Just a little one-shot inspired by the latest episode. "The Art of Deception." Please enjoy, and if you do (or even if you don't) remember to leave a review with any questions/comments you may have. It's the only way we fanfiction writers get paid. :)

--Mel

Loneliness.

This wasn't at all what he had expected. Two and a half years. He counted the days on the back of his eye-lids.

Tick-tok-tick-tok-tick-tok.

That was a constant. Everything was a constant these days. Constant like the solitude. He yearned for the unexpected.

One day he opened his eyes and there was sun, bright and burning on his skin. His back ached, his head hurt, his face was stinging and tight. Park bench at his back, sun beating down. Lips cracked.

At least he could feel that. But then he sat up and the sunburn healed in the shadows.

It got bearable after a while, after he got through the madness, the screams, the tears. The expectation that someone would hear them and come to his rescue.

He hadn't heard a voice in months. He hadn't bothered to speak. He heard everything he thought, there was no need to articulate. Besides, speaking aloud with no one around only added to the madness.

There weren't even animals in this place. No cats, no dogs, not even one damned infernal pigeon to shit on him.

Answering machines were blank, the sound of static mocking him when he listened. The televisions didn't even bother to turn on. Power buttons as impotent as he was.

But at least there were books. He'd been left with those. The boring kinds, the one's only an ex-cop and current stay at home father would have thought to leave him. He knew more about serial killers, women's health and teething than he'd ever wondered before.

He had learned to cook on his own, the single, tattered copy of Julia Child's cook-book in the entirety of the city sitting beside him the whole time.

He took hot baking pans out of the oven bare handed. He could feel pain and he relished it. When he was in pain he forgot about the great big empty city outside of his door.

He had played with dolls once, after six months. He'd named them. Matt. Peter. Angela. Plastic skin had melted together easily in the oven.

Loneliness was.

He began to see her after the first year. It had been a dream, a hallucination. Whatever it was, it was the first person he'd seen since he'd been there.

Petite, blonde, pretty. Green eyes sparkling as she grinned.

Look at the big bad serial killer. You look lonely, Gabe.

"What ... are you?"

His throat was dry, lips chapped. He'd been lying in the same spot for a week, trying to see if he could die there.

Me? She crossed the room, sat beside him on the couch, slender fingers combing through his matted hair. I'm a cheerleader.

His eyes fluttered shut and as they did the sensation of her fingers on his scalp faded.

Beside him, a cup of water sparkled.

He laid there for another hour before moving, drinking the water. He'd healed instantly.

Three months later, the top of the empire state building. He had decided to throw himself off of it.

The fall was a rush, wind whistled, his body twisted weirdly, and when he hit the bottom… a moment of perfect clarity, power, blankness.

He came to in so much pain he would have screamed if his face hadn't been too ruined to do much of anything. Her shoes had been pointed and sleek, the kind of heels his mother had always wanted to wear but never been able to afford.

What do you think you're doing? She sounded indignant, crouched beside him.

"Dying," he said once he was healed enough to speak.

She snorted. Hardly.

Silence as he moved, not daring to take his eyes off of her as he popped ribs back into place.

"You're not real," he said.

She smiled, tilting her head to the side and looking down at him pityingly.

Neither are you.

"Are you my subconscious or something?"

But she stood up then and as his eyes followed the sun blinded him. She was gone.

"Beautiful," he groaned, pulling himself to his feet, making his way back towards his house.

He hadn't seen her since, not in over a year.

But as he sat there, fingers tracing the healed skin across his cheeks, he heard her.

You look like hell.

She was wearing navy slacks and a pretty blue blouse. There was a cigarette dangling between her fingers, smoke coming in tendrils from her lovely mouth.

He didn't say anything for a while, just watched her watching him.

Aren't you happy to see me?

"Parkman doesn't know you're here," he said, mater-of-factly.

She smiled, took another drag, smiled. She smelled of cloves.

No, but there's a lot Parkman doesn't know.

"How am I seeing you?"

This is still your head, Gabriel, no matter what the fat cop does to it.

"I don't want you to go again," he was crying, but tears didn't seem nearly as shameful as they once had. "I don't want to be lonely anymore."

She sighed, frustrated. This is your nightmare, she said. Her shoe tapped against the asphalt. So stop being a fucking pussy and get over it.

She stepped into the sunlight. Dissolved.

He watched her disappear through bleary eyes, and when she was gone he picked himself up and walked home.

Loneliness was hell.

In two and a half years he had tried every door he could find. There was something about doors. Doors led out.

These didn't.

This was his nightmare. What did that mean?

Loneliness wasn't what he had expected. It was worse.

Day one-thousand-three-hundred-thirty.

Okay, pansy-ass. Get up.

"Fuck off."

He refused to look at her this time, refused to acknowledge what wasn't there. Besides, this was his head, if he wanted to wallow in self-pity, he had a right.

Get up, Gabriel.

She sounded exasperated.

"I know how this goes. I look up. You say something enigmatic but ultimately useless before disappearing like a fucking phantom, I mope around trying to figure it out for a month, and then vow never to listen to another cheerleader for as long as I live." He took a breath. "Like I said, fuck off."

Her heels clicked on the ground for a few paces before stopping suddenly.

Peter is here. You need to go find him.

That was interesting. He looked up.

She smiled, triumphant. And then she disappeared.

"Bitch," he muttered.

"Sylar!"

He jumped. Now that was different. He hadn't realized before, that the cheerleader's voice had been in his head. But this voice, a mans, it echoed in the city outside of his building.

He grabbed a jacket, wrapped it around himself, walked outside.

As he went, the soft sound of feminine laughter followed.

Loneliness was not what he had expected.