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

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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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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."

She gasped, her eyes wide for a moment as he pulled her back. Last time he'd done that- no, this is different. This is calm and loving and she can fully see now the tears on his face. With a trembling hand, she reached up to wipe them away.

"Booker, then." It sounded better, anyway. For now, at least. "Then I'm just... Elizabeth."

He nodded in understanding. Anna, even for him, was perhaps a little too fraught with painful memories. She hadn't been Anna for a very long time, if she ever really was, once Booker gave her to Comstock.

He took a breath, and nodded again. "Of course. Have you... been all right?" He assumed she was - she had lots of friends, she'd probably been staying with some of them.

She nodded, her movements tight. "I have... I've been staying with Julie. Spending a lot of time with Pavel. We... They call it dating, where he's from, but we're courting. He's been... Wonderful." She can't help but mention his name without a smile.

"And you've been..." she glanced around the room. "Drinking."

Drinking, that pretty much covered it. Well, he'd gone back to work for Jack after about a week, too. So he made deliveries, then came home and drank himself to sleep.

"I stayed with Jack for a couple of days," he said by way of response. "And I'm still working for him. He's... good. A good boss. A good person."

By all rights, of course, Jack probably should've fired Booker for not showing up. God knew he'd been fired from multiple jobs for similar reasons back home. But he hadn't.

"I'm glad you had people looking out for you, too. And that you still have your job." She had no real concept of how jobs worked or anything like that. Just from what she'd read in her books, but those were different.

"No one... No one tried to hurt you, did they?"

"Huh? No, nobody's tried to hurt me," he assured her quickly, albeit with a creased brow because... why? Well, there were some that had seemed pretty angry when he made his drunken network post, but no one had actually threatened him, and only the space kid had actually shown up at his door.

She sighed, the weight lifting off of her shoulders.

"Good. I was worried. I didn't want anyone to do anything. If someone had..." Well, there would have been problems.

Booker almost smiled at that - at the way she said it, with such relief. She was worried for him? Really?

"You know me. I'm good at getting out of scrapes."

Of course she was.

"I know. But you're also mighty good at getting into them." She offers another smile. "I'm glad you're okay, Booker."

"I'm glad you're okay, too," he said, tentatively reaching out to give her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

"I, uh. I'll get this place cleaned up, and... everything."

Sober up. Dry out. He knew she didn't like it when he drank.

"Of course. I can help clean, it's not a problem. If... If you want me to move back?" She'd give him the option. She still had her own place, and Julie's.

"You look like you haven't had a decent meal in a long time."

If you want. Booker almost had to laugh at that. "I - you can live wherever you like. I don't - you're welcome to stay with me, if that's what you want."

He ate okay. Not as well as with her, though. She was a good cook, and Booker was pretty lacking in that department.

"I think I would like to. I don't like living alone. And... I think you need me more than Julie does." She hated the idea of Booker living alone. They'd both spent far too much time alone in the past 20 years.

Booker nodded, feeling downright elated at the thought that she'd be back staying with him again. He hadn't used the room she'd claimed as hers since she left - hadn't even been inside it. It was exactly as she'd left it.

"I, uh. I've missed you. It's nice, having you around." She made everything much more cheerful and homey.

Elizabeth reaches down and takes his hand.

"It's nice having you around, too." She still hadn't forgiven him. Wouldn't. But he was her father. And it was clear they both needed each other.

He gave her hand a squeeze, a gentle one, her hand small in his much larger one. His daughter. He would be a better father, or die trying.

"Anything you want," he said, and meant it.

"Then I'll move back in," she says earnestly. "I think it's only fitting." And she liked their tiny apartment better than Julie's. No offense to Julie, of course.

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