Elizabeth XIV
The stubble that dusted Jack's face was prickly against the skin of Elizabeth's fingers as she cradled it in her hands. In contrast, his lips were softer than expected, though cold and a little chapped. Overall, it wasn't a bad kiss. Gentle... Sweet... She'd even call it chaste, despite the nearly hungry way Jack embraced her with one arm wrapped around Liz's waist and his other hand cupping the back of her neck, pulling her close. It was a far cry from the rough, steamy ones she'd shared with various faceless men and women after arriving at Rapture during its prime. Those had never given her any long-term satisfaction but, well, the city was a den of iniquity and indulgence. And after living a life so sheltered and bloody, could she really be blamed for experimenting with desire?
This kiss, however, was different. There was a hunger to it -Jack clung to Liz like she was his new anchor in this world- but it was not a selfish hunger. More than that, it was somehow more... tactile than those rough, hurried couplings. Jack touched her hair, dragging his fingers through Liz's loose, messy curls. Her chest was pressed into his, their hearts beating together. Perhaps it was that synchronized beating that caused it, a strange lightness that inflated her chest, a warmth that Liz couldn't describe. It was so overwhelming that she had to fight the urge to giggle against Jack's lips. That might dishearten him and, despite his understandable lack of technique, she didn't want to do that.
'I'm a terrible person,' she thought, forcing herself to pull away to break the kiss.
For a moment, Jack's grip instinctively tightened, he didn't want to let her go. But when Liz pushed light on his chest, the young man let her go. Still, they were so close... Elizabeth could count the freckles on his face and the greenish tint to his blue eyes.
His eyes... His happy, pleading, and kind eyes were looking at Liz with so much trust and affection that it turned the warm feeling into bubbling poison in her stomach.
"Wow," Jack breathed. "That was... wow."
Elizabeth swallowed hard and forced a smile. "Yeah... Wow."
"That was..." The flush in Jack's cheeks was fading, though the wide grin on his face certainly wasn't going anywhere. "That was really nice."
'Fuck, he's too sweet for his own good.' Liz gave a little chuckle and waved a hand to gesture around at the bathysphere. "Well, I just wish it could have been somewhere more... romantic. I guess we haven't exactly had time for a real first date."
Jack's face turned even redder. "Yeah, well, how many couples can say they fought through a hell city at the bottom of the sea, killed some giant metal men, and then saved some innocent little girls for their first date."
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
'Couple.'
The word echoed in Elizabeth's mind like the tolling of a death bell. 'Fuck! This is so wrong! This is so, so wrong! I can't do this for him! I have to-'
"Elizabeth?"
"...Yeah. Let's aim for lunch at Le Grand Véfour in Paris for our second date."
"I... don't know what that means but sure, okay! I can't wait!" Jack laughed, looking absolutely elated.
Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Booker frown and shake his head sadly. She pushed on Jack on the chest again, scooching further away on the Bathysphere bench. 'I'm a monster.'
"We still have some time before we get to Arcadia. We should use it to eat something and get a little sleep," she said. `We've got to get back on track.'
"Oh... Yeah, that is probably a good idea."
The look Booker gave her wasn't... happy, but it was more approving. Clearly, the 'ghost' embodiment of her subconscious didn't approve of Elizabeth using Jack's naivety, trauma bonding, and growing affection for her to manipulate him either.
'I've got to keep things on track. If I mess things up, who knows what might change. Please forgive me, Jack.' Elizabeth started to shuffle through one of their bags, pulling out some candy bars and bags of dried fruit & nuts. "Here. Eat up."
Jack grunted in thanks. He took a bite from the candy bar, chewing slowly. Then slammed the entire thing down in nearly three bites. Once that was done, he immediately ripped open the bag of fruit & nuts.
"I didn't realize how hungry I was," he admitted.
"That happens," Elizabeth said, remembering all the time she and Booker spent running around Columbia. "Your brain has ways of shutting down what it doesn't acknowledge. It allows you to keep pushing on even when things get hard."
"Who exactly are you talking about there, kiddo?" Booker asked.
Liz started to tell her father to shut his mouth but managed to cut herself off at the last minute. This close, there would be no way to disguise talking to a figment of her imagination.
"I'm going to try to get a little sleep," she said.
"...Okay," Jack said after a moment. There was a touch of disappointment in his voice, He'd hoped they could talk a little more. "I don't think I could sleep if I wanted to. I'm going to take some time to listen to some of the audio files we found instead."
"Good idea. You'd be surprised what you can learn from those." Elizabeth yawned and settled back against the seat. "Wake me when we get there?"
"Of course."
Elizabeth closed her eyes and did her best to focus on slowing her breathing. For as much as she wanted to stop any more of Jack's questioning in its tracks, she also wasn't lying about wanting to sleep. Studies showed that the best nap length for most people is about 10-20 minutes, after all. Which was good because that was about all the time they had.
'One sheep, two sheep...' she mentally chanted, forcing herself to relax.
Something hard to do because it was fucking cold! Elizabeth rubbed her hands together, trying to stop the numbness in her fingertips. After a few moments, Jack seemed to notice her lack of success and reach over, wrapping a strong arm around Liz's shoulders. He pulled her close, tight against his own frame.
"It's warmer this way," Jack mumbled. "Hypothermia isn't going to help either of us."
"Not going to argue with you about that," she replied, nuzzling her cheek against Jack's shoulder and trying to ignore how damn dirty that sweater had to be. 'He wasn't wrong about this being warmer.'
As Liz started to drift off, she heard Jack start to fiddle with one of the audio files. A button was pressed, there was a crack of static, and the tinny sound of Tenenbaum's recorded voice.
"I saw one of the smugglers having a game of catching on the docks today. And this surprised me, because his hands were crippled during the war. He was unloading the barge the other day when he was bitten from this Sea Slug. He woke up the next morning and he found he could move his fingers for the first time in years. I asked him if he still had that Sea Slug. As luck would have it, he did…"
'Sea slugs... that is where it all started. The downfall of Rapture all came down to a twist of fate; it was all a complete fluke. If that man hadn't been bitten, how many lives would have been spared?' Elizabeth wondered. 'Be careful, Jack. You never know when you'll learn something you don't like.'
In the end, Elizabeth didn't even need to rely on Jack to wake her back up. The jerking and shuttering of the old Bathysphere as it docked in Arcadia was more than sufficient to do the job. Still, she kept her eyes closed -desperate to hold on to the little peace she found herself. The peace and the warmth she was able to find snuggled in Jack's side. He seemed to want it to go on too. For a long moment, Jack did nothing to wake her up. She felt him lean in, lips brushing against her hair. Even that small movement was enough to speed Liz's heart right up and hitch her breath.
'It's too much.' Elizabeth pulled away, pretending to yawn and stretch. "Are we there?"
Jack blinked before glancing out the glass window of the Bathysphere. "Yeah, looks like it. What can you tell me about Arcadia? I'd like to know what we're going into."
"Well, it used to be a nice place." Liz stood up to grab one of their containers of water, splashing some on her face both in an attempt to wake herself up and to feel slightly cleaner. Fuck, she wanted a shower. "Arcadia was always billed as the heart of Rapture but it is honestly closer to the lungs."
"What do you mean?"
"Arcadia is basically a giant garden. On top of growing food for the city, the artificially created forest and plant life generated most of the oxygen for the city."
"Jesus! Now I see what you mean about it being important," Jack said. He stood too, starting to gather up their weapons and supplies. "I'll admit, I hadn't considered how we were able to breathe down here."
Liz shrugged. "Not many people did. I mean, they knew Arcadia was where their air came from, Ryan enjoyed touting every marvelous creation he and his pet scientists came up with to the public at every conceivable opportunity, but they didn't like thinking about it too hard. Thinking too much about it meant they had to acknowledge that, if something went wrong, then we'd all be just a couple of rose bushes away from suffocation."
Jack cringed. "I... really wish you hadn't just put that idea in my head."
"That was everyone else's response too. It's probably why Ryan decided to focus on the romantic aspects of Arcadia."
"Romantic?"
"Yeah, you know... a 'scenic, tranquil oasis from all the fast-paced shuffle of daily life,' and all that. Vacationers would rent cabins to pretend they were camping, go on hikes, or swim in the Waterfall Grotto. It was seen as a great place for picnic dates and the Tea Garden, in particular, was very popular on Valentine's Day among couples."
"Couples?" Jack asked, cocking an amused eyebrow in Liz's direction.
Damn, there was that word again. The universe was pretty intent on punishing Elizabeth for her dirty trick earlier. Especially since she couldn't back out now.
She reached over to give Jack a light, teasing smack to the chest and rolled her eyes. "All that is in the past though. We don't know what is waiting there for us now. I imagine it isn't great, considering people would have rushed there trying to get food once everything really started to go south."
"Oh..." Jack's face went white as a terrible thought crossed his mind. "Hey, since Rapture has been a shit show for a while now... How is Arcadia still operating?"
Elizabeth felt her stomach sink. Now it was her turn to wish Jack hadn't brought something up. "Well, if I had to guess, a lot of those systems were automated. The city was built to be pretty self-sustaining, part of the majesty of it all. Rapture gets power from water wheels that get turned by the underwater currents, the power lets the automated suction and piping systems of Arcadia distribute clean air throughout the city and cycle the carbon dioxide back here for the plants to use. The air let humans keep living and yada yada."
"Yada yada, let's get through here as quickly as possible." Jack shouldered his shotgun and hit the button to open the Bathysphere door. "You ready?"
'No, I want to stay here a little while longer. It's safe.' Liz shook that thought out of her head. She double-checked that her hand cannon was fully loaded before tucking it into her holster. "Let's go."
Thankfully, the docking station was empty when they stepped out. Elizabeth didn't dare hope that would last long, the groaning of the metal and mechanics were certainly loud enough to draw the attention of anyone nearby. For now, Liz allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief that she didn't have to immediately start blasting anything that moved. Instead, she allowed herself to admire the overgrown greenery that had come to cover nearly every inch of metal in sight. Moss and vines and flowers had rebelled from their carefully cultivated lines and pots, expanding in every direction imaginable.
"Wow," Jack mumbled, leaning over to admire a vibrant pink flower that was growing out of the grove in a wall.
Liz gave a hum of agreement. "Yeah, it's amazing how quickly nature will take back what man has claimed. You can try to beat it back and force it into neat little boxes, make it pretty and obedient. But, as soon as you look away, it'll fight back with vengeance."
"When you put it like that, it makes me think that Rapture would have never survived." When Liz cocked an eyebrow in Jack's direction, he shrugged and continued. "Well, think about it... A city at the bottom of the ocean? The water pressure has to be pretty intense, right? I'm no scientist but that has got to be bad for the buildings. Then there is the salt water. Saltwater is corrosive and it'll rust the metal."
"Huh, not bad for a farm boy," Elizabeth said with a grin.
She wasn't lying either. She had no way of knowing what 'common information' had been... well, for lack of a better term 'installed' into Jack by the people who made him and used him as a lab rat. And yet, there was clearly a keen intelligence and plenty of critical thinking skills underneath that pretty face of his.
"Even with that in mind, I can't help but wish that I'd gotten to see this place before it all went to hell." Jack plucked the flower from the wall and held it out to her. "It must have been beautiful."
.
.
.
'I really could fall in love with you.' She took the flower, tucking it into her hair. "Thank you."
"My pleasure. Gotta appreciate any bit of beauty we can find down here, right?"
By this point, Elizabeth's face was burning so hot that she was quite certain that it would be enough to heat up the entire room. She turned away and nodded towards the nearest doorway, "We aren't going to find anything useful by hanging around here. Do you want to take point or should I?"
"...I'll lead," Jack said after a moment. He took a step forward, only to hesitate. His face scrunched up, and he reached up to fiddle with the small earpiece.
"What's wrong?"
Jack flinched. "Atlas... and Ryan. They are both talking to me, talking over each other. Atlas wants revenge; Ryan just wants to nag and gloat."
'Atlas I understand, he needs to keep Jack moving if he wants to use him. But why is Ryan so interested?'
"Ignore them," Elizabeth said. "Ignore them and focus on me. We'll get through this together."