FIC: Closure (1/1) HIMYM/Dollhouse, Doll!verse part 10

Apr 07, 2009 00:19

Closure

Everything is dark and muzzy. He doesn’t know who he is, where he is, which way's up, even. He cracks open one eyelid.

Doesn't help.

Except… he knows this place, this tiny basement full of shadows. Just like he knows his own name but he can't seem to find the actual words.

He's tied to a chair. He shifts his weight back and forth and feels the chair rock beneath him. There are ropes around his chest, holding his arms in tight to his sides but his hands are free.

Amateurs!

Why did he just think that?

He opens up his other eyes. It isn't much better.

There's a table in front of him; a wooden table on which sits a single lamp, a large manila folder stuffed with paper, an old-fashioned triangular-based telephone, its cable snaking over to the wall and… well... a gun.

He parks that thought because it's too big, too daunting to fix on - it slips away as he raises his head to try and focus. Beyond the table is someone else tied to a chair, or there's a mirror.

He shakes his head and the other person, wreathed in darkness, remains still. Not a mirror then… perhaps... another person?

A girl. And she's out cold.

So he thinks… You're tied to a chair in a room with an unconscious chick, a phone, a bunch of paper and a gun.

What do you do?

Go…

*--*--*

Twelve hours earlier…

The commotion disturbed the other dolls. Zulu screamed the place down before they managed to sedate her. Her handler was right about her - bad engagement.

But very quickly Topher realised it wasn't just a regular bad engagement. Zulu was glitching and from the hurried exchange he had with Zulu's handler, he suddenly knew that she's been glitching for a good half hour. Why hadn't he spotted it?

Alpha again?

Okay, now this was getting really, really weird.

"We have to tell Adele," Saunders said, standing at the door. Whiskey stood behind her, peering over her shoulder, but she waved him away.

"Are you kidding? I told her twice already…" Topher growled. He was angry, he realised, and it was clouding his judgement, making it hard to think straight.

"Then tell her again," Saunders suggested in her calm, reasonable voice.

"She'll send them both to the attic!"

Saunders shrugged. "Whiskey's too valuable."

Topher laughed. "We haven't been able to imprint Whiskey since… well, you put him on a time out."

"He needs to heal."

Topher looked down at the unconscious woman, her cheeks still ruddy from screaming. "They both do."

Saunders shrugged. "Then tell her?"

Topher shot Zulu with another sedative. He needed more time.

*--*--*

He finds the end of the rope at around the same time that the girl wakes up.

"What-?" She mumbles, trying to focus. She begins to struggle but quickly realises the futility. Then she focuses on the desk and narrows her eyes.

All in the space of ten seconds, she's worked it out, she's calm again and she's trying to free herself. She's good… she's better than him… but he's got a head start.

She's wriggling her body (and he's trying not to stare at her boobs as they jiggle… focus… focus…) and she's got one arm free already before he's even unwound the rope to his elbows. Her technique is crude but effective, shimmying until she's free. The ropes were hardly an sturdy restraint, after all.

It's almost like someone wanted them to get free…

Then she is.

She lunges across to the table the exact same moment that he does and, for a second, his heart skips a beat just before his hand lands on the telephone receiver.

But she's gone for the gun.

He freezes, the hand-set half way up to his ear. He can hear the dial-tone, the low clickclickclick.

"Put that down…" She says.

He doesn't move.

"Put that down…" She repeats.

"No," he says, quietly.

She looks at him quizzically.

"Shoot me…" He suggests.

She hesitates, of course. There's a beat, when she doesn't know what to do, then she slowly lowers the gun, half way, not exactly threatening him but not letting him off the hook either.

And, because the tension breaks, he finds himself laughing, almost giggling, and it's a moment before he can catch his breath and notice her incredulous look.

"I totally… knew…" He says, between each gulp of air, "that you wouldn't shoot." She shakes her head, but the corners of her lips twitch with amusement. "So what is this? Some kind of test?" He asks her.

"I don't know," she says, her voice warm and rich. "I don't remember anything. Not even my name!"

He chuckles and says "Neither do I!"

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Are you kidding? Locked in a darkened room with a hot chick with a gun? This is awesome!"

She rolls her eyes and suddenly he remembers something. Not his name, but hers. He remembers hers.

Robin.

*--*--*

Ten hours earlier...

"They're both glitching," Topher said, sulkily, in an I-told-you-so tone of voice.

"Both?" Adele sounded surprised, and irritated. "What do you recommend?"

Topher shook his head, incredulously. "What I recommended last week, and the week before. What you refused."

Adele's lips thinned. "I told you, only the priority cases."

"But we know it works!"

They were going over old ground.

Saunders stepped in. "Look, for what it's worth, Topher and I have come up with a safer… solution… than the one we used with Echo, Victor, Sierra, November and Mike… Safer for the dolls… Actives… I'm not sure what to-?"

"Actives," Topher said firmly. "They will be imprinted with a portion of their own latent memories. Just enough to work through their issues and find closure."

Saunders smirked.

"What?" He asked her.

"Those two? Work through their issues?"

He shook his head. "Huh?"

She rolled her eyes.

*--*--*

He probably shouldn't have kissed her.

He clutches his cheek, still smarting from the blow, while she leafs through the folder in angry silence. Eventually she stops and takes in a deep breath.

"I mean… who does that?" She demands, hands on hips. "Who just goes up to someone they've never met and-"

"I have met you. I know that I know you. I even know your name."

"Barney, I-" She closes her mouth so quickly that her teeth snap together.

"And hey, you know mine!" He crows triumphantly. But before he can say anything she starts pulling out photographs from the folder and sliding them across the table top towards him. He recognises the face, his finger resting on one of them - a blonde guy with a twinkle in his eye and a pinball grin.

"That's you…" She says, exasperatedly.

"Yeah it is!" He says, with a grin that no-doubt matches it's double in the photo.

He points to another. "That's you."

"I worked that out," she snaps, and he can tell that beneath her bluster, she's scared.

"Let's get out of here," he suggests.

"We tried that. We tried calling 911. Stop making stupid suggestions!"

"How about we call this guy?" He says with a smirk, pointing to the photo of a smiling, brown haired dude. It was clipped to a piece of paper with a prominent telephone number written on it.

"Marshall Eriksen…" She reads with a frown. "You recognise that name?"

"Yep."

"Remember anything about the guy?"

"Nope…"

"Me neither, that's weird."

She picks up the phone and hesitates before handing it to him. "You do it?"

But his gaze is drawn to one particular photograph on the table. He takes the phone from her wordlessly, hooking the receiver between his shoulder and his neck.

"I think that's my brother…" He says.

*--*--*

The telephone rang three times before the answer phone kicked in.

"Hello… this is Barney…."

"And Robin…"

"I have no idea who you are, dude-"

"We have no idea who we are!"

"Or where we are, but if you know who we are…"

"Or where we are?"

"Or where we are, come get us!"

"Did we do that right, yeah?"

"I don't think so."

"Crap."

"Goodbye random dude."

"Goodbye Marshall."

Click…

In the van outside of the apartment, just down-wind of the sewerage treatment plant, there were two men dressed in black. One was wearing headphones. The other was talking into a cell phone.

"Just got it," he said, nodding to the man monitoring the apartment on a video screen. "Yeah, will pick up the target. No trouble. Ten minute check on my mark-" Both men tapped a button on their watches. "All set, Ms DeWitt," the man with the phone announced, as behind them, Lily Aldrin stood at the front door to her building, searching through her purse for her keys.

*--*--*

He's leafing through the folder when she taps him on the shoulder.

"I think… " He says slowly, thoughtfully, looking up at her. "I think I volunteered for this… experiment. I think I purposefully wiped all these people out of my memory. Marshall. My brother. You…" He closes the file and she takes it out of his hands before it can drop to the floor. "I think… " He swallows… "I think that was a pretty shitty thing to do…"

She kneels on the floor beside him. "Perhaps I did that too…" She shakes her head, as if denying the possibility. "I think… we should get out of here."

His shoulders slump. "We tried, remember?" But she's already on her feet and striding for the door, whipping out her gun. She tells him to cover his ears before firing round after round into the handle at close range.

When she's done, the door click's open.

But he's starting to feel woozy. "I think…" He says, sadly. "I think I'm a horrible person. I think… I just wanted to say sorry to those people. The people I wiped out. I wonder if they'll even want to hear it?" His vision swims, he feels so tired suddenly. So tired.

"Barney?" She says, alarmed. "Barney, I think I'm supposed to get you out of here. That's what I'm supposed to do… Barney, speak to me?" There's a catch in her voice as she helps him to his feet, supporting him as they make for the door, but he's already so sleepy.

Finally it hits him and he laughs. "I know where we are… basement of MacLaren's! We're in the basement of MacLaren's Robin. They're all just through there and up the stairs. Just through there… Everyone…" He mumbles something and stumbles, because it's harder for her to support his weight when his feet won't seem to work.

Outside the door, she sets him down next to a crate of beer, the stench of hops cloying in his lungs as he takes huge, ragged gulps of air. It feels like he's drowning.

"Barney!" She says desperately, patting his face. His eyes spring open, but the lids quickly droop again. "We're free… we got out…" She sounds weird, like she's crying. "We're free but… god…"

He slumps against her and he can feel something wet and warm, a droplet hits his face.

"Barney, I'm sorry!" She yells, shaking him. "This is all my fault! I should never have said… Jesus, wake up! How can I tell you… I lo- That I lov- if you're just going to pass out on me! Barney!! Barney please! I lov-"

And then he slumps forward, out cold.

Seconds later, she joins him.

*--*--*

Topher watched as they brought Whiskey and Zulu out of the experimental area, the two dolls carried on stretchers and deposited into the infirmary for Saunders to fuss over them. He feels something stir inside him as if something's unfinished. The intercom crackles and he jabs a button.

"Mad scientist lab!" he said brightly.

"Topher, the NY operatives need you to send the those imprints, as quickly as possible." It was DeWitt's clipped tones, of course.

He sighed. "I'm on it. Jesus…" His fingers flew over the keys, as he transferred the files. "Done!"

"And Whiskey will be with you soon. He's to go straight out on an engagement."

"I know, I know. I'm on that too." He stood, his fingers tracing patterns on the plexi-glass wall to retrieve the correct imprint.

"And there won't be any trouble?"

Topher paused, scrubbing a section of the imprint which flared red. "No trouble."

"Good."

*--*--*

A few days later…

He runs. His limbs loosen, his muscles warm and buzz. Each footfall makes a soft thudding sound in time to the rhythmic beating of his heart. Someone gets on the machine beside him but he's focused, so focused, he doesn't look.

He doesn't see her watching him, glancing at him. Doesn't notice that she followed him in. Doesn't notice that she sat next to him at lunch. Doesn't notice her attempts to make basic conversation with him.

As far as he's concerned he's just another one of them. Another person who needs to be their best.

Being the best is good.

Eventually, the machine slows, runs down and stops. He grabs a towel and mops the perspiration from his face and neck. It's soaked through his clothing. He should shower now.

Zulu, the girl on the next machine stares at him, something indefinable in her wide eyes.

He looks straight through her, feeling nothing.

.

crossover, chara: dewitt, fiction: dollhouse, pairing: barney/robin, chara: saunders, fiction: himym, series: doll, chara: topher

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