself, and of the man in front of him.  This was more real, more real even than their companionship behind the Wall had been.

But suddenly, the world seemed very big, and very eventful.



Continue...


10/19/11--10:07: And Now These Three Remain - Epilogue (chan 2117071)


All Author's Notes can be found on the Master Post.

~ Prologue ~ Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~



The Future -- March 2030


"We haven't won.  We haven't eradicated them.  We haven't diluted the risk of them; specials still appear in the most unusual of places, and top geneticists have no conclusions as to why.  The only way we conceived of to defeat the specials was to exterminate them, and the only way to exterminate them is to exterminate ourselves.  We've killed countless civilians, trying to root out that part of ourselves that remains determined to be born in us.  Their ranks are swelling, but do you want to know something remarkable?  They still haven't risen to destroy us.  I think that they know something that we don't:  I think that they know that they are still human beings."

- Cog Trifton, speaker at the 2030 gathering of the Coalition for a Single Humanity


Sylar was sitting outside, lifting his face to the sunlight.

Claire opened the door and walked out.  "Hi."

He turned to her.  "Hi."  He smiled.  "How are you feeling today?"

"Never better.  I see we've found the sun again."  She took his hand and lifted her own face to the light.  "Was it terrible?"

Sylar shook his head.  "No, it was much the same as it ever was, they were frightened, disorganized, needed an authoritative voice.  Unfortunately, all they got was me."  He smiled, and even after so many years, there was a predatorial gleam in it.  "Our people are turning expert on us.  I'm starting to feel like nothing more than a sweeping net and a funnel.  Pluck the specials out of hiding, whirl them away, shove them down into the underground, poof!"  He stretched.  "But the night traveling gets to me after a while."

"It still seems strange to me how much you enjoy the sun."

"I was always a creature of evil, Claire, not a creature of darkness.  I did most of my marauding during daylight hours."  Sylar smirked.  "How is Peter?"

"Reminiscing again," Claire said, softly.  "I was kind of hoping you could go in there and nudge him out of it.  I need him to be a whole person right now."  She put her hand on her belly, protectively.

Sylar reached for her and placed his hand over hers.  "She's fine, Claire.  She feels perfectly healthy.  Maybe just a touch impatient."

"Thank you."  Claire winced.  "She is impatient; she hasn't stopped kicking all morning."

"So she'll be a dancer."

"Alert the Rockettes and let them know they have an early recruit," Peter said, coming outside and going to Claire, kissing her.  He turned to Sylar.  "How's the world?"

Sylar hugged his brother.  "Desperately in need of saving, per usual.  See?  I told you that you could relax, didn't I?  It will always need saving."

Peter leaned against the balcony and looked out over the downward-sloping face of the mountain, overgrown with knotted pines tangled around massive granite boulders.  It was chilly, but it would be spring soon, and the air smelled green and sharp.  He reached into his pocket and took out a folded note, worn with age along the edges.  "I don't know if you need to see this or not, Sylar.  I think... maybe I just need to show you."

Sylar looked at the note, turning it over in his hands.  He glanced at Claire.  "Is this something you know about?"

Claire shook her head.  "Who is it from?"

Peter sighed.  "It's Mom's… well, Angela's… suicide note.  For lack of a better term.  I didn't actually know what she was talking about when I first read it, and I haven't looked at it since… just today I found it in the files.  And I thought, maybe you should see it.  You can read it aloud if you want."

Sylar opened it carefully and began.



My dearest Peter,

I know you will not understand what I have done.  It is with a heavy heart that I write you this note; you, of all people, who I had always wished to protect.

The disease I suffer from will kill me in a slow and meticulous manner.  I have dreamed this, and I know that you will not be able to save me, despite the surely Herculean efforts you may take on my behalf... despite the efforts you have already made.  I do not look forward to this process, but I do not fear it, either.

The contents of my real fears at this time are beyond your understanding.  As well the contents of my real regrets.  Perhaps it is my regrets which are killing me now.  I have finally seen, firsthand, the evidence that my own choices have been instrumental in a great wrong, which can never be undone.  And the worst element of my guilt is, I could not wish it undone.

Peter, so many of my good memories have arisen from having been your mother.  I can not find it in me to regret any of those memories.

I hope that you may forgive me someday.  I hope that the others harmed by my actions may as well.

I love you.  But it is time for me to leave, now.

Sincerely, and I do mean this,
Your Mother


Claire said, "What a fucking waste."  Her face was tight with anger.

Sylar looked up.  "Peter, what did you think when you first found this?"

Peter shrugged.  "Well, I thought two things... first of all, that she'd done so many destructive things for the Company, and she was referring to all that.  And second, that she was a coward to kill herself, that I really could have found a way to save her.  But now I'm pretty sure she was talking about you."

Sylar nodded.  "For years she watched us apart, and then for ten years she watched us together and she knew what she had done.  Maybe she's right.  Maybe it killed her, in the end."

Claire shook her head.  "Do you think she knew what would happen when she first split you two up?"

Sylar shook his head.  "She didn't know."

Peter quirked an eyebrow.  "You're so sure?  Even with the dreams?"

"Call it an intuition.  The dreams could only show her what we would become, not the reason for it.  She didn't know, though she may have found out over the next few years... long after you'd already become her son, and then how could she have given you up?"  Sylar smiled.  "How could anybody give you up, Peter?"

Peter took the note back, folding it carefully.  "I can't forgive her.  Ever."

Claire said, "For adopting you?  It sounds like it may have been an act of mercy."

Peter shook his head.  "Not for adopting me.  For leaving him behind."

Sylar touched Peter's shoulder.  "I forgive her."

"How can you?"

Sylar said, softly, "For raising the kind of man who would take me in as a brother even after the life I lived.  Who knows, Peter?  Perhaps we would both have ended up bad guys, living in the house I grew up in."

Peter nodded.  "Maybe.  I dunno."

Claire snorted.  "Peter would have ended up Peter no matter where he lived."

Sylar shrugged.  "You're probably right."

"Okay, seriously, what is it with people thinking I'm some kind of a special, white-knight, world-saving flower or something?"  Peter glared at them.  "You know… Angela told me the same thing, once.  Back when I was just started to work with the interest lobbyists, trying to get a hearing with some of the Congressional staff.  She said that I was incorruptible."

"Given the things she was capable of corrupting, I'd give her credit for a valid opinion," Claire said, drily.

Peter shrugged, and took Claire's hand.  "So what did the doctor say?"  He grinned.

Claire rolled her eyes.  "Sylar said the baby is fine, and I can be totally excused for worrying about my first child, okay?  Especially after ten years of trying.  I thought she wasn't possible at all, you know."  Claire looked down, her eyes shining.  A symptom of her invulnerability was the inability to get pregnant; her uterus rejected the implantation of the egg.  Sylar had gotten together with some of the best healers and they'd worked out a way to artificially implant an egg using a synthetic shunt that Claire's body would close around but not destroy, and it had worked.  The only thing to worry about now was what sort of powers the baby might come out with.

Claire hoped, with an ache in her chest, that invulnerability wouldn't be one of them.  She had almost decided against a child on that possibility alone; feeling it would be irresponsible to saddle any other living being with that kind of a burden.  But having lost so many people she cared about… the perpetuation of life still felt like something vital.  And Sylar and Peter had both been enthusiastic about the baby.  She suspected Peter of being a family addict.  Sylar's reasons were still opaque to her, much of the time.

She looked at the two of them, who were now both hunched over a map of tunnels that they were planning to construct right through the mountain, a sort of elevated city.  They still finished each others' sentences, even worse than they had ten years before.

She sat down with them.  "Put that away for a few minutes, guys.  Life is short, we need to take a little time to rest."

Peter quirked an eyebrow at her.  "Life isn't short, Claire."

"No, it is," she insisted.  "Already I sometimes forget what we were like when we were younger.  I just know we all wore the same faces.  And that we kept trying to save the world."

Peter took her hand.  "The world is still worth saving.  Speaking of which, I need to go send a message to Shiva…"

"Peter," Sylar said, sharply.  "Claire's right.  Delegate."

Peter dropped his eyes, and sighed.  "Yeah.  I need to do that."

"You have a family now, so yes, you do."  Sylar's eyes were flinty.  "Go on and do what you need to, we'll be out here, waiting, but not forever.  Claire's right.  Life happens quickly, and you can waste things if you think immortality is a blank check."

"We'll talk philosophy later.  Like, in a couple hundred years when I have some ability to keep up."  Peter pushed back his chair, planted a kiss on Claire's head, and went inside.

Claire and Sylar sat in silence for a few minutes, appreciating the peace.  It seemed to Claire that she'd never felt free to appreciate it before.

She reached over and took his hand.  "Sylar.  I know you've tried to adjust your expectations of life, but I still wonder… is this enough, for you?  Don't you want your own family someday?"

Sylar looked at her, thoughtfully.  "There's something of value in the practice of being grateful for what was given to you, and not trying to chase after more.  I have plenty of love here."

"You can't convince me that you don't still hurt, or feel alone.  I don't think we'll ever live long enough to not be human anymore."

Sylar shrugged.  "So I hurt sometimes, so I feel alone sometimes.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."  His eyes twinkled.

Claire lifted an eyebrow.  "That's from the Bible."

"Got it in one."  He kept looking at her, and then shook his head, laughing softly.  "God, you're so beautiful.  I hope the baby looks just like you."

Claire blushed, and shook her head.  "I'm kind of hoping she comes out with Peter's dark hair.  But Sylar, she may take after you, you know.  You're her uncle."

"I honestly hadn't considered that."

"A little bit more Sylar in the world."

Sylar blinked.  "Poor world."

Claire laughed.  "So this is enough for you, then."

"It's not enough; it's everything."  Sylar looked off into the sky.  "I used to think I was nothing.  And now… everything, Claire.  This is everything."

The earth, the sky, the trees, and all of the life buzzing around them sent the message back:

Everything you are is a miracle.  Everything you are was always a miracle.






Fin


10/19/11--10:18: Annnnd... done (chan 2117071)


Now to go and have some fun Bigfic Completion Crazies!

Owait, have to crosspost it to the bigboom comm first...


10/20/11--09:24: ART!!  ART!!  ART!! (chan 2117071)


Check out the Master Post for the fic I posted yesterday.  It now has the right banner on it, created by davincis_girl, and it's gorgeous.

The other art for the fic is here.  The second piece... I can't even say how much I love it.  <3  It's perfect.


10/27/11--05:57: Oh my chatladies (chan 2117071)


I'm so sorry my dearest Jamiefroods.  I have been dealing with health issues and hence have not been on the ball with livechat.

I would very much like to do one next week, if people are amenable.  I'M VERY SORRY ABOUT THAT THING I DID THAT ONE TIME WHERE I SCHEDULED A CHAT AND THEN TOTALLY FORGOT.

This time I'll get the_deep_magic to remind me.


11/01/11--13:29: Oh, Zach.  You just keep on being you. (chan 2117071)


According to this little interview, Zach had planned a very "casual" coming out, and was shocked by the fact that it quickly became international news.

SHOCKED, I say.

In other news, two years ago one Zach Quinto was heard to say that nobody could possibly find anything interesting about the sight of him walking his dog...


11/01/11--21:34: Le sigh (chan 2117071)


Okay, Jamians.

This thursday.

Who would like to attempt a livechat?  Assuming I can keep it together this week?

I THINK I CAN MANAGE IT.

* * *

Edit:
Same plan and vids as this post.

Edit edit: WAIT, NO, WE ALREADY DID THOSE.

Dammit. I'll figure this out tomorrow. VIDS WILL BE CHOSEN.


11/02/11--13:16: Jamie update (chan 2117071)


Okay, I have figured out my shit and I am prepared to implement said shit.

Jamie has a new vid with Jordan:
hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=O67JCJ5Y

So we shall be watching that!

And after that?

We are out of new Jamie vids.  Yes, that's right Jamians, we have FINALLY CAUGHT UP TO THE FIST OF DEATH HIMSELF.</b>  Which means we need to fill out our viewing session with a golden oldie.

I say let's do Jarek again.  It's been a while.
hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=IHS7JPG9

WHAT DO WE WANT?  PORN!  WHEN DO WE WANT IT?  THURSDAY NOV 3RD AT 10PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME!  WHERE DO WE WANT IT?  fistofdeath.speeqe.com!


11/08/11--09:16: A tale of sex and religion (chan 2117071)


Recently, nolikereally has been sending me samples of an original fic she's been writing.  It's a fic about a sex-based (or abstention-based) religion, and the practitioners thereof, with two characters doomed to love each other and, well, pretty much doomed because the religion forbids it.

This has a great deal of emotional depth.

It's also hotter than fuck.  I was whimpering by the end of the first chapter, and half dead by the end of the second.  It's BLISTERING sexual repression porn.

And she is now posting it online.  PLEASE GO READ IT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY.


11/25/11--19:26: Pinto:  Darkness (chan 2117071)


Title:  Darkness
Pairing:  Zachary Quinto/Chris Pine, also John Cho/Karl Urban, Zachary Quinto/OMC, Chris Pine/several OC's
Summary:  An accident leaves Chris injured, blind, and almost completely paralyzed, but aware of everything.  His nurse, Zach, finds a way to help Chris communicate, and in many ways, to heal.
Rating:  NC-17
Wordcount:  57k
Disclaimer:  This has never happened to the persons of whom the characterizations aren't... okay, seriously, if this ever happened to Chris, we would all cry, and Zach is not a nurse, and we all know the drill by this point.
Warnings:  UST (lots of), mild infidelity, angst, fluff, medical jargon of all kinds, medical everything of all kinds including bodily fluids and pain and stuff and even medical kink, addiction, emotional abuse, many TMI bathroom moments, various gay sex acts, bad puns, masochism, many near-death experiences, and... I'm tired.
A/N:  Written entirely in comments on the kink meme, and boy, did this ever turn out a lot longer than I expected.


Darkness


12/10/11--07:02: Infinite looper (chan 2117071)


A thing that I must share:

http://www.infinitelooper.com/

Put in the url to any video you like off of Youtube, and you can drag the sliders around to force any section of it to repeat infinitely.

For example:

http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=m9ESphZkANc&p=n#/43;46

(Gotta love The Kids In the Hall.)

Take a wild, stabbing guess as to which part of this Jon Groff singing live video I put on repeat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHQbpJqwUtQ

(Hint:  http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=fHQbpJqwUtQ&p=n#/142;162 )

(Okay, that wasn't so much a hint, as the thing, but well, I'm tired and it's the weekend.)


12/13/11--20:27: Upon recent viewings of a good show (chan 2117071)


I would just like to say for the record that I wrote Milk Run without having watched so much as a single episode of Burn Notice.

But it's hilarious to me how similar Zach's internal monologue can be to Michael's.

Michael is way more self-aware.  And knows more stuff.  (Honestly, all the stuff Zach knows?  Total BS.)

If there's an episode where he has to seduce a target, I'm totally in.


12/20/11--11:39: *a-hem* (chan 2117071)


Michael Ian Black asks us this:

https://twitter.com/#!/michaelianblack/status/149210548637138945

"Does anybody have any good Santa porn?"

I refer him to you.  Can anybody assist him in his quest?  If anybody would know, it would be my fandom flist.


12/20/11--20:22: Twelve Thirty (chan 2117071)


Whelp, I finally watched Twelve Thirty.

What.  The actual fuck.

While the movie seemed, for the most part, to be all about fucking Jonathan Groff -- which is a cause I can truly get behind -- and having him be naked -- ditto... the script... was...

Oh, lord.

When you have ideas and things that you want to say and philosophy you want to express, it's best to have a plot thicker than a sheet of paper wrapped around it.  I don't feel like I just watched a movie.  I feel like I just sat down to dinner for two hours with a deeply emo, philosophical, faux-deep "artiste" who spent the whole time telling me his thoughts on life.  (The universe, et. al.)

Also, I pretty much like Mamie Gummer no matter what.

Also, the youngest daughter's character was spun out of emotional lint.  She was nothing.  I still can't tell whether it was the acting or the lines; probably both.

Also, the mother was... well, kind of repellent.  But well-acted, and as a compliment to that, I really hated her.

Did not absolutely hate the dad character.  Sort of not absolutely.

What really amazes me is that in the script, the character of Jeff is (if you just pay attention to his lines) kind of an arrogant, emotionally numb little shit.  Jon actually managed to come off as sweet and earnest, quite a bit of the time.  Which means either the director permitted him to color the character that way, or else the director provided him no guidance whatsoever and that was just him coming through... because I have seen Jon play an absolute asshole, and play it well.  In this, it was more like he was an okay guy who PLONK wait, he's an asshole?  I'm not... was that supposed to happen?  It didn't scan.

And the whole... okay, most of it was just like, "Dude, I... but... dude.  What?  I... no.  Okay.  Stop.  Oh god.  No, please stop."

But, hey!  Lots of naked Jon Groff.

Good lord, I hope he never picks a script like that again.


12/21/11--13:44: Another note on Twelve Thirty (chan 2117071)


Thinking more on this movie since yesterday, I've realized that in fact, there's a lot about it to really piss a lot of people off.  Including me.  Although I'm less pissed off; more just baffled by the stupidity of it.

List of misogynistic interpretations of this film:

- One interpretation:  it's basically the story of how one man's dick helps to demonstrate the troubled relationships between three women.

- The film attempts to be about the women, about their interior lives, but Jeff is still the main character for 90% of the movie, after which the dad takes over.

- Surprise!rape.  Actually, there's a lot to me that's very realistic about the way it was handled, including the girl's confused and flat response to it afterward.  What makes it bizarre is that the event itself takes place in absolute darkness and confusion, neither of them recognize it immediately for what it is, he seems almost more upset than she does afterward, and just about everything possible is done in the script to make it as ambivalent as possible while still clearly non-consensual.  And then suddenly a few minutes later, the movie decides that the characters all know exactly the nature of the encounter and that it was rape, period.  If you wanted to treat non-consensual sex in a sympathetic light, you can't avoid the consequences of that controversial treatment by suddenly cranking up the Fountains of Righteousness against the Rapist; the tone flip-flops.

- The confrontation over the rape is handled exclusively by the men while the women sit silently by and/or weep.

- While there was something exhilaratingly horrifying about the Dad's elaborately staged intention to beat the shit out of his daughter, and while you were pretty sure you knew what was going on the whole time, it nonetheless presents the problem -- a woman's violation -- with the solution of another man reasserting his ownership of her body, and in such a brutal way as to frighten off the interloper.  A nasty little trick to play on Jeff, as he might have fought back had the father gone after him directly, so, effective.  But obscenely offensive on many levels, not least in the fact that it worked.

- After that, everybody's kind of okay with what happened.  Dad goes off on rants about how he wishes his daughters would love and admire him, completely untroubled by the way his daughter was hurt.  I mean, he'd dealt with that, right?  Now it was time to focus on important stuff, like philosophy and his own problems and his own victories and what a nice man he thought himself to be.

- An alternate interpretation of the story might be "How one rape brought a family together."  Which interpretation could be mercifully avoided if the writer hadn't shoved it in our faces, when the sisters tearfully reunite and agree that Jeff deserves their gratitude for their new closeness.  Like, for real.  They say it's all because of him.

It's that last one that makes the bile rise.  Seriously?  What the fuck?

This is the use of women's bodies to tell a man's story.  And I hate it when people say things like that... I have a pretty high tolerance for offensive opinions and controversial reactions to heinous acts.  But... I just keep bumping into this wall:  this movie uses women's bodies to tell a man's story, whether the young man's or the dad's.

As before, I think this is a shoddily written piece of self-indulgent whatever-the-fuck.  But now I also find it offensive.  And I didn't pick up on it at first, and I suspect that's because the writing was so bad that even the offensiveness was blurred.


01/16/12--19:58: Quintoff:  Last Call (chan 2117071)


Title:  Last Call
Pairing:  Zach Quinto/Jonathan Groff
Summary:  A phone call at 4am.
Rating:  NC-17
Wordcount:  1138
Disclaimer:  blatant falsehoods
Warnings:  mild angst, masturbation
A/N:  Happy Birthday, sweetie.  :)




Last Call



"... hey.  Wow."  Jon sounded husky, his voice thick.  He never, ever sounded that way except just after a sudden waking.

Zach smiled.  "Hi."

"Zach."  Already his voice was clearing, turning deep and clear and soft.  Perfect.  Annoyingly so.  "What's wrong?"

"Why does something have to be wrong for me to call you at 4am?"

A pause, then, drily, "You want to know something funny?  I actually missed you."

Zach burst out laughing.  "You missed me being an annoying dick?"

"Very much so."

Zach stopped laughing.  Fuck.  Jon had a way of turning even the lightest moment into something intimate.  "I miss you, too.  Some days."

"Some days."  A soft grunt, like he was shifting position.  "The days you can't find a dance partner?"

"I love your little euphemisms."  Zach reached down and pressed against the front of his briefs, drumming his fingers a little.  He was already hard, and they'd barely said anything.

"Do you."

"I love a lot of things about you."  Zach thought about Jonathan's ass, and eased his fingers past the elastic, brushing them over warm skin.

"You miss me, and now you love things about me.  Now, why is this so familiar... hmm..."

Zach laughed.  "I refuse to concede predictability."

"Because you are so mysterious."

"I am filled with mystery.  I am the inscrutable enigma.  Of a cypher.  Of... an enigma."

"Are you touching yourself?"

Zach squeezed gently, feeling his cock nudge against his fingers.  "Shut up."

"Reprobate."

"You got that from Word of the Day."

Jon grunted again, softly.  Zach wished it were a different kind of sound, but he knew that voice too well; Jon was merely sitting up.  "You call me at 4am, a time of night that even I'm usually in bed, you start jacking off to the sound of me making confused noises, and then you mock and insult me.  Zach.  Why on earth did I ever date you?"

Zach smiled.  "My mouth."

Jon paused.  "Oh.  Yeah."

"I blew you into oblivion maybe twice and you were mine to beckon as I pleased."

"Has anybody ever told you that you get flowery when you're jacking off?"

Zach laughed, breathlessly.  "Tell me what it felt like, that first time."

"Zach, we can't keep doing this."

"We won't.  This will be the very last time.  I promise."

"That's what you said last time."

"Jonathan."  Zach put an unmistakable note of command in his voice.  "Tell me.  What was it like the first time I sucked your dick?"

A long pause; Zach could practically feel Jon's intentions shifting.  "I'm not sure I can describe it."

"You told me that you didn't like oral sex."

"I did.  I told you..."  Jon broke off.  "I told you nobody had ever made me come that way."  His voice was breathless.  "And you were in shock."

"Tell me."

"You said that was a shame... and then kept talking about blowjobs, and technique, and... for hours.  All the way through our date."

Zach sighed, and heard an answering sigh, and he knew by the sound that Jon was doing more than just talking.  Zach said, "Your face kept getting red, and you had this strange, confused look in your eyes..."

"I was curious."

"You were getting obsessed."

"You wanted me obsessed," Jon breathed.

"And then I got you home and demonstrated my prowess."

"You barely waited for me to get my pants down before you were... it was... I still don't know what you were doing with your tongue..."

Zach moved his hand faster.  "You tasted like chocolate."

Jon made a derisive noise.  "Oh, please."

"No, you did.  And almonds... your cum tasted like that; bitter but sweet at the same time."

Jon let out his breath sharply.  "You were using your hands..."

"I got you good and wet, and started fisting that hard, long dick of yours... I licked the fingers of my other hand, and then sucked on you while rubbing my fingers against your sack..."

"It... it felt like a licking tongue."

"And then?"  Zach squirmed a little, feeling it building inside.

"And then... you... told me to close my eyes."  The light tremor in his voice made Zach grit his teeth.

"And?"

"And then, I didn't know what you were doing but it was all over me, all over... ohhh, god..."

Zach shifted again, fighting to keep his voice low and steady against the hard rhythm of his hand.  "Jonathan?"

"Yeah?"

"Close your eyes."

Jon groaned loudly, and Zach could hear the climax in his voice, the way it rolled over him and shook him, and kept him there.  Zach let his own head tilt back as his abs tightened, imagining the taste of Jon's sweat and spunk, the sight of Jon's face, eyes closed, mouth open as he shouted it out...

Zach came, with a sigh and a hard grunt that made him sound like he was pushing his way through a packed subway station.  Jon's orgasm always sounded so much more dramatic... that was one of the things that was so fucking addictive about him.

They panted in concert for a few moments.

"Zach."

"Yes, darling?"  Zach grinned, knowing that it was what Jon used to call his smuggest-man-alive smile.

"Can I go back to sleep now?"

Zach stretched.  "Sure.  Big day tomorrow?"

"Do you really care?"

"I might.  Depending on what it is."

"Goodnight, Zach."

"Okay."  Zach took a breath.  "Wait."

A pause.  Zach felt the urgency draining from his body, leaving him tired and a little queasy.  He wiped his fingers off on his briefs.

Jon sighed.  "Yes?  What is it?"

"Is this... I mean.  I don't want... are you okay?  Shit, sorry, that's not what I meant.  I just mean..."

"Zach."

Zach closed his eyes.  "Yeah?"

Jon laughed softly.  "I'm flattered that you still call me.  And that you get off on the memory of my dick in your mouth.  And I don't really mind.  Okay?"

Zach sighed in relief.  "Oh, good."

"But seriously, stop.  We decided it was over.  Actually you decided it was over!  I mean, you were right and all, but... Zach."  An exasperated sigh.  "I can't date with you ruining me for any other man once a week.  By phone.  Okay again?"

Zach smiled, suppressing a flutter in his throat.  "Ruining you?"

"Shut up and stop calling me."

"I promise I will not call you again except to exchange mundane pleasantries."

"Goodnight, Zach.  Love you."

Zach was silent for a second, but Jon had already hung up before he could get his mouth in gear.

He took the phone from his face and pressed it against his chest, blinking at the ceiling.

"I love you too."

Zach thought that he was probably ruining himself for any other man, too, doing this.  Jon was right.

That was the last time, Zach told himself.

Again.