A/N: Wheee the story continues!!! So, a couple things: 1) anyone who read Ch12 of Vol1 notice how Samuel referred (in Tabula Rasa) to Sylar as a lion? That's gonna come up again in this Vol as well, and 2) did anyone notice in last night's episode that Claire got stuck to a wall having been impaled on a rod??? I swear I'm psychotic. Anyhoo, sorry for the delay on gettin' this story moving all! Been super busy at work and the weekend I had was a little more full than I thought it would be, but hey! Movin' on!!!! Vol 2 is now officially underway YAY! Enjoy!

I don't own Heroes or anything remotely related and I bow humbly before the television gods, please have mercy on me. Rated "M" for language, some violence, some blood & guts, and eventually some sexual imagery. And please review! If I've massively screwed something up, I'd like to know =D

1) Prologue

The beauty of having younger, rookie partners was that they always did the driving. The detective gazed out the window through the tumbling cloud of chalky white dust, contemplating the irregularity of the visit he was about to make while the sprawling Texas vineyard rolled by. He wished he could say this was a social call to inquire on the well-being of his victim's parents, having lost a daughter who should've been laying flowers on their graves centuries from now (and that irony was not lost on him), but Noah Bennett was not the kind of man that was going to take the situation lying down. The detective had spent decades of his life interrogating men like Bennett - likely while the man was busy kicking down doors, firing government issue projectiles, and committing nefarious acts of espionage - and he was hopeful that during his time there he wouldn't see the tell-tale facial ticks implying that Bennett was up to something he'd rather not discuss with the lawman.

Upon his arrival Sandra was polite enough to offer him and Chad each a glass of her famous lemonade after which she retreated to a sitting area inside a big bay window overlooking the property. Judging by the worn condition of the spot, it appeared it had recently seen a lot of use. She had no further interaction with them for the rest of the afternoon, clutching an old stuffed bear, daydreaming of better days.

"I hear he didn't even put up a fight," Noah began. He knew how odd that kind of behavior was for their subject - probably knew it better than anyone having hunted him as long as he had - which made the detective immediately suspicious. Perhaps he was just being paranoid.

"Nope, he sure didn't."

"I suppose it's too much to hope that he just felt bad all of a sudden." The laugh he smirked was bitterly icy. "So bad he felt it necessary to..." Kill our daughter. He left the statement unfinished out of respect for his wife.

"Mr. Bennett, under ordinary circumstances this would be an open & shut case for the death penalty. Obviously... these are not ordinary circumstances." He sipped his lemonade – it was heavenly. "That said, however, thanks to the files you were able to supply me in conjunction with the evidence I'd collected over the past seven years we were able to charge him with the murders of a fairly significant list of people. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I tell you that I doubt you'll see him again in your lifetime."

"So you don't think he's gonna attempt an insanity plea? He's pretty convincingly insane…"

"He's pleading guilty, Mr. Bennett."

"Hmph. Slippery bastard'll be out in fifty on good behavior, you watch."

"Mr. Bennett -"

"With all due respect, detective, while I understand you know his movements and his habits rather well, you don't know him know him, not like I do."

The detective had to concede the point. While he, too, had a rather large compilation of information on the man named Gabriel "Sylar" Grey, it paled in comparison to the vast carton of folders Bennett had been able to provide. It did not escape his notice, however, that one file appeared to be missing… another questionable detail betraying Bennett's intentions.

"I don't suppose I can do much to assuage your fears, Noah, so I'll skip the speculation for now. I came here to tell you what I do know." He wanted to point out that, if Bennett had cooperated and collaborated with the feds a long time ago, the son of a bitch could've already been serving time and his daughter might still be alive. He let that sleeping dog lie. "He's been transferred to the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana and has been placed in the ward for the criminally insane, in a cozy little padded cell deep underground. He's not gonna be able to just walk out of -"

Noah Bennett unleashed an angry and incredulous laugh that seemed to pull all the way from his toes, and he rubbed his belly from the force.

"Wow, buddy, have you been misinformed. I promise you, unless you're doing something to suppress his abilities, if at any point he wants to walk right on up out of there, that is just exactly what he's gonna do!"

"My point, Mr. Bennett," the detective continued, undaunted, "is that federal prisoners who have been labeled 'criminally insane' don't exactly get out on 'good behavior'."

He had known this conversation wasn't going to be pleasant, and he knew he was going to see things reflected in Noah's eyes that he'd rather not see: ruthlessness, revenge, and a cunning dishonesty. He rubbed the back of his neck, having seen all he needed to. Noah Bennett would need to be watched, his work here was done. He looked to Chad who was quietly investigating framed family photographs above the fireplace mantle, making every effort not to draw attention to himself.

"So," Noah spoke, "they sentence him to three hundred years. Then what? Three whole centuries from now no one is gonna know this guy, no one's gonna know what he's capable of, just that he's some gene freak who's been locked up forever, and he's gonna walk free. What then? The justice system can't hold him forever, detective."

"You don't think three hundred years of intense psychotherapy can change a man?"

Noah returned a glare dripping with outright amazement and disbelief before chuckling to himself and rubbing his right eye.

"Detective, I don't think you -"

"Is there something else you'd rather see done here, Mr. Bennett?" Do you want to see him tortured? Is that what you want? Will that bring her back? Torture is illegal in this country, by the way. He maintained his thinning thread of sensitivity toward the matter, though his patience was definitely being tried.

He expected Noah to slam a fist into a wall or throw a fragile object before screaming 'I want my daughter back!!!' Instead, the two men locked eyes for what seemed like an age before Noah finally relented. His shoulders sagged and his gaunt, dark-circled eyes drifted shut. He was nothing more than a man in pain.

"I think we're upsetting my wife," he lied. She was upset long before the agents arrived.

"Yes," the detective nodded in agreement, "of course." He wasn't going to leave without parting words however. "Please consider, Mr. Bennett, that for what it's worth he has been apprehended. I know it's little consolation and the situation isn't ideal, but that has to count for something." He sighed, setting down his empty glass and catching Chad's attention. "Thank you for your hospitality, and as always, Mrs. Bennett, your lemonade is unparalleled."

As the car pulled away he called in for surveillance to be placed on the home. He hung up the phone and swallowed against the empty pit in his stomach. This was the part of the job he hated the most – that every success was met with a chasm of loss, wishing he could've done more.

~*~*~

As the billowing dust of the agents' departure settled on the tender green leaves of reaching, climbing grapevines, Noah tentatively approached his wife, attempting to bridge the widening distance between them. If there had ever been a time when they needed to be united, it was then. He placed his hand on her shoulder and nearly shuddered with relief when she didn't pull away from his touch.

"She's still alive, Noah," she said.

An ordinary man would view her statement as a symptom of grief, and not a simple fact. He had no response for her because, truthfully, he believed she was right. In this case, there was a very good chance their daughter was still alive. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, and he was prepared to face the worst… but he couldn't ignore the knowledge that their daughter was no ordinary woman.

"And that's the worst part," Sandra continued, "waiting for her to walk through that door. If she were anyone else, I could just tell myself to stop waiting…" She turned to rest her chin on his hand, bathing him with tearful blue eyes. He knelt before her and smoothed back her disheveled hair. "Why won't she come home, Noah? Someone should be looking for her…"

For the tenth time in the past hour he thought of Molly Walker and her amazing gift. Just a few seconds was all it would take and they'd have their answer. And that was why he hadn't asked her, and wasn't sure he could.

What if he didn't get the answer he wanted?

Two weeks later he learned he'd missed his chance when he received a frantic and heartwrenchingly sorrowful phone call from Matt Parkman. Despite the family's best attempts to relocate themselves and live new lives… Molly had been snatched in the middle of the night while Matt was working an overnight shift, undercover investigating a house reported to contain a meth lab. He'd come home to find his house completely choked with green sedative gas, his wife and son unconscious in their beds, and Molly's bedroom window wide open.

She was the first of this new round of abductions.

~*~*~

*** twenty years later ***

It was the middle of the night. The wing in which he resided (for lack of a better term as the word "wing" suggested a portion of a structure that existed above ground) was always alive at night with the white noise of nearly constant muttering, banging, or sometimes yelling. Typically, once one of the loonies got going the rest of them tended to join. He attributed the increasing level of noise to this phenomenon.

Sylar had been unable to sleep, having once again found himself subjected to another manic bout of impatience and claustrophobia that seemed to be occurring on a somewhat cyclical basis. This time he'd prepared himself by reading up a bit on yoga and meditation techniques. He had placed himself in the dead center of his cell, cracked the kinks out of his neck, and assumed a lotus position. While he wished he'd had a candle (and he'd feel a bit sissier about that if he wasn't in, like, prison, or some shit), they were against regulations so he settled for the indicator light gently blinking above the digital lock down the corridor. He reigned his breathing into a proper rhythm and tried to think of something that made him happy. Suddenly all he could think of was sex, which only served to piss him off. He tried thinking of baseball or some grandmother he'd never had before he gave up and flopped back onto his back.

He was lonely, desperate for fresh air, a change of scenery, and a ferocious lay, people all around him were yelling in the middle of the night, and he was miserable. Meditation was a cruel hippy farce. The worst part was that he'd put himself there.

"You could just leave, you know," his little subconscious demon told him, his hunger. "No one can stop you, you can just walk right out."

But then he saw her smile, a light in the darkness. He remembered mentioning a 'clean slate'. He had made it a personal challenge to withstand his full sentence – not just out of some weird sense of honor to her… but oddly enough… to himself. It wasn't just her that had placed her faith in him. When he was done there he wanted the opportunity for a real life, and he couldn't do that by indulging little inner demons.

Doing his best to ignore the throbbing hardness below his navel, he sat back up and devoted his full being to concentration… until the indicator light flashed green and the door swung open. A wall of sound came crashing down the hall – the yelling he'd heard earlier was actually coming from upstairs. A correctional officer flung himself inside and crouched low to the floor, as if he were ready to spring at an unseen assailant. Nothing dissolved an erection like the presence of a sweating, panting man – Sylar had never been so happy to see him, although he was immediately curious. What was going on? He pressed against the bars of his cell to get a better look.

Then the shadow stepped into the doorway.

A thick rumbling growl came from the crouching officer… who appeared to have grown a lot of fur, as well as a long fanged snout and vicious claws. Realization struck Sylar – that was William Grant, Officer Billy Grant, who'd been on the list, named as living in Terre Haute, Indiana! Billy the Werewolf! Well, I'll be damned! Billy glanced over his shoulder, locking his yellow eyes with Sylar's. The look meant he was his last line of defense and he was going to do his level best, regardless of who Sylar was or what he'd done. It was his job.

Billy lunged at the shadowman but was frozen in mid-air, hanging suspended. Before Sylar could react, to lend him any sort of aid, he felt his entire body stiffen and become completely immobile, as if he hadn't been claustrophobic enough before… Billy then sliced through the air to crunch into the far wall, slumping limply to the floor. The black-suit with the telekinesis approached Sylar's cell, glowering silently outside it.

"Got some new tricks, eh?" Sylar managed to grind out through clenched teeth.

"Thanks to you," called a voice. Dr. Judy Rogers strode into his plane of vision along with an additional black-suit. He really needed to break this habit of making enemies out of unusual blonde women. "Just one last thing I need from you, some oddity I found long ago, something in your blood…"

The second black-suit dispersed into a cloud and floated through the bars of the cell. Re-materializing on the other side, it produced a syringe from a belt pocket along with a rubber tube. The tube was tied around Sylar's arm, causing the veins in the bend of his elbow to engorge. The needle of the syringe sunk into the vein and red-black blood spilled into the cylinder. Having collected what they came for, they turned to leave. Dr. Rogers paused in the doorway, sparing her old quarry a parting look. She directed one of her minions to abscond with Officer Grant and then she lifted her hand.

"Sleep," said a voice he heard in his ears and in his mind – he could find no compulsion with which to fight it.

Sleep, he did.