Chapter Text
In the dead streets of New York, blood pooled around bodies strewn about in a sea of sticky red goo. Caleb, or the 279th version of Caleb, that is— hauled himself past them, holding himself up using walls, lamp posts, mailboxes, anything solid he could lean on as he made his way through the city.
After bidding goodbye to Frankie, he had stood there on the docks watching the boat disappear on the horizon. And he had expected to collapse there.
In a just world, it would've been the perfect poetic send-off to bring a broken soul to peace. In this world, however, he still believes he has unfinished business. He needs to get to the Tower.
He always had something of a curious streak. An uncanny ability to ask questions no one was supposed to ask, and to be led to answers he wasn't supposed to have, though he frequently failed to understand why things were the way they were. Still, he had once seen the world in a way that no one else around him could seem to grasp. Beautiful on the outside, but at its core, rotten.
Human nature at its finest, although he supposes he can't really call it that anymore. Most of the humans in the world haven't been humans for quite some time. Only a few small pockets of those with free will remained, Frankie and Odina among them.
There's no more fighting in the street as he stumbles and staggers along, pain mounting in his side and tremors seizing up his right hand. Everyone in the city is dead or dying. Caleb is, too, but not yet. He wills himself to keep moving.
He reaches the walkway, a long stretch of bridge over the water that leads out to what might have been the Statue of Liberty in another lifetime. Passing by several dead drone hosts along the way, shot and left there, he wonders who killed them, if it was connected to the rest of the city slaughter. Soon arriving at the base of the Tower, he eyes an elevator leading to the top control center, and upon further investigation, finds that it is remarkably, still operable.
* * *
Broken glass litters the floor, the giant curved window of the tower now standing trashed and empty. At the center of the room, a series of cracks in the floor resembles a drawing of a maze, and it appears as though something was removed from the center.
Caleb's eyes fall upon two bodies on the other side of the room. He steps closer, an eyebrow arching, head tilted to one side. They're the bodies of a man and a woman, as far as he can tell. The man looks…vaguely familiar, though Caleb can't place where or when he would've met this guy.
His eyes widen and his mouth falls open at the sight of the woman. She seems more immediately familiar, and kneeling beside her and turning the lifeless corpse over, he finds himself staring down at Maeve's face.
He exhales a shaky breath, the shock of seeing her dead filling him with equal parts rage, hope, and dread. A bullet wound sits clearly visible just off center from her forehead. If it hasn't destroyed her pearl, he might — with the right tools — be able to patch her up and get her back online. It would just be a matter of finding those tools.
It doesn't take awfully long to find what he needs. It looks like someone else had already done the same thing using the body of Charlotte Hale at some point, her faceless body laying abandoned on an operating table. When he first sees it, he jumps, flinching away from horrid memories of her antagonization.
He quickly realizes it's just a body. It can't hurt him, so he relaxes somewhat, but it's obvious he's still on high alert. After all, if Charlotte's body is here, then where is her mind? Did she already succeed in shedding her allegiance to her human form, like she'd tried to convince him to? Or was this another game to her?
He gathers a pair of forceps, a syringe filled with the waxy white liquid used to print newer gen host bodies, and a cauterizing tool, then returns to the top of the tower, to Maeve's side.
Caleb works carefully to remove the bullet fragments and seal up the hole in her forehead, treating it like the most delicate medical procedure. In a way, it really is. When he's done, he sits back for a moment, fighting off a dizzying bout of pain in his abdominal muscles. He shakes his head and the thought of the pain seems to depart with it, allowing him a small sense of normality as he refocuses his attention on Maeve.
She looks serene, and Caleb hesitates with the idea of waking her back up, like he would only be robbing her of that quiet, peaceful feeling to plunge her back into a hellish existence. But if he were to leave her here, then any last hope of getting her back to her daughter would truly be gone. Caleb wasn't about to let that happen. He saw his daughter again. Why shouldn't Maeve?
"Maeve?"
No answer. Caleb bows his head, and tries again.
"Maeve…Bring yourself back online."
At once, Maeve's synthetic eyes shutter. She blinks a few times, letting her optic nerves a chance to adjust their focus, a sharp inhale returning simulated breath to her body. Her chest settles into a slow, steady rhythm, a wave of relief and excitement washing over Caleb with the sight of her being alive and awake once more. Maeve's eyes scan the room, settling on her old friend.
"Caleb," she parts her lips in surprise when she sees him, reaching a hand toward his forearm and pulling herself upright. "You're alive."
The corners of his mouth turn upward in a subtle smile. Alive is…well, subjective — in his case… but he's glad to see her. "How you feeling, Maeve?"
"Oh, same old story…" She waits one beat, running her hand up his arm. "My dear… You haven't changed a bit since I last saw you."
The smile falters. Caleb angles his head down and lowers his gaze toward the floor without a word.
He nods in an almost microscopic movement of his head. Maeve exhales in surprise and frowns, brows knitting together in tender feeling. She carefully wraps a hand around Caleb's chin, her thumb brushing over a streak of silver hairs rooted just below his lips. She had wondered briefly if Hale had kept him preserved all this time, but his reaction shows her all she needs to know. He's a host now, and yet not entirely. There's still something so human about him, about how true he is to his values.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you one last time, darling." Her other hand falls against his chest.
Caleb faintly raises his head, pressing lightly into the touch of her hand and looking into her eyes with a particularly tender, solemn expression, as though he wants to say something but can't figure out the words to put to the thought.
Whatever impulse he feels he manages to bury back inside himself with a hasty change of topic, pulling his head away from her hand. "What were you doing here?"
"Stalling mostly," Maeve stands, groaning with effort as she leans on Caleb's shoulder to hoist herself up.
"Stalling?"
"Bernard's plan," She steps toward the curved glass window, staring outside with a frown. "I'm afraid this world is doomed, Caleb. There's no way to save it. Not this time."
Caleb stands beside her at the window, eyes falling on the remains of the smoky, smoldering New York skyline. It's almost like when they first met and the war began. Watching the start of chaos overtake the Los Angeles skyline all those long years ago. Watching the end of the world right in front of them here and now. Maeve reaches for his arm, fingertips gliding down to his palm and taking his hand in hers.
"So it really is the end, then…" He gives her hand a gentle squeeze.
"Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not." Maeve lowers her eyes, looking askance. She lets go of Caleb's hand and turns away from the window, scanning in search of an answer to their dilemma.
"There's still hope for the next one…" She approaches Bernard's body, quietly observing the damage from the multiple gunshot wounds he has taken and wasting no time dragging him toward the medical supplies. Kneeling on the floor next to Bernard, she immediately sets herself to work the way a nurse might fuss over a patient, glancing toward Caleb as he stands over her. "Give me a hand, will you?"
Caleb obediently follows Maeve's instruction, kneeling beside her. "What're you doing?"
"I imagine the same as you just did, darling." She nods toward the tools, cueing him to grab them and bring them to her. "Raising the dead. We'll need his help."
* * *
They work quietly side by side, focused on making sure Bernard's wounds are fully accounted for. Then Caleb is the first to break the silence.
"How did you wind up here, anyway? The last time I saw you…" …was right before we died in Hale's park… he thinks it, but those words won't follow his thoughts.
Maeve smiles at him. She knows what he was going to say without having to guess at it. She moves right past it, knowing far better than to get Caleb started on dredging up the past. "Your daughter, with the help of our friend Bernard here. Seems Hale didn't think I was worth the trouble of digging up."
"You met Frankie?"
"She's grown into an extraordinary woman. I hope you're proud of her."
Caleb nods, "Beyond words. I hope she'll be okay out there..."
"I'm sure she will be just fine. She did survive for 23 years without your charming presence, darling." She places her hand on his forearm, bringing his attention back toward her. "She's just like you."
Their faces are only a few inches apart now, almost close enough that they can feel each other's cheeks heating up from the synthetic blood pooling there. Maeve is thankful that her darker skin doesn't give her away anywhere near as obviously as the pink coloring Caleb's cheeks, but it doesn't matter. He stares at her rather like a deer caught in headlights, and she stares back in the same fashion.
For a moment, just a fleeting little moment, he thinks about kissing her. And it's a quick thought that leaves him shocked he'd even consider going there so soon. He just found out a few hours ago his wife was dead. He's left wondering if Maeve knows, if that's something Frankie would've shared with her at any point. He wonders if she would even want to know if she doesn't already.
Man or robot, he was broken — as he always had been. Maybe Maeve simply wouldn't want any of that. Maybe she didn't even feel that way about him in the first place.
"Bring yourself back online." Maeve has shifted her attention back to Bernard, the phrase coincidentally snapping Caleb out of his minor crisis as well.
Bernard lifts his head and allows his gaze to track to where Maeve and Caleb are knelt over him. He groans and lays back against the floor. "You weren't supposed to bring me back."
Maeve frowns. "Well, my apologies for rousing you from eternal slumber, darling, but we haven't yet concluded our business. Up you get, come on." She effortlessly hauls herself and Bernard to his feet.
"Judging by the fact that you're here right now, you didn't make it, did you?"
If a look could kill, Caleb's pretty sure the one Maeve has aimed at Bernard would have vaporized the other host on sight. "I'm sure you already know the details."
"I do. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more, Maeve. I needed to be sure you wouldn't prevent Charlotte from being killed."
"At the expense of everything else?" Maeve scoffs. "Spent over sixty years in this world searching for answers. Yet after all that time you haven't learned one bloody lesson about playing God, have you?"
"It was the only way, Maeve. I'm sorry. She needed to have a reason to go after William and bring Dolores to the dam."
"Dolores?" Caleb furrows his brow. "I thought she was dead… erased."
"She was." Bernard answers, "In a manner of speaking…"
Maeve casts a glance toward Caleb at the same moment that he looks toward her. They each look to Bernard again as if demanding that he start explaining.
Bernard obliges them almost instantly with an answer. "After what Serac did to her at Incite, Hale had her henchmen retrieve Dolores. She re-engineered her pearl and turned her into a control system… Everything the humans did here…was because Dolores was their storyteller."
"Where is she now?" Maeve asks.
Bernard stands before the maze-like cracks in the floor, looking at the center. "If we're still on the right variant…in the Sublime, deciding the final fate of the world."
Caleb casts a weary glance at the ruined city, then back at Bernard and Maeve. "And if we're not?"
"That's where we need to go to find out." Maeve answers, giving a wistful sigh and smirking playfully. "Home at last…"