November - December 2006; location unknown

[watchmakers_son]

There's nothing remarkable about this room, nor anything inside of it.

It's a perfect square lit in sickly yellow and off-white tones, the walls irregularly patterned from years of repainting. One of the fluorescent lights strobes every so often; when it doesn't, it buzzes, almost subaudibly, like a distant insect's whine. The single bed in the corner has a thin mattress and thinner sheets, and medical equipment -- all of it small and carefully cased and free of exposed wires -- arrays around it, holding sentinel.

The shoes by the bedside are the same dingy white shade as the walls. They have no shoelaces.

The window's crisscrossed with thick bars.

On the bed, Sylar makes a small noise -- something between pain and grogginess -- and cracks open his eyes.

Comments

[shimmershift.livejournal.com]

"Doctor? Sir, what--!"

The nurse that appeared in the doorway rushes away before quickly returning with a vial and syringe. She pushes Simon aside, finds a vein, and injects something into Sylar's arm.

"Mr. Gray? Mr. Gray, can you..."

(The light is dimmer now, more yellow, and comes from only a single naked bulb that sways from the ceiling. Everything is fuzzy and soft around the edges, and Candice is bent over his arm as she pulls out the needle. She lifts her eyes and smiles. Even going so far as to very gently pet Sylar's cheek. "Not time to come out of the rabbit hole, baby."

And she presses down hard with two fingers in the center of Sylar's forehead.)

"..Mr. Gray? Can you hear me?"

[watchmakers_son]

At the next gasp, everything pulls back into focus as the swinging bulb slides into the fluorescent light, bright and cleaner and whiter.

The pain in his chest has stopped; not gone, not remotely, but no longer getting worse. Breathing hard, he stares in incomprehension, first at the nurse, then the thermometer in Simon's hand.

I can't tell what's going on, he thinks dumbly.

The light's still flickering, after all, and he still can't hear a thing. Only the dead have ever looked that quiet.

[shimmershift.livejournal.com]

"You've had a very mild cardiovascular incident, Mr. Gray," the nurse tells him gently. She runs her fingers up and down Sylar's knuckles in some attempt at comfort. "But, you're are all right now. You have to be careful not to overexert yourself again."

[simon_doctor]

"Try to relax," says Simon's voice, gently.

He comes up to stand behind the nurse, looking down at Sylar with a small smile.

"You gave us all quite a scare back there."

[watchmakers_son]

His wrists are still tied down. Sylar can't move his hand away when the nurse touches it.

"You said that before," he mumbles, dazed, forcing his eyes up to Simon's. "Earlier." A sickening clench to his stomach. "Didn't you?"

[simon_doctor]

The doctor and the nurse exchange glances, and he gives a very small but firm headshake.

"You need to rest, Gabriel."

[watchmakers_son]

"No."

Sylar can feel the haze creeping up like cold tendrils; he struggles against it, but the pull downward is steady, firm, and as inexorable as...

Nothing is truly inexorable, is it.

(But that matters little when he's sinking this fast.)

With one last push, Sylar forms the words: "Tell me..."





The room splits into doubles, quadruples, more, fading, and then there's nothing but black.