tushanshu_logs | the preacher's knees buckled in the heat, so the deacon took over

Entry tags:

the preacher's knees buckled in the heat, so the deacon took over

Characters: Elizabeth & Booker DeWitt (closed)
Date: January 31st
Location: Booker's Suite
Situation: The DeWitts have made some huge mistakes.
Warnings: BioShock: Infinite spoilers. Of course. Probable language, references to child abuse.

It was her story. And her story, as she was realizing, was the story of Elizabeth Comstock. It was the story of Anna DeWitt. She was Elizabeth, but without these two women, she wouldn't be herself. She owed them, these girls that could have been and were, to learn the rest of the story. No matter how much it hurt.

The dream she'd had, the dream where Yin had come to visit, helped her open the doors from her tower, to DeWitt Investigations, to the room she had lived in as a baby, as Anna, had made all of that clear. It was her story.

And here, now, free from Columbia, she could finally take control of it.

She told no one. Not a single person when she left the room she was staying in at Julie's, and retreated to the desk where she'd placed the letter weeks ago. With trembling hands, she removed it, closing the roll-top, before opening the letter.

Elizabeth,

I am not a man good with words and letters. But we parted on bad terms, and it was my fault, so I should be the one to mend things, if they can be mended.

I do not deserve your forgiveness, and I do not expect it, but I must tell you how sorry I am. For everything. My wife, your mother, was as kind as you, and she saw in me good things the way you saw them in me. When she died, giving birth, I was lost again. I was young, and grieving, and I had no family to help me raise a child and keep a job to pay for food and rent. It was a hard time.

When I gave you up, I convinced myself it was for the best. I could not raise you, I could not buy the things you would need. I was no fit father, and I thought perhaps the man I gave you to would raise you well. I realized my mistake, but it was too late, and I forever regretted it. I had no way to find you again. No way to save you, after he took you through a portal – a Tear, like those you make in Columbia. He took you out of my world, Elizabeth, and I had no way to follow.

Until Robert Lutece came to me. Through another Tear, right into my apartment. He told me the words I'd been waiting to hear for almost twenty years – that you were alive, and I might be able to get you back. I followed him through, into your world, the world where Columbia exists, and then my mind got all scrambled up. I don't know why. I tried to contact Robert here today and it seems they are gone from the turtle. Perhaps even they would not know.

I do not mean to hurt you more than I have already. I would do anything to keep you from hurting ever again. I am no fit father, but you are still my daughter and I have always loved you. You're my lovely Anna. Nothing I can do will fix things, I know. I only want you to have a good and safe life, with people who care for you.

Sincerely,

Booker DeWitt

Elizabeth stood there, reading the letter, once, twice, three times until her vision blurred. The paper fluttered to her side. He… Booker DeWitt loved her. He loved her, and gave her to Robert Lutece, to Comstock, thinking it would give her a better life.

And he regretted it.

Booker DeWitt was not a man who was good with words. She knew that. But this letter… If nothing else, it proved that the pen could be mightier than the, er, gun.

She realized something else, as she looked at the fireplace where she'd nearly burned the letter. That while she could never forgive him for what he did, she, too, still loved him. However complicated those feelings were.

With that thought, Elizabeth tore off, back to Booker's sector, without even bothering to grab a coat.

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There was a knock on his door.

Booker was drinking again - he'd sobered up to write the letter, but inevitably, and without Elizabeth around to make any kind of attempt at keeping him in line, he'd fallen back into the bottle. He wasn't drunk, not anymore than usual, for him, though. Just some cheap whiskey at the table, not like the bender he'd gone on right after she left.

But it was enough to make him wonder if the knocking was real, or just his own brain playing tricks on him.

Still, though, he opened the door, just to check, despite not being sure, and despite not wanting company of any kind. And the person he saw on the doorstep nearly knocked him off his feet.

"Elizabeth? Is - are you - what --"

He stepped back automatically, away from her, giving her leave to enter. He would never, ever turn her away. Even a hallucination of her.

What hell had he been through? He looks like he's been through all nine circles, and Elizabeth has to resist the urge to run to him and hold him, ask him if he was okay.

She can smell the whiskey wafting off of him, and looking past him, she could see the mess that he'd made of their suite. Maybe she could get him a clean shirt, something to eat, at least a drink of water to help him sober up. But was that acceptable? Or would that be giving him too much control of the situation?

"May I come in, Mr. DeWitt?" She asks, keeping her voice even, even as she steps into the small foyer.

To be fair, it looked worse than it actually was at that point. He'd been far, far worse even a week ago. But Booker ran a hand absently over his face, as though to see if she would still be there when he looked again - sure enough, she was.

"Yeah, of course," he said, but then - "Are you - real?" Maybe asking her was stupid, but the only other thing he could think of to do would be to touch her, and he knew that would be a bad idea at this point.

She'd asked him the same thing when he'd fallen through her ceiling.

"I'm real. I'm real, and I'm here, Mr. DeWitt. I..." She looks around the apartment. "Pavel gave me your letter."

Ultimately, it was the Mr. DeWitt that convinced him. He felt like any hallucination he had of her, no matter how terrible and mean-spirited, would probably still call him Booker, if only to be cruel.

He sat down heavily at the table.

"I knew he would," he said. "I wasn't sure if - if you'd read it. I didn't want to hurt you anymore, or... make things any worse."

"I didn't want to." There's no reason to hide that from him.

"He's a good man, my boyfriend." But she's not here to talk about her recent romantic developments. It came at the most inconvenient of times, but, she still felt the need to defend Pavel to Booker. Whatever the relationship those two had.

"I wanted to destroy the letter, but I couldn't. For one reason or another. I read it this afternoon." She couldn't look at Booker, make eye-contact with him. She needed to keep her wits about herself right now, not give in to the river of emotions moving through her.

Booker didn't respond to her comment about the space kid - it wasn't his business, regardless, and frankly, he wasn't sure what she even meant by it - if she wanted to wound him by saying someone is courting me and he is far better than you'll ever be - well, frankly, that was good as far as he was concerned. He would never want her to be courted by a man like him.

He just nodded, staring at the wood grain of the table. "I, uh. I know I'm not much for words, but I did the best I could. I make no excuses - what I did was inexcusable."

He looked up at her then, because if he did nothing else, he was going to face this and acknowledge it like a man, instead of a coward. "I'll listen to anything you might have to say, as you please. I'm at your disposal."

He was mostly assuming she was still angry, that she wanted to yell at him, tell him how much she hated him, or the like. That's what he was prepared for. He owed her the chance to air her feelings. It was the least he could do.

Elizabeth presses her lips together, taking a few steps around the table before turning back and starting over again.

"You're right." She said finally, her tone even. "What you did was inexcusable. And I don't think I'll ever forgive you for it." He was so calm about this. It was unnerving. Maybe things would have been better if they both wound up screaming at each other.

"I'm twenty-years-old, Mr. DeWitt. I lived in that tower for most of my life. I had time to imagine a million different lives, imagined my mother was a queen and my father a king. But... I never imagined that I had been given away."

Booker would never shout about it, not to her. He'd had twenty years of living with his guilt and regret - and a few weeks to stew in it once his memories slotted back into place.

There was nothing to shout about. Nothing to defend. He knew his guilt, and would face the punishment for it. Had been punishing himself for it, for years.

"I'm sorry," he said. He would never be able to say it enough, and he knew how inadequate it was. And he didn't expect forgiveness. He'd given up on forgiveness long, long ago. "I understand if you never want to see me again. I'll... do whatever you'd like." If that meant staying away from her for good, or anything else she had in mind.

"Stop." She turns back to him, holding a hand up. "If I never wanted to see you again, I wouldn't be here."

She sighs. "Before you were my age, you were married, Mr. DeWitt. To my mother. You were married, and you had a child. I couldn't imagine going through that, even now at my age. I shudder to think what would happen if- if something like that happened to me. That's even with people who care about me."

Booker blinked at her in surprise - not at the order, but at her statement. He expected anger, he expected hatred, contempt. He did not expect any kind of empathy.

He didn't know how to react to it.

"I... guess so," he said, at a loss. She was in charge, here. He wouldn't interrupt again.

"I don't forgive you," she repeated. "I never will. Because your decision hurt me. Me and so many other people. And that is not something I can easily forgive."

Elizabeth swallowed, collecting herself again. "But... I can understand why you thought you made the right choice. Robert himself told me, before they left, that he regretted giving me to Comstock. Which was why he found you to rescue me. I suppose I should give him credit, for trying to bring us back together again." He blue eyes fluttered closed for a moment.

"I'm not here to yell at you. Or tell you how terrible you are. Everything I could say I'm sure you've already said to yourself a million times over. But... You're still my father. And I know what it's like to feel abandoned by family, and those you love. And I don't have that in me to do to you. Even if I wish I did."

Father. Family. Booker wasn't used to those words. They were alien to him, for the most part. She would've been perfectly within her rights to never see or speak to him again, of course, but she knew that. Booker didn't have to remind her.

"Getting you out of there, getting you to safety --" He paused, trying to articulate what he meant - what he felt. "That was the debt. You are my debt. I'll never be able to wipe away what I did to you, but I hoped I could at least help you get out. You're here now, and I'm just glad that you are." He would never ask her for anything, only the knowledge that she was safe.

"You're right, though. I am still your father. I can try to be a better one, if that's what you want. Not to keep you locked away, like Comstock. Not to tell you how to live your life. But to be here, for you, if you need me or want me for anything."

She was the debt. A debt that would never go away, one that was carved into his flesh, and hidden in the dark so that he could never, ever forget what he did. He had to live with that knowledge. The reminder that every time she woke up screaming, when memories from the experiments came back, that it was his fault she was there in the first place.

There was some hesitation, before she spoke again, and in that moment, she gasped- a sharp inhalation of breath as though she'd been hit. But her breath came back almost immediately, bringing with it soft tears, blurring her vision.

"I- Mr. De- Booker- if you want to try to repay the debt, I won't stop you. In the few months I've known you, you've already done so much for me. And now that you're here in my life...? I don't want to lose you again." At the last words, her voice cracked, and with it, her resolve. She ran forward, closing the distance between herself and Booker, wrapping her arms around him.

Her arms around him was like coming home - something he hadn't felt in a long, long time. She was here, again, she wanted to be here, and it was more than he could've ever asked for.

"I love you," he said, voice thick with tears of his own. "I can't change what I did to you, but I'll always do whatever I can to make sure you're safe. I'll always find you. That I can promise."

It was the first time anyone had told her they loved her, and it was enough to get her to hug him tighter, pressing a kiss to the side of his head.

"I love you too. I kept praying for years you'd come for me. And you did. I love you, Booker." The word sounded so foreign on her lips. When the tears stopped, when they could breathe, she would ask him questions. Questions she needed to know the answer to, before she could consider all of this done.

No one had said those words to Booker for a very long time, either, frankly, and he almost didn't know what to do with them. So he just held her close, like he could protect her from anything that might come - or at least, he would try. He would always try, no matter what.

He was not a man prone to emotional outbursts, not like this, but his cheeks were wet, streaked with tears. Somehow, maybe, things could be okay. If they worked hard for it.

She wasn't about to let him go. Instead, she just let him take her weight, holding her the way she should have been held for twenty years. A lifetime without human contact, at least, any that she remembered. It did things to a girl, who would hug herself and pretend it was someone else who had their arms around her. But now, she had Booker.

She had her father.

After some time, at last she spoke. "Booker?" If she could still call him that. "Can you... Can you tell me about my mother?"

Her mother. God, he had to know the questions would come, after everything, but he spent so long trying to forget, getting rid of every last vestige of her from his life, it was hard to find the strength to dredge those memories up.

But she, of all people, deserved to know whatever he could tell her.

"Mary Anne DeWitt," he finally said, murmuring the name into her hair quietly. It had been so long since he'd said that name. "You have her eyes. And her curiosity. She always wanted to learn things."

Mary Anne DeWitt. She finally had a name to the woman who gave her life. Elizabeth dropped her head against Booker's chest, tears starting again.

"You must have made her very, very happy."

That sent a pang through his chest. Booker was never really sure of that, no matter how often she'd told him so.

"She said as much. She made me happy. I met her - just after Wounded Knee. She... She saw good in me. I tried to be a better man for her."

Elizabeth would know what that meant, after Wounded Knee. A difficult time, and then to lose her so quickly - it had left Booker reeling.

"Oh." She understood completely.

"I'm glad she was there for you. That she helped you. She sounds amazing. I'm- I'm going to try to make her proud of me."

She'd tried to help. And what did it get her, in the end? Just suffering, just death. She hadn't lived to see her daughter. Hadn't been able to grow old with Booker.

He didn't say any of that, though. He tried to focus on here and now. "She is proud of you," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "You are so smart and strong, she couldn't ask for a better daughter."

She reognizes the hoarseness in his voice, but doesn't say anything to that effect. "Thank you. Thank you. I- I needed to hear that. I needed to know that she would feel that way." She nuzzles him slightly.

"Thank you... dad."

Dad. It hit him like a knife to the chest, like a Handyman punching him in the solar plexus, and he pulled back to study her face.

"I... Yeah, sure. Anything. It's just the truth. And you don't - if you'd rather I was still just Booker, that's fine. You can call me whatever you like. It doesn't matter."

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