She gave him some time before she started the fight, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was expected to do with it. Possibly she wanted the time to prepare herself, although she didn't seem to be doing much save flex her arms and down what looked like half a bottle of darkest rum. She was not a large woman, but she obviously had a great deal of speed and agility on her side. Jack was no slouch himself, but when an eighteenth century human woman from a culture like this one showed such great confidence before a fight with a man, he couldn't help thinking that there was good reason to be worried. Josiah certainly seemed to think that he was a fool for accepting the challenge.
"And I was supposed to let her kill us I suppose?" Jack watched Kate out of the corner of one eye as he argued with Josiah, and made a stab at copying a few of her limbering up exercises, just to look as if he knew what he was doing. Josiah shook his head.
"You are letting her kill us. You should have turned her down. I could have spoken to her."
"She wants to slit your throat, Josiah." Anne was on Jack's side. "I know that she can fight. I've seen her in taverns in the past. But this way we have a far better chance. Jack may win."
"He won't." The pirate captain was emphatic. "It's not an insult, Jack. I know that she's smaller than you, and I'm sure that you can fight well enough. It's just that you've not seen her. She can move like the wind, and she's deadly. Truly deadly."
"Yeah, well it beats a musket ball in the head." Jack glanced back at Kate. "I think."
"She will try every dirty trick you've ever seen, and more besides."
"You think?" Somehow he doubted that she would try the sort of dirty trick practised by the three-armed Xargonnas, a tag team of which he had once fought in a market place on a Martian space station - or the Deron battle robots, programmed to fight as dishonourably as a situation would allow. But then he had come off decidedly for the worst against them, too, so the cultural limits on Kate's underhandedness were not necessarily to his advantage.
"I know." Josiah dredged up a small smile. "I don't suppose there's some spell that you could use?"
"Yeah. And if I really was a magician, that might work." Jack toyed with his wrist computer. "Although there might be something. Mill around me. Keep me out of sight for the time being."
"You plan to escape?" asked Josiah, doing his best to 'mill'. It wasn't easy when it was just him and Anne. Hallows and Lady Caroline were trying to distance themselves from everything - possibly in the hope that this would save their lives, or possibly just because they would rather go to their deaths unsullied by involvement with such unpleasantness.
"No. Yes. Hopefully, in a bit." Jack lifted the computer to his mouth, horribly conscious, as usual, that he was about to do something that would probably scare off Josiah yet again. "Computer. You there?"
"Where else would I be?" The ever polite, ever good-humoured voice of the ship's computer came to him over the speakers in his wristband. "What do you require?"
"Some help." He relayed his instructions as quickly and clearly as he could. "In five minutes, then. Got all that?"
"Affirmative." She fell silent. Had the computer been human, Jack would have imagined that she was thinking about what he had just said, and trying to work out what the hell he had got himself into this time - let alone how her new orders were supposed to help. Instead he assumed that she was just processing the instructions, and returning to her usual duties.
"I'm not going to ask." Anne was looking at him as though he had just had a conversation with a palm tree, and from her point of view, he probably might just as well have done. He flashed her a faintly apologetic smile, then took off the wristband and handed it to Josiah.
"Keep it out of sight. Try to stand somewhere where you're not too visible."
"Jack..."
"It's not magic."
"No, Jack--" But it was too late, for a pair of Kate's men loomed up out of the brighter glare of the torches, to take Jack away for his fight. He tried to shoot Josiah a smile in farewell - something rakish and confident and courageous, and hopefully utterly irresistible - but one of the men holding him was also holding a torch, and all that Jack saw was a painful flare of red and orange. He was pushed into a circle of light, and felt his boots sink slightly in wet sand. The sea slapped against his heels.
"Ready?" Kate stood a stone's throw away, sleeves rolled up and tied with strips of ribbon. She looked, he couldn't help thinking, absolutely gorgeous. Under normal circumstances, grappling with somebody who looked like her would be enjoyable to the extreme.
"I'm always ready." He tried a suggestive grin, but either she had no time for innuendo, or she just had no time for him. She balled her fists, and shot him a cold glare.
"Good. No rules. Try to stay alive."
"You want me to win?"
"No. I just don't want the fight to be over too soon." She took a step towards him. "Throw the first punch."
"If you like." He took a step forward, deliberately clumsy at first in an effort to throw her off. She wasn't fooled. At the first move from him she dropped to the ground, grabbing up a handful of sand to throw in his face. Sheer instinct saved him from being blinded, and he twisted away just in time, feeling the sand showing over one of his shoulders. If it had been fine, dry sand, it would probably have blown into his eyes anyway. Damp as it was, it just fell away.
"Naughty naughty." He wagged a finger at her, but had to stop his clowning rather abruptly when she came for him again. She had speed, that was for certain. Dodging away, he tried to make grab for her, but she was gone before his hands could close. He tried to trip her, but she avoided his feet easily; he tried to hit out, but she was fast enough to prevent any blow from striking home. He soon wished that he could say the same.
She came out of nowhere every time; a punch here, a jab there - a rain of blows that hammered into him with relentless force. Deadly, Josiah had said. She was certainly that. The best that he could do seemed to be to deflect the worst of the force. He wondered how long they had been fighting. Why had he told the computer to wait five minutes? One would have been too long. It felt as though this had been going on for an hour already, but he knew that it could not have been any more than a minute or two. Every step made the sea spray up around his feet, but his trousers were barely wet. Hardly any time at all, then. Barely a heartbeat.
He hit her once. In all of the fight, despite all his experience and skill, he got in one blow that connected; a solid jab that hit her on the right shoulder and made her stagger. He could do nothing else. The rest of the time it was just dodging and stumbling, and trying to stay on his feet. He was beginning to doubt that he could even stay conscious - it was like being steadily beaten up by a professional. Apparently that was exactly what it was; he could hardly have accused Kate of being an amateur. Falling back against the ranks of spectators, he felt his feet lose contact with the ground momentarily, as he was pushed forward again. It was a moment of near total disorientation, and he almost forgot to duck when Kate's fist sailed towards his neck. He twisted, stumbled - and received her foot instead, right in his stomach. What there was left of his vision blurred alarmingly, and for a second all he could see were pinpricks of light from the torches; miles away it seemed, and surrounded by endless black. He dropped to one knee.
"Jack!" Josiah's voice. Something glinted - he thought that it was a knife. A small knife, but probably just as effective as a bigger one. He had one of his own somewhere, didn't he? A knife, that might provide him some chance of escaping. Back aboard the ship, his subconscious told him, and a flash of memory told him that it was right. The knife was lying on the floor somewhere. He had used it during his work on the ship shortly before destroying the Kamon. No knife then. Great. Just a pounding head, bruised ribs, and lungs that no longer felt as though they were capable of inflating. Life could be unexpectedly painful. Suddenly he was wishing for the Deron battle robots. At least they had had the decency to knock him out quickly.
"Nobody move!" The voice rang out with such startling volume that Kate actually jumped. Jack took advantage of her distraction to knock the knife aside and wobble to his feet. "Stand still! This is the local garrison. Drop all weapons. Your prisoners are to remain unharmed."
"What the hell!" Kate was turning in circles, trying to stare into the impenetrable blackness behind all of the torches. "That's impossible! Where are the guards!"
"Don't argue with soldiers. They're always looking for target practice." Jack raised his hands slightly, and with them his voice. "Hello? Don't shoot!"
"Nobody move! This is the local garrison! Drop all weapons!" Somebody near to Jack dropped his musket, and a second later somebody else did the same. As though to emphasise the demand for surrender, several gunshots rang out, and a lot more men dropped their weapons immediately. Kate was furious.
"I gave no order to surrender!" She was still trying to stare into the black, looking for whoever was shouting the order. The voice came from close by - very close by - but she could see nobody, and certainly not the lots of somebodies that the voice had implied were here. Another few shots rang out - loud and sharp - pistols as well as muskets. Something exploded, or sounded as though it did. A lot more of Kate's people dropped their weapons.
"Line up along the beach!" The voice was even louder now - closer. Kate's head snapped around, but aside from her own men she could see only her prisoners. None of them seemed to have spoken. Certainly none of them were armed. The voice was so close, though. So blastedly, infernally, close.
"Drop all weapons! This is the local garrison!" Whoever it was, they had little imagination, thought Kate. They were shouting the same things over and over again. No imaginative threats. The soldiers that she had met before were usually far more inventive - far more enthusiastic in their attempts to intimidate. Not that that made any difference to the force of their arms. Beside her, Jack still had his hands raised, and Josiah and Anne were now standing likewise. She probably could still kill them - one of them at least - before the soldiers killed her. The thought was not hugely appealing. Very slowly she raised her own hands, and the knife slipped almost unseen to the ground.
The rest of her people of Independence surrendered as soon as Kate had done, and soon they were all lined up on the beach, their weapons left behind. Hallows collected them all into a pile, then called out to the soldiers to approach. Nobody came. Jack took his computer back from Josiah before it could give the game away by shouting any more orders. Kate would certainly smell a rat if she was told to line up on the beach after already having done so. He couldn't help noticing how eager Josiah was to be rid of the wristband, but Jack couldn't worry about that now. They had to be gone, before somebody began to wonder why no soldiers had appeared.
"Where are they?" Hallows stamped over looking furious. "They should have advanced by now. They must be being led by a coward."
"I'm not sure that there are any soldiers." Lady Caroline was looking at Jack's wristband with a highly suspicious expression. Apparently she at least had pinpointed the apparent source of the voice and weapons-fire. "What trickery was--"
"Shut up!" It was hardly the way in which she expected to be spoken to, but there was no better way to phrase it. Jack shot a sharp glare that unexpectedly did shut her up, and immediately. "Do you want to give the game away!"
"We need to leave. Now." Josiah grabbed what looked like his sword from the pile. "Back to the longboat as quickly as we can. If they catch on, we'll be dead in minutes."
"Catch on to what?" Hallows was still looking out for the soldiers. So, apparently, was Kate.
"Where's Barlowe?" she asked the question quite unexpectedly, as she stood with her compatriots, still in the line on the beach. Josiah blinked, looking rather like a startled rabbit.
"He's back aboard the Seagull," answered Anne, quite truthfully. Kate's lip curled in an unpleasant smile, that managed to be wholly visible even if most of the rest of the beach was in darkness.
"Is that so. He's not, say, hiding somewhere nearby, running about a bit and pretending to be some soldiers? I know Timothy Barlowe, and he'd follow you to the ends of the Earth, Anne. He's really back aboard the Seagull, with you here risking danger?"
"He is." Josiah considered picking up a musket, but one gun, and one shot, wouldn't help him much just now. Hallows levelled his own musket at Kate.
"Barlowe? What would he be doing here? And what's keeping those blasted soldiers?"
"Exactly!" Kate swung around. "Trickery, Josiah. Clever trickery, perhaps, but nonetheless still games. He's out there, isn't he. Just him, hiding. If there were any more of them out there, my men would have found them when they found you." She raised her voice. "Barlowe! Give yourself up, or I'll kill your beloved Anne!"
"He's not out there." Josiah nodded to Jack. "Get everybody moving. We have to get out of here."
"You'll wait for the soldiers." Hallows was as suspicious as Kate, though for different reasons. "We still have to find the Governor, and nobody is leaving here before then."
"You'll die if you wait around here." Anne turned her back on him. "Though we're dead if we run, too. Josiah..."
"I know!" Josiah didn't know what to suggest any more than did she. Jack's trickery, or magic, or science, or whatever this latest thing was that he didn't understand, had bought them some time, but now he had no idea what to do. Kate started to laugh.
"Throw down your weapons. I might let you live, then."
"Keep back!" As she began to advance, Hallows readied himself to fire. Josiah pushed his musket away, and it fired harmlessly into the sand.
"No," he said firmly. The soldier stared at him in a fury.
"She plans to kill us!" He seemed about to lash out at the pirate captain with his now empty musket, but instead he threw the weapon to the ground and went to grab another. Kate was walking towards them now, slowly and calmly. Jack couldn't fault her for her courage - she had no real reason to believe that there weren't really soldiers hidden out there somewhere, or that even if she was right, Barlowe wouldn't shoot her down straight away. No gunshot came of course. There was nobody out there to fire.
"Nice try." She was smiling pleasantly enough, but there was murder in her eyes. Jack's hand went to his wrist computer, but he couldn't think of anything else to do with it. The ship's computer had relayed sounds from her databanks, and disguised her voice using stored voice prints, but that trick was over now. If he tried it again, everybody would see that the noise came from a strap around his wrist. That was asking for trouble.
"Go back to your men." Hallows had fetched another musket and was pointing it at her, but her men were advancing now too.
"I don't think so. I think I've had enough of this game." One more step and she would be within reach of Josiah. He had his sword in his hand still, but Jack didn't think that he would use it. He had already just saved her life once. He wouldn't take it now, and she knew it. One more step... and they would all have to surrender then.
With a boom that rang out along the shoreline, a shower of water burst up from the surf. Birds nearby, disturbed from their sleep, squawked in fear and rose up into the air. Kate spun around, worried for one moment that she might have been wrong about the trick - and then realising abruptly that she had not been. She swore under her breath.
"That's a ship's gun." One of her men was pointing out to sea. "There! A flash of light!"
"Not just a ship's gun." All of a sudden Josiah was grinning like a fool. "That's the long nine aboard the Seagull! It's Barlowe! He's brought the ship around!"
"Barlowe!" Anne's face lightened with relief. "Good heaven. Perhaps he's not such an annoyance after all."
"Oh, he is." Josiah smiled at her. "But sometimes he's a useful fool."
"All of which sounds like the end of the battle." Crossing to stand before Kate, neatly preventing her from getting any closer to Josiah, Jack had a hard expression on his face. She smiled faintly.
"Sounds like it. I was right though, wasn't I. There are no soldiers out there."
"No Barlowe either."
"So it would appear." She was frowning at him. "It was your doing, wasn't it. Under cover of the fight. Josiah has never been one for trickery."
"You'll never know." He kept his voice even. "We'll be leaving now, and we'll be taking Lord Charles with us."
"If you're sure that you want him." For a second she stared at him, eyes as hard and as sharp as nails - then she looked away, towards one of her men. "Fetch the Governor. Don't hurt him."
"Aye aye, captain." He left, moving as smartly as the best Naval sailor, and disappeared beyond the line of torches. Jack didn't watch him go - he didn't dare take his eyes off Kate.
"You're a clever man," she was saying, her own eyes now trailing up and down him with cool appraisal. "I don't know how you did all of this, but I will find out. Eventually."
"I doubt it." He smiled coolly. For a second her eyes flared.
"You're just a man, Captain Jack. And I can outthink any man. Whatever trick you've played here today - and there's a trick in it somewhere, I know there is - I will figure it out. I'll come after you then. I'll come after you anyway."
"Believe me, honey, where I'm going you'll never come after me." He glanced over at Josiah and Anne as they came towards him, Hallows and a white-faced Lady Caroline just behind. The Governor's wife was clearly shaken to the core, and looked like she wanted to cling to something for support. Since all that was available was a selection of pirates and a lowly soldier, she had to make do with quivering, and trying to look as though she wasn't.
"My husband," she said, as she drew nearer to Kate. "Where is my husband?"
"Over there." Kate nodded towards the ring of torches, into which her subordinate had vanished. "He's coming. I want him dead, and I want the ransom I think I'm owed - but I won't risk my men." Her eyes danced with hatred. "You'll never be safe, Lady Caroline - you'd better remember that. Next time I might just get you both - and next time I'll make sure you don't have your own little pirate crew to rescue you."
"Next time I won't need pirates. We'll be ready for you next time." Despite her obvious fear, Lady Caroline's voice was as hard as Kate's. "I should have you killed before we leave. We could destroy your town with the cannons aboard that ship."
"But we won't." Josiah was staring out to sea, where the glint of a torch marked the position of the Seagull. Lady Caroline seemed about to argue, but instead fell silent and looked towards the torches. Apparently the felt that somebody should be going to look for her husband, although she didn't quite feel capable of doing so herself. She was just about to order Hallows to go when two dark shapes loomed up amongst the flames, and Lord Charles appeared there, escorted by the man that Kate had sent.
"What's going on?" Half-blinded by the light, the Governor looked this way and that. "I heard noises. Voices. I demand to know what is going on!"
"Charles!" Her voice a shriek of almost girlish delight, Lady Caroline threw aside all decorum and rushed towards him. She remembered herself just as she reached him, and instead of hugging him, took his hands and kissed one of them with restraint. "It's good to see you again Charles."
"Caroline?" He stared at her for several moments, before his eyes also fell upon Josiah and his companions. "Him! He's behind all of this?"
"Not exactly, Charles. I made him--"
"And him!" For a second the fury in Lord Charles's voice gave it a volume to match the noise of the long nine. Jack, who newly spotted was the 'him' in question, looked up in bemusement.
"Charlie." He nodded a greeting. This was the bit he had been looking forward to least. "How have you been?"
"You." The Governor took several steps forward. "Witch. Magician. Murderer."
"Hey! I didn't kill anybody!"
"Your pet did. Am I supposed to forget that? You with your tricks, and your machine that flies. I haven't forgotten. I swore that I would bring you to justice, and I still intend to do that." Lord Charles looked back at his wife. "They kidnapped you as well, my dear? And you Hallows?"
"No, Charles. They helped me to come here and find you. I didn't know what else to do..." She caught up with him, and took his hand once again. "Witch, you say?"
"He's a conjurer. You've heard me speak of him before. The man who brought the monster that killed half of my men fifteen years ago."
"All of which is fascinating no doubt." Anne pointed towards the torch that showed them where the Seagull was waiting. "There's a man over there on a ship, and he has a gun readied to fire. If we don't get back to that ship soon, he's going to assume that we're dead or still prisoners. He'll fire again, and I'd rather not be here if he plans to fire often, especially if he's got the cannons loaded as well. Perhaps we should argue this out when we're back aboard?"
"Perhaps we should." Lord Charles looked hard at her. "But don't assume that you can distract me. I've waited fifteen years to see that man again, and I aim to make him answer the charges against him. Whatever he is, I want none of it."
"A witch?" Kate was looking at Jack with new interest, but he was looking only at Josiah. He didn't expect Anne to say anything in his defence, but he did hope that Josiah might. All that it needed was a quick refutation - a comment in passing. He was no witch, and surely Josiah knew that by now? Josiah, however, said nothing, and merely stared out at the darkened sea.
"We should go," said Hallows in the end, confused and embarrassed by talk of witchcraft, and unnerved by the idea that Barlowe might be about to pound them all to dust with the long nine and its cannon brothers. "The longboat...?"
"Is too far away." Josiah didn't want to go back to the beached boat - not in the dark, not with Kate and her men likely to follow them, and not with the ship now so close to them anyway. "We can all swim, can't we?"
"My wife and I can swim, yes." Lord Charles did not look delighted by the idea, but he clearly did not intend to appear weak. Hallows looked less confident, but he nodded anyway. Josiah nodded as well.
"Good. They won't try to shoot us, even if they can see us well enough. Barlowe will hear any gunfire." He wasn't entirely certain that Barlowe was capable of firing with any kind of accuracy, and didn't think for a moment that he would be able to competently return fire with the long nine. He was just as likely to shoot his swimming friends as he was the people firing on them. All the same, he was a good deterrent. The Seagull was small, and didn't carry many armaments - not like the Dragon, or the ships that flew the Governor's colours - but it had weaponry enough to do damage to Independence. Kate knew that.
"I'll see you again, Josiah." Kate held up a hand in farewell. He half expected her to throw a knife at him.
"No doubt. Next time, you can keep the Governor."
"Next time I think it'll be your witch that I'm after." She looked towards Jack and smiled, but he ignored her. It didn't seem right leaving her here - they should be arresting her and her men, not leaving them free to go back about their business. It might be impossible to take them all back in the Seagull, but it still seemed wrong just to leave. The Governor would come back, though; he knew that. He would bring his fleet, and a hundred cannons, and they wouldn't stop at warning shots. He felt sorry for Kate then. She was going to lose her town, and she knew it. Her mad eyes, her cold smile and her murdering ways aside, he still felt sorry. And she had probably been right all along - the Governor probably had deserved to be kidnapped.
"We should go." If he stayed any longer this place was going to start getting to him - all dark and largely invisible, with the harsh light of all those flaming torches. The people he couldn't see, milling about just of sight, eager to regain the upper hand, kept back only by the threat of the unseen Barlowe and his long nine. He didn't like Independence. He didn't like saving the Governor, and he didn't like the atmosphere that prevailed here; the ice of Kate and the sudden odd aloofness of Josiah. The way everybody seemed to be looking at him, now that the Governor had accused him of witchcraft; the way that the sensation of all those eyes made the back of his neck prickle with unease. Being back aboard the Seagull wouldn't get rid of all those suspicious eyes, but it would relieve him of most of them. He started to walk into the surf.
"Stay within my sight, witch." The Governor was almost upon him, voice harsh and sharp. "I want to be sure that you're not summoning any more of your monsters." Jack considered threatening to do just that, but kept silent. Lady Caroline was clinging to her husband now, he saw - the look in her eyes one of a new kind of contempt. He didn't care what she thought of him; she was just as bad as her husband, and he had no time for either of them. He didn't care that Hallows was watching him more closely, either, but it did bother him that Josiah hung back on the beach for a moment; that he stopped to say a farewell to the woman who had wanted to kill them all. Jack didn't mind that kind of gallantry. He had stopped before to bid his farewells to his enemies, especially the ones that were as beautiful and as interesting as Kate. It bothered him, though, that Josiah was taking his time to follow; that he seemed to be putting distance between himself and Jack. It was Anne in the end who swam closest to Jack on the voyage back to the ship - Anne who climbed up alongside him. Anne who protested with sudden volume when the Governor ordered the soldiers to lock him up below decks. He had already been dragged away before Josiah came back aboard, and although he listened for the sound of feet against wood, nobody came to see him. He sat alone in the dark for the rest of the night, and wondered what the hell was going to come next.
Dawn came eventually. It seemed to have taken forever to arrive, and even after it came Jack did not find his prison much lighter. A pale grey light seeped into the room, showing him a few details that he had missed in the near total darkness of before. He was in some kind of storeroom, though there was little enough in there now. A chest half-filled with cloth, a bare table, and an empty barrel that smelled of stale rum - that and a rat the size of a small horse. Jack tried talking to it, but apparently his legendary charm didn't work on rats. Not giant ones with teeth bigger than his own, anyway. He sang softly to himself to pass the time; a sea shanty he had heard in the Shark's Tooth Inn; a nineteenth century show tune he had picked up somewhere; a twenty-first century ballad that had been in the music charts when he had last visited that particular period. None of it entirely chased away the silence, or the dank depressing nature of the room. None of it brought anybody to see him, either to find out how he was, or to tell him to shut the hell up. He sang louder, even though he shouldn't really risk eighteenth century people hearing nineteen-twenties music hall songs, but still nobody came. Josiah didn't come - that was what really hurt. Perhaps they had all been taken into custody, and they were all locked in cabins - Josiah, Anne, Barlowe...? But Barlowe had been at the long nine. Jack had seen him there when he had climbed aboard. If that was deterrent enough for the people of Independence, it was certainly deterrent enough for a tired bureaucrat and his frightened wife. And besides - the others were needed to sail the ship. The only other possibility for Josiah's absence was that he wasn't allowed to visit, but Jack knew that that wouldn't stop him. Josiah was captain aboard his own ship, and wouldn't be given orders by anybody else, no matter his position, or how many armed soldiers he had to back him up.
It was a long day. The pale grey morning became a pale grey afternoon. The voyage to Independence had been a sunny and a breezy one. Jack had spent it on the deck, spectacularly failing to be useful, and making Josiah laugh at his confusion over the ropes. They had joked about Lady Caroline's disapproval of Anne, and about Barlowe's lovelorn gazes at that same redoubtable lady. It had all been well-meaning enough, even if Josiah had made it clear that he couldn't just pick up where they had left off. He had been bothered by certain things, yes... but this? The contrast on the voyage back was huge. Jack played listless chess on his wrist computer, and argued with the computer back on the ship about the rate at which the auto-repair was progressing. He had her play him some music, and sang softly along as he lay on his back on the table, and drew patterns on the ceiling with the laser pointer in his little ship's remote. He tried to play I-Spy with the ship's computer, but she didn't seem to want to play. Instead she argued with him about the length of time it would take to repair the teleport, and hinted that she thought he got into trouble far too often. He turned up the volume of the music, and tried to ignore her. It was a damned shame that the rum barrel was empty. He would have enjoyed a convenient supply of the stuff right about now.
Josiah came in the late afternoon, finding Jack in a room full of music that seemed to have been conjured from nowhere, and conducting along with the laser pointer as his baton. Caught out during a particularly energetic moment of Beethoven's Eroica, Jack was almost sorry for the interruption, even though he had been longing for the visit since the previous night. He turned off the music and the laser pointer, and stowed away the little remote. Great move, Jack, his subconscious told him. Music and light from nowhere is always a good way to shake off a charge of sorcery. Right now, though, he just didn't care.
"Hey," he said, by way of greeting. Josiah nodded.
"Good afternoon, Jack. I've brought you some water and some food."
"That's very thoughtful." He didn't think that it was, really, but there seemed little point in being churlish. Not at this point in the conversation, anyway. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. Fine. Lord Charles is rude and unpleasant, but he's letting me command the ship in my own way. Our freedom is still assured. I'm to have my crew returned to me when we get back to the docks."
"That's nice." Jack didn't ask if he was to be included in that assurance of freedom. It seemed rather obvious that he wasn't. "So, you want to tell me what's going on here? Only last I looked, we were friends. Now suddenly the Governor is trying to accuse me of witchcraft, and you're more interested in making up to the ex-girlfriend who just tried to kill us all. You couldn't stand up for me just a little?"
"I don't know." Josiah lowered his eyes. "Every time I think that I've come to a decision about you, you do something else and I'm lost all over again. When he accused you of being a witch, I couldn't say that you weren't. I just didn't believe. Not enough."
"So you let him lock me up? Thanks. Remind me to do the same for you sometime."
"Jack..." Josiah sat down on the edge of the table and, after a second, Jack sat next to him. "I've just discovered you playing music without any instruments. If Lord Charles had come here instead of me, he'd have had you executed straight away, without bothering to set up a trial. You can't pretend that it's not strange."
"But it's not magic." He looked away, out of the porthole. "Yes, I know - it looks like it is. I know I've let you see things I should never have let you see. Coming back here now was an accident, and we should never have met again. Letting you see me like this, unchanged... I've broken more rules than I like to think. It makes me an idiot, but it doesn't make me a witch."
"Jack..."
"It's okay. They won't hang me. I'll be gone by then. As soon as I know you're safe, I'll escape. My ship's teleport should be fixed by morning, and we'll hardly be back to shore by then."
"We'll arrive after dawn, certainly. It's a longer voyage back, and it took us most of a day before." He looked uncomfortable. "So few people believed him when he tried to explain what happened the last time that you were here. He very much wants to put you on trial, to prove that he was telling the truth. It could be several days before anything happens to you, so I could try--"
"You won't need to. Like I said, the teleport will be fixed by the morning. Probably. That's the light that makes me disappear, incidentally - which also isn't magic just in case you haven't got it yet."
"You're bitter."
"No." He sighed. He wanted to put his hand on Josiah's, and he wanted to bring those fifteen years back. Forty-eight hours ago he had been about to sweep the pirate off his feet. Today was a different decade. A different set of rules. "I'm not bitter, I'm just... I don't mind if you think I'm a witch. Though I do kinda prefer 'wizard'. Witch is... well do I look like a wizened old woman with a hooked nose?"
"No." Despite himself, Josiah smiled.
"Good. Anyway, I don't mind that. What I mind is the distrust that comes with it. I don't give a damn if Charlie thinks I'm the king of all wizards, and wants to burn me at the stake. What I care about is what you think of me. You and Anne. One minute we're comrades in arms, the next you won't look me in the eye, just because somebody shouts 'witch!'. Do you think I'm evil?"
"No." Josiah was emphatic. "Though if you don't mind, I shall reserve judgement on whether or not you're wicked."
"Fair enough." This time Jack did put his hand on Josiah's, and although the other man tensed, he did not pull his own hand away. "When you said you had some stuff you wanted to work out, I didn't realise how serious you were."
"When I first met you, I had no idea of the things you were capable of."
"Yeah. I guess I do ask a lot when it comes to trust, don't I." He smiled, and held the hand in his just that little bit more tightly. "Don't try to rescue me. I can do that easily enough on my own."
"That I believe."
"Good." They shared a smile. "Afterwards..."
"Afterwards is something that I cannot speak for, Jack. If you come to find me when you've escaped, I'll be glad to see you. I'll always be glad to see you. But I don't know what will happen. I don't know what I want."
"I can't leave yet. It'll be another day before my ship will work properly. I'm stuck here at least until then."
"Then we shall see." For a second the pirate captain looked at their hands, then gently he prised his loose. "I'm sorry I have to leave you in here, but he could just as easily have us all killed. He has numbers on his side. I've got Barlowe staying by the long nine, and for all I know that's all that's keeping us alive."
"It's okay, I understand. You need to get back to the shore alive anyhow. Your crew are still in prison."
"Yes." He smiled awkwardly. "The promise of the wife of the Governor. I wish that I could believe in it. I wish that I could be sure that all of this will go smoothly." He stood up. "I shall hope to see you, Jack, if you manage to escape. And I am sorry about all of this. I should have known what would happen when the Governor set eyes upon you. He holds a grudge, and he has a powerful religious hatred of magic. A powerful hatred. You be careful."
"Yeah. You too. I don't want to bust out of prison just to find that you've been shot by Hallows and his men."
"I shall keep Barlowe awake at the swivel gun. The poor fellow is a terrible shot, truth be told, and he's terrified of the thing - but he is helping to remind Lord Charles to be grateful for his rescue... Goodbye now Jack."
"Yeah." Damn it, why was he always saying goodbye, before things had any chance of getting interesting? Confounded time warps and their tricks, and the superstitions of men who did not yet understand science. He smiled. "Bye." The door closed, and Josiah was gone. Jack sighed, and with a flick of his little ship's remote, called up some more music to keep him company. It was quiet this time, just to be on the safe side. Nothing to conduct along with, or sing along to. He lay back down on the table, and stared up at the gently rocking ceiling. An unlit lamp swung from a rafter, empty and hung with spiders' webs. He listened to it creak, an eclectic rhythm to keep the music company; then slowly, without really being aware of it, he drifted off to sleep.
He awoke with the grate of a key in the lock, and quickly turned off the music that was still gently playing. Lord Charles himself opened the door, accompanied by two of the soldiers brought aboard by Lady Caroline - both looking as if they had drawn the short straw. Jack offered no resistance, and it amused him to see how relieved his guards were. They had evidently been told that he was a dangerous magician, and had apparently chosen to believe it. He considered waving his hands in the air, or saying something that might sound like magic words, but soon decided against it. There was no reason to risk things getting unpleasant, and escape was generally a lot easier if you didn't get yourself killed first. Escorted onto the deck he was amused to find Barlowe still at the swivel gun, by now looking slightly the worse for wear. Hallows, weaponless, was nearby, standing with Anne.
"As soon as I get back to the shore I'll have your men sent out in boats to meet you." The Governor was obviously confirming something that he and Josiah had already discussed. "With Hallows here as a hostage there's no reason to distrust me. I wouldn't leave one of my men behind to have his throat cut."
"I'd glad to hear it." Josiah nodded a greeting at Jack. "As soon as my men are aboard, I'll leave. Hallows can row himself back easily enough."
"See that you put a lot of distance between yourselves and this port. My word only goes so far, Captain Day. If I so much as see the tips of your masts come noon, I'll send my ships to blast you out of the water."
"If they can catch us." Josiah smiled thinly. "Goodbye, Lord Charles. And the best of luck Jack."
"I'll be seeing you." Jack looked around. "How are we getting ashore? We left the boat behind, and I don't have my broomstick."
"I've signalled the shore." Lord Charles sounded pompous - a man rescued from a somewhat embarrassing situation, anxious to reassert his authority. Sure enough, a boat was just drawing up alongside, rowed by two pairs of men. Barlowe's grip tightened upon the long nine, but everything seemed peaceable enough, if not exactly friendly. The Governor and his wife climbed down first, followed by Jack and Hallows' men. It was an uncomfortable boat, and crowded, but it was nice not to have to row. Jack settled down where he had been told to sit, and decided that he might as well enjoy the short trip. The weather was nice, the sea was calm, and he was stuck in a boat with rather a lot of people who couldn't get far enough away from him. It wasn't exactly enjoyable, but it did have its funny side. It was rather a shame to reach the docks, and have to start thinking about prisons again. Prisons, cold walls, tiny windows, and more of those blasted handcuffs.
"Get his men here from the prison." Lord Charles was speaking to a rather splendidly dressed officer who had been waiting to greet them. The officer nodded.
"Yes sir. After you signalled from the ship, I ordered some men to release the crew from gaol. They should be here at any moment."
"Good." The Governor sounded dispassionate - almost disinterested. "Wait until they're climbing aboard, then use every cannon we've got. I want to be sure of getting the whole lot of them at once. I want that ship in pieces so small nobody will ever be able to tell that it used to be a ship. Is that understood?"
"What?" Jack was aghast. "You promised! You even left one of your men behind. You can't do this."
"Get him away from here." Lord Charles spoke with utter loathing. "I didn't promise, Captain Harkness. My wife did, and my word overrules hers. Hallows can take his chances. He might survive."
"He won't. You know he won't. None of them will." A pair of soldiers began to pull at Jack, trying to lead him away, but he fought back. "They risked their lives to save you. We could all have been killed in Independence, but we went there to get you back. You can't kill them!"
"They're pirates." Lord Charles nodded to the soldiers holding Jack, and they tugged him away. He almost lost his footing, but he fought on, hoping to similarly unbalance the guards.
"They saved your life! You'd never have made it out of that town alive, and you know it. That why they have to die? You can't face owing your life to a pirate?"
"Do you honestly think that I care about that? My life isn't theirs to save, and I'll be damned if I'll be beholden to them. My wife saved me. My wife came to find me. The others are immaterial." His expression darkened as he turned his attention to the soldiers. "Now get this man out of my sight, and be sure not to let go of him. Take him to my house and lock him in the cellar. He's escaped from the gaol before, and I'd rather not risk him doing the same again. Somebody is to stay with him all of the time."
"You can't do this, damn it!" Unable to prevent himself from being dragged away along the docks, Jack fought all the way nonetheless. "You can't kill them!"
"And you can't stop me." Lord Charles turned his back, the conversation over. Jack turned his attention to the road instead. Perhaps he could warn the crew of the Seagull as they went on their way to the docks. They didn't know him, but they might listen. They might be able to do something, say something to Josiah to warn him in time. Jack couldn't see how that would help, since the Seagull would still be stuck out at sea with all the coastal defences being readied to fire against them - but if it gave them some small chance it was better than nothing. There was no sign of the crew, though. He was dragged on up the road to the Governor's residence, and saw not a sign of anybody.
"Get in there." He was manhandled through the main door, still trying to escape, still trying to twist and turn in his efforts to see the crew of the Seagull. It was no use - they were nowhere that he could see. Helpless and frantic, he was dragged along a short corridor, and bundled down into the cellar. Rows of wine racks stood there, hung with cobwebs, and filled with bottles thick with dust. Jack was thrown up against a wall.
"Lord Charles said to stay with him," pointed out one of the soldiers, as the other began to climb back up the stairs. His confederate shrugged.
"Stay with him then. I want to be up there to see the fireworks. He's not going anywhere."
"Maybe." His rather more conscientious companion hesitated on the steps. "You believe he can really do magic?"
"No. Reckon the Governor's had it rough; he's over-tired maybe. Not like us, is he." Jack edged away slightly as they talked, trying to find a place where he was out of their sight. "Give him another day, he'll realise he's mistaken. Witches are old. Everybody knows that."
"Computer." Keeping his voice as low as he could, and his eyes fixed upon the two soldiers on the stairs, Jack hissed at his ship in urgent tones. "Computer, how's that teleport coming?"
"Probably of successfully transporting Captain Jack Harkness now sixty-seven percent."
"Good. Will the ship fly?"
"Sixty-seven percent is not a recommended--"
"Never mind that now. Will the ship fly?"
"One further day is required for proper flight in time and space. The ship is able to fly within this atmosphere, but manoeuvrability may be limited. Recommend that--"
"I'll talk to you later about recommendations, computer. Get me aboard. Now."
"If you wish." There was a faint buzzing sound - a blur of blue light that prickled across Jack's skin. He had been doing too much of this lately - using a teleport that wasn't up to scratch, dashing around in a ship that wasn't at full strength. Jamaica, it seemed, was somewhat hazardous to his health. He would have closed his eyes tightly, had he still had eyes to close - then a second later he was back aboard his ship, and his eyes were indeed shut tight. He opened them again, and tested his limbs cautiously.
"Welcome aboard," the computer said by way of greeting. He threw himself into the pilot's chair, and grabbed for the nearest keyboard.
"Get us in the air. Head for the docks."
"One further day is required for--"
"I know! I don't want to fly in time or space. Are we invisible?"
"Yes."
"Good." He flicked a series of switches and heard the hum of the engines build around him. "Come on!" Things couldn't move fast enough for him now. He wondered, briefly, if his guards had realised that he had disappeared - if there was an alert being sounded - if Lord Charles might be ready for him when he arrived. He didn't care. It didn't matter. The engines roared their way to what passed for full power right now, and he sent the ship leaping skyward. Nothing mattered. His ship being seen; the Governor trying to turn his cannons against him again. All that mattered was getting to Josiah in time.
"How long until we reach the docks?" he asked. It was hard to keep his voice level. The computer beeped a few times.
"Sensors show several sets of docks. Which do you mean?"
"The ones we were at before. Where we nearly crashed the other day, in 1735."
"Estimate arrival in ten minutes."
"Ten minutes? We can't get greater speed than that?"
"Unlikely. Shipboard auto-repairs require considerable power. Energy levels are low until repairs are completed."
"Great. They're sure to be reaching the docks by now. In ten minutes they'll have pretty much rowed out to the ship." He knew that the computer didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but he didn't care. "We can't go any faster?"
"Expending power on speed will result in a loss of efficiency. Will you be requiring weapons?"
"I don't know." Confounded computer, always being logical and seeing sense when he just wanted to indulge himself in being irrational. So either he could go fast, arrive in time, and not be able to do anything when he got there, or he could go slowly, have power to spare, but risk being too late to do anything. This was definitely one of those moments when it was nice to have something to punch.
"Do you require greater speed?" asked the computer. He scowled at the nearest console, and shook his head.
"No. Forget it." He racked his brains as he flew along, searching for some plan that would help Josiah and the others. The rest of the Seagull's crew would be getting into boats by now, he was sure. Beginning to row out to their ship. Barlowe was probably still waiting by the swivel gun, not that it would give him any defence when the moment came, and Hallows was waiting to leave. Trusting in Lord Charles Montgomery to keep his word and let him return to the shore. Jack felt sorry for him. Hallows wasn't one of his favourite people by any means, but he didn't deserve to be pulverised by cannon-fire just for being a jerk. The problem was, Jack couldn't seem to think of any way to prevent him being pulverised. Him or anybody else. The teleport wouldn't work again so soon, and certainly not on so many people, and that left him with very limited options. He could only fit a few people on his own ship. Giving them a tow was out of the question. Wasn't it? A slow smile grew across his face.
"Computer? How's the tractor beam?"
"Tractor beam is operational."
"Efficiency?"
"Current operating efficiency is seventy percent."
"Fine. Turn off our invisibility. Turn off everything except the engines. Give everything you've got spare to the tractor beam and the engines. And computer?"
"Yes, Captain Jack." She sounded so calm. Sometimes that rankled. Today he was glad of it. Had she been any more human she would have asked annoying questions and wasted time.
"What I'm about to do, you're not going to see. Anybody asks, it didn't happen."
"I do not understand, Captain Jack Harkness." She didn't sound bothered though. Man, but he loved her on days like these. He grinned at the nearest screen.
"Just give me all that power for the tractor beam."
"Affirmative." Things buzzed. Bits of equipment he hadn't yet learnt the purpose of clicked and whistled at him as she carried out his orders. He put the ship on auto-pilot and slid beneath the console. No harm in helping things along. Besides, he needed something to do with his hands that could keep him from looking at his watch. Various wires glowed at him, and it occurred to him that he really ought to learn what they all did. Lately his life seemed to involve an awful lot of rewiring and rejigging bits of the equipment onboard the ship. It was bound to help if he actually knew what it was that was being rejigged.
"Approaching docks." It seemed an age before the computer issued the warning. Jack popped up from beneath the console, wiping sweat and several singed strands of hair from his forehead. "Do you wish the ship returned to a state of invisibility?"
"No. Screw it." He turned off the auto-pilot, and gripped the controls tightly, doubling their height and scanning the tableau that awaited him. He had been right - ten minutes was nearly too long. Already there were men climbing aboard the Seagull, and no doubt the cannons back at the shore were all ready to fire. He could destroy them ofcourse - he had just the one laser cannon now, but it could outshoot its ancestors down at the dock. He had no idea, though, of how quickly the Governor's fleet of ships could be ready to sail. He might drain his power reserves blasting one arsenal, only for Josiah to have to face another. No, there was only one way out of this that he could see. Somewhere the cannons were waiting, were being loaded. Somewhere a row of men were holding lighted tapers. Below him, men were clambering up into the Seagull, unaware of the threat, and moving too slowly. He couldn't do anything until they were aboard. If he waited, he might be too late. Somewhere, he knew, the order was about to be given. One chance, then. Scare them. Buy the Seagull some time.
With a scream of the engines he dove the ship down, feeling her shudder briefly beneath him. He saw the cannons, he saw the men ranged up alongside them - he saw Lord Charles shouting and gesticulating. Behind him, he hoped, Josiah would have seen, and understood. He would have realised that there was a threat. He would be hurrying his men, and telling them that they had nothing to fear. Nothing to fear. Jack had no idea if that was even true. He was all too aware that this could go horribly wrong, and all that he could do was keep going and hope that it didn't. He was good at hoping. Good at being lucky. He was going to need to be now.
Whirling the ship about, the controls juddering in his hands, he headed straight for Josiah's ship. Behind him acannonball smashed into the water. Somebody overeager, firing too soon, and without proper aim. They had seen it, though, aboard the Seagull - they certainly knew now that they were in danger. Several of the crewmen were pointing up at Jack's ship, others were gathered by the rail, hauling up the last few of their fellows. Jack kept his course steady, and dipped the ship's nose. Lower he flew, lower and lower. He could see patterns in the surface of the sea where his engines were blowing at the water. He could see Josiah's face, upturned. He felt the shockwaves as another cannonball smashed into the sea. The aim was improving. Just a matter of time now, then.
"Computer! Lock the tractor beam onto that ship beneath us."
"Object is too large to--"
"Do it!" He tightened his hold on the controls. This was not going to be a smooth flight. The computer beeped an affirmative.
"Tractor beam activated." Bright lights - the distinctive rings of the tractor beam - lit up the screen before him. Again he saw Josiah's face - wondered, briefly, how he was going to explain this one. If the Time Agency ever found out about his trip to eighteenth century Jamaica, he was a dead man. Or a locked up one at any rate. A third cannonball smacked into the sea, and this time spray showered the deck of the Seagull. Jack took a deep breath.
"Up." He heaved back on the control stick, flicked buttons like mad, hit switches and yelled at the computer to increase power. If this had been the Dragon then he wouldn't have stood a chance - but this ship; this smaller, lighter ship... maybe... the engines screamed again. The whole ship shook. Beneath him he saw several people leap overboard in sudden fear - what looked like Hallows amongst them. He didn't see where they went. He couldn't think about that now. Clinging onto the controls with all his strength, he felt his ship lift up - felt Josiah's ship lift up. Everything was shaking now. There was smoke coming out of a nearby console. Smoke, sparks - something hissed into life to put out the fire, but sparks still spat themselves at Jack. He clung on, smelling a powerful burning scent, hearing nothing now save the engines and the buzz of the overworked tractor beam. Below him, though - below him was a sight worth all the effort. Worth the electric shocks that bit at his fingers; worth the smoke that threatened to choke him, and the strain on his muscles as he fought to keep the ship in the air. Below him was the Seagull, her sails billowing in the wind, her hull showering a million rainbow-coloured droplets of water down onto the surface of the sea, her crew gripping the masts and rails in disbelief. Up into the air she flew, just like the birds with whom she shared a name, up and out of reach of the cannons, on towards safety. Somebody back at the shore fired again - Lord Charles most likely, thought Jack. He didn't stand a chance with the erratic motion of both ships to spoil his aim, and Jack's grin threatened to split his face in two. It struck him that this time he might have gone too far - that this time Josiah wouldn't be able to accept his explanation. That couldn't matter now. He had done the only thing he could, and Josiah would just have to live with it - just like the Time Agency, if they ever found out. Sometimes you had to break the rules - and sometimes the rules were a joy to break. Beneath him, enveloped in its glow, the Seagull soared with eccentric beauty. Sailing ships should fly more often, thought Jack. Everybody should see what he was seeing now. His fight with the controls was suddenly no longer such a chore, and he felt like shouting with joy. Damn, but his plans were good sometimes - if you weren't too worried about your ship exploding. The Time Agency wouldn't have agreed, but that was their affair. Days like this were good days indeed.
He landed the ship just a short distance away - the tractor beam wouldn't have carried it much further. It didn't matter that they had not gone far, for they had escaped the cannons, and that was all that really mattered. With a head-start to give it an advantage, the Seagull could outrun anything sent after it, and Jack was counting on everybody being too afraid to give chase now anyway. The Seagull crew were not in a much better state of mind, but between them Josiah and Anne were able to get the men moving. Josiah knew how they felt - he wanted to stand and gape as well. Of what further tricks was Jack capable? What other magic could he perform? He knew that if he asked, Jack would merely flash him that same old grin, and tell him that it was nothing. Jack thought that all of his magic was 'nothing' - that it was all just feats that anybody could perform. It scared Josiah, more now than it had fifteen years ago. Then, somehow, that grin had made everything alright. A blasé comment or a sudden and unexpected kiss had buried his questions about impossible guns, and lights that made people disappear. Now here he was, standing on the deck of a ship that had just flown over the heads of his enemies, and he didn't think that a blasé; comment would work anymore. Jack had made voices and guns appear out of thin air, to help them escape from the people of Independence. He had found Lord Charles Montgomery apparently just by waving his wrist in the air. Too much strangeness. Too much magic. Too much wishing that Jack could be nothing but an ordinary man, even if it might have meant that they would all now be dead.
They met up again shortly after the Seagull landed. Jack brought his own ship down low, and bouncing it gently over the surface of the waves, he slowed it to a virtual standstill, and tied it to the Seagull's rails. The Dragon had also had his ship tethered to her rail, remembered Josiah - that was how all of this had begun, when Jack had fallen down out of the sky, and first made an ordinary ship's captain a part of his strange world. The crew of the Seagull stood along the rail and stared at him as he clambered out of his ship, and he gave them a smile and a cheery wave that was just as nonchalant as ever. Josiah wasn't sure whether he wanted to hug him or hit him.
"Hi!" Swinging over the rail, Jack flashed Josiah what might have been his biggest grin yet, before pulling him into an enthusiastic hug. "How was the flight?"
"Disturbing. Impossible. Your ship might fly well enough, Jack, but I had never thought to see mine do the same." He ordered his crew to be back about their business, then took Jack's arm and led him down below. Jack was grinning all the while, chattering happily about the escape. Josiah caught a comment about it being against all the rules, something that Jack appeared to find extremely satisfying; but he couldn't work out what rules it might be against, or who in their right minds might come up with a set of rules governing the flying of sailing ships. Just how often did sailing ships fly, anyway? He shook his head wearily, pushed open the door of his cabin, and wandered inside. Only when he collapsed into a chair with a look of clear exhaustion did Jack cease his talking.
"You okay, Joe?" He came over, sitting down on the edge of the desk beside the chair. "You weren't hurt?"
"Hurt? No, nobody was hurt. Thanks to you." Josiah sighed. "I'm just... I'm tired, Jack. It's been a fraught few days. Our capture, thinking that we were all to be hanged - and then you." He made it sound like an accusation, and then was immediately sorry, and equally immediately not. "Seeing Kate; almost being killed when we got back to the docks... I'm not a young man anymore."
"You're hardly old. What are you? Fifty? That's nothing."
"Fifty-three, and right now I feel twice that." The pirate captain stared up at his companion, and smiled faintly. "I'm sorry, Jack. I should be thanking you for what you did... I think. You saved us all, even after I... It's just that the way in which you did it..."
"I know. Here I am always trying to convince you that I'm not a magician, and then I pull something like that. I just didn't know what else to do. You'd have been pounded into dust if I hadn't done something. There'll be hell to pay if anybody ever found out." He grinned again. "But no one will. It'll turn to legend, like every other tall story that sailors tell. Charlie will be gunning for me - for all of us - but he can shout 'witch' at me all he likes. I don't care."
"No. You can always turn him into a dog if he makes trouble."
"A dog? No." Jack sounded happy, and Josiah wished that he could join him in that. "A snail, I think. Leave him crawling around in his garden, chewing the flowers."
"And could you? Could you turn him into a snail?"
"Not without one hell of a molecular converter. I doubt that kind of equipment even exists." Jack frowned. "What kind of a question is that! Of course I can't turn him into a snail. I'm not a magician, Josiah. You know that. I've explained it so often you must know the argument by heart."
"Yes. But that was before you made my ship fly."
"A tractor beam! It's like an energy field, that's all. Think of it like a kind of vacuum cleaner." He frowned. "No, that's a little out of your time, isn't it. Think of it like you picking up that quill on your desk, but doing it with light instead of your fingers. Easy."
"For you." Josiah shook his head. "I think I'd like a drink."
"Sure." Jack jumped to his feet. "Where is it?"
"There's a bottle of rum in the cupboard behind me." Josiah didn't watch as Jack fetched the bottle and poured him a glass. "Thankyou."
"You shouldn't let it get to you." Jack sat down again, staring at his friend with sudden intensity. "I mean it.Everything I do, I can explain away easily."
"Yes, I know. Picking things up with fingers of light. Ships made of metal, that fly instead of float. Visiting yesterday, or tomorrow, or three thousand years ahead of us, as easily as I can visit another cabin."
"Not necessarily all that easily, no. Aimed for 1910 recently, and landed smack in the middle of World War One. Not pretty." He grinned. "Picked up a great revolver, though. I should show you that. Or... really I shouldn't, but you'd love it. It's like the great-great-grandson of those relics you use."
"Revolver?" Josiah drank his rum, and wished that all of this made sense. He did so want it to. He did so want to understand who Jack was. His companion frowned.
"Sorry. It's a gun. See, the barrel revolves, and... Never mind. Maybe later. You really are tired, aren't you."
"Not tired in the sense that you probably mean, no. My mind is tired, Jack. A little sad, perhaps."
"Sad? We won! Everybody is alive, we escaped from Kate and from Charlie. What's to be sad about?"
"You don't understand." Josiah offered him a thin smile. "You're a good man, Jack. A complete enigma to me, perhaps, but a good man. I like you. I like you more than I should."
"Yeah. You always did as I recall." This time the grin that Jack summoned made Josiah's heart lift, but only a very little. He nodded.
"Yes. But therein lies my problem."
"I don't see any problem. You're a sailor. It may only be the eighteenth century, but people have always turned a blind eye to sailors--"
"That's not exactly what I mean. I like you Jack. For fifteen years I tried not to think of you. You were a good memory of one brief day that was over all too quickly. I thought that you were gone forever. I thought that I no longer wished for what might have been. Even after everything that happened with Kate, I still thought that. But now you're back, and I know that I do still wish for what might have been. Nothing happened between us really. Nothing. But all these years I've wanted you back, all the same."
"And here I am." Jack made it all sound so simple. Josiah nodded.
"Yes, here you are. And you made my ship fly. You came out of nowhere, and made my ship fly. Jack, you can tell me that it's easy to explain, but it's not, is it. Any more than it's easy to explain how you haven't aged a day - not a day - in fifteen years. Your world is not my world. Not by any stretch of the imagination. So here I am, all of this time, wondering about you - wanting you to come back. But when you do, I know that it's all hopeless. You won't stay here. You're not like me. Are you even human?"
"I'm not an angel. I thought I told you that."
"Once, yes. A long, long time ago. I know that you're no angel, but I'd like to be sure of what you are instead."
"A man. A man with a ship, just like--"
"Not just like me. I can't step through time. I can't make ships fly!"
"So that's it." Jack reached out, and gently took the glass from Josiah's fingers. "Look at me."
"I am looking at you."
"Yeah, but you're not seeing me. You're seeing obstacles and fairy tales. I'm no magician, Joe."
"But you're different. You're too different. And you won't stay here, will you."
"Wouldn't matter, if you came with me."
"And fly in your ship, and live through centuries without ageing? Fight monsters from other worlds, and get lost in so many things that I can never hope to understand? No. If there is one thing that this day has taught me, Jack, is that you and I do not belong together. I belong here. You don't."
"Then I don't. So what? I'm here now. Why worry about all the rest? What does it matter if you don't understand what I do?"
"It matters. I want more than a man who appears every fifteen years when he's next in search of adventure. I want more than a man who says things and does things that make me feel like a fool."
"You want me."
"Yes, I do. But I don't want to want you."
"You're talking about forever, Joe. I'm not here forever. Neither are you, if it comes down to it. Think about today, not next week."
"Is that when you'll leave again? Next week?"
"Maybe. Maybe it'll be in a month, or maybe it'll be tomorrow, when my ship has finished its repairs. I don't know."
"And this is supposed to not matter?" Josiah wanted to be angrier than he was. He wanted to be more than angry. For some reason all he could do was look hopeless. Jack seemed to sense his feelings, and offered him an annoyingly irresistible smile.
"I never got the chance to say goodbye last time. I didn't mean to leave."
"But you did, and you will again. You have to."
"Yeah. But this time... this time it's different. The trouble's over..."
"... I doubt it..."
"... I'm all yours..."
"... I doubt that, too..."
"... and we've got all the time we need just to kick back and have some fun. See what happens. No strings, no worries, no need to get your brain in a knot. Just relax, Josiah. Stop complicating things."
"You are a complication." At some point during the exchange, Jack had contrived to work his way around behind Josiah, and was rubbing his fingers into the tense muscles at the back of the pirate's neck. It felt disturbinglygood. Josiah had no idea what he was doing, but he knew that he didn't want it to stop. "You are the most complicated complication..."
"I try to be."
"Jack..."
"Not now." Jack carried on with the massage, easing the tensions out of Josiah's body. He might not be a magician, but he could perform magicks of a sort - and this was one of them. Moonlight flooded the cabin, obligingly romantic in its soft white glow; the slap of the sea and the gentle motion of the boat were almost as good as music. Josiah was still mumbling his worries, but his voice grew fainter all the time.
"Jack?"
"What?"
"I've missed you. I hardly know you, but I've missed you."
"Thanks. I think."
"Stay?"
"Tonight. Sure."
"And tomorrow night? The next?"
"The Time Agents will come for me eventually, you know. If I stay."
"But you do have a while."
"I don't know." Jack worked his fingers into the taut shoulders, and smiled at the back of the greying head. "But I like it here. It's friendly."
Josiah shifted his position slightly, and sighed contentedly. "Very friendly. Thankyou, Jack."
"What for?"
"For keeping your promise. For coming back, even if it was fifteen years late."
"Jack Harkness always keeps his word." Jack ceased his massage. "Well, usually. I once promised my mother I'd always be good..."
"What went wrong?"
"Don't know. Glad it did, though."
"Yes." Josiah leaned back in his chair, and smiled at the spreading patch of moonlight. Why he was letting this happen, after all his misgivings, he didn't know. Somehow it was as if none of that mattered anymore. "So am I."
And soon enough, all of his worries were gone.
I don't know how long Jack stayed. Two days? Three? We both knew that he would be leaving again soon enough, and when he went, perhaps I was ready. I didn't mourn his loss that time anyway, and for that I'm grateful; because this time, he didn't come back - or hasn't yet, and by now I'm too old to go adventuring with him. Too old to fight monsters, and sail on ships that fly. In my dreams, though... in my dreams all the ships fly, and the skies are full of dragons. The seas are filled with monsters that could tear a man to shreds, but they're dreams nonetheless, and not nightmares. He's there, with his gun that fires light, and his bracelet that talks to him, and his smile that still makes me smile too, and I'm never too old for that. Who could ever be too old for magic? Who could ever be too old for him?
And Jack? I don't know where that story goes next, but I do know that he's still out there somewhere. How do I know? Because not a month ago, I was reading a book - some old piece that I stole once upon a time - and in it there was a picture; a simple line drawing, of a man that I would know anywhere, anytime. Captain Jack Harkness, 1526 said the caption underneath it, as if I needed it to tell me who he was. Jack - my Jack - and for all I know, your Jack too. Two hundred years before I met him, and he still looked the same; was still getting himself noticed, and letting the world know who he was - and he was wearing the scarf that I gave him. So even though I'm old now, and it seems I'm the last one left who remembers all that happened, I know that Jack is alive. That he's still out there, still young, still adventuring. Still having his own kind of fun. And as far as I'm concerned, that's how it always will be.
THE END
