Plane between

Written by Anakin McFly

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I: all is gray.

The sign on the shop window says 'Gray & Sons', the text curved in dark italics below an elegant clock face.

The world is curiously silent beneath the overcast sky. The storm clouds crowd in with weighted gloom that casts a greyish hue onto the street below, where dust whirls up briefly by the wind to settle once again.

Sasan lowers his gaze from the sign and turns slowly around to take in the empty street. He doesn't know how he got here; can't remember where he was before this. If he was dead, or sleeping, or...

"Hello?" he calls out tentatively, and his voice echoes hollowly, unrealistically down the street. He looks up to the sky. There is something strange about the way the clouds move gravely against each other, dense puffs of sepia blooming out when they meet.

Down the street, the other shops look dead and grey; like lifeless shells of brick that would crumble and fade the moment he was through the door. But the shop in front of him is different, somehow, though he cannot place why this is so. It seems brighter, starker against the background, and its simple door is unsettlingly inviting.

A gust of wind plays briefly with his hair, then leaves.

Sasan blinks. He has the feeling he should remember what came before this... and for a moment, flashes of memory cross his mind – faces, places, feelings, the memory of laughter – like weak splashes of colour in this grey world that fade quickly to nothing, leaving no answers in its wake.

Gray & Sons.

For some reason the name stirs something in him and makes his skin crawl.

"You don't know anyone named Gray, do you?" Sasan asks himself aloud, almost chastising in tone. "No," he replies – although that answer doesn't feel quite right – and then his voice trails off, because there's something about this world that makes talking seem wrong and out of place.

The door to Gray & Sons beckons.

Trying to ignore the sense of foreboding rising in him, Sasan forces himself forward to open the door and step in.

He closes the door, quietly, and becomes aware of a myriad clocks ticking in perfect harmony not a second out of sync. Out of time with the clocks, he hears the soft rustle of clothes. There's someone else here; and Sasan almost calls out, but growing fear stays his tongue.

He takes awkward steps deeper into the shop, making wild glances at the neat array of timepieces on display. The steady ticking invades his mind, sinister in its precision, dragging him deeper into the washed-out hues of the watchmaker's shop.

Someone is at work at the desk, bent intently with tools over an opened watch. Sasan takes uncertain steps nearer; and again the fear pricks his mind as his gaze tentatively roves the length of the figure and settles on its profile. The hands suddenly fall still, and then the head rises and the face turns to look at him.

Sasan's breath catches in his throat. It's his own face, but different, and again he has the feeling that he knows who this is. They've met before. Somewhere, somewhen, in a half-remembered dream.

"Can I help you?" the other asks, calmly, but his eyes betray that same recognition, and there's a cold malice beneath its surface which grips Sasan in terror.

"Um." Sasan gives a smile to disguise his nervousness. "This... looks like a watchmaker's shop and all my watches are running perfectly, so I guess there's no need for me to be here." He lets out a weak laugh and turns to go-

"But there is."

The voice freezes him mid-step. A chill runs down the back of Sasan's neck. He lowers his lifted foot into the intended step, and with effort turns back around in what he hopes looks like a casual manner.

"There is?" he asks. Sasan hears his own voice tremble; and from the slightest of smirks that crosses the watchmaker's face, he knows he hears his nervousness.

"You don't remember, do you?"

Sasan swallows. "Remember what?"

"The last time we... met."

The other's piercing gaze won't let up, and it discomforts him.

Sasan glances desperately towards the door. "I... don't know what you're talking about, and I'm sure it's a fascinating tale but I'd rather be going-"

"Sasan."

Dread grips his heart.

"How did... I never told you my name-"

The watchmaker stands up and walks – almost saunters – away from the desk, and Sasan is forced to meet his gaze, involuntarily taking a step back, tightness rising in his throat.

"You did," he says, Sasan watching his lips form out every syllable, the breath warm with life in the cold grey of the shop. "You just... forgot."

The watchmaker raises a hand and telekinetically lifts Sasan off the ground. Sasan gasps; and somewhere, in the depths of his confused memory, a name surfaces...

"Sylar?"

The other smirks. "The one and only."

Sylar opens his palm in a quick motion and slams Sasan against the wall.

Sasan chokes beneath the invisible grasp. "I never did anything to you!"

"You and your... friend, Smudge... running around... appropriating my identity, ruining my reputation..."

Smudge. Smudge. Sasan remembers, his eyes flying wide open. "Smudge! Where is he?"

Sylar raises an eyebrow. "Miss your boyfriend?"

Sasan remembers, and the memories tighten his heart with grief and nostalgic longing...

"Sylar. Let me off this wall. Please-"

Sylar shrugs. "Eventually. I like watching you squirm." He telekinetically grabs up a chair and drops casually to sit on it, observing Sasan struggle with scientific curiosity.

But Sasan isn't squirming that much anymore. It's no fun. Sylar sighs and lets him drop off the wall.

Sasan falls to the ground in a heap, takes a second to note with distaste that his clothes are all messed up now, and then gulps in desperate mouthfuls of oxygen.

"I don't like you," he tells Sylar, shooting him a miffed glare from the floor.

Sylar grins.

"We're dead," Sasan says, getting to his feet. "We're dead, aren't we?"

Sylar tilts his head at him. "I can't die," he states.

"Then where is this place?"

Smudge doesn't bat an eyelid when Zach finally turns away from the computer screen, and for that moment their eyes meet in an odd lack of mutuality: Smudge sees him, and yet not, his mind struggling to force the illusion of another...

And then reality seems to catch up with him, and Smudge looks away and down at his legs. Embarrassment.

There's something different about Smudge, Zach notices. He's not the same person he left back in 2001. Something changed, and he's not sure what, but he'd seen that deep sadness in Smudge's eyes that he doesn't think was there before.

And he catches Smudge now staring at the computer screen and the blank video window with a strange, painful longing, and decides that some questions might need to be asked...

"Smudge."

Smudge gives a start, disproportionately huge, his eyes momentarily taking on a panicked wildness that then settles into guarded calm. "Yeah?"

There's no real way to do this tactfully. "Are... the others still around?" Zach asks, and then regrets it.

"Some," Smudge says hoarsely after a short eternity of hollow gazing at the screen, fingers clenched subconsciously on his knees.

And Zach guesses: "Sasan?"

The name pierces Smudge through his heart. His body goes rigid, then falls to trembling, his gaze still affixed firmly to the computer screen as the first tears start to fall-

"I'm sorry," Zach says quickly, too late. "Smudge-"

"I wasn't there," Smudge says in a broken whisper, and then, suddenly gaining distraught strength- "I wasn't there for him, I saw him, but they wouldn't let me go, and I wasn't... I... I was too late... I couldn't... he... Sas..."

And Zach grabs Smudge and holds him tight as his voice breaks into sobs, and Zach tries to stop his mind from wandering off to contemplate the surrealism of the situation or find amusement in the idea of Smudge and Sasan getting together; because Smudge at the moment is a wreck in his arms, and 'but you're not... real' is not a polite sentiment to have.

Smudge won't let go, a desperate, tragic yearning in his grip as he clutches on to Zach, trying to hold on to someone who isn't there, trying to imagine Sasan back to the living world, in Zach's place; trying to seek comfort from the similarities and ignore the minor differences that tell him that this is a different person. But how different... Sasan is there, somewhere; Zach made him; perhaps he could-

No, Smudge thinks fiercely, destroying the idea before it finishes taking shape. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be real. It wouldn't, actually, be Sasan. He hates that he ever – no matter how briefly – considered it.

Smudge buries his face in Zach's shirt and tries to wish away the world.

And Sasan tries to reach out and touch him and let him know he's there and everything is okay; but his fingers pass through Smudge's shoulder.

"Pathetic, isn't it?" Sylar asks from his vantage point by the window. "He goes running off to Quinto because you're not... there anymore."

Sasan doesn't seem to hear him, bent down by the couch with a despairing, searching gaze.

"Smudge!"

Sylar thumps his head back against the wall. "He can't hear you," he drawls out.

"Smudge-"

Sasan reaches out a hand, again, slowly this time; guiding it along the curve of Smudge's face, willing his touch to be felt...

"I'm here," he whispers. "Smudge..."

Harold the cat trots out of a room. Half in, half out of the doorway, he glares at Sylar. Sylar aims a casual kick at him. Harold hisses and walks on past. Zach glances over, sees nothing, and goes back to Smudge.

Sasan tries to get onto the couch, but it is intangible, immaterial to him. Or he is to it.

Sylar glances at his watch, then remembers that it is broken. He goes to haunt Harold.

Smudge pulls away from Zach, his eyes lost, and it breaks Sasan's heart to see him.

"Smudge..."

And for a moment – a brief moment – Sasan thinks he sees Smudge hesitate and turn towards him, faint suspicion on his face; but then the moment passes, and Smudge looks away, and Sasan's mind cries out in a sudden, intense, encompassing yearning to touch as he lurches forward-

-and the couch meets him with sudden solidity and he's there. Sitting. Sasan blinks. Disorientation. His arm around Smudge. Wildly, Sasan glances down and sees terrible, terrible clothes...

Smudge is looking at him in shock. "...Zach?" he asks, an undercurrent of hope beneath the uncertainty in his voice-

"No," Sasan says hurriedly. "No, it's me... Smudge, it's me-"

And as he sees the hope take fervent root and grow he grabs Smudge into a hug with borrowed arms, and thinks that Zach would probably find possession to be good reason to either call the Ghostbusters or get the hell away from his house; but Sasan doesn't care, his face buried in the softness of Smudge's hair, feeling wet tears against his neck, and holding him... just holding him...

"Sas-"

"I'm here. I'm here."

"I-"

"Shh." Sasan wipes the tears from Smudge's eyes, stroking the contours of his face.

"Is it really y-"

And Sasan kisses him, and Smudge knows.

II: ghosts. never. die.

For a moment they touch eternity and the worlds all cease to matter.

"I'm here."

Fingers intertwine in eerie perfection, move trembling hands to still. Smudge dares not speak to ask how long they have or how long they should have; he thinks of Zach and feels a twinge of guilt, though that soon fades away.

There are so many things Smudge wants to say. So many things to tell him. Yet he can't seem to bring any of them to mind, still struggling to realise the impossible before him, struggling to figure out if this could, indeed, be happening.

"I can't stay," Sasan says quietly. His eyes – Zach's eyes? – linger on the protective grasp of Smudge's fingers around his forearm, feeling the tremble of each erratic breath that escapes the other's body.

"Why?"

"I don't think it's polite, and I think Zach would probably like full motor control back."

Smudge looks up to meet his gaze. "Where would you go?" he asks.

Sasan thinks of the dead, grey world and the watchmaker's shop under the sepia sky. "I don't know," he admits, and tries not to let the fear into his voice as he lies: "but I'll be all right, okay?" He lightly brushes Smudge's hair off his forehead. "I won't forget you."

Smudge swallows back tears. "Will I see you again?"

"I hope s-"

And Smudge feels the sudden, violent jerk and sees the rush of panic into Sasan's eyes, and Smudge's own grow wide as he grabs him, searching desperately into Sasan's face to understand:

"Sas, what's-"

Another jerk, Sasan grabbing at the couch with barely-controlled hands, gasping for breath, and managing, just barely, to speak:

"Sylar-"

And then the body falls off the couch, forcefully evacuated, and eternity dies in a scream and outstretched arm.

"NO!"

The frightened eyes that look back at Smudge have changed. Zach blinks, getting slowly off the floor, trying to make sense of what's happening as Smudge yells heartrendingly into the air, trying to see the invisible:

"SAS!"

Zach looks uncertainly around. "Smudge-"

"Sylar took him!" Smudge cries. "He took him away! What's he going to do, what if he's hurting him?"

And Zach still feels as though he's in a dream as Smudge falls apart with anguish, turning, lost, around on a spot by the couch, shouting for Sasan, screaming at Sylar, and Zach doesn't know what to do, but he still remembers the presence of the other; and on his lips he feels the memory of a kiss.

And he rushes to grab Smudge and pry the kitchen knife out of his hand amidst violent demands to let him go, Sas needs him, and there is only one way to get there.

Sasan lands, and the world is grey again.

From the floor he sees the shoes pace through his field of vision and stop at its edge.

"Having fun?" Sylar asks. "Possession isn't... very polite."

Sasan rolls over, painfully, and tries to get up. He pushes himself into a sitting position and gazes resignedly up at the shop around him; then yells as Sylar telekinetically grabs him off the floor and slams him against the wall.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" Sasan cries.

"Where's the fun in that?

Sylar moves his hand and jerks Sasan's head back. With his other hand he runs a telekinetic line across the exposed neck. Sasan swallows.

"I could kill you," Sylar says. "Again... and again... and again." He grins.

"Why?" Sasan asks, choking back tears. "Why?"

"And your boyfriend won't be here to protect you," Sylar adds.

An invisible punch to the stomach sends Sasan falling off the wall, doubling over and dry retching on the ground. He falls to his hands and tries in desperation to crawl away, but Sylar slams him back against a glass case. It shatters, sending glass and watches showering down on him.

"I get... lonely in here," Sylar says, moving forward and crouching down before Sasan, noting with sadistic pleasure the trembling fear in his face. He smiles. Sasan winces. Sylar shrugs. "I could use the company."

Sylar stands and slowly raises his hand, levitating the shards of glass up into the air, swivelling their sharp points to the front.

"No," Sasan begs. "Please..."

Sylar tilts his head. Then he jerks his hand forward, and the flying glass erupts in blood and piercing scream.

Sylar watches the show, an odd look on his face.

"Scream, Gabriel," he murmurs, half to himself. "Scream."

Zach gets the knife out of Smudge's hand and places it firmly back where it came from. He pushes aside Smudge's reaching hands and pulls him back to the living room.

"Smudge-"

"Let me go!"

"Smudge, he's dead-"

"NO!" Smudge yells. "He's still there! He's still... there... he needs me..."

"You don't know what would happen if you kill yourself."

"I could find him," Smudge insists fiercely. "I'll find him!"

"You don't know that," Zach says.

Smudge glares at him. Zach grasps his arm in a reassuring gesture, but Smudge shrugs it off.

"Don't touch me," he says, and stalks off to the couch. He sits there, angrily regarding the air before him, blinking away tears; until his defences break, and Smudge buries his face in the couch and cries.

For a while, Zach just watches; almost wanting to do something, but not knowing how...

"You need him too, don't you?" Zach asks softly.

Smudge decides that he hates him.

The sound of thunder.

Sasan opens his eyes and blinks. The shop has gone dark; objects barely visible save through the faint, eerie light that comes through the shop windows, casting long shadows on the ground.

The shards of glass are gone, reformed back into the case. The pain has slowed to a dull throb. The more he thinks about it, the more it fades away.

He does not dare to get up. Sasan tries to see as much as he can from the floor. Sylar doesn't appear to be around.

Sasan cautiously props himself up on one hand and peeks around the glass case. Still no one.

A little braver, he stands up fully, eyes darting nervously around the shop. A heavy clock pendulum swings gravely to and fro.

Ahead lies the door. The sky outside is dark.

Sasan heads towards it with uncertain, halting steps, looking around him every now and then as though expecting Sylar to suddenly jump out from the shadows. But nothing happens; and he reaches the door, and with racing heart opens it-

A strong draught of wind makes him stumble as he steps out. The door blows out of his hand and slams shut. The draught dies down. Sasan blinks.

The street is gone. The other shops are gone. Gray & Sons sits on a tiny plot of land suspended in a void.

Something white is floating towards him, erratically blown through the air. Sasan catches it – a sheet of paper – and stares down at Sylar's handwriting, identical to his own in a recognition that deeply unnerves him:

You'll never get out.

Zach feels the intrusion and wants to scream, but he no longer has control over his mouth. He fights it off, for unlike Sasan, this presence is palpably evil; but Sylar is too strong for him. Trapped behind his own eyes, he watches as they pass Smudge – still sniffing on the couch – and pick up the Interdimensional Travel Device Thingy from the table. The names scroll down the screen as his hand operates the buttons beyond his control. Again he struggles, and feels a silent, mocking laugh sent his way. And then the button is pressed, and his house vanishes around them as they teleport away.

The body is lying right there on the floor when they arrive; right before them, temporarily dead, the knife sticking out the back of its head. And Zach knows what they're here to do, and thrashes futilely against the walls of his mental prison, willing his legs to run and his hands to move away from the knife... but he sees it pulled out, and dropped onto the ground with a satisfying air.

"Pointy-eared bastard," he hears his own mouth mutter. "Thought he could get me."

And then in a slow, seeping freedom that suddenly explodes his restraints, he's in full control again, watching in horrified fascination as the wound on the body heals and the eyes open to focus on him.

Zach sees the slow grin. Too late, he remembers the ITDT and dives for it; only to have it whisked out before his hands in a telepathic grab.

Sylar stands, ITDT in hand. He tosses it a brief distance into the air and catches it. "If I'm not back," he says, "you can have the apartment and all of my friends."

"You're a coward," Sasan tells himself in a terrible attempt at a piece of discouraging pep talk, his voice shaking in a way that just reinforces the statement. He can't quite take his gaze away from the edge of the floating island, staring out at the blackness that lies below.

He's been around the floating island. Just the shop in the centre, a bunch of pulsating dark clouds above, and nothing else. No way out. Unless he tries to jump off...

Sasan takes a breath. "You're dead," he tells himself. "You can't die again. What's the worst that can happen?"

And then he thinks up a few possibilities, and regrets the rhetorical question.

He licks dry lips in nervousness. Peers once again over the edge – nothing – and cautiously gets down to his hands and knees, clutching the edge of the patch of land, craning his neck further to see... Still nothing.

He shuts his eyes. You're dead, he reminds himself again. You're dead.

Sasan gives a quick nod for self-reassurance, then pushes off the edge and falls into nothingness.

He opens his eyes mid-fall and sees the darkness swallow him up.

And then the ground grows solid beneath him, and he finds himself back on the floor of the watchmaker's shop.

The note is lying next to him. You'll never get out.

It's a while before Smudge lifts his head from the couch and rubs a hand across his eyes to brush off the last tears. He blinks at the seemingly empty house.

"Zach?" he asks, and on getting no response gets off the couch and moves towards one of the rooms; peers in, but there is no one in them save Noah and a napping Harold who glares at Smudge until he leaves.

"Zach?" Smudge asks again, trudging to the other end of the house. He didn't hear him leave, he thinks, and would Zach have left him here on his own? Unless...

Smudge hesitates in the middle of the living room. He fingers the ITDT in his pocket as the dreaded possibility surfaces again.

There's no time to waste, he decides, and teleports to Sylar's apartment.

Zach is there. And Sylar. Smudge fixates him with a glare.

"It's polite to knock," Sylar comments.

"WHAT DID YOU DO WITH SASAN?" Smudge demands. He stalks forward, pushing Zach out of the way.

Sylar shrugs. "I think I killed him-"

Smudge lunges forward in a wild grab. Sylar stumbles, momentarily taken aback, and then Smudge is on him, screaming, kicking and whacking at his head-

Sylar flings him off and slams him against the ceiling. Zach gapes.

"PUT ME DOWN!" Smudge yells.

"I don't like being hit."

Smudge doubles up on the ceiling and yanks at his left shoe. "Put... me... DOWN!" He throws his shoe at Sylar's head.

It hits its mark. Sylar flinches but keeps his grip. "You-"

Smudge's right shoe whams his face.

"THAT'S FOR SAS!"

Sylar rubs his free hand over the impact zone. He glances up at Smudge with a satisfied air. "You're never going to see him aga-"

Zach jumps him from behind. Sylar's telekinetic grip fails as he falls over, and Smudge crashes to the ground. He lies there, unmoving, and Zach wants to call out to him but a stream of heavy books fly off a shelf and knock him over.

Sylar gets back to his feet. "You're out of your league, Quinto," he says. "Go back to Hollywood." He takes out the ITDT. "And it's time to teach pointy-ears a lesson."

He teleports away.

Zach pushes a dog-eared copy of 'Watchmaking For Dummies' off his head and extricates himself from the pile of books.

"Smudge?" he asks, going towards the still form. Not quite still, though... he sees Smudge's eyes are open, and they look at him as Zach gets down by his side.

"...I want my shoes," Smudge says, so Zach collects them from where they fell and brings them over, and puts them on Smudge's feet.

Smudge sits up, wincing. "Go home," he tells Zach. "It's not your fight."

"No-"

Smudge digs out his ITDT. He reaches out a hand to grab the other's shoulders, and teleports them back to Zach's house.

Noah gives a surprised yelp as they appear.

Smudge releases his hand. He tries to get to his feet, and limps towards the couch to pick up the flash drive from the computer. He pockets it. Sasan left it to him.

He scrolls down the destination list on his ITDT.

"Smudge, you can't go after him like that-"

Smudge turns on Zach and glares. "Yes I can!"

"Smudge, you're bleedi-"

Smudge vanishes.

"Smudge!"

Noah sniffs the air where Smudge had been, and then wanders off to a room.

Smudge arrives in the increased warmth of Spock's quarters. Furniture is toppled. The door is open, and he hears the sounds of a fight going on outside.

Spock rolls back into the room as an electric blast shakes the hallway in a bloom of blue light. Screams. Spock fires several phaser blasts around the door, then ducks his head back in. He sees Smudge, hesitates for a split second. "Get down," he says. There is the start of a gash across his forehead, green blood seeping through. He fires more blasts at Sylar outside; other blasts join his – ship security, but ensuing screams suggest they don't last long.

"I can get you out of here," Smudge says, holding out the ITDT.

"He would just try to find me. There is no knowing how much more damage he might wreak along the way."

Spock glances out the door. A lens flare blossoms and fades. Sylar is mowing through the redshirts, and he feels a twinge of sadness for the lost lives. Sylar is advancing. If he backs him into this room, it's over...

"Stay here," Spock tells Smudge, and then leaps out into the corridor, firing wildly as he backs down the corridor, looking for cover; shoots Sylar in the hand as he sees it raised, and the fingers disintegrate in the blast. They start growing back.

Another room. Spock ducks towards it and hits the door controls, when Sylar raises his other hand and pins him against the door. It opens, and he falls through. Spock lands on the floor, held there by telekinesis, as Sylar casually strolls in for the kill. The redshirts are gone. The bridge crew would be around soon.

"You thought you could kill me," Sylar says.

Spock struggles against the invisible hold. Up the corridor, Smudge cautiously emerges.

"I'm going to savour this," Sylar says. He bends down and runs a finger across a pointy ear, and then along the bloodied wound. Green blood drips off his finger.

Smudge looks around for a weapon; a phaser, something heavy, something sharp...

There's a shard of broken glass lying by a dead redshirt. Smudge limps over to it, blinking at a sudden lens flare, and bends down to pick it off the ground-

Sylar whips it out of his reach. "Don't even think of it," he says, his other hand still holding Spock down. "I should kill you first, you bisexual nuisance."

Distantly, Smudge hears footsteps clanking down a nearby corridor as Sylar's fingers close to point at him, and he screams:

"HELLLLLP!"

Time stops.

Some strange guy who wasn't there before is leaning smugly against a wall. Smudge glances from him to the frozen scene, Sylar's hand still outstretched (Smudge moves out of the way), Spock on the ground, dead redshirts everywhere.

"Who are you?" Smudge asks suspiciously.

"What a mess you've got yourself into," the stranger comments.

"Do you know Dem?" Smudge asks.

"Oh, we've met."

"Who are you?" Smudge asks again.

"Call me Q." He moves away from the wall to closer inspect Sylar.

"Q," Smudge repeats, wondering what kind of name that is. "Are you here to help me?"

"If I say yes, you're just going to rattle off a laundry list of chores, aren't you? Save Spock, save Sasan, kill Sylar, buy you a pony..."

"I don't want a pony."

"Ah, but this is a special pony," Q says. "It's bisexual."

"Are you going to help me or not?" Smudge demands, raising a fist. It gleams in a sudden lens flare.

Q raises an eyebrow. "Aggression. Just another trait symbolic of the inferiority of your race." He wanders casually through the redshirts. "Here's what's going to happen," he says. "You get to tell me one thing to do. Just one. Spock, Sasan, Sylar, pony, whatever else you can think of." Q lowers himself into a sit, fingers steepling beneath his chin. "And I'll do it."

"...anything?" Smudge asks.

Q shrugs. "Within logical possibility. Just one."

"...I just want to be happy," Smudge says softly.

"Is that it?" Q asks. "That'll cost you a dollar for the Prozac-"

"No!" Smudge says.

Q sighs. "What would you prefer? Memory wipe? I could do that. You'll forget everything bad that ever happened to you. Quite a few good things too, but-"

"No," Smudge says, but the cogs are turning. "Memory..."

"What is it."

Smudge hesitates, working things out, coming back to that same, elegant solution...

"Give Sylar a copy of my memories," he says quietly. "A copy of my mind. In place of his."

Q slowly stands up.

"It'd work, wouldn't it?" Smudge asks. "He'd become like me, and then... then he'd understand, and he could bring Sasan back, and kill himself..."

"That could be fun," Q says, and saunters over to Sylar as Smudge follows him with his eyes. "Come here," he says, and Smudge does.

Q extends a hand to Smudge's head and another to the time-frozen Sylar. A moment passes, and then he lowers his hands. "You have half an hour," he says; then time starts moving again, Q has disappeared, and Sylar is no longer Sylar.

III: the unbearable. company. of me.

Smudge sees himself staring warily back at him, and a deep, dreadful certainty grips his heart.

He lowers his hands and quickly stumbles away from Spock, who raises his phaser to-

"No!" the other Smudge says, and then to him: "Are you me?"

He nods, forcing down rising panic and the wave of repulsion that threatens to drown him as he looks down at his hands and knows whose they are. These hands killed Sasan. They killed-

"Where's Sas?"

His head snaps up, pulse racing as he regards his other self. The original. But he feels original, every memory stark in his mind, the conversation with Q still fresh... Half an hour. Half an hour, and then...

"I don't know," he says. He swallows. He has the feeling that he could know, if he just tried to probe further into the dark presence he feels just out of his mind's reach. He feels power – immense power – at his fingertips, and it excites and scares him, as does the low, insidious feelings of a hunger...

"I'm not Sylar," he adds, voice cracking in panic. "I'm not, I'm you, I'm not-"

"You are," his original self says softly. "You just forgot."

"NO!" he yells, and lightning crackles in his palms, and he backs away in terror as he sees the others flinch. He quickly drops his hands and fights back tears. "I'm not Sylar," he says again, eyes pleading with himself to be understood. "I'm not... I'm not..."

"Okay," the other says carefully. "Let's go save Sas. Can you heal him?"

He doesn't know, but somewhere in the part of his mind he dares not go to he thinks he might find an answer. "I think so," he says.

His other self takes his hand and squeezes it in cautious reassurance. He almost wants to pull away – doesn't want to contaminate his own skin with that of a killer – but he doesn't, and they teleport to Kenselton Hotel.

The watchmaker's shop has changed. Rays of sunlight spill through the windows, and the place seems different. Almost familiar. And suddenly, strangely, Sasan feels an overwhelming sense of being loved.

He gets up and slowly heads towards the door. It opens into light; and below his feet, he sees a path leading out to the horizon.

He starts walking.

The body is still there where they left it, and wild emotion stirs up in him as they approach. Mike's body lies a little further off, but it barely registers in their minds.

"Do it," his original self says, stepping back, but he barely hears as he gets down to his knees and places trembling hands on Sasan, gasping out a tear. He touches Sasan's face, runs his hand down to the fatal gash on his neck-

"Stop touching him and do it!"

The outburst startles him; he looks up at his other self and sees the restrained hostility and clenched fist, anger barely held beneath the surface.

"You killed him," the other continues, and the words slice into his soul. "Now fix it."

"I didn't kill him-"

"You're not me," the other says. "Not really. And you know that."

Only he doesn't; but it's a fight he cannot win. And when Sasan comes back, he will not end up with him.

In a sudden spurt of awareness, he forces his hands away from Sasan. He can't let Sylar touch him, he can't...

He chokes down a tear. Fix it. That's what you're here to do.

He nervously extends tendrils of thought into the areas of foreign presence he feels, recoiling as spurts of Sylar's memory burst into his mind-

"What are you doing?" his other self asks suspiciously.

"I'm trying!"

And he tries again. Heal him, he thinks, fix him, and there has to be something Sylar knows that can help, but every time he tries to figure out what, he feels the threat of losing himself into the mind that got here first, and it takes all his will and courage to push on.

Smudge fidgets as he watches, wishing he had a weapon of some sort for self-protection. Sylar could change at any moment. There'd be no one to hear him if he screamed for help. And then he'd die, right here, right next to Sasan... it's almost poetic, in a way, and it comforts him some-

It weirds him out, watching Sylar. He moves differently now: just like he himself does, and it takes Smudge a significant effort to remind himself that it's not really him. But it's not quite Sylar either. His eyes are different: softer, more afraid, and the way he speaks...

He killed Sas, Smudge fiercely reminds himself. It doesn't matter how deluded he currently is. Half an hour, and Sylar would be back, and they had better get this done before then.

The other turns, hesitant. "It's blood," he says.

"What?"

"Sylar's blood... it can heal. We gotta inject it into... into Sas..."

"...Are you sure?"

A nod. That frightened look is back again, worse than before; haunted, as though he'd just gone through some traumatising ordeal, and Smudge notices the other shaking in low hyperventilation.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

The other drops from his knees to sit. "I'm scared," he half-whispers, eyes wide in fear. "Sylar... his mind... it's there, I can feel it..."

Smudge gets the sudden urge to run before it's too late, but he can't go now, not like this. Not now. "What do we need?" he asks instead.

"Just... a syringe, maybe. With a needle. The hospital here should have one."

"Okay." Smudge hesitates. He doesn't want to leave him here alone with Sasan, but he sees him curled up against the wall, trembling before unknown fears, and cannot bring himself to make him move.

"I'll be back," he says instead, and runs off to the hospital.

The other's form disappears around the corner, and he's alone with Sasan. Probably for the last time, and it's not the real thing: he's not really himself, and Sas is dead. But somehow it's enough, just being together, and not thinking about how they would look to outsiders: a dead body, and the body that killed him.

And Smudge wants to hold him, but knowledge of his current form draws an invisible barrier between them that he cannot again bring himself to cross.

Half an hour. He wonders what would happen after; would he vanish out of existence, or remain here forever, only powerless, smothered by another's consciousness, forever floating in fragments in a frightening foreign mind…

He draws his knees tighter towards him, head bowed, trying to imprint forever this moment in time. He needs to remember who he is, no matter what; because to forget would be to die.

I'm Smudge, I'm Smudge, I'm Smudge…

And suddenly he doesn't care anymore, and moves closer to Sasan, who apart from the blood could almost look alive; and curls up against him, his eyes shut, and waits for his original self to return.

"What are you doing?"

His eyes fly open. His other self is back, face ashen, glaring at him with a hurt fury.

"I-"

"Get away from him!"

He scoots back away from Sasan, but not fast enough. Smudge yells in pain as his other self grabs him and tackles him sideways; he lunges out reflexively in self-defence and in a sudden burst of power blasts him against the opposite wall-

He lowers his hand in horror and scrambles over. "I'm sorry!" he says quickly, and tries to help him off the ground. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Don't touch me!"

He hears the hate and fear in his voice and hurriedly steps back; then remembers, and pulls up his right sleeve. "You got the syringe?"

"Yeah."

The needle looks longer than necessary, and he wonders if it is intentional. He grits his teeth as his other self pokes around the front of his elbow searching for a vein, and at the third failed attempt wonders if that is intentional. Perhaps not. They've never done this before. Not with a human, at least; once they tried intravenously feeding Viagra to Freedom the guinea pig to improve his sex life, but that hadn't gone too well.

The needle finally finds the vein, and blood draws out into the syringe.

"How much?" his original self asks

"I don't know." Pause. "Remember when we tried injecting Freedom-"

The other glares at him. "Leave my guinea pig out of this." He yanks the needle out with undue force; the small wound heals almost immediately.

It freaks him out a little, seeing that and comparing it to the other's battered body, still limping from the fall in Sylar's apartment, dried blood on the side of his head. He'd been him just a few minutes ago.

He wishes he still were.

Smudge drops down by Sasan's side with the syringe of blood, casting a wary glance back to see if Sylar is still watching him. He is, and it creeps him out. Smudge wishes he would go away for a while. His presence unnerves him more than it used to; sometimes it almost feels as though he…

No, Smudge tells himself firmly. He's not you. He never was, and he never will be.

He grasps hold of Sasan's forearm and extends it, manoeuvring the needle into position. He pricks through the skin and shoots the blood off into the vein; then pulls the needle out and sits back to wait.

He slips a hand into his pocket and fingers the cool metal handle of the surgical knife he managed to grab while raiding the hospital. After Sas came back, it would be time for some revenge.

"How long d'you think it'll take?"

Smudge jerks at the voice, pulling his hand out of his pocket. "How would I know?"

A shrug. Sylar drops to sit next to him. Smudge edges away, barely restraining the anger burning inside him.

He could hurt him now, he thinks; he could hurt him bad, and Sylar probably wouldn't even fight back, not in that state. Smudge could kill him, the way he killed Sasan and all those other people, because he deserves no less…

Smudge clenches a fist.

How dare Sylar pretend he was really him. How dare he, knowing what he'd done…

Sasan stirs.

"Sas!"

The wound has closed, and as Smudge grabs hold of his shirt, searching his face, the eyes blink slowly open.

"Sas!" he gasps out again. "You're back… you're back…"

Sasan's eyes try to focus on him. They blink again, uncertain and lost. "…Smudge?"

Smudge grabs him in a hug. He's real this time. Not a dream, not a ghost, but here, and breathing, and real…

Sasan vaguely remembers a mocking grin as his neck is brutally sliced open. And beyond that, like a fading dream, he remembers a watchmaker's shop and a lighted path to freedom. He returns the hug; but then notices the other person standing to the side, watching…

Smudge feels Sasan's head turn, and looks up to follow his gaze.

"Uh, Smudge? Why is Sylar-"

"Some guy named Q messed with his brain," Smudge says bitterly. "Now he thinks he's me, but he's not. It's just for half an hour, so we've gotta kill him before he turns back… Sas?"

But Sasan doesn't hear and doesn't see his pleading gaze, distracted by the single tear sliding down his killer's face.

IV: history repeats. cycles forever.

"We've gotta kill him," Smudge says, taking out the knife and holding it out. "Before he changes back."

"He's different," Sasan says absently.

Smudge scowls. "If that Q guy hadn't messed up his mind, he would have killed me. He's still Sylar."

But Sasan remembers sunlight breaking through the grey, and the distinct relief from the oppression in a watchmaker's shop he can now barely recall.

"No," he says. "I don't think so."

"But-"

Sasan closes his hand over the knife in Smudge's fist and gently pulls it out. "I'll take care of it," he says. "Give me some time alone with him."

"But what if he-"

"I'll be okay."

Smudge hesitates, then nods and walks some distance off.

Sasan puts the knife into his pocket and gets to his feet. He glances down at his blood-stained clothes and decides he needs a shower. But that can wait.

Sylar watches him warily as he approaches.

Sasan gives a quick smile that doesn't quite hide his nervousness. "Hi," he says.

"…Hi."

He sounds like Smudge. Sasan swallows. "Thanks. For, uh, saving me."

The other's voice comes out in a cracking half-whisper: "I missed you so much."

Sasan looks away, uncomfortable.

"You've… you've gotta kill me now, right?"

Sasan looks back up, and is hit with a strong impression of Smudge; it's him, somehow, looking out from Sylar's eyes-

"…Smudge."

The other blinks away tears.

Sasan hesitates, then tentatively pulls him into a hug. A distant, nagging fear pricks at his mind: telling him that this is the person who killed him, and hurt him, and trapped him, now sniffing against his shoulder.

Sasan holds the fear back. He slowly pushes Sylar's head up, and looks him in the eyes.

"Smudge…"

"I don't want to die," the other says, eyes shining in tearful despair.

And Sasan kisses him; sees the other's eyes close, and with his right hand Sasan fondles his hair as his left slips into his pocket to pull out the knife.

He ends the kiss, forehead resting against his, feeling the other's breath against his lips.

His hand slips down to the back of his neck. Finds the spot.

"Sas…"

"I love you," Sasan whispers, and plunges the knife in.

Sasan is shaking, slightly, the dead body at his feet. Smudge slowly goes up to him.

"I've never killed anyone before," Sasan says, his eyes wide and frightened, but still holding on.

Smudge slips his hand into his. Sasan squeezes it.

"He could come back," Sasan says. "He came back the last time."

"So we've gotta kill him permanently," Smudge says.

"How do we do that?" Sasan asks. "Chop off his head? What if both parts grow back and we get two of him?"

They pondered the horror.

"We could throw him out of that hole upstairs," Smudge suggested doubtfully.

"That might not work," Sasan said. "And it's still part of this place. When you die here you end up in some afterlife with terrible administration and horrible décor. Trust me, I was there."

"We could ask Adam or Leo how to kill him," Smudge said. "They watched a lot of Heroes."

Silence. They stood staring down at the body.

"…was he really me?" Smudge asks.

Sasan hesitates. "I think so."

Sasan turns around to take in the rest of the place, letting go of Smudge's hand. Remembering.

He sees Mike, still dead…

"What happened to him?" he asks Smudge.

"Suicide."

"He's the one who shot me, right?"

"Yeah," Smudge says shortly. Then he softens: "We should bring him back," he says. "I got you back," he adds, privately.

So they take the syringe and Sylar's blood and soon Mike gasps out in life, only to see them and shrink away in disoriented panic.

"What… what are you…"

"We made you undead," Smudge declares, tossing the syringe aside.

Sasan throws him a miffed look. "Smudge! That's zombies. I have yet to develop a taste for brains and a severe reduction in vocabulary, and I think the same applies to him."

Mike looks terrified.

"It's okay, we're not zombies," Sasan assures him. "We just brought you back to life, and now we've got to permanently kill Sylar."

“I… I'm sorry, I shot you, I didn't-“

"It's okay."

Mike's gaze roves over to the body on the ground. He swallows.

"…I want to go home," Mike says.

"They told your parents you were dead," Smudge informs him.

"What?"

Smudge digs around Sylar's pockets and finds the ITDT. He presents it to Mike. "Here. You press these buttons to choose where you wanna go, then you press this one to go there. That's yours," he says, pointing at Mike's name on the list. "It'll bring you home."

Mike hesitantly takes it.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Sasan tells Smudge. "He's covered in blood and his parents think he's dead. If he just pops up they'll get a heart attack or something."

Mike looks up at him, lost. "What happened?" he asks, distressed. "There were people after you guys…"

"It's over," Smudge says. "We got to go home."

"Oh."

Silence.

"I'm sorry," Mike says again. "For… for everything.

Smudge nods, but doesn't meet his eyes. "We've just gotta kill Sylar permanently," he says, changing the subject. "Because he might come back again like he did earlier. Adam or Leo might know how. You go ask Leo; we'll get Adam."

Leo turns as he hears someone arrive, and blinks. "…Mike?"

Mike swallows. "Hi."

"What… what happened? I thought you-"

"They brought me back to life," Mike said. "Smudge and Sasan…"

Leo moves towards him. "Sasan is back?"

Mike nods. "Yeah. But they said Sylar might come back too or something, and they thought you might know how to kill him. They… they went to get Adam."

"Okay," Leo says. "Do your parents know you're alive? Adam and I told them-"

Mike shakes his head.

"Go home," Leo says. "I'll handle this, all right?" He looks at the dried blood spread over most of Mike's left side. "…Clean yourself up first if you like. Bathroom's that way, you can take a shower, clothes are there… you can return them another day."

"Thanks."

"I'm glad you're back," Leo says sincerely. "Take care, okay?"

"Okay."

Leo pats him on the shoulder and goes to get his ITDT from the table. He scrolls to Adam's name, presses the button, and vanishes.

A few moments ago…

Adam Kaufman gives a startled jump as they arrive, grabbing hold of his chair to break the fall. He swears, and only then realises that one of the three intruders is dead, and another one of them used to be.

"Hi!" Sasan says brightly, before Adam has time to decide on an appropriate response. Sasan points at the dead body. "How do we kill him permanently?"

"…You're alive," Adam says.

Sasan gives a tight smile. "Yes, and if we don't hurry, Sylar will be as well, so you'd better get on with it."

Adam looks from him to the dead body.

"I don't know… how…"

"You watched all that TV and didn't learn anything?" Smudge demands.

Adam turns on him, suddenly furious. "I might get fired, okay? Something to do with how I hadn't turned up for three days because I'd been kidnapped to an alternate universe, and spent all that time trying to escape from a serial killer who looks just like me. If you don't mind, I've got work to do. Go bug Leo."

"That's not very helpful," Sasan says, looking upset.

"And give me that," Adam says, grabbing the ITDT out of Smudge's hand ("hey!"). He stalks across to the main door, unlocks it while dodging Smudge's attempts to take it back, and steps out; fingers working the buttons beneath a concentrated gaze before he finally hands it back.

"Next time, you'll arrive out here and ring the doorbell like everyone else," Adam states.

They go back indoors, where Adam glares at the few drops of blood that have dribbled out of Sylar's head onto his floor.

He drops into his chair and turns the computer on. "I'm really glad you two are back together and I hope you figure out how to kill Sylar permanently, but I need to save my job. So get out of here."

"What would you do if we don't get out?" Smudge challenges.

"Let's just go," Sasan says meekly, cowed by Adam's resulting death glare that seems to have no effect on Smudge.

"No," Smudge says. "It's your problem too," he tells Adam, returning the glare with an extra tinge of bisexuality. "If he comes back he'll kill us all, don't you get that?"

Leo pops up. "What's up?" he asks.

Adam scowls at him. "Give me that," he says, grabbing at Leo's ITDT. Too lazy to get up, he checks his own for reference, and modifies the coordinates for his universe on Leo's. He hands it back to a confused Leo, who just glances at it and puts it back into his pocket.

"Sylar looks dead to me," Leo comments.

"But he could still come back," Smudge argues. "Just pull out the knife and he's alive again, like what happened just now-"

"…Who pulled out the knife?"

"He did," Smudge says. "Sylar possessed Zach and did it."

"Zach?"

"-ary Quinto," Smudge says.

"Oh," Leo says, looking slightly uncomfortable. "You… you met him?"

"Yeah."

Adam thinks that there are better times and places for small talk than standing over a dead body in his living room while his job is at stake.

"So… Sylar can possess people while he's dead?" Leo asks.

"He's not really dead," Sasan says. "I think that knife just stops him from healing; we've got to actually kill him, and we thought you'd know how."

"What about you?" Smudge asks him. "You could possess Zach too…"

Sasan shrugs. "It's probably because I died in that hotel. Their afterlife system is hopeless and understaffed, but I don't think it's the case elsewhere."

"We could get Spock to throw him out an airlock," Leo suggests.

"Yeah, we could do that," Adam says, wishing they'd just decide on something already. "Send him into space."

"What if he gets picked up by a passing spaceship?" Sasan asks curiously.

Adam glares at him. "What are the chances of that happening?"

"He can't die," Sasan says. "He'd just be floating out there waiting for rescue for, like… a hundred years or something."

"We'd be dead by then," Adam says.

"That's just selfish," Sasan says. "What about the people who are still alive and have to deal with him? And we might not be dead; it could just be a year from now or-"

"Or we might be dead," Adam says, intensifying the death glare.

"Might not."

"Might be."

"Might n-"

"Okay," Leo interjects. "So in the best case scenario, we're dead."

"That sucks," Smudge decides.

"We could burn him," Sasan suggests. "Like… cremate him until there's nothing but ashes."

"And we can feed the ashes to Zach's dog," Smudge adds.

Sasan gives him a reproving look. "Smudge! He's a nice dog!"

"…Sorry."

"Yeah, and I guess you own a cremating facility?" Adam asks.

Sasan shrugs. "I've got an oven." He smiles.

Leo doesn't like the mental images he's getting.

"Or we could drown him in gasoline and set him on fire," Smudge suggests. "And chop off all his limbs and stuff until it's just the parts that grow back, unless all of them grow back-"

Leo really doesn't like the mental images he's getting.

"They don't," Adam confirms from his pieces of Heroes-verse-regeneration knowledge. "The regeneration probably starts from that spot in his head with the knife in it. Everything else can be… cut away."

"So we chop him up to pieces and just cremate his head in Sasan's oven?" Smudge asks.

Leo dry retches. Adam quickly jabs a finger in the direction of a door. "Bathroom. There. Go."

Leo runs off to it.

"…I was joking about the oven," Sasan says.

Leo stands bent over the toilet, but he hasn't eaten in a while and food refuses to come out. He gives up.

Sasan wanders in and turns on the tap. He scrubs his hands free of blood, and washes it off his face and neck.

"…you were dead," Leo says from behind him, as though just realising the enormity of the situation.

Sasan gives a small smile towards Leo's reflection in the mirror, then bends down over the sink to splash more water on his face.

"This is really weird," Leo comments quietly.

"All of us even being here together is weird," Sasan says, water dripping off his hair. He grabs a hand towel off a shelf to dry himself off, hoping Adam wouldn't mind the blood if and when he finds out.

Leo nods. "Did you… meet Zach?"

"Not exactly," Sasan says. "Sort of."

"What's he like?"

"He's… I don't know," Sasan murmurs. He rinses the hand towel in the sink and leaves it on the rack to dry. "Just an actor."

Smudge stumbles in and takes over Sasan's spot by the sink, washing the blood off the side of his head.

Leo leaves the bathroom.

"It's never going to be over, is it?" Adam asks, staring down at the dead body on his floor.

"I don't know," Leo says.

Mike stands in the shower, water running down his neck and down his back, head resting against his arm against the wall. Lost; fading memories of a strange in-between world, pushed aside for the still-fresh events that preceded his finger pulling that trigger.

Rivulets of blood-stained water run down the shower drain.

Mike looks down at his hands. A near-identical pair murdered dozens. Mike still remembers the killer's face from the first time he saw him, dead on the ground until he unwittingly resurrected him. The memory has seared into his mind, associated with the bloodied corpses with their sliced-open heads that Noah took perverse delight in showing him; and in his mind's eye, he can almost visualise the killings, almost see Sylar crouched by a body, hands dripping with blood as he looks up, overly-familiar features twisted into a grin…

"No," Mike gasps out. "No."

He wipes a hand across his face and pushes wet hair back. He turns off the shower, and stands there for a moment, shivering in the cold and fear from unwanted thoughts.

I'm just me, he thinks. Just me.

He grabs the towel off the rack to dry himself off.

…Us.

Mike almost wants to forget the others, forget they exist, but it seems rude to do so while benefiting from the kindness of one of them. Yet somewhere in his mind still lingers the thought of them as the enemy: indoctrinated by Noah and company to fear them, and by extents himself.

Mike towels off his hair and gazes hollowly into the bathroom mirror.

You're one of us, Adam had said; and in his own reflection, Mike sees him, and Leo, and Sylar.

He wakes back in his watchmaker's shop, an image of Smudge watching him in hesitant fear.

Smudge has a heavy book raised in his hands.

"…what, you're going to kill me with that?" Sylar asks.

Smudge tightens his grip on the book. "I could try," he says through gritted teeth, eyes blazing with determination.

"There's not much time left, is there?" Sylar asks. "You'll just fade away into nothing, or I'll get to kill y-"

Smudge whams the book against his head. Sylar winces, winded, and raises a hand to throw Smudge against the wall, but nothing happens.

"You can't do that," Smudge says in triumph. "The half hour's not yet up, so you don't have any power over me. I'm still in control."

"Some control," Sylar snarls. "Lying dead on the ground somewhere-"

"Not yet," Smudge insists. "They're gonna do something. They won't let you come back, and then when I'm gone, you'll be dead for good."

"You've got a lot of confidence in your friends out there, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"They abandon you here with me… they don't even care…"

"Because I'm just a copy," Smudge says, though Sylar notices how his voice chokes up a little. "I'm just here to keep you down until you're dead."

"And then you'll be dead too," Sylar says, walking up close to him. Smudge backs away, still clutching the book. "Do you want that?"

Smudge nods. "That's what I'm here for."

"What about this," Sylar offers. "You let me take charge, I'll bring us back, and I'll let you have control now and then. You could do whatever you like, you'll have all the powers, you can see Sasan again, kill your other self, take his place-"

"No!"

Sylar remains unperturbed. "You know you don't want to die," he says. "You know you're more than just a copy. A perfect copy, almost. If a strange interdimensional being grants you a wish for nothing, you can be sure there's a catch."

"I'm not letting you live."

"We could rule the world, Smudge," Sylar says, moving closer, till Smudge can feel his breath against his ear. "Just you and I. We'll be invincible. You could have a perfect life. Everything you've ever wanted."

"Go away or I'll hit you again," Smudge says tersely.

Sylar graciously takes a few steps back.

"I already have a life," Smudge says. "Out there. With Sasan. And it's not perfect, but we'll be happy. Unless you come back to ruin it. So I'm not going to let that happen."

"…Have you ever wondered," Sylar asks, "if you're the real one and he's the copy?"

Smudge tenses. "It doesn't matter."

Sylar shrugs. "Just thought you might want to consider the possibility." He wanders over to his workbench and sits down. "Got any watches that need fixing?" he asks.

"No."

"Suit yourself." Sylar bends down and picks up a clock. He places it on the workbench, the clock face towards Smudge. Seven minutes to twelve o'clock.

"Seven minutes," Sylar says. "Then your time is up, and you're going to die."

"What would you do?" Smudge asks. "You'll still be lying on that floor."

"The same thing I did the last time."

"You might be dead for good by then," Smudge says fiercely.

"We'll see about that, shall we?"

Smudge hurls the book at his head. It misses, smashing open a glass counter behind him.

Sylar raises an eyebrow. "That's not very nice."

Smudge yells and jumps him, shoving him to the floor and pummelling at his head until Sylar grabs him and kicks him off, Smudge making a grab for his collar and gasping as Sylar elbows him in the neck and makes to stand up; Smudge punches the back of his knees, sending Sylar back down as Smudge angrily shoves him into another glass case. Glass and blood fly; Sylar screams; and this time he doesn't heal, not here, not now-

Smudge leaps onto his back and grabs his neck in a stranglehold; trying to cut off his air, break his windpipe, and falling off as Sylar forcefully whams him against the wall and grabs a chair off the floor. Smudge scoots out of the way; glass shatters into the air as Sylar brings it across at him and misses; chucks the chair aside and races after Smudge, half-crawling away, and lands on him, throwing Smudge back down, head painfully cracking against the floor. Smudge squeezes back tears of pain, temporarily out of it as Sylar wrestles his arms away and pins him down. His face sideways against the concrete, Sylar's knee against his neck.

"Just because I don't have my powers doesn't mean I can't beat you," Sylar says, panting, pressing his knee down further to illustrate the point.

Smudge tries to summon a glare, but he hurts all over, and then Sylar's fist whams into his face and he succumbs to glorious unconsciousness.

Sylar gets up and gives Smudge another kick just for the heck of it.

And he tries to find the others the way he found Zach; tries to locate his body and suitable people to possess and bring him back to life. But nothing happens, and the place doesn't change.

He tries again, with no result.

Five minutes. Maybe he needs his powers back, or…

He tries Zach's place, and this time it changes. Smudge goes with him, still unconscious on the floor, and Noah gives a startled bark.

Zach starts. He glances towards Noah, seeing him growling at an empty spot of air.

"I don't want you," Sylar mutters. "Where are the others? Why can't I go to them?"

Zach doesn't see them, but his gaze fixates on their average location as he backs off and nervously calls Noah to him.

"Yeah, that won't work," says a voice.

Sylar whips around. There's someone in uniform leaning casually against the wall, a nametag identifying her as Fhille.

"Who are you?" Sylar asks quickly, stepping forward.

"Name's Fhille. IBHA crew; that's the Isolated Bubble of Hyperspace Afterlife. I helped handle your case the last time. Oh no, Smudge…" She rushes towards him, crouching down by his side.

"What's going on?" Sylar asks. "Why can't I find the others?"

Fhille looks up, cradling Smudge's head. "You never could," she says. "You're not some free-roaming spirit entity thing. You're just at the brink of death, which brings you right back to the point of your creation. Here. Specifically, him." She points at Zach. "He's the only one you can possess, though I doubt it'd do you any good. No powers, no way out of this world… just an actor in character."

Smudge stirs. He looks up at Fhille.

"C'mon," she says. "It's time for you to go."

"Where?"

"You'll find out." She helps him of the ground.

"Hey!" Sylar shouts. "So what; I'm just stuck here?"

Fhille shrugs. "Pretty much. I'll be back for you soon. Working overtime today; I usually don't do collection."

She takes Smudge by the hand and walks towards the closed door.

A burst of light, and they're gone, and Sylar is left alone with a frightened Zach and barking Noah.

sideways from eternity

Plane between

Written by Anakin McFly

I: all is gray.

II: ghosts. never. die.

III: the unbearable. company. of me.

IV: history repeats. cycles forever.

Chapter 5 »