And Everything In-Between Part 1

[black_hat]

A beginning of Sylar and Claire. 

 

When Sylar found her, she wasn’t alive.

 

Only that wasn’t a problem in this case. The Company dogs had abandoned the hulls of this place so quickly that they left a number of Them behind. Just for him, it seemed.  

 

Those that were too much trouble to deal with daily, locked up in rooms thin enough to be coffins. No sunlight. Hardly any air, even. Yes, they were the most trouble, which meant, ultimately, the Company had guarded its secret treasures too closely. When push came to shove, they toppled over, leaving all the most amazing gifts behind.

 

He had taken his time, window-shopping.

 

 Some of them were still innocently unaware of their destiny and thought he was just another paper-pusher come to study them. He let them try to bride him, sell worthless remnants of their other lives Before. Others, having no mind left, ranted and raved at him. These were broken and he took care of them quickly.

 

Oh, he performed some little tricks for them, and he believed that they thought he was…well, something of a monster. Even though he was just like them.  Pity, if they hadn’t, he might have spared them.  Over the weeks, they became something like a family for him: they could only see dead or ‘lost’ relatives in his face, and he led them on until they disappointed him, again and again.

 

With the more sane ones, he pit them against each other and watch them use and abuse their abilities like dogs. It was best when they were actually blood-related. Thicker than water…all the quicker to sink.

 

“This time, it’s a case of use it and lose it,” he said, and laughed.

 

And some of them were young. That was better left unsaid.

 

He got to her last, not out of preference, but because she simply was the last, buried under layers of metal, like the keys to the kingdom. Or pathetically, the prize at the bottom of the box. For in here, there wasn’t much…

 

Heart in this place.

 

He hadn’t known that she’d be here. He had thought he had lost her. Instead, she was a sight, and his buried treasure was almost comical.

 

Her hair had grown out in all directions and she w as straw-thin, the bones showing in her ribs and face. Her eyes were dull.

 

Dumb.

 

“Where have you been all my life?” he asked, slyly, for no doubt, a young-old girl like that, not being touched in years…he could afford to remind her of all she had lost and all he would gain.

 

“H, here,” she stuttered, her eyes remaining dumb and dull. “Here in nowhere.”

 

He frowned and tilted his head, curious.

 

“Nowhere, huh. You’ve been to Queens during rush hour?”

 

She looked blank.

 

“So, what’s it like?”

 

“Horrible,” she whispered. Not recognizing him.

 

“I know. I’ve been there before.” If he was timing it right—and he was—this girl had been locked in here for fifteen years. He could hear the mood. Pitch white. Snow White.

 

 Nothing.

 

He wasn’t young, either. Not like she was. She had cheated him, by making him wait until things were less than ideal, when he was becoming less. Without her, without that power, all his work, his sacrifices, his efforts were futile.

 

He was becoming a god to die in his sleep. Or worse. There was always worse, and in the recent years, he lived as though he had nothing to lose.

 

Old beliefs haunted him. ‘What have you done with my boy?’

 

And he needed that ability. Mohinder had ended it when he killed Monroe; bullet in the brain, and try as he might, there wasn’t much left but the scrambled and the useless (the majority was, anyway). His last option, and in a way, he had been….what had he been? Relieved?

 

But whatever he had been, here she was again. Lost and found. He couldn’t resist. It would be anti-climatic, though, just to get it over with. This was a very special girl and she should be treated as such.

 

“How about I take you somewhere? What do you say to that?”

 

He spoke slowly, and there was a bare spark of familiarity in her faded eyes. Too bad she couldn’t wear all those scars for her time.

 

“I, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I would like it.”

 

“Now, you don’t necessary have to like it. You can hate it. But at least, it’s something.”

 

He was a thing of her past, and right now, she knew but did not know him. That was all it would take to get her to respond to him because he wasn’t a part of the darkness in the ground-cell. Oh, but he wished he had been.

 

Oh well. Sylar planned to make up for lost time. Every minute did count, and she had all the minutes in the world behind her. Never before her.

 

He’d help her with that.

 

“…All right.” She didn’t move. His mother had had a saying about a horse and water but there was always the possibility of making thing intense.

 

“Watch this,” he said and he stretched out his hand. “Let there be light.”

 

And there was, through fire. A recent gift from her dearest mother. That woman had had a wildness that this one lacked. Different as wind and ice. Claire really was well-preserved, and he felt like he could love her for her appearance: just the two of them, really.

 

“That’s cool,” she muttered, her eyes sparking and he could see the flames reflected in them. “Or hot.”

 

“I’d take both. I’m beyond definition at this point in time."

"Definition..." Claire said, thinking. "I guess that's true, since you can be both. But you shouldn't. I can't die and live, you know."

"Sure you can. You're just like me. Well, kind of, give and take."

 

She looked at him and smiled, awed and innocent, and he was her hope, her one last connection to being. So unaware. This would be resplendent, this one. He’d savor it, the last drop of her sanity.

 

“So? We are burning daylight. And you don’t want to do that, do you, Claire? You’ve seen so precious little of it. Or should I leave you in here?”

 

“No, no,” she said, and hurried out. She moved faster than he thought she would. He caught glimpses of her skin underneath the robe. The Company had an all-or-nothing mindset. No secrets in her anymore.

 

That’s a shame.

 

“Here, let me help you,” he said and took her hand, felt the bare bone.

 

“Thank you,” she said, her feet giving her pain, with no support to speak of on her heels. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you how happy…”

 

“Enjoy it while you can,” he said, and she was innocent even then. 

Part 2