Trust

by rogoblue

Echo crosses paths with Laurence Dominic in the Dollhouse when she returns to lead the former actives to safety. Is there a way to contain what’s been unleashed on the world? There is a character death in this story--an inference made from Epitaph One.

Story: Trust

Rating: M

Author: Rogoblue

Summary: Echo crosses paths with Laurence Dominic in the Dollhouse when she returns to lead the former actives to safety. Is there a way to contain what's been unleashed on the world? Perhaps, if they can find a way to cooperate. There is a character death in this story, an inference I made from Epitaph One.

Spoilers: Spoilers for Epitaph One and some of S1.

Disclaimers: The toys are Joss Whedon's. The idea is mine.

Dedication: To Erica, because she asked nicely and answered my question promptly.

Pairing: Dominic/Echo

Where in the hell is Adelle? I swear that woman. I take all the fucking risk to recon outside and try to locate Echo or Caroline—whatever the hell she's calling herself these days. When I reward myself for still being myself with a decent shower, Adelle decides to play hide and seek. Makes me wonder why I signed on to get her Machiavellian ass out of the mess she created. I wasn't that drunk. She was, though. The first bit of evidence that I missed a lot more than the vodka. I missed whatever defeated Adelle.

Laurence Dominic's mind whirled at warp speed as he jogged through the Dollhouse, pistol in hand, rifle slung over a shoulder, a few small explosive devices clipped to his belt. He didn't wonder why he'd armed himself to the teeth. When Dominic had stepped out of his suite with only the pistol and felt naked, he hadn't hesitated.

What's made Adelle a shadow of her former self? The crushing weight of the responsibility she has for the precarious state of the world? Knowledge of a 'cure' in combination with the certainty it's out of reach? Betrayal by all her favorites—me, Echo, to a lesser extent Boyd, in a vastly different way Topher. The fact that I was right after all? What?

A single pistol shot sounded from the direction of one of the main stairwells. Shit! He went from a jog to a sprint in a single stride. Stopping just before the end of the corridor, crouching in the shadows, Dominic held his breath and listened.

"It's over, Caroline. You're done here."

Is that Paul Ballard?

"Go," Caroline/Echo ordered. "Take them out of the city. I need some time." As Ballard's footfalls moved away, she said, "Like a decade."

Leaning forward, slowly, carefully, so as not to draw the eye with motion, Dominic looked into the large open area. Caroline/Echo stood alone over a fallen body. There was no mistaking the still form of Adelle DeWitt. Dominic lowered his head.

What's the point? Out of the attic and into Armageddon. Makes the frying pan to fire transition look like a day at the spa. At least when you burn, you feel something. It's your flesh that's blackening, your mouth that's screaming, your mind that's processing the fact that you really, really should've stayed in that frying pan.

Ballard herded the former actives to the exit, spouting useless platitudes along the way. They'll either make it or they won't, Ballard. Filling their heads with rules isn't the way to reassure anyone. Less is freaking more. Silence descended for a time. For longer than Dominic would've thought. Tired, spent, he leaned his head against the wall and waited. For what he wasn't completely certain.

Some time later, Caroline/Echo's voice drew Dominic from a light doze. "I wanted to make a difference," she said. "And now I have, but only to a few. Such a small number. That isn't the kind of difference I wanted to make. I wanted to save the world, not just a handful of people." Her laugh was bitterness given voice. "I wanted to stop this before it began in earnest. Before things spun out of control. Before the world had to end."

Dominic couldn't see her well enough, but Caroline/Echo's words sounded like they held tears. "I've failed. Just like I did at Rossum once upon a time. The lofty ideals. My big dreams. Accomplishments to come. All boil down to this—murder. Cold blooded murder of an unarmed woman."

I thought Adelle was wound too tight. I thought I was feeling sorry for myself. Jesus! Rank amateurs, the both of us.

"They'll look to me. Those stragglers we manage to collect. And to Paul, thank God. He can pull leadership duty. I'm spent. I'm used up. My contract is expired."

"Join the club," he said, stepping out into the open. Dominic admired Caroline/Echo's perfectly executed spin, even as he put a bullet into the side of her gun barrel, sending it flying from her hand. They both watched her gun spin where it landed on the pristine floor. Dominic smiled. "I've always wanted to try that."

"She let you out," Caroline/Echo said. "Alpha said she would."

He rolled his shoulders, once, twice, trying to work the stiffness out of the right. "For all the good it'll do me."

"There's a cure."

"So I've heard." Laurence checked the magazine of his pistol, daring Caroline/Echo to make a move for her weapon.

"I have it."

"And you'll share with me?" Dominic glanced sidelong at Caroline/Echo and laughed. "I don't think so. You lump me in the same category as Adelle, if you haven't saved a special 'never liked me, saw me as a threat and tried to kill me' bullet with my name on it. Or would that be three bullets?" He shrugged the thought off. "As to Adelle, I saw … well, heard actually, you punch her ticket.

"I don't know what category to put you in." Gesturing vaguely at their surroundings, she said, "You were part of this, yet you weren't. You acted as though you believed in the right to use people as actives, but you didn't." Smiling in an almost angry manner, she continued, "I remember what you told me when we had our extended … conversation—spy to spy hunter."

Conversation? Were all those sharp implements strictly necessary?

"You said that seeing attractive young people with vacant expressions, hearing the banal words they spoke, watching them herded, led, fed, watered, toned, massaged, transformed to meet the need of the moment, profoundly depressed you. Chief of security at the Dollhouse, according to you, was your most difficult assignment, hiding disgust and amazement at man's inhumanity to man behind aggression." Caroline/Echo's eyes darted around. "Let's walk. I feel exposed here."

"Fine," Dominic said, not openly acknowledging he'd been experiencing a similar discomfort. "After you."

Caroline/Echo moved slowly, deliberately, limping slightly, making Dominic wonder if she was testing him. "You talked about how the technology might be abused on a wider scale, never losing sight of the fact that it was already being abused by imprinting each and every active, regardless of contracts signed, promises made, whatever. I remember you describing other things you'd been exposed to—the fanaticism of terrorism, the unforgiving, retribution-style 'justice' of organized crime, the unbridled exploitation of white slavery—and how you felt what Topher did was worse. Less honest in a lot of ways. Programming people is an intimate personal affront, invasive to an unprecedented level, and morally black or so dark a gray as to amount to the same thing."

"I said all that?" he asked. Don't remember much about that time other than hurting like I'd already gone to hell.

"More or less." Not looking at Dominic, Caroline/Echo shrugged. "You wanted a break from the pain, so you talked and how you spoke disturbed the spy hunter I was." Voice dropping to a whisper, she said, "She didn't expect that."

"She was a cold bitch," Dominic said. "What disturbed her?"

"You were as good as dead. There was no way out. You knew what was coming. And yet …" Caroline/Echo shuddered, hugging herself as though she was cold. "There was a sense of peace about you. A feeling of relief. It was impossible for her to imagine how a one-way trip to the Attic could be approached that way. Freaked her the hell out."

Muttering, "Good," Dominic tried to fathom how to proceed. Unable to see a clear, or even a dangerously murky, path forward, he remained silent.

"Alpha thinks DeWitt made a mistake putting you in the attic," Caroline/Echo said, finally deigning to look at Dominic. "He says she should've used you. He's argued we shouldn't make the same mistake."

Laurence stopped. Caroline/Echo did also after taking two more precise, limping steps. "Alpha wants you to use me?" he asked. "How?"

She hesitated. He waited. Why not? Neither of us is going anywhere for now.

"Alpha said you were the only one who could stop it once it started."

Dominic considered his next words as he watched Caroline/Echo shift her feet, near as he could tell, three inches to the right, then back to the left. Idly wondering how many repetitions she intended, he said, "If I'd been … myself when things started to go south, yes, I would've had the opportunity to head it off."

"What about now?"

"How can I stop anything now? Or even slow things down? I can't go outside without risking becoming someone else." I won't admit how much the first time threw me. The guy in the three button suit who was, for all intents and purposes, a five year old girl. Gesturing with his pistol, he said, "You wanted to walk?"

She started forward again, saying, "If you could?"

Dominic sighed. "If I could, what?"

"If you could move without being imprinted, would you try to stop it?"

Something told Dominic to take this seriously. To think. Take your time, Dom. There's no rush. What felt like hours later, he said, "It'll take years."

"What?" she asked, stopping again, looking into Laurence's eyes and, perhaps beyond, sneaking a peek at his soul.

"What took heartbeats to implement will take years to undo." Why the hell not tell her, Dom? What do you have to lose? And it sounds as if she might know already anyway. "Alpha told me that, way back when he started to suspect what Topher might be capable of envisioning." Those were strange times—not quite this strange, but strange nonetheless— when I was forced by necessity to work with Alpha. "I didn't want to believe it, but he seemed certain."

"Why will it take so long?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"The antidote to the remote imprint approach Topher pioneered is a virus built on similar principles. It's small, simple, indestructible, but the 'infection' will take time. The virus needs to grow, learn, get big enough, prolific enough to conquer Topher's tech—first by stealth, then with brute force. Whatever remains of the systems that put imprinting tech in play have to be compromised in a particular way and specific order to allow the 'cure' to be broadcast worldwide, provided Alpha wasn't bullshitting me the entire time." He paused. "Taking that as a given, I assume you'd prefer a worldwide over a local solution."

"Yes." She winced.

Dominic wondered why even as he said, "I'm not sure there's enough infrastructure left to get the ball bouncing, much less in the basket."

"If you could move freely, would you try?"

"That's academic," he said. "The imprint block you have is specific to a certain location. Or is that just a rumor you spread to excuse not giving it to people you deem unfit?"

"Alpha created a mobile one."

The memory of Topher's damning, neuroscience jargon heavy verdict on that topic was painful. "That's impossible."

She smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression. "Not for Alpha," Caroline/Echo said.

"Alpha created a mobile version?" he asked.

"Not a version. He created one."

"Then why give it to me?" he asked.

Voice tight with tension, Caroline/Echo said, "Because you might be able to do something with it. The question is—will you."

Her increasing agitation made Dominic wary, but her words spoke volumes in a language he understood. "What else do I have to do? Wait until I make a mistake and become 'Not Me.' I'd rather be erased again."

Caroline/Echo took a deep breath. And another. Her posture suddenly relaxed.

She's made a decision. About what though?

"I can give you imprint proof mobility," Caroline/Echo said, looking Laurence directly in the eye, challenge clear.

The decision was simple. "You pull that off, I'll put the wheels in motion. If they still turn." He frowned, unexpectedly saddened. "But what then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Seeding the virus will take a year. Maybe as much as two. After that, it's watching and waiting and hoping." Carefully watching Caroline/Echo, he asked, "Where the hell am I going to go to ground to do that?"

"You'll know."

"Say what?"

"When you've finished, you'll know. Alpha says so."

Mind whirling, Dominic stalled for time. "Do you believe him?"

"Do you?" she countered.

Laurence was tired of fencing, but he also wasn't sure how to stop. "I don't know."

Caroline/Echo reached into her back pocket. Dominic brought his pistol to bear. "Don't," he ordered.

"Paranoid much," she murmured, taking her time applying something that looked like a fancy form of Chapstick to her lips.

"Do you blame me?" he asked.

"No," Caroline/Echo admitted, putting the tube away, moving with more speed down the corridor. "Are we doing this?"

The quirky smile on her lips gave Laurence pause. "This?" he asked, matching her pace.

"Mobilizing you."

"I think I already agreed to that, Echo." He hesitated, lowering the gun to his side. "Or do you go by Caroline now?"

"Caroline."

"How does Alpha's mobility deal work?"

"Lose the explosives," Caroline said, tone that of one accustomed to giving orders.

Trusting instincts honed by years of duplicity, living double, triple or quadruple lives, he said, "Yes ma'am." Listening to Caroline laugh, Laurence placed the items carefully on the floor.

"You don't mind taking orders from a woman," she said. "I like that about you."

"That's a start, I guess," he countered. "Now what?"

"Pistol?"

He regarded her outstretched hand for a long time. Deciding with a small shrug, he lifted the rifle over his shoulder and settled it in his right hand. Stealing a page out of Caroline's book, he took a settling breath. He tossed the pistol and admired her deft catch. Barrel of the rifle directed at the floor, Dominic asked, "Truce?"

An extra long moment later, Caroline/Echo said, "Truce."

Eyes watchful, assessing, Dominic walked at Caroline's side. "When's Ballard going to come looking for you?"

"After he's done."

Undeterred, Dominic pressed, "When will that be?"

"Six hours or so."

"Seriously?"

Her gait hitched ever so slightly. "Why are you surprised?" she asked.

"I'm not sure." Laurence turned slightly to the right, sweeping the area with the rifle, trying to place the sound he'd heard. Voice lowered, he said, "He sounded … protective. Or possessive. Maybe both."

"You were always this observant, weren't you?" she asked. When he said nothing, still trying to identify the sound, she said, "Calm calculation hidden beneath volatile aggression. That's smart."

"Thank you." Frowning, he muttered, "Damn it. What is that noise?"

Caroline listened. "Someone left a shower running," she said.

He nodded. "I'll go turn it off. Wait here?"

"Won't move a muscle, Laurence."

His name on her lips disturbed him. Ignoring it without being able to dismiss it entirely, Dominic made his way to the showers and turned off the water. "Ok, Caroline, where are we going?" he asked upon his return.

"Boyd's quarters."

Didn't see that coming. "Why?"

She shrugged. "It's as good a place as any."

"For what?"

"Rendering you mobile."

Dominic considered in silence, coming to no conclusions, not even arriving at a theory as to what exactly was happening.

She opened the door and strolled through Boyd Langton's office without pause. Laurence followed in her wake more slowly, closing the door behind them, glancing around. When he reached the living space, Caroline was no where to be seen. "Caroline?" he called, pitching his voice to be audible in these rooms but not beyond.

"In here," she said from the room beyond.

Dominic went as far as the threshold. Caroline stood next to Boyd's bed. The pistol he'd given her rested on one of the pillows. His eyes were drawn to the flat screen TV. "What are we watching?"

"What?" She followed his gaze. "Oh, whatever you want. I don't care."

It's not done by viewing something Alpha prerecorded then. Ok. "So?" he prompted.

Caroline walked to the doorway. Dominic shifted so she could pass by. She smiled as she stepped next to him, steadied herself with a hand on his chest, leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth. He tasted a pleasant combination of vanilla and cinnamon and remembered the Chapstick. "What was that for?" he asked when she broke the kiss.

Regarding him with a clear 'You're with the slow group today' look, she whispered, "That was foreplay."

Sure he'd misheard, Dominic said, "What?"

She kissed him again, softer this time, persuading, coaxing, tempting. His body, primed by the first salvo, responded immediately. Damn, she tastes good. Painfully aware of how long it had been since he'd done anything like this, Dominic raised his head. "What're you doing, Caroline?"

"I told you."

"Why?"

Exasperation personified, Caroline asked, "Do you want to be mobile or not?"

"I have to kiss you to be mobile?"

"You have to do more than that," she countered, wide eyes inconsistent with the smirk on her lips.

"You're kidding."

Caroline pinned Dominic against the door frame with her body. "No. I'm not."

"Explain."

"I need to stare into those pretty blue eyes when you're under the influence of natural and unnatural feel good chemicals in order for the retinal messages to translate properly."

Her whispery voice did more for him than the body contact. Pitch nearly matching hers, he muttered, "Alpha is a sick, twisted fuck."

"Alpha is a yenta."

Laurence's mind nearly refused to process what he'd heard. "A … a … matchmaker?"

Caroline captured his lips with hers and did her level best to storm the fortress Dominic. "Yes," she whispered against his lips. "He hates Paul and I've said 'No' to him about a million times."

"So he's grasping at straws?" Dominic said, not wanting to admit to being amused.

"He's looking for a hero for me and he can't find anyone else to cast in the role."

"He should look harder."

"I don't know," Caroline said, taking her time untucking Dominic's shirt. "You have the secret agent vibe going for you."

"No, I don't. Not anymore."

"You still have it." Smirking up at him, Caroline slipped her hands beneath his shirt to stroke his lower back with unhurried sensuality. "I don't think you're with the program enough to appreciate my perspective right now, so you'll just have to accept that you have it and I like it." She laughed, likely at the combination of confusion and desire she was inspiring in him. "Another reason I'm here is that Alpha wants to motivate you with more than cinnamon and vanilla."

The thought came unbidden to his mind. If he wanted to do that, he'd—.

"Priya," Caroline said, tone definitive. "Motivation for you means Priya."

"What? Priya? Is Priya a person?" Caroline nodded. "Who's she?" Dominic asked, voice slurring as if he was a bit drunk. "She's a she, right?"

"Sierra," Caroline said. "Priya is her real name."

"Where'd you come up with that?" Laurence asked, feeling extremely unsteady but gamely soldiering on. "Not the name but the … designation."

"I saw how you looked at her, both when she was imprinted and not." She paused, considering. "Actually, I remembered seeing you after Alpha reenacted his composite event on me." Shaking her head, Caroline muttered, "Weird."

"I'm not Hearn," he whispered.

"Not like that," she said, hands exploring his abdomen and lower. "Imprinted with a strong personality who could meet you on your terms, you wanted her. That was plain to anyone watching who could look past the uber aggressive chief of security and entertain the possibility of Laurence Dominic with an active. When she was between imprints and you were sure—I mean absolutely certain—no one else who you thought might both notice and remember was around, you looked sad. I always thought you wished you'd met her as she'd been before the Dollhouse."

"That … that's not … I'm not … Christ."

Never stilling her questing hands, Caroline kissed him on the nose. "It's ok. It's cool. Sierra's exotic and extremely hot. No need to feel bad about it. She and Victor are so over; she'll be on top of you in a New York minute."

Reeling, literally and figuratively, Dominic said, "Makes no sense to send you then."

"It does to Alpha." She sighed. "It's a trust thing. Alpha is obsessed with trust."

"Trust?"

"He thinks we," Caroline gestured from herself to Dominic, "need to do more of it. I don't agree, personally. You?"

"Trust is overrated, Caroline, particularly now." He stepped out of the doorway and turned 360 degrees, feeling slightly dizzy at the end of the maneuver. "Always was in this place."

"And yet … here we are." She eyed Dominic closely, watchful. "What is what we're about to do, if not an expression of trust?"

"I … I'm not following," he said, feeling oddly detached, mind sluggish.

"Sex is, or should be, a physical manifestation of trust."

He laughed. "More lust than trust, Caroline."

"Alpha stuck me with a bad poet. That punishment doesn't fit my crime." Caroline stepped into full frontal contact with Dominic. "Have you ever had sex with someone you didn't trust?"

"If it was part of an assignment, yes." Not sure what to do with his hands—neither what he should do nor what he wanted to do—Dominic kept them at his sides. "I think it's safe to assume you have." He frowned. "Or is it? I mean, you were imprinted to want whomever, so maybe trust came with the package Topher shoved in your head. But Caroline never trusted them and you're her, so …" Putting a hand to his head, he muttered, "I'm not sure how the active scenario plays out with respect to trust."

"I think you were right the first time," Caroline said, taking the hand he'd been massaging his temple with and placing it on her breast. "My body had sex with men and women my mind had never been introduced to. Sex without trust." Caroline made a pleased sound the instant Dominic moved his hand on her body. "The rationale behind sex between us involves trust too. You're trusting me to do what I say I will and not to imprint you instead. I'm trusting you to take my gift and use it well."

"So Alpha wins this round?" he asked, trying not to think too much about the 'imprint you instead' concept.

"What's wrong?" she asked, smile suggesting she either knew or strongly suspected.

Nothing to be gained by lying here. I … I don't think. Damn, what the fuck is wrong with me? "I hadn't actually considered you might be trying some kind of imprint."

"I'm not."

"How do I know that?" Dominic winced at the hint of panic in his voice.

"Haven't we just been over this?" she asked, holding his hand in place when he tried to pull back. "Trust, Laurence?"

"I don't know if I—."

"It's too late for doubts," Caroline said, still smiling the scary smile. "Far too late."

"I … ah … I …"

"Feeling disoriented?" she asked, kissing him, teasing his mouth open, coaxing his tongue to meet hers. "Balance a bit off?"

"What have you done to me?" he asked, pushing her away, trying to hold Caroline at arm's length.

"Made you receptive to Alpha's retinal program," she replied, easily stepping inside the perimeter he'd tried to create. "Cinnamon-vanilla Alpha drugs work for you, I guess."

He drugged the fucking Chapstick?

Slipping her finger into a belt loop of his jeans, Caroline tugged him further into the bedroom. Laurence had trouble focusing and his perception of three dimensional space went to hell. Realizing he was dependent on Caroline to steer him to the bed drove a spike of adrenaline through him—clearing his head a bit. "Echo … um … I … I mean Caroline …"

"Ssshhh," she whispered, distracting him with her mouth while she unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off of his shoulders. She said other things—before, during and after she divested him of his jeans. Dominic heard but nothing registered. His mind seemed detached from his body and taking time off from listening in order to focus on looking.

Returning his intent gaze, Caroline stepped back. Dominic couldn't look away. There was truth in her brown eyes—everything important in the fucked up world. All of the information he couldn't, wouldn't live without was embedded in her. He needed the data more than her body. More than he needed or wanted anything. Eyes still locked on him, a now naked Caroline pulled him down onto the bed.

Never breaking eye contact, they moved together, slowly, relentlessly, as though they had all the time in the world. Urgency was unthinkable. Speed frowned upon. The journey was everything, the destination incidental. For Dominic, time passed in a storm of understanding and a haze of impending pleasure.

Eventually, a chill swept through Laurence. Shivering, he blinked and returned to something resembling his right mind. His body screamed for release. For him to move just a little faster, to change the angle of approach a tenth of a degree, to grip Caroline's body tighter, to thrust harder. Laurence was about to try to accomplish all of these things at once when he refocused on Caroline. Wow! She looks … well, she looks like she's been well and truly ... satisfied. Sucks not to remember putting that look of dazed contentment on her face. "Are you ok?" he ventured.

"Better than that," she whispered, pulling him hard against her. He groaned. She repeated the maneuver. Again. And again. "Let it happen, Laurence," she whispered. Bruised lips smiling big, she said, "You've certainly earned it."

The orgasm washed over him like a tidal wave and he rode it as well as he could. It felt like a long time before he found the energy to roll off of Caroline and force open his eyes. It took a couple of tries before he was able to form words. "What the hell is in that Chapstick?" he asked.

Laughing, Caroline propped her head on his chest. "I have no idea."

"Don't use it on Ballard, if you want to keep stringing him along," Dominic said, trying to focus his mind long enough to decide whether to fight the post-coital lassitude stealing over him or give in and take a nap.

"Wouldn't matter," Caroline said.

"Bullshit!"

"It's specific to you." She frowned. "At least that's what Alpha said."

A nugget of unease settled in Dominic's gut. "How's that possible?"

"You were in the attic. Paul made himself indispensable." She traced an intricate pattern around one of his nipples. "It wasn't difficult to get blood or tissue samples. Your retinal pattern too."

"What else did Alpha do with the bits of me Ballard so graciously provided?"

"Nothing." Meeting his eyes, she admitted, "That I know of."

Tabling that for now, Dominic asked, "So how do we know if this worked?"

"We put you in the chair."

"No."

She ignored the flat denial. "If you can't be imprinted in the chair, you can't be imprinted anywhere. It's that simple."

"Then I guess it's extremely complicated, because I'm not getting in that chair."

Caroline at least gave the appearance of considering his words this time. "You're afraid of the chair?"

"Damn straight."

"I'm not out to hurt you." She twisted his nipple hard enough to get his attention. "If I was, I'd have done it while you were out of it."

"No you wouldn't have," he countered, allowing himself to run his hands along either side of her spine to her ass. "You were too busy enjoying yourself."

"I wasn't mindless with lust the entire time, I'll have you know." Cocking her head to the right, she asked, "Do you have any idea how long we were … together?" To his shaken head, she nodded to the digital clock on the bedside table. It read 8:12 pm. "We got underway just before 4:00 pm."

"No way, Caroline." She smiled, drawing a reluctant answering one from Dominic. "I take back everything bad I've ever said about Alpha," he said. Her laughter broadened his smile.

"We need to test this. Although …" The playfulness in her tone garnered Laurence's attention, as did her rising from the bed to rummage for something in the pile of discarded clothing.

"What happened to your leg?" he asked, noticing a line of newly applied stitches.

"Nothing important." Holding the Chapstick aloft in triumph, she said, "We could give the program a second chance to take before we test it."

"You aren't trying to hurt me," he said, incredulous. "You're trying to kill me." Eyeing her Chapstick wielding hand, he said, "Give a man a rest between four hour sessions."

Caroline knelt on the bed, towering over him, applying the Chapstick to her lips with authority. "I wonder if it matters where I put my mouth on you."

"I'm sure it does."

"Said with conviction," she noted, trailing a fingertip along his collarbone. "Persuasive."

"I'm a persuasive person. Always have been. Everyone says so." Dominic was talking too fast and he knew it. But he didn't care.

"Not Topher."

He waved a dismissive hand in the air. "Topher never got me."

"Neither did DeWitt. Did she?"

"No." A smirk struggled to emerge. "Neither of them got you either."

"Something else we have in common."

"Something … else?" he asked, despite strongly suspecting he was being set up. "Other than trust issues?" Smiling in a decidedly evil manner, Caroline held up the Chapstick. "We don't have that in common," he argued. "It doesn't space you out."

"The hell it doesn't," she said, eyes closing briefly. "What do you think having that many orgasms does to a person?"

"I wouldn't presume to … presume, I guess." He frowned. "That may just win the inarticulate award."

"Oh my God!" Caroline said, eyes wide, expression somewhere between wary and frightened, hand rising up to cover her mouth.

She's either really just realized something huge or she's a better actress than I would've given her credit for. "What?" he prompted.

"You could've stopped it," she breathed. "The two of you together. You and DeWitt, if I … if I hadn't …"

That's the reason I was here and the point of the right hand man aspect of my relationship with Adelle. "Possibly," he said, voice quiet, pensive, recalling one particular set of orders. We can't tolerate imprinting without the chair, Dominic, or anything more than one imprintee at a time. If it gets beyond that, even at a prototype level, put a bullet in Topher Brink's brain.

"No. Not possibly." Horror dawned in Caroline's eyes. "You could have. You would have. Oh my God, you would have."

More of his NSA superior's words flew into his mind. Keep an eye out for abuses of the tech. Power brokering. Elitism. Anything that smells bad. Things even look like they're starting to spin out of control, call in the big guns, Dom. We'll bring all of our resources to bear to contain the situation—whatever it might be. We have international cooperation on this at every level. We'll be ready. Remember--don't wait. Don't hesitate. You might not get a second chance. And all of us will be fucked along with you.

"If we assume Adelle would've laid her cards on the table." Dominic strove to make his tone skeptical. "One I'm not willing to make."

"To you, she would've. Damn! A narrowing of those ice blue eyes when the house of cards was toppling. You know it! She'd have told you what was happening."

"She might have. Might. But the other issue is when." Dominic found it odd to voice a concern he'd harbored for what felt like forever. "Adelle wasn't always the best judge of what she could and couldn't control. People like that aren't well known for asking for help early and often. In all likelihood, she'd have waited too long."

"She would have told you the Rossum guys were building their ark," Caroline insisted.

"I have my doubts," he whispered. "She always thought she held the trump card because she discovered Topher."

"And it was really you."

"What?"

"You were the trump card and I forced her to throw you out of her hand. Fuck! This is my fault. All … all of it." Caroline's voice called to something deep inside Dominic, something he didn't recognize, didn't know he had in him. "That's what Alpha meant when he told me I had to recruit you."

Unsure how to navigate this turn in the conversation, Dominic asked, "What did Alpha say exactly?"

"That you were my responsibility. That I'd seen to that or something similar." She looked away. "How could I have been so stupid? I was so dead set on protecting myself; I damned everyone else."

Mustering the will to sit up, Dominic said, "Not everyone. Not yet." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Isn't that the point of this exercise?"

"But—."

"It doesn't matter, Caroline. What's done is done." Dominic sighed, recalling too many similar pep talks he'd given himself over the years. Feeling old, he said, "You can either beat yourself up over it or make the right choices going forward. And the first of those choices is which it's to be."

She faced him again, looking impossibly young and vulnerable. Dominic pulled her against his chest. Clinging to his shoulders, Caroline sobbed as though she would never stop. Mind curiously blank, Dominic held her. Time passed. His lower back started to hurt, but Laurence couldn't bring himself to shift too much. The young woman in his arms was finally starting to run out of steam for more tears. A few moments after she quieted completely, he ventured, "Caroline?"

Face damp, eyes red and bloodshot, she whispered, "Make me forget," against his lips.

Tasting cinnamon, Dominic shifted back. Caroline rested her head against his shoulder, slowly, lightly, continuously running her fingertips along the opposite side of his chest. He felt her move against him and risked a look down. She was staring at his body, expression curious. Beginning at his shoulder, Caroline placed a series of small kisses along his collar bone to his breast bone, along the entire length of his breast bone, lower.

"Caroline!" he said, catching her by the shoulders, halting her progress.

Squirming her way up his body to sit on his lap, she whispered, "I've made my choice. I won't beat myself up anymore, but I want to forget for a while. Will you help me?"

"Can we skip the Chapstick?"

A ghost of a smile appeared. "I'm not sure." She rubbed the skin along the path she'd blazed with her mouth, presumably to see if Alpha's chemicals worked when topically administered. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"I'm good."

"And hard."

Rolling his eyes, he said, "That too." She lowered her head, so her hair hid her face. Dominic cupped her breasts in his hands, saying, "Were you always this gorgeous?"

She leaned into his touch. "I think I've lost weight since you last saw me."

"How quintessentially female is that?"

"What do you mean?"

Not quite believing what he was doing, Dominic kissed Caroline, his mouth hard, demanding a response. When she didn't disappoint him, he answered, "I pay you a compliment, maybe a little bit backhandedly, and you turn it into a slam on your weight."

Made her smile. Pinning Caroline's body beneath his, Laurence took her mouth by force, even as his hands gently coaxed her nipples erect. She stared up at him when he paused to catch his breath and he lost himself in her brown eyes—not like before when Alpha's imperative held sway. This time, Dominic was a willing victim. "How do you want this to go?" he asked.

"I need it hard," she said. "I need you to take me." Voice gaining strength, she said, "I need to know I don't have to make a choice, because you've made it for me."

I can do that. He repositioned slightly, whispering, "You want your hands free?"

"Yes."

Your wish is my command because, as we both know, I don't mind taking orders from women. Without further ado, he drove into her repeatedly, staring down, daring her to accept what she'd demanded. He smiled when her hands fell from his shoulders and grasped at the bedclothes for purchase. Her low moans drove him. The wild look in her eyes called to the animal in him. A final, soft whimper of his name took both of them over the edge.

Dominic held Caroline close, wondering if his heart rate was ever going to come down.

"Thank you," she whispered, turning in his arms to face him. "What?" she asked.

Grinning, he chuckled. "I was going to say, 'The pleasure was all mine,' but I'm sort of hoping it wasn't."

"Don't fish for compliments, Laurence. It's lame."

"I wasn't fishing, Caroline. Really." Her skepticism was sort of cute, an observation Dominic was smart enough not to mention. "It just struck me that there are times when tried and true conversational responses don't work." Fighting a smirk, he added, "I wouldn't refuse a compliment, though. In case you were wondering."

"That was magnificent."

He sighed. "Sarcasm I can do without."

"I wasn't being sarcastic." She propped herself up on one elbow and regarded him. "Is there a word you'd believe?"

"How about 'passable?'"

"I don't go all non-verbal during passable sex." Regarding him thoughtfully, she asked, "Do you?"

"Does anyone?" Laughing, admitting he was enjoying himself, Dominic said, "I guess I should say 'Would anyone with any pride admit that?'"

"It would take courage." Caroline bent down and kissed him. "Same as getting into the chair to test your imprint invulnerability."

Just when the old heart rate had about slowed to something like normal.

"I trusted you with my body. Laurence. Will you trust me with your mind?"

He stared at the piece of sculpture in the corner of the room without really seeing it. "I had my mind taken from me without my consent. You haven't … um …" Meeting Caroline's eyes, he continued, "I mean with regard to your body … have you?"

"Forget standard rape, Laurence. I was an active. Enough said." They regarded each other in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. "I chose to have sex with you today. Both times it was a choice for me. I wasn't imprinted with the desire to do you. The difference is so huge, there's no word for it." Framing his face with her hands, she said, "Trust me with your mind, Laurence. I won't let you down. I understand what's at stake now. Maybe for the very first time."

"I've always trusted my instincts," he whispered. "That's kept me alive."

"What do your instincts tell you to do?" she asked.

"To get in the fucking chair and get it over with."

"Good." She pulled against his arms.

"Right this second?" he asked.

"Yes," she whispered, even as she sank back down beside him and kissed him as though there would be no tomorrow. "Ready now?" Caroline asked.

"I think it would help if you got dressed. I have a decided bed over chair preference at the moment."

"Anything to help," Caroline said, climbing out of bed with more grace and elegance than he'd have believed possible in a naked woman with wild, sex-mussed hair. He watched while she dressed. Stretching to full length, Dominic stalled. There hadn't been many interludes like this in his life and he loathed to let it pass. She sat on the edge of the bed, capturing his hand in hers. "We can do this."

The simple, straightforward sentiment got Dominic out of bed, clothed and over to what had been Topher's domain. Standing beside the chair, actually sitting in it seemed impossible. "Do you know how to work this thing?" he asked Caroline.

"Alpha explained the basics. That's all we'll need to take two runs at this."

The plural pronoun got Dominic into the chair; the other plural made him unbearably tense. "Two?" he asked.

"Alpha insisted on it. Relax," Caroline said, putting one hand on his shoulder. "It hurts less if you do."

Laurence took a breath, leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Pretending he was at the dentist didn't really help, but he did manage not to leap out of the chair as it reclined. Before he could panic, Caroline activated the chair. An indeterminate time later, Dominic opened his eyes. "Hi," he said.

"Bon jour," Caroline said. "Tell me 'I think you're the hottest thing in the state of California' in French, Laurence."

"Um … I don't speak French, Caroline."

"Are you sure?" she asked, eyes alight with interest. "Think about it for a minute."

He closed his eyes and searched his mind for something beyond "Merci." "I know a few words, a couple of phrases and a line from a song. That's it."

"Yes!" Caroline beamed. "That's awesome! Now for round two."

She reclined the chair before Dominic fully realized the first imprint had to have been conversational French. Pain seared his brain as she activated the chair. This time it hurt far worse. Far, far worse. And then, suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, he felt adrift, floating, relaxed, sleepy, detached as if he was dreaming. When he finally forced open his eyes, the dim lighting in the room hurt them. He said the first thing that leapt to mind. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Fuck!"

He whispered, "I think you're supposed to say, 'Only for a little while.'"

"Laurence?"

"Yeah. I'm me. I think. But there are … things … images … flashes in my head."

Caroline raised the chair and sat on the edge next to him. Taking his hand, she asked, "Images of what?"

"Animals."

"Animals?" she asked.

"Small animals in cages and … and red wine."

"That's it?" she asked. "No images of people? No memories that seem out of place?"

"Well, it's kind of a lot of red wine. Someone had a party." Gripping her hand tightly, he asked, "Who would I be if the imprint took?"

"Me."

Putting a woman in my head. That screams Alpha. "You?" he asked.

"Caroline."

"How much red wine do … or did you drink in an average day, Caroline?"

She laughed, leaned down and kissed him lightly on the mouth. "All of my friends from college drank it and we got together a lot." Pulling Dominic up out of the chair, Caroline steadied him when he swayed, striving for balance. "I think we can pronounce you imprint proof."

"Caroline!" Paul Ballard's voice echoed through the Dollhouse.

"And not a moment too soon," Laurence muttered.

Keeping her arm around his waist, ostensibly to assist should the balance problem recur, Caroline shouted, "Up here." When Dominic winced and raised a hand to his aching head, she kissed him on the cheek, whispering, "Sorry."

Ballard burst into what had been Topher's digs. "Caroline, we need to go. There's been a shit load of—. You!"

Dominic blinked at the pistol aimed at his chest. "Don't shoot the mobile, imprint proof NSA agent who's agreed to try and reverse things," he murmured. "What a monumental waste that would be."

"Put the gun down, Paul," Caroline said, stepping between Ballard and Dominic.

"It worked?" Ballard whispered. "Alpha's sex-activated retinal whatever?"

"As advertised," Caroline said. Smiling up at Dominic, she said, "Maybe better than advertised."

"It … um … actually required sex?" Ballard asked.

Dominic said, "No," at the same moment Caroline said, "Yes." He saw her annoyance and raised her a smirk. "It required hours of sex," Dominic said.

Caroline laughed. Ballard winced. Dominic looked from one to the other. "Go take care of whatever; I have preparations to make." Catching Caroline's hand as she turned, he said, "See you on the flip side, Caroline."

"Good luck, Laurence."

Seeing a flash of pain dart across her face, Dominic said, "This isn't your fault."

"Make that more believable by fixing things."

Smiling, he said the only thing left to say. "Yes, ma'am." Dominic chose to interpret Caroline's laughter a good omen.

THE END