The chase after the Governor was not meant to end with a white flag.

The intimate clang of swords between foes was meant to be what filled the air, until the last man was left standing.

That was supposed to be the result of the silence; not the shock of surrender, which was a feeling Edward had never felt during his long years of piracy, even when a battle seemed to have lost all hope of victory.

Blackbeard made it this far without raising the flag, and now; it was how his vengeance would end; a fabric of pure white flapping against the wind.

Somehow, the betrayal wasn't a hurt struck by Jack Rackham's cowardice; he should have expected the man to act on the behalf of the woman, Anne's, safety. Instead, he laid blame on the world, which has forever needed justice to coincide with injustice, on a wheel that keeps spinning, and it just so happened that on this instance, chance dealt unfavorably.

His weapon still clutched in his hand, why did this Woodes Rogers cling to it so fiercely, as if he was trying to convince himself he could have bested Edward when it came down to steel alone. Then the purpose of it became clear, when using the hardened hilt, the Governor stripped Edward of his consciousness.

With the oncoming blow a sight he could not shake, or convince himself otherwise of it actually happening, Edward's senses didn't seem to falter for an instant though he knew he had fallen with the hit.

He knew, and yet here he was standing on strong legs with a gentle breeze caressing his skin and brushing through the dark hair that hung around his face, with the salty smell of the ocean surrounding him.

Without the sound of a birds caw, the waves were without a voice, until suddenly there was a sweet song, using it as its melody and muse.

'For whatever drifts from one place,
Is with the tide to another brought,
And there's naught lost beyond recall,
Which cannot be found,
If sought,'

Opening his eyes, Edward was not alone.

There at the fore castle before him, as he mounted the few steps which brought him closer to the figure, they had these spiraling long curls, which were tousled by the same wind he experienced.

Gold was their color; rich like the sand, and as he reached the top step, the figure made a familiar gesture, turning so that their prominent jawline rested diligently on a shoulder.

Both man and woman were alerted by the others presence, hesitant to make the next move due to the years which have passed since last they saw each other.

But she was the first to take the risk that this reunion was all some cruel trick, if only to say his name and have him hear it.

With the sun making her warm skin glow, those crimson lips parted into a smile, "hello Edward."

This was a man far too rational to let himself have his sleep be taken over by dreams, however, those instances where he had let himself be fooled by them, it was always his desperate touches which spoilt the vision of the woman before him.

"What is this?"

It was impossible that they could be a mere arm's length apart, after decades of being separated by the forces of life and death.

A blow to the head wouldn't kill Edward; he was tougher than that, so a dream was all this could be and he didn't want his peasant hands to spoil such a welcoming sight as his Elizabeth.

Still unable to betray his emotions through expression, it was well that Elizabeth was still very much attuned to her ability to read passed the mask Edward wore to disguise when he lost control of them, and she didn't have to search far to find the concern that she might disappear, because she shared a worry similar to his.

"It's a chance to speak," Elizabeth explained rashly.

Bowing her head slightly, she signaled to the place she intended to step and held out her hand, to make the man stay where he was, and to trust her approach. Then she whispered softly, "the clock is ticking my love; it's nearly time."

Now that he was the Governor's prisoner, it was safe to say Edward suspected that his demise was drawing near and just assumed the Englishman would make a spectacle of it, just as he did Charles. Although after threatening Eleanor Guthrie, his newly made bride, he didn't need to be whole to make a perfect wedding gift, for such a woman.

Surely his head would do, and as Edward came to accept the circumstances he was under, Elizabeth saw no reason why she could not better explain her part in these final moments.

"You've always been moving towards it, as we all have done, and must do. This is a veil that has been momentarily lifted, between your world and whatever it is that comes next; and it is here that I have been waiting for you."

Somewhere in the middle between the living and the dead, this being in limbo had already exceeded Elizabeth's expectations regarding the question of afterlife, but nothing could impress her unless the person who made everything matter, was standing by her side to share in it.

Her stubbornness wasn't just an earthly attribute to her character and rather than allow their fear to rule them during such a reunion as this was, Elizabeth had to stretch up onto her toes, to grab the back of her lover's neck and drag him down low to rest his head against hers.

"…You were cold last I touched you."

Nothing more than a corpse, Elizabeth had been glad that Edward had given her mortal shell to the sea as it had always called to her, but not if the state of her body had scarred him like this, and she pressed her warm lips against his.

"I have touched you a thousand times over! Even through that mist you surrendered yourself to, in order to survive when all your own will to live, vanished… I thought you had forgotten me."

Edward grimaced at the thought that Elizabeth had witnessed him disconnect with the world like he had done within the first two years after her death.

Her pride must have been shaken in him, after he sought to punish the world for his pain because her loss came without a goodbye as a cost of Edward failing to protect her.

In truth, many a drunken night had caused her face to fade and a hunger to find in another woman something that might even resemble a flicker of the bond they'd shared, hence the nine wives, but all failed to ignite that passion.

His Elizabeth was a rare breed and none could ever replace her.

"Forget you? Never."

His hand uncurled itself from around her necklace, a trinket he knew he held soon as he woke here, and she smiled brightly, closing his fist tightly around it again and sealing it with a kiss, happy that it meant as much to him, as it had once done to her, and she saw now how fortunate it was she managed to hide it for Edward to find again, to help with this pivotal moment.

"The clock is ticking," she repeated, with a tearful gaze "and there's still one last thing you have left to do. Like your friend…like your son, Charles. "

Snapped back to the present consequences of losing to a determined foe, Edward had been stripped of most of his possessions, besides the linen on his back and legs.

Bound by rope, his hands were like stone keeping the rich they carried safe at their core, without Edward able to recollect when he might have reached into his pocket before Rackham's surrender to retrieve it, but if remembered correctly, they appeared when he was with Elizabeth and it was she who enclosed his hold over them, before he woke.

Glad that no one could or had dared to pry his hands open, when the Governor leaned down, Edward could not help but smile, aware of the fact that though he could not see her; Elizabeth was with him nonetheless, and it was funny how the bastard believed that this would be his shining moment, to come out looking like the stronger man.

"Do it."

Those would have been Teach's words if Woodes hadn't beaten him to it and as a bag slipped over his head, tightened at the neck, Edward was pulled out from under himself, and dragged across the deck to remain suspended in the air, with the pressure amounting in his head while he waited.

'I'd a hold a finger to my tongue
I'd a hold a finger waitin'
my heart is sore, until it joins in song
with your heart matin…'

Plunged head first into the water, it was the not knowing when he'd break its surface that forced Teach to take a deep breath too early perhaps, but the rope straightened, passed underneath the ship so that the men aboard, could slowly pull him across the barnacles.

Keelhauling.

Edward could credit the Governor for his method of killing, fulfilling the wonder of how the infamous Blackbeard would die, as he was not a man who was destined to leave this world, old or sickly in the warmth of his bed.

'Love's in my heart, i'm tryin' so to prove
what your heart's knowin, I'd a pluck a finger on a thorn
I'd a pluck a finger bleedin…'

A sack of meat, held together by bone, the tightness of his skin was shredded apart to expose is inner materials, and like a doll pulled at the seams, he could feel how things began to loosen with every drag with parts of him lost among the crimson blood, clouding the water.

It was a tough fight, to keep from screeching, but be it skeletal fingers stripped of muscle; he would not let the necklace go.

'Red is my heart, wounded and forlorn
and your heart needin...I'd a hold a finger to my tongue
I'd a hold a finger waitin…'

Bursting from the sea, the exposure of air and sunlight made Teach all too aware of the salt coating his raw flesh, intensifying the agony he endured, as he was pierced by individual needles burrowing down into his body, setting him alight with their fiery fury.

'My heart is sore, until it joins in song
with your heart matin…'

When he smacked down onto his knees again, every nerve of his body shuddered, stunning him with the strange and discomforting sensation. The chance to release his held breath was beginning to be wasted. He was frozen, not knowing what to do, until that is; an elegant hand perched itself on his arm.

Edward could feel her touch; the one she claimed to bestow on him whenever he had needed it, though he failed to feel, and now her long fingers were solid and did not ignite any pain.

"Breathe Edward."

Doing as she bade, he choked on the air he released, coughing and sputtering through the bag, which was a barrier between him and the relief his lungs hungered for.

"That's it," she ushered with a coo, "now, with me; raise your head."

Underneath his chin, there was indeed the impression of someone gently lifting it and he threw back his neck, to save Elizabeth from doing the work for him.

Ruining Woodes's grand parade, the survival was an annoyance at best, but wasn't so unexpected taking into account Blackbeard's massive form, and he barked the second command.

"Again!"

Whipped from her embrace, Elizabeth walked at the same pace she could hear her lover slowly being towed, observing the grim expressions of his fellow pirates, who were prepared for this to be it.

But she felt what they couldn't see, and that was his iron hold over her necklace as if it was her very heart, and through that trinket, a symbol of their bond, her will combined with his, providing him with the might to withstand this ordeal, as no other man could.

His body destroyed; he physically could not make his lips move and it seized him in a throe of panic, repeating Elizabeth's name again and again.

"Look up Edward!"

Without the haunting tone of a vacant echo cloaking her voice, as desperate recollection on his part had done, her instruction was as clear as crystal; and it was a good thing too, for if he had not heard her, Teach's stillness might have been passed for death, putting another in his place.

Juddering, his head rolled with little support, coughing again for a savored breath of air.

"I'm here with you, just look up my love; look up!"

Since his front took the brunt of the barnacle's sharp exterior, Edward hadn't tried to avoid them by thrashing his head from side to side like he had done the first time around. This had allowed for the bag to catch and tear, so when he leveled his gaze from the floor, his widened eye had a hole to peer through.

So beautiful; while her figure became purer, the rest of them became lost in a haze and the clarity in her smile spoke volumes.

'Nearly there,' he thought, 'nearly there.'

"AGAIN!"

Teach's refusal to die hijacked the story which was supposed to be the making of Woodes Rogers. A highlight in his career, creating a reputation that would make him a force to be reckoned with and a terrible danger that all pirates think twice before crossing.

This wasn't the way Rogers wanted it to go; Bested, even when someone was at so crippling a state, by a will that just wouldn't go away.

An impossibility made possible, was how Elizabeth described it, proving that Edward was more than flesh as this Rogers displayed through stripping him of it.

No; underneath all that was an idea, stirred by the same notion, inspired by a singular factor, and displayed despite attempts of having it stolen.

He was a man; a free man, who could take charge of his own death, by defying those who condemned him to it.

For Charles Vane, it had been his refusal to accept defeat even at his own hanging, by rousing spectators with an inspiring speech, turning a punishment into a sacrifice.

…The world began to fracture, while Elizabeth became a prominent fixture in Edward's sight, urging him to keep looking up after the third keelhaul.

Cheeks torn, ribs on display, lumps of flesh and skin littering the deck…

Edward Teach followed Charles's lead and kept his freedom, by continuing to look his enemy in the face and breathe.

Choking on a mixture of blood and water, this was it.

Edward knew it and so did Elizabeth when she leaned down close and offered him her hand, and behind her, another figure waited expectantly with their arms folded across their chest, nodding in approval.

Elizabeth and Charles.

They were both with him come that final explosion, that made the name Blackbeard last throughout history, proving to all that a stand could be made, even at deaths door.

The End.

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