Oh, she changed tone very quickly. Booker had spent the last two hundred years with the same three people but he could still read a person. That little skill hadn't gone away. The mention of family and what was done closed Nile.

He prepared to rip the scab off a very old wound that never quite scarred.

"There would be some danger, yes," he said with a soft sigh. "Mostly to you."

He rubbed his palms against his jeans to chase away the cold sweat. "I went back. I had a family. A wife, three sons. I didn't want what Andy and the others offered. I wanted them. It was, uh, a mistake." The old grief surged up like water in a well, clawing at his throat to choke him. He looked away from her for a second while he pushed it down.

"If you go back... you won't age. They will. You won't get sick. They will. You will watch everyone you love grow old, suffer, and die. They'll figure out your secret. They'll beg you to share it with them and you won't be able to. They won't believe you. They'll tell you... your love is weak or it's a lie that you don't love them at all. That you're selfish."

He could hear Jean-Pierre now screaming at him in the hospital while the nuns pretended not to hear. He could feel the splash of water on his face as his son rejected him and cursed him. Booker took a deep breath and blinked back the tears.

"If you go back, Nile, and I think you're planning to... you'll lose everyone you ever loved and their lasts words to you will be hateful. That's no memory to spend immortality with."

Booker reached into his back pocket, pulled out his flask, and drank.