Heeeeeere's Chapter 08! I should be getting back to updating weekly, instead of fortnightly because I have more important things I should be doing and that pretty much guarantees that I will probably focus on this instead.

I also wrote the first physical scene between these crazy kids today. It has happened.

True to her word, Ruth dropped back the next day. She had a morning coffee with Elizabeth while telling her some of the more family friendly stories that she knew of New York. Over the weeks, the woman made a habit of returning and Elizabeth came to enjoy the funny, downtrodden woman. But as much as she enjoyed Ruth's company, Elizabeth still found herself staring hopefully out of the window. Booker had not relented his rule, and she had completely run out of guilt for comparing him to Comstock. At this point, she felt it was a just accusation. It had been over a month now since they had gone out. A month since their first day together, and Booker seemed uninterested in ever doing it again. He had another day away from work last week, but instead he spent the day drinking and going over his notes. She had given up feeling like she was being unreasonable, and started considering just walking out on her own. So she would break a promise, but he had promised her she would be free. Perhaps dishonesty ran in the family.

No, Elizabeth. You saw something behind that door. You saw it and it made you stay with him, remember? Let him adjust. Just...give him time?

But he was making it hard for her. He didn't want to leave the apartment with her. He snapped at her in the evening when she tried to talk to him. There was something about his work that bothered him. Judging from the notes that she still continued to rewrite for him, it might have been the boredom. It must have been worse at night...no matter how idle his mark was during the day, Booker always took notes. On the hour, every hour, even if the man was just sitting in his home. Elizabeth never found any notes for his night time surveillance. This little detail swam around in her mind as she listened to him trudge into their tiny apartment early in the morning. He went straight for the whiskey, a bit of food, then his camp on the floor. He hardly even spoke to her any more. The only conversation she got out of him and the only intimacy he would allow came when she crawled down onto the floor a few hours after he went to sleep. He would talk to her then, however briefly, before he fell back to sleep stroking her hair. He was always up before her in the morning, sometimes he even left before she was awake. All she was left with was his scent on the blanket and the memory in her head that she still used when she quietly whimpered his name. As angry as she got at him, it was nothing compared to her desire.

While he was gone, Elizabeth appreciated the company Ruth provided. She stopped by a few times a week to pick up and drop off their laundry. Ruth had offered to pick it up because Booker was working so much nowadays, but Elizabeth wasn't fooled. Booker was getting the woman to keep an eye on her. Instead of doing what he was supposed to do, he passed his responsibilities off onto another person. And Elizabeth was so desperate for company that she almost didn't mind. There was something about the woman that reminded her of Booker, and it went further beyond a shared love of whiskey. Elizabeth was appalled by her initial reaction to Ruth. When she first walked in the door, Elizabeth had wanted her to leave. There was something about seeing him close to a woman of his own age that made her feel...threatened. She had shaken off the feeling and remembered her manners, and as the night progressed she warmed to her. Elizabeth had little she could talk about, but Ruth was more than willing to fill and silence.

"Did you have a boyfriend back west?" Ruth offhandedly asked her one day.

So Booker had told Ruth the same bullshit lie about the ranch then. A normal girl would have had a male admirer at some point, wouldn't she?

"Yeah...for a while. He was sweet at first. He used to bring me presents a lot. Then he got controlling. He wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do. So I had to leave."

"Yeah...that's a trap a lot of women fall for. You don't have to worry about that any more. Any man wants to treat you bad, your Father's gonna sort them out."

Oh, my beloved father...

My father has mistreated me in more ways than I can describe. He abandoned me. He locked me in a tower. He put his hands up my skirt when he was masquerading as my saviour and made me feel things he then demanded that I deny. He then imprisoned me for a second time and refuses to tell me why. He has kept me in this horrible cycle of abandonment and confinement. Because of my father I have lived a life I cannot share with anyone but him, and now he pulls away from me again. No one else can know about who I really am. For everyone else there will only be lies.

Elizabeth witnessed Booker arguing with Ruth outside a few days earlier. She had gone downstairs to use the washroom and heard them out on the street. The woman was just as mad about Elizabeth's situation as she was. She yelled at the girl's father for longer than Elizabeth would have thought Booker would stand for. She heard her telling him that it wasn't fair and she needed to get out of the apartment. Ruth offered to take her out herself, just down to the markets. She heard her father's voice, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. Whatever he said, Ruth had relented. Elizabeth saw her storming down the street away from their apartment. Elizabeth never mentioned that she heard the argument, and neither Booker nor Ruth brought it up. He had said something to Ruth to justify her confinement, and Elizabeth could not imagine what it might be. Neither of them seemed to feel obliged to tell her the reason.

Ruth left after her coffee, giving the girl a long hug before she left. Elizabeth cleaned up their dishes and went back to her book, but she couldn't concentrate. Her eyes were being drawn to the door on the other side of the room. Booker always walked right past that door like it wasn't even there. He locked it, boarded it up and rejected what was inside. Just like he did with what they did on the First Lady. Just like he was now doing with her. He boarded up her childhood, boarded up her sexuality and now he wanted to board up the rest of her. Why? What was it about her that made him do this?

And why did she have to put up with it? You can fight back, Elizabeth. You can still open some doors, can't you?

She sprang to her feet, full of righteous determination and rushed downstairs. Bill Bob wasn't there for a change, but she rushed past the administration desk and into the closet next to the washroom. She saw it last time she was in here, and sure enough it was still there. She picked up the crowbar and dragged it back up to their apartment. The wood almost splintered apart while she wrestled with it. She cursed and grunted while the apartment was filled with the sounds of cracking wood. With a final snap the top board come off, clattering to the floor. She worked the second one for a bit longer, but eventually it cracked from the door frame and joined the other on the floor.

The lock was the easy part. Her hairpin poked and prodded in the old lock until it snapped open. She remembered the room from her dream. She remembered what was in there and what it meant, but she was wholly unprepared for what it would feel like to look at the scene of her father's biggest crime with her normal girl eyes.

The window was still open. He hadn't even bothered to shut it when he closed off this memory. The breeze from outside made the ragged curtains dance and the floor was stained with two decades of rain and dust. There was a shelf to her left, hastily bolted onto the wall, but it had nothing on it. There was a basket of dirty clothes in the corner, looking like they were ignored long before he had actually abandoned her. She didn't miss a couple of empty liquor bottles stashed away behind it.

And there it was. Sitting in the corner. Still after all these years she thought she could see signs of her presence. She could almost see the dent in the tiny mattress that her little form created. She could almost smell her own infant scent. She could almost see the blanket moving as her tiny legs kicked around. She could see the mobile suspended over her crib spinning around. The same mobile was still now, with no infant below it to watch it twirl. There were no toys in this place. There were no pictures for her to look at. No books that he should have read to her. All that there was in this room was despair, and it had already been here for a while before Booker closed the door for the last time.

It was at that moment that Elizabeth could not imagine seeing anything in her father's future that would be worth forgiving for this. Just like back in Columbia when he revealed himself to be the lying snake that he was, pretending he was going to take her to Paris, she hated herself for trusting him. She knew what he did, but she thought she was dealing with it. She thought they were going to fix their wounds one at a time so they could be together as a family. She was a fool, just like her father. There was no fixing this. Not now that she was standing right in front of it.

Elizabeth dropped to the floor. She just sat for a while, looking up at her old crib. She tried to imagine what it was like to be a child in this room. If she tried really hard, would the memories still be there? Would she look up from her crib and see her father's face? How would he look? Would he see a beloved daughter or a burden? Would he even come into the room if she cried? Did he regret that drunken night with her mother every time she had cried for his attention?

She stayed on the floor with her thoughts until she heard the rustle of keys in the front door. The door softly clicked closed and she heard his footsteps behind her. She didn't have to turn around to see him to guess his reaction. The tentative sound of his footsteps as he walked back into this room was enough.

"Elizabeth?" He asked softly, his voice already filling with emotion. "What are you doing?"

"Did you hate me the whole time?" She asked, ignoring his question.

"It's not like that..." He protested. "I didn't hate you..."

"What was it then?" She snapped, still not turning to face him. "What was it? Huh?"

"I was young...younger than you are now. I had no idea what I was doing."

"Yeah. You still don't, do you?"

"No. Not really."

She sat there quietly, staring at her crib. She heard Booker take a few more steps into the room behind her. The anger that had been growing under the surface since they returned from Columbia boiled at the sound of his footsteps. She stayed silent for a while, not sure of what she could even say. Not entirely sure of what she wanted to say. Here it is, Booker. A room full of your failures. Your crimes. Deal with it. I would help you, but I seem to have developed a few of my own.

"Why did you do it?" She asked. She could feel the tears in her eyes, but she needed to know. "Was it just the debt? Or did you want to get rid of me?"

"It was the debt, Elizabeth. That's it. I was not taking care of you very well, but I never wanted to be rid of you."

"What about now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want me gone now? Am I still too much to deal with?"

He didn't answer and it broke her heart. The heavy silence she felt from behind her compelled her to turn around. The pain was written all over his face and the guilt broke through her anger. Of course he would want to get rid of you when you did things like this, Elizabeth. He was just a lonely drunk before you came back into his life. Now he's a lonely drunk who has his painful memories dredged up and scrutinised.

"Elizabeth..."

She started to shake her head as she turned back to the crib. No, no, no he wasn't going to say this...

"Jesus, I dunno...maybe if I talk to a few people...I might be able to find somewhere for you..."

She felt the tears fall onto her cheeks and run hot down to her jaw.

"I can send you money, and I would come and see you...you'll have a place on your own..."

She felt herself standing on her shaking legs. No no no. He wasn't going to do this again. He wasn't going to reject her again. It was too much. She couldn't handle it. Not even the promise of true freedom was enough to make up for the fact that he was about to send her away again.

"It might be for the best, Elizabeth...I can't-"

Once on her feet she moved to him. He took a few steps back, but found the wall before instead of escape. She had barely registered what she was doing before she had her mouth on his. She just wanted to stop him from saying these hurtful things about sending her away. She wanted to be close to him. She wanted to punish him. She wanted to love him. She wanted to hurt him. She did all of those things as she hooked her arms behind his neck and lifted herself until her legs wrapped around his waist. Just shut up, Booker. Feel me. Remember who I am. Remember what we did. You were my saviour back then, when did it change? Why did it have to change?

He caught her out of instinct, but she felt his body tense up against hers. He held her awkwardly for a few seconds, his hands trying not to caress her thighs while she planted quick, desperate kisses onto his unresponsive lips. But he didn't push her off. He didn't set her down on the floor right away. After a few awkward moments of ineffectively pressing her mouth to his, she felt his lips stir. She felt them open, and she opened hers in response. There was one fleeting moment where she was sure she felt his tongue brush against her lips and his hands gently rubbing her legs before he roughly set her back on the ground, covering his mouth and turning into the corner of the room.

Elizabeth turned back to her old crib, her head swimming with too many conflicting thoughts and her stomach churning with guilt and uncertainty. She wanted her freedom, but she wanted him. She wanted her father, but she wanted a lover as well. She wanted her childhood back, but she wanted to be exactly how it was now. She wanted to love him, but she wanted him to know how much she hated him. She wanted him to leave, but she wanted him to grab her and kiss her.

"Liz'beth..." She heard the emotion boiling to the surface when he spoke. "What you just did then...it's not a joke, ok? It's not a fuckin' game."

"I know..."

"You can't just kiss me like that..."

"I know!" Her fingers hooked around the railing to her crib. She heard him pacing behind her and the realisation crystallised. What happened back in columbia, happened without knowing. Booker's words came back to her, and she finally realised their significance. It wasn't right then, it sure as hell ain't right now. What had she done? How bad was it, really? Was he definitely going to send her away again?

"Look..." He started. "I'm gonna go for a bit, ok?"

She turned to look at him, knowing the fear was written all over her face. Even as hurt as she was, she hated the thought of being alone again. The look on his face was worse. She almost wished she had never learnt to read him. His handsome face looked old and haggard. He always had those lines on his forehead, why did they look so prominent now? He had a few streaks of grey in his hair when they met, but now she felt responsible for each and every one. What was she doing to him?

"I'm gonna come back. But just for a few hours...I promise. I just gotta clear my head."

All she could do was nod at him, not trusting her voice. He quickly embraced her before he left, moving his mouth to the top of her head, but stopping short of planting a kiss there.

"Just wait for me, baby...please?"

"I've waited enough..."

"I know, I know...I'm sorry."

With his apology lingering in the air, she let him leave. She waited in her old room until the front door clicked closed and she heard his heavy footsteps descending the stairs. She collected herself and decided she had had enough of this room for today. She moved the loose bits of wood into the corner of the room, shut the window against the onslaught of rain that had been brewing all day and carefully closed the door.