Work Text:
If Elizabeth was honest with herself she didn't much need the confirmation. It was easy enough to tell, a limp in that gait, guns carried lower, the tightness of every facial expression. It was easy to ignore because he tried to ignore it, or play it off, but that couldn't last very long. In the end it was such an innocuous thing to make her pay attention, too.
"Found some money!" she'd called, for maybe the tenth time, and then she'd stood there smiling blankly as she watched a Silver Eagle bounce off the side of Booker's head. That wasn't how that was supposed to go. And he'd looked so genuinely startled by her accidental assault that she'd felt guilty about it for at least an hour following.
But the point was, she got her confirmation of something she'd already known. Simply, Booker was tired. They both were, to be honest. How long had they been running now? But she'd seen everything that had happened to him, and who knew what else before they had met. Every fall and scrape, every injury which she'd tried to patch up for him. Nearly drowning. His hand. And more recently, though she took no pleasure in the reminder, their falling-out aboard the airship.
She may have hit him harder than she'd meant to. Maybe not. Being thrown around by that Handyman couldn't have helped much, either. The point was, Booker was slowing down, and there would be a breaking point. They needed rest. Booker wasn't doing either of them any favours by just plowing through, by running on the dubious aid of medical kits and whatever bandages Elizabeth could find. At the rate they were going he was bound to get himself, if not the both of them, killed, which was a much better argument than the fact that watching him limp around was starting to make her worry, and the only point she presented when she stated her opinion on the matter.
"Too dangerous," he'd said, and for all that it was grudging Elizabeth had to admit that he was right. "Not enough time." So they carried on. Gunfire hail and explosions and more of Booker's blood on the pavement.
But then they'd arrived in Finkton proper, the fighting had stopped, they'd been expected, and Elizabeth had crossed her arms and looked Booker in the eye and refused to advance another step until they'd at least sat down for a few minutes.
There wasn't much to say to that. So they'd found somewhere to hole up, an out-of-the-way place with just the one door to barricade, because for all that they seemed to be safe they were neither of them fools. It was little more than a storage room but it was quiet, almost bringing the ears to ring for lack of gunfire and screaming, and that was... better, even if it was temporary.
Booker had set about barricading the door while Elizabeth emptied one of the crates shoved off to one side of their hideout, took stock of what was at hand. Built for herself a makeshift resting spot from old coats and sack cloth, a soft place in the corner. There was no furniture here and it wouldn't suit her needs anyway.
If Booker thought it silly he didn't say so, just left her to it, folded himself down onto the floor not too far away - not that there was room for much else - to face the door with his gun in his lap.
"I'll keep watch," he'd said, while Elizabeth sorted through her scavenged medical supplies, the food they'd brought with them, her pilfered canteen and clean cloth she'd found. "You get some rest."
She hadn't said anything, hadn't asked, "Aren't you tired?" because it wouldn't sway him. Instead she'd settled down, crossed her arms, stared at the back of his head and waited for the inevitable.
It didn't take long. Couldn't, when it was so quiet here compared to the chaos they had been running through til now. She waited and watched as his tense vigil turned to restless fidgeting, to shifting weight, to words muttered under breath. Watched his gun be transferred to the floor, to his lap, and back again. Watched him resettle. Stretch out and refold his legs at least twice, scrub his hands through his hair, over the back of his neck, rub his face and try to shake everything off. Watched as his stubborn attempts to remain alert became less and less effective.
It was a quiet sort of collapse. She couldn't see his face but the line of his shoulders was easy, tense and then sagging. Head nodding and the snap return to straight-backed vigilance when he noticed. She waited and the lulls became longer, the dips lower. And when his head tipped down, when his shoulders sagged and he listed and didn't right himself, Elizabeth was there to keep him from hitting the floor.
All according to plan, she'd thought, triumphant with Booker half sprawled in her lap and oblivious to her brilliance. The snag, however, was a simple one. Patience was easy. She had been patient all her life. Something that Booker had likely been for the majority of his life was north of six feet tall and made mostly out of solid muscle. Lugging him across the room to her makeshift bed was an experience she did not long to repeat any time soon, though once he was settled and she sat back to catch her breath, to straighten herself up and consider her victory, she didn't mind so terribly.
This was, she had to think, likely the most relaxed she'd seen him. It felt like he'd spent half of their acquaintance unconscious, which would have been amusing if it weren't in equal part distressing, and Elizabeth allowed herself a moment to soak in the silence they'd managed to create in this messy storage room. It smelled of dust and disuse, there was a desk shoved up against the door, her dress was ripped, and Booker was sleeping like the dead on a pile of abandoned coats and scrap fabric. Sitting on her folded legs, hands in her lap, Elizabeth just sighed. There was blood on Booker's collar, and she wondered if it would ever wash out. She wished he would snore, or something. She felt so somber suddenly.
Turning from that she reached for her canteen and a clean rag, pulling both into her lap and then shuffling forward to sit alongside Booker and get on with the task at hand. Dried blood on the side of his face, smeared and smudged where he'd wiped at it and given up. She wondered if that was from her, sighed again and unscrewed the top from the canteen. At least she had somewhere to start.
Cleaning the blood from his face was a delicate process, if only for the first few minutes where she feared her work would wake him. But she kept on, and Booker showed no signs of stirring, and soon she abandoned her concern and focused only on her work.
Tacky, half-dried blood matted his hair to the side of his head. Elizabeth was careful in wiping at it, in cleaning it away as best she could to find its source, the sluggishly-bleeding gash just behind his temple which was undeniably right where she'd struck him with that wrench. She felt a little awkward about that. Perhaps she'd apologize. Probably not. He didn't seem too upset about it anyway.
Blood soaked away and she did her best to apply gauze to the wound. Stitches would be better but she lacked the supplies, sterile needle and thread, and at any rate it was doubtful Booker would sleep through having his head stitched up, tired to the bone or not.
She was running low on clean cloths by the time she finished cleaning up his face, wiping up blood where it had tracked down the side of his neck and soaked into his shirt. His lip was split on the upper right but it didn't bleed so she left it, dabbed at a smear of blood below his nose and tried to corral her thoughts. His left eye was blacking, bruise now becoming visible. It had to be newer, not so bad yet. She wondered how it would look in a few hours' time, and then wondered how he'd acquired it. Maybe she would ask. Later, after.
She worked in silence, bandaging cuts and scrapes, examining bruises, wondering what sort of damage was hiding beneath all those layers. She spent time debating the removal of his shirt and finally gave up the idea when she thought about trying to wrestle it off of him without waking him up. Later. She was running out of supplies anyway. By the time she finished she wondered if Booker was held together now only by bandages and stubbornness, and it made her smile, just a bit, but it was quiet enough that she heard her own breath catch, and she swallowed down the tightness in her throat, willed away the stinging in her eyes.
The quiet wasn't such a relief anymore. Impulse drove her to reach out, to carefully collect Booker's injured hand from where it lay across his stomach. The binding could use tightening. It gave her something to do.
She was out, she thought, to bolster the brittle hope in her mind. She would get out. This weight in her chest would be gone, and there wouldn't be blood under her fingernails, and she wouldn't be listening for shouting voices and the roar of guns outside. She wondered if Booker would still be there when everything was over, and how he might look without that ghost of worry in his eyes, without the tension that bled him of anything else. She wondered if they might be friends, and tried not to feel silly in her own head. Too many complications, too many obligations. Booker was there for her, but not really. Wasn't that right?
But might they have been friends? If things had been different? The blue of the cloth wrapped around Booker's hand had gone dark with old blood. When she curled her fingers around it, loose and careful, experimental, it felt dry. Rough and warm. She kept it there, cradled gently in her lap, and wondered if things would be better if they were different. What Booker might think, what he might say if she were to ask him. Maybe she would. Later.
In the quiet she listened to Booker breathe and curled her hands a little more tightly around the one she held.
Maybe she would ask. But, probably not.