A/N:Just a brief note before we get into it. I wanted to mention that I'm afraid I'll be going on a bit of a hiatus during November and possibly December. I'm going to be doing my level best to complete an original novel I've been working on during NaNoWriMo, so I'm setting this little story to the side while I do that. I AM NOT ABANDONING THIS STORY HOWEVER! I have far too many plans for these two and we've only hit the tip of the iceburg.
That being said, I think I've left things in a fairly satisfactory place... Thank you so, so, so much for all of your continued support and please enjoy!
Abigail watched in horror as Billy fell through the earth. She clapped a hand to her mouth at the sound of a crash and an 'oomph'!
"Billy!" she shouted, breaking out of her frozen terror and running to the odd hole in the ground, stopping just at the edge where the ground seemed to sink and creak under her feet.
"Yeah," he said, his voice muffled.
Relief washed over her at the sound of his voice, and she knelt down and edged towards the hole. She discovered that the creaking was actually wooden boards that had rotted and given way when Billy stepped on them. Wooden boards in the middle of an island? She dismissed them and focussed on Billy.
"Are you all right?" she called down to him.
"Yeah," he said and she peered into the darkness, just able to make out his upturned face. "I'm fine."
His voice was tight with pain, so she retorted, "I don't believe you. Are you injured?"
"It's fine, I'm fine," he said looking up at her and trying to smile but only managing a grimace. "I'll be better with some light."
"Oh, yes, yes, of course!" she said. "I'll return shortly."
"I'll be here," he said, managing an actual grin this time.
"You're not funny," she said laughing weakly. She edged away from the hole and when the ground felt stable, she got to her feet and began to rush back to the beach. However, she stopped beside the Spanish skeleton and a terrible, horrible idea came to her head.
"Oh, I'm certainly not supposed to do this," she said under her breath. However, she ignored the parts of her that recoiled in disgust, and picked up what she supposed was a leg bone and wrapped the remaining tattered cloth around the top of the bone. Then she dashed to the beach and over to the large fire that was burning away. The fabric lit handily.
She started to rush back to Billy, but paused long enough to grab the flask he'd given her a few days ago. Satisfied it was still filled with water, she tucked it into her sash and then dashed back.
A few short moments later, she was back at the hole holding her makeshift torch aloft.
"I'm back," she called down.
"Oh, good girl," he said looking up and then squinting. "Is that a leg bone?"
"It seemed a sturdier choice than a branch," she said, lifting her chin.
He stared at her before he said, "I can safely say that I've not met anyone quite like you, Abigail Ashe."
"I'm going to assume that was a compliment," she said primly. "Especially considering that I'm up here and you're down there. Now, how do we get you out of there?"
"Shine the light," he said. "But brace yourself and don't fall in, or we're both fucked."
She looked around and saw an exposed tree root. Grabbing hold, she leaned towards the hole and lowered the torch into the hole. And oh, she knew he was hurt! A gash down the length of his bicep trickled with blood, even through the bit of cloth he'd hastily wrapped around it.
Abigail glared at Billy, but he just said, "It's just a scratch."
"That's a great deal of blood for 'just a scratch'," she retorted.
"I'll deal with it later," he said. "Just shine the light around first."
She did as asked and frowned at what she saw. "It's a cave?"
Water trickled down wet curved walls to pool in a corner where the water disappeared into the earth, presumably to just below the island. Moss and tree roots wound through the earth just above Billy's head and it appeared as though someone had simply boarded up the entrance with wooden slats, which had rotted over time until Billy trod upon them.
Abigail shone the light over to the other wall and spotted a trunk of some kind with a small pile in front of it. The pile…glinted.
"Billy," she said on an exhale.
Gold.
Actual gold.
It glittered around and inside the broken trunk. Another skeleton was propped up beside it, a rapier embedded in his chest.
"Fuck," he said flatly. "I fucking knew it."
"Oh, my," she breathed, watching the gold as it gleamed in the firelight.
"Yeah," he said getting to his feet with a wince, his arm hanging heavily at his side. He walked over to the gold, eyed the skeleton, then crouched down. The light from Abigail's torch made his shadow dance and flicker on the wall as he reached out a hand and picked up a gold coin.
He held it up to shine in the firelight.
"Fuck," he said again. "The closest I ever got to the Urca gold was in a fucking chest while I helped bloody Jack Rackham escape from the fucking governor. Never actually saw the damn stuff."
Abigail watched the light play on the coin and on Billy's face as he frowned.
"The things men do for this shit," he said staring at the coin. With a shake of his head, he tossed the coin to the ground and faced her.
"Not exactly impressed by it, are you?" she asked quietly.
He shook his head. "Are you?"
"Not precisely?" She shrugged rather helplessly. "I've always had some form of currency to my name, so I suppose I couldn't really say that I've ever yearned for something I already possessed."
He nodded. "Yeah. Shine that torch just below you?"
She held tightly to her tree root as she directed the light away from Billy to just beneath where she knelt. On the ground lay an old rope ladder.
"Right," he said walking over to it. "I figure that our old friend that you're holding there, stabbed his mate here and waited out the whole thing up there till he died of his own injuries."
"They killed each other?" she asked.
"Maybe they realized no one was coming back for them," he said picking up the old rope ladder. He looked up at her and arched an eyebrow. "Should I be worried?"
"Should I?" she asked arching an eyebrow of her own.
"Nah," he said. "I'm kind of getting used to someone else cooking for me."
"Ridiculous man," she said shaking her head.
He winked at her and said, "Drop the torch down and I'll throw the ladder up to you. See if you can get it fixed to something."
"All right," she said. "Stand back."
He moved back and she dropped the torch. It clattered to the ground, but kept it's flame. Billy picked it up, hefting the bone in his hand and shaking his head over it. He lit a small bundle of twigs in the corner of the cave.
Then, wincing as the movement clearly tugged at his injury, he tossed the rope ladder up to Abigail.
A good half hour filled with false starts and some rushed education Billy gave Abigail on knot-tying, Billy held the bottom of the rope ladder steady as Abigail descended.
"Oh," she said when she reached the end of the rope and a good foot of air was between her feet and the ground.
"I have you," Billy said, moving in close and curling his good arm around her middle and easily lifting her to the ground. Once she had her feet on the ground, she turned in his arms and immediately looked at his shoulder. He looked down at her and wondered once again at how such a fragile-looking woman could possess such inner strength.
"That's a bit more than a scratch, Mr Bones," she said eyeing the bloody cloth he tied around his shoulder.
He stared at her, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Abigail. There's a pile of gold in the corner over there, and you're worried about my arm?"
"Of course," she said frowning. "And it's fascinating, I've never seen Spanish gold before. But your shoulder is my immediate concern. Would you rather I be more fixated on the gold?"
"No, now that you mention it," he said the corners of his lips curving upwards before he turned to look at the gold. "All the same, I'm not too sure what to do with that."
"You really don't want it?" she asked.
"No," he said flatly. "It's useful enough, I suppose, but -"
"Useful enough?" she repeated looking at the gold. "It's terribly useful, I'd say."
"Would you?" he asked chuckling.
She fixed him with a look. "Money opens doors. Doors you thought were closed to you by reason of your birth or your sex or whatever. But when you have money and the means to use it, you'd be surprised the things you can accomplish."
"Such as funding an entire expedition to the South Americas?" he asked.
"Precisely," she said before she took a step closer, her face tilted up to his, her eyes sparkling in the firelight and Billy found himself transfixed. "I know the perils of possessing such things and I know that it can corrupt and taint with a kind of ease that has always frightened me. But if used wisely, there is much it can accomplish, as well."
"I know," he said even as she arched an eyebrow at him and he chuckled. "Abigail, I know it's use. I'm not such an agitator to ignore what money in the hands of decent people can do. I just hate the god damned stuff."
"Oh, well, that's understandable," she said looking at the skeleton with the rapier protruding from it's chest. "It does tend to lead to terrible things."
"Too many terrible things," Billy said thinking of Gates and the madness the Urca gold had created in it's wake.
"Now, then. Your shoulder," she said. "Come sit by the light."
"I can manage, you know," he asked, still doing as she said and sitting down by the small fire he'd built near the gold.
"Oh, I know," she said kneeling beside him and laying a hand on his arm that he stared down at in a terrible mix of confusion and something he thought might be desire. "However, you've already done a great deal for me, let me do this for you."
"Can you?" he asked his brow furrowing as he looked up at her. She blinked and he clarified, "Ah, sort this wound out, I mean?"
"I can indeed," she said plucking a few bits of, good God, had that been her petticoat, white cloth from heaven knew where along with the flask. She smiled as she wet one of the cloths. "At school were were often paired up with another girl. More or less to keep track of one another. My pair was a very boisterous girl from Paris called Clotilde. She had the sad misfortune to be one of the clumsiest people I've ever met. She was forever in matron's office, which meant I was forever in matron's office."
She undid the cloth around his shoulder, wrinkled her nose briefly, then proceeded to pat the wound with the dampened cloth. It was gentle and thorough and Billy found he couldn't take his eyes off of her mouth as she spoke.
"Eventually, the matron decided that it would be more efficient if I could handle Clotilde's more minor injuries," she said as she wiped at the streaks of blood and peered at the gash. "I learned some rudimentary skills and then whenever Clotilde tripped over her skirts, I was able to save us both the trip to the matron."
His hands clenched into fists and he tore his gaze away from her and bowed his head. Her soft touches were driving him mad. Did she have any idea what she was doing to him? Hell, did he have any idea what it was she was doing to him? He couldn't remember feeling this muddled and confused and the fact that he was also aching all over to touch her just meant he was a mess and he had no idea what to fucking do.
"Did you like school?" he asked to keep her talking because he clearly wished to be done in by the sound of her voice near his ear.
Abigail paused, then spoke, "Not really. Well, I enjoyed some subjects and we had a wonderful library. But I spent so much of my time there, even during holidays, I hardly saw anything outside of the school grounds. And I knew that the full extent of my education was really only to further my father's ambitions, not mine."
"How so?" he asked finally raising his head to look at her, immediately wishing he hadn't, for the look on her face was so sad it stung his chest.
"I was only to be educated enough to hold my own in a conversation and to be a credit to my family," she said. "I wasn't to be educated for my own interests. I was only ever going to be an asset for my father to marry off for whatever alliance would suit him best."
She glanced at him and he wondered what kind of an expression he wore, for her eyes widened and she said quickly, "Not that he would have married me off to someone I despised. He would have listened to my opinion-" Her voice trailed off and her eyes slid to the side. "Well, he might have listened. But perhaps not. Hold this, please."
Her fingers curled around his hand and pressed it to his shoulder to hold a folded piece of cloth in place while she wrapped a longer piece of cloth around his bicep.
"Where did you get the cloth from?" he asked, not really wanting to hear the answer, but unable to contain his curiosity.
Pink filled her cheeks as she said, "My petticoat."
"That's what I thought," he said smirking. "Did your matron teach you that?"
"Not quite," she said tying off the cloth with a sharp tug. Billy winced and she gasped. "Oh, did I hurt you?"
"Nah," he said smiling a little.
"Well, that's that," she said lowering her hands to her lap. "Oh and of course -"
Billy watched, frozen in wonder, as she pursed her lips and leaned towards his shoulder and blew gently on the skin above the bandage. Her breath teased his skin and his stomach trembled and his abdomen tightened.
She smiled a little and looked at him in satisfaction. "To send the pain away," she explained. "It's something my mother used to do."
He could only stare at her, speechless and unable to look away. She took his wonder for disgust and looked away.
"I'm sorry," she said twisting her fingers together. "I don't know why I did that."
After a long moment, he cleared his throat. "My mother did something similar; when I was a lad."
She looked up at him and smiled at him. "I don't know how effective it truly is."
"Pretty effective," he said. "I'm not feeling any pain at present." She ducked her head and Billy coughed as he looked away feeling like ten kinds of a fool. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" she asked.
"Nothing, everything," he said. "I'm sorry you were lonely at school, I suppose."
If her expression was anything to go by, Billy suspected that was the first time anyone had ever expressed such a sentiment to her, so he explained himself, "I've always had my crew beside me. I may not always agree with them, but I know they have my back and I have theirs. It's been some time since I was lonely. Having them around...it's always given me something to protect. To work for. I'm sorry you haven't had that."
Her lips trembled and her eyes turned overbright and he wondered if she was about to start crying because he really didn't know what he'd do if she did. But she was made of sterner stuff than that was Miss Abigail Ashe, because she just sniffed and blinked before smiling at him.
"I know that you'll most likely disagree with me," she said, "but you are a very kind man to say that, Billy Bones."
"I'm not-" he started.
She shook her head. "Don't argue. Please. Just...accept the compliment."
"Well, far be it for me to argue with a lady," he said and she laughed.
"Thank you," she said. "And you're correct. I never had a crew of my own. My family was small to begin with and school was too strict and structured to truly encourage confidences." She shook her head. "Do you know that I was honestly looking so forward to my journey to the Americas? I would finally be able to see the world and all of it's wonders. To experience true, oh, I don't know, unpredictability, I suppose. School was so very predictable. I always knew precisely where I had to be and what was expected of me." She sighed and looked over at the gold. "I suppose I should have been more careful about what I wished for."
"No one could have predicted what happened to you," he said clenching his hand into a fist so that he didn't reach out a trace the shadows the firelight threw on her face.
"There's something to be said for predictability after all," she said turning back to look at him, her face back in the light and shining with hope.
As he stared at her, something in him broke free and unfurled it's wings. He was in the middle of an island, there was water and food and a pile of gold that was his for the taking. And, most incredibly of all, there was a beautiful woman staring at him with firelight dancing in her eyes and lips whose softness he ached to discover for himself.
"Predictable is very well and good," he said reaching out a hand to her, his fingers drifted lightly over the apple of her cheek. "But sometimes unpredictability has merits of it's own."
Her eyes widened but she made no protest as his fingers trailed over her cheek to trace the curve of her ear and finally to land gently on the fluttering pulse in her neck. He brushed his fingers down her throat and across her collarbone, enthralled by the flush of pink that followed in the wake of his touch. Her chest seemed to shudder and his eyes lifted to see her staring intently at him, her lips parted, her breathing shallow.
Billy leaned in…
The moment his lips pressed against hers he knew he'd miscalculated.
Oh, Mother of God, had he miscalculated the depth of his own desires when it came to this woman. His mouth pressed chastely to hers and when she returned the pressure ever so slightly, a sound rumbled up from his chest to his throat and out of his mouth as he curved his hand around to cradle her head. She went soft and pliant and when she sighed into his mouth, he groaned again, pressing his lips to hers over and over. When she sighed again and her lower lip slipped between his lips, he slid his tongue along the soft, pink flesh. Abigail gasped at the touch of his tongue and he pulled back and turned away, removing his hand from her.
"Fuck," he said under his breath. "I..."
He squeezed his eyes shut and then reopened them, only to see the gold gleaming in the firelight. His eyes narrowed. Fucking gold.
Making him mad.
Making him take advantage.
"I'm sorry," he said through gritted teeth. "That was wrong of me."
"Was it?" she asked, her voice quiet and tremulous.
"Yes," he said firmly. "I told you that first day that I wasn't that sort of man. I won't treat you that way, Abigail."
"And how, exactly, do you think you've treated me?" she asked and this time he thought he heard a bite to her tone.
He turned to look at her and saw her sitting tall, her lips red from his kiss and her eyes fixed on his face.
"I'm taking advantage," he said slowly. "I'm clearly in possession of all the power here and I could..."
"Could what?" she asked tilting her head to the side.
He sighed. "Let it go, Abigail, please. I shouldn't have kissed you and I apologize."
"Did you," she swallowed but didn't look away from him, "not want to? Kiss me, that is?"
"I wanted to," he said. "And so I did. And that's the problem. I saw something I wanted and I took it. I let my desires dictate my actions and I cannot afford to do that."
"I see," she said frowning and he doubted that she truly saw, but if this was her acquiescing, he'd accept. But as always seemed to be the case with Abigail, she wasn't quite finished with him. "In that case, I suppose you will be duty bound to owe me retribution of some kind."
"Yes," he said nodding. "Of course. I'm at your disposal."
"Good," she said with a quick nod. "In that case, I wish to collect."
"What would you have me do to make amends?" he asked.
"I would have you hold. very. still," she said.
Billy had only a moment to decipher her words before her small hand reached up and cupped his jaw. He stilled and let her fingers explore the lines of his face and his skin prickled with heat and he felt a groan build in his chest.
And then she was rising up to press her lips to his and Billy Bones was lost.
