"Would someone send word?"
"What's 'at?"
"If – if something were to happen, I might not know it."
"James, do tell a man what you're on about."
"Well, I wouldn't know for sure, not unless I was told – Elizabeth agrees, we discussed it once."
"...Oh. Right."
"If enough time passed, I suppose it would be safe to assume...but then again, not really, because for all I'd know, you could simply grow weary of m– of your connections to Port Royal."
"Jamie –"
"Don't. Just – just promise me that we would get word, one way or another."
"Aye...aye, somebody would make sure you knew. I swear t' it."
"Good. For God's sake, Jack, stop looking at me like that. I'm simply being practical."
"This better?"
"Much."
"Then stop brooding and come 'ere so I can wish you a proper happy birthday."
It was the closest they'd ever come to talking about what likely end might come. Jack knew now how one-sided the conversation had been, the foolish trust or perhaps denial on his end, and he was sorry for it.
Becoming aware of the others again, he realized they were shouting. The last time he'd seen Elizabeth this righteously angry, she'd been burning his rum; for Will, it had been an oar connecting with his skull. Claire's hackles were raised in defense against both of them.
"How can you even suggest such a thing?"
"It would be murder, plain and –"
"No, it would be mercy, believe me – for him and for this whole town. It will kill him anyway, as painfully as it can, and once it manifests, there's no end to the damage it will –"
"I won't hear another word, you cold-hearted savage!" Elizabeth's voice rose until he imagined he could hear the walls rattling. Aiden winced and clutched his head. "James is not some soulless creature you can hack to bits – he's our friend!"
Claire had fury to meet her, although her voice was a much lower snarl. "And I haven't the luxury of being swayed by that. This decision is my responsibility – it is what I do –"
"Please attempt to calm down, both of you," said the watcher, massaging his temples.
Will spun around, brown eyes blazing like the very heart of his forge. "Surely you've got something to say about this nonsense, Jack!"
A few strands of dark hair had fallen across James's brow. Jack reached up to tuck them back, curving his hand along the shell of one ear. "Oh, not particularly," he said in an easy voice. Ignoring muffled sounds of surprise and outrage, he let the full weight of his gaze rest on the slayer, untempered by mirth or charm. "Just a friendly heads-up, lady Claire: touch 'im and you'll have to restrict your slaying to the deep-sea monsters." He grinned, deliberately flashing his teeth. "Savvy?"
It took only a few seconds for her eyes to drop to the floor.
"I am going to check on the baby," Elizabeth announced stridently, breaking the oppressive silence. She leaned close to Will, whispering something in his ear. He nodded and kissed her cheek before fixing his hard gaze on the slayer.
Any other girl, Jack knew, would be on the verge of tears right now. She merely scowled and fidgeted with a button on her shirt.
"If we may have a word?" Aiden said to her, offering his arm. She stalked past him to the hallway, slamming the door back on its hinges. He closed it quietly behind them.
Will heaved a giant, exhausted sigh and plopped himself down in the chair, Jack having adopted the edge of the bed as his seat.
"This is too much for me," the boy muttered, rubbing at his eyes.
"Don't be daft," said Jack briskly, resettling the quilt across James's chest. "You broke an ancient heathen curse, din't you?" Will offered him a wan smile. "Where is my godson, anyway?
"With James's housekeeper," said Will. "We told her he was ill and that he couldn't be moved. Jack, he –" Will shook his head, eyes bleak. "I was never frightened like that in my life, not by Barbossa or his pirates – because it was James. And yet it wasn't. That didn't make any sense, did it? I stopped making sense hours ago."
Jack nudged his leg with one foot. "You don't make sense all that often, lad."
"You're one to talk," said Will, raising an eyebrow.
Jack smiled. "Touché." They fell silent as the argument outside the door abruptly rose in volume.
"You know I'm right, Aiden – I thought I could count on you!"
"Of course you can, but in this case, I think we should wait and see –"
"And how many people will die because you couldn't do what had to be done? God, don't you remember the screams of those poor people? They were lucky to die in that earthquake instead of the alternative."
"You are too quick to act, Claire, and too quick to judge – you always have been."
"Maybe so, but this time I've no choice – can't you see that?!"
"All I see is a slayer disregarding her watcher's orders!"
Complete silence. Jack and Will looked at each other, feeling the temperature drop. When she spoke at last, Claire's voice could have frozen Hell.
"My apologies, O'Connor. You may have my submission, but I hope you realize that your soft heart will be the death of you someday."
"Claire, I –"
"You're a smart man. You should realize that it is not in your best interest right now to try and touch me."
Jack coughed abrasively. "So, whelp, you been keepin' up with your swordplay in the midst of all the connubial bliss?"
"Certainly." Will's voice was also a bit too loud, his eyes flicking over to the door as it opened. "I don't have as much free time, but my skills haven't rusted yet, I can assure you."
Claire came back into the room, arms crossed beneath her breasts. Aiden followed her a beat behind, his head lowered. If Jack had ever before seen a man so thoroughly beaten, he couldn't remember it. Old mangy dogs that got kicked every day cringed less than the watcher was cringing now.
"So what do we do?" Will inquired tentatively, trying to feel out the dynamic between watcher and slayer.
A muscle twitched in Claire's cheek. It was Aiden who said, "Well, we wait, I suppose. I need to look at some texts in my trunk aboard the ship – there might be useful information there on splitting souls. I got the strangest sense of the thing, you see – it felt incomplete, as though powerful as it is, it has lost some part of itself along the way."
"Ridiculous," Claire muttered, barely audible.
"You can get Theo t' take you back," said Jack, recognizing the gleam in Aiden's eyes. He was liable to keep explaining and working out his own thoughts on poor hapless bystanders unless he was stopped. ""I'll not be leaving."
Aiden nodded, taking a deep breath before he glanced sideways at Claire. "Are you...?"
"So, Turner, I understand your weapons are beyond compare in this part of the world." She treated Aiden with a good view of her back, standing just this side of too close to Will. Jack winced on the watcher's behalf, but aside from the way hope floundered in his eyes, he showed no reaction.
They went their separate ways, Aiden to the sitting room below where the lieutenants were anxiously awaiting news, Claire and Will to the smithy. Jack stood at the bedroom door, listening to the house grow still in the wake of departure, then went to sit by James's side once again.
"'Ey," he said softly. "Just me an' you now, love. Please feel free to wake up." A beat, during which he imagined the hand in his own twitched. "Any moment now."
He frowned down at the commodore. "Well, now, that sort of churlishness is simply uncalled for." Guilt at his own flippancy struck him, and he leaned down to kiss James on his cold cheek. "Forgive me, I'm talking rubbish."
As usual.
Jack started, half-convinced he had really heard that dryly amused voice. James's face began to blur and waver in his vision. He blinked water from his eyes and tugged on a beaded lock of hair. How long had he been here? All the others had come and gone by turns, but Jack had scarcely moved from this spot for longer than he cared to think. It might have been a few hours; it might have been forever.
Darkness threatened to encroach upon him and he jerked himself alert. "Look what you done t' me," he accused James. "Can't both be slumbering away, not now. Truth is, Jamie, there's nothing I'd like better than following wherever you've gone. But I can't – won't. Stubborn as you are, I'm determined to match you. I'm here, an' here I'll stay." Skimming fingertips up and down the blue vein in James's arm, he willed life back into the heavy limb. "'F an anchor's what you need, just..." His hand curled reflexively around James's wrist. "Just...hold...on..."
His chin dropped into his chest, and he slept.
