He waited until late that night, after he was sure Paul would be asleep, and he picked up Claire from the hotel. On their way, Claire was eager for all the details.

"Noah? You told him your name was Noah?" Claire said, surprised.

Sylar nodded sheepishly. "It was the only name I could think of." Claire just grinned.

"So…no doubt in your mind? He's the one we're looking for?" she asked.

"I'm pretty sure. He seemed very interested in my story of heartbreak and betrayal. He looked especially dark when I mentioned how she took a lot of my things, and I was left without a job."

"Wow, cue the violins," Claire said, impressed. Sylar was an excellent actor. It probably came with the job; shifting personalities, stories, accents.

"Tomorrow he's taking me to the office building, so I can find a job. I'll get a handle on what his schedule is like, and then…you'll do your thing."

"Oh don't worry," Claire said with a sly smile. "I will."

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

The next day he met up with his new neighbor, who was wearing a business suit, had his resume, and looked nervous. He took Noah to the building, showed him some of the offices, and apologized that he really didn't know anyone personally that could be a way in.

"Aw man, don't worry about it," Noah said in his casual, laid-back way. "You've done so much for me already; how could I complain?"

Paul smiled. "Well, I hope it works out for you. But I've got to start work." He began to walk away.

"Hey Paul! Wait a sec!," Noah asked. "Are you…gonna be down here in, say, an hour? If I have good news, I'd want to share it with you."

"Yes; I'm usually down here on the floor for most of the morning, then I start emptying the office baskets around eleven. So if you're done before then, I'll be here," Paul smiled again.

Noah returned the smile. "Well. Wish me luck." he got on the elevator and left.

As Paul watched Noah leave, he couldn't help but think of the only other friend he'd had—besides Charles, if he really wanted to count him. That was how he was able to do away with Janet Redelmeyer—a striking redhead with long legs and big breasts who would have ruined his friend David's life if he hadn't intervened.

Janet and David both worked for Positronics together, and David was one of the few people who spoke to Paul when he saw him. Often David would bring him a cinnamon roll or candy when they had a party at his office, and he even helped Paul empty the trashcans one day when he back was hurting.

He was on the fifth floor where Positronics was housed, about to empty the trashcans and looking forward to talking to David, when he distinctly heard Janet's sour, husky voice.

"Why haven't you asked for that promotion, David? You know Rosenberg will give it to you."

"Because I don't know if I want to have that added responsibility, hon."

It was Janet and David. They were standing in the hallway, but were too engrossed in their argument to see him standing there.

He saw Janet fume and tap her foot in annoyance. "What do you mean, you don't want that responsibility? It means more money! Which means that we can finally buy that house we want!"

"I know how much you want the house, Janet," David replied. "But I'm not sure if I want to stay in the engineering department. I…I was thinking of going back to college and getting a degree in Computer Information Systems."

"What the hell are you talking about? That's only going to cost us more money and more time! You're good at what you do, David! Don't throw it away because you "think" you want to do something!"

With that, Janet stalked back into the office, paying no attention to Paul, who had been standing there. David sighed and followed after her, giving Paul a brief hello and handshake.

Paul knew he had to help his friend. He couldn't let David's life be ruined by a controlling, domineering bitch. So that night he wrote Janet's name down neatly, and thought of the perfect way to repair the problem.

"A woman with no heart should have a hole where it would be," Paul reasoned. And so he took out his old pair of scissors and cut a neat space right where the "n" in "Janet" had been.

After Janet had been found, David didn't come to work for several days, which annoyed him. He wanted to talk to him, to tell him…well, he wasn't sure now if he would have told David about his power, but it would have been nice to have someone to confide in.

Finally, after three weeks, he finally had the courage to go ask someone in the office, who told him that David had resigned a week ago and was moving back to his home state of Nebraska.

"Yeah," the man had sighed. "David really loved Janet. It hit him hard."

It hit Paul hard too. He lost his friend. And it was all that woman's fault.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Sylar told Claire that if she got to the building between nine and eleven, she should run into him. They were in the apartment in the middle of the afternoon, Paul being at work at that point.

"I told him that one of the companies took my resume, and he looked like he was about to hug me," Sylar called to her from the bathroom.

"And the way I'm dressed, he's definitely going to want to tear me to pieces," Claire yelled back.

Claire was adding the finishing touches to the outfit she was going to wear. It was a little extreme, but she figured it would be easy bait. She stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror, then snorted. When she lived at home, her mother wouldn't let her leave her room, much less the house, dressed the way she was.

"Well? Let's see," Sylar said. The door opened and out she came. The moment he saw her, his eyes bugged out. He took a breath and let it out in stunted puffs.

"Dressed to kill, indeed," Sylar stated.

Claire smiled. "It's all part of the job."

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Paul had just finished cleaning the glass doors and was about to empty the trash can nearest to the entrance when from outside he heard a wolf whistle and the sound of high heels sharply hitting the ground. A figure flashed by him, heedless of what might be in its way.

Annoyed, he looked back to see a young woman sauntering over to the directory set in the middle of the lobby. He silently appraised her. Golden blonde hair pulled back severely into a ponytail. Tight dark brown suede pants above brown stiletto heels. Her shirt—if you could call it that—was a white midriff halter. She wore a long brown leather jacket, which was now pulled back away from her waist as she had her hands on her hips, rocking back slightly on her heels and taking in the map. He could tell she was chewing gum by the way her jaws were smacking back and forth. Enticing. Sexy. Revolting.

He didn't want to have to do this again, especially so soon on the heels of his other…repair, but she was asking for it. He went up to her, pretending to be helpful.

"Are you looking for a particular office, miss?" he asked.

She looked at him coolly but still seemed to be a little taken aback by his ugliness. It was then that he noticed, on top of everything else, that she was wearing dark purple lipstick and eyeliner. She sighed in frustration. "I'm trying to visit my brother," she told him. "But…I never keep track of what's going on his life, and I can't remember the name of the office he's in."

"Oh, well there are many companies in this building, miss," he said, hiding the mounting contempt he was developing for her. "Perhaps if you called him--"

"I don't have his phone number, otherwise he'd drag his sorry butt down here and meet me," she interrupted, her jaws smacking away at her gum.

She was infuriating, arrogant, and probably a little vain. But she showed no signs of leaving.

"I think it begins with a 'P'. Posi-something," she said.

He gulped, but hoped it wasn't too prominent. "Positronics?" he suggested.

"Hey yeah! That's it! I knew it was the one where that girl who was killed a few months ago had worked."

That did it. He was going to get her name right then and there, no matter what it took.

But then, she made it easy for him. She said, "I have the worst memory about these things. I'm always saying to myself, Claire, you need to get your shit together." She punctuated this with a cackling laugh.

She stopped laughing and looked at him. "Thanks a lot for your help," she told him. "I'd probably be here for another two hours, looking at this freakin' sign."

He smiled. "You're welcome." Whore.

She smiled brightly and walked to the elevator. When the door had closed and he was alone, he quickly wrote down her name and continued with his day, savoring the feel of the paper in his pocket like a hot bullet.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"It feels funny. Waiting for someone to kill me." Claire snorted. "Usually when I've known someone was about to try, I ran like hell."

"Yes. I remember that," Sylar replied, thinking of the first night they met. They were sitting in the bedroom of the apartment across from their killer, waiting for him to come home. Claire had since changed into a less suggestive outfit and took off the makeup.

Claire barked out a laugh and stared at the ceiling. "I remember when I first died."

Sylar was puzzled, but interested. "First? You mean, the airport wasn't the first time it happened to you?"

She shook her head. "No. Once, I woke up on an autopsy table, cut open."

"What did the coroner say?" Sylar asked, shocked.

"She had stepped out for a moment. She didn't see me regenerate."

"How did it happen?"

"A guy named Brody who went to my school tried to…force me. While I was struggling with him, I fell and something punctured my head. He dumped my body and ran. The police must have found it and they called for an autopsy."

Sylar felt a flash of anger run through him, which surprised him. He wanted to break the face of the boy who had done that to Claire. At one point, he might have been angry that a gift had been lost that could have been his—he might have even felt that the murder had been done in poor taste. But now, he was infuriated that someone would try to hurt her, then throw her away like she was nothing.

He tried not to show this, but he failed. "I hope you got revenge on him for what he did to you."

She smiled. "I did. I drove his car into a wall with him in the front seat. Not only was he badly injured, but my father also took his memory."

"Whew," was all Sylar could say. "If only all girls who had been forced by a boy could have done what you did."

"Yeah, if only," Claire agreed. "You know," she said, turning to him. "That's the funny thing about this case. There always seem to be plenty of reasons for women to hate men, but a man to kill because he hates women overall…that's a little more unusual."

Sylar shrugged. "I don't know how unusual it is. Women don't realize the power that they can have over men." He looked deeply into her eyes when he said that. "A man's world can be made…and broken…by his feelings for a woman."

Claire gazed at him. Was he admitting something? She didn't want to be here, at this point, with him. She turned her eyes away. "Well, it goes both ways," she told him. "Women build their lives around the men they love. I think it's what most women hope to do. That's what my mom did."

Sylar reached over and touched her cheek. "Is that what you hope to do someday, Claire?" he asked. They stared at each other, intensely.

He never got an answer, because they heard a door open in the hallway, then close. They both stood up, tense to the bone.

"He's home," Sylar whispered darkly.

Claire took in a shuddering breath. Her heart was pounding so loud that Sylar almost had to cover his hears to block it out.

"Looks like I'll be dying soon…again."

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

The entire way home he tried to think of how to kill that little blond tart he encountered at work today. He didn't want to do what he'd done before; he almost considered his repairs works of art. He liked to be creative, to have variety.

He took the piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at the name: Claire. The funny thing was, the name seemed almost inappropriate for the trollop he met. The name "Claire" seemed fitting more to an extraordinary woman, a woman of incredible personal strength. But there was no woman like that. He knew. Every time he tried, every time he opened himself, he was hurt. He sighed. It would have been nice to be loved. But it wasn't meant to be for him. This—the repairs he did—it was all he had. So he settled down to his work.

He racked his brains thinking of a way to do it. He sighed and looked out the window, watching the sun setting in the sky, like a dying flame.

Yes! That was it—flame! Fire. He'd burn it!

Giddy, he ran to the drawer and pulled out a lighter. Finding, with joy, that the lighter had just enough fluid in it, he clicked the knob and watched a flame spring up. Then, carefully, he moved the piece of paper to the flame.

He laughed with delight. "A hot time for a hot girl," he said to himself.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"He's been in there for a while now," Claire whispered to Sylar. They had moved from the bedroom to the kitchen, in preparation for an attack if necessary.

"He might be trying to find a good way of doing you in," Sylar said, in such a scientific manner that Claire was a little unnerved.

She was feeling unnerved, and she was also feeling warm. The temperature seemed to have risen several degrees. Was it just the fear that was getting to her? She exhaled through her mouth and put her hand to her head, then realized that hand had smoke coming off of it.

"Sylar…" she said in a scared voice. He turned around to face her. There was smoke pouring off of her now.

She stared at him in horror. "Get away," she told him, just before she burst into flames.

Sylar covered his face with his hand, watching her body become enveloped in the fire. She was writhing, she dropped to the ground and started rolling around. Sylar ran to the bedroom, grabbed a blanket, and ran back to the kitchen, throwing it on her to stop the flame. He dropped to the ground next to her and patted her down with it, until all the flames were gone.

He was almost afraid to pull the cover away, but he brought himself to do it, and found that on the floor was a corpse, its flesh burned black. But then that same flesh began to turn peach-pink, changing in texture from brittle to smooth and shiny. Hair began growing again from the coal-colored and patchy skull. Eventually the corpse moved and faced him, the face re-structuring itself.

The eyes opened in the blackened face and looked at him. "Go get him," Claire said.

Sylar shot up and ran across the hall, pounding on the door. "Paul! Paul it's me! Open the door!" When there was no answer, Sylar used his telekinesis to bust the door down. There he found Paul, standing in the middle of the living room, a shocked look on his face.

Sylar looked at him, then down at the man's feet. There was something burning on the floor. Sylar rushed in, and using his freezing power, put out the fire.

Paul looked down at the now-frozen piece of paper, then at his neighbor. "Noah?" he asked, in shock. The next thing he knew, he was flying across the room, skidding across the floor and hitting his back against the wall dividing the living room from the kitchen.

"Why did you do it, Paul?" Sylar asked him.

Paul, his breathing ragged, stared up groggily at the tall man with the angry dark eyes. "She deserved it—she deserved it! She was so crude and promiscuous—I had to kill her so that she wouldn't hurt anyone!" he cried.

Sylar knelt down in front of him. "You couldn't stop at the first, could you?" he asked. "Once you had done it the first time, what was one more, and one more after that?"

Paul stared at the man who clearly was not what he had pretended to be. "Then you understand! You'll keep my secret, won't you, Noah? I only do it when I have to—you have to believe me!"

"We know about your power. And we're not going to let you do this again," a voice said from behind them. The two men looked up. It was Claire, sooty, and clothes badly torn and ragged, but whole, considering she had just been on fire.

The man looked terrified, but he pointed out, "You can't turn me in to the police. You've got no evidence! No one's going to believe that I can do this to a piece of paper and kill people."

Sylar grabbed the man by his collar and brought him to his feet. "We have our own way of dishing out justice," he said in almost a growl, "and I'm sure you can tell we've got just as much power as you do."

Paul stared into the tall man's eyes, feeling fear creep up his skull. "I'll do whatever you say. Just keep her," pointing to the filthy and disheveled Claire, "away from me!"

Sylar released him and turned to Claire. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Of course," she said simply. "It's me, after all."

Just then, while their attention was diverted, Paul skirted by them and out into the hall.

The two looked after their perp, then busted out of the apartment and into the hallway.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Paul's chest felt like it was in a vise. He had to get away from them. That girl—she had been on fire, he saw it—and she lived! And Noah, he had power too! They were never going to let him get away with this. They would hunt him down.

He had gone thirty eight years, and had gotten away with it. He had gotten rid of the evil women that, by the curse of God, had been set on earth. He had done this part. But now it was all over.

Knowing they would be upon him soon, he got to the stairwell, and shut the door behind him. With trembling hands he pulled out his pen and paper from his pocket, and began to write. He looked at it, hoping it would do the trick.

Claire and Sylar had searched the entire floor, at last coming to the stairwell.

"He's probably left the building! We need to go!" Claire cried. Sylar nodded and pushed open the door to the stairs. What they saw stopped them in their tracks.

There was Paul, lying on the steps, his head severed from his body and lying a few feet away. In his left hand he held a piece of paper, in his right he held a smaller bit. Gently Sylar took the pieces of paper from his hands and put them together. The word on the paper read, Paul.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Sylar put in an anonymous call, and he and Claire watched the police and forensics department examining the scene from the shadows on the street. They watched and were silent for so long that it was possible that each forgot the other was there.

Then Claire heard a voice next to her in the dark. "You need to shower. You smell like burnt flesh."

"What can I say? You bring it out in me," Claire retorted. To her surprise, she heard a genuine laugh.

"How does it feel to solve your first case, Chief?" he asked her.

She sighed deeply. "Not as good as I thought it would. I mean, I wanted to see him pay…but I didn't expect it to end like this."

"He didn't deserve what happened to him," came Sylar's deep voice.

"What? Sylar, he was a killer!"

"And so am I," Sylar argued. "And I've killed more, and done it more ruthlessly. But I was given a chance to change, and he wasn't."

Claire knew he couldn't see her, but she hoped he would hear her contention in her voice. "Sylar…I know that's true, but you were doing it because you thought you were bettering yourself. He just killed girls because they were girls! That was their only crime, and it was a pretty lame crime to be killed for!"

"He killed because girls had hurt him, Claire. He was doing it because, in his mind, they'd just hurt him again."

Claire groaned in frustration. "It's not their fault if they were pretty, smart, and successful. They shouldn't have to pay because he was ugly and a failure."

Sylar was silent for a long time. Then, she heard him say, "You can't understand, Claire. You don't hate the face you see in the mirror. All your life you've been loved; people have been glad to love you. It doesn't come that easily for some."

The next sound Claire heard were footsteps walking away from where she was, getting softer in the distance.

After the police had finally left the scene and it was clear, she walked back into the building and up to the apartment. Sylar wasn't there, or at least she didn't notice him. She stripped off her clothes and got under the shower, allowing the water to wash the soot off of her body. She couldn't find her soap or shampoo, so she simply rubbed the water hard into her skin and hair, until the runoff became as black as night.

Thus cleaned, she wrapped a sheet she found in a box around herself and returned to the living room. She lay down on the futon, pulling the sheet tightly around her naked limbs. She had solved a crime, prevented more women from being killed, but it felt so empty. And she knew it was because of Sylar. She was sure he cared for her, in his own twisted sort of way, but it really didn't relieve her loneliness. He was right, she realized; she had been loved all her life and was used to being loved in a certain way. Sylar was incapable of it.

Tomorrow, once they headed out, she would call Peter. She would tell him where to meet her, and he would come pick her up. He would be glad to rescue her; that's what he did. And Sylar…well, she was sure Sylar didn't really want to be doing this anyway.

Getting up from the futon, still encased in the sheet, she fumbled around the scattered boxes until she found a paper and pencil. She sat down again and began to write a letter:

Sylar,

I've tried very hard, and so have you, to make this work, but I think we both know that it won't. You were right about me. I'm just a pretty, sheltered girl who's been cared for all her life, and I don't have what it takes to deal with a lot of these things. I'm really sorry. I just hope that you'll keep working towards overcoming what you've done; you make a really good detective, and I think you can still do a lot of good in this world, even if I'm not there with you.

This is for the best. Please don't come after me again.

Yours,

Claire

Claire slid the letter into the duffel bag that held her clothes, then lay back down on the futon. She looked up at the ceiling, an endless mass of holes upon holes. Then, hypnotized by them, she drifted off to sleep.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCC

For some reason, walking in the darkness, Sylar's mind returned to Katie Muller, the girl he lost his virginity to. He thought back to the moment right after she "paid" him, and she was pulling her clothes on.

"This was a pretty pathetic bargain, Gabriel," she told him, buttoning up her shirt. "Don't you have any self-respect?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he replied as he slid the glasses back onto his face. "But it doesn't matter. We both got what we wanted."

Katie laughed cruelly. "I got what I wanted, and this is the only time I'll have to pay for it. But you'll be paying for the rest of your life, Gabriel. You're just that type of guy."

Sylar remembers wanting to punch her in the face, but withholding because his father told him never to hit a girl. Instead, he tried to be brave. "I don't need anything from anyone. Remember, Katie, you came to me."

"Ha, and it's the last time," she told him, lacing up her shoe. "And it's the last time for you too. I can look at you and know you're a loser. No other woman is going to waste her time on you."

Sylar threw the paper he'd written at her and shoved her out of his room as hard as he could, slamming the door tightly. He was furious, but not because of what she said, but because he believed her.

Now, walking alone in the darkness, Sylar saw that even when he killed, even when he had the upper hand, even when he had the power and made his victims scream and cower, he was still "paying for it." They had something he didn't, and the only way for him to get it was to murder. Katie had been right. He paid because he was never content the way people like her were.

But Katie had been wrong about something. She said that no woman would waste her time on him, and that was wrong. Claire was giving more than just her time; she was giving of herself. She left her family to redeem a man who, just a few months earlier, would have killed her in an instant. He had kidnapped, assaulted, and brutalized her, and she repaid him with her virginity, giving him a sense of completeness he had never felt before. He was derisive, unapologetic, manipulative. And yet she kept trying to know him, all of him, both light and dark.

He desperately wanted to go to her now, to tell her all of the things he'd been thinking, but he couldn't help but wonder if he was the last person she'd want to see. He kept walking, now his mind focused back to Paul. He couldn't believe it, but he really had felt sympathy for the homely janitor. He wondered if maybe Paul had had a Claire of his own, a woman whose incredible personal strength was matched by her beauty, if maybe he could have had the chance to reform as well. It was sad, and all of a sudden Sylar felt very lucky.

He was surprised to find that the first rays of light were streaking the sky. Smiling to himself, he returned home.

He opened the door cautiously to find Claire clean, fully dressed, and packing the last of her things. She turned around when she heard the door, and Sylar could tell she hadn't slept well. She looked tired and tense. But she smiled her sad smile and said, "I called Mr. Nakamura and told him we'd been successful—sort of. He wanted me to pass along a "congratulations" and a "thank-you" to you."

Sylar smirked. "Do I get a medal?" he quipped.

Claire didn't seem to notice his joke. "I'm ready to go as soon as you are," she told him.

"Where are we going next?"

She shrugged. "I honestly don't know. We'll just drive."

They were at an interstate truck stop in an hour, stopping at the food court for some breakfast. They were silent to one another as they tucked into their breakfast. Claire couldn't help but notice two strange things. One, Sylar was eating with much more gusto than he had done before, and two, it seemed like he kept wanting to say something, but then would stop himself. Claire was sure she knew what it was. He was trying to tell her that this arrangement wasn't going to work, and that he was leaving. She just hoped that on top of that, he wouldn't revert to his old ways; but, something told her that no matter what happened, he wouldn't.

In her pocket lay the letter that she had written for him. She was going to wait for an opportune time, when he wasn't looking. Then she'd leave it for him to see, while she set off by herself. She was going to leave him stranded without a car, but this was Sylar. He was resourceful; he'd get by.

She had been thinking of ways to get the letter to him without him seeing it, when his voice broke her train of thought. "Claire, there's something I need to tell you."

Here it comes, she thought. "Yes?"

"I wanted to tell you that…that I…appreciate all that you've tried to do for me," Sylar said, the words seeming to be very hard for him to get out.

Claire looked at him with a certain measure of distrust, but mostly with puzzlement. "I haven't really done anything, Sylar," was all she could say.

"Yes you have! You've…given so much of yourself, and I don't just mean those times we had been together," he said with almost a blush. Claire could feel a bit of an amused smile on her face, but she kept it away.

He sighed deeply. "What I'm trying to say is that—that I'm glad I came with you. I'm glad we're doing what we are. And that…that I hope you'll have patience with me. I know I'm dark and frightening sometimes, but it's just part of me, who I am now. I hope you can accept that."

Claire felt like the world had washed away and there were just the two of them, sitting together. And she felt like she had to have the answer. So she said the only word she knew to say: "Yes."

Sylar smiled, genuinely this time. The check came, and Sylar offered to pay it.

Thinking hard and fast, Claire made a decision. "I'll be right back," she told him.

Claire walked into the restroom, then slowly went to the mirror and looked at her face. Then she pulled the letter from the pocket of her slacks and looked at it. "I hope I'm doing the right thing," she said out loud to herself. Then with a few quick strokes, she tore up the letter and left it in the trash.

"So who's driving, Chief?" Sylar asked Claire as they made their way to the car.

"I am," Claire told him flatly. He just smirked as he got into the passenger seat. She started the engine and the car pulled back onto the highway, on its way to a new case.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

From across the street, he watched them drive away. He had been following them all this time, but soon, he'd let them follow him. And then, oh, what fun they'd all have together.

He smiled to himself. "Payback time."