Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Sister has never smelled pine trees before.

The scent is thick yet pleasant, with fallen needles making a yielding carpet that sinks slightly around the Sister's heavy boots. Moving silently, the figure stumbles over a root, gloved fingers digging into a trunk for support. From a distance the figure looks almost entirely alien in the smoky moonlight, with an outsized head and spindly limbs, but when it stills and bends down to grab experimental fistfuls of soil, the motions are unmistakably human, tempered by the swivel of joints and punctuated by the expansion of lungs. It watches the cloying brown and green crumble of the topsoil under its touch, gradually fanning its fingers and letting the dirt fall back to the ground. Overhead, a bird caws, cutting a pale shadow across the forest floor and the figure is freed from its reverie, exploding into motion. Plunging deeper into the trees' gloom, the Sister kicks up tiny clouds of grit with its heel, wispy puffs of dirt that glow with moonlight before winking out again, a miniature supernova.

Brigid Tenenbaum does not dream.

She used to, when she was younger—before the little sisters, before the camps, before the rhythmic pounding of goose stepping could make her vomit from fear. Now when she goes to bed, she sleeps lightly; a twitchy, restless state. It is still preferable to the insomnia and night terrors of before. She's made peace with the fact; she's even started to take advantage of the dreamlessness by watching TV or reading novels before bed without the fear of nightmares.

Which is why, when she pads into the kitchen one morning to find an intruder crouching on the table, she already knows she's not still asleep. The house is still mostly dark, with faint fingers of dawn easing across the sky, but the low light is more than enough to make out a figure—the arch of a spine, the slope of a shoulder, the curve of a wrist. The Big Sister is looking towards the open front door, distracted by something among the trees. She's so still that it reminds Brigid of a preserved wild animal, a ghoulish taxidermy. The weak sunlight streaming through the curtains highlights the dust motes swirling in the air, making the scene seem even more frozen in time, like a single frame and even in the dimness, she can see, almost feel, the needle—the cruel device almost as alive as the child wielding it.

She does not remember asking if she would be next, but an answer comes to her anyway.

Fear threads through her veins at the thought, as intimate as an old lover. At this range, she can smell it . She knows that smell nearly better than she knows herself, and when she realizes how thick the air is with it, her lungs burn. It is the smell of blood and saltwater, rust and decay and rot—the smell of Rapture. The stench grabs her in a vice and threatens to push her down under miles and miles of ugly memories, but she bites her lip until she feels it bleed to clear her head. The blood flows soundlessly over her bottom lip, a gentle reminder in the most painful way.

Move, some part of her murmurs, desperate in its softness. Run. Deep in the tissues of her hindbrain, she's in agreement, but some invisible force arrests her body and she stands there, a deer in the headlights.

Unarmed and unresisting, Brigid Tenenbaum closes her eyes and prepares to die.

Nothing happens. She waits for pain to flood her senses, to gag on her own blood or hear her bones break, but all was silent save for the quiet sounds of breathing. Before curiosity could open her eyes again, an odor interrupts her—a smell of blood, rot, and saltwater, tinged faintly with dried sweat. Uncomprehending, she opens her eyes; Big Sister was leaning in, apparently as transfixed as she was. Long fingers grip the chair as the girl breathes in slowly, so close that Brigid could see her own shell-shocked expression in the porthole. She couldn't tell how long they both stood there, unmoving, but at this distance, she couldn't help but notice the details on the figure: the overlapping layers of dried blood, the scuffed leather on the knuckles of the gloves, and even the childish doodles lining the tank. Though she couldn't move her own eyes, she could feel the others' on her, probing her with an intensity she wants to run from.

A soft clanking caught her attention, almost by accident; she’d picked up the sound and tried to ignore it, instinctively. She had been so intent on staying alive for longer, balanced on this precarious peak of a truce for as long as possible, that she had shut the noise out before realizing its source. The Big Sister’s armor is rattling .

Brigid’s understanding comes to her in waves; the motions are coming from the wearer, not the clothing. The girl beneath them is trembling like a wire, hard enough that the buckles on her arms and legs chatter like biting teeth. It’s an unsettling display that only hints at the catastrophe just below the surface. Brigid swallows, the muscles in her throat fluttering nervously. A half formed sentence squeezes out of her mouth, and even she is unsure what she means to say.

"Mädchen, ich- "

In a retort of weighted boots, the Big Sister retreats, twisting out of reach so quickly that Brigid almost misses the action. The last part of the girl she sees is the heel of a grimy boot, almost transparent with speed, like that of a passing ghost.

She doesn’t know what to do with herself after that. Tradition dictates that she would make coffee, eggs, toast—but the idea alone made her already cramping stomach come dangerously close to spilling over. Almost blindly, she stumbles to the front door which still hung open into the darkness, moving slightly with the wind. The locks (of which there were many) made a satisfyingly heavy clunk as she reset them—each one, it seems, promising her a bit more safety from the world outside. When the last bolt was pulled and lock secure, a wave of indecision seizes her, and she stood there feeling utterly lost, painfully aware of the sweat that had formed on her, coating her face and neck in sheets of ice, and the way the room seems to swim at the edges as the worst of the adrenaline receded, leaving her weak-kneed. Crushing handfuls of her nightgown in both fists, she slid down the wall until she was on the floor, swallowing the wild noises that threatened to burst from her mouth. The dawn was utterly silent as she allows a few tears to squeeze free, leaving wet trails down her face. She is so tired.

Briefly, when she’d almost caught her breath, she’d wipes her eyes and wonders for the millionth time when her ordeal would end—if, indeed, it ever would.

Nothing much happens for the next two days.

Time passes in a parody of a schedule: waking to eat and do chores, tending her tiny garden, half-heartedly flicking through her collection of old novels. The air in the house seems to have thickened invisibly, stretching like glue until even the hands of the clock were burdened, moving slower than Brigid could ever have believed. Time itself sat heavy on her too, or maybe that was the sleeplessness of the night before, crushing down on her like lead bricks. The encounter had gutted her emotionally—she'd been afraid to look at her hands since then, terrified what she might see. Would she be the victim again, sixteen in striped pajamas? Or would she be the monster, once more, cruel scalpel ready? She does not want to know.

(She thinks she might, already. She is both.)

A sudden, vicious heave threatens her breakfast at the thought, but she forces her stomach to settle and instead focuses on the noise pouring through the receiver. Desperate for a listening ear, she’s called the only person she could: Jack, miles away.

"...Brigid? Hello? Hello?" Jack sounds concerned, even through the scratchy reception, and Tenenbaum jerks her head away from the sound, startled into motion. She had entirely missed him answering the phone.

"I am here." She mumbles into the phone, shaken by how weak her voice sounds. "I apologize for not responding, but..." a sigh burst out of her, surprisingly heavy for the air it was. "Someone was here."

"Someone." Jack repeats quietly. The word was thick with implication.

"Yes." The word felt like an apology as she spoke it slowly into the phone, already expecting his next question.

"They were from... the c-city?"

"I... yes."

"Come over?" Jack offers softly. He sounds stressed, and Tenenbaum felt a sting of guilt at the strain in his voice. His sentences were becoming choppier; she knew from experience that if he felt any more threatened he'd fall silent entirely- a turtle into his shell, metaphorically speaking. It was a stress reaction, as she'd learned from experience. It had taken weeks for him to speak after they'd both finally escaped Rapture, and the first time he did, the deep voice that came from his mouth had startled her so badly she'd dropped her lit cigarette into her lap, burning her skirt.

"I..." she stops speaking to hear a child's voice on the other end.

"I’m hungry, Jack!"

"Me too!" Another voice chimes in, giggling. Listening to the exchange made Brigid smile; this was what she owes these children, not another round of fear and trauma from Rapture. Hearing them safe and happy had made up her mind, and when Jack finished speaking with the girls she coolly picked up the slack in the conversation.

"Perhaps this is... not the best idea, schnucki. You and the girls sound so happy. I have brought enough trouble on you both, yes? Do not worry; I will be fine."

(When she was 10, her mother had told her with unshakable certainty that there was no such thing as a good lie. She’d believed it, then—now, she wonders if there aren't exceptions to the rule.)

After a few more minutes of conversation, she gingerly places the phone back in its cradle and stares at it motionlessly, quietly wondering if she had just signed her own death warrant.

Part of her, a tiny selfish whisper in her ear, was screaming for her to hide—It would work, that part of her argues. You’ve packed. A suitcase, unaware of the turmoil it was causing, was tucked into a neat corner of the shoe closet, beneath winter parkas and sweaters and dresses. Brigid had kept it there for years, packed for the most difficult trip possible: sets of clothes, a tent, emergency money alongside ID cards and food. Ever since she had left... there, no amount of emergency provisions had seemed like enough. But she dismisses the suggestions, like a mother shushing a particularly rowdy child. The threat she’d faced—was facing—was her own making, and she is determined to handle it: lay in the bed she’d made, or something like that. She’d never had an ear for American slang. Even though her body hums with exhaustion, she pulls open the bottom drawer and lifts out its contents, placing the lone tool on the surface. It was an abacus—old, with large patches of smoothness where her fingers had rubbed the paint off from use. Gently, she curled her hand over the beads sighing as the familiar texture pressed into her fingers, rolling against the skin. It felt welcoming and safe, and helped ease the tension coiling around her neck like a snake. One hand holds the base as she counts the individual pieces, over and over, until her eyelids droop, the action making it harder to keep awake. Then she stood up, still cradling the abacus in one arm, and made her way to bed. Overhead, the moon was white and wide like an eye staring out from the heavens.

Chapter Text

A few nights later, that same smell scratches at her throat—the old familiar burn of smoky brine and blood, soaked into leather and canvas. She’s standing at the sink, washing the dirty plates from her poor excuse of a dinner with the window left ajar. The odor almost knocks her flat with emotion; fear is there (of course) but as she catches sight of a red light bouncing among the trees, moving faster then any regular human can, an overwhelming pang of guilty intrigue wells up in her.  The feeling is not new to her—it’s the same bottomless anticipation and fear she felt upon seeing Rapture for the first time, or leaning over Jack under Olympic Heights, watching Delta reunite with Eleanor: it’s a sweeping tingle, and a cautionary joy pricks the corners of her mouth up. She’s on the precipice of something BIG, (and good, she wouldn’t be so excited if it wasn’t, she doesn’t want to think about the other not-good things she’s done) and before she can change her mind she wraps her soapy fingers around the sill and shoves it open. 

She yanks the curtains out of the way and shouts, in a voice made slightly hoarse with fear, "YOU THERE! "

Out in the distance, the red light stops, sways. For a single hysterical moment, it feels like a searchlight, bearing down on her from the trees.

Steeling herself, Brigid makes a beckoning gesture through the open window, grimacing as she tries to force her expression into a winning smile. This has to work. It just does. She’s so caught up in trying to force her crazy hopes into happening, to think it real, that she almost fails to notice that it actually is working—the red light bounces crazily across the earth towards her, as wild and luminescent as an enormous firefly. The trees cut the brightness into strange shapes, so unnatural in their starkness that from a distance the light appears to Brigid to be geometric puddles of blood staining the soil.

The light stops charging suddenly, hangs static against the grass, and Brigid tears her eyes away from the unchanging shapes on the floor to see the Big Sister simply standing at the tree line. Even with the distance between them, she can see how one of the Sister’s hands is gripping the trunk of the tree, how her entire posture has gone rigid. 

She has nothing to offer this child: no miracle cure for the suffering, no bandage for the trauma. She only has herself, and she gives it willingly.

(It’s the least she can do.)

"I can help you," she calls at the figure across the field, feeling the familiar fear send her heart haywire. The force of her pulse makes her hands shaky, makes her palms sweat, and for balance she finds herself leaning harder and further on the windowsill, stretching across the sink.

"However—only if you want, schätzchen."

Before she can think it through, she pushes the window open further, ignoring the groans of the tired frame and the cool air that rushes in, raising goosebumps against the wetness of her arms. She forces the window wider open still, and then before her churning stomach can betray her, calmly walks away, letting the curtains snap in the breeze. Her body moves on autopilot, leaving her mind behind: her feet carry her to the bedroom, her arms open the door and then shut it; her legs tilt to let her sink into the bed. Almost blindly, she crawls into blankets, ignoring the way the dishwater makes the fabric cling to her. On her left, the clock on her nightstand informs her it’s only 6 in the  afternoon, but she ignores the time and sinks deeper into the cushions, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t move, doesn’t think, even as the night sucks the last bit of color from the sky and then, much later on slowly yields to the pink of dawn.

Was this a mistake? Would she die? 

By the time she unglues herself from her impossibly stiff position, her eyes feel sandy with fatigue and her head heavy with stress. Cautiously she pushes the bedroom door open and pokes her head out: a turtle from a shell, as her mother used to say. The home is quiet and in one piece, and the sight of everything undisturbed lets her release a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her window is still open, curtains swirling in the breeze and staring into the woods like a lidless eye.

She’s almost halfway through making herself breakfast with trembling (though slowly steadying) hands when she realizes two things: one, her only tube of lipstick is missing, and two, there is an unmistakable dent in her couch cushions that wasn’t there before.

The inside of her home is so normal as to be frightening. 

The Sister has not been inside a home in years; houses sure, but even those were only empty shells, decorated with unidentifiable stains on the walls and shell casings studding the floors. The entire thing seems fake, an intricate set one blow from toppling over. It enters the home through the window, like an infant entering the world; the head followed by arms, hips, and legs, until managing to perch on the counter. The surface of the sink squeaks under the sole of its boots, just loud enough to startle; the Sister bristles at the ugly noise and shifts its weight cautiously, trying to avoid making the sound again. Once it’s satisfied, it leans back on its haunches and stares out over the quaint living room, unsure. To move deeper into this well-loved space would be a dangerous disturbance on all fronts; it is painfully aware of the filth sticking to itself, the potential for destruction that follows every move. The place is too pretty to pierce with such a change, too clean to tread in: it sits there for who knows how long, listening to the throb pulse in its ears. Internally, it knows it can’t stay—it has to patrol, leave, or do something, but for the moment it’s content to sit there on the counter even as the faucet digs a dent into the small of its back. 

Eventually, though, the room seems to lean on it, inviting yet strange, and for a sudden moment the urge to just touch everything threatens to send it into a wild frenzy, the urge strong enough that its hands curl into fists tightly. The leather of the gloves creaks with the strain and the noise echoes around the quiet space. In the still air, the Big Sister listens to the fabric straining until an idea comes, bursting into awareness like a storm. 

Well.

It couldn’t be horrible to walk around, would it?

Almost numbly, it shifts until it’s no longer balancing on the counter, but sitting, watching as a boot swings gently over the tiles, shadows all but invisible in the dark. Paranoia pricks its bloodstream, tightening its calves; the world around it seems to be shimmering slightly, like a mirage. 

Maybe it will be horrible.

Maybe it’ll blink and be back in the City again, staring at a wall or ruined home or even out the thick glass, as has happened before. Sometimes it gets confused. Occasionally the sights are familiar, warming—a butterfly, a rose, angels—but other times they’re just wrong —a small unmoving figure, an animal in the shadows, a crying woman with no face following one step behind. Pushing these unpleasant recollections away, it turns again to the floor below it and considers its next move. 

It hasn’t been scared in years, or at let itself feel fear anyway (only rage and exhaustion), but when it pushes both legs out, stretching them until the soles of both boots hover over the surface, a genuine terror seizes it: the fear of the unknown, waiting right below. Cold radiates off the floor, pale tiles highlighting the clumps of earth that fall from its boots. Before the fear can pull it away from the floor, this daunting unknown, it bites its tongue and slams both boots down. A chill shoots through it, the adrenaline rush raising goosebumps and tightening muscles, and only sheer willpower keeps it from fleeing, the sound of such a sudden landing echoing in the small space. Thin fingers curl tighter around the edge of the sink, warping the metal as it clings to the surface like a beast possessed, trying to orient itself to the vulnerable strangeness of the sensation. The kitchen clock ticks in the silence, the repeating noise the only companion to the Sister’s rapid breathing. When the hands unclenches from the countertop, a series of small dents dot the edge, a braille made of fear. It slouches upright, muscles tense as it gingerly lifts one boot and takes a tiny step, testing the ground beforehand as if doubting its realness. Slowly, unwilling to shatter this dreamland its found itself in, the Sister tiptoes around the sleeping house, passing silently through the rooms like a ghost made flesh. 

As it wanders down a hallway, one hand trailing the whitewashed wall, it hears something: breathing, slow and steady, punctuated by the occasional snort. That must be the woman from earlier, the one it’d hit. A name swims just below the surface when her face comes to its mind: that, and a bitter longing so intense it nearly chokes. Adoration and jealousy are not something it’s familiar with, and the mix of emotions is almost frightening in its newness. Still creeping along, it makes its way to the living room, hands hovering over everything that catches its eye—a lamp, a phone, a framed photo of a serious young man. It isn’t until it nudges an open door, already ajar, that its quiet reverence is pierced by the hard edge of fear; its muscles whipping into a defensive stance even as the other Sister tenses, ready to pounce. It isn’t until it tilts its head and watches the double do the same that understanding comes—it’s a mirror, smooth and unbroken, clean to the point of duplicity. The big sister relaxes at the sight, waving a raw-knuckled hand at the reflection and letting its fingers skim the surface of the cold glass before both hands come to rest on the basin, cradled by the cool porcelain. Facing itself in the glass, the Sister could feel a memory pushing to the surface, long submerged in the muck; reaching up, up, up as a girl to flip the latch on the medicine cabinet, tiny hands grabbing at the elegantly long-necked perfume bottles and makeup jars. Now the Sister finds its hands mimicking the motion of years ago, gloved hand sliding up the siding to swing the mirror open on oiled hinges. The contents of the cabinet are both excitingly foreign and disappointingly average; talcum powder, antiperspirant, pain medication. The perfume bottles and makeup are gone, never even existed here—but still, empty as the shelf was, a gold glint of something caught its eye and held it, tantalizing in its shine: bullet sized and smooth, barely longer than the Sister’s littlest finger. A lipstick, wine-dark and rich, and something in its memory stirs in the briefest of warnings before another memory bursts into its mind, as sudden and vicious as a storm. It’s of her standing smaller and infantile in the family’s master bathroom, applying its mother's lipstick with that guilty satisfaction of childhood.

The recollection is too much. The memory of before, before orphanages and slugs and so much blood it fills your mouth and blocks the throat—lights up its nerves in phantom pain, years of careful conditioning roaring to life. Rage swells in its mind at the pain, at the indignity of it all, the sticky hurt at the center of all the conditioning and it half stumbles, half bolts from the tiny bathroom, gloved hand a bloodless death grip on the golden tube. 

Remembering is dangerous, remembering hurts. Memory burns like a knife in the ribs, longing a twist of the blade; the insult unnecessary.

The dread of recollection is stronger than ever now, and the Sister can feel itself sliding unwillingly into that familiar harbor of violence, of an all-encompassing rage broken only by small hands and yellow eyes and the bottomless embrace of deep sea. It’s safe; a shelter from confusion and pity, bloody and raw as it is. As wild and terrible as it leaves it feeling. 

(Filthy tiles, thick with grime and dried blood, a man’s sallow hand holding her small fingers above the aversion training buttons, the awful noise of hands cutting her open and working on her insides. All underscored by its own voice begging I want to go home please please please)

Without a pause the Sister throws itself over the couch, weighted boot finding purchase on the thin cushion before it scrambles for the window with trembling hands and twists through, throwing itself into the bracing air of the night. Thought is a fleeting thing now, slippery and unknowable, and before it falls back into the safety of the ocean and old rage it takes one last look at the house, the dark window gaping like an open mouth.

Chapter Text

The next night, Brigid found herself startling awake. The sky was utterly dark, and the bed forgivingly warm, but she couldn’t sleep. Something like hysteria was rising deep inside her, bringing with it a hot pricking of sweat. Silently, she pulls herself free of the sheets, the only sound in the room being the noise of her bare feet on the hardwood. Twisting the material of her nightgown in one hand, she takes a few steps towards the doorway of the bedroom. To make matters worse, her heart itself feels indecisive. It seems to alternate between twitching rabbit fast and hard slow beats, so deep and powerful Brigid wonders if someone outside could hear it. 

Like a ghost, she soundlessly crept through the hall towards the living room. Everything seems threatening; the furniture in the dark morphing into looming figures, the hallway stretching into a hungry throat, while even the wind itself seems to claw at the windows. She bumps into the end table and nearly screams at the impact; she somehow misses it squatting in the shadows.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, she tiptoes into the living room. The slanting shadows make the room an unfamiliar landscape, but as she stands there with the adrenaline finally leaving her system, disbelief hits her. Was she really creeping around in the dark, clad in only a nightgown?

(It had been a long time since the liquefaction of the ghettos, or even the New Year's attacks. She didn't need to do this anymore.)

Scoffing, she hitches up the falling strap of her nightgown and pushes her bed head out of her eyes. Now that fear has stopped jump-starting her heart, she could feel exhaustion pulling at her eyelids, dragging at her like shackles. The room had lost its threat and abandoned its menace—the pencils and notes lay where they had been abandoned hours ago, tossed atop sloppy sheaths of paper. With one last look around, she turned to go...

The ceiling creaks.

It was a tiny sound, a barely-there groan of wood and insulation and god knows what else, but it was there . Instantly her panic roars back to life. Her stomach clenches, roiling with suddenly vicious nausea, as she turns her eyes toward the roof above her. Her legs tightens with the urge to flee but some invisible force had arrest imperceptibly her body and she stood there, barely able to flick her eyes down in time to see something dark and very, very fast flicker outside the window.

The motion pulls her into herself again; she wills her leaden legs into moving, stumbling blindly to the couch for cover. Half formed thoughts were just beginning to swirl in her head, setting off synapses like clusters of fireworks before she could pick a coherent idea out—she had seen it, but had it seen her? Jack and his offer come to her unbidden as she crouches by the sofa, trying to squeeze of out view. Taking a slow breath, she nervously hunches her shoulders, curling into herself in anticipation of the next move. Unconsciously she starts muttering under her breath: a single phrase over and over in breathlessly whispered Hebrew. The words were spilling out so quickly they had begun crashing into each other, a verbal pileup; but even as she stutters and chokes on the quote, she refuses to stop.

“The Lord is for me; I shall not fear. What can man do to me? "

(The words hold no truth to her, are as empty as air, but they are the last words she heard in her mother's voice, so she says them anyways. Even if she cannot taste the flavor of their truth, she will not be denied their sweetness.)  

Numbness starts to creep into her legs as she hunches there, jabbing her calves with pins and needles as she waits, hesitant to even stretch her neck. She couldn’t stay here forever, she already knows. Something has to be done.

As she re-adjusts to being upright and feels the blood return to her legs, the front door explodes.

More accurately, it bursts—the hinges scream as it gets slammed from the outside, a spray of wood and paint chips sent in all directions. The door bangs into the wall once, hard enough to dent, then swung slowly back the frame warping hinges making it shake like a wounded animal.

Beyond the crippled doorway, with boundless night sky and green walls of forest framing them, was the unmistakable silhouette of the Big Sister. The long shadow that the intruder cut across the floor turns Brigid’s blood to ice; the sight alone seems to consume her so thoroughly that she’d almost fails to notice the slow steps the figure took into the house. She could barely start to plan her next step when leather-bound fingers grab her arm and squeeze; the pressure was just shy of pain, just yet enough to make her eyes water. Brigid sucks in a breath, trying not to make a sound as the intruder effortlessly heaves her onto the sofa, leaning over her so closely she could see her own reflection in the porthole. The silence between them seems endless: even though she cannot see them Brigid could feel the weight of the Big Sister’s eyes on her through the glass. Transfixed, she watches as the girl’s hands reach up almost as an afterthought, and carefully begin undoing the clasps and catches that hold the helmet in place. Her movements are slow, deliberate—Brigid is still holding her breath as the final latch springs apart, and the human underneath was revealed.

By this point Brigid could only understand what she was seeing only in fragments—a lip, an eyebrow, a birthmark. As the moments passed, she began to grasp more of the face before her: glassy yellow eyes, messily sheared curls, a grayish complexion, all clotted with dried blood from old and healing wounds. Despite the residual fear in her chest, Brigid’s heart gave an involuntarily lurch of sympathy.

Oh, sweetheart.

The silence between them had grown impossibly thicken. Fighting off the sense of déjà vu vu, Brigid licks her lips and prepares to speak, only to be cut off by an unfamiliar voice, a whisper rough with disuse and dry with panic.

"...Momma?"

Chapter Text

The word knock her dizzy for a second, squeeze the breath out of her.

She thinks I’m her mother.

The Big Sister looms over her expectantly, gangly limbs forming a sort of cage over her. One long arm grabs the cushions over Brigid’s shoulder, gripping the armrest tight enough to tear and leaving hardly any room for her to move without bumping grungy leg braces. But as the seconds slip by and neither party moves, the desperately hopeful expression on the girl’s face starts to fall away, sliding down like spit on a wall. Brigid feels herself slipping, too; the situation around her is unraveling faster than she can handle. Those yellow eyes regard her with a greedy intensity, sliding by degrees into naked hostility. Even through the dark fringe of lashes, she can see how the girl’s pupils are blown black holes ringed with hazel, framed by sclera stained red with blood.  

The sight of those eyes, as wild and desperate and lost as they are, fills her with a terrible guilt: it blankets her, subsumes her rationale, and the knowledge that she’s caused all of this is so powerful and vicious that Brigid finds herself unwillingly reminded of a poem she’d read, ages ago.

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.

In a blur of motion, hard gloved knuckles made crunching contact with her temple. Brigid’s vision flickered, then plunged down a well of blackness and even as low as she felt, she still had it in her to grieve.

The first thing Brigid hears is the sound of birdsong.

When she finally sits up it is to the sight of sunlight sloping through the blinds, warm and clear with motes of dust twirling in the light. It’s pretty.

The memory of last night, of stumbling through her own home only to be cornered by a hysterical human experiment—seem vague and dreamlike at best, until she tries to roll over and nearly falls. The sofa (!) isn’t wide enough to support the movement, and as she contemplates this a hot stabbing in her temple brings her hand to the pain. As she clumsily eases off the cushions, she notices the front door—dangling by a single hinge, yet somehow shoved into the frame hard enough to stay shut.

So, not a dream then.

Cautious, she stands up, kicking at the still warm quilt and—wait a second.

Puzzled, she looks down at the blanket. Almost as an afterthought, the memory of leaving it behind—very much on her bed—to explore the house last night jumps out at her. Scooping it up automatically she’d only begun to turn before spotting an unfamiliar white tin on the end table at her left. Without thinking twice she unceremoniously chucks the cover back onto the cushions, already fixating on the unexpected container. Once she picks it up, she can’t resist the nostalgic smile that plucks at her lips—it had been so long since she’d seen one of those that she couldn’t help but plop back down on the couch, mystery intruder be damned, and scan the bold black text decorating the front: FIRST AID KIT. General purpose. Off to the side a cartoony red caduceus was printed and the familiar sight was almost enough to bring her to tears. The box popped open with a pleasant sounding snick, and Brigid was pleased to find it fully stocked—a tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol, a slim roll of bandages and, taking up almost half of the available space, a small syringe of medical ADAM. The syringe sloshes gently, a weak glow spilling from the pale gray-blue contents. Something inside her lurches at the sight, at the obvious source of the thing—and she flashes back to the Big Sister once more, catlike eyes reflecting the low light of the night before. 

A peace offering, she thinks, though the thought offers little comfort. The tin is heavy and cool in her lap, as immutable as her own shame, and suddenly the texture of it repulses her.

As calmly as possible, Brigid shuts the box.

Chapter Text

396 miles away, Charles Porter feels a headache building. 

The dark coffee he’s drinking is helping, though it isn’t strong enough to dispel the pain entirely. Even so he keeps the cup tightly between both hands, letting the bittersweet warmth radiate out into his palms. The tiny diner he’s taking refuge in has proved to be an absolute godsend throughout the years—small enough to be comfortable yet large enough to keep his burgeoning claustrophobia at bay. 

If he’s being honest though, it’s long-since blown through the label of “burgeoning” and out into the range of “obvious”, galloping full speed for the far-flung outlier of “paralyzing” like an unbroken stallion. 

Stealing another glance at the glass door of the eatery, he lets his eyes linger on the slice of exposed sky before shaking his head and ducking back to his work, halfway through the latest tower of dissertations. Being back in the States was a welcome contrast to the distant strangeness of London and the hyper-competitiveness of Rapture; at the very least here he had a better grasp on what to expect from those around him. The people around him had been the easiest part of the return to the surface, if he was being frank—it was the other aspects of the whole affair that had almost gotten the better of him. 

Leaving the city had been its own battle; the adrenaline raging in his system had refused to accept the relative safety of the escape vessel and so he’d sat there for the better part of several hours, alternately gasping raggedly through his teeth and frozen in numb silence until that Dr. Tenenbaum woman had successfully roused him. The journey in their little shared bathysphere had been just as fraught and draining as the fight it had taken to get there, but eventually they’d made their way to shore, looking like wet cats slinking through the streets of Suðurnesjabær. It had taken a bit of convincing to persuade the hotel clerk that the two were fine, thank you very much, merely recovering from a miserable attempt at deep-sea fishing, but the Icelandic people were generous enough to suspend disbelief and practically herded them to a room with the heat on blessedly high. 

Getting their bearings had been a complicated affair; after the third day Tenenbaum had lost the drunken stumbling associated with decompression sickness and the worst of the aches while Charles lagged behind, staying largely horizontal as chills and nausea ran him ragged. He hadn’t gotten mobile enough to experience the balance issues until a week after their return, and even then it was slow going as Brigid struggled to support his weight for over a minute. At this point the suit was too integral for his recovery to be disturbed, and so he was forced to deal with its oppressive weight around him, a one-man prison.

Once he had recovered enough (a full four days after Tenenbaum, not that he needed reminding) they’d talked it through and decided that tomorrow, blessed tomorrow, would be the day he would finally get out of the getup he had been locked in for the better part of two years.

The next day he didn’t so much drift into consciousness as he shot into it. The bed groaned under his movements as he sat upright and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, already eager to begin. The bed was comfortable enough (though the weight of his armor had probably warped the slats permanently) but he had spent the entire night too restless to sleep, starved for the feel of fresh air on exposed skin. 

In the interest of space, Brigid had been sleeping on the pullout, a sparse beige-colored affair with about as much padding as the woman herself. But when he turned towards the low couch there was no one, the blanket folded carefully and draped over an arm. Before he could think to knock on the bathroom door the front entry swung open and Brigid made her way in, struggling to balance a full tray of food with a stack of towels taller than she was.

“Porter! You are... awake.” After a brief struggle with the stack, she abruptly dumped the entire heap onto the sofa, not watching as they slid sluggishly onto the shag carpeting. “I brought us nourishment for the day ahead. Let us eat and discuss what is coming up, hm?”  

Popping off his tin-can helmet was almost instinctual now; even with his impossibly wieldy gloves muscle memory allowed him to pop the thing off for short bursts before inevitably, the stimuli of the outside world proved overwhelming to his senses and he had to retreat once more, behind thick glass and burnished copper. Even so, he pulled the thing off with relish and left it beside the sagging bed. Breakfast was a traditional Icelandic spread—oatmeal with creamy yogurt and small, dense blueberries and sausage. After months of pre-packaged rations and expired snacks so old they had a pension, the fresh meal looked unreal and was delicious enough to convince Charles of the divine. That was, everything except the sausage, which was so distressingly chewy he found himself reaching for a sip of water to make the first bite go down easier. Seeing his effort Tenenbaum let out a burst of laughter, still only halfway through her own portion. 

“Not sitting well with you, I see.”

“Good God.” he took another sip, more of a chug, and cleared his throat of the spiced aftertaste. “What was that? Have these Scandinavians started serving hair for breakfast? Why—” 

“Horse.” 

“What?” 

“The sausage. It is... bjúgu. Equus ferus caballus, if you prefer.”

“Huh.”

Absently wiping his mouth, Charles sat back and considered he was eating the graceful animals he used to watch race back in Chicago. He expected more of a reaction from himself but as the hands on the clock kept moving, never still, he was greeted by a nothingness so absolute it almost startled him. 

Who cares, his inner monologue argued. After everything I’ve been through. Who cares? Just enjoy the damn meal.

It was hard to argue with that. The stringy horse meat vanished from his plate as well.

A few hours later, he found himself on his back on the tired bed again, watching as Tenenbaum gathered the supplies necessary on the table beside the frame, peeling off her sweater before rolling up both sleeves with a confidence so supreme it bordered on banal. Satisfied she turned her attention back to him on the bed, taking pains to let him see the nondescript syringe in her grasp. 

Eye contact broken she rotated the needle before her, watching the liquid sparkle under the overhead lights. “Generalized anesthesia,” she muttered, so quietly he could barely hear the words. “Commonly used to achieve medically-induced loss of consciousness with concurrent loss of protective reflexes.” For a beat longer she stared at the glass vial before remembering the patient of her ad hoc surgery. “I am going to inject this into you by cephalic vein. After a small prick... you feel nothing.” 

In the silence that followed, the click of his arm port being triggered seemed deafening and more ominous than thunder. Tenenbaum used her forefinger to coax the aperture open and her thumb to hold it in place, exposing a patch of scarred skin with veins winding just below the surface. Her gaze turned probing, inspecting the old wound with a clinical intensity that Charles felt the first stirrings of real fear pushing through the excitement. 

Suddenly anxious he forced out a laugh, a shaky heh-heh as Tenenbaum’s cold hands began to flit around his prone form. “A small... small prick? How nice of Mr. Poole to come by.” For a beat she slowed, considering. 

“Poole... Wer ist... ? Oh!” There was a snicker from somewhere out of sight before the hands returned, pressing carefully against the thud of his pulse as the humor bled from her tone. “Enough funny discussion. Are you ready?” 

“Yes,” He lied.

“Perfect.”

There was a brief, sharp pain that morphed into a weight that slithered into his veins, pulling him to the center of the earth. Before he fled the waking world, Tenenbaum’s pale face pushed close to his own, her voice a whisper.

“Goodnight, Mister Porter.”

“Welcome back. You—”

...

“How are you f—”

...

“Stay with me.”

...

“ENOUGH! Bleiben Sie bitte wach, Porter!”

The light of the room struck like hammers against his bleary eyes; after a long moment he recognized Brigid leaning over him, frustration and relief warring in her expression. He tried to get his bearings, but the stench of cigarette smoke descended into his lungs and he couldn’t help the hideous retching sound that left him as the acrid thickness stung his chest. Still wearing that same expression, Tenenbaum clicked her tongue and flung open the nearby window, watching him like a hawk as the crisp Icelandic air settled in his chest. When his breathing eased she drew closer, the pinched expression she wore relaxing in kind. 

“I am sorry.” 

The words were the heaviest things he had ever heard, letting the fear from earlier seize him in full force. Expecting the worst, he struggled to sit upright in bed. The mattress, originally delightfully soft, did nothing to help his issue as he pushed to elevate himself. Finally he managed to get his upper back against the headboard, grabbing blindly at the sheets when he saw it. 

The hands that were twisting the covers were normal—weathered in spots and scarred in others, but blessedly as bare as the day he was born. Releasing his grip he pulled the hand closer to his face to see it in full; the scar on his thumb from university, the burn of his first attempt at soldering, the subtle dent of a wedding ring long gone.

Breathlessly he ripped the blanket off, letting it fall onto the rug in a sad heap. 

There they were!

His legs —his legs, not some Fontaine-branded nonsense— were there, the reality of them underscored by the stark coloring of the sheets below. Nearly delirious with relief, he patted both hands over them, every touch a reminder. It was like meeting old friends.

At first he didn’t notice the bandages, bloody strips crossing every which way at evenly spaced intervals on both his legs and arms. Frowning, he reached for the clasp holding them together before Tenenbaum let out a gasp and dove to stop him, nicotine-stained fingers closed around his wrist with a deceptively strong grip.

“No,” she hissed, pressing his hand back down to his side. “Do not pick.”

“Brigid, I’m not a fool. I’m not going to stick my unwashed hands into my own open wound.” At his words she deflated, shrugging half heartedly. The motion made the cigarette in her hands shake, the cherry-red ember swaying unsteadily as she looked away.  

“Ach, fine. Just be delicate.”

The deeper inside he went into the swath of bandages, the more of a crime scene it became— the rusty patches on the outermost layers of gauze deepened, growing in intensity until the bandages were not only red but slick, heavy and sticky in his grasp. It wasn’t until his eyes could see the outline of torn skin and ragged muscles that he reacted, a shallow inhale leaving him as Tenenbaum reached over and brusquely began re-wrapping the wounds. The pain was minimal, but the sight of himself opened so completely lanced him through with a terror so complete it felt like drowning. Once she had finished covering the injury again he spoke, his voice subdued. 

“Are they all... like that?”

With a sigh, Tenenbaum perched on the armchair beside the bed and took an extensive inhale so deep Porter could almost see her eyes fog up. Then she began to explain.

She hadn’t been there for the original conception of Big Daddies, the alpha models—but she had learned a bit about that prototypal process from Suchong about what subjects must have gone through. 

They had used hooks.

The suits used on alpha models weren’t used to supplant human skin; that would come later. Rather, the original intent had been to merely augment durability, to better boost the chances of survival for each Protector. As a cost-cutting measure the suits had been made to be partially-detachable, with both the helmets and outer equipment removable for reuse. 

Everything else was permanent.

In the interest of simplicity, Suchong and Alexander had come up with an efficient, if not gruesome, solution. Without skinning the man inside and making the conversion process even messier, the two had settled on what had been politely known as ‘epidermal fasteners’. Close to each major joint, there was to be a small cutaway window to expose bare skin. Once the subject was fully suited and sedated the fasteners —which resembled a cross between a meathook and carabiner— would be pushed beneath the skin, secured, and fastened to the armor itself, making independent removal impossible. The placement was always strategic and made to last under duress: threaded between both ulna and radius, pulled tight against metacarpals and flush with the tibia.

Those cruel little things were what Brigid had been pulling from Charles for the better part of three hours, filling a stolen serving bowl with bloody chromium clamps.   

Ignoring the twinge of pain that his memories brought, Charles scribbles out his final comment on the last dissertation and slides the stack away from him, letting the now-empty cup slip from his hand with a dull thud. The physical labor of reviewing papers was minimal, but there was a clean satisfaction in the effort—he was a professor grading work, free of the creeping unease that had been synonymous with doing business in Rapture. 

Regardless, the past was currently circling him like a shark, waiting for an opportunity to overwhelm. While he had become much more proficient at handling his grief, the weekend stretched before him in an unbroken marathon of reminiscing. He needed someone who understood, someone who knew—

Taking care to leave a generous tip for the service, Charles shuffled his papers into a manageable order and bundled them into his briefcase, taking care to tuck his fountain pen into his breast pocket before setting off for home. Out on the street, the late afternoon bathed all of West Lafayette in liquid gold and the sight brought a smile to his face.

If he was lucky, Brigid would pick up the phone.

Chapter Text

There is Porter in at his desk and Tenenbaum in her home and then this; a forest and in it, the sounds of weeping. 

The depth of the trees block out the moonlight and stifle the wind but the noises of misery still make themselves known, spilling between trunks and filtering through leaves. 

Unmasked, the Big Sister looks less like a monster and more a maiden; her complexion is sallow, her face gaunt, those dark eyes dulled by the twin shadows of exhaustion and trauma. If one could get close enough they would see the drying tracks of previous tears from earlier in the day. They were originally from fear, a terror born of old memories but now the tears are mostly the product of the guilt that lies thick and sour in her mouth, an oily film that keeps her from swallowing. Everything has gone wrong and she only has herself to blame.

She had run from the rusted husk of Rapture and fled to the chaos of the surface, all spread beneath a veil of clouds and stars that left her with vertigo so violent she could hardly walk. It had taken her days to acclimate, graduating from infantile crawling to wobbling pathetically only to take the final bridge she had and burn it, watching the ashes settle around her like gray snow.

She had hit Mama Tenenbaum. Broken her things.

But at the time, the panic had made sense — fear was the precursor to aggression and aggression the precursor to violence, the three emotions bleeding so deeply into the other there seemed no difference, no boundary to cross. A seamless spectrum.

And she had been scared. The rest of the reaction had been inevitable, after that.

Biting her lip, she shifts against the nearest tree and lets her hands fall limp to her sides. Her insides hurt, a slow churn of discomfort she longs to ignore. Almost invisibly her fingers twitch, craving a comfort so forgotten she has no name for it.

The bark is rough even with the layer of waxed canvas, but the unpleasantness is a familiar welcome that lulls her into dreamless sleep. It is what she expects, after all.

Bad dogs do not get the warm bed. 

The following morning, the world looks flatter somehow. 

Brigid’s coffee smells bitter and tastes watery. It takes a generous amount of cream and a stolen pinch of whiskey to make the drink closer to palatable; the heat of the liquor warms her tongue, settles like liquid fire in her limbs. Afterwards, she stows the Jamison in its place back in the furthest reach of the cabinet (out of sight, out of mind) and slowly cleans the mess from breakfast. 

Jammed crookedly in the frame, the front door both mortifies and comforts her — proof that the last three days have been real, for better or worse. Looking too closely at it proves to be a distraction that unsettles her mind, scrambles her focus with a swell of emotion so intense her morning coffee threatens to make a return appearance. 

The guilt makes her anxious and the anxiety makes her restless, and she bounces around the house until she notices just how low her food reserves are— a single egg remains in the fridge, accompanied by a lone apple and a block of fuzzy cheese. 

Grocery shopping it is, then.

Her bus pass is exactly where she remembers it is, folded tightly in her purse, but she eschews it in favor of relieving the uneasy energy that tightens her muscles. The bike doesn’t come out in the closet without a fight — it snags on hangers and pulls at the luggage she’s left stuffed in the very back of the space. It’s almost impressive how difficult it is to get loose, a scarf mysteriously wound around the spokes by the time she pulls it out completely. She doesn’t even bother with a helmet before tossing her purse into the basket. 

Liquor and cycling — a winning combination, she thinks to herself with a wince. And no helmet. What would the others think? At the thought a pit opens up in her stomach and the taste of guilt threatens to overwhelm her. It’s a flavor so familiar it's almost stale on her tongue, and with practiced ease she swallows it down, letting it join the rest settled in her bones. 

Locking up and getting on the bike itself are easy; it isn’t until she’s a mile out and basking in the peace that she realizes she’s forgotten her paperback, her only defense against waiting in line. No wonder her pocketbook felt lighter than usual; her scuffed copy of The Invisible Man must still be on the shelf, abandoned. Clicking her tongue in annoyance she hunches down on her seat and shifts the bike one setting higher, feeling impressively aerodynamic as the trees blurred around her. If she hurries, she can beat the post-Church Sunday rush and she won’t think of Ralph Ellison once. 

She arrives at the grocery in record time, heart beating fast and hair windblown into wild snarls. It’s almost a disappointment to arrive so quickly, her mind soothed by the peaceful rhythm of the endless hum of the wheels, the white noise of the wind streaming past her. She lets the bike slow reluctantly, unwilling to relinquish the grip on the comfort it provides. Eventually responsibility asserts itself and she swings herself off the seat, letting her well-worn boots land solidly against the concrete of the parking lot. Inside is a familiar maze of food and supplies, her muscle memory guiding her from aisle to aisle. Even her lungs were ahead of her, breath faltering as she took a path that would bring her closer to the liquor aisle. Sickening panic shifted in her like a tapeworm looking to make itself known, thrashing against her stomach and organs in a blind frenzy. Still, she kept her eyes down and her lips shut, feeling the dread twist within her until she reached the haven of the bakery section before sucking down a ragged inhale, letting the scents of yeast and vanilla overpower any others. Refusing to look back (a lifelong habit) she makes a line for the register, noting with mild pride as the church crowds begin to pile in, starched suits and pressed dresses marking them as faithful pilgrims. The line ahead of her drawing mercifully short, just two older women bantering over the latest news. She’s almost at the point of totally blocking out their lively discussion when their tones dip, veering from casual to conspiratorial. 

“And they weren’t even ripe,” the taller one complains, shifting her basket from one arm to the other. “Probably tasted awful.” 

“I don’t understand,” the other says, nose wrinkled. “Didn’t you put up the—” 

“The chicken wire? Yes! I don’t know what type of thing this was, but when I woke up Thursday it was just peeled back. No fur on the metal, either. It’s like a man came by and busted the top to reach in, but... I don’t understand. I don’t think there are many tramps in the area. Why would anyone steal so many under ripe tomatoes? Everyone knows they can make you sick.” 

The rest of the conversation eludes her, but she’s heard enough. The discussion makes her uneasy, guilt and horror prickling at her mind as she considers who exactly would be so hungry to steal such bitter green fruit. Someone hiding in the woods, perhaps. Someone she should have protected. 

At the front of the line she nods absently to the cashier, her mind racing. Where is the girl now? What if she's wounded, starving? She should have fought harder, pushed more when she had arrived. ...But what could she have done, then? The girl was already gone by the time she was back on her feet. Restraining her would only breed more distrust. No, the best bet is to simply be ready for her return. The house was modest at best, but it was still a shelter, and she had supplies to offer. More than that, she had knowledge of the surface that the girl hadn't. She could help her navigate this alien world on the surface and show her the ropes. 

If she came back.

Still, Brigid is no fool; knows that she lacks the full scope of understanding needed to make informed decisions. Her own time in Rapture had been fraught with horrors she'd rather forget, but she'd been an adult when she'd arrived, damaged as she was. This girl had grown up there, born and bred in the claustrophobic embrace of the city, experiencing unspeakable things at a tender age. Being a Sister, Big or Little, had been her entire existence and now it was gone. Who was she without it? What was she without it?

Later that evening her skin feels tight, drawn like a bowstring. Nervous anticipation jangles her nerves, her hand shaking as she dials the number, the buttons feeling foreign as they dip under her trembling fingertips. The phone rings once, twice, and then —

"Hello?"