A Random Assortment of Cells

No warning sign, no alibi.
We faded faster than the speed of light.
Took our chance, crashed and burned.
No we'll never, ever learn.

I fell apart, but got back up again,
And then I fell apart, but got back up again.

"Everyone wants someone to love," she said once, before the shit, staring down at the street below through her glass wall of windows. She turned, the sunlight bathing her in a Soft Focus glow that blurred her sharp edges and for a moment made her look almost human. "Do you believe in a God, Mr. Dominic? A Creator?"

"No, ma'am," he answered uncomfortably. There were a number of directions in which he could see this conversation headed, and he didn't like any of them.

"I thought not, but one never knows. So you are aware, then, that our every action is governed by our brain chemistry? By the utterly senseless organization of cells in our bodies? By an accumulation of knowledge gained from our experiences in the environment around us, which is guided by nothing more than random happenstance, by the decisions of everyone around us?"

"I don't think about it much."

"I suppose that's for the best, but indulge me this one small fantasy." She paused, and even her mischievous smile seemed less threatening in the warm rosy hue of the afternoon's waning light. "Consider for a moment your perfect woman."

"I'm not a client, Ms. Dewitt."

"No, thank Heavens, but this is purely hypothetical. I'm not planning on arranging an engagement for your birthday."

He chuckled just a little at that and conceded, "All right. I'll imagine it."

"Now, what are the odds of you encountering this woman in the world today?"

"I like to think they're good. I'm not picky."

It was her turn to laugh, restrained as it was, and he briefly had to wonder if he had ever heard the sound before.

"You are just as difficult as I feared you would be. The point of my argument, Mr. Dominic, which you have so cleverly circumvented, is that everyone has the fantasy of a perfect other half that they are most likely never going to see fulfilled. Even people who are happily married will always wonder what if? What if their spouse was a little less inclined towards argument? What if they shared more of the same hobbies? An Active provides this person with that hypothetical, makes it real. And although the odds are astronomical, the wonderful thing about what we do here is that it can happen. We are not providing these men and women with unobtainable fantasies. We are providing them with possibilities. We are providing them with a glimpse into biological perfection."

She turned again to look out the window. And it was strange, because he didn't think it was naivety that made her say those things. It wasn't idealism or idealization. She knew as well as he did that Rossum was filled with assholes in sharp suits who sprayed a lot of pretty poetry to their clients and investors without believing a word of it. But Dewitt was different. She believed in what they were doing. Not for money or for power, but for providing the simple enjoyment of human life to people who couldn't obtain it on their own.

As she did with everything else, Dewitt was playing a very bad hand very well.

He hated himself a little, but he respected her for it. And no matter what she did to him in the future (a laundry-list of horrors, to be sure), he would never lose that image of her elegant body bathed in the light of intelligence, of worthiness, of understanding.

So when he sees her standing in the middle of the street with a bunch of people in brightly-colored pajamas, he's inescapably reminded of that moment in the sun.

Of course, there are differences. Gone is the perfectly waved hair, the impeccably ruffled silk blouse and professional-length skirt. Gone are the impossibly high heels that she walked unwaveringly in no matter how quickly she had to move. Gone is the cool detachment, the perfect posture. She is dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, she is wearing sneakers, and her hair is swept into a bun that looks like it hasn't been adjusted for days. Strands of hair fall in her face, and as he watches her with the kind of meticulous attention to detail that got him the job in the first place, the wind blows them slightly in the breeze, tickling her skin. What would have once been an annoyance for her now doesn't even register.

Many years have passed since that moment he saw her humanity for the first time, but he still can't name that quality that had rendered him speechless. He still can't put words to his feelings.

All he can think is of course I'm here. His last memory, fragmented as it is, is of running down the street with Victor and Alpha. He remembers Victor shouting something about Tech. He remembers Kilo shooting behind them, saying something about Butchers, and then he remembers hearing a slight crackling sound to his left. The sound that used to mean shit, the radio's broken, but which had earned the much more horrible I'm about to be printed connotation over the years.

He doesn't know how long ago that was, but in that distant memory, Adele was still at Safe Haven, and there were no plans to relocate, so it has obviously been quite some time. Logic dictates that he should be dead. It says that there's no possible way he survived this long, relatively unscathed (he's pretty sure his head is bleeding, and his ankle is definitely twisted, but that's nothing to write home about considering that the bigger tragedy is the time he's lost, spent as a mindless killing machine). But he's alive, and he's here, and she's standing only yards away.

It doesn't matter now what happened in between. All that matters is he is the man from that memory, and she is the woman. And he finally understands her assessment of the odds. Her belief in the Improbable, in the Seemingly Impossible. She should not be here, but she is. And he should be dead, but he isn't. And against all the odds, she has begun to restore the world. His mind included (and that in itself is infused with a certain amount of irony, considering the past).

And even more improbably, as if there could be more odds stacked against her, she's standing yards from where he was hiding.

It's all biology, random decisions, a pointless and senseless assortment of cells, but at the moment it feels like fate.

He steps out from behind the building and says, "Adele".

And when she turns to face him, she's all sharp lines and harsh edges, and it's more human and more beautiful than anything he's ever seen.