#I’m awful at chapter length estimations CLEARLY

[marofdawn]

any update on the update i be crazy

this chapter may or may not hit 20k words asdsgdjdl

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 1

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter one / AO3

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she's been thinking that maybe it should say "Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck."

Her partner's been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

(a FULL rewrite of "the stuff that dreams are made of" completed as part of the 2020 Captain Swan Big Bang Rewrite-a-Thon)

--

with awe and infinite thanks to @captainswanbigbang and the team of mods there ( @optomisticgirl,  @phiralovesloki, @spartanguard, @shippingtheswann)   for running an insanely first-class event.  thanks also to the crew in the discord, who helped me plug MANY a plot hole, and especially to @shireness-says who kept me accountable on so many nights when i was floundering.  

i lost track of how many times i begged @thisonesatellite, @profdanglaisstuff and @katie-dub to read or re-read sections of this; especially to @thisonesatellite who’s been working with me on this story since before the event was official and dedicated many countless hours to suggesting--gently--that i stop banging my head against the wall.  @profdanglaisstuff came through and saved this story AT LEAST three times.  (that is probably a lowball estimate TBH)

--

CW:  canonical character death (minor character) rating:  T/M (mild implied violence, language) AO3

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective.

She had long, blonde hair that curled just so at the edges of a face with skin as fair as snow, save for the hint of a blush across the apples of her cheeks.  Her eyes glinted green, like emeralds in the sunlight, and the fall of her lashes was thick and dark.  Emma Swan looked like nothing so much as a fairy-tale princess, but if Emma Swan knew one thing about her life it was this: nothing about it was a fairy tale.

Her hair, for starters, was the product of nearly an hour’s work in front of a mirror most days, curling it and drying it and styling it just so. Twenty minutes perfecting the “no makeup” aesthetic with no less than three base layers before the foundation swept across her cheeks; the thickest mascara wand she could find and the darkest shade of black available completed the look unless she was feeling particularly ambitious and added lash primer.  Contact lenses instead of glasses, though her eyes were naturally green which meant that at least one of her parents probably had green eyes, too, not that Emma knew for sure either way.  But she was beautiful, which was a thing she did know for sure, capping it all off with a carefully curated collection of leather jackets and knee-high boots, black trousers and jeans and pencil skirts, for a look that said very clearly do not fuck with me.

Emma was her actual given name, or at least it was according to the one tangible thing--besides her eyes--that she knew she had gotten from her parents. The letters had been lovingly stitched into the hand-knitted blanket in which she had been found near a diner by the side of the road in Bumblefuck, Maine sometime in the first few hours after she had been born.  Her last name, Swan, had been attached by the one family who had considered adopting her, and had stuck on every piece of official paperwork that followed her from foster home to foster home after they had traded her in to have their own kid.  Sometime around her fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, soon after the first time she had run away, Emma had decided she might as well keep it as not.  Something about believing in herself and saying ‘fuck you’ to fate because no one else was going to do it for her.

No fairy godmothers in this world.

Emma Swan also had a talent:  She was good at finding people, and she proclaimed this fact on her office door.  “Swan and Humbert,” it said. ��“Private Investigations.  Missing Persons.  Bail Bonds.”

So, Emma Swan was twenty-eight, as of today; beautiful, but prickly, which was the nice way that people said it.  “Unfeeling bitch” was what Graham Humbert called her, and most days, he meant it as a compliment. 

Last night he had meant it to wound her.  “Heartless bastard” was what she had called him in return after he’d crossed a line she had never intended them to cross.  As Emma pushed the office door open, she was wondering if she should change it to “Emma Swan:  Loner, Loser, Complicated Wreck” before deciding that would probably scare potential clients away.

And for now, at least, she still had a partner.  If she hadn’t scared him away, too.  Emma was furious just thinking about it--their partnership was supposed to be easy and constant, one of the few reliable things she’d found in this life she’d scraped together for herself.

“He’s not here, is he?” Emma asked, sighing, as she walked into the outer office.

“Mmmm?” Ruby murmured, not looking up from her makeup mirror as she fluffed her waist-length, red-streaked black curls until she was satisfied with their volume. “Graham just phoned, actually, said he was gonna be late.”  She pouted into the mirror, testing the longevity of her red lipstick, and finally looked up.  “Whoa, Em,” she said, gesturing at the cropped red leather jacket Emma had selected for the day’s ensemble.  “What’s with the battle armor?  You can’t be like this today, you have a client waiting.”  Ruby snapped the mirror shut and nodded at the inner office door with her chin.

“Like what?” Emma challenged.

“Nope,” Ruby said.  “Not going there.”

Emma glared, just for a second, and cracked a small smile.  “Sleazy divorce case?” she asked, almost hopefully.

“Ah.”  Ruby nodded, like that explained something. “You’re in that mood.  Explains the outfit.  So we’re not solving the mystery of True Love today, then?”

“No mystery,” Emma said.  “Sooner or later, the people you love let you down.  Life lesson from me to you, Ruby.  At least then, they end up here--and we need the eighty bucks an hour.”

“You make it sound so tawdry,” Ruby complained.

“These are our people, Red.”

Ruby paused, eyeing Emma up and down one more time, lingering on the red leather.  “What did he do?” she asked, lowering her voice.  “Do I need to, like, rip out his throat or something?”

And--it wasn’t like Emma hadn’t felt a flash of something when he’d kissed her in the office late the night before, it’s just that it was easier to feel nothing when what you were feeling, most of the time, just plain sucked.

Emma didn’t answer and the silence stretched out until Ruby expelled a breath.  “Okay,” Ruby said, not sounding happy about it.  “Whatever. But--trust me, Emma.  We need this client.”

“He just needs me?”  Emma asked.  “Or, I guess, just one of us?”

“Actually,” Ruby said.  “He said he wants you. He was specific,” Ruby said.  

Emma had a good reputation for someone her age and especially for someone whose resume most closely resembled one of the people she was trying to track down.  But the truth was that clients who came in with a specific personnel request generally went straight for Graham.  

“Right,” Emma said.

“But lower your shields a bit and, you know, smile--but not the kind where you show your teeth because you don’t want to scare them off.”

Emma pushed the corners or her mouth upward with her middle fingers and made sure to bare as many teeth as she possibly could.  “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

Ruby gave her a wink and an air kiss.  “Any time, babe, you know that.”

Emma laughed, breaking into a real smile.  “I’ll leave that to Victor, I think.”

“It’s cute,” Ruby said, “that you think he’d care, except to come and watch--or maybe help,” and smacked her lips again when Emma rolled her eyes and turned toward the door marked ‘Private.’  She ran a hand over her hair to smooth it, squared her shoulders, and straightened her jacket.

“Shoulders back, chin up, tits out, Em,” Ruby muttered.  “It’s worth way more than a sleazy divorce case, I can smell it.”

Emma braced herself, opening the door and shutting it behind her.

Her visitor stood in the center of the room, facing the window and leaning on an ornate walking stick.  He turned around at the sound of the doorknob and smiled, a sickly, fake thing that flashed just a hint of a gold tooth.  “Ah,” he said. “Miss Swan.  It’s nice to see you again. I’m Mr. Gold--”

“I remember,” Emma said, “sir.” Sir because if what her landlord charged for this place was any indication, to say nothing of what his made-to-measure three-piece suit must have cost, Ruby was right:  they needed this case.

“I have a proposition for you, Miss Swan,” he said.  “I need your help.”

--

Emma sank slowly into her swivel chair, turning to face her visitor and smiling politely--the tight, thin kind that showed no teeth.  She took him in:  his charcoal grey suit with a hint of a sheen on the fabric, the blood red dress shirt underneath, the black tie streaked with gold and just a hint of purple with a matching pocket square at his breast.  

“It would appear,” he said with no preamble, his voice low and soft, “that I’ve been robbed.”  He spoke with a smoothed-over accent; Scottish, perhaps, but every few words there was a syllable with a cadence so foreign Emma couldn’t even begin to place it.

“You seem unsurprised,” Emma remarked cautiously.

“Other attempts have been made in the past,” he said, tapping his cane lightly against the heel of one of his polished leather shoes.  The walking stick, it turned out, was quite genuine, as the man had hobbled slightly when crossing the room toward the visitor’s chair at Emma’s desk.  “I am a man of means with collections representing many varied interests and there are always those who come to me for--” he paused, and Emma sensed the deliberation with which he chose his words, “--help.  Sometimes I am able to oblige them; other times, I leave them to their own devices.”

“You’re saying that you’re a target,” Emma said, “and that something has been taken from one of your collections?”  He nodded, and his hair nearly brushed the tips of his shoulders.  It was long for a man of his apparent dignity, with strands hanging around his face and nearly in his eyes.

“What can I say, Miss Swan?” he asked rhetorically.  “I’m a difficult man to love.”

His eyes had clearly been following hers as she made her mental evaluation of him, and the effect he gave was almost that of a reptile.

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Gold,” Emma said, keeping the smile intact and speaking softly.  “A missing object, stolen from your shop--it sounds like the kind of job the police should handle.  Though I understand why a man in your position might choose discretion above all else, I also know that a man of your means would typically have no cause to approach someone like me directly--which tells me that whatever has gone missing is something of such value that you can’t even take the chance that anyone knows it’s missing.”

His gold tooth glinted again as he parted his lips and nodded his head, almost as if in appreciation.  Emma took it as a confirmation--not that she needed it. Her life had taught her many things, and her skill at reading people had gotten to the point where if she was concentrated and detached, she could tell a lie better than a polygraph.

“What’s been taken from me, Miss Swan,” he said, “has been in my possession for longer than you’ve been alive.”

Emma nodded.  What he said was not a lie.

“Okay,” she said, leaning forward and bracing her elbows on her desk.  “So tell me what I’m looking for.”

“You misunderstand me, Miss Swan,” he said, tilting his head at an angle as he, too, shifted his weight forward.  “I have no need for you to retrieve my stolen property.  I merely require your assistance in apprehending the man who had the audacity to violate me in such a brazen manner.”

Emma gave Gold a long, hard look.  “Robbery is a public menace.  You’re asking me to aid in what could be construed as obstruction of justice.  And you won’t even tell me what--?”

“Let’s just say,” he said, “that it’s a precious object and leave it at that.  Further, I will give you my assurances that it poses no danger to anyone as long as I get it back as quickly and quietly as possible and that it remains my secret.  But it is imperative that I find this person sooner rather than later.  I am, you might say, on something of a schedule.”

“You have a funny definition of justice, Mr. Gold,” she said.  

“My dear Miss Swan,” he said, the tooth glinting, “who said anything about justice?”

“What did they really do?”

“They stole,” he said, and nothing else.

Emma sat back and crossed her arms.

“I would hate to think that I’ve made a mistake in coming to you, Miss Swan,” Gold said, his voice still low, the words turning silky. ”It was my understanding that you are quite...dedicated in your chosen profession and have, for the most part, a record of success in finding those whom you seek.”

Emma managed not to flinch.  He couldn’t know that much about her from the cursory background an internet search would reveal; couldn’t know that she never had found her parents, because the kind of assholes who hand-knitted their kid a blanket and then left said kid on the side of the road were also the kind of assholes who had left absolutely no trace of their identity in any system Emma had access to.   

Had they ever even held her?

She’d never let herself hold her son, because Emma knew exactly what kind of asshole sent their kid out into the world on their own:  the kind that couldn’t be a parent.  The kind that needed to give that kid their best chance.

If she’d held him--if she’d given herself at least that--maybe it would have been easier.

Hell, it certainly couldn’t have been any harder.

“Miss Swan?”

Emma drew in a deep breath and set her shoulders.  “And you have a history with this person, I take it?”

“Miss Swan,” he said, and the laugh that accompanied it was a distinctly unpleasant one, “you will find that there are very few people in our little corner of the world with whom I do not have history.  And this man, I am sorry to say, has an unfortunate history of taking what is mine.”

Emma nodded, slowly.  “Okay,” she said, with some reluctance.  “I’ll check him out.”

“I’m sure you will,” Gold said smoothly. “In return for this service, you will of course expect payment.”

“Our hourly rate is--”

Gold was uninterested.  “Of no importance,” he said dismissively.  “You may invoice me, assuming I don’t find him first.  If I do...let’s just say that bad things happen to bad people.”

“Is that a threat?” Emma asked, incredulous.

“More of an observation, or perhaps an incentive,” he said, and the sickly smile was back.  “Do we have an understanding?”

She nodded again. “Deal,” she said.

“Grand,” Gold said, licking his lips.

“What’s going on in here?” said a voice from the doorway, lilting and accented and familiar.

“Graham,” Emma said, “Mr. Gold would like us to take a case on his behalf.  Mr. Gold,” Emma turned her attention back to their new client, swallowing her reservations because she was good at her job.  She needed that comfort--that belief--because her job was all she had, no matter what Graham thought he wanted.  “This is my partner, Graham Humbert.”

As Graham stepped forward and offered a hand, there was a look on his face that Emma had never seen before.  His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept properly--or at all--and his gaze focused on Gold as if he was the only thing in the room.

Something flickered across Gold’s face before he offered Graham his hand to shake.   “Indeed,” he said. “Miss Swan and I have just struck a bargain.”

Emma was sure she imagined the flash of fear that briefly overtook Graham’s features.

--

There were flowers on the table when Emma got home--she grabbed them and dumped them straight into the trash.

“Oh!”  Her roommate, Mary Margaret, walked in.

It all came down to the number seven, which was the number of addresses she’d had in the past ten years, assuming that eleven months in the Arizona Correctional Facility for Women counted as an address.  Graham had hired her, and she’d stayed, in spite of the lack of dental or any other benefits.  Mary Margaret Blanchard had not been looking for a roommate, but they’d met each other and there was the offer of the spare room that wasn’t even properly a room, more like a lofted open space just big enough for a double bed and a small wardrobe, before either of them was quite sure what had happened.  Something had clicked, and Emma had unpacked the three cardboard boxes that contained all of her possessions and tucked the one small cigar box that held her life, such as it was, away in a corner of the office.  

She had a roommate and a job and friends and she hated Graham for putting all of that at risk for something that would never work.  Because if Emma were the type who allowed herself to believe in such things, she’d have said that finding Mary Magaret--and Ruby, and Graham and her job and her life here--had been like coming home; as if she had always been meant to be there.

“Can you believe this shit?”  Emma gestured at the flowers.  “Graham think this is gonna work on me?”

“Yeah, no, those are mine,” Mary Margaret said, then corrected herself:  “Were mine.”

“From the married guy?  Seriously?”

“I know,” Mary Margaret said, then:  “Wait.  How did you know?”

“You’re an elementary school teacher,” Emma said flatly.  “I’m a private investigator.”

Mary Margaret sighed.  “It’s a disaster,” she said.

“It can’t be that bad if there are flowers,” Emma said, eyebrows raised.

“No, that was--no,” Mary Margaret said.  “I just can’t seem to--I feel like a different person when I’m around him.  It’s like I can’t help myself, like I have this need to be with him.”

“Trust me,” Emma said.  “Married guys are never worth it, no matter how good the ‘flowers’ are.” Emma made exaggerated air quotes with her fingers.  “If you need an itch scratched, stick to one-nighters with no attachments, like I do.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re--”

“Because I’m what?” Emma’s eyes flashed green in challenge.  Unfeeling bitch, he’d called her, then walked in on her meeting looking like shit, but otherwise as if nothing had happened between them.  

That fit with what she knew of him; Graham was a kind, good-natured guy, and most days Emma felt lucky to have him in her life.  It’s easy, between them.

“Never mind,” Mary Margaret said.

“No,” Emma said.  “Tell me.  What do I do?”

“You’re just,” Mary Margaret said, gesturing expansively, “protecting yourself.  With that wall you put up.”

“Just because I don’t get emotional over men--”

“You don’t?”  Mary Margaret was not the type of person who snorted derisively, which Emma was grateful for more at that moment than she might ever have been; especially since Mary Margaret had no real notion of exactly how much Emma was, in fact, protecting herself from.

Because she did not get emotional over men.

“All I’m saying,” Mary Margaret said, “is that the floral abuse tells a different story.”

“Come on,” Emma said.

“I mean it, Emma,” Mary Margaret said.  “That wall of yours might keep out pain, but it will also keep out love.”  Mary Margaret was all about “mawwaige” and “Twoo Wuv” and refused to give up hope that Emma would find both of those things. 

God, was there something in the water today?  This felt like the second time, at least, she’d been forced to endure some version of this conversation.  One more minute and she was likely to start screaming about patriarchy and freedom and submitting herself to an institution that fails as often as it succeeds, and for what?  A bullshit ideal of fairy tales and happy endings?

Certainly Mary Margaret’s sordid affair was a horrible ‘Exhibit A’ in the case for True Love.  

“He kissed me,” Emma confessed, watching the progression of emotions cross her friend’s face:  happiness, confusion, disappointment, resignation.

“And?”

“It wasn’t a bad kiss,” Emma admitted, watching Mary Margaret’s eyebrows shoot up. “It was nice, I guess.  Easy.”

“And?” Mary Margaret said again.

“And,” Emma emphasized it, “I’m neither of those things?” She threw her hands in the air.  “It’s not what I want, Mary Margaret.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a knock at the door before she could respond, and Emma went to answer it.  Sheriff Nolan’s hand was poised to knock again as she opened the door, and Emma spared a glance at her roommate, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the married guy her friend had been not-so-secretly seeing.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emma said knowingly, and was surprised at David’s hand on her shoulder.

“I’m here for you, actually,” he said.

--

Heartless bastard.

Emma would have laughed, except she was crying and trying not to throw up at the same time.

--

@kmomof4 @stahlop @katie-dub @imlaxdris71 @snowbellewells @mariakov81 @shardminds​ @carpedzem​ @anne-and-gilbert​ @teamhook @winterbaby89​

[undertalethingems]

Special Fic Chapter: Aftermath

In lieu of a readily available comic update, I’ve got a brand-new chapter of the story to share! 1.6k words long, it fits between Chapters 3 and 4 of the comic--taking place on the morning just after Sans summons his full special attack.

It’s clear Sans isn’t too pleased to have his attack running around, but until now, we haven’t really seen how he feels about it. He keeps that kind of thing to himself. Or at least he’d like to.

As Sans tried rolling out of bed as he always did, his body felt light and heavy at the same time--an odd sensation to be sure. He groaned, remembering last night's nightmare. Oof, this was why he never got into drawn-out fights if he could help it. He always felt it the next day.

He was working on getting his legs to hold him up when soft scraping reminded him he had company. A half-formed thought and the attack's heavy skull was under his arm, and he curled his digits into the long nasal split that ran up its snout to steady himself. He managed a soft chuckle.

"i'd ask ya to carry me out, but i don't think you'd make it through the door."

The beast chuffed, and he couldn't be sure if it genuinely found things funny or was just echoing his own amusement back at him. Something to ponder over breakfast, provided he made it that far. He really did not feel up to moving today. But with any luck....

"Sans? Are you awake?" Papyrus' voice rang out from just outside his door.

Ah, right on time. "yeah bro. i'm, uh--havin' a little trouble."

"I take that to mean you need my help. Unsurprising! Not to worry, the Great Papyrus is willing and able to assist!"

The door creaked open under Papyrus's hand, and Sans used his attack to lift him and close the distance. He could do a little bit to help his brother out. As Papyrus picked him up, he let go of his attack's skull, and it rumbled a bit.

Papyrus eyed it. "Your attack is only slightly less intimidating in the light, brother."

"...you really think it's intimidating, huh?" Sans asked quietly, and Papyrus scoffed.

"Absodutely! It's completely out of character for you! Big, spiky, unfriendly--I suppose you have the matching creepy permanent grin thing going on, but mine also has my smile so that's to be expected. But you can't scare away nightmares with more nightmares! Ugh!"

Sans sighed. "you're probably right bro, heh. didn't stop me from trying, i guess."

"The fact you tried at all is... admirable," Papyrus admitted. "But I really hope from now on your nightmares leave you alone."

"same, bro, same. i like my sleep uninterrupted."

"Don't I know it, ugh. Anyway! Now that you have been obtained, what do you want to do?"

"honestly...? sleep more," Sans replied cheekily, and his brother groaned.

"No! You just got up!!!"

The beast chuffed behind them--maybe it really did find things funny.

"nah, you're right. if i sleep, then i can't do my other favorite thing."

Papyrus sighed dramatically. "I suppose not. What do you want for breakfast, anyway?"

They decided on omelets, and Papyrus deposited Sans at the table before getting started. Sans almost found himself drifting off--even though he'd been joking about it earlier, he really could go for more shuteye. Hopefully in light of his rough night, Papyrus would let him nap more than usual today. Considering his magic felt flimsy and distant, he probably needed the rest.

The clatter of a plate in front of him snapped him out of a daze, and he pretended not to notice the concern that flickered over Papyrus' face for an instant as he passed by to take his own seat. The omelet looked amazing, and he was grateful to Toriel for taking over cooking lessons. The expression on her face when she'd learned how he'd been doing it had been priceless, but so had Papyrus' when she'd suggested she teach him a thing or two. Sans dug his fork in, and the first bite alone said more than enough about how well lessons had been going.

After breakfast, Sans felt far more capable of moving under his own power, though that just meant taking a shortcut back up to his room. His attack perked up as his sudden appearance, and he laughed.

"what, so my brother making a racket downstairs bugs you, but a little space-time folding is nothing huh? of course... maybe you can feel when i'm about to do it, so it's not much of a surprise to ya. anyway... unless you're basically an exact copy of me, you'd probably rather be outside."

The world blinked, and they both stood out on the lawn. The blaster glanced around, then stretched out to its full length--what was surely over fifty feet by Sans' estimation--and crooned a pleased-sounding low warble. Its voice was almost immediately answered by a call from Papyrus' attack, which came loping around the house to investigate them.

"hey pal," Sans greeted it, and watched as the two sniffed at each other again before nuzzling with their snouts. Aw. He couldn't imagine why they wouldn't, but it was good the attacks got along. The two of them probably couldn't have handled any other situation.

His attack looked up at the sun and seemed to study its position before flopping down in the grass, and he had to laugh again as his brother's attack made huffy noises and tried to nudge it back up, clearly wanting to play. But his blaster grumbled back and made a show of getting comfortable, and Sans marveled at the familiarity. He shook his head, amused, and wondered just how much this raw show of magic was just a weird dragon version of him. He continued to watch them for a while, lost in thought.

When it came down to it, he wasn't sure how he felt about all this. On the one hand... it was pretty amazing. Maybe the most amazing thing he'd ever done with his magic. And hey, his blasters did look pretty cool, the same way a rapid chemical reaction or controlled explosion did. All that power under his expert control was thrilling.

But at the same time, it was power he'd only ever used--or planned to use--in very specific, extremely dire circumstances. And now it had a mind of its own. He already felt like its mere existence revealed too much of what he tried to keep personal. He heaved a sigh, and tried calling it back.

But either he was too tired, or these attacks really did have something more to them. His attack raised an eyelid to study him before going back to basking. Well, Papyrus would have been heartbroken if he'd dispelled it anyway. He'd just have to put his discomfort aside and see how it all played out. Undyne and the kid would probably love it too. And hey, it might even come in handy to have around somehow. He couldn’t know.

"alright you guys, i'm headed back in. don't get into any trouble you can't get back out of, ok?"

With a click, he returned to his room, and shuffled out into the rest of the house to see Papyrus had busied himself organizing the contents of his 'food museum'. It had changed quite a bit now that he had new 'works' to display, but there was still at least one container of spaghetti from the Underground in there. Despite his rummaging, he heard Sans' footsteps in time to glance up and beam.

"Ah! Brother! There you are! I have a plan for today and you have to listen, only partly because you are in it!"

"only partly?" Sans repeated teasingly.

"The other part is because I am in it! And! The plan is! That you are going to rest, and I am going to do some tidying up until Frisk returns later this early afternoon. Such a plan may seem simple, but that simply means it's utterly foolproof! Nyeh heh heh heh heh! Heh!"

"whoa whoa wait. i don't have ears so i'm not sure i heard you right. you're saying... you're actually letting me nap?"

"Yes! At least until Frisk returns!" Papyrus replied staunchly. "I wish you would spend more of your life awake, but even I can concede that you may need some further rest after the night you had. So! Your orders, brother, are to catch some extra Z's so that you may be somewhat re-energized for the return of our dear human friend. Understand?"

"loud and clear bro," Sans replied, giving him a thumbs-up. "i better get on it right away. it sounds pretty serious."

"It is! So go do that lying down thing you like so much and I will wake you when Frisk is here!"

"don't have to tell me twice. see ya later bro."

"See you later indeed!"

Sans retreated to his room, bed, and under the covers without further ado. As he waited for sleep to come--which, knowing him, it would shortly--he felt out his magic levels again. Still not even close to where he liked to keep it. He'd probably be worn out for the next few days, really.

Well, he wasn't exactly planning on doing anything that would require him to try recovering it quickly. He could take it easy on this.

Probably.

They were flying blind, now. He was trying to hope that was a good thing, but it was hard to picture the future. Last he'd checked, it was still...

Hm. It'd been a while since he'd checked, and these things were always in flux. He didn't expect anything to have changed, but maybe...

Eh.

His thoughts were getting too scattered to keep thinking about this. Maybe he'd have a chance to look into it later today once he'd gotten some rest. Man. Papyrus had made the right call. He was going to make the most of it, and let sleep carry him away.

He wasn’t going to worry about unforeseen consequences just yet.

[ellanainthetardis]

GIven the no link thing, the links to ff and ao3 are on my blog if you prefer reading there. Please let me know your thoughts!

Chapter 12 : Reminders

“Stop thinking about it. It is not happening.” Effie warned.

Haymitch didn’t even turn his head toward her, he kept staring at the highest point of the Big Top, a smirk on his lips. “You’re sure?”

The others had left the tent a while ago, done with their rehearsing and more interested in exchanging gossips and relaxing before people started wandering in to visit the animals before the show. Haymitch estimated they had a little over an hour before the work crew started putting everything in place for the night show and that was plenty of time for…

“Very much so.” she replied in a firm definitive tone he had learned to identify as the non-negotiable one.

Effie had been training Rue that day and after they were done, she had let herself drop on the safety net and had remained lying there until Haymitch had exchanged his wet clothes for dry ones and had joined her. He had been doing the fish tank escape act for a couple of weeks now and, so far, it was going alright, but he still needed to work on his stamina. Holding his breath longer, that sort of things.

They had been lying on that safety net for a while now and it slowly swayed with their every move. Somehow, Effie had taken hold of his arm, his sleeves rolled up to his elbow, and she was running her nails up and down the length of his forearm, the way she sometimes did on his back when they were naked and tangled up on one of their beds. It was soothing. But not enough that Haymitch’s mind wasn’t straying into the gutter. The slow swaying intrigued him and he was wondering if it was actually doable to have sex on this thing without falling off. He was wondering if it would feel like floating or if the hard rope would cut and burn their skin.

“Why?” he sulked anyway.

She could have chosen a number of reasons, starting with “anyone could come in” and finishing with “a lot of people use the safety net, Haymitch, it is not right” but of course she surprised him.

Because she always did.

And because in the two months since she had first sneaked into his bed – and since that next morning when she had been forced to sneak out of his trailer in one of his shirts since her dress was torn, a fact she hadn’t let him forget for weeks – they had done worse than hasty hook-ups in semi-public places.

“It will be too expensive to replace if we break it.” she said. Practical. Always practical, his girl.

He groaned but had to admit defeat. “Fine.”

“Besides…” she hummed, her fingers coiling around his forearm. “Do you truly want a repeat of last time?”

Last time, they had an explosive fight in the Big Tent after a show and they had completely forgotten where they were. The argument, as often lately, had turned into a kissing mess and then into more. He had lifted her up like he often did and had tried to pin her to a wall that wasn’t there. The fabric of the tent had almost torn when they had fallen into it and that would have been awkward to explain the next morning. The worst thing was that it hadn’t even slowed them down. They had just ended up doing it on the hay of the ring instead.

The smirk came back on his lips and he rolled on his side to look at her, making the whole net move. Effie’s body bounced a few times and she laughed like a child when he took advantage of that to sneak his arms around her and pull her closer.

When the net finally stabilized, she was half under him, his arm under her nape as a cushion of sort, hers locked around his waist and his free hand gently brushing her hair off her face. He leaned in and bumped their noses together once before kissing her with the ease that came from a lot of practice.

Most times, when he stopped to reflect, Haymitch felt his behavior was stupid and ridiculous. Fortunately, life in a circus was a demanding one and he didn’t often have time to stop and reflect.

He felt like a kid around her. Not much better than Finnick and the attentiveness he showed Annie in any circumstance. Not much better than the puppy eyes Peeta was making at Katniss. Effie made him feel young and whole and, while he was careful not to be too obvious in front of the others because it wasn’t really his thing, he couldn’t stop himself from standing that little bit too close, brushing against her, touching her… Kissing her. Making her laugh with his eagerness. Making her sigh. Making her moan. Making her whisper incoherent sentences in his neck.

He was too far gone for her and it scared him sometimes. The only saving grace was that she appeared to be just as crazy when it came to him.

The kisses were growing a little heated and she cooled it down, escaping his mouth to peck his jaw in a sweet gesture that wasn’t a prelude to anything else. He knew her foreplay moves, that wasn’t it. He sighed but didn’t try to change her mind, nuzzling her neck with his nose and simply enjoying the too rare moment of calm.

It was difficult to find time together sometimes. She was busy running the circus and he was busy running her show. Pleasure and business didn’t always mix so well.

It was rare that they didn’t end up in the same bed at night though. They hadn’t really talked about it. Often, he joined her for her daily cigarette like old times but ended up following her inside when she was done. Sometimes she showed up at his trailer before he could go search for her. They hadn’t talked about making it a more official arrangement. He thought they both liked having their respective space. Haymitch was messy and she was too neat, their stuff crammed together in one trailer would have been a source of argument.

As it was, she already kept a clean stock of underwear in his bathroom – he wasn’t sure if she knew he had noticed because she certainly hadn’t asked him first – and a few of his shirts were in her trailer – she had kidnapped them to sleep in but it was handy when he needed one in the morning so he hadn’t called her out on that either.

“What are you thinking about?” she hummed when he delicately nipped at the tender spot beneath her ear. Not to start anything. Just to tease. To touch. To taste.

“I’m thinking…” His voice trailed off, a little too raw maybe. “I’m thinking I’m happy.”

There was a touch of awe to his tone, as if he hadn’t been sure of it himself. And he hadn’t, he realized. It had been so long since the last time he had been able to say that, to mean that…

“Yes?” She grinned, her blue eyes sparkling in delight.

“Yeah.” he shrugged and then leaned in to kiss her.

It was a long tender kiss, the sort they didn't often share because they were all about passion. Her nails scraped the stubble that covered his cheeks. He waited for the exasperated comment he had come to expect once every couple of weeks about how he really should shave but it never came.

“I love you.” she whispered instead. A touch uncertain. A touch nervous. A touch vulnerable.

She rarely allowed herself to be any of those things. Effie Trinket was confident to the point of arrogance. And, for a second, the shift in behavior startled him enough that he didn’t register the actual words.

And then he did.

I love you.

I love you.

They weren’t so unexpected, those words. They had been two months in coming. He knew that. She had more or less already implied them when she had clearly stated she did not sleep with anyone she wasn’t romantically involved with.

I love you.

They weren’t surprising.

I love you.

But the last time he had heard them, the last time he had said them back…

He didn’t realize he had frozen until her face fell and then closed off before going back to her more characteristic mask of cheerfulness. He tried to say something, he did, but the words were stuck in his throat and wouldn’t come out.

Not when she started babbling about needing to get a start on her make-up as if it was in any way relevant to their previous conversation.

Not when she slipped out of his arms and off the safety net.

Not when he tried to get off that very net with far less grace and far more difficulties.

All in all, he was almost relieved when Jo barged in with her usual abrupt manners.

At least, he was relieved until he spotted what was wedged between two of her fingers.

“Hey, Trinket!” the young woman called out. “Finnick’s looking for you so if you're done…”

“The fuck do you think you're doing?” Haymitch spat. He was on her before the girl could blink, fingers wrapped tight around her wrist, keeping her hand high in the air, bodily forcing her back…

“The fuck! Let me go!” Johanna snarled.

He barely registered the nasty kicks to his legs or the girl’s struggling to free herself. His grip was unyielding and he wasn’t happy until he had her out of the Big Top. He didn’t hear Effie shouting his name, barely noticed the crowd that had come running at Johanna screaming bloody murder.

All he saw, all he could see, was the red glow of the cigarette between Jo’s fingers.

He plucked it out of her hand and crushed it against the side of the ticket booth, staring at the hay surrounding them for the longest time while the young woman yelled her irritation. It took him several minutes to accept no ember would catch, that they were safe.

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” he roared, covering Jo’s angry speech and Effie’s attempts at bringing back calm. Everyone was staring by now. He saw Chaff making his way through the troupe from the corner of his eye. “You’re trying to burn us all?”

Johanna didn’t back down. “The fuck do you think you’re doing grabbing me like that, old man? Try that again and…”

“I catch you with a cigarette near the tents again, you’re fired.” he spat.

He was overreacting. Maybe. Or not. He wasn’t sure anymore.

I love you.

Would he have been that harsh if those words hadn’t still been echoing in his ears?

People who loved him tended to die.

“So what? You think ’cause you're fucking the boss now you're in charge?” Jo sneered. “You’ve got no right to…”

“Smoking is only allowed near the trailers.” Effie cut in coldly. “You know the rules, Johanna.”

“Figures, you’re taking his side.” the girl cackled bitterly. “You were far more interesting when you weren't his bitch.”

Haymitch took a threatening step before he even thought about it and it was probably a good thing Chaff’s good arm grabbed him around the chest. His best friend’s grip was firm and he could feel his every breath against his nape – the unusual heaviness with which the man’s chest was rising.

He wasn't the only one who was distrustful of cigarettes coming anywhere near the Big Top.

“You're a stupid little girl.” Haymitch gritted through his teeth. “You could have killed us all.”

“I was being careful.” Jo dismissed.

“No.” Effie snapped and her voice lashed out like a whip over the whispering crowd. “You weren’t. Nobody is allowed to smoke near the tents or the paddocks. Keep it to the trailers.” Her gaze scooped over the troupe and she tilted her chin a little higher. “This is the last incident of the kind I tolerate. Next time, it will be the door to anyone caught in this area with a cigarette. This being said…” She turned toward him, her mouth set in a hard line. “Nothing excuses brutality. It is also the last time I tolerate this sort of aggressive display.”

Haymitch scoffed. “You're kidding me? She brings a fucking cigarette on the ring and you're…”

“Chaff, if you would be so kind, escort Haymitch to his trailer so he can calm down.” she cut him off. “I will be ringleader tonight. We won’t be needing our magician either.”

He half choked on that. “What?”

His only consolation was that he heard Johanna being banned from the show for the day too as Chaff forcibly dragged him away. He was fuming by the time he managed to shrug his friend off.

“Can you fucking believe that?” He scowled, storming to his trailer. He slammed the door open but Chaff closed it slowly behind himself, denying him the pleasure of hearing it bang again. “She’s got no clue. No fucking clue.” He snatched a bottle from the table and tore the cap off before taking a long mouthful. “That stupid kid almost burns her circus down and she punishes me? Hell, what business does she have punishing me at all? Ain’t her bitch!” He took another gulp, the whiskey burning all the way down his throat. “She's only pissed ‘cause I…”

I love you.

His voice faltered. He brought the bottle to his mouth, a little more slowly, and took a smaller sip.

“You're done?” Chaff asked, his tone patient but not really amused. He had sat down at the foot of Haymitch’s unmade bed and had been watching him all throughout that tirade. “You were too rough with the kid.”

He snarled at his friend. “She had a fucking cigarette on the…”

“I know.” Chaff interrupted. “Ain’t saying that was right either. But you didn’t see yourself, the way you grabbed her… Too rough. She ain't a Viet-Cong.”

“You think I don't know?” he sneered.

Had he, though? When he got that angry…

“I think you saw the cigarette and you forgot everything else.” Chaff shrugged. “Ain’t saying I would have reacted any better. But you were rough and Trinket can’t allow that or it sets precedents.”

And that was a perfectly valid point of course but…

“I ain’t watching this circus burn down.” he growled. “I ain’t watching any more good people die.”

Chaff sighed, stood up and clapped his shoulder before muttering he needed to go and make sure everything was ready for the show.

Haymitch flopped down on his bed and nursed his bottle for a while, refusing to admit he was sulking but very much doing that. He wasn’t sure how he didn’t end up drunk given his poor mood but he managed to indulge only just enough to feel the buzz.

By the time he ventured out of the trailer, he could hear the music in the distance. The show had started. A few men from the work crew had lit a campfire in the trailer area and Haymitch wandered past them, nodding to those who greeted him but refusing their offer to sit down with them. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he found it. Or her, he supposed.

Johanna was sitting next to the campfire the kids liked to use at night, her legs hugged close to her chest, the glow of another cigarette dancing next to her face.

“Come to try and beat me up some more?” she challenged when she spotted him.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who hit me. Didn’t even raise my hand.”

That was true enough. He could feel the bruises forming on his shins and stomach where she had kicked and punched him but his only preoccupation had been to get her out of the Big Top, away from the hay. He had gripped her wrist tight but that was the only thing he had done to her.

“Still doesn’t make it right.” she sneered.

Haymitch sat down anyway. For a very long moment they didn’t talk at all. They just listened to the faint echo of music. He figured it must have been Prim’s turn by now.

Eventually, he fished his flask from his pocket, took a swing and handed it to Jo. “Shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

She hesitated for a second before snatching the flask and drinking some of the moonshine.

“Shouldn’t have been smoking over there.” she admitted after a long time. She took a few swallows before peering at him curiously. “Is that how it happened, then? Your other circus? A cigarette? ’Cause you don’t freak out nearly as much when Katniss does her Girl on Fire act and it’s more risky than a cigarette, let me tell you.”

But there were people with buckets of water ready to act at the smallest sign of troubles when Katniss performed – his idea – and they were all there. Cigarettes were more insidious. By the time you realized what was going on half your life was gone up in smoke.

“Yeah.” he answered simply. He dug the tip of his boot into the dry earth, ill-at-ease. “Didn’t mean to make you freak out with my freak out.”

“Didn’t freak out.” she lied.

“Sure, you didn’t.” he humored her, watching the flames’ shadow dancing on her face. It made him uncomfortable quickly, reminded him of another time, another fire… “We make a fine pair, you and I.”

Johanna snorted, apparently not as insulted as he had thought she would be. “There isn’t a soul in this circus who isn’t fucked up.”

“True enough.” he sighed. “True enough…”

When his flask was empty and her cigarette was gone, she retreated to her trailer and Haymitch slowly returned to his.

He didn’t get ready for the night and he didn’t bother turning on the lights though. He listened to the vague echoes in the distance that told him that the show had ended and that the work crew had started dismantling…

He was sitting across his bed, his back to the wall, his legs half dangling over the edge…

Effie knocked but only once and then she pushed the door open without waiting for an answer. She must have believed he would be either drunk or asleep because she looked surprised when she found him sitting there.

She hadn’t changed out of her outfit yet. She was wearing the old ringleader bodice with its red velvety fabric and the golden embroideries, the golden fluff on her shoulders making the whole thing over the top. Not as much as the top hat and the whip though.

“I do not want to fight, that can wait until morning when you are sober and I do not have this raging headache.” she warned. “I just came to check if you were alright.”

He smirked despite himself because there she was, defiant and stubborn, bossy, irritated and irritating, and he wouldn’t have changed her for the world.

“Nothing to fight about, sweetheart.” he replied.

“Oh, there is plenty to fight about.” she denied, stepping inside instead of hovering on the threshold and closing the door behind her. She turned on the light and he blinked a little at the harsh electrical halo. “You will have to apologize to Johanna, for instance.”

“Already talked to the girl.” he dismissed. “We’re good.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, her hands on her hips as she studied him, looking for a lie perhaps.

“This cannot happen again.” she stated firmly.

“I know.” he offered.

“What I mean is: do not put me in that position again.” she clarified.

“You’ve never complained about the positions I’ve put you in.” he joked but at her glare, he lifted both hands in front of him. “Fine. Fine. No kidding about this, got it. Look, out there you’re the boss, you’ve got final say. I’ve got no problem with that.” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have threatened to fire her, that was your call to make.”

“Yes, it was.” she retorted but her face softened. “You snapped back there, Haymitch.”

“I know.” he repeated because it was all he could say about it. He couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen again.

With a soft sigh of her own, she slowly came to sit next to him, close enough that their sides were pressed together. “Was it because of what I said before that?”

Some fluff was coming loose from her shoulders and she absent-mindedly plucked it out, toying with the thick golden threads to keep her hands busy.

He didn’t want to talk about what she had said before that.

I love you.

He licked his lips. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You do not have to…” she started but he cut her off.

“It was a cigarette. That night.” he explained, staring at the low ceiling of the trailer before closing his eyes, knowing that the images would come no matter if his eyelids were open or closed.

And they came.

The flames licking a path all the way up the Big Top, spreading through the layers of hay and fabrics too fast to be stopped, engulfing the animals paddock, devouring the ones that hadn’t yet been cut loose… That was where his attention had turned first because all he could think about was the money they didn’t have to spare and that they would need to repair… And then the first cries and he had realized that on the other side of the tents, the fire had reached the trailers and the unsuspecting people who had been sleeping in them.

“There weren’t enough men in the work crew already.” he recalled. “We hired locals. Chaff hated the idea ’cause… You know how people can be.” Not everyone was happy with a black man giving orders. Haymitch had always told his friend to send those ones to hell but sometimes need must and he knew Chaff hadn’t always obeyed that instruction, had taken one for the team. “It was one of the hired men. One cigarette. That was all it took, Princess. One cigarette, one spark, and my whole life gone in a blaze.”

He opened his eyes to find her watching him. She was distractedly braiding the golden threads in her hands without even looking at them.

“It wasn’t even that long ago, yeah?” he snorted. Less than a decade. He had been young. Too young to lose everything. “Sometimes I feel like it was yesterday. Sometimes I feel like it was a hundred years ago.”

“I am sorry.” she said and the words rang hollow like they always did because… People could be sorry but that didn’t help him.

“You’ve got no clue what it’s like… Losing everything in one night. You’ve got a family and then an hour later you’ve got nothing but ash. You’re alone.” He scowled and then shook his head. “I’m not entirely sorry I scared the girl, you know. Maybe it will make the others think twice before they bring cigarettes over there.”

“Still. Manners.” Effie sighed and when he frowned at her, she waved her hand in the air. “I see your point, Haymitch, I do but… I abhor violence.”

He opened his mouth to argue but she leaned in and pressed a kiss on his lips before he could say something they would probably have both regretted. It wasn’t much more than a long peck but it helped him settle for good, smoothed what was left of anger and fear.

When she drew back, she pressed her forehead against his and he felt her fake eyelashes flutter against his face.

“Effie…” he breathed out. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Tackle the I love you problem or let sleeping dogs lie…

“You are not alone anymore, you know?” she whispered. “I know it scares you sometimes. I understand. But you are not alone.”

She slipped something around his wrist and he looked down to watch her knot the braided threads of golden cords.

“Friendship bracelet?” he mocked. “What are we? Thirteen year-old girls?”

She pursed her lips and spared him an annoyed look that turned him on far more than anything else she could have said or done.

“A token of my affection.” she replied pointedly. “So you never forget about me.”

“As if I could.” he snorted, lifting his hand to inspect the makeshift bracelet. “Looks like a manacle. Fitting, yeah? You’re obsessed with tying me up…”

“You are the one asking for it.” she deadpanned with a sweet smile.

“For the show, sweetheart, for the show…” he smirked.

Not that any locks or bounds could hold him long. And if she had been good at slipping out of handcuffs before, now that he had taught her a few more tricks, it was hard to keep her tied up too.

She rolled her eyes but her lips stretched into a smile and she rested her head on his shoulder, retracing the braided threads with her fingertip. “About earlier…”

She wasn’t going to let it go, then.

“Ain’t that I don’t feel it.” he said quietly, with a small wince. “’Cause… You know I… Effie…”

“It is alright.” she promised quickly. “You do not have to…”

“No.” he sighed. “I want you to get it. It ain’t that I don’t… It’s just those words… They’ve got memories attached. Not bad ones but...”

“I understand.” she offered when his voice trailed off. “We can… invent new ways of saying it, then.”

“Or we can just not talk about feelings.” he snorted, bumping his nose against her blond curls before dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “I ain’t complaining about this stupid golden bracelet, ain’t I? Should tell you everything.”

It must have because when she kissed him next, it wasn’t chaste and it was certainly not sweet.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/sports/tracy-edwards-maiden-was-either-met-with-antipathy-or-aggression/

Tracy Edwards: 'Maiden was either met with antipathy or aggression'

“It was such a dreadful word then,” explains the sailor, who that year made history and defied critics by leading the first all-female crew to sail around the world.

Had Edwards not been expelled from school — for smoking and drinking during a school trip — she may have never discovered her love of sailing and become the trailblazer she is today.

Unbelievably, it was Edwards’ well-traveled mother who suggested she pack her bags and go traveling to get some life experience abroad — and alone — after she was left without a degree.

“My mom was an extraordinary woman and she could see very clearly where I was headed and the direction I was carrying on,” Edwards tells CNN Sport.

“She realized I needed to go away from where I was and kind of make many mistakes and find my way.”

‘I didn’t realize there were people like me’

It was in Greece where Edwards, aged 17, began working on charter yachts.

“I found my feet and realized that I’d felt contained before and it gave me the freedom to discover what I wanted to do,” she says.

“Every boat I worked on had a great skipper who was a mentor and a ragtag bunch of crew members who I realized were like me.

“I didn’t realize there were people like me and I felt like I fit in for the first time in my life, that no one really cared about anyone’s background or why we were there.”

READ: The return of the greatest team you’ve never heard of

Fast forward 10 years and Edwards noticed the significant lack of women around her at sea. She was a young cook and the only woman on-board South African boat Atlantic Privateer during the 1985-86 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race — now known as the Volvo Ocean Race.

“Out of the 230 crew in the race, four of us were girls,” Edwards remembers. It was at this point that she began asking herself, “I wonder if girls could do it?”

‘Nobody had ever seen a bunch of girls working in a boatyard’

It was only then, when Edwards began looking at creating an all-female crew, that she says she had her first real experiences of sexism or misogyny.

“I had never been told before that I couldn’t do something — mostly because I was where I should be — in the galley,” Edwards says as she rolled her eyes.

“But that was the reaction! I think if the reaction hadn’t been so strong I’d probably moseyed through it but it made me thing ‘whoa, what’s going on?'”

READ: Hannah Stodel brings new meaning to Vendee Globe’s ‘single-handed’ race

After mortgaging her house in 1987, Edwards bought a dilapidated sailing yacht, Prestige, and brought it back to the UK where she, and her crew, began working on it.

“We had no money so we were just a bunch of girls with tools,” Edwards laughs. “No hard hats, no health or safety — flip flops and shorts, wandering around with chainsaws.”

She says they were the talk of the boatyard.

“Nobody had ever seen a bunch of girls working in a boatyard so there was a lot of ‘do you want help with that love?'” Edwards laughs.

Over six months, Edwards and her team pulled the yacht apart, redesigned it and rebuilt it from scratch.

“The best thing about doing it was we knew every inch of her — we laid every cable, every pipe, we put every single thing in. We did everything ourselves.”

Even after rebuilding what became to be known as Maiden, the all-female crew continued to face sexism within the industry.

“Maiden was either met with antipathy or aggression — not really much in between,” Edwards says. “As we got more successful it got worse — they did not like that at all.”

READ: How sound helps blind sailor Lucy Hodges win gold medals

And successful they were, Maiden finished second in its class during the 1989-90 Whitbread — winning two of the legs. It was the best result for a British boat in 17 years — and still remains the best result for an all-female crew.

It was an historic moment that shocked the sailing world. It was also here that she noticed her views on feminism slowly changed.

“I realized that one of my early interviews one of the journalists question me ‘are you a feminist’ and I go ‘oh God – no, no, no.’ … but then later on I noticed I (started) saying ‘yes I am because I believe in equality.'”

After the race in 1990, Edwards sold Maiden and the 12 crew members scattered across the globe.

READ: Sailing the world with a baby

‘Bankruptcy was a defining moment in my life’

Though with triumphs, came defeats. Edwards began managing sailing programs and created the Oryx Quest in 2005 — the first round the world race to start and finish in the Middle East. The race sent Edwards bankrupt, after the Qatari sponsor failed to pay up its £6 million sponsorship.

“Recovering from that is very hard,” Edwards said.

“It was something that happened to me that I couldn’t prevent. I would have never chosen to go down that route; It was a defining moment in my life.

“It was hard, I left home with nothing at the age of 15 and had done very well for myself by the time I was 36 and then lost it all by the time I was 43. It’s a very difficult landscape when you’re 43 years old and you think ‘I’ve got to do that again.’

“You realize that when you’re younger you have no fear — you haven’t failed yet. You have that overwhelming feeling that ‘of course I’m going to succeed.'”

READ: Women make history in winning Volvo Ocean Race crew

Edwards went on to work for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center and returned to university to complete a psychology degree.

“It’s something I’d never have done if I hadn’t of been disillusioned with the sailing world. I helped write the 2009 resolution on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child which is not something I had planned to do!”

Maiden found rotting in the Seychelles

Then, in 2014, Maiden reentered Edwards life — after she found out it was rotting away in the Seychelles — an archipelago of islands in the Indian Ocean off East Africa.

“She’d been there for two years already — unbelievable,” Edwards says. “This man who left her there didn’t tell me.”

READ: Young sailors find perspective high in the Arctic

Members of the public who recognized Maiden as the yacht that sailed into the history books in 1990 contacted Edwards to tell her of the yachts’ dilapidated state. It was when a naval officer reached out to her and said they were talking about deep-sixing it that she knew she had to do something, so she turned to crowdfunding and in 2016 repurchased Maiden.

“She was in the water, not lifted out or anything, and they hadn’t really looked after her. We beat them down on the price a lot when we got there and thought ‘this is actually a wreck, this is no longer a boat.’

“Bringing her back was just awful because we were looking at our work — our names were still on the lockers, the navigation station was just like I’d walked out and left it — it had all the old equipment.”

Maiden returned to Southampton, on the south coast of England, where a year-long restoration began — in the very same shed where Edwards and her crew back in 1989 worked on the yacht before the Whitbread race. Edwards and Maiden is also the subject of a feature length documentary, directed by BAFTA award-winning director Alex Holmes.

Educating girls

Edwards has embarked on new chapter of her life — this time with “The Maiden Factor” — a not-for-profit organization that involves Maiden going on a three-year world tour to raise money and awareness for girls’ access to education. The tour began in September.

Edwards says it dawned on her when she was completing her degree that she was privileged enough to live in a country where education was available to all.

“I was handed an education on a plate (at 15) and I decided ‘no, I already know everything and I’m just going to throw that back in your face.'”

READ: Sailor sacrifices sleep for science to save the planet

According to UNESCO estimates published in 2016, 130 million girls between the ages of six and 17 are denied an education.

“The whole focus (of The Maiden Factor) is empowerment of women, celebrating where we got to and recognize how to get a bit further forward,” Edwards says.

In early August she also walked away with the Lendy Ladies Day trophy at Lendy Cowes Week for her efforts and for championing the role of women in sailing.

“Everything about it feels really good,” Edwards says of the three-year world tour. “Maiden is inspirational, she changed my life and I think most of the crew would probably say the same thing.

“We can inspire other women and girls and get people involve and very visibly demonstrate something no one believed in.”

Visit CNN.com/sailing for more news, features and videos

Almost 30 years after she and her crew made history, Edwards says she’s only now beginning to appreciate everything she’s accomplished.

“For the first time in my life I’m proud of everything we achieved,” she says, “and it’s taken me a lot time to get there.”

The new documentary film – MAIDEN – was released by Dogwoof on March 8.