promuseboxing | for tearmeanewone

This wasn't what Booker was expecting when Elizabeth, all those versions of Elizabeth, held him under the waters. There hadn't been any time to think beyond the sick realization settling in his gut that she was his Anna. That all her suffering, the loneliness and the goddamned torture were all on him because he'd been desperate enough to make a deal to sell off the one thing he never should have let go of. All he could do was let her do it, smother Comstock in the crib.

Maybe she'd get to be happy that way. Or at least learn how to smile properly again.

Except-

Except he ain't dead.

He ain't sure where he is but if it's hell then someone has a sick sense of humor. He's still soaked to the skin from the river, his shoes are long gone and some fella who looked like ten miles of bad road stuck a weird looking shackle on his wrist after making him sign something. Probably just signed his soul, or what was left of it, away. He got poked with some needles and sent on his way. Left alone, he does the only thing that feels right.

He finds the bar. The other inmates don't seem too phased which just makes everything more unreal.

They said he's in space.

"The hell did you send me...?" He laughs raggedly at the idea that Elizabeth didn't actually kill him. Just sent him as far away as possible. He can't possibly fuck up everything if he's removed from everything, right? He stares at the drink in front of him, trying to decide if it he wants to kill the salts he's got left by drinking the whole bottle.

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"...No." The word barely gets past the lump in her throat. That horrible moment was fresh for him, the moment that had haunted her for months and had caused her so much guilt it had manifested as vivid hallucination.

"No, you saved them," Elizabeth says as her eyes fill with tears and she walks as steadily as she can towards him. Her best friend. The person she loved most dearly in the entire world. The person she'd longed to see so much, she'd started hearing him in her head just to hear his voice again. "It all unraveled. They never felt any pain, they never went to Columbia."

But it had been too late for her. She had become infinite, like the Luteces, outside of the influence of causality.

"I was left behind."

The words release some of the fear he's been holding onto. Though he doesn't think for an instant that he saved them. He was the smoking gun, Elizabeth was the hand the wielded him to save herself. Until she speaks again and his guts turn to ice.

Left behind. Alone, like she was before he dragged her out of that tower.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that his heart breaks in that moment. If she wasn't saved then he hadn't saved anyone at all.

"Dammit...!" He doesn't care that he hasn't earned this, that he ought to be drowned as many times as it takes to let her live the life she deserves. Booker reaches out, breaching that final bit of space between them, and drags her in for a hug as tears start to fall. At least this way she's spared the sight of a grown man crying.

"I'm sorry... I should have done better by you,"

Elizabeth feels as though she's waited her whole life to be held by him like this. Held tightly, like she's the most precious thing to him and would never, never be taken from him no matter what. God, what could have been, what the choice he'd made had led them to, she knows all of it and yet the feeling of his arms around her makes it all fresh and painful again. Watching over and over again as he chased after her, fought for her, and no matter what she did to help him, it never worked. Watching him despair as he was left with a part of his stolen daughter and nothing else...

She holds onto him too, like she would have if she'd known what was happening that night Comstock took her. All of her strength goes into locking her arms around him, so nothing could take him away from her again.

"You have to do right by her now," she says, shaking from the effort of trying to stay coherent. "I gave you up so you could have her, and she could have you. That's all I wanted in that moment before-- before--" She can't even say it, the words will physically not come out of her mouth. "And I missed you, every damn day, but I had to give you the chance. I loved you too much to keep you with me, away from where you could fix your mistake. I just wanted you to ha-ave another cha-ance, that's all...!" She'd known he'd make the right choice this time.

He doesn't deserve this, a little voice in his mind whispers like a broken record. She's the most important girl in the world, possibly all of them, and she's worked herself up into a state where she's hiccuping and crying into his chest. It's all his fault after all. But he can't bring himself to push her away and ends up holding her all the tighter. He'll do it as long as she needs it. She was always the one in charge in the end.

"What are you even talking about, Elizabeth?" He buries his face in her hair, trying to convince himself this is real and not some dream he's allowed to have before it all ends. "Men like me... we don't get second chances." He's gotten enough, a chance to save his daughter from the hell he'd sold her into.

He rubs her back, trying to give her some sense of calm that he's not feeling. He doesn't think about doing this for Anna when she cried because if he does he'll lose it all over again.

"Come on," He says, softly. "It's alright. I'm right here, I ain't going anywhere." Not unless she gives the word. "I ain't worth all these tears."

"You get one if I say you do!" she says, briefly overcoming the tightening of her throat to demand Booker accept something good for once. "Do you know how hard it was for me to let you go? I thought... I thought if you said you weren't sure, I could walk us away from that door. But you didn't. You wanted to make it up to me. That wasn't a lie, I know it wasn't, so now you have to do it. You have to make it up to her."

But... not right now. Elizabeth sniffles and tries to keep herself together while Booker rubs her back. She's crying, yes, but she hasn't hit sobbing, snot-filled, uncontrolled wailing. Just dignified, adult, tears-streaming-down-her-face-while-she-clings-to-her-father crying.

"I hate to break it to you, Booker, but this isn't the first time I've cried over you," she laughs through her tears, curling into him until her head is pillowed on his shoulder. "I missed you. I talked to you all the time, even though I knew you couldn't hear me."

He wants to ask who this woman is he's supposed to do right by, since Elizabeth is so focused on her. But that can wait, for now he just wants to get her calmed down so she won't go doing anything foolish. That was his job after all.

"Just 'cause you cried over me doesn't mean I deserved it," He says softly. God she's... she's all grown up. It's impossible not to see how different she looks, just another nail in the coffin that tells him he's been dead a while. He hopes she got to go to Paris once they'd done what was necessary to stop Comstock. She deserved that bit of happiness.

"I know, I know," He smiles a little, hoping he might drag something out of her besides more tears. "You're the one who decides whether or not I'm worth it, right?"

"And don't you forget it," she says, slowing her tears just enough to laugh a little and squeeze Booker again. "You were my only friend, Booker. I'd want to cry over someone more than I'd want no one to cry over."

Elizabeth tucks her head under Booker's chin, and she feels safe again. And loved. Most of it could be something she'd built over the years, creating an image of Booker that wasn't actually truthful to the man, but for the moment it's what she needs.

"I couldn't make friends after... after we destroyed the siphon. No one would understand. You at least understood."

"Elizabeth, I still barely understand everything that happened and I lived it." She's grown since he saw her last but she's still that girl he went through hell with. The daughter he gave up because he was young and scared of responsibility. What kind of life would she have if he'd been less of a coward?

"I'm sorry I messed things up for you, though." He never was really cut out for parenthood in the end. A giant bird had more to say with her upbringing than he ever did.

"But, Elizabeth, I've gotta ask... how am I even alive? If I'm here, does that mean Comstock ain't dead?"

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A THOUSAND YEARS LATER...

And now I have that song in my head