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"Fit in so good the hope is that you cannot see me later
You don't know me
I am an introvert an excavator
I'm duckin' out for now
A face in dodgy elevators
Creep up and suddenly
I found myself
An innovator
I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up
If I could stand up mean for the things that I believe"
- Santogold, L.E.S. Artistes
Mohinder rolls over and turns the radio alarm off a minute before it begins beeping—always a minute before—unable to break free of the sweat soaked sheets, once so crisp, that greedily cling to his body as if trying to suck out every last drop of moisture that tries to escape. An uncomfortable groan falls unintentionally from his lips as he settles on his back again and allows himself a few moments to think.
Foiled each step of the way while trying to detangle restrained limbs he eventually breathes a sigh of relief with the sheets finally lay crumpled beyond the bottoms of his feet, his white cotton boxer briefs as the only remaining barrier between his skin and the dank air. Throwing one arm up behind his head he rests the other on his stomach and glances at the open window, praying for a breeze.
It is the third day of an unbelievable heat wave that has suffocated Istanbul and his hotel has no air conditioning, relying instead on ceiling fans and open windows to cool down the rooms. The beginnings of a death toll count remind Mohinder that this is more than global warming in the sense that it has been discussed and debated over the years by various world and news organizations.
This heat has a very specific origin. Lee Chang, or 'The Weatherman' as Bob so punned in his summation, has been leaving reckless geographic and atmospheric footprints the globe over, with Peter on his trail. This morning is an unspoken announcement that Lee is still one step ahead.
But Lee is not the reason that Mohinder is here and being in the same country as Peter is a fluke rather than a premeditation. Sent by Bob to perform some select tests on a university student, Antoine Deuchasey who has started to show occasionally peculiar abilities of animal-like agility, Mohinder realizes that three days in Istanbul is the longest he has been in one place in over a year since Sylar had returned from the dead and stolen his blood to begin a new reign of terror.
The memory forces Mohinder's eyes closed in the motion of cleansing his mind. The near deadly hostage taking had made Matt's decision to move out with Molly, still only twenty minutes away from Mohinder's apartment, one neither argued over. Despite not being what Mohinder wanted it was a necessity they all understood regretfully. With Mohinder's constant travel for The Company and covert counter missions with Bennet, the stability Matt provides Molly works as a good base of conviction on which they stand by their decision.
He has become a man in motion, unable to rest anywhere too long. Opening his eyes he falls under the spell of the spinning fan turning hot air into a warm air counterpart. A tiny smile turns up the corners of his lips and he thinks about the unsolicited freebie psych evaluation his friend Reza Moshin from Oxford University would give him, in a heavy Welsh accent, regarding his restless life.
"This Sylar has infiltrated your world so fully that no safe haven exists. Any potential sanctuary has become a nightmare. You keep moving to outrun him. By refusing to stand still you remove or withhold a barrier for him to breach and a ground for him to claim."
"That seems useless on my part. He's taken all the pieces and I'm playing empty handed," Mohinder speaks aloud to the empty room.
"But you're still playing Mohinder because you're still in the game. You won't walk away."
"I can't walk away."
"Yah you can. You can't be bothered to let him win so easily. Them's your rules."
Sitting up Mohinder shakes Reza from his mind and perches on the side of the bed, feet on the floor and hands gripping the mattress. Head angled down he stares upwards towards the window.
His fourth time in Istanbul and he has yet to visit the Blue Mosque or get lost amongst the carpet shops, leather vendors and jewelry stores of the Grand Bizarre. He has yet to wander the grounds of the Topkapi Palace. For all of his movement he is only a tourist of travelogues. Mohinder visits the sites of his international pit stops in the dog-eared pages of guidebooks and eavesdropped conversations of other travelers.
He is a journeyman in practice, a tourist theoretically. He belongs nowhere, an invisible man barely touching the tangible world.
And another day begins.
********** ********** ********** ********** **********
In an off-white linen suit with a white patterned shirt beneath and brown sandals, Mohinder steps around slow moving, life appreciating, people who fill up the sidewalks in lose limbs and ticklish laughter. For a phantom Mohinder manages to draw attention from those he passes although he rarely notices. He has grown accustomed to not existing. It is for the better.
Waiting for the light to change Mohinder shifts the strap of his shoulder bag, already wrinkling the material below it, and tries to stay keenly focused on his surroundings. The week before in Madrid, beneath a sweltering sun, he had fallen into a daydream. Stepping off the curb he would have been struck by the speeding car if not for the strong hand that pulled him back to safety. The abrupt return to reality turned Mohinder around to thank the Good Samaritan but only a crowd of blank eyes that did not meet his swarmed by at the beckon call of the green light.
Knowing he cannot rely on the kindness of strangers, Mohinder pays attention to the most basic pieces of his environment. He has grown more watchful recently with the recurring blur of a man who he has begun to suspect is following him. Based on the barely distinguishable traits Mohinder recollected over the phone Bennet had declared the man to be Jean-Luc Archand, a rogue Company assassin it is believed Maya is being trained alongside Elle to eventually take down.
With every step, rounding ever corner, dissecting every crowd, Mohinder interrogates while presenting himself as aloof. It is a chameleon's game of opposites, actions versus thoughts, but the glimpse of blond hair in the shifting crowd brings it all pummeling together.
Mohinder's heart races as he makes a decision.
********** ********** ********** ********** **********
Keeping the most brisk of paces Mohinder winds the streets of past and present, east and west. Following the contours of the city's grid he is turned around and crossed over but keeps a watchful eye on buildings and passageways, shop windows and laundry lined verandas, the way he would one wall of a maze trying to guarantee that the end would be found.
Sweat pools at the base of his neck and stains the collar of his jacket. He pays it no mind, instead reaching inside his jacket, just below his left arm. Heated material meets his fingertips and the usually disturbing concern it conjures now instills relief.
Down an off road passageway that lies tightly between two apartment buildings Mohinder hears the scattered sounds of televisions and people chattering. A woman's voice sings out from an open window above his head, from another window a man and woman argue. Quickly Mohinder steps along hearing his footsteps land on the stone ground. The unmistakable sound of a second pair of footsteps rushes him along.
An open doorway calls out the way and Mohinder crosses over into thick stonewalls and a stairway up. Chipped paint splatters the walls beneath his skirting hands as he moves higher, two steps at a time, until he reaches the top floor. A glass window teases an unusable escape route and locked doors along the hallway he turns into mock his mistake.
Not this time, he thinks and in a swift movement removes his bag, which he quietly tosses to the side of the hallway, and reaches under his jacket. Footsteps sound louder and turning around he stretches out his right arm and fires two silenced shots.
His pursuer wears the expression of surprise. Blue eyes startle as blood spurts forward and the man falls back. Mohinder realizes he is panting with worry and he tries to force deep breaths into this body to control his petrified heart and twisted stomach.
Stepping closer he sees the man's body still. Mohinder feels frozen in time. The gun now heavy in his right hand is unexpectedly wrenched free and it clatters noisily to the ground.
"You've become quite the shot, although this does put a bit of a damper on my plans."
Wide-eyed, Mohinder looks up to see a familiar face appear with silent steps from the other hall. Unsurprised disbelief crashes down on Mohinder.
"Sylar?"
Offering only a brief glance at Mohinder, Sylar crouches down and balances on the tips of his feet next to the fallen man. Sylar fingers the bullet holes in the shirt thoughtfully, colouring his fingers red.
Mohinder gathers up the courage he has kept on reserve for the possibility of a moment like this and angrily asks, "Are you stalking me now?"
"My every move doesn't hinge on you," Sylar harshly replies, not looking up. "Yet this does seem to have become a case of the snake eating its tail."
Confusion displaces Mohinder's anger and Sylar explains, "I've been following him. You can imagine my surprise at finding out that he's been following you. Looks like your admirers are—were—multiplying."
Mohinder ignores the joking tone meant to discomfort. "Why would an assassin be after me for doing test work?" he wonders aloud more to himself than as a subject up for discussion.
"Assassin?" Sylar repeats dubiously letting the words roll over his tongue. "Not exactly but…it doesn't matter so much now. I was hoping to get more out of him first but when opportunity knocks…"
Seeing Sylar trace his finger lightly across the man's forehead makes Mohinder repulsively aware of what he is about to witness. Disgust catapults the insult from his mouth. "Are you seriously going to desecrate the dead?"
Sylar pauses and, looking at Mohinder, stands up. "Dead is stretching it Mohinder, even for you." Finger pointed down he mercilessly tones, "This may be too much for your delicate countenance."
The distinction between killing out of self-defense and destroying a body exists in a morally unstable prism, yet Mohinder can make the separation clearly enough. It is not a line he wishes to cross or pretend not to see. In reaction instinct propels him forward and he slams head first into Sylar's chest.
The oomph of the wind being knocked out of Sylar would be almost comical if not for the horror that Mohinder is trying to prevent himself from being an accomplice to. Adding to the surrealism is the sudden inhalation of Sylar that overwhelms Mohinder's nasal passage when he tries to breathe. Sylar's body breaks their fall to the floor and Mohinder uses his position on top to exert leverage in keeping Sylar restrained.
Defiant words all set to roll out are cut off as Mohinder is flipped forward and upside down over Sylar's head, slamming his legs against the wall in the motion back down. Sylar is at once on his knees by Mohinder's head cutting off the urgent air supply with a constrictive grip to his neck. Mohinder reaches futile hands to Sylar's and tries to rip free.
Sylar's angry face seethes red, the colour enhanced—Mohinder is certain—by tricks of his mind from the oxygen deprivation. He refuses to die like this with only the desperation and belligerence of the battle as a putrid stench in the air. Mohinder's hands go to Sylar's face and despite Sylar's twists and turns to avoid allowing a resting place for the unrelenting attack Mohinder manages to claw blood free of stripped skin below Sylar's left eye. Shock barely lessens the grip on his throat but it is enough for Mohinder to know that it is now or never.
In a rapid motion he drops both his hands and folds them into a clubbed fist at his chest. One steady and powerful thrust up again and he connects squarely on target with Sylar's nose. A crack sounds loudly and Sylar cries out with unexpected pain, reaching both his hands to his face. The distraction is all Mohinder needs to turn over and raise himself up on unsteady legs.
Sylar glares with watery eyes over the triangle formed by his hands over his nose. Stomping to his feet he holds Mohinder in a punishing gaze and snaps his nose back into place. Dropping his arms to his side reveals the crimson blood below and Mohinder maintains an unwavering stance in wait for the next attack.
"I knew I shouldn't wear this shirt but I so wanted to make a good impression on you Doctor Suresh."
Tunnel vision focus on one another means neither of them notices, until their attention is called forward, that the bullet addled man is on his feet looking down at his bloodstained shirt, pulling it away from his body to examine the holes in it.
Mohinder's face crumples in shock. "You're dead," he whispers.
The man looks up at him and grins, "As you can see that's not quite the case. Immortality does have its advantages."
"Immortality?" Mohinder replies incredulously. He tries to call to mind his conversation with Bennet when he first feared he was being followed. In a reflective muttering he quietly says to himself, "Archand's not a…"
His words drift off in understanding as Sylar's gaze, over the shoulder at the man, returns to his with a glint of amusement. "Even when you're right you're wrong, Mohinder. Or is it the other way around?"
Shaking free of Sylar's mockery Mohinder steps forward and, with Sylar still in between, says, "You're—,"
"Adam Monroe. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you but you've ruined one of my best shirts."
The teasing tone strikes such a contrast to the absurd reality of what feels like a new act to an old play and Mohinder finds himself at a loss for words. He has read the incomplete file on Adam, shelved discriminately in Bob's office, and Peter has shared his own account of the man that in turn was quite the opposite experience from Hiro's. Taking in the self-assured man eyeing him right back, Mohinder has a better appreciation for how elusive a figure he is to so many.
A raised eyebrow and tilt of the head accompany Sylar's sharp sting of irritation directed at Mohinder's reaction to Adam. "Speechless? I never thought I'd see the day."
The comment brings Adam's attention away from Mohinder and to the man who still holds his back to him. Moving forward with his head turned to catch a glimpse of Sylar's face Adam says, "You're the chap who's been following me. I've seen some of your handiwork. Impressive."
Sylar murmurs appreciatively at the compliment but it is Mohinder who addresses Adam next. "Why are you following me? Do you think I'll lead you to Peter or Hiro?"
Sylar rolls his eyes at the mention of Peter's name and Adam stops short. "No, although that would be nice. Those meetings will most certainly be a priority at a later time."
"Then why?" Mohinder asks and forces himself to maintain an air of confidence as he steps closer to Adam while feeling Sylar's gaze burning through his skin.
"Your work. To be more specific, your continuation of what Chandra began," Adam shares his voice smooth with certainty.
The mere mention of his father sends Mohinder's heart thumping wildly. "What do you know of my father or his work?" Mohinder demands frantic to pinpoint any connection Adam may have to his family.
"The more important question is how I knew Shanti," Adam knowingly drops the name like a well-timed explosion. "It's too bad you never got to know your sister. She really was quite remarkable."
Mohinder's mind is jostled free from any sense of equilibrium he had been holding onto. Shanti's name blanches his face for a past he knows so little about yet has informed so much of what has brought him to the present. He still feels a visceral anger but it is no longer over his inability to save the sister he never knew. It is redirected as a dull throb towards Chandra for withholding Mohinder's deserved opportunity to assert himself as someone independent from an existence he had no control over. He cannot begin to fathom that Adam has been intertwined in his life before he came into the world.
The startling reveal not only knocks Mohinder back a few steps but it gathers the undivided attention of Sylar who brings himself to Mohinder's side with a blistering gaze set upon Adam.
"You knew Shanti? My father?" Mohinder asks insistently.
Adam begins to reply but pauses after glancing at Sylar. "Unfortunately this is not the best time to discuss such matters. I don't like speaking in mixed company."
"Well you'd better get used to it," Sylar threatens in a low, flat voice. "Anything you say to him I'll be finding out sooner or later."
"Is that so?" Adam muses stepping backwards to the window behind him.
"Yes."
"Well then I guess you'll have to wait until later," Adam counters and leans his right shoulder against the wall gazing outside the window in a relaxed manner.
"Oh I have ways to speed up that process," Sylar promises forebodingly but Mohinder catches his arm mid-raise and pushes it down.
Mohinder casts a curtailed look of concern to Sylar, who looks at him with displeasure over Adam's casual resistance and Mohinder's hindrance of a fight Sylar has been jonesing for. Mohinder's hand is still on Sylar's arm as he readdresses Adam.
"I don't know what you think I can do for you. My father was the one with the ideas, I just followed his…footsteps…my ideas…"
Adam pushes away from the window and stares thoughtfully at Mohinder as his self-deprecating words hang in the air. "That's something I've come to notice while watching you," Adam states. "You honestly don't see your own significance in the grand scheme of things—which doesn't stop you from being part of it. But you don't see how vital you are to the entire thing. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't frustrating or pathetically endearing."
Mohinder drops his hand from Sylar's arm and steps closer to Adam. "I don't know what you're on about."
"That's precisely the point," Adam holds their gaze steady. "You think it's your father's work that's the lynchpin but his work was only the first cautious step."
Closing the gap between them Adam takes advantage of Mohinder's confused but captured attention. "What you've accomplished is something beyond Chandra's comprehension. All this time it was you I had to wait for."
Hastily snapped back to reality Mohinder draws the lines from his scientific research to Adam's known exploits. "You'll have to excuse my dispassionate response to your appreciation for my work. You have a very colourful history and not one that I find particularly admirable."
"There's that fighting spirit. Don't worry, I have all the time in the world to enlighten you."
"Not if I have anything to do with it," Sylar declares over Mohinder's shoulder.
Mohinder turns his face to look at Sylar who stays deftly focused on Adam.
"You think you can take me on? Or you think you can protect him?" Adam jabs and Mohinder sees the momentary hesitation in Sylar's face as his eyes flit to Mohinder's and back to Adam's.
"You have something far more enticing than anything he can offer," Sylar answers with a dismissive nod in Mohinder's direction. "And I like a challenge."
After a pause Mohinder looks back at Adam who is now watching him. "Don't be blind to the limitations before you," Adam says to him in reference to Sylar. "I know you're intrigued by what I could tell you. The history I could unfold, the knowledge I could share is beyond your wildest expectations. And you know it. No man who makes a life seeking would turn his back on such a chance."
The truth seeded at the core of his words is enough to produce a curious silence. It is not that Mohinder is seriously evaluating the decision but that he is admitting to himself the interest that Adam piques for him. When it comes to wanting to know, in the most general terms, the good and the bad are interchangeable; they exist as two sides of one coin. Being sought after is an intoxicating drug but it does not reduce Mohinder to blind willingness. Rather it stokes the fire of his own power, something he clings to in the battle for survival.
Mohinder's lack of an immediate response brings Adam forward, placing his right arm across Mohinder's shoulders and guiding him away from Sylar and towards the window. In the motion of attempted intimacy to compliance Mohinder finds his toughening voice as he shrugs Adam's arm off and turns to confront him face-to-face with Sylar watching observantly.
"You don't seek enlightenment. You seek to destroy the world or bend it to your will. You may be the first but hardly the last," Mohinder argues with a glance at Sylar who scoffs with awareness beneath a tight-lipped smile.
"Amateurs, the lot of them," Adam dismisses and Sylar glares.
"All this time and you haven't exactly accomplished what you set out to do," Sylar calls out to level the slanting playing field.
"Patience is a virtue," Adam informs him and looking between Sylar and Mohinder continues, "Set backs are simply roadblocks to be renegotiated. Has it not occurred to either of you that everything before this had to happen to bring us all here, to this moment?"
"You believe this is karmic?" Sylar jeers.
Disregarding Sylar's presence, Adam settles his attention on Mohinder. "An awakening has begun Doctor Suresh—evolution has leap-frogged and your research is as significant as any personal superpower, though you may not see that. The grass is always greener, right?"
Adam grasps Mohinder's eyes in a demanding stare that elicits a narrowing of Mohinder's eyes as his body tenses. "What if I could show you just how green it could be?"
Mohinder shakes his head to break free of Adam's hypnotic voice. "What? And be like you?"
Keeping his voice calm and controlled Adam says, "Like any of us—who you secretly covet being like."
"You know nothing about me…who I am or what I want. You're driven by your own self-absorption, disinterested in anything else," Mohinder insists unflinchingly.
"I see you, deny it all you want. I see the corruption of a misguided world that is sidestepped and disoriented. I'm trying to rebalance the scale—what's he trying to do?" Adam finally acknowledges Sylar again, but does not wait for a response. "Or maybe he's the counterbalance and you're the constant."
The confusion that rises on Mohinder's face is matched in Sylar's furrowed brow.
"Meaning?" Mohinder asks.
Adam gives a moment of thought to his answer, glancing at Sylar, then answers Mohinder. "Once upon a time I learned that those we trust the most are likely to deliver the most stinging of betrayals while those we first see as a means to an end can reemerge as something far more vital. Never the twain shall meet."
The revelation, delivered as some prophetic declaration, connects the briefest of shared looks between Mohinder and Sylar. A flushed heat, that Mohinder tells himself is from the debilitating humidity, strikes like a sunburst through his body and his stammering eyes race to the floor as he reconvenes a forceful front.
"What exactly are you offering?" asks Sylar.
Mohinder notes Adam's bemused expression at Sylar's barely disguised interest, the very notion of such a pairing clenches Mohinder's stomach almost doubling his body over.
"Eager are we? But you still have to prove yourself. Present company doesn't buy you an in," Adam denies Sylar's tentative advancement while nodding at Mohinder to suggest that different guidelines apply to him.
"And what makes you think I would ever contemplate the logic of your insanity?" Mohinder coldly insults. "At what point did you seriously think I would do anything for you?"
"Don't underestimate what careful observation can uncover," Adam says softly, the words meant for Mohinder's ears not Sylar's. "The wealth of hundreds of years fit upon each other has made me unstoppable in ways far beyond immortality. I have been brought to my knees many times and I have always gotten back up, stronger than before."
"Like some phoenix from the ashes," Mohinder mutters.
Slowly raising both hands Adam gently yet firmly grasps Mohinder's shoulders, deep blue eyes take over dark ones. "Adapt and reclaim. Tell me Doctor Suresh, how fast could you learn to fly?"
There is no time to react.
One moment Mohinder is squirming under Adam's controlling hands and the next he feels his body pulled into the air, sideways through the window—crashing glass—and hurtling towards the ground fifty feet below. Adam's hands bruise his shoulders and his mad laughter punctures Mohinder's ears.
Mohinder has flown with Peter before, or at least he had been kept in the air by Peter. It created a sense of weightlessness as his body was broken free of gravitational bindings. Having the ground rushing towards him is a far different experience and not one Mohinder cares for. A useless struggle entangles his body with Adam's as they roll over each other. For a miniscule moment Mohinder thrills in the breeze of air rushing across his face, regretful that the relief from the restrictive heat it provides teasingly comes right before his death.
Time freezes. Or at least Mohinder's obstructed perception suggests that until he sees Adam falling to the ground, away from him, while his own body hangs at a standstill mid-air. Unable to move, Mohinder's legs are slightly elevated behind him while his hands are immovable in a semi-grasping grip just beyond his chest.
Facing down he watches Adam's body crash with a sickening awkwardness of turned limbs and thudding cracks. Then there is nothing. No object in motion, no sounds but the muted cracklings of a television playing; nothing but the ripening sun pounding into his back.
Caught between shock at his predicament and wanting to yell for help, Mohinder's concern is distracted by the shift of the body below. Beyond his awed eyes, widened with pupils dilated, Mohinder watches as Adam, limb by broken limb, resets himself. Standing up Adam brushes his clothes off and turns his face upwards into Mohinder's sun.
A cackling grin makes his expression appear doused in happiness and it produces a pit of indescribable worry in Mohinder's stomach which is further exasperated by Adam's laid back taunting.
"Until we meet again Doctor Suresh."
Mohinder sees Adam's eyes go over his left shoulder and the grin downgrades to a more serious pursing of the lips in a daring command.
"If you're as good as you believe yourself to be I'll be expecting you."
On the turn of his heels Adam takes swaggering strides out of the passageway. A second later Mohinder feels his body being pulled up but he can do little more than watch the ground recede. Back through the window he came from and Mohinder feels two strong hands grab along his torso before one settles on his chest and the other on his back and he is guided to his feet. The invisible hold is lifted.
Immediately Mohinder looks at Sylar who, hands still on Mohinder's body, is watching him with concern before it flickers away and is replaced by an air of detachment.
Mohinder takes a small step to the right, away from Sylar. The tiny gesture is enough that Sylar takes the hint and lets go. As his hands drop away both men lean forward to look out the window at the empty space below.
"If you don't hurry you'll lose his track," Mohinder quietly says with distaste.
Sylar says nothing at first and his hands tightly grip the windowsill allowing him to balance across the edge. "I can hear him," he finally reminds.
"Of course you can," Mohinder replies stepping away from the window with irritation while the remembrance of years passed is re-imagined in full colour.
With focused eyes on Sylar's back, Mohinder notices his shoulders drop while he straightens up from the window. Keeping his back to Mohinder the act speaks of defiance and only serves to frustrate Mohinder. Instinctually he reaches under his jacket and remembers that his gun is a few feet away, still lying on the floor.
He turns his head to look at the weapon and Sylar's voice ushers forth, "Save us both the effort."
Turning around, Sylar's body glows hazy edges from the light behind him and his eyes transform into pools of blackness, like contained sunspots. "You never could see when the odds were against you Mohinder…Maybe that's how you like it. Either way today is not going to end the way you expect it to so I suggest you hold off on brandishing you're gun just yet."
Mohinder firmly set his jaw and tilts his head back while pushing his hands into his pant pockets. He knows if he follows his natural reaction to fold his arms across his chest Sylar will interpret it as a defensive act rather than the offensive stance he wants to convey.
"Why should you be so concerned with what I choose to do?" Mohinder questions. "Immortality is within your grasp—but it's not here."
"He's hardly difficult to find," explains Sylar.
"So then you're here to mess around with my mind," Mohinder states quickly. "Dragging some sort of mind-game out for your own perverse pleasure."
"There's nothing perverse about it," Sylar clarifies vaguely with a quieted voice then reaffirms more loudly, "I know how to multitask."
A lingering look extends between them and Mohinder paces away letting his eyes jump along the closed apartment doors that line the hallway. With a sigh he turns back; Sylar is still standing in the mouth of the window watching him.
"Are you actually thinking about…working with him?" Mohinder asks.
With a small grin Sylar replies, "Possibly. Does that bother you?"
Moving into Sylar's space Mohinder says, "You've just never struck me as the type to work with someone else. In fact you've been adamantly opposed to such a…debasing idea."
"Sometimes you have to give a little to get what you want," Sylar comments and, leaning towards Mohinder, says, "Don't take it so personally. I still have a soft spot for you."
Mohinder rolls his eyes. "Please don't purport to turn this," he gestures between them, "Into some pathetic delusion your mind came up with."
Sylar's eye twitches as he flinches at the remark, goading Mohinder to keep going.
"You're here to get something from me and I'm here to tell you that that's not going to happen."
"Not yet, but it will. I can promise you that."
"How?" Mohinder demands forcefully.
"Because I know you, as much as it repulses you to hear," Sylar echoing Adam's earlier sentiment, with his head cocked to the side in an unbothered fashion. "You want to know what makes the Mad Hatter tick as much as I do."
Mohinder's glare comes a second after a thoughtful hesitation and he makes a move to walk away. Sylar's powerful grip on his arm holds him firmly in place. "I make no promises for anyone else, but the two of us could handle him, keep him as contained as possible."
"Until you can take his ability and turn yourself into a demigod? Why would I be any more likely to work with you?" Mohinder scoffs.
"Who are you going to trust?" Sylar retorts. "Peter and Hiro's history with Adam makes them less than useless to you. Bennet—doubtful. Maya—possibly, but she'll probably kill you and half the world's population in the process. I'm your best shot."
Mohinder thinks on the argument then, snatching his arm free from Sylar, asks, "Well then I guess the question is—why do you want to work with me?"
"Do you really not know?" Sylar asks amusingly and levels steely eyes his way.
Mohinder swallows nervously and Sylar begins the trek to the other hall. He pauses at the corner that measures out the turn from one hall into the next and glances back to Mohinder. Touching the finger tips of his right hand to the bridge of his nose, Sylar admits, "Nice shot…I'll be in touch."
Mohinder briefly closes his eyes in dejection at the sentiment wrapped up in such a smooth smile. When he welcomes sight again he can hear Sylar's steps moving further down the hall. Mohinder walks over to pick up his bag and pulls the strap over his head, resting it on his shoulder. He then walks over to the gun and, picking it up, scrutinizes the way it looks and feels, the symbolism it takes on in his hands.
Slowly he places it back in the holster under his jacket and wipes the sweat from his brow. He is still not sure if it is better to imagine being stalked by an unknown entity or to know that he is in the crosshairs of egomaniacal psychopaths.
Looking to the window behind Mohinder recalls the feeling of Sylar's heated hand pressed to his body, pulling him to safety. A hot day on a Madrid street corner flashes through his mind.
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Peering over his shoulder becomes second nature for a while. Initially Mohinder tells himself it is to be on guard for Adam's inevitable return. A rare sighting of something familiar however, which he tries to believe is a hallucination born of paranoia and time, warns him of an undesirable truth.
The person he is waiting for is Sylar.
It is an unlikely chapter in Mohinder's story and not a, retrospectively realized, recurring theme that he readily cares to ruminate on. But with each day and then week that passes he allows that fact to settle a bit more comfortably. Denial is dished out in a mild roll of the eyes and a groaning shake of his head. Mohinder wonders when compromise with Sylar stopped seeming so dirty. A thoughtful guess says it was when a mutual threat unveiled itself making siding with each other seem less troublesome.
In the months that Mohinder sees neither Sylar nor Adam he is able to refocus on his research testing which now carries all the traits of a distraction alongside the importance it still holds. Phone conversations with Bennet and Peter speak of guarded steps with the inflected hint of comrades in arms bandied about for individually selfish reasons, none of which take into consideration Mohinder's well being.
Hiro's appearance in Mohinder's Parisian hotel room two months back was the closest thing Mohinder had to a brutally honest conversation with someone who had a complicated understanding of Sylar and Adam.
"They are both bad men," Hiro said sadly.
"I know," Mohinder sighed in agreement, sitting on the edge of the bed and cradling his head in his hands tiredly.
"Not always bad, but now too late," Hiro conceded sitting down next to Mohinder and, catching his raised eyes, patted him amicably on the shoulder.
"Sylar…" Mohinder began, unable to finish a thought his mind refused to complete.
"You know better than I do," admitted Hiro softly before saying more firmly, "But Adam I know. Good liar. Pretended to be good person."
"Maybe I—with Sylar—could try to stop him?" Mohinder sounded off but the weakness in his tone screamed of an uncertainty that Hiro recognized with a tiny, sorrowful smile.
"He hurt you if he wants…maybe Sylar help you."
Mohinder looked down to his hands contemplatively until Hiro spoke again.
"Do not trust them."
Hiro rose above him and looked down; saying, "Be careful," with a tone that revealed he knew Mohinder had already made up his mind.
Then he was gone, leaving Mohinder alone with a choice he knew would most likely have brutal consequences.
One incessant idea that has taken to upsetting his stomach and aching his heart painfully is that Sylar and Adam are already working together, unanimously dismissing him from the earliest stages of planning. The mind-numbing concern this creates is an amalgamation of no longer having an in to keep tabs on both of them as well as accepting that any indefinable connection with Sylar, reiterated in his various reappearances in Mohinder's life, was simply an overactive imagination meant to placate Mohinder's own desire to be important in a world he has often felt sees no need for him.
As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,
They kill us for their sport.
Mohinder repeats it as a mantra to maintain perspective. There is a strange comfort he has always drawn from the rhythmic flow of Shakespeare's words. As a child, while his father was away on scientific excursions (mostly in his study), Mohinder's mother would recall childhood recitations as Mohinder listened enraptured.
So many times a quote would flare up in Mohinder's mind as the only adequate description of an otherwise rather complicated realization.
"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," his mother had quietly whispered to him while soothingly rubbing his forehead. Chandra's pacing footsteps echoed across the floors, bouncing off the walls, matched with mutterings about genetic anomalies and close-minded bureaucrats.
It bears down on him as well, a lifetime later, on a journey that has become his. It is a stifling pressure and when he looks in the mirror he is startled by the parts of Chandra that stare back. There is little joy in that discovery however. Wanting to be accepted by his father was one thing, but turning into him—driven by obsession into metaphorical blindness, disconnected from those who would love him most—is something that Mohinder staunchly refuses to let blossom.
Sitting in a Montreal café, sipping tea that does not remind him of home, Mohinder clicks through his laptop to check his emails. He grins broadly at a new one from Molly, typed in the form of a handwritten letter to make up for the lack of personal touch an email conveys by default.
Dear Mohinder,
I am doing good. I got an A on my math test and Matt has stuck it to the fridge. I am going to a dance at the school on Friday and needed a dress so Leila's mom took me to get one that is purple and has blue and green stripes. Matt said it looks nice but I don't think he knows if it really does. He said it is a pattern you would like. I think he was making fun of both of us. He is volunteering at the dance. I think Leila's mom has a crush on him and he got all red when I teased him about it.
When will you be home? I miss you. Your stories are better than his but his food is getting better!
TTYL!!!
Love,
Molly :-)
P.S. I know I'm not supposed to look but I think Sylar was in Helsinki at the same time as you. Be careful.
Mohinder's grin turns into a wondering frown. Helsinki was a month back and only for two days. It is very possible that their dates were near each other but did not overlap. Still—
He turns off his laptop and finishes the tea; a crinkled brow and eyes focused on nothing particular on the table tell everyone not to interrupt his introspection. Gathering his belongings Mohinder eventually makes his way to the busy sidewalk.
Throwing a cautious look over his shoulder he begins the walk to McGill University. Amidst the clobbering of strangers in a surround sound of cement clatterings Mohinder wonders if one of those is Sylar waiting to make a move. The more surprising and welcoming realization for Mohinder, however, is that it need not even be Sylar.
Invisibility no longer equates non-existence. A work in progress, Mohinder feels the anchoring resilience of new life pumping through his veins.
Research, the Resistance, The Company, Molly, Sylar, Adam, India.
Mohinder is an unchangeable factor in an overly complicated landscape equation. A feeling of self-worth goes a long way and reviving it from once waning depression returns a purpose to his step.
He maneuvers the crowded sidewalk and smiles to himself. The future is wide open.