wipeawaythedebt | Loop One

When he wakes up it's slowly, his neck screaming and his mouth tasting the wrong end of a horse. It's a familiar, if somewhat disorienting feeling. The kind of feeling he used to have waking up after a night of gambling at the saloon down the street, after passing out on his desk with a bottle in his hand. But that was before Columbia, before her and last night he can swear he fell asleep in the living room. Still with a bottle of whiskey in his hand and still after gambling away what he should probably be spending on food, but he shouldn't be face-down anywhere. Unless he's fallen off the sofa.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Cracking his eyes open, he blinks in the diffused light. Something's wrong. There's something over the window - shutters? He doesn't have shutters over his windows, just those blinds things. And some curtains Elizabeth bought. He's surprised she didn't take them with her. Maybe she did. Maybe that's why the light hurts. Groaning, he pulls himself upright, blinking as his eyes adjust... and then blinking again. In the gloom he can see a door across from him. An old familiar door with old familiar lettering. He can only see the backside of it, but he knows what it says: Booker DeWitt Investigations into Matters Both Public and Private. His eyes drift down and he can see the papers, New York, 1912.

He's home. Whatever that means.

Straining to his feet, he grabs the nearby, always nearby, bottle and takes a swig, carrying it as he heads to the washroom to relieve himself and splash some water on his face. Was it all a dream? Some kind of drunken hallucination. Whatever it was, he's mostly glad it's gone. The whole thing was a wreck from the minute that man knocked on his door.

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"I was sleeping. Woke up here, figured Darrow'd had enough of me." Grabbing the bottle, he takes another swig. He's going to need the fortification. "Seems to be a theme."

He doesn't blame Elizabeth for leaving him, but he's not above poking at the open wound. Besides, this is his world, why are they here?

"The same happened to me," Alana says. "I woke up in the lobby downstairs." But if whatever controls Darrow wanted to send her home, it missed by a hundred years, give or take. Maybe it simply doesn't care where she winds up, but she'd bet good money that this isn't even close to being a coincidence. She's here for a reason. They all are.

She looks to Elizabeth. "You were downstairs, too?"

Elizabeth knew the comment was directed at her. And if they were alone, she probably would have retorted back at him. But with Alana in their presence, she refused to feed into it.

Instead, she simply shot him a look before turning her attention back to the woman. She nodded, worrying her lip briefly.

"Yes. I don't know how I got there," she explained. "I noticed you when you were leaving and thought you might at least know where I was, so I followed you."

Before Booker can reply, there's a knock at the door, "Mr. DeWitt? Mr. DeWitt!"

The voice makes him growl because there's no mistaking it, it's that damn Lutece and it figures he's showing up now. It is that day, after all, and he should be off to... rescue the young woman standing in his apartment right now. His day just can't get any worse.

"You two, stay put a second."

Opening the door, he glares at the neatly dressed man. "Come on in, join the partly, Lutece. You're a little late, I've already got the girl."

"Excuse me, Mr. DeWitt, but what are you..." He looks over Booker's shoulder and a smile of genuine delight crosses his face. "How unexpected. That's new."

The name is startlingly familiar, though it takes Alana a moment to process why. Instinctively she steps closer to Elizabeth, half-blocking her. "Booker," she says, cautioning him, though she's not sure of what. She just doubts that handing Elizabeth over is the answer to anything. "She's not just a bargaining chip you can hand off to people. That's not doing a job, it's kidnapping."

The job that sent Booker to her was something she vaguely knew - he didn't really even seem to know himself what they wanted with her. It was that uncertainty that led her to recoil a little at the sight of the all too familiar face. That Alana was quicker to put herself between her and him and Booker hardly seemed to care was something she distantly noted, but for the moment she had far bigger concerns than how they had apparently gotten to the point that he didn't seem to care at all about her.

(And distantly too, she felt foolish worrying about him since she left.)

"I do not suggest you come any closer to me," she warned, eying him warily. He had never done anything to her the few times their paths crossed, but there had to be a reason he wanted her out of Columbia and she would not be used. Never again. "I am not going anywhere."

Gritting his teeth, Booker has to fight the instinct to snap at the doc. He gets is, he does, but did she really think he's gonna turn Elizabeth over just like that? He's not coming off that badly is he? And Elizabeth, Christ, she really thinks he'd just toss her over, after everything he's done to try and keep her safe? He thought they were past that.

Meanwhile, he can hear Lutece go on in the insufferable voice of his, "Really, my dear. Are you entirely certain that you are here? Or are you where you were? Or where you're going to be?" He pauses, almost as if he's waiting for a reply that's not coming. "Where you will have had been?"

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Alana's usually pretty good at keeping her grip on neutrality around patients, but this is different. This is a far cry from anything she's had to deal with before, and it's certainly not a session. Sitting back and following Booker's lead won't get her anywhere here. It doesn't help that this Lutece is incredibly unsettling, and probably would be even if she'd never heard him mentioned before.

His speech was as vague as it always was. She hesitated at the questions, however. The ones he presented made her think of her Tears - of the slight differences each one they stepped in created, making different versions of the same reality. She was here, but maybe she was somewhere else, too.

She knew when it happened, though - when she walked through them after opening it herself. She chose it. She didn't choose this.

"What do you want?" she asked, impatient, not even entertaining him. "Why are you here?"

It was a question she posed to both Booker and he, honestly - it was Booker's office, after all, and he had come looking for him to begin with.

"Why? I'm here to pick Mr. DeWitt up for his job."

Booker snorts and rubs his hand over his eyes, wishing he'd never woken up. This whole thing is just ludicrous. But if there's a chance that Elizabeth's still in that tower, that some version of Elizabeth is still in there... well, he fucked it up once, at least this time he's going with his eyes open.

"Fine, let's go. Let me get my gun, I'll be damned if I'm going up there unarmed this time." He heads back to the desk, trying to catch the eyes of either the doctor or Elizabeth. "You girls stay here. Hopefully this goes better than it was when I left the first time, I'll be back soon."

"No, I'm sorry," Alana says. "I'm not just going to stay here and hope you come back soon to explain." What's in front of him is dangerous and her patience, though plentiful, is not endless. Lutece and the situation both have her spooked more than she'd like to admit anyway. It's almost certainly safer for Elizabeth to stay put, but she'll be just as out of place one way or another.

"You have no idea what's going on, Booker, and you're just telling us to stay here? Absolutely not," she said, looking between him and Lutece with a stern expression. "I'm right here. You have no reason to go along with this any longer, and splitting up might be exactly what we shouldn't do."

"I know exactly what's going on here, that damn city dumped me back here just in time to rescue you again. And maybe do it right this time, without the Vox, without getting chased across the whole damn city and if I can do that, I will." Moving to the desk, he pulls out the gun, hoping like hell that what he just said is the truth. He can do this, he's not going in blind this time, he knows exactly what kind of place Columbia is.

"I won't leave you, any version of you, locked up in that place for Comstock to... do whatever it is he wants with you. I just won't." Turning to Lutece, he points towards the door. "And don't think I'm giving her to you, either."

"But haven't you already? Or won't you eventually? You seem so certain, Mr. DeWitt and yet I wonder."

"Wonder away, Lutece, but we're going and they're staying." Walking past the girls he goes right out the door and everything goes black.

[To be continued HERE.]

Loop One

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