All these years had passed, a decade, and of course for several of those years it had played on his mind exactly what had happened to him. Joseph finally concluded he’d had some kind of accident, perhaps some stunt or dare, something stupid that boys do, fallen from the cliff, struck his head perhaps, or maybe the drowning too had constricted his memory? He didn’t know where he’d come from or where’s he’d go, who he’d be looking for or where home was, or [i]who[/i] he was.

Foul play he hadn’t considered.

[i]’one of your father’s ships had been found destroyed. Now it seems like someone destroyed it to get rid of you and your father but make it look like an accident’[/i]

Joseph’s heart seemed to miss a beat and a knot formed in his stomach, he felt a little light-headed. Elissa seemed to breeze over the subject, she was glad he was alive, true, but these were quite some revelations to him. She’d kissed him but he felt numb, he was focused in his minds eye but yet could still not recollect the incident, he brought his gaze down to her slowly with a frown quivering across his brow, he cleared his throat, it seemed to feel especially dry, “Elissa… I wasn’t on any ship when they found me, there wasn’t any ship”. 

He could feel himself losing control, there was always this part of him that slipped from time to time, and in as much as he tried to be the person he’d became, there was this past that beckoned with unfinished business. He had to walk this off too, before it consumed him, his crew were relying on him to keep it together, Rhea relied on him to keep it together, they had too much work to do tonight. “I’m sorry” he slipped himself away from Elissa, got to his feet and crossed the room, rubbing his face and bringing his hands through his hair, he made his way to the window at the rear of the cabin and leaned with one arm against the frame to peer out at the waves frothing in the wake of the ship, the other hand on his hip.