"Is he going to be okay?"
"Ja. He will be okay, Fraulein Comstock. We just need to give him some time. He will wake soon, no doubt, und he will have many questions. But for now, let him sleep. Lass mein armes Kind schlafen."
"But what about the mental conditioning? Can you reserve it?"
"Dear child, I already have. Most of it, anyways. When he wakes I will be able to do more, but for now I have done all I can do."
"You talking about me?" he groans, finally opening his eyes and looking for the source of the two voices.
"Jack!" one of them says, rushing to his side and placing a hand on his forehead. "Are you okay? God, I was so worried, I—I didn't think you'd made it…" She sighs in relief as she looks at him, brushing the hair out of his face almost tenderly. "Thank God you did, though." She smiles.
Jack tries to name the face, but his mind is drawing a blank at the moment. "Uh...which one are you again?"
She scoffs indignantly, but she's clearly worried. "You don't remember me? And after all we've been through together."
Jack ignores her in favor of sitting up and looking around—he's somewhere he doesn't recognize. There are a few children playing with jumping jacks near him, and there's a Little Sister vent near the far left side of the room, but other than that, Jack doesn't see anything of note. He looks to the woman at his side again, and suddenly remembers her name—Elizabeth Comstock.
"You are in my sanctuary, Herr Jack," the other woman says. Jack looks to her, and is at a loss. Unlike with Elizabeth, her name didn't come to mind at once—clearly, Jack hasn't seen her before, or at least, not in great detail. She walks over to his side as well—she has a German accent, one that Jack's heard before...
"Tenenbaum?" he realizes, eyes widening in awe.
Tenenbaum nods, a tight frown on her face—but it's not directed at him. "Yes. Hello, my child. What do you remember?"
At the question, everything comes back to him; the memories flood his mind like a tidal wave, and suddenly Jack wants to curl up in a ball and cry while also wanting to tear both Fontaine and Elizabeth to pieces. Jack remembers it all. He remembers killing Ryan, finding out Atlas—Fontaine—is a traitor—and Elizabeth…
He looks to Elizabeth, who still looks worried that he hasn't answered her. He feels his blood boil with rage at the sight of her, but checks himself—he shouldn't cause a scene in front of the children, or Tenenbaum. He'll confront her later, give her a chance to explain herself. She at least deserves that.
He knows if it were Fontaine sitting next to him now, he wouldn't hesitate, Tenenbaum and the children be damned. Fontaine would be dead as soon as Jack saw his face. But Elizabeth…
He doesn't know why he hesitates with her. She had done this to him—she had given Fontaine the activation phrase—she had killed all of those people on that plane, not him. And apparently, she'd killed someone else—though, Jack has no idea whether or not that "someone else" had deserved it. He'd seen her kill before—she's efficient, at the least—and now Jack can't help but wonder where she learned it from. She certainly didn't learn that in New York—at least, Jack doesn't think so. He wouldn't know, anyways; apparently, he's never been.
"I—I remember everything."
Elizabeth's face loses all of its color, making her appear a few shades paler—she looks like a ghost now. She quickly retracts her hand from where it had been resting on Jack's forehead and stands up, brushing off her dress nervously and looking for somewhere else to be. She apparently settles for near the children, as she walks over to them and sits down, joining their game of jumping jacks. Jack wonders if she's worried that he's already found out about her, or if she knows he's found out and is waiting for him to corner her. Either way, she looks ill. Jack briefly wonders about the possibility of her eavesdropping—perhaps she had listened in on Fontaine's conversation with him. It suddenly seems very likely, and Jack's stomach churns at the thought—though, this time, the feeling is cold and unsettling, not like the warm and fuzzy feeling he's used to getting when he thinks about Elizabeth.
"Everything, you say? What is 'everything?'"
"I remember...Ryan told me I wasn't...I...I didn't...my memories—I don't have any. I was born here. Fontaine, he—" He can't continue. He's too angry.
Tenenbaum nods solemnly, apparently knowing the full story anyways. "Yes. Welcome back, child. Welcome to the city where you were born. You are angry at Fontaine, yes? Now you know the truth. You are his tool, brought back to Rapture to save him." She says that last part with disgust, though, Jack can tell it's not aimed at him—it's directed at Fontaine. Jack can't say he disagrees.
"I'm nobody's tool," he spits, his blood boiling at the thought of Fontaine thinking he could get away with using him, manipulating him into doing what he wanted him to do. He clenches his fists, clutching the bed sheets tight. Tenenbaum doesn't respond—Jack looks at her again—she looks like she is contemplating something. "I'm not. I won't be, not anymore. Even if Fontaine uses those damn words on me again, I'll fight. I won't listen to him anymore. And if he makes me, I'll kill him."
From the corner of his eye, Jack can see the girls pause their game to look at him curiously.
"What's going on?" one of the girls asks.
"Shh, Leta. Be quiet. Let's just play our game, okay?" another girl replies quietly, tossing her jumping jack.
"But I want to know what's going on, Sally! Who is Mister Jack gonna kill?"
"No one! You shouldn't eavesdrop, you know—"
"Guys, I won!" another girl announces, raising her voice to be heard over the bicker of the other two.
At the last girl's comment, their attention is turned away from Jack and back to the game, the girls arguing over how no, she hadn't won, and it didn't count because they had paused the game. Jack feels some of his anger leave him as he listens to them bicker, finding the whole thing quite amusing. He smiles.
Tenenbaum brings his attention back to her. "Jack. You have saved many of my little ones. I owe you a debt."
"You don't owe me anything, Tenenbaum—"
She holds up a hand to stop him. "Yes, I do. Though you were under Fontaine's control, you still managed to show mercy to those who needed it. Und so, I owe you a debt, und I believe I have repaid it, at least in part. While you sleep, I undo some of Fontaine's mental conditioning. His control is no longer complete, but he can still pull some very unpleasant strings. We made your mind with many locks und keys. Fontaine has most of those keys, but not all. Suchong designed your mind, taught Fontaine to control you. You might find answers in Suchong's flat in Mercury Suites."
"...Thank you, Mama Tenenbaum."
Tenenbaum smiles at the nickname—though, it's a sad sort of smile. "I wish you the best of luck, Herr Jack. And if you find any more of my little ones—"
Jack nods. "I'll be sure to send them to you."
"Thank you."
Tenenbaum turns and heads to the door on the other side of the room. "Jack."
Jack looks at her.
"Be careful, mein Kind."
He nods, once, and she closes the door. Jack hears the faint click of a lock.
He gets up, loosening his death grip on the bed sheets and taking a few deep breaths before heading over to where Elizabeth is watching the children play, still looking a deathly shade of white. Jack can see that her hands are shaking where they are intertwined with each other on her lap. Jack kneels down beside her.
"Hey."
She jumps violently, whipping her head around to look at whoever had scared her, and finds Jack. She swallows nervously. You'd damn better be nervous, he thinks, silently seething. He swallows down his anger, though—for now. Though Jack would like nothing more than to knock her upside the head with his wrench, she should at least get the chance to explain herself before he does so. "Hey," she echoes him, sounding distant.
"What's going on here?" He gestures to the girls, who by now have abandoned their game of jumping jacks and have taken to drawing on the floor with chalk.
"Oh—um…"
"We're drawing!" a girl—the same girl that had declared herself the winner of the last game—exclaims with an Irish accent. Jack's stomach churns when he hears it—he can't help it—but he feels guilty for it regardless. "Would you like to try, Mister?"
"I'm good," Jack tells her, ignoring the feeling he gets when she talks. Her accent reminds him of Atlas, and he doesn't like being reminded of Atlas. "What are you drawing?"
"A submarine," she tells him, smiling wide. "See? There are people inside. They're going to Lilly-Poppy!"
"That's...that's nice." Jack tries not to think about "Moira" and "Patrick" as he looks at her drawing, which—admittedly—is not bad.
"I'm drawing Mr. Bubbles! Sally, can I have the green?" another girl—this one with a British accent—asks, holding out her hand to a girl with blonde hair. Jack recognizes the blonde girl as the girl with the headless doll they had rescued in Hephaestus. He looks around for any sign of the doll now—but he can't find it. Perhaps she had lost it?
"Sally, where did your doll go?"
Sally looks up from her drawing, confused. "Huh?"
"Your doll. The one with the blue dress?"
Recognition dawns on her face as she says, "Oh! Sarah's right here, don't worry." She reaches to the side and holds up her doll proudly. "Look, Lizzie found her head!"
"Lizzie" did indeed find her head—where a stump was before, a doll's head now rests on the doll's shoulders, with brown hair and a painted mouth making her features. Jack is reminded eerily of Elizabeth when he looks at the doll, and he turns to Elizabeth, who gives him a nervous smile as she squeezes her pinky anxiously.
She's nervous, Jack thinks as he looks at her. Oh, she's really nervous. Good.
"I'm drawing angels," Sally tells Jack as she hands the girl who had asked the green. "You're an angel, aren't you, Mister Jack?"
Jack chuckles. "Nope. I'm…" What is he? He doesn't know, so he settles for, "I'm not an angel."
"Lizzie thinks you are," the girl who had asked for the green proclaims. "She said you're a pretty angel."
"I did not," Elizabeth protests weakly, blushing furiously. Earlier, Jack would have been more than pleased to note her embarrassed expression, and maybe would have even offered a jab of his own or two. But right now, after everything he had just learned, the only thing he feels is anger. How can she be so calm, so nonchalant right now when his whole world has just fallen apart?
"You did, you did, you did," the girl sings, the others joining her and giggling.
"Okay, that's enough," Elizabeth interrupts, her voice a bit more high-pitched than usual. "Ignore them," she tells Jack. "They're being funny." She shoots a pointed glare at the three of them, which does nothing but prompt them to erupt in giggles.
"Noted," he says, keeping his voice neutral. Elizabeth may well deserve the full brunt of his fury, but the last thing he wants to do is scare the children.
They sit in silence for a few more minutes, listening to the three girls chat as they drawing, occasionally fighting over who is drawing what and why Sally needs the red instead of the pink and how no, they aren't the same, and yes, you can have it back once I'm done, Leta. Elizabeth seems to relax a little bit as they watch them and seems to find comfort in the fact that Jack is continuing to not confront her about all the lies she's just been caught in. Finally, he takes a deep breath, and turns to Elizabeth.
"Hey, Liz?"
The smile slips from her face, a worried expression taking its place as she tears her eyes away from the children and faces Jack. "Yeah?"
She didn't even correct me. Damn, she must be more anxious than I thought. "Can...can we talk?"
Since he had sat down with her and not spoken to her about the dreaded topic, the color had been slowly returning to her face. Now, though, the color drains again, making her look like a china doll. Is it bad that Jack still thinks she looks beautiful like this?
Probably.
"Sure," she says, far, far too cheerily to be real. Jack knows she's breaking inside—that is, if she hasn't broken already. He can already see the tell-tale signs of a panic attack coming on—her hands are shaking again, her breathing has become quicker, and she's chewing her bottom lip like there's no tomorrow. Jack almost feels bad for causing it—almost.
He stands up, offering Elizabeth a hand, which she takes, gripping it like it's the last hand she'll ever hold—and if she doesn't confess, it might be. Jack leads her to the far side of the room, away from the girls and away from the door that Tenenbaum is behind.
It takes a moment for Jack to figure out what he wants to say. "When Atlas—Fontaine—showed his true colors, I thought I was going to die. I mean, I was trapped in a room with security hailing bullets on me and with no escape route or active Vita-Chamber nearby, so I guess it was a logical conclusion to reach. Apparently he reached the same conclusion, because he told me a bunch of stuff about me—about my past, where I'm really from, who I really am and what I was born to do. He also told me things about you."
He pauses, taking a moment to glance at Elizabeth's face, and he hates what he sees. She looks like her absolute worst fears have been realized and are coming true—and maybe they have been, and maybe they are. She looks like she would like nothing more than to run away right now, but Jack isn't about to grant her wish. He keeps going. "So. Is there something you'd like to tell me?"
She doesn't say anything. Jack's used to that by now; normally, when she's like this, he'll either talk to himself or stop talking altogether. But not now. Now, he's determined to get some answers—whether she gives them voluntarily or not. "Elizabeth."
"I—" Well, that's something, at least. "I...what—what did he tell you?" She's struggling to speak, words coming out in a rush while refusing to look at him, and Jack feels terrible, because he honestly couldn't care less right now. Maybe a few minutes ago, sure, but right now, when she's so obviously guilty? It makes Jack want to scream.
"Well, he told me that you weren't on that plane, first of all. You were in Rapture way before then. He told me you worked for Cohen as his 'Songbird', not your sister, if you even have one. You also worked for Fontaine and gave him my activation phrase, sentencing the people on that plane to death and me to this broken dream of a place. Oh, and you killed someone. Basically, any time I've ever suspected you of bullshitting me, I turned out to be right. Is there anything you've told me that was the truth, Elizabeth? Anything at all?"
Jack didn't know what he had expected. A waywar tear or two, immediate denials or maybe even another hasty, half assed explanation to throw him off the trail. Instead, as realization dawns on her, she is silent and stone-faced. Now that he's actually gotten the words out, most of the anger has left him, leaving nothing but hurt and betrayal and pain. He hurts all over, and he just wants it to stop. But it can't stop, not until Elizabeth tells him why.
"Why?"
"I..." she sighs, taking a deep breath before trying again. She brings a hand to her temple, as if she's the one who's hurting, not him. "I don't know."
"Elizabeth, come on. I just found out that everything I know is a lie. I have no friends, no family, and no home. Everything I thought I knew about myself—about others—is a lie. So please, do me a favor and tell me the truth. Please. That's all I'm asking."
"I-can't. I'm sorry, but I honestly can't tell you."
"Why not?"
She heaves a sigh, as if he's bothering her, bringing her pinky to in between her index finger and her thumb and squeezing it tightly again. "I...it's complicated, okay? I'm not sure you would believe me."
Jack feels himself getting irritated with her again. "Elizabeth, come on," he pleads again. He knows it might be more effective if he uses her nickname—but he can't stand it. He can't stand to call her "Liz," not after everything she's done to him—and no doubt countless others. "Please stop lying to me. You said I was your friend—did you mean that?"
"Of—of course I did, Jack. Of course I did."
"Then please, tell me the truth."
Elizabeth looks like she wants to protest again, but she sighs again and nods. "Okay. What do you want to know?"
"Well, first off: how could you help Fontaine? Did he have some sort of leverage over you? Your family, your friends? And for that matter, why did you work for Cohen? More importantly, why didn't you tell me that you had worked for Cohen?"
"I had to right a wrong. It's complicated, and long, and I'd really rather not get into it with you." She's looking anywhere but at him, and Jack finds himself strangely thankful.
"By helping Fontaine? By singing for that psychopath?" Even now, she's bullshitting him. He can't believe this. She's been caught telling multiple lies, and she thinks she can get out of it by lying some more. What was she thinking? Was she really that dense?
"It was the only way," she snaps at the floor. "I had to, don't you get it? I had no choice. It was the only way…"
"Maybe if you gave me more details, I'd understand," he tells her, trying to get her to open up, to confess. He deliberately doesn't betray the frustration and anger that still threatens to spill over from inside. If he's calm, if he pretends like it doesn't affect him too much, maybe she'll talk. He needs her to talk.
It doesn't work. "No, I can't. You'd never understand, and there's far too much to tell in such a short time. You'd have too many questions, and if I recall correctly, you've got much more pressing matters to attend to," she states dryly, finally looking at him with an unbearably neutral expression. More lies, Jack is sure of it, but he decides to let it slide for now in favor of the more pressing questions.
"Alright, fine, have it your way then. Next question: why did you lie about being on the plane? You could have just told me the truth from the start." Granted, he can actually understand why she did-whatever the real reason, he does believe her when she says it would be hard to explain. Still, she could have at least tried. It's one he's been dying to know the answer to since he first suspected that he'd lied to her about it.
"You wouldn't have trusted me if I'd told you the truth."
"First of all, bullshit. I've seen so much unbelieve shit down here that I'm sure almost nothing could faze me anymore. Regardless of whether or not you thought I'd believe you, that doesn't excuse you. You had no right to lie."
Apparently, she can't find a good enough comeback for that one, and she has no interest in providing further detail, because she mumbles out, "Next question," without another word.
"Fine. Next question: why didn't you tell me about the trigger phrase? You could have stopped all of this—you could have stopped me from being Fontaine's puppet, from killing Andrew Ryan—my father, by the way—but you didn't. You never said a word about it. Why?" This is it—the one question that he really needs the answer to. Even if he doesn't get an answer to the rest of them, he has to get the answer for this one.
"You have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you, Jack—how many times I tried to tell you…" and now she seems human again, the stony expression and the hardened edge to her tone disappeared in favor of pleading and an appeal to emotion she knows he's weak for. She trails off when she doesn't get an immediate response, looking forlorn as she squeezes her pinky harder. To her credit, Jack does see that she at least appears to be genuinely remorseful for this one, which should count for something he supposes. But again...
"And what stopped you? I didn't see anybody put a gun to your head, Elizabeth. All those times you wanted to talk...that's hardly trying, if you ask me. Every time you brought it up you decided to drop it before you could mention it. I know there's never really a good time to bring something like that up, but in my opinion that just makes it worse."
"Jack, there were a lot of things you didn't see," she says in exasperation, dropping her hands into her lap. Despite everything else, Jack somehow finds it in himself to be offended-is she really trying to make this about her? Is she really trying to gaslight him right now?
"Then tell me what I missed, for God's sake. Tell me why you didn't say anything. It's bad enough that you gave him the trigger phrase in the first place, but keeping it from me afterwards? He could have made me do anything, Elizabeth. He could have made me kill myself, or tenenbaum, or any of the girls. He could have made me hurt you..." He swallows hard at the thought, ignoring how it makes him feel. He does not want to get into that right now.
"You don't think I didn't know that? Maybe it wasn't a gun held to my head, but something always came up, something always interrupted it. And the one time I was about to—" She suddenly bites her lip, and pauses as if revising what she was going to say, "...I guess I realized that it would mess things up."
"'Mess things up?'" Jack repeats indignantly, his patience finally running out. "Mess up what? Atlas's plan to use me? Ryan's death? I can't see how that would have been a bad thing!" He's close to screaming now, and he can tell she is too. It's only a matter of time before they're having a screaming match loud enough for even the children upstairs to hear—all they need is a little nudge…
"You don't understand, Jack. I couldn't have told you even if I wanted to!"
"Why the hell not?!"
Elizabeth flinches back at the sudden increase in volume in his voice, and out of the corner of his eye, Jack sees the girls stop and look up, whispering amongst themselves and staring at them curiously. Jack can hear them—the room isn't that big—they want to know why is Mister Jack screaming at Lizzie, what did Lizzie do? He doesn't really feel like telling them that Lizzie is a traitor, and so he ignores them in favor of glaring at Elizabeth with every ounce of hatred he can muster—which isn't a lot. He's used up most of his anger by now—now, he's just tired. Tired of this; the lies, the pain, all of it. He wants it to go away—he wants to lie back down and sleep. But he can't—not until Elizabeth confesses, not until Fontaine is dead. Not until he's free. Then, he can sleep all he wants, and he'll never have to worry about this place—or them—again.
"Elizabeth, I've caught you," he says, quieter and calmer now. "It's too late to change the past, fine, I'll admit that. But maybe I could let bygones be bygones if you'd give me some damn answers. I know you've been lying to me. Why can't you just tell me the truth, for once?"
Elizabeth swallows, taking a few deep breaths before responding. Her voice is a low whisper when she murmurs, "You...you wouldn't believe the truth. I know you think nothing else can surprise you after everything we've both been through, but trust me on that." She takes another shaky breath, closing her eyes and steadying herself.
Jack gestures hysterically around them, fighting down the deranged laugh that threatens to escape his throat. "You're talking to a genetic freak of nature in an underwater city surrounded by mutated little girls and a mad scientist that unlocked the secret to giving people superpowers that drove them insane. The worst has already come to pass, Liz. Try me."
He doesn't know what did it-was it the tone of his voice, or the words he said? At his outburst, something changes. The nervous stance, her darting eyes, her expression-all of it changes, becoming as neutral as possible and looking right through him. "You know what? No. I don't owe you anything, so stop pretending like I do." The shakiness has left her voice, making the anger and frustration in it seem more prominent. Her eyes have taken on a hard glint, one that Jack's only seen when she's in battle. Her hands are balled at her sides, and she looks like she wants to punch him. Jack can say with complete honesty that he fully returns the sentiment. "I'm not going to tell you anything. There's far too much at stake here, too much to explain, and frankly, it's none of your damn business. I don't give a damn whether you hate me for the rest of your life because of it, because God knows, it's going to be short anyways. So you can go to hell."
The next few seconds are a blur for him; he feels his fist connect with something, and the next thing he knows, Elizabeth is clutching the left side of her face and shooting Jack a look of pure loathing. It takes him longer than it should to realize that he punched her.
An apology is on the tip of his tongue, but Jack bites it back. She deserved it, he thinks bitterly, shaking the offending hand lightly to get rid of the pain his action had caused. He walks past Elizabeth, shouldering her as hard as he can.
"I'll meet you there, then. When you feel like telling me the truth, you know how to reach me," he calls, prompting an angered noise from Elizabeth.
One of the girls—Leta, he thinks, the one with the British accent—walks up to him then, looking nervous, and Jack stops as she tugs on his sweater. "Uhm, Mister Jack? I'm supposed to show you where to go."
In his current state of mind, Jack can't tell what the hell she's on about, so he asks. "What do you mean?"
"You need to stop the bad man, right? Mama Tenenbaum said that I have to show you the way out."
Oh. "Oh."
The girl—Leta—nods, skipping ahead of him and gesturing for him to follow. "Right this way, then!"
Jack gives a small smile before following her up the stairs, not bothering to give Elizabeth one last look before he leaves.
"And here we are!" Leta announces proudly, gesturing to the door in front of her. "I did it! Yay!"
Jack smiles again, patting her on the head. "Yes you did. Thanks."
Leta gives him a thumbs up before getting on her knees and crawling through the small space underneath the door. A few moments later, Jack hears a click, and the door swings open. "Thanks again."
Another thumbs up and a wide smile and Leta darts off, joining the other girls in a game of hopscotch. Jack chuckles humorlessly before heading off himself, but for a very different and far more unpleasant reason.