"Please don't hurt me," Claire said, looking up at the tall man standing over her. She wished she could move, or at least try to escape, but spine was taking its sweet time to heal.

He looked down at the blonde cheerleader at his feet. "Why on earth would I do that?" he asked. Her only response was a whimper of fear.

Maybe it's the fact that over thirty people are lying around us in a pool of their own blood, his Voice of Reason whispered.

"Claire, I'm going to pick you up," he said. She didn't respond, just stared at him, eyes glassy. He bent down and scooped her to his chest. She burrowed her face into the crook of his shoulder. "The others should be waking up soon, and I don't want to be around when they do," he said. "None of them know that I'm not here to kill them."

"You…you aren't? What…why?"

"Because Danko is a pest," he responded. "He's irritated me for the last time, and I might need their help to get rid of him."

There was a snap as her spine reconnected. "Can you walk?" asked Sylar.

She didn't want to admit that his embrace was more comforting than frightening, and pretended that she couldn't move her legs well. "No," she said, and felt him shudder. Damn it, she thought, I forgot that he's a walking lie detector.

"I don't like it when people lie to me, Claire," he told her. "But I'll let it slide this once."

"Thanks," she whispered, and he looked down in shock.

"For what?" he asked.

"Saving me, saving all of us. For, well, for everything."

He looked up, grinning in the dark. "Well, you are mine. And I won't let anything happen to my Claire."

For some reason she couldn't explain, this reassured her more than it frightened her. She clung to him tightly as they escaped the horror that had been her prison.