tearmeanewone | QUINZE + [Voice/Action]

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QUINZE + [Voice/Action]

[Voice - Locked from Gai]

What do you do when you feel nervous about something you really know you shouldn't be nervous about? How do you... convince yourself that there's nothing to be worried over?

...Life changes, all the time. We all have stages in our lives, and some pass quicker than others. Mine... well, my stages of life seem to have all been compressed into two years. But, honestly, like everyone else here I don't know when I might be pulled away. I don't know what's waiting for me on the other side either, so it makes sense to do everything I want to while I still have a chance.

But what 'makes sense' isn't getting through my thick skull. If it was, I wouldn't be talking at everyone.

[Action]

[After her post to the network, Elizabeth rearranges wedding things one more time, then goes to the grocery. She walks back through the village with nothing but a carton of caramel-swirl chocolate ice cream (with graham cracker bits).]

[Later that night, she sits on her kitchen floor and eats it in the dark. Just her, the carton, and a spoon.]

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[Robert doesn't reply to the Journal. He waits.

He waits until she's sitting on the floor in the kitchen before he walks in and approaches.

Even in the dark, he's smiling. Just a little.]

You don't. Convince yourself.

Because you're too smart for that. You know there's a lot that could happen. A lot that could go wrong. A lot to worry about.

[And yet, it's not a prophecy of doom. He almost chuckles as he says it.]

Instead, you take a deep breath, take a step...

and hope it doesn't kill you.

[Elizabeth looks warily at Robert as he approaches her, looking much like a guilty child caught rummaging through the cookie jar at night. She'd just wanted a little time to herself to do something crazy-- and, to be honest, she'd wanted to remember the first few months when they all had first come together. She was so afraid it was all going to disappear.]

I don't want to leave. [She puts her spoon into the ice cream and looks up at Robert.] Everyone here is my family, I don't want to leave. Forget dying, I've already done that once.

There's always a choice. [He smiles faintly, leaning against the cabinet.] You can maintain the status quo and stay content.

Or you can take a chance, bet on insanity, and have the chance to be truly happy.

[It was more sentimental than he usually admitted to being, but... it touched a chord.

"It'll be fine!"
"Fine? Are you mad?!"]

Some risks are worth taking.

[What Robert is saying is, of course, exactly the truth. Elizabeth didn't even feel like she was taking a chance with Gai, he would always be the love of her life. But it did feel as though she had just found a family, something she had always wanted for herself, and leaving now almost felt like turning up her nose at all of it.]

I could be truly happy with all of you... [She shoves the spoon back in her mouth. She sounds petulant, not serious, though the sentiment is true. If Gai had never come into her life, she would be happy with Robert, Rosalind, and Booker.]

[Robert looks down at her, studying her for a moment. She was so young. He can still remember the woman, though. That brave, proud woman.

You have a chance to give her that.

A chance to be his student.

There was a lot she wouldn't want to learn from him. But he hoped this was a lesson he could impart with some grace.]

You'll always have us, Elizabeth. That's... what family is.

[Elizabeth drops her act and leans heavily against the cabinet with a long sigh.] That's one of the things I pray for every night. I'm so afraid that everything I've read is true, and that I'll become a 'good wife' and live as part of his routine. No one will come and find me on the floor eating in the middle of the night, I won't be able to crawl into Booker's bed after having a nightmare.

[She reaches up-- she wants to hold Robert's hand.] I don't know if I'm ready for that part of my life to be over.

[Robert takes her hand... and shifts to sit on the floor right beside her. His fingers thread through hers.

He isn't her father.

If anything, he's the majority of the reason she wouldn't ever have that. Because if he hadn't intervened and pushed a boy further than anyone could bear, DeWitt wouldn't have ever done it.]

One hundred and twenty two.

[He says the word softly. Because Elizabeth deserves to know it.]

That is how many times Booker DeWitt stepped through a tear to find you. To bring you back, unharmed, to New York City.

Even though he was warned, every time, that he might die.

[A small squeeze to her hand. Gentle.]

So if you think the distance between two houses is going to keep him from you, you're very mistaken, my dear.

[The number is a strange answer, so Elizabeth responds with a strange look. But the explanation settles it quickly enough. She looks shocked.]

One hundred and twenty two times. He stepped through a tear and you told him he could die. [She lays her head on Robert's shoulder and squeezes his hand back.] And the both of you still go on and on about what horrible people you are.

We both had debts to settle.

[It's a bad explanation, but it's true. They were motivated by guilt. By a gnawing desire to set things right. To undo the mistakes as men that had been made by boys.]

We just managed to do some good along the way. However slight it was.

Mm, 'slight'. I'm only freer than I've ever been and staring down two days until my marriage ceremony. [She takes another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, then offers Robert the spoon.]

'Slight', he says.

[Destroyed a city. Destroyed the lives of the people in that city. Helped a tyrant rise to power. Destroyed the lives of a girl and her father.

But none of that comes out.

Instead, he takes the spoon and scoops just a little out to take a bite.]

Two days until you're married. It doesn't seem possible.

[But he's smiling as he says it.]

[~~It's two days before her wedding-- she's the most important thing ever right now.~~]

It seems so real it's terrifying. Did you see that Gai went through at least twelve layouts for where the dance floor should be in relation to the tables and chairs?

Really? [He chuckles a bit.] I've heard of worse.

Never understood it, though. But, I suppose that comes down to a difference in personalities.

You've heard of worse happening during wedding planning? [She sounds curious as she reaches to reclaim the spoon.] Someone mentioned a term-- Bridezilla. It's a bride who turns, metaphorically, into a giant monster as her wedding approaches.

[Booker has not at all come into the kitchen for a beer in the middle of the night. Motivations for said beer were soon forgotten, however, upon seeing two figures curled up on the floor in the dark.

He was able to recognize them quickly enough and only stood there with a vaguely bewildered look.

This was not the weirdest thing he'd ever seen. But it was up there for some reason.]

...What are you two doing?

[It looks weird. And intimate. And maybe he should leave.]

Discussing the terrifying inevitability of change.

[It's almost cheerful, actually, the way Robert says it, offering the spoon back to Elizabeth.

But there's a change in his tone.

Something vaguely more serious has crept in, his turquoise eyes fixing on Booker in the dark. Because there's a lot that needs to be said between Booker and Elizabeth.

Some of it, Booker might not want him around for. Some of it, he needs to be around for.

He just isn't sure if now is the time. And it's not his decision to make.

That? That unenviable task falls to Booker DeWitt.]

[The fact that she was in conversation with Robert, tired, and full of sugar, means that when Booker approaches Elizabeth nearly jumps when he speaks. She just whips her head around, as it is, and lets Robert answer.]

Y-yes... Booker, come sit with us? [She offers up the spoon.] I want to eat ice cream on the floor tonight, I don't know when I'll have another chance.

Well, doesn't that just sound like a bucket of fun.

[: to Robert. The sarcasm is strong with this one today. He pointedly looks away from the man as he makes his look a bit more weighted. It's too late for that. Or at leas that's his excuse. But the clock is ticking.

At Elizabeth's invitation Booker does, in fact, move to sit down on the other side of Elizabeth and grunts as he lowers himself down. Another reminder that he's getting old, he guesses.]

Whenever you want, is when you'll have your chance.

[Booker alternates between ignoring that Elizabeth knows he's her father and not. Right now it's a little hard for him to tell where he is on that.]

That's what I've been trying to tell her.

[It's all he can do. Keep his tone light and easy. Try to make this as simple as he can. Joke a little, in his own way.

Which means a sidelong glance at Elizabeth and the slightest curling of his lips.]

It's not like there's much cause to lock doors in this village. And even if there were, when has a simple lock ever kept you out?

[You can come whenever you like, for whatever reason, at whatever time.]

[Elizabeth smiles as she settles between the two men, obviously more content than she was when she'd just been eating alone. She offers Booker the spoon.]

I hope that's true. I don't want to become one of those women who only does housekeeping. I think I'd go out of my mind.

[She takes a deep breath and sighs, as though to clear that horrific thought from her brain.] It's true. I guess if I really love someone, I just break into their private space no matter what. [Elizabeth laughs a little.]

I doubt that'll ever happen. [Booker says as comfortingly as he knows how and snorts at the image for good measure. Mostly because it just doesn't fit.

Booker takes the proffered spoon and cuts into a bit of the ice cream in question, it's not that bad and he angles in for a second bite.]

I think that is about as likely as Rosalind ever only doing housekeeping.

[Robert chuckles just a little as he says it. Mostly because he can imagine what would happen to him if Rosalind heard him even joke about it.]

[So much lineface. That's what would happen.]

[Elizabeth giggles at the image too as she tilts the carton for Booker. Suddenly, it doesn't seem as necessary for her to finish all of it on her own.]

Still, none of us thought, probably, that we would ever end up here. Strange things happen-- Not to mention all three of us, our lives have this habit of changing in a second.

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