bods do you ever think about how in the end hilbert's research meant nothing
I do. And honestly, I think it’s a good lesson for everyone out there who tells themselves “the ends justify the means” or “I need to do this by any means necessary, including trusting really evil and terrible people”. That man needed therapy. I don’t have time to write a whole fic, but… hold on I was messaging Sophie snippets from an AU where Hilbert is haunted by his sister's ghost that I think you would enjoy. Let me copy over the text from discord.
Here we go: Dr. "Alexander Hilbert" faces his demons:
“Dimitri. Why are you hurting him?”
Dr. Hilbert turned to see his sister standing behind him. A ghost? A hallucination? Alien activity?
He does not know. But over time he has learned that while seeing her never gets any easier, it does at least become less surprising.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” he replied, looking back at his work.
“Then tell me. Tell me what happened to my brother,” pleaded Olga helplessly.
“He lost you. He lost the one person he cared about, and he never forgave himself for not doing what it took to save you,” answered Dr. Hilbert, robotically.
“Do you really think these are the kinds of sacrifices I’d want you to make, even for me?” Olga demanded.
Dr. Hilbert sighed.
“No. I know they are not, Olga,” he confessed.
“Then why-”
“- because this is my choice! What I have chosen to do! I will not live in a world where you would have died again. If you cannot stand to look at me again for these choices, then so be it. But I will never stop. Whether you are really here or not, you will need to accept that.”
There was silence for a few moments. At first, Hilbert assumed that perhaps she was gone. It brought him a strange sense of both relief and despair, until he heard her voice once more, condemning him.
“Then…you have killed me twice.”
“You can’t kill someone twice,” Hilbert objected, matter-of-factly, as if he was lecturing his little sister the way he'd lectured her when they were children. “People only die once.”
“Are you sure about that?” asked Olga, stepping forward to stand beside him.
She put her hand on his shoulder.
It felt solid.
Almost real.
Almost.
“…no,” admitted Hilbert, “but I do know that you are not really here.”
“What am I then?”
“Sleep deprivation. An AI hologram. A hallucination. A vision from another life form.”
“Then why are you even bothering to talk to me if you don’t even believe I’m real?” asked Olga, sounding curious, but also almost offended.
“Because… I… I miss you. I miss you, Olga.”
The words felt heavy and terrible. Dr. Hilbert shamefully blinked.
He would not cry. Emotions would only impair his performance, and he needed to focus on his work.
But then, to his horror, he felt Olga put her hand tenderly against his.
Why did it have to feel so real?
“…I miss you too,” she whispered. “But this won’t bring me back, Dimitri.”
“Then what would you have me do?” he asked, finally daring to look at her.
Her expression was hard to read. Olga didn't answer him, she merely looked at her brother for some time before turning her attention to Dr. Hilbert's work, which lay in front of them on a hospital bed.
“What’s his name?” she asked softly.
“Who? him? Officer Lambert,” he replied.
“Is he a good man?”
“...Yes,” Dimitri admitted reluctantly.
“Does he have any living family?”
Dr. Hilbert did not answer her until she prompted him once more. Then he sighed and replied.
“Yes. Officer Lambert has one living family member. A younger sister.”
“Do you think he cares about her?”
“I know he does. Officer Lambert cares about everyone, even if he has a very… obnoxious and overbearing way of showing it.”
“Sounds like another older brother I know. Do you think his sister will be terribly lonely without him?”
“I try not to think,” answered Dr. Hilbert, in a tone he used to indicate that he was not interested in anymore questions.
Unfortunately, his sister did not feel the same.
“What do you think Lambert’s sister would say, if she knew what her brother was going through right now? If she knew what you were doing?” asked Olga.
“She would probably hate me,” he replied honestly. “But I would not blame her for this or hold her feelings against her. She’d have every right to hate me for what I’ve done and what I will continue to do. But this is for the greater good.”
“The greater good?,” repeated Olga. “Would you still say that if someone decided to put me in Officer’s Lambert’s position?”
Dmitri sighed. It was an terrible question, but unfortunately, he knew the answer.
“…no,” he finally confessed. “Of course not, Olga. No one is immune to sentimentality. Not even me.”
“So you’d still say it was right? Even if it was me lying on that table? That this was all for the greater good and the only objection to be had was your sentimentality, a biological predisposition to care for family, an evolutionary flaw and weakness blinding you from your objectively superior moral duty?”
“No! I… I don’t know, Olga. You ask too many questions.”
“And for a scientist, you ask far too little, especially of yourself.”
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That was all I wrote, but I hope you enjoy!
