It's shaping up to be a pretty good day for Edward. His crew is happy (rum will do that), the weather is perfect for sailing, and the thing in his head is keeping its distance. Once in a while, the odd piece of knowledge or scrap of memory will leak through from it to him, but mostly Edward's managed to keep his mind out of the thing's head, and that's good. He can still remember how it felt the one time when he let the thing in. Just a flood of… stuff that isn't his.

And it's not like he can't handle it- it's not like he's afraid. Of course not.

Edward shakes the thought off and tries to listen to what Ade is saying, but they've had this talk about Roberts before, and besides- there's something else not quite right going on, and Edward can't stop himself from looking around, trying to figure out what it is. There's some weird kind of light, coming from he can't even tell where.

"I thought we were looking for something," Ade says, drawing Edward's attention back to him. "It's your crazy mission, remember?"

"Calm down, Ade," Edward says, still half distracted. "We'll find Roberts."

"The sooner the better," Ade says. "I'll be happy when this whole thing is behind us."

"Besides," Edward says loudly, ignoring the complaint. "I didn't know the ship was carrying nothing but rum." Technically, it could have been a lead.

"You always know."

Edward shrugs. It's a side effect of the strange way he sometimes sees the world (the thing in his head called it eagle vision, once, but Edward has no idea why). Sometimes he looks at a thing and just knows about it. "At least the crew's happy again."

"For now." Ade frowns. "Just be careful, Edward. I don't think I'm the only one getting tired of your fairy stories. And I don't think some of them will stick around as long as I have."

Abruptly, the golden light intensifies, and Edward can't stop himself from turning around to try and find the source because it is really starting to bother him, and-

There's a man there, and Edward is absolutely positive that he's never seen him before. Which is a problem, because they're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and there's no way he could have gotten on without anyone noticing.

"What-"

The man startles, and abruptly vanishes along with the golden light.

"Edward?" Ade asks. "What are you looking at?"

"Didn't you see that?" Edward demands. "There was-" but he stops abruptly, because Ade's giving him a look that tells him very plainly that he didn't see anything. "Never mind."

"Alright," Ade says, but he's still wearing the same expression. He clasps Edward on the shoulder and walks past him. "Maybe you should try getting some sleep tonight."

"Yea," Edward mutters. His mind is racing. "Yea, I'll do that."

There's only one thing to do now. He needs to know what the stranger was doing on the Jackdaw's deck. He can't just leave the mystery unsolved, but there's only one person he can ask. Mysterious appearances, people in places they shouldn't be- he needs to talk to the thing in his head.

"Altair," he says quietly. It's the name he got from the one time they actually came close to talking. "I have some questions."

-/-

For anyone that's curious, this matches up to chapter 54. Funnily enough, when I wrote that chapter I thought it was farther along in Edward's timeline (ie, he's already in the loop about the apples, time travel, etc), but it turns out that this meeting is what convinced Haytham to talk to Desmond and what convinced Edward to talk to Altair. I'm enjoying the symmetry there. :)