A/N: So it's been a long time since I updated. Apologies. I've had exams and essays... but now, finally, I'm free! Well, almost. One exam left. And then 3 months of summer. Time for fiction and fanfiction galore. So here is the next chapter. Perhaps it's a bit long a convoluted... I was pretty much making it up as I went along - I didn't really know what Adelle was going to say or what her view was at this point, and what came out surprised me a bit in parts. But anyway. Here we go.
"We literally become what we do, not what we've done or will do. We're best defined by our actions in the moment." (Bennett Halverson, Epitaph Two)
Cam found Adelle in one of the pod rooms. She was about to run towards her when she realised that Adelle was standing very still, fists clenched, looking at a strange collection of objects around one of five holes in the ground. Cam wasn't sure what, but she could tell something was up.
"Addie?" she said softly, stepping forward. Adelle spun around, surprised to see the girl standing there. "Michael told me to come and find you."
"Oh... Yes, I... I suppose we'll be going soon." She coughed and glanced back at the adorned pod, but her eyes shot up again quickly. She tried to smile.
"Are you okay?" Cam asked tentatively.
"Me? Yes, I'm... I'm fine, sweetheart."
"Really? You don't look it," she replied, crossing her arms and peering up at Adelle, seeming much older than eleven. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at the pod.
"That..." said Adelle, turning around and taking a step back to survey the pod. Cam came to stand by her side. Adelle looked down at her. "That is where a good friend of mine used to reside."
"Reside?" repeated Cam, looking up at Adelle. "You mean your friend slept in there?"
"Yes, and... lived in there. He didn't... he didn't like to leave."
Cam opened her mouth, but closed it again. A man had lived there? Why did he have all that crazy stuff? Why was thinking about him making Adelle so sad?
Cam looked up. "I don't understand. Who was he?"
Adelle shot a look at the little girl who was peering at her so curiously. Eyebrows raised, she turned back to the pod, but didn't speak. What a question. How to explain who Topher was... It was something she struggled with every day.
"He was my friend," she began, uncertainly. "He worked here with us before... before everything went wrong. He..." She knew that Cam knew who Topher was, knew him as the hero who had freed them all. But she found she wanted her to understand the real Topher, the one she had known.
Cam was still looking up at her, brow creased. Adelle smiled, properly this time, and took Cam's arm. "Here," she said, "let's sit down." She guided Cam to one of the empty pods and they sat with their legs dangling over the edge. They sat there for a little while before Adelle spoke again. Cam could tell that this issue was particularly important to her and she didn't want to push it. It was so rare that Adelle spoke about the past to her.
"We worked very closely together," Adelle began suddenly. "You know I ran this house... Well, he was its brains. He was young and carefree and a complete genius. He seemed to have no worries at all, no concerns about what he was doing. That was exactly what I wanted.
"But as time went by, I got to know him better. Moral issues aside, he was a lovely boy. Very childlike, full of humour, and very... lonely. Even before the storm, before he retreated to this pod, he didn't like to leave the Dollhouse. He slept in a room behind his office. He had a trampoline and a pinball machine and a penchant for juice cartons. He..." Adelle broke off, unsure just how much she should tell Cam. She remembered sitting in her office and watching Topher play on his birthday, programming a doll to be her friend. Even now, so many years later, the pain and tenderness she had felt at those moments came bubbling back up. No, she wouldn't tell Cam about that. Those memories were private. Even Topher had never known she knew.
"The tech that he invented, the imprints he made, they were all just another type of game to him. He was so curious, so very curious. He didn't think about the implications. All of his life, he had never really been a part of the world, so how could he be expected to think as it did? He just wanted to see what could be done. And he always made sure to take care of the Actives. It was a game, and he was God."
"You're not making him sound very good, Addie," said Cam when she paused. She knew about the Dollhouses and about Adelle's role, but she also knew that Adelle hated what had happened. Or so she thought. But here she was talking in loving tones about this man who, it seemed, had revelled in everything they now worked so hard against.
"Oh. I know," she replied. "But he was. Oh, he was. Maybe not always... but he was very good. He developed a conscience." Suddenly, Adelle laughed. How much better off he would have been without that! But would he still have been the Topher that she loved? It made her shiver inside to remember all the pain it had caused him, but caring had been an integral part of him. He had been her conscience. He still was.
"He began to wonder what was really the right thing. That's a more difficult question than you can imagine. He struggled with it for a long time, and he couldn't always get it right. But he tried. Yet he couldn't stop his curiosity... He invented something new, something dreadful, something he knew could never be used. The remote wipe and imprint tech." Cam gasped. Adelle looked at her. That tech was infamous, despised. They had spent the last year attempted to destroy every last bit of it.
Cam gasped. "Topher Brink?" she exclaimed. "That's who lived here? Your friend was Topher Brink?"
"Yes," said Adelle, simply.
"But... but he..." Cam struggled to know what to say. The world saw Topher as a hero, but the way Adelle described him wasn't very heroic at all. "I don't understand."
"He never meant for it to be used," Adelle said. "You know that. I... Rossum got hold of it another way."
Adelle looked down, unable to meet Cam's gaze, her cheeks flushing. She couldn't do it. She had never been able to. She couldn't tell Cam what her role had been. She couldn't bear to have the young girl look at her with that criticising gaze. She was too ashamed of what she had done, and ashamed now of her inability to admit it. She had betrayed him... Every day, she hated herself a little more for that. If she hadn't, none of this would have happened. Would it? She had wanted her job back, wanted to protect the House, but surely there would have been another way? A way to protect them all and bring down Rossum without giving them the tech they needed to destroy everything? Without betraying the person she was closest to, who even then she had considered a son? She flinched as she remembered what he had said to her. The coldest bitch on the planet. He had said he'd trusted her... How could she have done that? How?
She shook her head to clear it. No. She had to stop thinking like this. It wasn't helpful, not at all. What was done was done, and she was clearing up the mess. She would never understand why Topher hadn't blamed her, but she had never stopped trying to make up for it, trying to prove that she was worthy of his trust, that she really did have a heart. He blamed himself, and she blamed herself. But where had punishing himself got him? She did what she had to do. Maybe it wasn't the right thing, or the best thing... But it was like she had said to Cam. What was the right thing, really? It was so hard to know. Things could have gone just as badly if she hadn't handed it over. Rossum would have found a way, and she would have had no power to help at all.
"Adelle?" said Cam, concerned. "What are you thinking? Are you okay?"
Adelle looked back up with a small smile. "Yes, I... I was explaining about Topher's tech. I know you don't understand. People have created their own picture of him... But he made that tech of his own free will. And he hated himself for having been the one to make it. It drove him crazy. Quite literally insane – his mind wasn't his own. After we blew up the Rossum headquarters, he just struggled to hold on. He'd... he'd lost a lot too. He was betrayed... by a man who he had thought was his friend," and by me, she added silently. "He lost the woman he loved. Her name was Bennett Halverson..." Adelle thought back with a shudder to that dreadful day. She had entered the office to find that young woman slumped in the chair, her brains blown all over the wall. And Topher, crouched on the floor, shaking, rocking, moaning. Unable to comprehend. She had gone straight to him, horrified to see him so helpless and hurt. "And the tech he had invented was destroying the world. He had never wanted that. He was just curious...
"I know I'm not explaining very well. I'm sorry. You probably didn't want me to go on at you like this..." She smiled at Cam. "I just wish you could have known him. I think you would have got along very well." She laughed. "He really wasn't bad, you know," she added when Cam didn't speak. "I know that in this world now, anything to do with tech is dreadful. I know that the tech he created did terrible things. But he paid the price. He really did. And he was just... he was only human, Cam. He was only human, struggling with the same things we all do, trying to work it out. It's just that his mistakes had quite a monumental effect..." He voice trailed off for a moment. "I loved him, Cam. I loved him like I love you. He was a son to me. We lived together for ten years and I tried my best to take care of him, to help him. But in the end... in the end, there wasn't anything I could do."
In the silence, Cam said, "So he died. And he was your friend. I'm sorry, Addie."
"Yes..." Adelle swallowed. She pulled her legs up, tucking them underneath her and swivelling to face Cam, who turned to look at her. "Yes, he died." It was something she struggled to say aloud. "He was a good man, who bad things happened to, and he died."
Cam stared at Adelle, trying to take it in. Adelle smiled, a small, wry, smile.
"It's so..." Cam began. "Everyone thinks he's a hero. We knew he made the tech but... but not like you said. Like he enjoyed it. How can he be a hero when he did it all because it was a game?"
"No," said Adelle sharply. "No. He is a hero. He was horrified by what his tech had done, by what his curiosity had led to. He blamed himself. He shouldn't have, it... it wasn't his fault. He couldn't live with it. And then he found a way. A way to make everything go back to how it used to be. A way to erase the damage his tech had done, as best he could. But that reset came with a price. He did not do anything to hurt you, or anyone, ever. He never wanted that tech to be used. He did everything he could to stop it. He never stopped punishing himself for what happened, even though nobody blamed him. He never stopped trying to make it right, even though in the end it cost him his life. He is a hero."