"Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop." -H. L. Mencken
-o-
The ships waited in the bay, quiet and unsuspecting. Night had fallen over New York, and the darker outlines of the buildings were silhouetted against the lighter bluish-gray of the sky. A breeze startled up and made the wood of the ships creak in the night. Voices muttered in French here and there, and eyes were turned up to the dark tower that would light at any moment.
Jacqueline was leaning forward against the ship's side, her arms folded on the sturdy rail and her legs crossed behind her to prop her up. She scanned the city, listened to it murmur, and waited.
"Quite an accomplishment, no?" Stephane asked, joining her vigil. "An amazing city."
"That's an optimistic viewpoint." Jacqueline glanced at him. They spoke in French, and it now felt more natural to her than English. "It has its flaws, some that I've been all too familiar with."
"But that is every city." He shrugged back. "Perhaps this one can be better. We came here to change the world, and so we have."
She licked the scar on her lips, an old habit she'd not gotten over. "Sometimes I wonder if what we are doing is justified. Is it our place to determine what is right for the world?"
"Maybe. If not us, who? Would you rather the Crown, or those we fight to take power?" Stephane raised his eyebrows at her. "If nothing else, we shall be the lesser of two evils."
Jacqueline yawned and scratched the side of her nose. "Even so, we aren't very much better. They kill; we kill. We kill because they kill and vice versa, and so it goes." She made a circular motion with one finger. "When will it end?"
Stephane smirked and nodded. "You are an interesting woman, Jacqueline, asking questions like that. Connor is a lucky man."
She ignored the last statement. "Can you answer me, though?"
He sighed. "War is in our nature. I suspect it will never end."
Lying next to them, Furie lifted his head and swivelled his ears toward shore. What he was listening for it was uncertain, but it was a focused and oddly sudden enough action to draw the attention of the conversing pair. For a good minute they watched the wolf, which didn't watch the shore but only listened in the direction of it. Eventually he stood; the gray fur on his back bristled up in anticipation. Jacqueline felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle down her spine, and she also looked to shore as though expecting to see something.
"Do feel that, too?" She breathed, staring out at the city. "Electricity."
Hardly before the words left her mouth, the signal fire flared to life. "That's the signal." Stephane straightened up. "The armada will be firing any—"
The ship lurched as the cannons went off in succession, followed by the ship to their left. Jacqueline staggered and grabbed onto the rail. She watched a few of the buildings on shore burst and crumble into piles of bricks and mortar, furnishings and people fall out of their homes. The ships had been drifting closer to shore and were now nearly close enough to dock.
"Furie, come." Jacqueline drew her sword and vaulted over the edge of the ship to land on the pavement. Furie leapt after her, landing with a heavy thump.
A few disoriented guards stumbled around a corner in front of her. Seeing her, they didn't assume she was part of the siege due to her gender. But when she ran at them, sword glinting in the fire of the burning buildings, they readied a firing line. Too late, they scattered when she began cutting through them.
"Stephane!" She called over her shoulder. The Frenchman was swinging his cleaver with more skill then she had last seen. "What do we do?"
"Push through the city!" He exclaimed. "Give Connor as much time as we can!"
She nodded and jogged forward, only to be thrown back by the house next to her being struck by cannon fire. Bricks rained down on her, and she threw her arms up to shield her head. When the chaos faded, she looked up to see a city that had transformed in seconds. Smoke clouded the streets ahead of her, and she could hear guns going off like a deadly chorus.
Jacqueline ran through the smog ahead, keeping her sword drawn. The smoke made her eyes water and burn. A redcoat slammed into her, panicking. She thrust her sword blindly and felt it hit meaty flesh. The dead weight sank against her, and she moved on.
She and Furie pushed out into an area that was less smoky, a small square. Another round of cannon fire hit, sending explosions along the neighbourhood. "I need to find Connor." Jacqueline coughed heavily.
"Oi! You!" An officer pointed her out, and his squadron rushed at her.
"Furie." Jacqueline ordered, bending double to cough some more. The smoke was more than smoke—it was tiny bits of dirt and grit and gunpowder getting in her lungs. She listened to the Redcoats get torn apart, screaming, growling, cloth ripping, guns going off in futility. When Furie came back to her, his head was smeared in scarlet.
That was the last she saw before she blacked out. When she woke up, she touched the throbbing back of her head and felt her hair matted in blood. Assuming she was hit by a piece of architecture, she stumbled up and started off. She'd only been out for maybe a minute, as the siege was still very much in action.
"We need to find Connor." She repeated to herself, and started running. Furie ran with her for about a block before suddenly lunging in front of her and stopping.
"Move!" She waved her hand angrily. "I need to find him!"
The wolf raised a lip, the bridge of his nose wrinkling when he growled. When she thought he was going to attack her, he only laid down on his haunches and rested his head back on his shoulder. Jacqueline eased toward Furie, hoping she interpreted his direction correctly, and hesitantly put a leg across his back.
He stood immediately and launched off, bounding through the ruined street with as much ease as a spider on a web. Jacqueline yelped and leaned forward to avoid the cutting, bitter wind. She clenched her fingers in the rough fur between his shoulder blades and prayed she could hold on long enough for them to reach Connor. When she was able to open her eyes, she could see the city flying past them. Furie no longer needed to jog to keep up with her sprint, and she realised that if he ever wanted to kill her, it would be too easy.
A small, giddy chuckle came from her, cut off when Furie jumped a pile of debris. The adrenaline high made her feel as though she could run miles. Her good mood vanished when she came to a halt in a small garden. Furie waited patiently while she fumbled off of him and hurried to the crumpled, robed body that lay next to a table.
"Connor! Connor…" Jacqueline, for a few terrified seconds, believed him to be dead. Blood trickled from his mouth and stained most of his robes. There was some grievous, ambiguous injury beneath his robes. When she turned him over onto his back, she could hear faint breathing. "Oh, Connor, love, come on. I can't lift you myself, are you awake?"
"…Yes," Came the eventual reply. "Lee, he…"
"It doesn't matter now." She helped him stand, letting him lean on her. A cold drop fell down her face and she angrily wiped it away. "We need to get you help."
"My father…" Connor wheezed, gesturing weakly with his hand.
That was when Jacqueline saw there was another body in the garden, face down. She looked away. "You need medicine. Furie will take you to the armada. I'll meet you there."
Connor didn't protest, likely—and correctly—assuming that his condition was too serious to be prideful. He slumped onto Furie's back and weakly held on. "Take him back, carefully." Jacqueline told Furie. The wolf turned and trotted out of the garden, then vanished into the smoke.
When they were gone, Jacqueline looked back at Haytham's body. "You got your just desserts, Haytham. I could not have picked a better fate for you." She spat toward the body and left the garden, scowling.
-o-
Connor jerked awake from dim dreams, nightmares of swimming darkness that melted away before his memory could reach them. He looked around his room, not moving his head. Jacqueline sat next to his bed in a chair, writing in a journal. Having apparently not noticed he'd woken, he took a moment to watch her. She anxiously scraped a fingernail across her bottom lip, scratched something out and continued writing. He found there was something humbly lovely about her that drew him in, like a moth to a flame.
She glanced up at him, just a customary glance, and did a double take. "Oh, you're awake, thank God."
"What happened?" Connor groaned and attempted to sit up in bed.
"How much do you remember?"
He strained his memory of New York. "My father…Lee was not there."
Jacqueline closed her journal and set it aside. "I won't pry into what happened. The siege went smoothly, or as smoothly as it could go." Her voice was forced into almost singsong lightness as she tried to make light of his killing his own father. "Here, drink."
Connor accepted the cup of water she offered and drank it carefully. "Thank you. How long…?"
"A few days. You were badly injured, but have been recovering well." She touched his cheek and smiled.
Waking truly now, he looked closer at her. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her movements seemed to take energy from her. "Have you been sleeping well, Jacqueline?"
She stopped and drew back from him. "Yes."
He almost smiled, almost. If nothing else, he could tell immediately when she was lying. "I will be fine now. You should rest."
Jacqueline grimaced. "Trés bien. Just…call if you need anything." She reluctantly left the room, leaving the door cracked open.
Connor sat up a little more, ignoring the ache in his middle. He glanced to the side and saw that she had left her journal behind. Morals inly struggling, he cautiously picked it up and scanned through it. Of course she wouldn't leave it unprotected—it was all in French, and probably coded besides. He set it back, grateful.
Steeling himself, he pulled out of bed and staggered to his feet. Connor refused to be bedridden for long, and though he was grateful for Jacqueline's care, he wanted to leave the Homestead again to continue tracking Lee.
But when he opened the door to leave his room, he came face to face with Jacqueline, who had her arms crossed and raised an eyebrow at him. Furie lurked behind her, his large head level with her small shoulder. "Good try, Ratonhnhaké:ton, but I know you too well."
"I am not dying." He insisted. "I have to find Lee again."
"No." She gently guided him back into his room. "You'll kill yourself if you try fighting anyone now."
Connor put his hands on her shoulders to stop her. "Jacqueline. Enough."
She did stop, but the expression on her face made him falter. It felt like he had genuinely insulted her. "You almost died, Ratonhnhaké:ton. I won't have you hurting yourself again."
It touched him that she cared, but Jacqueline had always been one to be wary of his actions. "I have suffered worse than this."
Jacqueline sighed huffily and leaned up to kiss him. It was a quick peck that quite suddenly turned into something deeper as they pressed together slowly but surely. Connor felt himself moving backward, lost his balance against the frame of his bed, and stumbled backward. The ache in his abdomen spiked, and he grimaced, effectively killing the mood.
"Oh," Jacqueline stepped away from him like he was a venomous snake, clearly embarrassed. "Sorry, I just…"
"It is nothing." Connor insisted, cursing himself for showing weakness.
Seeming a little hesitant, she met him again by leaning down, then carefully straddling him. He balanced her there, trying not to notice that her leg was pushing into the wound in his abdomen and instead focusing on that fact that she tasted like oranges and wine though her lips were chapped, and the wicked knot in her hair despite its short length, and the cool-warm feel of her fingers through his hair as she pulled out his ponytail, and the startling chill of tears as she cried for some reason he would never hope to comprehend.
It was all a little dizzying—the blood loss he had sustained likely was not helping—but he stayed sane, somehow. They both did. And in the black-blue early morning, they were consumed by fire.
-o-
-Skepticism, bleh, not sure of this, but whoo! Finally, right? Ha, I led you guys on for soooo looong before this went down, but I love you all so much it hurts. :D
-Sorry for so many short chapters lately, this was the reward for your guys' beautiful patience with me and my abysmal update irregularity and brief chapters!
-Review for love and war!