First up, a big thank you to everyone who is following, giving me feedback and sending me messages. I have big plans for this story, and I hope you guys enjoy the ride (phrasing!). I'll talk about some of the comments I've gotten at the end of this chapter because I really do appreciate people who take the time to provide feedback and I want to respond to them, even if I am very late about it.

I especially want to thank those who have come for the smut, and are still following even though I have yet to deliver. I assure you it's coming (again, phrasing).

This chapter is mildly NSFW.

xxoo

Every night, Booker asked if she would stay in the bed, and every night she said she would. But every night, weather it be a bad dream or a waking realisation, she was always compelled to join him on the floor. She had stopped talking about what happened on the airship, instead leaving him to think over it for a while. Elizabeth really could not let it go, and she didn't want him to let it go either. Then the memory would just be hers, and she had enough of memories that only belonged to her. Twenty years of isolation that only belonged to her, no one but a dead mechanical bird to share it with. Countless hours in the library all belonged to her. Endless meals at her tiny one woman dining table. Staring wide eyed at the ceiling all night. All memories she couldn't share.

But the first lady? That was a memory she forged with him. Yes, it was wrong. A lot of things they had done were wrong. But like a lot of those memories she forged with Booker, this one was real and exciting. But he's your father, Elizabeth. How can you still love this memory knowing what you know?

I don't know. But I do.

In the morning, and sometimes in the evenings, when Booker left for work, Elizabeth would attempt to recreate those few blissful moments he gave her. She had begun masturbating back in the tower. Just small, unfulfilling orgasms to help her cure boredom or even to just sleep. She was no stranger to it, so when she was alone in the apartment her hands wandered over her body, mimicking what he did and trying her hardest to make herself feel the same way he did. Her fingers traced the outline of her sex just like his did, rubbing back and forth gently but firmly, dipping her finger into her wetness to spread over her swollen lips, just like he did. She liked what it did to her, far surpassing the detached feeling of excitement she would get back in her tower. But still, something was missing. She knew what was missing the second her father walked back in the door and every sense she had lit up like wildfire. Her heart would beat faster, her skin would flush and she would always remember the way he commanded her when he first walked back into the apartment after that first day away.

"Take off that god damned dress..."

Booker had no idea how close she was to just unhooking the sleeves and letting it fall from her body. A small, curious sense of propriety stopped her from undressing at his command. It was faint, but thankfully it was heard over the sound of blood coursing through her veins, and it won out against the madness she felt when he growled those words to her. She was surprised at how badly she wanted him to see her like that. Like a woman, as he put it.

Why, Elizabeth, why? Why did you want him to see you like that?

He was only her father for a few months before he sold her to pay off a debt, something she had still not thoroughly worked through. Was she trying to punish him by compounding his guilt with her sexuality, something she knew he felt uncomfortable with? Or was she desperate to not have him walk away from her again that she was willing to throw every part of herself at him? The more she thought about her odd feelings towards him, the more she realised how far back they went. From the moment he crashed through her roof and offered her that absurd greeting while dangling from the balcony she had felt...something. Something warm, but terrifying that she didn't seem to feel for anyone else she met outside of her tower. What is wrong with me? Am I in love with him? Am I in love with my father? Could I be? Should I be? Is this something normal girls have to deal with?

What little Elizabeth knew about romance came from books. She knew the theory, two people who loved each other and were intimate. She had none of the real world references, though. She had seen lovers embracing in the streets when she opened her tears to Paris, but they lacked any real context. Like how she knew the theory behind sex; this part goes into that part and eventually a child is made. But she didn't know about the rest. She didn't know the feeling and the emotion behind it. Is that what she was feeling for him? Or was she simply just aching to hang on to her family and this was her way of trying to keep him from leaving again?

The truth was, Elizabeth didn't know what a family felt like. She didn't know what the normal feeling she should have towards him was. She couldn't even bring herself to call him father to his face, even though she had referred to Comstock as such. She knew he was and she accepted it, but she couldn't open her mouth and validate him like that. Was it because she was mad at him or because she was in love with him?

Why can't it be both? Can't she be in love with him for being the man who rescued her and still mad at him for abandoning her in the first place? What did that mean for their future? What did he even want from her? What did she want?

Elizabeth only truly knew one thing; she wanted to get the hell out of this room. She wanted to go out and do something, anything. It had been over two weeks since their outing to the markets, and Booker hadn't let her go out once. She still regretted comparing him to Comstock, but the guilt she felt was dissipating the more she was cooped up in this tiny little office. She had made it look more like a home, of course. Mrs Robert gave her some fabric that she cleverly made into curtains to replace the rags Booker had lived with since he first started his lease. She had arranged the back corner into a little makeshift bathroom, complete with a modesty screen Booker trudged home with one afternoon. In the front corner where he kept his food, Elizabeth had perfected his makeshift kitchen. The bed was clean, with new sheets and pillows, even though no one really slept on it. Booker still insisted on taking the floor, even though he never really protested when she climbed down to sleep next to him. The place was looking like a real home. Even Mr Robert commented when he made one of his rare trips up the stairs. Elizabeth caught him eyeing Booker in a way she couldn't quite understand when they both thought she wasn't looking. Whatever it was, Booker responded in kind. She could read his face much better than Mr Robert, and the look on her father's face was unmistakably angry. After Elizabeth's revelation the other day, she had decided to put more effort into decoding what the Roberts truly thought about her father. They were usually nice enough to him, but every now and then Elizabeth would catch a look being passed between them that made her wonder.

Today Booker was out on his surveillance work he picked up from the courthouse. He told her he was bound to get a few weeks work out of it. Sometimes he went out at night to work, but when he returned from it he was different. He was quieter and far more irritable. She felt like she had to stay out of his way when he came back late, and last night she even pretended she was asleep while he trudged into the room. He didn't even turn any of the lights on, he just collapsed into his makeshift bed. Elizabeth thought she heard the rattle of a glass bottle and sure enough, when she climbed down onto the floor a few hours later, there was a half a bottle of whiskey lying in her spot. She placed it back on his desk and curled her back into him, latching onto his arm as she drifted off to sleep, doubting that surveillance work alone could possibly have this affect on him.

He left early in the morning to return to work. It was just before dawn when he silently got up, washed, got dressed and left again. Elizabeth was awake the whole time, but lay on the floor with her eyes closed. She missed the lazy kisses he would plant on the back of her head when he was half asleep. She missed his arm draped heavily around her waist. She missed the occasional hardness that pressed against her back sometimes when he slept. She wanted nothing more than to roll over and call him back to her. Don't go to work, Booker. Stay here with me. Stay here all day and let me work out these feelings. Let me work out what you are to me.

But when the door clicked close, Elizabeth knew she was alone again. She layed there, dozing for a while. Basking in the scent her father left behind on the blanket. There was little and less to do around the house. He had no books for her to read. Mr and Mrs Robert were downstairs, she could go and spend some time with them. She could try to decipher their feelings towards Booker, and discover why they had them.

Maybe she could go down there this afternoon. She slowly opened her eyes and rolled over to face the door. Booker's desk was in the way, and she noticed a stack of papers sprawled out on top. His notes from the surveillance job. Elizabeth would have guessed that Booker wasn't great with his paperwork. She climbed to her feet and stared down at the desk while she boiled the kettle. The days and the times were all out of order. He had no shorthand for anything. Who would recommend him for more work if this was what he showed to his employers?

She quickly dressed in one of her new dresses and sat down at his desk with her coffee. She found a notepad in the middle drawer and set about re writing Booker's notes in some kind of order. At the very least, Mr Stokehouse would be getting notes that didn't have cigarette burns in them and that had to count for something. Elizabeth couldn't stop noticing how Booker never took notes at night.

The notes took her a few hours. She took her time, sipping her coffee and crunching down on an apple as she carefully and studiously re wrote her father's work. When she was finished, she left the notepad on his desk, but bundled up his original notes to file in case he still needed them. She opened the bottom drawer and something instantly caught her eye.

At first it was the dress. The woman on the cover was depicted as wearing a blue satin dress. Why would Booker have this? Is this a fashion book? She flipped through a few pages. Is this an anatomy book? A female anatom-

Oh.

She remembered references to this type of thing in some of Comstock's sermons. Books filled with pictures of women for men to look at. She almost dropped the book as the realisation set in. Booker had this book to fuel his desire when he masturbated. They book illustrated women in various, lewd poses in different states of undress. Occasionally a man was hastily drawn in as a prop for the woman, but the focus and the detail was on her. For Elizabeth, the pictures of the women, while interesting, were overshadowed by the few that had men in it. She had never thought sex could be so...complicated. The different ways the couple held each other seemed both unnecessary and wildly compelling. Some of the acts were completely scandalous for her, and seemed to defeat the purpose of sexual coupling as a means to achieve pregnancy, but still her wicked sense of curiosity kept her looking. Elizabeth felt a few emotions wash over her. There was a small sense of giddiness that she had found something secret of her Father's. There was curiosity as she flipped through the pages along with a sense of titillation. There was also an unmistakable sense of jealousy that Booker had at one point fantasised about these women.

Instead of you? Would you prefer it if he looked at you when he did that?

Before she closed the book and stuffed it back where she found it, she was drawn to look at the first page. It was one of the few pages that had a man depicted on it. The woman in the image had her legs wrapped around the man, who was standing against a wall. Her arms were hooked around his neck and she was kissing him. Elizabeth smirked with a small sense of pride when she realised that that was exactly how she had embraced Booker back on the First Lady. Only instead of kissing him, Elizabeth had her face buried in Booker's neck. He had not kissed her at all. She replaced the book and put the notes in the top drawer instead. She got herself a glass of water and sat in silence for a while before she decided to wander downstairs to see if the Roberts were there.

Mr Robert was sitting exactly where she thought he would be. The gruff old man smiled sweetly to her when he saw her come down the stairs.

"Hey there sweetheart."

"Hello, Mr Robert." Elizabeth plopped down in one of the other lounges. "How are you today?"

"Call me Bill Bob. And, same as usual, I'm afraid. What about you, not going out today?"

"Nah, just thought I'd stay in."

"Sweetie, you have been in New York for, what, two weeks? And you ain't only left your dad's shitty little apartment but that one time. Go out for a bit. I'm sure Mrs Robert will be happy to show you around."

Elizabeth shook her head. She made a promise to her excessively over protective father. She would stay in for now. "I'll wait for Booker to have a day away from work. He can take me out again."

Bill Bob looked unmistakably sad at her comment. For all his bravado and his gruff exterior, the man had incredibly expressive eyes. Reading him was getting easier and easier.

"Didn't he have a day away recently?"

"Yeah. Thursday."

"Did he take you out then?"

"No..." Booker had insisted he wanted to spend the day with her in the apartment. They had stayed in and he had taught her to play cards and tried to show her how to cook. She had loved that day. It was raining outside, so it's not like they could have gone anywhere. But the more she thought about, the more she remembered other people still walking the streets below their window, thinking nothing of the rain under their umbrellas. Instead Elizabeth had spent the day inside learning to bluff at poker and burning the food Booker had tried to teach her to cook. Elizabeth had made Booker laugh when she destroyed their dinner with her inept cooking skills. She felt awful at first, never comfortable with failure. But Booker was laughing, actually laughing. She had heard grunts, scoffs and the occasional sarcastic chuckle, but this was a proper laugh. He was sitting on his desk, watching her fail at cooking and laughing so hard Elizabeth had no choice but to start laughing with him. But Bill was right...why didn't Booker take her out that day?

Bill Bob grunted and looked back into his newspaper. "You oughta go out there and experience it all while you can."

Elizabeth felt a surge of bravery along with a strong desire to protect her father. He wasn't a bad man, Mr Robert. He's just worried about me.

"What do you think of him, Mr Robert? About my father? You've known him for so long, and you remember me as a baby." Before he could answer, Elizabeth then found herself asking a question that she wasn't aware she wanted to know the answer to. "Did you know my mother?"

Bill Bob rested the paper on his knee and looked off into the distance.

"You're mother was a sweet girl. Didn't your father ever tell you about her?"

"No." Not once. Not ever. He barely mentioned her before he even knew I was his daughter. He hasn't said a word about her since.

"Not even your grandparents?"

What? Oh yeah. The "ranch".

"No...not really."

"Well, she was sweet, like you. A good girl who got herself caught up in something she wasn't prepared for."

"What wasn't she prepared for?"

"You father. She wasn't prepared for the man your father is."

"And what type of man is that, Mr Robert?" Her voice said it all. As she learnt to read people, she learnt to be read herself. Tell me the truth, Mr Robert. Tell me the worst thing you know about him. He surprised her by treating her like the adult that her Father seemed to want to deny that she was.

"Listen, I hate to badmouth a man in front of his own child, but I feel I gotta warn you the same way I shoulda warned her. I saw him after he dragged that poor girl back here one evening, and I told him not to do it. She's a good girl, she has a good family. She coulda had a good life, but she was too drunk to see past the dangerous fella that was promising to show her a whole new world that she aint ever experienced. I told him to clean her up and send her back to her folks, but the idiot didn't listen. Shit, I shoulda dragged her back myself, but it wasn't my place."

Elizabeth looked back towards the corridor and imagined her father, twenty years younger, dragging a drunk, giggling woman up the stairs. A nameless, faceless woman who died to bring her into this world. If Bill Bob had intervened, what would have happened? Would Booker and this woman had let their relationship mature before she was conceived? Would whatever medical matters that killed her mother been resolved? Would she have a family? Would she have even existed? Would she not have these confusing thoughts about her father?

Boy. You sure do miss your doors, don't you?

"He made a mistake. They both did." She offered.

"Yeah, that they did. She knew it straight away. The fool your father was moved her right in to his place as soon as he found she was carrying you."

"Sound's like the responsible thing to do."

"Yeah, I thought so too, at first. But he came back deeper and deeper into his cups as time went on. With less money and even less work. She stayed up in the place, just like you are, waiting for him to be responsible. She died waiting for that.

Listen, I aint one to give out advice girl, but I have to give you this. You're the only good thing that came out of that sorry situation. Go out. Have a life. Don't wait for your father to show you shit. Keep in touch with him, by all means. He's your daddy, and I know he loves you. But if you're thinking about piecing together some type of real family here, I gotta tell you girl and I hate to say it, but you ain't gonna get it outta him. I'm sorry."

"Maybe he's changed." She whispered. She could feel the emotion welling up in her throat.

"Don't waste your time, sweet girl. I've seen nothing to make me believe that. He ships you away after a few bad months and never tries to get you back? Never visits? He's in your life now, and that's your decision. But he's not a man you want to be trustin for stability. He's not a family man, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth had heard enough. Booker had told her that Bill Bob was the man to go for when you were in need of a reality check. He sure wasn't kidding. She was even a little angry at him, talking about her father in that way. Not that she doubted what he said, Booker's past was a web of terrible decisions and mistakes, but she felt like she was the only one who got to judge him like that. She was the only one who could say weather or not he was a real father. But right now, she could neither agree or disagree with Bill.

"Thank you, Mr Robert." She got up, offering him an accepting smile. She wanted his opinion, and she got it. She didn't have to like it, but she respected it. "I appreciate it."

"I'm sorry if I upset ya, sweet girl. And call me Bill Bob."

She smiled and headed back to the stairs. The same stairs her mother stumbled up after her father so many years ago. To the same apartment he kept her cooped up in.

"Anytime you need to talk, or get out of the apartment for a bit. We're here for you."

Again, thank you guys for the comments. Having a little review pop up on my phone while I'm working or having a shitty day honestly lifts my spirits and makes me want to run home and keep a writin'.

Chefdonnie- Thank you! Keeping the characters in character is something I really try hard to do, so I am really glad when people notice. I have deleted so much of this story already because I didn't think the characters were right. I admit I struggle with Elizabeth, because yeah. How do you relate to all that she's been through? It's insane.

SilverThanatos- Thank you so much :) I have read and enjoyed some fics where they're not related, but for me it adds that level of angst and tragedy that's pretty hard to resist writing about. I haven't really had a big thing for shipping related characters (with the excepting of a couple of Lannisters) but these two just stole my heart. Then they crushed it.

anon - Thanks! I hope you're still hanging around :)

3501BlackDemon - Much appreciated :) Writing dialogue is my favorite, especially internal dialogue. Booker has a really distinct way of talking, (although I guess it would be common for that time) that I try to keep sticking to. I also imagine his inner monologue would be constantly trying to punish him and that's just super fun to write.

HeyiyaIf - Thank you for the kind comments! Before Bioshock I would have been mortified with this pairing, but like you said, they don't really have that relationship. I think I have had Booker refer to himself as Elizabeth's father, but only in his head and really only in a mocking sort of way. I do cringe a little bit too when I write the words 'father' and 'daughter' in relation to them, but it feels like a necessary discomfort because this is not supposed to be an easy, 'lovey dovey' romance. It's strong, but it's kind of twisted. I had someone describe it like a broken bone that has healed wrong, and I have to agree with that. Also, yeah, 'dear Elizabeth' does not feel like Booker at all, that's for sure. Kinda sounds more like Booker was channeling Comstock =/

Also, thanks for sending me that video. I do love some PJ Harvey. I had Good Fortune stuck in my head for about 3 months back when it came out. Good times :)

Cheese-kun - Thank you and you're welcome! I'm sorry I got you addicted! The least I can do is see it through to the end now that I've started. If you think Booker is overwhelmed by his role now, just wait for a bit ;) I am trying to do their relationship justice and it makes me so freaking happy when people notice :)