[dollhouse] in this hollow valley
Title: In this Hollow Valley
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Topher/Bennett, Alpha/Echo, Echo/Paul (mentions of other characters from the series.)
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company. I’ve also used T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” in this fic and for the title.
Prompts: Written for dollficathon for mikatastic. Please see the end of the fic for the full prompt. I am not sure if I really did justice to all of your prompts and for that I apologize.
Notes: Set post “Epitaph Two: Return.”
Summary: For Echo, everything always comes back to Alpha.
Word Count: 4103
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
They had erroneously believed that they had saved the world and prevented whatever Boyd and Clyde had planned but it was Alpha who had shown them differently. It hadn’t even been a year since they had brought down Clyde and Boyd and blown up Rossum Headquarters in Tucson when Alpha had broken into their safe haven with the horrible news. This time instead of trying to bring down Paul or Echo or the house, he had come to them with the horrible truth and had fought beside them in an attempt to prevent the new powers that be, Harding and Ambrose, from ending the world with their egotism.
But Alpha had been too late and the war had begun on a lovely spring day when the world seemed to be in bloom and everything seemed possible to them. It wasn’t even until twelve hours after the war had started that they were even aware of it.
* * *
Between the idea
And the reality
Topher can’t stand looking at her anymore. He doesn’t hate her because he knows that what she did wasn’t her own action. He knows that the Claire Saunders that he had made with his genius would never have lifted a gun to kill anyone, not even Alpha. The Claire that he had made when Alpha had attacked and killed the original Dr. Saunders had been programmed to care for life above all else.
Yet despite knowing that, he still sees her lifting the gun, holding it in her hands, raising, aiming and then pulling the trigger (such a tiny piece of metal) and then killing Bennett without any hesitation. Sometimes when he’s lying on his cot in a miserable attempt to sleep, he wonders if it was Clyde who pulled the trigger or if it had been a present from Boyd. He does know for sure that it wasn’t his Claire who pulled the trigger, yet he still can’t look at her without wanting to vomit.
He knows that it’s not his Claire because after they had returned, he had gone over her imprint with a fine-tooth comb and found all of the flaws and faults that hadn’t been there when he had first made the imprint. Flaws and faults that he refuses to believe were created by a long-term engagement. Yet Topher can barely remember that Claire, his Claire that he made, had once said of the danger of repeat engagements. In his arrogance, he had written it off, pushed it aside, after all by that point she had been Claire for so long without a fault or flaw or problem. But what if she was right, what if she had seen something that he hadn’t, what if his own arrogance had created those flaws and faults that had led to that terrible moment when Claire had entered his office and had raised her gun and…
It’s too terrible to think about so he doesn’t. He mentally puts it into a little box and shoves it away and tries to think of Bennett. His perfect, sweet, devious Bennett, the first girl who had ever truly gotten him and the first girl that he had truly loved. He tries not to think about how it was when she died. Instead he focuses on the precious few moments that they had together. He never ever thinks about the future that they could have had. Instead he clutches her wedge at night and thinks about every moment, every second, they spent together. He thinks about her genius and he has conversations with her in his head. And never once does he ever think about taking her wedge and putting it into one of the actives that have all returned to them.
His Bennett will never be in another body if he can help it, yet he refuses to destroy her wedge. It is the only thing that he has left of her that he can hold onto. When the world ends, there is a part of him that accepts it as punishment for all of his arrogance, greed and failures. And there is a part of him that wants to go out to the streets of Los Angeles and dance in joy. He brought this about with her help and this is his legacy.
* * *
Between the desire
And the spasm
Two years after the apocalypse, she finds herself alone with Alpha for the first time since he had made her into what he was. Alpha is different now, a little less obsessed with her and a little more focused on surviving. They are all unwilling soldiers in a war that they had never wanted to fight. All of them have been forced to change in ways that they had never thought of or had even wanted to. Yet Echo had ensured that she was never really alone with Alpha, even when he sometimes had to become Topher because Topher was far too damaged to hold it together.
When Alpha had approached her and Paul and told them that he needed someone to go with him to the Washington D.C. Dollhouse for a component of his cure. The cure that no one believes in, other than Alpha and perhaps Topher in his more lucid moments but it’s the only thing that they have left to hold onto. It’s why Echo finds herself in the ruins of some city on the outskirts of Virginia with Alpha despite the fact that both Paul and Adelle had argued against it.
During their trip, Alpha has played the role of the gentleman, his personality breaks carefully kept hidden from her and his continuing desire for her unspoken. He neither attempts to pry into her life with Paul nor speak disparaging about the man he still sees as his rival. And he allowed Echo to be in control of the mission. All of these were things that she knows that he found difficult to do. It isn’t until a very bad run in with the butchers that Echo really saw all that Alpha had sacrificed for her on this mission.
Later on, she’s never quite sure why things happened between them, whether it was she felt the necessity to give him something after everything he had given her or if she had finally succumbed to what she had always felt. All that matters is that, the night they spent holed up in some run down motel, barricaded from the butchers while they waited for dawn, she finally went to him.
“I don’t want your pity,” Alpha snarls.
“It’s not pity.”
“Sympathy, guilt, or whatever pretty little emotion you’ve convinced yourself that you’re feeling right now.”
Alpha pushes her away but Echo isn’t willing to take no for an answer, instead she pushes him back against the wall, her hands gripping his biceps tightly before she leans up and kisses him. It’s not like kissing Paul at all, instead there’s no gentleness when Alpha snarls again and picks her up. He reverses their positions so that Echo is pressed against the wall. She lifts her legs up and wraps them around his waist. Alpha pulls apart and Echo whimpers at the loss of contact of his mouth on hers.
“I know that this is only temporary that once we’re finished here, you’ll go running back to your precious Paul but if you don’t say no now, I am not going to stop.”
Echo looks up at Alpha and she sees something that she hasn’t seen in years in his eyes. It’s something that she’s not quite of, it might be love but it could also be hate, it might be devotion but it could also be obsession. It scares her and she can’t suppress the shiver that runs along her spine. Alpha might have learned control over the last few years but he’s still Alpha and she know she’s dangerous.
He starts to let her go, to gently ease her down so that she’s standing on her feet.
“I thought as much. I am willing to share you with him,” Alpha says, hate lacing his voice, “But you won’t, will you?”
“I won’t what?”
“Let anyone close, not even me.”
Alpha steps backwards and then turns away from her. She knows that it’s wrong and that she should just let it go but she needs to prove something to him and maybe even to herself. She makes a quick decision and places her hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t promise you anything,” Echo tells him.
“I am not asking for promises of forever. I’ve realized that I can never have that with you.”
Echo nods and pushes him down on the bed. She straddles his lip and kisses him, trying to find something in these desperate times, something that she can hold onto and pull out when the world is in flames all around her. For a moment, he hold still and she thinks that he will pull away from her and reject her once again and then just as she’s about to pull away feeling foolish, Alpha’s arms tighten around her and he kisses her back.
The world seems to explode around them as their kiss deepens and they slowly finish the game that had begun years ago when they were just dolls.
* * *
Between the emotion
And the response
Shortly after Tucson, Paul comes to her. He doesn’t say anything as he wraps his arms around her and bestows kisses on her. She knows that this isn’t about them; it’s never truly been about them. The emotions that had started to develop when they had been on the run together had never been something that Paul allowed himself to feel. He couldn’t accept her for who she was. And now as he slowly peels her clothes off of him, she knows that he is trying to find an outlet for the guilt he feels for Mellie and for the guilt that he feels over his inability to save Caroline.
Echo can’t help but wonder if Paul ever truly cared about her or if it was always about Caroline, a ghost of a girl that he never really knew but nonetheless fueled his obsession at bringing down the Dollhouse. Still her heart still yearns for Paul so she lets him guide her to the soft couch in an unused office and she lets herself respond to his kisses and his caresses all the while knowing that she’ll never be able to let him in. No matter how much she loves him, they’ll always have Caroline and Mellie and even Alpha standing in between them keeping them apart and divided.
And before too long, she lets go of her thoughts and just lets herself feel. She lets herself respond to Paul and does everything to coax the same response out of him. When it’s over and she’s lying in the circle of his arms, they don’t speak. Words aren’t necessary for them to know what they’re each thinking. It still surprises her when he gently kisses the top of her head.
“I loved Mellie, even after I found out what she was.”
“Paul, please you don’t have to tell me anything,” Echo tells him.
“Yes I do. I loved her but you always stood in our way. Although I thought you were Caroline, you always were keeping me from truly committing to Mellie. And then I found out she wasn’t real, that she was just some creation designed to lure me into a false sense of security so that I’d spill what I knew. And still when I wanted to save her, it was because I needed you.”
Echo isn’t sure what to say to that admission. She’s certain that if Mellie had survived Tucson that Paul wouldn’t be here with her right now but still she’s known for sometime that Paul has been divided by his feelings for Mellie and for her. It doesn’t seem right for her to gloat that she won, not when Mellie is dead and not when she knows that she hasn’t really won. Paul’s heart will always be divided.
* * *
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdom
Echo spends the year anxiously waiting for it to be over. The seconds seem to drag and the minutes seem eternal. Day by day pass by ever so slowly and she thinks that she’ll go insane just like Whiskey did if she stays locked up in the Dollhouse any longer. She has no one but a memory to keep her warm at night. A memory that has paled and faded away until she’s left wanting something more.
She doesn’t dare long for Alpha, not when she knows that there’s a very high probability that he’s now Karl William Kraft, a man who scares her when she accesses Adelle’s files on Topher’s computer. And she can’t help but wonder how much of Alpha is still Karl, just as she wonders about how much of her is still Caroline.
With Tony’s help who once again becomes Topher, she slowly destroys the technology of the Dollhouse. Day by day, they destroy the imprints, the files, their own back up copies of themselves, until all that is left is the chair and Topher’s computer. Priya comes up the stairs and enters Topher’s lab one final time, her eyes sad and her lips compressed into a thin line. None of them say a word as Tony imprints Echo with Topher; it’s the final imprint. And only Echo can become Topher and for a moment when the process is over and she looks up at Tony and Priya with wide eyes, she feels as if her heart is breaking.
Topher’s grief threatens to consume her whole. Bennett is dead, Bennett is gone, he’s been betrayed by his own creation and even worse by his friend. Boyd had taught him so much and had been more of a father to him than the man Topher had unfortunately called Dad. Echo cries as she stands up and she looks mutely at Tony who simply wraps his arms around her.
“I know,” Tony quietly says, “I know.”
Priya steps forward and then wraps her arms around the two of them, her voice a gentle murmur over Topher’s voice in Echo’s head. Echo hadn’t expected it to be like this.
“How?” Echo asks, her voice thick with emotion.
“It was easier because I had been him so many times before.”
Finally Topher’s grief seems to ease and they leave his lab. They have three more months left before they have to do the deed.
When the three of them finally return back to Topher’s lab, it’s Echo who finds Bennett’s wedge and she gives it to Tony to destroy, the Topher that’s inside of her knows that it needs to be done but he doesn’t want to deal with it. It doesn’t matter that the Topher in her knows that he’s dead just like Bennett is, it’s still the fact that he’ll somehow live on in Alpha, Echo and even Tony and Bennett won’t. Together Echo and Priya dismantle the chair and destroy Topher’s computers, until his lab is nothing more than an empty husk.
Two months are left and everything that Topher ever built, except for those things outside of Los Angeles and outside of the actives that remain, is destroyed. Once it’s done, Topher fades into the same background where Paul is and Echo wonders who else she’ll end up with in her head. The others seem to foolishly think that the war is over, but she knows that it’s not. There are other houses to bring down and then there’s the world to rebuild. It’ll never be over in their lifetimes.
* * *
In this last meeting of places
We grope together
For as slow as the passage of time had seemed, a year had passed them by quickly and now their small group is finding their way to the top where they hope someone will be waiting for them. Each of them hopes that the others made it and perhaps they are naïve enough to secretly hope that the world that they will return to isn’t the one they left. No one had talked about it during their self-imposed exile; instead they had talked about the world that they had once known now the burned husk that they had last seen.
They move slowly, trying to prolong the inevitable. It seems as if each of them have forgotten an item that is crucial to their new lives away from the Dollhouse, or at least the one in LA. It delays them by mere minutes, the slow ticking of the small hand on the watch that Tony wears that used to be Paul’s, and then they are up on the surface, blinking in the bright California sunshine. At first everything looks like it had once been, buildings are whole, glass windows are sparkling in the bright sunshine, until reality sinks in. Burnt out husks of cars litter the cement road, more windows are empty of glass than those filled, concrete and steel buildings broken and twisted from bombs that had been dropped by both sides.
Yet there standing before them, battle hardened and weary are Adelle, Zone and Alpha. Survivors of the war that continued to rage on while they lived a pampered life underneath the destruction of Los Angeles. Alpha is silent as he stands slightly to the side, hesitant as he waits for them to be briefed by Zone and Adelle.
The war is still the same, Ambrose and Harding might be dead but there are others in control of the other houses that are fighting for dominance in this new world. Neuropolis is destroyed and yet to be rebuilt so they have a leg up in the war. Echo wearily sighs as she listens; she had always known that her fight wouldn’t be over. Not yet and maybe not ever, not until she’s destroyed those who hold some of the secrets to the technology and even then not until she’s dead.
She stumbles forward; a rare moment of weakness and Alpha catches her. There’s a hint of tenderness in his touch but nothing more not in front of everyone else. Whatever they have or might have together will be something that they discuss in private away from everyone else. Until they have that moment, they will act like they always have: restrained and two soldiers in the same war. Yet before he releases her and before anyone else notices, Alpha has squeezed her hand in a reassuring gesture.
Adelle tells them that they need to return to Safe Haven to plot out their next move. And a part of Echo wants nothing more than to grab Alpha by the hand and drag him downstairs back to the Dollhouse where they can work out whatever it is they have. The Topher and Paul in her head chime in and she knows that there is more work to do. Houses to bring down, would-be dictators to topple, technology that Topher and Bennett designed that has to be eradicated, and another apocalypse to prevent.
* * *
Between the motion
And the act
Before Echo, there had been Whiskey, pale and weak and sweet Whiskey and a taunting voice in his head that constantly told him that Whiskey had been inappropriately named since real whiskey always burns a path from your lips to your belly. This Whiskey is too sweet, too mild, too pale an imitation that she bores him. And then they bring in Echo, who at first seems to be just like Whiskey: just another pale imitation of a real girl until he sees her. He carefully pulls back the layers with precision and it makes him long for a scalpel so much that he steals one from Dr. Saunders. Underneath her layers that he peels back without his sharp blade, he sees the real girl full of fire. She burns him whenever they’re too close.
The memories in his head are jumbled together and they confuse him. When he and Whiskey are sent together on an assignment as Bobby and Crystal, everything hurts until they begin their game with Lars. It dulls the pain but instead of focusing on Crystal, he can see her in his mind, the pretty girl with the wide eyes and full lips. When he’s told that it’s time for his treatment, Bobby willingly goes because he’ll be with her again. Yet despite Topher’s treatment, Alpha knows that Bobby is never truly gone. And before what they would later term his “composite event,” the others start staying piece by piece in his head.
And each of the disjointed voices and the confusing memories tell him that Echo is the one. So he bides his time and when the voices become louder and clearer and then he takes his sharp little scalpel and frees them all. Of course, no one will see it at that but that’s because they’re not as clever as he is. Whiskey will no longer have to pretend to be something that she’s not with her face, the other blank little dolls destined for the attic won’t have to endure that, and then there’s Echo. He wastes time on her when he should be running.
She looks up at him with her wide eyes, her lower lip trembling as he stands above her. For a moment, the desire to cut her like the others before her surfaces and almost consumes him.
“They won’t wake up,” Echo tells him.
“They’re safer now, little one.”
“Am I safe?”
“I’ll always protect you,” Alpha promises her.
He kneels down on the wet floor of the shower and grasps her hand in his free one. She shivers at the contact and he knows that he was right in saving her. She will live and she will bring down this house and make them all pay for what they did to him and to her and even to sweet and boring Whiskey.
“I’ll always keep you safe Echo,” Alpha reassures her.
“But they’re safer,” Echo points out.
“Yes but they’re not special like you are.”
“I try to be my best.”
“You keep trying and you will be your best.”
Alpha leans forwards and kisses her. It’s a chaste brush of his lips against her lips. Yet it fills him desire and he wants nothing more than to take her with him right now. But he knows that she’s not ready, not yet. There is so much that he has to teach her and so much that he has to show her before he can make her like he is. And when he’s done, she’ll take them all down and make sure that no one else will be forced to become what they are.
He stands up and attacks the security that had quietly entered the room. Alpha can feel the weight of her eyes on him as he moves with lightening reflexes and slashes and hacks his way out of the room. He spares her one more glance before he’s out of the room and destroying those intent on keeping him caged. In his programmed mind, it takes an act of violence like this to save the lives of others. The cameras in the Dollhouse catch his every movement and transmit it to an office in Tucson where two men watch it silently.
“What do you think he said to her?” Clyde asks.
“What he was programmed to say,” Boyd replies.
“Do you think it’ll work?"
“All of the tests show that she’s the one and now she just needs an opportunity. Alpha is that opportunity.”
“Are you sure that it won’t be traced back to here?” Clyde asks before flinching as Alpha slashes and hacks Echo’s former handler.
“Lars did the job he was designed to do.”
Clyde nods as he turns away from the monitor. He has no desire to watch anymore and he’s not sure what Boyd truly plans on doing. Once he might have been able to guess, but now he’s not too sure. Every now and then, he becomes aware of the fact that he’s nothing more than an imprint and no longer a real man. Everything that he feels is nothing more than a program.
“Should we neutralize Alpha?” Clyde asks.
“No, I think not. He might prove useful in the near future.”
((END))
Full Request:
Pairing(s) if any: Alpha/Echo, Paul/Echo, Topher/Bennett
Preferred Rating: Whatever is fine
Prompts: [Up to four] Kick ass fighting, Alpha Alpha Alpha, Saving lives, science fiction-y madness.
Limits: [up to four] None
What Do You Not Want: Hmm..I'm not too picky. (:
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Topher/Bennett, Alpha/Echo, Echo/Paul (mentions of other characters from the series.)
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company. I’ve also used T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” in this fic and for the title.
Prompts: Written for dollficathon for mikatastic. Please see the end of the fic for the full prompt. I am not sure if I really did justice to all of your prompts and for that I apologize.
Notes: Set post “Epitaph Two: Return.”
Summary: For Echo, everything always comes back to Alpha.
Word Count: 4103
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
They had erroneously believed that they had saved the world and prevented whatever Boyd and Clyde had planned but it was Alpha who had shown them differently. It hadn’t even been a year since they had brought down Clyde and Boyd and blown up Rossum Headquarters in Tucson when Alpha had broken into their safe haven with the horrible news. This time instead of trying to bring down Paul or Echo or the house, he had come to them with the horrible truth and had fought beside them in an attempt to prevent the new powers that be, Harding and Ambrose, from ending the world with their egotism.
But Alpha had been too late and the war had begun on a lovely spring day when the world seemed to be in bloom and everything seemed possible to them. It wasn’t even until twelve hours after the war had started that they were even aware of it.
* * *
Between the idea
And the reality
Topher can’t stand looking at her anymore. He doesn’t hate her because he knows that what she did wasn’t her own action. He knows that the Claire Saunders that he had made with his genius would never have lifted a gun to kill anyone, not even Alpha. The Claire that he had made when Alpha had attacked and killed the original Dr. Saunders had been programmed to care for life above all else.
Yet despite knowing that, he still sees her lifting the gun, holding it in her hands, raising, aiming and then pulling the trigger (such a tiny piece of metal) and then killing Bennett without any hesitation. Sometimes when he’s lying on his cot in a miserable attempt to sleep, he wonders if it was Clyde who pulled the trigger or if it had been a present from Boyd. He does know for sure that it wasn’t his Claire who pulled the trigger, yet he still can’t look at her without wanting to vomit.
He knows that it’s not his Claire because after they had returned, he had gone over her imprint with a fine-tooth comb and found all of the flaws and faults that hadn’t been there when he had first made the imprint. Flaws and faults that he refuses to believe were created by a long-term engagement. Yet Topher can barely remember that Claire, his Claire that he made, had once said of the danger of repeat engagements. In his arrogance, he had written it off, pushed it aside, after all by that point she had been Claire for so long without a fault or flaw or problem. But what if she was right, what if she had seen something that he hadn’t, what if his own arrogance had created those flaws and faults that had led to that terrible moment when Claire had entered his office and had raised her gun and…
It’s too terrible to think about so he doesn’t. He mentally puts it into a little box and shoves it away and tries to think of Bennett. His perfect, sweet, devious Bennett, the first girl who had ever truly gotten him and the first girl that he had truly loved. He tries not to think about how it was when she died. Instead he focuses on the precious few moments that they had together. He never ever thinks about the future that they could have had. Instead he clutches her wedge at night and thinks about every moment, every second, they spent together. He thinks about her genius and he has conversations with her in his head. And never once does he ever think about taking her wedge and putting it into one of the actives that have all returned to them.
His Bennett will never be in another body if he can help it, yet he refuses to destroy her wedge. It is the only thing that he has left of her that he can hold onto. When the world ends, there is a part of him that accepts it as punishment for all of his arrogance, greed and failures. And there is a part of him that wants to go out to the streets of Los Angeles and dance in joy. He brought this about with her help and this is his legacy.
* * *
Between the desire
And the spasm
Two years after the apocalypse, she finds herself alone with Alpha for the first time since he had made her into what he was. Alpha is different now, a little less obsessed with her and a little more focused on surviving. They are all unwilling soldiers in a war that they had never wanted to fight. All of them have been forced to change in ways that they had never thought of or had even wanted to. Yet Echo had ensured that she was never really alone with Alpha, even when he sometimes had to become Topher because Topher was far too damaged to hold it together.
When Alpha had approached her and Paul and told them that he needed someone to go with him to the Washington D.C. Dollhouse for a component of his cure. The cure that no one believes in, other than Alpha and perhaps Topher in his more lucid moments but it’s the only thing that they have left to hold onto. It’s why Echo finds herself in the ruins of some city on the outskirts of Virginia with Alpha despite the fact that both Paul and Adelle had argued against it.
During their trip, Alpha has played the role of the gentleman, his personality breaks carefully kept hidden from her and his continuing desire for her unspoken. He neither attempts to pry into her life with Paul nor speak disparaging about the man he still sees as his rival. And he allowed Echo to be in control of the mission. All of these were things that she knows that he found difficult to do. It isn’t until a very bad run in with the butchers that Echo really saw all that Alpha had sacrificed for her on this mission.
Later on, she’s never quite sure why things happened between them, whether it was she felt the necessity to give him something after everything he had given her or if she had finally succumbed to what she had always felt. All that matters is that, the night they spent holed up in some run down motel, barricaded from the butchers while they waited for dawn, she finally went to him.
“I don’t want your pity,” Alpha snarls.
“It’s not pity.”
“Sympathy, guilt, or whatever pretty little emotion you’ve convinced yourself that you’re feeling right now.”
Alpha pushes her away but Echo isn’t willing to take no for an answer, instead she pushes him back against the wall, her hands gripping his biceps tightly before she leans up and kisses him. It’s not like kissing Paul at all, instead there’s no gentleness when Alpha snarls again and picks her up. He reverses their positions so that Echo is pressed against the wall. She lifts her legs up and wraps them around his waist. Alpha pulls apart and Echo whimpers at the loss of contact of his mouth on hers.
“I know that this is only temporary that once we’re finished here, you’ll go running back to your precious Paul but if you don’t say no now, I am not going to stop.”
Echo looks up at Alpha and she sees something that she hasn’t seen in years in his eyes. It’s something that she’s not quite of, it might be love but it could also be hate, it might be devotion but it could also be obsession. It scares her and she can’t suppress the shiver that runs along her spine. Alpha might have learned control over the last few years but he’s still Alpha and she know she’s dangerous.
He starts to let her go, to gently ease her down so that she’s standing on her feet.
“I thought as much. I am willing to share you with him,” Alpha says, hate lacing his voice, “But you won’t, will you?”
“I won’t what?”
“Let anyone close, not even me.”
Alpha steps backwards and then turns away from her. She knows that it’s wrong and that she should just let it go but she needs to prove something to him and maybe even to herself. She makes a quick decision and places her hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t promise you anything,” Echo tells him.
“I am not asking for promises of forever. I’ve realized that I can never have that with you.”
Echo nods and pushes him down on the bed. She straddles his lip and kisses him, trying to find something in these desperate times, something that she can hold onto and pull out when the world is in flames all around her. For a moment, he hold still and she thinks that he will pull away from her and reject her once again and then just as she’s about to pull away feeling foolish, Alpha’s arms tighten around her and he kisses her back.
The world seems to explode around them as their kiss deepens and they slowly finish the game that had begun years ago when they were just dolls.
* * *
Between the emotion
And the response
Shortly after Tucson, Paul comes to her. He doesn’t say anything as he wraps his arms around her and bestows kisses on her. She knows that this isn’t about them; it’s never truly been about them. The emotions that had started to develop when they had been on the run together had never been something that Paul allowed himself to feel. He couldn’t accept her for who she was. And now as he slowly peels her clothes off of him, she knows that he is trying to find an outlet for the guilt he feels for Mellie and for the guilt that he feels over his inability to save Caroline.
Echo can’t help but wonder if Paul ever truly cared about her or if it was always about Caroline, a ghost of a girl that he never really knew but nonetheless fueled his obsession at bringing down the Dollhouse. Still her heart still yearns for Paul so she lets him guide her to the soft couch in an unused office and she lets herself respond to his kisses and his caresses all the while knowing that she’ll never be able to let him in. No matter how much she loves him, they’ll always have Caroline and Mellie and even Alpha standing in between them keeping them apart and divided.
And before too long, she lets go of her thoughts and just lets herself feel. She lets herself respond to Paul and does everything to coax the same response out of him. When it’s over and she’s lying in the circle of his arms, they don’t speak. Words aren’t necessary for them to know what they’re each thinking. It still surprises her when he gently kisses the top of her head.
“I loved Mellie, even after I found out what she was.”
“Paul, please you don’t have to tell me anything,” Echo tells him.
“Yes I do. I loved her but you always stood in our way. Although I thought you were Caroline, you always were keeping me from truly committing to Mellie. And then I found out she wasn’t real, that she was just some creation designed to lure me into a false sense of security so that I’d spill what I knew. And still when I wanted to save her, it was because I needed you.”
Echo isn’t sure what to say to that admission. She’s certain that if Mellie had survived Tucson that Paul wouldn’t be here with her right now but still she’s known for sometime that Paul has been divided by his feelings for Mellie and for her. It doesn’t seem right for her to gloat that she won, not when Mellie is dead and not when she knows that she hasn’t really won. Paul’s heart will always be divided.
* * *
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdom
Echo spends the year anxiously waiting for it to be over. The seconds seem to drag and the minutes seem eternal. Day by day pass by ever so slowly and she thinks that she’ll go insane just like Whiskey did if she stays locked up in the Dollhouse any longer. She has no one but a memory to keep her warm at night. A memory that has paled and faded away until she’s left wanting something more.
She doesn’t dare long for Alpha, not when she knows that there’s a very high probability that he’s now Karl William Kraft, a man who scares her when she accesses Adelle’s files on Topher’s computer. And she can’t help but wonder how much of Alpha is still Karl, just as she wonders about how much of her is still Caroline.
With Tony’s help who once again becomes Topher, she slowly destroys the technology of the Dollhouse. Day by day, they destroy the imprints, the files, their own back up copies of themselves, until all that is left is the chair and Topher’s computer. Priya comes up the stairs and enters Topher’s lab one final time, her eyes sad and her lips compressed into a thin line. None of them say a word as Tony imprints Echo with Topher; it’s the final imprint. And only Echo can become Topher and for a moment when the process is over and she looks up at Tony and Priya with wide eyes, she feels as if her heart is breaking.
Topher’s grief threatens to consume her whole. Bennett is dead, Bennett is gone, he’s been betrayed by his own creation and even worse by his friend. Boyd had taught him so much and had been more of a father to him than the man Topher had unfortunately called Dad. Echo cries as she stands up and she looks mutely at Tony who simply wraps his arms around her.
“I know,” Tony quietly says, “I know.”
Priya steps forward and then wraps her arms around the two of them, her voice a gentle murmur over Topher’s voice in Echo’s head. Echo hadn’t expected it to be like this.
“How?” Echo asks, her voice thick with emotion.
“It was easier because I had been him so many times before.”
Finally Topher’s grief seems to ease and they leave his lab. They have three more months left before they have to do the deed.
When the three of them finally return back to Topher’s lab, it’s Echo who finds Bennett’s wedge and she gives it to Tony to destroy, the Topher that’s inside of her knows that it needs to be done but he doesn’t want to deal with it. It doesn’t matter that the Topher in her knows that he’s dead just like Bennett is, it’s still the fact that he’ll somehow live on in Alpha, Echo and even Tony and Bennett won’t. Together Echo and Priya dismantle the chair and destroy Topher’s computers, until his lab is nothing more than an empty husk.
Two months are left and everything that Topher ever built, except for those things outside of Los Angeles and outside of the actives that remain, is destroyed. Once it’s done, Topher fades into the same background where Paul is and Echo wonders who else she’ll end up with in her head. The others seem to foolishly think that the war is over, but she knows that it’s not. There are other houses to bring down and then there’s the world to rebuild. It’ll never be over in their lifetimes.
* * *
In this last meeting of places
We grope together
For as slow as the passage of time had seemed, a year had passed them by quickly and now their small group is finding their way to the top where they hope someone will be waiting for them. Each of them hopes that the others made it and perhaps they are naïve enough to secretly hope that the world that they will return to isn’t the one they left. No one had talked about it during their self-imposed exile; instead they had talked about the world that they had once known now the burned husk that they had last seen.
They move slowly, trying to prolong the inevitable. It seems as if each of them have forgotten an item that is crucial to their new lives away from the Dollhouse, or at least the one in LA. It delays them by mere minutes, the slow ticking of the small hand on the watch that Tony wears that used to be Paul’s, and then they are up on the surface, blinking in the bright California sunshine. At first everything looks like it had once been, buildings are whole, glass windows are sparkling in the bright sunshine, until reality sinks in. Burnt out husks of cars litter the cement road, more windows are empty of glass than those filled, concrete and steel buildings broken and twisted from bombs that had been dropped by both sides.
Yet there standing before them, battle hardened and weary are Adelle, Zone and Alpha. Survivors of the war that continued to rage on while they lived a pampered life underneath the destruction of Los Angeles. Alpha is silent as he stands slightly to the side, hesitant as he waits for them to be briefed by Zone and Adelle.
The war is still the same, Ambrose and Harding might be dead but there are others in control of the other houses that are fighting for dominance in this new world. Neuropolis is destroyed and yet to be rebuilt so they have a leg up in the war. Echo wearily sighs as she listens; she had always known that her fight wouldn’t be over. Not yet and maybe not ever, not until she’s destroyed those who hold some of the secrets to the technology and even then not until she’s dead.
She stumbles forward; a rare moment of weakness and Alpha catches her. There’s a hint of tenderness in his touch but nothing more not in front of everyone else. Whatever they have or might have together will be something that they discuss in private away from everyone else. Until they have that moment, they will act like they always have: restrained and two soldiers in the same war. Yet before he releases her and before anyone else notices, Alpha has squeezed her hand in a reassuring gesture.
Adelle tells them that they need to return to Safe Haven to plot out their next move. And a part of Echo wants nothing more than to grab Alpha by the hand and drag him downstairs back to the Dollhouse where they can work out whatever it is they have. The Topher and Paul in her head chime in and she knows that there is more work to do. Houses to bring down, would-be dictators to topple, technology that Topher and Bennett designed that has to be eradicated, and another apocalypse to prevent.
* * *
Between the motion
And the act
Before Echo, there had been Whiskey, pale and weak and sweet Whiskey and a taunting voice in his head that constantly told him that Whiskey had been inappropriately named since real whiskey always burns a path from your lips to your belly. This Whiskey is too sweet, too mild, too pale an imitation that she bores him. And then they bring in Echo, who at first seems to be just like Whiskey: just another pale imitation of a real girl until he sees her. He carefully pulls back the layers with precision and it makes him long for a scalpel so much that he steals one from Dr. Saunders. Underneath her layers that he peels back without his sharp blade, he sees the real girl full of fire. She burns him whenever they’re too close.
The memories in his head are jumbled together and they confuse him. When he and Whiskey are sent together on an assignment as Bobby and Crystal, everything hurts until they begin their game with Lars. It dulls the pain but instead of focusing on Crystal, he can see her in his mind, the pretty girl with the wide eyes and full lips. When he’s told that it’s time for his treatment, Bobby willingly goes because he’ll be with her again. Yet despite Topher’s treatment, Alpha knows that Bobby is never truly gone. And before what they would later term his “composite event,” the others start staying piece by piece in his head.
And each of the disjointed voices and the confusing memories tell him that Echo is the one. So he bides his time and when the voices become louder and clearer and then he takes his sharp little scalpel and frees them all. Of course, no one will see it at that but that’s because they’re not as clever as he is. Whiskey will no longer have to pretend to be something that she’s not with her face, the other blank little dolls destined for the attic won’t have to endure that, and then there’s Echo. He wastes time on her when he should be running.
She looks up at him with her wide eyes, her lower lip trembling as he stands above her. For a moment, the desire to cut her like the others before her surfaces and almost consumes him.
“They won’t wake up,” Echo tells him.
“They’re safer now, little one.”
“Am I safe?”
“I’ll always protect you,” Alpha promises her.
He kneels down on the wet floor of the shower and grasps her hand in his free one. She shivers at the contact and he knows that he was right in saving her. She will live and she will bring down this house and make them all pay for what they did to him and to her and even to sweet and boring Whiskey.
“I’ll always keep you safe Echo,” Alpha reassures her.
“But they’re safer,” Echo points out.
“Yes but they’re not special like you are.”
“I try to be my best.”
“You keep trying and you will be your best.”
Alpha leans forwards and kisses her. It’s a chaste brush of his lips against her lips. Yet it fills him desire and he wants nothing more than to take her with him right now. But he knows that she’s not ready, not yet. There is so much that he has to teach her and so much that he has to show her before he can make her like he is. And when he’s done, she’ll take them all down and make sure that no one else will be forced to become what they are.
He stands up and attacks the security that had quietly entered the room. Alpha can feel the weight of her eyes on him as he moves with lightening reflexes and slashes and hacks his way out of the room. He spares her one more glance before he’s out of the room and destroying those intent on keeping him caged. In his programmed mind, it takes an act of violence like this to save the lives of others. The cameras in the Dollhouse catch his every movement and transmit it to an office in Tucson where two men watch it silently.
“What do you think he said to her?” Clyde asks.
“What he was programmed to say,” Boyd replies.
“Do you think it’ll work?"
“All of the tests show that she’s the one and now she just needs an opportunity. Alpha is that opportunity.”
“Are you sure that it won’t be traced back to here?” Clyde asks before flinching as Alpha slashes and hacks Echo’s former handler.
“Lars did the job he was designed to do.”
Clyde nods as he turns away from the monitor. He has no desire to watch anymore and he’s not sure what Boyd truly plans on doing. Once he might have been able to guess, but now he’s not too sure. Every now and then, he becomes aware of the fact that he’s nothing more than an imprint and no longer a real man. Everything that he feels is nothing more than a program.
“Should we neutralize Alpha?” Clyde asks.
“No, I think not. He might prove useful in the near future.”
((END))
Full Request:
Pairing(s) if any: Alpha/Echo, Paul/Echo, Topher/Bennett
Preferred Rating: Whatever is fine
Prompts: [Up to four] Kick ass fighting, Alpha Alpha Alpha, Saving lives, science fiction-y madness.
Limits: [up to four] None
What Do You Not Want: Hmm..I'm not too picky. (: