[closed; a catch-all]

[washitaway]

Characters: Booker DeWitt; Elizabeth Comstock
Date: This'll be various threads throughout the month. This is just a catch-all to prevent spamming.
Location: Various, but probably mostly in their suite.
Situation: Various.
Warnings/Rating: Possibly some discussion of violence/trauma/child neglect. Will update as necessary (thread headers may be used for more specific warnings).

Comments

[beunbroken]

[Booker, we need to find another merry-go-round for you to hop on. Stat.]

...Fine.

I never asked, other than the Pinkertons... What did you do in New York?

[washitaway]

[What is so wrong with having fun by proxy?]

I did much the same as what you saw me doin' in Columbia. Folks'd hire me to find things, or people. [Or sometimes steal things, or threaten people.]

[beunbroken]

[Nothing, because she did it to. But that... wasn't what she meant.]

I see. That's how the Luteces' found you. To find me. [She knew they'd hired him. Hired him to free her, and in exchange, they would pay off his debts. That was the theory she'd thrown to Robert, and he had confirmed it.]

Can I... ask... how long ago you lost her?

[washitaway]

[That makes him flinch slightly - her question quite literally hits a little too close to home for him.

It's just a painful memory that he doesn't like to touch. But she already knows as much as anyone.]

It was a long time ago. Twenty years or so.

[beunbroken]

Oh. [She squeezes her eyes shut.] I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask. I wasn't thinking. [She was just curious.]

You don't have to tell me anything you don't want me to, Booker. But when you do, I'm going to be ready to listen.

[washitaway]

Look, it's not - [Booker sighs a little.] I'm not proud of a lot of the things I've done - but trust me, you already know the worst of it. There's not much else to tell.

[beunbroken]

I understand...

But... I think, where are a lot of good things you've done that you can be proud of. You saved me, Booker. If nothing else, you should be proud of that. You risked your life to save a girl you didn't even know. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but when you realized that, you changed your tune. That takes a lot.

[washitaway]

I'm proud of you. I might've gotten you outta that tower, but you saved yourself as much as I did.

[He says that earnestly - the compliment is nice, but he doesn't need it. She needs to know how special she is, though.]

[beunbroken]

[She knows she's special, and she hates it. All she wants is a normal life, to be Just Elizabeth. Here she can have that. As much as a girl who can rip open the fabric of time and space can be.

And thankfully, Booker lets her be.

She leans over again, wrapping her arm around him.] Maybe. But I needed your help to do it. Don't count yourself out.

[washitaway]

I won't. I promise.

You know, Jack said much the same to me the other night.

[He accepts the embrace, his own arm going around her shoulders.]

[beunbroken]

He did? What did he say?

[washitaway]

Much the same as you - it was nothing.

No one's tried to kill us yet since we've been here. [Which is his way of saying - eventually, something will happen, the other shoe will drop, and everyone will know he's actually a thug and a monster.]

[beunbroken]

[Elizabeth is silent for a moment before she opts to respond.] I'll be by your side no matter what, Mr. DeWitt.

[washitaway]

Might not always be the safest place. [He's really just pointing that out - there's no animosity, or even sadness. It's just a simple fact. Doesn't mean he's not keeping he close for the moment, though.]

[beunbroken]

It isn't safe to be by mine, either, but you never thought twice.

[washitaway]

That's different.

[He considers a moment, then has to smile almost ruefully.] Maybe we're just two of a kind.

[beunbroken]

Not really. You could have kept flying to New York. [Well, okay, so she knocked him out with a wrench.] But you came back for me. They would have left you alone if you'd left.

[She considers this a moment.] Maybe we are. That's the only sort of thing I've found in books. Characters I could relate to. That I felt I was like, or that I could be friends with. But you're different. You're real.

[washitaway]

[He shakes his head. Leaving her behind is out of the question, forever. It's not even a consideration, as far as he's concerned.]

Real enough. [It's the same thing he said to her when he fell into her library, but it maybe means a little more now.]

[beunbroken]

[It does. She knows him. And she, against her better judgement again, finds herself trusting him. Somehow, Elizabeth has grown to love and care for this man, and she doesn't even know why. She'd seen him kill tons of men, heard about the women and children he'd burned alive in their own homes.

And yet...

That was then. And this was now. God believed in forgiveness. Maybe you couldn't wipe away all your sins, but you could try again. You could do better. And he was certainly trying to do right by her.

She leaned her head against him.] Thank you, Booker.

[washitaway]

[He's still not terribly comfortable with the idea - the idea that anyone could think he's a good man, or worthy of that label in even the vaguest sense.

But if there's someone he'd like to think well of him, it's her.]

You're welcome.