16Okay, so after taking a little bit of a break from the Dollhoue fandom I'm back. :)
Thank you for everyone who has revied or favorited/subscribed this story(JessTheGeek, Elliesmeow, and Like-Vines-We-Intertwine). And of course a special thanks to my awesome beta Whiskey's Original Personality, who has several fantastic Dollhouse fics herself.
Chapter Two
"So, I'm the one who discovered safe haven," Alpha asked, disbelieving.
Echo nodded. She had just finished telling him everything that happened. How, along with her and Paul they'd found a place safe from printing, and that he'd spent most of the ten years traveling back and forth between traveling with Victor and fighting with Echo before finally returning to the Dollhouse.
Alpha stood and began pacing up and down the room.
"Paul was with us there, too?"
"Yes."
"And I didn't kill him?"
"Well, I did have to stop more than one fight," she admitted.
Alpha stopped and folded his arms, looking thoughtful. "He's dead now, though?"
"Yes," Victor said irritably. "We already told you that he was shot in the head. What more do you want, a body?"
"Yes, actually, so I can kick it."
Victor scowled, but before he could yell at him Echo spoke up.
"He's not dead."
Both Victor and Alpha looked at her, surprise etched into their faces.
"Echo," Victor said softly," He was shot, remember? He died saving Mag."
"I know, but," she hesitated a moment before looking at Alpha.
"When I went to dismantle the chair, I found an envelope on it from you. Inside it was a wedge with Paul's personality on it, and I used it.
Victor stared at her, at a loss for words. Alpha glared at her coldly.
"So, lover boy's inside your head," he asked coolly.
"Yes, you gave him back to him."
Alpha scoffed, and resumed pacing, this time clenching and unclenching his fists. He felt cold fury rising up inside him, worse than when he was observing the growing love between Echo and Paul. Sure, at least Ballard wasn't in his own mind anymore, bugging the hell out him, but Echo was his. The thought of him being with Echo for the rest of her life as one of her many personalities made him want to punch something, preferably kill.
Victor seemed to notice his shift in mood because his hand instantly went to his gun. Echo tightened her grip on her own gun. Alpha took a step towards her. Thinking this meant to be threatening, Victor stepped in-between the two.
"Cool it," he warned.
"Down boy." Alpha didn't even look at him as he said this. All he could do was stare at Echo.
"Well, Echo," he began, "I hope you and him are very happy together."
"Alpha-"
He cut her off. "When you want an actual human being just let me know." With that he turned and walked out of the office, punching the wall next to the door as he did so. Alpha continued down the stairs seething, knowing that if he had stayed in that room a minute longer, he would have killed Echo—or at least tried to—in a fit of rage.
I need some liquor, he thought to himself suddenly.
There was a woman in a wheelchair staring at him warily, but he completely ignored her as he headed toward the kitchen. It was large and spacious, the kind of kitchen you would most likely find in a five-star restaurant. Alpha walked up to the double-door fridge, and yanked open the door. It was mostly empty except for a carton of milk and some eggs. Alpha then began rummaging through all the cabinets. "Adelle must have had some alcohol in here, somewhere," he grumbled to himself. He finally found a bottle of whiskey in a cabinet over the stove.
Leaning against the counter he yanked off the cap and took a long swig. Some of the tension left his shoulders as he relaxed, but he was still simmering from his conversation with Echo. After standing in the kitchen for a few minutes he decided to walk around, see if the Dollhouse had changed much since he last remembered being there. Still holding his bottle of whiskey, he left the kitchen and began wandering around aimlessly. Before he knew it though he ended up in one of the pod rooms.
The room looked the same as ever, except for one particular pod. It was completely surrounded by various statues, books, and other oddities. Writing was scrawled on the inside the pod. Intrigued, Alpha walked up to it and sat down on its edges. He sipped his whiskey as he read the writings. He was about to start leafing through one of the books when he heard the soft tread of feet from behind him.
"What do you want," he growled, not even bothering to turn around.
"Alpha, did you go back to being bad?"
Alpha turned his head to see Victor and Sierra's boy standing there.
"What do you mean kid?"
"When we lived at the compound you were nice but you said that you used to be bad," he explained, looking at him innocently.
"Yea, I guess you could say I've had a little relapse."
T frowned. "Oh…well are going to try to hurt Tony again? I just found out he's my dad and I don't want him being hurt."
"Shouldn't you be with your mommy, kid," Alpha asked, ignoring his question.
As if on cue Sierra came around the corner. "T I thought I told you to stay in the office."
She walked up to her son and shot a glare at Alpha.
"I'm sorry," T said, "I just wanted to talk to Alpha."
"I also told you to stay away from him," she scolded, putting her hands on her hips in a very motherly fashion.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, looking at his feet.
"Oh, leave the kid alone. I wasn't going to hurt him."
"You're insane Alpha; I have no way of knowing that. Plus you're drinking."
"Hey, I can hold my liquor, alright," he told her, taking another swig. "Besides I may be a raging psychopath, but I don't hurt kids. So you can retract your claws Mama Bear." With that said he got up and walked away, slightly offended.
Deciding that he would rather be alone, Alpha headed down the hallway that would take him to the upper floors, or what was left of them. He smiled as he remembered that it was this hallway that he first kissed Echo in, before his composite or Paul Ballard was even heard of.
When the Dollhouse was still in business the door had only been able to open with an employee I.D. card, but now the lock on the door was busted making it easy to get to the rest of the building. Alpha walked through the white halls nonchalantly, trying different doors and moving on if they were locked, which most of them were. He finally found one that wasn't locked. It was the wardrobe room, though half of the clothes were gone, probably to the refugees.
He went to the first rack of clothes and found his name, but none of the clothes tagged Alpha were in his size.
Figures, he thought. Of course they would have gotten someone to replace me after I escaped. He must have been a real shrimp from the looks of these clothes, too.
Alpha was about to look at some of the other clothes when he saw the door to a storage room out of the corner of his eye at the far end of the wall. Curious, he walked over and opened it to find even more clothes inside. These did not have tags with active names on them though, but were arranged by size. Alpha found his size and was a little surprised to find his old clothes. He grinned to himself, obviously Adelle wasted nothing.
He ran his hand along the clothes remembering each engagement he had worn them in. There was that old Hawaiian shirt, the monk robe (that had been a weird engagement even by his standards), there was the black outfit he wore on the Lars engagement. He smiled at the memory that had been some of the most fun he'd had while being an Active.
Alpha looked down distastefully at his own clothes. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with a dark green jacket over it. Frowning, he set down his whiskey and began changing into something he felt was little more him.
Half an hour later Alpha, now clad in a black shirt and leather vest, strolled into the kitchen and once again raided it, but this time for food. He managed to find some bread and peanut butter that were still good and fixed himself a sandwich.
Just as he was taking his first bites, Echo walked in.
"Unless you're here to ask me to extract Paul from your mind, I have nothing to say to you."
Echo, of course, ignored him and walked up to where he was eating his meal at the counter.
"Peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of whiskey," she observed thoughtfully, "Nice to know your taste hasn't changed."
"Are you here to make nice or is there something you want to ask me?"
She sighed. "You know I can't go above ground for about a year or I'll lose all memories of the last ten years, right?"
"Yea, so?"
Echo looked at him intently for a moment, a serious look in her eyes. "So? There's still some tech out there. Even if everyone went back to their original personality, and the Rossum leaders are dead for good with their original bodies gone, there are still people out there who can misuse it. If someone who can use the tech finds it, then everything we did has been for nothing."
Alpha finished chewing and said, "You mean what you did. There is no we. There's just you and your little freedom fighter group."
"You were apart of it, too, "she shot back, "Even if you can't remember it."
Alpha scoffed, taking another bite of his sandwich.
"Look, Alpha, I need you to go out there and destroy the rest of the tech."
"You're joking right?" Alpha laughed mirthlessly.
"You're the only that can do it," Echo insisted, with an almost desperate look in her eyes. "Adelle has to help the people who were wiped, and the rest of us are stuck down here for a year or maybe more."
"Not my problem," Alpha said nonchalantly.
"Alpha," Echo pleaded, "please, just do this for me."
"For you," Alpha asked, fixing her with a cold glare that would stop most people's hearts. "You rejected me. Even now after I apparently fought with you and your friends for almost a decade all you want is Ballard, when I'm the only person in this world that can really understand you."
"Paul understands me," she replied evenly.
"Does he know what it's like to have dozens of voices in your head, all trying to give their opinion? Or what it's like to have almost unlimited information at your disposal?"
Echo remained silent, her face impassive.
"That's what I thought," Alpha said, walking away.
"Just think about it, please," she called after him.
Alpha kept walking until he eventually found himself in the imprinting room, standing in front of the chair. This is where he had been born, where he became what he was. The Dollhouse was his birthplace and yet, he realized standing there in front of the chair, that it held nothing for him. He cared for no one or nothing there except for Echo and she had practically ruined herself by being imprinted with Paul Ballard.
Standing there Alpha decided that he would go out there and destroy the tech like Echo asked, if only for something to do, and to figure out a way to extract Paul from her mind.
I'll be gone next week so, unfortunately there won't be an update until, at least, the 26th.
I realize this chapter may have been dull but I promise the next one will be much better, it's what's really going to kick off the story. So review and tell m what you think, feedback makes me happy.