Plane Between

XV: it. gets. better.

There are dreams in which you get into a problem and have to work your way out; and then you're almost there, or stuck, when the dream comes to a sudden end… and for a few moments you're still trying to work it out before the realisation hits that you're awake, and dreamtime dilemmas matter no more.

It takes Adam almost a full minute to get over the shock. The mall with its noise and too-familiar faces are gone. He's standing in his apartment, by his chair – which he nearly fell over – and staring at his computer in screensaver mode.

All is silent, save the thudding of his heartbeat and the sounds of his breath as he gazes wildly around, not daring to move, unable to register just what had happened-

His mind keeps returning to the mall: he'd been there, he'd just been there, they'd been walking, they had a guide, they'd been going to take a taxi to the exit at Wells and Lake and then they'd be home-

He is home.

Adam checks his watch. It's counting down from 17 minutes. The sky through his window is dark. The digital clock on his desk reads 2:03am.

He runs a hand through his hair and licks dry lips. "Hello?" he asks.

No reply. A sudden emptiness and sense of loss gnaws at him.

He grabs at his pocket for the ITDT and pulls it out. The screen is dead. He presses the buttons; nothing happens.

"Hello?" he asks again, desperation creeping into his voice. He doesn't know why. He'd waited so long to get home. All of that… he'd just wanted to get home, and now he is home, but for some reason he feels the hot sting of tears in his eyes.

He blinks them away. Adam tentatively goes up to his computer and moves the mouse. The screen gets out of its screensaver mode and back to the stuff he had been working on in what seems an eternity ago now, Smudge and Sasan dumping Sylar's dead body on his floor and asking for ways to permanently kill him…

Adam grabs his ITDT again. Shakes it, whacks it. The screen stays dead. He presses a hand against a wall, searching for something he can't quite define, sensing the deepening ache in his heart of a story ended too soon…

"No," he says, although he doesn't quite know what it means. 'No', he wants to go back to that freaky world that traumatised him with every second? 'No', he wants to return to that odd game of life and death as Q and Dem tried to come up with new ways to break them; or his arm sliced into shreds to free familiar strangers, or trying in vain to permanently kill a psychopathic serial killer, or…

Adam glances desperately around the room again, hoping for answers, or perhaps a friendly face to pop up, or even an unfriendly one… anything to let him know he didn't just imagine the whole thing-

No, he didn't. The ITDT lying solidly in his hand is proof of that, as is the bloodied, shredded sleeve on his right arm and the dried blood on his clothes.

He walks through his apartment in a daze. It seems suddenly surreal.

Sasan's blood-stained clothes lie in a bundle on the floor. Adam crouches down to touch them, but the fabric provides no revelations, and the lump in his throat grows bigger.

#

Leo can't sleep.

His mind still refuses to let go of where he'd been, unable to accept that he is really home, or perhaps just unwilling to accept it.

Everything is too quiet. He's slept alone like this for years and it never bothered him, but this night… it's too quiet. His pre-bedtime routine felt fake, perfunctory. Like he's still waiting for something.

Earlier this same night in another world and in a place with no doors, he and Adam had chatted quietly in their beds. And the nights before that… all of them on the floor in a room, hiding from Sylar and the people after him; or in their own rooms on the 17^th floor of Kenselton Hotel, the others mere doors away…

He can't sleep.

The ITDT lies on his bedside table. Leo watches it, waiting half-heartedly for the screen to light up once more.

It never does.

#

Maybe this is a dream, Sasan thinks shakily, finally climbing into bed after it becomes evident that no amount of panic is going to bring him back to where Smudge is, or was. Maybe this is a dream, and when he wakes up he'll be on the couch next to Smudge, and everything will be all right…

The clothes he borrowed from Adam are folded neatly by his bed. He'll wash them later. For now, he needs the reminder of the other worlds and their inhabitants: one of whom feels more real to him than anyone in his own world ever had, and whose presence he misses dearly.

#

They get better at it with time.

Each grows attuned to the other's way of thinking out the virtual constructions they weave with their minds. It's like a game, almost, keeping Sylar at bay, solidifying prison cells and winding ropes and bottomless pits to trap him in.

They sense him fighting back, or trying to; but this is Peter Sullivan's world for now, and he guides the constructions and wields the power, all with the awestruck wonder of a kid with a new toy. He lets Jay change things too, sharing the control. It's a novelty with infinite promise. Their reality is pliable, and they gain a better awareness of how to shape and mould it to their liking. Sylar is their test subject. Neither is fully aware of his long history of wrongdoing, but they know he's a serial killer who had not been nice to them, and Jay at least feels a sense of poetic justice in their punishment.

They conjure up dark passageways with cold stone floors and walls and watch as Sylar tries to fumble his way out, shouting insults at them as they add on to the maze and keep him going in circles; Jay puts in a trapdoor where Sylar stands, sending him falling through into an eternity of thick liquid before throwing him out onto a glassy beach with palm trees that bend their trunks to swoop towards him, enclosing him in a forest of clawing wood and snaking tendrils as his newly-powerless hands try to pry his way out.

Peter stops, eventually, and with some unease watches Jay still quietly going at it.

"We can't keep this up forever," Peter says.

"How do we know if he's learnt his lesson?" Jay asks, but he reins in his thoughts, leaving Sylar lying trembling on a featureless floor depressed several metres into the ground.

They look down at him, and he looks up, eyes still burning with hate.

Peter turns his head away. It still makes him uncomfortable to see his face like that. It feels too familiar. Like they're hurting someone just like them, although Sylar evidently had no qualms doing the same thing.

Jay closes up the pit like a box, trapping Sylar in it. Out of consideration, he provides a lamp for light; and then in a wave of kindness recreates Sylar's watchmaker's shop from memory and puts him in it, with a door that only opens at seven to midnight every day.

Gray & Sons, it says on the window. Peter and Jay stand outside, looking in at Sylar staring back out wordlessly at them.

A breeze blows. Inside, the air is still, with nothing but the greyness and the slow ticking of myriad clocks. The simulation is just inaccurate enough to jar faintly at the corner of Sylar's mind.

For a moment, his pride falters; not enough to form any words, but Peter sees the softening of his eyes and the pleading fear in them, and he almost breaks the construct and lets Sylar go; but then he remembers Zach trapped in Sylar's gloating control and the near-murder of Smudge and Sasan, and he cannot bring himself to trust him.

He and Jay eventually turn away from the watchmaker's shop. It stands isolated on its patch of faded grass beneath the sepia sky.

They walk off quietly, Jay's hands in his jeans pockets, their shoes making no sound against the uncreated ground. Peter makes a path for them: packed soil baked dry by an unknown sun, tufts of grass and weeds springing hopefully out from its cracks.

"Where are we going?" Jay asks, and they slow to a stop.

They look back at the watchmaker's shop, small in the distance, connected to them only by the strip of pathway meandering through the whiteness.

"I don't know," Peter says.

He widens the ground they're standing on, expanding it into a small plot of land, as up above them a night sky complete with twinkling stars creeps its way across at Jay's command.

They form a small log cabin and move inside. A rug on the floor and a quietly crackling fireplace. A table with a lantern for more light. Two armchairs. Peter pulls the door shut. Jay carves out a window in the wood. They gaze out at the other patch of land in the distance, with their prisoner.

"We can't stay here forever," Peter says.

"We're dead," Jay tells him, his eyes unreadably calm. "This is it."

They fall silent, looking out the window.

Peter finally steps away: pulling off his loosened tie, slinging it over an armchair and then sitting down, letting his head fall back, his eyes closing, face basked in the shifting glow and shadows of the fireplace.

"It could get lonely," Jay admits, gazing out the window into the fog of uncreated space.

But only quiet meets him, and he turns away from the window to the other armchair.

#

The pain finally ends, his mind crying out for home. When Louis opens his eyes, he finds himself lying on a floor basked in the early rays of dawn. There's a shaggy grey dog staring curiously at him. It gives a half-awake wuff as Louis gets to his feet, noting how he's intact and uninjured once again, but with a greyish-translucent pallor to his skin and clothes. Like he's not really there.

A black cat wanders by, squints at him, and wanders off.

The house almost shines golden in the morning sun. Louis moves past sofas and a bookshelf and finds himself in the doorway of a bedroom. A plaid comforter on the bed, and someone sprawled on top of it, fast asleep.

"…Zach?" Louis asks, but he has the feeling that, even were Zach awake, he wouldn't be able to hear.

He moves closer to the body, wondering if this is what the others had seen – Peter and Jay, wherever they'd been while fighting Sylar for control; if they'd been in this same sideline of reality, a plane between this world and the next, searching out their last breaths through the one who'd first made them live…

Louis reaches out a hand to Zach's arm, feeling the resistance give way until it feels as though he's almost being sucked in-

-and he falls through darkness and violent reorientation, suddenly lying on his back with the bed firm beneath him, and Louis opens Zach's eyes.

He lets out a breath, tight and scared, aware of the tiredness suffusing his newly-acquired body that had, just seconds ago, been asleep. But he sits up, looking down at his hands – Zach's hands – with stricken awe, seeing and feeling them at once so familiar – this body is exactly like his own – and yet remembering a time when he'd talked to Zach, seen him around, experienced the existence of this body from a place outside of it.

And if he falls still, and listens inside himself, he senses Zach's mind there-

[Louis?]

"It's me," he says aloud in soft reply.

Silence. Louis sits on the bed, just breathing, feeling the air through his borrowed lungs, feeling the life, savouring the incredible lightness of being.

Somewhere inside, Zach senses enough of Louis' thoughts and memories to know.

[I was right about you.]

Louis closes his eyes, the lull of sleep exerting its power over Zach's body. He wants to give in to it; fall back on the bed and drift away into dreams…

He lies slowly down, on his side, head sinking into the pillow, and feels the weight of relief wash over Zach's mind as it does his.

Louis' hand lightly clutches the cool edge of the sheets, soft between his fingers, and then moves to his cheek, knowing that Zach too feels the touch of the gentle stroke against his skin. His hand moves down across his chest to squeeze his side in a one-armed hug.

"Thank you," he whispers. For believing in him.

Zach's presence is calm in his mind. Accepting, understanding, unconditionally loving.

Together, they fall asleep.

#

"Those were limited edition," Dem says sadly, mourning the destruction of the ITDTs as he and Q share a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Q shrugs. "They wanted to go home, I sent them home. If I'd left those things alone they'd have been off wayfaring the space-time continuum again in no time."

"But that's the idea," Dem says. "The more they travel around, the quicker everything disintegrates and we get the answers that lie beyond."

Q gazes disdainfully at a chicken nugget and pops it into his mouth. He chews. "Well," he says. "They're your responsibility now. I'm bored of this game. Do… whatever you want with them."

#

It's almost been a week, now. Mike finally managed to get out of the comfort of his bed and out of his room and back into the world, but he's a lot quieter than he used to be, his easy-going demeanour replaced by a strange haunted look in the back of his eyes. He jumps at small noises. He has problems paying attention to anything. And he stays far, far away from mirrors as much as is possible.

Nobody really knows what happened to him. His mother has some memory of visitors from other worlds, but has difficulty connecting that experience with whatever has gotten into Mike, or why he looks so terrified all the time, or why he sometimes talks in his sleep, pleading "I'm not Sylar!" to invisible enemies, curled up tight on the side of his bed.

You cannot run from yourself.

But Mike tries, anyway, one desperate day after work, breaking out into a sudden run on the pavement, breezing and shoving past unwary pedestrians, across roads past angrily-honking cars, kicking off his shoes and smarting at the prick of asphalt on his bare feet; just running, and running, until he could finally run no more;

-collapsing against a wall with hot tears in his eyes and bloodied skin on his feet, heaving in gulps of oxygen through straining lungs as he slides to the ground, shaking; soul crying out for freedom from itself.

And then he'd finally had to backtrack to retrieve his shoes, and slowly trudge back home, head bowed in defeat, immune to the verbalised concern thrown his way, until he was back in his room, back on his bed, and sobbing dryly into his arms.

It is here that Dem finds him. He appears silently in a shadowed corner, looking on with what might almost be pity.

"You're still you, you know," Dem finally says, and the sobbing abruptly stops.

Mike slowly raises his head. He sees Dem.

"Associations are hard to break, I realise," Dem says, walking out from the shadows. "What Q did was unnecessarily cruel, but he doesn't understand or care about humans that much. Granted, I don't either, but I try to draw a line between cruelty and entertaining aggravation, and stay on the side of entertaining aggravation. My only ulterior motive is destroying the multiverse."

Mike's knees are drawn up to his chest. He doesn't budge.

"Whatever Sylar is… it has no bearing on you," Dem continues. "You exist as two independent entities. There are multitudes of people out there with your face who have attained unprecedented levels of perfection… benevolence, compassion, generosity, kindness… and just as many who have done the opposite. You're just one person, Mike, and everyone who exists is only ultimately responsible for themselves. To be the best person that you can be. And if others can't see that… if they look at you and see the workings of a twisted individual who until recently you didn't even know existed… then that's their problem, not yours."

"But I'm one of them," Mike says in a half-whisper. "I look at myself and see him. I… every time I speak, I… I hear his voice…"

Mike buries his face in his knees.

Dem gazes quietly at him from across the room, and then he vanishes.

#

"Hello, Gabe."

Sylar spits out dirt, rolling disoriented out of the freshly-dug grave onto the alien grass, eyes wild and confused and filled with the memory of a watchmaker's shop.

"This is potentially a temporary resurrection," Dem comments, biting into a green-and-red-striped apple. He chews and swallows. "You've been a terrible person, and the various afterlife options won't be very nice to you. But I'm going to present you with a chance to redeem yourself. Do a good job, and the resurrection can be permanent. It seems the people in your world need you. They've been missing your special brand of excitement in their lives."

"…Really."

Dem smiles. "Really."

#

"Do you honestly think you could be anything like me?"

Mike freezes at the voice, fear paralysing him on the bed; heartbeat throbbing loud in his eardrums, eyes open wide at the wall, making out the faint shifting shape of a shadow, too terrified to turn his head and see…

Sylar raises an eyebrow. The action goes unseen and unappreciated. "Oh, please don't be asleep," he says. "That would be highly anti-climatic, don't you think?"

Mike trembles, fingers gripping the sheets tight, trying to get up the courage to call for help… but from whom?

He was alone. With him-

Sylar sighs and telekinetically flips Mike into the air.

Mike flails, grabbing wildly for purchase as his hands meet nothing but air as his scream finally breaks free-

-when Sylar silences him with his free hand gesturing a telekinetic chokehold into existence.

"Shhhh."

The voice is disarmingly soothing.

Mike whimpers, kicking the air with hands trying futilely to free his neck, panic writing itself out on his face as recorded images of Sylar and brains play out in his head.

Sylar slowly walks across the small bedroom, eyeing Mike as a predator does its prey.

I'm going to die, Mike thinks in a burst of clarity. And then that thought takes hold and stalls his mind. I'm going to die-

Sylar comes to a stop before him, looking up at the hovering Mike.

"Your mom and dad are busy," Sylar says, loosening his grip on Mike's throat a little. "We don't want to disturb them with your screaming, do we?"

A quivering tear slides down Mike's cheek. I'm going to die.

"What's your name?" Sylar asks.

Somehow, Mike manages to get his tongue to work enough for a whispered syllable. "Mike."

"Do you want me to put you down, Mike?"

Mike nods with vigour born from terror. "Don't… please don't kill me," he adds weakly, suddenly desperate to live. "Please don't-"

Sylar lowers him back down onto his bed. Mike instantly backs against it to the wall, trying to get as far away as possible, tears choked up in his throat.

"What would I gain from killing you?" Sylar asks, a note of contempt in his voice. "You're not… special."

It's a bit different from how Mike imagined it, now that he's actually facing him.

He's suddenly aware of how Sylar isn't some huge intimidating creature. He's the same size as him. And, like with the others, there's an overbearing familiarity to his very presence that seems to subtly coax Mike into letting down his guard…

But he can't do that, yet.

"You killed the others," Mike manages to say. "They… they weren't special either."

Sylar shrugs. "They were in my way. You're not."

Mike swallows. "Then why are you here?"

Silence.

"Someone thought you would… benefit from a visit. Are you benefitting? What do you want, exactly?"

Mike stares blankly. Sylar just stands there, waiting for an answer, or none; the look of scorn on his face the only potential danger at the moment. He's almost… safe.

"Hey," Sylar says. "Mike. Don't waste my time. I don't have all day."

"You're… you're not going to kill me?"

Sylar rolls his eyes and turns around. "That's it; I'm out of here."

He slips his hand into his pocket, activates the exit token Dem gave him, and disappears.

And Mike is alone again, on his bed, in his room, a strange peace settling over his mind.

#

"It's time to go," the quiet voice says, waking Louis from his slumber.

The room is different now. Changed. Everything has faded almost completely to black and white: the bed, the walls, Zach's body. When Louis sits up, it's just himself that moves, and he's in full colour; as is the young woman standing by the door with a nametag that says 'Fhille'.

The doorway itself is filled with golden light.

"Louis Ironson," Fhille says, making a mark on her clipboard. "C'mon. I've still got two more of you to pick up before my shift is over… Peter Sullivan and Jay Lambert. You guys have a tendency to die, huh? Let's go."

So Louis gets off the bed, glances back at Zach one last time, then takes Fhille's hand and follows her into the light.

#

On a good day, Smudge doesn't get kicked off whatever steps he chooses to sit on to watch the people go by. On a very good day, someone feels sorry for him and gives him food, or money for food; but that doesn't happen often.

He did not even protest when they kicked him out of his apartment and repossessed most of his belongings in exchange for his long overdue rent. He had been briefly puzzled over what they thought they could possibly do with the mouldy bread in the fridge and the shrine to his childhood pet fish Arthur, but he had not complained.

He finds it hard to do even that, now.

He'd gone listlessly along as they'd thrown him into the street.

Smudge cannot remember the last time he ate. There is only the street – now veiled in the shadows of twilight – and the occasional passerby, and the way Smudge gazes at the passing faces, looking… hoping…

Some part of his mind knows it's impossible. Sasan does not live in his world. But some part of his heart says he was just there… just there… it's been a month, but Smudge can still see that last look of terror in Sasan's eyes as they were torn apart; can still feel the touch of Sasan's fingers around his arms before Smudge rushed forward to face Sylar; can still remember a kiss…

Smudge wraps his arms around himself. Partly to protect from the cold, partly to imagine that Sasan is still there, holding him tight.

He doesn't know how to move on.

"Still pining after all this time?"

His head whips around at the voice. There's a mysterious old man seated on the steps next to him.

"You!" Smudge yells, but he can't bring himself to be angry, not in the sudden spurt of hope that has filled his heart at the sight of Dem. "Where's Sasan?"

Dem regards him mildly. "Back in his own world. Still alive, if you need to know. He's definitely better off than you are right now," he adds, giving Smudge's somewhat malnourished and unwashed form a look-over.

Smudge bites back frustration on his tongue. He can't afford to mess things up with Dem. Not when he's the only chance at seeing Sasan again.

"Take me to him," Smudge says. "…please."

Dem raises an eyebrow. "Why? I thought all of you wanted to go home."

"I don't even have a home now," Smudge says.

He was supposed to have gone to live with Sasan. Once upon a time. But now…

"What makes you think that Sasan even wants to see you?" Dem asks.

Smudge opens his mouth to protest: of course Sasan wants to see him, why wouldn't he… but then he remembers Louis, and betrayal, and-

No, he thinks fiercely, cutting off that stream of thought. That thing with Louis had been a mistake. Sasan had said he was sorry, and he was.

"It's been a month, Smudge," Dem says. "You have to be realistic. You can't expect him to still be waiting for you, can you? …Granted, I once knew a couple of pen pals who waited two years to see each other, but at least they'd promised to meet at the end of it. Sasan… had no good reason to believe he'd ever see you again."

But I'm still waiting, Smudge thinks of saying, despair in his gaze.

"Could you give him up?" Dem asks. "Maybe he's found someone else. Maybe he's happy. Maybe he's happier than he ever was with you."

No, Smudge thinks desperately, but he has no proof. Just a half-remembered embrace and a whispered I love you.

"Perhaps it's time to move on, don't you think?" Dem asks.

Move on where? Smudge wonders. He has nothing here but a cardboard box and a broken heart.

"Don't worry," Dem says lightly, patting Smudge on the shoulder. "You'll get over him."

"No!" Smudge says, grabbing Dem's hand, his eyes panicked and shining with tears. "No… no, please… I need… I need to see him again, I know you can bring me to him, I know it, please…"

"Begging will get you nowhere, Smudge."

"I'll do anything!"

Dem is silent for a while, then crouches down to meet Smudge's gaze.

"Do you love Sasan?"

"Yes!"

"What if I told you that he's happy now, and seeing you would only make things worse?" Dem asks. "Would you love him enough to let him go?"

Smudge swallows back tears, his fingers trembling on Dem's wrist. "I…"

Smudge sees visions of years alone. Wandering the streets, perhaps finding someone one day, but they wouldn't be Sasan… no one would, ever again…

"Would you?" Dem repeats, his voice calm.

…and Smudge thinks of Sasan, and remembers his smile, and how Smudge never knew what he'd done to deserve someone like that. And how it might be true, after all: Sasan might be better off without him. Smudge wants him to be happy. Happy, and safe… Smudge has fought back Sylar and anyone who has ever tried to hurt Sas, and at any moment, Smudge would willingly give his life in exchange for his…

And he finds that quiet conviction within himself.

"Yes," he finally says, eyes downcast.

"Do you need a place to live?" Dem asks.

Smudge regards him mutely.

Dem reaches into a pocket and pulls out a key. He hands it over.

Smudge takes it. His name is engraved on the bow.

"It will work on any surface large enough for a door," Dem says. "The place is stable, so you need not worry about it suddenly vanishing or collapsing into a black hole; at least not until I succeed in destroying the multiverse. If you ever lose the key, say 'Accio key!' and it will get right back to you. Goodnight, Smudge."

Dem vanishes.

There's power in the key: it seems to be humming, very softly. Smudge stands up with it, cautiously making his way down the last couple of steps, his cardboard box of stuff temporarily neglected.

There aren't many people around this time of night. Smudge would be worried about being mugged if he actually had anything worth stealing, and if he actually got worried about personal safety in the first place.

The key's vibrating gets stronger as he approaches a wall, a little into an alleyway. Something is changing in the wall – faint lines darting across it, and as Smudge brings the key closer, the lines solidify into the outline of a door.

There's a keyhole. Through it, golden light steadily shines. Smudge pushes the key in, turns, and opens the door.

It's a small lobby. A tiny one, about four people wide and two deep, lit with the orange glow of a single ceiling lamp. Right ahead is another door.

Smudge lets the first door close behind him, and the sounds of the night fade away into the background. He slides the key into his pocket and steps forward.

The second door is set into the wall with no knob or handle, just a flat fingerprint reader to the side of it. Above that is a tiny LED screen on which Smudge can make out the word 'WAIT'. It isn't lit up at the moment.

He tentatively presses his finger against the reader. There's a beep; and the door slides open to a newly furnished apartment basked in a still, warm light.

It takes him a while to place it, but then Smudge realises that he knows this place: it's the half-finished apartment that he and Sasan had ended up in at that house. It's been finished now. The peeling wallpaper down, walls newly painted, a carpet on the floor stopping short at the polished wood before the ceiling-high glass windows at the end of it, still looking out into a web of foliage. It's night out there, too, with snow falling silently down onto the branches.

In a daze, Smudge slowly makes his way around. Shiny fittings in the kitchen. Beech cupboards still smelling of freshly cut wood. He pulls open the fridge and finds it stocked with food – some of it unrecognisable and possibly not from Earth, but he recognises an apple, pulls it out, and bites hungrily into it.

He chucks the apple core into the trash and turns on the tap – crystal clear water gushes out – to rinse off the juice running down his arm, along with some of the dirt that has collected there since whenever the last time he washed himself was. Smudge realises, belatedly, that he should have probably washed his hands before eating that apple, then decides it doesn't matter, anyway; many worse and more interesting things have found their way into his digestive system over the course of his life.

The spiral staircase winds its way up from the centre of the room, its wrought iron now new and dully shining, no longer rusted and green with oxidisation. Smudge makes his way past that to the other side of the room, where a television set stands facing a couch.

He pauses by the couch, hands grasping its top.

"Sas," he whispers, his words hanging still in the air with wretched longing. Then Smudge wipes the tear off his face and moves away from the couch.

The bookshelf next to the television is stocked high with books: 'who knows where I took this today? A Pictorial Guide to Europe'; 'ny ny la ca!'; 'twitter's such an asshole: The Pitfalls of Social Media'…

He remembers Sasan's offer to read to him, and something tightens in his chest. Smudge leaves the bookshelf and goes towards the spiral staircase.

I live here now, he thinks, but there's still an emptiness inside him as he climbs the stairs. They lead into the bottom of the second floor. Smudge pushes the trapdoor open and clambers out, a part of him still hoping-

But the bedroom he emerges in is likewise deserted. There's a single bed against the wall, with crisp, inviting sheets. Bedside table, chest of drawers, and a lamp with an IKEA tag that Dem forgot to remove. Closet. Smudge pulls its doors open and is met with an array of clothes that are overwhelmingly striped or plaid. And a few hats that should never have seen the light of day.

There's a note tacked to the inside of the door:

I stole these from Quinto's closet.
They should fit you guys, and he never needs to know.
- Dem

…'you guys'.

The world seems to stand still for a moment. Smudge glances around, pulse racing, but all is quiet. He's alone.

But there's a new, fervent hope taking root inside him.

There's a door opposite the bed, leading into an adjoining bathroom. Fluffy white towels on the rack. A new set of toiletries by the sink. Smudge glances in the mirror, and decides he could probably do with at least a shower.

It would help to kill time, at least.

Though he doesn't really know what he's waiting for.

He doesn't dare to think about it.

Just in case he's wrong.

#

Some time later, he's showered, shaved, clad in stolen clothes, hair marginally combed – Smudge dragged the comb through once before deciding that this wasn't a battle worth fighting – and back downstairs wolfing down his first real meal in ages. It's not much of a real meal, as far as real meals go – just a collection of edibles he discovered in the fridge and larder, most of which he can't even name.

He's still waiting.

'you guys', he thinks, again. Plural.

Dishes dumped in the sink – he'll do them later, if at all, though probably later, because this place is too nice to ruin with dirty dishes – and feeling contentedly full, he spends some time watching the snow fall onto the trees. He wonders if there's a door out.

Soon after, he's on the couch fast asleep, A Terrible Neighborhood for Delis lying open on his stomach.

The snow soon stops, hours later. Dawn peeks through in the distance. Smudge sleeps on.

He doesn't hear the sound of the door sliding open, or the footsteps that make their way quietly across the carpet.

He doesn't see the hand that takes the book off his stomach and puts it down on the table, and gently brushes his hair off his forehead.

He almost feels the tender kiss on his cheek – he stirs slightly, then is still again.

"Smudge."

The whisper lightly shakes his slumber.

"Smudge…"

He opens his eyes to see the couch, his mind filled with the faint memory of a voice. A dream. It had to be a dream…

He almost dares not roll over, just in case. But then he finally does turn over to his other side, a lump catching in his throat as he meets that other precious version of his own eyes gazing back at him…

"…Sas?" he whispers.

Sasan smiles wanly back, mildly embarrassed. "Hi."

Smudge slides off the couch and grabs him in a hug. Holding tight, crying, fingers digging into the back of Sasan's shirt, knowing that everything is going to be all right, everything-

"I said I'd always be here for you," Sasan murmurs, stroking his hair.

"Sas…"

Sasan kisses his ear. "Always," he whispers into it.

Everything is going to be all right.

#

Adam Kaufman finds the key one day at work.

He doesn't even notice the arrival of the small, nondescript white envelope with his name on it; he looks away from the computer screen for a moment, and sees it propped up against the monitor as though it had always been there.

Adam usually does not look favourably on colleagues who use work time for personal matters, but, hey, this could be work related – though he knows that mysteriously-appearing mail is not characteristic of regular business at the CTU – and he can't think of any other way to tame his suddenly-racing pulse, because he knows what things like these are characteristic of, and he'd written them off as ending for good a month ago.

Besides, there isn't any national crisis going on at the moment. He can afford the time.

With a quick glance around to make sure no one is paying attention to him, Adam opens the unsealed envelope and empties its contents into his hand.

A key with his name on it.

And a note:

For loose ends. Works on any large surface.
If you lose it, say 'Accio key'.
- Dem

For a while, Adam just stares. Taking it in. Understanding…

…or maybe not. This could be anything. It could be something bad. It could mean being shoved mercilessly around and fighting for his life again as part of some sadistic game…

But he can't bring himself to ignore it. He tries, for a while, putting the key and note firmly back into the envelope and going back to staring at complex graphs and datasheets, but he can't concentrate.

And soon he's looking at the envelope again; and soon he's slipped it into his pocket and excused himself from his desk. If anyone asks, he needs the restroom.

No one asks. It's Adam. They assume he's leaving his desk for a good reason.

He feels the key humming more strongly in his pocket whenever he gets near a wall. Adam turns into an empty and somewhat-dark hallway, and takes out the key. He moves it near the wall, watches a door draw itself out on it, and pushes the key into the keyhole as his mind reels with the impossibility of it all. His hands are shaking, but he gets the door open, and enters into a lobby with another door before him.

There's something in The Chronicles of Narnia that mentions it being unwise to let strange doors close behind you, because it's good to be able to see a way out. Adam remembers that, and leaves a gap – hopefully small enough that no curious passerby might see, but large enough to give him the comfort of knowing that he could always turn back.

He sticks his finger against the fingerprint reader. The door whooshes open.

It's an apartment. And he has the feeling that he's not alone.

Adam glances back, making out the gap leading back to the hallway he came from; and then the second door slides shut, and there's a moment of panic before he notices the control panel next to the door with a keyhole on it, among other things.

He puts the key in and turns. The door slides open, and Adam sees the gap again. His exit is still there.

He pulls the key out. The door slides shut a few seconds later.

Adam turns, and slowly walks further into the apartment. He can't stay for long here, wherever this is, but he has to know…

There's a television set, and a couch.

On the couch are two people, their legs hanging off the end, and Adam remembers a similar scene in what now seems like a long, long time ago.

"Hi," he ventures, when he's close enough.

There's a moment's pause; and then Smudge and Sasan sit up on the couch and look at him.

Adam's feet feel rooted to the ground. Somewhere in the last month he'd lost that sense of normalcy over seeing variations of his own face on other people. The weirdness hits him again, albeit with an old, comforting familiarity.

"Adam," Sasan says nervously.

Adam blinks, overwhelmed by how this is actually happening. "I… I never thought I'd see you two again."

They turn at the sound of the door opening.

Leo steps in, regarding them in wonder. He comes forward, and pauses before them. "…Hey," he greets softly, a faint smile on his face. "…I've missed you guys. So much."

Adam hugs him briefly, solemnly, kind of awkwardly – as is always the case when Adam hugs anyone – and Leo returns it.

"Who else has access to this place?" Sasan asks. "Not Sylar, right?" He gives an uneasy laugh.

"Sylar's dead," Leo says. He hopes.

"Dem said I could live here," Smudge points out, vaguely defensive over the unexpected intrusions. Sasan nuzzles his neck.

"Yeah, you can," Leo says. He glances around, up at the staircase. This place is awesome, he thinks sadly. He wishes he could live here. All he has is a boring apartment, and the kitchen sink leaks. "We'll just drop by now and then."

Adam is crouched down by the bookshelf, and he stands up with a video camera in his hand and an odd look on his face. "Remember this?" he asks. "That… video we made. It's still in here."

You're supposed to be working, Kaufman, his brain tells him.

But he ignores his brain and plays the video.

And they remember.

#

Tony drops by shortly after and helps himself to some of the ice-cream in the refrigerator, commenting about how unfair it is that he has to pay good money for a poky little college dorm room while Smudge gets this whole place for free. Smudge points out that at least Tony doesn't get people randomly dropping by and taking his ice-cream.

"Yeah, but you shouldn't eat too much ice-cream," Tony says.

"Why not?" Smudge demands.

"It's bad for you," Tony explains patiently. "It'll stunt your growth, and you'll never get as tall as me."

Tony ducks a Smudge-thrown copy of Planerazzied! and leaves, grinning.

"You could put in another door," Sasan suggests, when it's just the two of them alone again on the couch.

"Nah." Smudge kind of likes the random visits. "You could move in," he says hopefully.

Sasan smiles and runs his fingers through Smudge's hair. "I could. But, hey… I said you should come see my place one day. You don't have anything scheduled for this morning, do you?"

Smudge shakes his head. He doesn't have anything scheduled for the rest of his life, at the moment, and he wouldn't mind completely forgetting about that world if he could. It doesn't mean much to him. He could live here, hang out with Sasan in his world… He doesn't ever need to go home again.

Sasan kisses his head and gets up. "Come on. Let's go. You can meet everyone, freak them out…"

Smudge thinks of saying that he's already been there, once, when Sasan died; but he figures it's not important. He lets Sasan pull him by the hand over to the door. They haven't quite worked out the control panel yet – Adam said he'd figure it out one day when he was free – but for the moment, each key when used in this apartment takes them to whatever door that key last opened in the outside worlds.

Sasan pulls his key out of his pocket and turns it in the keyhole. The door slides open, and on the other side they see a door left open into Sasan's bedroom.

"I should close it, next time," Sasan muses as they step through. "Adam might work out that thing and come through at inopportune moments to ask me for fashion advice."

"He wouldn't do that."

"He should," Sasan says innocently, closing the door and watching as its lines fade back into the wall, as though it were never there.

Sasan opens his arms to gesture at the room, then drops them. "So. This is it. Welcome to my home, Smudge."

The last time Smudge was here, Sasan was dead, and he was alone to face a deserted room filled with hollow memories of its absent inhabitant. But now… the place feels happier, more vibrant. It's been lived in over the past month. The bed has been slept in. The television has been watched. The air is alive and welcoming, not still and foreboding like he remembers it.

And he's not alone.

Sasan takes his hand and squeezes it tight. Smudge looks at him, and smiles.

Everything is going to be all right.

#

eff, zach thinks, gazing in stupefied frustration at his closet. i know i have more clothes than this.

#

THE END