A/N: This chapter was a fuckin beast to write. Easily one of the most difficult of this whole story - not even emotionally, it was just a right bastard to put together. I spent most of it listening to Icarus by Jason Webley on repeat, because somehow that helped, but dear lord. Was going to joke I was in almost as much pain as oor Theo, but t'would be disrespectful, it would. One day she'll will herself into existence just to kick my ass x

Anyway, this one is grim, friends - injury detail and treatment, the works. On the bright side, I'm gonna tentatively say this is as bad as it gets. We've still got some angst to go, but we're through the worst of the grimness after this. I think.


The dinghy proved to be a tight fit for all seven that had to take it back to the Pearl. Thanks to the squish, Theo found herself bundled into James' lap like spare cargo - but any mental griping her tiredness and her pain might've driven her to was squandered when he held her closely to him, stopping the worst of the waves from jostling her while Bootstrap and Jack rowed them towards the pirate fleet. The last of that annoyance morphed into bone-deep sadness when James began to murmur to her, his lips inches from her ear as he spoke softly, drowned out easily to all others by the lapping of the waves.

It offered something for her to tether herself to, when the world threatened to spin and grow hazy again, as it had throughout much of the parlay. Bits and pieces had drifted in - sentences, witty comments - but trying to follow it properly was like trying to watch a movie in a language she'd only taken one or two classes in. The odd phrase would slip in here and there, but not much of it went in. And when it did, it was usually bad.

What James said was not bad, though. Even if it still made her sad regardless.

"We'll have our honeymoon soon. Wherever you'd like. Far from Port Royal…I doubt you'd wish to see England after…well, perhaps Ireland, if it would not be too painful. Or somewhere new entirely - somewhere with no memories…with none of this. The new world? You know better than I where will be safe in the coming months and years."

"Don't know if anywhere's safe," she mumbled.

"You are safe. You will be safe. I will not leave you again," he said sternly "We can…we can get a home, in the wilderness, where we might fish, and grow our own food, and live, and be free from all of this mess. Where we might raise our children and not be expected to fight battles for the gain of others. We can…we can get a cat- no, a dog. You're fond of dogs. A pack of them. As many as you want."

It threatened to break Theo's heart - all that he promised her, how desperately he was trying to make things better, compounded with how little it helped at all. Soon she was clenching her jaw, neck, and shoulders against the sobs that tried to worm their way out of her, knowing it would only bring more pain. Perhaps he mistook the high-pitched, utterly pathetic whimper that the resistance drew out of her, for he tensed in turn as he continued.

"Or…" he hesitated, and then finally pushed on "Or, if you wish it, I will see that you return home. I will personally escort you back to Ireland, we will find the stones that brought you here, and we will send you back through them. If that is what you desire, I will see it done, but you must remain awake. You must remain alive. Do you hear me, Theodora? That much I demand."

"No," she mumbled.

"No?" He breathed in response - misunderstanding her.

Theo opened her eyes for a moment - just one, brief moment - and immediately met with Elizabeth's dark brown gaze, her eyes filled with worry and guilt. All others in the dinghy studiously avoided eye contact. She closed her eyes again.

"I'm…not leaving," she said "Not unless you want me to."

Was that why he was offering? Her pain-addled brain feared it was so.

"Unless I want…? Of course I do not, how could you thi…" he stopped abruptly, apparently realising exactly how it was that she could think "We have much to discuss. And we will. But I know what you believe you saw - and I have seen what you have seen, and you must believe me when I say that you did not…it was not…"

He was floundering, struggling to find a way to explain it without airing all of their laundry, dirty or no, to everybody else in this stupid little rowboat - however much of an impressive display they were making of pretending not to listen.

"All right," she said.

"All right?" He echoed, as though suspicious that he'd misheard her.

"All right," she repeated weakly.

Of all of the things James was, a liar was not among them. If it had been what it was in the movies, he would tell her so. Maybe not here and now, but eventually. He wouldn't be sitting lying about it now, at least. No, if that was the case, he simply wouldn't say anything about it for the time being - beyond an apology, perhaps.

Unless it's a guilty conscience speaking. She batted that voice away before it could begin whispering its poison - it was born of fear, and of pain, and it had no roots in the truth. It wouldn't help.

She hadn't even noticed the Pearl looming until the dinghy was all but knocking against it, prompting her to open her eyes and stare up at the climb it would take to ascend.

"Oh, fuck," she mumbled in a concise summary of what she thought regarding her chances of making said climb.

James breathed a laugh - one tinged with relief, maybe, that she had enough of her faculties left to attempt humour.

"We'll go up ahead, then we'll rig you up. Less weight to haul, n' I don't think Dora's up to the ascent on 'er own."

No, Dora most certainly was not. She, Hattie and James remained in the dinghy while the others made the climb and threw down the ropes required. What followed was an excruciating shift so that James was free to secure the boat to the ropes, allowing them to finally be hauled up. As they were lifted bit by bit up the side of the ship, James crouched beside her, a furrow in his brow as he tried to work out how to best lift her without jostling her once again.

"Just get it over with," she breathed "It's going to…it'll be shite either way."

His lips set in a thin, dutiful line - almost like he'd come to the same conclusion, but didn't want to be the one to say it. He hauled her up and she was right - it did suck - and when they were level with the ship's rail, Jack stepped forward.

"'Ere," he held his arms out to take her so that James could climb over the rail.

It spoke to how grim their situation was that not only had Jack offered his help, but that James had accepted it with no griping. What followed was the most excruciating and immersive game of pass the parcel that she'd ever found herself part of, but she could at least be thankful that they didn't see fit to start unwrapping her.

Once she was back in James' arms, Jack barely had the time to start directing him towards the Pearl's hospital quarters before she felt James tense from head to toe. Squinting up at him, she watched as he stared at something across the deck, but thanks to how she was positioned she couldn't see what. It didn't matter, though, for he was soon charging towards it.

"Move!" He all but bellowed at those unfortunate enough to be in his path so that she wouldn't be jostled as he shoved by them.

It spoke volumes as to how much authority still dwelled within his overall demeanour that they all listened before they could even compute who was doling out those orders, and Theo understood his haze a moment or two later. Tia Dalma, or Calypso rather, bound in a ridiculous number of ropes, being yanked up the stairs from below deck.

"Help her," James demanded.

Calypso's responding gaze was incredulous, indignant even, that he would place any demands upon her. Her dark eyes flickered to Theo then, who watched her with equal parts trepidation and respect. It wasn't even just because she feared her husband's demands had pissed off an ancient sea goddess either, however justified that fear was, but because of the sheer power that lurked in the woman's eyes. Maybe it was just the benefit of her prior knowledge, but as Calypso stared her down, Theo had no idea how anybody could have thought that she was just another woman - witchy or no. Evidently the mingled respect and awe was not a look she was used to in the midst of all of this, and it must have gratified her at least somewhat, for her demeanour softened, her shoulders relaxing.

"You've been a fool, girl," she greeted Theo.

"Sounds about right," Theo murmured.

"I wondered when it was that we would meet," she said "Or if we would. It seems ye caught me at the last moment."

A glare was cast in what must've been Barbossa's direction at that.

"That sounds about right, too," Theo replied "I'm not sorry. Not for changing things. Maybe…maybe for messing 'em up, but not for…"

Calypso cast a knowing look between the two of them, then, slowly - like they had all the time in the world, and all aboard the deck of the Pearl weren't watching them.

"No. I imagine you're not," Calypso said "A fool ye might have been, but even I've been known to be foolish in similar ways. T'would make me a hypocrite to judge now, would it not?"

Theo pressed her lips together and said nothing - not just because answering that question seemed generally daft and dangerous, but because she didn't like that comparison at all. The romance between the sea goddess and Jones was hardly a cheerful one.

"Help her," James insisted again, growing increasingly impatient.

"What is it ye bid me do?" She demanded, struggling fruitlessly against the ropes binding her to prove her point.

"Something. Anything!"

"I doubt I could have helped her a week ago, a day ago, an hour ago, much less now. It is not me that sent her here, and it is not me who rules over her, so it is not me you must entreat."

"Enough of this," Barbossa growled, shoving past them "Take the lass to the hospital cabin. Ye'll find all ye need there. We've more important matters at hand."

"Barbossa, this is madness - you cannot free her," Elizabeth was interjecting desperately "There must be another way! This could doom us all."

Barbossa was disinclined to acquiesce to her request.

"Yer beloved seer has already seen to that," he growled out "Apologies, Your Majesty, but for too long my fate has not been in me own hands."

To illustrate just how serious he was, he reached up and snatched the Piece of Eight from about her neck.

"No time," Theo breathed to James "If I'm not to endure this battle bleeding…"

He understood her urgency, thankfully, and with little more than a curse he spun and began to cart her in the direction of the hospital. Hattie followed swiftly behind him, and Theo didn't have the energy to pretend that she wasn't disconcerted by the stare Calypso levelled her with as they made their exit.

The hospital cabin was a fancy name in comparison to what it actually was. It was a coffin of a room, long enough only for the bed that it housed, and barely wide enough for one person to stand or sit beside that bed when inside. The foot of the bed was covered by a table, slotted in between the two walls, with a few candles, a wicked looking set of surgical tools, and a leather doctor's satchel filled with glass bottles of mystery substances. A small square window barely a foot across in each way filled the room with the dreary grey light of the day. James placed her on the bed, and Theo spent the time he took to light the candles trying to force some semblance of control into her breathing.

"Hattie," James ordered "Bring me rum, anything alcoholic - the stronger the better. As many bottles as you can carry. Then, when you have brought them to me, go below deck - far, far below deck - and barricade yourself into a room. One out of the way, and not easily happened across. Do you understand?"

Hattie appeared very much as one who was in the midst of learning that panic had a way of vanishing under a true crisis, nodding quickly and disappearing from the doorway she'd been hovering in. And then, once the door closed in her wake, they were alone. For the first time, maybe ever, that solitude felt suffocating. Certainly for the first time since his engagement to Elizabeth had been called off.

Even in her pain, Theo could feel the heaviness.

"I hesitate to look at that until I have what I need to tend to it," he nodded to her abdomen "Might I look at your hand?"

"You're going to tend to me?" she asked.

As she did, she continued to cradle her hand to her chest. Not because she did not trust him to look at it, but because she needed a moment to work up to facing it at all.

"The best healer aboard the Pearl will be whomever happens to have dabbled in carpentry the most," he said flatly "One who is wont to ignore your insistences surrounding cleanliness, no less."

She'd given him a crash course surrounding the importance of hygiene when it came to injury not long after he'd learned the truth of her background in Tortuga, terrified in the back of her mind that she might manage to save him only for him to then succumb to something so daft as a scraped knee or a flesh wound. He wouldn't be the first. Not in these times. Despite everything, it warmed her oddly to see how he'd taken it to heart. Enough, at least, for her to slowly extend her bad hand out towards him, even though she kept her head on the pillow and her gaze rooted to the ceiling above her. He had a point, anyway. There was nobody else aboard she'd trust to tend to her now.

James took up the wooden chair beside the bed, and then slowly wrapped the fingers of one hand around her wrist - to stem the tremor in her hand or to offer comfort, she wasn't sure. Her gaze at the ceiling became a glare, and her jaw clenched, when he slowly began to peel away the dressings that had been haphazardly wrapped around her hand.

Nothing had been applied to the wounds where her fingernails had once been, no poultice, no anything, so the bandages stuck badly to the torn flesh, and she felt fresh blood begin to drip down her fingers as they were aggravated by the removal of the gauze. More than that, she felt James' utter, dangerous stillness when it was done and he could see the damage first-hand. For lack of a better word.

"He was about to start on the second one," she said, hating how small her voice sounded "The second hand, I mean. And I realised I had to do it all again. And then it'd be the toes. And after that, he said he'd start removing skin. That he'd…that he'd flay finger, one by one. I tried, but I couldn't..."

"Theodora…"

"And when I tried to handle the pain - when I tried to breathe through it, or block it out, he'd slap me - or hit me, or dig a finger into that," she paused her rambling to nod down to her abdomen "To bring me back to the present. To keep me feeling it all. It…ha…it wasn't fun. Threw up on him one o' the times he did it, though. He didn't like me for that."

He didn't even chide her for her joke, and that was when she knew that it was bad. No, he was just silent. Dangerously bloody silent.

"I told 'em everything. All of it. It's why Beckett took Will and not Jack - he's changing things up. Creating a new battle," still he said nothing, so she continued just to fill the silence, maybe just marvelling at the fact that she could speak now without the words being dragged from her by sheer force of agony "From what I can tell, he's going to verify my story. He'll send the Dutchman into the battle as planned, to test if I'm telling the truth. Jones would be a loss, but short of himself nothing is never actually a loss to Beckett…and knowing what he does now, there's no way Mercer will act as he was fated to. I've fucked it up. I've cost us the victory…Jesus Christ, when did everything get so shite?"

He did not answer - or maybe he could not answer, his grip remaining unnaturally still at her wrist, save for the barest twitch when her voice threatened to crack - but they were saved from any speculation as far as her question was concerned when Hattie returned, her arms full of bottles.

"Rum, sir," she breathed "And this, from Miss Swann - her crew drink it, it's frightfully strong."

At the mention of Elizabeth, something in Theo clenched, and she bit back a sob. She was so incredibly tired of crying. She was so incredibly tired full stop. Hattie stepped into the room and dropped the bottles onto the bed by her feet so as not to disturb the equipment on the table at the foot of the bed.

"I…God be with you both," she said after a moment's pause.

"As I said, find a weapon, and remain hidden. We shall find you when all is done," James answered.

And then they were alone once again.

"I care not for the pirate cause - I care not for what you told them, and I do not blame you for telling them, Theodora. Anybody else out there would have done just the same as you."

She didn't much believe that, but James continued.

"There is much to discuss, and little time in which to discuss it," James said, his voice tinged with sorrow "But I've no wish for us to face this coming storm while you remain mistaken as to what it was you witnessed. Everything else may wait…except…"

As he trailed off, his gaze flickered towards her abdomen.

"There was never a baby. Hattie misunderstood some stuff n' ran with it. Good thing, too - don't think he'd have sent me back if he didn't have that bomb to drop. He thought it'd break you."

"Thank God," he breathed.

Theo said nothing. Or at least she intended to say nothing - but even the two seconds of silence that followed without his immediately offering an explanation to what had gnawed at her ever since she witnessed it were unbearable.

"Was…was it a goodbye thing, then? The…the end of a chapter, or something? Or…or panic? A thoughtless…thing?"

She hoped it was just Elizabeth. In a series of very shitty possibilities, that was somehow the least shite, but she almost didn't dare ask it - because when weighed up against all of the other potential answers, that one almost seemed too good to be true.

"It was none of those things," he said sternly "It was Elizabeth, not I. I demanded an explanation from her once we were safely aboard the Empress, and all she would give me was that it would have worked on Sparrow."

Shutting her eyes, she exhaled shakily as it clicked. Of course. Of course. She'd told her. She'd all but handed her the fucking idea. Yet another display of flagrant stupidity from her, then. How very on-brand.

"Yeah," she breathed "Sounds about right."

"I did not push her away swiftly enough," he said "I was shocked - it took me a moment to…my reaction was delayed. I bear the blame for that, but not for…I did not kiss her. Nor did I kiss her back."

Theo managed a short nod in response - her head, at least, she could move without pain. It did, however, make her dizzy. The chair scraped against the floorboards as he shifted it towards the middle of the bed, peeling up her shirt, which put a hitch in her breath as she kept her eyes pointed upwards.

"I have been haunted by the prospect that you might have…that last night may have happened and you had died thinking the worst. Thinking I had a hand in it. I hope you did not think- that is, did you think that I had…?"

She had to wait until he'd peeled the tightly packed gauze away from her abdomen before she could reply.

"Hoped not. But I was scared," she still was, albeit over different things "And she's very beautiful. And proper. Era appropriate. Any Englishman's dream, that one. Plus, she- she has a full set of fingernails and an uncompromised uterus, so that really gives her an extra edge now."

The joke fell flat. She hadn't really expected any other outcome. A hiss of pain slipped through her teeth as he slowly began to wipe away the blood so that he could get an idea of her wound. Judging by the warm trickle she felt spill across her abdomen and down her hip, either his motions reopened it, or it had never quite stopped bleeding.

"Of course, back then I had the fingernails and all that, so I guess now it just sweetens the deal," she rambled on.

"Stop it," he said "Please."

The emotions he held at bay as he worked threatened to shine through his voice, and like just about everything else currently under the sun, it only made her feel worse.

"Just jokin'," her words threatened to slur.

"I'm aware, but given that you speak what you believe to be true through jest, I like it not. I will not hear it, Theodora. Not after what you sacrificed for me."

"I'd do it again," she admitted quietly "I'd do it another hundred times."

His next breath shook and she felt the tremor of his hands on her, and she spoke again.

"Sorry."

She didn't know what she was sorry for, just that she was.

"I don't wish for you to be sorry, either, just…do not…"

It was with a shuddering breath of her own that she relented, and he continued, forcing his mind to the task at hand rather than the multitude of tearful confessions that lay between them, but that there was just no bloody time for.

"They tended to it just enough to stop the bleeding, and to keep you stable. It was not treated," he said grimly "Not properly."

"Thank Christ, they'd have only made it worse."

"Alcohol and fire, you said - for wounds. Which comes first?"

Yeah. That was going to suck, too.

"Alcohol, then fire in this case, I think."

Like a bloody flambé.

"I do not believe enough time has passed for it to turn foul. If we treat it now, we may be spared needing to cut away bad flesh…" the business-like tone of his threatened to waver when Theo felt his gaze burn into her face then "And you believe…it may have cut into…? It may have damaged your…?"

"I don't know. Not for sure. It's in the right region for it, but I think I'd be in more pain still if it had," a brief, brave glance towards her abdomen found it stained with red, but not with the Shining-levels of blood she'd feared "Think it'd be bleeding more, too. But nothing's guaranteed."

She also suspected she'd be dead by now, had he managed to puncture her uterus. Surely? With that level of internal bleeding?

"Nothing is guaranteed," he agreed quietly "But I hope you know none of it makes any difference to me. Not that, not the hand, none of it. We will take it as it comes, whatever may come, together. As we have with everything else."

"I was joking," she repeated.

And she had been. Mostly.

"But you doubted, and I wish you would not."

"I'm sorry."

It was weird, what they were doing. Wasn't it? Arguing but not arguing. Upset but not upset. Or at least pretending not to be, each for the sake of the other. Because there wasn't time for it. For any of it. For talking, for being injured, for getting on the same page, for healing. They were carving out that time for now, but Beckett was breathing down their necks, and soon the ship would lurch into battle with the Dutchman.

There'd be a lot to hash out if they were safe and able to lock themselves away in their home for a good week. But now? On the edge of an impossible battle, while she tried to pretend her insides weren't just a bit too outside for her liking? Now it was yet another thing that just felt bloody impossible.

"Don't be - I mean it, you are the last person in this world who needs to offer apologies here and now. I…I saw what you saw. As I said. Achtland showed me. These plays, as you called them, what would have come to pass last night had we never met. Were I in your shoes, I might also assume that what I saw that night matched up against that version of events. But it did not. Not in any sense of the word, thanks to your actions."

"You met her? Achtland?"

"Indeed I did," he said "I begged her to tell me whether you yet lived. She would not."

There was something in his demeanour that had her sensing he was leaving something unsaid, but Theo let it go - it would just be yet another thing on a list of fifty that they didn't have the time for now.

"Sounds like her," she said.

He offered a small, sad smile in response to that, having finished his inspection. Dread built steadily within her as she watched him lean towards the table at the foot of the bed and take up one of the bottles Hattie had brought.

"You thought I might have lived, then?"

"I confess I did not," he admitted quietly as he uncorked it "But I…I had to be sure. She did not offer the certainty I'd hoped for, but I did wonder if that was not a sign in and of itself. In any case, Achtland said something strange to me. I had not thought much of it at the time, but it has dwelled in my mind since - the words were too deliberate to be a mere passing comment. She said she helps those who endeavour to help themselves. So we must help ourselves, and we must pray that she will do what we cannot manage."

It wasn't enough certainty for her liking, but it was more than she had in Beckett's custody.

Sniffing the bottle, he grimaced "Baijiu. It is strong - damn strong. This might be the best course."

There came a point where wiping away the blood with the gauze in his hand only created more mess, aggravated the wound more, and delayed the inevitable. Hesitating, he sighed, and then he took a wad of clean gauze and pressed it to her lips.

"Bite down on this. I am sorry."

She tried to say don't be, but her mouth was full of gauze and she was too busy shitting herself over what was to come. So she bundled her good hand into the blankets beneath her, and steeled herself. Then, for a moment, their eyes met and she knew her gaze was filled with just as much dread and worry as his was - but he masked his a hell of a lot better, giving her a nod which she returned.

First, he held the bandages in his hand over the floor and poured some of the colourless liquid over it. He turned back to her with thinned lips, the gauze in one hand and the bottle still in the other - but he didn't drag it out, thank god, and after a less than a moment's delay he poured some of it out over onto her stomach.

Fire. Pure and utter bloody fire - like somebody had jammed a red hot poker into her abdomen and started twisting. She wanted to curse his name, beg him to stop, and apologise for the fact that it fell to him to do this all at once. On instinct her right hand tried to grip the blankets, which only prompted yet more pain, and she gave a terrible cry of pain that made her sound like a wounded animal as she forced her fingers to let go, her heels kicking fruitlessly against the blankets like that would help.

The pain only worsened as James was forced to clamp one arm atop her ribcage to try and keep her still as he dragged the saturated bandages over the wound, working with a firm sort of efficiency that very much screamed cruel to be kind. Theo screwed her eyes shut, trying to focus on her breathing, but doing that only brought her right back to that godforsaken cabin in the Dutchman, having her expecting a hand to shoot out and slap her, or dig into the wound, or something to drag her back into the moment, until she forced her eyes open again just to remind herself that she was not there anymore.

The sweat was back now, her clothing and her hair plastered to whatever skin they touched, which somehow only made her feel all the more nauseous.

Finally he was done - with this stage at least - but the pain did not stop, the alcohol working its way through the torn and bloodied flesh until she wondered if he hadn't already started to burn the wound without telling her. But then he was gently taking the fabric from between her teeth.

"You've gone white as a sheet. Are you going to vomit? Should we turn you onto your side-"

"No," she didn't have anything in her stomach to bring back up, so at worst it would be a dry heave "Might faint, though."

The set of his brow and jaw both told her that he did not consider that a particularly good sign - but then again, the way the room swam about her as she noted the grimness in his features told her that she didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

"I would prefer it if you did not," he said.

"Ditto. What's comin' next really isn't somethin' to nap through," she breathed.

"We can take a moment, at least - for you to find your strength."

"We don't have a moment, James."

She could already hear Barbossa calling out somewhere beyond the room, getting to the end of the ritual now.

"I don't know if I can do this," she didn't mean to say it - and she regretted it when she did.

But the pain was…it was just unreal. Mind-bending and all-consuming. Theo had always considered her threshold for such things to be reasonably high. When she'd gotten the tattoo on her back, she'd barely felt it at all, and when she'd been sunburned within an inch of her life upon first arriving here, she'd taken it in her stride. The injuries she collected during the attack on Port Royal were a little more difficult to walk off, but she'd done it. But this? This was consuming her, and she was frightened.

"You can," he said firmly "You've withstood everything up until this point. You succeeded with your aim, and then you survived this. I refuse to believe it was all for naught - it cannot have been."

She so dearly hoped that he was right. But that grew more difficult when she watched him wrap the handle of a long, flat knife in cloth and then hold it over the candle. Maybe she was going to puke after all. The wait for the blade to heat up was lethal, and it was clear from his expression that he liked it no more than she did, his brow furrowed as he regarded her, eyes flickering back to the knife every now and then to check its progress.

When it began to morph from a steely grey to a dim amber, he spoke - likely to distract her from her painstaking awareness of it.

"We haven't the time to discuss everything we need to, but there is one thing I must tell you. I did not know if I should mention it now, but I think it may strengthen you to know…"

He waited until she exhaled shakily and then nodded her head, signalling she was still lucid enough to listen, he continued, leaning forward to brush the hair from her face with his free hand.

"It was not only Achtland whom I met with last night."

"If this…is the part where I find out she has a twin…I'm really giving up."

"No, she…" he hesitated then, and at her entreating gaze he sighed and then said it - albeit heavily "She brought me to meet your father."

Theo stared, certain she'd misheard - that the pain had sent her loopy, or she was hallucinating, or that he'd decided the best course of action in terms of cheering her up was to play an elaborate prank. But his face remained solemn, watching her intently for a reaction.

"What?" she breathed.

God, she refused to start tearing up again.

"Your father. I met him, Theodora. He's been watching you - Achtland has shown him parts of what has happened here. I would even wager that he watches now."

He knew. He knew - he hadn't thought her dead, or worse. He'd been watching. He'd been with her, in some way or another. It was impossible to say what brought this fresh wave of tears to her eyes; the relief of the news, the fact that it broke through all that she was mired in and actually cleared some of the fog, bringing her back to herself from the sobbing, defeated mess she'd been collapsing into, or the fact that he knew her so well that he knew this would work.

An almighty roar sounded from outside and the ship began to shudder and sway. His tactic had come none too soon. Calypso was free.

The blade was glowing brighter now, and in a few seconds it would be hot enough to serve its purpose. Theo was having trouble deciding if she never wanted that time to come, or if she just wanted to get it over and done with so she could stop dreading it. Trying to use it as a chance to sort her mind out, she shuddered and forced herself to breathe steadily. An unexpected upside of the pain the cleaning process had wrought so far was that breathing deeply no longer worsened the pain. Mostly because she doubted it could be worsened.

"It is ready," James said quietly.

Well, other than with that. Nodding shakily, she took up the cloth where it had been discarded at her chest and wedged it between her teeth again. Her head fell back against the pillow and she exhaled sharply through her nose, steeling herself for the pain. She closed her eyes next, as if not seeing it would make it any better, mostly worried that if she was aware of it, she would flinch and end up with a nasty burn on skin that was otherwise perfectly fine. That didn't stop her from seeing James' shadow through her eyelids, though, nor hearing his movements.

"On three," he said, sounding a hell of a lot surer than she felt.

Theo resisted the urge to laugh. They both knew there wasn't going to be a three. He'd do it on two, in hopes to stop her from flinching or tensing up at the last second.

She ate her words when he did it on one instead, rather than giving any sort of countdown at all.

The curses she cried out into the makeshift gag somehow did little to drown out the hiss of the white-hot metal against her skin. Were it not for the arm that returned to her ribcage, pinning strongly in place, she would have curled up into a ball on instinct. The knife clattered, discarded to the floor afterwards. Then, he lifted the knife and pressed the other side down onto what remained of the wound. Finally, he took up the bottle again and splashed yet more of the baijiu over the burns - but at that point, mercifully, she barely felt it. That awareness remained blessedly distant as he made quick work of cleaning the torn flesh where her fingernails had once been, but the burn was barely more than a flea bite after what she'd just been through.

Once he was finished, James gently eased the bundled fabric from between her teeth. She'd forgotten it was even there. The backs of his fingers brushed against her jaw as he dropped it down to the bed, and the most Theo could do was lean into the fleeting touch, not trusting herself to be able to speak.

"It's done," he breathed "Now we must pray that she upholds her end of the bargain."

Only now did he show his weariness and trepidation, outright exhaustion showing clear in his eyes as his hand sought her injured one on the bed, entwining his fingers with hers while being careful not to disturb the injuries. She squeezed his hand as best she could, heart breaking at how it trembled in her grasp in the face of the hold he kept over his emotions, but her gesture just came out as a weak flexing of her fingers.

He was right and he was wrong. They did have to pray that Achtland would somehow do what she could to see them through this - in every sense, not just regarding her injuries - but it was far from done. In fact, as the rain began to pelt down on the window high above her head, Theo noted hazily that it was only beginning.


A/N: So! My info about James being the one to tend to Theo is not technically too outside the realms of possibility. My shiny new town where I live has an actual sea-worthy historical ship that you can visit and walk around on as part of their museum, and given that the old friend I have in this city knows of this fic, he took me to go and see it! The "hospital" and everything to do with that comes from there.

The hospital there had a little sign that basically explained that if there wasn't an actual medic-type-person available (paraphrasing here), the captain would tend to the injured crew member himself with the help of a manual that offered advice. I posted an image post on Tumblr containing the photos I took of all of this while I was there back in August, so I'll reblog it when I post this chapter and leave it at the top of my blog (esta-elavaris) below my pinned Flufftober post for anybody who might want to see it! I also have quite a few James/Theodora flufftober fills up now, too, which might be a nice break from, uh, this.

That being said, the ship I saw is at least a good century younger than the ones in this period, so it's probably somewhat anachronistic, but from what I can find on "doctors" aboard pirate ships, it really did tend to be the case that the ship's best carpenter and doctor were one in the same, considering amputations weren't too uncommon when encountering a wound even vaguely complex, and I really can't imagine James would want to let others tend to her unless there was an honest to god doctor aboard. In which case Theo probably wouldn't want to let them touch her, medicine being the shitshow that it was back then.