She was made used to being the only girl around from a young age and it did little to ever sway her. She was a small thing but could carry her own weight aboard a ship, where she spent the majority of her young life. Her father was a Captain and having no mother and no intention to stay ashore with a governess of any sort, her home became the ocean. She was a wild thing from birth, never combing her wild dark curls and never bothering to dress as fairly as was likely proper. But her father was a kind man who loved his only kin dearly, and he rarely had it within his heart to punish her or even impose strict rules upon her.
And so a sailor she became, and earned the respect of nearly every man who knew her name. Raised by a crew of men who went to no great lengths to assist her in much, the girl knew well how to fend for herself. She could cook, if badly, clean her own clothes and turn over her cot. She'd taken her time watching the men and engaging a few until she could hold her own with a sword, and had even wrangled the occasional lesson from her father on navigating. Through the years she earned her place aboard the ranks of the crew, and she knew it well.
Her father's crew came to care for her—all doting brothers who she loved equally. It was her patchwork family. And as she grew they became more and more protective of her. She was beautiful and she knew it, body thin and toned, eyes bright and sharp—she had no qualms using what she had to break hearts in every port they set anchor in. She loved nothing more than leaving the catcalls and whistles ignored as they should've been, finding the most reserved man in the bar and relishing in the jealous eyes that followed them the rest of the night as they shared a drink.
Her father, on the other hand, did not approve. He thought her behavior to be dangerous.
"Not'll men are the crew, sweet rose. Ye must be careful in port."
She knew she was tailed by a sailor in every port and she tried not to let the lack of trust in her, the lack of belief that she could beat the ass of any man who looked at her wrong, brush off her back. It was harder than most things were for her.
And then, she fell in love.
He was a handsome man, tall and dark, with eyes like an ocean-kissed beach and hair dark as midnight. He joined her father's crew in a port off of Hampshire—younger, fitter men were always welcome aboard the ship—and from first glance, despite how much she hated him and herself for it… something in his eyes clicked with something in her gut and she knew that he was the one.
They both fought it. She hated his stupid sideways smirk, always so inconveniently distracting her from whatever her current task. When she told him such (in far less words) he told her he couldn't focus on his bloody chores with her buggering eyes on his back. To which she responded with language that likely made her mother turn over in her grave, which certainly made his jaw drop before he covered it with that damn smirk and informed her he quite liked women with a tongue on them.
It was all downhill from there, really. She kissed him first, on her birthday. Despite what she would have anyone else believe, he was her first kiss, and her only. It was dark and they were both tipsy (because she was not above sneaking into her father's rum) and he was playing with her hair and she leaned over and kissed him senseless.
It wasn't until later she learned with shock that it was his first kiss as well.
Then it became stolen kisses in closets and below deck until the day her father caught them. She felt her gut fill with horror at the sight of his weary eyes, and when she rushed to his cabin later that night to confess everything she found the boy already there, sharing a rum with the Captain and smiling like they'd been at it a while. As it turned out they'd been far less than subtle and the entire crew, and most certainly the Captain, had known of the dalliance for quite some time.
It was another year before he proposed to her, the night her father promoted him to first mate (and her father did not play favorites; the boy worked his backend off and deserved the title more than any seasoned member of the ship). She knew he was going to ask her the question that night, from the way he kept quietly scratching behind his ear, eyes shyly shifting at his nervous tell. But still when he asked her, eyes filled with real tears, she could only manage nodding (so lucky that her father was the man he was, not arranging her with the son of a Lord or some other prosperous union). This man, she loved.
They were married swiftly after, aboard her father's ship, her home, the Jewel of the Realm. The entire crew was in attendance, and the festivities included two shit-loads of rum (the proper unit of measurement. She knew because she counted even if she could not remember the next morning—and the woman was no lightweight).
It was a whirlwind from there. Their first child was born a bright morning in a port in Westchester, and named after his father's father, a good man who had fought in the last most recent war and lost his life. It was not long after the marriage and the two were still delirious in love, refusing the Captain's suggestions that they move to shore and start a life there. They raised the little boy aboard the ship until he was running around amongst the sailors as if he was one of them and her stomach was swollen again and her husband was growing weary.
The second boy came with a storm, deep in the sea. Early, eager to come into the world she was certain. It was quite an ordeal, every hand needed on deck for the storm. But her husband stayed by her side until the child came quietly into the world, staring in wonder at the raging ocean out the window of the cabin.
"He's a sailor already," her husband had smiled (but it had been tight, weary, and had made her heart clench).
When he had left to tend to his post she'd held both her boys close, the older staring at the younger boy in awe, curled close to her side. He was speaking now and it made her feel remarkably old, older than she ever thought she could possibly be.
"Your brother simply could not wait to see the storm," she told him with a playful grin and a ruffle of his hair, "Could you, my dashing boy?"
He was still looking about with those bright blue eyes of his that she recognized near immediately as her own.
"You must always take care of your brother, you understand?" she added softly to both of them, kissing their heads in turn, "You are each other's first mates, my boys."
The second boy was named after the Captain. It was not long after that that her beloved father died.
And that's when everything changed.
Her husband became Captain. He became busy, and having his wife and boys consistently underfoot became a nuisance. So one day in port he traded half of their gold for a plot of land with a small cottage and left his family with the promise he'd be back in a month.
She did not need him to raise the boys and to run the household, and though it hurt her immensely to be removed from her ship, she assured herself that it was for the best. So she kept the house and their children and when he returned in a month he spent a week (a whole blessed week, she'd later think) beside her in bed before he left her with an allowance for the next month and the same promise.
Days grew long and she missed her love and the sea immensely, but she had her boys and she taught herself that they were all she'd need. The monthly pattern continued for years, the money left for her less every time. She didn't mind. She still was a capable woman and she had no fear of the marketplace, and she put away a few coins every month in a jar in the back (for an emergency or perhaps a sailboat, one day, she told herself). She taught herself to stitch (nearly as badly as her cooking, but it was passable enough) and tailored the older boy's clothes to fit his slimmer, smaller brother as they grew.
And then came the month her husband came home without a penny, slurring and smelling of rum. She learnt the Navy had cut back, that his position had been eradicated. That they had only the meager savings she'd collected in the old broken jar in the back of the house. She held him through his drunken tears as their boys watched with wide blue eyes (too young to understand), and promised him they'd find a way.
The loss still made her feel sick.
He managed a job in town but things only got worse when he started coming home drunk every night. The boys were older now, old enough to feel their poorness. Old enough that she could no longer turn used clothes and nights they cuddled together, fireless, into games. She could not stand to raise her children in such a way any longer, so she did the only rational thing she could; she got a job.
And so it began that every morning after she left the boys at school she marched herself to the beach, where she stood bent retrieving clams until the sun was high. She was again the only woman, but she didn't let it bother her, collecting more than two men every passing hour. They paid her poorly but it was enough, and that first day she celebrated by trading for a few cups of flour in the marketplace and setting hard at work to have biscuits prepared when her family arrived home.
She burnt them but the way her boys' faces lit up upon arriving home to a house warm with the smells of baking makes every moment leading up to it worth it.
And then she fell ill.
It was a slow burn, started one day on the beach. It was a hot day in the sun and she found her head spinning dizzily. The next thing she remembered was waking achily with the concerned bright eyes of her boys trained intently on her.
She kept working even if she came home unconcious more often than not. The air between her and her husband grew more and more tense. Her boys, her little crew, doted endlessly on her even if they were not entirely sure just what was wrong. She encouraged the love in their hearts with every word that passed her lips.
"Love, my dears, is the most precious treasure on earth."
Their little eyes watched her with such attention, such intensity, clinging to her every word. And when her voice grew weak they would intervene with their own, spoiling her with stories of their days and the funny details in the clouds until she'd drifted to sleep.
It made her ache because she was the one meant to be telling the stories.
Her boys did not mind.
No matter how bad it got, she forced herself up every morning to make biscuits. She cherished the little moments of joy she could bring to her children's eyes, even if she never could manage not burning the edges. On good days, her husband even managed to bring home bits of sweet molasses that made their little meals even more a delicacy. It made little crumbs stick to the smiling lips of her darling boys, and it was memories such as those that she clung to.
On the last night, both her boys fell asleep sharing the bed their father too often left cold with her, cuddled snuggly to her either side. The both of them were growing far too big far too quickly for her liking- Liam with his charming smiles and Killian with his eloquent words. She clung to the details when she kissed their foreheads, brushing twin dark locks from their hooded eyes and sighing her contentment.
"Liam says you might die."
The small words caught her off guard. Her youngest was a shy lad but not for her. For her, he was a neverending fountain of babble of varying intensities and eloquences. For her, it was never simply a straightforward murmur.
"Everyone dies sometime, my love."
He kept his eyes closed as he moved closer to her, burrowing his soft locks beneath her chin.
"Please don't leave me alone."
Her heart broke at his quiet plead, and she draped her arm across him and pressed her dry lips into his hair.
"You'll never be alone, dashing boy. We made a vow to each other, the three of us. The night you were born. Your brother is your loyal first mate, to the ends of the earth."
He shifted in her hold and she was pleased to see those bright blue eyes squinting open up at her with quiet indignance.
"That's not fair, mum! I could not vow, I only just was born."
She smiled even though it cracked her lips and made her ache.
"That's what's so lovely about being your mum," she teased, and he looked suitably curious before her fingers found the ticklish bit in the center of his belly and made him start suddenly, "I get to make you promise me whatever I like."
He tried valiantly not to giggle beneath her wiggling fingers, and when he failed she pressed another kiss to his forehead.
"Your brother and you will take care of each other."
"But what about you."
His expression was firm and sincere and she didn't know how she had raised such a gallant boy.
"When you love someone, dashing boy, you never let them go. Your love follows them to the ends of the world and time and even beyond death. Even when I am gone I will be here. In the end, darling, love is all that matters."
He still looked uneasy as he snuggled deeper beneath the thin blanket combatting the cold.
"What do you love most in nature, dear?"
It was a game they played. The boy had a way with words that brought her to beautiful places and she loved nothing more than to exercise his talents and watch him flourish. He swallowed and for a moment she thought he might not play along, he might not grant her this one final wish.
But then he peered up at her with those soft eyes of his and she could see the world reflected in their depths.
"The sea."
"Tell me why you love it, darling. Please?"
He had told her millions of times, but it was never enough.
He sighed again, but the gleam had set into his expression that she knew so well.
"It is everywhere all at once. Touching everywhere. So it never misses anything. It probably gets to see the sun rise and set in the very same moment. And the color. Because everyone says blue, but it isn't, mum. The color… it is like the way you feel when your favorite person in the universe speaks with you. Wild and calm somehow all mixed together into one. And the waves. They never stop coming back to you. Even when they've drifted so far out and taken so much from the shore, no matter what they always return and bring fresh beach along, and the nicest new stones and shells…"
His voice drifted off as he stared up at her, waiting for her to add her bit, as she always did.
Tonight was different.
"My love?"
"Yes, mum?"
"Love is the same as the sea."
He furrowed his brow and scrunched his nose and she shook her head at him with another, smaller smile.
"No matter where you are, no matter how far from home, love will reach there. Love can see you from one end of the earth to the next. Or even beyond. It will always find it's way to you. And my dearest boy, there is nothing more important on this earth than love. You must always remember that."
He promised her never to forget.
She rose the next day to make biscuits like any other, imagining the matching looks of excitement that would overcome her boys faces when she presented them with real honey- a surprise she'd been saving excitedly for for weeks.
The boys woke to a cool bed and no familiar smell of cooking in the air.