So, here it is, the final chapter. Just a quick warning before I begin: it was always my intention to tie this story to the beginning of Treasure Island but I appreciate that this ending will not be the happily ever after that most of you might expect from a romance. Apologies for that, I have tried to go for a bittersweet tone which I hope will be satisfying for my readers without completely changing Billy's final fate. Also, for Treasure Island purists, I have made a few changes to some of the details to make it fit my story but as far as I was able I have tried to keep at least the spirit of the original book.
Billy lounges in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe and watching as Sarah reads to the children, a branch of candles bathing them in golden light. The book is their favourite, some ridiculous tome about pirates that he constantly has to restrain himself from correcting, quite rightly fearing it would bring too many awkward questions. The children are tucked up in bed and Sarah sits with them, her free hand gently stroking their curls in turn as she reads. As always the endless high pitched chatter of their constant questions accompanies the soft tones of his wife's voice.
'Have you ever met a pirate, Mama?' Hal pipes up suddenly.
Sarah smiles fondly down at him.
'Once, my dear, a long time ago, but he wasn't so fearsome as the men in this book.'
'Was he hideously ugly with only one eye?' Lottie interrupts with relish. Sarah glances up and sees Billy standing there, one eyebrow raised. She winks at him over the heads of the children.
'Yes, my loves, he was hideous, although he did have both his eyes,' she adds conscientiously. 'But he was very kind to me.'
'Kind to you?' Hal looks sceptical, both his expression and dark hair so like his mother's.
'Kind to me,' she confirms with a smirk at her husband. 'Despite his repulsive countenance he was not like the other pirates. He helped me.'
'Helped you how?'
Billy decides that it is time to halt this line of questioning and pushes himself upright.
'I think it's long past the time the two of you were in bed,' he says, strolling into the room. His entrance is immediately met with denials and complaining and although he smiles warmly he is unmoved by their eloquence.
'But Papa, we've only had one chapter!' Lottie says indignantly. Billy kneels down and plants a kiss on the top of her head, one fair curl tickling his face.
'And that is all you're having tonight, it's time to sleep,' he says gently but firmly. Hal is much more obedient than his younger sister and has already slipped down contentedly under the blankets. Billy gives him a kiss too and the small boy smiles at his father.
'Goodnight Papa.'
'Goodnight Hal, sleep well.'
He watches as Sarah places the book back on the bookshelf and kisses both children. She picks up the branch of candles and follows Billy out the room, closing the door quietly behind her. In the kitchen he waits for her to place the candles down on the oak table and then catches her up in his arms.
'Hideously ugly, eh?' he says and she giggles and then smooths out her expression.
'Well, I could hardly say he was the handsomest man I had ever laid eyes on, that would have led to even more questions than usual,' she says coyly.
Billy can't fault her logic.
'Handsomest man you'd ever laid eyes on?' he says with a grin.
She nods and there is a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.
'I had led a very sheltered life,' she says solemnly.
The slamming of a door across the hall shook Billy from his reverie and the parlour of the Admiral Benbow Inn swam slowly back into focus. A log on the fire hissed as it smouldered and Billy surreptitiously wiped the moisture from his eyes, although there was no-one around to witness his misery. He wondered what had prompted that long forgotten memory to surface. Hal and Lottie were both grown now with young families of their own, and Sarah…Billy could still hardly bear to think it, although it had been almost nine months now.
God, he missed her so much. He missed his children and grandchildren too but at least he could be content that he had done all in his power to keep them safe, particularly if his plan came off as he anticipated.
He considered sending for Jim, the innkeeper's son, to ask him about the one legged man again but he had already interrogated the boy about him twice today and Billy didn't think that further questions would yield a different response. He knew the boy mistook his agitation and impatience for fear but he couldn't find it in himself to give a fuck.
He sipped his rum, ignoring the lingering guilt that swirled in his gut. Only days before the doctor had warned Billy that he needed to curb his indulgence in strong drink after he had collapsed chasing the Black Dog from the inn. Billy's lip curled into a snarl when he thought of Black Dog's taunts, his vile curiosity and blatant self-interest. Rage had overwhelmed Billy and he had forced Black Dog from the inn with threats and the sharp point of his cutlass, and then fallen insensible to the floor. On waking he found the doctor's unwelcome visage looming above him and a heavy feeling of hopelessness in his heart. A stroke the doctor had called it, but all Billy knew was that his limbs didn't feel like his own and didn't respond in the way they should.
He sipped the sweet rum again, his need to dull his grief in the bottle too strong to resist. He felt old and worn, an empty husk of the man he had been. What use to tell a man in despair that he is drinking himself to death when Death seems like a comforting friend, someone to ease the pain of loss?
Sarah opens her eyes at the creak of the door and, on seeing him, smiles wanly. She is propped up against her pillows but there is exhaustion in every line of her body, a distinct slump to her normally upright posture. Billy can see the silver that now streaks her once dark hair and the tight lines of pain around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She holds out a hand to him.
'Billy, my love,' she rasps, her voice ravaged by the sickness. He goes to her on shaky legs, relieved to sink into the forgiving softness of her feather mattress and press himself against her, seeking reassurance in the familiarity of her embrace. They had been keeping him from her, insistent that he regain his strength before he be allowed to leave his bed but he had snuck away when they thought him sleeping. 'You look dreadful,' she says, tenderly stroking his cheek.
'You look beautiful,' he responds, catching her hand in his. Sarah smiles but it is a feeble effort, more of a grimace.
'Liar,' she says without heat. 'I'm sure I look worse than you.' Billy curls himself around her and she sighs contentedly. 'I missed you.'
'Hal's being a fucking mother hen and wouldn't let me leave my bed.'
Her chuckle is more of a hoarse gasp. 'But you've escaped your gaoler for now.'
'For now, he thinks I'm sleeping.'
'As you should be.'
'So should you.'
'I'll sleep soon,' she says, threading her fingers around his. She shifts slightly so that she can look into his eyes. 'I love you,' she says and to Billy it feels like a goodbye.
'I love you too,' he says, pressing his lips to hers. She smiles. This time it reaches her eyes, briefly smoothing away her drawn expression, and then her eyelids flutter closed. Billy shifts his weight and she puts a hand to his cheek.
'Stay with me?' she whispers.
'Always,' he promises, kissing her forehead gently.
Later he realised that he had forgotten to extract the same promise from her, but by then it was too late. The fever that had taken her and little Johanna, Hal's youngest daughter, had been swift and pitiless, despite all the coin Billy and Hal had desperately lavished on physicians in the hopes of a cure. Billy too had been sick as a dog, five miserable days of puking and chills, but at the end of it God had perversely spared his wretched life. There was no such mercy for Sarah and Johanna and Billy could only be morbidly grateful that Sarah's passing only hours before had spared her the heartache of Johanna's, for she loved her grandchildren just as fiercely as she loved her children.
Billy sighed when he realised he had emptied his glass again and shouted roughly for Jim. When Jim entered the room he did so hesitantly, peeping around the door and then reluctantly shuffling in.
'Fetch me more rum, boy,' Billy said, scowling fiercely as he impatiently overrode Jim's vague protestations. Billy was aware that he had been harsh with him, with everyone in truth, but he couldn't bear the sight of him. Jim reminded him too much of Hal at the same age and without the mask of the ill-tempered pirate he might have fallen at the boy's feet and wept like a child. Instead he maintained his cantankerous façade, placing an ominous hand over the cutlass that lay on the highly polished surface of the table, until Jim gulped and did as he was bid. The remorse Billy felt for frightening the child was fleeting, washed away by the burn of the rum in his throat as he swallowed it down, and he returned quickly to his self-absorption, his mind flashing back to that ill-fated day almost six months previously.
It had begun, as these things often do, with a feeling of disquiet that he couldn't place nor discern the source. Then a whisper of dread that ran chilling fingers down the back of his neck, and finally it was the hard-eyed stare of a man amongst the crowds of the city, barely remembered but somehow menacing. It had taken Billy a long time to recall the man's name, unsurprising given that it had been more than thirty five years, but when he did his blood froze and he knew that his past had finally caught up with him.
The map Billy had taken as security all those years ago would now be his children's security. Jack, the intended recipient of the map, had ended his tale in the choking embrace of the hangman's noose before Billy had had the opportunity to restore it to him. When Billy had read the news, not long after they had first arrived in New York, he had breathed a tiny bit easier. He had ignored the unexpected pang of sorrow for the death of the man he had known and had prayed that that was the end of it. The appearance of Israel Hands in the city so many years later served as a sign to Billy there would be no end to it, not until he had the courage to finish his own story.
Surrendering the map to Long John Silver would mean he would have no reason to search further and expose the truth of Billy's life. Never find the house Billy had built for Sarah that they had filled with warmth and love and family. The place of all his happiest memories: Sarah putting his hand against her rounded stomach so he could feel the first kicks of the baby she never thought she would carry. The smell of herbs drying in the kitchen and curled wood shavings on the floor of the workshop. Sarah's look of mischief when she had slapped the first of those seditious pamphlets that so amused their Dutch neighbours down on the table in front of him, laughing as he had innocently denied all knowledge. Hal's pride as he showed them the first chair he had constructed under his father's tutelage. Lottie's beaming smile as Billy escorted her down the aisle to her nervous husband to be. A life of contented domesticity that Billy had fretted wouldn't be enough for him and then found that it was everything and more.
For a time it seemed as if Silver had vanished off the face of the earth but six months of following false leads and dead ends had brought Billy, filled with a desperate determination, to the country of his birth and to Bristol where rumours of a one legged cook with a black wife abounded. If he could just find Silver and hand over the map it would be finished. He didn't care what revenge Silver chose to visit upon him, Sarah was beyond Silver's reach now and Billy was willing to face the consequences of his actions all those years ago provided his children never had to pay for his terrible mistakes. There was the possibility that, much like Billy's feelings regarding Flint, Silver had mellowed in the intervening years, his need for revenge faded with time, but Billy couldn't take the risk. He had to know. He had to protect his family.
With that in mind he had taken a room at the Admiral Benbow and set about making himself the talk of the town. Folk came from far and wide to listen in the evenings to his lurid tales and with each passing night word spread and the crowd got bigger. Soon, he knew, Silver would hear the talk and step out from the shadows in which he concealed himself to confront Billy. The stories Billy told of terrible deeds he had never committed grew wilder with each retelling, as gruesome and outlandish as he could manage. People wanted to see a pirate, the man he sort expected a pirate, and so a pirate he would be, the very worst he could conjure. Occasionally he wondered if the sea shanties were a step too far but it drew attention that he was anxious to gain so he continued his carousing.
Billy stared morosely at the glass in his hand, a dull thudding pain behind his eyes, watching with a detached sort of interest the way his hand trembled. He lifted his head as the door handle rattled and then the door flew open with a bang. A man Billy had once begrudgingly called brother entered, clinging to the arm of an ashen faced Jim, who said in an unsteady voice, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.'
In many respects Pew had changed very little in the intervening years, his ugly face was still twisted with spite and the hunch of his shoulders still gave him a misshapen appearance but age had carved furrows into his face and apparently blinded his eyes since last Billy had seen him. Jim looked sick with fear as he helped the man towards Billy and Billy wondered what threats Pew had issued to make the boy quake so. Knowing Pew they were none of them pleasant, and completely unnecessary, but then Pew never had any sense of proportion. When jostled accidently he was just as likely to stab a man to death for the insult as brush off the unintended contact with a laugh. For the boy's own safety Billy played along with no complaints, taking the slip of paper that was handed to him without demur. As soon as it was in Billy's hands Pew turned and flew out of the door like a shot, some of his frailty apparently feigned judging by his hasty exit.
Billy opened the folded paper slowly and almost laughed. It seemed that Silver had neither forgotten nor forgiven him.
The Black Spot stared menacingly up at him from the ragged page.
And with it, a message in a familiar curling hand: You have until ten tonight.
He sighed with relief. Silver had found him and now all was at an end. He glanced at the boy who was staring at him with frightened eyes.
'Ten o'clock. Six hours,' Billy said unnecessarily as he pushed himself upright, wondering as he did so why his tongue felt so thick and his speech sounded slurred. Jim's face swam before his eyes and he felt suddenly unsteady on his feet as a strange weakness spread down his legs. The pain behind his eyes flared, dark spots flickering across his vision. He tried to put a hand to his brow but only managed to press it to his throat and then the floor was rushing up to meet him. He could do nothing to stop himself and fell heavily on the wooden boards, agony exploding in his temple. Jim's cry of alarm was oddly muffled, as if he shouted from another room, and then all sound ceased, aside from a faint buzzing that echoed in Billy's ears.
A blinding white light seared his eyes and then, abruptly, the pain left him. His heart seized with hope. He felt a whispering touch, like a warm hand caressing his face, and then that beloved voice said in an amused and loving tone, 'I knew you'd turn savage the moment my back was turned.'
Billy sighed contentedly and welcomed the soothing darkness that overwhelmed him.
It was only later, when Jim went back to the parlour with his mother to find the key to Billy Bones' sea chest, that he noticed the oddly serene expression on the face of the belligerent, drunken pirate, as if in death the man had somehow found peace.
And there it is, thank you so much for reading and for sticking with me all this time. And huge thanks to all who reviewed, followed and favourited, you kept me motivated and it always brings a smile to my face when I receive a new notification.
A couple of notes on the final chapter:
- I know I may have heavily implied that Sarah couldn't have children but sometimes fertility can be a fickle thing.
- Working out the timeline proved quite difficult, although maybe I was reading the wrong things. The Black Sails Wiki says that the events of the TV series take place about 20 years before the book but as far as I could tell the book takes place sometime after 1750 and the TV series starts in 1715. Obviously I went with the longer timeline because I wanted Sarah and Billy to have as much time together as possible.