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.

RL’s been kicking my butt lately, with the election and some other things going on, but here it is – Chapter 10! Hope you like it. As always, the fic is on Ao3 in its entirety so far, and I could really use the sweet sweet validation of comments/kudos/likes/reblogs right about now, if you’re so inclined!

In Which Silver Gets a Nasty Shock, and Miranda Kicks Ass (With Intent to Take Names)

To the Upper Air: Chapter 10: The Mirror Cracked

The following morning:

His head was going to split apart.

It was the only explanation James could think of for the blinding, throbbing pain that started somewhere at the back of his skull and radiated out, testament to the night he had had. He was still alive – that much was not in question, but the how and the why of it escaped him for the moment, lost in the thumping of his pulse and the faint ringing in his ears. The last time his head had hurt this badly –

He had woken up eleven years in his own past. He opened his eyes, suddenly alarmed, his gaze taking in the relatively small room that he now found himself in. He did not recognize it. The light spilling in from the single window told him it was no longer evening, but he did not know what time it was, or what day, or what year. What if -?

“Easy,” a voice said to his right, and he could feel and hear his heart begin to beat faster, recognition washing over him. He rolled over and sat up in one motion, panic beginning to twist his stomach into knots – and felt his hair brush past his neck. Like ice water being dumped over his head, it stopped the panic in its tracks, giving him something else to focus on. He took a deep breath, the panic suddenly ebbing away, his heart slowly returning to its usual rhythm. Flint did not have long hair – did not, in fact, have any hair at all. James did. He had not gone forward in time, then, thank God. Still – something was out of place. He knew that voice, and it did not belong here – or perhaps he did not.

“Silver,” he croaked, and the man in question stepped forward into his line of vision.

“The one and I sincerely hope only,” Silver said with a grin, and James blinked, his mind refusing to reconcile what he saw in front of him with what he had somehow expected.

“Silver?” The other man raised an eyebrow.

“Ye-es. We just discussed this. You do remember that?”

“Of course I do,” James spat. “I -” He shook his head, still looking at Silver, who crossed his arms.

“You’re staring. Is something amiss?” asked the curly-haired, two-legged, painfully young man in front of him.

“You’re – younger,” he managed to spit out stupidly, and Silver grinned.

“I know,” he answered cheerily. “ Oh don’t give me that look. You’ve no stones to throw. God – look at you!”

James grimaced. He could imagine only too well what he looked like at the moment, for all that Silver had not spoken out of derision. He ran a hand over his hair, and felt the dry, stiff places where it was covered in blood or dirt. His coat was little better, he knew, and he could only imagine the state of the rest of him. None of that mattered, however, in the face of a more pressing question.

“Where am I?” he asked roughly, and Silver frowned.

“You don’t remember?” he asked, and James shook his head.

“Would I be asking if I did?”

Silver gave him a look.

“Still your old charming self, I see,” he answered sourly. “You know, I had high hopes. Here I was, thinking that coming back here might sweeten your disposition – make you a touch less cantankerous, but it appears-”

“Silver – don’t make me ask again. Where are we?” James asked, and Silver rolled his eyes.

“We’re perfectly safe,” he answered. “When I found you in that alley last night and saved your hide – you’re welcome, by the way – I brought you back to my room. It’s nothing as fancy as where you’ve evidently been staying, but it’s a damn sight better than staying with the corpse of the poor bastard that attacked you. You’re lucky -”

“How the devil do you know where I’m staying?” Silver rolled his eyes again, and James just barely bit back the urge to strangle him. It was truly amazing just how annoying the man could manage to be in the space of five minutes.

“Such language, and from an officer in her Majesty’s Navy, too,” Silver said, the same shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “You know, I knew you were Navy, but it’s one thing knowing it and another altogether seeing it. I thought you said you were a lieutenant?”

“Promoted recently,” James grunted. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Here as in this building, or here, more than a decade in our mutual past? Because while I know the answer to one, the other is as much a mystery to me as I suspect it is to you.”

James shot him a look, and Silver grinned.

“Here in London,” James clarified. “Apparently tailing me, unless by some coincidence you just happened to be in the area last night.”

“I wasn’t following you,” Silver answered, and James raised an eyebrow. “Well – not exactly, anyway, although I will confess I was looking.”

“Why?” The question came out almost before James knew what his mouth was doing. Silver considered the question for a moment, his expression turned thoughtful.

“I’m not sure myself,” he answered finally. “I suppose, all things being equal, life was a lot more exciting with you around, and besides, I thought that if there were one other man on the face of the Earth unlucky enough to end up stranded over a decade in the past, it would be you.”

“You came looking for me because you were bored?”

“Something like that – yes,” the other man admitted, and James sat for a moment, frowning, unsure what to do with that information.

“You’re – what the fuck is the matter with you?” he asked rhetorically.

“Nothing, for once,” Silver answered, a satisfied smile working its way across his face. “And I intend to stay that way, so whatever you decide to do next, let’s not make it anything that’s likely to get either of us killed or maimed, just as a suggestion.”

“Wait – we? Us?”

“Unless you’d like to try and get off that floor and track down whoever tried to have you killed on your own.”

He had a point, James was forced to concede. His head was throbbing, various parts of him hurt almost as badly, and he was far from clean enough to walk the streets without occasioning comment or even to hire a coach. From the sunlight bathing the room and highlighting the stark, white walls, he could guess that it was likely still morning, but of what day?

“Shit.” He put a hand to his head. “What’s the date?”

John’s eyebrow raised further.

“It’s Wednesday,” he answered. “You were out for a few hours. I’d have worried, but they hit the hardest part of you.”

James swore again, and tried to think through the raging headache. He had not been out for all that long, but someone had clearly ordered the beating and perhaps worse than that. And as he had no particular enemies at this time that he was aware of –

“Thomas and Miranda,” he murmured, trying to stand. He wobbled on his feet, and Silver raised a hand, placing it on his arm and pushing him back down onto the mattress.

“You’re going nowhere just yet,” he said. “You think the thugs were sent by someone else?”

“Yes,” James answered in lieu of nodding. “I need to get back to them – they’re in danger. I -”

He tried to stand again, and this time the dizziness that hit him forced him to sit again. Silver grimaced.

“You’re still groggy from the blow,” he opined.

“You don’t say?” James snarked, and Silver grinned.

“I do say. Tell you what, Captain. Why don’t I do a quick check on the Hamiltons while you stay here? I’ll let them know you’re safe, make sure that they’re warned, and come back here for you.”

“Head wound,” James gritted out. “Shouldn’t be left alone.”

“You’re going nowhere like that,” Silver answered. “And if what you say is true, then there might be a lot riding on warning them. We should -”

“I’m coming with you,” James gritted out. He placed one hand on the mattress, the other going to the bed post, and he pulled and pushed himself to his feet, closing his eyes against the vertigo. He opened them again a moment later and took a deep breath. He was up. He had had worse than this, and he was going to Thomas and Miranda. Nothing else was a possibility. He took a step and then another, and Silver shook his head.

“You’re going to fall over,” he predicted. “Trust me. As someone who used to do so all the time -”

James took another step, stubbornly ignoring him – and felt the moment that his stomach ceased to heed his instructions, seesawing up and down, sending a wave of nausea rolling over him. He stopped moving altogether, surprised by the force of it, and closed his eyes. The nausea receded after a moment and he swallowed hard. Silver sighed.

“Are you going to listen to me this time, or are we going to continue having this discussion all the way to Albemarle Street?”

James opened his eyes again, glaring at Silver, and regretting it a moment later as the nausea returned full-force. He swallowed again, unable to retort, and took a deep breath.

“You may have a point,” he admitted grudgingly, and Silver snorted.

“You don’t say?” he echoed James, and then flashed him another shit-eating grin at the look on James’ face. “You invited that,” he informed James, who continued to glare at him.

“What the fu-” He stopped, and took a deep breath. No. The mere fact of Silver’s presence was not an excuse to slip back into habits he’d sworn he was going to break. “What happened last night?” he asked.

“Do you mean just how badly wrecked are you under that uniform, or -?” Silver asked.

“The men I was fighting,” James asked. He was sitting down again, now, and the pounding headache had at least begun, slowly, to ebb away. He had evidently taken one hell of a hit, although he did not truly remember it. “Did they survive the encounter?” He was dreading the answer, he realized, and had to swallow once again against the nausea that rose in him now that had nothing to do with the head trauma. He had forgotten himself again the night before – had felt the moment that James McGraw had given way to the monster that still lived inside him, and the memory of it sickened him. Jesus bloody Christ, what had he done?

“James?”

He blinked, and realized that he had missed Silver’s answer entirely, wrapped up in his own guilt and disgust at himself. He winced, and shot an apologetic look Silver’s way.

“Pardon,” he offered. “Repeat that, please.” Silver blinked, and then frowned, confusion sweeping across his face.

“I said, they should all have survived, excepting of course the bastard I killed that gave you that head wound. Did you just apologize? To me?”

He ignored Silver’s question entirely, focusing instead on the words that came before it.

“They lived?”

“That’s what I just said,” Silver pointed out warily. “Flint -”

“That’s not my name,” James interjected. He inhaled, suddenly able to breathe again. He had not killed them. The wolf had been loosed, and yet the only casualty last night had fallen not to his blade but to Silver. He exhaled shakily, and pushed a hand through his hair, ignoring the feeling of dried blood at the back of it. He had not given in entirely, then. Still – it had been close. Too goddamned close for him to feel anything other than frustration and a nagging, gnawing sense of guilt and worry and utter disgust eating through him. He had sworn to put Captain Flint to rest, and yet two hits and worry over Thomas and Miranda had turned his resolution to ash. What was it he had told Silver? That darkness usually tried to present itself as necessity? He’d said it, but clearly he had not actually listened to his own advice. The thought sent a fresh wave of anger crashing through him, and he clenched one hand and closed his eyes, trying to get hold of it before it could build once more. He could do better than this. Thomas deserved to have him do better than this. He –

There were eyes on him. He turned and found Silver watching him, his bright, blue eyes riveted on James’ face.

“What the hell are you staring at?” he snapped, disconcerted and somewhat embarrassed to realize that he had an audience to his moment of self-reflection and reproach.

“You,” Silver said baldly. “Christ. No wonder you grew the beard. Are you aware -”

“If Thomas and Miranda come to harm because you elected to stay and stare at my face instead of going to warn them -” James started, attempting to rise, and Silver reached out and, without ceremony, laid his hand on James’ shoulder, pushing him back down.

“Alright.” He shook his head. “Christ, I’d forgotten how fucking single-minded you are. I’m going. Try not to -”

James frowned.

“Wait. You forgot?” He gave Silver a look that was halfway between confusion and surprise. “How could you forget? We last spoke a little over a month ago.”

Silver stopped, turning back to look at him, and James felt his stomach sink into his boots at the look on the younger man’s face – surprise, followed by realization, and then chagrin.

“Fuck,” he said succinctly, and James frowned.

“What-?” he asked, and Silver closed his eyes.

“God fucking damn it,” he muttered. “Of course. Of course you wouldn’t -” He opened his eyes, head tilting toward the ceiling, and he gave a mirthless laugh. “Of course,” he repeated. He turned back to James.

“How much do you remember?” he asked, and James frowned harder.

“How much of what?”

Silver scowled.

“What year was it, when you presumably fucked off and came back here?” he asked, and James frowned.

“1716,” he answered. “Just before -”

Silver’s face contorted oddly just for a moment and then the younger man turned away, running a hand over his face, his shoulders suddenly tense.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he swore. “So you don’t -”

He turned back, and James started to rise, started to cross the distance between them, forgetting momentarily his aching, pounding head and the various aches and pains littering his body.

“Silver – what the hell -?”

Silver shook his head.

“It’s -” He took a deep breath. “It’s a long story. One we don’t have time for. I’ll go and check on the Hamiltons. You stay here and -” He gestured. “I don’t know. Read or something. Meditate. Whatever you do now that you’re -” He gestured again, his hand waving up and down James’ body as if to indicate his general state of being. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He turned, and James started to rise.

“Wait -” He started, and then sat back down with a hiss. When he opened his eyes again, Silver had left the room, leaving only silence in his wake. “Damn it,” James muttered, massaging his aching head. What in the hell had he missed?

***************************************************************

“Flint’s dead,” they told him.

John did not remember the next few days – lost in a haze of drink and grief and Madi’s voice, comforting but distant. When he’d come back to himself, he’d had a new tattoo, a parrot, and a burning hatred for Billy that he could not quench.

“Flint’s dead,” they’d said. Eaten up at last by guilt and grief and the booze he’d been turning to more and more often when last he and John had seen each other, and John had never doubted the story. He’d known – of course he had, and yet he’d raged and wept and made a damn fool of himself, closing the tavern early and losing the day’s business. And when he’d gone to sleep that night –

The street he stood in smelled like piss and beer. It was a sadly familiar scent – one that John had not missed, and yet it was a great deal more grounding than he had ever expected, pulling him slowly back from the edge of shock, pushing his mind into working order once more.

Until now, he’d wondered if he was dreaming.

He’d suspected, of course, that he was not. The sheer overwhelming presence of London had weighed against the notion, and yet there had been some lingering doubt – a sort of feeling that his dreaming mind might have taken him to a place where he had been happier. Younger. And then when he had heard mention of Thomas Hamilton – when he had started this quest – well, it was only natural, wasn’t it, after hearing of the man’s death, to dream about the friend he’d failed? This, though – this was no dream. He could not have dreamed this, because –

Because he had been expecting Flint.

The thought was a silly one – akin to a child’s wailing when they discovered for the first time that the world was not a fair place or a kind one, and yet it was what passed through John’s mind over and over again, bringing with it a spike of both shock and bewilderment. When he had first begun looking for his friend, he had been looking for Flint, not McGraw. Flint, who was brilliant and violent and wounded and fascinating. Flint, who had captured John’s attention from the first time he had watched him outmaneuver Singleton and ensnare the crew with the aid of a bloodstained piece of paper. Flint, whom he had fought beside, bled for – and who fucking remembered more than a year of their friendship.

He was passing by a carpenter’s shop, and he kicked disconsolately at a piece of wood as he passed by, sending it careening back toward the shop from whence it had come. It served him right – of course it did. He had assumed a great many things when he had started out this quest to find his friend. He had assumed, for starters, that the man he found would be the man he remembered – the man he had vowed, twenty years earlier by his own reckoning, to save from himself if possible. Thus far he had needed saving, alright, but not of the kind that John had anticipated. Far from it, if what he had seen of Fli – of James so far was indicative of his general state of being. The man he had seen this morning –

He sat down, the stone of the low wall he had been passing digging into his arse unheeded, and he passed a hand over his face, his mission temporarily forgotten. The man he had spoken to in that room this morning was Flint, and yet he was not. John was having difficulty processing the difference, and yet it was there, right in front of him, staring out of green eyes that were somehow less angry, less weary, less haunted than he had ever seen them. It was in the apology the man had offered him for not paying attention, in the fact that he’d said the word fuck all of once since he’d woken, in the odd, clipped sound of some of his words, reverted back to an accent that John had only ever heard him use when issuing orders aboard the ship. It was a remnant, he now realized, of the man’s past in the Navy, a hanger-on that he had not previously even wondered if Flint might have missed, so used had he been to the rougher, broader accent Flint had used when John had known him. Most jarringly unfamiliar, though, was the fact that four men had attacked James Flint last night and three of them had survived to tell the tale. And the fear in James’ voice when he’d asked what had happened to those same men –

It was almost as startling as the lack of lines on his face – the smooth brow, the furrows that had only just started to form around his mouth – the disconcerting youth of the man that Silver only remembered as an experienced sailor with the weight of the world on his shoulders, aged before his time by grief. Christ, he was young. James had said it about John, but he himself marvelled at the corresponding revelation. The man who had been Flint was, in fact, no older than Silver had been when they had first met – in fact, John would have lain coin on him being a few years younger still. Which meant that in ten years’ time –

In ten years’ time, the man that John had just met would be perhaps forty-three, fully fourteen years younger than John had been when he had gone to sleep to wake in a time he barely recalled, with a leg he barely remembered how to walk on, and a thousand – no, two thousand questions running through his head, facing a friend he felt he had forgotten more about than he had ever known. Christ – how in the hell was he meant to relate to the man now, with so much between them that James plainly did not remember? Furthermore, how could he possibly keep this version of James out of trouble when he did not understand the thoughts running through his head?

All of it, he suddenly thought with something strongly resembling irritation, had begun with Thomas bloody Hamilton. It was he that had started this entire chain of events – his loss that had given rise to Captain Flint, and his influence, apparently, that had turned everything John knew about his friend on its head, and since the man was apparently the center of the entire puzzle, he could fucking well explain what the hell was going on, both with James and in general. John stood up, mind made up, scanning the street for a hackney. Thomas Hamilton was about to answer a few questions, including who the hell he was, what he looked like, and what the fuck was so fascinating about him that his mere presence was enough to do this – to take the man John had known and turn him into this person he barely recognized, in body or mind.

“Albemarle Street,” he instructed the driver as he climbed into the hackney. “The crest with two ships and threes stars quartered.”

****************************************

The road to Windsor, twenty miles outside London:

“‘Ey – settle down back there!”

The thumping he had heard moments before quietened. The carriage continued to bump along the road, and the man driving it settled back into his seat.

“Damn noble pain in the arse,” he muttered. He transferred the reins to one hand, using the other to pull his cloak closer about him, cursing the rain under his breath as more of it came pelting down, making the trip more miserable than it had been to start with. They were heading into summer, and the roads certainly showed it, he thought irritably, lifting the reins and bringing them down sharply in an effort to get the horses to move a trifle faster through the thick, heavy mud. They would never reach Windsor before dusk at this pace.

There was a sound of a door opening, and he turned, looking downward, to find his partner, the hood of his cloak pulled over his head and his hands wrapped in cloth, swinging his way into the driver’s seat.

“What the bloody ‘ell d’you think you’re doing?” he asked, surprised. “You’re supposed to be staying in the carriage with her Ladyship, aren’t you? You should -”

“You,” said a distinctly female voice from under the hood, “should rest your horses.” A pistol clicked, and he froze, feeling the barrel dig into his ribs. Miranda Hamilton pushed the hood off of her head, and smiled, her dark eyes fixed on him, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a fox that had just cornered its quarry. “Now,” she said, deceptively pleasantly for a woman who was currently threatening to kill him, “perhaps you would care to tell me where we’re headed. Your friend wasn’t very talkative.”

Hey everyone! I’ve finally gotten Chapter 9 to behave itself and the chapter after is currently practically writing itself, so here’s Chapter 8 for everyone’s (hopeful) enjoyment!

As a reminder, this is up on Ao3, and I adore comments, kudos, reblogs, and likes as much as any other writer!

Here is the first part on Tumblr, and here is the last chapter in case you need a recap!

Chapter 8: Things that Go Bump in the Night

Something was wrong.

He could not quite place it, but he knew it immediately upon waking. Thomas’ eyes opened, and he sat up in bed, shaking his head to clear it. Something was out of place – a sound, or a smell or –

Or James, he realized, looking around. That was what had woken him – the lack of James’ now familiar weight in the bed next to him. The bed had not yet started to cool, despite his absence, so he could not have been gone long, and yet he was most definitely missing. Thomas shifted himself toward the edge of the bed and, grimacing at the cold floor against his feet, reached for a robe, his hands groping in the pre-dawn light. It was still dark, and he wondered with a dart of worry whether James had gotten any sleep at all, given the apparently still-early hour. If, he thought somewhat irritably, his wife had not smashed the hall clock, he might have told the time, and then repented the thought immediately. He would not have wanted to have the wretched thing in the house anyway – not when it would have caused both his lovers such pain to see it day in and day out and be reminded of Peter Ashe’s betrayal.

Still. He made a mental note to have the timepiece replaced with something suitably different so as to cease relying so heavily on James’ admittedly sterling sense of the time of day. His lover claimed it came from his early days in the Navy keeping watch at all hours of the day and night. Thomas was forced to accept the explanation if only because he knew that James did not possess a pocket watch – something which, he reminded himself, he would also need to purchase before they left London permanently so that he could gift it to James at Christmas. Certainly it would aid him in moments like this one, when he appeared to have lost track of time entirely and strayed from bed at an hour when all sensible people ought to have been deep in the arms of Morpheus, including Thomas.

And speaking of James –

Thomas opened the door to the library almost silently to find precisely what he expected awaiting him on the other side. He had found, in the months since he and James had become a pair, that his lover was, in some ways, one of the most predictable men on the face of the Earth, as predictable in his way as the Sun or the Moon. It was a simple calculation – the sun would always rise in the morning, church bells were always rung on Sundays, and James McGraw would always be found in Thomas’ and Miranda’s library when he had a problem to contemplate.

“James?”

His lover turned, startled, at the sound of Thomas’ voice.

“Thomas. What are you doing down here?”

“You were gone, so naturally I came looking,” Thomas explained, and saw the look of chagrin on James’ face.

“I’m sorry. You should go back to bed. I’m fine.”

“You’re awake at an ungodly hour of the morning and standing in the library contemplating the shelves in the dark. In what way does that resemble being fine?”

James opened his mouth. He was going to argue – Thomas could see it in the set of his shoulders, in the beginnings of a frown forming in the creases between his brow. He could see, too, the moment that James recalled where he was – who he was about to argue with, and just how unnecessary that argument was. He was getting better about that, Thomas had noticed, and felt an odd surge of pride in his lover’s progress toward giving himself permission to be vulnerable now and again.

“It doesn’t,” James admitted. He gave Thomas a wry look, and sat down heavily in one of the chairs. He had gotten dressed, Thomas realized for the first time, at least partially. Had he been less tired from the day’s events, less strung out from grief, he might have taken a moment to appreciate the sight of James in breeches and white shirt. As it was, he simply sat down next to his lover, setting down the lamp he had been carrying on the table next to the chaise longue.

“I talked with Admiral Hennessey tonight,” James said without preamble. His voice was steady, but his hands twitched, his fingers drumming against his thigh in agitation.

“I remember,” Thomas answered. “He told you to take Miranda and I home.” Thomas thought back on the encounter briefly. The Admiral had not seemed angry – on the contrary, he had seemed as shocked as anyone, and had quickly suspended whatever discussion he and James had been having.

“Take them out of here,” he had instructed gruffly. “Our conversation can wait.” He had looked between James and Thomas with an odd, almost resigned expression, and then shaken his head. “Good God Almighty,” he had muttered. “Go. There is nothing more to be done here tonight.”  

“He -” James started, and then ran a hand over his face, his frustration clear. “He knows,” he burst out finally. “He knows about the two of us – about our relationship.”

Thomas started.

“You told him?”

James shook his head.

“I didn’t have to,” he answered. “He figured it out on his own, somehow. He knows, and he -” He rose again, pacing the length of the room, and leaned forward, his arms holding him up against a table.

“We would not still be sitting here if you considered him a threat,” Thomas reasoned, and James shook his head.

“I don’t know what to consider him,” he admitted. He turned back, and Thomas patted the chaise, inviting him to return. He sat again, accepting the hand that Thomas placed on his thigh.  “I remember it like it was yesterday, Thomas,” he said lowly. “The man all but lured me into his office, called what’s between us loathsome and profane, and now he -” He stopped, looking at Thomas with a lost expression. “He says he doesn’t care,” he finished, plainly bewildered. “He actually said he doesn’t give a shit who I’m fucking, and yet -”

“He used those exact words?” Thomas asked incredulously, and James nodded mutely. Thomas sat back, beyond shocked. “He truly said that?” James nodded again.

“All these years,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, “I thought he hated me. That I had disappointed him beyond his capacity to bear – that he saw me as some sort of abomination, and now I don’t know whether to get us all out of London on the next boat or -”

“Or take the man at his word and stay?” Thomas asked quietly, and James nodded heavily. He ran a shaking hand over his face and took a deep breath, letting it out in a gust of air that threatened to blow out the flame on the lamp.

“I can’t trust myself on this,” he confessed. “I know what Captain Flint would have done – what my instincts are telling me to do now, and I know what the sane, sensible thing is. By all rights, we should be doing it right now, but -”

“What would Captain Flint do?” Thomas asked, his eyes firmly fixed on James’ green ones.

“Run,” he answered without hesitation. “Assume that Hennessey’s lying and -” He stopped, visibly swallowing the last half of his sentence.

“And what?” Thomas asked gently, and James hesitated. He opened his mouth and then closed it, swallowing hard.

“And run as fast and as far as possible and pray not to get caught halfway out of the harbor.” It was not what he had intended to say – Thomas could see it in his face, in the way that his mouth turned downwards, and in the tense little furrow between his brows.

“James -” he started, and James turned, anguish flashing over his face, his hands clenched in his lap.

“What do you want me to say, Thomas?” he snapped. “What the hell -”  

“I want you to tell me the truth,” Thomas answered. “We agreed not to lie to one another – not about this, remember?” His tone was rather sharper than usual, and he saw it cut – saw the agony that suffused James’ face for a moment.

“The truth,” he repeated, his voice ragged with emotion. “You want to know -” He stopped, standing and dragging a hand over his hair. “Christ, Thomas!” he groaned. “What the hell do you think I would have done?”

“You are the only one who knows that,” Thomas answered quietly. He did not rise, and James stared at him for a moment.

“You think -” he started, and shook his head. “Christ,” he murmured. “You do. You think there’s a chance that I would have spared him. That I -”

“I think you were not – that you are not – the monster you insist you are,” Thomas murmured. “James -”

“I would have killed him!” James all but shouted the words, his voice rising above the quiet volume they had been using up until now. “I would have killed him – would have done the unforgivable, again, and he didn’t even -” He stopped, his voice catching in his throat. “I would have killed him,” he choked. “My God, Thomas. He – it wasn’t what I imagined it to be at all. What if I had – Christ, what if I had done it?” He turned haunted eyes to Thomas. “What kind of fucking monster -” His voice cracked, and Thomas stood, silently gathering him into an embrace and allowing him to weep into his shoulder.

“I never gave it so much as a moment’s thought – the why of it,” James confessed at last, when his shoulders had stopped shaking and the tears had stopped running down his cheeks. “The man raised me from nothing – gave me a future when I had none. I owe him everything, and I – I assumed that he hated me. That I was -”

“You felt betrayed, and quite rightly so,” Thomas said quietly. “He gave you no reason to believe otherwise.”

“There was no warning,” James said wearily, sitting down again. “That was the worst of it. One moment he was talking to me, calling me son, and the next -” He shook his head. “What if this is the same?”

“What if it isn’t?” Thomas countered, sitting down next to him, and James shook his head.

“I cannot take that chance,” he murmured. “I know what he said. I know what I want to believe, but I won’t risk your safety and Miranda’s on some – deluded wish on my part to rewrite what I know to be true. I can’t -” He shook his head, and Thomas reached out, his hand gripping the top of James’ arm in support.

“James,” he said firmly, “look at me.” James obeyed, turning conflicted, tormented green eyes on Thomas. “You are not a bodyguard,” Thomas said quietly. “Miranda and I do not need to be protected from the world. This has tormented you for eleven years – no, don’t deny it, Miranda has told me as much. If there is a chance at reconciliation – at rebuilding what you had -”

He stopped, his own words hitting too close to home. He envied James – he always had, in truth. The man may have come from nothing, but he had a father figure in Hennessey – someone to look up to and ask advice from, someone who, while he may have had his faults, apparently loved James as a son, while Thomas –

He swallowed hard.

“Still, 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 quoted, and James started, an odd expression flickering over his face.

“Homer,” he croaked, and Thomas nodded.

“Yes. Take the chance you have been offered, James, and trust that Miranda and I can protect ourselves, whatever the outcome may be.”

“Thomas -” James started, at a loss for words, and then he reached forward, grasping hold of the back of Thomas’ neck, his hands warm in contrast with the cool night air. “Promise me,” he said roughly. “Promise me that no matter what happens, where this leads, you will take care of yourself. No matter what happens – what the danger to me or to Miranda. Swear it.” His eyes were fixed on Thomas, and Thomas could not help the shudder that ran through him at the look in his lover’s eyes, or at his sudden understanding of what had brought this on. That other version of him had done James and Miranda no favors when he had flung himself into the fire in their place, he saw, and he moved one hand to mirror James’, cupping the other man’s jaw.

“If I could reach through time and shout at myself, I would do so in a second,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry that I did not think of your feelings before throwing myself to the wolves – that I didn’t see -” James shook his head.

“It wasn’t you,” he interrupted. “Don’t apologize. Just promise me. Swear to me it won’t happen again. I can’t do this, Thomas, not if I don’t know -”

“I promise,” Thomas answered firmly, and James stopped, his breath shaking as he inhaled. “No more martyrs. We will trust in one another’s skills and consider each other’s wishes from now on.” James nodded shakily, and drew Thomas closer, kissing him in place of speaking. They drew back after a moment, foreheads resting against each other, hands still holding onto one another, and Thomas took the opportunity to run a hand through James’ hair, gently tugging to work out the snarls. James pulled back further and made a face at the feeling.

“I’m still not used to that,” he confessed, and Thomas raised an eyebrow in a question. “The hair,” James explained, running his own hand through the red-brown locks. “I’d shaved it off before -”

The sound of horrified surprise that emerged from Thomas’ mouth was entirely involuntary, and James stopped talking, one corner of his mouth quirking upward as Thomas sat up straighter, brows drawn together, mouth hanging slightly open.

“Shaved it?” he asked, and James nodded, the quirking of his mouth becoming a full-blown grin.

“All of it,” he confirmed, and Thomas gave him an appalled look. He could not picture it – did not want to picture James’ head shorn of the beautiful auburn mane Thomas so liked to touch. It was iconoclasm – sacrilege of the worst kind – akin to destroying a priceless work of art, and he could not imagine what could have driven his lover to such destruction.

“James – why?” he asked, and James shrugged, the grin sliding off his face.

“It seemed practical at the time,” he answered, clearing his throat. “I wasn’t James McGraw anymore. I was Flint. I didn’t want to look in the mirror and see a dead man looking back at me.”

The words sent a spike of horror through Thomas, and he closed his eyes. Dear God. Of all the reasons James could have given – had there been nothing, absolutely nothing in the past ten years that had not been driven by loss and pain and suffering?

“James -” he started, and took a deep breath before opening them again. He knew the answer to his own question and he did not wish to dwell upon it. “Never again,” he said firmly. “You will never have to so deface yourself again, I swear it.” He was not talking only of James’ hair, although it was the primary concern at the moment, and James knew it.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, and then gave a quiet huff of laughter. “If you could have seen your face -” he murmured, and Thomas scoffed.

“And quite right, too!” he said. “Honestly, James – the drama of the thing! I’m sure you looked like an egg.”

“Not entirely,” James argued. “I’d grown a beard, and -”

“A bearded egg!” Thomas exclaimed. “And worse, your quartermaster let you get away with this travesty!”

James snickered, and Thomas felt a surge of satisfaction at the sound.

“Silver was no more pleased than you are,” he admitted. “I seem to recall him going on about how I’d be impossible to pick out in a crowd or during a fight – something about, ‘how will I know you from any other idiot yelling orders on this ship?’”

Thomas laughed quietly.

“I’d quite like to meet him one day,” he said, and James raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not out of the question,” he admitted. He snorted. “I always wondered what you’d make of the slippery little shit.”

Thomas offered him a smile.

“Perhaps someday we’ll find out.”

*****************************************************

June 24th, 1705:

He had forgotten how fucking loud London was.

It had been six weeks since he had woken, confused as hell, to find himself back amid the teeming squalor that was the capital city of the British Empire. It had taken him all of two minutes to piece together what had happened (pretty fucking obvious, and he’d all but wept for joy to find himself with two whole legs again, and then nearly wept again when he realized that he was not only whole again but in possession of the kind of knowledge that would make him a rich man several times over). He had spent the next week or so parlaying knowledge into coin, and  trying not to allow the question of how he had ended up in his own past consume him whole any more than his frustration at readjusting to walking without a crutch.

He had never thought he’d be saying it, but he missed life at sea. He’d known just how fucked he was from the moment he’d woken and wondered why the ground was not moving beneath him, but now, six weeks into this strange new life, he was worse than frustrated – he was positively homesick, and the notion was as strange as any he had ever tried to wrap his head around. He had never wanted to be a sailor, but damn if he didn’t miss the swaying motion underfoot and the creak of the boards and the comparative quiet of fifty men packed into the same space together over the noise and the filth and the press of London. No, John Silver thought – he had not missed the shit hole he had come from, nor would he miss it when he left it once again.

Still – there was some good to be had about the place. It was, for instance, a great deal easier to overhear useful things here than it ever had been in Nassau. On New Providence, useful tidings tended to come with the risk of angry men with swords and pistols ready to kill someone at the drop of a hat. Here, on the other hand, everything he could possibly need to know was bandied about by women at market as easy as if he had simply picked it off the ground, without a single farthing ever needing to change hands.

“Is Lord Hamilton still planning on leaving?”

A case in point – the two women who had just begun talking not five feet from where he stood, bandying about a name that brought him up short. Lord Hamilton? Not -? The name stopped him short, and he realized with a jolt where and exactly when he was. If they were speaking of the same man –

“He is. Says ‘e’s not to be deterred, not even after all the unpleasantness.”

“Rotten luck. What’ll your sister do now?”

“His lordship has offered a bonus for any servant that wants to accompany him, but I don’t think she’ll take it. She’ll be moving on – new house, new position.”

“Smart. He can go to the West Indies on his own – him and his lady wife, too.”

“What’s your quarrel?”

“Well, it was them that ordered it, wasn’t it – what happened to old Lord Ashbourne, even if they won’t say it?”

“Who says?”

“Everyone! Everyone knows they didn’t get along. Mind you, I’ve never heard a word that was good about the old bastard, so I s’pose he had it coming.”

“I don’t believe that. From what my sister says, young Lord Thomas is a gentle sort – wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“Maybe, but what about Lady Hamilton? She’s an odd duck from what I hear. Moody.”

“That doesn’t mean she murdered him. Blimey! You think the Earl didn’t have enough other enemies without blaming her?”

“Like who?”

Silver backed away, his mind turning over what he had just heard. He could think of an excellent candidate – a certain red-haired companion of Lord and Lady Hamilton, for starters, he thought, mouth suddenly dry, energy buzzing through him. Flint. He was here here, he had to be. It had not even occurred to John, and he silently cursed his own thoughtlessness. Of course he was- but was he truly Flint?  Lord Ashbourne had died recently. If Flint had come back at the same time as Silver, why would he have waited? It was unlike Flint to leave loose ends for more than a few days, and Alfred Hamilton was nothing if not that. Perhaps not, then. Still – something had changed and the Earl had paid the price. Perhaps Lady Hamilton? If it was Flint, what was he playing at? He turned down the street, still pondering. If Flint was actually here –

Christ. What if he was? Did it matter? This was a new life, with new possibilities, and the glorious freedom to go where he would, when he wanted, without the burden of being wanted for piracy or weighed down by a peg leg or by James fucking Flint. Whether he was at large or in prison for murder –

He winced at the mental image of Flint in prison, something in his stomach twisting at the notion, and he suddenly recalled the last time he had been in this particular position – the last time Flint had been in serious trouble and in need of Silver’s aid. Yes, he admitted to himself quietly, it mattered, damn it all to hell, or what had he lost a leg for? If Flint were back here in the past, then Silver owed it to him to at least make sure that he wasn’t hanged for a murder that, by all accounts, had been more than merited. The realization brought a sigh to his lips as he scrubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, silently damning the god he didn’t really believe in and damning himself too for his utter lack of the ability to turn back like a sensible person. If Flint was in trouble, then John would help him, because-

Because he had made a promise, and for the first time in twenty years it seemed as though he might have the chance to keep it. He would start with Lord Hamilton’s residence for answers, and tackle the question of how he was to break Flint out of Newgate if and when he reached that bridge. Now the question was how to find the house of the noble in question.

The two women were still talking, and he turned on one heel, heading straight toward them. One of them had a sister in Hamilton’s employ – she would know where he might start looking.

“Excuse me, ladies. I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation…”