WHO: booker & elizabeth WHERE: the sleepy hollow WHEN: 14 may WHAT: a family reunion to end all family reunions WARNINGS: none so far. maybe swearing?
Elizabeth wasn’t sure where to start. She wasn’t sure if it was that she didn’t actually believe that Booker was there, or that she just didn’t want to believe that Booker was there. Because Booker was dead, plain and simple. She was there, she helped to...they had to end it before it began, didn’t they? There was no other way. To be free of Comstock, she had to exactly what Booker had said-- smother him in the crib.
The way it felt to have the river water rush over her came crashing back to her as she set down the pile of books she had half-heartedly carried to the front desk. The head librarian there was a glassy eyed elderly woman who seemed to only know a few short sentences before she began repeating herself.
“Thank you, dear,” the woman said, and Elizabeth offered only a short ‘uh-huh’ in reply as she rushed out of the building. She didn’t even bother to take off the name tag that read Anna, a lie she had told for reasons she wasn’t even sure were wholly justified. (Because Anna was the name of a girl with a happier story than her own, not the name of a girl trapped in an infinite loop of misery.) She felt as though her body was in auto pilot as she walked down the street, her eyes fixated on only the path directly ahead of her. Every step she took picked up in pace, her mind racing at a million miles to try and comprehend the idea that Booker was back.
It could have been a trick. It could have been just another Comstock, running away from his mistakes. That was what the DeWitts did best, after all-- to pick the least welcoming place he could to bury his own grave. The very thought made her clench her jaw tightly, and she was quick to shrug it away. If he was another Comstock, he wouldn’t have known about the drowning-- and he certainly wouldn’t be ‘alive’ anyway.
Before she knew it, she was standing in the lobby of the Sleepy Hollow, her eyes locked on the flight of stairs ahead of her. She hesitated for a moment, her mind once again bringing up the idea that this could have been a trick. By what or who, she didn’t know, but the worry remained. Elizabeth straightened her posture and propelled her body forward, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. She retrieved Booker’s room number from the staff member behind the counter and made her way up the stairs.
“Booker?” she said as she lightly tapped on the door with her knuckles. “It’s me, it’s...it’s Elizabeth.”