AN: In the light of 309 I felt I should make it clear that this fic will be ignoring that episode as canon. So any allusions made to the tragic future they are going to have made in this fic, do not refer to what happened last episode. Basically how I intend to write this fic is that s3 did not happen. That yes, how they ended was tragic, but I refuse to accept anything that happened in 309 as canon, so the tragic quality I am alluding to comes from the ending I imagined for them, which for me was that they never could resolve the issues between them, and that they never got back together, but in my mind, they still loved each other to the bitter end.

tl;dr 309 did not happen in my fic canon

Eleanor naturally had no idea of the effect that failed adventure would have on their relationship. He would remain tight lipped about the feelings he'd finally admitted to himself. In the hindsight it was for the best, for had Eleanor known then, things might have been a lot different. She was the type of person who required time and distance to process her feelings and to make her decisions based on those ponderings. Had Charles told her he loved her before she was in the same place, she might have backtracked, and had she done that, a whole lot of the future yet to come would be changed. It would take Eleanor more time than for Charles to reach the same conclusion, but she would get there, oh she most definitely would.

Her seventeenth birthday came. It had been almost a year. A year with him in some way. Surely they hadn't been then like they were now, but she counted those tentative first steps. She wanted to, for those were some of the memories most sharply drawn to her memory. She was not one for celebrations, and for the business, she would have hated to highlight the fact that she was indeed still a girl, not a woman grown. For her it made no difference of course, but Eleanor knew appearances were everything. So she had banned any sort of party, any sort of special treatment on her day of birth. Mr. Scott had reluctantly agreed, but had still broken those rules by surprising her with her favorite breakfast. It warmed her heart. Even though she had ordered him not to make anything special, it felt very good to know there were people who wanted to make her feel good, and Mr. Scott truly was her only family. It was he who had basically raised her, and that she truly appreciated.

She banished those sentimental thoughts from her mind and got to work. No day special to her would ever stop the trade in Nassau, and when there was trading to be done, that was what she would do. She tried to focus her thoughts on what was right in front of her, but she could not help but to feel a bit sadness about the fact that Charles was not on the island. He'd been away and she wasn't expecting him back anytime soon. She felt that longing, and she resented it a bit. But she was after all a girl of seventeen, and that romantic part of her had yet to be taken over by the cynical side, that years later would have eclipsed those parts that she now allowed to roam somewhat free. She had no reason not to. His arms were her escape, her hideaway. He was the harbor she would long to be in after a long day at the sea. He was so many things, but now he was not here, and it saddened her.

Had she been able to see down to the docks from her office, the feelings of sadness would have been cast aside from her chest, as Charles Vane hopped on the shallow waters of the beach, the water seeping through his boots. But he did not care, for he was home, and nothing more in this place was home than she.

The door of her office opened, without a knock. She lifted her head, about to protest on the unannounced entry. But it was him, in all his glory, wet, with a shirt covered in blood splatters, and the smell of the sea with him. She was on her feet in the shortest of moments, making her way to him. He met her half way, his arms finding their rightful place around her waist, his lips on hers. She hummed with pleasure against his lips, finally finding some sort of peace. The irony of finding peace in a man like Charles Vane did not escape her, but she did not care. He was here and her mind was finally quieted. Well, it soon would be quieted more thoroughly, in her bed, but this was also an improvement. But the call of his body was impossible to resist, and who on their right mind would have resisted him.

She would be his anywhere, on every furniture, on every surface. And she was, for there was no time for beds, there was no time for comfort. There was only time for him to be as close to her as he physically could be. The wall would do for her, for as long as it was he who is there inside her, his hand on her mouth to prevent the moans escaping her mouth and alerting anyone passing by the office. It did not take long until she felt like biting down on his palm to quiet the cry of pleasure. He had that smile on his face, that one particular smile he'd been giving her, in times like these when he was still inside her, but on other occasions as well. When he walks into her office and stops to look at her working. When he thinks she is asleep by his side. When she curses at him. That smile was suddenly everywhere, and it was a smile Eleanor hoped would never leave her. She needed it with her until the end of time. And she prayed to keep it.

Charles' feelings were a mess, to be fair. The days spent on the ship were something that he loved, but those were also the days he was not with her, and any day he was not with her, it felt a day wasted. He loves her. He is so fucking in love with her it is ridiculous. He is so fucking in love with her that he knows without asking her it is her birthday. He is so fucking in love with her that he got something for her. He is so fucking in love with her. It felt like it is burning a hole in his pocket and he was fucking nervous. He was nervous she was not gonna like it. He seated her down on her desk and sat behind her, fumbling his pocket before he fished it out, placing it on her palm. She studied it for a second and lifts it to eye level. It was a silver locket. It has been amongst the cargo for the ship they were hunting for, and when he had seen it, he had felt it should be around her neck. Something stolen for the queen of thieves.

"It's beautiful, Charles. But why?" she asked as she opened the locket, only to find the most fucking sentimental thing he had ever done in all his years on this forsaken earth. It was a pressed blue violet inside the locket. He fucking pressed a flower for her. What the fuck Charles.

She studied it carefully, still waiting for his answer.

"It's your birthday," he simply stated and she turned to look at him with the widest smile on her face. She closed the locket carefully, handing it to him and brushing her hair over her shoulder, asking him to fasten the locket around her neck. The locket fell on place between her breasts and she brought a hand to touch it ever so gently.

"How did you know?" she asked and placed her hand on top of his.

"Might have asked Mr. Scott about it," he mumbled. God, how is this his life. She giggled and tried to hide it by placing her hand on her mouth, but it was too late now. He got up from her desk, he couldn't take this anymore. He was so engulfed in her he was losing himself. He just could not lay out the cards on the table and be laughed at. So he left.

"Charles, where are you going?" she questioned, but he was already out the door. He did not realize she had been walking behind him all the way to the camp, not until she walked into his tent in his trail. He turned around to see a puzzled look on her face.

"Why did you leave?" she asked in this tiny voice that made his heart break into million little pieces.

"You thought it was stupid," he stated, trying not to look at her, but it is an awful attempt, for he could never keep his eyes cast away from her when she was in the room.

"No, I did not. I love it. I told everyone no party, and no gifts, nothing. But then you bring me this and I just love it. And the fact that you asked Mr. Scott. Yes, I laughed, but only because at that moment I thought about the fact that if I ever told anyone on Nassau that no other than Charles Vane had went out of his way to get a girl something nice for her birthday, no one would believe me. But I get to see it. And it makes me feel lucky," she breathed, and he realized that this was probably the most she had ever disclosed her feelings toward him. So he did what any sane man would do and kissed the breath out of her. Kissed her because he loved her, and he made her feel lucky. He truly was the lucky one.

The night has fallen and Charles was sound asleep right next to her, his hand placed across her bare midriff. The waves crashing the shore and his breathing were the only sounds in her world right then. Right then she touched the locket, the only thing she was wearing, and looked at the man dead to the world lying next to her. Suddenly she was overcome with emotion and she sobbed, quietly not to wake him up. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she cried for the first time in years. And it was not for sadness, it was not for pain. No, these tears were because of him. Because she was in love with him and she did not know what to make of it, other than to cry, because those feelings of loved crashed over her like waves on the shore, trying to drown her. So she cried quietly while he slept, trying to pull ashore from the storm that was her feelings toward him. It was a storm she would try to battle for years, only to find that the only way to feel like she was breathing was to give into the waves and just… love him.