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For the first time in over two years a smile—an authentic, bright, light-his-face-up smile—graced Mohinder’s face. Two days before Christmas and his sprite steps tapped along the snow speckled sidewalk, and his eyes were wide with new found awe at the transformation of New York into a stunning snow globe beneath a coat of soft, white flakes, as if he were a child seeing it all for the first time.
In many ways the giddiness of reclaiming his childlike ease was not without reason. His mother had called two weeks earlier about Molly’s growing homesickness as the holiday season approached. One thing had led to another and then Anjali and Molly were on a flight (two, actually) to spend Christmas in a city that resembled an urban fairytale. Seeing them—both of them—had brought relief to Mohinder’s mind that he had not known he was in need of.
Almost immediately his body was less tense as Molly laughed and ran around the apartment showing off the exquisitely beaded and colourful outfits that Anjali had bought for her, certain to make her a standout when she went to stay with Matt for the first few days of Hanukkah.
Even more striking, his mother’s arms around his shoulders gave off the warmth of a well worn blanket that folded around him protectively, keeping all self-doubt and worry at bay. No matter that he was a fully functioning adult, she bestowed on him care that settled his spirit and allowed him to exhale.
Although he was mindful of what he chose to share with her, he was also far more at ease than anticipated at detailing enough of his experiences since making New York his permanent home. She listened and gave advice, but did not judge him harshly. In serious tones she expressed disappointment at some of his choices but he took comfort in her ability to not make him feel like a failure, and in turn he found his own desire to keep going on with his research re-ignited by her belief that nothing was set in stone and he could change the course of his life at any time. It was not that he did not know that but hearing it from her lips as she pressed a kiss to the crown of his head gave way to the truth of possibility he needed reaffirmed.
For five days they had fallen into a familial routine. City walks, shopping, cafes, quiet confessional conversations, the lab, meeting those (like Peter and Maya) whom Mohinder claimed a friendship with—it was perfectly normal and a long time coming. Having her here made his adoptive home all the more his. Chennai was not far from his mind but it occupied a different part of his heart. Anjali’s admiration for his new life was the unspoken seal of approval.
Even now in his adult life, Anjali possessed a strength he drew from. As a child, when he feared monsters under his bed and shadow creatures that hovered in the dark corners of his room, it was Anjali he imagined slaying them with the fire in her eyes and a quiet refusal to back down. For all the approval he sought from Chandra but never got, it was Anjali who he silently called upon when he needed strength. It was a fact he had not given proper thought to until now.
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Mohinder makes his way down the hallway to his apartment door. He shifts his shoulders to keep the bulk of his shoulder bag behind him, banging against his backside as he adjusts the grocery bags in his hands. His mother had insisted on making him a home cooked meal and it had taken him a bit longer than usual to find the right ingredients. It was his fault for growing accustomed to eating on the go that required little culinary skill.
Stopping in front of his door he puts down the bags and fumbles for his keys. With the door half opened he hears, “That’s my favourite part.” His eyes to the floor he picks up the bags and shuffles into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him.
“Ah, see, here he is.”
He looks up at the sound of his mother’s voice and is met by her welcoming smile. He has little time to return it, however, nearly dropping the bags from his hands in complete shock. She is sitting at the kitchen table, her arms resting on the surface with a cup of chai between her hands, watching him. But she is not alone.
Sitting across from her (in what has become a uniform consisting of a black button-down shirt, black jeans and boots), Sylar is turning the book in his hand pages side down on the table before curling his left hand around a steaming cup of chai in front of him and resting his right one flat on the surface. A presentation of ease, he shoots a half smile at Mohinder who tries to swallow his panic.
Instinctively Mohinder wants to throw himself in front of Anjali, to offer her whatever protection he can, but without knowing Sylar’s motives for being here, he does not want to risk a potentially lethal confrontation where one need not be.
His silence prompts Anjali to say, “Your friend Gabriel came over to surprise you.”
Mohinder looks between the two. He sees the dare in Sylar’s eyes to call out the bluff in front of such important company. Mohinder knows he cannot chance the outcome, not when his mother’s life is part of the equation. He turns to put the grocery bags on the kitchen counter to his right, then slides his shoulder bag off and drops it on the floor. Trying to maintain an air of calm for his mother’s sake, he hopes the worry that forces his shoulders stiff is unnoticeable as he makes his way to the table. He pulls off his gloves, unravels his scarf, tossing them behind him to the counter. Unbuttoning his jacket, he shrugs it off and drapes it over the back of his chair.
Sylar, an overconfident semi-grin tripping along his face, waves his right hand at the chair as an invite. “It’s been far too long, Mohinder. I thought a visit was in order. I had no idea your mom was here.”
Mohinder refrains from engaging in a harsh and dismissive battle of wits, and sits down, giving his mother a brief placating smile. Only once seated does he notice that the leather bound book is one that Molly (with the help of Nirshand) and brought for him as a gift. It lays situated to the left of Sylar and Mohinder pictures him flipping through it while Anjali poured their drinks in the kitchen.
He looks up to Sylar who gestures to Anjali. “Mrs. Suresh—,”
“Please call me Anjali. Any friend of Mohinder’s…”
Sylar grins warmly at her, then it is as if his face transforms. Instead of sly condescension, his features appear to soften. His eyes go wide, but shift almost bashfully to the cup in his hand and he takes a sip.
“Anjali,” he says and returns his attention to Mohinder who sees the hint of Sylar he knows all too well in the slight quirk of his right eyebrow and twist of his mouth, “has been telling me about India. It sounds like quite the life.”
Mohinder cringes at the sound of his mother’s name rolling off of Sylar’s tongue with undeserving familiarity. The additional insult to injury is her sweet countenance in the face of her husband’s murderer. Mohinder mutes his glare at Sylar by relaxing his focused eyes and redirecting his frustration into clenching his jaw.
“It is.” Anjali takes a sip of chai and rests her elbows on the table, holding the cup up in front of her. A stickler for good manners, Mohinder has never seen her carry herself so casually in company.
“But then I watch the snow fall down and I’m mesmerized by it all,” she says with a smile. “It’s a contrast of opposites from India—at times I feel I am in a completely different world.”
“Backwards and upside down,” Sylar jokes.
Her eyes go to the book. “Hand the cake out first, then cut it, I suppose.” She raises an eyebrow and Sylar murmurs a laugh.
Mohinder is dumbfounded at what is transpiring before his eyes. Never in his wildest dreams—or terrifying nightmares—was his mother and Sylar making small talk a possibility. Furrowing his brow, he flits his gaze side to side then settles on Anjali. He is use to this side of her whenever they share a heart to heart but to see it with someone else is surprising, least of all with Sylar. Even Chandra did not evoke this type of leisurely composure.
She glances at him then to Sylar, while Mohinder’s gaze does not break from her face.
“One day I’d like to visit India,” he hears Sylar say.
A pause of silence and Anjali looks at Mohinder, then again at Sylar. When she looks back at Mohinder her eyes are narrowed in curiosity, and contemplative lines are wrinkled across her forehead. Mohinder blanks his face but finds it difficult to retain an appearance of indifference in the face of near catastrophic lies. He drops his gaze to the table.
“Chandra spoke about it with a certain longing,” Sylar says and Mohinder casts wide eyes of shock his way.
His mind races to decipher what it is exactly Sylar has told Anjali about working with Chandra. Mohinder can imagine what was left out but considers if the rest was the truth or another riddled construct. He notices Sylar is watching him as if trying to ascertain something that Mohinder is, unknowingly, refusing to give up.
Mohinder opens his mouth with a quick dismissal he can barely muffle out of disgust for Sylar’s brazenness, when he feels Anjali’s hand over his own.
“Let me get you a drink to warm you up,” she says and, not waiting for his reply, stands up and moves to the kitchen.
Mohinder waits for her to move further away to unload the grocery bags, before turning back to Sylar with eyes flared wide in anger. He leans forward across the corner of the table into Sylar’s space and hisses, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Sylar glances by him to Anjali then shifts forward in his seat and levels a steady gaze his way. “Thought I’d visit my old stomping grounds,” Sylar whispers, the authority in his voice ever present. “Imagine my surprise to walk in and find your dear mom. She really is quite a fascinating person to speak with.”
“Don’t,” Mohinder says so sternly that Sylar’s smile falls away fast. “Don’t you dare pretend like you two are friends. The cruelty of what you’ve done to her life…”
“Watch it, Mohinder.” Sylar pushes his cup away and rests his left arm on the table, turning further into Mohinder’s space who, in turn, refuses to sit back and give Sylar a chance to gloat at asserting power without any abilities on display. “I can still make an example out of you.”
“Then do it,” Mohinder says.
Sylar tilts his head to the side, unsure at the demand.
“Go ahead and show my mother what a great man you truly are,” Mohinder says as he digs his nails into the table. “Why shouldn’t I meet the same fate at your hands as my father?”
There is the most subtle of flinches in Sylar’s eyes and then he is looking past Mohinder and muttering, “Heads up,” as he sits back in his chair.
Mohinder pulls up straight to smile at Anjali as she places his cup of chai in front of him and ruffles his hair gently before sitting down.
An amused smile plays on her lips while she glances between them. “Gabriel has been telling me about the work he did with you father,” she finally states.
Mohinder glances at Sylar, who looks away pensively to Anjali. “Is that so?” Mohinder asks raising his drink to quietly sucking in the hot drink.
He contemplates throwing the drink in Sylar’s face if his mother says anything about liquification or telekinesis. It seems the type of hateful joke, loaded in hidden meaning, that Sylar would put on the table with a wink and his fingers crossed behind his back. Mohinder does not want to pretend that Brian Davis, the beginning of it all, is non-existent. And he definitely will not follow in a game that alludes to Zane Taylor and their own battles of deception.
Lost in angry thoughts for his next move, Mohinder nearly misses his mother’s next words. “Intuitive aptitude is a most remarkable ability.”
Mohinder chokes from burning his tongue and coughs while putting down the cup. “Hot,” he mumbles to his mother who is watching him with concern, but he catches the swift shift in Sylar’s dark eyes to him.
Mohinder is surprised to not see the trademark bemusement in Sylar’s face as his attempt to remain restrained and defiant proves a tightrope to walk. Rather, Sylar presents himself as interested in Anjali’s opinion in the way he nods at her and stares at the cup on front of him, pushing it an inch to the left and then an inch to the right with his hands, his lips pursed in consideration.
A strange quiet wraps around all of them and Mohinder works to construe the watchful look on his mother’s face while her attention is on their visitor. Having no idea what they had spoken about before his arrival, Mohinder finds himself in the inexplicable and unenviable position of being just outside of a conversation that is silently taking place in front of him. That Anjali and Sylar should already have their own language elicits the most unwelcome feeling of envy in Mohinder. It should be himself and Anjali sitting together in a conspiratorial silence. More troubling to Mohinder, however, is the fact that he feels it should be himself and Sylar maneuvering the obstacles of a nonverbal discussion. When and how fast has he become the outside man?
“It’s not as showy as the others,” Sylar says thoughtfully, returning her gaze.
“But it’s so much more interesting,” Anjali points out, setting aside her cup and leaning forward to rest her chin on top of her bent arms. “How you understand an ability—or anything for that matter—to work in such complicated detail, and then to apply it, truly is the key to all of it. Of all the abilities, I’d want yours. Don’t you agree, my love?”
She reaches out and affectionately squeezes Mohinder’s right hand. The truth of her words tightens his chest. Despite never admitting it to Sylar (by the time ‘intuitive aptitude’ had crossed over from hypothesis into fact, the brutality of Sylar’s murderous betrayal had rendered any possible inspired awe obsolete), Mohinder considers his ability the most fascinating.
Beyond simply being a tangible entity that provides weight to Mohinder’s research, Sylar’s ability, the precise way in which it works, appeals to Mohinder’s natural born scientific curiosity to seek knowledge. When he thinks about all that could be accomplished with such power, he is overcome. To know it has been used for more selfish purposes is disappointing to say the least.
Giving a compliment of these proportions to Sylar is mind-twisting but his mother is looking at him encouragingly for an answer. He wills his gaze over to Sylar who inquisitively peers up from under a heavy brow with a question of interest in his hesitant eyes and awkward part of his lips. For a fleeting moment Mohinder wants to bask in something true.
“Yes, it is the most remarkable of all,” Mohinder admits softly.
Sylar turns to look at him full on, and even with Mohinder shifting back in his seat and pretending to mindlessly finger the rip of his cup, he is just as drawn into the gaze. It is not easy to forget the past, but at the oddest of times it is not as demanding and relentless as usual. Within those unannounced wrinkles in time that Mohinder can never prepare for, he is faced with the prospect of what could have been different between them—because even with the unending antagonism that both thrills and irritates, there is the careful (too careful) avoidance of the connection that sparked the roots of a friendship that was never allowed to break ground. It now only exists in theory.
“It is too bad your time with Chandra was so short,” Anjali says and Mohinder is startled at the reminder that she is there. “But how fortunate for you and Mohinder to meet, to continue…”
She pauses and rests soft but sad eyes on Mohinder. “For all the risky theories your father believed, you were the one who was always more open to the unknown. You were the one meant to take that leap.”
She looks to Sylar, then Mohinder, and settles on Sylar again. “Maybe it was always written to be you two.”
A fated life with Sylar aside, Mohinder hears Anjali’s words as a broken prophecy unintentionally fulfilled. Who is to say happiness automatically follows when one walks the path that is destined?
Unsure with what to say in response to his mother’s declaration, Mohinder chooses instead to take a long sip of chai (mostly to hold the cup up to his mouth while not taking in the hot liquid) and stares straight ahead, letting his attention fall to the book at the far end of the table.
“I have to head out,” Sylar suddenly informs them and he stands up and pushes his cup to the edge of the table near Mohinder.
Mohinder looks up at him in surprise and Anjali stands up, asking, “Are you sure?”
Sylar quickly looks down at Mohinder who pushes back on his chair. “Places to be, people to meet,” Sylar says and cracks a half grin at Anjali.
She laughs. “How about dinner then? Surely you can come back later. It’s so nice to meet Mohinder’s friends. Especially one so intriguing.” She follows up the last sentiment with a deliberate look at Mohinder that he cannot read into.
“I’d love to.” Sylar grins and Mohinder glares angrily at him. “But I have other plans. Another time?”
“Of course,” Anjali agrees.
As she begins to walk around the table Mohinder stands up quickly, distracted by the comfort in which Sylar and his mother move about each other. Not paying attention, he turns towards Sylar and accidentally hits the cup at the edge of the table with his arm. It flies off accompanied by the chorus of Mohinder and Anjali’s exclamations of, “Oh!”
But the crash of broken glass and sprayed chai never comes. It still induces spectacular wonderment in Mohinder to see telekinesis on display and with such control. He watches the cup rise up in an invisible grip. Anjali grabs his arm while taking in a deep breath of wowed joy. Sylar guides the cup back to the table with no fanfare. Setting it down, not a word is uttered and they all stare at the stabilized object. Mohinder glances up at Syalr who, a second later, meets his eyes.
There is that insistent challenge again, coated in black circles, that Mohinder finds enticing and threatening. Of course Sylar will be back, but he is allowing Mohinder to have this one request for tonight with his mother. For what reason, Mohinder is unsure, but it is demanded, offered and accepted.
Sylar moves around Mohinder and Anjali lets go of his arm to properly send Sylar off. Turning on the spot, Mohinder watches Sylar reach out his right hand that Anjali takes graciously with her right, while she slides her left hand up to his shoulder. She leans forward and Sylar’s eyes go wide as she kisses him on his right cheek, before moving across to the left one and then back to the right one.
“I hope to see you again before I leave,” she says and nods her head.
Sylar glances at Mohinder before looking back at her. “I’m fairly certain that can be arranged.”
“Very good,” Anjali says and turns, offering a raised eyebrow at Mohinder, to take the cups from the table to the kitchen sink.
Sylar waits for Mohinder to walk by him and open the door then lifts his own coat from the rack by the door and slides it on. Mohinder is sure that it is Sylar’s breath on his skin and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. As he swings the door open Sylar reaches his left arm over his shoulder and helps move the door while simultaneously blocking Mohinder’s view of Anjali. Sylar stands up straight, making himself into a wall so that Mohinder is not distracted by his mother’s movement a few feet away.
“We’ll have to finish this up another time.” Sylar smirks and tugs at the corner of Mohinder’s collar.
Knowing it is useless to fight, and with Sylar so close to being out the door it is not the time for insults. “Not while she’s here…please. She needn’t be involved in this.” Mohinder snatches Sylar’s hand away from his shirt and their fingers briefly become entangled.
Sylar tilts his head contemplatively and Mohinder feels the first inklings of panic that Sylar will change his mind and finish whatever he had planned to start when he first showed up today. Sylar leans forward and narrows his eyes. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
Looking back over his shoulder, Sylar says, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Anjali,” and steps into the hallway.
Mohinder, for the sake of appearances under his mother’s watchful eyes, pretends to follow through with a friendly goodbye then shuts the door in Sylar’s face. He turns the lock and rests his hands against the grain, closing his eyes to help collect his thoughts. When his mother had first crossed that border into New York it had settled a calm on Mohinder, but he had not given thought to the chance of her coming face to face with the man who upended her world, and to have it go so remarkably sane is unnerving.
He wonders if it is a betrayal to not tell her the truth about Sylar. She deserves to know but he questions what purpose would be served at this time other than making sure Sylar does not get his hooks further into his life—yet that would be at the extent of Anjali’s sense of protection. A part of him wants to shove that stake in anyway and clip Sylar’s wings. However is not without irrational reason (and bothersome to boot) that ensuring an unforgivable rift would also guarantee Sylar’s one true connection would remain with him. It is both a burden Mohinder is cautious about shouldering and one that feeds his own sense of importance. A bizarre catch-22, he is mindful that escape is not in the cards.
“You have a good life here,” Anjali says and Mohinder, hands still pressed to the door, looks her way. “Of all your friends, I have to say that he is the most…striking.”
Mohinder furrows his brow and turns his body towards her, resting his right shoulder against the door, and folds his arms across his chest.
Anjali dries her hands with the kitchen towel. “Talking with him, I can see what appeals.”
“You were quite taken with him,” Mohinder says, not disguising the hint of annoyance and curiosity in his voice.
Anjali puts the towel on the counter and picks up Mohinder’s gloves and scarf. “I thought I should be,” she admits cryptically and walks by him to put the items on the desk by the window. Crossing the floor again she removes his jacket from the chair and hangs it up on the rack. Mohinder shifts so that his back is against the door and watches her pause, holding his jacket to the hook.
He is about to ask if she is okay when she looks over to him. “You know your happiness is what matters most to me,” she says in a quiet tone that soothes Mohinder’s nerves. He turns up a tiny smile of understanding.
Stepping closer, she raises her left hand and cups the side of his face. Her eyes take hold of his, penetrating deep, and he draws his smile into a thin line and crinkles his eyes disconcertedly.
“Your…friend does not have to leave just because I’m here.”
“He’s hardly a friend,” Mohinder mutters quickly and is taken aback by the slight blush that appears on her face.
“I figured as much,” she replies knowingly and turns away to push the chairs into place against the table.
Panic flips Mohinder’s stomach upside down. His mother has always been far more perceptive than anyone he has ever known and the details she picks up to decode what is presented before her is an intuitive science all her own. He debates coming clean about who Sylar—or Gabriel as she knows him to be—really is. If anyone could offer honest advice about the best way to deal with the predicament it would be her. In a way this turn of events brings some relief.
“The way he looks at you—,”
Imagining how I would look in a pool of my own blood, cut and bruised, marked for death, Mohinder thinks. “It’s an act of intimidation,” he says, stepping around to the other side of the table to push in the chair Sylar had been sitting in.
Anjali laughs and scrunches up her face at him like she would at a slightly tasteless joke. Mohinder shakes his head in uncertainty over her unexpectedly easy decorum.
She grips the top of the chair and says, “But you’re not so easily told what to do, so it all balances out.”
“I suppose,” Mohinder unfurls the words tentatively.
“Then again, why should you see the way he really watches you when you’re distracted?” Anjali muses with a sly smile. “It’s very much like the way he talks about you when you’re not here—with a certain…reverence.”
It is as if two separate conversations are taking place and Mohinder is only privy to one. His mind spins, lost in translation, from her jovial tones. Perplexed, he starts to repeat what she has said when his brain catches up to his mouth.
The oddness of Anjali’s tone, mirthful not cynical or scared, the flush of her cheeks, the overly cautious wording and mysterious prodding—she does not suspect that Gabriel is Sylar is a killer in her midst. She thinks he is Mohinder’s—boyfriend? Lover? Significant other? Partner?
At a loss for words Mohinder tries to make sense of the mistake. She had not entertained these thoughts when she first met Peter, and Mohinder is certain he was far more at ease with the younger Petrelli than with Sylar. Of every one of Mohinder’s friends whom she has met why would she make this leap of logic assumption with Sylar?
Realizing her prying gaze is trying to read the unconscious shifts and movements on his face, the knee-jerk retort he is readying dies on his tongue. It almost does not matter what Sylar proffered as truth before Mohinder arrived. It does not change the hushed tones, closed in space and awkward avoidance she was witness to. It does not trump Sylar treating Mohinder’s home as a shared space of land. Mohinder has given no indication for how he and Sylar should be perceived and Anjali, ever the optimist, has read them as love, not hate.
What scares Mohinder most is that he cannot fault her. He is all too aware (recalling Peter’s questioning visage and circling questions on more than one occasion) of the strange tableau that he and Sylar create. But to now have his mother be in on the false reading makes it all the more far reaching and rooted.
“S—Gabriel is not—we’re not—it’s—I’m—it’s not what you think,” Mohinder stumbles and stammers his words into an incoherent mess, swallowing loudly and wanting to roll his eyes at how false the denial sounds.
The smile on Anjali’s lips falters and she looks off to the side with a quiet sigh. “Of course not,” she says, making her way around the table. She drags the fingers of her left hand lightly along the table’s surface and up on top of the book, letting her fingertips linger on the bent spine.
Looking up at him she says, “Still, we’re sure to have extra food tonight. Good company is always welcome.” She reaches up and gives his left forearm a reassuring squeeze. “I’m going to wash up, then we can get started on dinner.”
Mohinder watches her walk to Molly’s bedroom and close the door behind her. Almost immediately he drifts his eyes to the book Sylar was reading out to her before he arrived. Picking it up, Mohinder flips it over and stares at the passage that follows the indent of a fingernail pressed in and dragged across the page as guide.
‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know that I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’
Mohinder looks up and closes the book, holding it close to his chest. Leaning forward he presses his chin down against the top. Looking briefly to the bedroom and then the front door, he frowns, etching deep lines in his forehead. The safe haven is only an illusion and torturous torments are just as uncertain.
Mohinder wishes it were so easy to declare oneself mad.