Four days after dr. Hall's death, her killer, 797, was sorted into the "dissect" subjects category, effectively putting them into dr. Valentine's full custody.

--

Dr Valentine stood in the entrance of chamber n.3. In front of him, fully restrained by the chair, laid subject 797. There were metal gags inside of both of its mouths -- the normal human one, and the freaky gaping hole on its stomach. (The one that killed her.)

The doctor closed the door and moved closer. There was nowhere to hurry, so he simply didn't, his every move slow and calculated. He grabbed the pliers from one of the shelves, coldly watching the horror on the subject's face. It was easy to force the bottom mouth open — easy to patiently pull out every single teeth, putting them next to each other neatly on the cabinet — easy to be pleased with the way 797 screamed and begged through the gag.

(It was easy to pretend she was there, watching him work through the camera.)

He stepped back when he was done.

What now?

It felt wrong to do the things he would usually do to a subject like this. This wasnt a normal situation. This was personal. He needed something special.

Valentine left test chamber n.3. He needed some time to think about this.

--

It was easy to pretend she wasnt gone while her things remained in ~~their~~ his apartment and office.

He kept respecting her space and sleeping in the living room. Her bedroom remained closed shut — it wasnt touched since she left it the day of her death. Every morning he made coffee, skipped breakfast and sat in the office, looking at her mess behind the duct tape border.

Things were calm. Things were fine.

That was until he came back from work one day to two young men clearing her side of the desk — all her paperwork and files she wrote herself and her empty mugs, all the things he had memorized.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

(They were a little bit too young to be working there full time — interns, probably. They already told them about Dr. Valentine and everything he did, though – it was obvious by the way they looked at him.)

"Administration told us we were supposed to get Dr. Hall's things..."

(How dare they speak of her.)

"Im gonna do that myself. Tell administration i dont want anyone to even look in the direction of this apartment. Leave. Now."

--

It feels wrong to clean her mess. She wont be back to make another one, after all. She drank from that cup at some point. There are notes in her handwriting that won't ever get finished. There are clothes in the closet he never saw her wear.

(There is a particulary beatiful bareback yellow dress that feels so incredibly not her. He tries to imagine how did she look wearing it and doesnt quite manage it.)

It feels wrong to get rid of them.

It feels like if he did, he would kill some kind of fragile ghost that lived in her everyday stuff. Like he would actually have to face the fact she won't come back.

(That thought is not rational, of course. So he puts all of the things he cleared out into a box and puts the box outside of the office for someone to take away.)

(The bedroom door remains closed.)

---

Dr. Hall is buried in the institution cemetery. She didn't write anyone in the 'contact in case of my death' section of her work contract, so there wasnt anyone to offer her body to.

Valentine wasn't there when they buried her - it took him quite a while to locate the grave, in fact.

'Dr. Delilah Hall', reads the marble.

He checks the dates - both birth and death. Everything was in order. This is indeed where her ashes lie.

Her name was Delilah the whole time. What the fuck.

How was he so weird about the death of someone whose first name he didnt even care to know? Was this normal?

Valentine sits down on the pavement. It's a bright sunny day outside – generally not the time to be visiting a graveyard. He can hear bird chirping from the woods surrounding the areal, just behind the fence. He is alone.

"Delilah," he rolls off his tongue, quietly. He can't imagine she ever answered to that name. He closes his eyes and tried again.

"Delilah."

(He ends up sitting there for so long her name stops sounding like a real word.)

--

Her death made him slack off at first. There was no one to off-handedly mention when and where are the scheduled meetings and experiements happening, and he wasn't used to paying attention to things like that. (That was how he missed her funeral, too.)

He learned how to properly do that sometimes during the first week of her being gone. After that, he completely buried himself in work, taking shifts he never took before, accepting projects he normally wouldn't.

(It was easier to not think about her half of the office being empty when he wasn't there.)

He fell into a new routine - he worked more, he smoked more, he slept less, he ate less, he didnt talk to anyone, and it was okay, it was fine, until it wasn't.

When he wakes up in the medical bed, there is someone leaning over it. It takes a lot of focus to recognize the face. And to remember how to speak.

"...boss?"

(God, his voice feels pathetic.)

"Doctor, when the fuck was the last time you ate?"

Valentine closes his eyes. Fuck, why was the man so loud? And when did remembering things start taking so much effort...?

"I think i... had some carrots for dinner this monday...?"

His boss sighs disappointedly. His tone grows softer.

"What is going on with you, Valentine? You have been acting weirder than usual. I cant let you starve yourself to death, you know. There is no one to replace you. Can i do something to help you? Anything?"

His eyes snap back open. Okay, yes, maybe he is spiralling. Maybe the loneliness is, indeed, making him go a little insane. Maybe he does skip way too many meals.

"...maybe there is something."

"Yeah?"

"Could i... get a new roommate?"

"...didnt you threaten people over entering the office?"

"I did."

"What happened to change your mind?"

"What is this, an interrogation?"

"No, no, its just that... I kinda thought you were enjoying the solitude. We all did. Is this whole overworking business some kind of grief thing? Do you actually miss doctor Hall? Did you two secretly like each other or something?"

Valentine barks a laugh. Of course no one has any idea. No one knows about the time he tried to put his stuff on her half of the table and felt so bad he got up in the middle of the night to undo it. No one questions the fact 797 is fastened in the chamber 3 chair for almost a month now with nothing whatsoever happening to it. No one noticed the teeth rattling in his pockets.

The boss starts looking quite alarmed and only then Valentine notices his face is wet. He wipes the tears out with a medical shirt sleeve.

"No, she was a bitch that hit me for fun, and im pretty sure the disinterest in each other's wellbeing was mutual. Its just that i dont handle being on my own very well. Dont worry about it."

His boss is quiet for a moment and then awkwardly puts a hand on his shoulder.

"...no, man, i get it. You might have hated each other, but you were a team from the beggining. For how long did you work together? Ten years? You were important to each other, in a weird fucked up way. I get it. Its okay."

Valentine buries himself deeper into the covers, trying to disappear.

He doesnt get anything.

--

Valentine was making his way through deep grass. It was windy and the green was dancing in waves like a lush ocean, brushing over his skin.

There was a yellow spot in the distance, and he sped up when he saw it, excitement bubbling up.

And there she was, sitting on a blanket, wearing a yellow bareback dress, one hand over a picnic basket, waiting for him.

"Delilah! Im so glad you decided to show up," he babbled, falling on his bare knees next to her. She smiled.

"I didn't show up — you did."

She pointed at the sky, he looked up, and the sky was yellow and the meadow was yellow and he was wearing the yellow dress and

He shoots awake in an unfamiliar bed, panting and covered in cold sweat.

Right. Right. He got rid of his old matress and opened her bedroom. He didnt want the new person to sleep in her bed. He wanted to get used to this before they arrived.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What was that?

(Quickly he decides he is never sleeping long enough to dream ever again.)

--

His new roommate is, funnily enough, also a psychiatrist. She happens to be the newly hired replacement for Hall's position, in fact.

(They had a lot of uncanny similarities. They were both tall and dark haired and organized and undeniably attractive. If he squinted, he could almost pretend Delilah got into a horrible car crash that gave her enough brain demage to make her soft and predictable and sweet and way too caring for her own good and holy shit, she wasn't anything like Dr. Hall.)

She ends up sharing the bed with him — over the years he spent sleeping in the living room, he completely forgot that dragging your own matress into the apartment wasnt actually the normal way to deal with this situation.

Yes, he wanted to keep the bedroom for himself. Yes, he actively planned for this exact moment and then failed to follow through.

It's not his fault she got all blushy and nervous when he told her there is only one bed. He can't help himself — he sighs and offers to sleep on the couch, and she shakes her head a little too rapidly and then sheepily tells him she doesn't mind, exactly how he predicted her to. And well, he lived through similar scenarios before, he knows exactly how this ends.

(He can't sleep at first. He can't stop staring at the dark silluete lying next to him and stop trying to convince himself sleeping in Delilah's bed with someone so Delilah-shaped isn't making him feel any kind of way.)

(Finally he gets some shut-eye when he gives up. No one has to know about the things he is imagining, after all.)

Emotionally, not-Delilah is incredibly underprepared for the job. They teach her how to deal with problematic subjects on the third day, and she is practically shaking the entire evening, and she ends up in his arms for the night.

She kisses him in the morning, thinking he is still asleep.

(No one will know about the things he is imagining, as long as he makes sure his tongue doesnt slip.)

--

Doctor Dean Valentine owns a gun. It has one bullet in it and he keeps it under the floorboards.

This isn't common knowledge. In fact, he is pretty sure not even Dr. Hall knew about it, since she would probably go snitch on him immidiately - or at least threaten him with the fact that she has leverage now. The policies regarding the possession of firearms were pretty strict, after all.

There wasn't any ominious reason for him to be owning a gun. The thing and its singular bullet was an old family relic he inharited from his grandfather. Being the only family member he actually liked, this gun went with him wherever he went - to university and then to his job in the institution. He hid it after finding out keeping it in the apartment could get him fired.

He took good care of it. He knew for a fact it was still working. He knew how to shoot it, too.

(They slipped a card with the suicide prevention number into his bag when he was buying another, non-antique bullet. It actually made him smile, finding it there — he supposed this whole ordeal did look rather suspicious of him.)

Doctor Dean Valentine stands in test chamber n.3, pressing his gun to the side of 797s head.

His hands do not shake. His eyes do not leave its terrified face. Its attempt to struggle is weak and short lived and, in all fairness, fucking pathetic, even for someone this malnourished. (Valentine is pretty sure it would die on its own if he let it alone for one more week.) It closes its eyes, not particulary trying to hold back its tears. Valentine cocks the gun.

"Look at me," he prompts. His voice is calm, and 797 obeys, and only when they are holding eye contact he pulls the trigger.

Bang.

For a second, he sees white.

He cocks the gun again.

(It feels automatic - like a natural progression of things.)

He presses the tip of the gun inside of his mouth. The muzzle is cold and harsh and he tastes metal. His finger ghosts over the trigger. He stares at the gore on the chamber's ground.

There was panicked noise on the hall - people had to hear the gunshot. If he was about to do this, they would find his body in a puddle of brains and bury him in the same cemetary Delilah lies in. His roommate would cry. (He doesnt care about her and cant find the strenght to feel bad.) There would be rumors about his death whispered between his coworkers even though he is not there anymore to hear them. He wonders what conclusion they would come to.

The uncaring metal digs harder into flesh and his eyes flutter shut.

It wouldn't matter if he killed himself, really. Just how it didnt matter what he did to 797. There was no catharsis to be had. There was nothing he could do to fix anything.

He is completely and utterly powerless.

(That is, except for the the gun, drawing blood inside of his mouth.)

God, just let me have this. Let me be something else than a passive onlooker to my fate. Just once in my fucking life.

The door flies open and he hesitates for a little bit too long. They wrangle the gun out of his hands - he has no will left to resist. He stays silent -- doesnt even try to understand the things they are screaming at him.

(Really, what would be the point.)

--

"What do you MEAN you are NOT going to fire me?"

"Doctor--"

"What FUCKING happened to your firearms regulations?!"

"We can bend the rules a little if we need the person enough, you could—"

"My job could be done by a mentally ill butcher, jesus fuck! Stop PRETENDING you need me here, its fucking embarassing for both of us–"

"DEAN VALENTINE!"

(Dean shuts up at that. His boss was pulling the authority voice on him. Fuck, this wasn't good.)

"Could you stop being a stubborn fucking baby for a single moment, please?! They literally found you with a gun in your mouth, man, do you think i can let you go like this? You need help, and i am going to make sure you get it, like it or not. Do you understand me?"

"..."

"Talk to me, Valentine. I wont let you run from this anymore. I was watching you waste away for long enough. Do you understand what am i telling you?"

"Yes, sir."

--

It's relatively easy to escape the cell.

It's relatively easy to quickly get a car, too.

(He lived in a car before. It's fine. It's okay. It's not that new.)

Removing the chip out of his neck is... well. The thing has a self-destruct mechanism that severs the spine in case of a detected attempt to remove it. Valentine is precise enough to get around it, he knows that, though its generally not the type of surgery to perform on yourself at five in the morning in a gas station bathroom.

(Once its safely out and he is sitting in the car again, he brings his knees to his face and cries.)

He could probably just throw it into a river -- what he actually does, though, is throught the extra trouble to trap and operate on a stray cat to get the device a new host. He thinks the thought of the government chasing after a wild animal is very funny -- and if its a little "fuck you" more than anything rational, then so be it.

(And if he is just pushing away people trying to help him, then so be it.)