Ding dong, the chapter’s done, which chapter, the stubborn one! Ding dong, the stupid chapter’s done!

*Cough* Sorry. I’m maybe a little bit happy that the stupid chapter that’s been plaguing my existence for the past several days has finally fallen into order. In celebration, here – have a present.

Also – this fic is now on Ao3, for anyone that wants to leave kudos or a comment! It’s here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8200756/chapters/18786778

To the Upper Air: Chapter Five: Nob and Nobility

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four

He had forgotten how much he hated society parties.

It was unavoidable, of course. The promotion of Lord Hamilton to Governor Hamilton could not go without recognition, and with it came recognition of his own recent (and long overdue, Thomas had muttered) ascension to the lofty rank of Captain McGraw. Still, it was – beyond odd, being back here in Whitehall. Everything about it felt wrong, from the crisp uniform to the odd feeling of cloth around his neck to the very smell of the place. Though he knew that he had no reason to fear it, he could not quite help the sense of trepidation that filled him at the very sight of the building, as if at any moment he might be recognized and carted away to prison, and he had to steel himself before walking through the ornate double doors, abruptly glad that full military uniform at least included a sword, although the one at his side would not have passed muster for a battle of any length over five minutes. He found himself wishing for the sturdy blade that had served him through ten years of life as a pirate, and he silently resolved to replace the one at his side that stood half a chance of surviving an actual engagement, even though he had no intention of becoming involved in one any time in the near future. Or the distant future, for that matter, God and the fuc – bloody British Empire willing.

He had argued with Thomas about this aspect of the plan. Granted, the argument had not lasted long, for while James was perfectly willing to dispute Thomas’ plans with him, in the end, he could not help but be grateful that he was alive and there to have the argument, which tended to defeat even James’ most serious attempts at denying him what he wanted. He had, at least, made a more resolute attempt this time. He was determined that his fondness was not going to overcome good sense – not again.

“It’s only for a time, James!” Thomas had argued. “It will be over before you know it, and we’ll be away from here, free to do as we please in our own colony!”

“Not free, Thomas – you know better. It will be a British colony, guarded by the British Navy -”

“Not forever,” Thomas argued. “If we offer the men on that beach pardons, by necessity, some of them will still need an occupation at sea. It’s all they’ll know how to do – that’s half the reason there are pirates to begin with. I propose to start our own Navy, one made up of common men, and run the ships as they are accustomed to, with proper pay -”

“If you allow them to run the ships in the way that they’ve become accustomed to, half of them will spend the large majority of their time too drunk to perform their duties,” James pointed out dryly.

“- and captains that are agreed upon by the men, with you in charge of the whole enterprise to impose order,” Thomas finished, shooting James a reproving look. “Really, James – you’ve become quite the cynic. Have some faith!”

“I suppose drunk and happy with their lot is better than beaten and mutinous,” James allowed, and Thomas smiled.

“We won’t need British Naval support, at least not for long, and they can hardly object with the war on, or indeed after it when they will presumably need Naval support to clean up the mess. Think of it, James. It will start out as a British colony, yes, but it will finish up as something quite different – an example of the merits of good governance to be followed, and in time perhaps -” He looked around and lowered his voice, “- in time perhaps a free, independent republic like you always wanted.”  

James stared at him. He wanted to argue – wanted to rage and scream and refuse to go along with the plan. Nassau had been so many things to him over the years. Exile. Prison. Home. The site of his greatest crimes, and yet –

And yet what Thomas proposed would be none of those things. The Nassau that he held forth in front of James’ eyes was a thriving port city – the place that James and Miranda had worked so hard to achieve, and had they not made an incredibly similar proposal to Peter Ashe once? Had they not dreamt of doing exactly this?

“James,” Thomas said more softly. He came forward around the desk to wrap one hand around James’ own, his blue eyes full of concern. “If you truly cannot support this plan – if it truly does sound like madness of the first order, or if you feel you cannot return to New Providence in this capacity, say it now. We will work it out some other way that will not – tempt you, into becoming who you were once again or force you to confront him in your memories. I won’t be the source of your pain, not again.”

The most difficult part of becoming James McGraw again, he was rapidly realizing, had nothing to do with his mannerisms. It had nothing to do with the way he walked, or the way he talked, or the clothing he wore. It was in moments like this, where he wanted so desperately to hold onto the hurts of a past life – to return to the rage and the heedless, stubborn, familiar recklessness that had enabled him to go through eleven years without putting a bullet through his head – in choosing instead to allow himself to move on and live.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He was not certain he could do this. The prospect of it loomed before him, overwhelming in its immensity, and he felt his breathing quicken, his hands beginning to shake at the prospect. He clenched them, trying to control the reaction, to find equilibrium again before –

“James,” Thomas’ voice penetrated the fog of his thoughts. “Talk to me. Tell me why this worries you so.”

Before what, exactly? With a start, James opened his eyes. He could talk to Thomas. He did not have to keep this to himself – did not have to conceal anything from the man sitting across the table from him. He did not have to pretend – not here, not now. He breathed out shakily, gaze focused on Thomas.

“You’re not alone,” Thomas reminded, and James nodded.

“No,” he acknowledged. “I’m not.” He gave Thomas a half smile, which his lover returned. “I’m not concerned about Nassau,” he said at length. “Not solely, anyway. Neither Miranda or I have many good memories of the place, but you’ll be there this time, and with a little luck we can keep it from becoming the hell-hole that it was while we were living there. No. It’s -” He cast about, searching for the words. “I’ve been a pirate for the past ten years, Thomas,” he said at last. “And while my life in the Navy may have lasted longer than my exile, it didn’t end well. I’ve hated it for so long – fought against it, taken ships from it, heard the stories of men who were tortured in its service, or forced into in the first place. I can’t go back and ignore all of that. I can’t pretend that it’s not happening. Asking me to go back to serving -”

“Not serving,” Thomas emphasized. “You’ll be in charge of Naval operations in Nassau. All of them. You’ll be a great deal more than just a captain – you’ll be a garrison commander, with the right to interfere if you see injustices being perpetrated on ships that enter our waters. And with Peter overseeing the Admiralty court in Jamaica -”

“You truly trust him to do anything other than hang pirates?” James asked.

“I trust him to be wary enough of me and of my allies here after this to do as I say for long enough to effect real change,” Thomas said.

James sat, still mulling the idea over in his head. It sounded good, but then all of Thomas’ ideas tended to do that. Still, though – this particular idea sounded good. It sounded right. A new Nassau. A place where he, Thomas, and Miranda could be together, and one where he would not be expected to turn a blind eye to the goings on aboard Naval ships that came through their port. It was far from fixing everything that was wrong with England, but perhaps they could at least give refugees from England’s tyranny a place to go. Still –

“If it all goes to hell and I strangle Benjamin Hornigold on sight -” he started.

“You won’t,” Thomas said firmly. “Besides, in the worst of all scenarios, we can always leg it for Paris.”

James snorted, and Thomas grinned.

“Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll do it.”

“Excellent.”

Three weeks later, he had found himself here, in uniform, watching lords and ladies mill about the room like the pack of vultures he privately compared them to, wondering just what on Earth had possessed him to think that he could speak with the men and women that had turned their backs on Thomas so blithely and gone about their lives as if nothing had changed. Thus far he had narrowly avoided scandalizing three young women and had very possibly managed to shock one of the older men in the room, although he was not quite certain how. Perhaps it was his bearing – try as he might, he found that he could not quite seem to lose the trace of the pirate captain in the way he held himself and he suspected that the look on his face had much to do with the way that the few party-goers who had drifted his way intent on having a word had thought better of it, scattering like so many frightened cats. It was more than a little frightening to realize how much of Flint had become unconscious – to find that the mask had instead become the reality, from his scowl to his pessimism to the way he held his hands. James had had to remove his hand from his sword hilt more than once tonight after catching himself standing as if ready to do violence, as indeed he would have been had a large number of pirate captains ever agreed to meet like this, and the less said about his attempts not to fidget and pull at his collar like a small child, the better.

“You know,” Thomas said from behind him, amusement in his voice, “if you stop standing there with a face like a thundercloud, you might actually be able to enjoy yourself.”

He was scowling again. Thomas was right, he realized, and felt irritation well up in him. His face, it seemed, was not entirely on board with this attempt at a return to, if not polite society, at least basic civility.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

“And stop swearing like a deckhand,” Thomas continued to tease, and James barely held back a groan.

“How the hel – devil am I going to make it through tonight without managing to get us all exiled?” he wondered aloud, and Thomas laughed.

“You’ll be fine. You’re already doing better than you expected!”

“If by that you mean that I haven’t actually murdered anyone, then yes,” James answered sarcastically. “You see that man over there?” He gestured briefly in the direction of an older gentleman with an expression on his face that looked very much as if he’d been sucking on lemons the entire night.

“Lord Bremerton?”

“I smiled and he looked as if the Devil himself had appeared and ran off. He’s stayed on that side of the room ever since.”

Thomas snickered, attempting to muffle his laughter at the aggrieved look that James shot him.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man when he wasn’t offended by something. It looks as though you’re the lucky miscreant tonight. Don’t worry about it, James. Lord Bremerton would be less than pleased one way or the other and at least this keeps him well away from the company worth talking to.”

“At least you don’t appear to have lost your charm with the ladies,” Miranda offered from his other side. She held out a drink, which he accepted, only just remembering not to toss it back in one go as he would have a glass of rum. He snorted.

“If I didn’t remember to mind my manners around the women in the room, my grandmother would rise from her grave and box my ears,” he said dryly. “I can still hear her scolding me if I concentrate hard enough.”

“A formidable lady?” Thomas asked, and James nodded.

“Remind me to tell you about her when this is over,” he said, and Thomas grinned.

“I shall look forward to it,” he answered. “Come with me. There are several people here who would very much like to meet you before I spirit you away to Nassau with me.”

James allowed himself to be escorted through the crowd, and thus it was that twenty minutes later, he once again found himself free, listening to the musicians play as he watched Thomas and Miranda circulate with a fond eye. Miranda looked a bit strained around the edges, he thought, and silently wondered if she found all of this as trying as he did.

He had been surprised, at first, at the change in her.

“I can’t bear it anymore, James,” she’d confessed one night, after Thomas had gone to sleep. They had once again elected to stay together for the night, as they had done as often as was feasible given the need to hide and maintain the pretense that James was still staying at his lodging house and not moved permanently into their house.

“It’s a facade, all of it. I knew it before, of course, but I -” She made a helpless gesture with one hand. “I knew my place in the dance,” she finished at last. “Or at least I thought I did. I used to have so much patience for this sort of thing – the maneuvering – the lying, and now I -” She shook her head.

“And now it seems like such a waste of time you can hardly breathe with the stupidity of it all,” James finished, and she nodded.

“I feel like a blind person who’s suddenly gained the ability to see and discovered that all of his acquaintances look vastly different than he had imagined, despite fancying that he knew their faces through feeling them with his fingers,” she confessed. “How many other lords and ladies have I vastly underestimated or read entirely wrong before now? How often was I utterly wrong about someone?”

“There was no way you could have known about Ashe,” James offered quietly, and Miranda clenched her fist.

“Peter,” she half hissed. “How could he? How could he do such a thing to us – to Thomas? How did I not know, James?”

“You couldn’t have -” James started, and Miranda shook her head, cutting him off.

“It is my job to know,” she said sharply. “You and Thomas – you never paid much attention to the undercurrents. You didn’t have to – you had me there. I was meant to know what was happening – to keep you both from stumbling into situations like this, and I failed you. I failed you both, and I -”

“Miranda -” James started, and sighed. “You warned us,” he reminded her. “You tried to make us turn course, and we ignored you. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Thomas and I. You may not have known what direction the danger was coming from, but you tried to tell us. You can’t be held to blame for that.”

Miranda gave him a look, and he frowned.

“It’s not just that, is it?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“No. It’s not.” She took a deep breath, looking to the side as she did so, out over the rooftops of London below their window.

“I loved this city, once,” she said. “I loved the people here. I loved our lives here. When we ran from London – when we moved to Nassau – I missed it terribly. And for all those years, I never quite gave up on the notion of returning to this, I suppose.  Rescuing Abigail seemed like a last, shining chance – a sign that our exile was over. That I could come home.”

He did not speak the words on the tip of his tongue. Did not insult her by stating the obvious. The memory of that awful night in Peter Ashe’s dining room hung in the air between them, and he reached out to take her hand, silently rubbing his thumb across her knuckles waiting for her to regain the ability to speak.

“I can’t do this, James,” she said at last. “I can’t turn a blind eye and pretend that I don’t hate every one of them. I can’t go back to being Lady Hamilton – not now. Once, perhaps, I might have, but now -” She took a deep breath. “I said I wanted to watch Charlestown burn. Imagine, then, how much more I want to do the same to London.”

“About as much as I did, once,” he answered, and she turned to him, with a strange look in her eyes, half pride and half haunting, desperate unhappiness.

“When I – when I left you -” she started, and he shook his head.

“No,” he interrupted. “Don’t dance around the truth, Miranda. You were murdered. Saying you left makes it sound as though it were voluntary. It wasn’t.”

“Very well. When I died, you were ready to give up. You’ve told me of what followed my death – what it drove you to. And yet the man I see before me -”

She raised a hand to touch his face, and he leaned into it, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “I look at you and I see -” She trailed off, trying to quantify what she saw in James’ eyes. “I see the man I fell in love with, all those years ago,” she said finally. “What happened? How did you -?”

“How did I give up wanting to burn England for what it did?”

She nodded.

“I didn’t,” he answered baldly. “I look at this place and I see the same corruption, the same blithe unconcern for the lives of others as you do. I’ve spent the past ten years railing against it – fighting it at every turn. Every time I cut off another head it seemed as though ten more grew in its place and the cutting off of each head cost me something in the end – something I couldn’t afford to lose. Not and still remain human. After you died -” He shook his head. “You’re not going to believe this but it took Silver to show me how much of myself I’d lost. How much I’d thrown away, and to start to reclaim some of it. I’d only just begun, and then -”

He gestured eloquently to the room around them as if to indicate their changed circumstances.

“Finding myself back here, back in time -” He shook his head. “I don’t know how it’s possible. I suppose it’s conceivable that this is all a delusion of some kind, but if it is, I don’t intend to test it. Before – even if I had wanted to give up being Captain Flint, I couldn’t see a way to do it. I’ve done things I didn’t think could ever be made right, but now -” He stopped, looking for the words. “Now, it’s all undone, and I can’t – I don’t want to keep cutting pieces off my soul anymore. I’m done, Miranda. I can’t go back to being who I was – not for you, not for Thomas, not for anyone. I don’t know if any of that is helpful, but -”

She nodded.

“It is,” she said quietly. “I – thank you.”

It was not going to be enough – not on its own, James knew. Miranda was not as stubborn as he, but her anger ran no less deep, and she had been granted less outlet for it over the past decade. It would take her time, and yet he could not help but hope that she would not follow his example. He well knew the power of the rage that she was feeling, and he was pondering the practicality of giving her a physical outlet in the form of fencing lessons when a voice intruded on his thoughts.

“Might I have a word, Captain McGraw?”

The voice came from behind him, and James started. He had not seen or heard from Admiral Hennessey in over a decade and yet the sound of his voice still caused James to jump in his skin for all the world like the nine-year-old boy he had been when Hennessey had first taken him under his wing. He turned, and found the older man looking at him with one eyebrow raised, a look that was caught halfway between amusement and an almost paternal fondness on his face. (And oh God – James could not decide if he wanted to embrace him or punch him. The two urges were equally strong, equally born of both anger and joy, for here was yet another person James had never expected to see again this side of the grave, standing before him, unchanged and whole and how dare he be so after what he had done – would do? How dare he stand there, blameless and yet so very guilty, such that James could not even rail at him for his crimes? How dared he?)

No. Hennessey had done nothing wrong – nothing at all, thus far. The man that stood before him was not the one that had stood in his office and so effortlessly condemned James, destroying both his life and his spirit all in one fell blow. With an effort, James stuffed the anger away. He was done with vengeance. Had he not said so himself?

“Admiral.”  He could not quite bring himself to call the other man Sir. The word would not come, and he decided at the last minute to avoid it altogether if possible. The memory of the day his life had changed forever was still determined to haunt him, it seemed. Hennessey raised an eyebrow.

“Well. It seems you remember how to stand to attention, even if you’ve made yourself scarce of late. Good God, lad – what on Earth does Lord Hamilton have you doing?”

Fucking until I can hardly string together a coherent sentence, James wanted to say, wanted to rub it in Hennessey’s creased, care-worn face. It had been a wonderful three weeks that way – indeed, he, Thomas, and Miranda had spent more time in bed than he could recall ever doing before, despite the manufactured argument between Thomas and Miranda, “resolved” within the first three days by means of a very loud argument held in a hallway in full view of the servants that had ended in Miranda forgiving her husband for his supposed crime, the details of which James could not recall, as both Thomas and Miranda had spent the entire masterful performance trying not to grin at one another. James, for his part, had forgotten entirely what it felt like to be so utterly sated – to be touched with such affection, to feel Thomas’ and Miranda’s fingers running through his hair and then over the rest of his body, to be able to touch them in turn – and he was finding the sensation to be amazingly relaxing.

Not so relaxing, though, as to make this encounter any more pleasant.

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” he said instead, making a gesture toward the room in all its splendor, thus encompassing the progress celebrated therein.  Hennessey’s eyebrow raised even further if possible.

“Impertinence does not suit you,” he observed sourly, and James took a deep breath. He was not here to offend the Admiral. He was not here to recriminate, or to alienate someone they might one day need as an ally, no matter how he set James’ teeth on edge.

“Apologies, Admiral,” he managed at last, and Hennessey nodded.

“I must say,” he observed, “they’ve spared no expense for tonight.”

“Thomas has been declared the Governor of New Providence and the surrounding islands,” James said, turning away, his eyes seeking his lover in the crowd. “He’s in no danger of falling into debt over any of this.” Hennessey’s presence at his back was a prickling, uncomfortable burden, and he suddenly found himself wishing for Thomas to turn around and come to join him, for Miranda to somehow sense his need for a buffer between him and the man he’d once thought of as a father and come to give Hennessey the verbal slapping she had often promised in Nassau. Anything rather than James having to stay here and face what was, in some ways, a worse betrayal than anything Alfred had done before he was entirely sure he was ready.

“Yes, it would seem his little scheme for the redemption of Nassau has gone over quite well, despite the odds.” There was an edge of – something, to Hennessey’s voice, something that James was tempted to call dissatisfaction. He turned back to face the older man, his heart sinking into his boots. There was no getting out of this, plainly.

“Is there a problem, Admiral?” he asked. Hennessey did not answer, instead looking him up and down. He frowned, and then motioned with one hand.

“Come,” he said. “Walk with me. I feel the need for some fresh air. These ladies and their perfumes will be the death of me one day.” He turned, heading toward the garden, and James followed reluctantly, a sinking sensation accompanying him on his way out of the ballroom.

So here’s the next chapter now that I’m officially two chapters ahead in writing what is turning into another monster fic.

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three

Edit: The fic is now on Ao3! Chapters 1 through 8 are posted with Chapter 9 coming soonish! 

To the Upper Air: Chapter Four

He had forgotten what it was to be safe.

This feeling – this feeling of being completely, utterly without any kind of threat to be fought, without any enemies in his vicinity – had become foreign sometime in the last decade, James thought hazily. Nevertheless, he could not help but admit that at the moment, he was in fact safer and more comfortable than he had been since that last morning in London, later in this same year. He was lying between Thomas and Miranda on the bed, still nude, sweat from their exertions still cooling, his legs still quite buried under theirs. He could not find the strength to move – not even to find his clothing and therefore a modicum of both protection and decency. It was decadent. It was frivolous, and it was absolutely fucking glorious. The feeling of cool sheets against his bare skin was enough to make it worth staying for at least another hour or two, and he silently granted himself permission to do just that, enjoying the sensation as a breeze blew in through the still-open window, the sounds of the street below far removed from the cushioned bower he now found himself in.

“James?” Miranda’s voice sounded from his left, and he turned, meeting her eyes. “Are you alright?”

He smiled lazily, not even bothering to sit up.

“Better than alright,” he admitted, stretching slightly and grinning still wider at the soreness in his muscles. “I haven’t felt like this in….” He tried to think back, tried to remember and failed.

“Too long,” Miranda filled in, and he nodded. Her brows drew together, an expression that was half sorrow and half fondness stealing over her face.

“I’m sorry, darling. I should have -”

He shook his head.

“We both should have,” James interrupted her, refusing the apology. He looked her up and down again, the corner of his mouth turning upward once more. “I’d forgotten what it was like – this, I mean. You looked -” He stopped, searching for a word for the radiant expression on Miranda’s face as both he and Thomas had lavished attention on her. There was no word that was sufficient – not really. “Breath-taking,” he finished finally, and she smiled.

“I could continue doing this all day long,” she admitted, running one hand over his chest and resting it on his stomach. “It feels like it’s been longer than it has – longer than a month.”

“It has,” James pointed out. “When was the last time we actually took the time to enjoy ourselves?”

“You had just taken a prize off of Barbados,” she recalled. “You came home in the rain and -”

“God, yes,” he interrupted. “I was fucking soaked and you told me to strip if I was going to come in the house so that I wouldn’t drip on your floor. I’m fairly certain the crone from next door was actually still in the garden. Wonder if she enjoyed the view.”

“I’m sure she did,” Miranda said with a snort. “I couldn’t seem to shake her for four months afterward – hoping for a repeat performance, no doubt! She was approximately as pious as the rabbits she spent so much time scaring away.”

He laughed. That felt good as well – the ability to simply express his feelings rather than bundling them away behind ten layers of lies and secrets. He felt as if he had spent the last eleven years living behind not just a figurative but a literal mask, and now that there was no need for it he found himself trying to adjust to the realization that he could let Thomas and Miranda at least see what he was thinking. It was a new challenge in and of itself, he was finding, but one he was determined to master.

He’d been afraid, when they had first started to tell Thomas. Afraid of what his lover would say – afraid he would think them both mad, or lying, or that he would want nothing more to do with them after all they had done. He should have known better, he thought, as he looked down fondly at Thomas’ sleeping form.

Thomas sat on the bed, his face gone utterly white.

“You’re – you’re not joking.” He was looking between them, his blue eyes wide. “Dear God,” he choked. “You’re – All of that truly happened?”

They were all sitting on the bed, exactly where they’d started when James and Miranda had sat Thomas down two hours before and begun their tale. Since then, Thomas had hardly moved a muscle, too fascinated and utterly shocked and horrified at the words coming from his lovers’ mouths. He was, James thought privately, taking it rather better than he’d expected, although he had interrupted them several times to ask questions and once, notably, at the revelation of Peter’s betrayal, he’d risen from the bed, pacing the room, every line in his body filled with tension and standing by the window, staring out of it for several moments before coming back to rejoin them, his eyes suspiciously wet and his breathing ever so slightly ragged.

“Yes,” Miranda confirmed. “Thomas – I realize that this may be difficult to believe – or that you may not wish to – to be further associated with either of us after -”

“What?” Thomas asked, his face screwing up in confusion. “Why on Earth would I want to distance myself from either of you?”

“Thomas -” James attempted. “We’ve just told you we’re murderers. We planned your father’s death. You shouldn’t -”

“Oh what utter nonsense,” Thomas breathed, tears rising in his eyes. “You truly think – come here, both of you, right now.”

They had gone to him, arms wrapping around him, and the three of them had held onto each other for several moments, unable and unwilling to let go.

“You’re a pair of fools if you think I’m going to toss you out on your ears after what you just told me. My God,” Thomas had uttered. “To think you’ve been through such horrors-”

“I’m sorry,” James had choked. “I’m sorry, Thomas. We were -”

“No,” Thomas cut him off. “I won’t hear it. My God, James – you don’t seriously intend to apologize for crimes that, by simple logic, are no longer yours to own?”

“There is no evidence but -” James started.

“But nothing. Take it as a lesson, if you will, but I refuse to have you flagellate yourself over evils that have been wiped clean by the grace of God or whatever mischievous imp is responsible for your good fortune. Let it never happen again and let it go at that. I mean it, both of you.”

“Promise us,” Miranda had demanded. “I can’t go through that again, Thomas. Not again. Swear to me -”

“I swear,” he breathed. “I swear it. Never again.” He leaned over and planted a kiss against her temple, and frowned when she shuddered at the contact, her breath catching in her throat.

“Miranda -” he started, and then saw the look in her eyes, sorrow mixed with relief and all underlain by an emotion much more familiar to him. “Miranda,” he said, in quite a different tone, and she slid closer.

“Thomas,” she returned.

“How long?” he asked, his blue eyes searching hers.

“Forever,” she answered. He turned to James, asking the same question silently. 

“Ten years,” James rasped in answer. “Ten fucking years since they put you in the ground -”

Thomas reached up without hesitation and cupped James’ cheek, watching him close his eyes and hearing his breath catch in his throat.

“Oh James,” he murmured. “Come. Let’s fix that, then, shall we?”

“I still can’t believe we’re here,” James said. “It still seems like a dream I’m just about to wake up from but it can’t be.”

“No,” Miranda confirmed. “It’s very real. He is very real.” Their eyes met. The agreement went unspoken, there and clad in steel nonetheless. They had been granted a second chance – a second life, and the man snoring gently on James’ right side was the very center of that new life, as he had been of the old. There would be no repeats of the past – no leaving him behind.  They would live or die together. Captain Flint may have been dead and buried, but James McGraw had always been formidable in his own right and any scruples Miranda had had about doing what was necessary to protect her men had died with her, lost in the ticking of the clock and the sound of a gunshot.

“What are we going to do?” James asked quietly.

“You’re going to leave it to me,” came a muffled voice from beside them. Thomas, it seemed, had woken, and he sat up, his blond hair rumpled but his eyes bright and determined.

“Thomas -” James started, and Thomas shook his head.

“No,” he said firmly.  “I could hear you two plotting. I won’t have it. You’re going to let me handle this, this time, and see if we can’t all try to do better.”

That – well, if James was being honest with himself for a change, it sounded wonderful. Some part of him wanted to protest – wanted to point out that he was meant to be saving Thomas, not the other way around, and yet a larger part, the part that had been through ten years of pain and anger and grief, really, truly wanted to let someone else take the wheel for once, even if only for a short time. And hell, Thomas’ plan couldn’t possibly be any worse than some of the things Flint had done trying to save Nassau.

“What are you thinking of doing?” he asked, finally, and Thomas grinned – a thoroughly naughty expression that James couldn’t help but echo.

“This will sound a bit mad, but hear me out…”

Two Weeks Later:

“Well? How did it go?”

The voice sounded the moment that Thomas had left the presence chamber, an anxious whisper that nevertheless resounded against the walls, bouncing between the paintings in their immediate vicinity and off the marble floor. He turned, finding the source of the whisper standing directly beside the door, a look of worry and of anticipation on his face

“Well, all things considered,” Thomas answered, and Peter Ashe scoffed.

“Stop avoiding the question. Did she agree?”

Thomas grinned. He could not help it – the expression slipped onto his face before he could stop it, and Ashe gaped.

“She did?!”

Thomas nodded.

“By the grace of her Majesty, Queen Anne I, you are looking at the new Governor of New Providence Island and the surrounding territories, etc and so on,” he confirmed.

“And the pardons?”

“Will go through without further delay, as we had hoped, given the full support of the new governor for the plan.”

Ashe laughed, a delighted expression on his face.

“You sly devil! How did you manage it?”

“Let’s not count our chickens before they’ve hatched,” Thomas cautioned. “I’ll celebrate when this becomes official, not before.”

“Yes, yes,” Ashe agreed. “But how did you do it?”

“It was simplicity itself, as it turned out,” Thomas answered with a shrug. “As we’ve both pointed out in assembly, Nassau is a valuable outpost – the stepping stone to the Northern Bahama Islands and the Carolinas, in fact. We cannot afford to lose it to pirates if we wish to win this war, nor can we afford to so completely alienate our own people through the continued use of the law as a bludgeon.”

“You said that? To the Queen?”

Thomas smiled.

“I may have hinted that she would not wish to appear to emulate her father or her royal cousin across the Channel in their autocratic views.”

Ashe stopped and stared, and Thomas allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at the other man’s expression.

“Good God,” Ashe choked at last. “Thomas -” He shook his head. “How have you survived thus far?”

“A combination of good luck and being quick on my feet, I suspect,” Thomas answered, unrepentant. He was in a fine mood, and Ashe’s disapproval could not spoil it. He had won – they had won. The sun shone brightly outside the windows, the bright summer day beckoned, and for the very first time in his memory, Thomas had managed to win an argument against his father – truly win it, not just wrestle a pyrrhic victory from his gnarled hands. The feeling was indescribable, and he could not quite help the small spring in his step as he descended the stairs of Kensington Palace. He had won. Indeed, barring a catastrophic event, the future looked brighter than it had in several years, and he pictured with glee the looks on James’ and Miranda’s faces when he told them his news.

“It’s suicide,” James had argued. “You can’t -”

“Look – you said it yourself. The pardons work,” Thomas answered stubbornly. They were all still in Miranda’s room, sitting side by side on the bed, with James’ firmly sandwiched between the two Hamiltons as the one most in need of comfort at the moment. The morning had long since passed, and rays of late afternoon sunshine were now creeping in through the windows. The three of them had not budged since they had first come together, and Thomas found that he had no desire to do so.

James and Miranda looked so very different.

That alone would have been enough to substantiate their words, Thomas thought. It was not a physical change. Miranda still looked like the relatively young woman that she was, and James bore no more marks of age than he had the previous day. No – the change was in their eyes and in the way they held themselves. They were sitting on the bed, their legs either neatly tucked up under themselves or, in James’ case, stretched out. They had reluctantly pulled on their clothing some time since but left their shoes off, meaning that James’ bare foot was still in the vicinity of Thomas’ leg, and he still had not bothered to pull on a waistcoat – used, he said, to being at sea, where such things were not only unnecessary but entirely too warm. For all the vulnerability implied, though, Thomas’ two lovers were wound as tight as a pair of twine balls, visibly uncomfortable. Time had not been kind to them – that much was plain. He could see the difference in the line of James’ shoulders – tense, as if by habit, his hands twitching as if he had lost the ability or the luxury of simply sitting with nothing to do. It was in the way that he had grasped Miranda’s hand as if he could not quite believe that she was truly there as he told them both of the horrors that had occurred after her death in a reality that Thomas found himself struggling to imagine. It was in the understanding and even agreement in Miranda’s eyes as James had described what he had done in the wake of her murder – in the anger in both their gazes as they described the betrayal and ruin of everything they and Thomas had held dear. It was in the way they looked at Thomas himself even now, as if he might yet disappear if they allowed him out of their sight. The life they described was written on them, despite the lack of scars or other signs, and the fact that they had been so changed – that they had endured so much – sent a spike of fury running through him. His father had done this – his father and Peter Ashe and he himself in that other world where he had stolidly refused to see the light of reason, so blinded by his idealism. He was angry at himself quite as much as the other two, and that anger spurred him to action. He could not bring change to England and peace to Nassau through the means he had been attempting. That much was plain, but that did not mean it could not be accomplished. His father evidently had no scruples about doing harm to him or the ones he loved, and so a return on the favor was called for.

“Yes!” James answered, plainly exasperated. “The fucking pardons worked! In ten years time, when the war was over and your father nine years in the ground, not now! Not with him -”

“What if there were a way to neutralize him? A way to stop him from interfering at the same time as the pardons go through?”

“You wouldn’t,” Miranda breathed, and Thomas turned to her.

“I would, in a heartbeat.” Her eyes widened, and he sighed.

“James – Miranda – please. I haven’t sat here listening to you talk all morning only to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. You have suffered. You have lost everything you cared for, and it is down to my stupidity – my foolish belief that my father could be reasoned with. He can’t. I see that now, and if I have to act against him to ensure that you never endure such losses again, then I’ll do it. Let me do it.”

“No.” The hoarse croak came from James. “No. Thomas – I’ve been down the road you’re thinking of taking. You cannot -”

“James, what on Earth do you think I’m referring to?” Thomas asked, one eyebrow raised.

“You spoke of neutralizing your father,” James said flatly. “I can think of only one way to -”

Oh. Oh! It occurred to him quite suddenly what his sentence had led James to believe, and he shook his head.

“No! God, James – no,” he reassured him. “I spoke of neutralizing him, not killing him.”

James released a breath.

“Truly? You’re not planning on -?” he asked, and Thomas shook his head.

“No. What I have planned might not be kind, but it shouldn’t kill him. Theoretically.”

The expression on James’ face was a cross between relief and sudden, stricken realization.

“Oh,” he said, his voice oddly quiet. “That’s -” He looked shaken, all of a sudden, as if it had only just struck him what he thought Thomas had been planning. “God,” he murmured. “Thomas, I -”

“It’s alright,” Thomas assured him.

“It’s not alright,” James argued. “I swore -”

“You swore to let Captain Flint go, and from where I sit, you have,” Thomas said. “It’s not as if you were trying to encourage me, after all. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” James looked up at him, relief plain in his eyes along with self-recrimination, and Thomas once again cursed that other version of himself that had been so utterly, unforgivably selfish as to force James to become the man he was now trying so desperately to stuff back into the deep recesses of his soul.  He reached out, wrapping an arm around his lover’s shoulders in a comforting embrace, and saw James swallow hard, saw the moment that horror and frustration turned back to resolve.

“No. I wasn’t,” he said at length. He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “If not that – then what are you planning?” he asked, and Thomas grinned.

“You realize that your father will not take this lying down?”

Ashe was still at his elbow, descending the stairs at a slightly faster pace than was usual to keep up with Thomas’s longer stride.

“I know!” Thomas answered cheerfully, and Ashe gave a sound that was a mix between frustration and fear behind him.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“It’s already done!” Thomas all but sang. “It’s done, and there’s not a thing he can do about it. Let’s see him try to weasel his way out of this one!”  

“Thomas -” Ashe caught his arm. “What have you done?”

“I’ve ruined him.” Thomas answered.

It had been so simple, really. Too simple. It was amazing, Thomas found, what his father had left sitting in the wrong places – the number of people he had somehow failed to warn not to speak with his eldest son or daughter-in-law, had failed to warn about the rift that had opened between them in recent months. It had taken Miranda no more than a few days to locate a weakness in Alfred’s seemingly ironclad power structure and she had taken particular joy in working her way into that crack, tearing apart Alfred’s alliances with a single-minded viciousness that Thomas would not previously have suspected his wife of possessing. Indeed, she had seemed to revel in using what she claimed were badly rusted political skills, although to Thomas’ eyes it appeared those skills were very much sharpened and gleaming. Thomas still found himself marvelling at the ease of it all, even as they gathered the evidence that he had just presented to the Queen.

“Ruined?” Ashe’s voice came out in a sort of strangled squeak, and Thomas felt his hand falter in its grip. He turned to find the older man staring at him, a grey hue to his face all of a sudden, and Thomas sighed. He had not been looking forward to this moment, and here it was already.

“Oh, Peter,” he said, shaking his head. “You truly didn’t see it coming, did you?” Something flickered in Ashe’s eyes – fear, perhaps, followed by stunned realization.

“You knew,” he whispered, and Thomas nodded.

“Yes. You really should have picked your patron a bit better. I’m sorry it’s worked out like this.”

Truly, he was sorry. As of this moment, Peter Ashe’s only crime was to be in the way when Alfred Hamilton decided that he wanted an inside man spying on his son and daughter-in-law. And yet – and yet Thomas could not quite drive the look of anguish on James’ face out of his mind as he had spoken in a shaking voice of Miranda’s murder. Could not quite get the image of Miranda’s face as she spoke of his own death out of his head, and the combination had decided him. His father was a foregone conclusion, but if he was to truly dodge fate, he would have to remove Peter from the playing field as well. He was not, however, a monster.

“Listen, Peter,” he started, and Ashe began to back away.

“You knew all along!” he said, tone shading into hysteria now. “You knew, and you -!”

“Not all along,” Thomas answered. “I found out a week ago. If it’s any consolation, you had the wool pulled over my eyes rather well. You always were a good actor.”

Peter let out a bark of laughter.

“You’ve – I -” he started. “My wife. My daughter. You’ve -”

“I’ve saved your damn hide for their sakes,” Thomas snapped. “I don’t know what game you thought you were playing, Peter, but you had better be glad that I caught on now before anyone could get hurt, because mark my words, if anything had happened to James or Miranda -!”

Ashe stood, staring, and Thomas took a deep breath.

“You still have a chance to extricate yourself,” he said. “I’ve created an opportunity for you in the New World. If you take it, you might still be able to salvage your reputation once this is all finished.”

Ashe appeared as if he had been struck.

“The Carolinas?” he asked, and Thomas shook his head.

“No. I don’t trust you to show the kind of restraint necessary, and I’d rather not have you that far away. I’ve an uncle in Jamaica who is about to be in rather a lot of trouble. I’d like you to take his place. I think you might just be able to make a difference there.”

“Jamaica?” Ashe repeated.

“Yes. We’ll be neighbors of a sort,” Thomas said. He stepped away from Peter, now, and he watched the other man take a shaking breath.

“Jamaica,” he repeated, seeming to test the idea. “That’s -” He swallowed hard. “Well, it could be worse,” he said, and Thomas gave him a half-smile.

“Yes, it could.” He turned, and heard Ashe clear his throat behind him.

“Thomas – I’m sorry,” he offered. “I never intended – the Earl had me by the throat.”

“I know, Peter,” Thomas answered.

“Where are you going now?”

Thomas smiled, feeling the return of the giddiness that had taken him when he had first exited the Queen’s presence.

“It appears that I have a colony to run.”

So I’m making up for the abundance of suck-tastic folk in the world by posting some fic. At least, I hope it’s adding something nice to the world. Really, I just need to do something for someone today that doesn’t feel like I’m ramming my head into a brick wall and trying to be nice to people who really haven’t earned it. So, for my awesome fandom that’s so much better than these clowns at work – have some angry Miranda. Also the reunion you’ve been waiting for.

Chapter One  Chapter Two

To the Upper Air: Chapter Three: Thirteen O’Clock

She woke to the feeling of clean, white sheets and the warmth of another person in the bed with her.

At first, she lay still. The last thing she recalled was pain – a burst of it, white hot and blinding. She had been hit in the head, but by what? Whom? She did not recall, but the sensation had been singular, unforgettable. Now, though –

It was strange, she thought – the way that one person’s habits could become so familiar. Their tread. The way they laughed – coughed, the familiar off-key tune of their whistling. Their breathing.

Thomas shifted, and Miranda felt her heart skip a beat, her breath suddenly coming short. She did not open her eyes – she did not need to, not to recognize him. She had dreamt of this so often in Nassau – waking up to find Thomas returned to her by some magic, his familiar presence in her bed, his feet –

His freezing feet that she had never, ever dreamt about before. She flinched away from the sensation, and heard her husband snicker, the the sound taking her breath away once more.

“There’s no use in pretending to be asleep,” he said, voice laced with amusement. “Or are you determined to punish me with silence for my poor cold toes?”

“I could never bear to punish you,” she croaked, feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her mind had devised a new way to torture her now – by recreating the exact feeling of Thomas’ presence, the weight of him and the stroke of his skin against hers. Was there no end to the capacity of her memories to bring her pain?

“Miranda?” Thomas’ voice sounded worried, and oh, that was the final straw. She could not bear to make him anxious, not even in a dream. She took a deep breath. It was time to end this. She opened her eyes –

And then shut them again tightly.

“Miranda,” Thomas’ voice said again. “Are you quite alright?”

She cracked her eyes open a fraction and found Thomas’ concerned face looking back at her. He was sitting up in the bed, his blue eyes crinkling at the edges as he scrutinized her face. He reached out a hand to her face, and she gasped, her eyes opening wider as he moved his thumb up and down against her cheek and smiled.

“Good morning,” he said, and Miranda sat up sharply, dislodging Thomas’ hand. This – this was not her bed in Nassau. She could feel panic flutter in her stomach, and she looked around, her eyes darting first to the fireplace and then to the other furnishings in the room, before coming back to light on –

“Thomas?” she whispered.

“Well I should hope so,” Thomas responded. “Unless you’ve taken a lover besides James that you’ve not told me about!” His tone was teasing, but his blue eyes told a different story, concern at her disorientation mingling with confusion, and in any other circumstance, she would have done her level best to wipe that look off of his face – to do whatever was necessary to ease his mind, but at the moment, all she could do was stare, dumbstruck. She blinked, and then again, as if by doing so she would somehow wake from the dream she was quite obviously trapped in, but Thomas remained in front of her, and the room did not change around them. This – whatever it was, lucid dream, hallucination, vision – held her fast, and she felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise up within her, threatening to escape her lips. She was in London, in the house that she still thought of as her home in so many ways, and Thomas was lying there next to her, and suddenly she did not care whether she dreamt or hallucinated or was simply lost in her own memories, finally gone completely mad. She was there, and Thomas was there, and if she was to be able to dictate her own actions in this particular dream, then she was not going to waste a moment. With that thought, she flung herself forward, clasping her arms around her husband, her hands digging into his bare back, face buried in his shoulder, and she squeezed tightly, ignoring the small sound of surprise that escaped him. His skin was warm against hers, and for just one glorious moment, she allowed herself to believe that he was there – truly there beside her, not a phantom. She could feel him tense – felt the concern and confusion that radiated off of him, and she ignored it, embracing him tighter, unwilling to let go ever again.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “So sorry, Thomas. I failed – failed you -”

Thomas reared back, a frown gracing his features.

“Miranda – what on Earth are you talking about?”

She shook her head. She could not speak – could not articulate her betrayal, even now.

“I failed you,” she repeated. “Thomas – I -”

He shook his head.

“Miranda,” he repeated, and took her by the shoulders. “Darling – it’s alright. Whatever you think you’ve done -”

He did not know, she realized, looking at his blue eyes. There was concern there – concern, and love, and confusion, and why would her mind have conjured up Thomas if it was not also going to allow her the simple comfort of closure, whether it came through forgiveness or the recrimination she so deserved for her actions?

“I – I left you,” she confessed in a hoarse voice. “I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have listened – shouldn’t have convinced James.” She pulled away, tears still wetting her cheeks, and Thomas looked at her with no more comprehension than he had a moment before.

“I’m right here,” he said, a half-smile forming on his lips. “My love, I don’t know what you dreamt, but I promise you – I’m right here.” He kissed the top of her head, and she felt a shudder travel down her spine. This was wrong. This was all so terribly wrong. Thomas was long dead – buried or burned, depending on whether the Earl had seen fit to give his son a decent burial or allowed him to be handled as yet another suicide from Bedlam. He should not be here, holding her, smiling as if she had never abandoned him to that fate – as if nothing had changed. He should, at the very least, know why she was apologizing, and furthermore, why did he seem to believe that she had dreamt the entire decade of misery she had experienced? The sense of wrongness grew, and she closed her eyes, trying to retain some clawing hold on sanity. What was happening to her?

The knock that sounded on the door was almost a relief. Thomas released her, sitting up straighter.

“Yes?” he called.

“My lord – your messenger has returned.”

He frowned.

“Is there another part to that statement?”

“My lord – it seems that Lieutenant McGraw is not well. The messenger seems a bit… ruffled, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

“Ruffled?”

“He – ah – he claims the Lieutenant has gone mad, sir.”

Thomas sighed, and turned to Miranda, his eyes still worried.

“Darling – it sounds as though my attention is needed elsewhere. I don’t wish to leave you, but -”

“James needs you,” she finished, the familiar refrain tripping over her lips. “Go to him. I’ll – I’ll see you when you return.” Something in her twisted at the words. She wanted to hold fast to Thomas – never to let him out of her sight ever again, to rail and scream and refuse to let him go, to tell him that James was a grown adult and a stubborn, foolish one at that, but she could not find it in her even now to do so. James needed Thomas. It was a fact of life, and one that had never been quite so obvious as it was to her now in the wake of her conversation with James prior to dinner. She could not bear to keep them from each other, not even in dreams.

“You’re certain?” Thomas asked, his hands not yet removed from her shoulders, and she nodded. He stood, and she took the time to drink in the sight of him. He had always had a pleasantly firm rear end, she recalled, and no one had ever accused Thomas Hamilton of having anything but the finest of musculature, particularly in regards to his back. She watched him dress in silence, enjoying the view, and saw him toss an anxious look over his shoulder.

“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he promised. “I’m sorry to leave like this. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into James – he’s normally quite steady.” The worry in his voice brought a smile to her lips, slight, but there nonetheless. Her men had always been so very protective of one another. Really, it should not have come as any surprise that James fell apart when he failed in what he saw as his duty to safeguard Thomas. Idly, she wondered what might have happened had Thomas been put in James position and shelved it after only a moment. It did not bear contemplation. Her husband turned back toward her and wrapped one hand around the back of her neck, leaning down to kiss her, and she reveled in the sensation – in the warmth of his hand, in the taste and smell of him, and when he pulled away she could almost have sobbed at the loss.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, and she watched him go. He would not be back soon. He never was, and she always woke to find herself alone once again but oh – these moments when she found him in dreams were worth the heartbreak. She rolled over in the bed. If she closed her eyes, perhaps she could waken once again in a happier dream.

She woke in the same room.

For several moments, she was disoriented again, looking about the room wildly, but this time there was no Thomas, nor was there anything wildly out of place as there should have been if this had been one of the many dreams she had had where she wandered the house in search of him, never quite managing to find her way to the stairs. She found her way there now, shift brushing against her ankles as she descended the stairs, her fingers barely touching the smooth wooden banister. This should not be happening. She had woken from dreaming – woken from the pleasant fiction of Thomas’ presence, and yet she had not, for this house was undeniably the house she and Thomas had inhabited, right down to the last details. She knew the scent of the air, the feeling of the floors under her bare feet –

The ticking of the clock in the front hall.  The noise caught her attention, and her breath caught in her chest. The wretched clock, returned to its place, exactly where she and Thomas had left it. She felt anger well up within her, and she choked on it. The clock had returned and she –

What was she doing here? Had she been transported here somehow, brought back to London without waking for the entire six week trip? Or was her mind still playing tricks on her, still taunting her with the shadows of the life that had been so violently ripped away from her for good by the sight of that very clock? The thought only increased her rage, and she moved the rest of the way down the stairs almost without conscious volition. If she could not escape this waking dream, then she would not share it with that clock – with the reminder of all of her failures. She laid hands on the wretched thing, pulling with all her might.

“My lady? Lady Hamilton!” The servants’ voices barely registered in the back of her mind as she watched the clock begin to tip, and she stepped back, allowing it to fall forward even as the servants gasped and attempted to dart forward to save it. It was no use – they were all too far away, and the timepiece fell forward with an almighty crash, the bells within sounding a confused, deafening clangor as they hit the front of the clock. Glass smashed, flying up, and Miranda raised a hand, shielding her face from the shards. It was illogical – she never bled in dreams, and so it was doubly startling when she felt one of the shards hit her palm, slicing it open. She lowered her hand, letting out a gasp at the pain, and stared, shocked, at the red of her own blood beginning to well out of the wound.  She did not bleed in dreams – she knew, because she had dreamt of such injuries before. Never had one of them hurt, and the obvious conclusion that followed caused her heart to flutter in her chest, a strange lump rising in her throat. If she was not dreaming –

The servants were still staring in shocked silence at Miranda and the shattered clock.

“My lady,” one of them whispered, and she came back to herself with a jolt. “You’re bleeding,” the girl pointed out, and Miranda nodded. The pain and the blood confirmed what Thomas’ presence never could have, and she felt suddenly ill. She was not dreaming – not imagining any of this. The hall clock still lay, a ruined mess at her feet, and she –

She was standing in her own front hall, looking the part of the mad witch that James’ crew had accused her of being.

“I – I don’t know what came over me,” she murmured. “I -” She choked back a hysterical laugh. If she was truly here – truly returned to Albemarle Street – she looked down to the clock at her feet, feeling the bitter irony of it all hit her once again. Her actions would be taken as madness – it would be all too easy, and they would be right back to the same horrifying situation they had been in before, only this time she would be the one locked away in Bedlam, and while she perhaps deserved it for her crimes, her men did not. Thomas should never be forced to take on her role, and she would not, could not, force James to go through another such ordeal. No. There had to be a way to mitigate this – to make this –

She was being led upstairs, she realized. In her dazed state, she had not even felt the maid wrap her hand in a handkerchief.

“My lady -” the girl started, and Miranda turned to her, seeing her properly for the first time. It was not her faithful Mathilde, but Mary, one of the younger maids in the household. She was looking at Miranda now with undisguised concern, her hand holding Miranda’s up such that the blood from her injury did not touch her linen shift, keeping pressure on the wound. The bleeding had mostly ceased by this time, continuing only sluggishly, and Miranda spared a moment for the realization that the hand she had injured had none of the calluses she had developed in Nassau that would have better protected her from such an eventuality. She marvelled for a second at her own skin – the softness of it, as if she had never done a day’s work in her life, which indeed, if what she suspected were true, she had not.

“My lady,” Mary urged. “My lady – please. The doctor is on his way.”

“The doctor?” Miranda asked sharply, a spike of panic shooting through her.

“For your hand, my lady,” the girl answered, and Miranda shook her head.

“No,” she said. “It’s scarcely more than a scratch. Nothing to be worried about, certainly.” She looked back at the broken glass that littered the hall floor. “You may tell Lord Hamilton when he returns that if he wants to tell the time, then he will have to go out and buy a new clock. Some time away from the house will be good for his health.” She turned and stalked back up the stairs, leaving the servants to stare. She controlled the shaking of her hands until she reached her bedroom, the very picture of an angry noblewoman until the moment the door closed and the latch clicked. She sank down onto the chair in front of her vanity table, closing her eyes tightly.

She had to hope it would be enough. There were only two possible interpretations for her actions, and if she wished to avoid anyone coming to the conclusion that she had taken leave of her senses, she had to be seen to be blindingly angry. No one would question a noblewoman destroying property on a whim – no one, that was, except her husband, who would presumably be both hurt and confused when he returned to the house. It could not be helped, though, and she allowed herself a tiny, nearly inaudible sob at the thought. She was back. She was here, against all laws of time and physics, possibly against the natural order laid down by God, truly here, and why, oh why had she not realized it sooner, before her foolishness led to this? She would have to ignore him for days – refuse to see him, and it would be torture, because he was here, alive, and she wanted nothing more than to embrace him and never, ever let go again. Anger welled up in her again, and she allowed it to wash over her in full force, bringing tears to her eyes with the force of it. She was back in London – now, after she had finally realized the full scope of the betrayal that had been perpetrated against them. Now, after she had finally thrown aside civilization and everything that went with it, now that she had given up on the dream of taking up the life that had been stolen from her alongside James.

James. He would be here too, but not her James. Not the man that she had known for better than ten years, who had suffered the same privations, the same indignities. Not the man she had grieved alongside and loved despite his flaws, who had loved her when he had given up on all else. The thought was a fresh stab to the chest. There had been much about James Flint she had hated – his stubborn insistence on clinging to his rage, his intractability, his conviction that the world was out to destroy him, and just as she began to understand it – understand him – more fully than she ever had before, just as they had finally started to tear down the walls between them and truly work in tandem – he was gone.

“Miranda?”

Or perhaps not, at least not in the most literal sense. She turned, startled, at the sound of the voice at her door, at once familiar and welcome and heart-rending.  

“Go away!” The words were out of her mouth before she could recall them, childish and petty but utterly heartfelt. The irony of the situation was not lost on her even as she spoke the words, her voice only just barely held steady. She had spent ten years longing for a glimpse of Lieutenant McGraw within the hard shell of Flint, and now that he stood just a few feet away, she could not face him. She could not stand to see James’ face and find no sympathy, no empathy or understanding of her feelings right now – she simply could not. Scarce hours before she had had her world ripped away from her, and the shock –

“Miranda – I -” James started again, and Miranda felt a wave of anger wash over her. The shock was rapidly being replaced by burning, blinding hatred. She felt it travel through her, hot and terrifying in its strength, and she clenched her injured hand, feeling the burn of the cut on it, welcoming the sensation. She had felt anger before – had felt hatred, before, too, but this was different – wilder, somehow, less controlled or calculated than anything she had ever felt before. This – dear God, was this what James had felt when he had killed Alfred? When he had gotten into fight after needless fight? Was this what he had been carrying all this time?

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I am not in any mood for company” she started. She needed a moment to get this under control – to find a way to breathe through it, to put it away where it could not spill out and hurt someone. She needed to –

“Miranda – it’s me. Open the door.”

She froze. She could not have said what it was about James’ voice that had changed, but something in it had. It lacked something – something she could not quite put a finger on. The sharp edge of impatience or the teasing tone that might have colored his voice in the too-brief days they had spent in this house as young lovers was missing, somehow, replaced by –

She inhaled sharply, the anger that had flooded her veins only a moment before ebbing, still there but overtaken by sharp-edged longing.

“James?” she allowed the name to fall from her lips, a barely audible whisper.

“I owe you an apology, if you’ll hear it,” he said, and she felt her heart skip a beat.  She rose from the vanity, and opened the door to find him standing outside.

He looked like James McGraw or rather, he looked like a version of James McGraw that had been subjected to Thomas’ wandering hands on the way here and had not bothered to tidy himself after. His hair was slightly rumpled and only tied back hastily with a black ribbon. He was not wearing a neckcloth, and his uniform coat looked as if it had been thrown on at the last minute, hanging oddly where the lines had not been adjusted properly. His stubble-covered jaw completed the unkempt look, but his eyes were the true clue. He looked at her as if he had not seen her in an age, and she could not stop herself from inhaling sharply, her hand reaching out of its own volition to touch his face.

“James?” she questioned again, and the corner of his mouth turned upward.

“Hello,” he answered, and she stood, looking at him with something akin to wonder.

“Hello,” she repeated, and then, without ceremony, she flung herself forward, catching him between her outstretched arms and wrapping him in a fierce hug. She felt his arms wrap around her in return, and the force of his embrace nearly knocked the wind out of her even as she heard him give a huff of breath at the strength of hers.

“Miranda,” he breathed. “Thank God. I – ” He stopped. “I’ve missed you,” he said roughly and she tightened her grip on his back.

“I’m sorry, James,” she choked. She could feel tears running down her cheeks, and was almost surprised to find that the same was true of him. “So sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he answered. “If I’d listened earlier -”

“I had no right to ask,” she choked. “No right. I should have realized -”

“You had every right,” he interrupted. “Christ, Miranda, I -” He raked a hand through his hair, and then over his face, grimacing when he remembered that he no longer had a beard to stroke. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, and she nodded, understanding. He had apologized once before, in the front pages of a book that she had never gotten to read, but it was good to hear it from him out loud.

“It’s behind us,” she answered, feeling it settle in for the first time, and she looked around her at the house – at the room she stood in, and finally, at James himself.

“If you need a moment -” James started to offer, and she shook her head.

“No,” she answered, and could not quite help the small grin that started at the corners of her mouth. “No,” she repeated, and then snorted. “My God, James,” she murmured, “what wild creature savaged you on your way here?” He snorted.

“Thomas said the same,” he answered, and Miranda started. Of course. Thomas had gone to see to James, which meant he could not help but be close behind, and she was meant to be furious at him.

“Thomas,” she breathed. “I had forgotten! James – he can’t -”

“Tell me,” said the voice of the man in question. “Is there a reason that I’m climbing onto my own balcony, or have you both decided to play an elaborate joke?”

Miranda turned, and found Thomas standing not far away. The look on his face was distinctly disgruntled, and there was a streak of what appeared to be white paint on the corner of his waistcoat. He had shucked off his coat, presumably leaving it in whichever room he had come from, and his blond hair was wind-tousled, giving further evidence that he had come from outside the room, having climbed out a window and made his way along the ledge to reach Miranda’s balcony.

“Thomas. You said you would wait,” James said reprovingly, and Thomas made a face.

“No – I said that I would give you time to talk to Miranda and be along shortly. It was more of a challenge than I expected,” he said ruefully, holding up paint-smudged, somewhat scraped hands. “I thought that as you seemed determined to put the servants off by acting as if we were arguing it might be best to play along until – why are you both looking at me like that?”

“I’d forgotten how clever you were,” James said wryly, and Miranda could not help but agree. Thomas frowned, visibly affronted.

“I’ve hardly uttered the wisdom of Solomon,” he protested. “And I’ll thank you to stop speaking of me in the past tense. What on Earth is going on?”  

Miranda turned back to James, who had the good grace to look slightly ashamed of himself.

“You haven’t told him, then,” she said, and James winced.

“I didn’t know where to start,” he confessed, and she sighed. Without another word, she walked over to Thomas.

“Thomas,” she said, and stopped, eyes scanning her husband’s face, mouth suddenly gone dry. She shook her head and, reaching up, gently placed both hands on Thomas’ chest. She pressed her lips together, firmly forbidding them from engaging in other activities no matter how badly she wanted to kiss her husband and never, ever cease doing so ever again. “We have a great deal to explain and I think you had best be sitting down when you hear it.”

for your birthday good wishes, your comments, your reblogs, and your likes yesterday!  I have to say it – I love my fandom! You’re all so incredibly nice. I also got a ton of writing done yesterday as a result, so I think you guys/gals/friends/Romans/countrymen have earned this:

To the Upper Air: Chapter Two (or, the other half of Chapter One):

The world ground to a halt.

“I -” he started, and then stopped, his lungs abruptly and recalcitrantly refusing to function.

Thomas stood, one arm holding him up against the doorframe, and he straightened as James opened the door, flashing him a grin.

“There you are!” he said. “I was beginning to worry you’d gone back to bed!”

James stood still, his hand still on the door latch, attempting to get his breath back. He’d forgotten the exact shade of Thomas’ eyes, he realized – blue-grey in this light, the mirth in them tinged with worry. His blond hair, too, James had painted in his mind as subtly different in shade, and James found himself staring at it, attempting to memorize the color anew, along with the shape of Thomas’ face and the length of his fingers and a hundred other seemingly inconsequential details that made up the man that James had spent the past eleven years grieving. He was here. He was really, truly alive, and James was speechless at the sight of him.

“James?” Thomas asked again, his brow creased by a frown. “What’s the matter? You look a little – well, you look bloody awful, actually.”

James closed his mouth, suddenly aware that he was staring.

“Thomas,” he croaked, and Thomas sighed.

“That’s exactly what Miranda said,” he answered. “I’d barely finished asking her why she was looking at me like I was a ghost when my messenger returned and told me you’d gone mad and accosted him. And now you’re looking at me the same way! What on Earth is the matter?”

James shook his head.

“Nothing,” he answered, almost choking on the word. Nothing was wrong – nothing could possibly be wrong when Thomas was here and alive and Miranda was waiting for them and James himself was here, returned somehow to this time to live his life over again, free to be the person he thought he had buried the day Miranda died.

Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“Truly?” he asked. “Nothing that’s turned you as white as a sheet and caused Miranda to all but faint at the sight of me? James -” He reached forward, his hand coming up to wrap around the back of James’ neck, and James could not quite stop himself from inhaling sharply at the contact – the feeling of Thomas touching him for the first time in over a decade.

“That is not nothing,” Thomas said decisively. “James, for God’s sake – you can tell me, whatever it is, you know that.”

James stared helplessly. He had opened the door intending to tell Thomas everything – to explain and beg his forgiveness on bended knee, but at this exact moment, he could not go another second without touching Thomas – could not pretend for one more moment that it had not been a decade and longer since he had last laid eyes on Thomas’ face, that he was not absolutely, desperately glad to see him, or that he did not have the urgent desire to kiss him senseless.

“Thomas -” he started, and then took a deep breath and, without further ado, he reached out and drew Thomas into the room behind him, his hands reaching for his lover almost of their own volition, his lips crashing into Thomas’ lips even as the door closed behind them, kissing him as if he might just possibly disappear if James let go. Thomas let out a noise – surprise, James realized, his hands clutching at James’ shoulders, and he returned the kiss, shock changing to desire. He moved one hand upward to touch James’ jaw, and James let out a muffled gasp at the sensation, unused to the feeling of anything touching the sensitive skin there after so long. He ran his fingers through Thomas’ hair in response, fingers carding through the soft yellow locks, knocking both wig and hat to the ground, and he smiled, unable to hold in his joy at being able to touch and smell and taste Thomas again. When he pulled back finally, they were both panting. Thomas’ lips curved upward in a smile, and he gave a small huff of laughter.

“James – God’s bones, I know it’s been a week, but -” he started, and James shook his head.

“It’s been a lot longer than that,” he answered, voice still ragged with emotion.

Thomas grinned wider.

“I know,” he said. “It felt as if -”

James shook his head again.

“No,” he said roughly. “I mean – for me, it’s been -”

Thomas frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“I – ” James started, and then stopped. He was going to sound utterly insane. There was simply no way of explaining this – not without sounding as if he had been knocked on the head rather too hard, and he found himself suddenly wishing for Miranda. She would know what to say – how to explain what was happening, or at least how to calm him such that he could think his own way through it. Speaking of whom –

His hands tightened on Thomas’ shoulders, and he took a deep breath.

“You said Miranda was acting oddly this morning,” he said. Was it possible -?

“Yes,” Thomas said. “You both are.”

“How odd?” he asked, and Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“Very,” he emphasized. “I don’t think I’ve been so enthusiastically hugged in my entire life. She seemed to think she had failed me somehow, although I’ve no idea how she possibly could have. And -” He hesitated. “She seemed -”

“As if she didn’t know where she was – when she was?” James finished, and Thomas nodded.

“Yes. I scarcely wanted to leave her, but then the messenger returned and I came as quickly as I could since you’re alone and Miranda has the servants to look after her. James, what on Earth is going on?”

That settled it, and he felt relief wash over him. He was not alone. Whatever miracle had occurred to land him here, in his younger body, it had evidently happened to Miranda as well, which meant –

“I need to speak with her,” James said. “I need to – “ He sat down and dragged a hand over his face. “I need to go and apologize.”

“Apologize for what?”

James shook his head.

“All of it. What I did. What I didn’t do.”

Miranda was back. She was back in time the same as he was, and if he knew her, she would already be working to avoid the catastrophe that was rapidly barrelling their way as soon as she regained her balance after such a rude awakening. She was also alone in the house in Albemarle Street. The thought was – well, it did not bear thinking about. She should not be alone – not now, not ever again if he could help it. Dear God – if she was half as startled and frightened as he had been -!

“James -” Thomas had grabbed hold of his shoulders, and was now looking into his face with the utmost concern. He shook him gently. “James, what are you talking about?”

“I need to speak to Miranda. Now,” he answered, standing again, and Thomas shook his head.

“No. You’re not going anywhere until you explain what you meant by – James!”

The shout followed him as he hurried away and out the door, and Thomas followed behind him, cursing softly.

“You can’t go out in the street like this. You’re not even wearing a hat. James!”

“I’ll explain everything on the way,” James shouted back over his shoulder, heading for the street. He took the stairs of the lodging house at an alarming pace, garnering a disapproving look from Mrs. Pritchard on his way out the door, and he stopped cold at the sight of the street in front of him. It had not truly hit him before now that he was truly back in London, but the sight of bustling hackney carriages and people bundled up to their ears reminded him, as did the buildings, taller than most in Nassau. There was no denying it – this was England, and James stood, looking up and down the street, a wave of nostalgia washing over him mingled with equal parts sadness and anger at the sight. He had sworn never to set foot here again, and yet here he was, standing on a London street, wearing Navy whites for all the world as if he still belonged here, and some (treacherous, utterly foolish) part of him could not help but feel that he still did.

“Thank goodness.”

Thomas had caught up to him, breathing hard as he tried to catch his breath, and James turned to face him, shelving his contemplation of his place in this new (old) world for later. His lover had, it seemed, stopped to pick up a few items on his way out of James’ quarters, including James’ uniform coat and hat, which he thrust toward his lover.

“For heaven’s sake, finish getting dressed first!” Thomas panted, and James rolled his eyes. He took the items, shrugging the coat on haphazardly and reluctantly putting the hat on his head. It felt odd, like so much else about this day, and he quietly resolved to find a way to lose the silly thing before the day was out. Now he knew what Thomas had meant about the wig.

“Honestly – I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Thomas said. “What ever happened to ‘Thomas for the love of God put some clothes on’ when I dared to go out without a neckcloth?” he asked, clearly perplexed. “Speaking of which – you realize you’re not wearing one? I mean – look at you! Your hair’s a mess, you’re just barely in your shirtsleeves – are you even wearing your boots on the right feet?”

James looked down, vaguely surprised that somewhere in his rush to get dressed he had in fact thought to pull his boots on. They pinched, he realized, and for a moment he had to consider Thomas’ question seriously.

“Probably,” he answered. The pair looked new – new enough to still be uncomfortable, at any rate. Thomas rolled his eyes heavenward as if to ask for help from the Almighty.

“You’re going to freeze to death if you go on like this!” he scolded.

“Hardly,” James answered with a snort. “It’s – “

He looked around. What month was it, anyway?

“June,” he guessed finally, and Thomas’ frown deepened. Fuck. Not June, then.

“James -” he started, and James could not help but laugh at the confused, concerned look on his face. He had forgotten that look – the one that Thomas wore but rarely, when one or the other of his lovers had done something alarming – usually Miranda, but James had earned it once or twice. Or hadn’t. Perhaps this was the first time? The thought was an odd one and he suddenly realized that they could have a great many firsts in front of them still – a very large number of them, if he just played his cards right.

“James -” Thomas said slowly, “this is May. Surely you recall that much?”

“I’m fine,” he reassured, and it was Thomas’ turn to give him a deeply skeptical expression.

“No, you are not,” he said. “James – please. At least let me do something with your hair?”

By this time, Thomas’ carriage had pulled up, and James climbed inside, shortly followed by Thomas, who promptly plucked the hat off of his head.

“I thought you wanted me to wear more clothing,” James teased, and Thomas huffed.

“I want you to explain what the blazes is going on while I attempt to make it look less as if an errant bird has attempted to make its nest atop your head,” he answered. “You look like a haystack – an unshaven one, at that!” He pulled a comb from an inside pocket of his jacket and began attempting to fix James’ still bed-rumpled hair, leaning forward at an awkward angle to reach James’ head, which he bowed obediently to allow Thomas better access.

“Now,” Thomas said, “perhaps you’d like to explain why you saw fit to run into the street half-dressed?”

“You’re lucky I got that far,” James answered, and Thomas stopped grooming him for a moment, fixing him with an exasperated expression.

“Unless you’re going to explain -” he started, and James sighed.

“Very well,” he answered. He blew out a sigh and then raked a hand over his hair, mussing it again. Thomas made a sound that might have been aggravation or simple resignation but said nothing, waiting for James to speak. He cast about for where to start, and once again came up with a blank. How was he meant to start this discussion?

“I -” he started, and then shook his head. “Miranda should explain it.” Miranda would be much better at this, he thought. She would know where to start, at least, whereas James hardly knew how to begin to make himself sound less insane.

“James, if you don’t tell me what is going on this instant, I’ll -” Thomas started, and then deflated. “Well, I’ll still love you very much although I’ll be extremely cross,” he finished, and James could not help the laugh that made its way out of him. He had forgotten, too, what Thomas’ perplexed expression looked like – how very silly it was, and he grinned.

“God I love you.” The words were out of his mouth almost before he knew it, escaping his lips, and he firmly squashed the part of himself that wanted to apologize or try to cover them with more words. He had held back the last time – too afraid of being overheard, afraid of giving too much away – afraid of so many things. In the wake of Thomas’ death, he had wondered if he had been somehow to blame – if perhaps Thomas had not understood how much James loved him, had not understood that James would have come for him, given enough time. He did not intend to make the same mistakes this time – not with Thomas or Miranda.

“James -” Thomas was staring at him, a stunned expression on his face, and James grinned at him, unrepentant.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Thomas answered, and this time it was his turn to grin, wide and brilliant. He leaned forward, and James felt his stomach do a flip as Thomas kissed him, long and slow and unhurried, his tongue doing things that James had missed so very badly, and he only barely squashed the moan that tried to make its way out of him. He moved forward, attempting to bring his hands up to Thomas’ back, attempted to return the kiss – and Thomas pulled back, smiling in a satisfied manner.

“I love you as well,” he answered. “And I shall do that again when you have told me what you meant when you said you needed to apologize to Miranda.”

His lover had never been cruel, James recalled, but he had always known how to get what he wanted.

“There’s no chance of convincing you to drop this, I suppose?” he asked, and Thomas shook his head.

“No,” he answered, and James sighed.

“It’s -”

The carriage jolted, the horses coming to a halt with a clatter of hooves, and he realized that they had arrived at the Hamiltons’ mansion.

“Milord!” The cry came from a servant who had been posted at the gate. “Milord – thank God you’ve returned.”

Thomas rose and exited the carriage hurriedly, a worried expression on his face, with James not far behind him. One of the porters – the Cornish one, if James recalled correctly – retrieved James’ hat and handed it to him, and he spared a moment to curse the failure of his first attempt at losing the damned thing.

“Davies – what’s the problem?” he demanded, ignoring Thomas’ confused expression at being skipped in the chain of command.

“Lieutenant – welcome back, sir. I hope -” The head butler began, and James frowned.

“Davies!” he reminded sharply, and the butler flushed.

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “Milord – it’s Lady Hamilton. She’s – she’s not well, sir.”

“Where is she?” James asked, and the man gave him a look that was halfway between disapproval and surprise.

“Forgive me, Lieutenant, but -”

“It’s alright,” Thomas interrupted. “You’ll have to forgive the Lieutenant. He’s feeling a bit forceful today. Tell us what’s happened.”

“It’s Lady Hamilton. She’s behaving- oddly, milord. It started shortly after you left.”

They had entered the house by this time. James stood in the foyer, looking with new eyes on the home he had not seen in over a decade. It was quiet, he realized- almost too quiet, and with a start he realized the reason.

“Davies,” he asked, interrupting the butler’s conversation with Thomas, “where is the clock that normally sits in this room?”

Davies winced.

“”Lady Hamilton smashed it, sir,” he reported. “She came down the stairs and – forgive me my lord, it happened so quickly-”

James felt something twist inside him at the words. There was no mystery, then, as to how much of their other lives Miranda remembered.

“Take me to her,” he ordered, his voice gone rough with emotion. “Now.”