Chapter 6

Though reading had always been a pleasure in her tower, it now seemed more like a chore to Elizabeth than anything else. The little lines of black ink couldn't command her focus like they used to, and she rarely finished a paragraph without her gaze drifting away from the page. After re-reading the same line three times over she sighed and slammed the volume shut, tossing it to the side of the bed and wondering idly if she ought to open another tear to find something more interesting than the arboreal sciences. Like what? she thought huffily, rolling over onto her back in a prolonged stretch. She'd snatched up books on topics all along the literary spectrum over the last three days, and none of them could hold her attention for more than minutes at a time before her thoughts snapped back to her partner.

The first day had been the easiest, in hindsight. When Elizabeth saw the broken chips of a glass bottle in the sink and Booker stirring in a fitful sleep in a chair, she had tried to avoid jumping to any conclusions. He made no mention of it when he woke up, so she didn't either, but she watched him carefully throughout the day, noting the extra stiffness in his movements and the determined scowl he kept plastered to his face. After three prophets had been disposed of his hands began shaking again, and she feigned exhaustion from poor sleep to spare his pride—though it wasn't entirely a lie, Elizabeth had missed the protective broadness of him terribly in her dreams—and they holed up in an empty apartment for the night. There had been a well-stocked wine rack on display and an unopened bottle of scotch in the study's desk, if Booker had only looked for it—but he hadn't. Instead he kept to the kitchen and limited his scavenging to their dinner and several packs of cigarettes. They went through half of one that very night, and the conversation was nearly non-existent, confirming her suspicions of his attempt at sobriety.

She wasn't sure why he was suddenly starting now, two months into their partnership, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it, either. The sea of doors showed her that most Booker DeWitts who managed to stop drinking were much better off for it—but they were few in number compared to the versions of him who tried, failed, and sank ever-closer to rock-bottom. Furthermore, every abstaining Booker had an Anna; he was far too self-loathing to quit for his own sake. If her Booker had joined those ranks, then what did it say about how he saw her? The idea of him only ever looking at her as a daughter was…disappointing, to say the least, but not nearly as disappointing as an early, painful death from liver failure. However blurry the lines of their relationship were, Elizabeth had every intention of it being a long one. So, on the second day when she found him curled up in the bedroom she'd left alone, a sickly sheen of sweat on his frame, she had asked Booker if he wouldn't mind taking the day off, in the hopes that he might be more comfortable.

Of course he insisted he was fine, with more harshness than he probably meant to. It was clear that Booker didn't want to discuss what he was going through—perhaps he was afraid of jinxing it, though he never struck Elizabeth as the superstitious type—and Elizabeth was reluctant to press him on this. Am I afraid of him? No, that made no sense, he was the one who feared her, ever since she pulled a roaring tornado into a sterile laboratory. DeWitt only lived because she demanded it, and he executed the prophet on her orders. She could destroy him, if she had the mind to—and maybe that was what she feared more than anything else. Booker always seemed damn-near indestructible, barely slowed by bullets or Vigors or even the occasional Handyman, but detox had made him fragile. His appetite waned and he needed extra time to line up his shots, though he still insisted on making them. More than once he'd stopped in the middle of nothing at all to catch his breath and wait for the world to slide back into focus. He looked miserable, and Elizabeth feared the slightest upset or insult might toss him off the wagon all together, so she gave him his space and made sure their lodgings always had two bedrooms—if sharing her bed made him so uncomfortable, then at least he could have his own.

Today had been the third day, and if anything Booker looked worse, to the point where she was tempted to find a home with a well-stocked bar just to ease his pain. She forced herself to pull them through to a quaint cottage free of temptation, and her heart nearly broke when she watched him scour the home with a desperation that indicated he wasn't finding what he needed. Elizabeth had read about the perils of alcoholism and withdrawal and knew the physical symptoms could last for more than a week, and the mental far longer. She wasn't so sure her determination wouldn't crack before Booker's. Though Elizabeth never outright mentioned his new sobriety, in the interest of maintaining their precious status quo, she refused to bring them within killing distance of another Comstock without frequent breaks. It was just as much for herself as for him—the way he skittered around her with those bloodshot, green eyes was wearing on her spirit. She hadn't felt this powerless in a very long time. Elizabeth tossed a disappointed glance at the abandoned book on the bed, feeling almost betrayed by its failure to distract her.

There was a shift in the air, a crackle in reality that would be imperceptible to anyone not in tune with such things, and Elizabeth sat up to see Rosalind Lutece inspecting herself in the vanity mirror. She sighed in greeting; she hadn't seen the woman since Paris, and the terms they parted on weren't exactly cordial, but a familiar face was a relief. "Where's Robert?"

"He's down the hall having a word with your father," Rosalind answered offhandedly, adjusting one of the pins in her ginger hair—a lock had fallen loose to curl near her shoulder. She seemed to sense the way Elizabeth stiffened up without even having to look. "Ah, still don't care for that label, then?"

"He's not my father, he's…" The false shepherd. Elizabeth winced when the indoctrination reared its gruesome head, as it so often did whenever she was at a loss.

Rosalind rolled her eyes and turned to the girl, leaning back on the vanity with an air of impatience. "Why? Because Comstock told you he was? You knew he was a liar before you ever set foot in the sea of doors."

"I know," Elizabeth growled, curling her knees up to her chest defensively.

"Booker isn't perfect, but surely you'd prefer him as a father, over the prophet? You've seen how hard he tried with Anna, in the worlds where she was never sold. He never tried to groom her into declaring war on the Sodom Below, at least."

Elizabeth tightened her arms around herself and glared at Rosalind. It wasn't about preference, didn't she understand that? Elizabeth wasn't blind, she wasn't denying the revelations that came from the siphon's destruction, but—You are the miracle child. Her father's voice had been so, so loud in that god-forsaken room with that god-forsaken chair. Her father. If Zachary Comstock wasn't her father, why would he have done all that? Why bother with the electroshock therapy and re-education and flagellation if not for family? If not for his lamb? He was a monster, of course she didn't want him for a father, he simply…was. "I'm not Anna."

"No, I suppose you're not." Rosalind gazed at her with a cool curiosity before asking, "Do you think Booker resents you for that?"

It was a sore spot and the physicist knew it. Elizabeth tried not to remember all the times she'd seen Booker stare at his branded hand with a far-off, longing look, or the way he sometimes gazed at her as if he was seeing someone else entirely. Of course he would miss Anna now that he remembered her again, and it would be unfair of Elizabeth to hold his sadness against him—but she hated feeling like a reminder of his regrets. When was the last time she had seen him smile? He made his choice. He called me Elizabeth. But it was so easy to peek past the remaining doors and see how happy Anna made him, when Booker never gave her up. It was so easy to see a Booker who found a strength in fatherhood, with fewer wrinkles at his eyes and more laugh lines in their place. Would he have made the same choice he did in Paris, if he could see the delight a daughter might bring him? An irrational wave of jealousy threatened to consume her; despite all her knowledge and abilities, Elizabeth had failed where a baby had thrived. The comparison was too confusing and painful to dwell on, let alone talk about, and she shoved it from her mind.

"What does Robert want with him?" she asked, hoping the levelness of her voice sounded more effortless than it was.

Rosalind quirked an eyebrow at the evasion before a well-worn look of exasperation settled over her face. "To help, of course. He's grown fond of you two, and saw an opportunity in Booker's detox to test our latest infusion."

Elizabeth's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You're physicists, not doctors."

"All of time and space at our disposal, you'd be surprised what we pick up. No, medicine isn't our specialty, but there are some legitimate, pharmaceutical properties to the infusion."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes skeptically. Sure, Booker's wounds had healed remarkably fast ever since taking that first golden elixir, but she doubted even the Luteces could cure the physical and mental anguish that came from withdrawal. "So, you're relying on the placebo effect."

"Well, the mild sedative is real enough," Rosalind replied shamelessly. "The other effects remain to be seen. A good night's sleep will do him wonders, and may give him the edge he needs to see the exercise through." Of course she would see recovery through the detached lens of an experiment. "My dear brother couldn't seem to stand watching Booker endure any more pain than he already has, and felt compelled to intervene."

"I didn't ask him to stop drinking." Elizabeth didn't understand the defensiveness in her own voice; Rosalind hadn't accused her of anything.

"Of course you didn't. You don't want him to disappoint you again by failing."

Her bluntness caught Elizabeth off guard, and it stung too much to not be at least a little true. "I-I don't…he won't—"

"Just how many times has Booker let you down?" Rosalind asked in a manner that didn't beg an answer. "He sold you, he lied to you, he let you rot in that mansion for seven months—"

"So did you."

Rosalind smirked coldly at the acid in Elizabeth's voice. "You're not even going to try and excuse him for that, then? Or deny holding it against him?"

Elizabeth fumed silently, feeling every ounce the petulant teenager she once was in her tower. Was Lutece trying to upset her? To what purpose? She was doing a damn thorough job of it. It wasn't Booker's fault, she reminded herself sternly. For him it was half a day. It was her, the seed of the prophet, she sent him too late.

And it was too late, wasn't it? At least some of the indoctrination had stuck, despite her hope, despite her brush with godhood in the wake of the siphon's destruction. She knew she was born in New York City, not Columbia, she knew she'd been called by a different name for the first few months of her life, she knew the man whose bed she shared and life she spared was the same man who sold her off—but she believed another story entirely, and couldn't bear to question it. A story where her name was Elizabeth, where she was the lamb of Columbia, where the prophet adored her in his own vile way because he was her father, wasn't he? She didn't believe him the first time he shouted it at her when she was strapped in that chair, nor did she accept it the second or third time. At what point in that seven months did it all start to ring of truth? If Booker had only come earlier, before the brainwashing ever had a chance to set in, before she resorted to fantasizing about him day and night just to escape her own hellish reality—

Then Booker might not still be with her.

"And now that you two are together again, he's shut you out," Rosalind continued. Her focused gaze made Elizabeth shiver—she suddenly felt very much like a specimen. "You've condemned countless realities to the scourge of the prophet just to keep him, and what does Booker do? He balks at your every attempt at intimacy, physical or otherwise. What nerve."

"Why are you trying to make me angry with him?" Elizabeth demanded, eyes narrowed and voice strained. After everything the Luteces had done to reunite them, what sense was there in turning her against Booker?

"I don't have to make you, you already are. Why else would you be punishing him day in and day out?"

Elizabeth scowled impatiently. "I saved him, how is that a punishment?"

"Yes, you saved Booker only to have him kill himself every day, what a mercy."

"He is not. Comstock." There was a growing tightness in Elizabeth's throat that made it hard to speak. Of all people, shouldn't Rosalind understand that? The prophet had her assassinated, why would she have helped Booker survive the perils of Columbia if she thought they were the same man?

"That much is plain to us," Lutece conceded airily. "But Booker doesn't have the luxury of the ever-present doors. He can only see the teenage prophet's face, not his future, and it's a very familiar face at that. You don't think he might take the satisfaction you get out of seeing Comstock perish a bit personally?"

The implication rubbed harshly at Elizabeth's conscience, and she sucked in a deep breath. "Booker wouldn't…he wouldn't do this, if he really thought that I was bringing him to kill…himself." Yet even as she spoke, she couldn't help but remember the way Booker had stared at his pistol that night in Paris, desperate as he was to make things right—or perhaps just desperate to escape his guilt.

Rosalind approached the bed and cupped a hand around Elizabeth's shoulder, as if trying to break the ball the girl had curled herself into. Elizabeth forced herself not to twist away—her touch was cold. "Of course he would. Booker wouldn't deny you anything."

Elizabeth let out a shaky breath and nodded tightly. "Because he's afraid of me."

"No, because he loves you."

The words should have been comforting, but there was a sadness in Rosalind's eyes and a stiffness in her tone that didn't fit the sentiment. Why did she say it with the air of giving bad news? Elizabeth swallowed hard and brought her focus to her thimble, grounding herself in the hard coolness of it—the comfort of habit won out over the fairly recent discovery of how she got her "hideous deformity", and she felt a bit better after tracing the outline of it several times over.

"I don't know what else to do," Elizabeth admitted, the words stinging with self-betrayal. She was powerful enough to warrant being locked up, even as a child—she shouldn't feel this helpless. "I've told him, when he asks, what those versions of Comstock would do if we didn't put them down, I've shown him how different he is, if he…if he doesn't know by now—"

"Knowing and believing are two different things," Rosalind interrupted, and the squeeze she gave Elizabeth's shoulder was more terse than affectionate. "You could recite Comstock's every crime in every world, but at the end of the day Booker will only see his own corpse. You've had more than your fair share of cognitive dissonance, surely you can empathize."

Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably as she processed Rosalind's words. The compulsion she felt to hunt down the prophet hadn't faded in the two months since they left Columbia, and she wasn't sure if it was out of a moral obligation to spare as many realities as she could from Comstock's influence, or if it all boiled down to revenge—but she never meant for it to hurt Booker. Was it possible that he believed otherwise? He'd made her suffer, that much was true, and even now she wasn't sure if she could forgive all of his sins—the sense of abandonment she still felt whenever she thought of her time at Comstock House was proof of that—but Elizabeth certainly didn't want to cause him more pain. The very idea of anything hurting him made her temper flare. Booker was her friend, her partner, and yes, she still considered him her lover, despite the way he flinched from her embrace as though she had been the one to down Devil's Kiss instead of him. He was hers, her protector, her fath—

Her false shepherd. He was her false shepherd, come to lead her away from the prophet. He was always going to abandon you, dear. Ruth's voice sent a nervous heat all over her scalp, and for a moment she could feel the coarse leather strapped at her wrists, binding her to that chair, and she pressed her palms against her eyes as she willed the doors to open, any of them, all of them, whatever it took to flood the bad memories from her mind. Elizabeth could sense the countless tears shimmering around her, begging her to open them, and she very nearly obliged each one until—

"It's over, Elizabeth. You're not a prisoner anymore. You don't have to keep struggling against Comstock, he's gone."

Rosalind spoke in a low, even voice that somehow riled up Elizabeth all the more. She pulled away from the ginger-haired woman to curl up against the bedpost, clenching her teeth as the tears twinkled back out of existence one by one. She had made great strides in self-control over the last few months, and it felt like she just spent all of it keeping the tears from ripping open. "I can't just ignore him! I can't just pretend I don't see him out there, in all those worlds! I have to do…something!"

Lutece stared at her for a long moment, looking almost regal with her folded hands and heavy gaze. She was proving even harder to read than Booker—and it suddenly occurred to Elizabeth that Rosalind was the closest thing she had to a mother. For a brief hour in Emporia, when she and Booker had sought the three truths to better understand the Siren, Elizabeth had even believed Rosalind might be her mother. She had watched over Elizabeth throughout her entire childhood, even after being murdered, and though Rosalind only sought to bring her back to Booker at the behest of her brother, Elizabeth knew the physicist cared for her on some level. Somewhere in the storm of anger in her head, Elizabeth felt a stirring of guilt from disappointing the only person left who could see her in a maternal light. The thought made her stomach roll and she took to fiercely twisting her thimble again.

"You used to hate it when Booker killed people."

Elizabeth scoffed without hesitation. "Comstock isn't a person." It came out so swiftly, with such certainty, and she found a temporary solace in that hatred, a shadow of what she usually felt when watching Booker dispose of him.

"Yes, dehumanize the enemy, one of your father's favorite tricks." Rosalind's expression hardened as she rose to her feet, giving Elizabeth the eerie feeling that she was being left behind. "You may have rejected his ideology, but you're still following in his footsteps."

Elizabeth tried and failed to emulate Booker's poker face, and she glowered at Rosalind resentfully. Her thimble wasn't cutting it anymore, and she found she was craving a cigarette—but without Booker around to share it, she somehow doubted a smoke would relax her the way it usually did. "What would you have me do, then? Forgive him?"

"Of course not, I don't expect you'll ever be capable of that," Rosalind replied with a sourness that Elizabeth couldn't quite place. "You seek out his death with such a…neediness, no wonder it's become a habit."

"He tortured me," Elizabeth spat, and the word tasted mediocre on her tongue. Two syllables could never capture those seven months. She braced herself with a steadying breath, willing herself not to remember, not now, not here. She couldn't fall apart just yet. "Some might consider this empowering."

"Some might consider this obsessive."

The reply barely registered—the pressure of Rosalind's hands cupping around her ears felt much more real. Elizabeth began to shrink away, but the bedpost stood solid behind her and kept her from tipping over the edge. Booker's fingers were always so warm, but Rosalind's were freezing against her skin, and reminded her of surgical tools and prodding doctors and electrical nodes and—

"You will always remember, Elizabeth," Rosalind spoke softly, her blue eyes shining with an icy desperation. She held Elizabeth's head with the same tenderness Booker had at the farmhouse, after her failed seduction—god, she didn't want to remember that, either. "Killing him won't change what he did to you, no matter how many times you put him down. What you two are doing, it's not living, it's a mission—and you know it's doomed to incompletion."

Tears spilled down her cheeks; she hadn't even realized they were brimming. "I can't just let him…I can't…"

"I know," Rosalind murmured, and there was a tightness in her own voice that contradicted her coldness. She stiffly withdrew from Elizabeth, sighing heavily. "My brother is the most brilliant man I've ever met—and an absolute fool." A pained smile pulled at her lips, as if it was a private joke known only to herself. "He still believes the two of you can find some lasting happiness, as broken as you are."

Broken grated at Elizabeth's nerves—her spirit had been described as such countless times by her father. She wiped an indignant hand cross her face to dry the damp skin, eager to hide any evidence of weakness. "We are not broken," she snapped with conviction. She and Booker were a force to be reckoned with, the scourge of Columbia. The False Shepherd and the Lamb. Elizabeth fought back a cringe when the unwanted nicknames came to mind—their relationship was…complicated, to say the least, but that didn't mean it was broken. That didn't mean they were broken.

"Yet you dance around each other like you're made of glass. Booker's body is purging twenty years' worth of poison, and you haven't had so much as a conversation about it."

Elizabeth flushed with guilt and tucked her chin behind her knees; if there was anyone Booker should be able to talk to, it was her, and instead she'd been preoccupied with giving him his space. "He doesn't want to talk about it," she responded defensively, and it was true, wasn't it? Else he would have by now, surely.

"And I'm certain he doesn't want to go out murdering teenage prophets every day, yet he does. But of course you're right, communication would be far worse than enabling your patricidal fixations."

The sarcasm was wearing on Elizabeth's patience, but before she could make any sort of retort there was a loud clamor from down the hall, in the direction of the bathroom. She made to move off the bed and investigate, but Rosalind took hold of her arm and shook her head.

"He must have taken the infusion," Lutece explained, gently sitting Elizabeth back down. "It has a rather nasty aftertaste, and he's not in the best shape as it is, but he'll be fine."

Elizabeth found it difficult to reconcile Rosalind's bitter demeanor with her actions—she and her brother still seemed to want to help. "If you're so sure we're a lost cause, then why are you…?"

Another wistful smile, another exasperated sigh. "I'm bound to my brother, and his endless optimism, just as Booker is bound to you. Robert can't seem to shake the guilt from our part in Comstock's plot, and still feels compelled to turn this tragedy around."

"But you don't think that's possible." It wasn't a question, no matter how badly Elizabeth wanted it to be. If she could just see past the doors to her own future, she could prove Rosalind wrong—but all she could remember was that stark sense of dread that enveloped her right before pulling Booker out of the baptism.

"I think it's highly improbable, and any further interference on our part is a waste."

"The doors, do they…do they shut for you, as well?"

For the first time that evening, Elizabeth saw an undeniable flash of pity in Rosalind's eyes, and fresh tears threatened to well up in her own. Rosalind knew, of course she did, and of course she understood in a way that Booker never could. "Not at the rate they are for you. My brother and I try to avoid outright murder—or we at least make sure the victims are as uninfluential as possible."

"But eventually, you…"

Rosalind nodded tightly, and spoke with some reluctance. "If Robert keeps insisting on intervening in all the worlds where there's a pair of you in need of help, then…yes. Eventually, we'll be blind as well."

Elizabeth was touched by Robert's concern, but more than anything she was confused by the sacrifice he seemed so willing to make. "But why would either of you want to give up the doors?"

A sharp, derisive laugh burst from Lutece. "I do not. My brother…wants a normal life. A family. A legacy. Male pride, I suspect," she added dryly. "And if we someday find ourselves so limited by space and time that we have no choice but to return to the world we died in and resume our mortality, well…I doubt he'll be too disappointed."

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "He wants a family, with…you?"

"You are hardly in a position to judge."

"N-No, I didn't…" Elizabeth trailed off sheepishly, but there was no harsh edge to the glare Rosalind threw her way, and she knew she hadn't truly offended the woman. "I was just…surprised."

"He and I belong together." She stated it with all the certainty of reciting Newton's laws. "Just as you and Booker do. Robert and I at least agree on that much."

A pang of shame and frustration shot through Elizabeth, especially at the pleading note she heard in her own voice when she said, "Booker won't…he won't look past what we…he can't forget about Anna. And I wish…" she swallowed hard, as if she was condemning herself with every word—and maybe she was. "I just wish he would." There, she'd said it. She wished the man she adored would simply forget about his infant daughter, selfish as that might be.

It was so much easier when they didn't know.

Rosalind's smile was equal parts wry and sympathetic. "He will see you for who you are, given enough time—but who that is will be up to you. You've come a long way from being the girl he bedded in Emporia. She certainly didn't have your bloodlust."

Elizabeth grimaced and shook her head without thinking. "I can't…" Can't let him go. Can't forget him. Can't forgive him. It was hard enough restricting the assassinations to the slow-but-subtle variety in order to keep every door from closing all together—simply allowing Comstock to live on in as many worlds as he pleased was downright intolerable.

"And this is where my brother and I are of a different mind," Rosalind sighed. "He believes you two just might be able to mend each other. I see an implosion waiting to happen. But I will tell you this much," she began, cocking her head to the side. "If you want Booker to prefer you over Anna, you might start with showing him that he's more important than Comstock."

Elizabeth scowled as she tried to make sense of the strange comparison. "Of course he is, how can you…?"

Even as she blinked, she could feel the ripple in reality, yet when her eyes snapped open a millisecond later she found herself staring at the spot where Rosalind used to be. Well, at least she was consistent, if not polite. Elizabeth huffed, both in annoyance and bewilderment, and glanced at the long-abandoned book lying on the corner of the bed. If she wasn't too distracted before for some light reading, she certainly was now. She busied herself with readying the bed for slumber and stripping down to her underclothes, though her mind was racing and she doubted sleep would come easily. When the lights were turned out and she slipped between the sheets Elizabeth shivered, letting the conversation with Lutece replay in her head. Obviously Booker was more important that the prophet, what could Rosalind have possibly meant by that? Comstock only existed in the first place because Elizabeth cherished Booker as much as she did, even he had to know that.

She was still wrestling with the physicist's cryptic advice when she heard the door creak open, followed by the clumsy, drugged footsteps of her partner. Elizabeth had buried herself under the covers and knew he couldn't see her, but held her breath anyway as she waited for him to act. The impact from Booker's ungainly landing on the bed nearly sent her bouncing off the mattress, but she managed to bite back a surprised yelp. He most likely thought she was asleep, and any evidence to the contrary might scare him off. Her worries were quelled within minutes when she heard a familiar, steady snore coming from behind her. Elizabeth slowly rolled over to meet him, a blush scorching at her cheeks when her hand fell against his bare stomach instead of the undershirt he usually wore to bed. His skin was damp but smelled clean, the musk of him only registering when she nestled her head against his shoulder. She recovered from her earlier embarrassment quickly, and soon was tempted to slip out of the sheets and press as much of herself against Booker as she could manage—but their current position was already far more intimate than most nights when they shared a bed, and Elizabeth willed herself to be content with the arrangement as it was. Yes, sleep would be a challenge tonight. Elizabeth curled herself around him, as much as the restraining sheets would allow, and decided she didn't really mind.