Her

(Spoiler from season 3 episode 9)

''There is no goodness in you''

I had come to accept the fact that I was about to hear Eleanor Guthrie for the last time, and everything outside of that dark cell we were both in, seemed to stop existing. I listened attentively to every single one of her words, and I took it all in, burned it like fire somewhere inside me, so I would always remember those raw, naked words she spilled. For once, she didn't lie or covered her message with tricks to get what she wanted, like she had done so many times before. There was nothing she wanted from me now, only to hurt me possibly, but what was the point of that, when I was merely days away from the gallows? Her ultimate revenge against me was just around the corner, so there was no need to take anything from me. According to what I was hearing, it seemed there was nothing in me she could ever want again anyway.

''There is no humanity in you''

I didn't deny her accusations, because I knew her enough to be sure, there was nothing I could say to make her change her mind, she was stubborn that way. While she calmly told me exactly what she thought of me, I merely stayed silent and let her speak. She vividly described a monster, a creature so devoid of affection, it had never had a chance to understand true love, and was now too lost in his own darkness, to ever come back to the light. She described a vision of me so evil, I could tell a small part of her had probably always thought of me that way, and for once, her words were true, powerful, and with an edge so sharp, it seemed to cut through me like a knife.

''You are an animal''

I guessed I deserved her words, in some way, for I had done many things in the past to be considered merciless, and most of them, I would never apologize for. Like her father's death by my hand. She couldn't see it now, probably never would, but I had eliminated someone who had double crossed her, who would have done so again if it fit his interests, and who had never had her back in all her life.

And yet she hated me for it.

She hated me for taking away her chance of a reconciliation that was never bound to happen. But that was the thing about Eleanor: she was weak to those who offered her nothing, and viciously cruel to the honest ones who she knew were at the palm of her hand. Even though I had never been a servant to her, shamefully I had answered her calling each and every time, and come to her as a fighter, a partner or a lover. Anything she needed. For all those times I had protected her, killed enemies in her name, moved strings so she could get whatever it was she wanted, I had gotten nothing in return. Not even the one thing I had always sought for almost 8 years: her heart, which I had come to realize, was black as coal.

I saw a monster in her, very similar to the one she saw in me, but the difference was, I didn't hate her for it. I understood it made her who she was, even thought to her, my unshackable resolve to accept her flaws, was never quite enough.

With one last look at my hunched up form in chains, she said her very last words, and walked away from me:

''Nassau is moving on from you, and so am I''

She couldn't have made her message clearer or angrier, even if she had yelled at me. I think she meant to make me loose all hope, to realize that I was about to be executed for nothing. She wanted me to realize that all my efforts to bring down the new regime in Nassau were fruitless, and that I had thrown all away just to rot in the very place I had called home.

But not just Nassau would forget me, she had said. I would be forgotten by her too, and I found myself surprised to notice the realization…hurt. It hurt in a way it hadn't hurt in a long time. Not one of the blows she had delivered to my face could compare to the pain in my chest upon hearing her words, a pain I hadn't felt in years, and was waking up inside me with full force.

I could have let her go before our confrontation, before I told her anything about her father's death, about how he had betrayed her in the end. I could have taken that secret with me to the grave, and let her keep her foolish fantasy of losing a father who had truly loved her. I could have kept my mouth shut and let her walk away. Maybe I had wanted to think my Eleanor was smarter than that, maybe I had wanted her to be with me a little longer, or maybe I had just been eager to hurt her too.

For whatever reason, I stopped her from leaving, and as I was saying those things, I realized I had secretly wanted this, had craved for this confrontation between us, the one that should have come long ago, and we had managed to avoid. Now it had passed, just like a wild storm, and the quiet of the sea was all around me.

I had lost her. I had lost the one thing I had never been allowed to call my own… but I hadn't lost something as equally important to me, something that seemed impossible, but in my mind could still be salvageable. As I was left alone again, I decided her words weren't true. Not all was lost, I and I had just the right amount of time to think about my next course of action.

It didn't take too long for my time to be over, and on my last day on earth, I was visited by a shepherd. He handed me a loaf of bread as my last meal, and silently sat in front of me in that damp cell. The bible in his hand seemed worn out and modest, and yet the big golden cross in the cover made his visit all too obvious. But I have led a life of sin long enough to know, there really was no point in being surprised to find myself in an ending such as this: minutes away to be executed like a wild animal. I've always been familiar with the risk of carrying a pirate's life, and this ending had always been in sight.

I knew my fate, and yet the shepherd spoke anyway, in a clear and gentle voice, maybe because that was what his role demanded: to be merciful with dead men. Or maybe he was just looking to fill the silence. He told me there was no road back from where I was going, told me what to expect, and if I wanted some measure of peace in the end, I should use the time I was given to reflect and repent for my sins.

Fuck him.

I had no desire to pour my soul to someone who for whatever reason believed himself to be in a higher place than us ''common people''. Someone who had been led to think he held some sort of divine power in his hands, to allow him to pass judgment upon those in chains. Someone who probably thought he was as close to god as a human could ever get…and yet, he was nothing but a man to me, led by emotions I could see so clearly on his face. He tried to hide it, but I saw.

What right did he have to know my sins, when he found enjoyment from my imprisonment and future execution? He didn't imply anything of the sort, but he didn't have to, his eyes were honest enough. Without any words, I knew what he felt: hate, disgust, fear, but probably most of all, curiosity. The noble shepherd wanted to know if the vicious and cruel Charles Vane could find a glimpse of humanity inside him, just enough at least, to repent.

We both knew I was no saint, and my name was powerful enough to instill fear in the hearts of men I had never even met. I had eliminated anyone who crossed me, killed the ones who thought could surpass me, and destroyed anything on my way to what I wanted. I had left many scars trough the years, both on me and on everybody else I had come across, and yet I've always known someday I would answer for my crimes.

Just not to him. Not to a shepherd in a forgotten cell down in the ground. To this man, I was the lowest of scum, the trash about to be thrown away, and a killer about to get what I deserved. I didn't feel like explaining my reasons to someone who had submitted gladly under a tyranny. But most of all, I refused to confess anything to someone who had been lucky enough to go through life without having the need to taint his hands with blood. Someone so different from me.

''Whatever remorse I have or do not have, is my own, and I chose not to share it with you''.

I had never had any respect for religion, but if there was such a thing as a creator, then I would answer solely to Him in death or to no one at all. There was no god in front of me, or anywhere in that cell for that matter, only a man eager to pass judgment, but I wasn't planning on giving him the satisfaction to feel superior in any way. I was alone, my sins would go unheard, and I preferred it that way.

So without confessing, or even touching a crumb of my last meal, I was led outside, to the angry mob waiting for me to be killed right in front of their eyes.

I was the spectacle that day, the show everybody had been expecting and claiming loudly on the streets. I felt the garbage being thrown over the cart, saw many faces in angry scowls and heard countless yelling I couldn't even understand over the noise. The guards made a parade out of my exit, as if there was no hurry in my execution, no need to speed anything up, because they already had me right where they wanted me: chained up like the animal everybody thought I was.

Through the eyes of England, I realized I had become the embodiment of all that was wrong with Nassau. I represented thieves, and killers, and rapists and traitors to the crown, those noble English soldiers hated so very much, and children had nightmares about. Led around in chains, I carried over my shoulders all the weight of Nassau's crimes, as if I had been responsible for it all. Nassau, my town, my home, was giving the totality of its crimes to me. Even to those same thieves, and killers and rapists and traitors, I was evil, a wrong that should be corrected with death. Those men who had sworn to protect the island along my side, but had casted their oaths aside for mere pardons, cheered madly when an officer of the law put the noose around my neck.

Maybe I should have protested, or cared, I could even have stalled for enough time to help Billy and his crew find a way to rescue me, but I wasn't interested in defending myself, I wasn't interested in getting saved, and I didn't mind if my reputation followed me where I was going. If those men were eager to be freed from their past crimes, then I would shoulder it all, take responsibility for the pain and the tragedy that this place was build upon, and I would become the very thing they needed to finally wake up and fight: a sacrifice.

I had thought my last words would be for Eleanor, for the woman who had ruined me, but the truth is I had no actual words for her, only messed up thoughts. There were many things I wanted to convey, but not now, not to her. Whatever it was that wanted to pour out of me, was not for Eleanor…it was for Nassau.

The spark of freedom in the hearts of men and women, who had lived free until this day, was diminished, lost in the darkness of the tyranny, and bruised…but not gone, never gone. I had been in this place long enough to know, no one could take that away from us, not even from me in my last moments. The spark was just waiting to be lit up by something powerful enough to start a fire to consume the whole island, and I just had to find the right words for that to happen.

So I spoke:

''They brought me here today to show you death, and use it to frighten you. But know this: we are many, they are few''

I had never spoken more truthfully in all my life, and I realized, that there was still so much fight left in my body. With every part of me I wanted to live, so I could keep fighting for the freedom this place deserved, for everything so many of us had given our lives for. I wanted to keep moving forward…but it wasn't my fight anymore. It was theirs. I would just be the explosion needed to start it all.

''To fear death is a choice…and they can't hang us all''

There was quiet in the square now, when just a few minutes ago, it had been chaos. Now everybody stared silently, doubtful and thinking. Thinking about what my words could mean to each one of them, and suddenly I had nothing more to say. I wasn't sure what was awaiting me on the other side, but I hoped to get a front row seat to see that spark unfold, and become the greatest fire Nassau had ever seen.

I thought I was ready to go, or as ready as I would ever get at least, when I turned my head to the side, and caught a glimpse of bright golden hair in the wind, unmistakable to me. She was almost hidden in the crowd, but I found her easily, like I always had, and our stares met halfway to each other, as if we both just knew. Time froze, and there was only us.

Eleanor.

She looked just as beautiful as the day I had met her years ago on this very island. She had been only seventeen then, a maiden who seemed so innocent…but with a deadly mind and feminine charms. She had bewitched me, had said and done all the right things, and foolishly I had given her my heart.

Over the years, several times I thought I had moved on from Eleanor Guthrie, only to be led back again to her claws…and fuck was I stupid, but I enjoyed every single one of those times. She was fire, and rage, and passion, all contained in a pretty little vessel I had wanted to call my own. With her, I had found my match, someone who was just as ruthless and fearless as me, and if I had realized earlier that I would never be able to handle someone as cunning as her, I would have saved myself so much.

But I hadn't known then, and now we were here, each on different sides of a war about to be fought…and I was still insanely, foolishly, madly in love with her, and why wouldn't I be? She had never given me back my heart.

I wondered to myself, as I stared into her green eyes, what did she see in that moment in me? A criminal, a personal vendetta, a way to secure Nassau's future, or a man she could come to miss at least a little?

I had been numerous things in this life: a slave, a pirate, a killer, a protector, and probably many more I can't even name. If I had to decide which of those roles fit me best, I don't know what I would say, because nobody knows me all that well, not even myself. The truth is that I was just a man who lived by his own set of rules. Sometimes the world thought of me as a guardian, sometimes as a murderer, but I had never changed my ways to please someone else.

Except for her.

For her I had done it all, had became all the characters in a story she could ever need, and she can never say I wasn't useful. When she was in need of a pirate, I became the most ruthless one of all. When she needed a partner in crime, I went ahead and killed a whole crew in her name. Even when she required a hero, I had tried my best, but never been able to meet her mark, and that was her own damn fault.

Even after all these years, I knew she still craved for a hero to sweep her off her feet. A morally righteous man, who would stand by her side and help her achieve her dreams. She had wanted a hero so desperately, a noble figure without blood on his hands, but had failed to see those kind of men didn't fit in our world. They were eaten alive, before they could manage to live. I was the horrid reminder of her shattered fantasies, of ever being able to find that person she was looking for, and I suppose part of her hated me for that too.

I guessed she had found some semblance of that hero in the new governor, had made herself a nice little home in his bed, or at least I had heard as much, and the fact didn't surprise me at all. She could identify better than anyone who held true power, the greatest influence, and she knew just how to get close to that person, long enough to make herself necessary in his life. I had been on the receiving end of one of her manipulative plans a long time ago, and I knew just how hard and fast she could make a man fall.

She was cruel, and coldblooded, and I didn't care if she could never admit it to herself, but she was a damn good pirate, just as much as me, and I guess that is why we just…fit.

She had loved me, intensely and shortly, but she had loved me, and for a long time, she had tried to avoid those feelings, because it would mean letting me in, and no one was allowed inside Eleanor Guthrie's heart. She knew if she ever let her guard down, she would find in me exactly what she was looking for to be happy. And in her mind, that made her weak, so she tried her best to make herself as hard as stone. Her rule over Nassau, always came first, and she saw no problem in getting rid of anyone who stood in her way. Like myself.

Truthfully, I'm not really that surprised that she would let me end like this, that she would let me die alone. Standing now, with a rope around my neck, a shaky platform about to disappear under my feet, and the stare of Eleanor Guthrie over me, I know I should be furious. I should be demanding her head on a pique, I should be seeing red in front of my eyes, and wishing her the most cruel way to die. I should have those kinds of thoughts about her, not my sad-love-story shit, which would only show her just how much she can affect me still.

I should hate her guts…and yet I don't, and I am not interested in figuring out why. After all this time, after all we have been through, and after this, I can still find a place for her in my mind. My thoughts, although she will never know, are only for her.

So I look at Eleanor, drive my eyes right into her soul, so she knows… so she knows it will be the last time. I won't look at her again after this day, I won't find her eyes in the crowd, I won't seek her anymore, and I won't be there to pick up the pieces when everything falls around her. When that happens, when everything she helped built burns to the ground, and all is lost, I won't go to her side and fight her battles. I won't be there at all.

I don't have anything to say she doesn't already know, so my last words are not for her. I look at Eleanor; really look at her for one last time…

And then I fade.

Hey, it's my first time writing in first person about a character as profound, dark and complex as Charles Vane, and I enjoyed the challenge so much. I just hope you think I did it right :) When I think I'm beginning to understand him, I realize something new about this character, and I have to analyze him again, so it was a long process writing this story, but at the same time so interesting, and I hope to write another story about him in the future.

I appreciate any comments you can leave to the story, wheter they are positive or negative (always respectful please) Thank you!

PD: The dialogues are the exact ones from the series.