A/N: Please don't hate me! The next chapter is halfway done! Thank you for all of your comments, kudos and follows! They make my day, you don't even know.
Abigail eyed the small fish that came over to nibble at her toes.
"Go in," she muttered to it. "That's a good fish."
It darted into and out of the net and Abigail held her breath...it went in. She grinned and lifted the net, stumbling slightly as she held it aloft above the waves.
"You're getting far too good at that," Billy called from the shore where he shaved down a pole with his cutlass. "If the expedition lark doesn't pay off, you could always become a fisherman." He paused. "Fisherwoman?"
Abigail laughed and trudged back to shore. "As long as it's not a fishwife, I don't think I have the voice for that. I'm terrible at raising my voice."
"Ah, well, I've found that being quiet tends to get people to fall in line better than a sharp word," he said smiling a bit grimly.
She nodded. "I believe I know what you mean. In any case, that's three caught for dinner!"
"Nice catch," he said eyeing the fish. "Think that's a bream. Good eating later."
"Bream," she repeated dropping the fish into a makeshift bucket made of some bits of driftwood that she'd carved a depression into. She looked over at Billy as he tossed the pole aside and picked up another branch to smooth. "Can I help?"
"Nah," he said wiping his forehead. "This should be done today."
"What will it look like?" she asked coming over to stand beside him.
He glanced at her and then took the pole in his hand and drew in the sand. "The sail we're currently using isn't strong enough to withstand another squall. So, I'm using that larger bit of wood and I'll prop it up with these poles and shore up the sides with wider bits of wood."
Abigail looked at the drawing of what looked like half of the roof of a house. "The only opening will be at the front?"
"You can drape the sail over the front. For, ah, privacy," he said shrugging. "If you want."
"Brilliant," she breathed.
"Basic," he countered.
"All the same," she said rolling her eyes. "Are you sure I can't help?"
"Positive," he said going back to his work.
She stared after him in exasperation, but shook her head and set about making some dinner for them. She'd gathered some berries earlier that he'd said were safe to eat and she set them to the side. Then she turned her attention to the fish spearing them and setting them over the spit atop the fire.
The last two days had been considerably better than the previous two. Abigail's little outburst had broken the ice somewhat and they were becoming more amenable to one another. Billy had even cracked a smile or two that seemed truly genuine and weren't tinged with the ever-present scepticism that seemed to loom over his head. He'd been more accepting of her help, especially in regards to fishing. However, he seemed determined to be the only person to construct the shelter.
Considering her non-existent carpentry skills, Abigail felt that was probably for the best.
Her current challenge was to stop staring at him as though he were a curiosity in a shop.
But it was hard.
She'd never seem anyone approach hard work with the focus and determination that he did. His entire being seemed devoted to finishing the task at hand and when he was deep in concentration, his hands moving expertly over the bits of wood and bindings, she couldn't look away.
The idea of him transferring that focus to her did funny things to her stomach and her skin prickled. As it was currently doing as she turned the fish on the spit absently while her eyes were busy drinking in the sight of him propping one board atop the other. She tore her gaze away as the fish began to sizzle.
A gust of wind took her by surprise and she looked out to sea. Dark clouds had appeared on the horizon within the last half hour or so and she felt another prickle on her skin, and this time it was more of a chill.
"Billy?" she called, not taking her eyes from the clouds.
"I see them," he said hammering the top of a board with the butt of his cutlass. "We have a while before it reaches us."
"How much of a while?" she asked.
"A short one."
"Right," she said under her breath. Checking that the fish were cooked through, she took them off the spit and wrapped them in a waxy leaf before tucking them next to the collection of berries. She checked they had sufficient water and then glanced at Billy. His jaw was clenched as he tried to hold a larger plank of wood up and slot a pole into a notch he'd made that would keep it propped up.
She bit her tongue, stopping herself from offering to help and turned away. She heard him sigh over the wind.
"Damn it," he muttered. "Abigail?"
"Hmmm?" she said as nonchalantly as she could.
"I could use another pair of hands," he said, sounding somewhere between exasperated and sheepish.
"Only if you're positive…" she replied glancing at him over her shoulder.
His eyes narrowed. "Don't be cheeky, Miss Ashe, and just get over here."
"Well, since you asked so nicely," she said smiling a little as she walked over to him.
He snorted before he said, "Hold this pole steady while I fix the roof."
They worked on the shelter together, Abigail basically holding whatever Billy told her to, until the rain finally made it to them. The surf surged and crashed on the beach and the sound was thunderous.
Thick, heavy drops splattered on the roof they'd just stabilized and soaked through Abigail's dress to her chemise. She blinked as the rain pelted her face and Billy shook his head from time to time, dislodging the rain that dripped down his forehead.
"That's it," he said as he tied off the last of the bindings. "Get inside."
Abigail breathed a sigh of relief and after grabbing the food and the water bucket, she ducked into the shelter. Billy, meanwhile, grabbed some smaller bits of driftwood and then followed her inside.
"Oh, good," she said as he sat down.
"What?" he asked setting up a smaller fire as the larger one outside slowly died down under the deluge.
"I was afraid you'd insist on remaining outside," she said. "Like the noble idiot you usually are."
"Not when it's raining," he said grinning a little. "Hard to be noble when you look like a drowned rat."
She smiled and watched him make a small fire just enough inside the shelter so that it didn't get wet and the smoke was carried out.
Seeing as it was still late afternoon and the storm was just settling in, Abigail handed him two pieces of fish and they ate in silence, watching the rain and the surf. When they'd finished, they sat in awkward silence. Never before had Abigail wished so much for a tea set. Despite all her professions about wanting to explore and leave society behind, at heart, she was very much a product of her upbringing and there was something terribly comforting about a tea set. She knew how to make a very good cup of tea and her hand was incredibly steady whilst pouring, so…
Oh, she feared she'd commit atrocities for a cup of tea.
She glanced at Billy and saw him glance away from her, his brow furrowing.
Had he…been looking at her?
Despite telling herself to settle down, she felt the tell-tale warmth in her cheeks that proceeded a blush. For lack of anything else to do, she plucked at the garter still tied around her wrist.
"Do, ah," Billy cleared his throat. "What's Virginia like?"
She looked at him in surprise. "You didn't make it that far up the coast?"
"We weren't exactly stopping to admire the scenery," he said drily.
"Oh, yes, well." She thought for a moment. "Virginia is… Well, it's very much like the rest of the colonies. The town itself is getting larger and larger by the day and it's filled with everything a person could want. Shops, houses, churches, schools… But the moment you leave the town, the land turns…wild."
He looked at her. "Wild?"
She nodded. "Unexplored and covered with trees so tall they stretch into the heavens. England is positively tame in comparison. They even say that bears and wolves roam the countryside."
"Really?" he asked.
"Well, that's what they say," she admitted. "I never saw them. Only birds. Oh, so many birds. Beautiful red birds called cardinals and bluebirds. The air smells of the countryside, even in the middle of the township. Not at all like London which always smelled of buildings."
"It sounds as though you liked it," he said.
"The problem was never the land itself," she said laughing quietly, "only the people who inhabit it."
"I believe I know what you mean," he said. "Did you never venture further inland? I've heard fur trappers talking about great mountains."
"I never saw much beyond the edges of the populated areas," she said. "But the men on the expedition had been to the mountain ranges and said they were incredible to behold. The air was so cold it would freeze the breath before it left your lungs."
A sharp wind blew into their shelter and Abigail shivered as it chilled the damp of her dress. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he looked at her. His brow furrowed when another breeze swept through and she shivered again. The muscle in his jaw jumped again.
"I'm sorry," she said looking away and wrapping her arms around herself.
"What?" he asked sounding confused.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I can't seem to help it." He stared at her and she clarified, "The shivering. I can see that it's annoying you. My dress is still rather wet from fishing and the rain."
His eyes widened and shut with a grimace. "I'm not…" He chuckled and opened his eyes to look at her. "We're forever going to be coming at opposite ends, aren't we?"
"Are we?"
"I'm annoyed," he admitted. "But not because you're shivering. But because you're shivering."
She ran through what he'd just said again in her mind and burst out laughing, covering her mouth as she did so.
"I'm going to credit the last several days alone with you on this island as the reason I understood that," she said smiling even as she shivered. "As I know you wish to, how to you plan to rectify the situation?"
"Well, short of throwing you on the fire, I have an idea, but it won't be proper," he said. "It should warm you, though."
If it had been any other man, Abigail would have suspected him of trying to charm her. But as it was Billy, she took him at his word.
"Billy," she said. "I'm currently using my stockings as sash and a garter ribbon for a hair tie. Propriety has long ceased to be a concern of mine."
His mouth twitched as he said, "Well, I gave you fair warning," and then he reached for her.
In one fluid motion, Abigail found herself enfolded in his arms, perched on his thigh, bracketed by his bent knee. She felt caught and sheltered and excited and…very warm.
"Good heavens, you're a fire," she said pressing her cold hands to his chest. Realizing that this was hardly an appropriate gesture, she pulled them back and started to apologize. But Billy reached up with one hand and covered both of hers, pressing them back to his chest.
"Always run a bit warmer that most," he said, his voice sounding slightly strangled. His mouth was somewhere near her temple and his breath warmed her skin and she shivered, but most certainly not from the cold. Still, he pulled her a shade closer.
"I imagine being warm is a useful trait," she said while her senses whirled and tripped over one another at his intense closeness.
"Still been through my share of cold nights," he said. "Nothing quite like a snowstorm while you're out at sea."
"Goodness," she said. "I'd imagine not. What is that like?"
"White," he said. "White everywhere. Blinding and cold. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's up and what's down, let alone east or west. But I'll take snow over a becalmed sea any day."
"Becalmed?" she asked.
"No wind, no current," he said, his fingers flexing on her hands and she curled her fingers into a fist over his heart. "Nothing but the sun and water that you cannot drink."
"It sounds like torture," she said softly.
"Yeah," he said shortly, his hand on her waist pulled her that much closer and she doubted that he was even aware of it.
"Surely, in all your time at sea, you've seen beauty, though?" she asked.
Billy was quiet and Abigail glanced up only to freeze. His gaze was firmly fixed on her face. Blood rushed into her cheeks and she had to remind herself that he wasn't like the 'gentlemen' she'd met in the past. He wasn't holding her gaze to flirt or assume some kind of advantage, he was merely…assessing.
And oh, this was what she'd been fearing and desiring for the last few days. The focus of Billy Bones aimed directly at her. It was overwhelming and all he was doing was looking at her. His gaze dropped to her lips and her own vision swam for a delicious and terrifying moment, before his looked back into her eyes.
"My first sea voyage was horrendous," he said matter-of-factly. "I was kept on my knees swabbing the decks. Endlessly cleaning and dodging the officers. I was in the middle of the ocean for weeks but I don't remember seeing the god damn sea once. I only saw the grain of the wood I cleaned."
Something in her chest began to ache as she pictured a group of young boys stolen from their families and facing the horrible unknown.
"After several weeks of storms and rain, we pulled into port at Barbados and I finally lifted my head," he continued. "There were all these birds everywhere you looked. Brilliant, loud birds of reds and greens and blues; hell, some colours I'd never seen before. You know how London can seem so grey? This?" He shook his head. "For a moment I thought I was dead, because surely no place on earth could possibly hold this much brilliance." He looked away from her out at the sea. "But I wasn't dead and I was sent below with the other boys while the officers went ashore.
"So, yes, I've seen beauty. Terrible, terrible beauty that defies all logic," he said. "But it always comes with a price. Always."
Abigail looked away from his face and stared at his hand that held both of hers so easily and carefully. Each finger had marks and scars on it. Each pad was callused. She could feel the roughness of his palm compared to the softness of her own hands. Unsure as to how it would be received, but incapable of stopping her need to show him that his words had serious import, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
She felt his entire body jerk as though she'd punched him, and his head snapped down to look at her. But she just breathed slowly, in and out, and rubbed her cheek minutely against the rough linen of his shirt. His heart pounded beneath their clasped hands and she felt hers pound in response.
After several long moments that were filled by the pounding of their hearts and the surf outside the shelter, Billy broke the silence with, "'Course there was that time we saw a whale larger than the ship."
Abigail blinked and shook her head. "Now, you're just funning me."
"God's own truth," he said. "Big monster of a fellow. Or lady. You can never be sure with whales." Abigail laughed. "He drew up alongside us. Eyed us for a moment and must have decided we weren't the trouble and slipped below. Disappeared. Of course, we were all panicking. Would a cannon even make a dent in a creature that big? Just glad we never had to find out."
"Have you seen a kraken?" she asked smiling against his chest.
"Yep."
"You have not."
"Saw something awful big with tentacles," he said squeezing her side. "Might've been a kraken."
"What about mermaids?"
"Not yet."
"Hmmm," she said sighing. "I'd hoped to see amazing things on the expedition. They promised wonders and sights no one else had ever beheld."
"Instead you're stuck on what's nothing better than a sandbar with a pirate," he said. "Hardly any wondrous sights round here."
"Oh, I don't know," she said without thinking. "I'll not be forgetting the sight of you chopping down that tree anytime soon."
She froze once she heard herself and cringed, even while he chuckled. "It wasn't a very big tree."
"All the same," she said weakly, mortified beyond belief at herself. She fought the urge to just press her entire face against his chest and smother herself.
"One night, the sea glowed," he said shifting them a little so that he reclined against the sturdiest part of the shelter, never once letting Abigail go. She followed him and stretched out slightly, her head resting on his chest.
"It glowed?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Don't know what it was. Jellyfish, of a sort. The water was just bright with light even though it was the dead of night. Never seen the like again."
"How fantastic," she murmured, her eyes becoming heavy as Billy's warmth and the sound of the rain began to lull her to sleep. "What about sharks?"
"Yeah, but they're not that bad," he said. "And they're decent enough to eat."
She wrinkled her nose. "I'll take your word for it."
"Better than raw eels," he said.
"Raw eels?" she repeated. "Oh, my."
"Yeah, I don't recommend it," he chuckled. "One time I saw flowers made of ice floating in the sea."
"Flowers made of ice?" she said her eyes closing, the steady thump of his heart by her ear matching the beat of her own heart.
"Yeah," he said. "They looked like large snowflakes, just drifting on the sea. Picked one up and it melted in my hand. Tasted like salt."
She smiled against his chest. "Salty snowflakes."
"Mmm hmm," he said. "And there was that one time when a group of dolphins raced us all the way from Nassau to Tortuga…"
As he spoke of the sea and its creatures and the rain poured down, Abigail drifted off to sleep.
Billy's first thought upon waking was that his bunk had never been this pleasant and warm before.
His second thought upon waking as he looked down at the young woman still enfolded in his arms was: Fuck.
But he made no move to shift her and instead ran the tip of one finger along the top of her hand where it lay curled upon his chest.
She was so very tiny and warm and slight in his arms and an unfamiliar feeling stole over him. It was so unfamiliar it took him some time to figure out what it was.
Tenderness.
He felt…tender towards the woman in his arms. He supposed it was simply a reflection of the tenderness that she had shown him the night before. After his very cynical, if true, recounting of his first seas voyage, she had simply curled up against him, offering him understanding in the form of comfort. It had been some time since anyone had shown him true comfort. Actual, physical comfort, that is. Gates had been a mentor and a true mate, and Billy had always found a certain type of companionship amongst the crew as they worked together. But for someone to lay their head upon him and hold his hand? Hell, he couldn't remember a time when someone had done that. His parents? His siblings? It was foreign and kind and…
And it scared the hell out of him.
He eyed Abigail in his arms with a great deal of wariness but still found himself tracing the line of her hand. She sighed a little and rubbed her cheek against his shirt. Her eyes fluttered open and she lifted her head.
Oh Christ, I am in such fucking trouble, he thought as stared into her dark, sleepy eyes as her lips curved up into a smile.
"Morning," she said softly, before glancing down. "Did I fall asleep on you?"
"Yeah," he breathed.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"'S fine," he said. "I, uh, I gotta take a piss, though."
She blinked at him and he cringed internally. But then she grinned. "So do I, now that you mention it."
He watched her sit up and scratch at her head and flip that long plait of hers over her shoulder. They both got to their feet and headed in opposite directions into the trees.
Once he finished and had thoroughly berated himself for being such an idiot (Holding her? Telling her stories? What the fuck?), he walked onto the beach to see her already kicking the remains of their small fire out of the shelter.
He moved to help her and they built up the larger fire once again, moving some of the still smouldering bits of wood to the bottom to dry the wetter pieces.
"Amazing," she said after they'd fixed the fire and she stood, hands on her hips, as she looked at the sea.
"What?" he asked checking the lean-to and satisfied that it'd probably weather another few storms.
"The sea," she said quietly. "It's so changeable. Tempestuous one moment, still as a mill pond the next."
"Some men say the same of women," he said.
"Some women say the same of men," she retorted, glancing at him, her eyes clear and bright in the rising sun.
He smirked down at her and noticed a smudge of charcoal from the firewood on her cheek.
"Ah, you have," he said as he lifted his hand to her face. He smoothed his thumb over the smudge without considering his actions and only stopped when he saw how still she was and how wide her eyes had grown. He stared back at her, his fingers coming to rest against her hair, cradling her head. Unable to stop himself, he rubbed gently at the mark on her cheek, ostensibly to remove it, but a darker, deeper part of himself that he thought he'd suppressed ages ago simply wanted to gauge her reaction to his touch.
Her eyes remained fixed on his and he knew, god damn it, he fucking knew he was playing with fire and tempting fate and dancing on the edge and everything in between and every fibre of his being shouted at him to stop.
But he couldn't seem to lift his hand from her face.
Finally, a pop from the fire startled them both and he dropped his hand.
"Uh," he said, for a moment not exactly sure where he was.
"Yes," she said looking anywhere but at him. "I, um, should refill the water."
"Right, yeah," he said nodding. "I could use a bit of water, I'll come with you."
She nodded and went to pick up the bucket, but Billy got there first. She peered up at him with a look that he couldn't quite decipher and so he smiled, bowed his head and gestured.
"After you, Miss Ashe," he said feeling like ten kinds of a fool. But she smiled back and turned smartly on her heel and headed towards the pool.
They walked across the beach in silence and immediately Billy regretted letting her go first. His eyes kept returning to her feet. He felt odd, but he hadn't spent all that much time in the company of women. Certainly not ladies. His experiences in brothels tended to be brief and infrequent. He'd never been as fond of fucking as the other men. He'd always had the image of his parents in the back of his mind. The way his father had looked at his mother; the way she'd lightly touch his shoulder as she'd pass him at the table. He'd grown up seeing love and he was nothing if not genuine in everything he did, so why should fucking be any different? Imitating an act that generally held import had little appeal for him.
Besides, it left a person vulnerable and there was too much to do to waste any time on vulnerability.
However, as he watched Abigail Ashe's tiny little ankles flecked with sand and dirt kick up sand with every step, he felt stirrings of that blasted tenderness mixed with other darker, more sensual, longings and he really needed to stop looking at her damn feet.
They arrived at the pool to discover that the top rock was spilling over with rain water due to the heavy rainfall the night before.
Abigail cupped some water in her hand and drank. "It's fresher than usual," she commented.
Billy followed suit and drank deep. Then he splashed his face, neck and arms with the cool water. He noticed Abigail copy his motions and he had to tear his gaze away from the trickle of water that ran along her collarbone and then disappeared into her…
He dunked his entire head in the pool.
When he lifted his head, and gasped for air, he found Abigail staring at him.
"Are you…well?" she asked hesitantly.
"Better now," he said not looking at the droplets of water on her cheeks and throat. No, he wasn't looking at all. "Did you say something about those rocks the other day? The higher ones?"
He leapt up onto the edge of the pool as she said, her tone making it clear she was still puzzling him out, "Oh, yes. I think it's a rather deep depression in that top rock. Could it be a spring?"
"Didn't think the island was that type," he said peering into the crevice. "Maybe…"
He jumped down and walked around the rocks, Abigail followed him.
"We haven't really explored this area," she said as they walked a few feet from the pool where the brush cleared and only dirty sand and a few trees grew.
"Haven't really seen the point," Billy said walking on. "Any kind of ship would come from the other side."
He paused and stared at the ground. Something wasn't quite right…
"What is it?" Abigail asked from a few feet away.
"I don't know," he said squinting and tilting his head. "But something looks wrong with the ground."
"Wrong?" she asked. "How can the ground look wrong?"
He shook his head and took a step forward and the sand beneath his boots creaked.
Wait.
Creaked?
He spun around with his hand outstretched to stop Abigail from coming any closer and the very last thing he saw as he fell through the earth was her horrified expression.
