Chapter Text
3 months.
It had been 3 months since Eleanor had disappeared, and Grace had been aware of every painful moment. Doctor Lamb had been doing her best to put on a brave face, but no mother could have been that calm when her baby went missing; the poor woman had to be frightened out of her mind.
Grace herself was ill with worry. Every little girl on the streets of Pauper’s drop reminded her of Eleanor, every visit to doctor Lamb another twist of the knife. Was she still alive? Scared? Had the monsters who took her done it to intimidate the Family?
Questions drifted through her head like ghosts as she wandered the streets of rapture aimlessly. Her guilty conscience getting to be too much to bear, Grace ducked into one of the lounges scattered throughout Fort Frolic. Perhaps a few fingers of whiskey would manage what even doctor Lamb hadn’t today.
The bartender barely spared her a glance as he poured. There had been a time when the name Grace Holloway might have gotten some attention -faster service, a request for a song, or maybe something stronger pulled off one of the higher shelves- but such times had ended once she’d started taking Rapture’s promises of freedom from censorship at face value.
Bitterly, Grace wondered what kind of drug Ryan laced his voice with when he’d convinced her to come to Rapture. If she’d wanted to live in a death trap of an apartment, paying every penny she had to a crook masquerading as a landlord, getting shut down if she raised her voice a little too loud, and pretending not to notice the pointed looks aimed her way when she walked too close to the nicer parts of town, she’d have stayed in St. Louis. At least the whiskey was better than the watered-down piss they served here.
She was lost in thought when a commotion erupted outside. Two poor souls -probably spliced out of their gourds on Ryan and Fontaine’s infernal poisons- had broken into an argument with no apparent cause. What it was that had caused their fight she couldn’t say, but the crack of a gunshot put an end to it rather quickly.
She took one last burning swig of her drink and passed the bartender his payment. A fresh corpse on the ground would no doubt attract the attention of a little sister hungry for ADAM, and she had her doubts that she’d manage to keep it together if one did show up. Seeing those poor baby girls covered in blood and too broken to care threatened to split her heart in half every time.
As she made the brisk walk back to the train station, she heard something that threatened to knock her over like a tree in a hurricane.
“This way!” Chirped a voice that was undeniably Eleanor’s, even if it didn’t sound quite right. “We’re almost there!”
And oh, Grace could just cry with relief. After so many hours of guilt and fear consuming her from the inside out, Eleanor was alive and just around the corner. Without a second of hesitation, she hurried towards Eleanor’s voice.
There she was. In a little white dress and her hair done up in braids, skipping down the corridor without a care in the world. She was safe, clean, and most importantly, alive.
“Eleanor,” Grace half-sobbed. “Baby girl, thank god you’re alright!”
She broke into a run, arms outstretched, ready to feel her baby girl hug her again.
Instead, the empty yellow eyes of a little sister widened fearfully, and Eleanor screamed in terror.
“Daddy!”
Sometimes, she’d lose sight of her surroundings while following the trail of an angel, but Eleanor wasn’t afraid. She had daddy with her, and he would always save her from the monsters.
Always.
That day, she had been skipping along the red rose-petal path guiding her toward the angel when one of the monsters lunged at her. The sound of her name caused the soft, cozy Rapture around her to burst like a soap bubble, revealing the crumbling city of horrors for what it really was.
“Daddy!”
The cry had barely left her mouth before her protector threw himself between her and the monster. She scurried behind him, clutching his hand like a lifeline as she tried to hide from the monsters that circled around them like hyenas.
“Listen, tin daddy,” the monster growled, “that’s my little girl you’re hiding from me.”
“No!” Eleanor protested from behind daddy’s leg. “You’re a stranger! I don’t like strangers, daddy!”
Usually, that would be when daddy used his drill to scare off the monsters. But today, he didn’t move besides shaking his head. She didn’t understand. Why wasn’t the monster going away? Why did it want her so badly? Why wasn’t daddy doing anything?
“Oh, Eleanor,” the monster whispered in a voice that sounded strangely familiar. “What have they done to you?”
She didn't like that. Monsters weren’t supposed to know her name. She was always careful not to tell them. Whimpering, she buried her face further into her protector’s suit and shut her eyes. She heard daddy grunt, gasping from nearby, and the monster yelping in pain.
Already, the serene filter was covering her eyes again. The monster was once again a lady in a butterfly mask. Ruby red flowers bloomed in the bloodstains beneath her feet. Only daddy wasn’t changed; still a knight in shining armour ready to save her from anything. “You rescued me!” she giggled, wrapping her little arms around his helmet as best as she could. “But I’m tired now. Can we go back to bed, daddy?”
He nodded, humming the secret song that always soothed her as they set off in search of a hidey-hole to sleep in. Eleanor never thought about her encounter with the monster again.
Instinctively, Grace froze and curled in on herself when she heard the heavy thunk of a Big Daddy’s boots. Moving far too quickly for a beast his size, the damn thing lunged between Grace and Eleanor and shoved her away with an angry grunt. Though he didn’t have a weapon out, she was no fool. If push came to shove -as it so often did with those obsessively protective lugs- she’d seen them pull grown men limb from bloody limb with nothing but their bare hands. Gutting her like a fish would be all too easy. But the lights in his helmet were still glowing yellow, rather than the violent red that was the last thing many a splicer ever saw. It seemed like he was studying her: waiting to see if she would strike first.
Eleanor skittered behind him, her head peeking out from around his leg the way she used to hide behind Grace’s skirts. The familiarity only strengthened her resolve.
“Listen, Tin Daddy” she panted. “That’s my little girl you’re hiding from me. She doesn’t belong with you.”
The brute shook his head, one of the only indications she’d ever seen that those things understood what anyone said to them. “She’s got a family who loves her. Now let her go.”
He grumbled, one arm falling over Eleanor’s head to pin her against his leg. Their altercation was starting to draw a crowd. People had begun trickling out of the lounges and shops to gawk at the crazy woman picking a fight she was certain to lose.
“Are you nuts, lady?” A bystander shouted. “Just give it a rest!”
“He doesn’t fucking care!” Another yelled, tossing her empty glass to the floor. “Move before he fucks you up!”
Eleanor tugged the beast’s hand. “I’m scared, daddy,” she whimpered, hugging her syringe of blood like she would hold a teddy bear as she buried her face in the Big Daddy’s suit. “Make the monsters go away.”
Grace felt her heart shatter. Somehow, that brute had corrupted Eleanor’s wonderfully curious little mind, convincing her that everyone she once knew and loved was a monster out to get her. “Oh Eleanor,” she murmured, “what have they done to you?”
Unconsciously, she reached out to comfort her frightened baby girl.
She didn’t even have time to realize her mistake before he’d lashed out with one big fist; knocking her to the ground with no more effort than it would take to swat a fly. She felt something in her mouth shatter with a nauseating crack, the pain forcing a yelp past her bloody lips. Some of the bystanders gasped, others swore. No one moved to help her.
Struggling to push herself upright, Grace huffed, spat out the blood that filled her mouth, and watched the brute lumber away with Eleanor on his shoulders. That monster had stolen Eleanor -pride and joy of their family- just to twist the poor baby into one of Ryan’s little ghouls. If he thought Grace Holloway was just going to roll over and accept that lying down… well, he had another thing coming.