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"Booker! Be careful," Elizabeth whispered. The tell-tale sounds of broken singing reached their ears. Splicers, a decent group of them by the sound of it, were ahead of them, lurking in the dim ruins.
Booker crept forward, the strange weight of the Radar Range heavy in his hands. Elizabeth followed, both her hands flickering with the glow of Plasmids -- or were they Vigors? Sometimes his mind still played tricks on him, details from Columbia leeching into Rapture's close, dark spaces.
Elizabeth had brought him here with her to save a little girl, she said. He followed her without question, despite his disquiet about the way she looked so much grimmer than she used. When he first saw her use a Plasmid he swore out loud, and made her promise she'd not use them again. She had explained she'd needed additional protection down here in this strange place, but agreed to let him be the one to try new Vigors -- Plasmids -- if needed.
This place, Rapture. It made him nervous in a way he couldn't describe. He had tried to ask her, when he first stepped out of that tear, why the place made him so uneasy; not just the threats from the insane inhabitants, but something else. She had gone quiet, but did not offer any explanation.
He shook the idea away. They were close to the place the girl had last been seen. Elizabeth crouched beside him. He still could not get used to the fact that she was far more dangerous than he now, between the tears and the Plasmids... and yet, the little smile she gave him with one corner of her mouth was just enough to remind him of the daughter who asked him to dance.
Booker opened his mouth to tell her to edge around the side of the checkout counter, but before he could speak a blast of cold energy smashed into him. Fuck. He couldn't move -- he had never been so cold -- he could not breathe, there was only the biting, raw sensation of ice deep in his throat and his belly and his chest. He could not blink, either, with an icy veil partially obscuring his vision. He struggled in his frozen bonds but could not break free.
Elizabeth was holding her own without him. She ripped open a tear and a ghostly turret sent bullets shredding through the splicers ringing around her, and she flung a healthy dose of Shock Jockey into the fray. The screams of the splicers were distant and muffled to Booker. Slowly a bit of warmth returned to his fingertips, and he managed to flex them slightly. Just a moment longer and he could be out there to help her. They had smashed the turret but there was only one man standing now. Maybe Elizabeth wouldn't need him after all.
Elizabeth set the man ablaze and kicked him away from her. He did not get up. Panting she hurried over to Booker, her mouth moving, but he still could not hear well and could not make out what she was saying.
He had no way to warn her when the woman with the melted face leapt out from behind at Elizabeth, and struck her in the head with the lead pipe.
Elizabeth crumpled to the floor just as Booker's hands thawed.
It was only a split second later that the woman's throat rippled beneath the roar of the Air Grabber, that her blood arced up in a glistening spray over Booker's hands and face unil he flung her corpse away from him.
Booker took only a second to scan the room; no more enemies remained. He crouched down beside Elizabeth.
She was laying haphazardly on her back, arms and legs out at strange angles, skirt askew. Her chest rose and fell, but she'd been hurt badly. There was a deep bruise already blooming on her temple and the side of her cheek, her skin swelling up around it. Her eyes were open but stared at nothing.
"Elizabeth? Elizabeth!" Booker hissed. His fingers twitched uselessly at his sides before his hands darted out, tracing the wounds on his daughter's face. What was he supposed to do? Always, always it had been him falling back after too heavy a hit, Elizabeth pulling him out of darkness. Memories of water rushed into his head and he shook them away.
"Med -- medikit," he mumbled. Carefully he placed one arm under her shoulders, another beneath her knees, and lifted her. Her body was limp. "No no no. Elizabeth! Stay with me!"
He remembered the box of medical kits a stairwell down. He ran, holding her small body as close as possible, protecting her as much as he could from the jolt of his footsteps. Not Elizabeth. This wasn't right. This couldn't be happening...
He was there, the alcove under the stairs where they'd left some supplies unspoiled. Hadn't needed them. He laid her down, hands trembling, and pulled off his jacket to put under her head before collapsing to his knees beside her. For a moment he felt as frozen as he had a few minutes ago, paralyzed by the rabbity thump of his heart, the fear flooding his body. Elizabeth took a breath, but it wasn't a simple, normal breath; it was a deep, terrible gasp. His brain flashed a phrase at him -- death rattle -- he reached into the box, and ripped open the first medikit he found.
Shakily he examined its contents. Bandages, tubes of ointment, headache pills. No -- this wouldn't be fixed with a bandage or a salve -- she was dying, goddammit, dying --
There. A glass syringe at the bottom of the case, its contents glistening with a red, oily glow. He barely had time to scan the label stamped on it -- ADAM IM Infusion, FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY. He tore the cap off with his teeth and plunged the needle into Elizabeth's shoulder.
***
The sudden pain -- it slammed into her like a beast, roaring as everything narrowed to that one throbbing nidus of agony in her head and face. Then there were stars and darkness, and the pain. She couldn't move, couldn't think. Who was she?
There came a sense of movement, but she could not tell what was happening. She dimly registered noises like an animal -- wounded, keening -- but she did not think they were her own.
Pounding pain, and darkness. How long it stretched before her, a corridor empty and cold.
But then she felt a warmth, and her vision flickered, dimly. There was a man. His mouth moved, his mouth pled. She could only see parts of his face, as if her vision was coming back in pieces. Green eyes. They were frightened.
"Elizabeth!" His voice was muddled. Suddenly she remembered who he was, but she could not do anything but surrender to the warmth spreading out from her shoulder, washing over her face and head, merging with the pain. She gasped as if she was drowning.
"Elizabeth, come back to me --" There was grief in his voice, terror. She ripped another ragged breath from the air and he cried out. "Please!"
The warmth in her flesh spread its tendrils deeper, deeper. She could feel it remodelling, erasing, healing. She gasped again and then her vision cleared; there Booker was, his face near hers. She realized they were on the ground, she with her head on something soft, he kneeling and missing his jacket. There was dried blood spattered on his face, which was red and blotchy as if he had been crying. His chest heaved. He ventured a trembling hand to her face, now free of the throbbing awful pain, and as if in a dream she touched her hand to his.
"Booker?" coughed Elizabeth. "What happened?"
He didn't answer. Instead he pulled her to him in an embrace, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in the crook between her ear and her neck. His face was wet.
"Booker, I'm all right," she said, breathing more normally. She hugged him, softly, then gently pulled away from him, peering into his face. "Are you?"
He struggled, evading her gaze, and let his arms fall away from her. "Fine. Just -- thought I might have lost you." He rubbed his eyes, still looking away from her. He got to his feet and reached his calloused, sticky hand down to her.
Elizabeth grasped it and let him pull her to her feet. She steadied herself by leaning against him. "I guess I'm paying you back," she said.
"What?"
"You know. For all the times that I thought I'd lost you." She laughed, the sound echoing in the dingy stairwell, though it wasn't really funny.
Booker's jaw stiffened. For a moment, he was the dangerous man who had frightened her in Battleship Bay, his face hard and lean. Then it softened into a hint of a smile, mostly around his eyes. "Well, don't you ever do it again, d'you hear?"
She smiled, bending down and handing him his jacket. "I never got to rebel against you. Let me have a little fun." She elbowed him, then said quietly, "Thanks, Booker."
He shrugged into the jacket, then gave her a clumsy one-armed hug that he quickly retracted. "You're welcome, Elizabeth."