When Jack finally met Atlas, they were both running towards the bathysphere that would finally take them topside. He'd had to stop and double take, shocked by how handsome he was; unnaturally so. And even though the posters around the city and the philosophy of the surgeries had been made clear to Jack, he hadn't seen many people who hadn't been spliced to near death, unrecognizable. He felt small and strange in the shadow of this man.
Atlas had very blue eyes, incredible blue, which regarded him incredulously. "What're ya lookin' at, boyo? We've got to get outta here! Come on!"
Jack looked away and flexed his fingers, tingling with electricity.
Together, they ran.
-
In the bathysphere Jack didn't look at Atlas. He buried his head in his hands, trying to catch his breath, suddenly nervous, would the real world even recognize him? And Atlas had his eyes on him, he was sure, saying, "Jesus, it's all over... It's all over..."
Something had to go wrong. People didn't just get out of things like this. People didn't just survive things like this. He'd always be in that city, in that surreal nightmare, how many almost-people did he murder down there?
How could he ever look at a little girl again? He had to keep reminding himself his own didn't really exist, a worm of a memory, something wriggling it's way to the front of his mind hungry for validation.
Jack thought about the family that never was, while Atlas murmured the names of his wife and his child, suddenly far away. He felt alone.
It was a breath of fresh air on the surface. The sky was clear blue, far as the eye could see, so, so very, very clear, echoed in the rolling ocean. There were no remnants of the wreckage. The plane was gone down to the bottom of the ocean, dead as Rapture surely was, and the luggage had all washed away.
Jack didn't realize how weary he was physically until he breathed that fresh air. His head spun. he stumbled out and fell to his knees.
"Easy there." Atlas' voice was a low murmur, calm. His arm came out to catch Jack, steady and strong. Jack wondered exactly how much strength or effort it took for Atlas to support him, if it took any at all.
For the first time they looked at one another. Jack's eyes were wet and dark, still as oil. He gripped Atlas at his forearms to steady himself. And then, like the child he was, so young, he fell against him and wept, and Atlas wept and wrapped his arms around him and they were soon both kneeling on the ground with one another.
"Are we done with all that, now?" Atlas sniffled, wiping one of his clear eyes with the palm of his hand. "Jesus."
For whatever behavioral conditioning he'd gone through at the hands of Fontaine and Ryan, Jack never spoke much. His voice had always felt very small inside of his chest. He didn't know much what it sounded like. Tenenbaum had helped him change that. He'd saved the girls; soon, they would be topside, too. Free. Like he was.
They were done with all that.
Jack, who had never been a man of many words, laughed.
They rested, sleeping topside in the entrance, beneath Andrew Ryan's banners. Stepping outside, the night was beautiful, more beautiful than Atlas could have ever remembered. There was a star up there, they said, for every lad and lass who left Ireland, driven out by circumstance and poverty. He wondered if the dead in Rapture counted, which star might've been his wife and his son. Now that there was time, they filled up his mind.
The two of them stood watching the world go by. It really was all over.
The time came to speak and they nipped Old Tom Whiskey to loosen 'em up, Atlas with his heavy arm slung around Jack's shoulders. Atlas smelled like machinery, like grease up close. The warmth of his face when Jack leaned against him...
Just the physical contact with somebody, anybody after all of that...
"I am so sorry, about everything," Atlas said, and Jack just closed his eyes.
"Me too," he finally said.
Jack mourned his family in much the same way as Atlas had. It was so strange, though - to mourn something you never had.
"What the hell am I gonna do?" Jack said, not realizing he'd said it out loud. "I thought I'd had something to go back for - but it was all a lie."
"You've proven to be a great man, Jack. A better one than I." Atlas said soberly. "You could've killed those little girls, and me tellin' you you had too...I thought you did."
"I thought of my daughter-" Jack cut himself off. The loss was heavy in his heart. "I thought... I -"
"I know."
Jack sighed.
"I thought I'd have something to survive for, too. But they're all dead, all of them..." He turned his face away. And then with a sudden start, he blurted out, "Except you." and immediately regretted it, feeling silly, like it should've gone unsaid. But he had to do something, because it was killing him, building up in his soul. He put his hands on either side of Jack's head, turned him to face him, gripped him hard.
"Thank you, Jack. Thank you. So much, thank you. Oh, God, but I feel terrible..."
Jack reached up to hold his hands there. It felt so odd, to be using his hands gently, after how many people he'd used them to kill... He was a killer, now. It made him feel so cold.
There was the rumbling sound of the rising bathysphere. The little girls and the doctor had made it.
And before he lost him, for this moment was almost certain not to come again, Jack grabbed Atlas just the same. It startled him - he felt the man jump underneath his fingers. And then he kissed him. His fingers in his blonde hair, eyes shut. Atlas hesitated, and then leaned in, and Jack felt him tug at his hair.
It was rough and fast and tasted like whiskey. Jack had been a test tube baby carrying fake memories; he hadn't had the time for a sexual identity crises. But just as soon as it happened it was over, and he was panting, with Atlas regarding him speechless and wide-eyed.
Tenenbaum came over the radio. "Last transmission. We're almost topside."
And Jack rose to meet them.