The swing from the wrench hit harder than Elizabeth had anticipated. The second swing was worse.
Her vision went black as webs of sharp pulsing pain accompanied her to the floor; licks of consciousness waded and receded from her loose grasp. For a few moments, there was just... nothing. Nothing except the dull throbbing as blood rushed, and the pain.
So much pain.
Everything hurt. Her head, her limbs, her mind. Her body burned on the inside, everything feeling overused and exhausted. She had been running on fumes since the first time she had died; she had hoped she'd be prepared to do it again, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Then, she began sinking to the bottom, heavy and swollen, the light threatening to fade out.
But in that swirling black mess, washed in the ripples of time itself; there were doors. Millions of millions of doors, all waiting where she left them. In that brief glimpse, she saw what was to come... and maybe, just maybe, her efforts weren't for nothing.
A glimmer of hope she clung to, as she desperately swam back to the top.
When consciousness came back and her vision blurred into some kind of focus, she looked up to Sally. The cool glass soothing the ache, just enough for her to gain a recognition of the girl, the one Elizabeth had risked her life for – given her life for. There was a lot of blood around them.
There was very little time. They both knew it.
She knew this is how it would end. From the very beginning, she had known she was never getting back; that Rapture was to be her grave, buried deep in the glittering ocean – deep beneath a goddamn lighthouse.
There's always a lighthouse.
The little girl started to sing softly, stroking Elizabeth's hand; comforting her in the last few seconds they had. Sally seemed to understand, that although it may be the end for Elizabeth, there was another end for her. A different ending. A better ending.
A vision of her own tower appeared in Elizabeth's mind, as gold and magnificent and as horrible as ever. A gilded cage, once standing between her and the everything on the other side. Like Rapture it sat far from the world, away from the Sodom and the parasites who would take from it.
Booker.
Elizabeth smiled, thinking of the man who did take her. Sally would have her own hero, someone to take her away from the cage, and its captures; someone who would finish what Elizabeth had started, and bring this world of the wicked to its knees. A man to save a girl from an awful place.
There's always a man.
She could feel her grip on the world slipping, her vision leaving once again. The hurt was gone, not yielding to the glass but instead to the cold hands of the that dark, black, nothing that pulled her down from her self once more – into a deep and vast sea of another kind. A swirling ocean of the absolute, and the unsure alike. This time there was no returning.
Her body slumped as her absence.
She was hovering withing some dark void, lit in a wonderment of sparking brief lights, blinking in and out in random yet predictable patterns.
They reminded her of the view from her tower, how she watched what she could from behind the clouds. The lights from the floating houses and shops, dazzling against the night sky. She would never admit out loud how tight she held those memories, the only ones worth keeping. Columbia was nothing if not beautiful from a distance – a shinning city in the sky.
There's always a city.
She was drifting through this endless abyss, no path, no worries; just a pocket of thoughts in the emptiness that threatened to swallow her. Her only means of true self was to been found inward, but that too was slowly being engulfed by the nothing around her, and Elizabeth could only give in...
Then the lights began to hum.
It was soft at first but slowly picked up in pitch and tone, but never growing beyond a deep rumble. The lights stopped blinking as they grew more intense, each speck still contained within itself. It was magnificent. They began to look familiar, each fixing itself into an already known position.
She recognized these. Lighthouses.
So many lighthouses. Each a doorway, each doorway a different yet similar world. She could see them all again, but as hard as she tried, she could not see what was behind. She was no longer an omnipotent being, just another dead girl. Incapable of moving herself in the void, she could merely stare out at what she could not have.
So Elizabeth waited for something to happen.
And she waited.
And waited.
She was left alone in her own thoughts. There was no sweet release from existence, the suffering was gone, but the consciousness remained. Perhaps this was the afterlife, if there was one at all. Maybe her previous quantum state of being was to blame.
Maybe this was her hell, or punishment for... what ever it was she was. Some physical embodiment of the tangled threads of infinite theoretical possibilities, probabilities; things that would happen, always happen, and never happen – able to access it all.
How she ever kept her sanity to begin with was astonishing. Maybe willful ignorance ran in the family.
Booker.
Even in death he would not leave her be. Thoughts of the man who had saved her could not help but rear themselves to the front, breaking past the existential revelations. In the end, maybe they really didn't have a choice. He was doomed to die for his sins, a sacrifice made in the hopes to right a great wrong.
He died for her own selfish revenge, to try and prove that maybe constants could become variables.
He died to break his circle.
If she could laugh she would. She never broke any circle, she merely finished her own; looping around once again. Following her fathers lead, one by one – every step, just like most Elizabeth's, to their predictable end; a complex so compelling it was frightening. She was not Booker, but she knew her fruit rested in the shadows of his branches.
Booker... I miss you.
She did. She missed him with everything she had. Rosalind's had been right; things could be changed, vengeance met, but after all the blood shed and the smoke clears, was it really worth it? She had died trying to save someone she had been responsible for, Booker had been the first of the two of them to do so.
Now I know what it feels like.
False or not, Booker had been a Shepard of sorts; guiding her through the rough terrain from a terrible zealot. For all the terrible he did, the wrongs he made, he fought like hell to make amends; even if he didn't know it at the time. Anger, frustration, regret, guilt; none of it left. But – in the grand scheme of things – it all seemed so unimportant, so superfluous.
She didn't regret her decision, to end Comstock – all of the Comstocks – and the Bookers, because she knew he wouldn't let her. She just hoped that he could forgive her, and that she could forgive herself.
It took him almost twenty years to get her back, and even if it was him who had given her to man who put her in the tower, she was content to know that he had come for her. Just as she had hoped to be redeemed in Sally's eyes, she knew Booker had only ever wanted her to forgive him.
And she did. She just wished she could tell him.
Suddenly the rumble started again, and Elizabeth felt herself moving but unable to tell which direction. The lights intensity dimmed, and they seemed to grow farther and farther away. As they began to fade into obscurity, herself following suit. This was the end, it had to be. The true ending.
The movement picked up in speed, soon she felt particles brush her face, a rushing sound in her ears.
When did those come back?
In the distance she saw one last bright light, one more lighthouse. She realized she was heading right for it. At once she had limbs again, and the immediate need to breath brought the sense of urgency back. As hard as she could Elizabeth kicked and fought through the currents, trying to move faster towards that light.
She broke the surface, desperately gasping for air. Water splashed her face as tides wiped around her, struggling to keep her head up; she had never been a good swimmer.
She was in the ocean. Where was the lighthouse?
She tried turning around but the waves kept knocking her around, making it difficult to see. As they turned more violent, she started to fear she'd have to die a third time.
"Elizabeth!?"
That voice, it couldn't be. "Book-?" A strong curling wave took her under, spinning her head first downward. Then another; she was unable to break the surface again. She was going to drown.
A pair of strong arms wrapped around her, and she felt them tug her back to the top. She was taken towards the light as soon as she bobbed up. Coughing and sputtering she was dragged to the shore. He let her down gently on the soft wet sand.
"Elizabeth, you okay?" He was winded, hunched over, huffing, and soaked head to toe. His clothes disheveled and his hair a mess, but it was him.
Her eyes burned from the salt water, but she blinked back the tears and stared. The rouged, dirty, beautiful man that she had killed was standing in front of her. "Booker?" She managed to choke out.
He stood up wiping the water from his brow. "It's me Elizabeth..."
It couldn't be him. She drowned him, she had watched him die beneath her own hands. "You can't be real. I killed you." Disbelief strung tight in her voice. She stood herself up, approaching him carefully.
"Yea, you did." He spoke lowly, but he didn't seem angry. "But you died too, didn't you."
She had, but what did that mean then. Was this the after life? Another lighthouse, another door? Why – in the infinite around them – would they solely end up together in the same place.
We swim in different oceans, but we land on the same shore.
They stood close, both too nervous to reach out to the other.
"Booker..." Elizabeth felt so foolish, be able to only repeat his name, but she was at a lost of what to say. It seemed too good to be true. Tentatively, she stretched a hand forwards.
He grabbed it in the air, cupping it softly in both hands and bringing to his chest. "Elizabeth.."
As soon as she felt the warmth from from his touch, she folded. On its own accord her body fell into him. He grunted as she caught him off guard, but he was quick to recover; wrapping her in his arms once more.
They sunk to their knees, resting on the sands. Elizabeth babbled through her tears about how sorry she was, most of it incoherent. Booker understood all the same, saying nothing, letting her get everything out. Even after she was done crying, they stayed like that, watching the sea roll on the horizon endlessly.
They felt unusually calm. No embrace between them had been deliberately shared through anything but intense moments of survival. This was wholly new, moments specifically for them.
When she had collected her self, Elizabeth opted to give both a little space. As soon as his warmth left she regretted her decision. She ignored the urge to latch to him though.
"Booker, I... I can't believe it. How?" They sat side by side on the small beach at the base of the lighthouse. "I mean, we died."
He shrugged. "Beats me. Dead, died, will die. I'm sure one of those Lutece explanations work."
"It doesn't work like that."
He clicked his tongue. "You really gonna punch this gift horse in the mouth?"
"You expect me to just accept it?" She threw him a sideways glance. "None of this makes any sense."
He chuckled, "Welcome to the party."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, staring out into the ocean.
Booker broke first. "You always said it was a form of wish fulfillment. Maybe it's something like that?"
She wanted to avoid that conversation. "I don't think so. I died Booker, twice."
"I recon you think that makes us even." There was a touch of humor in his voice. However, it unsettled her still, thinking about what she had done.
"How long have you been here?" Quick to changed the subject she stood up. "Where even are we?" She looked around at the tiny island they were on. It was nothing but a pile of stones, sand, and a wreck of a lighthouse at the center. Same as millions of others.
"No idea." He stood up as well, taking the hint. "The sun sets and rises... but it's hard to tell time here. Everything kinda... blends together." She felt a little more guilt pile on. She felt she'd never be done apologizing. She didn't even what to apologize for anymore. She was just so happy to see him.
"So you've been sitting here alone, this whole time?"
He nodded. "Yep. Sitting, walking, waiting. All sorts of fun."
"Waiting for what?"
"That's a good question." He took a beat to think. "You I suppose."
"I see." Elizabeth couldn't stop the heat rising from her chest to her face. "Whats on the other side?"
"Of the lighthouse? A door." He grabbed her hand, "Come on I'll show you."
Her pulsed raced as they made their way up the beach and onto a concrete platform. It curved around, leading to a door, like every other. Its gilded appearance stood as a stark contrast to the dark somber colors of the rest of the building.
They kept their distance from it.
"What behind this door?"
"I don't know."
"You haven't opened it?"
"Can't you see behind it?"
She shook her head. "Not anymore." She held up her hand, showing him her extended pinkie.
A strange look took washed over his features and his eyes darted to the ocean. She gently touched the side of his face, guiding him back. He was reluctant, but their gazes met once again. After that, his body seemed to deflate, the bravado falling back and his raw self was shone through. He understood, there was no need for words. His hand soon reached up as well and he softly thumbed her hand.
"Let's go through it." He said, finally breaking eye contact.
"Excuse me?" Her hand fell to her side.
"The door, let's go through it." He had already made up his mind apparently.
"We don't even know what's on the other side."
A slight smile grew on his lips. "Maybe it's Paris."
Her eyes narrowed, a sly smile of her own blossoming as well. "Maybe it's Columbia."
"Heh," He snorted, "Didn't stop me the first time."
He was serious. "You really want to go through another door, Booker?" She wasn't so sure she wanted to do anything with anymore doors.
"Unless you aim at staying trapped at this lighthouse forever." He had a point.
Elizabeth looked out to the ocean, the waves milder now, quietly lapping again the rocks and sand. The cool night sky tinting with the subtle early stages of daybreak. "It's a beautiful view. It wouldn't be so bad... just the two of us."
He stepped closer. "A girl like you'd get cooped up on this little dock." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "You fought too hard for your freedom."
Tears threatened to come up again. She pushed them down. "Booker..." She looked towards the door, "What if it just starts the circle again?"
His brow furrowed. "Circle? What circle?"
"Our circle. Our pattern; the lighthouse, the man, the city. All of it." She didn't think she could do it all over. "Booker, I can't kill you again."
He turned her around by the shoulders, eliciting a surprising squeak. "You won't have to." He sounded too sure of himself.
"You don't know that-"
"You wont." His eyes fixated on hers, willing her to trust him.
She did trust him, she couldn't help herself. But doubts still lingered. "What if... what if we just start over." Her hand brushed his face again. "Or what if..." She didn't know how to say the words that danced in her head out loud. She sighed. "Booker I can't... I can't start thinking of you as... how I'm suppose to..." Everything seemed too complicated in the real world. Why would they want that?
"I know Elizabeth..." He took her hand into his, holding tight. "But it could be our only chance."
She gulped. "Chance at what?"
"Us. However it plays out."
God how she wished for it to be so. "Booker, I don't want to forget you."
"You wont."
A beat. "Are you sure?"
"I am."
For what seemed like an eternity, she searched his eyes for anything that could lead her to believe otherwise; for any reason to stop him. There was nothing. She was as helpless with him as she was in the currents. "Okay."
Her trust was all she could give him.
Slowly, he lead her to the door, gleaming in the soft orange hue of he rising sin.
"R-right now?" Was she prepared?
"No better time then the present." At least she had him.
He put his hand up to the gold carving, resting it on one cold surface. He motioned for her to as well, and she quickly joined his side, her nerves on fire.
Panic set in for Elizabeth. She trusted him, but she was all too worried it wouldn't be the life she wanted. The life she wished they could have. Maybe they weren't meant to.
He took her hand and pulled her close. At once the fear melted away, and Elizabeth breathed in deep. She could do this, she would use his strength. "I'm ready."
He smiled. "Good. On three."
On the count, they both pushed. A bright light bounded from behind the door, engulfing them in its white rays.
Neither one knew what to expect to find on the other side. Neither knew if they'd find peace beyond the last door they would ever travel through, their last shot at closure. What would've been a terrifying thought, washed out with the hope of what would be, and always should have been.
So they braved the unknown one last time, hand in hand –
Together.