I went to Ann's room, but she was not in it. Pressing my lips together, I turned and went back out to the deck, around the port side and into the dark hold.

She was there, again, leaning against the bars of the great ape's cage. Fritz unhappily kept the animal sedated, which was not what he usually did when transporting animals. "I have to," he had explained to me. "If he wakes, and throws around his weight, we'll all sink."

But Ann worried of the animal, didn't like him alone down in the dank cells. She had returned to the ship changed indeed, though not as I had expected it. Her hours alternated between spending time with Jack Driscoll, quietly on the deck or in her room, and sitting at the side of the monkey. We had hardly spoken; I didn't know what to say, other than to embrace her when it was obvious she was overwhelmed. It'd been two days since the capture of the animal the natives had called Kong, and Ann was still mostly silent.

I went to her and sat across from where she did, not wishing to be near the bars of the cage. I couldn't understand how simple she was with the animal, how she didn't fear him. He was, quite honestly, scarier than anything other than the natives.

"Ann. How goes it with Jack?"

I tried to steer the conversation to something happy, light, I hoped. She gave a small smile. "Alright."

"It was...amazing of him, to rescue you, when everyone else had given up."

"It was." She agreed softly. Behind her, Kong's breathing hitched ever so slightly. I jumped, but she did not, and leaned her head back against the cage, half closing her eyes.

"I've married, Ann," I put off-handedly. There was not going to be a delicate way to say it, or bring it up. She was always in such a daze now that I didn't know any other way to tell her other than abruptly. Her body language didn't change, as if nothing could cause her to be surprised, but her eyes opened and her head came back up.

"What? How?"

"To Captain Englehorn."

She stared at me, measuring me. "Why?"

"He...loves me. And I him. And for once, I do not need to feel as though I am carving my own way. The protection I have from him is unexpectedly...special."

"That is good to hear." She smiled at me, but she didn't seem moved to be very happy for me. "Protection is good."

She paused, looking back at the ape, and then turned to me, a light burning in her eyes. "You have no idea, Sasha. It was a nightmare. There were...huge monsters, dinosaurs. When I was alone, at my first scream, he was there, flying through the air taking on one-two-three...killing them, protecting me the entire way as if I was family...his love. He loves me."

It took me a moment realize she spoke of Kong, not Jack. Her words spilled out, as if she needed say them aloud to herself.

"You have no idea how protected I feel when I am with him. No man can ever match the devotion he gave me, and then because of me, he is here, locked up. Hurt."

She reached a small white hand through the bars and put it carefully in the wide, half-opened hand of the beast. I waited tensely for him to stir, but he didn't.

"I fear for him," she admitted. "I wanted him to stay behind on the island, but I also knew he would not let me go. There was even a part...a strange, small part of me that even wanted to stay with him, that if staying with him would save him, I would do so. It would have been the least I could do...he saved my life..."

I looked at her, as she watched the animal slumber. Her face, so ethereal, translucent and glowing in the dim light, was conflicted, as if unable to come to terms with everything, only knowing that with the ape, she was safe. I could not fathom, really, what she meant. There was a protection I felt with my husband, now, but it was not so devoted, or as all encompassing as she described her connection to Kong. And he to her. What a strange thing.

There was a noise above, and the Captain was coming down the railing, a bottle of chloroform tucked under his arm. His mouth was set in a grim line, softening only slightly when he saw me. I knew he hated this job.

"Fritz." I stood, and Ann's head came up thoughtfully, and she looked hard at the Captain, as if measuring his worth anew now that she knew I had married him. As if she saw for the first time that I was near him instantly, that I called him affectionately.

"How is...he." The pause was brief, but I knew he swallowed a different pronoun. Everyone was worried about Ann.

"His breathing hitched once while I've been down here," I told him, and he nodded, knowing that meant the chloroform was needed again.

Ann frowned darkly, but even she couldn't argue about this, and moved out of Fritz's way so he could open the bottle under the ape's face and let the animal breathe in the affects. I felt differently toward Kong now, knowing what he had done for Ann. I almost wished to see him wake to interact with her, and I knew she stayed down in the hold in case he did, that she believed her presence would be soothing.

"Will you be coming back up?" I asked her softly, as we both watched Fritz finish the medication.

She shook her head, even though she knew the new dose of chloroform would keep the ape from waking any time soon now. She wanted to be alone, I knew, and didn't wish to see Jack Driscoll either, or any of us.

The Captain stood and turned to me. "Sasha? Coming up for the night?"

I nodded, and left Ann to follow him up and out. When we got up to the deck, I breathed in the salty air. I liked the heaviness of it, and was glad I would be spending so much of time time on the sea now. It was very freeing, free from poverty, from cockroach infested flats, from work that was not rewarding.

Fritz paused too, the empty chloroform bottle hanging from his fingers. He looked out over the waves with me.

"The return will be faster - the currents are with us. Thankfully, because I worry of running out of the drug." He was staring out over the water, as if willing the steamer to move even faster.

"Ann is filled with conflict. She feels...guilty about him." I looked at my husband. "I find sympathy for the beast myself."

He nodded. "Me too," he admitted. "Jack tells me the same, that Ann is torn up. That whatever love they had is nearly broken, for all that she cannot understand how she feels about her situation. Usually a man expects to be the hero, but Ann almost feels Kong is hers. You should have seen that beast's face when he was reaching for her... No one could measure to that. It is too much to ask."

It was what Ann had also said, and I knew then that my friend was drifting away from Jack, from me, from everyone here. She was buried in her guilt, unwilling to fully accept what had happened to her. I didn't know how I could help her right now. I nearly felt guilty myself for my role in this, though it was slight.

"Sasha..." Fritz turned to me, his sun darkened skin glowing in the sunset across the waves. He linked his fingers with mine, as he often did when we were alone. "It has been a wild few weeks for us. Do you...regret marrying me?"

I stared at him. "No. I don't. Why would I?"

His mouth turned down, and the anguish I'd just witnessed on Ann's brow crossed his. "I'm not a good man, you know. Look what I've done to help a man like Carl Denham. Look what I've done to that poor ape below. I should have...steered us all better out of it all. Really, it's my fault. All of it."

That my stoic husband should admit his guilt, his defeat, to me, made me realize how important it was he had a wife, someone to dissemble to, someone to love him. And still, it seemed, he doubted that I could continue to care for him, in light of everything.

I reached up to smooth his forehead of wrinkles. "Fritz. I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me on this ship, to cook and clean, and manage the men in a womanly way. Don't let the guilt of this trip ruin you, the way it eats at Ann. You couldn't have outstripped that first fog had you wanted, it was...fate. And because of this trip, you found me. That is a good thing. A wonderful thing."

He stared down at me, as if gauging my earnestness.

"Truly? You are not disgusted by my part in this misadventure?"

"You've done nothing but protect me."

He gave a snort and a shake of his head, though his fingers tightened on mine, as he remembered how close he'd come to losing me to the native people.

"Protection is all very well, but I know you are an independent woman. You know your mind. Are you sure you sure?"

I released his hand, only to wrap my arms around his chest, laying my head over his heart. It had all happened so fast, and that was part of the mystery of being on the water. It made time fly like ribbons in the wind, fast and surreal. At first he had befuddled me, angered me, annoyed me. And then he had respected me. And loved me. And I had loved him, too, without recognizing it for what it was until he'd declared his heart to be mine. And even then, I had not realized how much I loved him, until I too had had to consider that he was lost to me, dead, gone forever on the island of horrors we'd finally left behind.

Was I sure I wanted him? "I am not sure, Fritz," I told him. "I am certain, beyond certain. This is the place for me. It is not what I had always imagined, but it is better."

His free arm came around me too, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"I'm glad you don't blame me, then," he said quietly.

Time would help him to see, too, that it was not his fault, that he could not have turned the ship, that everything was too late to change. That our ship was destined to reach Skull Island. That so many of the men were destined to die there. I was just so utterly thankful he was not one of them.

"Take me to bed?" I asked. He pulled back to smile at me.

"You're tired? The sun has not even quite set, Sasha."

He was teasing me, but it didn't bring the high color it used to. I had heard much swearing over the past weeks, and the men, while tempering their tongues around the Captain's Lady, could still not curb their tongues completely. It was harder and harder to shock me, and when my husband himself would barb me, I would flush - perhaps I always would - but I liked it well enough and could return it.

"I don't mean to sleep in the bed, Fritz. I mean to...play in it."

My obvious innuendo had an affect on him, and he gripped my bottom hard, and pulled me in for a rough kiss. "Well then, wife, off to bed for us."

As we walked arm in arm down to his chambers, he tossed the empty bottle of chloroform carelessly over the railing into the ocean, and it sparkled in a glistening arc before disappearing from our sight.