He was in and out of lucidity for at least two days, his body ravaged by the fever and shakes of a man addicted to grief and liquor—Hope has seen these symptoms far too many times at the mission and could not help but notice them in the strange man Devlin had brought home. While not altogether fetching, he was also not exactly wretched looking, by way of appearance—were it not for his unkempt visage, Hope was certain he'd be considered handsome enough. He was not her type though—entirely too civilized looking for her tastes, though she'd never admit that to anyone, not even her sister.

He had called out her sister Ashlynne's name in all sorts of ways: in fits of anger, passion, fear, and confusion. He'd muttered other near incoherent things about revenge and sparrows—or THE Sparrow if Hope's typically keen assumptions rang true—until his throat had been made raw with his fevered terrors and she'd had to quiet him with sips of laudanum until the fever abated enough for him to rest on his own.

Now, on the afternoon marking the third day since he'd been brought to their cottage, he stirred as if to awake. After Hope wiped his brow with a cool rag and wet his lips with drops of water, his eyes fluttered and then opened. She allowed him to take in his surroundings in silence, not wanting to overload his senses out rightly. Moments later, when he opened his mouth to speak only croaks came. Hope quickly pressed the glass of water she'd been holding into his hand and helped him sip at it before she pulled it away, not wanting him to upset his stomach with too much too soon.

"Rest easy sir, you are safe; my cousin Devlin found you in the harbor and brought you here to our cottage in the hills outside of Tortuga. You've been in my care for three days time." She spoke evenly as he leaned back against the pillows, his eyes closed and his Adams apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed against the rawness of his throat.

"I thought," Hope had to lean closer in order to hear the growling whisper that escaped from his lips, "I thought I'd died."

Hope gave him a soft smile and shook her head, "While I'm not sure if you were aiming for such an outcome or not, I can reassure you that you are not dead." She stood up and, after glancing around the immediate vicinity and being satisfied that there was nothing he could use to harm himself, turned around to move back out into the main room of the cottage. "I will make you a little soup. You may not be feeling it now but give it a few more minutes and your body will remind you that one of the greatest pleasures of living is feeling hunger and being able to satisfy that hunger."

She left him to his own most likely gloomy devices while she busied herself in the kitchen. Hope couldn't help but think that perhaps this was THE man Ashlynne had been so torn up over, the very man Parlan had cursed to high heaven when he'd returned without her sister some months before. If it was then having him in the cottage was dangerous; Parlan had sworn he'd murder the man should he ever see him again and as he was in the general vicinity of Tortuga the likelihood of his returning to do so was high. She didn't know when Ashlynne would return and from what she'd been able to glean from her sister's behavior when they'd last been together, a reunion with this man would not be a positive one with her either—though Hope figured there'd be much less physical violence than with Parlan, though it would also be more emotional.

Steaming soup bowl in hand, Hope returned to the small bedroom to find the man sitting up more against the headboard of the bed, his eyes a bit more alert and his skin less pallid. She gave him another smile as she sat down beside the bed and held out the soup bowl. When he didn't take it right away she narrowed her eyes and made it appear that she was going to drop it on his lap. Unaccustomed to calling her bluff like her cousin was, the man quickly reached out and took it from her.

"Thank you; the bowl suddenly grew too heavy." She made a show of shaking her hands in the air between them once he held the bowl securely in his own hands. She reached into her apron pocket and withdrew a spoon and with a clunk dropped it into the bowl with a smile. "You best eat all of that."

The man glared at the soup bowl, then at her, and then sighed and took the spoon in hand and began to eat. Hope stood and moved around the room tidying things and keeping herself busy so that he could be afforded some "privacy" whilst eating and getting his bearings about him. It was only once she noticed he'd finished the soup that she sat back down and took the empty bowl from his hands and put it on the bedside table.

"If I may be so bold, what is your name?" When he glared at her, Hope blushed and hurried on, "My name is Hope, and I already mentioned my cousin Devlin. We're the only ones here, typically, but sometimes my sister or her friend come and stay with us when they're in port." When he still didn't offer up any sort of reply Hope rambled on, "I spend the majority of my time in the mission near the port town, caring for any wounded or sickly who can manage to make their way there. I took some time away from my duties there in order to care for you, not that I'm telling you that to make you feel guilty, that is a far cry from my intentions." He'd closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall behind him. She could tell from his breathing rate that he was still alert and begrudgingly listening. "My cousin works with a negro named Ishmael on a fishing charter, though they sometimes hire themselves out as repairmen or merchant sailors on passing ships." Hope nibbled her bottom lip in thought, pondering just how much she should reveal about her sister, in case this was the man she thought him to be. "My sister does all sorts of things, though they usually entail the sea. In her efforts to look out for me, the poor woman has been called all sorts of names because of various misunderstandings, but she isn't a thief or a liar or a cheat, or a pirate for that matter. She hasn't got it in her to be dishonest or disloyal like a pirate."

The man finally opened his eyes and gave her a weary look, "Miss Hope, while I do not want to seem remiss in my appreciation for your care and attention, you seem discerning enough to realize that my swim in the harbor had been deliberate." He waited a beat before he continued. "Risking the danger of being entirely too frank, I have no interest in your family, no interest in you, and no interest in living."

"Why?" Hope bypassed the peculiarities of civil discourse and went straight to the heart of her curiosity.

The man looked weary again, "Why what?"

"Why are you not interested in living anymore?" She clasped her hands together in her lap and leveled a steady gaze on him. "I've seen a number of men come to the mission with the same world-weary look about them that you have, all of them with gory tales of woe and loss. I've played the part of lost loved ones to delirious men, blessedly dying without the knowledge of their isolation in the world. I've written many a letter to estranged family members for those on their deathbeds, stretching the truth of the situation of the dying as well as their intended words." Hope shook her head. "These men were uninterested in living in a world where they could not have what mattered most to them, nor could they live in a world where they'd discovered that what they once thought mattered the most turned out to be no more than a petty lie while the truer things had been cast away some time before."

The man's gaze grew watery at her last remark and he quickly looked away, his eyes focusing on the bed sheets. Hope leaned forward and gently brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips in order to draw his attention once more. It took a moment but soon enough he returned her gaze.

"You're loss, whatever it may be, is not new to this world nor would it be new to me. Your burden is no greater than other burdens that have been born before. Your disappointments are not so vast that they have not been felt by others before." He looked shocked at her harsh words but she quickly continued. "Whatever it is that has hardened your heart, sir, can just as easily allow you to feel once more, if you learn from these disappointments, burdens, and loss."

Before the man could respond Hope heard the cottage door open and she glanced over her shoulder to see Devlin step inside. She stood and moved towards the door but stopped when behind Devlin stepped Parlan. She drew a hand to her throat and threw a quick glance over her shoulder at the man before she rushed forward and firmly shut the bedroom door behind her.

"It is still early," she gave both men a big smile, "what brings you two here at this hour?"

Parlan glanced at the closed door behind then at her, "What are you hiding in there Hope?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Hope purposefully moved away from the door towards the table and made herself sit down, as calm as could be. "I'm not hiding anything."

"Hope, I told Parlan about the man I found." Devlin was looking at her curiously, as if he too had sensed a newfound anxiety in her behavior. "He's come to offer him a spot on the Bessie Bates that's sailing in a fortnight; they're in need of more hands. I figure the job will get him out of Tortuga, in case that's what ails him, get him some quid if that's the problem and will have him out and about in the fresh air and sun, since you're always insisting that's the cure for near everything."

Parlan dropped his hat on the table and moved around it, "Well let me have a look at him first, to see if he's even seaworthy."

Hope stood quickly and moved to stand between Parlan and the door, "I don't think he's quite ready for company just yet. He only just awake an hour or so ago and he's still quite weak." Devlin came to stand just behind Parlan and was again looking at her as if she'd gone mad. "Perhaps you should come back tomorrow, or the day after, and mayhaps then he'll be seaworthy."

"Hope," Parlan reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders, "your concern for him is commendable, but I really believe-"

The door behind her opened and she barely had time to look over her shoulder to register this fact before Parlan was shoving her to the side and dodging a wayward fist that had been thrust in his direction. Devlin snatched her away as Parlan continued to dodge sloppy attacks made by the man, both of them circling around the small kitchen area while Devlin and Hope kept out of the way of the blows.

"What are you doing here?" The man growled at Parlan, his swings getting a little better in timing as he hobbled to and fro.

Parlan barely ducked from a thrown punch, batting it away casually as if he worried not about being harmed, before he answered, "I could ask you the same Commodore. Not only is Tortuga a world away from Port Royal but the Fitzpatrick home is certainly the last place I expected you to be."

"Fitzpatrick?" The man stopped his attacks and stood deathly still. His eyes turned towards Hope and Devlin and studied them for a moment before a strange light came to his eyes and he had to reach out to brace his weight against the table lest he fall to the floor. "You are her family?"

"You're the man?" Hope stepped away from Devlin's side, confident that the violence was over now. "The man who's driven her to her death twice over?"

He dropped into a chair by the table so suddenly that she feared the chair would break under the movement. "Yes." He whispered out the confirmation, his body slumped as if the world itself rested upon his shoulders. "I cannot expect you to forgive me," he looked up towards her but could not maintain eye contact for long, "but I beg of you, please take my life for the life I took from you." The man dropped from the chair onto his knees and literally threw himself at Hope's feet, clutching at her ankles. "Please kill me."

Hope blinked at his prostrated body before she looked over to Devlin and Parlan for a cue on what to say or do next. Parlan was sneering at the man, obviously unimpressed with him, while Devln looked just as confused as Hope felt.

"I would love to kill you," Parlan dropped into the chair the man had once occupied and glared down at him as he continued to lay on the floor, "if I knew that it wouldn't cause my friend pain. But if I harm one hair on your head and Ashlynne finds out about it," Parlan growled as he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest, "a bloody mess that's what this is."

The man twisted on the floor in order to look over at Parlan, "What do you mean, if she finds out about it? She's dead!"

"Well, not technically." Hope scratched the back of her head, uncomfortable with talking "down" to the man but also uncomfortable with forcing him to move if that's where he wanted to remain.

He looked to her then, "What is it that you mean, 'not technically?'"

"She means that Ashlynne is cursed to resurrect from any mortal wound so long as that cursed pendant is hanging around her neck." The man pulled himself into the other chair and stared at Parlan as he explained further. "The very pendant that the Forrester's were seeking and tried to kill for all those years ago," he allowed a glare to interrupt his explanation and the man blushed in response, "Ashlynne ended up with the pendant about her neck in her efforts to make it back to Scotland in order to save our family. She didn't know about its curse or that once it is worn it cannot be taken off except with an equally cursed dagger."

"We are all that's left of the Fitzpatrick family," Devlin came to stand beside Hope and placed a hand on her shoulder as he spoke to the man, "Ashlynne managed to bring us here safely after a time and then when she discovered the whereabouts of the dagger sought after it, in order that she could be fully human again."

"Port Royal." The man mumbled to himself though they all nodded their heads in confirmation. "So she did not," he closed his eyes and shuddered, "did not die in Port Royal as I supposed?"

Parlan snorted, "Oh she did, die that is. She has died twice because of you in fact." He seemed to take pleasure in reminding the man of this and Hope gave him a frowning glare in response. "She feels the pain of each wound and must heal from them as well, though at a more accelerated rate than the rest of us experience. The pendant does not spare the wearer from pain or age, merely death."

"Where is she now?" The man asked softly, almost as if he were afraid of the answer.

"You don't deserve to know the answer to that question." Parlan stood and looked to Devlin. "Lend this man a pair of trousers and a decent pair of boots. He will no longer be staying here." He shook his head at Hope before she could offer up protestations. "I'm sure you understand my reasons, Norrington, for asking you to leave and never return, for you to never attempt to contact the Fitzpatrick's again."

The man, Norrington, nodded, his eyes downcast. Devlin disappeared into his room for a moment while Parlan moved towards the door. Hope edged closer, her fingers itching to reach out to pat his shoulder at least, though she refrained.

"What I said earlier," when she spoke his gaze moved from the floorboards to her face and she offered a tentative smile, "it it still true. You don't need to harden your heart further because of the facts of the past."

Devlin returned with boots, trousers, and a waist coat then. The man accepted them in embarrassed silence before he returned to his own room to change. Parlan waited until he was gone before he spoke to Hope over his shoulder.

"You knew it was him didn't you, and that's why you didn't want me to meet him."

Hope nodded, "Yes."

"Why?" Devlin asked, coming up to stand beside her once more.

"He is already so far down, Parlan, must we kick him further?" She sighed. "I will not lie and say that the fact that my sister has basically died two times partially because of this man doesn't bother me, it does, however he is still a creature of-"

"He is a selfish, egotistical, unbending bastard, Hope." Parlan turned to glare at her. "I know you always try to see the good in people, and only you could ever claim Captain Jack as being a gentleman at heart, but this man, this man Hope, is rotten to the core. He will never recover from what he has done to your sister, or what he has done to himself. His principles will hang him, mark my words; they'll be the death of him."

The door opened then and a freshly dressed Norrington returned. The clothes were a little baggy, as Devlin was better nourished than the Commodore appeared to be, and he still looked scraggly. Hope went into her own room and retrieved an old naval coat and quickly shoved it into Norrington's arms before he could argue; she knew it could get dastardly chilly on the streets of Tortuga, and she had a feeling that was where he'd end up.

"I…" Norrington looked at them all, his face flushed with myriad of emotions, before his shoulders slumped once more and he turned towards the door.

Parlan and Devlin waited by the door until they were satisfied that he wouldn't return before they began to ready the evening meal. As Hope watched Norrington carefully pick his way down the hillside trail, her heart ached for the missed opportunities that had passed between her sister and this man. Perhaps the curse of resurrection could be a blessing in disguise, offering Ashlynne a new start with him. Of course, both parties would have to get off their high horses of martyrdom, and Parlan away from his vendetta, before such a thing could occur. But Hope was not named such without cause, and she held fast to that idea.