ic ⇒ [ taxonomites ] (godlikesin/makeshisownway)

[notanemptymotto]

[ continuation of LONG CAT ]Things had become a bit more lively around the Sanctuary, something that Helen was more than grateful for. With the additions to Captain Kirk and his small crew, she was beginning to feel as if her Sanctuary was again becoming a home. Though she had certainly extended the qualifications someone needed to stay at the

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[godlikesin]

Leaving Peter to it, Sylar turned from the room, backtracking to the office. He was a mix of emotions at the moment, things that he hadn't felt in a long time, anxiety, curiosity, relief, all balling up in his chest as he slipping back down the hall and poked his head into the door. He couldn't for the life of him think exactly what she could want to talk about, but he supposed he was about to find out.

"He should be fine now," Sylar said, smiling at Helen. "You wanted to talk to me?"

[notanemptymotto]

Helen turned towards the entryway of the room and nodded. "Please, sit down." She gestured to around the room as she sank down to sit on the edge of her desk. There were chairs and couches... really wherever Gabriel chose to sit would be fine with her. At the moment she was just trying to calm the nerves that Peter had pulled out accidentally.

Originally she had wanted to ask about what had happened with Leonard. Not to correct him, but out of worry. She had figured that Gabriel hardly acted outside the Sanctuary as he did inside it. Which she wasn't going to condone, but it did worry her. Especially the bit about the shape shifting. But at the moment that would have to come up later. She was more concerned right now about everything that had just happened.

[godlikesin]

Sit down. If it had been anyone else, those words would have actually worried Sylar. Sit down types of talks were the sort that were the most intense and worrisome, but the Helen, part of his mind was telling him to relax and that things like that were just part of proper etiquette. So he smiled at her, moving to one of the chairs and sitting down. Before she could speak, though, Sylar spoke up.

"I know I should have asked before I brought Peter here," He said in a momentary rush. Just in case that was what this was about. "But considering the state that he was in when he showed up... And considering that most of that was my fault since I was the one that was fighting with him before he arrived, I thought that I at least owed him a hand."

[notanemptymotto]

A small smile pushed through her nervousness and she laughed a little. It helped calm her down that he was worried about it. If he had brought Peter to the Sanctuary and not told her, it would have been an issue. But despite Gabriel's nature he was responsible. That much she had learned in by just the little things he did here and there.

"No, no. It's quite alright, Gabriel." She felt the smile disappear a bit. "It's nothing like that at all. If your friend truly needs a place to stay then I certainly don't mind offering him a room."

Helen looked down at her hands for a moment before looking back up at him. It was a similar feeling to when Ashley had first asked about her father when she was a child. A mother admitting her mistakes was never an easy thing, she was beginning to learn. Especially since the difficult time Henry had recently.

[godlikesin]

"Then, what's wrong?" Sylar asked gently, a quiet worry crossing his features. There were too many possibilities that he could contemplate. For a many that had spent most of his life dealing with every single little problem that someone might encounter and working to fix those for someone else, he understood just how many issues there could be in the run of a day, a week, a month, a year, and he didn't want to stop and think that any of those might be the cause of her wanting to speak to him.

But she simply didn't look as though this was a simple and friendly catch only.

"Did I do something?" And here comes the paranoia of a man that is so used to being told that he's in the wrong.

[notanemptymotto]

That certainly took her by surprise and wasn't quite the reaction she was expecting. The slight confusion on her face showed at the question. Why would he have thought he did anything wrong? If it was anyone that had done something wrong, she figured, it was her. Gabriel had been up front with her about his past and she had given merely vague details about hers. It certainly made her feel guilty to a degree. It also made her realize, again, how much she isolated herself from people

[godlikesin]

Her? What had she... Oh. Oh, well, he supposed that made some sense, but still, if there was anything that he could easily forgive someone, it was keeping their private life private. Offering her a very gentle and understanding expression, one that he really was still getting used to making again, he looked up at her, turning his hands slightly to grasp hers.

"It's all right," He said. "If there's anything that I understand, it's the desire to keep people from knowing the more personal and painful things about your life," He said gently before biting his inner cheek and looking up at her. "Though, you do realize that I probably already do know everything that you're going to say, right?"

His question was emphasized by a light squeeze of her hands.

[notanemptymotto]

Her eyebrows quirked up and she smiled a bit. "I suppose so. Though if you were able to sort that all out from one hundred and fifty-seven years worth of memories? That would be something rather impressive. Certainly given it isn't something I tend to think about most of the time."

Recently though was another story. Perhaps that was most of her insecurities about being in a new place without things that were familiar. It wasn't as if she was going to be receiving a telegram from James any day soon. If she did? Than that would certainly cause her to wonder what exactly was going on in this city.

"Though I am certain that you most likely know that my... ability," using the term for it that he and Peter used. "wasn't genetic. It was an experiment that I performed. The Five of us, rather."

[godlikesin]

"Extend life, invisibility, teleportation, enhanced intelligence, and, well, the other," Sylar said with a slight bit of distaste in his words before nodding in understanding. "It's rather difficult for the mind to dismiss something like that as unimportant and discard it to save space."

[notanemptymotto]

"Not a fan of Nikola, I see." She smiled and suppressed a laugh. "Not many were in Oxford. Thought he was rather an obnoxious ass. Still rather impressive that you held onto that of all things. Most would have gone for the knowledge of Abnormals. Even my father's work."

But, Gabriel wasn't like most people. Than again most her patients weren't like most people. Some weren't even people at all. Well, most rather weren't what one would consider a person anyways.

She looked down for a moment before looking back at him. "I suppose this means that you already know about John then."

[godlikesin]

"My mind...tends to gravitate towards family or family-like connections when I'm not really looking for something specific," Sylar said. It was odd that that was one thing that he'd actually picked up from using the clairsentience. "Or when someone isn't thinking of one thing strongly enough for it to override everything else."

At the question, though, he nodded slowly, "And Ashley. And how much you hate the fact that it has to be so complicated instead of how it should be."

[notanemptymotto]

Given the lack of attachments he seemed to have, it wasn't much of a surprise to Helen it was what his mind sought. Perhaps if he could find out about one person's attachments, he could better understand them to make his own. She understood what it was like to be so alone. She had spent a century like it until she could no longer take it and believed John to be gone. Oh, what a mistake that had turned out to be fairly recently

[godlikesin]

"I don't see why it would," Sylar said, a quiet confusion in his words as he looked at her for a long moment. He was missing something. He could feel it, hanging just out of his reach. There was something that she was feeling, that she was thinking, that he simply wasn't getting. And this was why him gaining abilities this way was never going to work with most people. A quiet frustration started to grow in him, but he swallowed it down hard. "We all have things that we're ashamed of in our past, things that we weren't able to fix no matter how much we might have wanted to or tried to."

"Why do you think it would have bothered me?"

[notanemptymotto]

In a rare moment, Helen found herself glad that she was wrong. She smiled a little before letting her eyes flicker down again for a moment. In her mind she could just see Will standing to the side with his arms folded, looking at the situation with a frown. Than again Will never liked to see his hero figure being human. Realizing that Helen was just that was certainly a blow to him, but she was just human. She had doubts with what she could do and what she had done.

Her eyes went back to him and she offered a faint smile. "James and Will would say that by helping you, I am trying to fix what happened with John. I was worried that you might begin to think along the same paths if you knew. I'm glad to know that I was wrong."

[godlikesin]

That hadn't occurred to him. He didn't see why it would have since she had made it rather clear first off that he was far different from the man that had been dubbed Jack-The-Ripper. He had remorse. He cared that what he had done was wrong, and he wanted to set that right. That had been what had set him apart, and it was what made this case so much different than the last.

Right?

Then again, she was speaking of James and Will, two people that Sylar had seen rather clearly in her mind and in her heart, and there was only one thing that was dancing on his lips to say in that regard, "Will and Watson both fancy themselves to be smarter than they actually are especially when it comes to glimpsing human intention."

[notanemptymotto]

"James would agree with you." Helen sighed slightly. "He confined in John about the case. Asked him for his input. When he learned that it was John behind it all... he's never really forgiven himself for it." She looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "They are both extraordinary men, but both allow themselves to be caught up in what they understand to be justice."

She squeezed his hands lightly again.