Chapter Text
In the dusty corner, she watches. Little less than a spectre, little more than human. A million, million worlds fall through her fingers, like beads from a broken necklace, and yet this is the one she keeps returning to. The deep blue of her heavy velvet dress feels out of place amid the squalor grey of Booker DeWitt's office, the bare mattress and empty liquor bottles pain her—and enrage her.
(What's done is done. What's done will be done.)
He exits the nursery—if one can call a cradle and rug a nursery—and for a moment, he reminds her of Rapunzel's father. Did he ever wander the kingdom from time to time, calling out for the daughter he sold? she wonders. Or was he happier never knowing her? He seats himself at his worn desk, raking his hair with his hands, and she can see the fresh wound on his right hand: AD. Anna Dewitt. Absentmindedly, he plays with chamber of his revolver. Another wheel of blood spinning round and round.
"Booker," she whispers, and half regrets it, when the man leaps from his desk and points the revolver at her. His eyes widen at the sight of her. The baby stirs slightly in her thin arms at the noise, and Elizabeth clasps her more tightly against her torn and filthy corset.
"Who the hell are you?" His gaze falls to the slumbering baby. "What did you-how have you got my daughter?"
Elizabeth smiles wearily at his question. (Who was she indeed.) "...It doesn't matter who I am," she manages finally. "What matters is what you promise me next, Mr. DeWitt." The bird pendant glimmers in the thin light.
"I'm sick of bargaining with you people. Give me the girl," he demands hoarsely, the barrel of the revolver pointed at her head. "Give me Anna. Give me Anna, and let me be done of this."
Fear rises in her (can she be killed?), but anger quickly mutes it. How dare he! How dare he threaten her for Anna, knowing full well that he sold her. "You sold her," she spits back at him, all her composure lost. "And for what? A case of liquor and a clean account?" She's suddenly aware of the bruises on her face and chest, the opaque light in her eyes. She clasps Anna more tightly to her. "I came here to give you one last chance at redemption. One last chance for both of us."
Shaking, Booker lowers his weapon. "Just give her back. Give her back to me." He can't take his weary gaze off the baby, and Elizabeth feels an angry tear fall down her face, unseen. The life she should have had, she is giving up to this Anna. So that one of them, at least, could know happiness. That thought doesn't spare her the intense jealousy that this one will escape the torture, the indoctrination, the bloodshed, the broken forms that she and Booker left behind them. The ceaseless ringing of the shotgun. The death cries and pleas.
And for a moment, the weight of her sins and his is as heavy as the ocean. The ocean she will die under. (Dies, died, will die.) The sounds of her footsteps as she approaches him are as measured as church bells announcing the hour. He never looks at her, only Anna's blissful infant face, until she moves to fulfill his request, and he catches her wrist. Something moves across his face when he finally looks into her eyes. Sees their identical hue to those of the infant he spent months lacklusterly tending.
"You're not...You can't be—? But how?"
She almost wants to tell him everything—almost—but thinks better of it. "The debt's repaid," she whispers, as she hands him the infant. "Anna washes you of all your sins."
Watching him hold Anna tightly to his chest, half-formed promises on his lips, she notices that forgiveness feels less like flight and more like a favorite blanket. Her hand moves to her pendant, as she contemplates bequeathing it to Anna but decides against it. That Booker DeWitt belongs to her, and her alone.
That much, at least, is hers.