FIC: For I Have Made Her Prison Be
Title: For I Have Made Her Prison Be
Rating: PG
Length: 2,002
Pairing(s): Topher/Claire
Summary: Adelle reflects on the Dollhouse, Topher, and Claire.
[See the end of the fic for notes.]
Adelle's intuition guides her dutifully through life. It's the instinct that tells her, six years old and a wild, sunburnt thing, not to follow her cousins into the woods one July day. It sends her into her mother's arms unharmed; her cousins nearly die of dehydration. Off the same intuition, she chooses friends, lovers, everything. When she's wise and heeds it, she's safe, but when she's obtuse and ignores it, she faces consequences.
The consequence of convincing herself that Laurence Dominic was trustworthy, perhaps a friend, is a grief she hasn't experienced for a decade. As she watched his mind disappear, her face burnt, and she knew her staff believed her to be humiliated. She wasn't. She was furious at Laurence for his lies, at herself for believing, for feeling all along that something was amiss, but ignoring it.
No, humiliation was not her punishment for Laurence Dominic's deceit.
It is her punishment for Alpha's invasion, for her violated Dollhouse, her accosted Victor, her stolen Echo. For some twelve weeks or so, a spineless, balding man called Smith will monitor her operations, review her last year of business. Adelle can keep her house afloat; their imposition is an insult. Now, she sits with Smith and watches the video of Alpha's attack. She keeps her shoulders squared and her face expressionless.
But what she sees does grieve her. Alpha-she had hoped, truly hoped, when she took him into the Dollhouse that the arrangement would work-seizes Claire and tears at the mask she shouldn't know she wears. Smith frowns as Claire answers "yes" to Alpha's question. He knows that she's become aware of who she is-or who she isn't-and Adelle knows that he's trying to piece together how and when Claire realized. He won't find his answer here; Claire's epiphany was private. As Alpha traces the thin, white lines of her scars, she lies. She pretends. Adelle sees it.
Claire-no, not Claire; she was a woman called Beth-was an orphan. She has a half-sister somewhere, but she's never met her. Claire-Beth-chose rebellion. She wasted her opportunity. She chose not to care, and turned twenty-five empty and hopeless.
Adelle meets her at a coffee shop, staring into space. When offered a five year contract, Beth asks for ten.
She enters the Dollhouse to lose herself, because it's the only way she can be someone.
Adelle has a brother. He doesn't have the intuition she has, but he has a mind she envies. He's six years younger than her, but passes her in mathematics by his seventh birthday. He disappears when she's at university, just fifteen, and her family searches, but he's never found. After a few years, her parents buy a grave marker and begin speaking of him in the past tense, because he was too quiet and too reserved to have ever run away, so he must be dead.
But Adelle's brother is brilliant, and he was suffocated, and she thinks that somewhere, he's found his peace.
She meets Topher not long after the grave marker goes up. She thinks that her brother would have liked him. They would have made quite the pair, equal parts genius and geek, and perhaps it would have ended with a robotic apocalypse. She likes Topher too. The first time she sees him, he's wearing a Star Wars t-shirt and an awkward grin, and she knows that she can trust him. She cares about him more than she'd like to admit. There's little in this god-forsaken world Adelle has the slightest inclination to protect, but Topher Brink is one of those few things.
Topher comes to the Dollhouse not knowing what to expect, but like everyone else, he soon learns.
After Smith goes home to his quiet suburban existence, Adelle watches the rest of the footage. He has no interest in what happened after Alpha left the Dollhouse, but she does.
What strikes Adelle-truly troubles her-is Topher and Claire. She isn't surprised by the advantages Topher gave Claire; it was Topher's quiet rebellion, not against her, but against the corner Alpha forced them into. She isn't surprised that Claire has worked it all out, because Topher made her clever.
It's how hard Claire has become that concerns her. With a strength her former self never knew, she asks, "Why did you make me hate you?" She doesn't wait for his answer.
It's how Topher stares after Claire that concerns her. It's what Adelle hasn't seen developing these three months between Alpha's first and second attack that unsettles her.
The irony of who Claire was before she was Whiskey was that she did leave an impression. Adelle rarely feels more than sympathy for the men and women she recruits, but she feels drawn toward the soft-spoken girl she brings to Topher.
She introduces the two as the ink dries on her contract. Adelle's left hand rests on the girl's shoulder, her right on Topher's, as she offers a watered-down explanation of his role. The burden she and her young genius carry takes on its new weight. They alone know those who sign the contracts as people. Adelle may spend days earning a potential doll's trust; Topher must learn each person before he erases them. In Topher's first year, there were long weeks she thought he might break, but he was stronger than he looked.
Adelle steps outside the room to look at the actives as they mill about the house. This is a pleasantry she rarely allows herself, watching the peaceful routines of her dolls.
Soft laughter calls her attention back to Topher and the recruit. They sit together, Topher coaxing truths from her. As they talk, he builds a box on his computer-unique to her-wherein he will place all of who she is. But the more she talks, the more Topher smiles, and she unfolds. It reminds her of an old affection turned to a wound, an active she cared for before his memory was wiped. There was bitterness not long after. She doesn't want Topher to learn the same way, so she interrupts.
"Topher, have you collected what you need?"
A quiet, private moment bursts. "Yeah," he says, grinning.
"Good. Let's begin." Soon the quiet, pleasant girl is gone.
Topher prepares Whiskey's imprints meticulously. His efforts establish her as the most popular doll in their house. He gives her his best.
It isn't enough.
Adelle wishes she had given them more time.
Because her memories of Alpha's first attack have been manipulated, Claire doesn't remember this:
Topher, horrified and afraid, carrying her to Dr. Saunders.
Adelle knows that Topher will stay. In the aftermath of Alpha's disappearance, there's the question of Whiskey. Unable to turn her out into the world-because her contract hasn't run up, because she couldn't even if it had-she makes the more difficult choice. When she tells Topher, she knows he struggles with it, but he chooses to stay. It's a terrible test of his loyalty, one she didn't intend to give him, but he proves again that he's strong.
And so he constructs Claire Saunders. He pays homage to Dr. Saunders by putting bits of him in her, but he pulls the rest from hundreds of samples. Whiskey sleeps and Topher builds her new life. What Adelle doesn't know until Alpha returns is that Topher has given Claire a defense against her past, has made her clever. Topher has protected her in ways she couldn't before.
It's dusk when she finishes the tapes. She thinks about going home, but that consideration is met with the question of "to what," so she wanders instead.
Her journey brings her to Claire's lab. She has a two-foot pile of files and is scribbling in a notebook. Perceptive thing that she is now, she knows Adelle has entered the room although she's made no sound. "Has Smith gone home?"
"Yes," Adelle says.
"He seems to spend less time here each week."
"I suspect that when the FBI isn't enabling a murderer to infiltrate our business we're not terribly exciting."
"How tragic for him." Claire still hasn't looked up from her notes. "But this isn't Ballard's fault." She closes a file and tosses it aside before opening another.
"Claire," Adelle takes note of the two notebooks at Claire's side, evidently already full of notes. "What is it you're doing?"
"I'm reviewing all of the actives, even those who have retired."
"For what?"
"Anything. Inconsistencies. Or patterns."
"Why?"
"Because we can't have another Alpha. We can't have another Victor, another-" She purposefully cuts her own sentence short. She squints at a note in a file.
"Claire, I must speak with you about Whiskey."
"Your decision was both logical and kind, Ms. DeWitt. That's a rarity. I suppose I'm thankful." Claire knows how to even her tone, disguise her feelings, and she does. Nonetheless, she closes her notebook. "I'm not concerned with the past now."
It isn't entirely accurate-Claire will one day have to learn the full reality of her past-but Adelle is too tired to force it tonight. "Then I must speak with you about Topher."
Claire spares no time skirting her problem. "He made me. He chose who I am, what I like, what I can do, what I know."
"He agonized over who Claire Saunders would be."
"I don't understand." Adelle isn't sure Claire has heard her. "If he could choose, why would he program me to hate him?"
"Because you're wrong."
"I'm not-I hate-and I don't even-why."
"What he gave you wasn't hate. He gave you caution. He gave you values. You don't fully understand how you feel about the Dollhouse-I suspect you inherited that from him-but you know that you want to protect the men and women here. But because you don't understand what you think about what happens here, you can't know what you think about anyone involved."
Claire frowns. "I like Boyd."
"Naturally. He voices his concerns." Claire begins gathering her files to return to their places. Adelle helps her. "Also, Claire, you should consider what we observed about November when she was Millie. Who Topher made her was only a starting point, but she grew and evolved. She was a means of spying on Paul Ballard, but she wasn't programmed so that an interest in the Dollhouse was a natural part of her personality. Her affection for Ballard created that. You have evolved too, and you have an advantage November didn't; you can choose who you want to be now."
"But Topher-"
"You understand Topher less than you do me, or the handlers, or my employers. You can't see how he does the work he does. Maybe he chose that for you too. Maybe he chose to establish a barrier between you two. But the ability to function a unit is valuable here. Because he knows that, I know that he wouldn't have programmed you to hate him. In choosing who you are, you chose to hate him."
Adelle hands her the last few files, then crosses the room to the door. Claire slides the files into place and closes the drawer.
"Something else you should consider: Just as you inherited indecision about the morality of this place from Topher, you also inherited your concern for the actives' well-being from him."
Her evenings are like this for several weeks, her torturous days with Smith coupled with her aversion to her vacant home.
She stays in her office, busying herself with menial tasks until nine or ten. Slowly, the Dollhouse heals, returning to routine.
One night, like the one that followed Smith's first day, Adelle wanders downstairs. The actives have showered and retired to their beds. The Dollhouse is only dimly lit.
Topher and Claire sit at the top of the staircase, looking down at the contained community below them, speaking in hushed tones.
Adelle smiles, strangely moved by the quiet moment. She turns wordlessly, and gathers her belongings, and goes home.
NEXT: (Epilogue) That I Most Fear
Notes: Written for the Dollhouse ficathon for keeper_of_stars. Thank you to snowfire and serenityveritas for beta reading. [IMPORTED 03/30/2012.]
Rating: PG
Length: 2,002
Pairing(s): Topher/Claire
Summary: Adelle reflects on the Dollhouse, Topher, and Claire.
[See the end of the fic for notes.]
Adelle's intuition guides her dutifully through life. It's the instinct that tells her, six years old and a wild, sunburnt thing, not to follow her cousins into the woods one July day. It sends her into her mother's arms unharmed; her cousins nearly die of dehydration. Off the same intuition, she chooses friends, lovers, everything. When she's wise and heeds it, she's safe, but when she's obtuse and ignores it, she faces consequences.
The consequence of convincing herself that Laurence Dominic was trustworthy, perhaps a friend, is a grief she hasn't experienced for a decade. As she watched his mind disappear, her face burnt, and she knew her staff believed her to be humiliated. She wasn't. She was furious at Laurence for his lies, at herself for believing, for feeling all along that something was amiss, but ignoring it.
No, humiliation was not her punishment for Laurence Dominic's deceit.
It is her punishment for Alpha's invasion, for her violated Dollhouse, her accosted Victor, her stolen Echo. For some twelve weeks or so, a spineless, balding man called Smith will monitor her operations, review her last year of business. Adelle can keep her house afloat; their imposition is an insult. Now, she sits with Smith and watches the video of Alpha's attack. She keeps her shoulders squared and her face expressionless.
But what she sees does grieve her. Alpha-she had hoped, truly hoped, when she took him into the Dollhouse that the arrangement would work-seizes Claire and tears at the mask she shouldn't know she wears. Smith frowns as Claire answers "yes" to Alpha's question. He knows that she's become aware of who she is-or who she isn't-and Adelle knows that he's trying to piece together how and when Claire realized. He won't find his answer here; Claire's epiphany was private. As Alpha traces the thin, white lines of her scars, she lies. She pretends. Adelle sees it.
Claire-no, not Claire; she was a woman called Beth-was an orphan. She has a half-sister somewhere, but she's never met her. Claire-Beth-chose rebellion. She wasted her opportunity. She chose not to care, and turned twenty-five empty and hopeless.
Adelle meets her at a coffee shop, staring into space. When offered a five year contract, Beth asks for ten.
She enters the Dollhouse to lose herself, because it's the only way she can be someone.
Adelle has a brother. He doesn't have the intuition she has, but he has a mind she envies. He's six years younger than her, but passes her in mathematics by his seventh birthday. He disappears when she's at university, just fifteen, and her family searches, but he's never found. After a few years, her parents buy a grave marker and begin speaking of him in the past tense, because he was too quiet and too reserved to have ever run away, so he must be dead.
But Adelle's brother is brilliant, and he was suffocated, and she thinks that somewhere, he's found his peace.
She meets Topher not long after the grave marker goes up. She thinks that her brother would have liked him. They would have made quite the pair, equal parts genius and geek, and perhaps it would have ended with a robotic apocalypse. She likes Topher too. The first time she sees him, he's wearing a Star Wars t-shirt and an awkward grin, and she knows that she can trust him. She cares about him more than she'd like to admit. There's little in this god-forsaken world Adelle has the slightest inclination to protect, but Topher Brink is one of those few things.
Topher comes to the Dollhouse not knowing what to expect, but like everyone else, he soon learns.
After Smith goes home to his quiet suburban existence, Adelle watches the rest of the footage. He has no interest in what happened after Alpha left the Dollhouse, but she does.
What strikes Adelle-truly troubles her-is Topher and Claire. She isn't surprised by the advantages Topher gave Claire; it was Topher's quiet rebellion, not against her, but against the corner Alpha forced them into. She isn't surprised that Claire has worked it all out, because Topher made her clever.
It's how hard Claire has become that concerns her. With a strength her former self never knew, she asks, "Why did you make me hate you?" She doesn't wait for his answer.
It's how Topher stares after Claire that concerns her. It's what Adelle hasn't seen developing these three months between Alpha's first and second attack that unsettles her.
The irony of who Claire was before she was Whiskey was that she did leave an impression. Adelle rarely feels more than sympathy for the men and women she recruits, but she feels drawn toward the soft-spoken girl she brings to Topher.
She introduces the two as the ink dries on her contract. Adelle's left hand rests on the girl's shoulder, her right on Topher's, as she offers a watered-down explanation of his role. The burden she and her young genius carry takes on its new weight. They alone know those who sign the contracts as people. Adelle may spend days earning a potential doll's trust; Topher must learn each person before he erases them. In Topher's first year, there were long weeks she thought he might break, but he was stronger than he looked.
Adelle steps outside the room to look at the actives as they mill about the house. This is a pleasantry she rarely allows herself, watching the peaceful routines of her dolls.
Soft laughter calls her attention back to Topher and the recruit. They sit together, Topher coaxing truths from her. As they talk, he builds a box on his computer-unique to her-wherein he will place all of who she is. But the more she talks, the more Topher smiles, and she unfolds. It reminds her of an old affection turned to a wound, an active she cared for before his memory was wiped. There was bitterness not long after. She doesn't want Topher to learn the same way, so she interrupts.
"Topher, have you collected what you need?"
A quiet, private moment bursts. "Yeah," he says, grinning.
"Good. Let's begin." Soon the quiet, pleasant girl is gone.
Topher prepares Whiskey's imprints meticulously. His efforts establish her as the most popular doll in their house. He gives her his best.
It isn't enough.
Adelle wishes she had given them more time.
Because her memories of Alpha's first attack have been manipulated, Claire doesn't remember this:
Topher, horrified and afraid, carrying her to Dr. Saunders.
Adelle knows that Topher will stay. In the aftermath of Alpha's disappearance, there's the question of Whiskey. Unable to turn her out into the world-because her contract hasn't run up, because she couldn't even if it had-she makes the more difficult choice. When she tells Topher, she knows he struggles with it, but he chooses to stay. It's a terrible test of his loyalty, one she didn't intend to give him, but he proves again that he's strong.
And so he constructs Claire Saunders. He pays homage to Dr. Saunders by putting bits of him in her, but he pulls the rest from hundreds of samples. Whiskey sleeps and Topher builds her new life. What Adelle doesn't know until Alpha returns is that Topher has given Claire a defense against her past, has made her clever. Topher has protected her in ways she couldn't before.
It's dusk when she finishes the tapes. She thinks about going home, but that consideration is met with the question of "to what," so she wanders instead.
Her journey brings her to Claire's lab. She has a two-foot pile of files and is scribbling in a notebook. Perceptive thing that she is now, she knows Adelle has entered the room although she's made no sound. "Has Smith gone home?"
"Yes," Adelle says.
"He seems to spend less time here each week."
"I suspect that when the FBI isn't enabling a murderer to infiltrate our business we're not terribly exciting."
"How tragic for him." Claire still hasn't looked up from her notes. "But this isn't Ballard's fault." She closes a file and tosses it aside before opening another.
"Claire," Adelle takes note of the two notebooks at Claire's side, evidently already full of notes. "What is it you're doing?"
"I'm reviewing all of the actives, even those who have retired."
"For what?"
"Anything. Inconsistencies. Or patterns."
"Why?"
"Because we can't have another Alpha. We can't have another Victor, another-" She purposefully cuts her own sentence short. She squints at a note in a file.
"Claire, I must speak with you about Whiskey."
"Your decision was both logical and kind, Ms. DeWitt. That's a rarity. I suppose I'm thankful." Claire knows how to even her tone, disguise her feelings, and she does. Nonetheless, she closes her notebook. "I'm not concerned with the past now."
It isn't entirely accurate-Claire will one day have to learn the full reality of her past-but Adelle is too tired to force it tonight. "Then I must speak with you about Topher."
Claire spares no time skirting her problem. "He made me. He chose who I am, what I like, what I can do, what I know."
"He agonized over who Claire Saunders would be."
"I don't understand." Adelle isn't sure Claire has heard her. "If he could choose, why would he program me to hate him?"
"Because you're wrong."
"I'm not-I hate-and I don't even-why."
"What he gave you wasn't hate. He gave you caution. He gave you values. You don't fully understand how you feel about the Dollhouse-I suspect you inherited that from him-but you know that you want to protect the men and women here. But because you don't understand what you think about what happens here, you can't know what you think about anyone involved."
Claire frowns. "I like Boyd."
"Naturally. He voices his concerns." Claire begins gathering her files to return to their places. Adelle helps her. "Also, Claire, you should consider what we observed about November when she was Millie. Who Topher made her was only a starting point, but she grew and evolved. She was a means of spying on Paul Ballard, but she wasn't programmed so that an interest in the Dollhouse was a natural part of her personality. Her affection for Ballard created that. You have evolved too, and you have an advantage November didn't; you can choose who you want to be now."
"But Topher-"
"You understand Topher less than you do me, or the handlers, or my employers. You can't see how he does the work he does. Maybe he chose that for you too. Maybe he chose to establish a barrier between you two. But the ability to function a unit is valuable here. Because he knows that, I know that he wouldn't have programmed you to hate him. In choosing who you are, you chose to hate him."
Adelle hands her the last few files, then crosses the room to the door. Claire slides the files into place and closes the drawer.
"Something else you should consider: Just as you inherited indecision about the morality of this place from Topher, you also inherited your concern for the actives' well-being from him."
Her evenings are like this for several weeks, her torturous days with Smith coupled with her aversion to her vacant home.
She stays in her office, busying herself with menial tasks until nine or ten. Slowly, the Dollhouse heals, returning to routine.
One night, like the one that followed Smith's first day, Adelle wanders downstairs. The actives have showered and retired to their beds. The Dollhouse is only dimly lit.
Topher and Claire sit at the top of the staircase, looking down at the contained community below them, speaking in hushed tones.
Adelle smiles, strangely moved by the quiet moment. She turns wordlessly, and gathers her belongings, and goes home.
NEXT: (Epilogue) That I Most Fear
Notes: Written for the Dollhouse ficathon for keeper_of_stars. Thank you to snowfire and serenityveritas for beta reading. [IMPORTED 03/30/2012.]