{dollhouse} in this valley of dying stars
I wrote this for winterofrossum, which is still accepting sign ups until the end of this month. If you like Dollhouse please consider joining.
Title: In This Valley of Dying Stars
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Claire Saunders, Whiskey, Echo (mentions of Claire/Boyd, Topher)
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company. The title comes from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.”
Prompts: Written for winterofrossum.
Notes: Set after “The Hollow Men” with some spoilers for “Epitaph One.”
Summary: Claire knows the risks of staying behind when the others all leave her.
Word Count: 1348
“Claire,” Echo’s voice is tight with emotion. “If you stay, you’ll be cut off from everyone. There’ll be no way to communicate with us and we probably won’t be able to come back. You’ll be alone, locked down and completely vulnerable to attack.”
Claire folds her arms against her chest and she gives Echo a sad smile. She can’t put into words why she wants to stay but she knows that this journey that Echo and the others are about to embark on isn’t for her. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for her, just a holding pattern.
“I know, Echo, but someone needs to remain here to guide any lost lambs that may find their way here and Adelle is better suited to leading than to self-sacrifice.”
* * *
They’ve been gone for two days and Claire enjoys the solitude. She no longer has to pretend to be someone that she’s not, someone that she never truly was, not really even if Topher’s a genius and made everyone forget that she wasn’t just a doll. As she meticulously organizes her office, Claire decides that once she’s done with her task there’ll be no need for her to return to it. For a moment, she wonders what will happen if the parameters of her engagement are horribly altered. In the past she had seen what had happened to actives on their engagements and it hadn’t been pretty.
Claire gives a bitter laugh that seems to echo throughout the confines of the dollhouse as she realizes that the parameters of her engagement were horribly altered years ago when Boyd Langton came to replace Samuelson.
* * *
She can feel herself fraying at the edges as she types up a report detailing what is happening to her. No one will ever read it but then again no one has ever really paid close attention to her reports in the past so nothing’s really changed in that respect. If someone were to read her report, they would think that Claire Saunders and Whiskey were two different people in two different bodies. They wouldn’t suspect that they were two different identities fighting for control of the same body.
Claire finishes her report and saves it. She prints it out in triplicate, places one in her own file, one in Whiskey’s file and then one that she adds to the voluminous file in the lower left drawer of her desk. That file contains the details of who she really is, or was once a long time ago. Eventually she knows either she or Whiskey will win their war of dominance over the body that they’re fighting over, a body that belongs to neither of them. But the girl she once was, the girl she has refused to learn about, is nothing more than a hard-drive stored somewhere in the dollhouse. Claire doesn’t think there’s anyone who cares about her anymore or if there ever was. Just like there’s no one to care about her or Whiskey anymore. If there ever was.
* * *
It is hard to tell how much time has passed. The dollhouse has always had a way of altering time, of making it sticky and slow, of making it melt until a single day stretches out into an entire week or even longer. Yet she hasn’t had any treatments in such a long so a day should really just last the length of a true day. Still she can’t tell what day it is and she knows that’s because Dr. Saunders is slipping out of her grasp. Claire thinks that she could save the good doctor (and by extension herself.) She knows how to work Topher’s magic but there’s no one in the dollhouse that needs the doctor so there’s no need to save the doctor. If there are no patients to tend to, no blank dolls who don’t know how their bodies were abused then there’s no need for a doll doctor to patch them up again.
* * *
She is a ghost, a prophecy fulfilled even if her face is no longer horribly disfigured to truly make her Topher’s phantom. Still she is a ghost; she must be since Dr. Saunders is dead, dead, dead. The actual scars might be gone but Claire and Whiskey can feel them as they wait for him to return. Although neither of them can quite piece together from their broken memories who they are waiting for. All they know is that he had promised to return to her and had asked her to wait in return. She might be a ghost but it seems to be bad form to break her promise to wait, even if she can’t remember whom she’s waiting for.
* * *
The dollhouse is no longer empty. It is full of ghosts; she is the most corporeal of them all. She glides along the floors, into the empty rooms, yet she can see them all. Others just like her, blank slates waiting to be filled, she smiles at them as she waits for someone to come and to take her to her treatment.
* * *
The white silk of her nightgown whispers as she glides about the house. Sometimes she lingers when she looks into a mirror. She’ll think of Claire and she’ll wonder where her friend went. Still Whiskey waits as Claire told her to. Wait for others that might need to be guided to Echo and safety or for him who will make her whole and real again. SO she waits as she haunts the dollhouse, lost in memories that don’t really belong to her and sometimes for a brief moment she will become Claire. Until the moment is gone and she’s just Whiskey again, Whiskey who owns nothing and who belongs to no one.
* * *
No one ever reads her reports, Claire knows this and she accepts it. She wonders if it’s because everyone already knew that she was an active and her being there is just a way to ensure that everything is in place and in order. Was the doctor before her an active? It doesn’t matter because she writes the reports because of a programming quirk that Topher did when he made her. Even now, she hangs onto the reports because it’s what makes her Claire. Even now when some days it takes everyone out of her to just understand the reports that she writes. Sooner or later, Claire will be gone and only Whiskey will remain. And Claire still doesn’t regret not going with the others. Not going with Echo and having a chance at staying a real girl. This regression will either make her or break her.
* * *
“Claire.”
Echo’s hand is gentle but her voice is firm. Claire shakes off Echo’s hand and wishes that Echo would just go. Echo’s lucky; she got to be the real girl instead of just a broken doll. Everything that Claire ever had, everything that made her real, has always turned out to be false in the end. There’s no point in trying anymore.
“If you stay, you might not say sane. Solitude isn’t good for a person.”
Echo doesn’t say what they’re both thinking: that if she stays, she might not stay Claire anymore. She doesn’t need to say it. Only Echo and Alpha have managed to stay whole.
“I know the risks, please don’t worry about me.”
They both recognize the unspoken message in her words: just go, leave me. And Echo has no choice, as she won’t force Claire to leave. She recognizes that Claire is another victim of the dollhouse and it’s lies. Perhaps Claire is the last one and it hurts Echo to know that she can’t save her. It’s Echo’s turn to give Claire a sad smile, the same one that curves Claire’s lips.
“I can’t.”
Claire’s words are soft but final and Echo walks out of her office and towards those who wish to be saved, to be made whole by Alpha’s cure.
((END))
Title: In This Valley of Dying Stars
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Claire Saunders, Whiskey, Echo (mentions of Claire/Boyd, Topher)
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company. The title comes from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.”
Prompts: Written for winterofrossum.
Notes: Set after “The Hollow Men” with some spoilers for “Epitaph One.”
Summary: Claire knows the risks of staying behind when the others all leave her.
Word Count: 1348
“Claire,” Echo’s voice is tight with emotion. “If you stay, you’ll be cut off from everyone. There’ll be no way to communicate with us and we probably won’t be able to come back. You’ll be alone, locked down and completely vulnerable to attack.”
Claire folds her arms against her chest and she gives Echo a sad smile. She can’t put into words why she wants to stay but she knows that this journey that Echo and the others are about to embark on isn’t for her. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for her, just a holding pattern.
“I know, Echo, but someone needs to remain here to guide any lost lambs that may find their way here and Adelle is better suited to leading than to self-sacrifice.”
* * *
They’ve been gone for two days and Claire enjoys the solitude. She no longer has to pretend to be someone that she’s not, someone that she never truly was, not really even if Topher’s a genius and made everyone forget that she wasn’t just a doll. As she meticulously organizes her office, Claire decides that once she’s done with her task there’ll be no need for her to return to it. For a moment, she wonders what will happen if the parameters of her engagement are horribly altered. In the past she had seen what had happened to actives on their engagements and it hadn’t been pretty.
Claire gives a bitter laugh that seems to echo throughout the confines of the dollhouse as she realizes that the parameters of her engagement were horribly altered years ago when Boyd Langton came to replace Samuelson.
* * *
She can feel herself fraying at the edges as she types up a report detailing what is happening to her. No one will ever read it but then again no one has ever really paid close attention to her reports in the past so nothing’s really changed in that respect. If someone were to read her report, they would think that Claire Saunders and Whiskey were two different people in two different bodies. They wouldn’t suspect that they were two different identities fighting for control of the same body.
Claire finishes her report and saves it. She prints it out in triplicate, places one in her own file, one in Whiskey’s file and then one that she adds to the voluminous file in the lower left drawer of her desk. That file contains the details of who she really is, or was once a long time ago. Eventually she knows either she or Whiskey will win their war of dominance over the body that they’re fighting over, a body that belongs to neither of them. But the girl she once was, the girl she has refused to learn about, is nothing more than a hard-drive stored somewhere in the dollhouse. Claire doesn’t think there’s anyone who cares about her anymore or if there ever was. Just like there’s no one to care about her or Whiskey anymore. If there ever was.
* * *
It is hard to tell how much time has passed. The dollhouse has always had a way of altering time, of making it sticky and slow, of making it melt until a single day stretches out into an entire week or even longer. Yet she hasn’t had any treatments in such a long so a day should really just last the length of a true day. Still she can’t tell what day it is and she knows that’s because Dr. Saunders is slipping out of her grasp. Claire thinks that she could save the good doctor (and by extension herself.) She knows how to work Topher’s magic but there’s no one in the dollhouse that needs the doctor so there’s no need to save the doctor. If there are no patients to tend to, no blank dolls who don’t know how their bodies were abused then there’s no need for a doll doctor to patch them up again.
* * *
She is a ghost, a prophecy fulfilled even if her face is no longer horribly disfigured to truly make her Topher’s phantom. Still she is a ghost; she must be since Dr. Saunders is dead, dead, dead. The actual scars might be gone but Claire and Whiskey can feel them as they wait for him to return. Although neither of them can quite piece together from their broken memories who they are waiting for. All they know is that he had promised to return to her and had asked her to wait in return. She might be a ghost but it seems to be bad form to break her promise to wait, even if she can’t remember whom she’s waiting for.
* * *
The dollhouse is no longer empty. It is full of ghosts; she is the most corporeal of them all. She glides along the floors, into the empty rooms, yet she can see them all. Others just like her, blank slates waiting to be filled, she smiles at them as she waits for someone to come and to take her to her treatment.
* * *
The white silk of her nightgown whispers as she glides about the house. Sometimes she lingers when she looks into a mirror. She’ll think of Claire and she’ll wonder where her friend went. Still Whiskey waits as Claire told her to. Wait for others that might need to be guided to Echo and safety or for him who will make her whole and real again. SO she waits as she haunts the dollhouse, lost in memories that don’t really belong to her and sometimes for a brief moment she will become Claire. Until the moment is gone and she’s just Whiskey again, Whiskey who owns nothing and who belongs to no one.
* * *
No one ever reads her reports, Claire knows this and she accepts it. She wonders if it’s because everyone already knew that she was an active and her being there is just a way to ensure that everything is in place and in order. Was the doctor before her an active? It doesn’t matter because she writes the reports because of a programming quirk that Topher did when he made her. Even now, she hangs onto the reports because it’s what makes her Claire. Even now when some days it takes everyone out of her to just understand the reports that she writes. Sooner or later, Claire will be gone and only Whiskey will remain. And Claire still doesn’t regret not going with the others. Not going with Echo and having a chance at staying a real girl. This regression will either make her or break her.
* * *
“Claire.”
Echo’s hand is gentle but her voice is firm. Claire shakes off Echo’s hand and wishes that Echo would just go. Echo’s lucky; she got to be the real girl instead of just a broken doll. Everything that Claire ever had, everything that made her real, has always turned out to be false in the end. There’s no point in trying anymore.
“If you stay, you might not say sane. Solitude isn’t good for a person.”
Echo doesn’t say what they’re both thinking: that if she stays, she might not stay Claire anymore. She doesn’t need to say it. Only Echo and Alpha have managed to stay whole.
“I know the risks, please don’t worry about me.”
They both recognize the unspoken message in her words: just go, leave me. And Echo has no choice, as she won’t force Claire to leave. She recognizes that Claire is another victim of the dollhouse and it’s lies. Perhaps Claire is the last one and it hurts Echo to know that she can’t save her. It’s Echo’s turn to give Claire a sad smile, the same one that curves Claire’s lips.
“I can’t.”
Claire’s words are soft but final and Echo walks out of her office and towards those who wish to be saved, to be made whole by Alpha’s cure.
((END))