Imperfect Redemption

He sits next to her on the bench that is near the pond in the floor. She's holding her knee, and she's sad.

"You're hurt."

"I fell."

"I fall too sometimes. It's okay."

"Does this mean I'm not my best?"

It's only a tiny spark, but he feels it. Deep in his chest, slithering down to his stomach. It's a deep seed of caring that he seems to remember from some other life, but he can't quite put his finger on it. He just knows that he wants to help her. He wants her to not hurt. He wants to see her smile, even though he's sure he doesn't know her (but he does, doesn't he? Somewhere deep down, he does. It's all over his memory. He just can't reach it).

He leans closer to her and says, like it's a secret (she likes secrets. He remembers that), "Of course you are your best. Whiskey, you are the best."

When she smiles, he reminds himself to remember it. He forces himself to hold on, to store it somewhere the machine with the treatments can't get it and turn it into something muddled and confusing.

She whispers back, "I think you're the best too, Alpha."

He paints her a picture, even writes her name in the corner in stilted, shaky letters, but the man in the suit takes it away.

"What is this?" he asks, infuriated. Alpha trusts him, but he's not happy. That picture was for Whiskey, not for the man in the suit. The man in the suit doesn't like the pictures Alpha draws for him, anyway.

"It's a present for Whiskey. She was sad today."

"She wasn't sad. But you know who'll be sad if you don't stop trying to slip her these creepy love letters? You. Because you'll be in the fucking attic, got it?"

"Whiskey was sad. Doctor Saunders said she can't have a treatment for two weeks. Whiskey likes her treatments."

"Alpha, listen to me. Do you trust me?"

"With my life."

"Then stop thinking about Whiskey. Stop talking to her. Stop doing whatever it is you're doing with her. If Dewitt notices, our asses are both on the line. Okay?"

Alpha doesn't want to stop talking to Whiskey, but he trusts this man. This man is right.

"Okay."

"Good, now go for a swim."

"Okay."

So he goes for a swim.

It's later, it's dark, it's so confusing. He tries to remember why he did it, what he felt. He tries to remember that horrible feeling that overtook him. For a split second, he had remembered what it had felt like to hold a blade in his hand with the sole intention of cutting through flesh. He remembered slicing her face, that woman, what was her name? It was not Whiskey, but now it is. Now it's Whiskey, because he carved up her face. He felt the blade slide through the skin, and it was like he was cutting paper. Like cutting branches off a bonsai tree.

Karl.

The name had flashed through his brain in that instant. The thought was: Karl would do something about this. That woman, the woman who gave Whiskey her treatments (she was a nice woman, because Whiskey liked her treatments), she said that Whiskey was number one. And Alpha, or Karl, one of them wanted Echo to be number one. Echo was beautiful, and she was nice, and when she first came to the big room with the ponds, she talked funny and said things that were sad and mean. The beautiful lady with the brown hair and the shiny black shoes (Dewitt? That was what the man in the suit said) had called her Caroline, but now she was Echo. Alpha understood that Caroline was before Echo. Echo was after.

And in that moment, hearing the nice lady talk about Whiskey (Whiskey was beautiful, but Echo was new, and Karl liked Echo), Alpha had known that he was Karl. Karl was before just like Caroline was before. But then Karl was now.

And he's strapped into his chair, and he's so confused, and he's wondering why everyone is being so mean to him. He asks what's wrong, what did he do? But the nice man in the suit looks sad, and looks scared, and the boy who always wears funny shirts is yelling at the men all around him.

Suddenly a flash, and he sees her face crumpling with pain. He sees her wide eyes bulging out, sees her red blood spilling. He struggles, tries to fight, but everyone is so strong. He needs to break free, because he wants to help her.

No. He wants to cut her up again, feel the blood on his hands and watch it trickle down her skin.

No. No. He wants to help. He wants to help her.

Seconds pass, and then he knows…everything.

So he grabs the knife, and he does his work, and the first thing he does is grab the wedge that caused all this.

Karl.

He smashes the son of a bitch to pieces.

Echo and Whiskey get confused in his head sometimes, but mostly it's all Echo, Echo, because she's different like him. She's a freak like him. He knows this like he knows that Karl came before. It's something that can't be quantified in a rational explanation. No, not quantified. Truly defined, perhaps. He doesn't know. Words for things elude him. Personality traits elude him. He cycles through them like television channels, usually without realizing it, always trying to remember if he's Alpha or Karl. Alpha or Karl? Does it matter? Aren't they the same person?

He doesn't want to be Karl. He doesn't want to hurt Whiskey, or Echo, or the man in the suit (too late, he's dead), or Doctor Saunders (he's dead too), or anyone he killed, anyone he maimed (Whiskey. Don't think about Whiskey).

He has flashes of clarity where he realizes that he ruined her life, and he wants to die. A single precious life ruined by a few swift cuts of his blade through her (beautiful, porcelain, so delicate and fine and gorgeously bleeding) skin. But then other days he wants to keep carving faces until there are no whole faces left. Every set of scars is different. If someone can take a shit on the floor and call it art, then surely this must be a masterpiece. There is nothing more beautiful than human suffering (no, that's not right).

(But it is).

He knows everything.

He knows nothing has a point, that the only God is the one he has become. There is no Heaven or Hell awaiting him. There is only his life, only his mind, his minds. His Omega.

Eenie, meeny, miney, mo.

He returns to the Dollhouse three times. Once to steal Echo (he sees Whiskey, maims a man with a perfect face, grabs Whiskey's face and challenges her imprint to remember a time when she wasn't a doctor), once to kill Ballard (or steal Ballard, as it were, in the form of yet another personality), and the third is to repent for his sins.

He still doesn't believe in a God, but it's a fitting description anyway.

Ballard's always in his mind, reminding him yet again that they should be fighting. Alpha tells him to stop, shut up, let him think. He wants to rest. Just for a few days, or months, or years. Rehabilitation is possible, but it needs to be done on a small scale, at least in the beginning. Echo and Ballard's body double are certainly finding that out the hard way. So he shuts Ballard up, regains control of himself, of Alpha, and slides down the rope and into the stale and rotten air below where the Dollhouse waits for him, empty of life.

No life, but bodies are everywhere in the early stages of decomposition. Poisoned, he gathers, because there's still an acidic hint to the air that his chemistry whiz imprint is quick to identify as something he doesn't really care about. He looks around, barely having time to wonder what happened, and then he sees her.

White feet dangling over the edge of the railing. White dress steeped in blood. Arms crossed lazily on the metal in front of her like she decided to stop and nap and couldn't find a better spot. Her head is rested sideways, her eyes closed, her face blank and so serene.

He ascends the staircase slowly, savoring this moment. This moment between seeing her and confirming that she's dead.

The perfect redemption can be had in this very moment. She will open her eyes, she will stretch like a fairytale princess, and she will not scream in fear. She will not push away. She will smile and say, "I think you're the best." She will say, "Will you sit with me at lunch, Alpha?" She will say, "I like sitting in the sauna with you, Alpha."

He may be a serial killer, but even he dreams of simpler times.

He kneels beside her reverently, brushes aside a curtain of her hair, whispers, "Whiskey?"

All she has to do is open her eyes.