A/N: I know I said there was to be one final chapter (this one) and an epilogue, but by now I'm sure you, dear reader, know my tendency for letting word counts run away with me, and so it's turned into two full chapters and no epilogue, instead. Please enjoy this second-last chapter of the story! There's more notes from me on the other side X)

Last Ones Standing

It didn't work. There was nothing. No relief, no disgust, just a numbness unlike any Sylar had ever known.

He didn't even take her power. He didn't need to. There was no urge for it, no desire to. Nothing but a ravenous, endless void waiting to pull him into its depths. He'd never been here before. It wasn't the same. It wasn't a reprieve; that first rush of a drug when the pain disappears and adrenaline kicks in and everything is brighter and clearer and free.

This time Sylar was just left here, kneeling in a hot, sickening pool of blood spilling from a fresh kill. And he was entirely aware for every last second of it.

It wasn't panic that took over first – that came after. As the seconds stretched on and Sylar waited to catch the high that never came, all that rushed in on him was anger. Because this had to bewho he was! Peter couldn't be right about him! And because the singular act of murder, the one constant through every iteration of his life, couldn't have just abandoned him too?

Death expanded throughout the dark container. A sticky silence that pressed against the walls and clung to the shadows, making it difficult to breathe.

Oh god.

A sudden touch sent Sylar flinching like it burned. The unexpected, unfamiliar sensation of fingers wrapping gently around his own. He didn't understand. It took a moment through the haze in his eyes to discern what he was seeing: that Peter Petrelli had dragged himself across the ground simply to hold his hand.

"S'okay," the empath croaked, the only sound in an endless blanket of silence. "S'okay, Sylar, s'okay."

But, as Sylar choked on the panic that finally rose to throttle him, as an unstoppable force seemed to crack open his ribcage from the inside out, he knew despite the soothing words of his enemy that none of this was okay.

( )

Peter didn't notice when his regeneration kicked in and his ailments washed away. He couldn't feel his body anyway, beyond the painfully twisting knot in his gut.

The killer's skin was flushed, wet and sticky with blood, but Peter barely registered this. Sylar just stared at their joined hands, entirely affronted, and suddenly Peter was back in the early days of an empty city, when a simple tap to the elbow after hours of hammering at the wall had got Sylar looking at him the exact same way. If only Peter had known him then the way he knew him now, so many needless fights needn't have transpired.

"S'okay." He repeated, for both their sakes. Hauling himself up onto shaking knees, he gathered Sylar into his arms despite the guy's weak attempts to escape.

This wasn't Peter's friend. He wasn't the hero who had saved him too many times to count, inspired him, comforted and cherished him in ways no one else had ever tried to before. In his current frame of mind, Sylar was a dangerous, arrogant murderer smearing handprints of Tracy Strauss' blood into Peter's jacket. But when the guy trembled, twitched and writhed in his arms Peter didn't let go. Because the killer never called on the abilities Peter was willing to risk. Because this wasn't a genuine desire to get away. Because he was suffering, and Peter recognised Sylar's same old guilt-ridden reluctance to accept someone else's care, and it didn't mean rejection as he'd used to believe once upon a time.

Perhaps many years too late, Peter reasoned that if he could keep crawling back to his mother after her every horrid deed, after Nathan's, after Claire's, and he could never keep a hold on anger in place of his love, and he could never find it in himself to disown the ones he cared for even after countless deaths at their hands, at the very least he was broken. Something had to be wrong with him. But it was out of his control. And by the time Sylar finally gave in, and sagged into Peter with pained, ragged breathing, Peter had already forgiven him.

( )

The moment Sylar finally let his grip be pried free from the rusted locks of denial, surrender came to him easily.

Strangely, being wrenched to pieces seemed to soothe the ache he'd harboured and hidden for too long. The pressure was freeing, as if pain upon pain upon pain somehow cancelled each other out. It was almost a relief to let the tears spill free and blind him, because he didn't have to look anymore or watch himself fall so far.

If the Sylar from just minutes before could have seen him now, he'd disown him. The most special being of them all, the intelligent superhuman breaking a million promises and letting down his shields for another person who never truly cared.

But the arms around him were steady and warm, and when Sylar tentatively let his head rest upon Peter's Petrelli's chest it didn't pull away. Eyes slipping closed against the darkness, he listened to the frantic beat of the empath's heart, like the spinning seconds of a timepiece carrying him backwards through time.

( )

Kneeling on a harsh metal floor in the dark, rocking on their knees, the two evos were the only things keeping each other upright. Sylar's few escaped sobs whispered off the walls of the shipping container, pressing in upon the pair until Peter couldn't tell if it was just the echo or if he was crying, too.

Over Sylar's head, he found Tracy Strauss' lifeless eyes, open and unseeing and immortalised, and instantly wished he hadn't. A swell of laden sickness rolled up his spine and tears burned more fiercely at his eyes, but in spite of everything he only tightened his arms around Sylar, because the thought of letting go after just getting him back was more unbearable than the alternative. Being caught here. Locked up for all eternity. Losing him again.

With a strength he couldn't consciously claim, somehow Peter managed to haul the other man to his feet. "We gotta get outta here."

( )

Sylar couldn't look. He couldn't. He knew what he'd done, he knew that he shouldn't have, but had deliberately done it anyway because it was wrong. And now a woman's life was over, the thousandth notch on Sylar's belt, just another name on bleeding closet walls.

Unable to see much through the hot blurriness in his eyes, Sylar trusted the arm around him to lead him on, to make him keep putting one foot in front of the other through flashing red emergency lights. All he could hear was a rushing in his ears, his own breathing sounding hollow and far away, and Peter's voice murmuring incoherent words at his side.

It had always been easier to run. Sylar had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of skirting just out of reach of the consequences of his actions. But he'd finally made a wrong turn lined with prophecies and dead ends, and now he was filthy, drenched head to toe in what he only just realised was blood. It wasn't the same substance he'd used to bathe in without ever blinking an eye. It had to be different, because it had never used to feel so poisonous on his skin before, and the smell had never made his stomach churn until now... at least not as far as he could recall.

Sylar still didn't want to remember the missing months. Ignorance was bliss, after all. But the void of his past was still gaping and numb, still waiting for him, and something was missing that even murder couldn't replace. And the more he tried to fight it, the more colours crept into Sylar's peripheral vision. Fights he'd never had, tears he'd never shed, endless days in an endless city that he'd never lived but recognised from very far away.

It hurt but Sylar found that he craved it anyway. Because feeling anything was better than feeling nothing at all.

( )

It was only pure autopilot that kept Peter moving forward. His abilities were stirring below his skin, buzzing like the hum of an electric fence, but he couldn't trust himself to handle them in his terror – and couldn't trust Sylar to, either. So, dragging the staggering killer alongside him, Peter wound through the deserted aftermath of what looked like a riot, through more stretching rows of shipping containers, most of them now hollow shells with their doors standing open like abandoned cell rows. And Peter had the sinking feeling he finally knew what the empty windows in Renautas' basement cells meant, where all the missing people had gone.

He was so focused on nothing but finding the exit that he didn't hear Sylar's weak protests until the man pulled free from his hold.

"Stop. Stop, Peter, stop."

"What're you doing? We have to leave!"

But Sylar just sagged back into a container door and slowly slid down it to the ground. He shook his head, eyes closed, struggling to breathe. "I just killed someone."

Feeling his throat constrict, Peter kneeled down in front of the other man. "I know. I get it, I do, and we can talk about it later but we can't do it here or they're gonna catch us. Now c'mon -"

"Peter." Sylar forced his eyes open, and they were heavy and brimming with a sadness so aware and so familiar that Peter felt it beat his chest like a sledgehammer. And all the power in the world couldn't stop him from growing weak with relief, or the pressure of having to hold it all together falling from his shoulders at last. Because Peter would recognise his friend anywhere, and here he was shining through the exact same anguished, tear-streaked expression the desperate killer had worn just seconds before.

Restraining himself from pouncing on the man while he was in so fragile a state, Peter just rested a hand on Sylar's knee instead. "Hey, buddy." He said, smiling despite all the reasons he shouldn't. "It's good to have you back."

Sylar sighed deeply, a fear having just been assuaged. He reached out and gently wiped the blood drying in a stark line across Peter's face, the wound long healed by now. "I'm so sorry, Peter. Your scar. It was me, all this time –"

Peter squeezed Sylar's knee a little tighter. "I'm sorry. I should never have gone looking for Bennet, I should never have got Claire involved, I should have listened to you and none of this would've happened."

Sylar blinked as if to clear his way back from memories of that old hotel room, morning light streaming across a cramped single bed. How differently would things have turned out if they'd stayed in their hidden corner of the world? If they'd just let time pass by without them? "How did you get away?" Sylar asked. "After they wiped your memories?"

"My mother let me go." A smaller, bitter smile formed itself on Peter's lips. "She sent me back to you, if you can believe that."

Sylar sniffled a little, eyes dropping to the mess covering more than half of his prisoner scrubs, shed from his own veins and his victim's. "Look at me, Peter." He weakly shook his head. "I'm dangerous. Renautas will never let me leave, you won't have a life, you'll never be free as long as you're with me."

"Hey, I don't care." Peter insisted, forcing Sylar to meet his eyes and see the parts he just didn't know how to put into words no matter how hard he tried. "It'll hardly be the worst thing I've had to forgive."

Struggling to form words, Sylar licked salty tears from his lips. "But -"

"So we'll run. We've done it before, we can do it again. People are out there that still need saving – and the future? We can't just let that happen like in my dream! Something is still coming, I dunno what, but if no one else is gonna stop it then I know you and me, we'll do better this time." Finding it harder and harder to talk, Peter's hand shook a little as he stroked long, messy strands of hair out of Sylar's eyes and wiped a tear from his burning cheek. "This is about more than us. Everything that happened here? They did this to you, they wanted it to happen. This wasn't your fault, Sylar."

( )

Despite the blood drying uncomfortably on his skin, and the part of himself he'd just carved out and left behind in that prison cell, an entirely undeserved surge of courage and clarity enveloped Sylar then. He couldn't help but stare at his companion with nothing but awe. Even after breaking his promise to be better? Even after Sylar had pointlessly ended another life? Peter would stay?

Sylar wondered if he'd ever truly stop being surprised by this little hero.

Peter's passion in his certainty was blinding. It was the thing Sylar had mourned the most before losing his memories, tied up alone in his cell, thinking he'd lost him forever. And if that was how it always felt to lose someone close, Sylar only despised himself more for all the times he'd done the exact same thing to other people. Finally, he understood Peter's pain over Nathan, in a way he longed to but never could during their shared imprisonment in Parkman's basement. Why, for months, Peter couldn't look at him without wanting to hurt him; all that time of Peter ignoring him because otherwise he was afraid he might kill him in rage. Sylar finally understood all the hate and all the anger, all the mixed signals that he used to think was the guy just being selfish and stubborn and enjoying tormenting him – but really it must have been this. And for the life of him, Sylar couldn't fathom the strength it must have taken for Peter to ever forgive him, but he had.

He had. So many times.

( )

"We'll work this out later, okay? When we're safe. I promise. I'll help you. Now get up, Sylar, come on!"

Peter tried to tug Sylar to his feet, but the guy didn't move. He just continued to memorise every detail of Peter's face like they had all the time in the world. "I love you." He said.

It took Peter a moment to catch up.

Sylar had never said that before, never mind so simply like a slap out of nowhere that left Peter reeling. They'd never needed the words between them. Sure, Peter had heard them aloud, only once, from a broken version of this man from the future, but that had been a stranger he barely recognised. He'd never considered how different it might be to hear them finally uttered by Sylar.

As it sank in slowly he could only grin, feeling far too light to be annoyed by the worst timing ever. "You're telling me this now?"

Sylar shrugged. "Thought I'd missed the chance."

Peter couldn't help but laugh. But for once Sylar didn't look amused or like he was chewing on a joke only he knew; he just looked genuine. Tired. Wounded. The smile that touched his mouth was a little bashful and so, entirely uncaring of where they were or what had just happened, Peter caved to the impulse to lean in and press his lips to the man's temple.

He lingered just for a moment, then dragged Sylar to his feet with the guy's unsteady help. Still clinging onto one another, as if anything less would be a crime, they staggered on in the direction they could only hope was the way out.

Only to find Noah Bennet blocking their path, an unreadable look on his face and a gun raised in his hand.

( )

They froze when they saw him. They didn't say a word, didn't even try to fight him, just two tear-streaked, blood-soaked captives caught in the act of helping each other escape. Noah didn't want to imagine whose blood it was.

For months, he had driven himself half mad in the hopes of cornering them like this. Vulnerable. Alone. But now that he was here, it was hollow. Months of fake leads and breaking the wrong hearts and estranging himself from his own daughter, and for what? A false prophecy, forged in Erica Kravid's hand. The world was still threatening to end, with or without these men. And when Noah thought of the paintings of burning skies and charred earth, of the two of them standing united before the final wasteland, for the first time it didn't seem so terrifying.

Because they finally, undeniablymade sense. By no means did Noah have all the answers, there were inconsistencies and gaps he'd likely never be able to fill, but at long last he didn't need all the pieces to be able to see what he'd been denying since the night of the Carnival. That even if he didn't like it, and even despite death and deceit and far too many scars, Peter and Sylar had been telling the truth all along.

This was so much more than a twisted alliance between the world's two most powerful evos. And they'd just proved themselves to Noah by defying the odds and finding their way back together again, as if all the other times weren't enough to convince him.

Maybe it was the etched memory of Claire's disgust for him, or the screams that still haunted him since the moment these men had been separated across soundproof glass; but later, when Noah was interrogated, he wouldn't mention the dent that he'd made in clearing his littered conscience. He would claim it was a professional judgement call. That learning whoever or whatever out there was truly responsible for the apocalypse, and hoping to aid the uncertain fate of his co-worker Tracy Strauss, was surely a better use of his time than chasing two more escaped prisoners. And so if anyone asked, it would be this, and not the weighted hands of guilt, that made Noah's decision to slowly lower his gun.

Surprise rippled across Petrelli and Sylar's faces, followed by something Noah couldn't quite name. None of them needed to say anything. And years of hatred and rivalry put themselves on pause for that moment while Noah stepped aside and allowed the evos to stagger past him, disappearing into the labrynthine corridors beyond.

Somehow, letting them go felt much more vindicating than hunting them ever had.

It didn't take long for Noah to find the container of prophecies, nor the blasted in wall to the neighbouring one. Barely daring to breathe, he waded through cluttered canvases and smears of blood on the ground, nearly blind while his eyes adjusted to the pulsing darkness. And when he came upon Tracy Strauss lying still and finally at peace, the bright blonde of her hair run through with red, he wished he could say he was surprised.

Tracy was only caught up in this mess in the first place because Noah had dragged her into it. And now here she was: the latest casualty of his choices alongside Claire, Sandra, Lyle, Eden, Jeremy and more. All the lives Noah had ruined and the people he had broken, a trail of carnage littered behind him to rival even Sylar's. But, unexpectedly, he didn't blame Sylar for Tracy's death. The rage that burned in his veins didn't belong to Renautas' rabid animal tethered at the end of the leash; to Parkman for his part to play in the game; or even Tracy, herself, for running into this mess while knowing perfectly well what awaited her.

He blamed Erica Kravid.

( )

Sylar had no idea where they were headed. He looked around the unfamiliar playground for the very first time, and every corner looked the same and every door identical. He ran in step with Peter's more confident stride, bare feet cold and quiet on the ground while an occasional guard's cry echoed through the hangar in the distance.

He didn't think about Tracy. He refused to picture her name daubed in blood on the wall, lit by a swinging solitary light bulb. And he wouldn't let himself dwell on Noah Bennet's grand gesture, because reassessing his grudge for the guy who'd trapped, tortured, and tormented him for years, and also just granted Sylar his freedom, was far too big an ask while running for his life.

Instead he thought about Peter. Peter who had rescued him. Peter who hadn't given up on him, let him die or forgotten him, despite superhuman powers trying to tell him otherwise.

The pair had barely made it out of range of Bennet when a soft, deep voice pierced the darkness from nearby -

"Peter!"

Peter tripped to a stop; Sylar almost tripped into him. Breathless, the evos armed themselves with blue flickering light that illuminated a tall, dark figure lurking in the shadows between two locked containers. Sylar's heart hammered while Peter raised a hand shrouded in crackling bluebell flames. The light washed over a familiar face.

"René?" Peter gasped, inching a tiny step closer to Sylar that didn't go unnoticed.

"The place is crawling with guards, you won't make it out alone. Come with me, I know the way." That strong, stoic face was unreadable as always, and Sylar recalled this man watching him through a broken window rising high out of sight as he fell to his death. It was far from the only time his presence had preceded one of Sylar's (or Peter's) resurrections.

"Don't listen to him, Peter, we can't trust him." Sylar lowered his voice. With one shared glance he could read Peter's mutual uncertainty as clearly as if he'd read his mind.

But more guards called from up ahead, closer than ever. And the way back was barred with a Noah Bennet who would not likely be as forgiving once he found what they'd left for him back there. Sylar's gut twisted uncomfortably at the reminder.

"Your mother sent me to help you escape." René explained.

"Because she's always had our best interests at heart." Sylar glared at the Haitian. But when he looked down at Peter he was aghast and somewhat, annoyingly, unsurprised to see the first tendrils of hope struggling not to show on his face. Sylar sighed, "Peter -"

"She did lead me here. To you. You didn't see her, this time's different, I swear."

Sylar bit down on his tongue, fighting the urge to roll his eyes and shake some sense into baby Petrelli, who literally just minutes ago had awoken from Mama's latest curse of many. Ordinarily he wouldn't have held back, but Peter was shaken and bloody and only tied up in this situation thanks to Sylar, and Sylar owed him so much more than simple manners could ever repay.

"Quickly. We do not have much time." René urged, a glimpse of something resembling sincerity breaking through his expressionless veneer.

Sylar met Peter's questioning gaze once more, an unspoken exchange that they shared. Since their abilities were undeniably still working despite the Haitian's proximity, Sylar reluctantly forced himself to concede. This impulsive little hero always did believe in the best of people. And for better or worse, Sylar couldn't not love that about him.

Putting himself between Peter and René, Sylar extinguished his power and slipped between the shipping containers first. Aware of Peter close at his back, Sylar followed the Haitian on a well-worn, intricate path through Renautas' hangar, clocking his every movement. Somehow René knew exactly how to avoid every camera, never faltered in his direction and they never encountered resistance, and when he stopped before a final corner Sylar forced himself to bottle his doubts more than ever for the sake of the only person who had ever believed in the best of him.

"In here, quickly." René ushered the two fugitives ahead of him into a complete pocket of darkness.

The ground was rough and ice-cold beneath Sylar's feet, and the sounds of his and Peter's breathing seemed to amplify somehow. Exhaustion draped over every bone in Sylar's body like a sudden weighted blanket. The back of his neck tingled. Eyes darting through the darkness, Sylar summoned electricity to light the path with his fingertips – but came up empty. The little grunt at his side told him Peter had just encountered the same. And Sylar's blood ran cold.

When he turned on René with no strength or powers, just a snarl, he really wished he would have been wrong to see the stark figure against the light of a closing door. Peter cried out, René loomed closer with a hand outstretched, darkness sealed them inside another cell, and the clunk of the door closing almost drowned out the Haitian's soft voice.

"I am sorry, this is the only way."

( )( )( )

It was freezing out here. As night grew long the wind grew harsher, and Micah's limbs had gone numb long ago. It could have been minutes or hours, there was no way to tell for sure. He thought it was hours. Definitely at least one.

He'd chosen his hiding place well. Undiscovered behind a haphazardly stacked pile of crates, he had the perfect view to both see who emerged from the glowing mouth of the aircraft hangar, and hear their words lifted past him on the swell of the wind. He'd watched the stampede of prisoners burst into the night like bats fleeing their cave and scattering into the darkness. He'd watched countless duplicates of M.F. Harris chase them down, only to have prisoners teleport from their fingertips, rise into the sky or slip into a portal torn clean into thin air. He'd watched silhouettes patrol the grounds, wheeling large crates out of sight. He'd watched a dark, expensive looking car roll up, and Erica Kravid's unmistakably luminous white suit disappear into the hangar. He'd watched the Renautas van pull up, and emergency medical equipment disappear inside.

Tracy had never come back. And Micah couldn't force himself to leave.

Tracy wouldn't abandon him now. Not after she'd said she'd meet him. Not after she broke every rule just to free him, and even went to help more strangers, too. Micah recalled how brave she had looked the last time he'd seen her: the same determination he'd seen in his mother before she'd disappeared into the fire. She was a hero. And Micah swore he'd spend his power and the rest of his life working to help others in Tracy's name as well as his other heroes, even if she never saw it, because he owed every minute of his freedom to her.

He wasn't worried that she'd switched sides and joined the villains again. No, that thought wasn't weighing down on him for this whole hour. Or maybe it had been two, after all.

Faint, growing voices stirred Micah from the bundled depths of his too-big prison scrubs, and he uncurled from their bleak warmth to peer over the crates. Erica Kravid was recognisable at a distance: striking suit, sharp walk and the quietly livid look plastered across her face. The glint of light upon lenses announced Noah Bennet beside her, looking at a data tablet Ms Kravid held out. Micah wished he could tap into it and get the answers they did. There was still no sign of Tracy.

"...her own choice. But not before locking you inside your car, breaking out Hiro Nakamura and her nephew, then letting our most dangerous prisoner go free. Am I repeating that correctly, Noah?"

Listening, Micah's heart skipped a beat.

Bennet removed his glasses to rub at tired eyes. "I tried to reach her. The place was in revolt. By the time I found the right crate, she was gone."

"Yes, I see we have Miss Strauss to thank for that one, as well."

Tearing her attention from the data tablet, Erica Kravid looked behind her expectantly. Hope stirred in Micah's bruised but sturdy heart, maybe optimistic, maybe foolish. But when two Harrises wheeled a stretcher from the hangar to Renuatas' parked van, he knew already who the covered body was.

Finally the restraints keeping Micah rooted to this spot lifted and he recoiled. The glow of Renautas' aircraft hangar was shrinking behind him and cold night surrounding all sides before he even made the conscious decision to run. Then a small thought wormed through the numbness that had spread from his limbs to his thoughts. Tracy hadn't willingly abandoned him, after all.

( )

Curses swarmed through Erica's head as she pretended to re-watch the security footage unrolling across the tablet screen, forcing her expression to be neutral with every ounce of her control. Prisoners on the loose, waltzing from cell to cell, breaking into classified storage and then disappearing into thin air would be humiliating enough, were it not for Noah's criminal level of incompetence. Not to mention Tracy Strauss' murder was a loss to the company in more than the official sense. Not many people could nearly single-handedly cause such an impact as her actions had here tonight. Miss Strauss had the makings of something great in her, it turned out. Pity this was only made clear upon the choices that led to her demise.

Erica switched the recording of Tracy's lifeless body to one of Peter Petrelli and Sylar crouched halfway along a corridor in the midst of their escape. "Still no trace of them?" She asked tightly of Noah.

"Petrelli has Hiro Nakamura's ability. They could be anywhere in the world by now."

The prisoners' faint, recorded voices sounded far away to Erica's ears. "People are out there that still need saving – and the future? We can't just let that happen like in my dream! Something is still coming..." Noah fidgeted at her side, yet Erica didn't have the strength to deal with him just now. She closed the video, vowing to pour over every detail of the escape later and punish those responsible.

For now, time was precious. And having just lost her entire army of collected evos, a future of fiery wastelands felt much closer than it had even this evening.

"Put a price on them. Start rounding up more evos, we can't afford to be picky this time. Petrelli and Sylar are not my priority, nor are they yours, Noah, but this case will not be dropped. Do you understand me?"

Noah's hesitation did not encourage Erica's mood. "We now know they're not responsible for what's going to happen, one way or another. It won't be clean chasing them again. A smart person wouldn't waste any more effort, or lives, down that route." Noah's respectful smile was pinned at the corners. A smarmily coated "fuck you" if ever Erica saw one. The smile she sent in return perfectly matched it.

"A smart person wouldn't have let them walk right out the door. The strength of their abilities could be the difference between the survival of this planet or total extinction. Why don't you and Angela Petrelli sit with that for a while."

Erica thrust the tablet into her subordinate's hands before joining Tracy Strauss' stretcher. The memory of Noah's last expression followed her exit, and Erica hated the suspicion that while she'd be spending the foreseeable future drowned in paperwork and smooth-talking angry investors, Noah didn't feel sorry for his part to play in the slightest.

( )( )( )

Truth be told, it's not particularly magnificent. A cloudy, overcast morning standing on a rooftop overlooking Manhattan by himself while traffic drones on far below. It's not much at all. Yet Peter feels perfectly content, more than at peace to let the wind tug its fingers through his hair and beard and softly touch his cheeks. To realise he isn't afraid. He's not hungry, or hunted or burdened. He's just... happy. And that's a wonderful, simple thing never to be taken for granted.

"Are you hiding from me, Peter?"

A familiar voice laughs behind him, and he turns with a bright little warmth in his chest to a tall figure and the smell of freshly brewed coffee –

Peter woke disoriented. Feeling as though half of him were still rooted in the dream, eyes bleary and head heavy, he blinked against the blindingly bright sun and rainbow technicolours scrolling by before his face. A window. He was in the back seat of a moving car. What the hell? It had been night at the aircraft hangar, how long had it been since René had –?

Heart hammering, Peter span in his seat, prepared to face the worst! But to his surprise he found Sylar slumped in the seat beside him, asleep and breathing steadily. Relief flooded his veins like no other. This had to be the first time he could remember being knocked out and waking in a better situation than the one he'd left behind.

René's eyes met Peter's in the rearview mirror as he drove, but he said nothing. There were no restraints aside from a seatbelt keeping Peter in place, no barrier between the driver and back seats, and when he tested his abilities his hand successfully turned invisible. He could teleport out of here if he tried. So this was... not a kidnapping?

He gently shook Sylar awake, calming the same anxiety that flushed the man's features as they had Peter's. Sylar eased upon the sight of him, and that same bright little warmth in Peter's chest flickered to life just like it had in his dream. And right then Peter knew it had been the future he'd witnessed; a future where, at least at some point, even for those fragile few seconds alone, everything would be okay.

While Sylar grudgingly realised he was in no immediate threat, and took a moment to ensure each one of his abilities were where they should be and functional, Peter looked at the slowly rolling view outside for the first time. They appeared to be deep in some sort of countryside lane, although Peter had no idea when or where. Lush trees, hedges and flowers brushed the car like greeting hands as it passed, and the welcoming sound of gravel crunched slowly under the tires. It was beautiful. And it was the last thing Peter had expected to find.

"Where are we?" Sylar asked, rather curtly compared to how Peter had been about to.

"Safe." René replied, and Peter believed him. For the first time in months he really did feel safe, in a car with the man who had just tricked and grabbed him, out in the middle of nowhere, when any time or distance could have passed at all and he'd be none the wiser. René's eyes gave the closest thing to a smile the man had ever made in the mirror, as if he had heard Peter's thought.

A disgruntled sigh came from beside Peter, and he had to stifle a sympathetic noise at the sight of Sylar eyeing his ruined, blood-stained scrubs that had now dried to his chest. "Here," Peter said instead, shrugging out of his own jacket and draping it around Sylar's shoulders. It wasn't faring much better in regards to the bloody handprints, but could cover at least some of the damage from sight, if not from mind. Sylar squeezed into Peter's jacket, grumbling at the awkward, too-tight fit and the inches of bare wrist poking from the sleeves. Peter actually let a small smile escape him. If Sylar's vanity was emerging then even he couldn't be feeling his worst.

Sylar glanced at him with a curl of matching amusement. Then the reality of the blood, and the stupid looking but necessary jacket, hit them both at once. Silence seeped through the car for the remainder of the drive, broken only by birdsong outside and crunching gravel below.

( )

Through a fugue of his own screaming thoughts, Sylar noticed a large estate house peek into view through the tapering ends of the trees. Lined in clean stonework and multiple balconies, it looked like something from a historical film, grounds and water fountains and all. Sylar shared a look with Peter, whose expression mirrored the surprise he felt.

The car rolled to a stop on the white gravel driveway, ridiculously far from the house. Sylar liked to believe he followed René and Peter through the estate's beautiful, tree-lined grounds more out of curiosity than anything else, and not because whatever punishment was waiting ahead was one he sorely deserved. Sylar fidgeted with Peter's too-tight jacket and let the lush grass cool the soles of his bare feet, feeling like a time traveller dreadfully out of place in the wrong attire.

Something nudged at the back of Sylar's hand, then fingers threaded gently through his, bringing a warm palm to his own. The gesture jolted Sylar right out of his doubts and back into the present. He and Peter had never held hands like this before, casually on a stroll in the sun, out in the open where anyone could see, like normal people got to do all the time. It was... nice. Peter chuckled a little at his reaction, and dammit if Sylar couldn't stay isolated in the self-imposed depths of his own mind after that.

The empath looked a state: dishevelled and dirty yet quietly pleased with himself. Sylar was certain that if René hadn't been walking just a few steps ahead, or if it had been someone who didn't seem to possess a creepy all-knowingness power, he would have kissed Peter right then. Instead, he settled for the slight caress of his thumb over the other man's. Unsure if he wanted René to turn around or not, he and Peter walked into the centre of the gardens covered in dried blood, barefoot and stretching one outfit between them in a silence much less laden than the last.

( )

She saw them before they saw her. Tucked away pleasantly on her favourite stone bench below her favourite old tree, she relished the gurgling sound of the water fountain and bees in the white and red roses nearby. It had taken many, many years to perfect this haven to her liking. The gardens had been in different stages of development for each new guest's arrival, but if they had to finally be perfect for only two of them she was glad it would be them.

Hardship clung to the pair upon one glance, evident not just by their disordered appearances, but in the reprieve they found in each other through their touch. United. Connected. Beautiful. More beautiful than she had expected. Her heart swelled for them both, now a well-worked muscle in her later years of life. She wondered what Peter would think of her deeply etched wrinkles and her long, unstyled river of white hair.

Smiling, she stood from the stone bench as René stepped aside, revealing them to her and her to them. How could it possibly have been so many years since she'd said her painful goodbye, when it suddenly felt merely more than hours? Peter and Sylar dropped hands when they approached her, the blankness in both faces clear as they set unrecognising eyes upon her for the first time in over a decade.

It struck Peter first, shock illuminating his features like the sun upon the garden. "Ma?!" He gasped.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Next chapter should be the final FINAL one, and I am determined it won't take another half year to get it written and posted hehe. I truly hope you'll come back to see how the story finally ends after a nearly 5 year journey X)

For anyone who's made it this far, I honestly can't thank you enough for sticking with me all this time 33 I am sooo sorry for such a delay between updates, this has to be the longest wait so far, but life has been insanely busy (it was 2020, after all!) and I just pray that I haven't lost my few but precious, wonderful readers after such a long time between chapters 3

I hope you're all managing okay in this crazy time of history (where are our superheroes when we need them? XP) and are staying safe and looking after your mental healths as well as physical. I'm really happy I managed to dive back into my story and my boys and find reprieve in it, and I hope someone out there enjoyed this chapter as much as I loved writing it!

Comments are welcome as always, I'd love nothing more than to hear your thoughts