When the World is Burning (open)

[ADELLE DEWITT]

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Was it worth it? Adelle questioned looking out the window of her office. When she handed over the plans to Harding she knew that this was going to happen. That the world would eventually cease to exist as they knew it and now she sat in the swanky office that she sacrificed the world for and looked out the wall of windows to the deserted streets below.

Who had the nerve to name her Adelle? She was far from its Germanic meaning of "noble." Her moral and mental character had been compromised working through her works with the Dollhouse. She used to believe that they were doing good when she sent an active out on a mission. Her mind thought back to a conversation that she had during Caroline's recruitment.

"Nothing is what it appears to be?" Adelle stated, to be followed by Caroline's snide remark. "That's because you're only seeing part of it."

Adelle never fancied herself a hypocrite but she was blinded by her belief that the Rossum corporation wanted to do good. But when the veil was finally ripped from the head of the bride she was surprised to find that it wasn't Rachel but her sister Leah. Two identical people with different intentions and capabilities.

The Rossum, Adelle had imagined was satisfied the work it was doing and didn't want to produce any new technology.

She should he known.

It was human nature to grow and evolve. However, it seemed like each civilization eventually maxed out on their ability to evolve and then the city started to burn. So Adelle sat listening to the sounds of the destruction outside her office window. The "butchers" and the "dumbshows" overrunning the streets.

"The world was a very simple place," Adelle muttered.

[JULIET]

[ADELLE DEWITT]

It had been a while since Adelle had come up to her old office. This was the first trip in several months. It wasn't safe to be up here and the better part of her knew that, but she needed to see for herself what was becoming of the world to remind her of the devestation she has in part caused.

She knew very well that Topher didn't blame her for handing the plans over to Harding. He said that giving someone a piece of paper was nothing compared to actually designing the technology. Adelle didn't see the blur between the lines. She was just as guilty as Topher, for everything. Before the Rossum Corporation unleashed this hell on earth, she was able to play both sides. To make them believe that she wasn't against them, now she knew that the options for her fate had slimmed considerably.

There was the underground for one, a solid option with the secured Dollhouse, and then there was a doll state, something she was risking just by being up here. It had already happened once, at the start of this war she foolishly answered her office phone to be met with a high pitch tone that wiped her of herself--or so she was told. There was a gap in her memory of roughly a month Her last genuine memory was sitting in Topher's imprint chair getting her personality backed up, the next thing she remembered was waking up in the imprint chair, with the world coming down around her. If it hadn't been for the backup wedge that Topher kept of her personality, she wouldn't still be herself.

When she heard the elevator door open, she assumed it was Dr. Saunders coming to tell her that Topher was once again refusing to take his medication, A instance that seemed to happen more often then not. She didn't move when she heard someone enter. It could have been Alpha for all she cared. She stood there stairing out the window as she heard footsteps come closer.

"One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back."

Adelle recited the lines from memory. "We need to find Clyde. His program," Adelle concluded. "We need to destroy it."

Clyde was the head of the Rossum organization afterall. As one of Echo's romantic engagement clients had said, You can't really erase a progam. Which is why they were standing here today. They'd elimated the head of Rossum, but not the program of the other partner, and unless they could destroy him, the world would fall.

[JULIET]

[ADELLE DEWITT]

Adelle knew how crazy it sounding. Going after Clyde the program. Not just Clyde but all of them. Boyd. Harding. Ambrose. They were all immortal now and could come back in any body at any time. She knew that advantge posed a real threat. They would become dictators of the world if they wiped everyone. And Adelle was good enough at history to know that when a group of people got power hungry, bad things would happen.

She imagined that one day, should the world be restored. Pictures of the world below would be regarded as more grusome then the ones that were once displayed at the Holocaust museum in DC. Surely there was nothing even remotely to the degree of Dr. Joseph Mengele's expriments, but the photos of the results. They would defintely be regarding as a very low point in history. She wondered what people would remember of what happened. If anyone would remember anything of what happened.

If Clyde and the others continued to exist then Rossum would still go on. You can't really destroy a program, but you can give it a nasty virus. If only Topher were thinking more clearly perhaps they could find a way to distrupt Clyde, Harding and Ambrose without having to risk other lives, but she knew that wasn't his focus. He was worried about the world as a whole .The people that had been wiped by the tech and destroyed by Dollhouse.

"Topher's been working, but progress is slow" Adelle reported. "It kills me to see him like this. He was always so confident. So sure that he could fix a problem. Now he's consumed by this one. Like its a big red mark on his forehead that he has to erase."

She has seen Topher working, scribbling. She was concerned about him more often then not and tried to stay as close as possible. Often she was afraid of what he might do to himself. She was sure that he wouldn't try to harm himself or take his own life, but she was more concerned about the acts that he seemed to be unconscious of. Eating. Drinking. Such necessities got away when he was in a bought of work and she more then one had to coax him out to eat. She wondered it Topher himself would ever figure it out. She did alot of wondeing these days. Thoughts of coulda woulda shoulda rolling through her mind. All in all she always came to the same conclusion, she never should have given those plans to Harding.

"I still hope he'll find a way. Eventually. I just don't know how we'll implement it from down here."

[JULIET]

((Ugh, sorry it’s so short. =P))

[ADELLE DEWITT]

"There's no one to hire them in this world. The only thing we can do is try and return their original personas." Adelle countered. "I was hoping to coax Topher into returning more of them but whenever I mention the idea he seems unnerved." She took her eyes off the street below and back to her desk where the files of several original personalities lay on her desk. "However, returning them to this world, I fear may make them worse."

She looked at her files, thumbing through a couple pages. Zulu's engagement had just ended. Her lying scumbag of a fiance slept with her mother of all people. She'd attempted suicide when she was brought to the house. She thought her world had been ending then but now...now she was sure that if she returned such a fragile person to this world she wouldn't last a week.

Another file, Uniform, was appropriately enough a veteran of the Iraq war. He suffered PTSD, similar to Victor, but Uniform wasn't placed here like Victor was. She had recruited him from an instituation the armed forces was about to discharge him from. If he returned who knew what could happen. None of the people in the files knew what was happening in the last seven years. Non of them are prepared for this world. Hell, half the consious world wasn't prepared for the turn of events that lead to the apocolypse.

Something didn't sit right with Adelle. She couldn't imagine returning these damaged people into a world of misery. The world in 2010 had been full of enough horror in dispair but in the Dollhouse, in the tabula rasa, she could protect him. She could shelter them and protect them from the unbearable truths of their lives. If she returned their personalties some of them might want to leave. If they did then she wouldn't be able to keep wach on them.

Ten years ago, if you asked her, Adelle would have said she loved her job. That she would like nothing more then to be in charge of the Dollhouse for the rest of her life. The good work that Rossum was doing was enough to keep her going, no matter what the urban legends said. However, now she looked out on the street and found that she couldn't find any way to justify the thingsshe had done to contribute to the fire and brimstone.