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“Mr. Jack, can I ask you a question?”
The voice of the little girl nestled in Jack’s arms was slightly muffled with her face pressed into his ragged sweater, so torn and covered in sweat and blood it was hardly recognizable from its original form.
“Mm? Go ahead, Maggie,” he replied sleepily. Maggie’s voice had been soft, but it was loud enough to interrupt the exhausted silence of the other passengers of the bathysphere, several other young girls in ragged dresses turned to look at them. The other adult on board, a pale and haggard-looking Brigid Tenenbaum dozed fitfully with her head leaning on the window. One of the younger girls, Carol, attempted to braid a small part of Brigid’s hair. Her own yellow hair had begun to form curls, something Jack suspected she had before she’d been converted to a Little Sister. Most of the girls were changing subtly too, small features like eye shape and the roundness of chin were returning to them, so that they looked less like the eerily uniform Little Sisters and like…just ordinary children. Brigid had explained to him that the ADAM they harvested would pick up little bits of genetic material from the splicers and that the girls’ uniform look was an…unintentional side effect, if not an unwelcome one for them. Easier to keep track of, according to Fontaine.
Jack had walked away before she could finish, muttering something about checking the Bathysphere was safe before they ascended, swallowing the lump of anger that had formed in his throat. He felt a twinge of guilt as he remembered the expression on her face; not hurt or angry - just tired.
His feelings on Brigid Tenenbaum were complicated…without her, he would have absolutely died in Ryan’s office. She was the reason he was even able to rescue the girls at all, the one who had sheltered as many of the little ones as she could. He wanted to forgive her completely, to bury everything under the sea to erode with the rest of Rapture. But a small part of him, a small fist of anger in his chest wouldn’t uncoil. Not when he’d heard the audio diaries, not when he remembered the pitiful cries of the first Little Sister he’d encountered and how frail she had been in his hands, not when the false memories of that Kansas farm still made his heart ache even though he knew, he knew it wasn’t real - they felt just as real as the fear-tinged memories of Rapture.
Maybe I’ll buy a real farm when this is over.
Maggie pulled her face away from his sweater so that she was looking up at him with large, inquisitive brown eyes. Up close, he could see subtle differences in her nose and mouth - thinner than before, both returning to a face that was her own, unshaped by ADAM.
“What’s the sun like? Is — is it pretty? My momma had a postcard with what she called a sunrise on it. It was one of the prettiest things I ever saw - it was full of pinks and reds and oranges -”
Maggie’s question had been like the opening of a floodgate, the other girls’ questions were tripping over each other in an effort to get out that Jack was having trouble deciphering who was asking what.
Did it really live in the sky?
How bright was it?
How did they power something like that?
Did it make pretty colors?
Could you eat it?
That particular question was from a little one named Ellen, twisting her bright red hair in her fingers and grinning as the other girls burst into fits of giggles.
“Alright, ladies, ladies, one question at a time,” Jack chuckled, his heart growing lighter as he could see from the window there was more light penetrating the ocean around them, no longer an inky black abyss. They were very close to finally surfacing.
They spent the rest of the journey like that, Jack doing his best to answer the girls’ increasingly fantastic questions, but the sheer joy on their faces was enough to have him indulge them as long as they wanted. Brigid had been awoken from her nap by the girls’ excitement, inevitably being roped into the conversation as well.
“No, mein schatz , you should not be staring into the sun, it will damage your eyes,” she sighed with a small smile at Ellen’s question. She crossed her arms and pouted.
“But I stared into our sun lamp all the time and was fine!” Ellen protested.
“You aren’t supposed to stare into those either, dummy!” teased a dark haired girl named Cathy, her smile showing a gap in her teeth that had not been there hours before.
--
When the bathysphere finally broke the surface of the water, the girls let out small sighs of disappointment as they emerged inside the lighthouse. The lights sputtered to life and the distant sound of Beyond the Sea began to play, echoing through the empty building. Jack felt a strange deja vu as he opened the latch, everything had been exactly as it had been the night his plane had crashed into the ocean.
“Patience, yes? We’re nearly there, little ones,” Brigid stepped out of the bathysphere behind Jack, Carol dozing in her arms. The girls were practically buzzing with excitement, their chatter bouncing off the stone walls and filling the empty lighthouse. A far cry from the frightened children that had shuffled onto the bathysphere only a few hours before.
“How are you doing? Alright?” Brigid’s soft voice interrupted Jack’s thoughts. She approached him cautiously, her voice hesitant. The tension of their last conversation still hung thick in the air. He felt that twinge of guilt return, and he gave her a small smile, though he wasn’t sure if it was more a smile or a grimace.
“I’ll live,” he admitted. “I think I need some fresh air,” he jerked his head towards the heavy doors at the top of the stairs. Faint light was seeping through the cracks underneath, and for the first time in what seemed like ages Jack wondered if the sun was setting or rising. Brigid nodded, her expression filled with something almost like longing as she stared at the light under the door.
“Yes, I think they’ve waited long enough,” she replied quietly.
--
Of all of Jack’s false memories, one that would surface often was one of him watching the sun rise on the farm. He had remembered the way it had slowly risen over the waving fields of grain, the sky tinged with a rosy hue, his “mother” next to him on the front porch, the steam from the coffee in her mug rising. Sometimes he thought he could still smell that cup of coffee, the warmth of her hug as she thanked him for watching the sun rise with her. It had been a frequent comfort him as he slogged through a nightmarish Rapture, though now it was only tinged with a sorrow and a longing so deep for a life and a childhood he would never have.
When Jack pushed open the heavy brass doors, he was so overwhelmed by the light that filled his eyes he had to squeeze them shut, though he couldn’t help but breathe the fresh satly air that filled his lungs and revel at the breeze the wind that blew through his hair and cooled his cheeks. He could hear the little gasps of the girls behind them and opened his eyes.
The sun was rising slowly over the ocean, painting the sea and the sky in vibrant reds and oranges in blooming colors that took his breath away. The rays of warm light spread across the sky, the stars that still clung to the surface slowly fading as the sky grew brighter and brighter. The rosy glow of the sun came with a welcome warmth that covered him and as if in a trance, Jack slowly raised a hand to it, as if he could touch the sun itself.
He was here, he was alive . And that had to count for something.
“It’s just like Mama’s postcard!” Maggie gasped, her arms grasping on the barrier on the very tips of her toes to see over the edge. Jack grinned and ruffled her hair, leaning over the wall next to her. Brigid had stepped outside, one hand shielding her eyes as she squinted, eyes still adjusting to the light.
“Hey, Brigid?” Jack turned towards Brigid, his heart lighter than he had ever felt before.
“Yes?”
“What do you think about buying a farm?”