lucetilogs | It's all a matter of perspective

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It's all a matter of perspective

Who: Booker DeWitt, Elizabeth and Robert Lutece
What: Intro time!
When: July 12th
Where: At the conflux in the rivers
Summary: Booker's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day just got worse. (Or better depending on how you look at it.)
Rating: S for sadness, sass, swearing and spoilers below the cut.

"He's Booker DeWitt."

"He's Zachary Comstock."

"No...I'm both."

It was much more peaceful than he deserved, and yet much more violent than he wanted. There was more love than he deserved and more hate than he thought could be mustered. But then again, he didn't know the women that rallied for his death. He knew Elizabeth. It was a comfort to have that be the last thing he saw. He didn't have the time to feel guilty for making her push him down into the water - for holding him under when he tried to claw at the arms pressed against his chest, the arms wrapped around his to keep him immobile. Trying not to struggle was the hardest thing he'd ever done. As much as he knew gulping in the water would be easier for him, he couldn't make himself open his mouth. He couldn't force against the instinct to survive despite the knowledge that he couldn't.

He had to die.

Booker had hoped that death would offer relief. One thing about that struck him as odd: that he still had the capacity to hope after everything was said and done. Elizabeth must have rubbed off on him.

It seemed like hours before he blacked out, just before he could remember finally breathing in - a reflex, a stupid involuntary reflex and it made everything suddenly peaceful.

Then nothing.

But he could suddenly remember this...

His lungs burned and his muscles felt heavy but there was nothing holding him down as he lay suspended in the water; it was instinct to swim to the surface. Instinct to try and breech and suck in a lung-full of desperate air. The water was calm, lazy, and the sun was missing while Booker floundered in the water trying to get a full breath between the fits of coughing up river-water. It was impossible to comprehend the sudden fact that he wasn't dead or dying when that was the very last thing he was aware of.

Finding his feet and standing in the muck of the riverbed, Booker stood. Still attempting to breath properly wasn't doing much for him as far as figuring out what the hell happened but it was the most he could do.

Booker DeWitt was left thinking one thing and one thing only: Did it work?

He couldn't see the wings soaking and plastered to his back. Or the pile of his clothes on the river-bank.

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"There are loved ones in the glory, Whose dear forms you often miss..."

"When you close your earthly story, Will you join them in their bliss...?"

Elizabeth hummed the next phrase, pausing to pick up a fallen leaf and tuck it between the pages of her journal. Life had been quiet since Robert had arrived--a little strange, but quiet enough. There had been a lot for Elizabeth to process, and strangely enough retreating into her books hadn't done very much for her state of mind.

So she walked. It was a beautiful day, beautiful overcast weather. And maybe she had wandered a bit too far, but she kept pulling Robert along with promises that they would go back after just five minutes more.

Her head turned at the sound of splashing. They were by the river, weren't they? They had wandered far away from the village, maybe further than Elizabeth should have led them. But from the sound, Elizabeth figured someone was in distress in the water. It was a familiar thing for her, and more and more New Feathers were turning up lately.

"Do you hear that?" Elizabeth called back to Robert, already starting to diverge off of the path and move towards the river. Of course he heard it, but it was signal enough that she was pulling them onto a slight detour.

It was someone in the water, coming out of it at least. Ah, how terrible, this was just like how she had arrived. Wet and confused and entirely disoriented. At least she was there to--

To...

Elizabeth stopped her quick movement down the bank, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. Even soaked to the skin, Elizabeth recognized him immediately. Who would forget the face of someone so close and important?

She should have paused for Robert's reaction maybe, but Elizabeth just ran forward, dropping her journal on the way. Was she happy? Was she sad Booker was there? Was he even real?

If he wasn't, Elizabeth wouldn't regret falling straight through an illusion into the water. She would regret hesitating.

"Booker!"

Robert Lutece had seen better days. It didn't quite show, not obviously. Not yet. He'd found his clothes, and his jacket was blissfully unaltered, so it kept the eyesores on his back out of sight. His hair was combed, and he looked like a gentleman again. However, below the surface, visible to a close observer, there were tell-tale signs of strains. The skin under his eyes was beginning to darken from going until he was exhausted and then finally falling asleep in a chair or on the sofa. He had also started to lose weight. Nothing dramatic yet, but the warning signs of it were becoming visible after four days having contained only two meals. He was unused to eating, and only twice, so far, had Elizabeth thought to ask him whether he'd seen to getting himself something, at which point he would remember he hadn't.

Not, of course, that he admitted to the full extent of his forgetfulness. He concerned himself with her, it wasn't supposed to be the other way 'round.

The exercise was good for him. It reminded him of better days. Days before and after his arrival in Columbia when, perplexed by a problem with equations or a blockage of ideas, he would wander city streets for fresh air. Often well past a "safe" hour to be out. This, in its own way, was very much like that. He had to observe Elizabeth, make sure this stronger syphon this place seemed to have wasn't causing her any harm. Other than a difficulty with her tears, of course, but her health was what he worried over more. Still, he'd seen no signs of that. Which left his mind free to wonder over the idea of getting out. Or bringing in. Elizabeth, of course, had to go back eventually. Not to Comstock, no, but to DeWitt. And to the New York she belonged to. However, there was no reason he could not stay here... especially if he could figure out how to bring Rosalind to him. Or he would do as he had before and follow her.

Robert heard Elizabeth and responded with patient apathy. Aquatic distress or not, he saw no reason to consider it his responsibility. Still, he understood when she did. How she'd developed the need to nurture that she had, he didn't know. Perhaps it was buried deep in the genetic code and only wanted for bringing out. Maybe that should be his next area, should physics ever prove to have been thoroughly explored. He waited by the path, well in sight of the meeting of the waters and able to see Elizabeth clearly. He already knew they would have a third walker with them by the time she was done.

What surprised him was the name. He took a second look and saw Elizabeth going into the water, but he looked past her at the man and approached, stopping on the bank.

It was Mister DeWitt.

...How very interesting.

"Elizabeth? What...," he trialed off, moving instead to just hug the girl lest he allow her to see just how confused he was.

It was a sad statement that he didn't look at this scene and think it was impossible. They had done the impossible, they'd seen it in action. Seeing Elizabeth now wasn't so much shocking as it was simply surprising. And a relief at first...but then as she waded into the water he thought to himself:

She shouldn't know who I am.

To his understanding, destroying himself before he became Comstock would destroy whatever future where he could have some power over Elizabeth. But then again he wasn't sure he understood half of what was explained to him. How could he be sure it hadn't worked?

Even though Booker was soaking wet, Elizabeth charged right into the riverbed, shoes and all, and threw herself into his arms. He knew who she was, he was alive and looked unhurt for the most part. When he was from and what he remembered was irrelevant at that moment, because he was there.

"I knew you were fine, everyone told me it would be like I had never left but-- I still worried," she laughed, a distinct waver in her voice as she tried to keep herself together. "You'd be lost without me around!"

Robert watched them, and he sorely missed his ability to go from one place to another at will. So far as he could see, he had no place there. That moment was about the two of them. Still, he didn't have that then, and it would have called too much attention to walk away, so he stood, waited, and watched.

Elizabeth was happy. That much said everything he needed to know. DeWitt? Well. He'd acted appropriately enough for the present. He didn't need to immediately intervene.

You're being sentimental again.

"Hm."

He looked to his left, about to continue, but stopped. No. Rosalind wasn't there. Again, his imagination had supplied that familiarity. With a shake of his head, he looked back to the other two.

"You don't have to worry about me, y'know. I'm here now, we're okay." It wasn't all reassurance for her, but if it sounded like it then that was fine.

He could pretend that the water was still dripping down his cheeks was from the river. He could pretend that this wasn't ripping open the scabs that had grown over his heart. Pretending didn't hurt anything here.

He folded her tighter into his arms, happy to see her whole and missing that haunted look he'd seen before he slipped away. It was an innocent enough moment of silence between them before he felt a tickle...like there were feathers or something. Curiosity peaked, Booker opened his eyes and had to blink several times --

-- there were wings on Elizabeth's back - what the hell?

"Elizabeth?"

Booker pressed back on her shoulders - putting unwanted space between them...as much as he didn't want to focus on it he couldn't help himself.

He sounded wary, just as he might've in Columbia where there was a threat around every corner. He didn't put faith into the idea that Heaven could be a possibility for a man such as himself but Elizabeth he could believe being an angel.

He suddenly wondered if this was all meant to taunt him, to allow him a moment of reprieve before making him serve his sentence for a lifetime of crimes. It wouldn't surprise him, not after Columbia and all it's madness.

He had yet to register the man standing at the bank, and perhaps that was for the better.

"Yes, we're okay," she nodded, still trying very hard to keep her voice in check. It was getting harder to keep herself from actually crying, though. Elizabeth had worried, almost every day, that Booker was dead or dying somewhere because she was trapped in a place she couldn't get out of. Obviously though, she had worried for no reason. Being so carefree for so many years had turned her paranoid, apparently.

She was going to let Booker hold onto her as long as he wanted to--even though she thought it was a little odd. Maybe he was still trying to get to her in Comstock House, or she'd just been taken away by Songbird. That must have been why he was holding onto her as though his life depended on it.

Though suddenly, he was pushing her back. Elizabeth blinked, surprised, and managed not to slide backwards and into the water. But she was confused--and Booker looked wary or concerned. Something.

"What? What, Booker?"

Robert's eyes narrowed briefly at the way DeWitt pushed her back. His muscles tensed, and his lips pressed into a narrow line. He watched all the more intently, ready to intervene if necessary. After all, DeWitt was a hard one to predict. One moment he'd be shooting up a storm, the next trying to convince a girl not to run away from him. Now...

Well. This place had thrown him off. Someone like DeWitt? Especially depending on how much he knew or remembered or had seen.

He paused, hands around her shoulders going between holding her and simply resting there, not really sure about how to ask point blank where she shot those things on her back. He still hadn't seen his or Roberts, so for now Elizabeth was his only concern.

"...Those wings aren't real are they?"

Yeah, no. They're just the result of some weird tear she was playing around with that's all. Nothing out of the ordinary here. A little poof and they'd be gone again.

Right. That was important too. The fact that Booker was trapped here too, now. It wasn't as though she hadn't had the time to feel a little guilty about wishing Booker was there with her. Now that she was actually faced with it, it was a little easier because she'd thought about what she would do or say. Not that she was doing or saying any of the things she thought she would do or say, but at least she knew what not to say.

"They are..." And she moved them a little to indicate. "You have them too, so does Mr. Lutece--" Elizabeth cast a glance backwards to the other man present. "--and everyone else here.

"We're not in Columbia--well, obviously we're not. But we're also not on Earth. We're in an enclosure for experimental subjects, called Luceti."

Okay, that was point number one. Before she laid any more on, Elizabeth wanted to wait and see how Booker took those bits of information.

At the sight of Elizabeth looking back toward him, Robert straightened a little. Well, he was no longer an unknown spectator. Mister DeWitt would be very aware of him now.

Which was part of why he approached the riverbank. Not getting into the water, no, but walking to the edge of the water.

If he wasn't having a Blue Screen of Death moment before, he definitely was now.

"What--," the hell. Booker's hands dropped from Elizabeth as he tried looking over the back of his shoulder to the wings, which might have been funny if not for how peculiar it was, and weakly exhaled a panicked breath. Wings. He had wings. Lutece had wings. Elizabeth had wings.

"What the hell is Luceti?" He shot Robert a look that spoke of complete bewilderment and distrust. This was something he'd done, wasn't it? Bastard couldn't just let things happen without adding his own helping hand. Booker looked almost ready to punch the man, if it would only connect.

"You couldn't just let it alone, could you?" He shouted at the man on the bank, his anger short lived and slipping into a desperation that Robert would possibly find familiar.

He was taking this to mean that killing him, ending Comstock before he could become that horror show of a man did nothing. It only screwed everything up further. Things wouldn't be fixed like Elizabeth had told him they would be.

"Booker!" Elizabeth stepped forward and held onto Booker by his shoulders. He sounded angry, and Elizabeth was getting the feeling that pointing out Robert's presence had been a mistake. Even if she wasn't sure why Booker was yelling at Robert, she knew that violence could follow if she didn't put herself between Booker and his target (and sometimes even that didn't deter him).

"Booker he didn't do anything. I got here before he did, months before!

"Luceti's the name of the enclosure we're in. It looks like a village in the middle of a forest, but there's a dome around it. There's over a hundred people being kept here, not just the three of us."

"This wasn't my doing." Any casual tone Robert had been beginning to adopt with Elizabeth disappeared when he spoke. He even straightened a little to go with it.

And it certainly wasn't mine.

"Certainly not." Yep... One-sided conversation is a-go.

Of course the problem--

"Is that neither of us knows--"

Exactly where we are--

"Or how we got here."

His attention shifted away from the empty space to his side to Booker, and he tilted his head a bit.

"It is my theory, though, that this is some part of the possibility space that we do not yet understand to its fullest. A sort of limbo, in layman's terms."

He doesn't quiet stop there, but the next part is to himself, a sort of aside. "It may even be the result of the anomaly created by the experiment's success. Or, at least, our presence here is a direct result of that."

...Jesus he's broken.

Great. Robert Lutece is broken, they all have wings and Elizabeth has been here for months.

"You've been okay, right? They haven't tried to...," Booker has to wonder - if she's been here for months...is this some version of Elizabeth that didn't get away from the scientists when they were experimenting on her? Elizabeth had told him she was there a long time but she never told him how long...

Maybe this was -- God, this time-travel crap made his head hurt.

"Elizabeth when did you last see me?"

He needs to place her. Booker doesn't want to tell her what she did worked unless she knows about it. He doesn't see the red imprints of hands on his arms and chest, dictating what had transpired in the river. It seemed like a dream but Booker's body remembers it better than he can right now.

Elizabeth cast a sympathetic glance back at Robert. She was more used to this than Booker was. Having lived alone (save for one occasional half-friend, half-jailer) all of her life, she could understand why Robert was missing his partner. She had been despondent over losing Booker, twice even, and they had only been running around together for... two days? Robert had been Rosalind's other half for years. She had tried to keep the both of them from being lonely, reminding Robert to eat and sleep when she could. But she still wasn't Rosalind by any stretch of the imagination.

She turned back to Booker to give an explanation for Robert's odd behavior, but his first question drove it out of her mind. "No," she said quickly, the phantom sensation of Booker pulling that plug out of her running down her spine. It hurt, even as a memory. "No... nothing like that." But there had to be some sort of siphon, clearly, because Elizabeth could barely hold a tear open here. But it wasn't the leash, by any stretch of the imagination.

Elizabeth's eyes had gone unfocused as she tried to push away the very real, very visceral memory of that last procedure Elizabeth underwent before Booker had come back for her. She came back when he asked what the last thing she remembered was, and noticed the red marks on him. Of course, her first instinct was to help somehow. Like she had with all of his injuries. But there was something about these that scared her, even if they weren't nearly as bad as a knife through his hand or a bullet in his shoulder. Elizabeth reached out--almost touching the awful marks that were, God, almost the size of her hand.

"You were shouting about dropping the whistle. Songbird had destroyed the tower, and he was coming back for you." She looked back up, fingers still refusing to touch one of the marks on his arm. "Did he do this to you?"

For his part, Robert understood those marks. They were an assurance to him that... not everything had gone wrong. That he hadn't just invented the memory of the "baptism." It wouldn't have been the first time his mind had attempted to give him false memories to make the present more bearable. He couldn't quite understand yet how it was that he had... not suffered similarly this time as well. Perhaps because, as he'd said, this was more like limbo. It was something closer to the possibility space -- the interim -- than a world unto itself.

He approached the bank, keen on getting a better look. Maybe he could understand more with this subject. After all, he would only ask so much of Elizabeth. DeWitt... Well. What did he care about DeWitt's comfort? They were even now. They'd set their wrongs aright, but that hardly meant he had to show concern for the other man.

"What?" Booker's gaze shoots down to where Elizabeth is reaching and flinches at seeing them. They would fade in time - a few hours even - but for now they might as well have been bleeding him dry with how starkly the marks stood out from his skin.

Speaking of. Jesus Christ he was practically nude; waist-deep in water...but white pants weren't going to cut it.

"No it...it wasn't him --," Booker happened to look in the right direction of the bank because he cut himself off with a: "Hey, are...are those my clothes over there?"

Distracting Elizabeth? He's going to make an effort. Also, he's just a little perplexed at seeing his clothes folded up neatly on the ground. Like someone knew he was coming and just laid them out in case he wanted them.

Under normal circumstances, Elizabeth would have pursued the subject. But she didn't have her medical supplies with her, and even if she did what could she do for the welts? No, the best thing was to get Booker clothed.

She looked back over her shoulder, that familiar red tie a very apt red flag denoting Booker's clothes were on the bank.

"It looks like it..." Elizabeth looked back at Booker's injuries, but then felt slightly embarrassed about holding Booker, more than half naked, in the middle of the river while she fussed. More importantly though, Booker couldn't walk back to the village with soaked pants. Elizabeth knew, first-hand, how the New Feather garments clung when they were wet.

"You must be freezing, let's find someplace for you to get dressed. Mr. Lutece!" Elizabeth turned around and started wading back through the water. Her walk back, on the other hand, was going to be a little unpleasant... "Mr. Lutece, would you help Mr. DeWitt find someplace to dry off and change his clothes? I think it would be best if I waited here..."

With her back very, very firmly turned. Something about imagining Booker naked just made Elizabeth want to wash her eyeballs.

At least DeWitt's clothes had turned up close at hand. Robert knew the particular displeasure in having to go to the village clad just in what those in charged deemed fit for their new arrivals.

Robert swept forward, taking the clothes up in his arms. "I agree. I'll assist Mr DeWitt, and we'll return presently."

He looked at Booker and gave a curt nod toward the cover of trees available behind one of the homes of the village. Not, perhaps, the most private place in the world, but it would do for the present. Allow him, at least, to get out of the wet things and into something drier. The summer heat would have to do the rest.

Booker sighed heavily at being left alone with Lutece, not that he would want to change in front of Elizabeth because....

of several reasons.

But simply because this man creeps him out something fierce.

Nevertheless, he takes his clothes from the man, dresses as quickly and pragmatically as he can - his shirt had holes in the back that allowed his wings (fucking wings) to fit through but his vest did not come so equiped so he just folded it over his arm and hung the tie around his neck. He was going about tying his shoes when he began to speak in his careful, halted way.

"Before in Columbia, you said you were...everywhere." Or something to that effect, as his memory serves. "You could see everything that was going to happen."

His throat aches with the memory of coughing out and inhaling water in the same breath, his lungs burn with the memory of drowning and a sweat collects on his forehead as he kneels in front of Robert Lutece and asks him what he couldn't stop thinking about.

"Did it work?"

Please tell me it worked.

"She either does not remember or has not yet experienced the river," Robert murmured under his breath. Loud enough for DeWitt to hear but low enough that his voice wouldn't attract the attention of the young woman waiting for them.

She didn't know who Booker DeWitt really was, didn't know the part Robert had truly played in what had become of her, had no idea to what lengths she would have to go to destroy the man who started everything.

He bowed his head in acknowledgement of the situation, though, and went on, "Zachary Comstock will never exist."

It leaves him stunned to silence to hear it, despite how much he wanted to. It's quite a picture on it's own: Booker DeWitt on the ground with his head bowed in silence while Robert Lutece stands above him with the knowledge of it all in his mind.

He succeeded, they...she succeeded. Elizabeth freed herself from him, from everything he could ever do to her in any universe.

It hurt to think of it. That he couldn't be apart of her life; he was like a cancer to her - in reality. She was better off, truly.

"She'll be alright," it's a whisper; quiet and close to breaking. "Won't she?"

He needs to know. Before Elizabeth returns, he must know that after all of that. After putting her through all of that...that she'll be alright. Intact. Able to live a life that she wanted.

Robert turns his head to look at the girl. To look at the Lamb. She is Columbia. She is the vision Comstock had for the future. Without a Comstock, she is nothing.

"She will cease to exist."

He holds up his hand, as if to bid DeWitt to be silent for just a few more moments, to not interrupt.

"She is a creation of Comstock. The result of his work with Rosalind and his deal with me. Without Zachary Comstock, she cannot be. Nor can I, nor can Rosalind."

It had all unravelled. Which, had he known the course DeWitt and Elizabeth would take, he could have foreseen. But his powers, then, had only been concerned with probability. Not all the possibilities.

"Elizabeth will not be, for she will have never been."

He sighed, trying not to think of the implications of this for him.

"But Anna DeWitt will grow up in her father's care."

Booker was not a creature of complex emotions. He had his regret and his anger it was enough for him. Now? Now he struggles not to let tears fall as they had so easily when he had seen Elizabeth. It's out of relief and...an aching he can't really name. Doesn't want to name.

He allows Robert his say, listens intently and chokes with the sudden emotion flooding him. It doesn't inspire him to speak or move but just to...perhaps grieve.

His daughter would be allowed to lead a normal life, he would...God, he hoped he would take care of her.

But Elizabeth? The bright, wonderful girl he'd met and grown so protective of would just...vanish.

It hurts more than it should.

But Booker stands, collects himself quickly and scrubs a hand over his face. As if it could wipe the evidence of his shell breaking open.

"Thanks. For telling me, I mean."

At the sight of the strong emotions, Robert merely turned his head to continue regarding the girl rather than the man. He waits until Booker speaks to not and look over at him.

"You needed to know."

This, everything. Just like, eventually, Elizabeth would need to know. She'd need to be taken through all of crimes against her, even those she never knew about. Not today, though. Not for a very long time. But, eventually, it would come.

Robert nodded toward her. "Shall we?"

"Yeah."

The ugly grieving he'd given into only seconds before was still evident on his face. It made him look older, more weathered and beaten down but he could calm himself now.

Knowing the truth was far better than being left in the dark.

"Yeah, lets."

Booker was half-tempted to check if he was having a nosebleed but he felt that with the present company they would let him know if it were really happening.

"Elizabeth!"

Booker cleared his throat and called out, just to give her the heads up that they were moving her way.

Elizabeth had tried not to eavesdrop, but she had tried to make sure Robert and Booker weren't fighting. She knew there was no lost love between them, and now that Robert was as solid as solid could be Elizabeth wouldn't put it past Booker to take out his frustrations on a very solid Robert Lutece. But it was all quiet words, probably 'pass me my other shoe' and things like that. She looked back a few times while she tried to squeeze the water out of her bloomers, but without taking them entirely off it was a pointless exercise.

She'd been trying to get her skirt a little drier when Booker caught her attention. "That looks much more comfortable," she said, turning back to face him and abandoning Project Skirt Wringing. "You look exhausted Booker..." Elizabeth frowned, concerned by how haggard Booker looked all of a sudden. The adrenaline probably had worn off. "Come on, there's a bedroom with your name on it back at the apartment."

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It's all a matter of perspective

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