Aboard the Walrus, en-route to Charles Town, 1715

The ship's mess hall, just off the main galley was dimly lit and crowded, all the wooden rectangular tables anchored to the floor so that it wouldn't shift about with every pitch and sway of the vessel. Much like every evening, the tables were surrounded by men scoffing down a hasty meal or gorging themselves on wine and crude conversation. Some of them even managed to do all three at the same time.

Pirates were a fearsome sight to behold in the harsh light of day, but at night, sitting in a cramped space with only a few lamps casting irregular shadows about the room, they looked more like monsters than men. Though their general lack of attention to personal hygiene and grooming were evident, it was their physical presence that was the more intimidating thing. Mostly all of them were big, hulking men with blackened teeth and repulsive scars that spoke of a lifetime of disease and death. But it was their eyes, cold and devoid of any emotion, as though their humanity had somehow been stripped away from them, that frightened Abigail Ashe the most. Within those deep, empty shells she saw not only a lack of conscience, but also an unhealthy lust for brutality and violence.

It seemed as though that was all she'd been exposed to since Ned Lowe had abducted her. He'd been cruel and sadistic, and she was sure, a little mad too. How else would he have been able to cut men down so ferociously without even batting an eyelid? If anything, he'd seemed to revel in the spectacle, the sight of blood and gore driving him on. She still had nightmares about him and his crew, their faces floating before her eyes whenever she attempted to sleep. The bone crushing fear that had surrounded her from the moment she'd laid eyes on them, right until she'd been rescued by Eleanor Guthrie from yet another pirate who'd looked to ransom her, lingered still, but it had diminished somewhat, the company of Miranda Hamilton, someone she vaguely recalled from her childhood, easing the never-ending anxiety.

Now, as she sat beside Mrs Hamilton having just finished her supper, she found herself in the custody of another band of pirates. When they'd set sail for Charles Town, she'd been told that Captain Flint and his crew were different, and to their credit, he and his men had treated her civilly, even courteously. Captain Flint had even afforded her the tools to keep a journal and though she accepted that he would most certainly destroy the many pages she'd poured her thoughts onto before they disembarked, thereby eliminating any record of his crew's activities or their identities, just the act of putting her feelings to paper had helped her regain some of her lost equilibrium. The attempt at normalcy had allowed her to construct for herself the illusion that she was still on the Good Fortune, nearing the end of a long journey, that recent events were themselves the nightmare and that these men were simply sailors, tasked with delivering her home. But it was all an illusion, and a fragile one at that.

Her father had once told her stories about these men, about their natures, so she'd known that any appearance of civility from them was but a glimpse of the men they'd once been. A ghost that showed itself only once the darker things that now governed their souls lay dormant. Though she was forced to wonder if the illusion of safety was no accident at all, but was instead theatre for her benefit, orchestrated by someone so awful, even monsters such as the crew on this ship had no choice but to dance to the tune that he played for them.

Captain Flint. Initially, Abigail had been wary of the infamous reprobate. She'd heard things about him that made her blood run cold, her fear of him complete and all consuming. But gradually, over the course of their journey, she'd started to lose some of her prior apprehension. This was mainly attributed to the way he treated Mrs Hamilton. There was a deep connection between them and whilst Abigail didn't even begin to understand it, the obvious respect and affection they bore for one another was clearly not a ruse. Though she didn't doubt that Captain Flint was capable of many bad things, for the haunted look in his eyes spoke of many regrets, she did not sense that he meant to do her any harm. It was that knowledge that enabled her to slowly lower her guard.

Sitting demurely as the Captain seated himself across from her and Mrs Hamilton, she discreetly pushed her plate away. She wasn't really hungry and besides, whoever the cook was, he was not very accomplished. Clasping her hands lightly in her lap, she closed her eyes, wishing desperately that she was already home and back in the comfort of her native surroundings.

"Captain?"

Abigail's eyes flew open at the sound of an unfamiliar voice.

A tall man she'd never seen before was standing beside their table, looking at Captain Flint. Sitting up straighter, she watched as he took a seat, his back towards her and Mrs Hamilton. Furtively she observed him, her eyes inexplicably drawn to the solid muscles bulging on his arm as it rested on the table.

He addressed Captain Flint. "Winds are more favourable than we anticipated. De Groot wants to tack earlier through the winds than you suggested. Might take some manoeuvring. He'd prefer not to do it in the dark, but he thinks the men are-" He looked up and saw her, his words floundering, "um…up to it."

For a brief moment, their eyes met and held and Abigail felt a peculiar stirring in her breast. His face, far younger than she'd been expecting, was quite tanned, an obvious consequence of overexposure to the sun. In the soft glow of the overhead lamp, she could just about decipher that his eyes were blue, their gaze direct and perhaps even a little stunned, as though he hadn't been expecting to see her there at all. He had a strong jaw, sprinkled with a light dusting of deep blonde stubble, the same shade as the short hair clipped close to his head. When taken as a whole, she was surprised to discover that she found him rather handsome.

What is he doing here? she wondered, curiously. While he dressed in a similar fashion to the rest of the crew, nothing else about his outward appearance seemed to be anything like them. Abigail glanced away, flustered. She could still feel his gaze upon her.

He continued, "So, as long as you are in agreement, he'll make preparations."

Unable to stop herself, Abigail looked at him again, their eyes meeting once more. Her belly did a curious flip.

"Tell him I'm in agreement. The sooner we get her home, the better," Captain Flint responded.

He was talking about her as though she wasn't there, but in that moment Abigail wasn't particularly concerned. She was still staring at the stranger, her lips moving imperceptibly and softening into a tentative smile. He didn't reciprocate, although she thought she detected a slight hesitation to leave. But she couldn't really be sure.

Without anything else to contribute, he hastily glanced at her one last time before he stood and walked away, her gaze unwittingly trailing along behind him.

Flint took a drink from his tankard before placing it back on the table. "His name is Billy, in case you were wondering," he said knowingly.

Embarrassed at being caught staring, she apologised. "I beg your pardon. He just…" Abigail looked in the direction Billy had disappeared in, "seems so out of place here. Like someone I might have known back home in London."

Flint nodded. "He may easily have been. His parents were Levelers in Kensington." Her eyes drifted again as Flint continued, "Spoke out against impressment, kidnappings, printed pamphlets from their home, insisted that Billy was lettered so that he could understand the cause and contribute." His eyes dropped from hers, staring down at the table and she knew deep down that his next words would be dreadful. Despite that knowledge, she didn't stop him. She wanted to know. "That winter, when the press gangs came through town, they found Billy distributing those pamphlets in the street. I suppose they found it funny, snatching him and leaving only the pamphlets for his parents to find."

Abigail's heart twisted, horrified. Not so long ago it would have been inconceivable for her to imagine such a thing. But now, after everything that had happened to her, she knew only too well how it felt to be torn from one life and thrust into another. She knew how frightening and lonely it could be, how the incessant fear could threaten to drive you mad. "Did he ever see them again, his mother and father?" she asked eventually, managing to hold onto her emotions.

"When we found Billy, we freed him, and when given the opportunity to confront the man that had taken him from his family, held him in bondage for three years without wages or reprieve, he slew that man. After that, he said he couldn't face his father again. Didn't think he'd be able to accept a murderer for a son." Flint's words were candid, hiding nothing.

Abigail genuinely believed that he wasn't trying to shock her, merely telling the truth as he knew it. It was unfortunate that the telling of it was so heartbreakingly tragic.

Even after she'd retired for the evening, she couldn't sleep. She could so easily have been Billy. Instead she was on her way home, back to her life and her family. He'd lost that opportunity a long time ago.

Wrapping the woollen blanket Mrs Hamilton had given her closer around her shoulders, she wondered what else Billy may have lost along the way.

As she stood on deck the following morning, watching as the body of one of the deceased crew members was tipped overboard, Abigail realised that all of the men gathered around to pay their final respects had their own stories to tell. Good or bad, they were all trying to build a life for themselves, to leave a legacy that others might remember long after they were gone.

After a fretful night, she now knew why she'd never seen Billy. It wasn't because he hadn't been anywhere near her, it was because she hadn't looked. Not once had she taken the time to see these men, to put their true faces to the bodies that had brushed past her for weeks. To her, they'd all been the sum of the terrifying stories she'd heard about pirates, they'd all been the same men who'd abducted her and threatened her with violence and cruelty. Monsters, all of them. Only, perhaps they weren't. Not entirely.

What if they were all merely a product of their circumstances, men driven to doing terrible things in order to survive? Granted, not all of them were good or even remotely decent people, but then again, not all the men in London wearing their fine suits and speaking in their cultured accents were entirely virtuous either. Clearly good breeding did not guarantee a favourable character.

Abigail walked to the edge of the ship and stared at the shrouded form bobbing in the swirling water below. From across an ocean, it was hard to know what the New World was. All she knew were the stories she'd been told of monsters and the valiant men sworn to slay them. But now that she'd nearly traversed the ocean that separated New World from old, she feared that the stories she'd heard may have clouded the truth more than clarified it. It was not all as black and white as she'd been led to believe. It would seem that these pirates were also men: sons, brothers and fathers. They were flesh and blood and they, too, could feel, they too battled their own demons - an empire, a navy, a king, the misdeeds of their pasts. Her father.

She'd left so much behind on the voyage from London to Charles Town. She'd said goodbye to her youth, to her innocence and naiveté. And yet so much still lay ahead, a future and harder truths. She needed to face them honestly, bravely. She needed to face it as her father's daughter and she believed that in order to do that, she had to tell these people that which she'd kept from them. They'd been good to her and they deserved to know the truth.

Turning, she noticed that Captain Flint and Mrs Hamilton were no longer standing behind her. They must have gone back to the Captain's quarters. Lost in thought, she was close to her destination, when she barrelled directly into something lean and hard. Immediately, large hands reached for her, steadying her on her feet.

Looking up, Abigail was shocked to see Billy. He was so tall, his size nearly dwarfing her, making her feel tiny in comparison.

"Miss Ashe," he said, staring down at her before snatching his hands away from her shoulders and taking a step back.

"Mr Billy," she replied instinctively, and then cringed. Her face felt warm. "I apologise. I do not know your last name."

He smiled, his lips parting to reveal straight, perfectly white teeth. "That's alright. Just Billy is fine."

Abigail felt strangely nervous, wracking her mind for something to say. In the end, she verbalised the first thought that registered. "I'm sorry about what happened to you, as a child." The light in his eyes dimmed and the smile faded from his lips. "Captain Flint told me last night," she finished inanely, wanting to kick herself for being so indiscreet.

"It happened a long time ago," he said, looking beyond her and out onto the ship's deck. "I don't think about it anymore."

She studied him for a moment. "Somehow I doubt that," Abigail said softly, her heart jolting when his eyes settled upon hers. They softened marginally and she detected a hint of vulnerability.

Self-consciously her eyes dropped from his and settled on the multiple strands of beads resting against the strong column of his neck. His shirt, a faded green, was parted quite low, revealing a curious amount of skin. Before her current ordeal, she'd never seen men so indecently clothed. Though in all honesty, it wasn't until very recently that she could recall being fascinated by it at all.

"You must be eager to see your father again. To reach home."

Abigail nodded. "I am. Though I admit to feeling a surprising sadness too. Not all of this journey has been as I expected," she confessed, thinking about their encounter the previous evening.

Perhaps he'd guessed her meaning. Silence greeted her words and she blushed, wondering what he must think of her.

"Billy-"

"Miss Ashe-"

They spoke simultaneously, just as Mrs Hamilton poked her head out of the door to Captain Flint's inner sanctum. "Oh, there you are. I was just about to come looking." She eyed them both speculatively.

Abigail smiled at Billy hesitatingly, disappointed to see that his guard was back in place. Now she'd never know what he was about to say.

"Excuse me," he said, nodding at Mrs Hamilton before brushing past her and heading back outside.

Placing a hand over her stomach to still the unexpected flutter of butterflies, she walked towards the older woman, remembering what needed to be done.

"I've told you that my father is a reasonable man and that is true about most things. At one point he was even reasonable about the issue of quelling piracy until I received a letter from him years ago in which he recounted to me the story of a ship headed for Charles Town, attacked by pirates. The ship which was attacked was named the Maria Aleyne. The ship was set upon by Captain Flint and his men. And in the midst of the bloody assault, there was one particular victim, a very important man travelling under an assumed name. His name was Alfred Hamilton. Given the lengths to which this man had gone to protect himself, the fact that he fell under Captain Flint's sword… suggested he'd been hunted, pursued and then executed in cold blood and with great malice aforethought. The motive unclear, but the intent apparently dark and awful, monstrous. He said the act was completely incompatible with civilized society. That he would dedicate his life to eradicating it and that there would be law in the Americas the day Captain Flint swung over Charles Town. I appreciate what you've done for me. I respect what you hope to accomplish, so I ask you, when you return me to Charles Town, turn around and sail away."

Abigail warned Captain Flint about what she suspected might happen to him should he set foot in Charles Town, but he'd chosen to forge ahead with his original plan instead and meet with her father. Dread settled in her belly as she sat inside the small boat as it moved steadily towards shore. Despite everything that had happened to her, she was alive and she was safe. She owed that to the man sitting in the boat beside her and by extension, the men who followed his captaincy. She did not want to see them dead. She'd witnessed more than enough bloodshed to last her a lifetime.

Her skin prickling, Abigail glanced back at the ship, catching sight of Billy as he stood apart from the others, watching them leave. Their eyes met and held, breathing becoming a little harder as a consequence. His eyes bore into hers, those blue orbs searching for what, she did not know. She couldn't help wondering if circumstances had been different, if they might have gotten to know one another. Now, en-route to her father and the life she'd left behind, she suddenly wished that they had, for surely their paths would never cross again. Soon he'd set sail once more, the ocean carrying him so far away that she might eventually begin to wonder if he'd been real at all, or merely a figment of her imagination.

The knowledge made her heart feel heavy, irrational tears prickling at the back of her eyelids. It was silly. Ordinarily, he was not the type of man she would ever associate with. They were miles apart in terms of rank, circumstance and life experience. She didn't know him at all. And yet, for an unforgettable moment across a wooden table in the bowels of a pirate ship, she'd wanted to.

Abigail tore her gaze from his and turned her head, looking towards the harbour. She might never see Billy again, but she could do her best to ensure that he, his Captain and their crew left Charles Town alive.

Determined, she took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She couldn't shake the feeling that the worst was yet to come.

a/n: I watched the latest episode of Black Sails and for the first time felt a connection towards Abigail Ashe. Loved her scene with Billy.