Chapter Text
Deckard stands in front of the glass for a long time.
Behind him — an empty corridor, sterile light, silence.
In front of him — a young woman standing inside a glass dome, surrounded by snowflakes drifting through the air.
She is completely absorbed in what she’s seeing. She holds out her hand, and the virtual snowflakes slowly settle onto her palm.
Then she looks at Deckard.
Most people in her place would have asked who he was, what he wanted. But she doesn’t ask.
She only tilts her head slightly.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He looks at her, not knowing how to respond.
She turns the small dials on the device hanging from the strap around her chest, and the snowflakes disappear.
“How long have you been standing there?”
Deckard looks at his hand pressed against the glass.
“Yeah… probably a while.”
“How can I help you?”
He raises his eyes.
For a second, it feels like he isn’t looking at her.
He’s looking at Rachel.
It throws him off more than he expected.
Ana watches him with a small smile, her head slightly tilted.
But Deckard can’t even force out a greeting.
Instead, he turns away and pulls a small wooden horse from his pocket.
He places it in his palm.
Ana’s smile disappears.
Deckard sees her hold her breath for a second.
“Where did you get that?”
“I made it.”
“No…”
She shakes her head.
“No, that’s not what I mean… Where did you get it now?”
She steps closer.
“I had it,” Ana says quietly, “when I was a child.”
“I made it for you.”
Ana looks at the little horse.
“That’s strange,” she says slowly, almost to herself. “I haven’t thought about this thing in years. Not until two days ago…”
She stops.
“What happened two days ago?” Deckard asks quickly.
“Who are you?”
Ana looks at him and suddenly realizes she doesn’t want to know.
“My name is Rick Deckard. You…”
He swallows and looks away.
He still can’t say the word.
Daughter.
What kind of father is he? Especially now.
“Rachel… You…”
Damn it. Not like this. But he has to start somewhere. Since he came all the way here and is standing there like a useless old tree.
“You look like her.”
“Like who?”
There is worry in Ana’s voice now.
“The woman I loved.”
A pause.
“Have you ever looked for them?”
Deckard clears his throat.
“Your real parents?”
After the words leave his mouth, he looks up, searching her face, trying to understand what she’s thinking.
But Ana looks shocked.
“You… knew them?” she asks carefully, as if speaking to someone insane.
And in the way she studies him, Deckard sees Rachel again.
He places the wooden horse on the only visitor’s chair standing in front of the dome.
There is no going back now.
“I need to… tell you a lot of things.”
Do I? a thought crosses his mind.
Ana says nothing.
Deckard stands there with his hands in his jacket pockets.
Everything seemed easier while he was walking here.
Tell the truth. Just tell the truth.
He carried it with him for thirty years, like a stone chained to his neck.
And now the words won’t come.
“Your mother’s name was Rachel.”
Ana doesn’t answer.
She only flinches slightly.
“She worked for the Tyrell Corporation. It was…”
“I know about the Tyrell Corporation.”
“Of course you do.”
Silence.
Deckard looks away.
He wants a cigarette. A drink.
Anything.
Anything except continuing.
“We were together.”
“Were you her husband?”
The question sounds almost practical.
Like she’s asking for a medical detail.
Deckard gives a humorless laugh.
“No.”
“Then what were you?”
For the first time, Ana looks directly at him.
He realizes he doesn’t know the answer.
What was he?
Her lover? Her companion? A man who ruined everything?
“Maybe I was the person who was supposed to stay.”
A pause.
“And I didn’t.”
Ana lowers her eyes.
She looks at the horse, then back at him.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. Where is my mother? Why did she leave me?”
“She didn’t leave you.”
A pause.
“She died.”
Ana freezes.
“She was a replicant.”
Now she is silent.
As if her mind needs time to process the words.
“What are you talking about? That’s impossible. Who are you?”
“I know what I’m talking about.”
God, what was he saying?
“What does that mean? ‘I know’?”
“When you were born, I was there.”
Ana’s fingers turn white.
She grips the strap of the device on her chest tighter.
“Replicants don’t have children. That’s impossible.”
“Agreed.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
His voice sharpens.
“And you’re trying to tell me that you are…”
She stops.
“That I’m your daughter?”
“Yes.”
Deckard feels a strange wave of relief that he doesn’t have to say it himself.
Ana turns away.
She walks across the dome.
A few steps.
Then more.
As if suddenly the space around her has become too small.
“That can’t be true.”
“It can.”
A pause.
“Unfortunately.”
“Then how?!”
The last word almost becomes a scream.
And for the first time, Deckard doesn’t see a calm young woman.
He sees a frightened child.
The same child who was taken from him thirty years ago.
Or maybe the child he gave away himself.
Willingly.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly.
Ana looks at him as if he has struck her.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You came here, told me all this, destroyed everything I thought I knew…”
She struggles for words.
“And you don’t know?”
“No.”
He looks at her.
Ana stares back with wide eyes, her hands frozen on the camera lens against her chest.
Waiting.
Deckard already regrets listening to Joe — the strange replicant waiting outside — regrets coming here, regrets tearing apart this fragile woman’s world.
Will she hate him for this for the rest of her life?
When Joe came to him in Vegas the same way, breaking his thirty years of solitude, Deckard almost wished him dead.
You get used to being alone.
Ana probably did too.
And still, Deckard somehow manages to tell her what he came to say.
About Rachel.
About Freysa.
About leaving.
It hurts.
But wasn’t that the whole point of coming here?
So she could finally know?
Ana looks as if every word dragged out of his dry throat hits her like a blow, crushing her under another layer of impossible truth.
She feels the world around her becoming even less real than before.
She thinks this can’t be happening.
But there is a man standing in front of her, telling her things that should not exist.
As a child, she dreamed of a moment like this.
Someone — a man or a woman — would come to the orphanage and say:
“You’re my daughter.”
And take her away.
She invented thousands of explanations for why she was alone.
Her parents lost her during the chaos of the blackout.
A hospital mistake.
Even a fantasy where she was kidnapped.
But she hasn’t lived in the orphanage for years.
Those fantasies were buried in the ashes of the orphanage furnace.
At least she thought so.
A replicant’s daughter.
A human’s daughter.
A hope for the resistance.
The greatest threat to Wallace.
And this exhausted old man standing in front of her, claiming to be her father.
Ana feels her temples begin to pound.
Deckard is still talking, still explaining something.
But she only hears the dull ringing in her ears.
Her eyes stay fixed on the wooden horse sitting quietly on the chair.
It was one of her most precious memories.
Not a happy one.
But precious.
Like a treasure hidden deep inside an old chest, taken out once in a while just to remember its shine.
And now it is here.
It found her.
It brought chaos.
Why?
Her head is full of questions.
She needs to think.
She needs silence.
Please.
“Stop! ”
The word escapes before she can stop it.
Deckard immediately falls silent.
“I’m sorry,” Ana says, pressing her hand to her forehead. “I didn’t mean to… but this is too much. I can’t…”
“I understand.”
There is pain in Deckard’s eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you want… from me?”
The question catches him off guard.
Because for the first time he realizes that all this time he was only thinking about what he needed to say.
Not what Ana would do with it.
“I…”
He scratches the back of his head.
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you come?”
Ana feels her control slipping away. She might cry at any second.
Her eyes already burn.
Deckard watches her.
“There have been too many lies around you your whole life.”
A pause.
“I thought you had the right to know.”
Tears silently roll down Ana’s face.
“I dreamed about this meeting for a long time,” she says quietly.
“But you’re at least twenty years too late.”
“Thirty,” Deckard says.
“Thirty.”
“When I left Rachel on Sapper’s farm…”
Ana looks at the horse again.
Something doesn’t make sense.
And it bothers her.
“You left this horse with my…”
She hesitates.
“…Rachel?”
She deliberately avoids the words mother and father.
This man is a stranger.
Not her father.
“I made it for you and left it with Rachel.”
“Then how did it come back to you?”
“A replicant gave it to me.”
Ana looks up.
“A replicant?”
“Yes.”
Deckard hesitates.
“I know it’s strange. But he gave it to me before I came here. He brought me here too. I shouldn’t have listened to him.... ”
“What did he look like?”
She interrupts him.
Again.
Not very polite.
But she doesn’t care.
She needs to know.
She feels that if she can understand how the horse appeared, everything might fall into place.
“He’s tall. Thin. Blue eyes. Light hair. Leather coat?”
Deckard looks confused.
He doesn’t know what color Joe’s hair really was under all the dirt, dust, and blood.
And he definitely didn’t have time to study his eyes.
But “tall, thin, leather coat” makes him nod.
“You know him?”
Ana doesn’t answer immediately.
She remembers the glass between them.
Her office.
That day.
His face.
The way he looked at her when he realized the memory was real.
Like something precious had been taken from him.
And given back at the same time.
“He came to see me two days ago.”
“Why?”
Ana shakes her head.
“I don’t know.”
That isn’t true.
She does know.
That was when everything started.
The memory.
The horse.
The anger and tears of that strange officer.
And now this man.
As if the entire world decided to collapse around her in forty-eight hours.
She feels panic rising.
Then she grabs onto the only thought that feels solid.
Officer K.
He never demanded anything from her.
Never called himself her father.
Never told her her whole life was a lie.
He simply sat across from her and looked just as lost as she feels now.
“Where is he?”
Deckard frowns.
“Outside.”
She looks at the horse.
“I want to see him.”
“Now?”
“I don’t know.”
Ana’s voice is barely a whisper.
Her blood is pounding in her ears.
Where is he?
Why didn’t he come inside?
She feels that this officer is the only person who might be able to make sense of the chaos.
But does she want more answers?
She isn’t sure.
No.
There is only one thing she definitely wants.
For this old man to leave.
So she can think.
“I’m sorry,” Ana says.
“I need to be alone.”
It takes Deckard a few seconds to understand.
“Y-yes. Of course.”
What did he expect?
Not a cry of “Dad, where have you been all this time?”
But still, something inside him collapses.
Like he was offered hope, only to have it taken away again.
“Then I’ll go.”
“Yes.”
That’s all Ana says.
Deckard waits a few seconds.
Not knowing what he’s waiting for.
Maybe hoping she’ll stop him.
Probably not.
But he waits anyway.
Ana looks at him with tear-filled eyes.
“I’ll keep this meeting secret,” she says.
“And I’ll erase everything from the security footage.”
“No one will know you were here.”
She wipes at her face.
“Goodbye.”
Deckard doesn’t know what to say.
So he only nods.
He turns and slowly walks down the corridor.
The same corridor that somehow feels even longer now.
Behind the glass, Ana remains motionless.
Too quiet.
She doesn’t scream.
Doesn’t blame him.
Doesn’t ask him to stay.
Finally, he opens the door.
A cold white wind hits his face.
The sky rains down over this hopeless world, falling apart into hell, with poisoned little flakes of snow.