Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Written for 500themes for #48 (I used to remember you.)
Notes: Sequel to Orders ( . ) but can be read on it's own.)
She isn't Echo. Not right now at least. Yet it's Echo's familiar body. (All of it hurts, the crowded mental space in his head.) Alpha smiles at her as their eyes lock across the night club. She's dressed sexy for the client who doesn't truly appreciate her (or even Adelle's sales pitch.) He knows all of this because if the client did appreciate her, then he'd never let go of her. Alpha watches as Echo turns away from him to say something to the client before she slips away and he follows her through the crowd.
They finally stop in a secluded corner. It's as private as they can get in a crowded LA nightclub without arousing suspicion. Alpha hates her new handler who seems terrified to let her out of his sights. Although Alpha recognizes just how much that man appreciates Echo. She smiles up at him as Alpha casually brushes a curl off of her face.
"Do I know you?"
Her voice is innocent, just like it was in the dollhouse. Alpha shakes his head even though he's desperate to tell her all of it.
"Are you sure because you seem so familiar."
Her hand touches his chest and he grasps it until she lays it flat over his thudding heart. (All of the voices are silent, waiting with bated breath as it were.)
"Just deja vu," Alpha offers her.
"No," Echo says with a shake of her head. "It's more than that."
The words are on the tip of his tongue when he spies Boyd. The man sticks out like a sore thumb with his cheap suit in a club where the true patrons wear clothes that easily cost thousands of dollars. Alpha shakes his head at how Adelle, for all of her many talents, can't seem to take the stink of law enforcement out of Boyd Langton. He squeezes Echo's hand before releasing it.
"Who are you?" Echo asks.
"No one."
She turns from him at his urging yet he knows that this meeting will go beneath the surface, much deeper than this temporary persona who she probably won't ever wear again (well not until he recreates the accident that made him with her in the chair.) Alpha smiles as he watches her navigate her way through the mass of bodies back to her date. Soon it'll be his time but not tonight as she's still not quite ready.
((END))