The holiday came and went, and with it at least one appointment I had meant to keep and completely forgot about. In order to distract myself from the part of me that’s banging pots and pans in my head and chanting “You fucked up, you fucked up, You Fucked Up, YOU FUCKED UP!” I’m posting this chapter before the next one’s ready. As usual, the update’s also available on Ao3, and I really, really adore comments and kudos (they make me write faster. I swear, they do – for some reason feedback equals writing).
The rest of the parts are here on Tumblr.
Chapter Twelve: Where the Tall Fig Tree Grew
John Silver, Thomas thought, was not at all what he had expected.
He was not sure what to make of him – this man that had, from what James had said, attempted to put together what was left of James after Miranda’s death. This man, who had faced torture and death and come out the other side more serious and infinitely more stubborn and loyal to James and his crew to the point of lunacy. When James had described his quartermaster, he had painted quite a picture. The man, he had said, was quick and clever – an opportunist of the first caliber. Now that Thomas had met him, he could think of several other appellations. Mercurial, came to mind, as did infectiously cheerful and, well – slippery little shit. James, he thought, had possibly understated that part a bit, but then James had not been in the position of being raked over the proverbial coals by the man.
He was younger than Thomas had expected, and older all at the same time. The latter, he attributed to the simple fact that John Silver, like James and Miranda, was not entirely what he seemed. He had, it seemed, come back in time as well, although from what time, Thomas was not altogether sure. There was something in his eyes – something darker, somehow, and more weary than he had seen from anyone other than James, who had apparently spent the past ten years from his own point of view perpetually exhausted. Silver covered it well – his grin was a brilliant, distracting thing. It demanded attention, drawing Thomas’ gaze away from the man’s eyes, and yet it was his eyes that told the real story.
“How far back is this, for you?” he asked, and saw Silver miss a step.
“What?” he asked, and Thomas raised one eyebrow.
“It’s obvious enough,” he said. “You talk about James in the past tense. You say that he never said much about me – as if you hadn’t had the chance to press him for quite some time, whereas when he speaks of you, it’s in the present. If you spoke to him regularly, you would have said that he never says much. Therefore – you are from further in the future than he. Substantially further, if I’m any judge. What happened?”
John gaped, and Thomas felt satisfaction wash over him. He’d managed to shock the man. It was a small victory – a petty one, even, but he found that he could not bring himself to care. He was owed at least that much after this morning’s interrogation.
“You – Christ, he said you were fucking smart,” Silver answered, seeming to get his breath back.
“One tries,” Thomas answered dryly, and Silver flashed him another grin.
“And you’re a sarcastic bastard. We’re not so different after all.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it’s not. We’re here.” Silver turned away, fumbling with the keys to the door. He frowned. “To be honest, I’d expected to find the door broken off its hinges by now,” he murmured. He looked over his shoulder at Thomas, an odd expression flickering over his face, and Thomas frowned in return.
“Mr. Silver -” he started, and then stopped, as the door opened to reveal James, who was sitting on the bed just inside the door. He rose at the sight of Thomas, and Thomas felt a wave of relief wash over him, even as his eyes took in his lover’s bruised face and weary countenance.
“Thomas.” The relief in James’ voice matched Thomas’ own.
“James,” he breathed, and moved forward. “Thank God.” He wrapped both arms around his lover, ignoring the blood and dirt staining his clothing, and felt James’ arms envelop him, holding on tightly.
“I’m fine,” he heard James murmur and he gave a huff of laughter.
“You’d say that if you were clinging onto life with one finger,” he murmured, and heard James laugh.
“So would you.”
“Yes, I expect I would. How’s the headache? John told me.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Let me see.”
*************************************************************************
He was more relieved than he could properly have expressed to see Thomas’ face.
He had been sitting in Silver’s room for the past three hours. The headache had begun to lessen after the first hour and the nausea after the second, and yet James had not risen from the mattress, his head spinning, thoughts coming and going through his mind over and over again.
He was afraid, he had realized abruptly. For the first time since he had returned to 1705, he was petrified – truly, stomach-churningly scared. The feeling was a familiar one, but no more welcome for its familiarity than a bout of tropical fever would have been.
He had been through this before. The sense of foreboding. The realization that he was in over his head. The feeling of his stomach dropping through his boots as he understood the kind of danger he and his lovers faced. The first time had been in Admiral Hennessey’s office. He had rushed home – to the mansion he had come to think of as his home as much as the tiny room he’d inhabited before – and found –
“He’s gone,” they’d told him, and James had felt a part of him scream denial as if a part of his soul had been lopped off at the words. He could not help but wonder if he would hear the same words pass Silver’s lips when he returned – if he would once again face the prospect of losing the ones he cared about most. What if -?
Christ Jesus, what if they were already dead? Their unknown foe had already attempted to have James himself killed. What if -?
The door had opened at precisely that moment, and he had looked up to find Thomas standing in the doorway, his blond hair in disarray and his clothing in a similar state, but very undeniably alive and well, and James had shelved his contemplations, rising to his feet immediately.
“Thomas,” he murmured, and saw an expression of similar relief cross his lover’s face.
“James.”
Five minutes later, he found himself sitting once again as Thomas examined his various injuries, fussing quite ridiculously, and James attempted to shoo his fingers away from his injured head once again.
“It’s not that bad,” he insisted once again, and he could practically feel the incredulous look that Thomas shot him in response.
“Dear God, James,” he returned, examining the injury. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” he assured his lover again quietly. Thomas frowned.
“You bloody well are not,” he insisted. “You’ve got a lump here the size of a golf ball. How hard did they hit you?”
“Hard enough that I’d started to wonder if he was going to wake,” Silver interjected, and James turned an accusing glare on him. He snorted.
“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “The man asked. It’s not my fault if you didn’t want to tell him the truth.” The little shit had always had the most damnable timing.
“I’m fine,” James insisted.
“We’ll let the doctor be the judge of that,” Thomas answered firmly, and James distinctly saw Silver give Thomas an approving expression. James rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” he answered, giving in. “But I’m telling you -”
“At the very least he can see to your knee,” Silver interjected. “You’re not going much of anywhere on that without some kind of brace or a lot of rest.”
“Thank you,” Thomas said, gesturing to John. “If you won’t listen to me, then listen to your quartermaster,” he said, ignoring John’s startled expression.
“He’s quite right,” Thomas continued, and James sighed.
“I’ve already agreed, Thomas, there’s no need to belabor the point. Go ahead and find a doctor. I suppose it goes without saying that I want one that’s seen actual injuries before?”
“I know of one or two,” Thomas assured him.
“Good. We’ll need you functional,” Silver answered, and James shot him a look.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
Thomas shot John a look. He shrugged.
“It had to come out eventually,” he apologized, and James felt his stomach lurch. He looked between his lover and his friend, frowning despite the way it worsened the headache.
“What?” he asked. “Thomas – is Miranda -?”
“I’m sure she’s being kept safe,” his lover said.
“They wouldn’t have much leverage otherwise,” John agreed, and James turned sharply, looking at Thomas, who gave him a look of mixed misery and attempted reassurance.
“James -” he started.
“She’s been taken?” he asked, his voice gone hard, and Thomas nodded. He swallowed hard, closing his eyes for a moment before he answered, his voice suddenly rough.
“Yes. We had come out to find you. Miranda thought you might have been waylaid, so we came to either find you or offer you a ride -”
James listened to the tale, the blood roaring in his ears. The bastards had taken Miranda. He had Thomas here – one out of his two lovers, but Miranda – their Miranda – was missing, and he had been sleeping. He had been here, while she was in danger. Here, while she was forcibly dragged from a carriage and taken to God alone knew where. She was in danger, and he –
He felt ill. Miranda was missing. It was happening again, and he had not stopped it. While he had been playing at being merciful – at restraining himself in hopes that the world would relent at last- history had been repeating itself. No more. Not again – he could not do this again. He had lost her once and it had nearly destroyed him. To do so again –
The prospect was unbearable. He could feel something in his chest tighten – could feel his heart start to beat faster, his palms itching for a sword, a gun – a damn grenade, anything at all. He was going to find them. He was going to find them and rip them to fucking shreds for this.
“Who?” He ground the word out, and Thomas flinched.
“The Churchills. They left a note -”
James looked at the piece of paper that Thomas dug out of his waistcoat pocket, but did not read it. He could feel rage boiling its way to the surface of his mind again, and he did not struggle against it this time – could not. They had Miranda. They had Miranda, and they intended to use her to God alone knew what ends and he –
He was not about to let it happen.
“The Churchills,” he growled. “Lord and Lady fucking Churchill, the Duke and Duchess.” Thomas nodded.
“Yes. I don’t know what their game is, but -”
“It doesn’t matter,” James answered. He stood, looking around the room for his discarded coat, and the sword belt that accompanied it. He would need both, as well as his pistol, and possibly a visit to the local gunsmith for ammunition and a spare weapon. If he hurried, he could obtain the necessary supplies quickly and be on the road within the hour. He knew where the Churchill estate was in London – he would start there, and move on if necessary to –
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
******************************************************
The realization had hit him out of the clear blue.
He had not been expecting it. If there was anything he had not expected to take away from the morning’s events it was this. He had begun the day with a sort of giddy anticipation that had quickly turned to ash upon the realization that James did not remember much of what had gone between them. It had been one hell of a blow, that much was certain, and for a time, John had reeled from it. He had gone to Thomas’ home with that sense of wounded grief running through him – had all but accused the man of being responsible for the ills of the world in his anger and his pain. He missed James Flint – the man’s quick wit, his scheming, his breathtaking ability to command a situation – and it had taken a blow of equal magnitude to interrupt him and his knee-jerk reaction to the situation.
He had never expected to find his friend happy.
He had never seen that look on James’ face, he thought as he looked at the man from his position in the chair in the far corner. He had retreated there the moment that Thomas had entered the room – the moment that James had spotted him and they had rushed toward each other, like twin waterspouts in a storm determined to wrap around one another and form one. He had watched them embrace, had listened to them speak to each other in a low murmur, and he had stayed in his small corner of the room, watching, waiting – and slowly, incrementally, coming to a startling realization.
He had never seen James like this. Not ever – not since the first moment he had lain eyes on the man aboard the Walrus. He had seen him laugh – had seen him smile, but not like this. He had watched him with Gates, and to some extent with Miranda Barlow, and thought then that he understood what the man looked like when he was enjoying life. That, he now knew, had been a gross underestimation. The man he had seen then had been amused, or pleased with circumstances as they stood, at best, but the edge of pain and misery had not truly gone. This, though –
He watched with a sense of wonder as James smiled, mouth turned upward at both corners, his green eyes suddenly possessed of a warmth he had never seen in Flint. This was something else entirely – as if he were looking at an entirely different man, one that he had long wanted to meet but had not until just now. This James was not tired. He was not angry, or frightened – not searching for something, anything to cling to in a desperate attempt to remain human. He was not adrift as he had been at the end, drowning his demons in a bottle. He was whole, for perhaps the very first time since John had met him – happy, he understood finally, and the revelation shocked him to his very marrow, freezing him to the spot. This – was a version of his friend that he had not prepared himself for, and yet –
And yet he found that he did not mind. He had thought, this morning, that he wanted his friend back. He had mourned the man he had known – had been mourning him for years, truth be told. It had seemed like a cruel irony that he should be deposited back in time to find his friend only to find him so changed, but this –
He could sit and simply watch this all day. He had never seen James like this, but he wanted to – for the rest of their lives, if possible, and if it took losing the memory of over a decade of pain to accomplish it, he was willing to pay that price. He was not quite certain what to do with his newfound understanding – nothing at all, perhaps, save to smile to himself as he watched Thomas fuss over the dried blood in James’ hair and the corresponding bruise on his forehead from where he had hit the ground rather hard.
The look of relief and of love on James’ face –
John sat, a lump forming in his throat. He would do whatever he had to to preserve this, he realized suddenly. The look on James’ face was worth the effort, no matter the cost, and he swallowed hard, mentally tucking away the grief that had threatened to swallow him whole since that morning. This man was not the one he had known, no, and John did not care. He had James back, in a way that he had never, ever expected to, and he was not going to throw that away, whether out of guilt or through his usual attempts at manipulation. Captain Flint was gone.
Captain Flint could stay gone.
The idea had taken hold of him, and it was what led him now to stand in front of James, his blue eyes gone hard.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he asked, and saw James startle at the sound of his voice.
“Silver -” he started, and John shook his head.
“I’m fairly sure you know my name,” he said. “You can use it instead of trying to act like we’re not friends. Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“You heard what he said. They have Miranda.”
“Yes – and? You planning on storming their private castle all by yourself?”
“I’m not going to sit here while they hurt her. I’m not going to let them use her to -”
“And how are you planning on stopping them? Do you even have a plan, or was the plan to go out of here half-cocked, with some insane idea of forcing them into giving her back all by yourself?”
James stared at him for a moment, and John rolled his eyes.
“Jesus. That was the plan, wasn’t it?”
“Well what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“I want you to stop acting like you’re on your own again! Like you’re Captain Flint again, or did you let those men live because you’ve suddenly forgotten how to use a sword?”
The words hung in the air between them, and John stood, looking at James, feeling satisfaction wash over him. There. The raging hurricane had been paused in its course. Now he had only to take the wind out of it a little further.
“You’re not without allies,” he murmured. “This isn’t 1715. This isn’t Nassau. Stop and think for a few moments, and I think you’ll see that.”
James closed his eyes, and Thomas stood, coming to stand by his side.
“It’s your decision, James,” he said quietly. “But I think on this occasion you might wish to listen to John.”
His blue eyes were troubled, John could see. He looked at James as he might have at an overly fragile piece of glass – one that might break at any second, and John abruptly wondered if this was the first time he was seeing Captain Flint. He spared a moment of sympathy for the other man and made a mental note to talk with him later, and then moved forward, his step loud and obvious. He laid a hand on James’ upper arm and another one on the other side, and looked his former Captain full in the face, meeting the other man’s gaze as his eyes opened again and fixed on John, startled.
“James,” he asked quietly. “Where are you?”
********************************************
He’d come so close to it.
It was an old, familiar sensation – the rage that filled him. It was, in its way, like coming home to an old friend. You are alone, the monster within him whispered. No one will ever accomplish this task half as well as you will. No one will ever be there when you need them. If this thing is to be done, it must be done by you, by whatever means. And for the space of two minutes, he had believed it.
Miranda, he thought, would have understood. She had felt this sensation herself – he had seen it in her eyes, there, in Peter Ashe’s dining room the night of her death. She would have understood the all-consuming rage that had filled him at the thought of her being abducted – at the thought of her being used as some kind of a pawn. She would also, he knew, have been bloody furious to find him giving in to it.
“James – where are you?” John asked, and for a moment, James had no answer for him. He was not in Nassau, that much was for certain, but that was not entirely what his former quartermaster had meant. It never was – James knew better than to think that. He had asked the question once before – during a time when James had needed to find the answer for himself as much as he did now.
He closed his eyes. He could go ahead. He could tear down half of London, find Miranda and get them all out, but –
He had been wrong before. Abruptly, he recalled his conversation with Hennessey – the look in the older man’s eyes and his own horror when he’d realized what he might have done – what might have occurred in that other life, had Captain Flint encountered the man James considered a father. He had been so thoroughly mistaken – as wrong then as he would be now to let the monster off its chain to handle with blood what James would not with words.
“He – it wasn’t what I imagined it to be at all. What if I had – Christ, what if I had done it?”
His own words came back to him, and he swallowed hard. John was right. He took a deep breath, realization and understanding coming to him all at once. He was not in Nassau. He was not the Caribbean, and this was not 1715, nor 1705 as James remembered it in his worst nightmares. He was not a pirate. He was not a murderer, or a one-man army. He was –
He was being an idiot.
The realization took some of the tension thrumming through him with it – relaxed his aching shoulders where they had bunched together, sent a wave of cold chills running down his spine. He unclenched one fist, flexing the hand and allowing it to hang at his side while he ran the other over his face. The solution to his troubles, he realized with a sense of incredulous irritation at himself, had been staring him in the face – for days, really, if he had just taken the trouble to pack away whatever juvenile stupidity had led to his refusal to take matters in hand, and with a jolt he recalled the night of Alfred’s murder and the rest of his conversation with Thomas. His lover had, as usual, hit the nail on the head.
“Still,” James started, clearing his throat, “We will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us. Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on.”
He heard Thomas draw in a deep, relieved breath beside him and release it shakily, his hands reaching out to grab hold of James and draw him into an embrace.
“Oh thank God,” he muttered against James’ shoulder, his voice muffled. “James -” He pulled back, and James met his eyes, then looked to John, apology in his gaze along with a plea for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry,” he offered softly. “I -”
“It’s alright,” Thomas answered. “James – it’s alright.” James nodded, grateful for the understanding being offered.
“There is a way,” he said, quietly, regretfully. “It shouldn’t involve any bloodshed. I should have seen it before, but I -”
“You were busy,” John filled in. “So – what’s the plan?” The shorter man had let go of his arms, now, and backed away, taking himself to sit on the windowsill, his feet hanging just shy of the floor, hand reaching out to snag an apple off of a nearby table, and James spared a moment to be struck by the ridiculousness of the image. Two minutes before, the man had been directly in front of him, braver than he had any right to be, facing down Flint at the height of his rage, and now –
“The plan,” he said, passing a hand over his hair, “is simple. We open that letter. We read it. We find out which Churchill we’re dealing with, and then I go and talk with Admiral Hennessey. He knows George Churchill at the very least. If it’s him, Hennessey will be more than happy to help us – he hates the man, and if it’s his brother the Duke, then Hennessey might still be able to help us turn the tables on him through his brother.”
Thomas was looking at him with an expression he could only call pride, and John was watching the pair of them, eating the apple in his hand, a look of quiet satisfaction on his face.
“There,” he said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
James shot him a look and received a brilliant, devil-may-care grin in return.
“I’m going to go and clean up,” he muttered. “Open that letter while I’m gone, will you?” He turned and left the room, leaving the two to their own devices.
****************************************************
“That was bravely done.”
They were sitting in the room at opposite ends, with John still sitting in the windowsill and Thomas on the bed, looking more than a little weary. At the sound of Thomas’ voice, John turned, and found the other man looking at him frankly.
“Are we discussing my suicidal decision to stand between James and the door?”
Thomas gave him a look.
“You know we’re not,” he answered, and John shot him a glance.
“You’re still entirely too smart,” he said, and Thomas shrugged.
“Just too curious, I suspect,” he answered, and John laughed. “That’s what he was like, all these years?” John shook his head.
“Oh no,” he answered quietly. At Thomas’ inquisitive glance, he gave him a crooked smile.
“Much worse,” he said, and Thomas closed his eyes.
“Dear God,” he murmured. “What horrors have I wrought upon the ones I love?” He looked out the window, and John shook his head.
“You weren’t responsible,” he said, and Thomas turned back to look at him, a startled look on his face.
“That was not your opinion this morning,” he pointed out.
“Yes – I’m sorry about that,” he answered, and Thomas raised an eyebrow.
“You’re sorry?” he asked, and John nodded. “May I ask what’s changed?”
“You can ask,” John answered, and Thomas rolled his eyes heavenward as if to ask for strength. “You had that coming,” John pointed out, and Thomas snorted.
“Yes,” he acknowledged, “I suppose I did. What changed your mind?”
John sat, silent for a moment, looking out the window toward the yard, where James had just reached the water pump.
“When we spoke this morning – I was angry, not with you but because the man I had known was gone, lost to me, or so I thought. It’s only now that I am beginning to realize -” He stopped, looking at the door that James had disappeared through.
“What?” Thomas asked, and John shook his head, and when he spoke again his voice was quiet, his tone contemplative.
“How pleased I am not to find him here.”
********************************************************
He’d finally managed to get clean. It had taken some serious scrubbing, and he feared his white shirt was beyond saving, but at last his hair, his face, and his hands were free of debris from the night before. James stood, his hands resting on either side of the basin, looking downward at the water, his face still dripping. He did not move, simply allowing himself a moment to regroup.
He could not remember the last time he had felt like this.
Miranda was still in dire need of assistance. John Silver had made his way back into James’ life, and the conversation with Hennessey stood before him, promising to be both awkward and difficult, but for the first time in a very long while, James felt like his feet were on solid ground. The feeling was an intoxicating one. For the first time in eleven years, he was not grasping for a plan. He was not hanging everything on a single thread, hoping to God it would not snap. He was not reeling through life cutting down anyone and anything that got in his way. Instead, the rage demon had risen – and been denied. It felt good, and in honor of his newfound sense of wellbeing, he allowed himself one further indulgence. He closed his eyes and, facing the clear water in the basin in front of him, he opened them and looked into his own eyes.
It had been a very long time, he thought, since he had been able to do this. He studied his own features for a moment and then met his own gaze. For the first time since his exile, he did not feel the need to turn away from it. He was tired, yes, and his face needed a shave, badly, but the man looking back at him –
“Well,” James McGraw murmured. One corner of his mouth turned up and, almost experimentally, he gave himself a smile. “There you are. Nice to have you back.”
He headed back to Thomas and John with the smile still on his face.
Meg's Mumbles 