A/N: Yikes, this chapter really spiraled out of control length-wise! Forgive the inconsistency, I guess I got a little over-zealous in how much I wanted to cover, and I didn't want to break the flow by splitting the chapter.
Chapter 3
It was a fine day for a rally, even in the sweltering summer heat. Well, technically it was simply a very public sermon, but Zachary could sense the unbelievers in the audience, their gazes hard and their notebooks at the ready. His reputation was growing and the press had taken quite an interest, especially in his appeals to Washington to fund the Lord's great work. If he played this right, sponsors would be lining up to support his ministry and, perhaps someday, Columbia would be more than just a vision from the archangel.
"And so I tell you, friends, that there is a better home awaiting in the sky!" he roared to the crowd, pausing to let them cheer. His followers were enthusiastic, if nothing else. Only a few dozen had committed themselves to his teachings—most folks weren't eager to listen to the religious ramblings of a born-again seventeen-year-old—but they were growing in number every day. The beard certainly helped his image of pious authority. "The Lord has shown me the way, and I mean to lead you to it! Ready yourselves for ascension! Give generously to the cause, and you will be amply rewarded in the embrace of the Lord!"
The applause was wild as he neared the end of the speech, and he laughed as he saw the reporters struggle to keep up, fervently scribbling down the public reaction to the young "prophet". It was a strange title to get used to, and only the most dedicated of his flock called him that for now, but at the same time it felt rather fitting. God had chosen him to shepherd his people to a greater future, after all. Zachary ducked behind the stage as the tithe-collectors zipped through the crowd, taking advantage of the charitable atmosphere he had helped cultivate. The thought of mingling with the press for the interviews they would inevitably demand made him wince—he was exhausted. God will lift me, should I fall. I must do my duty.
"Wait, please! You have to help me!"
Zachary jumped at the sound of a frantic woman's voice behind him—how had she snuck up on him? Why wasn't she with the rest of the followers? She approached him hurriedly, tears streaming down her face as she fell to her knees in front of him.
"Please," she beseeched him, clasping her hands in front of her devoutly. It wasn't the first time anyone had done that, but it was still new enough to make Zachary a bit overwhelmed. "My boy, he's sick, and I can't…" she hiccupped on a sob as she broke off and buried her face in her hands.
"Hush, my dear," he crooned softly, taking a knee next to the poor woman and cupping her shoulders in his hands. People always responded well to kind words and heartfelt contact. "Slow down, now. What's the matter with your boy?"
"They, they say it's consumption," she gasped, finally looking at him with desperation and red-rimmed eyes. "They say he won't make it much longer!"
"Have you seen a doctor?" Zachary queried, wondering if that's what this was about—perhaps she was looking for a handout to deal with the medical fees.
"He doesn't need a doctor, he needs the Lord!" she exclaimed fervently, her face glowing with a pious passion. "Please, if you come with me, if you pray with him, I know he'll recover! Please, I can't lose my son!"
He searched his memory but couldn't recall ever seeing her face in the crowd—and yet she had such faith in him, faith that ought to be rewarded. Zachary had never attended to an illness before, but surely God wouldn't have set this opportunity before him if he couldn't rise to the task. The reporters could wait—and if he managed to help the child, they'd have quite a tale to take to Washington.
"All right, where is he?" he asked, helping her to her feet. She was comely, even while crying, and looked to be about his age—but the emotion pouring out of her face spoke of a woman who had already seen and lost too much.
"Just down the road, twenty minutes by foot." She accepted his offered handkerchief and dried her tears daintily. "Oh, thank you, thank you!"
"It's no trouble at all, we'll take a horse and get there faster."
Abraham was already saddled and waiting for them not far from the stage. He neighed at the sight of his master, and Zachary gave him an affectionate pat before mounting. He held his hand out to the woman, but she hesitated and took a half-step away from the beast. "Is something wrong?"
"No, I…I've never ridden a horse before."
She wasn't from the area then—no one made it past the age of six without riding a pony in these parts. Had he really become that popular, to attract believers from far away? He gave her a reassuring smile and slipped his feet from the stirrups. "He won't hurt you. Step through there and swing yourself up, I won't let you fall." She breathed in deeply before wrapping her fingers around his palm and following instructions. The saddle wasn't designed for two, but she was petite enough to fit snugly behind him and she landed with a gasp. "Not so bad, then? Where to?"
"East, toward the water tower," she called anxiously over his shoulder, and she shook when he dug in his heels and spurred Abraham into motion.
"It's okay, just keep a hold on me," Zachary soothed her. Her hands gripped tightly at his sides. "Try to rock with him, not against him. It might be a bumpy ride, you can lean on me, if you like." She clung to his back and he could feel her tremble, and he wasn't sure if it was out of fear of Abraham or for her boy. His cheeks flushed when he noticed her stocking-covered legs pressed behind his—her skirt had ridden up rather indecently, but there was no time or spare horse to teach her how to ride side-saddle just now.
The ride was quiet, save for the beast's panting as Zachary rode him into a trot. Silence was preferable to hysterics, and he didn't push her for conversation. The woman never loosened her grip on him, and only spoke up to warn him when they approached their destination. He slowed at the gates of the old sawmill, shut down almost fifteen years ago and still abandoned. She peeled herself away from him and slipped down the horse's side with a grace he wouldn't have expected from an inexperienced rider, or a distraught mother.
"You live here?"
"We…we can barely afford to eat, and no one was using this place, so we…"
Zachary didn't press her, understanding the plight well enough. He dismounted Abraham and tied the reins to the gate. No time for a cool-down, old boy, I'll be back soon. He followed the woman to the entrance of the main building. The door creaked ominously, opening only into darkness. She grabbed a nearby lantern to light their path inside, walking purposefully down the large, dusty hallway. He didn't like this, and couldn't help but notice that options for cover were scarce. You're not at war anymore, fool, he scolded himself, dogging her footsteps all the same.
"What of the boy's father?" he asked, wincing at the way his voice echoed against the walls. "Your husband?" Zachary had assumed she was married, but now noted she wore no ring. Her only adornment was the metal thimble that capped her pinky finger, flickering in the lantern's light.
She shot him a furtive look as she opened a side door into an office—so that's where she and the child had set up camp. "He died, just after the battle of Wounded Knee. Served in the 7th."
Zachary's heart went out to the unlucky widow, and he tried to remember his fallen brothers. Who among them had a wife as young as she, as well as a son? He couldn't quite recall. "What was his name?" he asked gently, following her gesture into the dim room. There was a presence, he could feel it, but there was no child he could see, and the room showed no signs of being lived in—
The sound of the hand cannon registered before the pain did, cutting off his train of thought. Zachary collapsed to the ground, barely across the threshold into the office as he clutched his chest. The woman was kneeling next to him again, but now she was in the position to comfort him. Instead she placed a hand over the large, bleeding hole that pierced through his lung, pressing against the bullet's entrance to hear him cry out in agony.
"His name was Booker DeWitt," she hissed venomously. He choked, both on her words and the blood filling his mouth. She made no move to help him and merely sat next to him, watching him die, watching him suffer—god, what was wrong with her? What had he done to her? I was going to help you, I was going to help your boy, I was going to help you, I was going to…
Zachary Comstock lived for three months, two weeks, and six days before dying from a gunshot wound in an abandoned office.
Not much could compare to the first drag off a cigarette after a long day without it. Booker eased back into the leather armchair and propped his feet up on the ottoman. He tipped the glass in his hand to watch the amber liquid swirl around, deciding that this wasn't at all a bad way to spend an evening. There was a time when he tried to hide his drinking from Elizabeth, only taking quick nips of whatever he scavenged in Columbia when she wasn't looking—but if she hadn't figured it out on her own, the damn doors in her head would have given him away. She'd thrown it in his face bluntly enough just last week, why dance around it now? Booker sipped at the brandy thoughtfully—it wasn't his drink of choice, but it was the only thing one was like to find in an upscale place like this. Elizabeth had mentioned something about the owners of the luxury apartment being on holiday for the week before she left to clean the blood out of her clothes—the image made him fidget uncomfortably.
What the hell was that, back at the saw mill? Everything had been going according to plan, Comstock had been lured into the dingy office where no one would ever think to look for him, and Booker had put him down nice and neat. It went so smoothly, all that was needed was the next tear—but Elizabeth didn't open one. She just…kneeled there, next to the dying man—still a boy, really—watching him struggle to breathe through the pain. Her tiny hand pushed against the wound to watch the blood seep out, letting it flow over her fingers and sleeve. Elizabeth had looked…enraptured, overcome with some bizarre fascination, and even when Comstock's final death rattle passed his lips, she didn't move away. Booker was hesitant to interrupt, as disoriented as he was by the flash of new memories and a fresh nosebleed, but after a few long moments he gently prompted her to find them a place to retire early for the night—and just like that, the spell was over. She had stepped over the corpse without ceremony and prepared another tear, bringing them here to set up camp.
Booker took another long drag off the cigarette as he thought back to the Hand of the Prophet, where he had drowned the first Comstock in his own baptismal font after bashing his head in. He didn't even think about it at the time, he had been riding the adrenaline from clearing the decks—and the man had the fucking gall to tend to Elizabeth, to try and treat her like a daughter after torturing her for all those months and imprisoning her all those years. And yet she screamed at Booker when he attacked the prophet, demanding that he stop.
"You promised me! You're killing him!"
He had broken quite a few promises to her, he realized with a familiar pang of remorse. When it was done Elizabeth glared at him, eyes brimming over with tears as if he had taken something sacred away from her. In a way Booker supposed he had, but he couldn't find it in himself to feel any sincere regret for it—he had enough regrets when it came to her to tell the difference. I was just trying to protect her. Fitzroy messed her up bad enough, but her own father…or one of them, anyway. The girl had hardened quite a bit under DeWitt's care; she was willing to cut off her mother's hand within days of meeting him, for god's sake. He only wanted to keep her from losing even more of herself—he would not see her turn into the old woman set New York ablaze. Even now, Booker made sure he was the only one wielding a weapon as they hunted the prophet across realities, so that he might spare her from any guilt.
But Elizabeth didn't seem to have any—far from it, she appeared to relish the act with an ever-increasing enthusiasm. Booker could understand the thirst for vengeance well enough, but it was hard to reconcile the sweet girl he met on Monument Island with the woman who greedily drank in the sight of a dying teenage prophet. It didn't matter that Booker had executed him several dozen times already, she never seemed to tire of it. Watching Comstock die gave her some sort of high that only grew in potency—and he was starting to wonder if killing him in her stead was doing any good at all. She asked me to come with her, she wanted my help. But Booker was the one who had set the unspoken rule that only he would carry out the death sentence. Elizabeth didn't seem to care who got it done, only that it was; she saved him from the baptism so she could have his company, not his combat experience. And that's gone so well, she must be thrilled with that decision. He cringed as he recalled the way she "helped" him shave the week before, and shut the memory out before any other feelings could be stirred up. God, he had to be the world's worst influence, and yet Elizabeth remained obscenely loyal to him—due in no small part to a depraved attraction that never should have developed in the first place. I'm only alive because of how badly I've fucked her up. The realization sat heavy in his gut like a stone and he drowned it with a gulp of brandy, large enough to make even a seasoned alcoholic like him cough as it burned down his throat.
Booker heard a door creak somewhere in the apartment, and within seconds Elizabeth wandered into the living room with her typical grace. She had stripped down to her chemise—she must have left the blouse to air dry—but still wore her skirt, though he could see her bare legs and feet peeking out from beneath the hem. Even with his preference for her modesty, Booker couldn't blame her for trying to keep cool—his own necktie was left rumpled to the side and he'd undone the first few buttons of his shirt at the first opportunity. Funny, he didn't remember this summer being so unbearable when he was seventeen. Elizabeth perched herself on the ottoman next to his feet and peered at him quizzically, before finally asking "May I?"
The question stumped him, even as she pointed to his hand, until the ashes at the end of the cigarette succumbed to gravity and sprinkled down his shirt. Booker plucked it from his lips and brushed them off, then gazed at the roll of tobacco with a curiosity he hadn't felt since his first cigarette. It was just another habit, no more noteworthy to him than eating at this point, and he had forgotten how interesting it might look to the uninitiated. Hell, Elizabeth was interested by just about everything. He tapped it against the lip of the small clay bowl proudly displayed on the end-table—some artsy, priceless piece of junk, no doubt—and when the last of the ashes were shaken off, handed the cigarette to her without a word. A smile quirked at his lips as he watched Elizabeth take hold of it between her thumb and forefinger, rolling it gingerly back and forth as she examined it like a puzzle that needed solving. Booker could practically see the gears turning in her head, and knew she was applying everything she'd read in the tower along with everything she'd seen since getting out to try and smoke correctly. She always wanted to do things correctly.
"Does it still work if I'm on top of you?"
His breath hitched at the unwanted memory of that morning in Comstock House, and Booker gripped the empty glass tightly in his hand. He watched her bring the filter to her mouth, and the end of it disappeared behind her lips…and then a little more…and then Elizabeth pulled it slightly out, unable to decide how far it should go. Booker found himself wishing he had his cigarette back—that he had that cigarette back. He settled for grabbing the bottle of brandy and pouring himself another helping, just as she took her first drag. The tip of the rod glowed brightly in the dim room. Elizabeth's eyes widened when the fit of coughing overtook her, and she jerked the cigarette away from her mouth, scowling at Booker when he snorted in amusement.
"Not a fan, then?" he asked, taking it back but not bringing it to his lips—not when she had done the same so recently. She buried the last cough daintily into her elbow, her glare sufficing for an answer.
"You like that?" Her throat burned and felt…icky, as if something dirty had settled in it. The haphazard plume of smoke that burst from her mouth was nothing like the delicate, wispy streams she had seen coming from more experienced users—like most things, it probably took practice, though Elizabeth couldn't imagine why anyone would want to.
"Takes some getting used to." Booker's nerves were still on edge and he brushed his thumb over the filter without thinking, as if to wipe away any trace of her scent or taste, and then he took a hearty drag. That was better. He felt a bit more at ease, but still just as sharp; in some ways, it was better than drinking—as long as he wasn't aiming to forget something. "I didn't like it either, my first time."
Elizabeth watched with something between envy and admiration as Booker inhaled deeply, paused as if to savor it, and let the smoke out with a controlled hiss—and looked all the more comfortable for it. How could something so violent to her own senses be soothing to his? She eyed the small stick as a challenge and felt determined to master it. There had to be something about its appeal that she wasn't understanding—perhaps she just didn't do it right. "I've read studies that praise the benefits of tobacco," Elizabeth mentioned idly, holding out her hand to indicate she wanted to try again. "That it has medicinal properties and can clear the mind."
Booker smirked at her obstinacy as he handed it back—of course she wouldn't give up that easily. "I don't buy it. Nothing that feels this good can be good for you." So why was he encouraging her? There were some who railed against smoking, from the priests who condemned anything mind-altering to the politicians who lamented the use of farmland for the crop, but hell, a first cigarette was damn-near a rite of passage—everybody smoked. The upper-class had techniques and fancy holders to make it look refined, almost like an art-form—but to folks like DeWitt, it was just a habit that made the day pass a little smoother. Maybe that's what Elizabeth needed; she certainly hadn't shown the best judgment when it came to vices so far. Even tobacco was better than trying to kill or fuck one's father. "Draw on it like a straw," he instructed patiently. "Not too much, just…let it sit in your mouth for a bit to get a feel for it."
Elizabeth did as she was told, feeling rather proud of herself when she fought off the tickle in her throat and breathed out silently. The taste was still wretched, though there was something familiar about it. Something fluttered in her head, something not entirely unpleasant. "Why did you start, then?"
He watched her pinch the cigarette between her first and second finger, trying to emulate the way she must have seen others hold it. Her wrist rotated in a manner that would look awkward on anyone else, but Elizabeth made it appear delicate and feminine. Her eyes followed the trail of smoke that ascended from the tip with a child-like inquisitiveness, and something in him ached. The girl Booker met in the tower wasn't completely gone. Not yet.
"It was after I joined the military," he finally answered, more to the brandy than to her. "We got packs as part of our rations—the regiment was based near one of the new factories that produced them. Kept our nerves calm, made the men less jumpy when they were scared." Booker watched her take another drag and noted the way it already seemed like less of a struggle. She adapted quick, that was no surprise. He shot her a half-smirk and asked, "Why did you?"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the cheekiness of the question and rapped the cigarette against the edge of their make-shift ashtray. "I suppose…I wanted to see what the big deal was." She experimented with a deeper inhale, wondering if that would increase the potency of the strange sense of lightness in her head—and only got another coughing fit for her trouble. "Doesn't seem like anything special," she muttered, passing the cigarette back to Booker. The brandy rolled in his glass as he reached forward to take it, and she wondered if having a dry mouth was the problem—one bad habit at a time, Elizabeth chastised herself.
She walked her palms to the other side of the ottoman to lean back on them, her knees brushing the leather cushion of the armchair through her skirt, and she watched him with interest. He looked much more relaxed than usual, especially with how close they were sitting. There had been a renewed tension between them ever since the "incident" at the farmhouse the week before. It's not like I kissed him on the mouth. The thought raced across her mind petulantly, and Elizabeth swallowed a sigh. A peck on the lips would have been far less intimate than the embrace she pulled him into. She wasn't sure where they stood now; the kiss Booker had planted on her brow was tender and…paternal, though the way the rest of his body reacted to her was anything but. He called me Elizabeth, she thought fiercely, her eyes drawn to the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he took another gulp of brandy. If he wanted a daughter, he would have called me Anna.
Fathers taught their daughters how to ride horses, not smoke cigarettes.
"Were you?"
"Was I what?" Booker took another puff before offering the cigarette back out of courtesy—he was only half-surprised when Elizabeth accepted it. Her stubbornness may have been the only thing she got from him.
"Scared."
He noticed her preference for keeping the cigarette centered between her lips, her fingers always keeping a slight hold on it—whereas he tended to let it lazily hang from the side of his mouth. She re-crossed her legs and smoothed out her skirt, as if wrinkles mattered when the only other thing she wore was a chemise. Even half-stripped down with only a thug for company, Elizabeth was ever the lady. "Not of dying," Booker answered with a sigh. "I was too much of a damn fool to be afraid of that. Too young."
Elizabeth gave him the cigarette and then leaned back on her hands, having finally placed where she knew the flavor from. It tasted like Booker, minus the salts—or rather he tasted like it. That's probably not what draws most people to the habit, she thought drolly; but that combined with the slight giddiness she was feeling made the appeal more understandable, even if it did irritate her throat. His ankles were crossed on the ottoman next to her hip, and she fought the desire to trace the pinstripes along his pants. Booker finally seemed at ease with her, enough that he might be open about the implications of his answer—there was no sense in ruining that by pushing for physical intimacy as well. "What were you afraid of?"
Booker should have seen that coming. He tapped the cigarette with more force than necessary against the rim of the bowl as he tried to come up with a suitable response. Elizabeth had a real knack for asking the questions he least wanted to answer. "The other men, in the 7th," he finally grumbled, drawing back the cigarette for an impatient puff before continuing. "I didn't want them to find out about my…mother's side."
"But they did." He nodded grimly to the brandy. "How?"
"One of them saw me listening in on the natives," Booker muttered. His gaze flickered back to her, and the concern in her face put him on edge. "Figured out that I could understand what they were saying, and the other soldiers pieced it together."
"You speak Sioux." Elizabeth knew this, but only in the hazy way she knew everything else about him before the baptism—any glimpses to his childhood were fuzzy at best, as if she were peeking through a door that was translucent as well as locked. Booker answered with another swig from the glass in his hand, but he tipped his back as he did so—that meant yes. A jerk to the side as he drank would have meant no.
She found herself caught again by the familiar yearning to understand—and in this case, it was Sioux. French had always seemed so romantic, especially in the higher literature she read growing up. Elizabeth wasn't sure what sort of "attitude" Sioux would carry, but she was suddenly eager to find out. Learning a language was all lips and tongue and teeth, each word a kiss of sound that was practiced to fluency—and she assumed, much like with actual kissing, it was more effective with a partner. It was strange, Elizabeth had always been fondly dedicated to her studies in the tower—but the study of language had never struck her as particularly sexy until now. "Could you teach me?"
Booker hiccupped on the brandy and nearly dropped the glass. Goosebumps cropped up along her bare arms under his hard gaze, and he tried to convince himself he wasn't the cause. "Elizabeth, I…"
She frowned when he trailed off and made to set her hand on his knee, only just stopping herself in time. She felt his legs fidget next to her regardless. "I-I'm sorry, I just…I've never studied any languages besides French and Latin, and…and I don't even know what Sioux would sound like, so I…"
Booker bit the inside of his cheek as he mulled over her request. He could hear his mother's voice in his ear, scolding him for getting into yet another fight, her words in a language he hadn't heard in decades. He realized with a sinking feeling that it was Elizabeth's heritage, too—and unlike the shame he had always felt when it came to the Lakota people, whether for being a part of them or for turning against them, she had only her usual curiosity. Teaching her what he could still remember would be the fatherly thing to do—it might establish a familial air between them, an impeccant air, a no-we've-never-seen-each-other-naked air. Any innocent words in his half-forgotten mother tongue refused to come to mind, however. He could only remember the well-deserved curses thrown at him at Wounded Knee.
"Forget I asked."
Elizabeth's apologetic voice brought him back to the present—and now her hand actually was on his knee. Booker tried not to squirm; she had pulled him from a place he'd rather not visit, after all. He crushed the remaining butt of the cigarette into the bowl and immediately reached for a fresh one from the pack, bringing the lit match to the tip with a practiced ease and finding solace in the first drag—it was always the best one. Maybe he should have saved it for Elizabeth. Not sure she even likes it, yet. Too late now. Too late. Booker peered at her as the problems of the present forced those of the past from his mind. The kind, delicate, young woman sitting in front of him was turning into…something, as evidenced by earlier that afternoon, and if it wasn't already too late to stop, it would be soon.
"Comstock, at the saw mill today," he started, slipping into a flat voice of nonchalance as he offered her the almost-fresh cigarette. Her fingers gripped it confidently without her eyes ever leaving his face—she learned fast. "Did he…would he have done something…even worse, than the one we knew in Columbia?"
Elizabeth didn't answer at first, leaving Booker with nothing to think about but the warmth of her hand on his knee. Her expression, normally so easy to read, was unnervingly blank, and suddenly it didn't feel like he was talking to a girl barely out of her teens.
"No," she finally answered, puffing thoughtfully on the cigarette. A steady stream of smoke poured past her lips, and she only had to clear her throat for a moment before going on. "He was still…he would have still been…awful, of course. But his Columbia wasn't quite as bad, he…he kept Fink on a tighter leash. Shantytown wasn't nearly as..." She bit her lip as she remembered her father's threat to burn it to the ground. Why be objective about men like him? "He still would have kept everyone segregated. He still would have taken Anna." Not me. Anna. Elizabeth looked at Booker expectantly, and as usual his face was frustratingly neutral. "Why?"
He was at a loss for how to press the issue without offending her—it was hard enough to not get angry at the reminder of Anna. A shot to the chest was too good for the young Comstock, even if he had been punished before committing the crime. He deserved it, or he would have, anyway. Doesn't mean she should have liked it so much, Booker thought bleakly. "You just…" he began, faltering almost immediately. To hell with it. "You seemed to…enjoy watching him…watching him die. I figured he would have done something pretty terrible."
"Yes, I did," she answered simply, holding the cigarette out for him to take. Elizabeth frowned when he didn't move and lowered her hand to her lap. "Booker, I told you what we'd be doing back in Paris."
He felt a rocking in his head, and he wasn't quite sure if it was the brandy or the indifference in her confession. He ran a stiff hand through his hair and closed his eyes to ground himself. "I know, I just…Jesus, Elizabeth, you had his actual blood on your hands!"
"It was a job well done," she replied sharply, and her callousness about it struck him off-balance. Just a job, like running an errand, or ending a strike, or trading a girl for a debt. "This world is a better place without him, of course I'm glad he's gone."
She wasn't getting it, and Booker didn't know how to make her. You're better than him, and I want you to stay that way. No death is worth celebrating. Maybe I should just handle it myself from now on, you don't need to be there. That last idea made him wince; Elizabeth would not react well to that. She had the tears, she made the rules—but Booker couldn't shake the notion that he was only helping her destroy herself. In the grand scheme of things, too grand for him to thoroughly ponder without making his head hurt, the way they were spending their time wasn't even making a dent. Countless prophets would remain untouched, especially with her insistence that they be discreet in every world they traveled to. The two never stayed more than a night in any reality, and he didn't give a damn about the difference they may or may not have made in any one of them—all that mattered was the difference it was making in her.
"I'm worried that what we do is…changing you," Booker murmured slowly. "Before I found you at Comstock House, I met a version of you that I…that I never saved, and she was bombing New York. I don't want you to become that."
Elizabeth squeezed his knee without thinking about it. She could picture the old woman he was talking about easily enough—the wizened and resentful seed of the prophet lived behind thousands of thousands of doors, dictating and burning and drowning, all because Elizabeth allowed her father to be born in the first place. The usual pang of guilt struck her in the gut, and she took another drag off the cigarette to see if it would help. At the very least it was a slight distraction.
It was so much easier when they didn't know.
"I'm not turning into a terrorist, Booker," she promised him with a small, forced smile, her thumb stroking down the side of his knee affectionately. She had nothing against the mountains of man—only one man in particular. "I just want Comstock gone, as many of him as we can get to."
Booker pulled his legs away from the ottoman, away from her, and hunched over in the armchair to bury his face in his hands in frustration. She didn't even care that they weren't doing the overall universe any favors, she seemed content with knowing the job would be left unfinished—oh, but as long as it was also well done, as long as Elizabeth got to watch the light go out of a boy's eyes before sleeping next to a man who looked just like him, only with an extra twenty years of fuck-ups, then everything was fine. Even setting aside his complete failure as a father, how did she not see how insane that was?
"How can you even look at me?" he hissed, suddenly feeling suffocated by more than just the summer heat. "When we go out every day to kill him, how can you even stand to be in the same room as me? We've got the same fucking face, Elizabeth!"
His outburst troubled her, and she shot an accusing glance at the empty glass on the end-table. Just how many of those did he have? Booker wasn't swaying or slurring, though—it wasn't simply the brandy talking. There was just as much of his signature self-loathing in the question. "I don't…I don't see Comstock when I look at you, Booker," Elizabeth answered warily, wrapping an arm around herself almost defensively. "You're not the same man, you know that."
"I was one dunk in the river from being the boy you watched bleed out," he snapped, keeping his gaze fixed to the minute space between their knees. A part of him was screaming at Booker to shut up, to not give her any more reason to hate him—and he didn't want to see her face when she realized she had committed herself to a monster.
Elizabeth reached past him to shake the ashes from the cigarette, trying to ignore the way he tensed up as she did so. She puffed on it pensively, just for something to do at this point, and let out a smoky sigh. "That boy would have mutilated his wife, Booker." It got his attention, and he looked up at her in confusion. She offered him the cigarette again and he took it in a near-mechanical manner. Elizabeth flattened her freed hand across her stomach, feeling the raised edges of skin even through the chemise. "He would have made what he did to me look like…child's play. Lady Comstock couldn't give him a baby, so he would have made sure she couldn't give one to anyone."
Booker felt his insides ice over at her words as he stared at the way her digits splayed over her abdomen. The cigarette shook slightly between his fingers. "You said…you said he wasn't going to do anything…anything worse…"
She shrugged apathetically—it was rather difficult to pity a woman who took her rage out on a helpless baby, bastard or not. The end of the story didn't change; Lady Comstock still would have threatened to reveal the lamb's origin, she still would have been assassinated—her corpse just would have had more scars. Elizabeth supposed she should be more sympathetic to her mother, especially when she could see through the doors exactly how the poor woman came to commit herself to such a monster…but it was far easier to simply hold both her parents in disdain. "That's not the point," she replied impatiently. "You never laid a hand on Annabelle."
"She was pregnant." Booker wasn't sure why he said it, as if that was the only reason he never struck his wife, but it was all that came to mind for some reason. Annabelle was a sweet girl who went home with him without much persuasion, and their daughter had been conceived the night they met. The two eloped three months later, and his bride had a glow about her—she was so sure she could fix Booker, that they had nothing but a happy future and family ahead of them. A part of him was glad the unfortunate Mrs. DeWitt didn't live long enough to be disappointed.
"There are worlds where she didn't die in childbirth, where the two of you raised Anna together." Not happy worlds, by any means—a wife wouldn't keep Booker from drinking or gambling or falling asleep in the gutter, but he hardly needed another reason to resent himself. "No matter how much you bickered, you never hit her."
Booker clenched his teeth as a macabre vision played out before his eyes: the three of them living in his shithole apartment in New York, him bouncing Anna on his knee after a long day of smacking around factory workers for the Pinkertons, Annabelle humming as she washed the bloodstains out of his clothes. His wife would peck him lovingly on the temple and ask how work had gone, always cheerful regardless of his answer. She would put their daughter down for a nap before sitting in his lap and stroking his face, the warmth of her fingertips countered by the coolness of the thimble on her pinky—
"That's not much of a standard for what makes a good man," he spat, no longer caring how venomous the words sounded—perhaps they would poison him from the inside out. The cigarette wasn't doing the job fast enough.
"I didn't say you were one."
The cold certainty in her voice cut through his core and jolted Booker out of the morbid fantasy. Elizabeth's mouth was set in a firm line and her blue eyes were narrowed—she was losing patience with him, but she wasn't leaving. It dawned on Booker that the girl in front of him understood him better than anyone else ever had; Elizabeth had seen his every sin through the doors—as opposed to the more forgiving lens of two decades of drinking—and somehow didn't find him completely reprehensible. Annabelle's naïveté had doomed her into thinking there was a worthy, honorable man somewhere in her husband; Elizabeth had no such delusions, it wasn't possible for her to, not with what she'd seen.
"All I'm saying," she began, keeping her voice level with an obvious effort. "Is that there's a lot more that separates you and Comstock besides a beard and a baptism."
She watched Booker nod but wasn't sure if he even heard her—he wouldn't even look at her. He got to his feet, distracted but steady, and muttered something about turning in. Elizabeth curtly bid him good night and he disappeared down the hall. She focused on the cigarette pinched between her fingers, twirling it to and fro before taking another drag. The rod had almost burned down to the filter, and it tasted even harsher than usual. The giddy feeling from earlier was gone, and as little as she cared for smoking so far, she found she liked it even less when alone. Elizabeth crushed the nearly-spent cigarette into the bowl they'd been using, moving more in frustration than anything else. It had been a rather nice evening—the conversation certainly wasn't lighthearted, yet it had an intimacy to it—but Booker's self-loathing always got the best of him. Maybe it always would.
Elizabeth remained perched on the ottoman for some time, mulling over the depressing notion that Booker might never recover from what he had done to himself. He was broken when I met him, and I still fell in love with him—but the sea of doors had left DeWitt positively shattered. She wasn't sure how much time passed before her head grew heavy and her eyelids began to droop, but she eventually made her way to the door she had heard Booker close on his way in. The hinges were thankfully well-oiled and it swung open silently. Elizabeth crossed to the foot of the bed and shimmied out of her skirt so that only her chemise and drawers remained, then crawled nimbly under the sheets to press against Booker's back.
He didn't relax back into the embrace like usual, and she realized with a brief sting of panic that he must still be awake. Elizabeth exhaled forcefully, trying to crush the sense of worry as she slipped her arm over his waist to drape across his torso greedily. You're mine, Mr. DeWitt, even if the pieces of you are all that's left. Despite the determined thought, she found herself waiting for Booker to meet her affection with a reprimand or recoil—and instead felt his hand close over hers, holding it to his chest with a possessiveness to match her own. Elizabeth beamed into his shoulder, breathing in time with the pulse she could feel through his undershirt. The steadiness soothed her, but the rhythm shifted and sped up in her mind as she drifted off.
That night she dreamed of a horse's hoof beats.