#like I seriously think everyone needs to stop playing armchair investigator

[harrytheehottie]

.

[stressy-enby]

Found

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu  X  Reader

There wasn’t even that much blood.

The deadly trickle from the throat was light. Fuyuhiko had seen worse in his life.

He had seen so much worse.

If that was the case, then why did he feel like throwing up? 

There, lashed to the pillar of the music venue, was you, (Y\N) (Y\L\N), the Ultimate Therapist. Your head lolled to one side, and your face held a certain sadness to it, a sadness that made the boy want to throw himself at your feet weeping.

Not another one, not again. Fuyuhiko though desperately. Not them.

Why did it have to be you?

. . . . .

“It’s my fault,” the blond gangster said quietly. Fuyuhiko scoffed at himself. “That’s what’s funny about all this: it’s all my fucking fault. It’s my fault that Mahiru is dead, and it’s my fault that Peko took the punishment.”

“Let me ask you something.” You leaned back in your cushioned armchair, folding your arms across your chest. “Why are you so insistent on making yourself miserable?”

“Huh?”

“You keep blaming yourself. You keep revisiting Peko’s death. You’re just making yourself feel worse.” You sighed softly, and looked at your patient with sorry eyes. “I can’t help you if you just don’t want to be helped.”

“I do wanna be helped!” The Fuyuhiko protested.

“Then you need to let go.” You locked eyes with the young yakuza. “I understand that this is very difficult for you, and that you’re in a lot of pain right now. I know that this is a hard thing to ask of you, but if you wish to improve your life then I’m going to need less blaming, and more listening from you.”

Fuyuhiko’s stomach flipped when you held his gaze. It was as if your kind eyes had pierced his soul.

“Okay,” he nodded slowly, feeling his face heat up. “Okay.”

. . . . . 

Ding dong dong ding

The monitor in the music venue flickered to life. Monokuma, sitting in his little chair and drinking his little drink appeared on the screen.

“A body has been discovered!” He announced, as if Fuyuhiko wasn’t staring at your suspended body. “Now then, after a certain amount of time has passed, the class trial will begin!”

Fuyuhiko wasn’t even listening as the message played a second time. He barely looked at the hung body over the stage. You were all he could see. You, with your sad face and bloodied neck.

“What... w-what is this?” Mikan shrieked, stumbling backwards.

“(Y\N)... no no no no no,” Fuyuhiko placed his head in his hands.

“Could it be? Two victims?” Chiaki’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Who could be the one in the hemp bag?”

They lowered the hanged body, and pulled the bag off of the victim’s head, to reveal Ibuki. 

Fuyuhiko hardly noticed, though. He hardly moved. 

He couldn’t stop staring at you.

He couldn’t stop the prickling at the back of his eyes.

. . . . .

“Hey, Fuyu!” You chirped, as you waved him into your cottage. Come on, sit down. I think I’ve found a way to help you make better progress.

“Oh yeah?” The blond teenager sat down on your bed as you made yourself comfy in your armchair. “And that is?”

You leaned over to your bedside table, a mischievous glint in your eyes. You pulled out a small green cardboard box, and a hand-held nerf gun.

“Uh, what the hell are those for?”

“Therapy.” You answer simply, placing the box in your lap, and fiddling with the nerf gun. “They’re counseling tools. I used them quite often, trust me. They’ll do the trick.”

The small boy raised his eyebrow skeptically, his mouth pulled into a tight line.

“Now, anyway, have you been doing that mind-clearing exercise we talked about a few days ago?”

“I-I’ve been trying.” Fuyuhiko sighed, and rubbed a hand on the back of his head. “Every time I close my eyes and try to not think... I just see Peko. I see her body. There’s blood everywhere.”

“Hmm,” You leaned back in your chair.

“And it’s fucking annoying as hell because I’m supposed to be getting over this shit, y’know?” He sighed explosively and dropped his head into his hands. “God, it’s so fuckin’ stupid. I’m so stupid. I-”

Suddenly, a nerf bullet hit the yakuza’s leg with a soft thwap.

“The hell?” Fuyuhiko spluttered. He glared in confusion at you, who had the gun trained on his leg. “Why’d you do that?”

“I’m correcting you.” You said cooly.

“Correcting me-!”

“Please continue. Now, how does it make you feel when you can’t successfully clear your mind?”

“I told you,” the gangster snapped, peeved “I feel stupid, and helpless-”

Thwap. Another nerf bullet, this time on his upper left arm.

“Is that so?” You pointed the nerf gun at Fuyuhiko’s torso. You want to rethink that answer and give it again?

The blond frowned slightly at you, then bit his lip in thought. “Um. Yeah, uh, it’s not stupid, but I still feel frustrated when I can’t do it.”

“Why?”

“Because- because I want to get better, and I trust you and I think that being able to clear my mind will help me.”

You nodded in approval. No bullets.

“Then in that case, I recommend that you keep trying it.”

“Y-yeah, okay.” Fuyuhiko nodded, smiling a little.

. . . . . 

The small yakuza excused himself from the investigation. He couldn’t do it. Not this time. Not again. Not ever.

Not with you.

Not with you gone.

Fuyuhiko laid on his bed, clutching a pillow to his chest. He closed his eyes, as if he could find some sort of comfort in the darkness. As if he could escape from this cold, gripping reality.

Instead there was so comfort, only more sorrow.

Nothing but sorrow.

. . . . . 

“Alright, can we try clearing our minds now?” You asked, adjusting your seat.

“Now?” Fuyuhiko furrowed his brows. “I really don’t think I can-”

Thwap. His other arm.

“Shit! Okay, okay, I’ll try!” The blond grumbled, pulling the nerf bullet off of his arm and tossing it to the floor.

“Excellent! I’ll do it with you.” You set the gun back on the table. “Let’s go for two minutes, ok?”

“Yeah, sure,” 

The pair closed their eyes. Fuyuhiko had to remind himself to keep his breathing steady. He encouraged all the horrible thoughts out of his head. He forced all the terrible memories to leave. He quieted all the voices screaming at him.

Byakuya.

Teruteru.

Mahiru.

Peko.

Another deep breath in, another shaky breath out.

Young master...

Nope, get the hell out of my head.

Young master...

Shut up. You’re not real.

Deep breath in. Shaky breath out.

“Try to keep your breathing steady.” You whispered.

Deep breath in, slightly less shaky breath out.

Young master...

Another deep breath in, another deep breath out.

“You’re doing great, Fuyu.” You breathed. “Another minute, bud.”

Young mast-

Shut up.

The silence that followed was oddly comforting. Fuyuhiko usually didn’t like being alone his thoughts. They were always too loud, and he had never been able to effectively clear his mind before. 

“You can open your eyes.”

The small blond blinked, and then flinched when he saw you staring directly at him, an easy grin painted across your face.

“How was it?” You asked ecxpectedly.

“Not bad, surprisingly.” He placed a hand on the back of his neck. “Good, actually. It took a minute to get my brain to shut up, but it quieted down eventually.” 

“You quieted yourself down, bud.” Your lips pulled into an even more dazzling smile. “And I’m very proud of you.”

You reached your fingers into the green box, and tossed something small and colorful at Fuyuhiko, who caught it with ease. 

“What is this?” The boy asked examining it.

“A Mik & Ike.” You replied, popping one into your own mouth. “I shoot you when I don’t like your progress, and I give you candy when I do like it.”

“O-Okay.” Fuyuhiko smiled softly, turning the candy over in his fingers. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one of these before.”

“Wait, seriously?!”

“Yeah, I don’t eat candy, usually.” He shrugged. 

You plopped down on the bed next to Fuyuhiko, box of Mik & Ikes in hand. “Okay, forget therapy. We’re taking a candy break.”

“Is that even a thing?” The yakuza raised both eyebrows into his hair.

“Is now.” You grabbed his wrist and flattened his hand, shaking more candy into it.

Fuyuhiko eyed you oddly, his cheeks turning pink, but placed a Mik & Ike in his mouth. “Hey, this is pretty good.”

“Hell yeah it is.” You smirked at him. “These are my favorites.”

“Hmm.” The blond looked up at you, watching you chew happily. “Hey, (Y/N)? Thanks for helping me out. I...I really appreciate it.”

“Of course, Fuyu!” You smiled softly at him. “I’ll always be there for you.”

. . . . .

Fuyuhiko stood apart from his remaining classmates as they made their way to the courtroom. He barely acknowledged the air of unease. He had gotten used to it by now. 

He filed into the elevator with everyone else, and tucked himself into a corner. He closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply.

(Y/N). I miss you. I never got to tell you this, but I think I care a lot more about you then I care to admit. I promise that I’ll find the bastard who did this to you.

He could almost hear their voice.

Breath, you fool. You’re not going to get anything done if you don’t.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Fuyuhiko’s mind would’ve been blank, if not for your smiling face.

You got this, bud. I never left you, and I never will. Now please, get out of this hellhole, and live.

[rhetoricandlogic]

Ally

by NALO HOPKINSON

PUBLISHED IN MAY 2018 (ISSUE 68) | 3100 WORDS 

© 2018 by Nalo Hopkinson.

It’d been a warm, sunny spring afternoon. The grass in the cemetery was green, the roses and lavender in the wreaths fragrant. Iqbal’s funeral had been a quiet affair, all things considered.

Our circle was getting too old for the type of soap opera drama that had marked our younger years. We’d lived for enough decades that my friends and I had settled into some kind of rhythm, had dared to allow some of our sharp edges to be burnished smooth.

So by the time of Iqbal’s funeral, Joachim had long since given up staging drunken screaming matches in parking lots with Jésus for stealing Joachim’s boyfriend Steve, lo these many years ago. After all, soon after Steve had left him, Joachim had met and bottomed to Randall at a play party, and they’d been together ever since. Randall had ceased lamenting the flawless beauty of his youth to anyone who would (or wouldn’t) listen. He’d started dating a couple of eager smooth-skinned houseboys, vetted by Joachim. The young men kept Joachim’s and Randall’s boots spit-polished. Randall had let his hair grow in grey, waxed his mustachios, and relaxed into his daddy role.

Munroe had become an actual daddy as a result of a drunken evening with his dyke friend Alice. He ended up sharing custody of the little girl with her—mostly amicably, with some glaring exceptions. “Baby” Tina was twenty-two years old now. She’d attended the service with hugs for all her uncles and me, her aunty. Almost everyone had remembered to call me Sally. After all, it’d been seven years. Pete did slip up and call me “Jack . . . er, Sal,” but I didn’t bite his head off; he was, after all, burying his husband. But it’s been seven fucking years, dude, and you’re still making that mistake?

When I transitioned, Pete’s awkwardness about it had cooled our friendship down quite a bit. So as I stood beside the grave site with the others, watching the coffin being lowered mechanically into the hole and longing to get out of the black pumps that were crushing my toes in two very stylish vises, I was surprised when my phone buzzed with a text from Pete: The bar in an hour? Just you and me?

Well. It’d been years since he and I had hung out like that, but I knew exactly which bar he meant. I texted back, Make it an hour and a half. To underline that I wasn’t going to let him “Jack” me again, I added, Momma needs to slip into something more comfortable.

I only stopped at home long enough to switch my heels for flats and give the hubby a squeeze, but Pete was already waiting when I got to the bar. He was nursing a virgin Manhattan, extra maraschino cherries. Nowadays, sugar was his drug of choice. He looked glumly up at me and kicked out the chair opposite his. The haunted look in his eyes made my heart ache. I sat. He said, “Rye and soda?” I didn’t even need to nod. He knew what I liked, and was already signalling the waitress.

Two women sitting together at the bar gave me the side-eye. They leaned their heads together to talk, scowling at me the whole time. Easy to figure what they had their panties in a twist about. “You okay?” I asked Pete. “Never mind. Stupid question.”

His eyes met mine. “Something happened the other day.”

“With Iqbal?”

He frowned. “Yes. No. I’m not sure.”

I sighed. “Tell me.”

He tried on an ill-fitting smile. “I dunno. It’s dumb. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“‘But you must be mad,’” I quoted. “‘We’re all mad here.’”

Unlike the Cheshire Cat’s, his smile became a little more real as he quoted back: “‘There’s no use trying. One can’t believe impossible things.’” His smiled cracked. “Maybe it was just the stress. Of everything. Of Iqbal . . .”

My drink had arrived. I took a sip, let the bite and chill of it roll around on my tongue, swallowed. “Pete, I’m listening. You know I always will, no matter how crazy the thing you have to tell me.” No matter how hurt I was that we weren’t really friends any more.

His eyes were wet. “You remember Mrs. Richardson.”

It wasn’t a question. Pete and I had known each other since we were teenagers in high school. He was the first person I told outright that I wasn’t a boy. He’d laughed it off, quite gently. But I’d never mentioned it to him again.

And of course I remembered that cunt. She shouldn’t have been allowed near kids, much less allowed to foster young Pete. Meeting a foster kid had been quite the eye-opener for me. Meeting the spinning ball of hatred that was Mrs. Richardson made the skin on my arms crawl, made me almost grateful for my passive-aggressive mother and my transphobic dad.

I said, “One minute she’d be sweet as pie, the next she’d be raging.”

“She wasn’t always like that, though. At some point, she changed.”

I hadn’t known that. “Really? What turned her evil, then?”

“The other way round, Sal.”

Good. I was back to being Sally, or as close as Pete would get to it. “Wait—you mean she used to be worse?”

He nodded. “When I was first placed with her, she’d come at me night and day. She said I was a lost cause, but she would whip me into shape. Once I laid the table with the knives and forks on the wrong side of the plates. She sent me to bed without dinner.”

“Seriously?”

“She made me do all kinds of evening and weekend chores till I was so tired, I fell asleep on top of my homework. Then she punished me for getting bad grades. Took my socks away that fall and winter. Couple of my toes never recovered from the frostbite.”

It felt like the bottom had dropped out of my belly. “We were friends! Why didn’t you tell me?” The Mrs. Richardson I’d met mostly yelled a lot. Vile things, usually variants of “dumbass.” And she’d refused to give permission for Pete to go on any school trips.

“I’d only just met you. It started happening in summer, when you were away at camp. And anyway, it didn’t last long.”

“Lasted long enough for you to get frostbite that winter.”

He shrugged. “What good would telling you have done?”

“We could have told my folks, or the school! Someone would have gotten you out of there!” I was nearly shouting. People near us glanced at us then looked away.

“You’ve never been a foster kid. More likely, no one would have believed us and the investigation would just have made her hate me even more.”

All that time, he’d been suffering. And all this time, he’d kept his secret from me.

“She was careful to only hit me in places the bruises wouldn’t be seen.”

“Jesus.” I sucked back more of my drink and waited for him to continue. But he stayed silent. I prompted him: “What made her get nicer? Or at least, made her stop physically hurting you?”

“I’ve told you about my dad, right?”

Clearly he needed to change the subject. “Yeah, a bit.” Pete’s dad had raised him alone. Got hit by a car and killed when Pete was thirteen. That’s how Pete had ended up in foster care.

“Dad used to let me read Alice in Wonderland to him. He took me fishing, worked on my science fair projects with me. He never raised a hand to me.

“I saw the accident, rode with Dad in the ambulance. He was bleeding, semi-conscious, but he held my hand till he couldn’t any more. He kept saying, ‘I’ll come back to you, Petey. I have to look after you.’ And then of course he didn’t come back. He died. And I was sent to Mrs. Richardson.” Pete clamped his hands around his drink. They were trembling a little. I wondered whether he’d even told Iqbal about Mrs. Richardson.

My drink had gone right through me, and I desperately needed to pee. I knew from past experience this place had segregated washrooms. That’s why—or one of the reasons why—I’d stopped coming to this bar. I crossed my legs and leaned forward in my chair, as Pete clearly had more to say about that bloody bitch.

“One day, she was hitting me—on my legs—and I was trying to act like it wasn’t hurting. She was pissed because of some damned thing she thought I’d done, I don’t even remember what. I do remember I was trying to tell her that I hadn’t done it, and she was shouting, ‘Children should be seen and not heard!’”

I stared at Pete, my mouth open in shock.

“Suddenly she stopped mid-swing, with her hand pulled up, like someone had grabbed her by the wrist. She opened her eyes wide and said, ‘Petey.’ And . . . she stopped hitting me. She dropped to her knees to look at the bruises that were coming up on my thighs. And then she said the strangest thing.”

“What?” I was trying hard to forget my twinging bladder. One of the two TERFy dykes had just gone to the washroom. The other was watching me, her lip curled in disgust.

“She said, ‘What did she do to you?’ You know, talking about herself in the third person? Then she went to hug me! That freaked me the fuck out. I pushed her away. She stood up, looked confused. She asked me where the kitchen was.”

“In her own house? Was she having a stroke, or something?”

“Yeah, maybe. Iqbal was confused too, when he had his first stroke . . .”

“Hey,” I said, “Do you want to get out of here, just go home? Or come back to our place? We have a guest room, you could spend the night.”

But Pete was looking off into the memory distance. He continued, “I pointed to where the kitchen was. She came back with cold water and paper towel. She dabbed my bruises and said she was sorry, that it was such a long way back and she’d brought the water as quickly as she could.”

“Bitch was seriously crazy.”

Pete had the waiter bring us refills. I hoped I could hold my water. In a pinch, I could dash back home, use the toilet there, be back in twenty, thirty minutes tops, and not risk being attacked for the unforgiveable crime of peeing in a public toilet.

“After that,” said Pete, “I never knew whether I was going to get evil Mrs. Richardson or good Mrs. Richardson. It messed with my head. Sometimes she’d just sit in her armchair in front of the TV and mutter, like she was arguing with herself. And sometimes she’d just look scared out of her wits. I was so glad when I was legal to leave.”

I smiled. “I was bigtime envious of you, getting to be on your own when you were sixteen.”

“You were an idiot, then.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“That was no picnic, either.” He sipped his drink, then looked up. “I just remembered something. The day I left, I was just heading out the door when she put her hand on my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She said, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t look after you the whole time. It’s such a long way round.’ Then her hand fell away, and her face just changed. She stepped back. She watched me leave, and the look on her face was the most hatred I’ve ever had directed at me. And that’s saying something. I scrambled down the driveway like the Devil was at my heels.”

I shuddered. “Did you ever see her again?”

“Not her, no. Heard she’d jumped in front of a car, or something. Didn’t care.”

“Pete,” I said gently, “You were telling me about Iqbal?”

He stared into his glass, spoke with his head still down. “We used to fight. Like, knockdown fistfights.”

“Oh, no.”

“’Fraid so. Blood was shed, there were trips to Emergency, the police were called.”

“Police? To a fight between two brown men?”

“Yeah. It’s a miracle we survived.”

When one lives in a world in which large portions of it want one dead, every minute is a triumph, every breath a defiance, and, if one’s jib is cut that way, every statement a manifesto. The everyday vagaries of life and love are just writ that much larger, because they mean that much more. The game of “he said/he said” is raised to a level of artistry rivalled only by the sport of kings. Every breakup is forever, because love may never find one ever again. Every new lover becomes one’s whole life, because one is stealing love from the jaws of hatred. What t-shirt to wear with the perfect jeans to go clubbing is almost as brutally important as what words to write on one’s placard to attend that demonstration against legalizing faith-based homophobia. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It stopped, all the violence between us. One day, Iqbal took his hands from around my throat—”

“Pete!”

“—and he looked at his hands as though he’d never seen them before. He said, ‘No more. I’m not going to fight you anymore.’ I mean, it didn’t end right away. For one thing, I wasn’t ready to stop. Didn’t know how, really. But Iqbal really meant it. He’d changed. Eventually he got me to go to counselling with him. And bit by bit, we figured shit out. Figured out how to be good to each other.” Pete sobbed, once, so loudly that people three tables over stopped to look our way. “God, Sally, I miss him so much.”

“I know, honey.” I took his hand in mine. He jumped at my touch. I tried not to feel hurt.

“You know the last thing he said to me?”

I shook my head.

“He said, “I found my way home to you, Petey. I looked after you. I got better at it, so that I could be with you all the time.” He went unconscious after that, and was gone by the next morning.”

“He loved you very much. That wasn’t strange at all.”

He nodded absently, then pulled his hand away to pick his glass up. He had a sip. “Okay,” he said. “I suppose. But here’s the thing; only my dad ever called me Petey.”

I tried to concentrate through the yammering of my bladder. “No, that’s not right. Didn’t you say that Mrs. Richardson did?”

“Once. The day she stopped hitting me.”

“And Iqbal?”

“Once. The last time he was conscious.” Pete’s hands started shaking so badly that he had to set the glass down. He put his hands in his lap. “So what I’m really asking myself is: who was I married to all those years?”

Something squirmed in the pit of my belly. How could he even think—? “Pete . . .” I whispered.

He jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry, Sal. It’s just been so hard the last couple of days. Losing Iqbal, the funeral, all those people to be polite to while . . .” He stopped, his face pulled into the lineaments of grief. “My head’s just been full of all these weird thoughts.”

“I understand,” I murmured. But I didn’t. “You need to be gentle with yourself this next little while.”

“Let me get the check.” He put some bills on the table.

“Okay, thanks, but first I just need to . . .” I stood, clamping down hard on my aching bladder. Another reason to be thankful I’d diligently done all those post-surgery kegels.

Pete sighed, as one does when one is about to say something difficult for others to hear. “It’s just that . . . well, Mrs. Richardson, Iqbal; people around me keep turning into someone else. You used to be Jack; now you’re Sally.”

The cold burn of betrayal and erasure was just about to tsunami over me, scouring me from skin to bone, when he got a strange look in his eye. In a clear voice, he said, “But Jack is just what people called you. I finally figured it out. You were always Sally. You have always been exactly who you are right now.”

I can be an emo bitch sometimes. When I started weeping, he pulled me into his arms. “Sally, I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick.” For the first time in years, my friend and I held each other like the close companions we used to be.

And then I really, really had to go. I waited, hot-footing, till I was as sure as I could be that there was no one in the Women’s. Pete stood outside the door painted with the stick figure lady in a triangle skirt until I exited safely. He walked me home, hugged me again on the street outside my apartment building. I told him I’d check in on him tomorrow, waved goodbye as he headed off in the direction of the subway station.

Age and a track record of survival can bring poise to a life lived cheek by jowl with the possibility of danger. You might say that one’s trigger becomes less hairy. Nevertheless, one is always watchful for that slight shift, the moment when a situation turns.

That new look in Pete’s eye, the complete change of demeanour. And wasn’t that the first time, he’d called me Sally? Not Jack-er-Sal. Not Sal. Sally.

In the long elevator ride up to my twenty-first floor apartment, I tried not to ask myself whether Pete’s sudden change of heart had been all him. As I kissed my sleeping husband and got ready for bed, I tried not to feel guilty that I didn’t care who had been behind Pete’s eyes. Whoever it was, they were my friend.

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Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson lives in a home filled with books, art supplies, tools, art projects at various stages of unfinished, more books, and brown-skinned mermaids. She has aches, pains, chronic fatigue, and a quirky brain. She has far too much to do, and nowhere near enough time to marathon watch annoying but addictive science fiction TV. She loves dance. She’s working on a novel about a monster carried by a girl who turns into a woman. The girl does, not the monster. She cooks great food (mostly) and mismanages her schedule. She doesn’t answer her phone or check her voice mail messages.

[blacklister214]

Second Son New Chapter: Drivel

“I can’t help you.” Jacob inhaled slowly through his nose, counting back from five in his mind. He would not let Carter rile him. It was what the tracker got off on, and Jacob would not give him the satisfaction of seeing him upset. A calm and measured tone, that’s what he needed. A calm and measured tone.

“Glen, I don’t have time to play games. You already kept me waiting for sixty-five minutes, even though I was first in line when you opened-” Carter interrupted him, raising his hand in the air as if to fend off Jacob’s accusation.

“My supervisor was on the prowl, and you alway make a big stink about discretion-” Jacob raised his own voice to speak over Glen’s rambling.

“And now you want to sit there and tell me you can’t help me? Seriously, man?” Carter’s hands dropped to his sides and his shoulders drooped. He looked smaller than usual, deflated even. The space inside the office, which usually crackled with the DMV employee’s maniac energy, felt dead.  

“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m just not going have the time for next few months. Maybe if you come back after the New Year’s I’ll be available.” Jacob said nothing, simply sat and let silence fill the air. He could do this, he could outlast Carter. The man mouth ran on a motor. If Jacob didn’t respond to his nonsense the contractor would crack, and they would be in business. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Glen shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Phelps, I got to back to work.”

When the man started typing on his computer, Jacob realised he was really and truly being dismissed. Oh no. Whatever was going on with Glen, there was no way Jacob was getting the brush-off. He felt his grip on his temper begin to slip.

“Sixty-five minutes, Glen. Over an hour! And let me tell me tell you something: I have stayed in prison cells that were more sanitary than that that waiting room! I probably picked up swine flu, because you didn’t have the courtesy to-” So much for maintaining his calm, professional demeanor. Jacob supposed he should have known better than to even make the attempt. Glen Carter was one of the only people on the planet who could rile Raymond Reddington, and Jacob didn’t have a tenth of his boss’ patience.

“You know what, you're not the only person in the world with troubles! My life hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses lately!” Despite himself Jacob paused at the tracker’s outburst. This was probably just another one of Glen’s yarns, but what if it wasn’t? Bad shit happened all the time and it was possible that something was genuinely bothering Carter.

“What’s wrong?” Glen’s expression twisted and he busied himself shuffling the papers around on his desk.

“Forget it.” Jacob momentarily closed his eyes and thought of Dembe. Serenity, wisdom, and compassion. He could do this.

“I apologize if I seemed abrupt. Please tell me what’s troubling you.” There that sounded like his brother, more or less. Jacob waited and after a few seconds Glen ceased his straightening and sunk back into his chair. A pained expression played across the tracker’s face.

“It’s my brother. He’s in court mandated rehab. Mom’s beside herself. She wants to transfer him to some private treatment center in Maryland. Tranquility woods. She keeps talking about taking out a second mortgage to pay for it, but I’m terrified she’ll lose her house.” Jacob tightened his hands around the arms of his chair so he wasn’t tempted to wrap them around Carter’s throat.

“Glen, you're an only child.” How Carter had survived this long was a mystery to Jacob. He couldn’t be the first person to interact with the pathological liar who had longed to put him out of their misery.

“No, I WAS an only child. Apparently Dad was watering quite a few of his neighbor's gardens back in the day, if you catch my drift, and Steve sprouted up. He found us a couple of months ago and Mom’s got such a big heart. She just welcomed him into our family. She says we’ve got to stand by him even after he stole her good jewelry to pay for his habit. She’s just a marshmallow, and it kills me to see her like this.

And on top of everything else, I can’t help thinking, ‘What if it’s me next. They say addiction runs in families. The next time you come to see me, I might have a crack pipe under my desk-”Jacob stood, unable to withstand one more minute of listening to the tracker’s drivel.

“Goodbye Glen.” He got exactly two steps toward the door before Carter called him back.

“Wait. I suppose since you're already here, and I need the money to pay the pawnbroker who my brother sold the-” Jacob slammed the file down on Carter’s desk so hard the man actually shut up. The man did have some sense of self-preservation after all. Who knew?

“I need everything and anything you can find on this man.” Jacob flipped open the folder and tapped the photograph Hartwell had provided. “He was last seen yesterday at 9:53 am breaking into 601 Edgewood Street NE, Apt. 2C. Call me when you have something.” He didn’t wait for a response before turning and heading out the door.

Jacob nearly plowed through a woman with walker and a beleaguered middle-aged dad in his haste to escape the DMV. A few mumbled apologies later he was standing on the sidewalk, breathing what passed as fresh air in the city. It was amazing how one five minute conversation with Glen Carter could feel like it lasted a year.

As Jacob pulled out his phone, he promised himself that this was absolute last time he would use Glen as a contractor. No matter how good the man was, the psychological toll just wasn’t worth it.  

Reddington picked up on the second ring. “Yes?”

“I spoke to Glen.” A bemused chuckled greeted Jacob’s ears, causing him to scowl. Easy for Raymond to laugh when he wasn’t the one who had to suffer through the experience.

“Was he as charming as ever?”

“Pretty much, but he’s on it.”

“Excellent. Hartwell’s security protocols seemed adequate?” Jacob carefully considered the question before answering. The operative’s cameras were still in place, and remained undiscovered even with the break-in. She’d provided detailed intelligence on what the man been up to. Jacob could objectively say he found no fault with the agent’s work.

“She’s knows what she’s doing. Scott’s as protected as she can be, under the circumstances.”

“Under what circumstances?” Jacob sighed softly. He shouldn’t have said anything. Reddington did not appreciate unsolicited armchair quarterbacking. He briefly considered trying to walk back the comment, but he knew Raymond well enough that he wouldn’t just let it go.

“You demanded that Hartwell maintain a careful distance from Scott and she has. The trouble is we both know it’s a hell of lot easier to protect someone if you're standing right next to them, rather watching them through a scope.” If someone for example attempted to abduct, or assassinate Scott in the middle of the night, there was no guarantee Hartwell would be able to reach her in time. Without Reddington’s restrictions in place, Hartwell could have positioned herself as Scott’s neighbor, or maybe even roommate. A close friend would have a hell of a lot better access to her and in the protection game, proximity mattered.      

“You’re suggesting I should have hired someone to infiltrate Elizabeth’s life on a more intimate level?” Jacob could hear the unmistakable disapproval in Raymond’s tone. The international criminal’s sense of honor showed up in the most unexpected and inconvenient places.

“I’m saying that she’d probably be physically safer if you had.” Jacob’s assessment was met with a silence, prompting him to end the non-debate with, “But she’s your friend’s kid, not mine. That’s your call to make.”

“How generous.” Clearly it was time to change the subject.

“Did your contact come through with the Good Samaritan file?” Jacob knew Reddington had an informant he’d tapped in order to investigate the possibility that this whole affair was connect to Scott’s work with FBI. It would make everyone’s life easier if it was. Serial killers may frighten the public at large, but they didn’t stand a chance against an operative like Hartwell or a career criminal like him. Unfortunately Jacob suspected the man they were after was something else entirely. It could be the paranoia that last couple of years had nurtured in him, but to him, this felt like the enemy they’d been unsuccessfully pursuing, the one Newton had dubbed “the Adversity’. Dear God, Jacob hoped he was wrong.    

“The agent left it for you in box 2142, Bradford Bank. I’ve already had the key messengered to your hotel.” Then that was Jacob’s next stop. It was probably a dead end, but Reddington hadn’t trained him to bank on his own assumptions. Besides it wasn’t like he had anything else to do while he was waiting for Glen to provide him with a lead.  

“What alias am I using to access the box?”

“Thomas Vincent Keen.” Jacob rolled his eyes. He hated that identity. The name sounded so forthright, so earnest. Not to mention the ridiculous glasses Reddington had chosen for him for the passport photo. They’d been perfect in that they made him look completely non-threatening, but whenever he wore them, he always had the lingering fear he’d be forced to fight in them. Being punched in the face while wearing glasses was not fun, nor was continuing the fight half blind. He knew from experience.

“Unless you have something else you need me to take care of, I think I’m going to stick with Hartwell. Two sets of eyes might be better than one.”

“I’m surprised to hear you volunteering to work with a partner. You generally insist on working alone.” Jacob heard the amusement behind the faux confusion in Reddington’s voice and smiled. Their moment of tension had passed.

“You paid top dollar to secure the Major’s best asset. I’d be an idiot not to...take advantage of that.” Reddington chuckled softly at Jacob’s implication.

“I trust I don’t need to remind you to remain focused on the task at hand?”

“No, you do not.” It went without saying that any woman, no matter how beautiful or talented in the bedroom would ever come before Jacob’s commitment to Reddington or his agenda.

“In that case, let me simply remind you that in nature the most stunning creatures are frequently the most lethal.” That was rich, Reddington of all people warning him off seductive and dangerous women.

“Sounds like someone recently had an unfortunately rendezvous with Dechambou...Or was it Pratt this time?” Jacob could not deny that the man had game, but he couldn’t help but notice that a sizable chunk of Raymond’s affairs seemed to end with his lovers attempting to kill him. The kind of thing had to wear on a guy after a while.

“I’ll expect an update the moment you have new intelligence.” The lack of response, and subsequent termination of the call strongly suggested Jacob had been right on the money. When this business with Elizabeth Scott was resolved, he’d push for more details. Until then he had an intruder to find, and a gorgeous blonde to both entertain and assist him. Things were definitely looking up.

[qqueenofhades]

The Rose and Thorn: Chapter XIV

summary:  Sequel to The Dark Horizon. The New World, 1740: Killian and Emma Jones have lived in peace with their family for many years, their pirate past long behind them. But with English wars, Spanish plots, rumors of a second Jacobite rising, and the secret of the lost treasure of Skeleton Island, they and their son and daughter are in for a dangerous new adventure. OUAT/Black Sails. rating: M status: WIP available: FF.net and AO3 previous: chapter XIII

Flint was confined to bed for the rest of the week. As he was well aware that he was extremely lucky to be alive, even he did not complain – at least any more than usual. He did try to get up and carry on as normal on Wednesday morning, which led to him almost falling down the stairs and otherwise causing a disruption, and he was packaged straight back to bed with considerable scolding. After that, it was somewhat easier (if only somewhat) to convince him that a few more days of rest and recuperation were in order, and by Saturday, he was almost feeling his old self, albeit with a nasty, still-knitting gash that would require close minding. They had had to cut his hair on that side of his head to tend it, which gave him a slightly mangy look that he disliked, so Miranda fetched the shears and evened it out. “There,” she said dryly, with a final snip. “I’m not certain that our most pressing concern is your vanity, my dear, but there you are.”

“Better.” Flint inspected his new trim critically in Violet’s hand mirror. It had been a long week for everyone – needing to take care of him, wanting to further their investigation into Gold but also wanting to stay close to home in the event of another attack, and waiting tersely for another potential instruction or complication from Gideon – and tempers, while holding reasonably well given the strain, were still fraying around the edges. No constables had beaten down the door to accuse them of collaboration with the Jacobites, at least, so that seemed to remain secret enough, and perhaps the tip that David had given the redcoat captain had led the authorities to nab some of the conspirators. Flint had not wanted them to question Charlotte without him, so Violet and Lucy had been over at the Bell household for most of the week, to keep up a casual, unsuspicious conversation and otherwise not startle Charlotte into running if she thought they were onto her. What there was to be “on” to, if there was anything at all, they still had no idea.

“I don’t think you’re ready to jump back into full action quite yet,” Emma said, as Flint appeared to leap out of the chair and do just that. “You might be able to go visit Charlotte with us, but even then, we’re not getting information out of her if you just – ”

“If he behaves like himself, you mean,” Miranda supplied briskly, unscrewing a small tin of liniment, dabbing up a few fingers, and carefully applying it to Flint’s wound. “Do you suppose you could possibly manage not to, James?”

Flint hitched his face up into a hideous simulacrum of a friendly smile. “Does that help?”

“Not at all, really.” Miranda continued her examination to see how the flesh was granulating, seemed moderately satisfied by what she found, took the fresh-boiled cotton wool and clean bandages from Emma, and began to tie up the new dressing. “As an old friend once told you, you will need to keep your temper for the duration of the meeting, not merely its inception. One hole in your head is quite enough for you to be getting on with.”

Wisely warned by the shortness in her tone not to make any more remarks of his own, Flint held his tongue and sat still until his wife had finished her work, was then not pleased by his resulting partial resemblance to an Egyptian mummy, and sought about for a hat to disguise the infirmity. The only one he could find was a battered old tricorne of Henry’s, that when he put it on made him look rather like a villainous highwayman (this impression being, after all, not entirely inaccurate) and which was strengthened when he shrugged on his cuffed black cavalier’s coat and slung his pistol bandolier over his shoulder. “I swear, I won’t shoot unless someone shoots at me first,” he said, in response to Emma and Miranda’s renewed askance glances. “But I’m still not walking in unarmed.”

Sensing that this was clearly the best they were going to get, the women fetched their own cloaks and shoes and made ready to go. They had decided that it should be the three of them to question Charlotte, as they knew the most about Gold and any link she might have with him, and if it did go sour, it could be blamed on them without tainting Charlotte’s friendship with Henry and Violet. Flint, of course, was of the opinion that if this was the case, good riddance, but Emma and Miranda hoped that they could restrain it from undue manifestation. Henry had tentatively gone back to the print shop, as he needed to work to support his family, so David was left in charge of protecting Violet and the children. He had taken quite well to his role as surrogate grandfather; he and Mary Margaret had no children of their own, and he was to be observed playing with Lucy and Richard in the back garden as they left. Flint shot him a very dark look over his shoulder, but for once, did not comment.

It was a pale, breezy, early-September day, the very slightest edge taken off the worst of the summer heat. As they set off down the lane, it only being a brief walk to the Bells, Flint said abruptly, “It’s Sam’s birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Emma had not forgotten that tomorrow was the seventh, as she had not forgotten Killian’s birthday a fortnight ago, and her heart twisted. It was getting harder and harder to repress the unbearable thought that she might never see her younger son again. “We. . . we should have supper. To mark the occasion.”

“You don’t think – ” Flint started, then stopped. “Never mind.”

“No. What?”

“You don’t think a young man of Sam’s. . . talents, who traipsed off to fight with overheated notions of chivalry and gallantry, who has been getting into trouble before he could walk, and cannot tell a lie to save his life, might have become embroiled in some other mess apart from just the war? If someone in the army worked out who he was, if they found themselves in need of an assistant or an underling for some excursion or endeavor or what have you, is there not a chance they’d settle on Sam? I’d pick the boy from the notorious family of pirates, since I’d know there was a nearly unlimited supply of ways to ensure his compliance. Sam could never resist an adventure, no matter how hare-brained. So. . .?”

Emma glanced at Flint with one eyebrow raised in the way that Killian did so well, as she thought it was a bit rich of him to be casting stones at anyone else for their proclivity toward hare-brained adventures. Still, the rest of what he was saying made a certain amount of sense, both oddly reassuring and further worrying. If Sam had been recruited into a side job or personal favor for someone, that could indeed be the reason he had not come home, rather than that he was badly injured or dead. However, it also meant that he could be literally bloody anywhere in the New World, in God knew what circumstances, with God knew which consequences for failure (or, for that matter, success). There was always the possibility that he had made it back to Savannah with the English army’s retreat, been extremely puzzled to find his entire family gone with not even a note, and settled in to wait until they got home, but that was most unlike him. He’d set out to look for them at least, and something else, that lingering sense that Emma could only categorize as motherly intuition, continued to tell her that this was not the case. She didn’t think he was dead, or simply could not seriously entertain the possibility and stay sane, but she didn’t think he was safe, either. Oh God, where are you?

“I don’t know,” she said heavily, after a moment. “We still can’t find out right now. Come on.”

They reached the Bell residence in a few more moments, went up the front steps, and knocked. All of them were doubtless wondering if there would be some excitement in its answering, but after a moment, the latch clicked, and Charlotte opened the door. “Yes, can I – oh.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Bell.” Emma tried to make her voice as polite and pleasant as possible. “Could we by any chance have a word?”

Charlotte’s eyes flickered warily to Flint’s guns. “Is something wrong?”

“No. We’d just. . . well. Only a few questions, I promise.”

Charlotte considered for a moment, then stepped back and beckoned them inside more or less graciously. The house was smaller than the Swans’, and nearly devoid of possessions; it was very clean and well kept, but sparsely furnished and lightly lived in. Charlotte led them through to a sitting room with a threadbare divan and one armchair; Cecilia was playing on the floor with a rag doll, but glanced up in startlement at the adults’ entrance. “Run upstairs to your room, Ceci,” Charlotte said firmly. “Go on, hurry.”

“But Aunt Charlie – ”

“Room. Now. Off with you.”

Cecilia picked up her doll and scuttled out, not without a frightened look at Flint. At Charlotte’s gesture, he, Emma, and Miranda squashed themselves onto the divan, and she herself sat neatly in the armchair, smoothing her skirts. As if anticipating what they were going to ask, she said, “I did not send that man after you.”

“I believe you,” Emma promised. “But it’s possible you know something that can help us find who did. Did you speak to anyone about anything you might have heard – or inferred – from Violet?”

“I was asking a few questions at the docks,” Charlotte said, after a pause. “It could be that some of the men I approached were connected to the ones dealing with you, but I did not explicitly say anything about you, or tell them where to find you.”

“And yet they knew exactly how to thwart our plan,” Flint said coolly. “Why is that, would you suggest?”

“I don’t know.” Charlotte glared at him, and Emma could not help but be impressed that this young, pretty, brown-haired girl was managing to hold her own against a man who had terrified many other full-grown, much older men. “They made a lucky guess.”

“I don’t believe in lucky guesses.”

Miranda cleared her throat. “Might I point out,” she said, “that the success of the stratagem did not necessarily rest on intimate knowledge of ours. Of course they would have the wits to carry out their illicit activities as normally and unsuspiciously as possible, not because they were craftily suspecting us of some devious attempt to ambush them. The events at the rendezvous point itself can be entirely explained by a drop of common sense on their part – a quality I note to be rather lacking among certain other participants in them – so the only question we would have genuine need to clarify Mrs. Bell’s role in is whether she sent the assassin. And as she herself killed the man, I for one concur with Emma that this is signally and insultingly unlikely!”

Despite himself, Flint’s mouth twitched. “It’s a pity they don’t let women be barristers,” he remarked. “I’m fairly sure you would put the fear of God into the lot of them.”

“Perhaps I should start by putting some into you.” Miranda clearly had still not forgiven him for his near-death capers. “Now, shall we continue the conversation constructively, or do you have something else to divert us with, my dear?”

“No,” Flint said politely. “Please, proceed.”

Miranda gave him one last extremely pointed look, then turned back to Charlotte. “Excusing my husband’s rudeness,” she said, “we have had a difficult fortnight. And we also think we may have an inkling as to who was potentially responsible for at least some of it. Have you ever, by chance, met a Lord Robert Gold?”

All of them watched Charlotte’s face very hard at that, but there was not even a flicker of momentary recognition. “No,” she said, baffled. “I recall the name from somewhere, but I’ve never met him. Besides, isn’t he dead?”

“That is what we would like to know,” Emma said. “He was considerably dangerous to us in the past, and I doubt his opinion has improved at all. On that note, I do have to ask if you could help us in some way, and what brought you to Philadelphia. Who exactly is Jack?”

Charlotte hesitated, as she always did when the subject arose. Finally she said, “Oh, very well. He’s my husband.”

“Is there some reason you couldn’t tell us that before?” Flint asked, somewhat less sarcastically than he otherwise might have.

“It’s – never mind.” Charlotte sighed. “Anyway, yes. Two years ago. We escaped England, but couldn’t bring A – my friend. Believe me, we had tried.”

“All right,” Emma said, trying to keep them on course. “What does Jack do?”

“He’s a – he’s a soldier.”

“And where is he presently?”

“Somewhere in the Caribbean. He was taking a job to make us some money and help liberate my friend. As you can see – ” Charlotte gestured at the shabby, bare sitting room – “we are hardly living in the lap of luxury. I still have a little money left, but that’s not much, and I don’t expect it will stretch beyond another few weeks. Otherwise, I’ll have to think of something else.”

“I have some money.” Emma remembered painfully well what it was like to struggle to feed yourself and a young child, and the constant worry that it would run short. “I’ll see you and Cecilia taken care of.”

Charlotte looked at her awkwardly, surprised but not unwilling. “I – that would help. Thank you.”

“That is all very well and good.” Flint clearly thought that all this tender concern for women and children was rather sorely beside the point. “Why don’t you know where Jack is? Who is his commanding officer? Why all this secrecy about who he is and what the both of you are doing? Why are you so determined to get this friend of yours out of France? Is it possible, say, that you and Jack are not married at all, and this is some clever deception in service of – I don’t know what, exactly, would you care to fucking enlighten us?”

Both Emma and Miranda started to say something at once, outraged, but Charlotte held up a hand, white-faced, eyes snapping. Then she whirled around and marched out of the sitting room, leaving Flint to be thoroughly glared at by his womenfolk. “If I ever get my hands on this Jack,” he muttered, “we will see who thinks they’re the clever little – ”

For a moment, they thought Charlotte had simply stormed out and put an end to the visit (Emma could not exactly blame her if so) but then they heard angry footsteps on the stairs again, and Charlotte returned with a neatly folded piece of paper, which she unfurled and took the liberty of thrusting directly under Flint’s nose. “Does that,” she enquired, with truly impressive icy courtesy, “possibly answer some of your questions?”

Flint, Miranda, and Emma looked down at it. It was a marriage certificate from the city of London, issued by a parish church in Marylebone, confirming that on 21 May 1738, Miss Charlotte Goode and Mr Jack Howe had been joined in the bonds of Holy Matrimony. It was duly signed by the priest, Charlotte, a bold black scrawl that must have been Jack’s, and two witnesses; by the looks of things, their surnames were Goode as well. This did shut Flint up for a few moments as to whether the marriage was real, but he quickly found another thing to harp on about. “Jack Howe? Haven’t you been telling us that his name – your name – is Bell?”

“It is his name,” Charlotte snapped. “Howe was his father’s name, and his father is – was – a monster. He uses his mother’s name now instead. Any other questions?”

“Oh, plenty.” Flint started to get to his feet. “And if you don’t feel in the mood to provide some actual substantive answers – ”

Emma and Miranda both grabbed at his arms, but Charlotte was faster. Evidently the marriage certificate was not the only thing she had gone upstairs to fetch, and she plunged a hand into her skirt pocket, whipped out a pistol, cocked it with an expert flick of her thumb, and pointed it directly at him. “Believe me,” she said. “I don’t want this at all. But you know how good a shot I am. Try to hurt me or Ceci, and I will do it, I swear.”

Concerned though she was that Flint might get another perforation in his already aired-out skull, Emma could not help but further admiring this – as a former female pirate captain, she was quite sure that Charlotte would have made an excellent one. If Jack was anything like her, no wonder they were such a formidable match. Nonetheless, despite the strong possibility of him deserving it, Emma could not let her aged father suffer a second serious injury in a fortnight, and she got to her feet, moving between them with hands outstretched, as if to separate a young lioness from tackling a grey-maned elder statesman of the pride. “Everyone, take a breath and sit back down. Especially you, James.”

Slowly, not taking their eyes off each other, Flint and Charlotte backed to their respective items of furniture and did as ordered. Charlotte put the gun back, but her hands remained tightly knotted in her lap, her eyes flickering to the ceiling in clear alarm that Cecilia had heard the uproar. “I don’t know what else you can get from me,” she said. “I don’t know where Gold is. I don’t work for him. I didn’t send the assassin.”

“All right,” Flint said grudgingly, surprising everyone. “But if so, one last question. You know who I am, don’t you? You said so, when I caught you snooping. You called us pirates.”

“I. . . guessed a few things, yes.” Charlotte’s lips tightened. “You have been plastered over half the broadsheets and bill-papers in London, you know. And given what Henry’s said about his family, I. . . read between the lines.”

“Clever girl.” Flint likewise had to recognize a display of skill from a rival, however unwillingly, and he raised a gingery eyebrow. “But then, if we’re taking you at your word, you didn’t rush to alert the authorities about us. Did not tell them that the fearsome Captain Flint was strolling in their very midst. Even expressed your interest in having me potentially work for you – in a rather unorthodox fashion, but never mind. So could we perhaps infer in reverse that you and your husband are no allies of the English crown, and that whoever Jack is working for in the Caribbean, even if not Gold, is bloody well not King George?”

Charlotte blinked. Then she wet her lips, clearly taking a moment to think about her answer. Remarkably skilled as she might be at this game, Flint had been playing it since before she was born, and Emma herself was a step behind him on this; she had not realized that he had put the pieces together to turn the question on its head. There was a silence in which the only sound was the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantel. Then Charlotte said reluctantly, “No. It’s not King George.”

“So you two are Jacobites, then?” Flint moved to the next most logical option on the list with surgical precision. “Part of the network here, so you might hear things about what we were doing – and what Gideon Murray wanted – whether or not we told you?”

“No,” Charlotte said. “We’re not Jacobites.”

“So. . .” Flint considered, for a long, fraught moment. “That leaves. . . who, exactly?”

“He’s a free agent,” Charlotte said, almost defiantly. A brief gleam of pride lit her eyes. “He works where the money takes him.”

“A mercenary?” Flint’s lips went thin. Not necessarily due to any moral objection to the vocation, but because the last mercenary they had tangled with was Henry Jennings, a prospect to chill the very soul. “Who’s he working for now?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because,” Flint said. “I think you know that we’re more your folk than the mindless, loyalist sheep of His Majesty’s Britannic Government. Your choice. I could be wrong.”

Charlotte considered them closely. She opened her mouth, shut it, and started again. Then at last she said, “Jack works for the Spanish. He has since we came here. It was the best way to get close enough to France, and there were other attractions. With the war, there’s been plenty to occupy hm. So there. Are you going to turn me in as a traitor?”

“You know I won’t, or you wouldn’t have told me.” Flint shrugged. The two of them were once more staring intently at each other, locked in a high-stakes chess match, testing the other’s gambits and defenses. “Well. That does explain your secrecy, I will grant you. And why you felt comfortable with Violet, once you’d worked out who we were – there was at least a better-than-even chance that you would not be hanged as the result of an unguarded comment. But if Jack works for the Spanish, while originally an Englishman, he must be a quite convincing actor himself, as well as having several interesting connections. What if we were in fact to strike a bargain? If you were to help us find Robert Gold, we would rescue this friend of yours from France. Depending on where my son-in-law has ended up, it might be on the bloody way anyway. What do you say?”

A brief, vulnerable, desperate hope flickered in Charlotte’s eyes at this, as much as she tried to hide it. “Oh?”

“Can you help us find Robert Gold?”

“I know a few of Jack’s contacts,” Charlotte said cautiously. “Only by name, we’ve never actually met. He was working with Governor Montiano in Florida, I know that much. There was some traffic with Governor Güemes of Cuba, as well.”

Everyone’s eyebrows went up at this, as these were some of the highest-ranking Spanish officials in the New World – no wonder Charlotte had been closed-mouthed, if anything, any word she did not consider carefully might lead hostile parties down this dangerous path after her. “If this Gold is who I think he is, though, he won’t be hiding among the Spaniards. He’ll have some base in an English territory. The obvious starting point might be Antigua, but – ”

Flint grimaced. “We’d all rather avoid Antigua if we could help it.”

“I don’t think he’d be there,” Emma said. “It would be too obvious. He prefers to lurk in the shadows, just off the side of things, and if he returned to Antigua, the word would be out at once. He needs secrecy to operate, it’s where he thrives. Jamaica, likewise, is too high-profile. We know he’s not on Nassau, we’d certainly have heard, and he’s not remotely foolish enough to try his luck there. Much too dangerous.”

“So that leaves what, only a few dozen islands to narrow it down to?” Flint scowled ferociously. “Perhaps if we sail around to each of them, hat in hand, we’ll have gotten half done by Christmas? If we’re not dead, that is?”

“Well,” Charlotte said. “Some of them are out. A man like that needs at least some structure to operate, doesn’t he? No good to have cunning plots if you’re in the middle of nowhere and can’t do anything about them. So somewhere lower-profile, but with enough connections to run his empire. That would rule out the smaller islands or places that are too far off the beaten path. That still leaves a list, yes, but a shorter one.”

Flint looked at her appraisingly. “Are you coming, then?”

“I can’t leave Cecilia,” Charlotte said, “and I am not sure I could justify bringing her into danger. Jack’s last assignment was supposed to be finished weeks ago, though, and he’s not been this late before. He was planning to bring back the money for us before he took a new posting, and. . .”

“Well,” Emma said. “It happens we have a few family members likewise unaccounted for, and we can’t leave Henry and his family alone here either. If you were to bring your niece with them. . . my brother Charles works on Nassau, and has plenty of connections there. Besides, it was our home, a long time ago. I think we could find something for Violet and the children.”

“You do remember what happened when we let Thomas and Jenny go there?” Flint demanded.

“Of course I remember,” Emma said, a bit shortly. “But at least Silver isn’t there anymore, is he? Not to mention, Nassau would be the best place for us to start our hunt for Gold. It has its ear to the ground on most, if not all, of the Caribbean’s sordid gossip. If there is any whisper of some shadowy deal broker, anything like that, any hint of Gold doing what he does, if we are in fact chasing the real man and not just the ghost, someone on Nassau will know. Besides, I thought you wanted to go back?”

“I – ” Flint struggled visibly. “I said I couldn’t go back, that Captain Flint once more setting foot on Nassau’s shores would set off a total fucking firestorm. Of course they would know something, they always know something, but is it worth the risk? And not just me, but all of us.”

“I think we’re rather past such calculations, aren’t we?” Miranda looked weary. “I can’t say I’m particularly eager to see the place again either, but if it is what will give us what we need, we shall have to simply grit our teeth and do it. You know we will never be truly safe again, if Robert Gold is alive and has once more made himself a position in which to interfere with our lives. If he is not, and it is only conjecture and baseless fear, we are reprieved, we can return to our other difficulties. But I do think it would explain a great deal if many of those difficulties were discovered to originate from Gold, and that we could douse the bonfire itself, rather than dashing about in a vain attempt to smother each ember.”

Flint, Emma, and Charlotte looked back at her with a variety of expressions. Finally Flint said softly, “My sweet, you shouldn’t have to – ”

“I’ve made it this far – in better shape than you, I might add – and someone has to be the voice of reason, James.” Miranda got to her feet with only a slight wince. “You yourself already noted that it would be quite relevant to our present entanglement with Lord Murray if we were to find his father. And perhaps you and I always knew that we would have to face Nassau once more in our lives. If we already managed Charlestown, perhaps this is not so terrible – at least we were happy there, once, perhaps. So if Mrs. Bell and her niece are willing to accompany us, then yes, I say we go. Emma?”

Emma hesitated. To her, this felt as if it might take attention away from the job of finding Killian, even as she agreed with Miranda that none of them would be safe as long as Gold lived. But she could not deny that there seemed to be a slow-moving avalanche pushing them further and further in the direction of the Caribbean. Nassau, Skeleton Island, Gold’s possible hideout – and, if Flint’s earlier speculation was anywhere close to accurate, her son Sam could be somewhere down there as well. That alone was reason enough to agree, and Emma had a feeling that if either Gold or Killian caught the slightest whiff of the other’s presence, they would go to any length to pursue a confrontation. Killian had never forgiven the man for destroying his life, and Gold was likewise the sort to hold grudges until Judgment Day, especially considering the ruin of his schemes – he would want to force a reckoning. As much as the prospect frightened her, if she found Gold, she very well might also find Killian.

“Aye,” Emma said, and set her shoulders. “I say we go.”

It was after dusk when Killian and Regina finally left the Admiralty, faced with the prospect of either rushing to the docks to arrange passage to Barbados immediately, or spending what was sure to be an extremely chilly night in some cut-rate Covent Garden lodging house (which, if Killian knew Covent Garden at all, would come with at least three floozies eager to help him warm things up). Both of them were extremely hungry, having not really eaten since yesterday morning in France, so they stopped long enough to buy a pasty from a food seller on her way home for the evening. Killian wolfed his down in about three bites, and even Regina did not manage to be much more dignified. There was nearly a moment where they smiled ruefully at each other, but awkwardness reasserted itself almost at once. The damp wind whisked at Killian’s jacket and Regina’s skirt, reminding them that they should see about accommodation one way or the other, and they made their way to one of the many public houses along the docks, which catered to sailors and merchants and passengers about to embark. It was dark and grimy and smelled as if something had long ago died in their attic kingdom, but at least it was a roof to keep the rain off, and they’d trawl the ships at first light tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Killian, however, barely noticed. He once more could not sit or rest, possessed of a manic energy that translated even less well to a tiny garret than it had to the Navy record office. Finally Regina, having had more than her utmost limit, exploded, “Bloody hell! If you don’t sit down right now, I swear I don’t care what Liam would think, I’m killing you!”

Killian, who had been in the middle of running through a feverishly detailed fantasy of how slowly was too slowly to strangle Gold (a question of exceptional mathematical precision, especially when you only had one hand) whirled on her. He was more than ready for her to actually try something, not that he thought she would give him the satisfaction. “Oh, as if you have ever cared what Liam would – ”

“I’ve been his wife for twenty-two years. I do care what he thinks.” Regina stared him down. “And for all you claim that you’re doing this to protect your family, I’m not the one who has been spiraling uncontrollably down a black hole of vengeance this entire time. You’re doing exactly what you hold against Liam. You’re not taking responsibility for what you want, and are disguising it in some grander purpose of sacrifice for your loved ones.”

That, despite himself, hit Killian hard. “I’m not – ” he said, somewhat less than certainly. “You already agreed that we should go to Barbados, that we – ”

“I have to admit,” Regina said, cutting over him, “I’m not a selfless person. That is how I’ve managed to keep your lunkhead brother alive all these years, because he genuinely never thinks of himself. But he’s not really living. He gets through the days, he manages them, he endures. He’s not happy, he’s not unhappy, he just is. For all you used to think that you needed him, that you couldn’t live without him, he’s had a far harder time living without you than you have without him. I know you’re a grown man, can’t go back and be his little brother again, and he would not want that for you. Now you’re asking me to give up the one thing I have, asking Liam to give up the one thing he has, and seeming to enjoy how much it hurts both of us. And after everything he’s done for you, no matter your opinion of its morality or necessity or methods, and after I have watched him struggle for over twenty years with what he’s done for you and your family and what happened that last night in Charlestown, when I tried everything I know to save Miranda McGraw, after I thought Jennings was going to kill Liam, rape me, desecrate Miranda’s body, and do God alone knows what to Henry and Geneva, after Liam finally, finally killed him but part of him died for good as a result – how dare you talk about what Liam feels. How dare you mock me for it. How dare you.”

Killian felt as if she had swung something very heavy into his face. He tried to speak, but only a faint croaking noise came out. He was tempted to reach down and feel if he still only had one arsehole. “I. . .” he managed at last. “Regina, I. . .”

She held up a hand. “Save the speeches for Liam. If we ever find him, or if it’s just more important to do anything else but. In which case, be so good as to tell me. You have the right to do whatever stupid thing you want, I can’t take that away from you. But I want to know, so I can leave before it’s too late. If you truly think that I might find him by going to Barbados with you, I’ll go. Otherwise, I’ll make my own arrangements. My concern for you on Liam’s behalf extended as far as getting you out of France. Now that’s done. I have no obligation to save you from another reckless revenge quest, and neither does he. But he wouldn’t share that opinion, would once more twist himself in half trying to stop you, and he can’t do that again and survive. So. What’s the truth?”

“You were. . . right,” Killian said, after a moment. “With what you said earlier, about me punishing him. I have, for a long time, and. . . I’m not proud of it, but I have. But remember, Lady Fiona is Gold’s sister. If she is anything like him, she’ll want to gloat, she’ll want to rub it in. I don’t know if they’re working together, but I doubt it. Power is never absolute as long as someone else has any of it, after all, and those two would never play nice together. Liam is nearly as delicious for Gold to torment as I am, so of course Lady Fiona would want to dangle him under her brother’s nose and then jerk him back. If nothing else, she’ll want to eliminate him as a rival and competitor. If she knows he’s in Barbados, and I am betting you anything he does, she’ll go.”

Regina considered this. “Take your brother to settle scores with her brother?” she said. “How. . . symmetrical. I don’t deny it’s the sort of thing to appeal to a certain kind of twisted mind. And that is a better argument than anything you gave me in the Admiralty. But if you’re wrong – ”

“Then I’m wrong, aren’t I? That happens. There would be nothing else I could do about it. I’m not going to deny I want to get to grips with Gold. I want it very badly. And I also think that my family is in danger as long as he lives. But I also think there is a very good chance that Liam will, in fact, be involved somewhere in this. Bloody hell, they can’t have left that far ahead of us, and if they are going to Barbados as well, we could catch them up. Come on, love. Trust me. Just a little. I know I don’t deserve it, but. . . we have to start somewhere.”

Regina looked at him uncertainly. He could tell that, significantly against her natural instincts, she almost wanted to. That, however, would also involve Killian trusting himself to deal with this logically, not keep pushing and pushing just in the name of getting to Gold, and not to completely lose the forest for the trees. He knew himself well enough to admit that this would be difficult for him, and he had already made a fine start at flying off the handle, but nothing had not yet been done that could not be taken back. He could calm down, take a deep breath, try to rid himself of that nearly mystical madness that the mere mention of Robert Gold’s name had the power to conjure over him. Both he and Regina held grudges sometimes past all sense or justification, to the point the ones they were hurting the most were themselves, and yet, if they were to make any success of this, those painful, decades-old resentments would have to be chipped at, loosened, shifted somehow. And in the question of who Killian wanted hurt for old sins more, Liam or Gold, it was not even remotely close to a contest. The silence lingered.

“Fine,” Regina said, breaking the spell. “We should get some sleep.”

This was easier said than done, as they were kept awake half the night by the creaking of the stairs, the boom of a nearby church bell relentlessly sounding the hours, and the nonstop wheezing of the bloke on the other side of the thin plaster wall, who was apparently dying of consumption on the instant (at least if he did, it might be quieter). They finally dropped off for a few hours, were rattled awake by the dawn carillon, and got dressed. There was still a lingering stiffness in the air, but they seemed slightly more cordial than yesterday, and they managed to collect their things, head out, and obtain breakfast without a major argument.

This accomplished, then began the unappetizing prospect of searching the docks for a captain willing to take them to Barbados on Regina’s limited remaining funds, and not ask too many questions about their names and business. Some of the merchants were planning to return to the West Indies for the winter, but did not want to put themselves to the trouble of passengers, and Killian felt an instinctive revulsion at the idea of approaching any of the vessels flying the distinctive ensign of the East India Company, red-and-white-striped with the Union Jack in the upper left corner. On the one hand, the Company was not hand in glove with the British government, as they hated Westminster’s constant attempts to tax their lucrative proceeds and interfere with their independent bylaws. On the other hand, they for obvious reasons regarded pirates as the scum of the earth, and all it took was one of them to have heard of Captain Hook to blow the whole thing sky-high. Gold probably had all manner of friends in the Company as well, who would be more than happy to drop his mortal enemy in his lap, trussed up like a chicken.

After they had been turned down half a dozen times, Killian was starting to get desperate. There were not terribly many vessels left to try, and it was either the last sailing of the season or close to it; it was this or nothing. He had just started to wonder what the odds were of swimming to Barbados when a voice called, “Sir? Madam? Are you in need of something?”

Startled, Killian and Regina turned to behold a handsome older gentleman of possibly Indian appearance, with a shaved head, keen dark eyes, and a navy-blue, gold-trimmed caftan and polished boots. “My apologies for surprising you,” he said. “I could not help but notice that you have been canvassing the docks for some time. What is it you are in search of?”

“Ah, well. We’re in search of passage. To the Caribbean, actually, but it doesn’t seem there’s anything bloody left.”

“I am sailing for the Caribbean in two days.” The gentleman raised an eyebrow. “Have you asked me yet?”

“Wh – you have a ship?”

“I do, yes. Where are you wishing to go?”

“Barbados,” Killian said, watching the gentleman’s face closely. “Bridgetown.”

There was no particular knowing look or flicker at that, and the gentleman nodded. “That is not far from where we are bound. If you are willing, I can take you.”

Killian was about to accept, then stopped. He could not help but wonder if such a generous offer, the apparent answer to their prayers, came with some nasty strings attached. “What does it cost? Exactly?”

“I am a wealthy man. I do not have particular need of money. If you wish to pay me, of course I shall accept, but it is not necessary.” The gentleman inclined his head. “Captain Nemo, at your service.”

“Ah – Killian Jones, at yours.” Perhaps he should have tried harder to think of an alias, but the truth occurred to him too instinctively. He took Nemo’s offered hand, and they shook. “This is my sister-in-law, Regina.”

“Madam.” Nemo took her hand in turn, and kissed it. “If you would follow me, I can show you the ship. Then you can decide if you wish to take passage.”

Cautious, but curious, Killian and Regina followed him to the eastern end of the docklands, the less desirable spaces where foreign merchants without London connections or regular bribes paid to the port authorities were sequestered. Nemo led them across the labyrinth of quays to the place where a large three-masted junk, built in the Chinese style with angular, pleated sails, rode at anchor. The hull was varnished in smooth black lacquer, the name inscribed on the high stern in polished red letters, both in English and what Killian thought was one of the South Asian languages, which he could not be sure. NAUTILUS/நாட்டிலஸ்.

Nemo was watching them avidly, as if waiting to see if the sight of such a decidedly non-European ship would shock their delicate sensibilities beyond all speech, but he seemed somewhat  pleased when it did not. “If she is to your satisfaction,” he said, “we depart two days from now, on the morning tide. Do you agree?”

“Ah – yes. Yes, thank you. It’s just – I’m grateful, mate, believe me. But why are you helping us?”

Nemo smiled faintly. “Perhaps I felt you needed it.”

“We – well, we do. But. . .” Killian wasn’t even sure why he was pushing so hard, but to say the least, he had had enough of voyages under unexplained circumstances, with unknown masters. “What do you want? Really?”

Nemo considered for a moment. Then he said, “Did you know a man named Edward England?”

“Er – yes, I did.” Killian blinked. Edward England had been Charles Vane’s quartermaster after Jack Rackham vacated the post, a genial, gentlemanly Irish rascal whom Killian had worked with during the defense and battle of Nassau, and who had invited Killian to come with him to continue his pirate escapades in the Indian Ocean. “I’m going to guess you met him. What happened to him?”

“He died. Quite a while ago. He was marooned on Mauritius with a few of his men, after he refused to kill the captain of a ship his crew had taken. They mutinied and stranded him. After a few months, they managed to sail to St. Augustine’s Bay in Madagascar, which was where I met him. He was deathly ill of tropical fever, and indeed he passed away just a few days later. But he had much to say. The natural wish of a man facing mortality and wishing to have his life remembered, his conscience cleared. I myself had recently traveled from Philadelphia, where I had taken another man of England’s old acquaintance. We spoke at length. The conversation has stayed with me.” Nemo shrugged. “You are the Killian Jones, yes? Captain Hook.”

“I. . . yes.” Killian blinked again. “Wait – another man of England’s acquaintance? Another pirate, you mean? Who did you take to Philadelphia?”

“When we picked him up in his makeshift ketch,” Nemo said, “he called himself only Odysseus. Like England, he had too had been marooned on a small island for some time, and had been without human society for at least a year. As he returned somewhat to his wits, he told me that his real name was James. It had once been Flint. He was no longer certain if it still was.”

“Y – ” Killian’s jaw dropped. “Bloody hell! You were the one who rescued Flint from Skeleton Island?!”

“You know him too, I assume?”

“Aye, he’s my father-in-law! He and his wife adopted my wife as their daughter a long time ago. We’ve never known how exactly he escaped, or what happened there. Did he. . . did he tell. . .?”

“That was over twenty years ago,” Nemo said. “And what he did say was often less than coherent. I remember nothing that would be particularly enlightening to you.”

“Oh.” Killian could not help a slight disappointment, even as he wondered if Nemo was being entirely truthful. “Well. You’ve certainly already done a great service to our family, then. We would be even further indebted for another.”

“It is no trouble,” Nemo repeated. “Truly. Two days from now?”

“Aye. Two days.”

Said two days were less than enjoyable, not least because it rained without cessation and they were trapped in the upstairs room of another dubious lodging house, but it finally cleared the night before, as they went aboard so as to be ready to leave with the ship at dawn. They scarcely had much luggage, though Killian had at least managed to acquire one other set of clean clothes, and the junk was large enough, with multiple small bamboo-walled cabins, that he and Regina could have their own apiece, which was a bloody relief. Everything was crisp and tidy, with a berth and desk of teakwood, a painted screen covered with whimsical designs from some Chinese tale, and small books of fine onionskin paper, calligraphed in elegant characters.

Nemo’s crew looked to be of the same pastiche, some Chinese and Japanese, some Ceylonese or Indian like their captain, others North African Mussulmen, still more with the look of Pacific islanders from even more far-flung places. There were at least a dozen languages spoken on board, though Tamil was the lingua franca, and the language in which Nemo gave his orders and communicated decisions; those less fluent got a friend to translate into their particular tongue. Several of them also spoke English, until Killian – himself a reasonably multilingual man, who could count reading of Greek and Latin, and a bit of spoken French and half-remembered Irish to his credit – was thoroughly impressed at their versatility. If he was going to have some time on his hands during the voyage, he should try to pick up at least one.

Killian slept, to his considerable surprise, well that night, and awoke before sunrise, rolling out to dress and ready himself for departure. He was unlikely to be any use to the Nautilus’ general functioning, but he was understandably not keen to spend any extra time belowdecks, and emerged topside to watch the crew check the tide, unfurl the sails, and set course. The Chinese method of navigation was via astrolabe, rather than by compass and chart, and Killian watched interestedly, he of course being a connoisseur of all things nautical and navigational. The junk moved away from the quay, beautifully out of place among the drab grey rooftops of London, and down the Thames, with a smoothness like silk or polished glass. Mist rose in ethereal silver vapor from the surface of the river, creating the impression that they sailed within a fine crystal orb, forever seeking the edge but never quite reaching it, doubled back again, circled upon itself. The distant black specks of seabirds winged overhead as the stars began to fade, the smell of the air changing as they reached the estuary and prepared to enter the Channel. Killian supposed he could wave at France again as they went by.

The golden horizon was behind them as they pointed west, the rising sun slowly spilling over the high deck. Still conscious of staying out of the crew’s way, Killian could nonetheless not help but investigate further. The Nautilus carried a full complement of cannon, the mouths of the guns carved like roaring dragons so that they would breathe flame when fired, and to judge from the speed they were already making, she could easily outstrip heavier, slower square-riggers. Killian wondered what exactly it was that Nemo did; surely it was not merely charity errands for stranded pirates? The ship bore signs of far travel and hard use, and he felt a brief, unexpected pang of nostalgia, of jealousy. Not that he would trade his family and his settled life and home for anything, but Nemo must have traveled the entire world, to far uncharted lands, to places that one could only dream, seen sights beyond imagination, had grand and thrilling adventures. Some part of the temptation remained in Killian too, the ever-constant lure of the sea and everywhere it could carry you. I chose, though. And I am choosing again.

“Do you like what you see, Captain Jones?”

Killian turned with a start, having been examining the star chart (at least so he thought it was) carved into the main mast, to see Nemo regarding him with an expression of gentle amusement. “Oh no, you do not have to apologize,” he said, as Killian straightened up hastily. “Your interest, as a seagoing man yourself, is natural. What do you think?”

“She’s beautiful,” Killian said honestly. “Made me miss my old girl – the Jolie Rouge. You haven’t run across her, have you?” It was worth trying, if Nemo had made inadvertent acquaintances of several other old colleagues. “Formerly the Imperator, captained by Rackham and Bonny?”

“Not that I know of, no,” Nemo said. “But some part of a captain’s heart always belongs to his ship. This is not the first one I have sailed to bear the name of Nautilus, and I remember those as well, for different reasons. Would you like to walk with me?”

“I. . . yes.” Killian was unexpectedly touched. He had of course been wishing he had someone to talk to, missing Sam, needing an equal, a sympathetic outsider who was not his family and was not beholden to that inner circle, but in whom he could confide, and he already felt that he might be able to do so with Nemo. He followed the captain up to the sterncastle, his hair whipping in the fresh breeze. After the dark, cramped, starving hell of his month aboard the Pan, it felt like a gift never again to be taken for granted. They came to a halt at the rail, surveying the goings-on below, and Killian asked, “So how many other Nautiluses have there been?”

“Two,” Nemo said. “The first was the Indiaman that I served on, when I led the crew in an uprising, took over the ship, and set them all free, and we sailed as our own men thereafter. That, I think, is something familiar to you?”

“Aye.” Killian laughed in rueful acknowledgement. “How did that happen? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Not at all.” Nemo did not seem offended by his curiosity. “My father was the captain of a Barbary corsair, and my mother was one of the many daughters of the Mughal emperor. They were married as part of an attempt between the Ottoman and Mughal courts to form an alliance against their common enemy, the Persians – indeed, Nadir Shah sacked Delhi with tremendous ferocity just last year, and I fear it may be a blow from which my mother’s people cannot recover, especially with Britain eyeing it like a hungry wolf. In any event, in retribution for my father’s many successful raids – nobody took more slaves for the Ottomans than he – I was captured by the same British at the age of nine, and raised in service. That the son of such a prolific slave master should become shackled in bondage himself – it is perhaps only justice, though I certainly did not feel that way at the time. I was recognized to be intelligent and talented, and was placed on one of the East India Company’s ships at sixteen. I was twenty-three when I overthrew her command and became captain instead. That was my first Nautilus. I sailed her for twelve years.”

Nemo hesitated for a long moment. Then he said, “Soon after we took the ship, I fell in love with a young woman we rescued. She loved me as well, and we were married. We had a son. She wanted to leave the sea, to make a real home. I told her that we would, soon. But the East India Company did not forget that I had captured one of their ships so egregiously, dared to revolt, set a dangerous example. They viewed me as little better than an upstart pirate and a Barbary monster myself for those twelve years, and finally they caught up to me. There was a battle. We were outgunned. My Nautilus was destroyed and sunk. My wife and son drowned.”

“I. . .” Killian recoiled from even trying to imagine it. “Christ, I’m sorry.”

“I survived, obviously,” Nemo said, “and became consumed with the desire for revenge. So if you follow, I wished revenge for their revenge for my revenge on their revenge on my father, at least. I captured my second Nautilus, a Spanish man-of-war, and gathered to me anyone who would help me in such an aim. If they promised me my objective, I listened, no matter how dangerous or forsaken such men might be, how empty their promises, or how little it would ultimately satiate me. This, I think, you will also recognize?”

“Aye,” Killian said, much more slowly. He was unsettled for obvious reasons, given how he had spent the vast majority of his time since discovering Gold was alive, and the circumstances that had first precipitated his descent into Hook. He almost wanted to walk away before finishing this conversation, but he had a feeling that Nemo, however gently, was not going to let him. “And?”

Nemo shrugged. “It ended as it must. We attacked and destroyed a British ship near the coast of Norway, which we had mistaken for a Company vessel, hunting and pursuing many weeks to get it alone and without hope of aid. It was not. We realized that only when we had left no survivors. In my greed and blindness, we had drawn too near the dangerous water there, the place the locals call the Moskstraumen – the Maelstrom. It drew in the ship and pulled her under. For a second time, I survived the destruction of my Nautilus, but was left with nothing. Neither family nor revenge, neither pride in the past nor hope for the future.”

He paused again, looking over the sea. “This is the third Nautilus,” he said at last. “She sails as a free ship with free men, with those I have found in chains of one sort or another. We do not seek for anyone’s revenge, or speak of our pasts, or bow to any country or crown – or hold them as our enemy. We fight only if attacked, and not before, nor for personal gain or worldly enrichment. This is the place where men come when they have put aside such old things.”

Killian opened his mouth, then shut it. He reckoned that he and Nemo had to be nearly the same age, the other man perhaps three or four years older, and that perhaps their lives were bending on eerily similar trajectories, parallel and yet opposite. At last he said, “Which Nautilus did you rescue Flint with?”

“The first,” Nemo said. “The Indiaman. The one I sailed as a younger man, the one I took from my captors with the strength of my own hands, with my wife and then my son at my side, when I still envisioned a home away from the sea. I took him to Philadelphia because I pitied him, this man so broken by the world as to barely recall his own name, so harrowed by revenge and grief and guilt that only a shell of him remained, and all had to be learned anew. I thought, then, the worst fate in the world would be to end up like him, and vowed that I never would, that of course I could prevent it by my efforts and worthiness. I was, of course, quite naïve.”

Killian was quiet. It was clear to him that Nemo was a name chosen anew for this man as Hook had been for him, as Flint had been for James, but to quite the opposite purpose. He wanted to say something, but did not know what, especially when Nemo turned to him and said calmly, “So. Why is it that you and your sister-in-law are traveling to Barbados?”

“We. . .” Killian hesitated. He did not want to lie, especially after Nemo had just been so honest with him, but nor did he feel quite up to the truth. “I thought there might be an. . . old friend of mine there. I. . . it’s been complicated.”

“Of course,” Nemo said courteously. “Life is scarcely anything less. The prospect of seeing an old friend, however, would normally make a man much more joyful.”

Killian squirmed again. “Not a friend, exactly.”

Nemo’s expression said that he had suspected this, but he did not rub salt in the wound. He once more turned to regard the sea, until he said, “I imagine Captain Hook must have several such men, that he has darkly dreamed of seeing again. Would this be Robert Gold, then?”

“How did – ” Killian stared at him, wondering if Nemo had also concealed a talent for reading minds, before it struck. “Ned England told you about our battle against him in Nassau, and his particular grudge against me. Didn’t he.”

“He did,” Nemo said. “And I have heard other rumors, but never mind that. It must truly be an outstanding grudge, that it weighs so heavily against all else. Your sister-in-law. . . would that be your wife’s sister, or your brother’s wife? I suspect the latter.”

“You suspect correctly.” Killian stared down at his hand and hook on the railing. With that, since he could no longer help it, he told Nemo about Liam, and his resistance to seeing him again, and how long he had stayed away, and what Regina had said to him, and his own dawning, uncomfortable realization that she was right. That while constantly acknowledging and dwelling on his own flaws and failures, he had nonetheless become comforted by the idea that he was still better than Liam at grappling with them, that he was somehow more honest, more self-aware, braver. Had his own family now, and was determined, beyond all reason, to prove it.

Nemo did not interrupt as Killian spoke, listening politely until he was certain that he had finished. Then he said, “That is a sad story. I am sorry for both of you, that it has been this way.”

“Aye.” Killian found that his voice came hard, scraping in his throat. “Do you. . . do you think he’s right? Or that I am?”

“I suspect it is altogether more complicated, as you yourself pointed out earlier.” Nemo inclined his head. “But let me tell you – if you will indulge me once more – a story. Only a brief one, and this time not about myself. It is a story about when the Spanish conquistadores first arrived in the New World, several hundred years ago, and found a beautiful, glittering, advanced civilization. The Aztecs and the Incas had pyramids, had cities, had calendars and science and clean running water, had maps of the stars, had art and literature, had myths and legends, had – as all men do – their own bloodthirstiness and war. And what did the conquistadores see? What did they dream of? Gold. There must be mountains of it, they thought. There must be gold. They looked at the Aztec temples and saw the mosques of the Mussulman, the ever-present enemy of Christendom reborn, and so they called the men they met Turks. They judged them worthy to live, or not, depending on how much they thought they were like the Turks. Gold and savages. That is what they saw. Not what was there, but gold and savages. And so they destroyed everything, and set up the cross instead, and blessed themselves for a job well done. That is what happens, that is the damage that is done, which can never be taken back, when all a man sees is Gold.”

Killian could not help but admire the elegance of this turn of phrase, even as he also could not miss the underlying warning. “So what? You think Regina’s right? We should just go back to searching for Liam, and not – ”

“You and your brother have had a long struggle,” Nemo said. “I understand that. But I must ask what you are so frightened he can possibly take from you. You have parents-in-law, wife, sons, a daughter, grandchildren, friends, a long and rich life. Your brother and his wife have not. Not by your fault, but not by your innocence, either. You do not owe him anything, of course, nor does he to you. Yet I would have thought you might have found it in your heart to open the door you have so long held shut, just a crack, and see what light shone through.”

“I thought – ” Killian started, then stopped. He was grateful for the spray that blew on his face as he looked away. Finally he said, “I’m. . . I’m sorry.”

“It is not your apology which I need,” Nemo said. “Nor do you need my forgiveness. I note, however, that my crew, who have often lost their entire families, been torn from the land of their birth, who have served years or decades as slaves under white men, would think you exceptionally fortunate to have the dilemma of deciding whether or not to return to the bosom of the man who loved you first, and raised you as best he could. I do not recall the name my mother gave me. There must have been one, and sometimes if I strain, I can just remember the shape of her smile. But I do not remember what she called me. Nor I will not call myself by the name the British gave me, for that was never me, but an artifice of my overseers. I chose Nemo long ago, and it has served me well enough. But I would give anything in the world, journey anywhere, sacrifice anything, to hear my mother speak to me, and have her whisper my name once more, my true name. Yet you spurn your brother, when he lives still and wishes nothing more than to see you, and have done so for years, with no cost to you and much to him. As before, I understand why you stayed away. But it is my most honest verdict that it is an act of immeasurable and, one hopes for your sake not unforgivable, selfishness.”

“I. . . always have been.” Killian took a slow breath. “Selfish. In one way or another, and then I loved Emma, and married her, and had my children, and they were my world instead. I had no need for my own self anymore, not when I could give them everything, and see them happy. Perhaps I feared that if I looked again – and now I have – that I would discover that old selfish soul still lurking beneath. With Liam, with facing it, I. . . I did. I was.”

“We are all terribly tender and torn-apart creatures,” Nemo said. “It is to your great credit that you know so, as many selfish people never once do. I will not counsel you what to do one way or another. If you still wish to go to Barbados and confront Gold one last time, I will take you there. I only ask that you think, and think well, on what you mean to do, and if it is remotely worth what it will cost you.”

Killian nodded, at a loss for words, and Nemo clapped a hand on his shoulder. Then, leaving him there with his thoughts, the captain turned and walked away.

They sailed steadily for the next several days. The Nautilus continued to make surpassing speed, and Nemo told Killian about the Chinese admiral Zheng He, the fifteenth-century explorer, soldier, and sailor who had been to Arabia, Africa, Java, and the Indian Ocean, with a vast fleet of over three hundred junks and thirty thousand men. He had made seven fabled voyages, rather like the fictional hero Sinbad of A Thousand and One Nights, the stories of which Nemo also knew well. He spoke at least eight languages, and seemed to be genuinely loved by his men; if he had plucked them from dire situations, perhaps that explained it, but Nemo said that he had never forced anyone to join or to stay. “If you found that you wished to serve with us for a time,” he said, the fifth evening out, having invited Killian and Regina into his cabin for supper, “we would of course welcome you.”

“I’m fifty-three and I’ve got one hand,” Killian said wryly. “I’ve enjoyed this journey far more than my last one, but I’m not sure what use I’d be to you. Besides, either way, I have to get home to my family. I can’t just run off for a lark without telling my wife.”

“Of course,” Nemo agreed. “In any event, the offer stands. What of your sons? Are they sailors too?”

“No. It’s my daughter, Geneva, who’s the captain in the family, and a damned good one.” Killian grinned with pride. “My elder son – stepson, but no matter – Henry, is a teacher and printer, has a wife and two children. My younger son, Sam, he’s. . . well, he’s still making his way.”

At that, he glanced sidelong at Regina, suddenly aware that it might be delicate to talk about his children in front of her, but she was perched almost on the edge of her seat, as if hungry to hear as much about them as she possibly could. Killian himself missed the lot of them so agonizingly that he would have happily held forth for hours, told both Regina and Nemo far more than they ever wanted to know, but at that moment, they were unexpectedly interrupted by a knock on the cabin door. Nemo called, “Come in.”

It opened, and the first mate entered with a look of some anxiety. He crossed the floor, bent down, and spoke to Nemo in low-voiced Arabic, to which the captain listened with a slight frown. Then he stood up. “Excuse me,” he said to Killian and Regina. “Mr. Rahman is of the impression that we are being pursued.”

Both Killian and Regina stood up as well, as anyone on their tail was unlikely to be good news, and hastily followed Nemo out onto the deck. The late-evening gloaming had almost, but not quite, deepened to true black, and several crewmen were gathered on the stern, pointing at the sea behind them, as Nemo and his guests hurried up the stairs to look. One of the sailors handed his captain the spyglass, and Nemo peered at the darkening sea, as Killian strained his own eyes, not quite as keen as they had been. There was a low-lying fog bank about a thousand yards astern, in which could possibly – but not certainly – be discerned the outline and movements of what looked like another ship. If so, they were clearly trying to approach in secrecy, and for that matter, doing a good job of it. The lanterns were doused, and it was taking care not to sail ahead of the fog – a maneuver which required a skilled captain to pull off, well aware of the confluence of current, wind, and the ship’s capabilities. Killian had a brief memory of a battle during the war of the Spanish succession, almost forty years ago now, when he and Liam had surprised and defeated a French fifty-gunner by concealing the Imperator with a similar move. For a moment, he had an utterly absurd idea, then stopped. Bloody hell, of course not.

Nemo shut the spyglass. “Load the cannons,” he ordered. “It could be nothing, and we will not engage if they do not, but I prefer to be prepared, just in case.”

He turned to repeat the order in Tamil, as the first mate gave it in Arabic, and another man in Chinese. The crew dispersed like a well-oiled machine, more sail was loosed, and the Nautilus moved so quickly over the choppy water that it felt as if they had wings, but the other ship – she was starting to become clearer, it was not their imagination – was still gaining. Now she was eight hundred yards astern, now only five hundred, and then the long nines boomed and flashed, the shot whistling and splashing into the water barely shy of the Nautilus’ keel.

“We are not flying British or Spanish colors,” Nemo said. Considering that his ship had just been fired on, he still sounded remarkably calm. “Neither nation should have cause to attack us, thinking us an agent of the other. Mr. Rahman, what is their ensign?”

“British, I think.” The first mate opened the spyglass to look again. He added something else in Arabic that made Nemo frown again and turn to order the crew for more speed, and perhaps a warning shot of their own. Even in wartime, there were codes of conduct that governed firing on another ship unprovoked, especially with no enemy flag to justify a first attack, and these ill-behaved newcomers were flouting them, which was good as flying a red streamer to signify no quarter. The Nautilus’ stern guns thundered and flashed in response, throwing an eerie orange glow against the sky long enough for them to get half a glimpse of the oncoming ship. It looked like a brigantine, slender and two-masted, built for speed. For another wild instant, Killian thought that Emma’s old ship, the Blackbird, had been resurrected from the watery grave where Henry Jennings had sent it long ago, but of course that was not the case. But if he could just figure out what was putting his hackles on such edge about this, apart from the obvious fact of being fired on, and to do so in time to –

The other ship was still closing on the Nautilus’ starboard aft quarter, running hard with the wind, almost a match in speed. In another few minutes they would be level enough to try a broadside, and Nemo barked at his crew to man their own guns in the case of such an eventuality. But Killian, following an instinct he had no time to explain, took the spyglass from Mr. Rahman, balanced it in his hook, and fiddled the lens with his hand. Pointed it at the deck of the other ship, at its captain, the man by the helm, the –

In that moment, the shock completely stopped his heart.

In the next, the world exploded.

[mercurialmind]

The Sword and The Quill

Pairing: Josephine Montilyet/Cassandra Pentaghast, feat. Shae Lavellan/Dorian Pavus

Raiting: E

Additional Tags: Fluff, Slow burn, Romance, Hurt/Comfort

You can find the fic here:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/10882989/chapters/24182703

Chapter 1

“You know, Cassandra, you should really talk to her about how you feel”, said Dorian and took a sip from his glass of wine.

Cassandra stared at her glass absentmindedly while tapping her fingers against the table. “I know it is what I should do”, she told, “but I cannot even understand what this is, as I have never felt this way towards any woman before.” She drank from her glass and fell back on her chair. “I like men.”

“I hear you”, said Dorian smirking.

Cassandra chuckled, a sound that was so rarely heard from her mouth. “I mean I always dreamt of a man who would sweep me of my feet. I have yearned for this since I can remember, but now it does not seem to have importance anymore.”

During the first few months of the inquisition Dorian and Cassandra had slowly gotten acquainted and spent more time together. They had started chatting by the campfire and little by little began sharing more information to each other about their lives. If someone had told they would become friends, Cassandra would have laughed at that person. She had not let Dorian close very quickly. At first, she had been quite suspicious about him since he was from Tevinter, but after giving a chance they both realized they enjoyed each other’s company.

Dorian smiled knowingly while playing with his curvy moustache. He was sitting in his armchair, relaxed as always, one leg on top of the other.

“Oh, come on. You must admit this Antivan woman has gotten you under her spell, and you are all but helpless in front of her.”

Cassandra let out a disgruntled noise while glaring at him.

“You know always how to choose the right words to make everything sound incredibly tawdry.” She shook her head. “But even if this would be the case, how do you think any relationship would be possible as death lurks in every corner? I have lost many people I cared for. I do not wish Josephine to experience the same.“

“I understand”, Dorian said. “But, especially during time like this, you should take happiness where you can get it.”

She sighed. “You are probably right.”

— 

Cassandra had just finished her breakfast and was heading back to her quarters. They were going to leave soon to Exalted Plains for expedition with Inquisitor Lavellan. She decided to stop by Josephine’s office but felt suddenly butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She sighed hard. How this can even happen to me? She thought and knocked on the door. Right away she heard Josephine calling her to enter.

Josephine was sitting at her desk as usual, and a smile rose on her lips as Cassandra entered the room.

“Cassandra”, she said. “It is a pleasure. I was hoping to see you before you leave.”

Cassandra nodded stiffly but a little smile crept on her lips as she approached Josephine who stood up from her chair.  “I wanted to tell you, goodbye, before we head out.”

“I am glad you did. I do have something that might interest you”, Josephine said and opened her drawer. She pulled out a book and handed it to Cassandra.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked when she took it.

“It is a romance novel written by a well-known Antivan author.”

“Why would you - I mean how did you - ?”

Josephine waved her hand carelessly in the air. “Let us say, I have quite an ear for rumors”, she told and leaned against her desk.

Cassandra frowned, a slight grunt escaping her lips. She was glaring at the book suspiciously. It was not because she did not want to read a book recommended by Josephine, but she felt exposed as her secret appetite for romance novels had gone out.

“Please, do give it a chance”, Josephine continued as Cassandra seemed incredibly doubtful. “I consider it to be most intriguing and much better quality than Varric’s romance series, though I do not wish to offend Varric in any way. I highly respect his penmanship. I am just not convinced about his skills in writing romance.”

Cassandra raised her eyebrows. “You have read them?” she asked suddenly curious.

“Only one of them”, Josephine answered, “It was hardly romantic for my taste. I prefer his crime series. I think Varric is at his best writing those.”

“I suppose I can give it a try”, said Cassandra and saw Josephine nodding for approval, maybe she saw something else in her eyes too, but it could have been completely her imagination. “I will be going then – and will see you in a few weeks.” Cassandra tugged the book against her chest. “It will be a long ride.”

“Please, do take care of yourself”, Josephine said as she took a small step closer to Cassandra.

Cassandra nodded, as she leaned unintentionally forward. However, she quickly stiffened and turned on her heels. “Thank you for the book.”

When she closed the door behind her, she felt the warmth rising on her cheeks.

 —

The journey to Exalted Plains was most annoying. Long days of riding and she disliked riding, horses in general. She was always happy as they finally stopped to set up a camp since it gave her an opportunity to retreat in the tent for the night, to read the book. She was certainly curious about what kind of book Josephine had handed her, thus the first night she completely skipped the discussions at the campfire and told she was all too tired and needed rest.

As she settled in her tent, getting comfortable on her bedroll and opened the book, she recognized it carried a slight scent of Josephine’s perfume which made her smile. Fast she realized her thoughts had wandered and got flustered all by herself, immediately finding it completely ridiculous for feeling this way.

She sighed and started reading. The writing was good; she could tell it fairly quickly. She was a fast reader, thus it did not take her a long time to be able to form a slight opinion on the novel. It was interesting, she would admit for now.

Every night she read a little. She was utterly surprised when she realized the romance in the novel was between two women. Her head began spinning right away with thoughts. Was this some kind of message from Josephine? Had she noticed her lingering looks and now had given her this book, because she did not know if Cassandra was interested? Abruptly, she laughed at herself. That was all very nice but completely fruitless speculation. She decided to keep reading, with growing curiosity.

This trip felt more annoying than any other they had previously been on. And it was only because she had an urge to return to Skyhold even though she did not know what she would say to Josephine when she next met her. She found it extremely hard to concentrate to the task at hand.

One day, when they had stopped by a river to fill their waterskins, Cole appeared out of nowhere as he used to do every now and then. Cassandra had already gotten accustomed to it, thus she only flinched a little and continued washing her face.

“Her hair braided on the neck, slight scent of flowers as she walks by. Joyful giggle that warms the heart. Try not to admit.”

“Cole!”

Cole sat calmly on a big rock just beside her. He watched the moving water as it run by them.

“She would say yes.”

Cassandra looked at his pale, still eyes nearly hidden by the hat too large for the man of his size, and said nothing.

Cole turned to look at her for a moment and then he was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Dorian could not avoid noticing Cassandra’s disappearance every evening after their dinner. On one evening, he confronted her.

“I am just tired”, she explained once again and tried escaping behind the tent curtains.

“Don’t give me that utter nonsense, Cassandra”, he said seriously. “Something is going on. What is it?”

“It is nothing really, Dorian”, Cassandra said feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

Dorian looked at her with investigating eyes and maybe saw something he did not want to inquire further as he just said: “All right then. But if you have something in mind you can always come and talk to me.”

“I appreciate that.” This said Cassandra closed the curtains.

That night, the novel took a turn to more suggestive direction. It did not take long before she started feeling overly warm in the small space of the tent. She could not avoid thinking about certain someone while reading it, thus she had to cast the book aside and leave the tent in order to get fresh air.

Everyone had already gone to sleep when she put her head between the curtains and took a peek outside, thus she sighed with relief.  As she sat in front of the cold ashes and watched the stars on the clear sky, she could not help but wonder if this was really it, the feeling she had. When she had started her journey with the inquisition, never would she have thought this to happen.

Honestly, she had never judged anyone according to their gender preference. By herself she had always been able to tell if a woman was beautiful but she had never really thought about them romantically. During her life, she had met many different people. Some of them preferred the same gender, some both, and some had no such interests at all. By this age, she had realized this had nothing to do with the personality or other such qualities of a person. She found herself thinking about Dorian who people knew preferring men, but no one disliked him for that. Sera liked women, and no one minded about it either. Even Leliana was known about her past relationships with both men and women. Still she succeeded to fear how she would be seen by others if she was to pursue with her feelings for Josephine.

Another thought creeping in the depth of her mind, was if she could even rely on herself anymore. How could she suddenly change this way? She had always liked only men even though she hardly had experience on them either, except for Regalyan, but it was so long ago. How could she suddenly have these thoughts about another woman? Other matter that worried her most of all, was if she had completely misled herself with Josephine and would destroy their friendship with her feelings?

She could feel her own heart pounding in the silence for the trepidation and delight as she thought about the moment she would see Josephine again. Whatever was to come out of this, she could not wait for their return to Skyhold.

The exploration took longer than ever. After Dorian’s approach she tried spending more time with the others in the evenings. The way Dorian and Shae sat shoulder to shoulder at the campfire, the way they looked at each other, made her smile with happiness. One evening, she saw Dorian smiling back at her over the flames. He had understood.

 —

It was one of those days when the sun hit hard, even though it was not yet midday. They were exploring the northern part of the plains and hunting for a white wyvern. Shae had told that Vivienne had requested him to get her the heart of a snowy wyvern.

“What does she need it for?” Dorian asked. “To my knowledge, it is not a common ingredient for any kind of a potion I know.”

“I did not want to inquire too much as I am not in so good terms with her”, Shae answered. “I am even surprised she asked this favor of me.”

They moved further and further in the Ghilan’nain’s Grove and soon they heard the sound of great wings above them. The growl made Cassandra’s hairs on her neck to rise, and she looked up already knowing what they were going to face. A high dragon flew over and landed in front them with a thunderous sound as it slashed through the air and crushed the rocks under its giant legs. It created such a wind they nearly fell on the ground from its impact.

“It is a Gamordan Stormrider!” Shouted Cassandra and started backing out. “We are not prepared for this. We need better armor to fight this one!”

Slowly they tried retreating from it, Cassandra in front, ready to shield anything that would come towards them. The dark purple dragon growled again, the very sound shaking the ground underneath. Cassandra swore under her breath while they tried together to gain distance to the dragon that moved closer and closer. It spread its wings, causing a whirlwind which started pulling them closer.

The others had succeeded retreating far enough to avoid getting caught in the wind, but Cassandra was less lucky. Even though she tried hard keeping herself grounded, she was pulled too close. The dragon took advantage and swung its tail towards her. She flew through the air as the hit landed on her, leaving her breathless, and it was the last thing she could remember before her vision went black.