Disclaimer: I don't own Bioshock or any of the characters

Waiting was a funny thing. It had a habit of slowly tearing away at your subconscious while you desperately tried to tell yourself that everything would work out in the end. That was a lie of course. Davian knew full well that most things tended to blow up in your face in the most spectacular, and often times impractical, ways.

That was why he'd opted to try distracting himself while he waited. Archer had left to go pick up Wren and his plasmid ten minutes ago. Since then, he'd been gingerly testing how his legs had held up by trying to stand. It was frustrating to only be able to take a few steps at a time before having to sit back down, but it was infinitely better than facing the other presence in the room.

Amelia.

She'd seemed to be all right earlier, but the moment he'd mentioned Wren's name she'd become silent and tense. To make matters worse, he knew that she had every right to be. It was nothing short of a miracle that she had seen fit to forgive him for attacking her earlier. Even so, the fact that he'd let himself slip like that did little to inspire confidence in his current mental state.

It was almost like being back in his old apartment, fighting for the girl in a silent tug of war with her older sibling. Amelia saw him as a threat and he couldn't honestly dispute that.

Especially considering he almost agreed with her.

He'd gone over it so many times in his head. Done everything in his power to convince himself that this was the right decision, and yet…

No. It was too late for that now. He couldn't let himself doubt this. After seeing the aftermath of what the voice had done with his body, Davian had been horrified. And that was just a few hours. To imagine how brutal spending years under the control of another must be was almost unthinkable.

It was a pity he couldn't truly believe that. Maybe he was just selfish, but the thought of losing her to something like this, even if it was supposedly for her own good, made him feel like he'd swallowed a fistful of glass. Every thought tore him to pieces. Every nagging doubt split him in half. What if something went wrong? What if Tenenbaum was lying for whatever sick reason and the plasmid killed her? What if? What if? What if?

What if he never got that far…?

He'd promised an explanation as to what he was doing, and it didn't take an expert to know that Amelia wasn't going to like it. She was a big sister. Protecting little sisters was the entire point of her position. From what he had heard, when Delta had rescued the little sisters, many of their older protectors had become enraged at his actions. And now Davian was about to do the same thing with one of them looking over his shoulder.

She could kill him. That simple thought shot through his mind like a bolt of lightning. She could easily kill him, even as damaged as she was. One strong kick could shatter his rib-cage. One blast of telekinetic energy could slam him into the wall, or bury him under a pile of debris. It was a scary thought. If she didn't want him to change Wren back to normal, there was nothing he could do to save himself.

Never had the confines of these walls felt so oppressive before.

One way or another, this issue was going to be solved today. He just wished he was sure what the outcome would be.

The sound of the door opening caused Davian's heart to shoot up into his throat. Turning around expecting to see Wren walking in, he wasn't prepared for Archer's entrance.

"Heads up!"

The plasmid vial struck against his chest as it was thrown across the room. Davian stumbled for a moment before clumsily grabbing at the object to prevent it from crashing to the ground and breaking open. With more luck than skill he managed to grab it with one hand, using the other to grasp the side of the bed to keep himself from falling over during the sudden movement.

"Looks like someone needs to work on their reflexes." Archer commented with a small chuckle. Thankfully he had the presence of mind to hand the needles over instead of throwing them as well.

"Where's Wren?" Davian questioned, too high strung to come up with any kind of clever comeback. "Wasn't she supposed to be coming back with you?"

"She's on her way." Archer assured, dismissing his concern with a wave of his hand. "Joey's bringing her. Apparently the kid got her hand stuck inside an auto-turret somehow and he's trying to get her out."

Completely oblivious to the glares he was receiving from the two other occupants of the room, he went on to a subject Davian dearly wished to avoid.

"Now how about you fill us in on just what's going on with this plasmid?"

He didn't answer at first. The words simply refused to come. Instead, he focused his attention on the disgustingly enticing blue liquid that swirled inside the glass.

"What are you doing?"

The tiny voice shocked him out of the stupor he'd been dwelling in for the past few days. He'd been putting off the Adam dosage for as long as possible, more out of stubbornness than anything. It had put him in a bad mood, but he'd been trying to prove to himself that he didn't need it. Too bad he knew full well that he needed it worse than anything else in the world.

"Nothing." He replied sharply, his eyes never leaving the vial of red liquid. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

Perhaps he was being overly harsh, but right then he couldn't bring himself to care. He was locked in a battle of wills with himself. It was a fight he'd taken many times before. He'd never come close to winning.

"Is that Adam…?" His head jerked back in surprise. Not at the fact that Wren had recognized the substance, but more that she hadn't fled from him at his tone.

He could probably have convinced her to leave him alone if he really tried, but right then he was far too tired of feeling like the bad guy to do so.

"Yea." He said wearily. "That's Adam. I kind of need it to keep myself sane. Well… mostly sane."

She looked thoughtful for a moment, her brow furrowing with a small frown on her face. As if coming to a decision, she turned and ran out of the room.

"Wait there!" She called over her shoulder, as though he'd displayed any desire to go someplace else. Davian raised an eyebrow at her behavior. He didn't have long to ponder its cause before she came back.

"Here." She offered, depositing several vials of the drug into his lap. "I found these, but you can have them. I don't want you to get sick."

The young man looked down at the small pile in disbelief. Was this a trick of some kind? These were the Adam vials he'd hidden around his home so that he'd have a ready supply available that couldn't easily be stolen by intruders.

He was about to get angry at her for taking them when he saw her face. It was the picture of childish honesty. She had no idea that these were his, and had just offered them in the hopes that she could help. It gave Davian an odd feeling in his chest when he saw that she was actually concerned for his well-being.

"Uh… thanks…" He said. "Really, thank you. I'll keep these in a safe place." He wasn't in the habit of thanking others, but the shy smile she gave him as a response to his gratitude made him start to smile as well.

Putting the vials aside, he stood up.

"Come on, how about we finish setting up your room?" He asked. "I've been putting it off for too long."

The Adam could wait for a bit longer. Right now he had something more important to do.

Sighing, Davian placed the plasmid on the small table next to his bed. He sat down heavily on the mattress as the other two looked at him expectantly.

"A little while after we arrived here, I had a discussion with Tenenbaum." He began, choosing to stare at a blank space on the wall rather than meet their eyes. "It was about Wren and her… condition."

He could practically feel the intensity of Amelia's gaze as her eyes drilled into his back. Out of habit, his mind did a mental calculation of how quickly she could cross the room to reach him if things went badly.

"She told me about how her mental conditioning will break down when she starts to mature a bit more." A sharp gasp sounded behind him, but he couldn't tell who made it. If he had to guess, it would likely be the big sister remembering her own time going through that process.

Picking the plasmid back up and piercing the seal on the top of the small bottle, Davian filled the needle. It felt like such a familiar gesture, and yet he couldn't shake the sense of dread that held onto him at the thought of what he was about to do.

"She gave me this plasmid in order to fix that problem." He said, positioning the needle above the vein on his left arm. Without giving himself time to back out, he thrust the needle down and braced himself for the agonizing rush that was about to follow.

Much to his surprise, it never came. The pain of the needle breaking the skin was the only feeling that signaled he had just injected himself. After several moments a warm tingling sensation ran up and down his arm. It was strange, but a very far cry from his previous experiences with plasmids. Hopefully this meant that the doctor had been right when she said it was more benign than its destructive companions.

Withdrawing the needle from his arm, he turned to see two very different expressions facing him.

"You know, you could have warned me before you did that." Archer said, cringing and eyeing the spot where he had stabbed himself. "How exactly is that thing supposed to help keep the little tyke from going crazy?"

Davian paused once more. Instead of answering, he turned to look at Amelia.

She was tense. He could see that easily enough. Her hands were balled into fists despite suffering from her earlier burns. She knew, or at the very least suspected, where this was going. From the looks of things, she was trying to convince herself that he wasn't seriously considering this.

"It's supposed to… cure her…" He forced out. "Turn her human again."

Closing his eyes, time seemed to slow down for him. Hell was about to break loose, but Davian couldn't find it in himself to prepare for it. He would face it when it found him. For now, faded memories played out on the inside of his eyelids.

"Look mister M! Look at what I found!" Wren proudly held up her harvester, full of the Adam-rich blood she'd just extracted from the corpse. It was a sickening display, but he managed to keep a smile onto his face none the less. There was no sense in forcing her to see just what she was doing.

"That's a great job." He assured, struggling not to gag as she tipped back the container and began to drink the vile substance. "How about we head home now? I think you've helped enough angels for today."

With a small hum of acceptance she offered her hand for him to take. Something he did without even stopping to think. It was funny how he'd started doing that.

.

He slammed the airlock door closed, effectively trapping the unfortunate splicer behind the metal doors.

"You messed with the wrong sister you sorry sack of crap." He hissed despite knowing full well that the man couldn't hear him. "For your sake, I sure hope you know how to swim." The muffled screams coming from inside the doors quickly faded away to nothing as it was filled with pressurized water.

He really should have been horrified by his own actions, but the only thing he could feel was a grim satisfaction in knowing the man was no more. Wren's wrist would likely be hurting for the rest of the day from where the crazed splicer had grabbed her, and the thought of her getting hurt made Davian furious.

Without looking back, he turned to make sure the girl was all right.

.

"Read me this one, please?" Wren begged, holding up the weathered book in her hands. He was tired, practically running himself ragged during the day, but for whatever reason he couldn't say no to such a plea.

"All right." He conceded. "But just this one. After that, it's time for bed."

The girl let out a squeal of delight, practically shoving the book into his hands and curling up beside him on the couch.

It was a battered and shredded book, most of the pages ruined by water damage. Even so, it wouldn't do to disappoint her after agreeing to read it. So he started to make up things as he went along. He took pieces and themes from some of the stories his own parents had told him when he was little. Not that he thought of them that much anymore. They'd both died in the midst of the war and he'd been too young to remember much about them.

He remembered the stories though.

Tales of clever heroes, wicked villains, and comedic partners. Stories that always had a happy ending no matter how bad things looked in the middle. He told as much as he could remember, and when he ran out of that he began to make it up as he went along.

By the time it was over, Wren was fast asleep at his side. Davian didn't want to wake her up so he set the book down and settled in beside her. In a way, he almost felt like this was a moment straight out of his story. He wished it would never end.

His eyes opened. Two pits of golden shock stared back at him in terrified disbelief. As time began to speed up again, the shock turned to rage. With a detached curiosity, he noticed that the depths of her eyes took on a blood-red hue as the anger took over.

A piercing shriek shattered the stillness like a hammer breaking down a window. Amelia launched herself forward, crossing the distance between them so quickly that he couldn't have teleported away even if he'd been in any condition to do so. She vaulted over the bed, slamming into him and forcing his body against the far wall with a jarring impact.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Archer demanded, rushing forward in a misguided attempt to stop her. "Have you lost your-"

His question was cut off as the bed was hurled at him with a wave of force from Amelia's outstretched hand. It smashed into him, carrying his body into the opposite wall and effectively stunning him.

Before Davian had a chance to slump to the ground, her burned, cracked, hand latched around his throat and hoisted him up until he was standing on his toes and struggling to breathe. It must have hurt her terribly to be doing this, but her face showed not even the slightest hint of the pain. Well, the physical pain at least.

Davian choked as her grip tightened. Part of him wondered what she was waiting for, but a single look at her face told him exactly what was going on. One burning question stood out in her eyes as she fought an internal battle over whether he should live or die.

Why?

She wanted to know how he could even consider doing such a thing. It went against everything the two of them had been doing! It was practically murder! No, it was worse than that. Murder only killed you. What he was considering doing was erasing her very existence.

He'd asked himself much the same thing over and over without coming up with a good reason. And yet, with her face so close so that he could see every cut and bruise, he finally knew exactly why he was doing this.

"Because… of… this…" He choked out. His thumb brushed against a bruise on her cheek, not hard enough to cause pain but enough to signify what he meant. She flinched backwards at the touch, but didn't let up her stranglehold on his neck.

"Because I saw just how bad it is to be controlled by something else." He'd stopped fighting her grip at this point. If he really wanted, he could probably force his way out due to her injuries but that wasn't his goal. "This isn't about what I want. It's about what she needs. Please Amelia; you need to trust me on this."

It was the wrong thing to say. Her gaze hardened as the words left his mouth. With a surge of panic, he felt the muscles in her arms tense in preparation to tighten further and strangle him entirely.

"Stop it! E! Stop it! You're hurting him!" Wren's voice cut through the crimson shroud that had fallen over her mind. With a gasp, she let go of Davian's throat and he collapsed on the floor struggling to get air into his lungs.

"Mister M, are you all right? Are you hurt?" The girl questioned, rushing to his side. Behind her, a very terrified Joseph was helping up Archer. The splicer didn't get a chance to answer her questions.

Amelia's hand shot forward, grabbing Wrens' shoulder before she could get too close to the fallen splicer. She tried to pull her back, only to have the little sister angrily wrench herself out of her grip.

"Let go of me!" She shouted, pulling backwards. The words caused Amelia to gasp as though she'd been struck. Her mouth opened in silent protest as the girl defiantly latched onto Davian's arm and glared back at her.

"Mister M is my friend!" She shouted accusingly. "I won't let you hurt him!"

Something akin to a whimper issued from the big sister's throat as her gaze desperately tried to convey the severity of the situation. What was stopping her from simply snatching the girl up and getting her away from Davian was something only she knew.

"Are you ok mister M?" Wren questioned, kneeling down in front of him and ignoring the feverish pleading noises coming from behind her.

He forced himself up into a sitting position. Regulating his breathing, he nodded to keep her from worrying. Right now, there was something else he needed to ask.

"Wren?" He began, his voice shaky after the rough treatment. "Do you trust me?"

There it was. All she needed to do was say no and he'd forget all about this stupid plan. She would see how wrong his intentions were, go back to Amelia, and he'd realize how terrible this entire situation was. He'd beg for their forgiveness. He do whatever it took to win them back. All she had to do was say no!

"Of course I do." She replied without the slightest hesitation.

He wanted her to take those words back. How could she trust him when he didn't trust himself? She should be running from him! He wasn't her protector! He was a fucking splicer who'd gotten involved in something far too complicated!

She didn't run. She didn't shy away when his palm was softly placed against her forehead by a will that was not entirely his own.

Davian felt his tears burning in his eyes as his hand began to light up. He wanted her to run. To scream for him to stop. To do anything to prevent this from happening. He wanted Amelia to tear her from his grip, but no such deliverance stopped the events that were already in motion.

The light took on a blinding intensity, but he couldn't tear his gaze away. As he watched, Wren's golden eyes closed.

And then a pair of green ones were staring back at him.