Title: But the memory remains
Author: TaleWeaver
Fandom/Characters: Dollhouse. Alpha, platonic Alpha/Echo
Rating: PG
Warnings: Gore
Spoilers: Eps A1-A3; speculation on Alpha's purpose
Disclaimer: these characters are not mine, but the words are. Either way, no monetary profit is being made or is intended. Joss is Da Man.
Challenge: dollhousefics #4, Instinct
Summary: Alpha's memories agree with his instincts.

Fortune, fame
Mirror vain
Gone insane
But the memory remains
- Metallica

Alpha doesn't remember much.

He remembers the organisation that he serves; he remembers why he agreed to become an Active; he remembers his partner. He even remembers his ID number.

He doesn't remember his name. He doesn't remember his age, or whether he has ever been married.

It all disappears in the blood-red haze of a Composite Event.

He trained for this; the biofeedback techniques that would allow him to reclaim skills from forgotten wipes. The torture resistance training that would allow him to remember his mission; to find out how the Dollhouse got their hands on technology that no human being in 21st century Earth is supposed to have.

But something's gone wrong. He has reclaimed the skills, remembered the training; but insanity is not supposed to be part of the bargain. This terrible killing rage is not something he has ever felt before, even when the lives of twenty thousand people trembled on a knife-edge and the push of a button halfway across the room. His memory is supposed to be an increasingly complicated mosaic, not Swiss Cheese.

All he remembers is his partner, and their mission.

The hungry haze growls, and the beast will not be satisfied by anything but blood.

But he remembers that his partner is one of the lumps of fresh meat in the shower, and he leaves her be. The hunger is even slaked enough that he remembers to kill Echo's handler, so the organisation can maneuver Boyd Langton into the position. Langton is only a candidate, not an agent for the organisation, but he cannot watch over his partner any more; Langton will have to do.

That's what really hurts. Entrusting his partner - his best friend - into the care of others.

Paul Ballard was only supposed to be a stalking horse, distracting the Dollhouse hierarchy from without while he and Caroline worked from within. The organisation asked their FBI contact to put Ballard on the Dollhouse case because he is on the candidate list as well; the Dollhouse investigation was to serve as his audition. But now, the man once known as Alpha can only be grateful that Ballard can take up plan B without even knowing it. Ballard will have to be the one to extract Caroline, now.

All Alpha can do is watch. He can only help from the sidelines, hidden by pistol-smoke and funhouse-mirrors.

That's why he set up the background for the hitman who calls himself the Archer; it's his gift to Caroline, so she'll know that he's thinking of her, even from far away. Caroline had the Archer in her sights, once; she obeyed the Captain's order and didn't take the shot. She let the Archer succeed in his hit, and a hundred people lived when the Archer's target wanted them to die. But Caroline still blames herself for the dozen people dead at the Archer's hands since. She'll rest easier, now, that he's dead. Knowing that she avenged those dozen people. She only believes someone is dead when she sees the body herself.

His instinct tells him to kill; his memory tells him to protect his partner.

It's not really as contradictory as one might think.

FINI