She felt like she’d died, over and over she died in the darkness as a madness strengthened arm pulled her down despite her best efforts. She kept fighting though, even though it wouldn’t be enough, clawing, kicking, and trying to pry hands off of her that seemed fused to her. She could see nothing, no hope or even which way was up or down. She was lost, for good this time.

Then there was something thrashing in the water beside them, a hand gripping her ankle, walking its way up her body. She included it in her futile thrashing, certain it was a siren come to take more chunks out of her. Only it wasn’t. They broke through the surface well after when spots of color had begun to burst against the back of her eyelids as her body screamed of its need to breathe. She obliged, not certain where the gift of breath had come from, but grateful nevertheless. Then past the laughter in the storm she heard a miracle. 

Jax.

Jax had come for her. She had been lost in the dark and he had come. 

“Jax!” she wailed with her precious breath making her limbs move, making the leaden weights lift to twine about him even past the aching protest of her salt-stung shoulder. It was all she managed but it didn’t matter. Jax had her, his strong arms about her, her head resting on that well-muscled chest that always captivated her. She heard desperation in his voice when he screamed to her to stay with him. She felt her lips tremble and hated herself for the weakness of it. She wasn’t supposed to be weak and helpless. She wasn’t supposed to need rescuing. Yet she couldn’t deny the sweet gratitude she felt that he had come for her. He had saved her. 

He pulled her through the frothing sea towards the dingy that bobbed in the waves. Somehow he got them both into the little boat. She lay in the bottom, coughing up sea water and trying to pull herself together. But she had nothing, no recourses left as she caught sight of the Dusk Skate in flashes of lightning as it moved ever further from them. The deck had been empty, everyone had been below decks waiting out the storm. She had been lucky that Jax had heard her when she’d cried out. They were alone, lost. 

She pulled her eyes from the Skate and thought about the last time she’d been so low, so lost. This was nothing to that. She was stronger now and she wasn’t really alone, was she? There had been some alchemy performed on her heart, she was sure of it. Somehow in the thrashing dark of the sea she had been changed and rearranged. No, if she were honest she would admit that she’d been changing all along, the dark choking water had just made her aware of the change in her panic not to lose it. She wasn’t alone, she was alive, Jax was alive and though her home was drifting away without her she didn’t mind, not really. Not with him. 

She had remade herself before, from pampered young girl to disciplined naval officer and then to hard, deadly Pirate. She could remake herself again, she would make herself someone worthy of the man who had dove into the dark sea for her. She would make herself someone worthy to love Jax. Jax with his maddening smile and contagious laughter. 
She lifted a trembling hand, traced the bearded line of his jaw, barely visible in the storm-dark night. She imagined his smile, the maddening expression that warmed her even then. She wanted to do all she could to see that smile spreading across his face in the light of the storm. 

“I am sorry.” She said, salted honey making the words rough. “I forgot your boots.”