~*~
Chapter Fifteen
For Hell
~*~
Connor slid his tobacco into the pocket of his jacket and kicked off his boots, spraying sand out away from where he stood. The grains landed in the ocean, a few yards away from where Serenity was standing, her skirts gathered in her hands and her legs bare to the knees. "Come in!" she urged.
"Is it cold?" he asked.
"Are we in the Caribbean or not?" she teased. Connor smiled and hurried down to where she was standing. His trouser legs were soaked within ten seconds of standing in the smaller breaking waves. Serenity was looking thoughtfully out at the horizon. "It must be so different to be out there with a boat, in the middle of nothing," she mused. "Is it shocking to be back on land again?"
"A bit," Connor said, "it's a welcome change from the stink and the awful, awful food. But being out there…sometimes its just like you're flying, almost. You're just out there…there's really no way to describe it."
"I want to feel like that," Serenity said, giving up her feeble attempts to keep her dress dry and dropping her skirts into the rippling ocean.
"Do you?" Connor asked. "You'd be feeling like that for hell of a long time."
"I don't care," Serenity said. "It'd be nice to just get away from here. Away from all the stiff military costumes and…away from all the salted bass," she joked. "I don't want Port Royale to be the last town I see before I die."
"It can get lonely out there," he said. Serenity tilted her head.
"Well, we don't have to worry about that just yet, do we?" she asked.
"No," said Connor, "I guess not." He grinned at her, and she smiled back. Slowly he looped his arm around her waist and then looked deep into her eyes as if asking permission to go just a little further. Serenity's eyes slowly closed as she slid her hands around the back of his neck and their lips met as the ocean pounded in her ears. Connor's hold on her waist tightened slightly and he drew her closer to him, so that their bodies were touching. Serenity could hear his heart beat as they pulled apart and she leaned her head on his shoulder. It wasn't as fast as she had imagined a man's heartbeat after a good kiss would be. He absentmindedly stroked her hair as he looked out at the ocean and wondered how much longer he would be able to stay in Port Royale before his ship would inevitably leave and he would have to make a choice to stay or to go back out to sea with it.
While Connor was thinking about the decision that he would have to make, Serenity's thoughts, as always, had turned back to Will. She felt slightly guilty but at the same time content with what she had right in front of her. I will always love you, Will, she thought, but you've already chosen…and now so have I.
~*~
"Where has Serenity gone?" asked Mr. Williams, her father. Mrs. Williams shrugged and continued washing the dishes.
"I think she left with that man from Ireland that's been boarding with us," she said, "but I don't know where've they went."
"With the Irish man?" asked Father. "I thought she had been hanging around the Turner boy."
"Me too," sighed Mother, "But she denies it. I think she's telling the truth."
"The Irishman," said Father, "Is he a sailor?"
"Yes, I think so, but he's paying for his board in regular coins."
"Good." Father glanced out the window. "Just make sure that she's back before dinner, my dear," he said as he kissed his wife on the cheek. She smiled warmly and plunged her hands back into the soapy basin to fetch the next plate.
~*~
Connor and Serenity walked back to the inn. Serenity was telling him about her life before he came to Port Royale. She told him about her friendship with Will, and she told him of her job and of the angry cow that they kept in the barn. He told her about Ireland and about all the voyages that he had made at sea, and about all the disease and death that he had seen. The conversation took wild dips in mood, from happy to sad to content to humorous. Serenity told him of the broken window during the hurricane and how she had been stupid enough to run outside and get hit with a wooden plank in the head.
"How did you get out of the storm?" Connor asked.
"Will Turner came out and picked me and Kieran up, and he carried us to the doctor's house," Serenity laughed. "I've never really been one for rash decisions, but that…I wasn't even thinking when I went out there."
Connor smiled. "At least you and the boy are still alive," he said, "That's always a good thing."
"Yes, being alive is always a good thing," she said.
"Where's the boy now?" he asked.
Serenity shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "Kieran and his poor mother left our inn soon after the storm. I don't know where they went," she sighed. "I hope Kieran's okay. He really was such a sweet little boy."
Dinner was being put on the table as Serenity and Connor entered the inn. Connor took Serenity's shawl and hung it on the peg as she wandered into the kitchen in case her mother still needed help with the evening meal. "Serenity," her mother said, sounding a bit surprised and a little bit frazzled. "Where have you been, dear? We were starting to get worried."
"Connor and I just walked down to the beach," Serenity said. "I didn't realize we were gone so long."
"Well, you know that there can be strange types around here sometimes," said Mother as Daniel passed by the kitchen door and winked at Serenity. "Anything can happen when you mix sailors with innkeeper's daughters," she warned.
"Mother," said Serenity calmly, "I'm not stupid."
"I know that, darling," said Mother, "But even the smartest of people can suffer a loss of their judgment from time to time. Remember that incident with the little boy in the hurricane?"
"Funny, I was just telling Connor about that," said Serenity.
"Just be careful, dear," Mother said as she carried a pitcher of milk to the table. "I won't rest easy until your married and staying at home safe and sound."
"Yes, Mother," Serenity sighed as she sat down. "I know."
~*~
Will sat at his workshop, the sword that he had been making laying in front of him. He was stuck. Every design for the hilt that he sketched on scraps of paper that he found around the shop looked worse than the last, and he was close to giving up. The shells lay scattered in haphazard designs around a stencil of the hilt, unwilling to arrange themselves in a good pattern. Even without the shells it was a good sword, perfectly weighted and all, but Will felt that without the shell designs that he had originally planned the sword would be incomplete.
He angrily slid his chair away from the table and drew his favorite practicing sword from a rack on the wall. He practiced for his regimen length of three hours and then he sat back down at his shop and raised his hands above the sword, ready for all his creative juices to come flowing forth into the hilt of that sword.
Nothing. Still nothing.
Will banged his fist down on the table next to the sword and glared at the shells as if they had done him some mortal wound. Angrily he sorted the shells according to type and then arranged them on the stencil, again and again and again. "Why can't I think of anything?" he yelled at the shells.
"Calm yourself down, boy," came a drunken slur from the corner. Will sighed and slumped down in his chair. He reached into his pocket and took out the conch. It was still strung on the leather string that he had poked through it, so it could be worn as a necklace. Will remembered the day he tried to give it to Elizabeth. "Why do women always interrupt you?" he wondered aloud. "Why couldn't I give her this?"
"Maybe it wasn't meant to be," came the drunken blacksmith again, waving a beer bottle around.
"I could believe that if I believed in fate, Barnaby," said Will. "It's a pity I don't."