[dollhouse] instinctual
Title: Instinctual
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Echo/Sierra
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Written for smallfandomfest for the prompt of Echo/Sierra and instinctive.
Notes: Set post 1x12 “Omega.”
Summary: Their instincts have continually led them to one another.
Word Count: 1393
It all starts when Echo first sees Sierra in the Dollhouse.
She had been in Dr Saunders’ office when the doctor went to schedule her massage treatment and something had compelled Echo to leave the office. When she sees the flashing lights coming from the treatment room, curiosity draws her to the room and what she sees and hears scares her. Not for herself but for the pretty blonde girl who should be asleep but is writhing in pain in the chair.
Their eyes meet and Echo feels something in her stomach that she can’t quite explain. She instinctively wants to help her, to ease the girl’s pain, to take away her fears and make her feel better. But when Topher tells her that everything is okay, or at least it will be, and that when it is all over, Sierra will be her friend, Echo allows herself to be guided away by Dr Saunders.
It’s not until she on the table with the massage therapist when Echo is silently saying Sierra’s name, familiarizing her mouth with the shape of the other girl’s name that the nagging doubts that maybe Topher and Dr Saunders weren’t telling her the truth about Sierra. That maybe she was in great pain and that she did need to be helped. And until Echo sees Sierra later that day, she worries and fears that she might have ruined the only chance at friendship with Sierra that she had.
* * *
No one realizes or notices that when Echo has the personality of Eleanor Penn implanted in her mind when she is on an engagement in a decrepit house literally in the middle of nowhere when an equally implanted Sierra connects with Echo. No one sees the intense looks passing between them or feels that tension that goes beyond the roles they are implanted with.
Of course, no one sees this because the only people in that tiny little house that’s falling apart in the desert are corpses, other dolls and a little girl who just wants to go back home to her Daddy. No one in the house is there to notice the looks or to realize that they might have a problem on their hands.
Even later when they are both back in the Dollhouse and they are both back to being Echo and Sierra, no one pays attention to the shared looks that flow between them. It’s still too early to think anything other than Echo is simply being friendly to the new girl that Topher claimed would be her friend.
* * *
They keep getting sent out on missions together. Adelle DeWitt quickly realized that Echo and Sierra work well together so she approves them being sent out frequently when she has engagements that require both of them. No one, not even Adelle with all of her cleverness and cunning, expects that the two actives are starting to retain bits and pieces of the identities that Topher forces on them.
All anyone sees is that the two Dolls are equally matched and work well as a team. Then again, when something does arise, management is more concerned with the fact that Victor start to develop obvious man reactions to Sierra. No one from Adelle, Boyd, Dr Saunders or even Dominic who relentlessly watches Echo picks up on the developments in the relationship between Echo and Sierra.
Then again none of them are expecting for Echo to realize more than she should. It’s never happened in any of the Houses for a doll to realize that they are being watched and their behaviour recorded for any anomalies that occur to be analyzed to see if the imprints aren’t being completely wiped or if there is damage occurring from too many imprints occurring.
* * *
When they wake up in the Dollhouse as themselves, the four of them all recognize one another from before they were imprinted. They shouldn’t according to Topher and his science but they do and Adelle ponders what this could mean all the while ensuring that this never makes files. The last thing that she needs getting spread amongst the houses is this potential failure on top of the whole Alpha debacle.
She watches the surveillance tapes over and over again until she catches something. Although Victor protects Sierra and clearly has feelings for her, Sierra’s attention is focused on Echo. It’s Echo that she turns to when she needs guidance, not Victor. After the hundredth time of reviewing the tapes, Adelle realizes something that no one, not even Dominic with his near obsession with Echo catches, that Victor may be the one who takes charge of things, but it’s Echo who leads and guides them. Echo has her own mission but she still sends Victor, November and Sierra off to what she automatically assumes is safety.
The moment that Adelle realizes that, she knows that the tapes have to be destroyed. She can’t risk the other houses finding out about Echo and the others. Adelle personally destroys the tapes and reads over all of the reports, ensuring that there is no mention of anything that might cause her problems in the future.
* * *
Years later when the Dollhouse has been brought down, or at the very least shut down in Los Angeles, Caroline has become Echo. She has nothing more but vague memories of what happened in the years that she lost to the Dollhouse. Caroline has a therapist that she sees every Thursday, a therapist that helps her to cope with what happened to her. She’s never sure why she goes every Thursday, especially when the therapist can’t even begin to understand what Caroline has gone through.
After every single visit, Caroline decides that she won’t go back. That she won’t put up with another hour with a therapist who doesn’t understand, who only offers weak platitudes, and who tries to tell her that the years that she’s lost don’t really matter. But every Thursday morning, Caroline wakes up, has a shower, swallows down a cup of tea and a piece of dry toast, before she carefully dresses and then makes her way to her therapist’s office.
It’s not the therapist that draws her to the office, instead it’s Priya that causes Caroline to go back every Thursday no matter how resolved she is not to go back. In the year that Caroline has been going there, Priya and her have exchanged a handful of words outside of their quiet hellos to one another. Yet Caroline is instinctively drawn to Priya, attracted to her, even though she can’t quite work up the nerve to tell her that she needs her.
Caroline tells herself that she’ll work up the nerve one day to tell Priya how she feels but for now, she takes baby steps to build on the casual friendship that they seem to have until she feels comfortable enough to ask Priya to go for coffee after their sessions.
* * *
The organization behind the Dollhouse never really shut down, it never truly left Los Angeles, it merely changed the name that they operated under, went deep underground and changed the services that they offered. Adelle DeWitt continued to serve as the head of the Los Angeles facility, and she continued to receive reports from every single person who had been an active under her care. Some of them ended up back in her care, while others struggled with their old lives. Some of them like Echo and Sierra were instinctively drawn to one another, unaware of what they had meant to one another in the Dollhouse, unaware that they both shared the same secret.
The Dollhouse changed and became something else, not because of the government. It changed because of Echo and Sierra and their instincts that remained the same no matter how many times Topher erased their minds or gave them new identities. The instincts that drew them together time and time again, that caused Sierra to look to Echo for guidance and later on comfort when Victor was killed on an engagement, and that caused Echo to fall in love with Sierra.
Adelle has no doubt that the love will no doubt blossom outside of the Dollhouse between the two of them. Their instincts have continually led them to one another.
**END**
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Echo/Sierra
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Written for smallfandomfest for the prompt of Echo/Sierra and instinctive.
Notes: Set post 1x12 “Omega.”
Summary: Their instincts have continually led them to one another.
Word Count: 1393
It all starts when Echo first sees Sierra in the Dollhouse.
She had been in Dr Saunders’ office when the doctor went to schedule her massage treatment and something had compelled Echo to leave the office. When she sees the flashing lights coming from the treatment room, curiosity draws her to the room and what she sees and hears scares her. Not for herself but for the pretty blonde girl who should be asleep but is writhing in pain in the chair.
Their eyes meet and Echo feels something in her stomach that she can’t quite explain. She instinctively wants to help her, to ease the girl’s pain, to take away her fears and make her feel better. But when Topher tells her that everything is okay, or at least it will be, and that when it is all over, Sierra will be her friend, Echo allows herself to be guided away by Dr Saunders.
It’s not until she on the table with the massage therapist when Echo is silently saying Sierra’s name, familiarizing her mouth with the shape of the other girl’s name that the nagging doubts that maybe Topher and Dr Saunders weren’t telling her the truth about Sierra. That maybe she was in great pain and that she did need to be helped. And until Echo sees Sierra later that day, she worries and fears that she might have ruined the only chance at friendship with Sierra that she had.
* * *
No one realizes or notices that when Echo has the personality of Eleanor Penn implanted in her mind when she is on an engagement in a decrepit house literally in the middle of nowhere when an equally implanted Sierra connects with Echo. No one sees the intense looks passing between them or feels that tension that goes beyond the roles they are implanted with.
Of course, no one sees this because the only people in that tiny little house that’s falling apart in the desert are corpses, other dolls and a little girl who just wants to go back home to her Daddy. No one in the house is there to notice the looks or to realize that they might have a problem on their hands.
Even later when they are both back in the Dollhouse and they are both back to being Echo and Sierra, no one pays attention to the shared looks that flow between them. It’s still too early to think anything other than Echo is simply being friendly to the new girl that Topher claimed would be her friend.
* * *
They keep getting sent out on missions together. Adelle DeWitt quickly realized that Echo and Sierra work well together so she approves them being sent out frequently when she has engagements that require both of them. No one, not even Adelle with all of her cleverness and cunning, expects that the two actives are starting to retain bits and pieces of the identities that Topher forces on them.
All anyone sees is that the two Dolls are equally matched and work well as a team. Then again, when something does arise, management is more concerned with the fact that Victor start to develop obvious man reactions to Sierra. No one from Adelle, Boyd, Dr Saunders or even Dominic who relentlessly watches Echo picks up on the developments in the relationship between Echo and Sierra.
Then again none of them are expecting for Echo to realize more than she should. It’s never happened in any of the Houses for a doll to realize that they are being watched and their behaviour recorded for any anomalies that occur to be analyzed to see if the imprints aren’t being completely wiped or if there is damage occurring from too many imprints occurring.
* * *
When they wake up in the Dollhouse as themselves, the four of them all recognize one another from before they were imprinted. They shouldn’t according to Topher and his science but they do and Adelle ponders what this could mean all the while ensuring that this never makes files. The last thing that she needs getting spread amongst the houses is this potential failure on top of the whole Alpha debacle.
She watches the surveillance tapes over and over again until she catches something. Although Victor protects Sierra and clearly has feelings for her, Sierra’s attention is focused on Echo. It’s Echo that she turns to when she needs guidance, not Victor. After the hundredth time of reviewing the tapes, Adelle realizes something that no one, not even Dominic with his near obsession with Echo catches, that Victor may be the one who takes charge of things, but it’s Echo who leads and guides them. Echo has her own mission but she still sends Victor, November and Sierra off to what she automatically assumes is safety.
The moment that Adelle realizes that, she knows that the tapes have to be destroyed. She can’t risk the other houses finding out about Echo and the others. Adelle personally destroys the tapes and reads over all of the reports, ensuring that there is no mention of anything that might cause her problems in the future.
* * *
Years later when the Dollhouse has been brought down, or at the very least shut down in Los Angeles, Caroline has become Echo. She has nothing more but vague memories of what happened in the years that she lost to the Dollhouse. Caroline has a therapist that she sees every Thursday, a therapist that helps her to cope with what happened to her. She’s never sure why she goes every Thursday, especially when the therapist can’t even begin to understand what Caroline has gone through.
After every single visit, Caroline decides that she won’t go back. That she won’t put up with another hour with a therapist who doesn’t understand, who only offers weak platitudes, and who tries to tell her that the years that she’s lost don’t really matter. But every Thursday morning, Caroline wakes up, has a shower, swallows down a cup of tea and a piece of dry toast, before she carefully dresses and then makes her way to her therapist’s office.
It’s not the therapist that draws her to the office, instead it’s Priya that causes Caroline to go back every Thursday no matter how resolved she is not to go back. In the year that Caroline has been going there, Priya and her have exchanged a handful of words outside of their quiet hellos to one another. Yet Caroline is instinctively drawn to Priya, attracted to her, even though she can’t quite work up the nerve to tell her that she needs her.
Caroline tells herself that she’ll work up the nerve one day to tell Priya how she feels but for now, she takes baby steps to build on the casual friendship that they seem to have until she feels comfortable enough to ask Priya to go for coffee after their sessions.
* * *
The organization behind the Dollhouse never really shut down, it never truly left Los Angeles, it merely changed the name that they operated under, went deep underground and changed the services that they offered. Adelle DeWitt continued to serve as the head of the Los Angeles facility, and she continued to receive reports from every single person who had been an active under her care. Some of them ended up back in her care, while others struggled with their old lives. Some of them like Echo and Sierra were instinctively drawn to one another, unaware of what they had meant to one another in the Dollhouse, unaware that they both shared the same secret.
The Dollhouse changed and became something else, not because of the government. It changed because of Echo and Sierra and their instincts that remained the same no matter how many times Topher erased their minds or gave them new identities. The instincts that drew them together time and time again, that caused Sierra to look to Echo for guidance and later on comfort when Victor was killed on an engagement, and that caused Echo to fall in love with Sierra.
Adelle has no doubt that the love will no doubt blossom outside of the Dollhouse between the two of them. Their instincts have continually led them to one another.
**END**