Dollhouse Fic: "Cracks in the Window Glass" (DeWitt/Dominic, ensemble, PG-13)
I love how I said I was going to reach a hiatus point by the first week of August, and the month is more than half over by now. And by "love", I mean not. But oh well. Just three more parts, and it's comin'.
Title: Cracks in the Window Glass
Characters/Pairings: DeWitt, Dominic, Boyd, Ballard, Claire, Topher, Ivy, mention of Madeline and Nicole (OC); Dominic/DeWitt, mention of Ivy/Topher and Madeline/Ballard
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence, themes and tone
Length: 7,985 words
Spoilers: first season
Notes: part of Waking 'verse
Summary: A personal tragedy viewed from the perspective of all those standing outside it.
There is nothing, Boyd feels, quite like the brilliant pale sunshine of a downtown Los Angeles morning.
He thinks he could travel any array of places in the world, and never find one truly comparable.
He stands with hands folded neatly behind his back watching with an even and mildly curious patience as his boss, a short distance away on the balcony, sips tea with a self-assured smile.
Ms. DeWitt closes her eyes briefly, savoring her beverage, and then lowers the mug from her lips.
“I believe that went rather well, gentlemen,” she remarks, glancing around at both him and her other escort on this sojourn, Paul Ballard. “Not that it wasn’t to be anticipated.”
Ballard, standing back much further with arms tightly crossed before his chest, only eyes her narrowly and says nothing at all.
Boyd clears his throat. “With all due respect, Ms. DeWitt, I’m not entirely sure I understand.”
She doesn’t speak, but quirks a brow slightly, in invitation for him to continue.
“What was the reason you had to leave the facility and come all the way down here to visit the client personally?” With a shrug, he asks, “Couldn’t he have just stopped in like everybody else?”
“Could he have, Mr. Langton? Most certainly. But the question is rather, did he want to?” Her smile becomes a little wry. “You’ll find Mr. Winston is a very particular and private man, and one quite used to having his whims catered to.” Her eyes go upward before she takes another sip. “He much prefers making people come to him, whenever possible.”
There’s a brief pause before she continues, calmly, “Still, given our line of work, there are some individuals that it’s worth the extra effort of surrender. We secured ourselves a very powerful client today, Mr. Langton. Our House will greatly reap the benefits of receiving his business.”
Her expression is smug beneath her serene mask, a glint of pride in her eyes. She hooked a big fish today, and he expects she’ll be congratulating herself for some time.
Ballard speaks up at last, his voice gruff and blunt.
“I understand if the guy’s eccentric enough he wanted to meet on neutral territory, or a place where he’d have the upper hand. But why’d you need both me and Langton to tag along?”
The smile Ms. DeWitt gives him is harder, more distant - the look of a person who understands things you do not.
“As I said, Mr. Ballard, it was of great importance to me that this client be convinced our House is ‘worthy’ of serving him.” She shrugs with one shoulder as she again raises her tea. “Sometimes that requires a bit of a demonstration.”
Boyd nods.
“What better way to show him you’re a powerful enough woman to be worth the time to deal with,” he states, “than by showing up accompanied by two bodyguards?”
Ms. DeWitt nods back at him, this time lowering her mug further down and away. “Precisely.”
Ballard gives a dour frown, brooding, but remains silent. Boyd ignores him for the moment.
He takes a step forward, glancing at his watch. “Ma’am, as soon as you’re finished here, we should get back to the House as soon as we can.”
Ms. DeWitt is nodding distractedly. Ballard’s looking upward, mild confusion on his face as he squints at something behind them.
Boyd continues, “I know there are some concerns about a requested engagement Dr. Saunders wanted to review with you, and I’d also like to go over some things before-”
Then there are two sounds: the sharp distinctive retort of a fired gun, and the crash of broken ceramic as Ms. DeWitt’s mug shatters on the ground.
His head jerks up.
He finds Ms. DeWitt standing in the exact same position, hand now half-clutching empty air.
“Oh!” she exclaims.
He isn’t sure if her surprise is more focused on her lost tea, or the blood quickly seeping through the front of her cream-colored blouse.
Her eyes go back, lids falling closed, and she drops leadenly to the ground.
“Ms. DeWitt!”
Boyd leaps to her side, crouching down. His shock gives way quickly to fear and alarm as he takes in the pallor of her face. “Ms. DeWitt!”
He presses hard over her breast, fighting to keep the blood in her veins where it belongs.
He’s gone into high alert mode, his mind racing. He can feel her pulse beneath his fingers - weak, but still there.
Boyd glances around swiftly. There’s no sign of the shooter anywhere. Probably a sniper.
He looks back at the woman on the ground.
There’s a tear in her dark pantyhose from her fall. It’s exposed a faded smudge of a bruise on her knee, the kind anyone could have and not even remember getting.
It doesn’t seem right, somehow, that Adelle DeWitt should be human enough to have faint, half-forgotten bruises.
“Langton!” The feel of Ballard’s hand squeezing his shoulder jerks him back to reality. “Langton, I saw her!”
“Saw…who?” He barely spares the man a distracted glance, still applying pressure to the wound.
“The shooter!” Ballard gazes at him intently. “She was a long way off, but I saw her, I know I did. Langton - it was Agent Dominic. Nicole.”
The image rises to Boyd’s mind.
He can see a young brunette, hardness in her blue eyes, mouth set in a grim and determined sneer as she lies on her stomach, peering through the scope of a rifle-
“It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, even as Ballard tries to keep talking. He pulls out his cell phone and all but throws it at the other man.
He scoops Ms. DeWitt up in his arms. She seems to weigh so little.
“Call Rossum. The number is listed right near the top,” he orders Ballard as he runs, carrying DeWitt’s limp body.
It’s the exact same way he carried Echo, that one time. The irony of the moment is not lost on him.
_____
Paul stands by the doors to the emergency center, arms limp, feeling like he’s a thousand miles away.
He watches numbly as a team of medical staff, spitting orders and jargon to one other, wheels an unconscious Adelle DeWitt away, working on her all the while.
Langton is gone, having run off with no regard to DeWitt’s blood staining the front of his jacket to call the Dollhouse.
Meaning Paul’s the only one there when Dominic comes in and proceeds to lose his fucking mind.
“Adelle! What are they doing?”
He runs past before Paul can even fully realize he’s here, yelling as he catches a glimpse as the doors swing closed on the gurney carrying DeWitt. Dominic tries to follow them.
“What’s going on? Where are they taking her?”
“Sir, please!” A doctor swiftly intercepts him, pressing a hand to his chest, and Paul thinks he’s lucky Dominic doesn’t just haul off and punch him. “You can’t go back there. It’s medical personnel only.”
“But I-” Dominic twists, his face white and frantic as he tries to look past. “I have to see Adelle-”
Suddenly seeming to acknowledge the other man acting as a barrier, he rounds on him, fiercely demanding, “Is she going to be okay? Tell me!”
The doctor takes him in, and speaks in that steadfast calm cultivated exclusively by emergency personnel.
“Are you her husband, sir?”
“No, I’m…we’re not married.”
(Paul doesn’t blame him for hesitating; there’s not really a word to describe whatever it is Dominic and DeWitt are to each other.)
Dominic starts to shove the doctor off him. “What’s happening to her? Is she going to be…she’s going to be okay, isn’t she? Right?”
The tone in which he says this is sharp and furious, like he plans on shooting the doctor if he doesn’t agree.
The man is either unaware of the danger or unflappable in the face of it. “Your girlfriend was shot, sir. According to the man that brought her in, one of her employees, it was with a high-powered long-range rifle. She was bleeding profusely when she arrived - the bullet entered somewhere in her chest.” Carefully, he continues, “Now, we’re going to do everything we can, but she’s going to have to make it through surgery to both remove the bullet and stop the bleeding.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dominic says, toneless. He appears only half-aware of where he is and what he’s saying. “Adelle’s a survivor. She can make it. She’ll be fine.”
With a tight, comforting smile the doctor rests his hand briefly on his shoulder.
“If you’d maybe come over here for a second? Anything you can tell us about her medical history can only help.”
It’s obviously a distraction technique: giving the distraught person something to do while their loved one’s in trouble, to keep them calm and focused and out of the way of the ER staff.
But Dominic seems too shaken up to realize. He nods very stiffly, glancing about without looking at anything. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, whatever I can do.”
“I’ll go get the paperwork. Please wait here.”
Paul hesitates a fraction of a second after the doctor walks away. He’s never seen Dominic like this.
He’s used to thinking of the man as unflappable. Even while displaying anger and even violence, Dominic has always kept some sense of implacable composure, but now…
His eyes are wide, unfocused, hands placed stiffly on his hips, entire body set with tension. He radiates anxious energy, practically vibrating with it, like the only thing keeping him from pacing back and forth or punching the wall is that he feels the urge to do too many things at once. His breathing comes in a rapid, unsteady way, as if he’s forcing it. He looks terrifyingly like he’s fighting back panic.
Paul comes over. “Dominic?”
Dominic makes a short gesture, waving him off as if Paul was no more important than a fly.
“She’s going to be fine,” he mutters. “Adelle is going to be fine.”
“Dominic,” Paul tries again, more forceful. “I saw the shooter.”
The other man’s eyes move to him with a snap, awoken from a dream. “What?”
Paul draws a breath. “It was your stepsister,” he says quietly. “It was Nicole.”
What feels like a long period of time passes as Dominic just stares at him, unmoving, silent, expression completely unreadable.
At length, he goes, “No.”
“I know what I saw,” Paul returns, voice still soft but insistent. He steps closer to him. “The NSA must’ve decided-”
“No. It couldn’t have been. You’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Dominic, I’m sorry, but it was her, I saw it. I saw Nicole, and you have to-”
“You saw wrong,” Dominic cuts him off more definitely this time, voice coming out in a sharp growl. Paul falls silent, bracing himself as he realizes he’s pushed too far.
But Dominic doesn’t turn on him. He exhales rapidly, anger draining from his face.
“It wasn’t Nicole. It couldn’t be. She knows what Adelle and I mean to each other, how I feel about…” It sounds like he’s talking to himself. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Dominic, you have to face facts.” Paul starts to reach for him. “The mission might not be over; if Nicole’s still out there-”
“It doesn’t matter.” Dominic pulls away, words coming in the clipped, no-nonsense tone that Paul is used to hearing from him at work.
“But-”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dominic repeats, tersely. He fixes Paul with that familiar look of intense disapproval, like Paul’s just another employee that failed to follow instructions.
But his voice breaks slightly, growing hoarse as he finishes, “Not right now.”
He turns his back and strides away, heading with single-minded focus towards the nurses’ desk.
Paul watches him go, staring after with something like desperation; not even sure what he feels himself.
_____
They’re words that Claire never thought she would hear, that it would’ve never even occurred to her to imagine what it would be like hearing:
“Ms. DeWitt has been shot.”
The Dollhouse goes into a state of quiet panic even as they attempt to maintain order. Employees rush about, whispering furiously to one another.
The Actives carry on in the same serene, orderly way they always have.
Claire tells herself there’s nothing she can do and it’s no business of hers; she only has to continue her job.
Still, she finds herself pausing three times while filling out the same paperwork, staring down with no memory of what it is or why it’s important. She realizes her hands are shaking.
Ivy comes in toward the end of the day, with two cups of strawberry jello and some news.
The bullet entered Ms. DeWitt’s chest at the very bottom of her heart, nicking a ventricle and puncturing her left lung, shattering through two ribs before altering trajectory and ending up in her kidney.
Just an inch or so upward, and it would’ve pierced her heart directly. Just an inch, that’s all, and she would’ve been an instant dead woman.
She survived several hours on the operating table and a blood transfusion, and her condition is described as stable. Rossum doctors have been called in and moved her to a private wing, but they can’t transfer her to another facility until her condition improves. It’s too soon to tell, but it sounds like they’re hopeful she’ll make a full recovery.
She still hasn’t woken up however.
“That’s not unexpected, in a case like this,” Claire finds herself telling Ivy, as the other woman sucks distractedly on the back of her spoon. “Between anesthesia and blood loss, it could be several days before the patient recovers consciousness.”
“You sound like a textbook,” Ivy remarks, grim.
Claire blinks slowly, but she doesn’t say anything as her hands drop to her lap.
She supposes she does. She supposes using terms like “the patient” make it easier, somehow.
She bids farewell to her friend. With nothing else to do, they both attempt to go back to work.
That night as she tries to fall asleep in her bed, Claire stares up at the ceiling of her apartment.
She imagines that every shadow looks like a bullet or a bloodstain; that every noise sounds like the firing of a gun.
The next morning, Ivy stops by again. But this time she has Topher with her.
“Go on.” Ivy steers her boyfriend in Claire’s direction, indicating the other woman with a jerk of her chin. “Tell her.”
Topher looks down at the floor, scuffing carpet with his toe. He wrings the hem of his t-shirt.
“Is there something you wanted to say to me, Topher?” Claire asks, trying to sound patient.
Finally, the programmer looks up at her, gnawing at his lip.
“Dom still hasn’t come back from the hospital,” he blurts.
“Ah.” Claire does the math in her head - Mr. Dominic rushed down the minute they heard Ms. DeWitt had been shot, which was yesterday morning. He’s been there at least twenty-four hours, a little more than that. “You’re worried about him.”
Topher nods frantically.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I know the boss-lady is the one that got hurt, and sure, we’re all concerned about her too, but…” He swallows, his eyes wide with worry. “Dom won’t pick up his phone. I called Boyd, and he says the entire time he’s been there, he hasn’t left DeWitt’s bedside. He hasn’t ate, or slept, or…anything.”
“Topher wants to go down there, try to get him to leave,” Ivy puts in.
Claire glances between them. She frowns.
“What do you need me for?”
Topher gives Ivy a sidelong, hopeful glance. She only returns a pointed look and he sighs.
“I don’t wanna go by myself. I…” He gives an awkward laugh. “Doctors and hospitals give me the creeps.”
“And I can’t go because someone needs to man the station if he’s gone,” Ivy finishes, crossing her arms.
Topher swallows again, fixing his eyes on Claire nervously.
“Please, Doc? You know I wouldn’t bug you if I didn’t think it was important. Or if it would amuse me, but mainly if it was important.”
“Alright, Topher. I’ll go with you.”
Behind Topher’s back, Ivy mouths “thank you”. Claire just wordlessly shakes her head.
The hospital smells of sickness and industrial-strength cleaner. That same stale odor that comes with the territory: white lights and long hallways of tile and pale walls.
Claire is reminded of her residency - or rather, she’s reminded of someone’s residency, which she has been programmed to remember as her own.
Topher glances around jumpily as they make their way, shoulders raised as he grips the strap of his shoulder bag with both his hands.
“You really don’t like hospitals,” Claire observes, toneless. Topher gulps, shaking his head.
“It’s just…needles and pills, the whole thing.” He looks over his shoulder. “It’s bad juju, you know?”
Claire keeps walking and doesn’t say a word.
The room outside the patient area in the private wing is nice, looking more like the waiting room of a particularly upscale doctor’s office. There’re recliners instead of metal chairs, the paint is a warm salmon color and there’s a big flat-screen on the wall. The sound of some daytime soap emanates forth.
Mr. Ballard and Boyd are there already, sitting on opposite sides of the couch. Both have been traveling constantly between here and the House, Claire knows, trying to keep a handle on everything.
Boyd looks up at her and Topher.
“He’s still in DeWitt’s room,” he says before either of them can speak, already knowing why they’re here. He tilts his head, indicating the direction. “Only one other person is allowed back there at a time.”
Claire nods at Topher. “Go on.”
Topher stills, conflicted look taking over his face. Finally, he draws a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut.
“I can’t. You go.”
Claire stares at him. “What? I thought the whole point was-”
“I know, I know,” Topher interrupts, impatient. “But I…” He drops his gaze, sighing. “I can’t do the security blanket thing, you know?” Gesturing in frustration, he forces his words out: “People upset, and worried about loved ones or family, and I just can’t…deal. Okay? It’s not me.”
“Topher, you’re his friend,” Claire presses.
Behind them, the music strikes a dramatic note as two actors on the screen face off.
“Wait a minute.” Frowning, Mr. Ballard leans toward Boyd. “Did he just say that he’s sterile?”
Boyd rubs his chin, never taking his eyes off the television. “But then, who’s the father of Christine’s baby?”
There’s a beat as Topher looks at them blankly. Then he abruptly returns to Claire.
“I want to be there for him, really I do,” he tells her in hushed tone. “But I just can’t, okay? I know my own limitations, and emotional hand-holding is a big one. I don’t know what to say. And I definitely don’t know how to not judge.”
He sighs again, and fixes Claire with a pleading expression.
“Right now, what Dominic really needs is someone with a lot more compassion.”
Claire feels like she shouldn’t give in. But she hears the genuine feeling behind Topher’s words, as well as the honest reasoning.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
She glances over her shoulder as they let her in through the wooden door. Topher seats himself on the couch between Boyd and Mr. Ballard.
He glances between the other men. “So, does this thing get any other channels?”
They both turn to look at him, wordlessly, as one.
The orderly leads Claire to a small room at the end of the hallway, then leaves. She inhales slightly and then steps forward, peering in.
Ms. DeWitt is tucked securely into a bed, IV tubes running from her arms. Her long dark hair is lank and untidy against white hospital sheets. The beep of monitors tracks her breathing, the steady beat of her heart.
Her normally composed and flawless face is pale and weary, without a spot of makeup, and Claire suddenly feels she’s seeing a moment of weakness which Ms. DeWitt would never allow, that she would be ashamed of if she knew. Claire has to look away.
Sitting right beside the bed is Mr. Dominic, slumped forward in his chair, one hand over his mouth. His jacket and shirt are wrinkled, his unknotted necktie draped around his neck. He watches Ms. DeWitt with a feverish, fixed intensity.
At the sound of Claire entering he looks up, seeming confused at first until he snaps out of his daze enough to recognize her.
“Dr. Saunders.” His voice is scratchy, hoarse. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Mr. Dominic,” she states quietly. Her eyes drift back over to the figure in the bed. “Besides the obvious.”
He follows her gaze, throat working as he stares at Ms. DeWitt’s all but lifeless form. He reaches and grasps where her hand rests atop the sheets, squeezing it in his.
Claire walks over beside him.
“You should take a break,” she begins, gently. “Get some rest, eat something.”
Mr. Dominic shuts his eyes and fiercely shakes his head.
“No. I can’t. I have to be here for her.” He opens his eyes again - Claire’s heart sinks as she sees how bleary his gaze has gotten, the haggardness to his features and the shadows under his eyes. Mr. Dominic nods to himself. “I have to be here when she wakes up.”
“That could be awhile yet. You can’t just neglect yourself in the meantime.” She kneels slightly so she’s closer to his level. “Please, Mr. Dominic. Be reasonable.”
Not an entreaty Claire would’ve ever thought she would have to make of him.
He shakes his head again, mouth souring. “I’m not leaving.”
“Mr. Dominic,” Claire says again, but he’s not looking at her. She draws a breath and reaches out to rest a hand on his arm: “Laurence.”
She can’t remember that she’s ever called him that before. He glances up at her, startled.
“I know that you’re worried,” Claire says. “I know that you only want to help her. But you have to face facts that there’s nothing here you can do. But elsewhere, it’s a different story.”
She meets his gaze steadily. “The House needs you, Mr. Dominic. You know how much that place means to her.”
For a moment he just stares at her, expression pained and indecipherable.
But then he nods slowly, placing his hand atop hers. He clutches at her wrist.
“If she wakes up while I’m gone-”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Claire promises. “I’ll call you right away.”
Mr. Dominic gives her wrist one last squeeze and then somewhat unsteadily climbs to his feet.
“Alright,” he mutters, not looking at Claire. “Alright.”
He takes two steps and then stops, as he gazes painfully back at Ms. DeWitt.
He crosses to the side of the bed, eyes full of emotion. Seemingly uncaring of the fact Claire is still there, he gingerly brushes the hair off Ms. DeWitt’s forehead and then leans in to plant a soft kiss. Pulling away again, he gazes at her a bit longer.
“Come back to me,” he commands.
Then he gets up and, without another word, he leaves.
Claire stands there a moment. The room is completely silent save the sound from the electronic monitors.
Quietly, she seats herself in Mr. Dominic’s chair, lacing fingers in her lap as she begins her vigil.
_____
Topher sits, absently drumming fingers on the desk beside his keyboard. He bites his lip and tries not to fidget.
Without looking back he’s aware of the sound behind him as Dominic continues pacing back and forth.
Topher’s eyes drift ahead in the direction of his monitor, staring right through it. He taps one finger a few more times then stops.
It’s been almost five hours since he managed to drag Dominic away from the hospital. Since that time, it doesn’t seem the other man has really stopped moving even once. He’s like a caged animal, full of restless anxious energy, channeling it into physicality because it has nowhere else to go.
It’s getting on Topher’s nerves, mainly for how helpless it makes him feel that he can’t seem to stop him.
With a lot of pleading, whining, and half-serious threats he managed to get Dominic to sit down long enough to eat a sandwich, but that’s about it. He had really hoped the other man’s obvious fatigue would’ve taken its toll by now and he’d have gotten some of the sleep he so clearly needs.
But every hint and request he’s given that Dominic should get some rest has been met with dismissal and borderline hostility.
Topher really doesn’t want to push it. With Dominic, in his experience he’s found that “pushing it” never tends to end very well.
He listens to Dominic pace back and forth for another three minutes more, though, and finally just can’t take it.
“Think you could ease it up there with the Running Man routine?” he demands, somewhat shortly. “You keep that going much longer and you’re gonna wear a hole in my carpet.”
“Sorry,” Dominic retorts, not sounding very sorry at all. “But in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of got a lot on my mind.”
“Hey, you’re not the only one whose boss got shot.”
Topher knows he’s being ungenerous, but he doesn’t really know how else to be. He’s not very good at comforting people - in times of crisis, his instinct is usually to relieve anxiety by taking shots at everyone else. Petty and childish sure, but hey, it works for him.
He can’t really remember a time that he’s been so worried about someone else’s emotional well-being before. The new sensation is strange and uncomfortable, itching at him like a poorly-crafted Christmas sweater.
“Of course, you’ve got a little more at stake in this than most,” he continues, acknowledging. He swivels his chair around. “I mean, we all know DeWitt’s more than just a boss to you…not to mention it was your very own twisted sister that pulled the trigger.”
Dominic’s head jerks up and he stares at him.
“Don’t you dare bring Nicole into this,” he orders, voice filled with grave warning. Topher blinks.
“Uh, excuse me? She’s already pretty thoroughly in it,” he exclaims, disbelieving. “In case you didn’t notice, she was the one standing astride the grassy knoll!”
“It’s not like-” Dominic stares down a moment, swallowing. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”
“Oh, right,” Topher says sarcastically. “If only she had known about DeWitt’s pesky bullet allergy!”
“Stop it! You don’t understand.” Dominic draws a breath, eyes fierce and unseeing as he nods mechanically to himself. “Nicole has training. She would know where to aim. If she had really meant to kill Adelle, she would’ve done it. Nicole must’ve just wanted to injure her - she must’ve missed on purpose-”
“I’m sorry: your main defense against the fact that she was trying to kill your lady-friend is that if she had meant to kill DeWitt, she would be dead?” Topher shakes his head, scoffing. “Face facts, Dom. Your baby sis is one grade A, stone-cold ninja psycho. She’s a killing machine. She slices, she dices-”
“Stop talking about her like that! You don’t even know her! You’re wrong!”
Topher eyes him. “You’ve only got the one sister, right?”
Dominic frowns, startled by the odd question. “Yeah, it’s just her.”
“Oh, okay. See, for a moment there I was confused. I thought we were talking about a different sister.” His voice rises: “Someone other than the one that threw you out of a second-story window and tried to kill you!”
Rising from his chair, he stalks away toward the glass wall of his office, gesticulating in wild frustration.
“Not to mention there was that time that she kidnapped me. Remember? So I hope you’re not expecting me to give her a lot of sympathy.”
“She’s just doing her job,” Dominic mutters.
“No, Dom - no. You were just doing your job.” He whirls around. “What your sister is doing…it’s a bit more than that, to her. It’s more like a lifestyle choice. Only instead of something fun or interesting like being vegetarian or bicurious, hers is to merrily terrorize and mow people down!”
Dominic flinches, and Topher makes an effort to make his words a little gentler. He sighs.
“I’m sorry, Dom, really I am. But enough is enough. I know she’s your family and all, but you have got to stop making excuses for her. You can’t try to defend her and still treat her like an enemy; you gotta pick a side.”
“Yeah, what do you even care?” Dominic responds snidely. Topher’s face falls into a scowl.
“I care because you’re my friend,” he says, voice rising, “and right now you’re acting like a crazy person!”
Dominic stares at him, startled, and Topher freezes as well as he tries to think: has either of them actually acknowledged their friendship out loud before, while the other was present?
Neither of them says anything. “Um…” Topher tries after a moment, eyes dropping awkwardly to the floor.
Dominic goes and sits on the couch, resting his head in both hands.
Topher chuckles wanly. “Almost enough to make you pine for the good ol’ days when we just hated each other, huh? Ah, for simpler times…”
“I never hated you,” Dominic mutters, fingers still covering his temples. “I thought of you as one hell of an annoyance, sure, but other than that you weren’t really worth enough of my time to hate.”
His kneejerk reaction is to be insulted, but considering it, Topher supposes that he agrees.
He and Dominic managed to be the frequent bane of each other’s existence, but in the end he never valued Dominic as important enough to be worth much extra effort. He never really got Dominic’s role for the House and frankly thought of him as dispensable.
Oh, what a difference several hundred days can make.
Topher weakly laughs again: “Guess it’s been kind of a weird year for all of us.”
Dominic drops his hands, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, Topher. I just…I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
There’s a desperate, almost fearful look to his already strained features.
“People I’ve known have been hurt before, even died, and it’s affected me, but I never-” He swallows, struggling for words. “It’s never gotten to me like this before.”
He spreads his hands, staring down at them like they’ll somehow hold the answers.
“Every time I try to take a step back, look at the situation rationally…I just can’t. It’s like I’m so caught up in it I can’t separate it out anymore. My own emotions are trying to drown me.”
Topher stills completely, unable to speak. The fact that Dominic is even admitting this is testament enough to how he feels.
Dominic strives to always be in control, and nothing makes him more frustrated than losing it. Not being able to manage even his own impulses must be killing him.
“Before I could always shut it out, push it away when I needed to,” Dominic continues, voice growing weaker by the word. “But now I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t care about Adelle, but I can’t function this way. I feel like I’m losing it, and it only makes it worse that I just can’t grasp why.”
Topher allows a moment to pass before he speaks, quietly but earnest.
“Well, of course it’s harder.” He shakes his head slightly. “You might not see it, Dom, but you’ve changed. Before, you were practically Mister Freeze in terms of emotional endearment. Nowadays, you’re a cuddly teddy bear by comparison.” He thinks about that.
“Well, okay, not really. But still. You let people a lot closer than you ever used to. Which means that once you’ve found the ‘on’ button, it’s a lot harder to flip it back off.” He gives a sorrowful smile. “That’s the price of having a heart, Tin Man: it actually works.”
“You make it sound like I was completely soulless,” Dominic grumps, protesting.
He shakes his head again. “No, no, I didn’t say that. But whatever you may have felt before, I sure never saw any of it. You used to play it way too close to the vest to make any real difference.”
There’s another silence as Dominic just sits there, quietly considering what he’s said. Finally, he closes his eyes and gives a short, almost violent shake of his head.
“Right now, the main problem is that there’s nothing for me to do,” Dominic states, aggravated. Evidently he’d rather not talk about Topher’s observations and is changing topics. “Whenever something goes wrong, if I can just feel like I’m working on it, trying to solve the problem, I can keep it from bothering me.” His hands curl into fists and he clenches his jaw.
“But all I can do here is wait for Adelle to get better. It’s…unbearable.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Topher feels obligated to say.
“Sure it is,” Dominic returns shortly. “Who said it wasn’t? But in the meantime-”
“Uh, maybe you’d at least feel mildly less on the far side of crazy,” Topher goes, very carefully, “if you got just an eensy bit of shuteye?”
“I’m not tired.”
“The blotchy dark bags under your eyes beg to differ,” he retorts. “Come on, Dom. It’s been over a day. Just lie down and go for twenty winks, if I can’t convince you to try for the full forty.”
“I can’t sleep, Topher.” Dominic scrubs a hand over his face. “I’ve got too much on my mind.”
“Do it for me?” he goes pleadingly.
Dominic just folds his arms and glares at him.
Topher sighs loudly, and rolls his eyes. “I’ll call Madeline in here,” he says warningly. “You see if I don’t. She’ll give you the puppy-dog eyes and you’ll be powerless. Or, worse comes to worse, she’ll just borrow her boyfriend’s taser.”
Dominic gives a quick snort of laughter.
“It really means that much to you?”
“Tell you what,” Topher tries, switching tactics. “Let’s make a deal. You lie down right there on my very nice, comfy couch and see if you can’t fall asleep. And if it doesn’t work after, oh, say thirty minutes-”
“Ten,” Dominic counters.
“Twenty,” Topher returns, firm. “But if you don’t drift off to dreamland, I’ll leave you alone. So, how about it?”
Dominic sighs, eyes going heavenward, but he nods. “If it’ll get you off my back, fine.”
He lies down, not even bothering to kick off his shoes. But Topher figures it best not to nitpick. He sits at his computer, starting up a game of solitaire.
Not even five minutes tick by before he can stand it no longer - he dares a glance back over his shoulder.
Dominic is curled up on his side, eyes closed and breathing steady. He’s fast asleep.
Topher smirks. He shuts down his computer and turns off the lights as he leaves the room, careful not to make a sound.
_____
Adelle feels as if she’s floating somewhere far away, as if on a cloud.
But this isn’t a peaceful, warm and relaxing kind of daze. No, she feels sluggish and numb, strangely unpleasant. She tries again and again to wake herself, but each time she begins to sink back under, head heavy and senses dulled.
At last her determination pays off and she struggles to the surface, becoming aware of her surroundings.
She’s in a strange bed, in a strange place. Everything around her is white, bland. She’s aware of pain but in a manner which makes it impossible to pinpoint where it’s coming from. Very distantly she realizes that she must be drugged.
Her eyes very slowly crack themselves open. Her vision swims but gradually clears, images shaping into a semblance of reason.
The first real thing she sees is Laurence. He sits directly beside her, hands clasped and elbows resting on his knees. He wears no jacket or tie over his dress shirt, and there’s tension in his features.
Even as she’s gathering her strength and beginning to awaken, he starts, noticing her movement and staring at her with widening eyes.
“Laurence?” she manages, her voice so feeble it’s practically a whisper. She’d be shamed if she had but the strength and alertness to feel it.
“It’s alright,” he hushes her, swiftly. “I’m right here.”
Her throat feels sore, her mouth dry. She raises her hand nearest to him, reaching, and immediately he seizes it in his, cupping her fingers gently in his grasp.
“I’m right here, Adelle,” he repeats.
There’s a smile on Laurence’s face so full of emotion she wonders if it must hurt him. She can see now that he’s haggard and tired, and she begins wondering at the ordeal he must’ve suffered.
And the one she must’ve suffered, as well. She can’t quite remember how she got here.
“What happened?” she asks, closing her eyes briefly.
“You were shot, two days ago. It was a close call, but there’s nothing to worry about now. They removed the bullet - the doctors say you’re going to be fine.”
“It’s not like you to mince words or skim over details,” she remarks, managing to convey a trace of the wryness she would have were she well.
Laurence’s mouth twitches in an automatic smirk. He holds her hand in both of his now.
“When you didn’t wake up, I was so worried,” he confesses. “The first day I wouldn’t leave your side. They finally dragged me out of here and back to the House so I could sleep.”
He gently caresses the back of her hand.
“But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. There was nothing for it. I had to come back here and wait for you again.”
Adelle gazes at him a moment. She felt him there for her, she’s certain. In some deep part of herself that can neither be described or explained, she knows that somehow, she sensed Laurence and his worry and longing, and that’s part of what pulled her back.
She curls her fingers a bit where they entwine with his.
Softly, she says, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
He shakes his head. “No, don’t be. It’s not your fault. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”
She wants to tell him just how much he means to her, say the word she’s already beginning to feel she’s been sitting on for far too long. But she’s stuffed to the gills with drugs - surely anything she said under these circumstances would lose all value of meaning.
Still, she has to say something. Even in her groggy haze, she feels it weighing on her: her desperate need to tell him, somehow, how important he is, how lost she’d be without him…
“I was Miss Lonelyhearts,” she croaks out.
Laurence stares at her a moment, equal parts startled and confused. “What do you mean you-?”
“There never was a client. Or rather, there was a client, and she was me.” Her eyes drift away to the ceiling. Even in her dazed awareness, the words fall scorching and heavy from her lips, weighted down by her embarrassment and pain, still stinging after all this time. “The pathetic older woman who kept engaging Victor out of a desperate need to feel.”
He continues staring at her, eyes widening slightly as the full reality comes to him.
“You paid for an engagement, with an Active? Ten times? That was you?”
There’s disbelief in his voice, astonishment, and Adelle flinches. She knows how he feels about the Dollhouse: at best just a business, at worst a perversity.
She knows how he feels about the clients as well, even though he never says directly: fools, all of them, too weak to claim their desires and content to delude themselves in fantasy instead.
But she’s not like Laurence. Though she knows just as well the dark side to the Dollhouse, the things it does to maintain itself, she also believes it’s a part of something greater. Its mission is to save people, to help them, and she believes in that with all her heart.
And, for a few fleeting moments at a time, she allowed herself to believe in the fantasy.
“I don’t…think I understand,” Laurence says to her, very slowly. She can tell he’s trying not to judge, restraining himself until she explains better. But she doesn’t think that she can.
“Now you see me for who I truly am, don’t you? Weak and selfish, like any other human being.” She forces a smile that feels as if it’s cutting her own mouth.
“My whole life, I was so focused…on things other than happiness. Or at least that kind of happiness.” She draws a breath and hears herself sniff. “I was alone, that’s all. And instead of bearing it with the strength I should have, I gave into temptation.”
She forces herself to look back at his face, because she has to see how she reacts to what she says next.
“I commissioned the imprint, added the identity to the client register, in the midst of our second year.”
Laurence says nothing, but she can tell from his expression he understands exactly what she means. Their second year working together: when the growing attraction become the most obvious for what it was, the hardest to ignore.
She allowed herself the dalliance as Miss Lonelyhearts, the crossing of a line, because of what she would not allow herself.
The greater crossing of a line, the thing she truly yearned for - him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this before,” she says, grieved. “I never wanted to keep any secrets from you. There just never seemed like a good time-”
“It’s fine,” he cuts her off. Seeing that she doesn’t believe him, he continues, seriously, “No, really, it’s fine. You have your own life after all; it’s not as if you belong to me. Certainly not back then. You should never have to answer to me for anything.”
He gazes at her, and she feels such beautiful relief at seeing he’s not angry or disgusted that she could almost cry.
“I could never think of you as weak, anyway. No matter what you did. I think part of me will always revere you as indestructible.” There’s an oddly desperate note of humor in his voice.
“When I found out you were hurt, I just about went off the deep end.” He chuckles, very softly. “You’d probably have had some strong words for me, if you could’ve seen it. But I couldn’t help it.”
His smiles drops and his expression grows very pained, the light in his eyes serious.
“I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve come to care for you so much.” He reaches to touch her face, brushing the side of her cheek. “You’re the most important thing in my whole world, Adelle. If I ever lost you…” He trails off, his inability to speak on the subject speaking volumes in and of itself. “I’d…”
“Hush, now,” she tells him, trying to sound firm. “Enough of that. I have no intention of going anywhere, I promise you.”
He smiles, but he doesn’t let go of her.
“I’m holding you to your word,” he says. “I know how much you hate to go back on it.”
She manages a faint laugh of her own.
“Judging by how I feel,” she notes, “I think I’m going to have to stay here a bit more.”
There’s nothing she wants more than to be released from this bed and back at work, of course. But she doubts she could stand right now, let alone walk, and she doesn’t think she will be able to stay awake for much longer. She has to be reasonable about this; unfortunately.
“Probably. But don’t worry,” Laurence replies. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Faithful and dependable Mr. Dominic always at her side, where she both wants and needs him. Adelle feels a surge of joy and warmth at it, even in her present condition.
“I’m glad,” she says. She squeezes his hand.
Then she manages to work it free, pulling away from him.
“But I have to send you away,” she says, trying to keep her voice strong and even.
He stares at her, at a loss. “Adelle…”
“In my absence, Laurence,” she informs him, cutting him off, “I need you to oversee operations at the Dollhouse for me. I am placing you in charge.”
He frowns, brow furrowing. He shakes his head, dismissive.
“You’re confused. I’m not head of security anymore; with you indisposed, that’s Langton’s job-”
“I may be bedridden, wounded and thoroughly sedated, but do not make presumptions regarding my mental capabilities.” Her voice rises as it grows noticeably stern, and Laurence falls silent. “I know how things are usually done. That does not mean they’re automatically how I am inclined to do them.”
“I thought you said you trusted Langton to do a good job.”
“I do. He’s proved his worth to me comprehensively. But there are certain aspects to keeping the House in line that I know he doesn’t have the knack for. A certain hardness of will and resolve of spirit, which I know full well you possess.”
“You think he’s too soft, and won’t make the decisions he might have to,” Laurence sums up, blunt.
“However you prefer to put it,” she replies simply. “It’s all the same either way: I want you in command, while I’m not around. It’s the only way I’ll be able to rest comfortably.”
“Adelle, I don’t know,” he says, hesitating. “It’s not that I’m unwilling, but if the Center hears about this-”
“The Center does not have to worry about the day-to-day running of our branch in a smooth and efficient manner. They only care about the bottom line.”
She would sit up if she could, but she hasn’t the strength. She just barely lifts her head slightly off the pillow, to fix him with a cool and commanding gaze.
“I am giving you a direct order. This is what I want for the well-being of my House, and I expect it to be adhered to.”
Laurence gives an odd little smile, like it’s almost funny how she can manage this even in her state.
“Of course, ma’am,” he says ironically. In a more personal, intimate tone, he adds, “You know I could never deny you anything.”
Adelle’s injured heart flutters a bit more. She places her hand atop his again.
Laurence says nothing. He only looks deeply into her eyes, as if content to do that forever and nothing more.
“I trust you,” she murmurs.
In light of all their history, this simple declaration means almost as much as any other words could.
Laurence leans forward, his lips gently applying themselves to hers.
Her eyes close as they kiss, and it takes her a moment to get them open again. She’s fading faster than she realized.
“I’ll take care of everything,” he promises. He gathers himself, as if readying to leave. “I won’t let you down.”
“Wait,” she calls, and he immediately stops, obedient. “Stay here, won’t you?” she asks of him, entreating: “Until I fall asleep again?”
“Of course,” he murmurs. He leans back in his chair again, settling, and he gently reaches to the side of her head, stroking her hair. “I’ll be right here.”
“Of course you will,” she agrees. Her eyes are already growing heavy. She can feel her weariness, the pull of sleep, calling to her once more. “Always.”
“Always,” Laurence repeats.
The last thing Adelle sees is the earnestness in his blue eyes as he gazes at her, before her own fall soundly closed, and she drifts out of consciousness feeling content and perfectly safe.
Title: Cracks in the Window Glass
Characters/Pairings: DeWitt, Dominic, Boyd, Ballard, Claire, Topher, Ivy, mention of Madeline and Nicole (OC); Dominic/DeWitt, mention of Ivy/Topher and Madeline/Ballard
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence, themes and tone
Length: 7,985 words
Spoilers: first season
Notes: part of Waking 'verse
Summary: A personal tragedy viewed from the perspective of all those standing outside it.
There is nothing, Boyd feels, quite like the brilliant pale sunshine of a downtown Los Angeles morning.
He thinks he could travel any array of places in the world, and never find one truly comparable.
He stands with hands folded neatly behind his back watching with an even and mildly curious patience as his boss, a short distance away on the balcony, sips tea with a self-assured smile.
Ms. DeWitt closes her eyes briefly, savoring her beverage, and then lowers the mug from her lips.
“I believe that went rather well, gentlemen,” she remarks, glancing around at both him and her other escort on this sojourn, Paul Ballard. “Not that it wasn’t to be anticipated.”
Ballard, standing back much further with arms tightly crossed before his chest, only eyes her narrowly and says nothing at all.
Boyd clears his throat. “With all due respect, Ms. DeWitt, I’m not entirely sure I understand.”
She doesn’t speak, but quirks a brow slightly, in invitation for him to continue.
“What was the reason you had to leave the facility and come all the way down here to visit the client personally?” With a shrug, he asks, “Couldn’t he have just stopped in like everybody else?”
“Could he have, Mr. Langton? Most certainly. But the question is rather, did he want to?” Her smile becomes a little wry. “You’ll find Mr. Winston is a very particular and private man, and one quite used to having his whims catered to.” Her eyes go upward before she takes another sip. “He much prefers making people come to him, whenever possible.”
There’s a brief pause before she continues, calmly, “Still, given our line of work, there are some individuals that it’s worth the extra effort of surrender. We secured ourselves a very powerful client today, Mr. Langton. Our House will greatly reap the benefits of receiving his business.”
Her expression is smug beneath her serene mask, a glint of pride in her eyes. She hooked a big fish today, and he expects she’ll be congratulating herself for some time.
Ballard speaks up at last, his voice gruff and blunt.
“I understand if the guy’s eccentric enough he wanted to meet on neutral territory, or a place where he’d have the upper hand. But why’d you need both me and Langton to tag along?”
The smile Ms. DeWitt gives him is harder, more distant - the look of a person who understands things you do not.
“As I said, Mr. Ballard, it was of great importance to me that this client be convinced our House is ‘worthy’ of serving him.” She shrugs with one shoulder as she again raises her tea. “Sometimes that requires a bit of a demonstration.”
Boyd nods.
“What better way to show him you’re a powerful enough woman to be worth the time to deal with,” he states, “than by showing up accompanied by two bodyguards?”
Ms. DeWitt nods back at him, this time lowering her mug further down and away. “Precisely.”
Ballard gives a dour frown, brooding, but remains silent. Boyd ignores him for the moment.
He takes a step forward, glancing at his watch. “Ma’am, as soon as you’re finished here, we should get back to the House as soon as we can.”
Ms. DeWitt is nodding distractedly. Ballard’s looking upward, mild confusion on his face as he squints at something behind them.
Boyd continues, “I know there are some concerns about a requested engagement Dr. Saunders wanted to review with you, and I’d also like to go over some things before-”
Then there are two sounds: the sharp distinctive retort of a fired gun, and the crash of broken ceramic as Ms. DeWitt’s mug shatters on the ground.
His head jerks up.
He finds Ms. DeWitt standing in the exact same position, hand now half-clutching empty air.
“Oh!” she exclaims.
He isn’t sure if her surprise is more focused on her lost tea, or the blood quickly seeping through the front of her cream-colored blouse.
Her eyes go back, lids falling closed, and she drops leadenly to the ground.
“Ms. DeWitt!”
Boyd leaps to her side, crouching down. His shock gives way quickly to fear and alarm as he takes in the pallor of her face. “Ms. DeWitt!”
He presses hard over her breast, fighting to keep the blood in her veins where it belongs.
He’s gone into high alert mode, his mind racing. He can feel her pulse beneath his fingers - weak, but still there.
Boyd glances around swiftly. There’s no sign of the shooter anywhere. Probably a sniper.
He looks back at the woman on the ground.
There’s a tear in her dark pantyhose from her fall. It’s exposed a faded smudge of a bruise on her knee, the kind anyone could have and not even remember getting.
It doesn’t seem right, somehow, that Adelle DeWitt should be human enough to have faint, half-forgotten bruises.
“Langton!” The feel of Ballard’s hand squeezing his shoulder jerks him back to reality. “Langton, I saw her!”
“Saw…who?” He barely spares the man a distracted glance, still applying pressure to the wound.
“The shooter!” Ballard gazes at him intently. “She was a long way off, but I saw her, I know I did. Langton - it was Agent Dominic. Nicole.”
The image rises to Boyd’s mind.
He can see a young brunette, hardness in her blue eyes, mouth set in a grim and determined sneer as she lies on her stomach, peering through the scope of a rifle-
“It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, even as Ballard tries to keep talking. He pulls out his cell phone and all but throws it at the other man.
He scoops Ms. DeWitt up in his arms. She seems to weigh so little.
“Call Rossum. The number is listed right near the top,” he orders Ballard as he runs, carrying DeWitt’s limp body.
It’s the exact same way he carried Echo, that one time. The irony of the moment is not lost on him.
_____
Paul stands by the doors to the emergency center, arms limp, feeling like he’s a thousand miles away.
He watches numbly as a team of medical staff, spitting orders and jargon to one other, wheels an unconscious Adelle DeWitt away, working on her all the while.
Langton is gone, having run off with no regard to DeWitt’s blood staining the front of his jacket to call the Dollhouse.
Meaning Paul’s the only one there when Dominic comes in and proceeds to lose his fucking mind.
“Adelle! What are they doing?”
He runs past before Paul can even fully realize he’s here, yelling as he catches a glimpse as the doors swing closed on the gurney carrying DeWitt. Dominic tries to follow them.
“What’s going on? Where are they taking her?”
“Sir, please!” A doctor swiftly intercepts him, pressing a hand to his chest, and Paul thinks he’s lucky Dominic doesn’t just haul off and punch him. “You can’t go back there. It’s medical personnel only.”
“But I-” Dominic twists, his face white and frantic as he tries to look past. “I have to see Adelle-”
Suddenly seeming to acknowledge the other man acting as a barrier, he rounds on him, fiercely demanding, “Is she going to be okay? Tell me!”
The doctor takes him in, and speaks in that steadfast calm cultivated exclusively by emergency personnel.
“Are you her husband, sir?”
“No, I’m…we’re not married.”
(Paul doesn’t blame him for hesitating; there’s not really a word to describe whatever it is Dominic and DeWitt are to each other.)
Dominic starts to shove the doctor off him. “What’s happening to her? Is she going to be…she’s going to be okay, isn’t she? Right?”
The tone in which he says this is sharp and furious, like he plans on shooting the doctor if he doesn’t agree.
The man is either unaware of the danger or unflappable in the face of it. “Your girlfriend was shot, sir. According to the man that brought her in, one of her employees, it was with a high-powered long-range rifle. She was bleeding profusely when she arrived - the bullet entered somewhere in her chest.” Carefully, he continues, “Now, we’re going to do everything we can, but she’s going to have to make it through surgery to both remove the bullet and stop the bleeding.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dominic says, toneless. He appears only half-aware of where he is and what he’s saying. “Adelle’s a survivor. She can make it. She’ll be fine.”
With a tight, comforting smile the doctor rests his hand briefly on his shoulder.
“If you’d maybe come over here for a second? Anything you can tell us about her medical history can only help.”
It’s obviously a distraction technique: giving the distraught person something to do while their loved one’s in trouble, to keep them calm and focused and out of the way of the ER staff.
But Dominic seems too shaken up to realize. He nods very stiffly, glancing about without looking at anything. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, whatever I can do.”
“I’ll go get the paperwork. Please wait here.”
Paul hesitates a fraction of a second after the doctor walks away. He’s never seen Dominic like this.
He’s used to thinking of the man as unflappable. Even while displaying anger and even violence, Dominic has always kept some sense of implacable composure, but now…
His eyes are wide, unfocused, hands placed stiffly on his hips, entire body set with tension. He radiates anxious energy, practically vibrating with it, like the only thing keeping him from pacing back and forth or punching the wall is that he feels the urge to do too many things at once. His breathing comes in a rapid, unsteady way, as if he’s forcing it. He looks terrifyingly like he’s fighting back panic.
Paul comes over. “Dominic?”
Dominic makes a short gesture, waving him off as if Paul was no more important than a fly.
“She’s going to be fine,” he mutters. “Adelle is going to be fine.”
“Dominic,” Paul tries again, more forceful. “I saw the shooter.”
The other man’s eyes move to him with a snap, awoken from a dream. “What?”
Paul draws a breath. “It was your stepsister,” he says quietly. “It was Nicole.”
What feels like a long period of time passes as Dominic just stares at him, unmoving, silent, expression completely unreadable.
At length, he goes, “No.”
“I know what I saw,” Paul returns, voice still soft but insistent. He steps closer to him. “The NSA must’ve decided-”
“No. It couldn’t have been. You’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Dominic, I’m sorry, but it was her, I saw it. I saw Nicole, and you have to-”
“You saw wrong,” Dominic cuts him off more definitely this time, voice coming out in a sharp growl. Paul falls silent, bracing himself as he realizes he’s pushed too far.
But Dominic doesn’t turn on him. He exhales rapidly, anger draining from his face.
“It wasn’t Nicole. It couldn’t be. She knows what Adelle and I mean to each other, how I feel about…” It sounds like he’s talking to himself. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Dominic, you have to face facts.” Paul starts to reach for him. “The mission might not be over; if Nicole’s still out there-”
“It doesn’t matter.” Dominic pulls away, words coming in the clipped, no-nonsense tone that Paul is used to hearing from him at work.
“But-”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dominic repeats, tersely. He fixes Paul with that familiar look of intense disapproval, like Paul’s just another employee that failed to follow instructions.
But his voice breaks slightly, growing hoarse as he finishes, “Not right now.”
He turns his back and strides away, heading with single-minded focus towards the nurses’ desk.
Paul watches him go, staring after with something like desperation; not even sure what he feels himself.
_____
They’re words that Claire never thought she would hear, that it would’ve never even occurred to her to imagine what it would be like hearing:
“Ms. DeWitt has been shot.”
The Dollhouse goes into a state of quiet panic even as they attempt to maintain order. Employees rush about, whispering furiously to one another.
The Actives carry on in the same serene, orderly way they always have.
Claire tells herself there’s nothing she can do and it’s no business of hers; she only has to continue her job.
Still, she finds herself pausing three times while filling out the same paperwork, staring down with no memory of what it is or why it’s important. She realizes her hands are shaking.
Ivy comes in toward the end of the day, with two cups of strawberry jello and some news.
The bullet entered Ms. DeWitt’s chest at the very bottom of her heart, nicking a ventricle and puncturing her left lung, shattering through two ribs before altering trajectory and ending up in her kidney.
Just an inch or so upward, and it would’ve pierced her heart directly. Just an inch, that’s all, and she would’ve been an instant dead woman.
She survived several hours on the operating table and a blood transfusion, and her condition is described as stable. Rossum doctors have been called in and moved her to a private wing, but they can’t transfer her to another facility until her condition improves. It’s too soon to tell, but it sounds like they’re hopeful she’ll make a full recovery.
She still hasn’t woken up however.
“That’s not unexpected, in a case like this,” Claire finds herself telling Ivy, as the other woman sucks distractedly on the back of her spoon. “Between anesthesia and blood loss, it could be several days before the patient recovers consciousness.”
“You sound like a textbook,” Ivy remarks, grim.
Claire blinks slowly, but she doesn’t say anything as her hands drop to her lap.
She supposes she does. She supposes using terms like “the patient” make it easier, somehow.
She bids farewell to her friend. With nothing else to do, they both attempt to go back to work.
That night as she tries to fall asleep in her bed, Claire stares up at the ceiling of her apartment.
She imagines that every shadow looks like a bullet or a bloodstain; that every noise sounds like the firing of a gun.
The next morning, Ivy stops by again. But this time she has Topher with her.
“Go on.” Ivy steers her boyfriend in Claire’s direction, indicating the other woman with a jerk of her chin. “Tell her.”
Topher looks down at the floor, scuffing carpet with his toe. He wrings the hem of his t-shirt.
“Is there something you wanted to say to me, Topher?” Claire asks, trying to sound patient.
Finally, the programmer looks up at her, gnawing at his lip.
“Dom still hasn’t come back from the hospital,” he blurts.
“Ah.” Claire does the math in her head - Mr. Dominic rushed down the minute they heard Ms. DeWitt had been shot, which was yesterday morning. He’s been there at least twenty-four hours, a little more than that. “You’re worried about him.”
Topher nods frantically.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I know the boss-lady is the one that got hurt, and sure, we’re all concerned about her too, but…” He swallows, his eyes wide with worry. “Dom won’t pick up his phone. I called Boyd, and he says the entire time he’s been there, he hasn’t left DeWitt’s bedside. He hasn’t ate, or slept, or…anything.”
“Topher wants to go down there, try to get him to leave,” Ivy puts in.
Claire glances between them. She frowns.
“What do you need me for?”
Topher gives Ivy a sidelong, hopeful glance. She only returns a pointed look and he sighs.
“I don’t wanna go by myself. I…” He gives an awkward laugh. “Doctors and hospitals give me the creeps.”
“And I can’t go because someone needs to man the station if he’s gone,” Ivy finishes, crossing her arms.
Topher swallows again, fixing his eyes on Claire nervously.
“Please, Doc? You know I wouldn’t bug you if I didn’t think it was important. Or if it would amuse me, but mainly if it was important.”
“Alright, Topher. I’ll go with you.”
Behind Topher’s back, Ivy mouths “thank you”. Claire just wordlessly shakes her head.
The hospital smells of sickness and industrial-strength cleaner. That same stale odor that comes with the territory: white lights and long hallways of tile and pale walls.
Claire is reminded of her residency - or rather, she’s reminded of someone’s residency, which she has been programmed to remember as her own.
Topher glances around jumpily as they make their way, shoulders raised as he grips the strap of his shoulder bag with both his hands.
“You really don’t like hospitals,” Claire observes, toneless. Topher gulps, shaking his head.
“It’s just…needles and pills, the whole thing.” He looks over his shoulder. “It’s bad juju, you know?”
Claire keeps walking and doesn’t say a word.
The room outside the patient area in the private wing is nice, looking more like the waiting room of a particularly upscale doctor’s office. There’re recliners instead of metal chairs, the paint is a warm salmon color and there’s a big flat-screen on the wall. The sound of some daytime soap emanates forth.
Mr. Ballard and Boyd are there already, sitting on opposite sides of the couch. Both have been traveling constantly between here and the House, Claire knows, trying to keep a handle on everything.
Boyd looks up at her and Topher.
“He’s still in DeWitt’s room,” he says before either of them can speak, already knowing why they’re here. He tilts his head, indicating the direction. “Only one other person is allowed back there at a time.”
Claire nods at Topher. “Go on.”
Topher stills, conflicted look taking over his face. Finally, he draws a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut.
“I can’t. You go.”
Claire stares at him. “What? I thought the whole point was-”
“I know, I know,” Topher interrupts, impatient. “But I…” He drops his gaze, sighing. “I can’t do the security blanket thing, you know?” Gesturing in frustration, he forces his words out: “People upset, and worried about loved ones or family, and I just can’t…deal. Okay? It’s not me.”
“Topher, you’re his friend,” Claire presses.
Behind them, the music strikes a dramatic note as two actors on the screen face off.
“Wait a minute.” Frowning, Mr. Ballard leans toward Boyd. “Did he just say that he’s sterile?”
Boyd rubs his chin, never taking his eyes off the television. “But then, who’s the father of Christine’s baby?”
There’s a beat as Topher looks at them blankly. Then he abruptly returns to Claire.
“I want to be there for him, really I do,” he tells her in hushed tone. “But I just can’t, okay? I know my own limitations, and emotional hand-holding is a big one. I don’t know what to say. And I definitely don’t know how to not judge.”
He sighs again, and fixes Claire with a pleading expression.
“Right now, what Dominic really needs is someone with a lot more compassion.”
Claire feels like she shouldn’t give in. But she hears the genuine feeling behind Topher’s words, as well as the honest reasoning.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
She glances over her shoulder as they let her in through the wooden door. Topher seats himself on the couch between Boyd and Mr. Ballard.
He glances between the other men. “So, does this thing get any other channels?”
They both turn to look at him, wordlessly, as one.
The orderly leads Claire to a small room at the end of the hallway, then leaves. She inhales slightly and then steps forward, peering in.
Ms. DeWitt is tucked securely into a bed, IV tubes running from her arms. Her long dark hair is lank and untidy against white hospital sheets. The beep of monitors tracks her breathing, the steady beat of her heart.
Her normally composed and flawless face is pale and weary, without a spot of makeup, and Claire suddenly feels she’s seeing a moment of weakness which Ms. DeWitt would never allow, that she would be ashamed of if she knew. Claire has to look away.
Sitting right beside the bed is Mr. Dominic, slumped forward in his chair, one hand over his mouth. His jacket and shirt are wrinkled, his unknotted necktie draped around his neck. He watches Ms. DeWitt with a feverish, fixed intensity.
At the sound of Claire entering he looks up, seeming confused at first until he snaps out of his daze enough to recognize her.
“Dr. Saunders.” His voice is scratchy, hoarse. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Mr. Dominic,” she states quietly. Her eyes drift back over to the figure in the bed. “Besides the obvious.”
He follows her gaze, throat working as he stares at Ms. DeWitt’s all but lifeless form. He reaches and grasps where her hand rests atop the sheets, squeezing it in his.
Claire walks over beside him.
“You should take a break,” she begins, gently. “Get some rest, eat something.”
Mr. Dominic shuts his eyes and fiercely shakes his head.
“No. I can’t. I have to be here for her.” He opens his eyes again - Claire’s heart sinks as she sees how bleary his gaze has gotten, the haggardness to his features and the shadows under his eyes. Mr. Dominic nods to himself. “I have to be here when she wakes up.”
“That could be awhile yet. You can’t just neglect yourself in the meantime.” She kneels slightly so she’s closer to his level. “Please, Mr. Dominic. Be reasonable.”
Not an entreaty Claire would’ve ever thought she would have to make of him.
He shakes his head again, mouth souring. “I’m not leaving.”
“Mr. Dominic,” Claire says again, but he’s not looking at her. She draws a breath and reaches out to rest a hand on his arm: “Laurence.”
She can’t remember that she’s ever called him that before. He glances up at her, startled.
“I know that you’re worried,” Claire says. “I know that you only want to help her. But you have to face facts that there’s nothing here you can do. But elsewhere, it’s a different story.”
She meets his gaze steadily. “The House needs you, Mr. Dominic. You know how much that place means to her.”
For a moment he just stares at her, expression pained and indecipherable.
But then he nods slowly, placing his hand atop hers. He clutches at her wrist.
“If she wakes up while I’m gone-”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Claire promises. “I’ll call you right away.”
Mr. Dominic gives her wrist one last squeeze and then somewhat unsteadily climbs to his feet.
“Alright,” he mutters, not looking at Claire. “Alright.”
He takes two steps and then stops, as he gazes painfully back at Ms. DeWitt.
He crosses to the side of the bed, eyes full of emotion. Seemingly uncaring of the fact Claire is still there, he gingerly brushes the hair off Ms. DeWitt’s forehead and then leans in to plant a soft kiss. Pulling away again, he gazes at her a bit longer.
“Come back to me,” he commands.
Then he gets up and, without another word, he leaves.
Claire stands there a moment. The room is completely silent save the sound from the electronic monitors.
Quietly, she seats herself in Mr. Dominic’s chair, lacing fingers in her lap as she begins her vigil.
_____
Topher sits, absently drumming fingers on the desk beside his keyboard. He bites his lip and tries not to fidget.
Without looking back he’s aware of the sound behind him as Dominic continues pacing back and forth.
Topher’s eyes drift ahead in the direction of his monitor, staring right through it. He taps one finger a few more times then stops.
It’s been almost five hours since he managed to drag Dominic away from the hospital. Since that time, it doesn’t seem the other man has really stopped moving even once. He’s like a caged animal, full of restless anxious energy, channeling it into physicality because it has nowhere else to go.
It’s getting on Topher’s nerves, mainly for how helpless it makes him feel that he can’t seem to stop him.
With a lot of pleading, whining, and half-serious threats he managed to get Dominic to sit down long enough to eat a sandwich, but that’s about it. He had really hoped the other man’s obvious fatigue would’ve taken its toll by now and he’d have gotten some of the sleep he so clearly needs.
But every hint and request he’s given that Dominic should get some rest has been met with dismissal and borderline hostility.
Topher really doesn’t want to push it. With Dominic, in his experience he’s found that “pushing it” never tends to end very well.
He listens to Dominic pace back and forth for another three minutes more, though, and finally just can’t take it.
“Think you could ease it up there with the Running Man routine?” he demands, somewhat shortly. “You keep that going much longer and you’re gonna wear a hole in my carpet.”
“Sorry,” Dominic retorts, not sounding very sorry at all. “But in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of got a lot on my mind.”
“Hey, you’re not the only one whose boss got shot.”
Topher knows he’s being ungenerous, but he doesn’t really know how else to be. He’s not very good at comforting people - in times of crisis, his instinct is usually to relieve anxiety by taking shots at everyone else. Petty and childish sure, but hey, it works for him.
He can’t really remember a time that he’s been so worried about someone else’s emotional well-being before. The new sensation is strange and uncomfortable, itching at him like a poorly-crafted Christmas sweater.
“Of course, you’ve got a little more at stake in this than most,” he continues, acknowledging. He swivels his chair around. “I mean, we all know DeWitt’s more than just a boss to you…not to mention it was your very own twisted sister that pulled the trigger.”
Dominic’s head jerks up and he stares at him.
“Don’t you dare bring Nicole into this,” he orders, voice filled with grave warning. Topher blinks.
“Uh, excuse me? She’s already pretty thoroughly in it,” he exclaims, disbelieving. “In case you didn’t notice, she was the one standing astride the grassy knoll!”
“It’s not like-” Dominic stares down a moment, swallowing. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”
“Oh, right,” Topher says sarcastically. “If only she had known about DeWitt’s pesky bullet allergy!”
“Stop it! You don’t understand.” Dominic draws a breath, eyes fierce and unseeing as he nods mechanically to himself. “Nicole has training. She would know where to aim. If she had really meant to kill Adelle, she would’ve done it. Nicole must’ve just wanted to injure her - she must’ve missed on purpose-”
“I’m sorry: your main defense against the fact that she was trying to kill your lady-friend is that if she had meant to kill DeWitt, she would be dead?” Topher shakes his head, scoffing. “Face facts, Dom. Your baby sis is one grade A, stone-cold ninja psycho. She’s a killing machine. She slices, she dices-”
“Stop talking about her like that! You don’t even know her! You’re wrong!”
Topher eyes him. “You’ve only got the one sister, right?”
Dominic frowns, startled by the odd question. “Yeah, it’s just her.”
“Oh, okay. See, for a moment there I was confused. I thought we were talking about a different sister.” His voice rises: “Someone other than the one that threw you out of a second-story window and tried to kill you!”
Rising from his chair, he stalks away toward the glass wall of his office, gesticulating in wild frustration.
“Not to mention there was that time that she kidnapped me. Remember? So I hope you’re not expecting me to give her a lot of sympathy.”
“She’s just doing her job,” Dominic mutters.
“No, Dom - no. You were just doing your job.” He whirls around. “What your sister is doing…it’s a bit more than that, to her. It’s more like a lifestyle choice. Only instead of something fun or interesting like being vegetarian or bicurious, hers is to merrily terrorize and mow people down!”
Dominic flinches, and Topher makes an effort to make his words a little gentler. He sighs.
“I’m sorry, Dom, really I am. But enough is enough. I know she’s your family and all, but you have got to stop making excuses for her. You can’t try to defend her and still treat her like an enemy; you gotta pick a side.”
“Yeah, what do you even care?” Dominic responds snidely. Topher’s face falls into a scowl.
“I care because you’re my friend,” he says, voice rising, “and right now you’re acting like a crazy person!”
Dominic stares at him, startled, and Topher freezes as well as he tries to think: has either of them actually acknowledged their friendship out loud before, while the other was present?
Neither of them says anything. “Um…” Topher tries after a moment, eyes dropping awkwardly to the floor.
Dominic goes and sits on the couch, resting his head in both hands.
Topher chuckles wanly. “Almost enough to make you pine for the good ol’ days when we just hated each other, huh? Ah, for simpler times…”
“I never hated you,” Dominic mutters, fingers still covering his temples. “I thought of you as one hell of an annoyance, sure, but other than that you weren’t really worth enough of my time to hate.”
His kneejerk reaction is to be insulted, but considering it, Topher supposes that he agrees.
He and Dominic managed to be the frequent bane of each other’s existence, but in the end he never valued Dominic as important enough to be worth much extra effort. He never really got Dominic’s role for the House and frankly thought of him as dispensable.
Oh, what a difference several hundred days can make.
Topher weakly laughs again: “Guess it’s been kind of a weird year for all of us.”
Dominic drops his hands, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, Topher. I just…I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
There’s a desperate, almost fearful look to his already strained features.
“People I’ve known have been hurt before, even died, and it’s affected me, but I never-” He swallows, struggling for words. “It’s never gotten to me like this before.”
He spreads his hands, staring down at them like they’ll somehow hold the answers.
“Every time I try to take a step back, look at the situation rationally…I just can’t. It’s like I’m so caught up in it I can’t separate it out anymore. My own emotions are trying to drown me.”
Topher stills completely, unable to speak. The fact that Dominic is even admitting this is testament enough to how he feels.
Dominic strives to always be in control, and nothing makes him more frustrated than losing it. Not being able to manage even his own impulses must be killing him.
“Before I could always shut it out, push it away when I needed to,” Dominic continues, voice growing weaker by the word. “But now I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t care about Adelle, but I can’t function this way. I feel like I’m losing it, and it only makes it worse that I just can’t grasp why.”
Topher allows a moment to pass before he speaks, quietly but earnest.
“Well, of course it’s harder.” He shakes his head slightly. “You might not see it, Dom, but you’ve changed. Before, you were practically Mister Freeze in terms of emotional endearment. Nowadays, you’re a cuddly teddy bear by comparison.” He thinks about that.
“Well, okay, not really. But still. You let people a lot closer than you ever used to. Which means that once you’ve found the ‘on’ button, it’s a lot harder to flip it back off.” He gives a sorrowful smile. “That’s the price of having a heart, Tin Man: it actually works.”
“You make it sound like I was completely soulless,” Dominic grumps, protesting.
He shakes his head again. “No, no, I didn’t say that. But whatever you may have felt before, I sure never saw any of it. You used to play it way too close to the vest to make any real difference.”
There’s another silence as Dominic just sits there, quietly considering what he’s said. Finally, he closes his eyes and gives a short, almost violent shake of his head.
“Right now, the main problem is that there’s nothing for me to do,” Dominic states, aggravated. Evidently he’d rather not talk about Topher’s observations and is changing topics. “Whenever something goes wrong, if I can just feel like I’m working on it, trying to solve the problem, I can keep it from bothering me.” His hands curl into fists and he clenches his jaw.
“But all I can do here is wait for Adelle to get better. It’s…unbearable.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Topher feels obligated to say.
“Sure it is,” Dominic returns shortly. “Who said it wasn’t? But in the meantime-”
“Uh, maybe you’d at least feel mildly less on the far side of crazy,” Topher goes, very carefully, “if you got just an eensy bit of shuteye?”
“I’m not tired.”
“The blotchy dark bags under your eyes beg to differ,” he retorts. “Come on, Dom. It’s been over a day. Just lie down and go for twenty winks, if I can’t convince you to try for the full forty.”
“I can’t sleep, Topher.” Dominic scrubs a hand over his face. “I’ve got too much on my mind.”
“Do it for me?” he goes pleadingly.
Dominic just folds his arms and glares at him.
Topher sighs loudly, and rolls his eyes. “I’ll call Madeline in here,” he says warningly. “You see if I don’t. She’ll give you the puppy-dog eyes and you’ll be powerless. Or, worse comes to worse, she’ll just borrow her boyfriend’s taser.”
Dominic gives a quick snort of laughter.
“It really means that much to you?”
“Tell you what,” Topher tries, switching tactics. “Let’s make a deal. You lie down right there on my very nice, comfy couch and see if you can’t fall asleep. And if it doesn’t work after, oh, say thirty minutes-”
“Ten,” Dominic counters.
“Twenty,” Topher returns, firm. “But if you don’t drift off to dreamland, I’ll leave you alone. So, how about it?”
Dominic sighs, eyes going heavenward, but he nods. “If it’ll get you off my back, fine.”
He lies down, not even bothering to kick off his shoes. But Topher figures it best not to nitpick. He sits at his computer, starting up a game of solitaire.
Not even five minutes tick by before he can stand it no longer - he dares a glance back over his shoulder.
Dominic is curled up on his side, eyes closed and breathing steady. He’s fast asleep.
Topher smirks. He shuts down his computer and turns off the lights as he leaves the room, careful not to make a sound.
_____
Adelle feels as if she’s floating somewhere far away, as if on a cloud.
But this isn’t a peaceful, warm and relaxing kind of daze. No, she feels sluggish and numb, strangely unpleasant. She tries again and again to wake herself, but each time she begins to sink back under, head heavy and senses dulled.
At last her determination pays off and she struggles to the surface, becoming aware of her surroundings.
She’s in a strange bed, in a strange place. Everything around her is white, bland. She’s aware of pain but in a manner which makes it impossible to pinpoint where it’s coming from. Very distantly she realizes that she must be drugged.
Her eyes very slowly crack themselves open. Her vision swims but gradually clears, images shaping into a semblance of reason.
The first real thing she sees is Laurence. He sits directly beside her, hands clasped and elbows resting on his knees. He wears no jacket or tie over his dress shirt, and there’s tension in his features.
Even as she’s gathering her strength and beginning to awaken, he starts, noticing her movement and staring at her with widening eyes.
“Laurence?” she manages, her voice so feeble it’s practically a whisper. She’d be shamed if she had but the strength and alertness to feel it.
“It’s alright,” he hushes her, swiftly. “I’m right here.”
Her throat feels sore, her mouth dry. She raises her hand nearest to him, reaching, and immediately he seizes it in his, cupping her fingers gently in his grasp.
“I’m right here, Adelle,” he repeats.
There’s a smile on Laurence’s face so full of emotion she wonders if it must hurt him. She can see now that he’s haggard and tired, and she begins wondering at the ordeal he must’ve suffered.
And the one she must’ve suffered, as well. She can’t quite remember how she got here.
“What happened?” she asks, closing her eyes briefly.
“You were shot, two days ago. It was a close call, but there’s nothing to worry about now. They removed the bullet - the doctors say you’re going to be fine.”
“It’s not like you to mince words or skim over details,” she remarks, managing to convey a trace of the wryness she would have were she well.
Laurence’s mouth twitches in an automatic smirk. He holds her hand in both of his now.
“When you didn’t wake up, I was so worried,” he confesses. “The first day I wouldn’t leave your side. They finally dragged me out of here and back to the House so I could sleep.”
He gently caresses the back of her hand.
“But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. There was nothing for it. I had to come back here and wait for you again.”
Adelle gazes at him a moment. She felt him there for her, she’s certain. In some deep part of herself that can neither be described or explained, she knows that somehow, she sensed Laurence and his worry and longing, and that’s part of what pulled her back.
She curls her fingers a bit where they entwine with his.
Softly, she says, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
He shakes his head. “No, don’t be. It’s not your fault. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”
She wants to tell him just how much he means to her, say the word she’s already beginning to feel she’s been sitting on for far too long. But she’s stuffed to the gills with drugs - surely anything she said under these circumstances would lose all value of meaning.
Still, she has to say something. Even in her groggy haze, she feels it weighing on her: her desperate need to tell him, somehow, how important he is, how lost she’d be without him…
“I was Miss Lonelyhearts,” she croaks out.
Laurence stares at her a moment, equal parts startled and confused. “What do you mean you-?”
“There never was a client. Or rather, there was a client, and she was me.” Her eyes drift away to the ceiling. Even in her dazed awareness, the words fall scorching and heavy from her lips, weighted down by her embarrassment and pain, still stinging after all this time. “The pathetic older woman who kept engaging Victor out of a desperate need to feel.”
He continues staring at her, eyes widening slightly as the full reality comes to him.
“You paid for an engagement, with an Active? Ten times? That was you?”
There’s disbelief in his voice, astonishment, and Adelle flinches. She knows how he feels about the Dollhouse: at best just a business, at worst a perversity.
She knows how he feels about the clients as well, even though he never says directly: fools, all of them, too weak to claim their desires and content to delude themselves in fantasy instead.
But she’s not like Laurence. Though she knows just as well the dark side to the Dollhouse, the things it does to maintain itself, she also believes it’s a part of something greater. Its mission is to save people, to help them, and she believes in that with all her heart.
And, for a few fleeting moments at a time, she allowed herself to believe in the fantasy.
“I don’t…think I understand,” Laurence says to her, very slowly. She can tell he’s trying not to judge, restraining himself until she explains better. But she doesn’t think that she can.
“Now you see me for who I truly am, don’t you? Weak and selfish, like any other human being.” She forces a smile that feels as if it’s cutting her own mouth.
“My whole life, I was so focused…on things other than happiness. Or at least that kind of happiness.” She draws a breath and hears herself sniff. “I was alone, that’s all. And instead of bearing it with the strength I should have, I gave into temptation.”
She forces herself to look back at his face, because she has to see how she reacts to what she says next.
“I commissioned the imprint, added the identity to the client register, in the midst of our second year.”
Laurence says nothing, but she can tell from his expression he understands exactly what she means. Their second year working together: when the growing attraction become the most obvious for what it was, the hardest to ignore.
She allowed herself the dalliance as Miss Lonelyhearts, the crossing of a line, because of what she would not allow herself.
The greater crossing of a line, the thing she truly yearned for - him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this before,” she says, grieved. “I never wanted to keep any secrets from you. There just never seemed like a good time-”
“It’s fine,” he cuts her off. Seeing that she doesn’t believe him, he continues, seriously, “No, really, it’s fine. You have your own life after all; it’s not as if you belong to me. Certainly not back then. You should never have to answer to me for anything.”
He gazes at her, and she feels such beautiful relief at seeing he’s not angry or disgusted that she could almost cry.
“I could never think of you as weak, anyway. No matter what you did. I think part of me will always revere you as indestructible.” There’s an oddly desperate note of humor in his voice.
“When I found out you were hurt, I just about went off the deep end.” He chuckles, very softly. “You’d probably have had some strong words for me, if you could’ve seen it. But I couldn’t help it.”
His smiles drops and his expression grows very pained, the light in his eyes serious.
“I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve come to care for you so much.” He reaches to touch her face, brushing the side of her cheek. “You’re the most important thing in my whole world, Adelle. If I ever lost you…” He trails off, his inability to speak on the subject speaking volumes in and of itself. “I’d…”
“Hush, now,” she tells him, trying to sound firm. “Enough of that. I have no intention of going anywhere, I promise you.”
He smiles, but he doesn’t let go of her.
“I’m holding you to your word,” he says. “I know how much you hate to go back on it.”
She manages a faint laugh of her own.
“Judging by how I feel,” she notes, “I think I’m going to have to stay here a bit more.”
There’s nothing she wants more than to be released from this bed and back at work, of course. But she doubts she could stand right now, let alone walk, and she doesn’t think she will be able to stay awake for much longer. She has to be reasonable about this; unfortunately.
“Probably. But don’t worry,” Laurence replies. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Faithful and dependable Mr. Dominic always at her side, where she both wants and needs him. Adelle feels a surge of joy and warmth at it, even in her present condition.
“I’m glad,” she says. She squeezes his hand.
Then she manages to work it free, pulling away from him.
“But I have to send you away,” she says, trying to keep her voice strong and even.
He stares at her, at a loss. “Adelle…”
“In my absence, Laurence,” she informs him, cutting him off, “I need you to oversee operations at the Dollhouse for me. I am placing you in charge.”
He frowns, brow furrowing. He shakes his head, dismissive.
“You’re confused. I’m not head of security anymore; with you indisposed, that’s Langton’s job-”
“I may be bedridden, wounded and thoroughly sedated, but do not make presumptions regarding my mental capabilities.” Her voice rises as it grows noticeably stern, and Laurence falls silent. “I know how things are usually done. That does not mean they’re automatically how I am inclined to do them.”
“I thought you said you trusted Langton to do a good job.”
“I do. He’s proved his worth to me comprehensively. But there are certain aspects to keeping the House in line that I know he doesn’t have the knack for. A certain hardness of will and resolve of spirit, which I know full well you possess.”
“You think he’s too soft, and won’t make the decisions he might have to,” Laurence sums up, blunt.
“However you prefer to put it,” she replies simply. “It’s all the same either way: I want you in command, while I’m not around. It’s the only way I’ll be able to rest comfortably.”
“Adelle, I don’t know,” he says, hesitating. “It’s not that I’m unwilling, but if the Center hears about this-”
“The Center does not have to worry about the day-to-day running of our branch in a smooth and efficient manner. They only care about the bottom line.”
She would sit up if she could, but she hasn’t the strength. She just barely lifts her head slightly off the pillow, to fix him with a cool and commanding gaze.
“I am giving you a direct order. This is what I want for the well-being of my House, and I expect it to be adhered to.”
Laurence gives an odd little smile, like it’s almost funny how she can manage this even in her state.
“Of course, ma’am,” he says ironically. In a more personal, intimate tone, he adds, “You know I could never deny you anything.”
Adelle’s injured heart flutters a bit more. She places her hand atop his again.
Laurence says nothing. He only looks deeply into her eyes, as if content to do that forever and nothing more.
“I trust you,” she murmurs.
In light of all their history, this simple declaration means almost as much as any other words could.
Laurence leans forward, his lips gently applying themselves to hers.
Her eyes close as they kiss, and it takes her a moment to get them open again. She’s fading faster than she realized.
“I’ll take care of everything,” he promises. He gathers himself, as if readying to leave. “I won’t let you down.”
“Wait,” she calls, and he immediately stops, obedient. “Stay here, won’t you?” she asks of him, entreating: “Until I fall asleep again?”
“Of course,” he murmurs. He leans back in his chair again, settling, and he gently reaches to the side of her head, stroking her hair. “I’ll be right here.”
“Of course you will,” she agrees. Her eyes are already growing heavy. She can feel her weariness, the pull of sleep, calling to her once more. “Always.”
“Always,” Laurence repeats.
The last thing Adelle sees is the earnestness in his blue eyes as he gazes at her, before her own fall soundly closed, and she drifts out of consciousness feeling content and perfectly safe.