CHAPTER 16

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Black Sails. It is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

AN: AaaaaandI'm back! Yeesh, almost 4 months this time, I know, I'm sorry! I really had intended to have it up sooner. Most of it was even written less than a month after my last update but it took me ages to get around to editing and adding in the last page or so. This chapter is mostly internal agnst, relationship introspection from Charles' POV & some Jack/Charles bonding time. Not much plot progression here but I promise that's coming next chapter. I'm just trying to work up to Charles' acceptance of this whole thing and don't want it to feel rushed or disingenuous.

Also, I noticed that a few chapters back I accidentally claimed the floor of Charles & Eleanor's hut was sand. It's not, it's supposed to be planks of wood. Charles' tent floor in the camp on New Providence was sand, but the hut on Maroon Island is not. My mistake. I'll eventually get around to going back and re-posting corrected chapters, but for now just please bear with me & my inconsistency.

Hope you all enjoy the chapter despite it's relative briefness and lack of larger plot progression. Please don't forget to drop me a comment. I love hearing from you guys, it always makes my day! :)

DEFINITIONS/PERIOD SPECIFIC TERMINOLOGY/FACTS:

Squat Bottle: A type of liquor bottle that has a wide, moderate height body, and a moderate length neck. It's similar to an onion bottle, which was also popular at the time, but it's a little less stout looking. We've seen both types displayed quite often on the show. I did some research & the one I referenced here was being manufactured between 1700 and 1730 and is Dutch or Belgian in origin.

English Units: Are the historical units of measurement used in England pre-1826 (Post-1826 it was replaced with the imperial system.)

A Pace: A measure of distance. A pace is equal to one natural step, which is about 30 inches (2 ½ feet or 76.2 centimeters). So when Charles says 50 paces it's about 240 inches (20 feet or 6.096 meters).

Freeboot: To act as a freebooter; plundering; looting. Basically just another word for pirate.

Phoenix: In Greek mythology a phoenix is a legendary long-lived bird who is cyclically regenerated/born again in flame. The phoenix dies in a show of flames and combustion, and then rises from the ashes regenerated and new. The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus making it almost immortal and invincible – a symbol of fire and divinity.

Phlegmatic: Self-possesed, calm, composed.

Repine: To be fretfully discontented.

Mastiff: A large and ancient breed of dog known for being strong, courageous and fiercely loyal. So much so that they have often been used in wars, as palace protectors, and as guardians of homes and livestock. They were also used heavily in blood sports such as bear, lion & bull-baiting, as well as in dog fighting. So much so, that there was a period in the 1800's where there were legitimate concerns about extinction. These concerns played a role in the Parliament of the United Kingdom implementing the 1835 Cruelty to Animals Act, which prohibited the baiting of animals.

Insensible: Without or not subject to a particular feeling or sensation

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The sheer insanity of the thought jolted him free of the encroaching haze of sleep. Slapped abruptly into full consciousness by his own twisted logic, he immediately began repining. It didn't take more than a few stiflingly airless seconds to determine that the reality of his situation was nothing less than downright deplorable. He sat up quickly and slung his legs over the edge of the bed so that his bare feet lay flat against the floor's wide, worn wooden planking.

An aggravated sigh left his lips as he dropped elbows to knees and warily scrubbed his palms over his face. In the dim flicker of a candle neither of them had bothered to put out, he lowered his hands and let them droop from his knees. His eyes traced blindly over the many furrows and widening cracks in the floorboards as his mind wandered.

He'd been down this road before. Regardless of whether or not he was set to crash and burn himself, there was no ensuring she smoldered along with him. No matter how badly he wanted it. He'd tried it before, more times than he could count. It never made any difference. Even when he was sure it had finally caught up with her, she never fully lost herself to the blaze.

Instead, she took to those flames like a Goddamn phoenix. She'd always basked in the heat of them with a shameless sort of heedlessness, a reckless and wild abandon. Too often left her either blinded or indifferent to the devastation that would follow in her wake.

Each time he'd been foolish enough to believe her just as consumed and charred as he was, she'd sprung from the ashes anew. As if the flames had never truly touched her. Every ascent rendered her more heady and toxic than before, more magnificent and inexorably beguiling. Even as she gutted him, he remained enthralled.

There was no strong arming her. She wouldn't bend to any will but her own.

She was the most resilient and tenacious creature he'd ever known. Once she'd set her mind to something there was little anyone could do to dissuade her from it. Regardless of the blows she was dealt or who it pissed off, she just kept on coming. It was as much an accredited strength as it was a detrimental instability.

He wasn't always keen on acknowledging it, but she reminded him of himself. They shared that very same stubbornly resilient tenacity. More often than not, they operated on parallel paths that were so achingly similar and yet always at odds. They never seemed to be traveling in the same direction at the same pace, but their paths always met regardless. They always intertwined.

And fuck, wasn't that a kicker? A real piss off, really.

How exactly did one go about successfully reconciling the notion of hating and loving someone both because of and in spite of their own similarities to yourself? How could one remove something they were so hopelessly entangled with without cutting away vital parts of themselves?

The whole thing wasn't normal, and it certainly wasn't healthy. He could see that much for himself.

He hated the fragility she evoked, that unrelenting ache she could so easily conjure in his chest. Looking back on everything he'd done in her name churned his stomach. Not because he regretted his decisions, but because he could see the infirmity in his own reasoning. Despite knowing her shortcomings, he had still been willing to concede to compromise and sacrifice, to risk everything for her. He'd have lain the world down at her feet if only she'd have asked for it.

And that was the worst part of it; he'd been willing to risk both his life and his reputation – both of which were vital pieces of who and what he was – for her. But she'd only been willing to leave him to die. It wasn't that he didn't believe she'd loved him, he knew that she had. It was rather the fact that he'd have done near anything for her, but the same couldn't have been said of her for him. The dynamic of that power discrepancy gnawed at him. The disparity of it had left him with one too many scars.

He was not a man who bent to the will of others anymore than she was. But she'd always held more influence over him than he was comfortable with, and in the past that influence had lead him to trust her when he shouldn't have. It had only ever left him entangled and exposed.

He'd be a fool to let it happen again.

He shifted to peer over his shoulder wearily at the sleeping form behind him. There was no making that woman do anything she wasn't already intending on doing. You couldn't push her anywhere she didn't want to go, at least not without receiving considerable reprisal. It had always been a trait he'd found to be both endearingly admirable and maddeningly incensing. The point was that regardless of how he felt about her, there was no trusting her. Not entirely.

Her allegiance had proven fickle, and he couldn't afford to forget that.

No matter how badly he wanted to believe she wouldn't turn on him again, he couldn't place faith in her word alone. He'd allowed that to be enough for him in the past, and look where that had gotten him.

With a prostrated sigh, he rose from the bed and yanked his trousers up over his thighs. He'd decided that a walk down to the beach didn't sound so awful after all. His discomfort with the notion of being bothered by anyone he ran into was substantially outweighed by the sudden and potent need to be outside this hut. If he ran into anyone he didn't feel like talking to, he could always just tell them to fuck off.

After retrieving his shirt from the floor and pulling it over his head, he shoved his feet into his boots. He was about a foot away from the door when her voice sounded from the bed behind him. Momentarily debating his next course of action, his head turned slightly toward his right shoulder as his hand paused against the door.

"Charles?" Her voice was husky with sleep, but there was a clear question in that one articulation. He didn't need to look at her to know she was frowning. There was brief moment of quiet stillness between them before he answered.

"Go back to sleep." He adjured quietly. Then without another word, he turned the knob and slipped out, closing the door quietly behind him.

She lay there propped up on her elbows for a moment longer. She considered ignoring his instruction and obstinately following him out into the dark. The idea appealed in part because she was curious, but more so simply because she didn't appreciate being given orders. It was only the phlegmatic and apathetic manner in which he'd given the command that kept her ass in that bed. Something about the way he'd spoken made it clear he needed to be left alone.

With a huff, she flopped back in the bed and raked a hand through the unruly mess of hair she dreamed of washing. Fine. This was fine. She could let him skulk for a few hours. She was still tired anyway. Stubbornly decided, she rolled over with adamant intention toward sleep and buried her face in the scratchy fabric of the pillow beside her. But when the smell of him wafted up from that pillow to meet her, she was struck with the absurd compulsion to pull it closer and breathe deep. For a moment she lay impossibly still, curiously torn between the desire to surrender to the absurdity of that compulsion and the knowledge that doing so would be childish and sickeningly saccharine.

Ultimately, she decided the fallout for either action would be entirely inconsequential. There would be no witnesses to her cloying display even if she did choose to indulge. And so, even though it made her feel just a little ridiculous, she closed her eyes and yanked that pillow to her chest. The scent of him rolled through her, and she allowed it to drape a thin and all too familiar layer of calm over her weary bones.

It was just enough to welcome sleep.

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Charles had been sitting in the sand just beyond the edge of the surf for what felt like an eternity. There was a part of him that yearned to simply stand up, board his ship, sail away and never look back. But that yearning was easily dwarfed by the need to extricate his home, to lift chains and spill blood in the name of freedom and autonomy. Nassau was theirs; a place where the only laws that presided over a man were the ones they set upon themselves. It was a place for free men, and he'd sworn both he and Nassau would never be anything but free again.

That was what mattered. That was why they were all here. He should be furthering plans for Nassau's deliverance and the coming war, not sitting here brooding over an impossible woman and his woeful inability to disentangle himself from her. There were more important things he ought to be focusing on right now.

So called civilized society had been stomping on the necks of freemen for too long. He, like so many others, had refused the weight of that boot. He'd cast yoke from shoulder and boot from neck in exchange for a life exempt from laws and etiquettes imposed by the ostensibly civilized. He'd declared himself free, and he'd gladly perish in a sea of blood and viscera before ever considering the renouncement of that freedom.

Nassau was a symbol, a representation of hope and defiance for the silenced and subdued. Civilization might be coming, but it wouldn't be arriving without significant long as men like him still breathed there would always be resistance.

He knew how to bleed for what was his, and so did Eleanor. If for nothing else, he could at least respect her for that.

It was with this thought that he tried to come to terms with his situation. In his last couple hours of brooding, he'd begrudgingly accepted the reality that he was likely well and truly stuck with her. He honestly believed she wanted to take back Nassau just as badly as he did. Though he was certain her reasoning differed quite drastically from his own, her devotion to the cause was authentic regardless. He might not trust her entirely, but the understanding and intelligence she could bring to the table would be vital in the coming days.

However, despite the knowledge that her involvement was undoubtedly a necessary evil, his mind still reeled objectionably. The question that remained burning in his head was whether or not he was truly willing to surrender what was left of himself. Because he knew now, without a doubt, that if she stayed that was exactly what would happen. The longer he spent in her presence, the more eroded his fortifications would become.

She'd proven this time and time again. Why he'd ever thought things could be different this time was beyond him now.

He'd originally thought himself wounded and angry enough to have developed a certain amount of immunity to her poison. But after tonight it had become painfully clear that he was still just as susceptible as he'd ever been. She'd be getting back inside regardless of how he felt about it or what he did to try and stop it. He had the sinking feeling she was already half way there, and it would only be a matter of time before he lost himself completely. He was drawn to her in the same irrational manner that moths were drawn to flame; sooner or later he'd get too close and his wings would crackle and burn.

It was a hard pill to swallow, but if it meant withstanding the subjugation that civilization would impose, perhaps it was one he might be willing to consider.

A rustling sounded somewhere in the trees behind him.

He made no outward indication he'd heard a thing, but his muscles tensed beneath his skin as one of his hands discreetly palmed the hilt of a favored knife. He'd left his gun back at the hut in his haste to leave. Which, in retrospect, probably hadn't been terribly intelligent. The privacy that accompanied straying this far from the village had it's advantages, but it also made him a more easily accessible target without the security of numbers.

Seclusion meant no witnesses.

A small part of him actually thrilled a little at the idea of such an altercation. With the day he'd had he could really use a good fight, an outlet actually outside of the woman at the source of all his problems. If someone really was foolish enough to try and take him here, that person was going to get more than they'd bargained for. He'd worry about questioning them after they'd been bloodied.

Just as he was warming to the idea, there was a shuffling followed immediately by a muted curse and a grumbled, "Fucking rocks..."

Charles recognized the voice immediately. It looked as though he wouldn't be getting that altercation after all. With a somewhat disappointed sigh, his shoulders relaxed and he cached away his blade to resume watching the waves slide in.

Booze sloshed mildly from the neck of it's olive green squat bottle and over Jack's hand as he plopped down in the sand next to Charles. They sat in a companionable silence for another minute or so before Charles spoke.

"You know, I heard you coming from near fifty paces off..." He remarked casually.

Jack snorted. "Of course you did. I'm a freeboot intellectual, not a damn cat." he quipped dramatically.

They both knew Jack's lack of stealth had more to do with the lanky awkwardness his movements perpetually exuded than it did the fact he wasn't feline. Charles sent him an amused sideways glace, the corner of his mouth curving upwards."You're drunk." he pointed out plainly.

Jack shrugged. "Perhaps a tad." he admitted flippantly as he brought the bottle up to his lips for another swig. Then his face scrunched up like he wanted to say something, and he was speaking again almost before the bottle had left his lips. His free hand waved as he carried on composedly. "And I reckon we'd both be better off if you were as well." he added as he held the bottle out in Charles' direction.

Taking the bottle with a bemused expression, Charles asked, "Anne?"

Jack rolled his eyes and leaned back on his hands. "Yes, well, Anne's experiencing another one of her... moods...". He didn't say it with any real malice or disdain, just a tired sort of frustrated acceptance.

It made Charles laugh. Sometimes he thought poor Jack spent more time trying to understand and accommodate that woman than he did breathing. Not that Charles had anything against Anne, she was a hell of a woman; strong as fuck and more loyal than a mastiff. Wicked with a sword and a decent marksman too. He'd happily take her at his back any damn day of the week.

Anne had been running with Jack for as long as Charles had known him. She and Jack were the closest thing he had to family. But it had always been very clear as to which of the two wore the pants in that relationship. It was, without a shadow of doubt, Anne. She wore those pants and she wore them well, Jack left with his balls in the wind. Not that he seemed to mind overly much.

Deciding he was enjoying this brief distraction from his own problems, Charles asked, "What did you do to piss her off?"

Jack shot Charles a scandalized look as he sat up and took back the bottle Charles was offering. "Nothing! I didn't do a bloody thing!"

Charles arched a brow, the side of his mouth curling slightly upwards again. "Doubtful."

Jack groaned and shook his head. "I'm serious. She's been moody as all hell ever since I informed her of Miss Guthrie's... unfortunate involvement. She's angry with me for keeping it from her as long as I did."

At the mention of her name, Charles' expression sobered considerably. He turned his head back toward the sea. "She'll come around..." He said softly.

"Will she, though?" Jack grumbled, "Have you met our Anne? She isn't exactly the most amicable of creatures."

"No, she's not, but that woman would follow you into fire. She'd kill and die for you without a second's thought. She won't stay angry forever, Jack... She'll come around." Charles' tone had dampened along with his expression, his words coming out with an even and placid inflection that obscured any underlying emotion he might be experiencing.

With anyone else it might have slipped by unnoticed, but Jack had known Charles a long time. He hadn't missed the latent misery in the words. He didn't have to ask to know that Charles' thoughts had shifted over to a certain blonde she-devil. He knew the position that Charles described Anne as having, was one Charles himself had once been in. His burly brute of a friend would have done near anything for that high-handed bitch, and just about everyone this side of the Caribbean Sea knew it. It had been the source of a lot of animosity and tension between he and his crew, not to mention anyone else in the isles who'd figured Charles' affections to be a potential weakness.

Case in point; Ned Low.

For a moment Jack wondered if he should even try broaching the subject again. Charles wasn't exactly known for his heart to hearts and stunning conversational skills. And Jack had already stated his opinion of the woman more than once. Reiterating his feelings on the matter wasn't likely to change anything. He wouldn't be telling Charles anything he didn't already know. Knowing the woman was poison hadn't stopped Charles from loving her, and that wasn't likely to change anytime soon. Certainly not so long as he was being forced to spend so much time in her close proximity.

Jack knew the risk Charles was taking. He knew what this was costing him. He also knew that despite Charles' adamant objections, the Guthrie woman was undoubtedly trying to worm her way back under his skin. He figured it was unlikely Charles would be out here brooding in the middle of the night if she hadn't been succeeding. He just hoped Charles had enough sense not to trust her even if he did still love her. Certainly fucking her hadn't helped Charles' predicament so much as complicated things further.

So instead of offering up another lecture, Jack offered up the bottle. Opting for a more understanding approach, he stated, "No, I suppose not..."

After sharing another few moments of drink and companionable silence, Jack added, "It's alright, you know... That you still love her." His tone was careful and plain, unassuming.

Ignoring the sharp look of warning sent in his direction, Jack continued. "Because it isn't about what you still feel for her. As I'm sure you've already surmised, how you feel is irrelevant because we need her."

Charles' eyes narrowed, burning with something just short of blatant irritation. "A fact I'm well aware of." He drew the words out with an uncomfortable sort of calm, a placidity that was almost biting.

Jack continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, pushing through the moderate awkwardness that always accompanied discussing emotion with this man. "But that doesn't mean you can't still feel it."

The look Charles was pulling was both mildly threatening and curious. As if he was trying to decide whether to tell Jack to fuck off, or inquire as to where this train of thought was headed.

Jack sighed. "I'm just suggesting that maybe you ought to stop beating yourself up over the fact that she's still in possession of a very real piece of you. As I've said before, that sort of love leaves a brand. It isn't something easily forgotten."

Charles studied his friend for another virulent and probing few seconds before again turning back to the sea. Aside from a mildly furrowed brow, his face remained relatively impassive as he shut down the discussion with a curt and insensible, "Shut up, Jack."

Jack shrugged. Seemingly unbothered by Charles' terseness, he took another swig from his bottle. "It's alright to feel it, is all I'm saying. It's alright just so long as you don't let it blind you..."

But that was just the problem, wasn't it? How would he be able to tell if he'd gone blind, while it still seemed as if he could see?

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