Authoress' Note: I don't even wanna know how long it's been since I last updated. All I know is that it's been too long, and I'm terribly sorry. School has definitely gotten the better of me. Anyway, I'm experimenting with a new style of writing that sort of throws correct grammar to the wayside in places, so don't think that because I haven't written anything in a while everything is going to pot. :P Don't forget to review when you're done reading!

The First Steps

Who knew that darkness could be a colour. Yet it is the only colour I see before my eyes right now. It is dark chocolate or perhaps an ink stain spreading across my vision. Time in this conscious gloom is nonexistent. How long have I been in this state? Weeks? Months? Years? A river of thoughts and memories flows through the vast emptiness of my mind, and many times a face rises like the sun in the night of my confusion. I know that face. Her name lies heavy upon my tongue, which feels disconnected from the rest of me. Just as that name is born upon my lips it dies, and I plummet back into the oblivion of forgetfulness.

Who knew that light could be a colour. Yet it is the only colour I see before my eyes right now. It is blinding snow or perhaps the pinprick of a flickering candle causing me to blink my eyes furiously. Blink. It is such a small movement of eye muscles and colliding eyelashes, yet my heart rejoices for this small feat. From inside my head I beg my heart to stop its pounding so that I may make better note of my reawakening senses. A tingling sensation of life ripples through my body, and I revel in it.

And then my snow bleeds red and my glimmering candle is snuffed out. A dull ache in my side spreads over my body until it is my head that pounds instead of my heart and my arms and legs are weighted with fatigue.

---

Elizabeth.

Her name matches the beauty of her face as I peek up at her through slitted eyes. The pain in my side, like hot daggers, has not gone away, but somehow it is lessened by her very presence above me. Every word she speaks is like a cool hand on a feverish brow, and I am soothed.

Elizabeth's nimble hands work diligently at something in her lap. A needle flashes silver and white in the waning light. She looks down at the piece of work lovingly, as though it were her child, and then carefully she holds it up for me to see, though to her I am still a sleeping corpse.

"I've finished it," she whispers, tracing the delicate roses stationed around the perimetre of the sampler. "I'm not much good at it," she confesses, "and to be completely honest," she lowers her voice as though she were speaking to a confidante, "I haven't really got the patience for doing these sorts of things."

She sighs and picks at an imaginary thread. "I've had to find something to keep me occupied since you've been . . . well, away."

I long to take her hands in mine and cry aloud that I am here now, but my tongue is leaden and try as I might to form words all they seem to do is collide into a jumbled mess in my mouth.

"I've been staying with Father for the last few weeks. Betsy and Thomas seemed to think it was better that way after the trouble we had with a few drunken locals the other night," she makes an exasperated noise, "I thought it was downright ridiculous, but Father made the point of saying that it's what you would have wanted . . . or what you do want."

"Living with Father hasn't been terrible though. I've been staying in my old room, which has brought back so many memories. Father isn't so young anymore you know, and it seems he's let himself go a bit since I left. It was refreshing to be his little girl again."

She stops speaking abruptly as her forehead creases in worry. My mind slips at the edges as the silence grows. Elizabeth straightens in her chair suddenly and her eyes glow with excitement.

"I went to see Rachel and Andrew the other day," she says, "Their son, George, is delightful. I wish you had taken me to meet them sooner. Their living is modest, but they have the biggest hearts of anyone I've ever met. Rachel hardly put Georgie down once whilst I was there though you could tell he would have rather been upon the floor," she pauses as her face falls to a look of sadness. "I do love children," she says more to herself than anyone else. A pregnant pause suggests unspoken regrets and unfulfilled wishes.

Her voice thickens and her next words I do not catch for they are caught mid-choke. She clenches her eyes shut as her breath sputters. A torrent of tears fight their way over the arch of her cheekbone, and she buries her face in her hands to hide her shame and tears. Inside I am screaming, and my ribs are on fire. Elizabeth grieves. Outside thunder rumbles. I fall over the edge into unconsciousness once more.

---

There is a coolness upon my cheek. I stir under its touch, and immediately it is removed. My eyes strain to open, and when they do it is as though I have been born anew. All my surroundings are foreign, and there is no trace of Elizabeth. My neck is stiff and it creaks as I shift my head and eyes to the left.

Blood, like copper on the tongue, greets my nostrils. I gag on the saliva that has built up in my mouth out of apprehension. Eyes adjusted, I take in the stump of a leg whose bandages have been bruised all shades of plum. The stump is connected to the body of a man whose chest rises and falls labourously with each ragged moan. Gulping down sickly hot bile I shift my head to the left. The sight is far less assaulting to the senses, but at the same time it sends my stomach plummeting toward the floor.

There is a white sheet. The silhouette of a dead corpse. Death himself hovering silently nearby, a grim expression set on his face. His accomplice stands just as grimly at the end of the cot. The corpse is carried away, and I close my eyes again.

My dreams are penetrated that night by the smell of blood, the cries of dying men, and a stabbing pain in my side. Fire consumes me as I succumb to fever, and I can no longer guess the hour, the day, or even my own name.

---

"James?"

I inhale deeply and wince at the sudden shooting pain in my side. Without effort I open my eyes and smile sheepishly at the vision standing over me.

"Elizabeth."

I exhale the words, and my wife nods though I had not asked a question. She lets out a shuddering breath and smiles even as a pearl tear drops from her nose onto my cheek. Wiping it away she whispers, "I missed you."

I part my lips to reply.

"Don't speak," she whispers, and in a second our lips collide.

She pulls away to sit back in her chair, and I attempt to sit up. Gently she places a hand on my shoulder to push me back down onto the cot.

"You shouldn't be sitting up just yet. The doctor wouldn't like it," Elizabeth warns as she pours water from the pitcher on the bedside table. "Here, drink this before you speak."

I take the glass with trembling hands and raise my head slightly to gulp the water down. My parched throat constricts as the water rushes down and somehow I manage to spill most of it down my front.

Elizabeth does not laugh at my blunder but instead takes the empty glass from my hand and dabs at the watermark spreading across my linen shirt. I grimace as her hand brushes against the sore spot beneath my rib cage. Abruptly she pulls back with a look of guilt upon her face.

I clear my throat. "What is it?"

She looks at her hands, clasped tightly so that the knuckles are white, as the story tumbles from her lips.

"You were severely injured when they brought you in from the ship. I did not see you right away, but I heard. There was blood. So much blood. The doctor said that if you lived through the first night it would be a miracle. I insisted upon sleeping on the floor on that first night," she says, a defiant look on her face. "I. . . I didn't want you to be alone in the end."

A lump forms in my throat, and I give my wife a smile that I hope she won't mistake for a grimace. The lines on her face soften and she reaches for my hand, running her thumb over the rough knuckles.

"There will be a scar," she says seriously, and I nod again having had expected this. "I have not seen it, but I'm sure I will soon enough. I've been taught many things in the last few months, and making bandages is not the least among them."

She beams prettily, if not triumphantly, and I close my eyes again as we lapse into a comfortable silence. Later as I drift back into the realm of sleep I hear Elizabeth sigh contentedly and say something about finally going home.

Authoress' Note: There you go. I hope that was a satisfactory following after the "cliff hanger" I left all of you with. Don't forget to review!!