A/N: Equilibrium is one of my favorite movies by far, and I just had to write a fanfic about it. This takes place a days before the film and will continue to through to the end of the film and possible beyond into my version of the sequel. There are some major changes I've made to the film, however, one of which is that I've added an OC named Alice Corvin. She's a Grammaton Cleric and the protege of John Preston, who has ceased taking her dose long before him and his partner. Eventually it will be John Preston/OC, but that comes later.

If updates take a while at any point, please note that I am working on a number of other stories as well as work ten hours Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and am on call throughout the rest of the week. I make time to write as much as I can, but life gets in the way a lot. The time-frame of the movie is changed a bit as well, instead of taking place over the course of a week or less, it takes place in a two week or so time-frame so that I can include some extra scenes without running into the events of the movie unrealistically.

And this chapter is more or less a prologue of sorts, so plan on the following chapters being longer.

Rating: M for just about everything in the book.

Disclaimer: I do not own Equilibrium.

The first time Alice Corvin felt, she was nineteen-years-old.

One day, she noticed her parents acting strangely. Though the emotion was one that she'd never felt, she recognized the expression on their faces because she'd seen it on the faces of the Sense Offenders she'd helped take into custody on many occasions. The expression on their faces was that of love. Her father and mother were in loved, and it was a serious crime. If Martin and Julia Corvin were in love, they were feeling. If they were feeling, they'd ceased taking their Prozium. If they ceased taking their Prozium, they were Sense Offenders.

As a rising Grammaton Cleric – one of the few women in the prestigious arm of law enforcement – she had no choice but to report them and take them into custody to be punished for their crimes.

Before she could act, however, her father spotted her out of the corner of his eye and hastily grabbed her to prevent her from leaving while her mother begged her not to speak a word of what she saw to her mentor, high ranking Cleric John Preston. If Alice told him of what she'd witnessed, her parents would be executed.

There should have been no hesitation on her part. Ever since she was a young child she'd been trained in the monastery in various forms of deadly martial arts and gun fighting, as well as taught how to always be on the lookout for EC-10 materials and sense offenders. If she came across anyone in violation of the law, she was to expose them at once. She took an oath when she became a Cleric, and though she was still learning and had a long way to go before she was as good as John Preston and his partner Errol Partridge, she knew better than to let such offenses go unpunished. Emotion led to war, poverty, and a menagerie of other negative things, and yet… she hesitated.

She hesitated long enough for her mother to knock her over the head with a sturdy metal pan and send her into unconsciousness. When she came to hours later it was long passed the time to take another dosage, and by then the effects of being off it had already begun to take hold of her and she recalled all the things she'd done. She'd killed men, women, and children for feeling, for owning EC-10 material.

The first time Alice felt, she felt guilty.

Her parents apologized for the deception and for hitting her over the head, but insisted that feeling was the only way to be truly free and that without emotion they were nothing more than mindless husks. As it was late at night, she'd had to wait until morning to get another dose seeing as her parents flushed hers down the toilet, but by then they'd exposed her to music and literature and art. By the time she was able to get another dosage, she didn't want it.

It was difficult to hide her new-found emotions from John, but she managed to hide them very well to the point where she could make herself believe that she wasn't a Sense Offender at all. A friend she made amongst the rebels informed her that in order to project the perfect lie, she had to believe the lie as well.

And so she made herself believe the lie in public. She killed rebels – some of which were her friends – and she maintained her stoic manner so as not to give John reason to shoot her.

That was five years ago, and she still cried when she got home when the wave of emotions came flooding over the wall she built around her heart. In her home, she could be herself – caring and compassionate – though she always had to keep an eye out for anything that might be considered EC-10. All her illegal possessions were in an abandoned house deep in the Nether which she visited whenever she could sneak away, but she did allow herself one illegal item; a family photo where she was being embraced by her parents, taken three years ago, where days later her parents were caught, 'tried', and executed for Sense Offense.

To watch them be burned alive and remain neutral damn near killed her, but as she stood beside John she didn't show her pain. Her mentor had the odd ability to sense when one was feeling, to put himself in a Sense Offender's shoes, as he put it. He'd already allowed his wife to be executed, so she doubted he would go easy on her.

Viviana Preston had been Alice's friend, and neither understood how he'd missed her obvious Sense Offense. Alice suggested that maybe he loved her to some degree, but Viviana was adamant that he didn't love her because she – a Sense Offender – didn't even love him. She cared about her husband, but there was no love to be seen. Alice understood what she meant. Marriages were not based on love, but necessity and the need to keep the population growing, and spouses were chosen based off a compatibility of genetics. Even marriage had been made scientific and conformed, and it had to be organized and permitted by the high council and Father. If a man and a woman were suspected of having a 'romantic' relationship without approval they were tried and executed. Dating to find a soul mate was unheard of.

Prior to her death, Viviana begged her to watch out for her children and to try to help John see the truth of emotion. The only reason she'd asked Alice to do such things was because she trusted her to be there for her children, and knew that John trusted her without question. If anyone could change him it would either be Alice or a dumb mistake. No one else and no other reason could change him. But while Alice promised to watch after the children, she couldn't promise to help John. She believed that anyone could change, but she highly doubted that he could. Even for a Cleric, he was ruthless.

After the death of their mother, Robbie – John and Viviana's son – confessed to her that both he and his little sister Lisa stopped taking their Prozium before collapsing into her arms in a fit of tears. It broke her heart to see them so broken, but she was firm in telling them that they couldn't allow their father to know that they were Sense Offenders. Robbie understood and went so far to keep John in the dark as to work towards becoming a Cleric as well. Lisa had a harder time, being as she was so young, but Robbie kept her in line so she never too worried about their safety.

But even as she sat in the safe house of one of the rebel groups, painting her nails red, she found herself worrying. They weren't her children and it had been roughly a year since Viviana's death, but she worried like a mother should.

"Awful risky, painting your nails."

Alice smiled faintly, blowing on her freshly painted nails before looking up at Errol Partridge, John's faithful partner. "I don't exactly intend on walking home with red nails, Partridge," she assured him. Without looking up, she then asked, "What about you? Do you plan on taking those photos with you to headquarters?"

Only three months had passed since Partridge stopped taking his injections and he was still learning to hide. Unfortunately, he often made mistakes that she had to then clean up before John was alerted. While she allowed herself to hold onto one photo, she kept it hidden away in her home. Partridge, however, tended to carry his precious items on his person.

The man sighed and reached into his breast pocket to retrieve the slender tin case that held his photos. "I need… something," he explained quietly. "Something to remind me that I'm human."

"You'll always have something reminding you. They're called your feelings."

"Yes, but holding a photo, looking at the image of the one you love…" he trailed off, looking at the photo of himself and Mary O'Brian, gently running his fingers down the photo before looking back to her and noticing that she was already removing the nail polish. "I'll never understand how you do it."

"Do what?" she inquired, making sure that no trace of red remained.

"What you're doing now, wiping off that nail polish like it means nothing. Or how you can just act like one of them."

By them, he meant the Grammaton Cleric.

She sighed. "Because I am one of them, Errol. And so are you. When in the public's eye, we are as emotionless as everyone else for our own safety and the safety of those around us. I don't deny that it hurts to bottle it all up, but there will come a time when we don't have to hide anymore," she explain gently, reaching over to place her hand comfortingly over his. "One day we won't have to wear our masks, my friend. You'll see."

Partridge snorted, sticking the photos back in their case, and said, "If Preston has his way, we'll all be dead before we see that day."

"If you keep thinking that, then we definitely will be," she snapped. "By carrying those photos everywhere and taking items from scenes you are practically telling John you're a Sense Offender. You have to suppress your emotions."

"I've suppressed them long enough," he sighed, but raised his hand to silence her when she opened her mouth and added, "I'll try harder, I promise."

Alice knew he would try, but she wasn't sure he could.

Tired of the frequently repeated argument, she went to an intricate mirror and pulled her elbow length blond hair up into a simple yet intricate bun low on her head, assuming conformity. In this day and age, women either had their hair cut incredibly short or wore it up constantly. It was a miracle that she'd been accepted into the Grammaton Cleric since women typically weren't permitted. But John had seen something in her, and even though he'd been just a young boy at the time he was already highly respected, as was his opinion. He essentially took her under his wing and helped train her to be the best. Because he was five years older than she, he was ahead of her career wise, but with his help she caught up to him and was nearly as good as he was.

Now she worked alongside John and Partridge so he could groom her into becoming a first class Cleric. Despite how much she hated killing rebels and burning EC-10 objects, the three of them made an excellent team, and she and John had a unique relationship. They trusted each other and knew each other better than anyone else. Hell, she was the only individual she allowed in his home to visit his children. More and more she found herself wondering how he couldn't see that she was a Sense Offender. Maybe a part of him was in denial.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she watched in sorrow as the blank mask slid over her delicate features, transforming her into the respected Cleric that she was known to be.

Mary and Jurgen appeared in the mirror as they entered the room, and Mary shuddered. "It's creepy how easily you can fall back into that routine," she commented and stepped into the waiting arms of her lover. Unlike Alice, Partridge still had a good hour to go before he had to leave.

Alice would never say it out loud, but she envied the two for the love they had just as she'd envied her parents. She didn't know that kind of love, and she doubted she would live that long to find it. She could tell Partridge that the day would come when they could shed their masks, but she never could make herself believe it fully.

With one last look at herself, she bid Jurgen and her friends goodbye before she left the safe house and returned to the lie she lived.

Reviews are welcomed. In fact, they're encouraged!