Thanks for the advice, Mirwalker, and all your lovely reviews. I have updated chapter 13 now, I think I was a bit over excited to have finished the chapter and got sloppy with my formatting.

The fire popped and a log settled, startling Sarah out of her reverie. The bright red streaks of sunset had faded to a hazy grey gloom. Her needle wavered in the loose grasp of her motionless fingers, the thread coiled on the fabric. She tightened the stitch absently and pinned the needle to the cloth, setting the whole thing aside. Her eyes went automatically to Billy. He was staring at her silently, his book abandoned. The firelight glinted golden in his eyes, his face shrouded in flickering shadows. Curiosity gnawed at her. Did he know that he occupied her mind to the point of distraction, was that why he watched her so intently? The cloak of the descending darkness gave her the nerve to voice her thoughts.

'You talked a lot when you were fevered,' she said, her tone carefully casual. Billy's gaze sharpened and he took a deep breath.

'Did I?' he said mildly.

'You seemed to be revisiting memories of the past.'

'Oh?' His tone was not encouraging but she pressed on regardless.

'Who is Gates?'

For a second she thought his eyes blazed with emotion but she wasn't sure, it could have been a trick of the ever shifting firelight. She tilted her head questioningly at him.

'Hal Gates was someone I used to know,' he said and then fell silent.

It was like worrying a loose tooth, potentially painful but she couldn't quite leave it alone. She tried a different tack.

'How did you come to be sailing with Captain Flint? Are you from Nassau?'

Billy shook his head.

'No, I was born in London. I was press ganged by the Navy and when Flint took my ship I chose to join him.'

It was the longest sentence he had yet uttered but he didn't elaborate further.

'Why didn't you go home?'

'I couldn't…I couldn't face my father.'

'No?'

'No.'

She waited as the silence lengthened. Billy flicked his eyes to hers, then to the fire and then back again. He huffed a breath, one finger picking abstractedly at a splinter on the corner of the trunk.

'I didn't volunteer to go to sea. I was forced into it, taken from my family with no warning.'

He stopped again. She didn't speak and was rewarded when he continued, haltingly at first but by end the words were almost tumbling over each other. The picture he painted, to her growing horror, was one of hardship and servitude, daubed with the vivid hues of misery and pain. It was clear that vicious beatings for tiny transgressions were an almost daily occurrence; that animals were kept in better conditions and fed better too; that the officers were cruel and hard men who abused their power and those in their charge whenever the mood took them. It was sickening to think that this went on aboard the ships of the Navy, that this was the treatment meted out to those poor children. Her heart broke for the boy he had been, for the child who had pleaded with her not to lash him again.

He looked up at her, shame and something darker in his eyes.

'Flint gave me the opportunity to revenge myself on the man who had taken me from my family and I took it.'

'What did you do?'

He looked uncomfortable under her gaze and shifted uneasily.

'You won't like this story.'

'Probably not, but I want to hear it.'

He stood suddenly and she wondered if he would just walk away, away from her intrusive questions, away from her inquisitive pestering. He didn't. Picking up a log he placed it on the dying fire and resumed his seat with a sigh.

'I don't want you to look at me the way you did in the beginning,' he admitted softly.

'I'm not a child, Billy, I am aware of what you are and all that implies.'

'But hearing the things I've done…' he stopped and sighed again.

'Will not change my opinion of you,' she said firmly. 'If anything it may banish some of my more lurid imaginings. You forget that most of my knowledge of pirates comes from sensationalist newspaper stories.'

'I killed him,' he said flatly.

'Good,' she said with a nod of approval.

'Good?'

'A scoundrel who preys on children in such a way shouldn't be allowed to live.'

'He was a Naval officer.'

'That doesn't preclude him from being an evil man.'

He gazed at her wonderingly for an instant and then lowered his eyes, staring at his fisted hands.

'My father wouldn't have shared your opinion,' he said quietly.

'Oh? Did you ask him?'

'No, I just knew.'

She wanted to say more but it wasn't her place. The possibility that his father wouldn't have forgiven him seemed ridiculous to her but she didn't know his father, maybe he was right. Perhaps the man would have renounced his son for the sake of his principles. It was too late now anyway, hopeless to wish the deeds undone.

'I couldn't go home after that, so I joined Flint's crew.'

'But something went wrong?'

'Gates, Flint's quartermaster, he took me under his wing when I joined the crew, taught me everything he knew, supported my promotion to boatswain. I owed him everything and Flint murdered him.'

'Murdered him? Why?'

'Because he disagreed with Flint. Flint was chasing the Urca de Lima, a Spanish treasure galleon, and when the price to the crew's welfare got too high Gates tried to stop Flint, so he killed him.'

'But you weren't there?' she said softly, remembering his anguished words in the midst of his fever. He stared at her blankly for a moment, his eyes red and distant in memories and then shook his head.

'No, at that time I was being tortured by the British Navy.'

'But you escaped and went back to Captain Flint?'

'I thought he was the best opportunity for the whole crew to have their freedom, make enough money to have no further worries. I didn't trust him but I thought I could get my revenge on him once we had achieved what it was we set out to do. Thrown off the yolk of oppression that the British kept trying to place on us. Only…only I got tired of it, of looking the other way as he became more ruthless, sacrificed lives without thought, all for his own agenda which I came to realise was not necessarily what the rest of us were working towards. I made a stupid decision, challenged him at the wrong time and got a lot of people killed.' He paused, scrubbing his face with his hand. 'We'd worked so hard, inciting resistance in Nassau so the death of Charles Vane would not have been for nothing, enduring months of danger and fear and then Flint just shows up and starts using my men for his own personal war. I didn't trust him and I'd lost men. He wanted to retreat and I defied him.' He raised his eyebrows ruefully, 'Flint was right, we should have retreated but I couldn't see past my hatred.' He looked down, shaking his head. 'Jesus, what a fucking mess!'

Billy was silent for some time and Sarah eventually asked tentatively, 'What happened then?'

'There were reprisals on the slaves and the alliance fell apart because of me. I was still blinded by my hatred of Flint, hell bent on convincing Silver to kill him.'

'John Silver?' she interrupted.

Nodding, Billy said, 'The quartermaster, the man I'd schemed to replace Flint with. I tried to force him to choose between us. And he did, but he chose Flint. Told my men that I'd betrayed them. I'd lived with them, bled with them, would have died for them but the man I had created from nothing but rumour and invention was so powerful that at his word they all turned on me. They gave me to the slaves as reparation for my actions and the slaves beat me half to death. Ben Gunn, a…friend, freed me when they came under attack from the Spanish.'

'What happened to him, Ben Gunn, I mean?'

'I'm not sure, he might be dead. I almost killed him myself but when it came to it I couldn't pull the trigger.'

'But he was your friend…why would you kill him?'

He looked up and caught her horrified expression.

'That's the look I was hoping to avoid, I told you that you wouldn't like this story. I'm not a good person, I've done terrible things.'

'Yes you have,' she said calmly, schooling her expression into a more neutral one, 'but you are not a monster. Monsters don't feel remorse and you're obviously feeling plenty.'

He looked at her quizzically, 'Not a monster? I like to know what I would've had to have done to make you consider me a monster.'

'The papers suggested Charles Vane ate the flesh of his victims, that's pretty monstrous although I have a suspicion it isn't true.'

'It's not,' he said shortly. 'Charles Vane did many bad things but he was a decent man when it came down to it.'

She gave a small smile, 'That's relief, I hoped it wasn't a common practice for pirates. I think I'd be a sight easier to catch than a pig, bigger too.'

'And cleverer.'

'Than a pig? Mr Manderly, you'll turn my head with these fulsome compliments.' She saw his lips twitch at her weak attempt at humour and was satisfied. 'So, after the Spanish came?' she prompted him.

'They sacked the island, killed everyone they could get their hands on including Eleanor. Rogers lost his head completely, he had invited the Spanish to the island to protect her and instead they killed her. He was consumed by his rage and regret and so was I. I allowed my capture, insisted on an audience with him. I still wanted to get to Flint, to make all of them pay, and Rogers seemed my best avenue for revenge.'

The sound of her husband's name made her recoil a fraction but Billy didn't seem to notice, he was staring into the gloom.

'I helped him plan the attack which was going to get him the cache of Spanish treasure and Flint and Silver. I knew a way to drive a wedge between Flint and Silver.'

'How?'

'A woman, one of the Maroons called Madi, who was Silver's lover. She had been captured by the British but they had no idea who she was. I informed Rogers of her connection to Silver and the high office she held with the Maroons. We used her as bait to lure Silver and Flint here.'

'To this island?'

Billy nodded. 'There was a battle, I tried to kill Flint and failed, fell into the sea and washed up here. Before that we destroyed the ship in the estuary, set fire to the magazine and then shot the men who were trying to escape the burning ship. It was a slaughter.'

'You shot your crew?'

'As many of them as I could. I was so fucking furious, so bitter.'

'But not enough to kill Mr Gunn?'

'A brief spark of humanity,' he acknowledged, 'but don't think to bestow any unnecessary virtues on me. I killed men I had sailed with for years and felt nothing, not until later. I began all this with only the welfare of the crew on my mind. That was what caused me to hate Flint so much. I didn't think he cared for the crew, just used them to achieve his own personal aims without any thought of what it cost them. It's a fucking irony, Flint tied himself in knots because he couldn't face being the villain in his story, and yet in the end I became the villain, worse than Flint. So intent on revenge that I did far more terrible things than him in an effort to make him and Silver feel some portion of the rage and pain I was feeling. I nearly killed Madi,' he admitted.

'But you didn't?' she asked gently.

'I had a knife to her throat, I told her I was going to kill her. She was so calm, I was a fucking mess. She told me if I killed her I would just be creating a martyr for their cause and she was right. A wise woman is Madi, I should have listened when she agreed with Flint that we had to retreat and not challenged him.'

He scrubbed at his eyes again and Sarah noticed that they were red and wet with unshed tears. She wasn't sure what to say, some aspects of his story appalled her but she could see how much it had cost him. The betrayal he talked of had been the worst aspect and yet he had been betrayed first. She wondered if Madi had been the woman that he had spoken of in his delirium, he seemed to admire her but the story he wove didn't quite seem to fit with his previous entreaties.

She got up and walked around the fire, Billy's eyes following her movements. Kneeling in front of him she took his hands in hers. He half-heartedly tried to pull away from her grip but she didn't let him. His head dropped, regarding their clasped hands, refusing to meet her eyes.

'You're not a villain, Billy, and you're not a monster, not to me.' He opened his mouth to respond but she pressed his hands to hush him. 'I know you have committed terrible crimes and yet I can't find it in myself to condemn you. Your actions seem a logical reaction to the betrayals visited upon you.' She gave his hands another squeeze. 'You don't frighten me.'

'I should.'

'You did at one point, for quite a while, but not now. I'm not sure what changed, perhaps it was me.'

'I've lulled you into a false sense of security.'

'Is it false?'

'It's not false. You have nothing to fear from me.'

'I know.'

'I don't understand how you can be so complacent. After what I've just told you, you should be fleeing in terror. What if I'd killed Rogers? I wanted to the whole time I was with him, I hated him so much. Would you be so quick to forgive me, to overlook my crimes?'

'I don't know. Probably not, but there were times when I would have happily killed him myself for what he did to me. Perhaps I would have joined you, shot him myself or perhaps, like you my finger would have faltered on the trigger,' she said cooly.

'I don't know how to…' His voice faltered and she waited patiently until he tried again. 'I can't take back the things I've done, I can't be the man I once was.'

'No,' she agreed softly. 'You can only put those things behind you and try to forgive yourself.'

He grunted scornfully.

'You can't change what you did, but you could do better in the future, if that's what you want.' She bumped their joined hands against his chest. 'God sees you, sees your heart. He'll know if you're in earnest.'

'And you think He'll forgive me? You think anyone could forgive me?' he said, the vulnerability in his tone urging her to quiet his fears with an embrace. Instead she contented herself with pressing the back of his hand to her cheek and nodding confidently.

'Of course.'

She didn't let her doubts show. Not doubts concerning his sincerity or indeed the Lord's capacity for absolution. It just seemed sometimes to be so…arbitrary, her experiences having shaken her faith that virtue would be rewarded. Clerics always claimed that it was not for mere mortals to question God's plan but to her it seemed unfathomable. Why had He placed her on this island? Why had He saved Billy and left all her other prayers unanswered? Was there some importance to Billy's presence, was she there to help him? Was he there to help her? And if either was true, then how?

Billy withdrawing his hands from hers pulled her from her contemplation. He pushed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets.

'I think it might be too late for me.'

'Billy, no.'

She grasped his knee but her hand slid away when he stood, his shoulders hunched and an anguished look in his eyes. She gazed beseechingly up at him from where she knelt at his feet, hands folded in her lap.

'Don't look at me like that,' he said harshly. 'I can't change the man I am now, I don't even fucking recognise myself!'

She put a hand to his hip.

'You can change.'

He brushed her hand away angrily and turned from her. When he spoke again his voice was husky, as if he were fighting tears.

'I want to, more than you know, but I'm someone else now and I don't know if I can be the man you want me to be,' he said striding off into the darkness.

'I don't want…' Sarah began but he had already disappeared, lost in the shadows. She slumped back on her heels and sighed.

For your listening pleasure, I have pretty much been playing 'Please, please, please let me get what I want' by Slow Moving Millie on repeat (I prefer the tempo to the Smiths version), Billy's song for this chapter.