A/N: This is it! At last!

There was something I didn't know, when I posted the first two chapters of this: I was pregnant. I mention that not as an excuse, but by way of explanation. I think I probably would have finished this a hell of a lot sooner if that hadn't been the case.

Either way, I'm sorry it took so long, because, I mean, this whole thing is less than 30k, so it really shouldn't have. If you were here at the beginning and you're still here now, I thank you, sincerely.

And man, is it good to finally have it all out of my system.

AUGUST 9th, 1913, PARIS

She came home to a silhouette.

It was rare that she went out on her own. Every now and then, though, she found herself craving time apart from him, and set off to wander the city, indulging in the sorts of things that couldn't hold his interest. They both needed it, a fact that had baffled her at first and that she was only just starting to fully understand. Tonight, she'd seen a play, and turned heads as an un-escorted woman. Irritating, that. It was growing more irritating over time.

The light in the room was low. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over, shoulders shaking. The door clicked shut and he stiffened, looked back at her over his shoulder. There were tears on his eyelashes.

"Well, damn."

She rushed to his side. She'd been party to his nightmares, heard bits and pieces of the story of his life, but this was the first time she'd seen him cry. There had to be something wrong, something terribly, awfully wrong. She sat down next to him, leaned in; he tried to brush her off.

"Weren't supposed to see that."

She frowned. "Why not?"

"You just weren't." He started to stand. "Besides, I'm fine."

She grabbed his arm and tugged. He could easily have shaken her off, but instead, he let her pull him back down. "Booker..." She went to caress his face, and he jerked away, and she sighed. "What are you afraid of?"

He let out a chuckle. "Afraid? I'm..." The words trailed off. The moment stretched, suspended between them. Slowly, his expression changed. "It doesn't bother you, does it."

It took her a moment to get it. "Why would it?"

She didn't ask why he was crying. He didn't volunteer a reason. But he let her hold him, and she rocked him against her and felt her heart fill with something she couldn't quite define.

They fell asleep with his head in her lap, her skirts wet, her fingers buried in his hair.

...

EVERYWHEN, EVERYWHERE

"Well? What are you waiting for?" His voice was lead. His eyes were a dull matte. She'd never seen him so broken, even when she'd walked the darkened corridors of his past. There was neither light nor will left within him.

"I'm just..." She had already done the work of cycling through worlds and selecting the correct one. The door was right in front of her. All she had to do was open it.

And she couldn't.

She had taken him to the split, and then to a point beyond it, dispensing with the usual illusion in favor of straightforward jumps. He knew enough already; there'd been no point in dragging it out. When he'd grasped the nature of the monster that lay dormant within him, he'd aged and grown frail right in front of her.

"I did do it myself. Every last bit of it..."

Knees bending, shoulders slumping, he'd withered, dropped inches, lost his aura of strength and power. Despite the greying at his hairline, the folds around his eyes, the damage that years of hard drinking had done to his body, he'd still always looked youthful to her. But in that moment, every single one of his forty years had been drawn forth and writ plain upon his skin. He hadn't even paused when she'd asked him what he wanted to do.

But she couldn't do it, and she thought she might cry from frustration. He longed for this. He desired death in a way that he never had before. It had always been passive with him. Drink to excess, piss off the wrong people, toss himself, careless, into battle. Hope he wouldn't make it out alive, sigh and try again when he did. Now, he craved an active, purposeful death, and he wanted her to give it to him. That was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? For him to embrace it?

She glanced at him. She wanted to touch his face. She wanted to cradle it, like a mother would a child's, say something that would soothe him. But the choice had been made. She'd never get to touch him again.

No, that wasn't quite true. She'd have to touch him when it came time for him to die.

"Shit." He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. Swayed, shook himself. "Where was..." He pressed his palm to the side of his head. "I'm liking this less and less," he said. "Can we just get it over with?"

On the other side of the door, she could see water lapping at her knees, wicking up into her skirts until her abdomen was cold and damp. She could see his hands taking hold of her wrists, see him placing her palms on his shoulders. He would give her a gift, in their final moments. He would make it seem as if her part in his death was incidental. It was morbidly sweet. She'd spent so long nurturing and trying to draw out the part of him that would do such a thing, and now, seeing it bubble up to the surface one last time, she wished that she could have made him understand what she saw in him. He could have been so much more.

She took a long, slow breath. It was a rotten moment. The universe was cruel. Made a girl wonder why she'd want to save it.

The weight of fate bore into her. She spread her hands, and beyond a veil of crackling grey, an embankment came into view. Booker's breathing grew shallow. Her heart pounded. Sorrow rushed into the space between her lungs.

Her fingers went taut, and then, just before she moved them, the realization struck her.

Three lines.

She gasped. She hadn't wanted to look; she'd thought she'd already known what she'd see, and she wasn't interested in dwelling. But she couldn't bind and twirl the threads without getting a glimpse, so now she couldn't help but see his possible futures. All of them.

Even the ones that shouldn't have been.

It couldn't work. If it could, then one of the other Elizabeths would surely have seen and done it. She called up the path and traced it, searching for the flaw, for the point where it branched off and crashed into disaster. At one bend, there was a pulse of potential, throbbing like a sore, but it was so embryonic that she couldn't tell what, or if, it would become. It was a hell of risk, banking on that thread remaining unspun. But allowing him to choose had been a risk, too.

She considered the tear before her, half-open, hovering between states, a static current trapped between outstretched palms. The audacity of what she was about to do excited and terrified her, so much so that she was nauseated. She could save him. She could actually save him, and more than that, she could do what he thought wasn't possible. She could make him better.

She flicked her wrists. The tear collapsed, and was replaced by another. It unfolded around them, rolled under and over, bathed them in itself. Its edges met the seams and were absorbed; shades of yellow, tan, and brown bled through and overtook the grey. The floor was littered with shells and stained with chew. There were tables and chairs, too many of them, too close together. There was a bar, long and rounded, its wood pocked and worn. Men laughed, raucously, or sang, off-key. A woman danced, kicking up a too-short skirt. The air stank of smoke and sweat and drunkenness.

Pain and confusion washed over Booker's face. "What...why are we here?"

"This is where you meet her."

His Adam's apple bobbed. "Oh God..."

She pointed toward a seat at the bar. "When she walks in, you'll be sitting there. She'll sit a few stools away from you, and you'll start talking, and..." He'd ask her what she was doing there - wasn't the sort of place a lady ought to frequent. She'd tell him she wasn't a lady. And, in the way that only a 17-year-old could, he'd be completely taken in, awed by this rough-and-tumble girl, this girl who made it clear she had as many demons as he. He'd ask to call on her. Bed her within a week. Get her with child within two months. Marry her because it was what he was supposed to do, but also because he was head over heels for her.

It was surreal to see and to know it. She saw them together and felt revulsion and jealousy and a sick, twisted fascination. There was so much that could have been. It surprised her to realize that she hated it all, because it meant never having him in the way she wanted him.

"Elizabeth." Ah, he was figuring it out. He was smarter than he gave himself credit for.

"There's only one 'you' in this moment. What if you choose to leave before you ever speak to her?"

He stared at her, the lines around his mouth and on his forehead curving and straightening. "No," he murmured.

"I wouldn't be your daughter."

He spread his hands, palms upward. "You wouldn't be alive."

She smiled sadly. "That would be the case anyway." Some versions of her killed themselves after killing him. Of the rest, the vast majority died in Rapture. She knew she wouldn't be one of the outliers. "At least this way, one of us will make it."

"What about Comstock?"

"He needs to have me. Without me, once he dies, his vision dies with him." It was still something of a trade-off. Early Columbia would still be ruthless and unjust. She told herself that the aim had always been to stop the touched worlds from burning, and that that made it okay. But she knew, in truth, that she was only looking for a way to justify. Even in the midst of self-sacrifice, she was weak.

There was a long pause. Threads gathered at the point where they stood, drawn into an interlace that curved upward, forming a dome, which would become a bubble, which would burst open and give birth to a new world. Booker's eyes twitched. He wouldn't know what it was, but he could feel it, she could tell. His mind was too fractured for him not to.

"Don't make me do this." His voice quavered.

"Think of what your life could be like, Booker." Hers did, too. "Imagine if you had a few years without grief. If you had time to deal with what happened at Wounded Knee. If you didn't have a child and lose your wife at 18."

"I do what you're telling me, I'll lose her anyway. And...you..."

A rush of energy would spread outward from the new reality, rolling over the old contradictory ones, absorbing them. Washing them away. "You won't remember us." She almost choked on the words.

"Jesus, you think that makes it better?"

She nodded. "Yes, I do. That whole part of your life, all of that pain... It'll just be gone." She glanced ahead and saw him, late 20s, cheeks full and eyes bright, laughing and refusing the offer of a second drink. He had mourned. He had not found forgiveness; not fully, not yet. He might never. But he actually had learned to live with it, enough to allow himself to feel okay. "You'll have a chance to be happy."

He snorted. His eyes were wet and red. "How can you want this?"

"I don't. I..." A part of her did. It would make so very many things so much easier. She grasped her thimble with the thumb and forefinger of her opposite hand, twisted. While immersed in the center, she had almost given in to the urge to let go - better to lose herself than to face losing him. That still held true. And she couldn't stand the thought of creating a world that didn't have him in it, even if it might have been a better one. This was close and good enough. "God, I love you so much." Enough to die. Enough to never live at all. "I want to give this to you. Please, let me."

A shudder ran through him, and he bled, and didn't bother to wipe it away. Her arms, fingers, neck - everything tingled. Her flesh was inflamed. The pregnant budding that danced about in the space between them pulsed, grew bright and hot. In moments, they would pass the point of no return. He took a step toward her.

"You're not gonna take me outta here, are you? Even if I ask you to."

She shook her head. Another pause. He was searching for words.

"I don't wanna do this."

"I know."

"Rather it was me doing the dying."

"I know." She was so, so selfish. She gestured ahead of her. "She'll be here soon. You have to be there to make the choice."

He lifted his hand. She held her breath, waiting, hoping he'd touch her. He didn't. Instead, he sighed, and his arm dropped back to his side. "Fine."

Her heart seized. He walked away from her, pushed a chair from his path, slid up to the bar and leaned over it. Tendrils of ether formed eddies in his wake. As everything shifted, the room became a set of transparent tapestries that, one by one, began to unravel. The door to the bar opened.

She closed her eyes, turned, and wrapped her arms about her middle. It was over. It was really, truly over. Soon, she'd drift away, and a much younger Booker would find himself nursing a vague impression, like a lingering image left over from a dream. He might wonder and try to hold onto it. Fail. Then, there'd be nothing left of her, save perhaps a distant echo, a flash that would come to him in half-conscious moments before dimming and fading.

She almost regretted having to take her mother from him. Almost.

She was engulfed in static. The hairs on her arms stood up. What would it feel like? Surely it wouldn't hurt, the way properly dying would. Surely it would be gentle, to be undone. She wanted to be held. She wanted his arms and his voice, his hand on the back of her head, his lips on her temple. Even if it was painless, she didn't want to die alone. She'd spent far too much of her life that way.

A hand closed around her upper arm.

...what?

She was spun forcefully around. She gasped and instinctively pulled back, but the grip was firm. Her eyes opened and she took in Booker, his expression intense and manic.

"What is this?" she asked.

"I can't do it," he said. "I ain't gonna."

Warmth seeped into her belly but she shut it down, shook her head. "No. No, you have to."

"Who says?"

"I do." The bend. The possible offshoot. It couldn't happen. "You do this, or you die. Those are the only options." She wasn't a god.

"I won't let you die."

She pursed her lips. "Well, I won't let you die."

"Seems to me we got a problem, then."

The universe groaned around her. Particles hovered in superposition, waiting for her to cast her gaze upon them. She could force him. "Booker..."

He grabbed her face. He was her father, but he had been her lover too long for her body not to respond. "You care so much about me being happy? Well, I was damn near to being it when we..." He closed his eyes, opened them again. "Look, I don't know much about how any of this works, but if we really can't choose, why do we get to? Why can't there be another way?"

There was a faint tremor in his voice, and a desperate, half-mad hope stirred within her. She lifted her hands, moved to cup his face as he had hers, withdrew, moved in again. He breathed. His crow's feet bunched together.

"Because there isn't." The bend bulged. The world would drown, wouldn't it? All of the worlds would drown. "You saw."

"Maybe we just need to look a little harder."

"I spent..." How long had it been? "I spent years looking, and I couldn't find anything."

"Then why'd you give me an out? What were you planning to do if I took it?" He rubbed her cheekbone, then her cheek. "There's gotta be something."

"Something" was a gamble. The variables were ever-shifting, and her play was a single uncertainty within a sea of them. She'd been fine with taking that chance for his sake, but this was different; it felt a whole lot worse to take it when part of the point was to save herself. Her heart swelled with the possibility of getting to keep him, in whatever form that might take, and ached at the thought of what keeping him would entail. If she had any sense, she'd wrest back control, bend him, and let him go.

She traced the edge of his jaw. Dragged her fingers through his hair, starting at his temple, arching over and around and behind his ear. She watched as conflict blossomed within him, the memory of what they'd been and the pull of the physical habits they'd formed butting up against the knowledge of who they were, of what he'd done. As it was for her, so it was for him: it had been too long. And they'd only known one another as comrades and bed-mates. How could they ever reconcile that, if they went back? How could he ever get past his guilt?

"I don't know if it would work." By the change in his expression, she could tell he'd caught the subtext. "What if it doesn't?" What if the world still burned? What if they still burned for each other?

He gritted his teeth. "Then to hell with all of it."

Her knees nearly buckled. She wanted to kiss him, hated that she couldn't, slipped her arm around his neck and pulled him close instead. He was a stupid, terrible, ridiculous, beautiful man.

And they didn't have to do a goddamned thing they didn't want to do.

He clung to her and trembled, and reality trembled with him. Strings shed motes of light, worlds shattered and were given form. The dangerous potential, the choice that shouldn't be, erupted from its point on the line, matter drawing together like wool on a spindle, the origin spitting sparks and igniting clusters of new threads and new worlds. Over the curve of his shoulder, she could see that many, perhaps most, still led to disaster. But there were some, there were enough, that shone with hope.

Maybe she was more godlike than she'd thought.

The bar faded. She brought him home. When he started to bleed and grow dizzy, she did, too, and for some reason, she took it as a good sign.

...

JULY 27th, 1914, BOSTON

"You sure you wanna do this?"

They stood on the steps of the court house, Somerset Street at their backs. It was cooler than it had been over the weekend, but Elizabeth's skin still prickled with sweat.

"I..." She didn't want to say that she had to. There had been too much of that of late. "Yeah. I do."

He sighed, pushed his hands into his pockets. Glanced up at the building, then back at her. It was strange, being there for something other than work. Strange and frightening. "All right." His weight shifted and he brought up his elbow, his hand forming a loose fist at his midsection. She blinked and stared.

He was holding out his arm for her.

"Well?" he asked.

She took a breath. Something was changing in him. Had been since they'd made their choice. A part of her was worried - his mind was damaged, and although knitting his memories back together had wiped out the futures that had him hemorrhaging to death, he was still in danger of suffering a mental break. But if she could just...encourage him, push him in the right direction...

She lowered her head and smiled. There I go again. She wrapped her fingers around his forearm and let him lead her on.

They entered the court house and moved down the hall. They'd spent days discussing this, and he didn't like it, but she'd insisted. If they didn't flee, then she'd be found. If she wasn't found, then the US would go to war with Columbia. She had to take responsibility for what she'd done, even if it meant peddling a half-truth. It was the half-truth that made him uncomfortable.

"How can I make it up to you if we're gonna go and pretend..."

He'd sacrifice the entire universe for her. "You've already made it up to me, Booker."

It was going to take a while to convince him. It was more than worth it to invest the time.

The man in the United States Marshal's office was polished and severe. His hair was slicked back; his suit was pressed; his upper lip was obscured by a mustache, wide, in the fashion of the day. When they entered, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his belly.

"Afternoon." His eyes roved up, down, taking them in. "Something I can help you with?"

"Yes. Um..." She swallowed. Her gut churned with nervous energy. "I'm the daughter of..." She glanced at Booker, and the corner of his lips twitched upward, and he gave her a nod. Giving her permission. Giving her away, again - this time, because she wanted him to, because she needed the illusion of separation. A landscape of new possibilities slid into view. Off in the distance, he kissed her. She wrapped herself around him, and they lay shrouded in afterglow, laughing, their bodies locked together, their fingers intertwined. To hell with all of it. Her confidence grew. Something dripped from her nose, and she reached up to wipe it away. "My father was Zachary Hale Comstock, and I have information for you."

He pressed his palm into hers and squeezed.