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Booker should be here, Elizabeth thinks, rubbing away the pounding migraine in her temple as memory after memory from the Other Elizabeth's collapses upon her.
She'd had to leave Booker after finding out his real identity. Had to leave him to her alternate selves while she escaped through a tear. Their Bookers might not have been very good to them, as she can see in her mind's eye now, but Elizabeth - the real Elizabeth - had a Booker who was loyal and kind. She couldn't drown him. She couldn't watch either...
With her mental state collapsing, and floundering under the weight of so many new memories, the girl from Columbia on instinct opens a tear. She dives through it to a place where she hopes she will be safe, with the only man she's known who ever truly cared.
Elizabeth appears in New York City, specifically in a place called Bowery Street. Booker has an office here at number one-oh-eight, or so he told her. That was where he lived and ran his DeWitt Investigations Agency, and fell into crippling gambling debt.
Debt that he wiped away by selling her, his only daughter, to a man he'd only just met.
Gasping as she jumps through the tear and lands in the middle of the road, and then stumbling out of the way of honking cars and into an alley, Elizabeth leans against the wall and struggles to catch her breath. Her head feels like it is going to split open from the pressure of so many new memories.
Comstock - that monster. He deserved worse than simply being drowned. He tortured her, robbed her of her powers - the gift of opening tears, her wonder, her spark. He broke every version of Elizabeth into tiny pieces, and ground her soul into dust beneath his heel. He molded her into his perfect daughter, a worthy successor whose every thought and action was driven only by his command.
Booker deserved to die too - no, not my Booker, not mine. Her father, her real father, had died to make things right.
Or did he? Elizabeth needs to know. She has to check his office and make absolutely sure.
Staggering out of the alley, she drags herself up the steel steps of the fire escape, and all the way to the top of a faded brick building. Elizabeth peers in through the windows at the numbers on the doors and, when she doesn't find the one she wants, she keeps climbing.
On the fourth floor, she finds number one-hundred-and-eight. Booker's detective agency, in all its grey and brown glory.
Elizabeth cups her hands over her eyes and presses her face against the window to get a better look. There's no one inside. Her father's office has a single desk and chair, with papers tossed at random and half opened bottles of alcohol scattered all around.
She wrinkles her nose at it. The whole room reeks of whiskey and wine, she can smell it even with the window closed while standing outside. There are gambling slips all over the floor too - the mountain of debt that Booker sold her to clear.
Coming here was a bad idea. Elizabeth inhales shakily as her throat and heart squeeze tight. Booker is gone, and his office is all the remains, standing as a monument to his mountain of addiction and regret.
There is nothing here for her. Nothing at all -
A door to the right of the office swings open, and Elizabeth ducks down with a gasp. She hears footsteps inside of Booker's agency, and cautiously lifts her head up just enough to see over the windowsill and gape at the man inside.
It's him - Booker - and not alone either.
He has a tiny baby in his arms, a little girl swaddled in her comfy white blanket.
'It's alright, Anna.' Booker whispers to his daughter, cradling her against his chest and soothing her. 'Or perhaps I should call you Elizabeth now?'
The baby stares up at him in silence. She must not be used to this much attention from her father, a man who, to her knowledge, only exists to drink and to gamble. But soon she brightens at this new side to him and starts to smile.
Elizabeth chokes on a sob and ducks low again to hide. It's me! But that doesn't make sense, now does it? How can that be her? Elizabeth is nineteen-years-old, and that baby is practically a newborn.
Did time reset after Comstock died? Did drowning Booker expunge the zealot Christian from existence, and leave only this man - a loving and doting father - behind?
Then why am I still here? Elizabeth tears at her short brown hair with shaking hands. In her chest, her heart thumps painfully and audibly, drowning out all other sound.
She sees it clearly now. Their actions in Columbia defeated Comstock and gave Booker a second chance. They also saved his precious daughter from suffering under the preacher's tyranny, restoring to him his lovely Anna.
All while Elizabeth was tucked away in another reality, and survived the purge intact.
She covers her mouth and sobs into her hands.
Should she say something? This version of Booker clearly remembers her. He might even be happy to see her, if she goes inside. But which Booker is she dealing with now? Is this the same man who saved her in Columbia, and willing offered himself up to be drowned?
Or is this some other Booker - an unworthy copy, now reaping the fruits of labour from another man?
What about his memories? Did they all collapse together? Is he a conglomeration of every version of him, just like this Elizabeth is the result of every version of herself?
Is there anything of Comstock still in him? Does he still long for redemption for the Wounded Knee Massacre?
Trembling, Elizabeth dares to look inside again, and uses the windowsill to pull herself upright.
There he is, sitting in the chair with his baby in his lap. He's still Booker, with his brown hair and stubble, though softer - far softer than she remembers. He never used to smile like that. His shoulders used to sag under a heavy weight, and he would never be caught dead relaxing.
He beams with pride down at Anna, down at the untainted version of Elizabeth who is still happy and pure and and bursting with life.
Booker doesn't notice her watching him. He's let his guard down at last. She wonders what he is thinking - does he want to raise his daughter to be like the first version of Elizabeth he found in the tower? Or maybe he wants to raise a brand new woman, and wipe the slate clean properly this time?
Elizabeth hides behind the wall with a shudder, and reaches out to search for any tears nearby. There's one down the road, and another on the roof of this very building. She should find one that takes her far from here - to the place she has always wanted to go, to Paris.
She needs to leave. This version of Booker won't want this version of her. The voices in her head tell her as much - they are plenty sure about that.
I need to... Elizabeth weeps silently for the life they might have had. She prays things will be better for little Anna - that she will grow up into a capable woman and take the world in her hands.
At least Comstock is gone. At least Elizabeth is free now, to live the life she chooses and to go where she likes. There is no one left to hunt her, but no one left to love her either.
She leaves the DeWitt Investigations Agency behind. France is where she needs to go - Paris will soothe her aching heart, right? Loneliness will be impossible in such a vibrant city.
Elizabeth opens a tear with tears in her eyes. She should feel relieved. Comstock is dead, and Booker and Anna are safe now to lead two loving lives.
But where does that leave me?