tearmeanewone | deux + voice/action

Entry tags:

deux + voice/action

[Voice]

I've-- Oh, wait. Hello Luceti! [Right, she can't just start talking like you do with Voxophones.]

I've recently, this past New Feather cycle, brought two more people into my apartment. Up until now I haven't been... cooking, exactly. [She's been eating whatever she can get ready-made, namely.] Does anyone have any... somewhat simple cooking recipes for two adult men and one slightly smaller girl?

And can someone explain to me how to work the oven...?

[Action]

[Later in the day, Elizabeth ventures out to the grocery store to pick up things for her first cooking adventure! Though it's a trial, even at the store. Elizabeth keeps looking between different things and consulting her journal and looking back at the shelves... and frowning. Because this is all extremely complicated. No wonder this was done for her every day... This would probably take her weeks to figure out.]

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Of course.

[He opens his mouth to speak, then... stops. After a few moments, he's forced to admit:]

But I can't recall what.

Oh... [Well, journal away then. Elizabeth looks back up at him apologetically.] I'm sorry.

...You'll let me know if you remember, won't you?

It doesn't matter, I suppose. But I will, if I remember.

Good. [That seems to satisfy her, and she smiles brightly at Robert.] I know it's hard to adjust here... I want to make it as easy as I can for you and Booker.

[He chuckles faintly.]

I don't find it too difficult, the adjusting. Though I think Mr. DeWitt is having a more difficult time than I am.

[...Aside from the "talking to himself."]

[...yes, that's what she's primarily worried about.] Well you at least have work. Booker... well... [There's a distinct lack of violence, to put it bluntly.]

[It takes him a moment to say it. He even sighs a bit before, like he really doesn't want to give this much credit.

But it's deserved.]

And Mister DeWitt has you.

[That... is new. Elizabeth looks a little skeptical, but smiles nonetheless.] I try, but... sometimes I think that too much has happened to him, and one person can't just wipe it away.

Nothing wipes it away. [That... is the sad fact of life.] Not, at least, without altering time itself.

But here... he will have to settle for building on top of what's happened. [We both will.]

Yes, that's true... [Elizabeth nods, able to smile after the realization that either way she would have to build a new life. Booker might want to do the same? And maybe it was another chance for Booker.]

I suppose the only thing that could make this better was if Ms. Lutece was here.

[It takes Robert a moment to respond. Like when he has to correct himself midway through a conversation with Rosalind that she is, in fact, not there.

It's a reminder that his world is not only outwardly different but that a key component to his life for the past twenty years is no longer present. In no way, shape, or form.]

I believe Mr. DeWitt and I disagree there.

[Ah, right. There was that moral dilemma again. Elizabeth had thought about how she would approach Booker's arrival to Luceti long before he had arrived. She had decided that if he arrived, she would be grateful to know he was alive. She would be grateful for the support.]

[Even if it felt like she was holding Booker up right now. It was better than before.]

Well 'Mr. DeWitt' actively looks for reasons to be cantankerous. [Elizabeth smiles softly.] If you miss her, isn't it better to see her instead of waiting and worrying?

[And while Elizabeth wouldn't say this out loud, she thinks Robert's condition would improve markedly if there actually was someone finishing his sentences.]

[Her first statement actually makes Robert chuckle. There's a genuine -- small, but very real -- smile on his features as he begins to nod in acknowledgement of the truth in it.

Then, Elizabeth goes on, and his smile alters. First thinning, then... he can't keep it up at all. It hits on a thought he's been nursing since he could truly take in what happened since his arrival here.

He'd intended to see Elizabeth back to the New York in which Booker DeWitt lived. He hadn't foreseen how stunning her powers would prove or how resolute she and DeWitt would be. He had not known how to break the cycle of events, how the story would end. And he had only begun to fathom the cost of it.

Without a Comstock, Rosalind would struggle. It was the work of a driven zealot that had funded her grandest creations, that had made her more than just a woman strangely interested in physics. That genius would go unregarded. They might each, in their restarted timelines, discover the Lutece Field again. Perhaps they'd even open the window again. But without Comstock, there would never be a Lutece Tear. They would always be separated.

Robert sighed softly.]

I would like it very much if she was here.

[Elizabeth realized, a little late, that she might have opened up something that was more depressing than it was worth. At least when she had been alone in Luceti, no one had deliberately pointed out that she was alone. And perhaps it was different because Elizabeth was entirely used to being alone. Not that she enjoyed it...]

[After a moment of hesitation, Elizabeth reached out and lightly rested her hand on Robert's elbow.] Well I'm not your sister by any stretch, but I'm here for both you and Mr. DeWitt. I owe you at least that much, for the whistle.

You would have figured it out on your own. [Which he fully believes. Giving her the schematics for it was merely a bit of insurance, and, well...

But he did place his other hand lightly over hers, a small acknowledgement of the gesture.]

If anything, the whistle made us even. I... was deeply in your debt.

[After all, there could be no second guessing how deeply involved he and Rosalind had been in studying Elizabeth all those years, in working for Comstock. Who else could have even begun to understand what she could do naturally, other than the two people who had learned to do it with machines?]

[Elizabeth didn't know just how deep Robert's involvement really was. But she had guessed that Robert had been somehow involved in her first stage of study--thankfully not the second...]

I saw people throw their lives away for Comstock's sake. And I saw people throw their lives away because Comstock gave them no choice. What would have been accomplished if you had let me out before I could actually escape?

[What would have been accomplished?

It's a thought that, over the last half decade, consumed Robert's mind. Rosalind was of the mind to always look forward; Robert often looked back, too. Rosalind did not worry about what she could not change; Robert felt regret.

He sighed softly, withdrawing his hand.]

A great deal.

[He even shifted a bit, as if to loosen her light hold on him, to reinforce that distance.]

It would have been the simplest thing to have taken you to our home. No one would have questioned me, possibly not even Comstock. [Not if Robert had realised his mistake early enough, not if he'd been quick enough.] And there... with our machine? Rosalind and I could have seen you well out of his reach.

[That, perhaps, had been the worst part his last years alive and the years after that: knowing how powerful he had been and how many opportunities he'd squandered.]

[It would have been that simple? From what Elizabeth had seen, it looked as though Comstock wouldn't have let Elizabeth see anyone or go anywhere for any reason. She was too vital to the continuation of Columbia for her to leave, wasn't she? Too dangerous maybe...]

Why didn't you, then? [She pulled her hand back, her expression more confused than angry or betrayed.]

[There might have been smuggling involved, if Robert were fully honest, but... If Comstock had still trusted him, he might have managed it.]

Because I... [He let out a soft sigh.] I was too focused on my work to look at a wider scope.

[It was a horrible answer, though Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to be disgusted by it. Perhaps it would have been easier if she had suffered more under Robert and Rosalind's study, or if he had tried to keep her from escaping instead of aiding her and Booker. As it stood, his answer was simply tragic.]

Was it you and Ms. Lutece who decided I was too dangerous without a siphon to control me? Was that the scope of your work?

[The siphon. Robert supposes it was only a matter of time before he was asked about that.

If anyone had the right to question him, it was Elizabeth.

And before he answers, he settles into his chair. This conversation might prove long.]

We designed it, yes. But as a conduit. A restraint on the powers of a child who didn't know what she was doing. It was meant to limit your powers until you were taught enough to control them.

But I never was taught how to control them. I was never told anything about it until I broke out! [It was even turned against her in the tomb, and then they attempted to take her control entirely. It had never been a child restraint, it was a tool used to buy time until they could create her leash.]

[She was getting angry now, and she could feel parts of the apartment starting to quiver and fissure. It wasn't entirely Robert's fault, it was Comstock, entirely Comstock. She dropped her bag and sat heavily down in another chair. Before things started threatening to open up.]

[He can feel it. The ever-so-slight stirrings of the world around him in response to her anger. He understands, and he knows to be cautious. Knows to embrace the slight fear that prickles at the back of his neck.

Instinctive fear is a survival instinct.]

That wasn't my decision. That wasn't our decision.

We intended for you to learn how to use them, how to control them. Comstock decided differently, and he had the power to enforce his will over ours.

Exactly! [Elizabeth nearly stood up again, but settled on gripping her skirt.] It wasn't a matter of just taking me away, it would never have been that simple with him.

[At least, she wanted to believe that it would never have been that simple. That she was kept in captivity not because of a collective do-nothing effort, but because of Comstock's influence.]

Please Mr. Lutece. I've already been through too much to have someone tell me I could have been free long before I was.

And you know enough, Elizabeth, [he paused, leaning forward] to know that there are always moments where prevention is possible.

But where people do not act.

And then, at the eleventh hour, a cure is necessary. Something far more complicated, far more dangerous than if anyone had intervened earlier.

[Because, as far as he was concerned, it had been the inaction of a hundred people. A thousand, really. But a hundred were very responsible. A hundred people could have ended things so much faster. Could have done more than pull a man to the world over a hundred times to make him cure what could have been prevented.

Even if he was just as responsible.]

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