Waiting was tedious, but waiting with someone else was manageable. It had been three days. Rose and Ben had barricaded themselves in the servant's quarters of the Governor's mansion, creating a defensible space in case anyone decided to come check on the place in the absence of both the Governor and his daughter. Every afternoon, they would walk the town in silence, keeping their ears alert for any potential news about the whereabouts of the Pearl, the Interceptor, or the Dauntless. No news had surfaced in three days' time. By evening, the two would return back inside before nightfall, the time when Rose would lose her eyesight and Ben would lose his skin.
On the fourth morning, Rose awoke from the servant's cot which she had been using for her bed to find Ben trying in vain to light the fireplace.
Noticing her, he said humorously, "Aren't you a witch? Can't you simply snap your fingers and light this fire for me?"
Rose grinned. "I'm not that sort of witch, sadly," she said. "That was Angelica's domain. I merely play with plants."
"A healer, then?"
"Aye."
Ben turned his focus back to the fire. "What good are we?" he mused. "Neither of us can go out after dark, and neither of us can manage to light a fire!"
She laughed again. Ever since moving in to this home temporarily, Ben had been a delight to be around. She didn't understand why he had been so difficult every moment since their reunion leading up to now. The only thing that she could attribute was the fact that now Ben was in an established domain—he felt comfortable and settled, and therefore could be at ease. While Rose felt very uncomfortable staying stationary while her brother sailed further and further away from her, she did at least appreciate this change in Ben's demeanor. He even had begun to resemble the same happy boy that she had grown up with on Tortuga; The boy before the Pearl changed him forever.
Rose swallowed her fear and dared approached the subject that had gone unspoken for so many years. "Ben?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"What happened between us? I mean, all those years ago. We were the best of friends, and then you…changed."
At this, Ben abandoned his efforts to light the fire and fully turned to face her. He took a deep breath. "I was young, Rose. We act rashly when we're young."
"But so was I!" she protested. "I held nothing but love for you. What did I do to possibly earn your scorn?"
Ben shook his head, eyes to the ground. "It was nothing you did. I needed to prove myself to the crew, which meant I couldn't be a boy anymore. I had to be a man very suddenly."
"So that means that the boy was allowed to love me, but the man can only hate me?"
Ben pursed his lips, taking a moment to consider this. He then looked into Rose's eyes and said quietly, "As you can tell, there were many decisions I made that weren't well thought out."
Rose felt her heart race as she bravely asked, "And how are we feeling about me presently? Is it the boy or the man who is with me right now?"
He looked down again. "It's not like that, Rose."
"You don't…resent me, do you?"
It took Ben a painfully long amount of time to answer her desperate question, but once he did, Rose still didn't feel convinced of its sincerity. "Of course not," he muttered in monotone. They stood in joint confusion for a brief moment, until Ben suddenly broke the tension with a cheery tone of voice once more. "Can I get you anything to eat from the pantry?"
Rose was eager to escape the dread she felt, and sarcastically replied, "To eat, you actually need food, Ben. We ran out yesterday afternoon."
"Did we?"
"Well," Rose reasoned, "It's unfair to say 'we ate all the food,' when really it was only me who did the deed. You don't eat anymore, do you?"
Ben shook his head. "No need."
"Honestly? You don't have to eat or drink anything? Ever?"
He shrugged. "Can't feel a thing." A thought occurred to him and he suddenly pulled out his dagger, stabbing himself in his upper arm and pulling out the blade without even flinching.
Rose shrieked instinctively upon seeing the sudden act and came rushing to his side, certain that blood would come pouring out of the fresh wound. While the dagger's blade was covered in his own blood, no blood escaped the cut.
"Remarkable," Rose said, looking up at him. "But…shouldn't I dress it? What about infection?"
Ben smiled, "Couldn't catch infection even if I tried."
"Can't you feel anything?"
"Not at all!"
They both gave a small laugh, but Rose quickly grew serious upon realizing just how close she was to him. She could feel his warmth, and that familiar longing from the past of wanting to be this close to him forever.
Rose let the words slip from her mouth, though she was uncertain of what corner of her mind the boldness came from as she whispered, "Did you feel anything that night on Shipwreck Island? When you didn't know it was me?"
Ben opened and closed his mouth several times, as though he wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words to express how he felt.
Rose filled the silence herself with another bold question. "Do…do you feel anything now?"
It is uncertain of who initiated the action which resulted in the two of them drawing incredibly close to one another, but all that I know for certain is that the moment did not end the way the way Rose wished that it would.
Ben quietly muttered, "I have to get this fire going," and proceeded to pull away from Rose entirely.
Rose quickly shook off the moment as well and tried very hard to move along with as little awkwardness as possible, as she said, "Yes. And I need to find food!"
"Here," Ben said, untying the small leather pouch which contained his silver that Rose had tried to steal from him less than a week ago. "Take this. It should pay for whatever you need."
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly."
The silence grew stiff between them once more as Ben handed the pouch over to Rose, until they both once again were filled with energy and nearly sprinted to complete their respective duties, trying in vain to escape the tension that had filled that small kitchen in only the very last few minutes.
Rose was notably absent for far longer than she normally would have. She needed to take the time to sort out her feelings regarding Ben before she allowed herself to return to their shared quarters. She knew it was very sudden, and probably provided a difficult position for Ben to be in, but ultimately, she resorted to being completely candid with him. Tonight, he would know about how she had always felt about him once and for all. There was no doubt in her mind that from childhood to now, her affections had remained relatively unchanged. Now Ben was all hers. Curse or otherwise, she was willing to stay with him as long as she had to. However, the notion of Ben not sharing her affections was terrifying enough to nearly petrify her into eternal silence. Rose had only felt love for one man, and it was the one and only man in her life that she was unrelated to. A part of her was frightened that this was the only reason that she felt attraction for Ben—simply a lack of options.
No, she decided firmly. We've overcome so much together. This is right. I know that this is right.
As the sun set and her vision grew faint, she entered the mansion through the servant entrance around the back, arms heavy with supplies that she had acquired. As she approached the door to the kitchen, she took a deep breath, scrounging up all of the bravery she could muster, and pulled open the door. Her heart sank upon seeing her friend. He was leaning haphazardly against the wall, taking a large swig out of a bottle of rum.
Rose kept her voice cheery as she commented, "I see you finally got the fire lit! …and that you found the wine cellar as well…"
Ben didn't reply, and only stared deeply into the raging fire he had built.
"Why do you do this?" she asked, lips pursed. "You can't feel pleasure, you can't feel pain, then why even bother with the drink?"
Ben sleepily blinked, moving his gaze over to her. "Because at least this amount of numbness," he said referring to the bottle, "I can control."
She rolled her eyes and turned away from him, taking the food she had accumulated over to the end table and starting to unpack it. Ben rose to his feet and shuffled over to her, grabbing her harshly by the forearm and pulling her towards him. She gasped upon being so roughly handled, and tried to pull away.
"Ben, you're hurting me," she said, her eyes averted downwards.
"Mmm?" he responded.
"Ben, please!"
"Enjoy the pain. You don't know how much you miss it until it's gone."
Rose inched away from the stench of his rum-flavored breath. His grip on her arm only tightened, causing Rose to cry out in pain.
"That hurt?" he asked darkly. "Well, you've hurt me. I'm merely returning the favor."
"Stop it! You don't know what you're saying!" Rose pleaded.
"Don't I? You did this to me!"
Rose was actively struggling now to pry herself loose from Ben's ever-tightening grip. "What? I—"
"If it weren't for your bloody insistence that I go with you aboard the bloody Pearl, I would be alive. I'd be happy!"
Were it not for the very real pain she felt, Rose would have thought that she was simply in a nightmare. That was how unbelievable this transformation in Ben was. She was completely unprepared for this attack.
He finally released her and stalked away back to his corner, mumbling curses beneath his breath. Rose could only make out the word, "mistake."
"I asked you if you resented me and you said that you didn't! Why did you lie if this is how you truly feel?" she spat.
"Because I knew you'd destroy yourself over it," he said with a slur. "But then I realized that I wanted you to live with even an ounce of the pain I feel. Maybe then you'd understand what you caused."
His gaze returned returned to the fire once more, and with that, his drunken rant was completed, and Rose felt adequately eviscerated.
She calmly walked into her makeshift room and slid down the wall until she could hug her knees into her chest and hold what felt like the broken pieces of her heart in place for the time being. No one ever could have anticipated Ben's duality, but Rose discovered just what the additive of alcohol did to Ben; It allowed the truth to leak out of him, uninhibited and uncensored. It scared her to death. She truly had no idea who the man she had convinced herself that she loved was, nor the man who she promised to help.
With Ben, she was utterly alone.
Ben's sharp scream awoke her from the uneasy sleep she finally managed to attain. Darkness had fully descended, so it took a moment for Rose to get her bearings and make her way by touch out to the kitchen where Ben was writhing in pain by the dying fire.
"What's wrong?" she asked, temporarily forgetting the horrible moment that they had shared only a few hours prior.
Although the fire provided barely enough light for her eyesight to pick any visuals up, she could clearly see the blood pouring out of the wound on Ben's bicep that he had made earlier that day. She immediately tore a piece of her skirt off to use as a bandage, and rapidly reached for the herbs in her pouch to apply a poultice that could slow the bleeding. She came close to him to begin her work, but Ben stood before she had a chance to do so and made his way to a nearby window. He threw open the shutters and let the moonlight fall upon his skin. He began to laugh in pure, unadulterated joy when his skin remained just as it should have been, and did not transform into bone.
He looked at Rose and murmured, "Turner. He broke the curse!"
