"They were kids that I once knew; now they're all dead hearts to you." –Stars, "Dead Hearts"

-o-

Instead of contentedly starving to death, Jacqueline tossed around the identity of her mystery visitor. There was something about him that was vaguely familiar, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't put her finger on it. She had her suspicions, since she had glimpsed him a couple times before, but there was nothing certain. His story of Connor was amusing, and she could picture him pacing the halls of the manor on the Homestead while thinking of some way to get in and break her out without getting shot into meat.

Though now that she had a moment to think, what stake did this strange company have in her freedom? Were they going to exploit her? She couldn't really think of any other reason as to why they wanted her free.

Something had been sucked out of her during her time in her dark room. It was hard to put a name to what was missing—like an organ was missing from her gut. Perhaps it was her soul, she thought. Regardless, it truly felt like she would never laugh again.

-o-

Her forced fasting period was interrupted by more commotion over her head. Nothing was really discernable through all the stone and dirt over her head, but she distinctly heard a firing line sound off. Footsteps pounded down stairs a little closer to her. The door clicked and rattled as someone tried the locks. A voice said something, then another replied, and finally the door smashed inward.

"Her leg." The first person muttered after a beat. "It's been broken."

"Step aside." The next voice was familiar, and Jacqueline lifted her head to look.

"Connor?" She whispered. The ties around her wrists and ankles were cut. Hands under her knees and back lifted her out of the chair, gently folding her arms into her lap. Her broken bones and burned patches of skin screamed pain for her.

"Do not speak, Jacqueline." He instructed quietly. "Georges, how many people remain outside?"

"The Regulars are running scared." It was her mystery guest, resting against the doorframe with his arms crossed. "Take her outside. Your path back to your home will be secure. I have a few disgruntled friends to appease, but I suppose I will meet you at the Homestead before winter. À toute à l'heure."

"Farewell, my friend." Connor nodded, and Georges jogged away.

"Wait…" Jacqueline tried to see him. Connor had said a name, Georges. But it couldn't be. "Stop…"

Connor was carrying her out of the room, but not fast enough to follow Georges. Jacqueline was able to pay enough attention to her surroundings to see that the room was one of three at the end of a dim hall. A corner turned left, right, and then led up a steep stone staircase. The door at the top was open, streaming in light from the sun. After so long in the dark, it looked to her like the gates to Heaven. Each step upward felt like she was being lifted twenty feet until they emerged into the light.

Jacqueline was instantly blinded for a few minutes. She mumbled in surprised and tried to turn away from the sun. Slowly, her sight returned. With watering eyes, she looked around the fort. It was a complicated mess of small buildings and walls of spiked timber. Trees grew up right in the middle of it in places. This would not be an easy place to find, but found it they had.

Lightheadedness came over her very suddenly, and she thought she might be sick. Instead, the world tilted around, and she fell unconscious.

-o-

Night had fallen on the Homestead. Wind rustled outside a second-floor bedroom window, causing yellow and red leaves to flit past. It was open a crack at the bottom, letting in a chill autumn breeze. One orange leaf hooked on the edge of the windowsill and slipped inside the room. It drifted across the room to the bed nearby. Losing momentum, the dry leaf settled on the cheek of the woman resting there.

Jacqueline woke and looked up at the ceiling. The leaf on her cheek fell onto her pillow when she looked around. It was dark, but not the same as in the fort. The darkness was pleasant. Beside her, Connor slumped back in a chair, sound asleep. She sat up slowly, easing herself back to lean against the headboard and numerous pillows. The area between her chest and her hips hurt the most; she had no idea how many ribs were cracked, but after gingerly touching her bandage-draped abdomen, determined it must be around three or four.

Even in the dark she could feel and see her arms. Bandages were wrapped around in many places, between six and a dozen on each. What injuries lay below, she wasn't sure. When she shifted under her blankets, she distinctly felt the splint on her leg. She deflated back into her pillows, eyes half-lidded and dull.

"Jacqueline," Connor shifted next to her. "How long have you been awake?" He squeezed water out of a cloth into a bowl, folded it and placed it on her forehead.

"Maybe ten minutes." She whispered, still staring at the ceiling. Her throat hurt, but someone must have been giving her water.

"You slept for three days. How do you feel?"

Jacqueline coughed. "I feel...empty."

Connor frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It is hard to explain." She waited a moment while he let her nurse water from a cup. "Never mind."

There was a pause. Every few minutes he made a couple inhaling noises like he wanted to say something, but ultimately stayed quiet. After a while, the sun began to rise and make her bedroom glow with pink light. When it became morning, he touched her cheek, stood, and left.

The room was silent until the door opened again to let Achilles in. He hobbled to her side and helped her sit up more. "Well, it's good you're finally awake. Sit up, girl, those bandages need changing."

"Achilles, where was I being held?" Jacqueline watched him unravel the cloth on her arms.

"A fort in the frontier." He grumbled. "Look away, now."

Except she didn't want to, and stared at her arm while he pulled away the stained bandaging. Around both arms, strips and blotches of skin had been warped and burned. Some were so deep as to still be angry red. Mixed in were gashes that varied in length and depth. Achilles wiped them down with a wet cloth and wrapped them again, then pulled back the sheets and did the same with her similarly injured leg, the one that wasn't broken.

"Lord, girl." He sighed, and said nothing more.

When he unwound the wider, looser bandages around her ribs, she could see the heavy bruising all up and down her body, ranging in colour from yellow and sickly green to purple and blue. Her face probably looked just as bad, with a broken nose to boot. In fact, the wrappings felt so loose they were probably more for her aesthetic benefit than for any healing.

"Well, there's not much to do for your ribs." Achilles looked her over. "They'll have to heal on their own. The best we can do is whiskey. This would be a good time for a doctor to live nearby…and Connor's not much of a help, the way he was worrying."

Jacqueline gave a shallow, aching sigh, but something occurred to her. "I know where he can find a doctor."

Achilles stood and hobbled out. "I'll go get the boy."

A few minutes later, Connor came back into her room. "What do you need?" He sat back in his chair and leaned forward.

"There is a doctor in Boston." Jacqueline reached to pick up her cup of water, saw the black and blue of broken vessels under her nails, and quickly put her hand under the sheets again. "Ask for a man named Martin O'Callaghan."

"I will find him." Connor stood with a nod and started out.

"Wait," She raised her voice a tiny bit, but it stopped him at the door. "I want to know; do you shave with the hidden blade?"

He blinked, clearly taken by surprise, then smiled lightly and left the room, scratching his cheek.

-o-

Connor was gone for a while. During that time, Achilles helped Jacqueline around the house. A few days after she came back, they were eating breakfast in the dining room. Eating was a strong word, as well, for she was forced to nibble at porridge and water or juice. The mornings were starting to get colder as winter loomed. Staring out the window one pale, yellow dawn, she was reminded of her last minutes in her prison.

"I think…I think I have someone to visit." Her hand was shaking, and she had to use both just to lift the spoon to her mouth.

"That French whelp?" Achilles looked up from his newspaper. "He'll come around sooner or later."

Almost in response to the conversation, there came a quick knock on the door. "Come in!" Achilles called.

Georges poked his head in the dining room, grinning and waving a small bouquet. "Oh, you're up and about already! I brought you flowers! Get well, and all that."

Her spoon clattered back into her bowl. She wanted to stand up, but unfortunately could not. "Georges?"

He pulled out a chair across from her and sat. Achilles rolled his eyes, folded his paper and shuffled out. "I'll leave you to it."

Jacqueline reached shakily out to pick up one of her crutches. Georges moved aside, thinking her to be getting up out of her chair, but instead she weakly hit him with it. "You bastard! Why were you following me around? And why are you here? Who are your people? What do you want…?" She trailed off into a cough.

"You always were a stubborn little girl, Jacqueline." Georges smiled and leaned back. "I'll answer all your questions, but one at a time."

She paused, rubbing her swollen face. "Why are you here? The Colonies, I mean."

That got a wry smile from him, and he scratched the mop of straw-coloured hair on top of his head. "Now that is a very long story."

"We have time."

Georges shrugged and rolled his head, thinking. "It really starts on that day you disappeared. None of us knew where you'd gone—those of us that remained, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Right, I suppose you wouldn't know. Réne died that day, and Léon ran away, never to be seen again." He waved his hands dramatically. "Poor kid. Smart as he was, I'm sure he's fine. Anyway, after that it was only François and I. We were still in shock, I think, because things went really far downhill for the two of us. We decided to do one big job and get a couple spaces on a ship to the Colonies, which worked out well for once.

When we got here, we still didn't know what to do. At this point we were old enough to get a job, except we weren't good at anything but stealing. So steal we did. A bunch of urchins started following us around, learning the trade, etcetera. Before I knew it, I had another little gang again. Meaning the only logical course of action was to leave the cities and build a black market trading industry in the frontier."

"What?"

"You heard me. That's my business; those are my people. Skilled individuals who were spat out by the "new life" the Colonies offered." He put exaggerated air quotes around the two sarcastic words. "Loyal as dogs, smarter than most, and the best damn thieves I've ever seen. Actually, François is probably back there right now."

"Really?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Huh." Jacqueline took a moment to think about the flood of information. "So, why were you following me?"

"Convenience. I needed to keep tabs on your actions, since you and Connor are starting to become infamous enough that I thought something might happen. Voila. He gestured at her current state. "But also curiosity. Once I found out you were here, I couldn't help but want to see how you were doing."

"Why not just confront me?"

"Oh, you know me. Never one to take the easy way. Keeping an aura of mystery and such."

Jacqueline scoffed as best she could with her wrecked throat. "How did you know I was here? In the Colonies?"

Georges levelled a deadpan stare at her. "Jacqueline. Really. This is me you're talking to."

"Oh, I almost forgot you were the Lord and Savior come down to earth. Forgive me." She mock bowed, but knew he was right. Even when they were kids, Georges had a way of knowing things that bordered on the supernatural.

Her friend laughed. "I'm sorry about all that following you around. If it makes you feel any better, I never went into inns or the Aquila. You and Connor deserved some privacy."

She didn't even have the energy to blush. "I think you assume too much. We…"

"If you say anything along the lines of "we're not together", I'm going to jump out the second floor window. There is nothing more frustrating than two people who deny they have feelings for each other. You didn't see the way that poor bastard was worrying after you. If that's not love, then I don't know what is. Where is he, by the way? He didn't leave your side for three straight days."

"Connor went to Boston to get a doctor. There isn't one currently on the Homestead."

"I see. How are you feeling?"

"Bad, but not in a physical way. I feel…edgy." He raised an eyebrow, so she continued. "When I woke, I could not explain it. But now I feel as though…as though I am yet in danger. I have not slept well."

"Hmm." He rubbed his chin. "Have you tried drinking?"

"Like a fish in water, but there is still this…" Jacqueline ran her tongue over the backs of her teeth. "Paranoia that I feel deep inside my bones. I've never felt so frightened as I do so often now that it has become unusual to not be. And sometimes…"

When she didn't go on, Georges leaned forward slightly. "Sometimes?"

"I…well, never mind. It's just my mind playing tricks on me." Something else occurred to her. "Why did you leave me those clues?"

Georges frowned. "Clues?"

"On my ride with Paul Revere, when I saw you for the first time. When I went to investigate, there was a fish and an apple. I thought you were trying to tell me your identity."

Georges was clearly trying to remember what she was talking about. Then he suddenly burst out laughing. "Clues? That was my dinner!"

Jacqueline stared. "You're joking."

"No, no!" Georges wiped his eyes. "See, I thought I had more time. So I got myself some food, but you saw me and I had to leave it."

She eased back in her chair, exasperated. "Do you know how long I spent agonising over those items? Hours, Georges. Hours."

"That wasn't my fault, but I can see why you would think that."

The door opened, letting in a wave of arctic air and a few stray leaves from the lingering autumn. Connor appeared in the door. "Salut, Connor." Jacqueline forced an aching smile. "Georges came to visit."

Connor passed the other man a barbed glance, which likely held some male telekinetic message, for Georges chuckled. "Don't worry, my friend. Even if you did not already have an obvious claim on her, she's…well, she's not my type."

It took Jacqueline a few seconds to decipher his tone of voice. "Weren't you with Réne?"

"Please, Jacqueline, we were children. Let's just say François and I grew rather close during our time on our own."

"Oh!" She looked up to Connor, who seemed equally surprised. "Ahem…how is Martin?"

Connor took a seat next to her. "He was happy to hear from you, but was experiencing financial trouble related to taxes. I invited him to live on the Homestead, and he accepted."

"I'll leave you two alone." Georges stood, pulling his hood up. Tugging his mask up over his nose, he added, "My company is stationed several miles off the Homestead. Come visit any time."

"Merci, Georges." Jacqueline nodded.

"And I suggest you talk about those sleeping troubles with Connor." He winked an emerald eye at them, and left as quickly as he appeared.

Connor quirked his head at her. "You are having trouble sleeping? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were in Boston, remember?" At his continued concerned frown, she set her hand over his. "It's probably nothing. I promise."

-o-

-This chapter is longer than the others, and is the beginning of her recovery from the events of the last couple. She won't be well enough to go with Connor during his mission to the church where he meets his father, but he will leave for that soon.

-There's been a lack of Connor/Jac so far, seeing as neither has had much of a chance. But Georges is lovely and fun to write, and I hope I've answered most questions with this chapter. Expect ConJac soon.

-Review for apples and fish!