.

xxx

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Standing on an open platform at the end of the narrow spit jutting out into Kingston Harbour, the appropriately named Gallows Point being almost all that remains of the once bustling town of Port Royal before it was submerged by a devastating earthquake twenty-seven years ago, never to recover, Eleanor is too well aware of having seen all this before… and wishes she would not have to watch it again.

Her eyes are fixed on the man standing under the gallows, tall, lean, broad-shouldered, long hair swept by the breeze; seemingly unconcerned. Her hands are squeezed into tight fists; she does her best to keep her face impassive, aware that her hosts, the elderly Governor Lawes and his young wife, may be watching her.

The sentence is read, the noose affixed; the accused raises his hand in a final salute, as if saying farewell to someone in the crowd; and then the hatch in the scaffold opens up under him, and after a split-second drop, his body goes limp almost instantly.

At least it was quick.

She still cannot turn away, though her vision is now blurred by the tears brimming in her eyes. She may not have had as direct a hand in this execution as she did in the one in Nassau five months ago, but still, at least in part this has been her doing.

"Are you all right, my dear?" Mrs Lawes pipes up, seeing her distress.

"I'm sorry… I am not used to this sort of spectacle. Your Excellency, dear Mrs Lawes, I beg you to excuse me; I will see you back at your mansion, I really must go."

"Of course, of course; you poor girl," the governor says in a soothing tone. "Tell the officers down at the pier to row you back to Kingston, and if you could wait for us there while the boat comes back after us, we can all ride back to the house. It's just that I need to discuss the minor matter of the location of Captain Vane's gibbet with the port commander."

She does all she can to look composed. "Thank you so much, Your Excellency... there really is no need for you to worry; I'll walk along the old pier, and will get a ride to Spanish Town from there. I don't mind the longer distance, I think I just need a bit of time to calm down."

"Very well, my dear; so long as it helps lift your spirits. When you reach Kingston, go to Mr Rawley's office on the waterfront and tell him to give you a ride. I'll settle the matter with him."

"You really are too kind," she mutters; the governor's concern for her would be heartwarming had she not been so distraught. "Thank you. I'll do as you say, and I'll see you back at the mansion."

With that, she staggers off the platform and walks past the loosening knot of people a few yards away from the gallows, the crowd already starting to disperse. And as she weaves her way around Kingston citizens in the blinding sunshine, the people's attention already distracted from the grisly sight a short distance away onto mundane gossip, her throat burns from inside, so much that she is almost choking; and presently Eleanor Guthrie, the woman who never shows weakness and never, ever cries is stumbling blindly forward, unable to see where she is going amid inconsolable sobbing. So let them see that she was in love with a hanged pirate; at least no one here knows who she is, but even if they did, she would not care the tiniest bit, having been struck by the dreadful realisation.

She will never see Charles Vane again.

It looks like he has given her the most ruthless retaliation for her betrayals. And much as it breaks her heart to admit it, it serves her right for what she did back in Nassau.

She stumbles on the uneven, earthquake-ravaged payment, and is about to fall – not that she cares; at least a kind soul puts a hand on her arm to steady her.

"You know that wasn't me."

She would know that voice anywhere.

She stops dead in her tracks; she cannot stop crying, but she nods her agreement.

"Let's get out of here," he mutters against her ear, and as she still cannot open her eyes, he leads her slowly through the crowd away from Gallows Point, along the ruins of the old waterfront, as she does her best to wipe the tears off her face with her free hand. She wonders at his audacity of showing up at this spot, considering that his imposing appearance, and the resemblance to the condemned man, was unlikely to have gone unnoticed; but presently he leads her away from the pier into a narrow lane between two abandoned warehouses, and once they are out of the line of sight of the gallows crowd, he stops and turns to face her – and she finally opens her eyes enough to take a look at him.

She would know his voice anywhere, true; but in that first instant when she stares wide-eyed at him, the man standing in front of her now seems almost unrecognisable; if she did not know who he was she might have almost taken him for a stranger. Almost; for the cunning predator is still lurking just beneath the smooth surface, in the bright, sharp eyes; and yet the change is staggering.

For one thing, he looks a good ten years younger; he could almost be her age, or his own age when they just met. Clean-shaven, his face under the three-cornered hat has lost the hatchet shape he sported of late; it is still lean but less wolfish. His hair has been cut so now it does not even reach his shoulders; she knows she will miss the glorious mane, but in all seriousness, if that is what it takes to keep him alive and safe, it is a very small price to pay. And the civilian clothes he is wearing hang loosely about his lean frame down from the broad shoulders, giving him the appearance of greater bulk than she knows to be the case.

But it is definitely, unmistakably, delightfully him. Alive. Here.

The next moment they are kissing like the world is ending, trembling hands cupping each other's faces; and seconds later they are practically racing together further away from the pier, into the shady lane, until they see a gap in the warehouse wall and stumble inside; half the roof is gone but what is left provides just enough shade to shelter in, and there are sacks of sand on the floor, old ballast that no one cared to take, that give them a sort of rough cushion to land on as they claw frantically at each other's clothes. At one point he has to put a hand over her mouth to stop her frustrated groans at being unable to peel off the dress quickly enough, before his fingers are replaced by his hungry lips as his hands deftly do the undressing for her.

She has to admit, being a guest of honour at Charles Vane's execution cannot get any better than this.

xxx

"Charles?"

He does not answer.

She props herself up on one elbow for a closer look. He seems asleep; but presently, not hearing her continue, he lifts an eyebrow and opens one eye a tiny fraction of an inch to squint at her.

"You alive?" she asks the by-now-unnecessary question.

"I don't know, Eleanor…" The familiar low growl now sounds lazy and unusually relaxed, almost playful. "Truth be told, I'm not really sure."

Well, he could say that again; after fucking each other's brains out twice in succession, albeit with him taking time to attend to her second tearful breakdown in between from too much excitement, it certainly felt for a while like they could not draw another breath.

"One of these days it may kill us," he continues, in the same lazy, teasing voice.

"But what a way to go," she says, matching his tone. "Can you imagine the tombstone? Here lie Charles Vane and Eleanor Guthrie, who fucked each other to death."

"You're right," he drawls, and she can see him grinning. "Maybe we should aim for that." He shifts on the pile of sacks to face her. "You were asking..?" He flicks his eyes at her; whether by a trick of the light or for another reason, they seem less steely grey and more light blue now, turquoise even, the colour of a sunlit lagoon.

By now she has all but forgotten what she meant to ask. "How long have you been here?"

"A week. Eight days, to be exact. I had to wait around in Georgetown for a week and a half until a non-English vessel passed through, seeing how there would be less of a chance of me being recognised. Finally saw a Dutchman come in a week and a half ago."

"And in all this time, presumably knowing where I could be found, you never once thought of seeing me?" She cannot bring herself to sound offended, but still does a credible job at seeming surprised.

"The problem lies in the knowing where you could be found part, as you may imagine," he drawls at her. "Seeing how you were Governor Lawes' guest, I could not very well play the suitor lurking beneath your window outside the governor's mansion. With the Redcoat guards he has there, someone might have noted the resemblance between me and a certain condemned captain who was supposed to be in Kingston jail. Here, on the other hand," he continues, gesturing in the direction of the waterfront, "I knew it would be crowded, noisy, with plenty of ruined buildings to hide among; and I knew you would likely be here, seeing how you were one of the two main witnesses." He tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "Now let me ask you something."

"Go on," she prompts him; whatever the question may be, she is past the point of keeping secrets from him.

"You knew, as I did, that the man who hanged today was Robert Deal; surely you saw him at the trial, and I knew it was him today when I got to the gallows." He takes her hand and strokes her palm with his thumb; a few more seconds of this and she will be unable to answer any question, no matter how simple or innocent. "So if you knew it was Rob and not me, why were you crying afterwards?"

Her answer, she knows, may seem silly; but at least it will be honest.

"I thought I'd never see you again. I was afraid you'd decided to punish me for everything I'd done, and I thought it would be so very easy; all you'd have to do was never turn up and I'd never be able to find you, not knowing where to look and what name to look for; and it was breaking my heart."

Before she has even finished, he pulls her up on top of him and raises a hand to stroke her cheek. "Eleanor, it was never going to happen. Even assuming I were so heartless as to do it to you, I could never be so heartless as to do it to myself." He tips up his chin to kiss her. "So long as I was alive, I'd have found you no matter what."

She lets herself relax against him and leans into the kiss; it started as sweet and gentle but soon becomes unbearably arousing, what with him stroking and teasing her lips with his tongue. As a result, it comes as something of a shock when he pulls away and asks her the next question in a seemingly composed tone.

"Anyway, how did you manage to pull it off?"

"What?" Her mind is decidedly too fuzzy to even understand the question, let alone formulate an answer.

"Not just getting me killed but getting me hanged in a public spectacle. I confess it was something of a surprise to learn of my impending execution the moment I reached Kingston, though I sure was glad I was not its real main attraction."

She is happy to oblige with the answer, of course… or would be, if he would let her collect her wits.

"Charles."

"What?" The innocent look is sweet but really out of place, considering what his hands are at.

"I can either answer you, or have you stroking me like this, but not both at once." She tries to sound stern, rather unsuccessfully.

"Oh, all right." He sets her down onto the sacks next to him. "In that case I would beg you to make it a quick answer."

"I'll see what I can do." She was resolved on a quick answer herself; but now, hearing his entreaty, thinks that more pleasure might be gained in teasing him, seeing how long his patience would last. Either way the result is bound to be enjoyable.

"After you were off I did pretty much what I told you I would do. I crept back into Holford's cabin, found him still sleeping off the rum, slipped the keys back into his pocket and went to my cabin. Once there I did my best to create the greatest mess possible while making the least possible noise to avoid alerting the watchmen too soon, to make it look as if a fight had broken out there; and finally smashed the cabin window, flung it wide open, and pushed the wine cask you'd carried up out of it. I then ran into Holford's cabin in an apparent state of extreme panic and screamed to him that I had just killed Charles Vane, who had broken free and found me in my cabin just as I'd feared, and I stabbed him, you that is, with a carving knife I'd stolen before leaving the Princess for fear of you, and threw your body overboard. By then the crewmen who stood watch had heard the cask hitting the water and ran up to the stern to investigate; they could see nothing in the darkness but it tallied up with my story. Oh, and back in my cabin I'd ripped open the bodice of my new dress to make it look as if you'd tried to assault me."

"Was that really necessary?"

"Come on, Charles, I was supposed to make you into a monster-"

"No, I can see sense in the monster part; I mean was it really necessary to show that pig Holford your breasts?"

She has to laugh at that. "How else could I claim severe emotional distress to make sure I could keep him at bay afterwards? It was either being extremely out of sorts after being assaulted by my father's murderer, or fucking Holford to gain favour. Which would you rather have me do?"

He raises his eyebrows in a gesture of resignation. "I see your point."

"Precisely. Then I made the speech about being afraid of retribution from your former crewmates, or even of prosecution for your murder regardless of your crimes as a pirate, so as to get Holford to keep quiet about my part in the affair while announcing your death. And then the next morning he went on shore to Georgetown, and came back with Robert Deal. Turns out he was also shipwrecked, made it to Grand Cayman, and someone there sold him out to Holford so he could be hanged for his old murder conviction on Grand Turk."

"The poor bastard."

"Indeed; but at least it lifted Holford's spirits somewhat, seeing how he had lost his chance at fifteen thousand pounds thanks to me, to be at least getting five hundred for Deal."

"Not much by way of consolation."

"Not at all. But given what I knew of Deal's story, and considering that he was as good as dead anyway, I was able to propose a pact that would give everyone something they wanted."

"Pray tell." He looks genuinely intrigued.

"First off I told Holford that Mr Lawes the governor could still have the benefit of a public execution to strike fear into the hearts of pirates, and Holford himself could still collect the bounty for your capture, even though you were dead. Seeing how Deal looked enough like you to fool anyone who doesn't know you well, I told Holford that we could pass Deal off as Charles Vane to His Excellency and to the judges, and all he needed to do to secure Deal's consent to this deception was to pay the five hundred pounds of Deal's bounty to his son on Grand Turk. I remembered Deal talking about the boy and figured that seeing how he was condemned to hang, he could at least leave his son some money to get started in trade, and get to see him before he died. I said that in the worst case I could pay back the money to Holford myself, seeing how desperate I was to get Captain Vane's blood off my hands, but he agreed to pay it, considering that he stood to gain thirty times more."

"Knowing Rob, he would have probably accepted this even without the money, if you brought the boy to see him. Besides," he continues with a distinct hint of mischief in his voice, "given the choice between hanging in Cockburn Town as Rob Deal or in Port Royal as Captain Vane, I suspect he'd have gone for the latter just for the hell of it."

She cannot help laughing. "True; but Holford did not need to know all this. So instead of putting into Kingston as he'd planned, we went to Grand Turk, found Deal's son, and brought him on board to see his father and pay him the bounty. He asked if he could come along to Jamaica with us, he was not keen on seeing his father hang, even though he hadn't seen him in more than ten years since he was six or seven, but he wanted a chance to talk to Deal while he was alive, and figured also that his prospects of learning and practicing a trade were much better on Jamaica than on Grand Turk. So we brought him along here; I haven't seen him since he went onshore two weeks ago, though I figure he was somewhere in the crowd today, but as far as Deal was concerned, we'd held up our end of the bargain so he stuck to his story of being Captain Vane; and between him saying that, and knowing plenty about your real capers, and being generally unrepentant, and Holford and myself testifying to his identity and me holding forth about your horrible crimes and urging a speedy sentence for fear of your associates using any delay to mount a rescue, the poor man was convicted in ten days flat."

He sighs, presumably out of regret for Deal's demise; although when he speaks, his words seem to imply otherwise.

"So that's the end of Charles Vane… the rascal who got hanged twice for the same offence. Shouldn't really happen, you know."

"Yes, I know; double jeopardy and all that." She smirks at him. "Except the first time you weren't really hanged..."

"…And the second time it wasn't really me," he finishes for her.

"Still, you're right, shouldn't really happen. I rather liked Vane."

His answer is delivered with an insolent grin. "I'm afraid you'll have to make do with me now… whatever my name will be."

She mirrors his expression. "You'll have to do. For that matter, I haven't picked my own name yet, either. So what are we up to now?"

"First off, we wait until you take your leave of His Excellency; and then we need to get passage to Green Turtle Cay. Preferably not on an English ship."

She can see sense in picking the ship's flag, but not in the destination. "Why there?"

"That's where my chest is."

"Ah." She remembers his bragging now. "Then I suppose we can go to Louisiana next so I can collect my savings."

"Assuming you can arrange to withdraw that money from somewhere in the British colonies at a later date, it may be best to wait. After all, these waters are notorious for pirates, and there still are enough of them around."

"As you wish… so once we've picked up the chest, then what?"

"Then we wait in New Plymouth to get passage up along the east coast toward the northern colonies where I haven't made many voyages and am less likely to be recognised. If you don't object, that is."

"Why would I? So long as you don't propose that we settle in Boston..."

"There are plenty of other places. Any town where we could set up as traders would do."

"Or we could open an inn," she suggests, bearing in mind her ostensible occupation in Nassau.

"Brothel?" He squints at her.

"Not if you want me in your bed," she says with all the severity she can muster; his response is a sigh of mock defeat.

"Tell you the truth, Eleanor," he mutters, pulling her closer to him and running his hands over her body, "I've no idea what we'll end up doing; but I'm sure we'll think of something."

He stops at this, his interest having clearly shifted from talking to kissing her neck; and as she rakes her fingers over his back, she wonders distantly how it happened that her old preoccupation with planning two steps ahead has completely disappeared, so much so that she has no idea of what life might have in store for her now; but she knows exactly who she is going to spend it with.

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fin

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NOTES

These are so fucking huge, I had to split them into chapters ;)

1. Historical facts in this chapter

The 1692 earthquake that destroyed most of Port Royal is a historical fact; as a result, citizens moved to Kingston on the Jamaican mainland and all that remained of Port Royal was Gallows Point at the end of the pier, so that criminals and spectators were often ferried there across the bay from Kingston.

Vane effectively invoking the double jeopardy concept (being hanged twice for the same offence, as in, should not be allowed to happen) may not be technically applicable, but is not anachronistic. Wikipedia sums it up as follows: "The doctrines of autrefois acquit and autrefois convict persisted as part of the common law from the time of the Norman conquest of England; they were regarded as essential elements of protection of the liberty of the subject and respect for due process of law in that there should be finality of proceedings."

Considering how the series brought forward Vane's execution by more than two years, to (presumably) early December 1718, and changed the location, I felt somewhat justified in taking a, well, creative approach too and had him executed a second time in Jamaica as per history, but exactly two years before the actual date. Or apparently executed, as the case may be. In reality he was arrested in March 1719 and spent two years in prison; the very long delay is variously attributed to general resentment of him that led people to wish he'd "rot in prison" before being hanged and to the need to assemble numerous witnesses, as Admiralty trials tended to be pretty thorough and long-running affairs, unlike the hurried, mass-spectacle versions we were given on the show.

The real Robert Deal was executed on Jamaica shortly before Vane; so in that sense I am quite close to reality. However, my backstory about his murder conviction is my invention; but I did laugh when after deciding on Grand Turk (as in Turks and Caicos) as his home thanks to it being an English-owned island that meant the shortest detour from Jamaica, I discovered that the name of its capital was Cockburn Town :P

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2. Overall story timeline

The list below sums up real historical events; the notes in italics to the last three entries show the tweaks I made.

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Woodes Rogers arrives in Nassau / Vane escapes by sending out the fireship on July 24 1718

Vane visits Blackbeard at Ocracoke island in early October 1718

Blackbeard is killed on November 22, 1718

Vane and Rackham part ways over the French man-of-war incident on November 24, 1718

A pirate execution is held in Nassau on December 9

Vane wins the Pearl of Jamaica on December 16, 1718 (+ two more sloops before and after that)

Vane is struck by hurricane in February 1719, is marooned on an island and is taken off "a few weeks later"

Vane is brought to Jamaica ca March 1719

Spain declares war in the Caribbean March 16, 1719; launches a failed attack on Nassau in late February 1720

Woodes Rogers is in Charlestown for six weeks in 1720 after repelling the Spanish attack (wounded in a duel with a captain he knew in Nassau), goes to England in March 1721

* my version: Rogers is in Charlestown at the end of 1718, comes back to Nassau in in early 1719; then as per history.

Jack Rackham takes the pardon in Nassau in May 1719, steals the William on August 22, 1720; is hanged Nov 18, 1720 in Jamaica while Vane is in prison there(incidentally, Jack had some pretty interesting exploits in 1719-1720; you can look up a short version on Wikipedia to get an idea).

*my version: Jack is caught soon after he and Vane part company (ca January 1719) and is executed ca mid/late February 1719

Vane is executed on March 29, 1721

*my version: Deal is executed in Vane's place on March 29, 1719

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3. Video recs

Earlier I mentioned and quoted Zach McGowan's online paper interviews, but to really appreciate what a charming, thoughtful, and fun guy he is, and what a huge Vane fanboy he is, I highly recommend taking a look at his Youtube interviews. Below is a collection of the 10 best clips where he talks about the show and about Vane; as you are probably familiar with FFnet's censorship of internet links, I should say here that all these start with [h.t.t.p.s] youtube dot com; the sequences below are what follows the main page address, starting from the slash.

By the way, Vane's shorter hair in my last chapter is a necessary sacrifice to avoid him being recognised (and I assure you that any Samson & Delilah parallels are unintentional), but it also conveniently mirrors Zach's post-s3 haircut that you can see in his season 3 interviews – except that I have him clean-shaven as well (personal preference, sorry).

/watch?v=9yc8fec8Tx0 (Zach & Hannah New aka Eleanor: overview of the show at the start of season 1)

/watch?v=9-UiOcDv778 (Zach & Jessica Parker Kennedy aka Max: season 2 discussion of Eleanor, love, Vane's honesty, and other stuff)

/watch?v=UPVmyvXRlIw (Zach on season 3 with Arthur Kade – season 3 overview and general chat about life)

/watch?v=JiDHCVzIWls (Zach on season 3)

/watch?v=vWVfUmHtDy0 (general chat about life and growing up in NYC, with a bit on Vane)

/watch?v=3WXA3X5d26Q (Zach on filming Black Sails at the season 1 launch event; looking positively gorgeous)

/watch?v=krqxckUliOw (companion clip to the one above, filmed at the same event)

/watch?v=Y00T4nKJyLM (Zach on pirates; filmed at the same event as the two above)

/watch?v=gDbSomN_isg (Zach fooling around as a pirate at ComicCon; short but really sweet)

/watch?v=8y6ym5pdw10 (Sexiest Man of the week; another short/sweet/funny piece)

These recommendations would be incomplete if I did not mention Shameless, as in, Zach's role in it in seasons 2-3. The character he plays, Jody, is perhaps Vane's opposite, a sex addict (OK, not that opposite…) toyboy, with a decidedly double-digit IQ but with a heart of solid gold; overall, a really sweet (and gorgeous, naturally) guy. The upside of the sex-addict toyboy status, as you'll imagine, is that he spends a fair chunk of the show in extreme states of undress and/or interesting situations, but also thanks to the role, he is just plain fucking hilarious – it has been ages since I laughed so hard at a TV show.

I was planning to do an edit of his scenes and put it up on Youtube; but when I uploaded an edit of season 3 while waiting to get a better copy of season 2, it immediately got blocked for copyright infringement. Sorry guys :( If you can get it on Netflix, I'd say that episodes 2x04, 2x07 and 2x09 are the sexy/funny highlights in S2, and 3x04, 3x05 and 3x07 are brilliant in S3.

And speaking of videos, I literally had to move furniture to be able to do it (don't ask ;) ), but in between finishing this story I edited the 28 hours of three Black Sails seasons into a 3.5-hour cut of pure gorgeous unadulterated Vane that, I fear, is too large to post online; however, I then went one step further and cut it into a 4-minute video set to the tune of You Know My Name. It is not a Vane/Eleanor thing, just Charles Vane at his glorious badass best; still, if you care to take a look, it can be found at [h.t.t.p.s] youtube dot com /watch?v=30lL4_p7W9U.

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Thus concludes my 12-chapter love letter to Charles Vane, whereupon I make the ultimate sacrifice and leave him happy in the arms of another woman :P I intended to leave it to the readers to imagine what they may wish to happen to these two next, now that they are free from the shackles of their respective roles and destinies. But while I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so, I also came up with a theory of my own, which I ended up turning into a tongue-and-cheek epilogue. It is too sketchy a premise to type it out as a real fic, but I hope you find the next and final bit entertaining, if rather silly.

Thank you to everyone for reading, and especially to those of you who followed, set favourites, and took the time to comment and discuss. It means a lot to me.

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