tearmeanewone | rendez-vous + APPOINTMENT POST

"I would be happy spending every night with you, though," Elizabeth says, pushing her nose into his neck and clinging to his shirt. She loved him, there was no question that she loved him. It was all entirely a question of Booker living alone. Booker living alone with the Luteces, even.

"I'm thinking of Booker, entirely. He's been alone with his guilt over his past for so long. I don't want to abandon him..."

"And you shouldn't have to," is Gai's answer to that, even as he tilts his head slightly to give her more room to nuzzle up against him. He's keenly aware of the fact that he's the one who came second... ironic that he's second even now, even here.

It does hurt a little. Buried deep within him is that sense of insecurity that there will always be someone better than him, and that he'll always be the second choice. "You shouldn't have to sacrifice one thing in order to have another."

"...I have to, though. I will..." Elizabeth's response is quiet and haunted, because she's thinking back to her conversation with Robert. That revelation that killing Comstock unravels everything, and she wouldn't remember anything. The choice would be made, by her, somewhere and someday.

And she wouldn't know any of them. Robert, Booker, or Gai. She would sacrifice her life up until now for a different, unknown one.

Without warning, Elizabeth pushes herself up to where she can reach Gai's lips and kisses him with a ferocity she hopes will pull those thoughts out of her for a moment. She doesn't want a new life. She knows she wants this one.

There's something to Elizabeth's tone of voice that sets off an alarm in Gai's mind, though he may not know the exact cause. He recognizes that sort of expression, not from seeing it in her, but from his own experiences, and the knowledge he'd carried with him back in his world that it wouldn't be long before his own death there. It's not a tone he'd ever wanted to hear her use.

Before he can comment on it, though, Elizabeth's lips are on his in what seems to be an attempt to kiss him breathless. And after everything they've just been through... he needs this, needs the simple human contact and passion. Something that's loving rather than cruel. So he kisses her right back, perfectly willing to let her take the lead on this. Right now, he'll do whatever she wants.

Elizabeth doesn't let up, terrified that if she lets them breathe, he'll ask her what's wrong. She knows he will, she knows this is strange for her and so he'll know immediately.

She hitches her knee up over Gai's hip and pushes off the ground, trying to roll on top of him while continuing to keep his mouth busy. She can't think about what she should say in response to the inevitable question, all Elizabeth can think about is showing herself how good things are now. She didn't need a new life, her past was behind her, she had so much ahead of her now even with the threat of war hanging above their tent.

But as much as she doesn't want to, she has to catch her breath eventually. And a mess of words that she hadn't thought of just escapes.

"Tell me to stay with you, Gai. Beg me never to leave, please, please!"

At this point, after the decision their group has just made, Gai doesn't feel a need to ask her what's wrong. He's pretty sure he understands; there aren't many people who could decide to assist in the slaughter of countless others and not feel any sort of regret or guilt for it, no matter how small. It makes sense for her to be clinging to him so desperately in light of that.

Her rolling on top of him does come as a bit of a surprise, but it's a welcome one. If she wants to take things in that direction, far be it from him to protest, because he could use the intimacy and the release just as much as she could. Perhaps even more, given that he and Law were the ones who held the most responsibility in all of this. He just continues to kiss her, his arms coming up to hold her close on top of him and reassure her that he's right there.

Then she pulls away, and the words coming from her aren't exactly the ones he was expecting. "I want you to stay with me forever... here, in your world, or somewhere else, it doesn't matter to me where. I don't want to ever be apart." And it's the truth. He's certain of that much now.

"We can't go to mine, no," Elizabeth shakes her head vigorously. "If we're going to stay together, I can't go back there, ever!"

She curls into herself on top of Gai's chest. It's been a while since she's felt so small and helpless, but the bomb situation has finally cracked her where her future is concerned. Too many choices that weren't any sort of choice at all. Her fingers tighten into fists in Gai's shirt as she huddles against him.

"Robert told me that after Booker and I destroy the siphon, we find and kill the man who imprisoned me. And murdered his wife, and had Robert and Ms. Lutece killed. And built Columbia.

"And once we do that... it all comes apart. Without him, I'm never taken from my family, I'm never put in my tower, and I grow up with my family. I'm going to be a completely different person if I go back and kill him. It's worse than dying, I won't exist anymore...!"

"It's worse than dying, I won't exist anymore...!"

Those words feel like a knife right in Gai's gut. Elizabeth won't exist. The woman he loves so much, who has become everything to him... she'll be written right out of existence, like erasing a pencil sketch. And what's even worse, she'll be replaced by a stranger, someone who won't know him and certainly won't love him.

He's died before. He knows enough to know that it's not an end, not here in Luceti. But no longer existing... what will that mean for her, even here? Suddenly he feels sick.

"You won't exist...?" The look on his face says everything. There's genuine fear there, something Elizabeth will have never seen in his expression before.

She shakes her head, feeling the tears starting to build up. It's too much, the tent is starting to crack apart with blue light, and nothing she's manifesting is sticking. Her mind is going a mile a minute, she doesn't know what she wants or needs at that moment aside from being right where she is--with Gai.

"Robert... Robert says I have a choice, that I could go anywhere I wanted, I could go to Paris, I could be with you. I want to be with you, more than I want a new life away from Comstock. I would rather remember all of the lies and pain and terror than forget you.

"I thought when Robert told me, that I would feel obligated to go back and stop Comstock. But I can't. I can't. If you want me here, I'll never go back.

"And why-- why does it have to be me?" she asks with a little scoff and laugh. "If Robert's seen it happen, it doesn't have to be me, it could be his Elizabeth who lets everything fall apart, not me! Don't I deserve to be happy, instead of erase everything? Don't I deserve you after everything I did?"

"I want you here," he says, almost before she's even finished speaking. "I want you here with me. I can't return to my own world, so there's no reason for me to leave. If you want to stay here with me, then we can. You don't have to go back. I'll fight anyone who tries to make you return to your world."

He knows it's selfish, but frankly, he doesn't give a damn. She deserves happiness, and if her happiness is here with him? Then he'll fight tooth and nail to preserve that for her. There isn't even a question about that much. "You deserve all the happiness in the world, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect that."

It's probably not the most romantic statement ever. To Gai, however, it's the only way he really knows to express devotion of any sort.

"I'll do whatever it takes too." She turns her head just enough so she can look at Gai, tears spilling over her eyelashes and onto his shirt.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I knew that day you said I wouldn't miss you and I just... couldn't."

He tries for a little smile, even a weak little laugh as he kisses those tears away. If his little disappointed sounds are her kryptonite, her tears are most definitely his. "I guess I deserve it for not telling you that I'd died in my world."

"And when would that have come up?" Elizabeth repositions herself in an exhausted, defeated sprawl over Gai's torso, legs and arms hanging awkwardly to the side. "Let's dance on this table--by the way, before I arrived here, I died. That isn't going to upset you, is it? Why no, no it doesn't Gai, because I could potentially stop existing if I go home."

It really sounds ridiculous when she puts it that way.

It really does, and the laugh that escapes him this time is a little more genuine as he shifts enough so that he can keep rubbing her back even in this new position. "Put the two of us together and we could almost manage a vaguely normal life between us. ... or maybe that's being a bit too optimistic."

What a pair they make indeed.

"Or at least redefine what 'normal' is supposed to look like," she sighs and hums softly as Gai rubs her back and calms her down. The angry tears that threatened to open subside, and she can eventually move her arms and run her fingers over Gai's shoulder.

"I'm glad I told you, it was weighing on me."

"I'm glad you told me too," he says, just keeping up that gentle massaging. As terrible a thing as it is to hear, the knowledge itself renewed his determination to protect what the two of them have here in Luceti. "Now we're both even."

That's the worst of their secrets out in the open, he supposes. The rest of what he hasn't told her is just details about what he's been through, nothing drastic. And, honestly, if she never wants to know, he's fine with that too.

"I didn't want to make us even. I just didn't want to keep anything from you."

She pulls herself up so she can kiss Gai again. It's less urgent and passionate, but after that revelation she doesn't want to cheapen what they've trusted each other with. Somehow, demanding anything shallow is absolutely impossible right now.

The kiss Gai gives her in return is warm, loving, and most of all relieved-- possibly a strange emotion to be feeling after that revelation, but there is decided relief in knowing that there's nothing left that's hidden from each other. This is, right now, the most honest he's ever been with her or anyone else. He's bared his soul to her and she to him and nothing has changed because of it.

He hadn't been 100% sure that he really knew what love was before. But now... now he does.

rendez-vous + APPOINTMENT POST

[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

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[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

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[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

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[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]

[Mission 14 - Post-IC Discussion]