Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Stop it! Don’t hurt him!” Her voice cracks under the pressure of it all. Her responsibility, her past, a million things Booker is just now realizing he probably doesn't know about her. 

Fuck. 

He really thought they had this.

He stares down the barrel of an obsidian metal claw. As it breaches the space in front of him, the events of his life begin passing behind his eyes in slow motion. 

This is it. All of the time and blood and sweat he’d put into this mission—to bring them the girl and wipe away his debt—would have been for nothing. 

All of her sacrifice.

He’s ruined her life for nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.

And he’s about to be murdered by a bird.

Peachy. Just fucking peachy.

“I'm sorry!” She shrieks, voice breaking again.

What?

“I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry…”

Why in the hell is she apologizing? That giant fucking bird is the one that should be sayin’ the “Sorry”s.

But it works. 

The claw’s descent slows and it turns its head with a mechanical trill. His eye remains crimson. Elizabeth is still in danger.

“I never should have left…” She gasps through heaving breaths, “I never should have—Take me back.”

The bird’s blood-red eye briefly drifts toward amber as Elizabeth grasps and pulls herself into his metallic hand. 

“Elizabeth...” Booker remains prone, frozen.

“Take—Take me home.” Her pleas do something to his gut, flipping and turning as he tries harder than he ever has to figure out what the hell is going on.

He watches as Elizabeth submits, wrapping her body around this monster’s honed talons, closing her eyes as she pleads. “Please?” she begs. 

It blinks. 

Looming luminescent gaze, the color of all their combined bloodshed, suddenly shifts, replaced with a cool chartreuse. 

Another mechanical trill. 

It—he tilts his head to rest atop her. A demonstration of comfort. 

From a giant fucking metal bird.

Elizabeth looks at him, despair quickly filling the beads of sweat dripping from her brow; she reaches out. Not to call-out, no, Booker knows this is her fight now. She knows that bird better than anyone. But it’s not a goodbye either. 

An “I can do this”. 

And then everything is sapphire. 

And then they’re gone.

Little caged bird, no more.

He knows that they’ll meet again. 

They have to. 

Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt.