BLACK BUTTERFLY



Rated: R- just to be safe and all.

Chapter 3

A needle and thread slowly came into view before it disappeared once more. Every second or two the image repeated itself again, only at each time a tiny more was revealed of the scene that now played. As the Captain had instructed, Smee had quickly brought the girl to Doctors hands. It had taken nothing but a glimpse at the dried blood covering her wrists for the Doctor to bite back his questions and begin his work immediately.

Placing the girl in the Captain's cabin, he instructed Smee to boil him some water to wash the wounds, while he prepared a needle and some fishing wire to sow up the deeply sliced skin. Working quickly, yet correctly, the Doctor managed to sow up her left wrist and was currently working on her right, as Smee began to gently dab away the beads of sweet that began to form across the girl's fore-head.

"Will she survive Doc?" Smee asked, pausing from the gently dabbing at the sound of a helpless moan the girl muttered in her sleep.

"If I told ye she would, then I would be lyin," whispered the Doctor.

"The Capt'n wants her alive..."

"Aye, but it is not the wounds on her wrists that may lead to her death. It is the infection."

Another whimpering moan escaped her lips as her head began to slowly move from side to side. She muttered in her sleep, chanting names of those that she saw in her dream before pleading for help.

"Doc, what's wrong with her?" Mr. Smee asked as he continued to dab away the girls sweat.

"The lass is comin' down with a fever, its best we keep her cool. Fetch some more clean water would you, we need to help her sweat it out."

Mr Smee nodded his head and quickly began picking up all of the soiled clothes that were damp from her sweat and dyed red with her blood. Brusquely he placed the clothes into the silver bowl before he headed out the door.

"Please..." The girl whimpered. "Please don't leave me..."

Pausing from his work at her sudden cry, the Doctor looked up at the young girl and studied her features carefully for the first time. Though he had been working on her for quite some time, he had never registered her age up until now, when the helpless plead left her cracked lips.

"Easy lass...it'll be alright." He soothed softly. "Ye be fine."

He continued to finish off the remaining skin left to stich, knowing that the Captain wouldn't be too proud if he had walked in on him gawking at the girl instead of bandaging her. Then again it was rather strange for the Captain to bring a child aboard ship in the first place. Especially when the child was half dying, severely injured and happened to have been female- leaving without doubt a linkage to Peter Pan. Usually by now he would have had her chained up in the dark castle ready for another surprise attack. Not here in his cabin getting mended.

The Doctor was just about done bandaging the wound before the doors of the cabin slammed open allowing a rather tried and frustrated Captain to enter. Mr Smee followed him, carrying another fresh bowl of warm water and cloths as instructed.

"Well Doctor, will she live?" The Captain asked, as he pored himself a glass of rum. His hat had been thrown across his desk along with his jacket after he entered.

"Aye Capt'n she will survive the wounds, though the fever that has started to kick into her system may not allow her to."

Devouring the glass of rum in one shot, the Captain slammed down his cup hard against his desk before he commanded to the Doctor. "Well then bloody fix it Doctor. I want her alive. Do you understand? If by any chance you need to visit the island to gather some herbs then you may do so. But be quick about it for if she so much as dies...I'll have you hung on the mast with your stomach hacked open and your guts dangling in the wind for birds to eat. Am I making myself clear?"

"Aye sir."

"Good. Now get out. I am tired and need to rest," muttered the Captain as he sat himself heavily on his chair and began to undo his shirt.

"Aye Capt'n." The doctor nodded before he assembled his things and left, closing the door firmly behind him.

As soon as the Doctor was out of site Mr Smee built up the courage to address the Captain on the situation. "If I may sir?" He stuttered.

"What is it Smee?" the Captain grumbled as he began to work on the harness of his hook.

"Why did you save the lass?"

"I didn't." He snapped as he unbuckled the final strap.

"Then why is she here?"

"I gather the crew men must be talking outside, for you to question my orders as such...mmm? Yet I dare ask if you have taken a closer look at the girl and actual studied her features."

"I...I...Capt'n...me interest don't tilt ta the young ones."

"STUPID FOOL!" The Captain shouted as he shot to his feet. "I never said such, nor do I ever claim or harm a women against her will- let a lone a child who is yet to have seen her 18th birthday."

Mr Smee gave a small yelp from fright. "No...no...no...no Capt'n." He stuttered.

The Captain arched his left eyebrow as he studied his first mate before he looked towards the girl lying on the bed.

"Look at her Smee...take a mighty fine good look at her and tell me what you see." He ordered.

"W...w...well Capt'n she is a young... lass...err...in her teens perhaps ...errr...she is rather pleasant to look upon...errr..."

"Other than that Smee!" The Captain had become agitated. His frustration leaked from his lips and coated his words as they left his mouth.

"Capt'n?" Mr Smee asked. He didn't know what his Captain was referring too if it wasn't her appearance.

"She reminds me of someone Smee...look at her...can't you see it ...doesn't she resemble someone we have crossed paths with not long ago...Mmm?"

Swallowing hard, Smee turned back to study the girl that gently tossed from side to side from her fever. Her cheeks had now darkened from the blood gushing throughout her veins quickly. Sweat had began to dampen her night gown that had been revealed from the blanket shifting due to her restless sleep. The fever was getting to her. A touch of sorrow pierced his heart as the Doctors words replayed in his mind. Could she survive the night? It was a shame to see someone as young die and at such a cause.

He tried desperately to see what his Captain was seeing in the girl. But all he could see was a child battling death and struggling for survival. Giving up in searching for what the Captain referred to he was about to turn himself away when he caught a glimpse of it. A strange and rather familiar gesture that appeared across the girls face as she muttered another name, he had seen that gesture before, the very same facial expression, on someone else.

Curiosity at solving this strange mystery made him take a small step closer as he tilted his head to the fraction and saw a flash of it again. There, across her eyebrows, down her checks and around her lips, that lasted for a brief second.

He remembered now, once he saw it quickly for a third time. Could it be, was it possible, could the Captain be right? The bowl he was holding suddenly fell to the floor. Surprise and shock danced across his face.

"My god! It can't be!"

The Captain smirked as his first mates reaction.

"It's impossible Capt'n...impossible and codswallop..."

"But what if it can Smee?"

Sensing the slithering evil smile in the Captain's words Mr Smee turned and met his eyes to only be greeted with that he feared, the truth.

"...What if it can?" The Captain whispered as his eyes softened with curiosity for a split second.

"But how?... How can it be?"

The Captain sighed and sat himself down in his chair and began to unclasp his hook. "That is why I want her alive, Smee. I want to find out how it can be. Perhaps in doing so I might be able to discover a far greater weakness in Pan."

"Capt'n?"

"I want my revenge Smee. I want him destroyed so I can leave this place."