Elizabeth II

The water that spurted down from the showerhead in an unsteady flow was lukewarm, brackish, and smelt a bit funny. But it was also clean and it felt so refreshing to be able to wash off all the built sweat and oil from her body and hair that Elizabeth didn't care. Tenenbaum told her that the showers were on a ten-minute limit -"to converse power and water, supplies are stressed after all"- so Liz worked quickly, even as she did her best to enjoy it, rubbing a thick later of plain, unscented soap suds over her body and through her too-long hair.

All too soon the water dripped to a stop and Elizabeth was left wringing the last bit of soapy water from her dark locks. Newly shaven, cleanly washed, and completely refreshed, Liz emerged from the little concrete shower stall, wrapping a rough, off white towel around her body and her eyes falling on the bag of supplies Tenenbaum had given her. It had contained the towel and the bar of soap, in addition to -Liz discovered after rifling through its contents- some clean clothes, shoes, and, to her relief, some hairpins, a razor, a comb, and pair of scissors.

The clothes left for her were, aside from the usual undergarments, a simple white shirt and a pair of denim coveralls. Slipping it on, Elizabeth noticed that it fit unusually well and purposely shoved that through to the back of her mind, lest she spend too much time pondering what it meant. Still, it was warm enough and, combined with the thick wool socks under steel-toed work boots, it was enough to fight off the constant chill that clung to Rapture no matter how many heaters were installed.

'Now for the hair,' Liz thought, approaching the bathroom mirror as she rubbed the damp towel against her scalp. The comb was an ugly, wooden tooth thing that caught and pulled at the tangles in her locks. It took a long time -and a sore scalp- for Elizabeth to get her hair smooth but with grit and determination, it got there.

Then she picked up the scissors, gathered her hair up in one fist, and readied herself to make the first cut at the top of her shoulders.

"You could leave it long, your mother always did."

Liz's blue eyes went wide as the familiar form of one Booker DeWitt appeared in the mirror, slouched down on one of the bathroom benches and smoking a cigarette. When she turned around to look at the bench, it was empty.

'Of course, it is. Booker is dead. Dead and gone by my own hand,' Elizabeth reminded herself sternly, even as pangs of grief hit her heart. "Did it look nice?"

"Like something out of one of those fancy old paintings," Booker nodded wistfully. "Especially when she'd let it down to dance around the kitchen or relax in the afternoon. On a nice day, the sun would shine on it or the wind would blow it around and I would swear I was looking at an angel. It was soft too, like silk."

Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried to imagine it. The images of Lady Comstock she'd seen always showed her so prim and proper, dressed to the nines and the total image of a proper upper-class wife, so to think of her... or, at least, another reality's version of her, as just some normal woman was quite strange.

"Wha... what was she like? As a person, I mean? What was she like as a person?" Liz asked, her voice quiet and hesitant. Part of her didn't want to know. There was a reason that she'd never peeked behind one of the very view doors in which Annabelle had survived -a very rare occurrence, she almost always died; usually, it was in childbirth but sometimes by illness and sometimes by murder- after all. "Was she a good person?"

Booker bit the inside of his cheek and looked to the side as he let out a low hum like he was trying to think about what to say. "She... had her demons. Belle, she was older than me when we met and, well, I wasn't her first beau. One of the first things she admitted to me after we met is that she'd hurt people of the past. But I had too and a lot worse than her, at that. We made each other better though, in the end."

That wasn't necessarily that answer Elizabeth hoped for, but it was a satisfactory one nonetheless.

"Do you miss her?" she asked, snipping away the bottom three inches of her hair.

"Always... but I'm glad she didn't live to see the person I became," Booker replied, lighting up another cigarette. "So, what do you think of Tenenbaum's plan?"

"I still don't know much about it," she replied. "She says this... Subject Delta will help us bring down Atlas and Ryan, help us save as many Little Sisters as possible. I'm not sure how though; apparently, she'll explain more after I've washed and eaten."

"Do you trust her?"

"I don't know," Elizabeth admitted with a shrug. "She seems to honestly want to help the Little Sisters and she has been taking care of me these past months... but she also worked with both Ryan and Fontaine. On top of everything, she is responsible for the creation of the Little Sisters in the first place! God, I need a cigarette!"

Booker snickered, "No, you don't. They're bad for you; best you kick the habit now."

He said that even though he was smoking right now. He said that even though he smoked from the age of eleven. He said that even though he had no way of knowing how bad smoking actually was for the human body. He said that even though he was dead.

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?" she teased.

"Do as I say, not as I do. Isn't that what parents are supposed to say in situations like this," he asked with a chuckle, causing Liz to laugh as she pinned up her freshly trimmed hair.

But after that brief moment of happiness, Elizabeth found herself frowning. She sighed, "In the end, I don't think it even matters if I trust her or not. As you said, I still have work to do in Rapture and right now she is the only ally I have. So I'm just going to believe Tenenbaum is acting on good intentions for now."

"Be careful with that," Booker warned. "Even the best intentions can be tainted by hatred or ambition or greed."

"You don't have to warn me about that, Booker," she replied grimly, guilty memories needling at her mind. "I know that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions better than anybody. I've seen it play thousands of times in thousands of timelines."

Booker had the decencies to look bashful, "Sorry, kid. I know I shouldn't push but I don't just want you to end up like Daisy or-"

"Daisy was a hero and a victim," Liz snapped. "She didn't deserve her fate any more than the rest of us."

"Don't count me in with that group, I definitely deserved mine," Booker replied. When Elizabeth shot him an aghast look, she just got a shrug and a wry grin in reply. "Just... be careful, Elizabeth. Neither of us can see how this is going to end up."

Liz closed her eyes and smiled, "Thank you, Booker. I know you're not really here but seeing you makes me feel better."

.

.

.

After a long moment of awkward silence, her hallucination piped up again. "What are you planning to do about Fontaine's so-called 'Ace in the Hole'? Are you going to try to find him or..."

"I'm not sure," Liz admitted. "In the timeline I saw and altered, I wasn't involved past the initial set up. What if meeting him face to face changes the outcome? What if I end up getting him killed? Honestly, for now, I'm just playing things by ear. Maybe-"

Creek!

Elizabeth cut herself off as the bathroom door swung open and Dr. Tenenbaum walked in. She looked around and blinked, "Who were you talking to?"

Turning back to the mirror, Liz felt her heart sink a little when she saw that Booker was no longer there. "No one. I was just... talking to myself."

Tenenbaum gave her a somber but knowing look. "I have my fair share of ghosts as well. Sometimes I talk to them too. It is not that unusual, no need to be ashamed."

'I doubt your ghosts are anything like mine. Do your ghosts talk back?' Elizabeth mentally questioned. Then she shook herself back to the present. "So, what is the plan?"

"Food first," the older woman shook her head. "Come, come. Follow me."

Then she turned on her heel and left, waving for Liz to follow. With a cocked eyebrow and small sigh, Elizabeth tied a red bandana around her dark, still-damp hair and did as instructed.

Screams still echoed down the dim hallways of Tenenbaum's safe house alongside the clack-click-clack of the woman's heels. They were desperate, hollow sounds, full of anguish and pain and hopelessness. It was unnerving.

Elizabeth came to a stop, "You mentioned that the screaming was because of a project. Care to tell me about that?"

"It is not important right now," Tenenbaum said simply, waving her hand in disinterest. "The results are not promising right now anyway."

"Yeah, no!" Elizabeth growled, grabbing the older woman by the upper arm and spinning her around so they were facing one another. "Look, you helped me and I'm thankful for that but the fact is that you worked for Fontaine and Ryan! I have no reason to trust you! So unless you start answering some of my questions I am walking out of here and finding my own way!"

Tenenbaum looked at her with a fascinating combination of annoyance and amusement, "No, you wouldn't. You have just as much need to be here as I do. Please do not touch me again."

She pulled away and walked a few more steps... but then paused and turned back around, a contemplative look on her face. "But... I suppose there is no harm in telling you. You still have to eat first though."

Elizabeth's meal was a bruised apple, a bottle of some strange peach-flavored water that had a weird gritty feeling to it, and a salami sandwich made from dry bread and even drier meat. Still, it was nice to have solid food in her stomach again after so long of being fed through an IV.

"Go slow," Tenenbaum cautioned, trying to pull the water bottle away. "I don't have many more clean clothes that would fit you if you get sick."

"I'll be fine," she grunted around a mouthful of the sandwich. "So, tell me about this experiment?"

"You are familiar with splicers, correct?"

Liz nodded.

"As Rapture crumbled into chaos, more and more of the citizens who survived became splicers. Others... most died, either killed by others or by killing themselves. The Little Ones encouraged to take in some of these survivors and help them. I was reluctant at first, the supplies I have can only be stretched so far. But I eventually gave in, so they live there and, in exchange for the protection, they do chores to upkeep the base."

Elizabeth nodded again. She'd already met one of these people; her and Tenenbaum's food had been served by a thin, sad-eyed young man.

"But then there are the splicers. They are drug addicts reduced to being vicious animals hungry for ADAM," the older woman drummed her fingers against the tabletop. "For a long while, I assumed these individuals were just tragic lost causes, another example of how Rapture's greed destroyed lives.

But then the Little Ones brought me this female splicer. She was young, barely more than a child, and showed signs of having only just succumbed to the ADAM coursing through her veins. Something... someone had beaten her to near death, to the point she couldn't move or defend herself. I don't know why the Little Ones brought her to me; I almost threw her back out and scolded them for bringing something so dangerous into our safe place. But I realized quickly that she was no threat to anyone, couldn't even feed herself."

"So you gave her medical attention?" Elizabeth questioned. 'Is that what happened to me? Did some of the Little Sisters find me and bring me back here to be healed?'

"I did," Tenenbaum confirmed. "I patched her up and locked her down so that, as she healed, she would not try to escape or turn violent. It was a good thing I did too. As she regained her strength, she tried to attack me and my assistants several times. The detox was hard on her and watching the process was unnerving, it reminded me of the..."

The older woman trailed off for a moment as something dark and distant filled her eyes. It wasn't there long though, then she shook herself back to the present and continued.

"But, while I was observing it, the thought occurred to me -what if I could artificially speed up the detox process and purge splicers bodies from the ADAM that infected it? Could I save them? Bring them back from the madness that consumed them?

So I tried. And the girl was my first test subject."

'Save splicers? Is this what Booker meant?' Liz wondered. "Did it work?"

"Yes... but mostly no," Tenenbaum shook her dead in passive dismay. "The girl died, her body couldn't handle the stress of the detox, no matter how gentle the Little Ones tried to be. The same was true of the next six splicers I attempted it with. So far, the Little Ones and I have attempted it on, only one-in-seven survive and of those survivors, one third are too mentally broken to go on and take their own lives."

A chill ran only Elizabeth at those words and the two women sat in silence for a long while before Tenenbaum spoke up again. "Does that answer your question? Are you happy knowing now?"

Liz said nothing.

"Good, now let us get to our actual work.