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In Metropolis, there is a motel.

It's haunted by something that you can't see, can't hear, can't smell, can only feel as a chill in the air.

It's been abandoned for a long time. There are signs of later habitation -- clothes, disturbed dust, a little food -- but nothing more recent than the unbroken circle of salt around it that was laid down more than a week ago.

Sylar can't cross it. He's tried, many times, but an invisible wall rises up in front of him, as high as he can go. He can't touch the stuff, can't disturb it, can't do anything but hope that someone living will come and create a break in the circle. He's trapped.

The whole setting is somehow eerie.

He wasn't killed by the battle and the exorcisms, wasn't sent over to some more distant afterlife or oblivion, but he was weakened considerably. And, bereft of any human contact, Sylar is losing his grip on the world of the living.

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"Well," she says cheerfully, "I can think of worse answers. C'mon."

She rips out several pages from the book, picks up the pencil, and stands.

"Stick by me. We'll figure something out. What are friends for, right?"

And, grinning at the space across the desk, she heads for the door.

That's all that was needed? Just like that, she trusts him?

...Darla Wood, ladies and gentlemen, and he's never been more grateful for that fact. Maybe this whole shitty story can have some end that isn't disaster for him.

He swirls the dust in the doorway to let her know that he's following.

She scuffs a clear path in the salt line and beckons him out, sunnily.

It's like when your ears pop and the pressure in your head just flows away. Or when you finally chisel through a prison wall and feel the fresh air and sun on your skin. The temperature around that gap in the salt line drops by several degrees as the ghost that's been imprisoned there rushes out.

It's not often that Sylar wishes to show gratitude.

"You're welcome," says Darla, who can be oddly perceptive at times.

"Let's find someplace else to be. If whoever trapped you here comes back, well..."

At a flick of her hand, one of the papers she liberated flutters to the ground and scoops the salt more or less back into its original position.

"...I wouldn't take the chance that that'll fool them."

Having thus spoken, she calls the paper back into her hand and sets off down the street.

"I've been staying at an abandoned house on the other side of town. Something like this place, only not so creepy and with more plants. And I don't have neighbours, which is a good thing because I can't imagine they'd react well if they heard me talking to empty air. Some things are still crazy even in this bloody-'scuse-me strange world."

His new freedom has inspired Sylar to pull himself together again, to make another attempt at restructuring himself. Darla's presence makes it easier than it was before; not a smooth road by any means, but at least a few handholds cut into what was previously a sheer and inscalable cliff.

This time, when he attempts to speak, there is a whispering in her ear -- too vague to be intelligible, but audible nonetheless.

She actually shuts up for a second, cocking her head to listen.

"Did you say something just now?"

"Yes," he tries to say.

The word itself is probably not understandable, but the fact that it came straight after her question is a clue as to its meaning.

"You're really pulling yourself together," she says, impressed. "I almost heard that."

Sylar experiences a moment of pride at the unexpected compliment.

(And tries not to connect this encouragement in his mind with the encouragement of Chandra, because in the end what happened with Chandra? In fact, where is Chandra?)

He continues to follow Darla, now silent again.

"I've got all kinds of interesting things growing in my garden. It's amazing how many bits and pieces of the oddest plants find their way to this city. I'm afraid I'll get a reputation as something of a crazy cat lady, only with shrubs. But it's something to do. Keeps my mind off the lack of pianos."

Yes, she can keep this up all the way across Metropolis. Are you surprised?

Sylar is free of the salt now, free of the motel that was his cage. He's invisible, silent, almost impossible to sense. If he wanted to, he could simply leave and go his own way as Darla rambles (and boy, can she ramble). She wouldn't know until it was far too late to even attempt finding him.

He could leave right now and be free again. Start his interrupted mission again.

But--

He's already had to start again once, says a small voice inside him. He's already died. How many times is he going to have to fall short of the bar before he starts setting it that little bit lower?

He's always tried to ignore that voice, but right now the usual counter-arguments seem futile and hollow.

And Darla. She made it possible for him to be free. She knows exactly what he is and what he's done, and she's forgiven him.

He doesn't quite know how to react to that.

With surprise. With shame. With gratitude.

With the decision to keep silently following her, as easy as it would be to slip away.

"You know, I could probably track down a piano around here somewhere, come to think of it. When we've got you a little more solid, d'you think you want to help me look?"

Since he managed something resembling speech last time, she cocks her head and halts the flow of speech in anticipation of an answer. If it's not intelligible she can always get out the paper she took from the motel.

Focused more on his thoughts than her words, Sylar is surprised for a moment to find her asking him a question.

Real, solid, earthly tasks. The kind of thing he might have done in life, had he been inclined to. Perhaps they'll help him stabilise.

The thought, allied with his having been around Darla for a while now, gives him just enough solidity to say "yes". It's still barely above a whisper, but -- the sibilant hiss at the end is audible, and the first part of the word is understandable, for all that it comes out as a breath.

Death didn't make Sylar any less of a determined little mofo.

Beam!

"Thank you! Wonderful. I'm sure it'll go that much faster with both of us on the job. You've got fantastic attention to detail, which is a nice bonus when looking for things, don't you think? And if you keep improving at this rate we'll be having proper conversations and everything by tomorrow. You know, the kind that involve me shutting up once in a while."

Her bright, bright grin invites him to laugh at the crack on her talkativeness.

She can't see it, but he does smile a little, surprising himself.

It's a strange and foreign concept to think of himself as missing somebody, but insofar as he's capable of it -- well. Strangely, though she and her sunny talkativeness would be the last person he'd pick to be chummy with, he does appreciate her quirks and her company.

Which is probably as close as Sylar ever gets to really liking somebody, so be appreciative!

...Wait, is--

If she turns her head just so, squints just so, focuses just so--

It may be pale, it may be faint, it may be easy to miss, it may be a smudge rather than anything like a silhouette, but -- that's not a shadow beside her. Shadows aren't cast on thin air.

She really is doing him good.

"Not so invisible anymore," she congratulates. "I wonder if the garden will help you out any in that regard. Can't hurt. It stands to reason that the more you're around living things, the livelier you'll get, right? Which makes running into me particularly lucky, I suppose, since I've certainly got it made in the liveliness department."

It is, in fact, a little-known ability of Sylar's that he is able to radiate pride.

The invisible grin becomes somewhat toothy.

Amazing what a dash of abrupt freedom, an unexpected reunion, a sprinkling of hope and a spot of ego-boosting will do for one's mood!

"And look, that's our house now, down the end of the row."

It's really not difficult to tell which one.

Plants. Lots of plants. Plants everywhere.

Almost enough to distract the ear from that word. Our. Our house.

Darla Isabel Wood, ladies and gentlemen.

No kidding. Sylar does a partially-visible double-take. Guess how often he hears that word used in connection with him!

He attempts to comment on the plants, but it turns out that he's not quite up to complete sentences yet. There's a whispering sound, faint on the air, but it contains no distinct syllables.

Of course, Sylar being Sylar, that's just a cue to get annoyed and try the same feat again, more forcefully (and with just as little success).

She graciously holds her peace, although she doesn't slow down.

Funny thing, the closer they get to the house, the easier it is to form not-quite-words.

It is! And when Darla's glowing vitality is teamed up with Sylar's sheer stubborn bloody-mindedness, anything is possible.

Which is why, eventually, in a voice like the wind curling through leaves, every syllable concentrated and deliberate:

"...improved since the bowl..."

Well, Sylar hates to see something worthy of compliment go unremarked-upon.

Darla takes a moment to process this, and then beams.

"I rather have, haven't I? Well, I've had a lot of time to practise. And look at you! Four words in a row, and I heard every one. We really will be having proper conversations by tomorrow."

Sylar gets the feeling that she's being condescending towards him. He's not a child.

(Never happy unless he's complaining, this one!)

But he resists the annoyance that flashes inside him, and is careful not to mention it. Perhaps he'd have to beat her off with a stick to make her abandon him, but he isn't willing to test that theory. Not when she's his only link to the world -- and to his life.

Blithely unaware of her misstep, Darla leads him into the house, setting down the now-useless paper and pencil by the door and hanging her jacket up on the hook.

"There we are. Home at last. How d'you like it?"

The word to describe this house, above all-- with its overflowing garden and its motley collection of pots decorating every window, plus the hydroponics lab in the basement-- is vibrantly, wonderfully, unreservedly alive.

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