lucetilogs | Zompania Draft - Draftees and Reinforcements, mid-day 4-early 7

[Booker hates this. Mostly because there's a familiarity of these long quiet moments that are worse than the battles themselves where you have to force yourself to do normal things like eat, sleep, and try to keep yourself entertained. He can remember himself and the other enlisted idiots laughing about almost anything, but that wasn't quite the guerrilla warfare this is.

Still. He's holding up better than a lot of people, which makes Elizabeth's deflation stand out even more because she lasted through Columbia.

Booker might make it his own personal mission to keep her from going too numb. Keeping her busy, occupied with something - anything - is the one way he knows how to do that.]

Here. Drink this.

[He pushes a canteen at her and drops down at her side (It's just water but it's cold. It's more than Booker could say for a lot of things right now.) before pulling out a packet of food for himself...some kind of grain or something like it - he can't be bothered to remember what granola is called right now.]

[Elizabeth snaps out of her stupor when Booker hands her the canteen and sits down next to her. It does the trick: she focuses on unscrewing the lid, sniffing it tentatively (can he blame her?) and taking a sip. Cold, cold and clean and everything she needed at that moment.]

[Well, not quite.]

[She pulls her legs up and tucks herself against Booker's shoulder.] ...There wasn't a siphon out there, but I still couldn't see everything clearly. But I know I saw something. Something that... I know meant you didn't come to Columbia just to settle your debts. Something else happened to you, to make you come and get me.

[He can't pretend he doesn't tense up as she speaks. Especially with her leaning against him like they were just discussing the weather instead of...

this.

He abuses the silence a mouthful of food gives him and takes his time chewing and swallowing, thinking of a way to answer her.

It sounded like she already knew. Why did she want him to say it, why beat around the bush why...God, why bring this up.

All of these questions were utterly pointless. He knew why.]

What'd you see?

[He wants to know. Know what he has to explain specifically. If he can omit details he will.]

You told me there wasn't a child, that Anna died in childbirth and there wasn't a child. You lied to me. [She sounds like she's finally found the ability to cry, though it's because she's feeling someone else's pain. Is it healthy or normal? She doesn't know, she can't figure it out now and she doesn't want to.]

I saw Comstock take your baby. Take... the last bit of family you had left. I saw you fighting him. I saw-- [The tears finally spill over.] I saw the baby reach for you, as though it realized it was being kidnapped by someone who was not their father.

Was that me? [Elizabeth grips Booker's arm and she's got a grip that says she's not letting go no matter what, but she's crying too much to look at him.] Was I that baby? Is that how I lost my family?

[The peek into the truth she had is riddled with holes and Booker stops himself from piecing it together further than she had. He was taking back what he had given away and not only to a madman but...to himself.

It was probably a horrible idea to let her in on that revelation, or at least that was the excuse Booker lent himself as he let a deep breath out he didn't realize he had been holding in.]

Elizabeth... [child.] I'm sorry.

[Booker did his best not to sound as if he were tearing at the seams confronting this truth. He didn't deserve to be that put out.]

[Elizabeth squeezes Booker's arm tighter, taking that apology as a confirmation of what she suspected. She'd seen herself kidnapped by Comstock. Obviously given to Comstock as part of a deal at first, but then Booker had tried to call it off and get her back. The thought had haunted her, obviously. What sort of parent sold their child?]

[But she could do the math. Booker had been younger than Elizabeth was now. He'd made a mistake because he hadn't known any better, but he'd grown up in the moment that he'd realized what he'd done.]

[She cries harder, and she can barely speak coherently.]

Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me-- I would have loved you from the start...!

[Booker wants so much to turn and hold her as she breaks down, clutching his arm and asking him why he didn't tell her he was exactly what Comstock warned her he was. No one knew him better.

But silence wasn't something he could hide in now and for a moment - he'd forgotten that they were in the midst of a destroyed city.]

Elizabeth I -- I sold you. He offered me money and I gave him --

What kind of a parent does that? [A pretty awful one.]

You were better off not knowing...

[You were better off just thinking I was your friend.]

You were a child. I'm barely older than you were then, I was a naive little girl back then not at all capable of raising another person. And you'd lost Anna, you must have been... terrified!

[Yes, it was true that part of her reeled at thoughts of what could have been. She could have been Booker's daughter, grown up in a home instead of a prison, known love instead of strict restraint. But she'd decided during the draft that if Booker was her father, she would rather embrace what she had lost than lose it entirely. Her friend, her first hope.]

Comstock... was a monster. He wanted me, and he probably tricked you into thinking I would have a better life with him. That I would have a mother, and a comfortable bed, and more to eat than anyone could imagine. He probably promised all kinds of things... and back then I probably wasn't so pretty, or capable of telling you what I needed or wanted. He preyed on you, you were his victim as much as I was his victim.

But you were offered a chance to get me back-- and you took it...! [Elizabeth buries her face in Booker's shoulder again and cries.] You came through a tear to get me...!

[Hearing her try to make reason of what he had done, what he did to her. It was too much. Booker suddenly feels crowded and overwhelmed. Cornered. Curling his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms, he tries to make his nerves and senses focus on something else. But sweat is already breaking out at his brow.]

Elizabeth I -- [No. No he can't use excuses, he can't try to make this anything that it isn't. The facts are all that he has now and he doesn't want Elizabeth operating on the knowledge that he was an unwilling victim in this. He had been perfectly willing.]

I sold you. I needed money and that was the deal. You for my problems going away, alright?

[He hears himself getting more edgy, more frightened, more defensive of this - him and Elizabeth, their friendship, their comradery - being destroyed by his mistakes.

But lying to her when she knows the truth is stupid.]

So don't...don't try and make this sound like anything that it isn't.

[That was one way of telling it, it was true. But Elizabeth didn't want to believe that Booker had sold her without a second thought. She couldn't believe it.]

[She stops crying, swallows hard and quiets down. Then she reaches out and yanks on Booker's tie to get him to look at her.]

If that was all it was, me for money, then why did you try to call it off? Explain that away.

[Being tugged toward her makes his head spin and he winces, feeling as though having her look at him betrays his mind to her.]

Because I made a mistake!

[He hissed it, confused and unsure. The draft and everything that had happened so far piling up under his terror.] I felt guilty, so what?

So what? [Elizabeth's eyes dart around Booker's face, almost as though she were trying to memorize it before he looked away and never looked at her again. Almost as though she were seeing him for the first time again, and wondering if he was real.]

A lot of people made mistakes when it came to wronging me, Booker. [She let go of his tie.] Only three people tried to do something to fix it. Everyone else just kept going, as though nothing was wrong!

[She looks back at him, back on the thin line between composure and weeping.] Did you come to Columbia because you felt guilty? Twenty years later?

[Booker stays silent for a moment, swallows compulsively and his eyes shift everywhere as if he's trying to find the answer anywhere but her face when he suddenly spits out:]

Yes.

[...]

No.

[...]

I don't know! I wanted...I wanted to find you. I'd...I couldn't find you.

[20 years of searching. 20 years of trying to find a man who didn't exist in his world. When the same man who had made the trade appeared in his apartment, he didn't even ask how it was possible. He just went.]

I'm right here. [Elizabeth slides her hand back into Booker's, she's not going to take any argument from him either. She reaches up to put her hand on his cheek too, trying for a more gentle method of making him look at here.]

You found me, I'm right here. [She tears up again.] That week, when we were a family and I was your daughter, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted it to be true. I've wanted a family for as long as I can remember. [She squeezes his hand, thinking she's going to have to look down soon so she can cry. But she keeps looking, steels herself.] Please don't hurt me, just so you can hurt yourself some more. Please don't lose me again.

[It takes that. It takes Elizabeth telling him he's causing them both pain when he tells her the things he thinks he needs to say because they're what he deserves, for him to realize that he's not just punishing himself.

It's what stops him from telling her he isn't good enough to be her actual father. Biology and choice aren't the same thing and he wouldn't be anyone's choice.

It stops him from saying that and his only alternative there is to hug her. He practically lashes out and clings to her but his chin is tucked over the back of her shoulder while his arms press against her back and don't crush her against him - it's all he can do to keep himself from weeping at the thought of what could be and what is.

He consoles himself with the knowledge that he would have been a horrible father; always drunk, never enough work or money. It was always something.]

I won't.

[Booker says it with the utmost solemnity. As if he were making a vow to God himself. Which request of Elizabeth's he's answering is a mystery.]

[Perhaps if Elizabeth had grown up as Anna with a father who was always drunk and could never pay his bills she would have wanted someone different. If she had grown up without knowing what Booker had braved for her, she wouldn't have chosen him.]

[But even given a choice, Elizabeth wouldn't pick anyone else. She mattered to him, he knew her, accepted her, tried in his own way to make her happy. She thought about those snatches of Gai's songs she heard Booker plucking out on his guitar, and Nemo, and the gun he'd given her to keep her safe during the draft. Money, sobriety, what were they worth if she didn't have love?]

[She clings back, her arms over Booker's shoulders, tears rolling down her cheeks again.] I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't figure it out. This whole time, we could have been a family.

[Booker refused to believe that Elizabeth wasn't the only one breaking down. After the curtain had been pulled back on the sum of his offenses against her, he expected so much worse than a tearful, bittersweet pseudo-reunion. But - a pessimistic voice reminded him - she didn't know the truly terrible parts of it.

He'd have to tell her, and the thought of it reaping his terrifying fantasies of all the ways she could take it makes him try to hold her closer even if it is impossible.]

Don't. Don't do that.

[He didn't elaborate but he knew that if she started doing that now the list of 'what could have been' would have been a nagging, all-consuming thought in the back of her mind for a long, long time. It probably would be no matter what but, as if it would stop her from thinking it, Booker didn't want her to vocalize it.]

Don't do what? [Elizabeth looks nervous for a moment and loosens her grip on Booker. She didn't think she could hurt Booker by squeezing him, but maybe she was pinching him...?]

Don't wonder about that kinda stuff. It's... it ain't good.

[He offers it up lamely, as he if doesn't think he should be allowed to say it. Despite this, Booker follows it up with another clarification because he's nervous and he always starts speaking in staccato when he gets like this.]

For you.

Oh... [Elizabeth thinks about it for a moment, and realizes Booker's right. If she thought about how her childhood would have been different, or what it would have been like to go to the library or the park with Booker, she would just start crying.]

We have all the time in Luceti now, though. I'll be the best daughter to you, we'll have time together. [She nods encouragingly-- even if Booker thinks he doesn't deserve it, Elizabeth wants it. A relationship with a father figure.]

[Booker doesn't really know what to say to that. Of course he wants that, Actually having Elizabeth as a daughter and living in that kind of world that had existed for a week or so. The one where they had been family. But, as ever, Booker doesn't think that with the laundry list of sins he has - that this is really how it should be for him.

But Elizabeth deserves a family. The one she wants and if he is somehow apart of that then why should he try and fight it?

It might be the draft, it might be...well, everything. Booker doesn't understand his mind half as well as he might think and he listens to the enticing idea that this might be really happening.]

Sure.

[A smile spreads -- easily this time, if not a little watery. How bad could it be to just...let it happen?

He could regret it later. ]

That's all you can say? 'Sure'? [Though from her own watery smile and laugh, Booker can probably tell that Elizabeth is teasing him. She's happy, at the very least, if not doing exactly what Booker her warned her against: playing scenarios of what could have been.]

I don't... know how to be anyone's daughter though. Is it like how we were in Columbia? Looking after each other? More Sunday picnics? [She flashes a wry smile.]

You think I know how to be anyone's father?

[It's very easy to see the similarities between them now, the sharp tick up on their more bitter smiles and the way experience weighs down on them both.

This is possibly the last conversation he wanted to have here.]

We'll...

[He shrugs, unsure. But not uninterested.]

We can try and figure it out as we go.

[Elizabeth pauses for a moment to take that in and consider it. Then she nods, smiling.] Okay. I'll figure it out with you, as we go.

[She's just happy they have something to work on together. Something that would, hopefully, bring them closer and give them both that bond they had been looking for.]

So what do I call you? Daddy? [She grins and shoulders him lightly.] I can't see me calling you 'Father'.

[Booker cringes - almost comically, but it's meant to be so because he smiles afterwards. Almost laughing as he shrugs his shoulder into her, mimicking her.]

I think we can stick with Booker. Unless you wanna try something else out.

[He's just gonna stick with whatever nicknames he manages to come up with on the fly.]

Zompania Draft - Draftees and Reinforcements, mid-day 4-early 7

Day 7 because clearly we can get sadder

ALWAYS

YAY

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i'm so not sorry

Fair enough. 8|a

weeeeeeeeh

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