Forgive me, anyone who's still reading this! I have been a negligent author indeed! However I vow to change and I'll finish this story at any cost, I love the characters after all,and hope some of you will stick with me :) This is very short but I'm already working on the next chapter!

"She may not make it back to Port."

Thomas blinked, face expressionless with shock as he looked at the doctor. The two men stood beside Lily's bedside, Thomas holding her limp hand.

"But doctor she is so much better than she was! There's no more of the screaming or convulsions – yes, she still hallucinates but surely -"

"She is dying, Thomas. It may take a week, if you're luck a month, but this girl is dying."

The doctor looked away from Thomas's crestfallen, heartbroken expression, giving a slight bow. "I'm sorry," he said quietly as he walked out of the room.

Slowly Thomas sat down in his chair by Lily's bed, his other hand going to the small, pale hand of hers he held. Her eyes were open but focused on something he couldn't see, something that gave her a benign smile. Her cheekbones jutted and her eyelashes trembled with the effort of holding back tears.

"Lily," Thomas said quietly, helplessly, after a moment. "Lily you must eat something. My love..."

Her hand twitched at the word love and she looked around eagerly, switching disconcertingly from the listless stillness of a moment ago. She didn't find what she seeked in the room however. Thomas watched as she sank back down and turned her face away from him to the wall.

In the early days of her illness she had hit her head again and again against that same wall, screaming as if possessed for them to kill her. She had fought and clawed and spat like a wild thing when restrained from harming herself, but became harmless as a lamb within seconds, weeping, talking to Thomas as if he was her brother, sometimes her mother...or the worst, that pirate. The last was the hardest for Thomas to bear. To hear her call him Samuel and reach out to him, longing to be held in a way she never did when the hallucination left her and he was Thomas again.

Thomas closed his eyes and took a slow breath. "Lily..." he tried again but she didn't move.

It was heartbreaking. She allowed him to hold her hand but it was lifeless, a surrender. She had not raised her haunted eyes to his in days – she was a shadow. So still it was frightening. Right then, she could have been dead already.

"Please try," Thomas whispered, opening his eyes and kissing her hand. "Please."

Lily didn't move, not even to blink though her eyes were half-lidded already, lacking the energy even to open them fully.

"I love you Lily," Thomas said, shaking his head.

Her voice, when it came, was thin and quietly cruel.

"If you loved me, you would kill me. My heart is ripped out already. My heart is with him."