Note: Edited for content, minor.

Decide, and everybody one day will
Know very clearly—or at least lie still.
"Don Juan", Canto 11, verse IV, Lord Byron

Note: This is supposed to sound hectic. Hope I managed it.

"Colonel Autumn."

He stirred, his arms moving in slow jerks against the cold floor. For a moment he couldn't quite comprehend what was going on, hands moving in odd patterns against the metal. One hand flopped to the floor and the other raised up to his face, feeling the sticky blood leaking from his head―

Remembered being attacked. He explored his temple with a circular motion, gauging the damage. After a moment, he pulled himself up against the edge of the desk, and sat with his hand pressed against the cut on his head. This was―had he been exposed to radiation, again?

No. He woke up slowly, allowing himself the time to feel the physical aspect before he opened his eyes to the interrogation room he found himself within. A few minutes passed, before he understood what had actually happened.

Lillie. She'd taken him out, in a very... effective, if utterly confusing way. Augustus let his senses come back to rights before he gained feet under himself, and assessed the situation.

He was bloody, beaten, and bewildered. He almost laughed. Was it Tuesday? It felt like every Tuesday and every other day of the week since he'd been subjected to―

Lillie, again. He groaned, feeling the ache in his knees as he stood wavering in the interrogation room. The girl drew more blood than she was owed, he felt, but it was only fitting. He had trained her. He'd trained her to kill, and at this point he was lucky to be alive.

She'd stolen his weapon, yet again. He might as well give up possession of the damn thing. She must enjoy using the 10mm pistol he'd kept for most of his life. She knew to disarm the enemy, but―was he really the enemy, in this instance? Their situation had been so complicated for so long.

Augustus scrounged in the nearby desk for a substitute, coming up with a laser pistol that he supposed ought to do the job. What job? Good God, his head ached something fierce. He blinked rapidly, seeking out the unforgiving light that he knew should be present. His muddled vision found nothing more than a blurred line across the wall as he fell sideways, correcting himself briefly. Confused, for certain―

Augustus straightened himself out and centered his eyes on the doorway. A stray thought came to mind. Recalled when he'd been pressed against the magnalocks... He rubbed the underside of his chin, trying to sort his memories. Lillie'd had him up against the door, and―his hand drifted toward his mouth―

Wretched. It was the only word he could eke out of the clay that was his mind before the attempt was interrupted by a dreadfully familiar and importuning voice, once again.

"Colonel, I have need of you."

He trusted his instincts. There wasn't much else he could tease from his brain but the heartfelt hope he'd had, prior to this incident. His first instinct was to play the game as he'd intended to, before she'd been captured. To―

He opened the door to the room, without hearing the prompt made by the supercomputer, and began the trip toward the command center. He had to make an announcement. Had to...

Everything that had lain heavy on him was gone. All he could focus on was the here and now. It felt as if he were drunk and his attention span was limited by his whimsical delights. Augustus stumbled through the bunker toward his goal, the strong need deep in his heart driving him forward. Only... the drunken whimsy had melted into a furious rage again, and it began to feel as it had when she'd confronted him the night of her departure from Raven Rock.

He could hear his feet pressing into the walkways, soft rubber soles squeaking along the metal. He had to get to command before he forgot what he'd intended to do, in this tumultuous state. Tried to keep himself focused. Lord, but it was really hard to do that.

Along the way he'd managed to come to a few conclusions. Firstly, he believed that Lillie was smarter than he'd given her credit for. More brave than he'd expected of her, after seeing her "giving up" to the Enclave and taking him down as she had. A short swell of pride had to be quelled in his chest at the thought, because―

Secondly. Eden undoubtedly had her removed from the interrogation area to somewhere more beneficial to its own devices, where it could speak with her uninterrupted. That meant she had been alone in the bunker without someone human to direct the situation, and she might have bought into Eden's manipulation, yet again.

The whole of that thought was something he didn't want to have happen. It caused him undue pain to imagine, even briefly. To that end, he was annoyed, befuddled, and furious that Eden had managed to propel its plan this far into existence. He should have stopped the damned thing from getting to this point―

Augustus poured himself into the command center and took up a microphone, announcing to Raven Rock that Lillie must be shot on sight. He hoped his words were enough to produce a concise response from the Enclave, the people who he could not entirely trust given recent events.

His men would take damage. Lillie would fight them, and she was very good at fighting. But the effort might slow her escape from the bunker, which meant...

Worst case scenario, she would die. The possibility of Lillie dying was at least an end to the nefarious goals of that goddamned ZAX monstrosity―Augustus paused in his diction for a moment, clutching at his chest and the pain that had suddenly exploded into being. Though he'd never been able to fully tell if he was experiencing―dare he say it―love for the girl, versus having a heart attack, he was now absolutely certain this feeling... was love.

It was painful. More painful than even his awakening from "dying" at the purifier. He'd never quite experienced such an agonizing feeling and if that was how she'd felt at any point of this dog and pony show that Eden had set into motion, he felt justified in following his instincts.

Maybe he was martyring her and himself to the cause, without good reason. The pain he felt was definitely exacerbated. He was dooming her to certain fate, now. Imagining her fate, when she'd been disabled by the cryo-grenade in the Vault, was nowhere near this level of horribleness; but knowing her fate lent to him the strength to perform this thoroughly final decision.

"Colonel, I am highly disappointed!" Eden was saying. He dropped the microphone to the floor, fumbling his hands on the equipment, and stared up at the eye on the wall.

He couldn't say anything to the thing. Could only stare at the blue light as it swiveled to face him in the dim light of the bunker, wondering what the next step of the machinations would be. Wondering what heinous thing Eden might do; wondering if Eden would attempt to talk him out of his utterly damning instinct to set Enclave soldiers against Lillie.

"Do you not remember? The back-up?" Eden sounded annoyed and... some undertone that indicated danger to him. He couldn't quite make sense of it, right now. "If you absolutely mean to end the poor girl's life, you need only activate the failsafe!"

He was too confused to grasp the idea at first, but he did eventually come to understand. The failsafe. The plasma charge! If he truly desired to stop Lillie―if he thought she were actually following Eden's orders, that she was the enemy, in reality―he needed―

He moved himself to the operations room for VIOLA, his eyes sliding over the various monitors that were displaying her flight from Raven Rock. Remembered his past, remembered her antics in the past, his unblinking eyes staring at the feed for what felt like ages. Remembered the disdain he'd felt toward himself and his sinking feeling at her hope and her messages. Remembered―

"Colonel Autumn, sir?" someone said, catching his attention. He barked out an order to have the failsafe control brought to him, but his voice faded just as they'd understood.

The startled orchestra members quickly came to his aid, offering him a seat at a familiar terminal. He stared at the device in front of him―a helpful technician gestured to the correct sequence to activate the back-up―and his eyebrows were damn near touching in their furrowing over his eyes.

Eden was correct. Technically.

For as many weeks as she'd been gone, he'd longed to end the torture. He'd been as confused then as he was now, staring at the device that was being primed for his use. Confused, enervated, and futilely attempted to suppress his feelings. That behavior had led him to this point, and he was feeling the pressure of Eden's swift action playing off of his own careful slowness.

He was also probably suffering from a concussion and not in his correct mind to make such a serious decision. Augustus felt his hand moving to hover over the button, as he considered the option. It felt too late to delay the action, even though he was fighting his own damnable heart. He'd been no stranger to grief at scrapping an operation and all the men involved, before, but this was―

This was different.

God forgive me, he thought. His hand was there, hovering, as he stared blankly at the device.

"Colonel Autumn?" someone asked, from his side. The technician keyed in the code as directed by Eden, giving him an ultimatum of the worst kind.

Augustus shook his head, slowly. Eden's voice nagged at him from the wall, but all of a sudden everything had gone hazy. It really felt as if he were perfectly drunk―

"Something feels wrong here," someone said. He agreed, but he was too prideful to give voice to his men. He'd suffered a head wound. He should not be here, with his hand over this button. He even thought he could feel the blood oozing down the side of his face. But he could not bear any more disgrace in their eyes, unless he were to die.

No, he was far too confused to feel anything other than pride. It simply wasn't possible, at this point.

He couldn't feel the pain in his chest, anymore, either. It must have been there, but nothing registered. He was tired; sleepy, his eyes closing of their own accord as he stared at the device that was meant to detonate the plasma charge he knew to be located inside Lillie's head. The charge that should end her life―

He couldn't think straight, at all. It had the unfortunate effect of simplifying the matter in an unspeakable manner. Augustus pitched forward, his hand landing on the device, his body hung over the desk in a limp manner.

"Thank you, dear Colonel," Eden said, as he finally lost consciousness.