It was pitch black in here.

Internalising a groan, Atlas stepped back out into the darkness he'd first awoken in. Distantly he could see the soft glow of those ADAM infused plants. He was sure the splicers down here went a bit nuts for the stuff. Great. Yet another problem to add to the ever growing list.

As Atlas began to make his way through the dark, half by the limited visibility he had and half on memory.

There was no time left for him to rest. The time he'd spent just recovering from his run in with that seemingly unerasable ghost had set him back in progress. Delta was waiting for him somewhere and he had to go and find the big lug.

No doubt he'd be stressing beyond belief being seperated once again. Atlas empathised.

Fortunately it was not hard to locate Delta, because Alexander's old recorded voice was sounding up ahead of him. Triggered by Delta's entrance no doubt, and so, Atlas followed that sound.

"I'm afraid the lights burn my eyes terribly." Alexander was explaining.

Telling Delta that they could not be turned on until their arrival. Until they were here to kill him. Then that stinging would not matter anymore.

The closer Atlas drew to the sound, the more he recognised this place. This was literally the room he'd originally woken up in. Which would mean that Alex was only a few feet away in that large containment tank of his.

Picking up the pace Atlas all but began to run, limited sight be damned. He wasn't going to be absent when Delta came face to face with what Alex had become.

Up ahead of him he caught the flash of a pointed light. A spot light and already he could imagine Delta's helmet providing him with the light to see. Wouldn't do the big daddies any good to be blind on the job after all.

Relieved, a smile broke over Atlas's face as he just managed to make out the silhouette of Delta ahead of him. The light turning with the big daddy as he looked around this new environment. No doubt weary of it as he should be. It did briefly occur to Atlas that may, just maybe, Delta was also looking around for him.

Best not to keep him searching.

"Delta!" Atlas called out as he neared and immediately that spot light whipped over in his direction. The sudden light causing Atlas to slow and raise an arm to shield his eyes. Only giving out a little huff of laughter as he continued to approach Delta.

"Ay, easy there. You'll make a man go blind with that blinker of yours."

Didn't seem as though Delta was hearing him because the big lug was all but immediately rushing over to him. Atlas might have been spooked had he not known Delta to be a gentle giant. When he wasn't ramming his drill into splicers that was. Still, a flash of surprised raced through him when he was suddenly enveloped.

It was a touch awkward, one of Delta's arms being equipped with the drill still but he seemed determined to do this. Both arms securely wrapped around Atlas who's mind had come stuttering to a halt on what this was, despite how obvious it was.

A hug.

...oh.

It took a few seconds but gradually Atlas was able to process what was happening and raise an arm to pat Delta's back with a roll of his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I get it - I'm a walking target without ya." Delta squeezed a little harder and Atlas's expression softened. He must have scared Delta something fierce.

Then again, Delta might have been hugging him because he knew how much Atlas hated the ocean. And he'd been left alone in it. If the poor bastard felt guilty then Atlas had a responsibility to help chase that feeling away.

"It's alright, Delta." He assured quietly. "We both got out in one piece."

Even if his piece was fairly fractured under the surface.

Finally Delta seemed to have calmed enough to focus on the task at hand. Although, Atlas could feel the reluctance in the big daddy as he slowly released him from the near bone crushing hug.

"Got it out of your system?" Atlas remarked and Delta seemed to only huff. Feeling indignant but still too relieved to really get up in arms about the teasing.

Then quietly Tenebaum's voice came across the radio. Soft with relief that shouldn't have stabbed at Atlas like it did. "Good. You are together once more. Find the circuit breakers to return life to this dreadful place."

Tenebaum was on the right path. They could use some lights.

Breaking the lingering contact, Atlas stepped back away from Delta till the backs of his feet were just beyond the spot Delta's light illuminated. In this limited light, Atlas could still clearly make out the surrounding machines. Familiar to him.

Ammunition and supply machines, gene-banks, more red plants. Little spots of light as his eyes further adjusted. Aided with the slight light that Delta provided, giving Atlas the outline of the control terminal just a few steps ahead of them.

Beyond that he knew Alex's tank would sit.

But what truly kept his attention was what was just tucked out of sight around the corner. If he focused, Atlas could just make out the steady glow of the Vita-Chamber that had started all of this.

"Get those lights on." Atlas instructed Delta, gesturing towards the rest of the chamber. "You're the one with the flash light, best you find the breakers. I'll see about getting new supplies."

It was a small lie of sorts. Atlas would definitely stop to see how much of Fontaine's cash he could waste on chocolate bars - out of spite alone - but his true intentions were far milder.

Waiting until Delta had wandered off, taking the majority of the light with him, Atlas turned to walk towards that faint glow of the Vita-Chamber. Frowning as he turned the corner and found it tucked away right where he'd left it. Door still slid open from when it had spat him right back out.

With one last cursory check over his shoulder to see Delta's light wandering around somewhere on the level below his, Atlas took a knee in front of the chamber. Fingers running over its surface as if seeking out the damage he knew had to be there.

Sure enough, hidden just beneath the edge of the plane glass door, was a small etching. A sign that the work had been done, nothing more than that. All else would be internal damage that made this machine an enemy of Ryan's rather than a safety net.

Distantly, in Fontaine's memories, he could feel a prickle of violent satisfaction. Knowing this pet project had paid off when initially it had been scrapped as a dead end.

He knew Sinclair had sent him to find Valery back at the thretre because the Vita-Chambers had activated again.

Not because he was curious as to why that was, but because it meant that she had to have been alive to do it.

In the past he'd dismissed that possibility.

Accused Sinclair of knowing Valery was dead before sending him up there to seek her out. He recalled the hatred with which Sinclair had looked at him. Anger he recognised in himself as a means of defence.

To hide from the ghosts on his mind. Sinclair had been hoping Valery wasn't another name to add to their list of casualties.

He'd send Atlas looking for her under the pretense that he wanted to figure out what was going on with the Vita-Chambers, but he'd just wanted to find someone still breathing.

Rapture wasn't kind enough for that.

Sitting back onto his hind haunches Atlas regarded the stolen Vita-Chamber with tired eyes. There'd been so much delight in him when they'd first gotten ahold of it down here. Stealing from Ryan - a beautiful pick-me-up. Clearly once Fontaine Futuristics had been taken over by Ryan's people, no one thought to get rid of this thing and only added more around the place. Unaware of the one corrupted machine among the mix.

And now he stood here today thanks to that.

Some part of Atlas wanted to reach for his radio. To call Sinclair up and tell him that...what? That Valery's life wasn't on his head? Would there even be any point in that assertion at this point?

Likely not.

Instead Atlas sighed and rose back to his feet.

At the theatre he'd left Valery's body behind. A jacket placed over her to chase away an imagined cold and Bea laying flowers down with her.

Now he stood in the glow of her handiwork, alive in her stead and Atlas was unsurprised when he felt the cold creeping in.

Closing his eyes Atlas took a deep breath, feeling that familiar cold inching up his arms and along his shoulders. Impossible to tell if it was real or not anymore. He'd long since decided it did not matter. Fontaine said he wasn't real, so if the ghosts on his mind were just illusions then he wasn't that different to them either.

And because he wanted to feel real, he spoke to the cold coiling at his spine as though it were as well.

"I know I'm not who you would have wanted to bring back." He muttered, voice kept hushed so as not to disturb the rest of the world as he spoke with the dead. "I know you'd sooner see me in the ground than standing here and I know it don't mean much - but I am sorry."

The cold stilled, lingering around his arms and Atlas was sure that if he so much as glanced to look in the glass of the Vita-Chamber, he'd see someone standing at his back.

"I wasn't that man. I…"

The words caught. Atlas couldn't tell if they were true or not. Wanted to tell the ghost that he wasn't the man that came to her for guns. Or the one that stood over her shoulder as she installed the first power to the people.

He wasn't the man that had told her he fought for the people then turned around and put a bullet in her friend when push came to shove. All because they'd tried to take a little sister from him.

The memory came back to him, violent and unwelcome.

The last time he'd seen Valery, her arms tightly wound around a terrified little girl. A room in ruins, scarred by evidence of plasmids being used in defence of what had been a home. Atlas and his men seperated from her and the child only by a man that had situated himself between them. Atlas's gun trained on his head.

Speaking. Something. It didn't matter. He didn't want to remember the words said before the trigger was pulled. They'd lost Valery and the child in that conflict - but in turn she'd lost the life of a friend. Shot with one of her own guns. Fontaine had taken some sick vindication in that.

Because that's all those actions had been. Atlas on the surface. Fontaine beneath it. He wasn't Fontaine but he couldn't say he was Atlas either.

He just… wasn't.

All he was, was the memory of the final look in Valery's eyes as she'd taken the girl and fled. He was all that was left behind.

Still, he tried to steady his voice and finish what he set out to say. "Not gonna ask forgiveness or anythin'. Wouldn't get it even if I begged. I know that. I owe ya my life twice over. So, for that, I can at least get these girls to the surface."

The cold retreated some and with a dispassionate little chuckle, Atlas added. "And for good measure, I'll give Sinclair a good knock over the ears for ya."

Like everything else, it had to have been imagined - but Atlas swore he heard some laughter.

Then the cold faded and Atlas felt a bit emptier than before. Instinctively he turned, seeking out where that cold had suddenly vanished to, but instead all he saw was the lights flickering back on as Delta flipped the breakers. And the space behind him vacant of life. As it likely had been the whole some.

But that emptiness didn't fade.

He could distantly hear Alexander's recorded messages starting up again. Delta taking up the task of listening to that dead man's voice. But Atlas could not rejoin him just yet. Standing there and wondering exactly when that hollowness would fade and what it was that he'd lost this time.

Finally, with a shuddering breath, Atlas tightened his grip on his bag and stepped over the patch of ground where the coldness had once lingered. Feeling nothing as he passed it and returned to the world of the living once more.

It felt only right that, as he left, he mutter. "Bye, Valery…"