Author's Note: It is with pride that I inform you: the very talented Homeric-Simile, author of the fan fictions Jim Meets Ethan and E Così per Vivere, agreed to collaborate with me for this chapter to accurately render Silver's character. I personally feel Homeric-Simile is an indisputable Silver expert; she supplied all of Silver's dialogue in this chapter, and I can't thank her enough for so generously lending her talent to my story! Thanks again, Homeric-Simile! D

Chapter 14: Narrative Resumed By the Captain—Taken By the Enemy

I heard Silver's voice before I awoke. Initially I thought it to be the oncoming of another nightmare, and struggled to awaken. Strangely, the first thought that came to my mind as I emerged from my subconscious was the Doctor; I was almost cheered to think that when I awoke I would be able to speak with him. My side felt ten times better than the side it had been that afternoon, and breathing was much more comfortable. I opened my eyes and blinked in the dark, waiting to grow accustomed to the low light. I twisted my head round and found no sign of the Doctor in the dimness. I nearly said his name to summon him, when I heard Silver's voice swell inside the room.

For a moment my breath caught in my throat and I lay there rigidly and motionless, listening intently to the low voices that rippled in the room and quite suddenly acutely aware of my surroundings.

"What… What do you want…?" I heard the Doctor's voice, and then I saw his feet shuffle into my line of vision. I twisted my head about to see Silver at the base of an upturned dome, from which more pirates, like monkeys, were emerging from the hole at the top of it, illuminated by a seeping emerald light that flooded the room. I saw no evidence of Jim.

Silver made no attempt to answer. He only motioned to his crew, and they all moved in closer to us.

The Doctor again shuffled in front of me, and I realized that he was trying to conceal me from the pirates' eyes. He was not armed at the moment, and I silently cursed his carelessness when I noticed the gun was beside me only a little more than five feet away.

His effort to protect me was futile, for in no time at all the crew had swarmed about us, taking the Doctor by the shoulders as Aquanoggin and Meltdown took me by either arm and pulled me up to a sit. Wordlessly, but with an aggression that I could only assume had been built up during a long wait of anticipation, they ripped away the Doctor's sling from my left arm and my neck, worked my arms behind me to bind my wrists tightly together, and tied a piece of cloth firmly about my head and mouth. After all was complete, they left me upright upon my knees, my hands tied somewhat painfully at my back, my mouth gagged immovably, and the pain at my side an angered, burning flame licking up my rib. The Doctor had been tackled to his own knees beside me, and I could only watch as the pirates bound him as well. He sat quite passively as they wrenched his hands behind him, and I found myself growing more and more angry with the entirety of the situation, including the Doctor himself. I found it inconceivable that he could be so passive. Or, if he had to be so, I wished that I was not hurt, otherwise, at the time, I felt I really would have given Silver what-for.

Silver was standing aside, eyeing the Navigator's formation with a slightly confused expression. Then something must have occurred to him; something, he seemed to conclude in his own mind, was not right. He turned himself about where he stood, obviously looking for something, until at last he'd made two spins and stopped, quite angrily perplexed, facing me.

Like a cyclone he tore at me, his nails clawing my eyes and nose as he dropped to one knee and ripped my gag away. I could feel his breath slightly ruffle the hair that had fallen upon my face as he asked me the question in a hiss, "Where's the boy?"

This shocked me more than it frightened me; this was not behavior that corresponded with the personality he'd shown when I'd first met him. It felt like centuries ago, when we had all been on the Montressor Spaceport, readying to launch, with the crew unsatisfactory, but nevertheless obedient, and with Silver perfectly placid in the galley as cook. I lifted my eyes to this new man before me, a man who was not a cook or a hand, who was nothing but a pirate, some viral impediment who had planned on mutiny against me from the very beginning, and who had utterly deceived me to do it. My gaze bore into him—Silver, stripped of the personality he had so well pretended—and even his organic eye seemed changed. I realized then how bitterly I hated him.

I entertained thoughts of spitting into that altered, organic eye, but thought better of it. Instead I searched my mind for the answer he wanted. Now that I'd seen he was only a marvelous fraud, I had little to no idea of what he was truly capable of doing, and decided it was better to acknowledge his upper hand and let him have what he asked for. Unfortunately the truth was that I did not know Jim's whereabouts at all. I myself had, in all actuality, just learned that Jim was missing. I breathed shallowly, uncertain of what to tell Silver, when, to my incredible surprise, the Doctor spoke low and angrily, looking directly at Silver. "What?" the Doctor articulated, in a tone as stiff as he was, "You haven't killed him yet?"

There was no interval of time between the Doctor's words and the blow he received for their utterance. The back of Silver's organic hand struck him fully across the face and then Silver reared and stood without pause, startling the Doctor, it appeared, more than hurting him. The Doctor shrank from Silver after he had received the correction, and remained in the position, his head turned away, and his face crinkled by the reflexes that had originally put the expression there.

I found myself suddenly seething. Silver had stricken the Doctor, but it was as though the cyborg had instead delivered a blow directly to my heart. "You heartless, wicked, brazen insect!" I erupted at him. "How dare you strike him! You try my patience and have already taken all my tolerance. Do that again and I'll see you to the gallows, I swear that to you!"

Silver, standing before me a few feet away, began to shout at me as well, in the middle of my own ultimatum, so that we were both yelling at each other like a pair of angry children, "Cap'm, you're correct-- Cap'm… by thunder, Cap'm, lemme talk!"

"Talk, then!" I spat, collecting myself. To hear him inform me that I was correct had somewhat disarmed me, and I fell quiet. From the corner of my eyes I noticed the Doctor began to situate himself and open his eyes again as one of the crewmen commenced to tie a gag tightly about his head.

Silver, placing himself upon a metallic rise opposite me, pulled himself into an almost familiar placidity, and executed something similar to a speech.

"Well, here's John Silver, dropping in, like, for a visit. My, come! I find that friendly; but you two look as though a man would if beholding Satan himself! Have I done anything to enrage ye with such passion? I see no reason for name-calling."

"With every possible respect you feel is deserved of such a noble maggot as yourself," I said venomously, but my tone overall quite soft, "I don't see any reason for you to throw your weight about."

With that Silver pointed his organic index finger at me as though I had touched on something worth broaching. "Right you are, Cap'm! And very correct you be, too, make no mistake. There be no advantage on either part to convey ill will; from now on, with your permission, Cap'm Amelia, we'll approach this diplomatically. Like friends, if you don't mind, where all is allowed to talk."

"Diplomacy!" I repeated sharply, repulsed. "Do you actually expect that I believe I can trust you with diplomacy?"

With Silver's fraudulent personality now removed, his intelligence and demeanor almost astounded me. Silver eyed me a moment, deliberating, and at last peered over at one of the pirates through his one organic eye, and after a few moments, the gag that had hitherto been tied about the Doctor's face was now loosened considerably. The Doctor glanced at me for only a moment, and then looked away, very quiet.

"Does that prove any loyalty to me word for you, Cap'm Amelia?" Silver asked after this charitable deed had been executed. I smiled at him wryly and said, "You could do so much more than that to prove to me you are trustworthy, sir."

There was a small moment where he watched me severely, and then he resituated himself slightly and began again. "So," Silver said, sitting back and revealing his pipe, "Cap'm. The boy—Jim if I'm not mistaken—his whereabouts, ma'am? And where you've so kindly kept the treasure map for my obtaining."

I scoffed at him, sneering, "I tell you now, and listen well, my diplomatic friend, for I won't tell you again-- I do not know where Jim is, and even if I did, you would get neither the map nor Jim's whereabouts from me. I would never help you succeed, galley cook; I would rather see him, you, the ship, and this whole blasted planet blown completely from the Etherium and into flotsam first!"

Silver's pipe was smoking. My side was again a torture, for I had been talking relentlessly, but I could not have cared less at that point. My patience had indeed dried up entirely; unfortunately, it seemed as though Silver's was evaporating as well.

"...That's something, to be sure," Silver at last granted, with a tip of his pipe in my direction. "You're a right bold creature, Cap'm, and loyal to your duties and mates alike with notable unwavering. As to your response, I don't rightly know that I, as only one living being, can blow all those things you recommended into flotsam, but I was able to notice something weak in your powerful unwavering, Cap'm, and that is that you failed to say you'd prefer to see yourself blown into flotsam before you gave away Jim's whereabouts."

This was a trifle to me at first. Whether or not I'd failed to mention myself within the catastrophe I'd wished upon Silver was unimportant in that I'd failed to consider myself. But it quickly occurred to me that this was a bigger problem: it made me sound as though I was more willing to die than see Silver run away with the treasure. I suddenly felt horrifyingly cold.

Silver continued with his promulgation, activating a small flintlock from his right mechanical arm. "I could always pick you off if it pleases you…"

I could think of nothing to do but stare at him. My left side tingled, the pain slowly beginning to dwindle, and I was sickened by the fact that the irony of the pain in my side subsiding just as I was facing an ultimate destruction was the only thing that came to my mind.

The Doctor sat beside me, having been constantly silent, but constantly aware. Through my peripheral vision I saw him look at me warily, but I did not look back at him. He looked again at Silver, whose gun was cocked toward me, the pirate more than willing to pull the trigger. Silver's arm moved warningly. The Doctor took a breath, causing his shoulders to rise, and then he nearly shouted at the cyborg, the whole of him shrinking away as he did, "No! No…! Jim is on board the Legacy…he's trying to recover the map. We never, ever had the map-- Jim's… trying to get it back. Please… don't kill her."

I was thunderstruck. I could have attacked him mercilessly and thanked him miserably at the same time. He'd saved my life, but he'd given away everything we were holding onto to do it. I sighed, lowering my eyes to my knees. For a reason I'm still not sure of to this day, I felt disappointed in him.

"Well!" Silver smirked, marveling at the Doctor's articulation, and replacing the gun back into his mechanical arm, "and there's something else! You two make some of the prettiest lost souls in the worst kind of pickle, to be sure."

Here, Silver proceeded to suck on his pipe, all the while eyeing the Doctor with some great interest. After blowing some evil-looking smoke out of his mouth, Silver raised the pipe at him as though a toast, and returned genuinely, "I'll give it to you, Doc: you're a right good man as to save her life, as the case looks to be, and to answer my question so concisely. I tell you, sir—upon me honor—we haven't seen hide nor hair of the cherub since my talk with him this evening, and what's more he hasn't been killed by any of these clods behind me, so therefore you haven't much to worry."

The Doctor looked as though a magnificent weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but he never did look at Silver after his outburst. I was again looking up at the cyborg in front of me, prepared once more to argue our cause.

"We're relieved; Jim's absence did indeed cause us concern. And now, Silver, since you have everything you want and we are of no further use to you, I will thank you to kindly liberate us from your most undesirable clutches."

Silver eyed me, not angrily as before, but not with his artificial placidity, either. "I can't do that for you," was his response. I exhaled quickly in angry surprise. "Why not? We're of no use to you. You know where Jim is, you know where the map is… You know we never even had the map to begin with! We can give you neither thing asked for; we have no provisions of which you can steal, no ammunition… For what purpose would you wish to keep us if we can do nothing more for you?"

Silver squared himself solemnly in his position opposite me, and his tongue clicked when his lips parted to speak. "Now, look ye here," he said, "I don't say nothing as to you or the Doc. You never have been one point neither for me nor against me the whole of this voyage. I've a head on my shoulders just as the like of you, and I know when a game's up, and I know when t' give n' take. Cap'm, you still c'n do more worlds for me than y' seem t' realize. Though, if I were in your place, I'd've pr'bly asked the same favor."

He paused, and then said evenly, "Look at me," and he opened his arms wide as though to allow my observation, "What am I? I'm a poor old salt, that's what I am. Nothin' more'n a lubber, and a sorry one at that. I been brought up with mercy, just as the richest child ever were, too—and I know the value of it. I know th' want for it. But, by gum, Cap'm, you a pris'ner! Same as th' Doc. Do a man who's scratched by his whole life, and who's smart enough to know he's got his last chance before his blessed eyes, just let it slip away? Cap'm… look at me. You're my last two cards. My last vile chance at what I've groped for m' entire life. Y'see this leg, arm, eye of mine? T'ain't me. No sir. Poorly born, but born whole, Cap'm. My right side was casualties… given up in the pursuit of this truculent planet. Y'see, I've been after this and the map and the gold for more than thirty years. And that close to losing hope!"—and here he snapped his fingers for me—"and that all I lost and sacrificed for the dad-blasted thing was to be for nothin'. But here I am, and I got you, with Jim right behind… and I can just feel the map. The map that'll lead me to what I've long since dreamed for and even more so what I've paid for."

"Cap'm, I'm within a half a' plank of death. I can feel that, too. Any man with somethin' in the way a' sense in his head c'n conjecture up real close that you plan to see any mutineer swing easy. You act so and I know so, and I'm thinkin' on that bit a' rope so that my neck's stiff already. Maybe ye've seen 'em—poor corsairs displayed on that foul gibbet? Hung by the neck and as cold as stone, with the Mantabirds buzzin' around 'em, and men watchin' from incomin' ships. 'This is what happens to those who practice piracy!' is the message from those poor bones a-swingin'! And a man'll take it into account fast. Y'c'n hear them men on the ships, Cap'm! One of 'em says, 'hey, now; who's that?' and t'other one says, 'why, that's Long John Silver, with the missin' side. I've heard o' him many times,' and then they float away. A poor old salt like myself, within thirty years cast off towards the means o' finally getting to where I am now—with my last two cards and a couple of winds still in me—I think I'll hold fast to 'em, which means I can't set them free."

Silver's discourse was silencing. Apart from the reason that I had not expected him to have analyzed his situation so closely, so precisely, and so somberly, but also for the reason that, in B.E.N's formation, with his crew about him and the Doctor and me bound and subordinate before him, it seemed as though he had translated his entire feelings, fears, anticipations, and frustrations for us through it, and it was such a broad glimpse of the true man I beheld before me that it was chilling. I didn't speak at all after that. I couldn't.

For a long while we all sat in silence within B.E.N's formation, which was probably the reason why we heard Jim Hawkins's return so easily. Silver, maintaining the smothering silence he had rendered, slipped from his perch, grotesquely smiling. He waved a hand at Turnbuckle and Pigors, and they obeyed his unspoken command by dousing the light in their lanterns. Silver then pointed at the Doctor and me, and Schwartzkopf and Moron came to us, gagged us again, and held us firmly in their arms to ensure that we would not escape. Silver took his place deep within the shadows of the formation, as did the crew, and in a breath the place seemed entirely empty.

I closed my eyes tightly and then opened them again, vehemently apprehensive, and could almost sense the Doctor beside me wither as Mr. Hawkins entered the formation again through the dome washing light into the room. After helping B.E.N up into view, he hurried toward Silver's position in the shadows, whose form he had mistaken for the Doctor's, and he smiled, tossing a golden copper sphere into the air, letting it gleam in the strange emerald light before catching it again. He whispered hoarsely, but triumphantly.

"Doc! Doc, wake up—I got the map!"

In the same strange, emerald light that dimly filled the room, a luminous machine also gleamed as it slipped out of the shadows. Silver's mechanical hand whirred and clicked, taking grasp of the map as Jim fearfully realized his error. Silver smiled at Jim, almost having returned to his old placidity, and said, looking with lurid complacency at the map, "Fine work, Jimbo. Fine work indeed."