Sorry for the delay of updates. My computer screwed up and I lost, like, the half of the chapter that I had already written and it took me forever to try and remember what I wrote. But, thankfully, I got it back (writer's block, begone with thyself!) and I am working on my (also lost) chapter of A Twist in Time. So be looking for an update on that one soon, as well. Like I said in said other story, I will catch up with my shoutouts at a later time. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4

The next two weeks consisted of Erik treating me as if I were glass. I never thought I would be treated like this, least of all by him. I couldn't understand why he was so gentle with me. He knew I was tougher than most and I could handle myself, but I wasn't complaining by any means.

My hands had been healing nicely. I knew I would have scars, but it didn't matter. The only one who would see them would be Erik, and I knew he would never judge me for them. He would never be that cruel, especially after the world was so cruel to him while he was in the gypsy camp. It seemed like he made a life for himself after he got out of there. I was dying to ask him what all had happened in his life after he left, but a haunted look that constantly remained in his eyes made me refrain. Perhaps life wasn't as kind to him as I had thought...

One night, after dinner, he led me to the living room and sat me down on one of the couches. He then went over to a shelf and opened a case, pulling out the most exquisite violin I had ever seen. One of the men at the camp would play an old raggedy one around the campfire at night. I only got to see glimpses of it since I was never allowed to sit at the fire, but the sound was beautiful.

"Where on earth did you find such a beautiful instrument?" I asked him.

He smirked and said nothing, his only reply being the opening notes of a very familiar tune. One I hadn't heard in a very long while. He played the melody twice before I began to sing for the first time since I left the gypsy camp.

"Yo, ho, haul together,

hoist the colors high,

Heave ho,

thieves and beggars,

never shall we die!

The king and his men,

stole the queen from her bed,

and bound her in her Bones,

The seas be ours,

and by the powers,

where we will we'll roam!

Yo, ho, haul together,

hoist the colors high,

Heave ho, thieves and beggars,

never shall we die!

Some men have died,

and some are alive,

and others sail on the sea,

– with the keys to the cage,

and the Devil to pay,

we lay to Fiddler's Green!

The bell has been raised,

from it's watery grave,

Do you hear it's sepulchral tone,

We are a call to all,

pay head the squall,

and turn your sail toward home!

Yo, ho, haul together,

hoist the colors high,

Heave ho, thieves and beggars,

never shall we die..."

Erik lowered the violin, setting it down on the couch beside me and kneeling before me. "I never would have thought that you would remember that song." he said quietly.

I shrugged. "It was the only thing of you I had left after you..."

He sighed and hung his head. "Amirah, I planned on getting you out of there somehow, someway, way before now. But with the way that I was - am," He gestured to his face. "I knew there was no way I could support both of us. I came back as soon as I possibly could after I escaped to see what I could do, to see if there was even the slightest possibility I could get you out. But I couldn't get you out of there safely. I am so sorry it took so long for me to finally save you from that place!" He exclaimed as he embraced me tightly.

I hugged him just as tightly. "I knew there would be a good reason for you not to come back for me. I never held it against you, though. True, it was very lonely, but I knew I would always have you with me in some form. That form just happened to be that song."

"I remember when we used to sing it to each other when one of us would have a nightmare. How is it that such a song would be so calming?" He asked.

"I don't know." I replied. "Where did we even learn that song, anyways? It's been so long...all I can remember is us singing it to each other."

"The man that would play at the campfire. He would always sing it. We learned it from him, I believe."

I nodded. That would make a lot of sense. Our rooms - I say rooms, I mean cages - were right beside where the camp would always make the fire: right in the heart of the camp.

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if we had lived normal lives, never being with the gypsies. Would we be as we are now or would we somehow be different? Would Erik and I have ever met? I knew I would never find the answers to my questions, but even then, I still couldn't help but wonder...would we be as broken as we are now, with only us to help heal one another? Would it always be this way: just the two of us?

Something told me that, somehow, my last question would have a deeper meaning than the others, and I wasn't really ready to find out...

The song in this chapter is Hoist the Colors from "Pirates of the Caribbean", written by Hans Zimmer. God bless that man...as well as James Newton Howard...and, while I'm on a roll, Lin-Manuel Miranda! How many of you have heard of Hamilton? O...M...G...addiction city! Anyways, better sign off. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review!