As much as I like Delta, I really doubt he's too handsome under that helmet of his.

I've seen a couple fics that explore the possibility of him surviving. While this was originally meant to be something like that, it ended up changing.

-Nir

The residual hum of the spherical lifeboat's motor had long since died, and now there was nothing but the quiet lap of the moonlit waves against its sides and the soft breathing of the boat's occupants. Still, Sofia Lamb found it impossible to sleep in the presence of the two people who'd betrayed and disappointed her far beyond anything she'd ever experienced: Her daughter, and her daughter's protector.

Eleanor had drifted off to sleep by now, her head against his chest and his arm curled protectively around her. Sprawled on and around them were a half dozen younger girls, also asleep. The Little Sisters Eleanor had brainwashed and turned against the Family. If she had wanted to, there was nothing stopping Sofia from finishing what she'd started back in the quarantine room, except for one thing.

That thing watched her now with sunken eyes full of hate and suspicion and sharp intelligence. The monster Eleanor had chosen over her own mother should have been dead many times over, yet still it persisted, breathing its foul breath when its heart should have stopped long ago. Sofia was aware that the mind was a powerful thing. She was well-versed in its inner workings, its strengths weaknesses and how to exploit them, but to think that the mind could defy death outright, at least for this long… It just wasn't possible. She'd broken the bond. His body should have failed. But here he was. Barely.

She'd killed him once. Watched him place a pistol to his head and paint the carpet with his poor addled brains. That should have been the end, but Eleanor, ever greedy and disobedient, found a way to return him to life, and he had come for her like a dog to a master it cannot recognize the cruelty of. A zombie. A mindless thing built only to serve.

He certainly looked the part, with his pallid, hairless skin the color of a waterlogged corpse, his dark eye sockets like pits beneath his heavy brow. He had little in the way of actual features. There was no nose or ears, just gaping holes in his head surrounded by a mass of scar tissue that extended to border a lipless mouth locked in a perpetual animal snarl, baring his jagged teeth. Beneath his chin, a thick scar stretched across his neck, a souvenir from when he'd had his voice box ripped out. To think that Eleanor would choose something so hideous, so barely human. He could not even speak to her beyond his apelike grunts. He could not tell her how important she had been to the Family. He could not tell her of the countless days, weeks, years of work he had ruined.

Mind over matter. If you tell yourself there is something wrong with you, you will begin to believe it, and it will become true. Sofia had seen it many times while treating her clients. Did Delta believe so strongly that he would not die out here that his failing body believed him too? How long would that belief hold out? He could not possibly think that the surface would accept him. He'd been a freak in Rapture, and he would be even more of one here.

"What are you staring at?" Sofia asked sharply, but not so loudly as to wake Eleanor. "Like it or not, we're all stuck on this boat for the time being. We may as well get used to each other's company, hm?"

Delta did not reply except to briefly glance down at Eleanor's sleeping form and back up to Sofia. Even for something like a simple conversation he had to check on the state of his Little Sister first. If only he'd been that attentive ten years ago.

"I'm not going to harm her." Sofia reassured him softly. "Even if I could get past you, to think of what you might do to me in return..." She trailed off in mock horror. "Come to think of it, you've been awfully accepting of everything, haven't you?"

Again this elicited no reply. Not that she'd expected one. Delta merely looked at her, eyes half-lidded. The monster was exhausted from its rampage, but she was not going to allow it peace just yet.

"Does it really mean nothing to you, Delta?" Sofia continued quietly. "All the wrong that's been done? All the injustice? Your life was stolen, your mind erased, the only thing you loved taken from you… and yet you can only turn away. Are you that weak-willed that you cannot stand up against those who have wronged you? Eleanor orders you to save her, so you do. What if my voice had been the first thing you'd heard? Would you have gone by my wishes and served the Family?"

Delta's darkening expression told her differently. Sofia held out her hands, apologetic. There was no need to get him riled up for the wrong reasons.

"Of course, what am I thinking? She's your daughter. Of course you're going to listen to her rather than me. But I do still wonder... You know it is not unnatural to be angry about what has happened to you. You're probably angry at me right now. Is that right?"

No reply. She could imagine he was thinking of the city he'd torn apart in his rage and left for dead. "Was that what you channeled all your anger into? Rapture's destruction? Surely you must have some left for me… Remember her, sleeping?" Sofia indicated Eleanor, still clad in the half-finished Sister suit, caked with the blood of those who'd worshipped her as their savior. "And the way she struggled as I pressed the pillow to her face... Hundreds of men dead by your hand, yet you were no match for a pillow."

A quiet growl rose from within the monster's chest. Sofia allowed herself a small smile. She'd finally gotten a reaction. "You could kill me, Delta. So easily. There is literally nothing I could do to stop you. Never again would I be able to twist the minds of my patients like so much clay on a potter's wheel. Without me, the Family is done, and Eleanor will be safe…" Safe, yes, but Eleanor had chosen to spare her mother, like Delta had spared those who'd done him the most grievous wrongs. What would she think if she witnessed the creature she regarded so highly destroy her own mother, whom she'd made the almost certainly difficult decision to spare? It might taint her memories of him a bit. Sow a seed or two of doubt in her mind. Years later, she might not remember how he turned away from Poole or Holloway, but she would definitely remember the sight of her mother's mangled corpse.

Absently Delta's fingers scraped the fabric of Eleanor's suit, as if he was reminding himself she was there. He'd let his chin come to rest on his chest, hiding his expression in shadow. Sofia could not tell if her words had had any effect or not.

"Think about it, Delta." She'd allowed some strain to creep into her voice. Strong as his determination might be, he very well could be dead by morning. This might be her last chance to make him act upon her. "Do you want her to live in fear that she may one day be called upon to fulfill her duty as the people's daughter? We are not the first to escape Rapture. The Family may have its fanatics, but my word is the only thing that is final. They will not act without me."

He still would not look at her. She knelt in front of him and took his chin in her hand, forcing his head up and his eyes to meet hers. His gray skin was cold and slick with sweat, his eyes slightly unfocused. Until now she hadn't noticed the subtle trembling of his body as he fought against the effects of a broken bond. Eleanor's presence beside him made no difference. He was a man dying of thirst, able to see the glass of water but not grasp it. It was almost pitiable how he hung on for her when she was not even awake to witness it.

Clearly Sofia had even less time than she'd thought. "Look at me." She whispered. He blinked, his dilated pupils settling on hers. "Don't you understand? For the sake of Eleanor, I must die. You could do it right now. Crush my windpipe. It would be easy." She took his limp hand by the wrist and lifted it to her throat. "Just squeeze. I won't make a sound. Eleanor need not witness it. If you truly cared for her, you would kill me."

Delta looked from the face of the woman who'd made his second chance at life a living hell to the face of the girl who had made it all worth it. The corners of his ruined mouth twitched in a grotesque attempt at a smile as he let his hand slip from Sofia's fingers. "Delta…" She began again, only to have him place his knuckle against her chest and lightly try to push her away. "Delta, please…"

He let his head rest on his shoulder, his tired gaze fixed on Eleanor. Once again Sofia reached for his face to force him to see her and recognize her desperation, a desperation not unlike what he must have felt as he clawed his way through Rapture's ruins to find his lost daughter. She found herself gripping only a corpse, who had wanted the last thing he saw to be that which he had fought so hard for and loved more than life itself.

There were no more chances. Sofia sat back, her fingers still damp with the dead monster's sweat. Eleanor and her Sisters slept on, ignorant of their vulnerability and what they had lost. Come morning they would learn of it, and it would fall upon Sofia to comfort them.

Perhaps there was one more chance after all. Not to destroy Eleanor's image of her protector, no, that chance was long gone, but to begin reforging a broken bond of her own. It would not do to be hated by the only person you had left. If a monster could forgive, maybe she could do the same.