This is very much stream of consciousness and playing with the multiverse with a few nods to other fics I've written ;)
The multiverse is like gossamer string.
Constants and variables.
It's a familiar refrain for Elizabeth. As familiar as the buzzing in her head when she pulls apart the veil between worlds, as familiar as the blood that drips from her nose when here and there cross over each other.
She's lost between, slipping through gossamer fabric, worlds between worlds, voices ringing out all around her. They call her name over and over; Elizabeth, Liz, Lissi, Betty, Beth, Anna.
That's right, she's named for her mother, Annabelle. But she'd been taken, taken, no, she'd been sold, sold to pay off the debts of her father. And to think she's almost forgotten. But how could she, how could she when he'd drowned for her?
He'd drowned, she'd drowned him and Liz had drowned him and Lissi and Beth and Anna, they'd all gathered in the baptismal river and held him under until the kicking and the twitching had stopped and Booker was gone and Zachary Comstock had never risen out of the river in his stead.
Booker, kicking and twitching because the body wishes to survive even when the mind and the soul has chosen to sacrifice itself for the good of all. Booker, who hadn't wanted that man to exist and who hadn't wished for himself to exist any longer.
And Elizabeth, Elizabeth should have drowned with him. Liz and Lissi and the others, they'd all faded away and somewhere, somewhen is Anna and Booker in a world where a father is a decent man and not a monster (both the Booker and the Comstock, both had been monsters in their own way). A world where a daughter can grow up whole. The tragedy of Elizabeth, the tragedy of how rare happiness is for her in this vast multiverse. The tragedy that maybe she too is a monster.
And she is, isn't she?
Infinite diversity. Infinite combinations. World after world after world, men and lighthouses stretching on forever, a sky full of stars and each star another life another chance to find that rare happiness. Through one she sees herself fall into a castle and a woman's arms and she's young at heart, still so innocent, leaving Columbia before everything happens. Elizabeth envies that one, the rose never cut.
Through another, distorted now, she makes love to a man, but leaves him to finish a grisly task. He doesn't let her go alone and there's so much regret and sadness that leaks through the veil. Elizabeth leaves his world and Elizabeth dies a mile below the surface of the ocean and she never sees him again. A rose that withers.
Blood runs from her nose, she's between the here and the there again and how long has it been since Rapture, since the Last Comstock? There she is again, dying, dying in that terrible underwater city and there she is, pushed through into another world, caught by that man from before but he's different and she's different, like a first chance on repeat. But there's no first chance for Elizabeth and no second and she falls over and over and over and over, scattering across every reality like a reflection in a shattered mirror, she falls and she falls and-
She looks at her hands. Hands stained with blood, her blood and the blood of others, she reaches out and the silk parts. A blast of cold, ice in her bones and freezing her blood and she steps out of a glacier. Her face hurts and it's not just the cold, blood cakes the side of her head, dry and crusty, and it's elsewhere and she tries not to remember why.
Falling to her knees, she takes in a breath for the first time. Her lungs burn, her head pounds, but her nose is dry. She touches it, there's no fresh blood she's neither here nor there nor in between. She's somewhere else and for the first time she feels the harsh ache of freedom.
There's always a lighthouse, always a man, always a city.
The aurora borealis plays and twists above her, drowning out the stars with greens and reds and purples. None of the things that should exist do; that harsh ache threatens to steal away her new breaths. There's no city here, no lighthouse, no man.
But there's a woman. Elizabeth thinks she might have seen her once, in another time on another plane with another Elizabeth. But that's not her and it's not her, they're unique, each Elizabeth and each Elsa. That's her name, she thinks, remembering. Like she remembers that man's name across a sliver of time and space, an ephemeral thread that ties Elizabeth to all those other Elizabeths.
The thread snaps or it's cut and she's on her own. Just her and this woman with golden hair streaming behind her as she rides a myth given life.
Standing is … difficult, but she forces herself to her feet, wanting to meet Elsa as equals. But the world is spinning and she can feel every ache and every pain and all the wounds she's suffered coming at her all at once. Like they've always been there. Like they always will be.
"How did you-" Elsa's voice is like music, but she cuts herself off as she jumps off the water horse, "Easy. Easy … You're bleeding!"
Elsa's touch is gentle, yet firm and steadying.
"It's not all mine," Elizabeth tries to assure her, her shirt soaked through, white turned crimson, a blooming rose.
Is this where she dies, then? Frozen but not alone? There are worse deaths, deaths she's lived a thousand times over. The world keeps spinning, spinning and twisting and when next Elizabeth is lucid she's lying on her back inside a tent made of wood.
It's a comfortable place, warm and inviting. There is a painting on an aisle, and a sewn toy penguin sitting on the pillow near her head, little button eye gazing at her.
A woman is hovering over her; brown skinned and white haired, face lined with age and wisdom. She looks Elizabeth over and declares, "Guess you lived."
"That bad, huh?" Elizabeth tries a smile and it doesn't hurt.
"You looked like someone tortured you." She straightens up, rolling her shoulders, "You're lucky she brought you here. Arendelle and their fancy doctors are good, but not as good as us."
I should be dead, Elizabeth realizes, closing her eyes. Whatever medicine or magic they have here kept her alive and she isn't sure yet if she's grateful.
Sapphire greets her when she opens her eyes next. Sapphire eyes set into a wide, expressive face beneath a halo of golden hair. "My savior," she rasps, and Elsa giggles.
"I almost wasn't. But the Nokk is very fast, and the Northuldra are very skilled healers."
"I'm Elizabeth," she murmurs, moving her hand on top of the blanket in Elsa's general direction. Elsa is beautiful, seemingly innocent, like some kind of angel but Elizabeth is so tired of angels. The angels have fallen, their wings torn asunder. But something in Elsa's gaze tells Elizabeth she's seen hardship and pain, like Elizabeth has.
They're angels fallen, wings torn asunder.
Elsa seems to take the hint as she grasps her hand and holds it; her skin is cold but not unpleasantly so and Elizabeth has so many questions; her whole life she's read fairy tales and stories as well as studied every book on science and math she could get her hands on. Magic feels very real here and some small part of her, that idealistic streak she thought had drowned with Booker, wakes.
"I'm Elsa," comes the reply, and Elizabeth is pleased to have been right.
Days pass, and weeks and months. Elizabeth learns of the forest and the kingdoms of this strange Earth. She visits Arendelle with Elsa and devours every book in their library, becoming good friends with her sister. Anna. The irony isn't lost on her.
Bit by bit, day by day, Elizabeth unlearns the fear and fire and blood and remembers the joy of discovery.
Even so, the before has marked her, scarred her and she's changing one day when Elsa walks in and sees the worst of them. The hole in her spine, puckered and scabbed six months six months six month. Her fingers are like ice soothing a wound and Elizabeth tells her of her life locked in a tower and of the siphon, of her powers violently ripped from her by the man who called himself her father; not her real father but a twisted mockery. (Yet Booker had not been a good man either, except at the end, except at the end)
Elsa, Elsa tells her of her own isolation, though she doesn't try to compare only to emphasize. But Elizabeth understands that unique pain and she at least had Songbird, had a friend. Friend and jailer both but he protected her and he loved her and killing him had been the hardest thing she'd ever done. Watching Comstock die had been much easier.
That's past, and that will remain there and more important is the here and the now and the tenuous hope of happiness. Elsa is magic, spirits and the woods and the beauty of snow, and Elizabeth is science, quantum mechanics and string theory and yet these things are not so different just as these women are not so different.
It's the first time they kiss, the first time they make love, the first time Elsa traces good memories over the scars of the bad with trembling fingers and soft tender lips.
This is not the only time. Elsa becomes that constant, even if the days and years are the variables. And it's not always easy and not always without trial and her hands never feel entirely clean but Elizabeth finds hope and family and happiness as she falls and she falls and she falls in love with Elsa over and over again. The rose that blooms now grows out of love and family and not fed by the blood of death and trauma.
And there are worlds where Elizabeth dies, and worlds where she's old and bitter and rains fire upon the mountains of men. There are worlds where she's given a second chance in another city with another tower.
None of those worlds matter.
Elsa's fingers no longer tremble with nerves, but her lips are as soft as that first kiss and Elizabeth is alive.