[i]((Collaboration with Igraine and AmongHeroes))[/i]

Thomas allowed Antonia to pull him along, leaning heavily against her embrace as she led them down into the galley. It surprised him that none of the crew had retreated here to wait out the storm, but he counted the unexpected solitude as a blessing, and so he did not dwell upon the cause of the small fortune.

Thomas closed his eyes as Antonia pressed her forehead against his own. He was keenly aware of the drying blood that pulled and itched as his skin pressed to his love’s, but the warmth of her touch was too inspiriting for him to care. His eyes opened to Antonia’s. So close were they that he could see the copper of his iris’ reflected in the pools of steel-gray of Antonia’s own. He brought a hand, overlayed with the crimson stains of their recent undertaking, and caressed the cheek of the woman before him.

“Thank you,” was all Thomas could whisper, his throat filling with the full weight of all that had just taken place. 

[i]“De rien, chèr,”[/i] she whispered. [i]’It is nothing, dear:’[/i] that was the fuller translation of those French words, the simple, common response that said [i]’you are welcome.’[/i] But of course what they had just done was not ‘nothing;’ and though a mercy, a final kindness even for men suffering hideously without a single hope of life, Antonia knew this had ripped most [i]everything[/i] from her lovely man. 

Hearing that pain in his whisper tore at the rogue’s heart, and she knew there would never be words fit to meet this moment. She did not even try. Antonia simply wrapped her arms tightly about her love where he sat, pulling him close to her chest, laying his head against her beating heart while the fingers of one hand ran soothingly over his head, forsaking no tenderness though his hair was still tacky with drying blood.

Behind her, fresh water began to heat in the cast iron cauldron. She should be careful that it not boil, but for this moment, Thomas’ hurts was the whole of her world.

“I saw Lightfoot,” Thomas said, the words materializing upon his tongue before he even realized what he was saying. Pressed against the warm and comforting hearth of his love’s heart, at the precipice of a ruined conscience, Thomas wanted to alter the current of his mind to anything but the lingering eyes of the men he had just killed in the name of mercy.

“After I was bitten by the Siren,” he continued, his voice a low and raspy whisper, “I awoke on an island, and Lightfoot was there.”

Antonia’s gaze fell for a moment to the top of Thomas’ head where he rested. Of all people who might have heard this strange statement, she might be one of the precious few who would not wonder if, perhaps, something in his mind had not snapped beneath the unbearable weight of guilt. She took a small step back, reaching to cradle that beloved face gently. 

“Well, you tell me then,” she said softly, a tender finger pushing back a lock of hair from his face. “Tell me Thomas, what your father had to say to you. I imagine you must have had so much to catch up on, so much to share.” 

Never once did the thought occur to Antonia, that this might have been some fever dream, the aimless ramblings of a brain caught somewhere between life and death. The spirit world was as real - perhaps even more real - than this mortal one. She needed consider no further than the meager inches of wood between themselves and an unnatural storm, to know this was so.

Antonia’s hands took Thomas’ for a moment, a gentle pressure for his fingers as she embraced them to her heart for a moment. She let him go, though not for long, only turning to take up some of the old kitchen cloths, that would now serve for their washcloths. 

“Did he have any message for you, lovely man?” 

A single, snort of a laugh came through Thomas’ nose. The question Antonia had asked was not funny, not in of itself, but the subject brought a strange smile to Thomas’ lips no matter the recent emotional burden.

“You would think that he might have given me some message from the beyond? It would make sense that a spirit would grant a man such insight. Instead…” Thomas said, sitting up and looking at Antonia with a sideways smile.

“Instead he wanted to drink rum and hear about everything he had missed.” Thomas shrugged and shook his head. “The man hasn’t changed, even in death. I suppose that’s a good thing.”

“No,” Thomas said, growing more serious. “We really did just sit upon the sand of ‘his island’ and speak about times past and present. No future, I’m afraid.”

Thomas looked over to the fire that was licking at the iron cauldron. He fell silent, looking into the flames and remembering Lightfoot’s face as if he had just seen the man in the flesh. As he stared, the notion that Antonia might find his tale strange came to his mind, and just as quickly as it arrived, Thomas thrust it aside. Antonia was a woman open to the realm beyond, and what’s more, Thomas had no doubt that she trusted him implicitly. Even in matters as strange as the world outside of the mortal one. 

“I told him of you.” Thomas continued, still looking to the fire. A slow smile returned to his face as he thought of Lightfoot’s reaction to him admitting he was a one-woman-man for the first time in his life. He turned his smile to Antonia, and some of the familiar glow returned to his eyes. 

“He seemed to approve of you.” 

“Well, that [i]is[/i] something there, now isn’t it?” Antonia stood from the floor after ladling the warm water from the cauldron to a smaller pot - though one still large enough that it required both her hands to lift. She had tossed the old cloths over her shoulder and, pot in hand - or rather, [i]hands[/i] - she crossed the short distance to where Thomas sat, setting the water down beside him.

She knelt to wet one of them thoroughly, ringing it out in her hands before standing once more. The blood on her own hands had already tinged the water a deceivingly soft pink, and the rogue knew there would be many rinses required to see them both cleansed once more.

Antonia cupped Thomas’ chin in one hand, the other covered with the wet cloth as she began to wipe the blood from his face. A small, mischievous little grin began to creep across her lips as she seemed studiously intent on her self-appointed task.

“Though I do wonder, if your father had not approved, might you have tossed your rogue aside, dearest Silverfish?” Antonia pouted prettily as if the very thought distressed her so, though the laughter in her grey eyes gave away the tease in her words.