The girls had been sent to collect their precious few belongings.
Little more than some odd trinkets that they'd made while in the dazed state the slugs left them in and what few clothes they'd been able to find aside from the little sister's garb. All in all, they had very little to their names down in Rapture. Most of what they'd take to the surface with them would be memories. Not a single one among them pleasant, Tenebaum was sure.
Brigid, on the other hand, had more things to gather. Her equipment would be coming back to the surface with her. Along with many of her old journals and studies that she'd collected during the visit. Things that may just help them and others once they were back under the sun. Just another way to make amends for the things she'd done.
However, she had more to gather than just syringes and little leather bound books containing horrors stories between their bindings. She too had to collect people that could not be left abandoned at the bottom of the sea.
"Herr Sinclair?" Tenebaum called for the man through the quiet train cart. Knuckles tapped against the sturdy metal as she waited for Sinclair to respond to her. Not having heard from him since the conversation across the radio between her and Fontaine had gone quiet.
She was given no answer despite knowing that the man had stowed away in that little room of his. Tenebaum called again, but was met with little more than the train's steady progress echoing back to her.
Only its rhythmic toing and froing supplying sound to soften the silence Sinclair had pointedly surrounded himself with.
But still, she knew he lingered inside and she knew he listened, as he always had in the past. Now he'd listened to a truth that she doubted he was ready to hear. She'd been aware of Fontaine's ability to vanish into a different role for a great many years now. Long before Jack returned to Rapture and even then, his act had done well to fool her.
For Sinclair, who she knew to be close to the man no matter which face he'd worn, this must have been a terrible shift in his reality.
It helped none that she'd watched Atlas and Sinclair in those past few days both settle the blame onto Fontaine in order to ease their own troubled thoughts and pursue a sort of alliance between themselves. Now that too had become tainted with the deadman's name.
Even so, Tenebaum was undecided on Fontaine.
For as rough as his education had been, she knew him well enough to know he was not foolish enough to try the same trick twice. She'd been fooled once by Fontaine's act, it would not be a stretch to think he could fool her again - no matter how humiliating the thought may be. When an act was up, he knew better than to drag it on lifelessly. But still he'd spoken to her in Atlas's voice with the imaginary man's ethos behind every word.
Yet, no matter how she tried to interrogate the man, analyse his actions, the 'Atlas' persona seemed far too genuine. His panic and confusion were too earnest even for Fontaine's talented acts. It seemed impossible to think, but Tenebaum had truly begun to believe that Fontaine had fallen for his own lies.
Tenebaum had accepted many impossible things in her life, the slowest to come to her was the thought that she may one day be forgiven for her crimes.
That impossibility had been convinced to her through the boy she'd helped to craft and use. He had always been the first to offer an open hand to the condemned to be reformed, she was numbered among their ranks.
Now she wondered if Jack had perhaps left Fontaine with a similar impossible idea of recreation after their encounter eight years earlier at Rapture's pinnacle.
She was a woman of science and not one with any great level of optimism, but in this case she was willing to exercise that rarely used muscle and try to hold out some hope for a pipedream of redemption.
Tenebaum did not expect Sinclair to share her empathy nor her forced optimism. So she spoke to him through the silence.
"Sinclair-" she paused, corrected herself and tried again to reach the man on the other side of the door.
"... Augustus. Think what you may of the past, think what you may of Fontaine, but you cannot undo all the bad you helped him achieve by staying and wallowing in yourself."
Perhaps it was cruel of her to say, but Tenebaum knew sometimes pain was the motivator men like Sinclair needed to move them.
"Your ghosts will not leave you be just because you try to hand them off to Fontaine."
There was a slight shifting on the other side of the door. The only indication that Sinclair was inside and listening. Still unwilling to answer the woman.
It was possible that he may have realised the secret she'd been keeping from him. Now understanding her responses to Atlas a little more clearly. He may have even felt betrayed by her. For as strange as that knowledge felt, Tenebaum could not begrudge him for feeling so.
She'd come to terms with the deaths and atrocities on her hands. It seemed Sinclair still ran from them. Looking for cover behind the blame of others and flat out denial. Part of her genuinely pitied the man. She did not know if he could find the same solace that she had.
For a time she thought he may find it in Delta, but now she was not sure if Augustus could survive Rapture.
"Miss Tenenbaum?" A soft voice called her and Bridgid found young Cindy Meltzer standing at her side looking worried in the way only a child could. Large eyes wide with uncertainty, looking to her as the eldest for support.
"Have you packed, little one?" Tenebaum asked, a small attempt to derail that concern, though it failed to do so.
Cindy only nodded before continuing with her original intent. Some children were narrow minded, others could be distracted by anything. Tenebaum found them all equally difficult to handle. Though the doctor did try her best to keep up with their young minds.
"Is Beatrice okay?" she asked nervously and Tenebaum softened her expression for the girl.
"Yes, she has been found. She will be back with us shortly."
While Cindy seemed satisfied with this answer in regards to Beatrice's safety, her gaze slowly turned to the shut door that kept them away from Sinclair.
"And… Mr. Sinclair? Is he sick?" her voice was quieter this time, afraid of being overheard and appearing rude. But no doubt Sinclair could hear them despite her efforts.
"No, little one." Tenebaum murmured as tenderly as she could manage, having slowly learned how to speak to children over the years. "Sinclair is just in need of some time alone. Let us not pester him."
With that she took the young girl's hand and guided her away from Sinclair's den. Pausing only to glance once more at the door and wonder if perhaps she should ask him not to come out to greet Delta and their questionable Atlas when they arrived. She couldn't say if Sinclair would even want to face Fontaine.
In truth, she hoped he would not.
With Tenebaum's footsteps fading deeper into the train, Sinclair was left to his dark and quiet again.
Fingers trembling as he gripped tight in his hand a pistol bearing the Valor's Armoury insignia on its side. Crafted by one rival of his for another, just because neither woman could stand to buy from his stock.
How delighted both Jacyln and Valery must have both been to slight him when it had been made. The thought amused him to the very end.
Now that gun was clutched tight in his hands, finally having come into his possession after both its rightful owners had been put into the ground by the same fake cause many years ago.
What should have been an insult to his person was instead a lone relic of people long gone and he held it tight now. With only one bullet inside. The last bullet he'd been saving from when he first obtained the weapon.
There was only one person left that he wanted to pull the trigger for.
Tenebaum told him he couldn't pass his ghosts off. Sure. Maybe that was true, but perhaps they'd finally lie silent if he added just one more casualty to the list. He never had been the type for revenge, it was a wasted effort with little to truly gain and so much more to lose.
But years trapped in the sinking city made hardened, vicious, stupid hearts of them all.
Now revenge called to him more than it ever had before when he was younger and bolder in his arrogance. It sang to him in voices that he once knew and couldn't silence no matter how often he turned a blind eye or tried to deafen himself in the stillness and silence.
The cold metal of the gun pressed against his skin as he rested his forehead against the backs of his hands, eyes shut tight as the weight of the weapon pulled on him almost as strongly as the voices. There were many that could curse his name as the cause of their death but he didn't hear them all. There were only a few he ever cared to learn or to miss when they were taken with death.
Among them there were so many enemies of his that had bordered on friends.
Why did he never seek to make a pure friend and only seemed able to make enemies of the ones that he took a liking to?
It was the strangest behaviour now he looked back on it. But maybe that was the only way he'd known how to do it. He wasn't alone in that attitude at least, there were others that smiled at him with too many teeth and that knowing glint in their gaze that promised to snap him up if he took a wrong step or played a bad card.
How certain he'd be that given the chance they'd neatly slide a knife into his back and how little he would begrudge them for doing so.
But when it had come down to it and things began to fall apart, he found no knives and only open hands. That was the mistake he supposed. Where his enemies had turned allies and fallen one by one, he had never offered his hand and kept the knife close to his chest. They all seemed to forget the game they'd been playing at the end and for it they'd all lost.
Distantly, Augustus remembered the last words he'd ever been gifted from the original owner of this weapon and the woman he most often played those dangerous games of chance and secrets with.
"Stay alive, out of spite if you must," Jacyln told him with one of those weeping smiles she'd become so good at wearing towards the end. The bloodied gun pressed into his fingers.
"You just stay alive, Augustus. You do that for me, yeah?
And here he was. Alive while she was long gone.
The prize of the victor.
He almost hated her for it in the end. He knew if she'd chosen the knife rather than to take his hand she'd be here now and he'd be the one resting somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
Sinclair couldn't even claim that he lived in her place because of that final, pointless request. It was simply because when everything had come to a head, he hadn't been there for it. Survival handed him almost purely out of luck, or rather his inability to do anything not for himself.
Even though he had once told the mad bitch that he was sure she'd be the lovely death of him. Thinking to himself in private, 'even if I have to die for you.'
But when the time came, he hadn't. Instead he'd survived.
How desperately he missed the games they played. But he knew this was always how it ended. With him the victor and only survivor.
Well almost the only survivor. Fontaine was still out there too.
Even if his face wasn't the one he had known, he now thought he could recognise those eyes and smile that had once joined him in playing those dangerous games.
If they were the only two left then there still needed to be a winner to be alone in their victory.
And he still had a bullet left.
Lowering his hands and raising his head, Sinclair opened up the gun left to him by the ghosts that had fallen before him. This gun passed through hands he knew and their names passed through his thoughts slowly. Still so loud in his mind. Edmund who had bought the gun from Valery as a means to make his boss feel a bit safer, a bit cheerier. And how cheerful Jacyln had seen the day Sinclair found her first laying eyes on the weapon that was made as a way to insult him.
The far away moment passing as a fond memory through his thoughts. A small comfort at the train pulled closer to the end of another game.
"Now you wouldn't be saying that on my account I should hope."
"Oh now, I wouldn't dream of besmearing your positively superb name, Augustus."
Insulted as he may have been at the time, he still fondly recalled that deadly smile and sharp eyes, and found he could not resent her in earnest even now.
"Might not be brave enough to die for you, but I'll sure as hell kill for you." Sinclair uttered under his breath and slammed the barrel of the revolver shut with it's one sentimental bullet nestled safely inside. As the victor of so many previous games, he could kill for all of them still.
So he stayed there in the dark and the quiet, waiting for the moment the train would finally stop.
…
…
Atlas felt the train rolling in before he heard it. Little more than a small trembling through the tiles underneath his fingertips.
At first he mistook it for the approach of a big daddy that would just be the cherry on top of the bullshit cake that they did not need. But then he heard the roaring engine of the old beast growing closer and was set at ease for all of three seconds before recalling what exactly the train brought with it.
With a low grunt that was born half of physical exhaustion and half of life weariness, Atlas eased back to his feet. Stretching out as he listened to the incoming rumble of the train and wondering what he'd even say if he could manage to get a word in.
There was so much to say and he didn't feel he had the right words to convey any of it. Some 'voice of the people' he made.
Glancing over his shoulder Atlas found Delta already gently nudging Bea awake, having been roused by his own movement. Tenderly he was urging the young girl up onto his shoulders where she could stand with her feet planted firmly on the small steel bar put there for the little sisters. A cute design feature Atlas supposed.
Despite himself, Atlas joked. "Think you could carry me on that wee bar of yours too, tinman? I could use the break."
Delta's lingering stare screamed of a fatigue refusal and Atlas laughed.
Yeah, they were both exhausted. One of them might actually be getting some rest soon. Even if it was of the rather permanent variety.
From her vantage point as the official tallest person in the room, Bea peered down at Atlas with sleep hazy eyes and asked, "Atlas? What happens when we get back home?"
He did not have the heart to tell her how limited that 'we' was. Instead rolling with the second part of the question. "Well, I suppose once you're home you'll get a sunburn first things first."
Bea looked at him like he was dense.
"I don't burn." she asserted calmly, gesturing to her arm with confidence only to quickly fumble to grab back onto Delta's shoulders. The big daddy rumbling back to her in warning.
'Hands on the railing, missy!' was the warning Atlas thought Delta meant to convey. He filled in for him just in case.
"Don't let go now." he reminded before going on to gripe dramatically about Bea's 'bullying'. "And just because you have the complexion of a well sunbathed brat don't mean you have to rub it in my poor Irish feelings. I'll have you know that this lily white skin, this very burnable skin mind you, comes with the genetics!"
Genetics he did not actually have.
Who knew if Fontaine had even the smallest drop of Irish blood somewhere in his family history. But for now, the show of ludacris normality was the least he could put on for Bea.
The cheeky little giggle she gave him in return was well worth his efforts. Foolish as they may have made him look.
Smiling to himself Atlas let the show of insult drop and answered her in earnest. "Don't you worry about the surface, kiddo. Delta here wouldn't let anything bad happen to ya. Not down here. Not up there. You'll be alright."
Seemingly settled by this, Bea only hummed quietly in contemplation and returned to staring tiredly over Delta's shoulders. What deep ponderings went on in the mind of a kid her age was well beyond Atlas but he would bet his bottom dollar that she was figuring out if he was lying or not. She was sharp as a tack sometimes, a quality he still hadn't learnt how to manage in the kids he got landed with through the years.
It wouldn't matter before long anyway.
The walk to the train station was a short one and the rumbling grew ever louder. Dragging Atlas's reward for a lifetime of idiocy ever closer. Not that his 'lifetime' had been particularly long to start with. If it had been, it would have just bee more time to do more stupid things, so maybe this was better.
Pausing at Delta's side, Atlas tossed his silent, and rather battered, companion a cautious glance. He wondered if it was worth pleading his case to Delta now. He doubted it would make much sense and so instead just nudged his arm lightly and offered up what he thought would be fitting parting thoughts.
"Chin up, tinman. Things can only go up from here, and you're not going to be going up on your own either."
Just as well Delta couldn't speak himself, Atlas wouldn't have had any strong following remarks if questioned even a little.
The old Atlantic Express looked decidedly dispassionate as it came ambling into view. Rolling haltingly into Persephone as though it knew it ought not be there. Creeping into Rapture's dirty little secret prison among a thousand other dirty little secrets. Regardless, the train system had been built to carry the unwanteds down here and so eventually came to a much deserved rest not far from the little group of three.
There it let out a loud hissing sigh and settled to a stop that seemed quite permanent to Atlas. Some great old beast letting out it's last exhausted puff before going into a long sleep. He doubted they'd need it again, and felt distantly sad that the old train had this as its final home. Still, better it stop here rather than try running again and breaking down on them.
Honestly, he was shocked it hadn't gone kaput on them somewhere along the way, seemed like just the sort of nonsense they would have to deal with.
As it found itself at the end of the line and eased to a final stop, letting its doors slide sluggishly open, it was Tenenbaum that stood on the threshold.
Expression fixed into a steely stare that gave nothing away and for as well as Atlas believed himself to know the woman - he couldn't have pegged her thoughts if he tried.
Tenebaum's gaze swept over them each in turn, gravitating first to Bea who waved sheepishly from atop Delta's shoulders. Every inch the child awaiting a scolding for her 'heroics'. Atlas wasn't sure what good grounding would do in a place like Rapture's ruins, but Bea was most definitely grounded. Atlas did not envy the lecture she was no doubt going to be bombarded with once the adult's arguments were resolved or ended.
Her eyes only skimmed Delta, he was the most faultless of them and yet he too was likely to get a stern word about control from the woman. Stern, but compassionate. The ghosts could steal the senses of the best of them, and Delta was already suffering an agonisingly crawl to madness he couldn't control.
Then all that was left was Atlas, if that was even the name that crossed her mind when Tenenbaum finally looked to him.
She moved with more composure than Atlas had expected, a silent sort of restraint to her stride as she stepped from the train and onto the platform, her gaze remaining firmly fixed on him. Waiting for more lies or excuses perhaps, or just dissecting him where he stood in a way that was familiar to him now. She'd always been sharper than the scalps she worked with.
Despite himself, Atlas felt some age old sort of fondness pang in his chest and wondered if it was his own or something Fontaine would no doubt refuse to own up to even now.
Atlas opened his mouth, willing the right words to appear as they had so naturally in the past. But those easy flowing words were most often lies and he had no new lies to offer her and so the words simply did not come. Leaving Atlas with a hand slightly outstretched, mouth open and tongue empty.
However, it was then that he locked eyes with Sinclair.
While Atlas watched as the man stepped off of the train. He did not immediately catch the glint of the gun in his hand, but it really wouldn't have mattered terribly even if he had.
For a single breath, Atlas stared at Sinclair and found a familiar, deep seated contempt in his dark eyes.
Contempt that may have been reflected were it Fontaine looking back at Sinclair in that moment. But it wasn't. It was just Atlas there. He couldn't see himself reflected in Augustus's burning eyes, but Atlas could guess that the look in his own gaze would hold no contempt for the other man. Only uncertainty.
In hindsight he shouldn't have felt unsure about the situation at all. Sinclair's first move was actually quite predictable.
Sinclair cracked a fist across his jaw without an opening word. This would seem like the most obvious reaction in the world to Atlas later, but in that moment he was completely taken off guard. The strike landing him on his back on the floor against the damp titles.
Over his shoulder Atlas heard Bea scream. Not a shout of fear or alarm, but rather one of anger. And, much to his dazed amusement, he heard her throwing a heated curse at Sinclair.
Probably picked that up from him, huh? Delta would be less than thrilled with the new, colourful vocabulary he'd gifted the girl.
Atlas's vision was swimming when he looked back up at Augustus, his jaw aching and ears ringing. Sinclair seemed unhinged in a way, fist still raised and clenched as he stared down at Atlas and saw a man that wasn't there. He looked surprised as well, as though he hadn't even meant to hit Atlas but it just came as a natural and overwhelming urge. In the hand that didn't carry a split knuckle from catching Atlas's tooth in the punch, he clutched tight a more effective means of hurting h-
Atlas's insides froze up as he recognised the gun in Sinclair's hand.
His focus narrowed in on it and he could not rip his eyes away from the shine of the smooth metal in Augustus's grip.
Where he should have been afraid of the trigger being pulled, instead all he could focus on was some deeply ingrained part of him that twisted and writhed in resentment.
That gun should belong to him. He should have been the one holding it now.
Why did Sinclair have it?
But of course that was a ridiculous question to even pretend to be baffled by. After all, he knew exactly why Sinclair would have that Valor's Armory pistol.
Because Jackie would have given it to him. Who else would she have given it to other than Augustus Sinclair.
Her ever favoured pest.
Atlas's acceptance for Sinclair's hatred turned sharp and cold as his own anger rose. He was not the only one here that had lost things after all. For all his faults, he was not the only sinner among rows of saints. There were only devils down here in the end.
"Feel better?" Atlas snarled at Sinclair who flinched at the sound of his voice. Probably expecting a different accent from the Irish brogue he spoke with. "Feel like a big man now, Augustus? Huh?"
"What?" Sinclair seemed taken aback but the sheer nerve of Atlas to throw insults at him. "You fucking scum-" Augustus started towards him again but this time he was intercepted by Delta.
The big daddy had not been expecting the violence between the team when they first arrived but now the shock had worn off and he stepped in quickly to try and diffuse the situation. Keeping Sinclair and Atlas apart as best he could despite his own injuries.
He was clearly not expecting the anger with which Sinclair snapped at him, having never actually been on the other side of Sinclair's temper that so rarely came out to play. Atlas knew about Sinclairs temper a bit better than most and sneered viciously at Sinclair when he showed it. Like it was some twisted victory to see him so out of sorts.
"Get out of my way!" he barked and Delta gave a little flinch that was all surprise and hurt, it didn't stifle Sinclairs fury in the slightest. Nor did it do anything to stop Bea from looking like she was ready to kick Sinclair from her high ground on Delta's shoulders at any second.
Atlas might have felt bad for Sinclair as he made himself out to be the villain in this scenario with his anger when he was not truly the bad guy. But given his lip was bleeding and his patience had long since run out, he didn't afford Sinclair much compassion.
Tenebuam pointedly stayed out of the situation though her expression was pinched in unease and uncertainty, only going so far as to get Bea down from Delta's shoulders to try and usher her away from the situation. Given she'd proven perfectly willing to throw herself into danger at this point, Tenenbaum kept a firm grasp on the young girl's hand to keep her from rushing in to kick at Sinclair's shins or something.
That was fine, Atlas was getting himself back up off the ground while Delta struggled with what to do with the furious man in front of him. His confusion was almost funny, Atlas had spent so much of his time lost and out of his depth, now he knew exactly what was going on and was no better for it. At least Delta's confusion was simple and surface level.
"What, you want to slug it out?" Atlas demanded of Sinclair, ignoring their poor mediator as Delta still tried to keep to two from getting into a brawl. "Go a-fucking head, Sinclair! Not like you were strong enough to take me in a fight before and the beers have not been kind to you these past few years."
That just about did it.
Sinclair broke past Delta and for all Atlas's claims of his poor physical shape, Sinclair's right hook had always been a bit of a bitch and it nearly took him down a second time.
Atlas didn't truly realise how desperately he wanted to throw down with Sinclair until the fight was right in front of him. He had more than a couple of grievances with Sinclair he thought could be solved with a few well placed punches. Even though he tried to keep Fontaine's old resentment out of it, it was difficult not to look at the gun Sinclair had pushed into his belt and not feel infuriated enough to start a fight.
Delta stepped forward like he meant to pry the two of them off each other again but Tenebaum's hand caught his arm, shaking her head when Delta looked at her in confusion. But her attention was not on him, but on Atlas. Studying everything he said and did with that keen gaze while the subject of her study was too engrossed in the rather unpolished, pub style brawl he'd gotten into.
Her only relief was that a gun had not been fired nor a plasmid thrown just yet.
"You lying fucking rat-" Sinclair was saying as he drew back for another strike.
This one Atlas was ready for, moving under the thrown fist easily enough, he'd been fighting for his life since he first woke up and so a little fight with Sinclair was new dangerous territory for him.
He returned Sinclair's anger with his own, striking him once in the stomach and then again in the jaw, sending the man back a few steps, winded and gasping.
"Yeah? You want to talk about lies, Augustus? I know a couple a' yours too! Don't break your neck getting down off that high horse of yours."
Sinclair's eyes flashed like that was a challenge Atlas should not have issued. In fact he almost most definitely shouldn't have.
Sinclair recovered from his punches quickly enough and this time when the man lunged for him, Atlas made the mistake of thinking that just because Sinclair was not a fighter he would be able to take him down. Ignoring the sorry state his body was in. After so many fights and injuries, little rest and even less food, he was hardly in a state to keep going. Let alone when he was still pulling punches in this fight.
They both ended up on the ground, and Atlas thought for a moment Sinclair's hands were going to close around his throat. Panicked, Atlas had to throw all his weight into hurling Sinclair back off of him, the result a ringing pain through his shoulder which he seemed to consistently hurt again before it could heal. Hissing in pain Atlas scrambled back, clutching his shoulder as Sinclair recovered and righted himself, seeming to need a moment to catch his breath as well. While neither of them attacked physically, words became the weapon of choice.
"Yeah… yeah you would, wouldn't you?" Sinclair hissed lowly, dragging the argument back to the challenge Atlas should have left well enough alone.
"Been having fun have you? Putting on a new skin, a new act. Get to play the part o' the hero while you're destroying everything you touch, just like you always liked to."
In truth the ammunition they each had to use against the other came from a shared pile, it all had to do with who picked up the gun first. Atlas hesitated on his end, gaze flicking over to Delta briefly as a standing testament to the secrets he held against Sinclair.
Yet, he still did not speak them aloud.
Sinclair had no such reservations.
"Ryan might have had his head full of all those delusional speeches, but you're the one that fucked everything up and now everyone is dead except us."
That wasn't fair, Atlas told himself. That wasn't fair at all. Ryan set it all up to tumble down in the first place under the smallest bit of pressure.
But there was no denying Fontaine had given the first shove.
Then there came the accusations Atlas knew were coming but still couldn't fully brace himself for.
"Even now you're out here killing everyone you missed the first time around. Still. What needed to catch up after being 'dead' for a second time, Atlas?" Sinclair spat his name like it was a slur, maybe it was. It was still very much a lie that Atlas didn't know what to do with besides hold onto now he knew the alternative names at his disposal were all worse.
Then quietly Sinclair uttered, "I never should'a sent you to find Val."
At the first real name being spoken Atlas was jarred back into focus, getting up to his feet again with a protest burning in his lungs. This wasn't fair.
"No! Don't you throw that on me!" Atlas raged, fire sparking to life in his fingers out of furious habit. As if he could burn away Sinclair's accusations. But the heat did little more than dance between his fingers, not getting anywhere near anyone else. "I ain't have anything to do with that an' you fuckin' know it!"
And he remembered how Valery's ghost seemed to leave him down in Alex's lair.
The quiet goodbye he was sure had been accepted by the dead that let him walk away feeling a bit lighter. He'd felt… something. He felt… resolved of Valery.
He wouldn't let Sinclair drag her ghost back from the depths with his anger and accusations.
"Oh yeah? Really?" Sinclair scoffed but did not appear afraid of the embers smoldering away in Atlas's palm. Like he knew Atlas wasn't going to let them burn any brighter or get any closer. "You expect me to believe it just so happens Valery dies working on a Vita-Chamber? And you get spat out of one at the same time?"
It was with no small amount of vitriol that Atlas spat back. "And who exactly signed her up to work on those chambers, huh? Answer me that one, Augustus. Can't pin that one on me, now can you?"
Sinclair seemed to go stiff all over and the fingers curled around the gun that didn't belong to him turned white with the force with which they clenched around the metal. But he hadn't raised it just yet and so Atlas's flames grew no hotter in his palm. Sinclair also had not gotten back to his feet. Sat on his knees clutching the gun tightly in the same way Atlas held his flames. Like a show of strength that would go nowhere.
"Even if you weren't behind that one, I can name plenty others."
"Stop." Atlas commanded but Sinclair didn't do him such a mercy.
"Got a neat little list of friends of ours that you killed. Where should I start, huh?"
"Sinclair, I'm telling you to knock it the fuck off-"
"Who was the first one," Sinclair went on, undeterred and Atlas might have been unable to do anything to stop him short of another fist were it not for the name he chose to use. "Fontaine-"
"I am not Fontaine!"
The shout echoed off the walls around them. Shattering through the usual drips and leaks of Rapture and leaving the air quiet after it faded. Atlas panting, bleeding and perhaps just on the verge of breaking all together. No one else spoke, but all eyes were on him as he went on in a rasp.
"Or maybe I am. I don't know, I just...I don't have any idea who I am. I know who I was. And I know who I want to be, who I feel like I am, and it ain't Fontaine. I swear."
There was a borderline hysteria to his words, hands open towards Sinclair who seemed to flinch back from that more so than he had the closed fist or the flame. Quietly horrified by the sight in a way Atlas did not understand.
"You know me, Sinclair. You… you know Fontaine too. It hasn't been long for us, but you knew Fontaine for years. You have to know we're not the same." Atlas went on, not shying away from the genuine desperation and despair in his tone.
Almost wanting to beg, please tell me I'm not like him. Although those pitiful words mercifully never left his tongue.
"You're still at it?" Sinclair asked, breathless in his disbelief at the boldness of Atlas's act. "You're still going to lie to me now? Really, are you serious, Frank? Do you think I'm an idiot. That I'm going to buy this act?"
Some part of Atlas wanted to sneer at Sinclair and remind him he'd fallen for it once before. Atlas firmly stamped that part of him down and fixated on the rest of him that wanted desperately to plead with Sinclair.
The part of him that looked at them both, older and more worn than they'd ever been and thought miserably about the point their paths had brought them.
Just look at us. Atlas thought tiredly, how did we end up this way?
And he knew, no matter how much Fontaine loathed Sinclair for imagined slights and no matter how painful it was to take any blame onto himself - he could not hate Sinclair. Not when he was so sure Sinclair might be the only other person in Rapture that might understand what it was like to have ghosts clawing at his heels.
"I know ya don't believe a word of it, I understand that. I really do, Sinclair. I know it's crazy, but everything about this is crazy. Maybe I'm insane too, but I understand." Atlas assured quietly, the flame in his hand dying away entirely, leaving him cold and empty handed.
"And I… I don't blame you, Augustus."
The word hung heavy and this time Sinclair really did recoil, getting up just to take an unsteady step back from Atlas with a wide stare.
"I didn't remember who I was and what I did before, but I do now. Most of it. All of it maybe. And I...part of me really wants to put it all on you. Part of me.. but I don't blame you. Not for any of it. I know you tried, in your own way. I know you're trying now too. I see that. And sometimes, a lot of the time actually, I still really fucking hate you for how it all went down in the end."
Then, with a shuddering breath that was hard to hold, Atlas said, "But I know you miss them and I...I miss them too."
It was hard to say how true Atlas's assurances were, as his guts coiled up unpleasantly at the thought of being the one to harbour the fault of the sins committed between them. But he tried to extend something like forgiveness to Sinclair, something Fontaine never would have given.
"I might be Frank, but I'm not Fontaine. Not really, I think...I hope, I'm not… damn it- I don't have the first fucking clue anymore and I just…"
For a brief moment the words all fell away from him, Atlas left standing there imploring Sinclair just to hear him and understand even when the words themselves couldn't have been enough. Like somehow Sinclair might just understand the silent desperation that held everything he couldn't form into words.
Hoping against hope that he would be able to see the difference between the man he knew before and the one he'd spoken to those past few days.
Maybe Sinclair could see it, and maybe it didn't matter either way.
After a moment of quiet between them, Sinclair shook his head slightly, expression fixed in a vicious scowl but he made no move to attack Atlas again. That was more than he probably deserved or would have offered were their positions reversed. Confusion and uncertainty did nothing to dampen the deeply ingrained loathing Sinclair no doubt felt.
And as if he refused to even engage with the crazy concept Atlas was trying to offer as an explanation, Sinclair focused on the immediate situation before them and made a decision.
"You are not coming with us." Sinclair said every word slowly, darkly and Atlas didn't have it in him to pretend he would argue it.
He simply nodded and without the first idea of where he was going, began to walk. Ignoring how Beatrice's cries of protest followed him even once they were no longer in sight. He didn't dare look back, for fear of a bullet or simply his own resolve crumbling if he glanced at them.
This was the best possible outcome.
At the very least, he thought he might have been able to say what he felt he needed to say. Even if there were a thousand other things he wanted to say and just didn't have the strength to do so.
In truth Atlas might have prefered the mercy of the bullet to finding some dark corner of the sunken city to fade away in.
Regardless, it really wasn't up to him anymore.