A/N-- Here it is: the bitter end. Enjoy it while it lasts...

I realize that this is very long, and the sad thing is that it was almost a third story. The trouble is that I simply haven't read enough of the Aubrey-Maturin series to go as far ahead in time as I want to. I really, really don't want to have to go more AU than I already have. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

There's some rated-M stuff in this chapter. Nothing too bad, but I thought I'd state it anyway.


Epilogue
The Steepest Hill
in which much passes away

June 1, 1819

The path up to the Starre mansion in Port Alameade was steep and winding, and even in the evening cool Stephen Maturin was sweating beneath his clothes. The climb never got easier, but he always forded on. A good many wondrous things had awaited him at the top of the hill, after all.

Six years before it was Cora, utterly naked in the summer heat, sitting on the verandah.

"I saw the Surprise this morning. I told Anamaria to take Dominic out for the day. I couldn't wait any longer." She was on her knees in front of him before they even got in the house.

A heated later, they lay on a blanket on the other side of the verandah in sight of the sea. Stephen suckled at Cora's throat, then looked up to see the graveyard beside them.

"Who is buried there?"

"Grandfather Caylyn is the tombstone there," She gestured to the simple stone rectangle on the far left. "Uncle Nathaniel is there," This was the one in the middle, the stone with a young man looking out over the sea. "And Grandmother Coraline is there," Here an angel standing on a marble stand, a baby cradled in her arms.

"I wonder if my grandmother approves of her namesake," Cora said sleepily, a little later. "Making love on a hilltop for all to see."

Stephen smiled and kissed her throat just once more.

"How did she die, love?"

"Giving birth to my mother." She kissed him lazily on the mouth, drawing him back to a place of life.

The chaplain's swift service aboard the Renown a year before that had left no time for a celebration or even a wedding night- and although it was far from the first time they'd shared each other's bodies it felt as if there must be something essentially different in them now- less, passion, more duty.

She was always the one reaching out. In those first few nights of lying in the same bed stiff with awkwardness at the fresh realization that they were man and wife, she was the one who would curl up against his back and draw him close, sighing as if it was all she required in the world. It took weeks, but then Stephen was the one that woke when she moved away from him and pulled her back, that felt utterly unable to sleep those first few days back out at sea without her warmth at his side when he left her for Catalonia.

Some months later, Cora was sitting in the same place on the porch. Her clothes were filled with her stomach, heavy with child. He put his hand on the swell of her belly and felt the baby within squirm at his touch. A tremor ran through him, the news that had never seemed real in her letters now vividly before him.

"Soon," She said, putting her hand over his.

He remembered the breakfast at the top of that hill he brought Jack to a few days later, when Cora dropped the plates and looked at him with wide grey-blue eyes. "Now," She said, gripping his hand.

He didn't want to remember the delivery. He had never felt so sickened by blood as he had when he stood beside the midwife and pulled his squalling baby girl into the world. Jack still swore that Stephen fainted when he came outside to spread the news. Stephen maintained that he sat down on the verandah and merely allowed himself some much deserved rest.

A few days later he and Cora walked down the other side of the hill to the hidden beach beyond. Cora pressed his daughter into his arms and then laughed at the expression of breathless wonder on his face.

"You stare at her as if she was one of your flightless birds."

"She is at least as fascinating." She stirred and began to whimper, tiny arms outstretched. "She wants her mother. It is always so in the animal world. The father merely provides his seed." There was no small measure of regret in his voice. Cora reached out and cupped his cheek.

"We humans are rare birds, Stephen. She needs you already- she needs a name."

Stephen had tried to pass the burden to Cora countless times in the past few days. She insisted that it was his turn; she'd named Dominic all alone. Stephen didn't even know where to begin giving her the name she would be called for decades- even after he himself was gone. Now they reclined on the sand and listened to the surf, and the sense of rightness and home connected with a part of Stephen he'd long forgotten- Ireland.

"Deirdre," He said suddenly. "Let's name her Deirdre."

"Deirdre." Cora tried the name out on her tongue. "What does it mean?"

"I don't recall. Why do you ask?"

"Because names can become a terrible burden." She felt her infant mouthing at her shirt and lowered it off one shoulder, raising her newborn to her nipple. Stephen noted with approval how much darker it was, closer to wine than to a rose. He envied his daughter the pleasure of taking her life from it.

"And what burden has being named for your grandmother brought you?"

"Fear," Cora said without looking up. "But a fear that I have overcome." Now she smiled at him, and everything was set right again.


Presently, Stephen leaned against the only tree that shaded his path. He tarried for only a moment, then continued on his way.
He remembered walking back up the same hill a year later, his heart pounding with more than just exertion. Cora was waiting for him, Deirdre at her hip. Dominic rushed out to greet him, jumping on his back and chattering about a prodigious strange bug he'd seen the day before, and just how big Viola had gotten.

"Show me your sketch later." Stephen said, pushing his son gently away. He saw the look on his wife's face.

"You're late." Her voice was ice.

"Hello Deirdre," Stephen said in vain, looking at the child balanced on Cora's hip, her head a mess of loose brown curls, her eyes the same indeterminate shade of grey-blue as her brother's. "My God, you've grown so." He tried to reach out and touch her but she buried her face in her mother's shoulder and mumbled incomprehensibly. Without a word Cora turned and marched back inside. He followed, bracing himself for the storm.

Cora put Deirdre down in her room, soothing her to sleep, then closed her door and stalked into their room, where Stephen waited. She closed the door behind her.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. But you know Jack- when he finds a ship he's hopelessly outmatched against, he simply must go after it. We all but circumnavigated the globe this time- I very nearly shook the masts from their places with the way I carried on at him and his-"

"I don't care, Stephen. You missed the first year of your daughter's life. You remember my terms. You should've been here months ago."

"I have never failed them before. You shouldn't fault me for one mistake."

"If I let you get away with it this time you won't feel obliged to come home next time. I'll not be married to a ghost, raising a ghost's children! I gave up my life for you, Stephen Maturin. Jack Aubrey may practically be your mistress, but I am your wife!"

He took a deep breath. A solid ache had settled into his side from the climb up the hill.

"I'm sorry. I am. You've been in my thoughts every day. I wrote to you every day. Didn't you get my letters?"

"I don't want thoughts and letters, Stephen."

"Then what do you want?"

She stepped forward and looped her arms around his neck.

"You."

He kissed her. He bunched her skirts around her hips and took her against their bedroom wall. When they came to themselves they were a crumpled heap on the floor, their lips swollen and Cora's thighs close to bruising from Stephen's grip. She pulled him down to her slowly this time. They made up for every tiny injury with the soft brush of fingertips and forgiving kisses.

"I'm sorry for the way I acted. It's just that I'm the most terrible wretch when you're not here, joy." She whispered to him later, when they finally rediscovered their bed, when Stephen's hands were running through her hair. It had begun to grow long again at last, the only visible wound of the Fraternité's ire disappearing; he buried his nose in it again, winding the strands around his fingers and breathing her in.

"I find that hard to believe. Our children are so wonderfully happy. They cannot have a harpy for a mother."

She waited a moment before speaking again.

"I should like another, I think."

"One more child?"

"No, one more hornbill. I swear, if you or Dominic brings back one more strange creature and fails to lock its cage, I will personally take my cutlass to the creatures neck and possibly to yours as well..."

"Don't say that. I have finally found my lemur and I must bring her ashore for further observation before Jack intoxicates her entirely. But never mind that," He waved it aside. "Did you really mean that you wanted another child?"

"Yes. And I think you can help me with that." She rolled over onto him. Stephen lost himself in her warm kisses and forgot what it was that he wanted to say to her about having more children- about the way the last delivery had gone.

"I suppose we could do with just one more. I take joy in the fact that you're not angry with me anymore," He said in the afterglow. "I'd have hated coming up that hill again in the morning to beg your forgiveness."


Even that hill wasn't as steep as the one Stephen climbed now. No hill could be steeper, he decided. It seemed to get higher and higher every time he climbed it, and he wondered if eventually he would stop. He discarded the hypothesis immediately. He intended to die at the top of that hill one day, from apoplexy or sheer exhaustion. Or simple heartache.

"Will you be comin' inside, sir?" Gibbs called from the doorway. He had seen Stephen coming a long time before, or perhaps sensed it in his old bones; it would not surprise Stephen in the least if he failed to outlive the ancient sailor as so many others already had. He was one of those seamen that never aged, only grew tougher with every windswept year.

"Not now, Gibbs," Stephen called back. "I'm going to visit Cora."

"...Come visit my castle in Spain," Was what he'd said two weeks after he first came home, while Cora was attempting to feed Deirdre breakfast. "Come with me to England. To Ireland."

"Now?" She asked hopelessly, as Deirdre tried to escape her mother once more, convinced that the small carved ship lying on the floor was more nutritious than her food.

"Not right this moment," Stephen answered, scooping up the toy and handing it to Deirdre, who burbled happily and ceased to fuss. "But soon. My self-imposed punishment for leaving you this year is to remain with you for as long as I am able."

"All the way to England. With the children?"

"Naturally. Deirdre should be strong enough, with the kind of woman she has for a mother. I've known other children younger than she that have made the voyage."

"And we are to remain together as long as we are able?" Cora smiled, releasing their daughter at last to crawl across the floor in search of something else to hold her attention. Stephen knelt before her and she put her hands on either side of his face. "Pray, how long do you think we will last?"

"As long as we both shall live," Stephen whispered, pulling her down for a kiss.

Anamaria and the Deliverance were in the Indian ocean at that time, and so they had to find another ship to take them to Gibraltar. It was a rather novel experience for Cora, being on a ship that she did not command. She often laughed at the feeling that she had nothing to do. Stephen and Dominic were always well employed- Dominic's Catalan had faded in the year Stephen was gone, but within a week of traveling their voices already filled the ship with the strange language. Cora became so used to hearing it that one night when they lay entwined in the darkness of their cabin she whispered Esteban by accident. It made him smile with a simple pleasure she saw too little.

By the time they reached Gibraltar Deirdre was no longer afraid of her father- she called him Papà just as her older brother did. He looked on it as his solemn duty to protect her and teach her the Catalan he learned.

"I shall find some way of teaching her." He would sigh dramatically when she decided he was no longer interesting and stumbled off across the deck in pursuit of something more fascinating. She was never easily amused.

"She's too much like her Aunt Ashli." Cora often sighed, especially when they knew that America was close off their larboard bow. Ashli had remained there since they parted at the Isla de Tesoro that hot July day in 1812.

"Do you miss her?"

"Of course I do. We write sometimes, but it's gotten so hard now." She laughed. "You'll never believe it- she's settled down in Georgia and married a Frenchman. He's an exiled privateer named Renard. God love them both, they'll tear each other to pieces in a year. I never thought Ashli would marry."

None of them liked the overland journey to the castle in Catalonia. They could bear the heat when surrounded by boundless cobalt ocean, but here in the Pyrenees it was less than enchanting. Dominic loved every part of the land, and Cora admitted she found it beautiful, but Deirdre complained strenuously and drew all of their nerves to their very ends. She was much happier when she discovered that incomprehensible marble bath in the castle, and insisted she take a bath in it every day.

"She'll have a taste for fine things when she grows older. Thank God there are few enough eligible men in the Caribbean for her to practice her charms on." Cora smiled, watching Deirdre sleep after her latest bath. Stephen put his arms around her waist and kissed the space where her neck met her shoulder; her skin was still warm from the steamy air of the bathroom.

"There's still water." He whispered, tilting her head to one side and kissing the pulse of his wife's neck.

Of course, there was more water on the floor than actually inside the bathtub by the time they were finished. Stephen marveled at the passion she raised in him when she slept later that night, oblivious to the bleating of the sheep in the courtyard below and the howls of the wolves seeking to hunt them. He'd considered himself above this most basic urge for many years, but there were times when he saw her and all he wanted was to hear her breath catch in her throat and watch her grey-blue eyes squeeze tight. There were times when he wanted nothing more than to see her smile. There were times when it haunted him that she might not feel the same.

There was one incident when he and Dominic went off into the mountains, intending to see about a lost sheep. They thought it no deviation from their mission to go tearing cross-country after a pair of wolves to study her without telling Cora where they'd be. They found her waiting in the kitchen two days later and discovered how wrong they'd been.

Dominic, with his innate child's sense of a mother's wrath, darted away as quickly as ever he could. Cora allowed him to go with a vicious glare, realizing that the real criminal was standing before her.

Stephen explained what had happened without a quiver of shame or fear. He had no reason to fear his own wife. She knew her way around a cutlass and a pistol, but not with the same degree of deadly skill that he did. He'd done what he wanted and she had no way of punishing him for it.

He finished by describing their final encounter with the wolves, when the two majestic creatures stood from the mountain pool they drank from and turned to face the two men with placid moony eyes, took one step closer to them, then heard the calls of their pack and darted away into the forest to disappear like silver ghosts. Even now he couldn't help but filled with a sense of wonder at the animals' understanding, the emotion in their eyes when they heard the call of their family, the way they understood and communicated everything so implicitly with each other. He knew Cora would understand his wonder. Instead the muscles in her jaw tightened, her hands went white-knuckled where they grasped her arms, and she walked away without a word.

He knew she couldn't go far; she didn't know the country very well, and she knew the language even less. But when he couldn't find her for two days he felt the dark knot of worry twisting in his stomach. If either of the children knew where she'd gone, they said nothing.
Stephen returned late that night from the nearby village after caring for a sick child most of the day. He went wearily- but with a sense of satisfaction -to the room he'd dubbed his own study, where he kept his books and specimens he'd found. He sat down to take notes about the surgery before he ever noticed Cora was standing in the room.

When his heart stopped thundering, he managed to speak. "Is this where you've been hiding all this time, like a petulant child? Am I not allowed to leave on my own business without gaining your permission first? I am a man of science and you have no right to fault me for seeking to further humanity's knowledge."

She walked slowly to him and pushed back his chair until she could sit straddling his lap.

"A man of science you may call yourself, but you're still a man." She whispered in his ear. "You're my man, and I won't tolerate desertion. My whole damn ship would sink without you. I'd drown without you."

The last words were said so softly he barely managed to hear them. He drew back from her to meet her eyes, and saw that what he'd thought was anger was vulnerability- she was as desperate for him as he was for her. She wasn't angry that he hadn't told her where he was. She was afraid that he would leave and never come back.

"I won't leave you again." He whispered back, drawing her close again and feeling his body stir at her closeness. "I won't leave you again."

They whiled away that summer in Spain, largely oblivious to the world but for the occasional tidings of Bonaparte. They explored the lands that belonged to them, venturing only occasionally into the village. Dominic was soon as dark as the little Catalonian children, and speaking as rapidly as they did. Cora had to plead with him to speak English at home for fear that he lose the language entirely.

Stephen had to break his promise to Cora only once for reconnaissance, and when he returned a letter from Jack was waiting for them, inviting them to come and spend time with them in Ashgrove. He'd just caught another fine prize at sea- it was prodigious strange being at sea without you, Stephen -and intended to throw a large party for them once they arrived.

"Does Captain Aubrey live near Portsmouth, Papà?" Dominic asked him carefully while he was packing.

"Portsmouth is no great distance from his home, I should say. Is there a reason behind your question?"

"I'm almost eleven, Papà. I thought- perhaps- Momma said that- I wanted to join the Navy."

"Don't you wish to keep studying, Dominic?"

"I do, Papà, but... I have always wanted to sail too. Ever since I was young. Since I was born, Momma says."

"I will ask your mother." Stephen said after a pause.

Naturally Cora had no desire to let her son go, whether it was to study or to sail. But she reflected that she'd promised Dominic this, and relented.

Jack thought it was a capital idea, naturally, and spoke to every one of his old friends at the party to discover if any of those who were shipping out soon could spare room for a young midshipman. Heneage Dundas, as reliable as ever, was the one they released him to early that December.

"Be careful and mind what Captain Dundas says." Cora said, straightening his uniform for the last time. The cold air of the Portsmouth docks blew her dress everywhere, threatening to loosen her hair too. "And don't pick fights with the other midshipmen. You know more than they do, but don't flaunt it in front of them-"

"Yes, Mother." He said impatiently. He'd stopped calling her Momma the day after they first brought his uniform home.

"Good-bye, love. Come home safe."

"Adéu, Papà." He said when she released him at last.

"Adéu." Was all Stephen could say in reply.

Stephen too found himself hard-pressed not to worry about Dominic. There was only one day when he was not in the very forefront of his mind.

"A letter from Dominic has come," Jack bellowed down the hall. "Along with-"

Silence.

"Have you had your apoplexy at last, Jack?" Stephen called from their bedroom, where Cora had been reading Romeo and Juliet aloud to him.

"There you are, Stephen." Jack tried to smile when he reached the door. "Dominic's letter came. And... there's another. For you."

Cora snatched Dominic's letter right away. He didn't miss them at all, naturally. He was fast friends with the other midshipmen of his berth, which was the starboard one- the larboard midshipmen were all flash coves and no good at all- lost their dinner the first night- the bosun was terrible, of course- the cook's food nothing like Gibbs'- but the whole of the letter was filled with his bounding enthusiasm and great love of the sea.

"We'll never get him home," Cora said ruefully, putting the letter down. "Who sent you that one?" She asked, one hand straying to touch Stephen's. He hadn't opened the other letter yet.

"An old colleague, whom I have not spoken with in years." Was all he said.

It was only half a lie. He hadn't spoken with Diana Villiers in years, and if she wasn't exactly a colleague he wasn't quite sure what else to call her.

Cora sensed his apprehension even if she didn't ask after its source. She touched him often that day, whether it was a brief caress of his hand or a kiss on the cheek when no one else noticed. That night she wouldn't let him slip into sleep unnoticed, sliding her hands down his chest and stomach and further, kissing him to stifle her own soft sounds.

He couldn't sleep at all anyway. He read Diana's letter by the candlelight, while Cora slept naked and unaware beside him.

He'd written only one letter to her since her proposal, shortly after Pullings' chaplain married he and Cora. He'd tried desperately to explain the emotions that led him to realize that they would never make the same journey, but they were too raw on paper- how could he explain that he knew Diana would always sink her claws into his heart, whether they were married or apart, whether she intended to or not? How could he explain that he could've continued to love her only in a world with no other alternative- no blue-eyed pirate? In the end he told her only that he, regrettably, could not accept her proposal. He didn't even move to renew their acquaintance. He told her nothing of Cora and Dominic.

She never responded to that letter, and Stephen hadn't expected her too. This one was just as brief as hers had been. It said only that she'd heard that he was once more in England, and that she'd like to see him again. She was staying in her old rooms at Mapes.

"I must go away for the day, joy," Stephen told Cora when she woke the next morning, kissing each of her eyelids when they slid down once more. "I will be back late tonight, perhaps tomorrow morning. I'm going to visit an old friend."

He found Diana beneath the false pagoda tree that once caused him so much pain. She was dressed to dazzle this time, in a gown of bright red, with a flower in her black hair and a black velvet shawl twined around her. She hadn't come on bended knee to ask him to take her back. She came to show him what he'd lost.

"I hardly expected you to come, Maturin, but I had to ask. I had to see what the married state has done to you."

"So you've heard?"

"Of course I've heard. You were quite the talk for a while. Is it true that you married that pirate?"

"Her name is Cora."

"I see. Even you could've done better than that, Maturin."

"I will go back to her straightaway if this is how you insist on treating me, Villiers."

Her face softened with sorrow, those dark blue eyes seeming a little less barbed now.

"Forgive me. I didn't think I had much pride left to be wounded until I received your letter. But perhaps it is just as well that you married- perhaps now I can ask if you'd like to take me into keeping." She managed a smile.

"No. You must stop giving yourself away to men, Villiers. You're worth more than that."

"Will you write to me again, Maturin? I've missed you awfully. Do write to me."

"We have never written to each other before, joy. It is better that we part now, and part as friends."

"I do hate good-byes."

"Never fear, dearest," He murmured as a wind shook the bare branches of the pagoda tree above them and stirred the hazy clouds in the sky. "No parting is forever."

He kissed her lightly on the mouth, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and drew back before she could pull him closer. He walked away before she could say good-bye. He relived the kiss several times in the chaise on his way back to Ashgrove. He wondered if Cora would taste a difference when she kissed him that night, and thought not. He didn't feel as if he'd betrayed her. He felt as if he'd finally sealed up that last aching sore on his heart, made himself whole for her once more. Someday down the road he could meet Diana again with no fear in his body, because he'd passed the pain she left in him onto her. Diana Villiers was his ghost no longer.

He came home and kissed Cora before he even had a chance to look in her eyes. He could smell the saltwater scent of sorrow before he drew back. She had her own letter in hand.

"Finn was in Ireland," She whispered. "And he raised too much hell for once. The British caught him and shot him down like a dog on the highway. Stephen, he's dead."

She hadn't seen him in two years.

"It is the natural order of things, joy," Stephen said as he held her. "Death is Life's oldest companion. Finn knew that would be his fate if he continued on the road of piracy. I can't imagine him going to it without a smile on his face."

It was not long after both their old loves had disappeared from their lives, after New Year's came and went, when Cora decided that it was time to return to Alameade.

"Everything would be so much easier if you would only come and live here in England." Jack pointed out when they were making ready to leave. Cora didn't react to his suggestion. She kept going as if he'd never said it at all.

"Jack was right, you know." Stephen said later, when they were on the pitching deck of the ship. "Everything would be so much easier if we could simply find a place somewhere in England. We would be together much more that way, without the journey all the way to the Caribbean in the way."

"I'm not sure, Stephen. I don't know if I could ever let go of Alameade." She sighed restlessly. "The Caribbean is my home."

"But what is there for you anymore? Ashli is in America. Gibbs and Anamaria hardly ever make port near you. And the rest of your family has already been taken by the sea."

"They're buried there. I sent for tombstones for Uncle James and my mother. They're all there."

"Only think on it, joy. You would be so much less lonely. You could go and visit Sophie and the children when I was away. The two of you did get on well, I thought, and Deirdre certainly enjoyed the other children. Won't she be lonesome with Dom gone away?"

"Oh, I should think not. She'll have a new playmate soon enough."

"What do you mean?"

"I was seasick this morning. I've only ever been seasick one other time in my life."

The news didn't seem real at first; when Stephen unconsciously touched her stomach it was no rounder than before. But he saw her smile and knew that she couldn't be lying.

"I pray to God they don't take me away before the child is born." He uttered.

"I pray to God they do. I'm a royal terror when I'm pregnant, and you might get it in your head to divorce me if you saw it."

"I would never do such a thing. Have you forgotten that I'm a Papist? We are bound together in marriage, as long as we both shall live."

"A good condition, that. Who can really say how long that will be?"

He pretended those words didn't leave a vague chill in his bones.

That night, just before they drifted off to sleep, she whispered in his ear: "After the child is born. After the child is born you can think of England again."

What haunted him the most was that she had not said 'we.'


Stephen paused only for the briefest second at the top of the hill, his head tipped back and his eyes squeezed shut. His calves ached, already cramped from months at sea. But he had only a moment to rest, and then he walked around to the side of the house that faced the sea and sat down beside Cora.

"Forgive me my panting, my dear," He wheezed. "But your grandfather could've chose a better place to build his house. The scenery is nonpareil, and should anyone ever wish to besiege us the view will be of immeasurable help, but otherwise I feel he was making everyone work too hard."

Cora said nothing.

The Caribbean sun was almost finished with its virile purple sunset. One by one the lights in the house behind them went on. A welcome sea breeze touched Stephen's face and he closed his eyes, wondering if he had the strength to move himself from Cora's side that night.

"The house seems so quiet without the children running about." He remarked to her. "I was going to bring Dominic but it's his watch right now- he's a fine midshipman, Jack says, and he expects him to pass for lieutenant with flying colors when his six years are up. Can you believe it's only one more year?

"He sends his love, of course. They both do, Jack in his own way. Dominic and I have been reading Macbeth together when time allows. Deirdre still doesn't quite appreciate Shakespeare, I find." Stephen sighed and leaned against Cora, who remained silent. "Their company is so constant in this place that even being up here makes me lonely for them."

They remained in comfortable silence together, watching the night deepen around them. It was a very similar night to the one of September 24, 1816. They'd just finished coming up the hill. Deirdre was asleep in Stephen's arms and Dominic was trying doggedly to keep up with them, insisting he didn't really need to cling to his mother's hand with the full force of a twelve year old midshipman's pride. After all, his ship was just down there in the harbor. Suppose one of the other midshipmen was to see him holding his mother's hand like a babe?

Cora had paused just once towards the top of the hill, her hand on her bulging stomach, and all her attention focused inward. Through the stretched fabric of her shirt Stephen could see the child moving, restless as a stormy sea. She looked to him after a moment, dropping Dominic's hand. Their eyes met, and they both knew.

"I'm sorry that it was the one thing you feared the most, joy. It was what I feared most too." Stephen whispered presently to his silent wife. He reached out to touch one of her warm curves, as familiar to him as the contours of his own body, although he had only known this particular set of curves for three years.

"Sorry to bother ye, sir," Gibbs shuffled up behind him. "But there's someone who's a-wanting to see you. The other young miss is dead asleep, but Aileen was waitin' up for ye."

Stephen turned with a smile to see a very sleepy young girl, about three years old, with brown hair and grey eyes. He looked deep into them as he accepted her from Gibbs and wished he could see a trace of blue, but they were his pale eyes through and through.

"Hello darling." He whispered, the way he and Cora always did at the sight of their children.

With a contented sigh, she buried her face in his neck and succumbed to sleep, not sparing a glance for her mother. Stephen cradled her against him and breathed in her clean scent, and wondered why it took him so long to appreciate his third child. He hadn't even touched her until she was two months old, when the laudanum finally ran out.

He held her until the stars appeared, and when he began to think it too cool he took her back inside to the bed she shared with her older sister to keep the nightmares at bay- the same bed Cora and Ashli Turner had once shared. He passed their room on the way, and lingered in the doorway for a minute before leaving it undisturbed. That was one room in the house on the hill where the memories were still banked too deep. No one had bothered to put fresh sheets on the bed since the old ones were removed three years before. Sheets wet with blood he'd been unable to stop, despite his years of experience and countless hours of training, despite every book he'd read and every seminar he'd attended, despite every good intention and every ounce of love.

Stephen went back outside, preparing himself to say goodbye. He sat down once more, this time in front of Cora, and hesitated before speaking again.

"I wish you were truly here beside me, Cora," He whispered. "I should like that of all things. But we both knew that we didn't have forever. I came here to keep my terms, because I know you never wanted a ghost for a husband. The truth of the matter is, I never wanted a ghost for a wife. But don't linger at the docks. Whatever sea it is you sail now, with whatever ship, I am not quite ready to board."

He traced the name on the headstone- Coraline Jacqueline Maturin, January 15, 1780 - September 24, 1816 -and kissed her only once. The headstone was still warm from hours in the sun, and he didn't want to linger to feel it cool. He preferred to remember it as warm. It was the way his wife's lips still felt when he bent to give her the final kiss, the one that stole her breath away for good.

His pilgrimage done, Stephen Maturin took a deep breath and began the long walk back down to the waiting shore.

fin


A/N-- Well... there you have it. The end of this crazy story. This has been a blast and really a challenge for me to write, and I hope you ended up coming to love it as much as I do.

My heartfelt thanks to those that stayed with me:
FuchsiaII
Oriana8
silverwolf of the night
Kelly Tolkien

Without you guys, there is no story. There's just a lonely girl sitting at a computer banging away for lack of anything else constructive to do. I'd ship out with any of you time and time again!

Fair winds and following seas,
Countess Verona Dracula