#when will my husband (ao3) return from war (crashing a-fucking-gain)

[3-kraehen-im-anzug]

Me: Man, what a day. Time to read some fanfictions to get my mind off things!

AO3: Right, yeah, about that… *crashes*

[yourmcu]

Wish You Were Here (ii)

Pairings: Tony Stark x daughter!reader, Peter Parker x Stark!reader (platonic)

Summary:

an Infinity War/Endgame AU where Tony Stark’s daughter (you) is one of half the population that vanishes in the snap, Tony finds out later on when he arrives back to Earth, devastated, then you come back like the others to help fight Thanos.

Word count: 3,115

A/n: (moved to the end of the fic!)

Warnings: angst, death, swearing, Morgan’s a cutie! and no seriously I miss him so much

read it on ao3!

Part 1

gif not mine! credits to the owner^^

Just like the others, you were brought back when the Avengers succeeded in retrieving all the infinity stones.

You're laying on the ground at the same place you were last time: Wakanda. Once you gain consciousness you struggle to get up, your legs wobbly.

“Hello?” You call out, but you're alone, can’t even contact anyone since your suit is out of power. You have no clear memory of what happened, just that you had an anxiety attack while Natasha held you, then you blacked out and - that’s it.

You felt a strong breeze and footsteps behind you.

“[Y/N] Stark,” a man’s voice says. “Come with me.”

The man is ancient looking, had a cape and his facial hair weirdly reminds you of Tony’s. “Who are you? And how long was I out?” You look at a sparking yellow portal far behind him, “did you do that?”

“Stick together and stick with Wong,” the man calls out before the portal closes. You have no idea who he was talking to since they already got in. “Doctor Stephen Strange. We need to find Pepper Potts and... get you suited.”

“I already am suited it’s just - no juice. What’s going on?”

“It’s been five years. It’s time, your father and the others need our help to defeat Thanos,” Doctor Strange opens up another portal to an unfamiliar cabin. Your eyes light up at the mention of Tony. “Quickly. We do not have much time.”

Five years? Unbelievable. That’s just insane. You like sleeping a lot but you couldn’t imagine being asleep for five long years.

“Are - are you sure we’re in the right pla - okay, sorry, don’t have much time, yeah,” you knock on the door when Doctor Strange gives you a stern and impatient look. It gets answered right away.

“[Y/N]? Oh my god,” Pepper says breathlessly. You could feel her sobbing while she hugs you tightly.

“Hey, you guys didn’t tell me you moved,” you frown. “Is all my stuff here? Mr. Strange wants me to get ready and this isn’t the only suit I have-”

“Doctor Strange.”

“It’s upstairs, last room on the left,” Pepper smiles as she wipes her tears. You nod and went up the stairs as the magic doctor told her everything.

All your stuff were in boxes and your spare iron suit was standing in a corner. You wiped away the dust off and checked if it was in good condition. It was ready to go.

You quickly charged the weapons and blasters on the suit, and you still needed to-

You hear a small gasp from behind the door.

Confused, you turn around to see a girl with an amazed smile on her face. “Y/N!”

You cautiously walk over to the small girl, “yeah, I’m Y/N, what’s your name?”

“Morgan,” she replies, then her eyes widen as she hides something behind her back. “Daddy said I can borrow your stuff as long as I put it back. They all look really cool.”

You still aren’t sure, but you start to put the pieces together in your mind: you were ‘gone’ for five years, this girl is living with Pepper, and if you guessed right, ‘daddy’ is Tony.

She’s your sister.

“It’s okay, and thanks,” she gives you a small hug which you return slightly, you feel a smile growing on your face since you find her really precious. “It’s nice to meet you, Morgan.

“Hey, so, there’s this weirdo man downstairs and he wants me and Pep - mom to do an errand for him,” you say to her once you remember you have to go. Morgan nods understandingly, “we can play and catch up when I get back, okay? That’s a promise.”

She runs back to her room and you get suited up, power at its maximum.

“Welcome back, Ms. Stark.”

“Glad to be. I missed you - actually, how Dad’s doing? Is he alright?”

“Mr. Stark had a concussion earlier, but as of now he is waking up again.”

“Oh,” you exhale and start worrying about him a bit. “Okay. That’s fine, I guess,”

Once you go back down a portal was already open and a nanny by the door (you assumed for Morgan). You fly right in before it closed up.

“Holy shit.”

There's armies coming out of many different portals, from people to aircrafts, to mutants. You all gather at the Avengers compound, or what used to be the compound.

“I forgot to mention,” you point out and Pepper turns to you, “That’s a pretty badass suit.”

You could feel Pepper roll her eyes from inside her suit. You follow her as she flies all the way to the front.

Your eyes dart everywhere to look for Tony. And there he is, getting up from the ground and flying back to the Avengers. He looks worn out, ragged, tired; you notice before his iron head covered him up. There’s so many people that you doubt he even saw you. God, you miss him so much.

Cap, Thor, Rhodey, Clint, Peter, Wanda, Bucky, Sam, Bruce - or Hulk, everyone was there, but where’s Natasha?

“Avengers!” Cap shouts, a hand extended as he catches Mjolnir without stumbling - whoa, what? - “assemble.”

That’s it. The battle begins.

It's your first time using your backup suit, you obviously didn’t have the time to test it out first. Good thing it works fine.

You're flying around, shooting enemies whenever they get in your way and helping anyone on your side who needed it.

What got you confused (not that you were complaining) was how the other Avengers were a bit too happy to see you than they normally should. You brushed it off though, they probably just love you so much like you love them.

“Aye, mind if you launch me? I need to be over there,” a raccoon holding a gun states and pointed to the direction. You recognize him immediately.

"Sure thing, bud,” you obliged, grabbing him, levitating off the ground and to thrust your iron arm forward like a cannon.

After a while the battle died down a bit and you saw Tony embracing Peter in a distance.

You smile sadly. Peter’s your best friend, but you really wish that it’s you who Tony was hugging.

Your jealousy fades when one of those giant flying Chitauri makes its way to their direction, ready to attack.

“Friday, activate the mega blaster,” you fly closer to the pair.

“Which one?” For fuck’s sake, Friday,

“The biggest one, please, now!” Once the blaster's out, you aim at the monster who's literally meters away from Tony and Peter and fire. When it crashes to the ground lifeless, you land beside them.

“Sorry, that was,” you pant, opening up your iron helmet. “It was literally going to eat you guys, so, uh, sorry for ruining the moment.”

Peter smiles, nodding and Tony looks at you as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

He hadn’t seen you in so long that your sudden presence fucking took his breath away. You're here, alive and back. If you guys weren’t in such a situation he’d go on and tell you about all the things you missed.

“I’m probably in trouble, right? I mean.. look Dad, I’m in a battlefield,” you laugh nervously, shooting a creature from the corner of your eye. “In my defense, Doctor Strange was the one who came to me, I didn’t-”

You're cut off when Tony wraps his arms around you. Right now he didn’t care about your excuses as to why you were here. But if Tony from five years ago could see you now he’d definitely ground you for life and take away your lab privileges.

“You’re doing great.” his voice slightly muffled from the hug. You let out a squeak, not expecting that from him at all. Tony smiles and plants a kiss to your forehead. “I love you, kid.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

The battle carries on and you're being swarmed by more enemies. You got really beaten up as it went on - what really knocked you out was when Thanos’ spaceship rained fire.

Unable to get shelter, you try your best to dodge everything that came out of the ship. You could barely see anymore because of the chaos and the clouds of dust everywhere.

“Ms. Stark, you need to get somewhere safe! Your heart rate is also increasing dangerously fast.”

“Not - not helping, Fri-” you get cut off when one of the blue fires hit you on the head, sending you to the ground unconscious.

----

“[Y/N], come on buddy, you need to get up,” Peter. He found your body a while after he handed the gauntlet to Captain Marvel. The battle's still ongoing, but he’s focusing on keeping you away from it while he waits for you to wake up.

You quickly sit up and gasp for air, looking at your best friend. “Did we win? Did we - wait, Peter, look out!” You push him out of the way when a group of monsters make their way to both of you. They turn into dust before they could lunge forward, however.

“...what the..?”

He helps you up and the both of you run to where Rhodey and Tony are at. You nearly break down when you see the state he's in.

“Mr. Stark? Hey - Mr. Stark? It’s Peter... and look, Y/N’s here- she’s okay, sir-” While Peter tries to talk to him you kneel down beside him, placing a hand on his arm while you do your best not to cry.

Then he looks at you, mouthing it’s okay.

But you know it isn’t. On your part, anyway. It seems really selfish but you don’t know what you’d do without him. Tony has always been there for you, he always kept you going.

Pepper kneels beside you, gave you a reassuring look before looking at her husband. “Friday?”

“Life functions critical.” That makes you whimper, pulling yourself closer to Tony.

“Tony, look at me. We’re going to be okay. You can rest now.”

You nod, sniffling, resting your head on his shoulder lightly. “I love you. I’ll take good care of Morgan, dad. Don’t worry.”

When the light of his arc reactor goes out, that’s when both you and Pepper break down, comforting each other around Tony’s lifeless body.

----

Dresses really weren’t your thing. So were skirts and shorts. But you wore a short, black dress for Tony’s funeral. You didn’t care if you weren’t comfortable, it was for him. You’d do anything for him.

You barely got any sleep since the battle, you couldn’t now that he was gone. It didn’t feel right. You had no idea how to cope, how you could move on from this.

What made things worse is when Steve and Thor told you about what happened to Natasha, that’s why you didn’t see her in the battle. She gave her own life just to get everybody else back.

You must’ve zoned out again because Rhodey and Pepper are now setting something up in the living room. An Iron Man helmet.

“S’that going to be new decoration?” You force out a chuckle, sniffling afterwards, sitting down on the sofa behind them.

Iron Man’s eyes light up when Rhodey presses a button. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Tony sitting on a chair, a hologram.

He turns it off before hologram Tony could say a word. “That’s,” he sighs, “that’s for later.”

“I can’t do this,” you get up, running a hand through your hair. “I can’t. I’ll - I’ll break down, I know I will. Can I take a walk? Please?”

“Take your time.” Steve gives you a comforting smile.

Pepper nods. “Some air would do you good. Be back when it’s time, okay?”

You take longer calming yourself down in the woods near the cabin. You cried, you mumbled to yourself, paced back and forth,

Cause a picture is all that I have, To remind me that you're never coming back  If I picture it now it just makes me sad And right now I just wish you were here.

You stop when you heard leaves crunching. Peter just arrived, along with his aunt.

“Hey,” Peter silently greets, pulling you into a hug. It's obvious he isn’t getting any sleep either. “Are you okay?”

“Of course not,” you murmur, pulling away. “I should probably head back inside.”

“I’ll see you in a bit.”

You slowly walk to the porch, stopping when you hear Tony’s voice inside. You decide to just wait outside the door, you definitely don’t want to see his face, not right now, it'd be too painful.

“If we pull this thing off, and get everyone back,” Tony pauses. “Tell [Y/N] I left something in her room, yeah?”

Then he does the secret rhythm to a clap only the both of you memorized and knew.

You assume he’s done, since you don’t hear his voice anymore after that. Everyone goes out of the house and you hold Morgan’s hand as all of you walk to the lake for one last goodbye.

After that you talked to everybody who came for a while. Bruce, Steve, Clint and Thor tried to get you to look at the bright side, which you appreciated, you met the rest of the guardians who came, Doctor Strange who gave you a sympathetic look and apologized for your loss, and the guy you remembered Tony told you about, the one who helped him when his suit powered down and got stranded years ago. You made a mental note to ask him to hang out with you and Peter sometime.

“Hey... I’m heading to bed now,” you inform Pepper, Happy and Rhodey (both men were staying at the cabin for a few days) who're in the living room staring at the fireplace.

Before you go to your own room you check up on Morgan, who’s fast asleep. She's wearing her little Iron Man glove, pressed to her chest. She doesn’t deserve this.

Your room is still unpacked and they just sort of removed your bed from the compound and moved it here. You sit on the bed, already thinking of ways to move on that you know wouldn’t work anyway.

You remember your father claimed he had something for you here, so taking a deep breath, you clap the secret rhythm,

“Dad... you’ve gotta be kidding me,” you whine, covering your face with both palms.

Another hologram.

“Hey legacy,” Tony chuckles, looking at you. You shake your head at the ridiculous nickname, also avoiding his eyes, which you’re sure would make you cry if you did look. “I... uh, this is just a little video. For you. Sure you won’t see this but... I like to pretend I could still talk to you. I miss you, a lot.”

You fiddle with your hands, still not looking at him but you listen to him talk.

“But we’ll see. We’ll figure something out. I hope to see you soon, [Y/N]. I love you.”

He has both hands in his pockets as he looked at you with a warm smile, before disappearing.

But he reappears a second after.

“We’re doing it tomorrow. The... uh, time travel thing.”

The stress in his voice make you look up at him, but this time he isn’t looking at you. It seems like he was pacing while he recorded it.

“I just finished doing one of these for, well, in case I somehow die while we attempt to do it. If you think about it, it’s highly likely. Going back in time, yada yada, possibilities are endless,” he sighs. “But I figured I owe my firstborn a final message if that happens, right?”

“Honestly I feel,” he makes motions with his hands. “Bit anxious... right now. We were the only ones helping each other out when one of us felt this way but... seeing as you’re not here, I just have to deal with it.”

“[Y/N], look at me,” Tony crouches down to be in level with you, like he knew you were actually here watching this, like he was actually there, the one talking to you. But it’s how he programmed it. “You wanna know what my best decision in life was?”

“Yeah?”

“Taking you in,” he smiles. “When we fight you always bring up that I had the choice not to, and you were right. But guess what? I have no regrets.”

You smile, blinking back tears.

“You mean the world to me, I just feel like I don’t say it enough,” Tony cocks his head slightly, still looking at you. “We both have no idea what the afterlife’s like but that won’t matter, I’ll always look after you girls.”

“Speaking of which, your sister reminded me so much of you when she was first born, god, I still wish you were around for that. I know you’ll love her, she’s just brilliant. Take care of her for me, yeah?”

“Maybe there’s a way to get you back,” Tony sighs at your words, already knowing that it’s not going to work out. “I - I just need some time. I can bring you back, Dad-”

He places a hand on your shoulder. You couldn’t feel it, but you did feel a light breeze. “The deed’s already done, honey. Don’t worry about me. Come on, don’t cry,” he kneels in front of you as you let yourself go, crying hard into your palms.

Don't say everything's meant to be, Cause you know it's not what I believe  Can't help but think that it should've been me In the end, I just wish you were here.

You open your eyes when you hear a beep, even Tony turns around. The recording had ten seconds left. “The recording’s about to end, [Y/N],”

“I love you tons,” you whisper, looking up at him.

Tony smiles, caressing your cheek. “I love you 3,000.”

Yeah, they say you're in a better place, Either way I still wish you were here ‘Cause they say you're in a better place  In the end, I just wish you were here.

----

so here’s part 2. I miss him y’all, it’s missing-Tony-so-much hours for me

just like the first part, I got the title from this amazing song by Neck Deep which you can listen to here.

[taglist: @creation-magician​ (which I would like to personally thank for wanting to be tagged)]

[qqueenofhades]

The Dark Horizon: Chapter XL

summary:  AU. The Caribbean, 1715: Royal Navy Lieutenant Killian Jones and his brother, Captain Liam Jones, have just arrived to help pacify the notorious “pirates’ republic” of New Providence. But they have dangerous allies, deadly enemies, and no idea what they’re getting into when they agree to hunt the pirate ship Blackbird and the mysterious Captain Swan. OUAT/Black Sails. rating: M status: WIP available: FF.net and AO3 previous: chapter XXXIX notes: Happiest of happy birthdays to my dearest @prairiepirate, the Flynn to my Lucy and #1 fan of this story. I wasn’t sure whether to post this now, as it and 41 are essentially the two-part series finale, but it’s your birthday. Hence, you get the longest chapter of this monstrosity to date. Welp.

The stretch of coast chosen for the pirates’ moot was the same that had hosted the last one, where Flint, Vane, Blackbeard, and Hook had battled it out for supremacy of the fleet and the right to sail to Antigua to save Sam – a particular and painful irony that nobody could forget. Emma certainly had not. She was aware of the discussion washing over her, Killian’s fingers linked through hers and her head on his shoulder, and the general idea that she should pull herself together and contribute something constructive to the conversation, but she was still reeling. She had told Flint just the other night that there was something to return to, something to fight for, that he could not give in and he had to find some reason to keep trying, and now she was struggling as hard as she could, not at all in her natural instinct or belief, to do the same herself. God, it was so much. Liam, Regina, Henry, Geneva, Will, and Miranda already, and now Sam. When was it going to be enough? Did the world want Killian next? Her? What was the point of surviving the battle, of making it to the other side, if there was nothing left when it was over? She had known this was a possibility, when she chose to stay behind and fight: that despite her best efforts, she could still lose everything and everyone. But all the rationalization and experience and long-worn practice did not make this any easier. This one hurt down to her bones, and there was no way to evade it or shut it down or bottle it up, her usual method of keeping the world away from her heart. She just had to sit here, and face it.

On her other side, Flint was all but a statue, motionless and wordless, but as the disagreements continued, he finally rose to his feet with a jerk, causing heads to turn and a sudden silence to fall. “It’s simple,” he said. “Rogers wants all the Spanish gold back, or he’ll kill Rackham, Madi, the rest of the pirates imprisoned in Nassau, and everyone else he bloody can. There’s no compromise or negotiation with a man like that. That is no possibility.”

“So what do we do?” Anne glared at him. “Let Jack die?”

“No.” Flint’s mouth twisted viciously. “We call Rogers’ bluff. Force his hand.”

“That sounds a fuckin’ lot like letting Jack die.” Anne stood up as well, as Vane shifted his weight behind her, an unspoken warning. “Or did you mean something else?”

“Aye.” Flint was too far gone to actually smile in any remotely recognizable way, but he bared his teeth and pulled his lips back. “The Spanish can’t fault Rogers for not returning their treasure if he’s seen to be ignominiously and utterly defeated in trying to retrieve it, can they? Then when they don’t get it back, they can either choose to proceed to a war – a war in which they will have the slimmest of pretexts, no money to fight it, a number of better things to be doing, and an awareness that they cannot measurably gain anything from it except the principle of the thing – or they can be forced to swallow their pride and take the loss. Think of it. We can do that. We can force both these fucking empires, Spanish and English alike, to play by our rules. The gold is our last leverage, our last gamble. We can’t give it up under any circumstances.”

Vane, who had clearly been prepared for Flint to suggest that they hand it over just because it belonged to him, was instead caught on the hop. “And how the fuck do we pull that off?”

“We tried bluffing Rogers with it once.” Killian spoke for the first time as well, voice raw and rusty, as he let go of Emma’s hand and moved to face his counterparts. “We all saw what happened then. You’re suggesting that we actively bait them into another world war.”

Flint shrugged, his grin more vengeful and savage than ever. “Only if they insist on it.”

The moot exchanged wary looks. But as nobody else had yet put forward a viable proposal, they were obliged to let Flint continue to hold the floor (or, strictly speaking, sand). “Here is what we do,” he went on. “We put the gold aboard the Walrus. We leak information to Rogers letting him know that it has been moved, and give him enough time to get aboard a ship and come after us. One on one – he’ll think it is a worthwhile risk. He’ll pursue us out to sea. We’ll malinger, make him think we’re running damaged, get him overconfident, and keep him away from here as long as we can. Then turn, make a stand, and settle it. He only has Navy sixth-raters to choose from, none of them run more than twenty guns. The Walrus can overmatch any of those in a head-on firefight, and I know the area much better than Rogers does. We’ll sink him, cache the treasure, and return here.”

“Right,” Vane said. “Because I’m sure to agree to any plan that involves putting my gold on your ship and letting you sail away with it, with your word you’ll be back.”

“In the meantime,” Flint continued, as if Vane had not spoken, “the Jolie and the Ranger will take on the remaining forces on Nassau. We need the Jolie’s guns for any storming of the harbor or sustained fight, and as our. . . friend pointed out, he has recently had stunning success in running the blockade. The Ranger can get in ahead as a light strike force, rescue Rackham and Madi, and the Jolie can deliver the main body of the troops. With Rogers gone, the defense of Nassau Town will be a deputized, haphazard affair. Take the fort, and we have the victory. Its guns can bombard any of the Navy ships in the harbor, and I will take Rogers alive in order for him to agree to and sign any terms of surrender we decide to impose. With a defeat as comprehensive as that, and especially if Gold is arrested for treason at the same time, Great Britain won’t dare lift a finger in the Bahamas for another ten years at least. So, then. That’s how we win the fucking battle and the war together, once and for all. Clear?”

It was quiet enough to hear crickets shirring in the trees, the rustle of the night breeze, the crackle of the fire and the crash of the waves. Nobody could argue with this proposal in the tactical sense, as Flint’s ruthless genius in such matters was rarely questioned, but the amount of insanity, skill, and luck it would take to pull off was almost unthinkable – especially when, to say the least, the latter quality had been in vanishingly short supply recently. Finally, it was Killian who was left to raise the first of numerous questions. “What troops, exactly, am I supposed to land on the beach with the Jolie? The Maroons? I can take on most of Vane’s men if the Ranger is meant to slip in first as a small vanguard, but that’s just spreading our numbers around, not increasing them. Whatever we can muster, that is no guaranteed victory. Even assuming Rogers does follow you out to sea, he’ll leave the fort crawling with soldiers. He knows its value just as much as we do.”

“You’re the one with the ex-Navy men,” Flint said flatly. “They’re the only ones who have any bloody idea of discipline and cohesion and ability to match against trained and drilled redcoats, not just a bunch of hairy shrieking bastards rushing ashore and spoiling for a brawl. So just – ”

“’Scuse me,” Vane interrupted. “Can we go back to the fucking part where you’re putting my gold on the Walrus and sailing off with it?”

“Therefore,” Flint said to Killian, “since Rackham is gone, I assume you will take up your post as captain of the Jolie again, and command them accordingly. As for the Maroons – ”

“I make the decisions for us, while Madi is a prisoner.” Lancelot did not speak loudly, but his force and authority was unquestioned. “Not you.”

Flint looked as if he was about to bark back, but Emma got to her feet and put a hand on his arm, standing between him and Killian as an extra bulwark against anything going sideways. More, that is. It felt pitiable and hollow and pointless just now, but she had to keep trying, or crumble entirely. “You’re right,” she said, addressing Lancelot. “What do you mean to do?”

“Captain Bellamy and I were attempting, as you recall, to recruit slaves from the interior plantations.” Lancelot nodded in acknowledgment of the difficulty that it must be to hear the name spoken aloud. “Nor did we have much success. But tragic as these circumstances are, there is still the possibility that some good can come of them. All their brothers, men who had families on my island, who served on the Whydah, are dead. This loss is not only yours. It is not only Sam. Maroon children have lost fathers. Maroon wives have lost husbands. John Julian, one of the two survivors, is full-blooded West Indian and will be sold into slavery, if he doesn’t hang for piracy. All these men served on Bellamy’s crew, and Bellamy himself was the only pirate we knew that we could trust. I will not ask the slaves to rise up in your name, Captain Flint. I will ask them in the memory of our own. Perhaps they thought they could not afford to fight before, that there were others who would do it. Those others have been lost with Sam. They can decide how they wish to honor their deaths, of course, but that choice seems clear to me.”

“So you would – ”

“I would lead the Maroons to Nassau from the far side of the island,” Lancelot said. “Move fast and in secret. Gather every willing man from the plantations en route, everyone who wishes to recompense the sacrifice of their brothers on the Whydah. That way, we can split our attack. You hit them from the front, via the harbor, with the Jolie and Ranger. We hit them from the rear, and with a force that is their worst nightmare. Madi would want me to do no less. She would not agree to give up the war, the chance of breaking their chains, simply for her personal benefit.”

Silver shifted restlessly. “Nor do I think she would accept being left in Rogers’ clutches.”

Lancelot smiled wryly. “You greatly underestimate her if you think she’ll ever sit quietly and agree to anything he foists on her. We know Rogers fears a slave uprising, and he will try to leverage her to forestall one. Our compatriot here – ” he nodded at Vane – “will try to rescue her as well as Rackham. But if our positions were reversed, I have no doubt that she would order the exact same course of action.”

Silver did not seem entirely approving of this, as it was clear that he had unexpectedly developed a soft spot for the Maroon princess (such as seemed the best way to call her), but he did not offer another objection. Meanwhile, it was clear that Vane was not about to settle for being blown off for the third time in a row. “Anyone still about to tell me why I agree to this?”

“Because you have to, mate.” Killian turned to him, regarding him frankly. “You know the fort the best, you were the one who succeeded in breaking the siege last time, and if I am not very much mistaken, you would do anything to get ashore and come personally to grips with Eleanor Guthrie, after she’s sold all of us out and taken up with Woodes bloody Rogers instead. As well, it’s your cash and your man in Rogers’ hands. We need you to take the Ranger into the attack on the harbor and Nassau Town, and that leaves only the Jolie and the Walrus as options to store the rest of the treasure. As Flint said, we need the Jolie’s guns and the Navy experience of her men for any direct assault on the English, and she’s not the fastest of our cohort. That would have been the Whydah, but we. . . don’t have her anymore. If we are wagering on luring Rogers out to sea and into a fight among the unmarked shores and channels and shoals, we need the fastest ship remaining apart from the Ranger, with the man who knows the area best. That’s the Walrus, and that’s Flint. He’s already said he’s not giving up your gold to the bastards under any circumstances, and for once, I think he’s bloody telling the truth.”

It was difficult to say whether Vane or Flint were more taken aback by this defense of the latter’s strategy, even as its drawbacks remained plainly apparent. Vane considered Killian for a long moment, blue eyes intent as burning coals, and then, still more unexpectedly, he said, “Fine. I’ll agree to it. But I’m not trusting Flint alone. I want you to ensure it.”

“What?” It was Killian’s turn to be taken aback. “You want me to go with him? I need to command the Jolie, and would you – I know you and Flint have your differences, to say the bloody least, but is it Captain Hook you’d trust any more?”

“I’m not trusting Captain Hook.” Vane continued to stare at him challengingly. “It’s Killian Jones the slave I’d put my faith in. Or am I wrong?”

Killian remained at a loss for words, even as Emma thought of Vane’s own origins, his undying hatred for men who would hold others in bondage, no matter their creed or color or created justification. This was, if nothing else, the one thing that Charles Vane and Killian Jones could see absolutely eye-to-eye on, especially as the subject of slaves rising from subjugation remained such a crucial part of the rest of their plans. Indeed, they continued to stand there, looking at each other, until Vane said, “Whoever you name to go along with Flint, that is who I will hold responsible for its success, and the return of my prize. Whoever you trust, I will as well. Whoever fails you fails me, and the consequences will be as they deserve.”

Killian opened and shut his mouth. He looked as if he was about to demand renegotiation of this condition, even knowing that he had no diplomatic leg left to stand on if he did, but just then, Emma spoke up. “I’ll go with Flint.”

Killian shot her an aghast look. “Swan. Wait.”

“I’ll go with Flint,” Emma repeated. “Nobody could question my importance to you, or think that you had anything less than the ultimate investment in my safe return. I know the area as well as Flint does, or better, because I spent plenty of time in it with the Blackbird. I made my living finding the places where the Royal Navy couldn’t follow me, and I can scout out somewhere to stash the gold. And Flint and I, we. . .” Her throat felt thick. “I began as a pirate with him. Maybe I end a pirate with him too.”

She couldn’t tell what expression crossed Flint’s face at that, if it was pride or grief or something else, as he looked away too quickly. Killian clearly did not want to consent to them being separated at any price, as it was all too likely that they would never see each other again. As he was still fishing for words, a new voice spoke. “Emma. You can’t go with him. None of you can.”

Emma turned just in time to see Billy Bones step out of the crowd, grim and defiant-looking, as he faced them down. “Don’t any of you hear yourselves? Once more agreeing to follow Flint into some lunatic plan, the darkest abysses of his mind, with only his word that it has any chance of success? Nobody else sees the arrogance of discussing the terms of surrender we might offer to Rogers, when he’s the one who has his boot on our necks? This involves baiting the Spanish and English like rival roosters in a fight – if there’s another war, it won’t just destroy them, it will destroy us too! Burn the world down, just for Flint’s private grief? It never ends. We’ve followed him from one hell to another. Jamaica, the mutiny there – I stopped that for you, Captain, you’re fucking welcome – then to Charlestown, to murder, to sacking, to storms, to doldrums, to captivity with the Maroons, and now this. I’ve had enough. Any man on the Walrus who feels the same is welcome to stand up now and join me. And Emma, it wasn’t Flint who saved you and gave you the first chance to join our world. It was me. You owe that all to me, not him. He would have butchered you like the rest. He likely still would. I’ve waited all this time, I’m not waiting any longer. Open your eyes. See what he really is.”

A murmur circulated through the crowd at these words, as Billy remained planted like a colossus in the sand, arms folded, staring at Emma. Her friend, the man she had trusted with Charlie and Henry’s safety, so often fought alongside, counted a valuable and steadfast ally. Heart already raw and bleeding from Miranda and Sam, she did not think she could bear to face this betrayal too. “Billy, don’t. Not now, we don’t have a choice, we – ”

“We don’t have a choice? Except to follow Flint’s plan, of course? How do we keep fucking ending up in situations where that is the only choice?” Billy looked around scathingly, as a few rumbles of support began to rise. “When this one inevitably blows up in our faces, what will the next excuse be after that, and the next? Anyone who wants to sail off with Flint on some doomed wild goose chase is welcome to it. Anyone who wants to fight with me as a free man, to overthrow all the tyrants here and not merely the ones in red coats, stand up. Stand up.”

“Billy.” Killian took a step toward him. “Billy, mate, don’t you think this could – ”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Jones.” Billy laid a hand on the blunderbuss slung across his chest. “But if you defend Flint one more time, if any one of you do, then – ”

“What?” Flint seemed almost about to laugh. “You’ll shoot them? Kill anyone who stands in your way, and then claim you’re a better man than me?”

“The only man I want to hurt here is you.” Billy’s gaze remained locked malevolently on his. “If that is what it takes to stop this sick bloody game from continuing to eternity.”

“Billy,” Silver began. “Come now, don’t – ”

“Are you siding with him now? You? When we agreed that he would get all of us killed?”

“Yes,” Silver said, simply and without pretention. “Yes, I am.”

Billy wheeled in a circle, as if appealing for any remaining man of sense to make themselves known to him on the instant. He stopped to once more stare at Emma, seemingly waiting for her to realize her error, apologize, and cross the sand to stand with him, but as much as it further battered her fragile soul to do, she did not move. “I’m sorry,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I’m staying with Flint.”

Billy flinched. Again he said, “You don’t owe him anything.”

“Maybe not.” Emma tilted her chin back to look at him. “I’m still staying.”

Bereft of the two highest-profile converts to his cause he had expected in Silver and Emma, and with a competing current of angry muttering starting to rise at the danger he was putting their last chance of striking back at Rogers in, Billy was – for the moment, and with the clear implication that he would entertain interested applicants later and in more privacy – forced to back down. But the air remained heavy and ugly, lines sharply drawn between various factions of the Walrus’ crew, and with the alliance and the strategy as tenuous as it was, this did not bode well at all for their chances of actually pulling it off. Nor could they idle a few days and see if tensions cooled down, as Rogers had set a twenty-four-hour deadline, and after a very unpleasant silence, Killian cleared his throat. “We need to get the gold moved from the Jolie to the Walrus.”

Flint shot him a bleak look, as if to ask if it was really a wise idea to put the treasure on his ship when half his crew might mutiny before the night was out – Billy couldn’t be the only one feeling that it was more than time to take their chances away from Flint’s maelstrom of catastrophes, just the only one brave enough to say it out loud. Since Flint had skated on perpetually thin ice in regard to his men’s loyalty for months now, this might be the watershed moment. Killian himself was far too versed in the difficulty of holding command, and the temptation of following anyone who promised a quick solution, to think that Billy would not have any takers. If worse came to worse, the Walrus could run with a skeleton crew, but that reduced their already razor-thin margin of error to zero. And if the defectors caused further trouble on their way out the door, that was not even guaranteeing that they got the chance to try.

Still. The alternative was to sit on their hands and waste precious time, and acting afraid of Billy would strengthen his position, if he saw that he could force them to reconsider. So, while Vane prowled in the background just to keep everyone suitably on edge and also to be sure that none of it was accidentally mislaid, the treasure was unloaded from the Jolie’s hold, rowed over to the Walrus, and secured belowdecks. If Vane had his way, Emma would have gone aboard with it at the same time, but Anne stepped over and said something in a quiet but forceful undertone. The end result was that Vane agreed, with rather bad grace, that Emma could spend the night on the Jolie with Killian, and join the Walrus at first light tomorrow.

When they were finally alone in the cabin, Emma felt something close to unreality sweep over her. That they should be back where it had all started, where she had been the pirate captain held by the Jones brothers aboard HMS Imperator, and that how it ended, if it ended, rested on the scale of the gamble they had to take tomorrow, after everything else they had already lost. She had to be strong again, she had to, and yet just now, in the darkness, in the quiet, in feeling everything she had pushed away for her own sanity, it was too much. She pressed a hand to her mouth, and went slowly to her knees, sobbing so hard that she did not make a sound.

In a flash, Killian was next to her, pulling her into his arms, hand on the back of her head and hook against her waist, holding her fiercely as they hit the floor together. He buried his face in her hair, his own breathing not sounding terribly steady, as both of them shook and shook as if they could not stop. He rocked her, kissing her cheek and her ear, as he lay down on the moonlit boards and she curled up next to him, head on his chest, their fingers linking. They said nothing for the longest time. Then Emma whispered, voice breaking, “I can’t believe Sam’s gone.”

“Me too, love.” She felt his throat move as he swallowed hard, trying to keep himself together. “The one consolation I have is that none of the bastards killed him. None of them defeated him, none of them ever did. He. . . he’s at rest in the sea now. At peace. I know I’d like to lie there too, if it came to that.”

“No.” Emma’s fingers clenched hard on his shirt. “Killian, no, I can’t. I can’t lose you. I couldn’t go on by myself, I’d. . .”

“Promise me.” He kept stroking her hair. “If, God bloody forbid, I die tomorrow, you still have to find Geneva and Henry. You have to keep living. Please.”

The words were locked in Emma’s throat. She wanted to ask him to do the same if she was the one who did not make it, not to give into Hook again, not to avenge himself on whoever might kill her – the odds being extremely good at the moment that if anyone, it would be Rogers. It seemed as if the only solace either of them would have, if one should die, was that the other would go on – yet for the surviving half, it would be the worst of all punishments. To go back to being alone, when before they knew each other, that had been their natural and preferred state. To have felt such pure and perfect connection and completion, the breath of each other’s souls, to be fashioned of the very same stardust, and then lose it – neither of them could endure. No one could. And yet, if it came to it, to honor the other’s final request, they would have to.

“There’s also the other possibility,” Killian said at length, when she did not answer. “We could both survive. We could return to each other. I know it seems bloody unlikely, but. . . we could. If we do, Emma, I. . . I don’t want to waste it. And I don’t think Sam would want us to.”

Emma laughed shakily, thinking of how colorfully and unambiguously Sam had told them to sort out their nonsense and be brave enough to get together. “No. I don’t think he would.”

“So.” Killian took a steadying breath. “I’ve thought of this for a long time, but I’ve never done it, because I’ve always been too bloody afraid for one reason or another. Or thought you’d change your mind, or that I simply don’t deserve it. I still might not, I don’t know. But if we do come through this, if there’s any day after this one when we see each other again – ”

“Killian.” Emma sat upright, pulling him with her, their foreheads touching. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“I – ” He coughed, looking down at their entwined hands. “I didn’t want to presume, but – ”

Emma cut him off by kissing him, long and thoroughly, until they were breathless when they pulled apart. She brushed her nose against his, then leaned back to look at him. “Ask me.”

He looked briefly about to question, one more time, if she was sure. But a faint, fragile smile crossed his lips, almost despite himself, as he took her hand in his, and she reached out to grip his hook with the other. “Emma Swan,” he said softly. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” Her own smile was trembling, her tears both of unbearable joy and searing heartbreak, as she felt almost guilty for allowing herself any kind of happiness in this darkness – and yet if nothing else, being absolutely sure that Sam would categorically refuse to let them deny it to themselves on his account. “Yes, I will.”

Killian kissed her again, slower and longer, as they got up and walked backwards to the bed, climbing onto it together, as Emma unclicked the hook from its brace and pulled his arms around her neck. They shifted together as she straddled him, cupping his head in her hands, tracing the corner of his lips with her thumb, their mouths open and soft and searching. She was not healed entirely, and nor was he. But that seemed so poignantly, terribly fitting that Emma felt her heart twist almost sweetly at the realization. They were cracked and scarred and deeply worn from all the damage they had taken, the battles they had fought through, the loved ones they had lost, and the knowledge that there may yet be one ultimate price left to pay. Yet there was still their own choice to be made, their own small flame of hope and bravery to keep burning, if they could just love each other enough, one more time. Emma’s old instinct in the face of pain was, as ever, to wall herself away, just as Killian’s was to give into Hook. Yet if anything was going to come of this, if they were going to celebrate Sam’s life and grieve his death in any way that truly mattered, both of them had to do better. Had to rise above.

They remained moving slowly, almost in a dream, as they undressed, as Emma undid the buckles for Killian’s brace and slid it off his shoulders, until they were only in their skins. Touched each other gently and thoroughly, trying to smooth  away the shattered edges and the broken pieces. Settled among the pillows, the Jolie rocking at anchor beneath them, as Killian slid as carefully into her as if she was made of glass. Emma caught her breath, bracing herself with her hands on his shoulders, more worried about hurting him than she was for any pain of her own. They remained there for a seemingly eternal moment, completed, at peace, home. Home.

Finally, just as lightly and gently, Killian began to move, riding up into her as Emma’s hair fell loose around her shoulders. Neither of them could fail to be reminded of their first coupling, late at night in Miranda’s spare bedroom, when Emma had walked in and Killian could have pretended to be asleep. But he had not, he did not, and so they had come together, and they had made their daughter and their future and their time. However little. However much.

Emma gulped and gasped when they lost themselves in each other’s flesh, leaning forward onto Killian’s chest as he wrapped his arms around her back, holding her close, his breath against her cheek, their mouths finding their way for another musing kiss. At last she rolled off, settling next to him, pressed against his side as he pulled out the quilt and shook it out to cover them both. She settled her head into the hollow of his shoulder, knuckling the tears out of her eyes. She felt shaken to her bones, laid bare in every imaginable sense of the word. She wanted to weep and never stop, she wanted to be at rest in the sea herself. Wanted to blow on the wind, to rise like the morning star, to fall like the evening. It felt too much for one heart and one body to bear.

And yet. She was not alone, and no matter what, she would not be again. They were too inextricably united for that, in some simple, transcendent truth. As if she said that she loved Killian only because there was no other word for it, and that was the closest she could come to explaining such a more-than-mortal feeling. And here, now, just as much they had done on that first night together, no matter if this then might be the very last, they slept.

------------------

They were woken by the sound of shouting. Feet pounded outside, the ship’s bell clanged, and as Emma rolled over, willing with all her might for the morning not to have come just yet, there was a loud and harried rapping on the cabin door, which then burst open. “Captain. Captain!”

Killian stirred with a start, sitting up as Emma pulled the sheet around her chest. “What?”

“The men spotted a Navy frigate, less than a bell off. Dunno how Rogers got the information already, but he did. He’s coming after us, the Walrus has to be away immediately if she’s got any chance of outrunning him. He’s got the wind and the faster ship. Swan has to get over to Flint right now.”

Emma’s stomach turned an unpleasant flip. There was no way to be sure how Rogers had acquired the knowledge of the gold’s new location so dangerously ahead of schedule, but then, he had his own spies crawling over the island and was likely impatient for any hint as to whether or not the terms would be fulfilled. She pushed away the momentary, terrible suspicion that had occurred to her, and vaulted out of bed, dressing as fast as she could, as Killian did the same. The two of them hurried on deck together, to the men gathered at the railing with the spyglass and pointing at the white sails of the approaching vessel, as Killian gave terse orders for their own canvas to be raised and evasive action taken – after all, they needed to be sure that Rogers would chase the Walrus, not the Jolie. There was a boat waiting to ferry Emma to the former, and Killian helped her over the side, the trembling in his fingers making it clear how afraid he was to let her go. “Bloody hell, Emma. Be safe.”

“You too.” Emma looked up at him, their gazes locking, even as she heard the whistle and splash that meant Rogers had ordered his gunners to start trying the range. “Killian, I – I love you. Please. Please come back to me.”

“Christ.” His arms were around her, their mouths finding each other’s once and then again in a fevered, frantic goodbye kiss, as she wrapped both arms around his shoulders and for a brief, timeless moment, there was nothing in all of existence but the two of them. “I love you too, Emma. I love you always. Come back. Come back.”

In answer, Emma cupped his face and kissed him one more time, even as she felt the urgent tug on her boot that meant they had to go now. She could taste the salt of his tears or her own on her lips as she pressed his hand to her heart, kissed his fingers as he did the same with her, closing them over her palm as if to keep it caught there like a small bird in a cage. Then – it felt like tearing herself in half, like handing Geneva away to Regina, but almost worse – she pulled back and hung on as the boat launched, they shot down the Jolie, and hit the water. She could see Killian growing smaller and smaller as the men pulled the oars, his gaze never leaving her face even as the Jolie fell away behind. It seemed branded on Emma’s soul, unshakable, unforgettable. As if the world could and very well might end this very minute, but her memory of this moment, this parting, would endure into the darkness.

The Walrus was already moving when they reached it, and it took Emma a few tries to catch hold of the rope thrown down to her; it kept slipping out of the boat from the force of their wake. But she finally grabbed it, the wet hemp abrading her hands, threatening to wipe away the sensation of Killian’s last kiss, and braced herself as she was hauled up the side, somersaulting onto the deck. To her great surprise, she recognized the hauler: none other than Macintosh, who must have finally decided to join Flint’s crew permanently after his various stops following the destruction of the Blackbird. He gave her a hand to her feet. “Good to see ye again, Cap’n.”

Emma startled both of them further by hugging him, briefly and fiercely. “Where’s Merida?”

“Insisted on goin’ back to the Jolie for the attack on Nassau. Wants to fight redcoats personally, the daft wee lassie.” Macintosh managed a smile. “She wouldna listen to me when I told her it was foolish. Your man will look after her then, eh?”

“I’m sure he will.” Emma straightened up, then ducked again reflexively as a shot fell short – but not that short – of their aft quarters. “Jesus, Rogers is still gaining?”

“Aye, he’s cock-first up our arses, the perverted bugger.” Macintosh’s lips went thin. “Be bloody curious to know just who so happened to pass the information to him that the gold was moved, and gave him the jump on us, right as we were tryin’ to get a head start. Someone, say, who was at the moot last night. Heard all our plans, and was the one to publicly challenge them. And, it also so happens, isn’t here any more.”

Emma stared at him, a terrible cold feeling creeping over her, even more so since this aligned all too well with her earlier unworthy moment of suspicion. “You can’t be suggesting that Billy sold us out to Rogers?”

“Can I no?” Macintosh looked at her grimly. “I ken ye are – were, at least – friends with the man. But I’ve been on the Walrus, and ye havena. I’ve seen it brewin’. Last night was only the inevitable outcome. Billy’s come to hate Flint more and more, even considerin’ his torture by that sick bastard Hume – the torture we rescued him from, the bleedin’ ingrate. If he thought he could leverage something from Rogers, why not come to him with this prime piece of intelligence and give them both a shot at endin’ Flint? Enemy of my enemy is my friend. Billy’s probably justified it to himself. Got it all worked out. If Flint is captured and hanged, he canna do any more damage, and Rogers might be convinced to spare the other prisoners, if he has Flint to make an example of. Ye have to admit it’s neat. Bloody clever. Get the Navy to exact Billy’s revenge for him, take Flint down once and for all, and all the men whose lives he might save would be grateful to him. Even Woodes fuckin’ Rogers owes him a favor. Diabolical.”

Emma couldn’t answer. Macintosh’s theory struck a sickening note of truth on every chord, and she could see for herself that Billy was not among the men scuttling across the Walrus’ deck and loading the guns. If Rogers kept closing the gap, this would come to a shootout long before they could get him out to open water and have any chance of gutting him on a rock or reef or sandbar, as well as give the others any time to fight in Nassau without his interference. She remained frozen a moment longer, then whirled on her heel. “Take the wheel. You used to handle the Blackbird on these chases with the Navy. You can keep us just ahead.”

“Last one we outran like this was the Valiant.” Macintosh raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That was a sixth-rater too, but the Blackbird was faster and shallower on the draft. I’ll do me best, but – ”

“Whatever you have to do.” Emma pushed away the irony of the fact that the Valiant had been commanded by Captain Colter, Regina’s first love, and that had been the genesis of the other woman’s grudge against her. Any number of things seemed to be coming ominously full circle. “It’s likely far too much to hope for another convenient storm, but we can pray.”

Considering the circumstances of Sam’s death, that abruptly caught in her throat, as if she should be very careful what she wished for, and she bit her tongue, wishing she could take it back. Too late. For his part, Macintosh raised the other eyebrow, as if to say that praying for a miracle might indeed be their only option, but he went for the helm, and Emma for the cabin. Flint and Silver were inside, poring over the charts and having some sort of spirited disagreement, but they looked up at her entrance. “Well?” Flint said. “Any ideas how to scrape off the son of a bitch?”

“Working on it.” Emma had to catch her balance as the floor tilted sharply. Evidently, Macintosh was taking to heart her advice to try any inventive maneuver he could think of. “We have to get Rogers out of range, but we can’t lose him entirely. We need to keep him thinking he’s just about to catch us, stretch out the pursuit.”

Flint and Silver exchanged a look. Another whistle and splash echoed outside the window. Then Silver said, “If there’s anything we can afford to send overboard – extra cargo, supplies, ballast – the lighter we can get, the faster we can – ”

“In that case,” Flint said. “There’s a fucking obvious candidate, isn’t there?”

Emma and Silver stared at him blankly, until the latter got it first. “What? No. No, you can’t be suggesting that we throw the Spanish treasure into the sea. Bloody hell, this entire gambit was designed to avoid having to give it back! You said yourself we couldn’t even think of – ”

“We aren’t giving it back, are we?” Flint looked blackly amused. “There are twelve chests of solid gold and silver bullion, gems, ingots, and other precious items in our hold. Even one contains more money than we are likely to have need of in a lifetime. Dumping the rest would take off close to a ton of weight. Rogers is welcome to call off the chase and dive overboard, if he thinks he can get them. But he can’t stop us from doing it, from denying it to him outright, forcing his hand. No one can.”

“Are you mad?” Silver looked as if he supposed he didn’t need to ask the question, but did nonetheless. “Ask the men to just throw all these unfathomable riches into the deep? And have you even thought what – ”

“I’m the safeguard for that gold,” Emma broke in. “If it gets lost, if it doesn’t come back for any reason, Vane will – I don’t know what he’ll do to me, but it won’t be good. That’s why I had to come along in the first place. There has to be another – ”

“Rogers will kill Madi,” Silver interrupted, the two of them talking over each other. “And Rackham and the others, but he’ll bloody kill her and – ”

“Not if he doesn’t make it back to Nassau.” Flint seemed entirely unmoved by their chorus of condemnation. “Either of you have a better idea for lightening our load?”

“Vane will – ”

“Vane’s not the only one who might just have to lose something – some things – bloody dear to him.” Flint’s face was dead white, his eyes like hollow tunnels. “The sea took Sam away from us, Emma. Why is it that it can’t take Vane’s gold too? For fucking certain he doesn’t actually love any other person. He might have loved Eleanor once, aye, but she’s betrayed us. Why does he get to keep anything else? Why do any of us?”

“James.” Emma reached for his hand, but he jerked it back. “You know Sam wouldn’t want – ”

“We don’t know what Sam would want, do we?” Flint’s voice was close to a roar. “Because he’s dead! Because he’s dead, and so is Miranda, and likely the rest of us anyway, so what does it matter if we get rid of the gold or not? Besides, Sam himself reminded us that he was no angel, that he was as fully capable of wishing death and destruction on his enemies as any of us! He was the one who refused any notion of a pardon, of ever giving up this life, and I bloody wish I had listened to him! If I had, if I had never even thought of Charlestown and Ashe and that there was any fucking chance of it, this would never have happened! Miranda and Sam might still be alive. But they’re not. They’re not!”

Emma opened and shut her mouth, heartsick, as Flint once more snatched away from her. Silver looked mildly stunned but still stubborn, as there was another, closer-sounding boom past the hull. It was clear that if they weren’t going to take his suggestion to ditch the treasure, something else had to give, and both of them had a sensation of Flint as an inferno burning at full and devouring blast, consuming all light and air and collapsing down and down into a void. In that moment, Emma almost wondered if Billy was right, and approaching even a man as dangerous as Woodes Rogers was a necessary risk to stop Flint before he incinerated the entire world. But Rogers was no better, would calmly eradicate everyone she cared about in the name of law and order and the triumph of civilization, and the moment of truth was upon her. Agree with Flint, and order the treasure – most of it, at any rate – thrown overboard, or oppose him, and –

Just then, a new set of guns thundered fairly near at hand, and the Walrus rocked and skewed – but Emma didn’t think that they had been hit, or that the volley had been aimed at them. She, Flint, and Silver spun to stare at each other, and then – dilemma briefly forgotten in their haste – they spilled out of the cabin and onto the deck, awash in acrid gunsmoke, shouting men, and splinters from where one of Rogers’ shots had clipped them. But it wasn’t Rogers who commanded their attention. That would be the newly arrived ship that had just opened fire, sailing on a direct intercept between the Walrus and the pursuing Navy frigate, and which everyone recognized at once. The one and only Queen Anne’s Revenge. Bloody hell.

“Blackbeard?” Flint said incredulously, voicing the general sentiment. “Jesus Christ. I thought he was sacking Antigua?”

“He was going to try.” Emma spoke tersely, gaze never wavering, as she wasn’t sure if this apparently opportune materialization was all that opportune or not. Blackbeard had wanted to sack Antigua very much, yes, but he had also made no secret of his desire to destroy the Windsor, his old ship, in recompense for the crimes of Captain George King, and gave exactly none of a well-polished shit that David Nolan was now in command of her instead. If Blackbeard was in the neighborhood, that most likely meant either that he was chasing or had already taken and sunk the Windsor, and that Nolan might never have made it to Antigua with the charges and evidence of Gold’s treason. If so, everything that Sam, Killian, and Emma had done to identify and expose Gold’s illicit association with the Star Chamber went for nothing, and they had lost their last and best chance to take him down. Nothing. Nothing.

At that, something close to madness took hold of Emma. She clutched the rail, determined not to buckle under to the brief and wild impulse to order the Walrus to turn her guns on the Revenge. There was no proof, and any number of things could have happened instead. At least the unexpected advent of another well-armed enemy was giving the Navy frigate serious second thoughts about continuing the pursuit – which was not actually a good thing, since that was their entire strategy – and peering through the spyglass, Emma thought she could spot Rogers shouting at someone on the forecastle. She clicked it closed, a reckless fury burning through her, and turned to Macintosh. “Go below,” she ordered. “Get one of the treasure chests, and bring it up here. I want Rogers to see it.”

He goggled at her, as did Silver, both of them clearly wondering if Flint’s insanity was contagious, but after a moment, he snapped his mouth shut, spun on his heel, and vanished into the hold, having corralled a nearby crewman to help. They returned in short order with one of the heavy chests, lugging it between them with muttered Scots oaths on Macintosh’s part, boosting it up onto the hatch cover. With a shot across the bow to make sure Rogers was paying attention (and for that matter, Blackbeard) Flint chinked open the lock with a few brutal blows and let the gleam of gold catch the sun, thus to ensure that if Rogers had any thoughts about calling off the chase, it would be an exceedingly costly decision, literally. A murmur spread across the Walrus at the sight of it, and all at once, there was no more fire from the Navy frigate – Rogers would clearly not risk hitting them and sinking it. Now he had to do what they wanted him to: chase them and recapture it with a hand-to-hand boarding party, rather than long-range gunfire. And if he was not prepared to take that risk, he’d just have to watch it sail away.

With that, Flint slammed the lid shut, looped the broken lock back in and jammed it into place, and divided a very deliberate look among the crowd, as if to ask who else wanted to question his strategy now. The fact that it had been, strictly speaking, Emma’s idea to bring up the treasure was insignificant, and Flint was not about to waste time over it. Especially not when once more, he had the advantage.

While Rogers was thus briefly in confusion about what to do, the Walrus and the Revenge began to stretch the distance, finally getting clear of even the long nines, and when the frigate was a small shape on the horizon, they drew close in hopes of a parlay. They did not have to wait long, as that glimpse of Spanish treasure had also alerted Blackbeard to the fact that there was a profitable opportunity which he should do something about. “Well?” he said, as soon as they were face to face. “How much of the haul do you have?”

“Who says we have the haul at all?” Flint, of course, was not nearly about to let slip such a literally valuable piece of information. “And even if so, what the fuck makes you think you get to have anything to do with it? We knew exactly what we were doing, before you waltzed into the middle of it and nearly ruined everything. So piss off wherever you were going, and – ”

“The Navy was shooting at you, mate.” Blackbeard raised a bushy eyebrow. “Getting them off your arse would normally rate some thanks.”

“The Navy was supposed to be shooting at us, you – ”

“Captain Thatch,” Emma broke in, before this could get any further out of hand. Rogers still had the wind, was still making up distance, and they had only fifteen minutes or so before they would have to move again. “What did you do in Antigua? Did you attack the Windsor, or Captain David Nolan? He had extremely important intelligence on Robert Gold, if you stopped him from – ”

“And since when do we count on the Navy to serve as our scurrying page boys?” Blackbeard was unmoved. “But as it happens, the reason I’m back around here is because I’ve been chasing the Windsor, yes. In the meantime, I’ve had a few modest successes against the merchant shipping in the Leewards, and the Navy frigates in the Jamaican corridor. This war is being fought on other fronts than Nassau alone, you know.”

“Modest,” Emma repeated, suspecting either that Blackbeard’s definition of the word was vastly different from the usual, or he was deliberately underselling his accomplishments for negotiation purposes. “Is the Windsor returning this way, then? Did she make it to Antigua the first time?” There existed the unpleasant – indeed, the unpleasantly plausible – possibility that David had arrived, delivered his infelicitous intelligence, and been snapped up like a fat robin with a worm, as Gold must have realized that his letter had been stolen and made immediate plans to cover his tracks. If so, David could be moldering in an Antiguan gaol-cell – possibly the same one they had put Sam in, just for that extra irony – and command of the Windsor reassigned to a loyal man who would be certain to follow orders, and put the powerful third-rater properly to work in the war effort. After the Navy had already lost the Imperator, they would be especially keen to avoid further egg on their faces, and the problem of another sixty guns either in the pirates’ hands or at least not actively thwarting them, by ensuring that the same did not befall the Windsor. If so, they could not tell Blackbeard to refrain from sinking her (whether or not this would make a difference anyway) if what had always been a flimsy gambit had finally fallen through.

“Well?” Emma pressed. “Did she?”

Blackbeard shrugged. “Fucked if I know. I can tell you, nothing I’ve heard makes it sound as if that bastard Gold has been anywhere close to overthrown. In any event, since it wears on your maidenly scruples to do so, and because I can see our present conundrum as much as you, I’ll make you a deal. Half that treasure, and I’ll take that Navy ship down for you. Give you time to do whatever you want with the rest of it, and make it back to Nassau. Shorten the odds a bit for whichever of your lot you’ve left back there – Bellamy or Rackham or Hook, I presume. Or – ”

“That’s not just any bloody Navy ship,” Flint said, icily as a frozen lake. “That’s Woodes Rogers. Governor Woodes Rogers.”

“Even better then, eh? I sink him, the war’s all but over. Take him prisoner, that is, and sink his ship, but there you have it. Or did you not care for the thought of sharing your glory? Wanted it to be your achievement alone?” Blackbeard’s eyes were sharp in his ruddy, windburned face. “He can’t match the Revenge. I run forty guns, he has at most twenty. By the way, where’s Charles? You heard anything of him?”

“Back in Nassau, actually. He and Hook are leading that attack. And for that matter, trying to rescue Jack Rackham from the English.”

“Calico Jack, the chinless wonder?” Blackbeard snorted. “I’ve never understood why a man like Charles kept that one around. Of all of us that could be kidnapped, I’d say he’s the best option we could have chosen.”

“It’s complicated,” Emma said, glancing nervously sidelong at Rogers’ ship. Under ten minutes until they very much needed to keep going, sooner if they wanted a decent head start, and she turned to Flint. “This is already hard enough for us, no need to make it harder. If we can get Blackbeard to take out Rogers for half the treasure, that’s not a terrible bargain. Hide the rest of it, make it back to Nassau, help Killian and Vane. If all goes well, we recapture the island, and have all the bargaining position with both Spain and England we could ask for.”

Flint gazed at her bleakly, as if to ask what in their recent history made her think that such a fortuitous outcome was remotely possible, but after a moment, he jerked his head once. He and Blackbeard could not formally shake on the deal, as they were still aboard their respective ships, but they spat in their palms and held them up as signal of agreement. Then a dozen burly members of the Revenge’s crew swung across to the Walrus and disappeared into the hold, as Blackbeard was evidently not about to perform this service on credit. It took long enough to set Emma’s nerves on edge – Rogers’ ship was now close enough that if it had been a usual fight, he would have started firing again, and it was still slightly perplexing that he wasn’t. But the Revenge men finally reappeared, heaved six chests of the Spanish treasure onto the deck of their own ship with pulleys, ropes, thumps and crashes, and clambered back over. Rogers himself must have surely witnessed this transaction, and must also be wondering why in creation the pirates were stopping to juggle treasure loads on the very precipice of a pitched battle. But hopefully he would also think that that was all of it, and he could conveniently recapture it if and when he took the Revenge. Or –

Still, though. At this close vantage, something looked strange about the Navy frigate – Emma caught a glimpse of the gilted lettering on the bow and the carved figurehead, and saw that its name was HMS Rose. There weren’t any men visible on the deck, the sails were loose and slacking, and smoke was rising from the hatch covers. The braces were out of the capstan, and the deck was in general disarray. They stared at it, less than a thousand yards away and drifting slightly, as Flint could be observed wondering if he had just paid far too much for a service that was about to be accomplished essentially for free. (Easier when it was his biggest rival’s money, but still.) “Explosion in the powder magazine?” he guessed, glancing at Emma. “That could have disabled her like that, but – ”

“We didn’t hear any explosion.” Emma felt something strange and cold on the back of her neck. “James, come on, we need to go. Right now.”

Blackbeard looked over at them from the deck of the Revenge. “Go on, Flint,” he called. “I think my lads and I can handle this just fine. Still, might be some mop-up work later, if that interests you. Or you can sit back and watch how to do this properly.”

“Come on.” Emma pulled on Flint’s arm. “Now!”

With a final stare between the Revenge and the Rose, Flint spun around, barked at the helmsman to pull them away, and ordered the others up the shrouds to loose full canvas. The wind caught them abruptly, pushing them hard across the water, the half-ton reduction in their weight certainly noticeable. Flint himself remained where he was, clearly chafing at first being bilked and then all but gift-wrapping such a legendary triumph for Blackbeard. When this story got told and retold, it would surely feature a perilous chasing-down and duel to the death, rather than all but strolling aboard unopposed. And yet, something was still not sitting quite right with Emma. This wounded-fawn act, if that was what it was. After their last encounter with Rogers, nothing could be ruled out, and all she wanted was distance between them and that ship.

A small sandbar island, and then another, soon appeared and had to be navigated around, which also had the effect of cutting off the line of sight behind them to the Revenge and the Rose. There still had been no sound of cannons, the echo of which carried very well over water, so whatever was going on, it was not an ordinary battle. When the two ships had vanished altogether in the white glare of sea and sky, Silver was the one to turn to Flint and Emma. “Very well, that worked far better than I imagine any of us anticipated. Now find us somewhere to stash the rest of it, and let’s get the fuck back to Nassau.”

Emma could detect a certain personal edge in Silver’s eagerness to return, which she of course shared with her desire to return to Killian as soon as possible. So she ducked back into the cabin with Flint and pulled out one of the older charts, feeling a pang of loss for the Blackbird and its wealth of information on such secret bogs and byways. After extensive consultation, they finally determined that there might be a possibility that lay north by northeast from here, one of the caches used in Captain Henry Avery’s day, a rugged spit well out in the Atlantic with the foreboding name of Skeleton Island. The exact coordinates were rather (and most likely for such a place, deliberately) murky, but this was the sort of thing that Emma had made her name on. She fetched Macintosh to have a look, he agreed that he could likely hack it if they took at least a rough heading, and they struck out.

They sailed for the rest of the day and well into the night. The mood aboard the Walrus was still tense, as well as increasingly angry as the news of Billy’s apparent betrayal spread, and there was a certain proprietary feeling that they had given away enough of the treasure now, thanks, especially if it was going to result in Blackbeard getting to obnoxiously gloat every time he saw them. Silver would have been pacing if he had two good legs, and it was clear that this was already taking much longer than he wanted. For her part, Emma tried to settle down in the stuffy cabin, but rest was very far away, especially with the shadowed shape of Flint sitting at the table by the dim light of a lantern and drinking his way steadily through a bottle of rum. Once or twice, Emma heard something that sounded almost like a muffled sob, but it was so quiet that it was impossible to be sure, and she knew that Flint was too raw to tolerate any more attempts at comfort. So she merely lay there, pretending to sleep.

At some point, this must have finally turned into real sleep, because she woke with a start in pearly-grey predawn light. Flint was gone, and she rolled over stiffly, swinging her legs over the side, pulling on her boots, and knotting her tangled hair off her neck. The air was so steamy that it felt like a Turkish bathhouse, sticking her clothes to her as if she had been caught in a downpour and billowing through the cabin and across the deck as she stepped outside. The Walrus was cutting a track through otherwise mirror-glass water, and she could hear a faint, raucous chorus of birds. Not just gulls. Birds meant land, which meant –

Emma climbed up into the forecastle, and felt her breath catch. For a fabled pirate haunt of yesteryear, Skeleton Island – as it plainly was – did look the part. They were entering a narrow mouth that cut between two lofty, steep-sided bluffs, summits obscured in the thick mist and the shore rocks sharp enough to tear out their hull if they were not quite careful about navigation. According to the sketchy description in the logs, this channel led a considerable distance inland to the deepwater lagoon at the center, one of the two “eyes” of the skull that gave the island its name. This eye was surrounded by thick jungle on three sides, leading up to a formidable labyrinth of waterfalls, caves, and other opportune places for an adventurous swashbuckler to deposit a secret cache. There were also several legends to the effect that this island had swallowed said swashbucklers along with their stash, which Emma put firmly out of her head.

That reminded her, however, that there was still the ticklish question of who was going to know the location of this one. She would have to, as she was the person entrusted to convey it back to Vane (notwithstanding the small fact that they had given half of it to Blackbeard – but Vane and Blackbeard were partners, more or less, so this was not the worst choice of alternative custodians). Whoever buried it would have to know as well, and somehow avoid becoming a target for their peers who would be after them to cough it up. Flint was not liable to agree to be left out of the reckoning, nor was Silver. And considering the service they had done, the Walrus’ crew were not likely to forego a generous commission for themselves. With Billy’s accusations that they only ever did anything as it pleased Flint still close at hand, they by no means would have been forgotten, especially when half a dozen chests of a lot of money were involved.

Just then, a hand on her back startled the living daylights out of her, and she whirled around, biting a yelp, to see Flint looking down at her. “I’ve been thinking,” he said quietly, after a glance to ensure that they were alone apart from Macintosh, drowsing at the wheel at the other end of the ship. “I don’t think you should know the location of the treasure stash.”

Considering that she had of course just been thinking about that exact topic, Emma briefly wondered if Flint had developed the capacity to read minds, which did not seem out of the question. “What? No. I have to. Do you think Vane is going to take your word for it alone as to wherever it ends up hidden? I’m the – ”

“The guarantor, yes,” Flint completed, sounding as if he had been anticipating this argument. “As for that, the plan has already changed once, and I don’t doubt it will change again before this is through. But Emma, think about it. As long as you know the location, you will never be safe. Half of these poxy halfwits will take it into their heads to threaten you or hunt you down until you give them the bearings, and probably force you along to ensure their accuracy. It’s doubtful whether you would survive such a venture or not, and I’d wager the latter. If you want any hope of leaving this life behind for good, if you ever want the past to stay where it belongs and not haunt you for the rest of your days, you’d prefer to remain safely ignorant.”

Emma stared up at him. She couldn’t deny that this argument made a certain amount of morbid sense, but she was far too well acquainted with Flint to think that it came without a heaping helping of ulterior motives. “Is that what you really want? To protect me?”

He regarded her coolly. “Is that so unbelievable?”

Emma supposed that all things considered, it might not be, as she had been the one encouraging him to remember that he had others left to live for. Still, just as with the Rose’s apparent desertion and destruction, there was something niggling her. “But you’ll still know the spot?”

“I have nothing left to lose.” Flint said it almost simply, matter-of-factly. “You do.”

Emma held his gaze for a long moment, wishing that she could put aside that last qualm, do for him as she had urged him to do with her, and trust him unconditionally. Miranda had, and Flint surely loved Miranda more than enough to make Emma at least reasonably certain that that forbearance and protection extended to her. But now, at the end, after everything, she couldn’t quite get all the way, cross that final bridge. Agree, but with her eyes wide open.

“Fine,” she said. “I won’t know it.”

Flint paused, then nodded. He descended the forecastle and crossed the deck, then took over on the wheel from Macintosh, who was clearly hankering for the chance to go below and fall into his hammock. Emma herself made for the cabin in search of food, if Flint had any and not just rum, then jumped as the door shut with a clunk behind her and she turned to confront her second unexpected audience of the morning. “So,” John Silver enquired. “What did he say to you?”

“Excuse me?” Emma eyed him warily. “Do I have to tell you?”

“I suppose not.” Silver smiled, but without his usual flippant edge, and it never reached his eyes. “But it might be useful if you did. You and I are more on the same side of things than you and Flint, Emma. We both want to get back to Nassau, and soon. Flint. . . doesn’t.”

“What? So you’re trying to feel me out for the possibility of – I don’t know, what exactly are you proposing?” Emma’s tone was cool. “Willing to stand with Flint at the moot when Billy was challenging him, but now that the chips are down, you’re having second thoughts?”

“Just hear me out.” Silver hobbled nearer, seating himself heavily in the chair. “Believe me, I am not a monster. I am not unsympathetic to Captain Flint’s losses. But you and I can both see that he’s at the end of his rope, and does not particularly care what happens either to him or any of us. You and I want to get back to Nassau as soon as possible, to do it in some state that leaves us at least marginally prepared for a future, and for whatever fight it takes to achieve it.”

“This is about Madi.” Emma could honestly say that she had not expected that, not from someone as relentlessly self-interested as Silver. “You genuinely care for her, don’t you?”

Silver made a fist, then flattened it on the scarred wood of the tabletop, in a gesture reminiscent of Flint’s. “I don’t think she’s acceptable collateral damage, no. Even outside of her value to the Maroons and whatever slender chance we have of pulling this off. Flint, on the other hand, doesn’t care whether she lives or dies, or at least if he does, he’s hiding it spectacularly. He might care slightly more about Hook, but only slightly, and if Vane tripped on a molehole and broke his neck tomorrow, you know he’d shed no tears. He has nothing left holding him to Nassau personally, and you and I both know that Flint’s fight is always personal. He’ll be happy to stay out here for days, even weeks, if that was what it took to outsmart Rogers and consolidate his advantage with the treasure. We can’t afford it.”

“So?” The same as she had with Flint, Emma could see the sense on the face of this, but had to probe carefully for whatever else was running beneath the surface. “What are you asking me to do?”

Silver looked at her directly. “Nothing, right now. Only to think whether you’ll choose Hook, or your loyalty to Mrs. Barlow’s memory. I know you cared about her, and about Flint by extension. But if it comes to a decision between returning to Nassau and saving Hook’s life, or staying here and possibly letting him die, I think I know which one you’ll pick.”

“And what? He’s your friend, is that what you’re going to say? Your father held him and Liam in bondage, he – ”

“That was my father’s crime.” Silver’s voice was very cool. “Not mine. Both of you seem determined to hold a grudge against me for wanting away from everything I used to be with all my heart, the same as the Jones boys. As if I somehow did them an eternal wrong by not jeopardizing my own escape with theirs – what the fuck was I supposed to do? I was a child too. And Liam killed my father and his crew anyway, so if I’d stayed, I would have drowned with them. It doesn’t matter. We’ve all ended up here. If I’m being honest, Flint’s my friend far more than Hook is, and yet I don’t have any illusions about what he is capable of. I don’t want to ask you to decide between Hook and Miranda, but I also don’t want you to think that it might not come down to that. And in that case, only one of them is alive to thank you for it.”

Emma had no response for that, for Silver’s quiet but undeniable anger, at the knowledge that he could very well be right. They remained staring at each other across the table, the weird misty shadows shifting in the morning haze, as the Walrus continued to sail down the channel into the depths of this fey place. “We’ll get back to Nassau,” she said at last, aware that she had promised one thing to Flint and now had to promise another to Silver, but seeing no other path in either case. “We’ll save Madi and Killian. I just don’t want that to involve sacrificing Flint.”

“I don’t either. For what it’s worth.” Silver ran a hand over his scruffy dark beard, looking tired. “But I’m not entirely sure that he’ll give us a choice.”

Emma opened her mouth, was interrupted by a shout from outside, and peering through the cabin window, could see that they appeared to have reached their destination. She hesitated, then gave Silver a hand to his feet, and they emerged with the rest of the crew to take a good look at the eye of the skull. There was a narrow strip of beach that could serve for a landing spot, and the lagoon water was almost completely calm, the rich color of a priceless sapphire. “Take a sounding,” Flint ordered. “I want to know how deep it is.”

The line was retrieved and thrown overboard, then finally drawn back up with the result that it was at least sixty fathoms, and they had run out of rope before being able to know for certain. There were places in the Caribbean known as blue holes, where the bottom fell out of the ocean among surrounding shallower water, and it seemed that they were currently afloat directly above one of them, which meant they could not put down anchor in the traditional fashion. This would not be much of a problem, as they could hardly drift far, but still would require vigilance to make sure that they didn’t get too friendly with the sharp coral spines closer in. God, this place was desolate. Presumably other pirates had been here in the past, but there was no hint of them at all, that the Walrus’ crew was anything other than the very first human beings to lay eyes on it, and it was giving Emma the shivers. She would have wanted the hell out of here, now, even without the incentive of assuring Killian’s safety and success back in Nassau. She devoutly hoped that Flint was not planning to linger.

Whatever he was planning, at any rate, was (as usual) unclear. He calmly divided the crew into six teams, each to find a separate location to hide a chest, which was – Emma had to admit – a solid strategy. Each man was thus clued in on one, would therefore not feel the need to shake down the rest of the crew for information on a share, and could consider himself integral to the overall effort. Since they did not want to be tramping through unfamiliar and potentially dangerous jungle while slowed down with heavy loads, they would run their scouting mission first, find their spot, and then return to get their trunk. Indeed, this solution was so uncharacteristically democratic that Emma had to wonder – especially when Flint announced that he would be staying behind to keep an eye on the Walrus. All that effort to convince her to forego knowing the treasure’s location, and he wasn’t going to accompany at least one of the teams to find a hiding place? Emma was not particularly keen to do it herself, especially considering how much she already disliked this hellhole, but she almost wondered if she should. If nothing else, because it might startle Flint into showing his hand. Might.

Silver, however, noted at once that he was no good at long and physically taxing slogs on one leg, would also stay behind, and Emma knew that he had detected some potential mischief he wanted to keep an eye on. That decided her on the same, as she wasn’t sure it was a wise idea to leave Flint and Silver alone with no supervision, and after some further haggling, the six teams started going ashore. As she watched them clamber out of the ship’s boat and start up the sand toward the impenetrable trees, the chill clutched Emma’s spine more ferociously than ever. “James,” she said in an undertone. “I don’t want to be wrong for trusting you.”

Flint raised a coppery eyebrow, as if to say that if she wanted to make that decision, he was surely no one to stop her. Then he threw an irritated glance at Silver, who had stationed himself pointedly nearby with the clear intention of clinging to him like a barnacle. “What? Think I’ll go up in a cloud of purple smoke and turn out to actually be Rogers if you look away?”

“No.” Silver didn’t budge. “But Miss Swan and I were both wondering why you would so easily give up your chance to choose the hiding spot for at least one of the chests. Nor has it escaped us that at the moment – with the crew all ashore, spread out, and the treasure still here on the Walrus – the only man who is currently in command of it is. . . you.”

Something flickered across Flint’s face at that, too obliquely to be sure what. All he said, however, was, “Then you can’t count very well. By my reckoning, there are three of us.”

“Two and one doesn’t always add up to three.” Silver continued to stare him down. “You know, this doesn’t have to be a drawn-out guessing game. You could just tell us what you’re doing.”

“Us?” Flint’s lip curled. “What, you think she’s on your side now?”

“I’m on my own side.” Emma’s heart was starting to pick up. “But I also want to know what you’re doing. You could just leave it this way. Let the men each stash one of the chests, we get out of here, we go back to Nassau. If Blackbeard managed to capture Rogers, we could even have a real chance. Please, James. Please. Don’t let this all be for nothing.”

Flint jerked slightly, but did not respond. It was left to Silver, staring at him in a kind of horrified fascination, to finally speak. “You have no intention of going back to Nassau, do you?” he said. “You never have, from the moment you somehow convinced Charles Vane to let you load his treasure onto your ship and sail away with it. If I am not much mistaken, you also have no intention of letting anyone else have it. That was why you insisted on finding out how deep it was here. It was your plan all along to dump it, not something you thought up on a whim about lightening our load. Keep one chest, the whereabouts of which only you would know, and throw the rest away, a final middle finger to the Spanish, the English, and Vane alike. And then. . . what? Jesus Christ, what? Suicide by mob? Enrage the crew so much when they discovered it that they would go ahead and finally kill you in some inventive fashion, what they’ve only barely been prevented from doing for so long? What?”

Once more, a muscle worked in Flint’s cheek. But he still said nothing.

“No.” Emma uttered the word almost by reflex, not wanting to believe it. “James, no. Everything that’s left for you, for us, for the war – ”

“Fuck the war.” Flint spoke at last, his voice sounding as rusty as if it had been torn out of him. “I was going to help end it anyway, by taking Rogers, before Edward fucking Thatch turned up and sent everything sideways. That was how I intended to go out. I killed Hume, I killed Ashe, I killed Hornigold, I brought the Maroons to Nassau, and lastly, I meant to capture Rogers and leave it to you to sort out what the fuck to do with him and the future you still somehow think is possible. I’ve done my part, and more than that. I’m finished. I’m through. I have nothing left to give, or lose, or hope for, or do. So don’t you dare fucking ask it of me.”

Emma almost cringed at the raw, lashing agony in his voice, the utter and complete emptiness on his face, as she took an involuntary step toward him. But he moved away from her, as even Silver seemed momentarily stymied. Then Emma said, “When you didn’t want me to go with the others to know the treasure’s location – what does it matter, if you were always intending to ditch it? What you said about protecting me – is – is that even what you meant?”

“Aye.” Flint’s green eyes resolved on her. “I wanted to protect you, and I wanted you to know the truth. Well then. You think I’m a liar. You both do. I won’t deny I’ve been so, in the past, and I’ve lived in my deceptions and my ghosts and my masks. This, though. This is the bloody truest thing I’ve ever done, and I don’t care if you can see it that way or not. The less you knew, Emma, about anything, the less you could be blamed for it. I never asked for you to come along on this. You volunteered. And Miranda loved you. This was not what I wanted.”

“Not what you wanted?” Emma wasn’t sure she entirely liked the sound of that. “You said earlier that the plan had changed. But it hasn’t, has it? You’re still doing what you meant to do all along. You haven’t stopped. But there’s time. It’s not irreversible. Yet.”

Flint simply looked back at her, as if asking if that was supposed to make a difference to him.

“You’d – what? Just suppose the crew would take it for granted that I didn’t know anything, when we’ve been working together this entire time?” Emma had thought she was more or less on top of whatever was going on, but she was realizing how much she wasn’t, and it felt like falling into the depths of the very blue hole that yawned beneath them. “You didn’t want me to be caught in the crossfire, but that wasn’t enough to change your mind about what you were doing. James, listen to me. Listen to me. Step down, let me take over as captain for the voyage back, and I won’t tell the crew about any of this. We’ll still have the gold, we’ll still have – ”

“I am not,” Flint said, quietly and lethally, “going back to Nassau.”

“Fine, then. Don’t. But let me get the Walrus and her men back. What did you mean to do, burn all of us on your funeral pyre?” Emma’s throat felt ashen, as she remembered Miranda using the exact same words to her back on Poseidon’s island, as they discussed the possibility of having to leave their men behind to build a new life elsewhere. But if it should be ultimately and terribly necessary, we should not be asked to sacrifice ourselves on their altars, to burn alive on their funeral pyres. If it is death in Nassau, or life in Boston, you know what we have the responsibility, the dignity, the right to choose.

Flint shrugged. “No, not necessarily. By my calculations, I’d be dead. What happened after that was your concern.”

“Jesus,” Silver said. “So you’d keep one chest, hide it – presumably while all the men were on shore and distracted – and then ensure that you quite literally took the secret to your grave. So what, subsequent generations could drive themselves mad knowing it was here somewhere, searching for Captain Flint’s lost treasure? I can’t deny it would be a fitting legacy for a man like you. But you can’t. Fuck, you can’t. Let Emma and I fix this, and you can still – ”

Flint’s eyes flicked between them. Then he reached down, grasped hold of his sword, and drew it, bringing the blade up as formally as if to the opening of a duel, awaiting the gauntlet to be thrown, the handkerchief dropped. “I don’t,” he repeated, “want to hurt either of you.”

Emma’s hand fell as if in a trance to the hilt of her own sword. Some volition not her own moved to pull it free, even as she thought of how it had begun – a fight on the deck of a ship when this very ship had attacked it, when she and Flint had been strangers and adversaries. She could not stand to think of the possibility that it might also be how it ended, especially now that they were friends and allies – or so at least, until now, she had thought. She knew she could never hurt him either and live with herself, but forced to make ready to defend herself. “James,” she said. “James. Please don’t make us do this. Miranda – Miranda would never – ”

Swords out, they circled each other, as Silver looked at Emma for a long moment, as if to say he had tried to warn her that it was going to come to this. He was, of course, terribly and bitterly correct, but there was no savor in it for either of them. Emma could not bring herself to be the first to strike at Flint, to cross the Rubicon once and for all, as she was utterly sure that this was the last thing either Miranda – or Sam – would have wanted. Flint, for his part, seemed to have the same hesitation, although she could not be exactly sure what his owed itself to. The edges of their blades touched, scraped, but did not quite clash. Emma wanted to throw the sword away, wanted to clutch at Flint, shake him, stop this slow-motion shipwreck somehow. But just then, Silver uttered a sharp noise of surprise which distracted both of them from the world’s most half-hearted fight, and they whirled to look. Then stared.

There was a ship visible at the far end of the lagoon, just emerging from the thick fog like a phantom. It was also immediately recognizable: the Queen Anne’s Revenge, somewhat the worse for wear but still afloat, and Flint and Emma squinted at it, too confused to immediately get back to the business of squaring off (and possibly relieved). “How the fuck did he get here?” Silver asked. “Aye, well, I suppose he has the same charts as us, he could have made a lucky guess as to where we were bound, but wasn’t he off to hunt the Windsor?”

“Yes,” Emma said slowly. “Yes, he was.”

“If he’s taken Rogers, though – ” Despite himself, a flaring hope flashed across Flint’s face, as if he could claim that he was done with the war all he wanted, but he still cared whether or not it was. As if even in his extremity and his uttermost end, that remaining tiny kernel of idealism and belief could not be completely crushed, somewhere deep inside him. Which was why it was somehow worse when the Revenge drew nearer, and nearer still, and something shifted inside Emma like the stroke of a pendulum. Swift and hard and inexorable.

“James,” she said. “Wait. Something is – ”

Flint wasn’t listening. He was looking up at the deck of the pirate ship as if still waiting for Blackbeard to appear, but he didn’t. Silver looked aghast, Emma had an absurd impulse to shout, to do something, anything else than seeing what she was seeing. As someone stepped up into the forecastle, but it wasn’t Blackbeard. As she knew at once that she had been right, she had been right all along, in her bad feeling about the Rose and all of it. Jesus.

“Good morning,” Woodes Rogers said, a fresh sword cut glistening on his scarred cheek and his sandy brown hair falling loose, half in his eyes. There were crimson stains on his jacket and his waistcoat was torn, but he looked savage, exultant, as he raised a sack for them to see, plunged a hand into it, and drew out the severed head of Captain Edward Thatch, its namesake black beard damp with blood and its eyes staring fixedly. “I was hoping we could talk.”

--------------------

Killian’s face was streaked with soot, his ears still ringing with the thunder of cannons, his boots full of sand and his hand gone numb and blistered where it was clutched around his sword. The blasted pieces of boats littered the sand, along with the sprawled bodies of redcoats and pirates alike. It had been the devil of a fight to reach the beach, even with the assistance of the Jolie’s heavy guns, and thick smoke billowed over the harbor, two Navy frigates listing hard to port and the remaining garrison retreating into Nassau in a desperate attempt to hold the fort. As he regarded the scene, Killian could not help but be reminded of what he had done to Antigua and Jamaica, and he was not sure that this was, at the end of the day, quantifiably different. At least this time, he was more or less certain of the side he was fighting for, and why he was fighting, but this was still sheer and simple brutality, and not something for which he would ever easily excuse himself again.

A shout of his name turned his head, breaking him from his troubled reverie, and he turned to see Vane’s quartermaster, Edward England, hurrying down the sand toward him. England was the one who had met Killian, Emma, Jack, and Anne in Nassau the first time, informed them of Rogers’ arrival and the Act of Grace, and taken them to Vane, and Killian could not help but wonder if, considering his surname, he found this entire conflict nearly too ironic to be permitted. But putting that thought aside, Killian turned to the other man, pulling himself together. “Hey! Did Vane make it to the others? Rackham? Madi?”

“I’m not sure where Madi is. But they were moving Rackham out of Nassau, they had him in a carriage, Charles and Anne went after him on horseback.” England pulled out what looked like one of Jack’s ubiquitous calico neckerchiefs and rubbed his dirty face, which had the effect of spreading the grime rather than removing it. “There’s been bloody fighting at the fort, and we’re on our heels. I was sent to find you and see if you could bring your men as soon as possible.”

Killian glanced around at the beach. His men – the surviving ones, as the toll to get ashore had been heavy – were exhausted, sprawled out among the broken boards and piled bodies and the sandbags and smashed driftwood that the redcoats had tried to construct into a makeshift barricade. “I’m not sure they’re in fit state for another battle.”

“We need the fort,” England said urgently. “You’re their captain. Rouse them one more time.”

“Rogers is still gone, isn’t he?” Killian thought they would know if the governor was back, unless he returned across the backside of the island – for that matter, he bloody well hoped that Lancelot had been right about being able to raise the plantation slaves with the memory of their drowned brothers on the Whydah, because the English still had the decided advantage of numbers. They would remember that as soon as they recovered from the smart shock that the Jolie and the Ranger had given them, and without the slaves, the pirates would be pushed back off New Providence Island as quickly as they had taken it. If taking it was even what this could be called. They had a strip of beach and a valiant effort at the fort, and if Vane and Anne had gone by themselves to get Jack, there were any number of ways for that to go wrong.

“Aye, he’s gone.” England removed a canteen from his belt, took a slug, and tossed it to Killian, who fumbled the cork out and gulped the lukewarm water thirstily. “But he’ll have some sort of deputy in his place, and while they might not be as dangerous as him, they’ll know their business to a nicety. Indeed, this is the best chance we have, to take Nassau while Rogers is elsewhere. Come on. Get the bastards up. I’ll help.”

With the application of a lot of cudgeling, cajoling, coaxing, and coercing, Killian and England got the Jolie’s men more or less to their feet and in possession of their weapons, and as they climbed the bluff toward the fort, they might even pass for a threatening reinforcement. Killian’s own shoulders were shaking as he clawed his hook into the greenery, feeling a stab of pain from his stump and wishing, as he did every other minute, for two good hands. Once, his grip gave way completely, and it was only the quick snatch by England that saved him from a plunge of several dozen feet. “Thanks, mate,” Killian panted. “Wouldn’t have enjoyed that.”

“Didn’t think so.” England eyed him curiously. “Where’re you from? Originally?”

Killian was taken aback, but he thought he could catch the hint of an Irish brogue beneath the other man’s educated accent. “County Louth.” It stuck in his throat. “I. . . left there young.”

“Louth?” England looked still more surprised. “We’re all but neighbors, then. I’m a Leinster man myself, Kildare. I’m reckoning, then, you were baptized Catholic?”

Killian looked up sharply, as this could be a dangerous question even among pirates, who did not necessarily forget their old prejudices and mistrust even when they took up the black flag, but England’s tone was curious, not condemning. “Aye.”

“Sláinte.” England raised a cup in an imaginary toast. “You know, Jones. You’re not a bad sort. I could use a steady hand and a countryman at my side. You should come with me.”

“Come with you?” Killian turned to regard the prospect of the vine-covered bluff again, bracing himself to continue the ascent. “Were you going somewhere?”

“Aye. No matter what happens here, it’s plain that the English – and in all bloody likelihood, the Spanish, and whoever else – will never leave Nassau to its own devices again, or make the mistake of overlooking us. Any man with a taste for the pirate’s life will need to find it elsewhere. I thought of going to Africa, the Indias, Captain Avery’s old haunts, in a sea so broad and uncharted that even the bloody Navy can’t catch us. What do you say?”

“I. . .” Killian had to admit, the thought briefly tempted him. Take the Jolie, assuming the old girl survived this madness, and live free forever. Or at least a few years, which was the realistic estimate of how long forever was liable to be for a pirate anywhere. But even as he did, he knew he couldn’t accept. He wasn’t fighting to return to that life, wasn’t going to ask Emma to come with him for a refreshing spot of plundering and brigandage, and there was no question at all of leaving her behind. “It’s generous,  mate. But I can’t accept. Wherever my future is, it’s elsewhere.”

“You’re certain?” England grabbed another vine and checked warily overhead, but they were still concealed in the thick greenery. Another dozen feet or so, though, and they’d be sitting ducks for any soldiers with muskets on the ramparts of the fort. “You’re Captain Hook.”

Killian grimaced. “Aye. I’ll always be him, in a way. And yet, I no longer want to conjure him everywhere, to see his shadow on every doorstep I darken. Tell me, how does an Irish Catholic pirate named England carry that cruel joke?”

“By choosing it.” England smiled faintly. “I was born Edward Seegar, you know. I took the surname England when I turned pirate. Just so it would always be clear that England was the one fucking itself.”

Killian stared at him, then barked a startled but admiring laugh. “I see.”

“We all do that, you know.” England turned to look down at him. “Create our new selves, the names we want history to remember and to fear. Captain Flint, Long John Silver, Captain Hook, Blackbeard, Edward England, Black Sam Bellamy, Calico Jack Rackham – the only one of us who hasn’t taken something else to him, changed his name somehow, is Charles. He’s Charles Vane, pure and plain, no matter which life he lives, and that is how he’ll be remembered. The rest of us have our eye on the legends they’ll make of us, even if we pretend we don’t. You don’t get to decide who lives, who dies, and who tells your story, but you can be damn sure to try.”

Killian didn’t answer, as they were almost to the top and he was going to need all his breath and concentration for fighting. He chanced a glance below him to see that his men were still following, then swung out onto the mossy stone ledge just below the merlons of the fort wall. It was going to be a fiendishly undignified business clambering over without being shot, but there was no flat crack of musket fire from above, no sound at all.

Killian and England frowned at each other, crawled around to the place where the earthen berm met the stones of the wall, and managed to boost themselves over – then as the grisly sight within met their eyes, stopped dead. The tower was silent, except for the buzzing of the flies. There did not appear to be a man left alive, whether Army or pirate, in the entire fort. Whatever the battle had been, whichever side had won, it was impossible to tell. Either way, they were too late. Nothing but bodies everywhere.

England sucked in a breath and reflexively crossed himself, at which Killian did the same. As they stared around at the heaps of corpses, something else caught Killian’s eye, and he crossed the wall to climb up on one of the crenels. From this lofty perch, he could see nearly all of Nassau below, to all directions – and thus as well, the quite-familiar ship anchored in an inlet just west of the main harbor, Union Jack flapping merrily in the stern. HMS Windsor.

“Bloody hell.” He jerked his head at England, beckoning him to look. “That’s David Nolan’s ship. He was supposed to be in Antigua, I don’t know what he’s doing here now. He swore he wasn’t going to fight us, so either he betrayed us, or someone else took over and made that decision for him. Likely sailed up cool as you please while we were fighting to capture the harbor, and came in the side way, so we never saw a bloody thing. But who – ”

At that moment, they heard the measured tap of a cane in the shadows below, such an utterly incongruous sound that both of them spun to look. Killian had a sickening flash of presentiment an instant before the man emerged into the sun, and knew.

“Why, dearie,” Robert Gold said, as casually as if he had been waiting for this all along – and given the strategic importance of this place, the fact that everyone knew that to take Nassau, you had to take the fort, he might very well have been. Waiting at his leisure, admiring the destruction, coiled and waiting to strike his final blow. “With David Nolan the traitorous Navy captain and Charles Vane the troublesome pirate captain both in custody, Nassau preparing for a one-of-a-kind double hanging tomorrow, and your own execution soon to follow, I daresay you will find out quite promptly. After all, with Woodes Rogers gone, and with Nolan’s cowardly attempt to overthrow me obliging me to declare martial law across the whole of the West Indies, I had to set sail at once. Because with all that the case, it would seem that the true and greatest power here, over England, over the pirates’ republic, over the very world, is. . . me.”