Chapter Four

Madi drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, folding into herself. "I told you of my father's last words to me, but I've never told you of our last true conversation." Silver's expression turned confused. "This was while you were convalescing, following Fremah's treatment. It was late. After I had sat with you to ensure your recovery and you finally let yourself rest deeply, I went to visit my father."

"From sickbed to sickbed," Silver recalled, wondering what she meant to share.

She smiled sadly. "Yes. A long night. I remained awake for many hours with thoughts of these new men in my life: you, Flint, even my father."

Silver's brow furrowed. "What did your father say to you that night?"

Madi took several long breaths to steady her heavy heart when talking of the father she barely knew in the flesh, even if he'd left his stamp on her in so many other ways.

"I was having second thoughts after what you'd revealed of your and Flint's relationship. He pressed me to carry on for the benefit of our people and what he had worked so hard to secure for us. But he warned me of the need to manage you and Flint and to make sure that you never saw our people as enemies. He said to guide your focus toward the true villain in England and Woodes Rogers; never give cause for either you or Flint to separate your interests from mine or all would be lost."

It did not take much more explanation for Silver's resentment to begin to stir. His doubt. "So when you ordered your man to keep quiet about Dobbs, it wasn't just about fighting your own instincts in the name of holding our alliance together—"

"It was also about suppressing resentment toward my people so that you would not be forced to see us as an enemy."

Until now, he'd mostly viewed that time together as a symbol of when they'd started to become true partners, both in their alliance and to each other. To hear that it meant something different than what he'd been led to believe left him confounded.

"My father understood the power of narrative. It's why he sent so many books to me in his absence. He wanted me to know the minds of victors so I could best defeat them when the time came. I could not let the narrative of our war be turned against my people. And like you, I am not sorry for my actions to prevent that."

Madi forced herself to take in Silver's strained expression, his body gone impossibly still as he turned her words over in his mind. Finally he blinked and turned towards her. "Did you—"

"This is not why I became close to you." She sighed. "It had already begun. I did not fetch Fremah and stay with you throughout your treatment and recovery because of words I had yet to hear. Yet I don't deny that it was one of my excuses. It allowed me to give myself permission to seek you out and long for your company. It became a convenient justification for why I chose to avoid a violent outcome after I saw what had been done to one who I loved and had sworn to protect. My choices could not be construed as preferring this charming stranger, this pirate because of the way I felt when he looked at me. Instead, I could tell myself that, no, I was keeping in your good esteem so as not to stoke resentment."

"I see," Silver said. A knot had formed in the pit of his stomach, a new tightness in his heart. God, all that time he'd thought…

"Did I not do this to secure the essence of what we both wanted in our alliance? Was my fondness for you less genuine, my intentions too conflicted because it served this dual purpose?" A wry grin pulled at Silver's lips as he realized the significance of her admission. She matched his mirth at recognizing that understanding. "It took me much longer to make the connection than for you just now."

"I wondered how it was that your father didn't warn you away from me, even from his sickbed. With Flint, I understand strategically the endorsement. But me?" he laughed lightly. "I did not know your father well, but I cannot imagine he'd want me anywhere near his daughter. Hell, I took his job aboard Flint's ship; drew Eleanor Gutherie further into Flint's machinations against your father's best judgment."

He bent his good leg and rested his arm against it, a more casual stance than he felt at the moment. "If your intent was as your father dictated to keep Flint and I of the same mind, even partially, I'm afraid I'd have to mark you quite poorly on execution." Silver said, turning his face aside against the wind. "As you've admitted yourself, I do not recall a time in those days that you were not warning me about Flint, concerned for me after the things I revealed to you. No, you tolerated him for me and for the ends of it; anything else you would have none of."

"It's quite simple, really. The more my love for you grew, and the more I saw and heard of Flint's pull on you, the more I feared I'd lose you to it. I feared I could not be a strong enough tether." She shook her head. "Flint was yours first, but it took only a short time before I knew I wanted to be your everything."

Silver coughed out a laugh. "Now on that execution, I'd mark you as damn near perfect." He implored her to look at him with that intense gaze of his, but then offered her a warm smile.

Madi bit her lip again, this time fighting a grin of her own, letting the moment linger between them. The memory of that simple love pleased her. No one could convince either that these recollections of their past passion and regard were anything but utterly sincere.

She bowed her head and sighed. "I told my mother and anyone else who'd question our relationship that I kept you close because you were more useful to me as an ally. I said this even as my mind wandered to you or my eyes sought you out hoping for a moment of your attention."

Silver nodded, well aware of what that pull felt like as he'd experienced it many times for her in those months.

"And I told myself that your regard proved the success of my efforts to heed my father's warnings." She turned to him, seeing that he already watched her as she spoke. "But the truth of it is that I truly saw who you were, even after being told of your reputation from the tales my men heard while on your ship. And it was this trust, not what my father or anyone else said, that guided my support for you to my mother and our people."

"I hope she's warmed to me since then."

"She has," Madi replied. "You mourned and honored me with her, even though you also confirmed what she'd suspected between us and of which she disapproved." She turned to him, "You never told her that you trusted me with the knowledge of the cache before we set sail for Nassau."

"No. I guess it just never came up," he mused.

"She knew." Madi hesitated, swallowing hard before continuing. "Kofi told her."

"Did he?" Silver asked, surprised.

"He warmed to you too." Madi smiled sadly thinking of her lost friend. "I had not expected the disclosure, nor did I require such a thing from you to secure my loyalty. But I finally admitted to myself then that a life with you on the other side of our war could be possible. That this unexpected love could make it so."

Something warm, yet bittersweet settled inside Silver at hearing that. It made their current circumstance feel even more like a crossroads.

"While you withheld much from me during our time on Nassau, you did not lie to me. That I would never forgive." Those words she said while looking directly into his eyes, earnestness and warning both openly revealed to him.

"I would not," he replied carefully lest she see something in his words to counter the truth of it. "I have used my way with words to survive and manipulate and turn things towards my favor. That weapon I would not use on you. I do not deserve your love if I needed to." He stretched his leg out again. "As close as Flint and I were, he never did understand that about us. For all his brilliance and intuition, he could not conceive of a draw more powerful than the motivations he chose to frame for me. He thinks I'll regret my choices, but I cannot conceive of a scenario where a life with you is not exactly how I'm most fated to spend my days. And if one day I find myself back at sea, it won't be out of dissatisfaction for that. I am most sure of my mind on this."

Madi stared at him as Silver moved his gaze back toward the sea. There is so much about his life that he had not shared with her, although he'd told her more than possibly anyone else before. She'd brushed off any inclination to assign importance to this knowledge. But despite his insistence that his past did not matter, sometimes she felt as if it would make him feel better to be known.

Yesterday as her resolve crumbled and she'd resigned herself to this conversation with John. She recalled one sunrise, shortly before their campaign on Nassau, when neither could sleep and they both stood on the deck of the Walrus watching the quiet goings on of the crew at dawn. They'd spoken nothing of consequence, just easy conversation about this or that. At one point, he'd said to her, 'you have to know when to hold onto things;' said it in as offhand a manner as if he'd commented on the moon's brightness or the sparseness of the crew. But he'd briefly taken her hand, squeezed, and then went back to his common commentary of the day. He'd been smiling to himself as he'd let that thought linger between them.

His words had become a mantra to feed her determination: You have to know when to hold onto things.

Of all her talk of signs and fates and causes, how many times had this message been delivered to her? How many times had she ignored it in favor of the greater cause of freedom for her people? Her mother had spoken of it and then stood strong as her greatest fear came to pass: violence on her doorstep and her only child in chains. It resonated in every physical and emotional comfort her mother gave her now. Ruth had spoken of it and then watched yet another home burn before giving way to a freedom she never thought possible, and would probably never truly trust. Eleanor had spoken of it, her last words to Madi before she was murdered. Bleeding and defiant, until the end she failed to believe her beloved husband could be the instigator of something so foreign to her hopes and desires for their life together. Even Woodes Rogers spoke of it, although his words were proof that this ideal could be weaponized in the cruelest of ways.

And John. A man who seemed not to have held onto much of anything in his life, had held tight to her. Vowed in a sense never to let her go.

No, it had not been for Silver alone to decide the fates of so many. And perhaps the crown was too heavy a burden for her or her parents to bear solely. Maybe their lives were meant for something in between; something that allowed them to hold each other dear and change the world as one mighty force.

Silver watched Madi sat next to him, eyes adrift, the breeze tossing her hair about. Every part of him yearned to hold her. His heart dared to hope that their conversation meant that he would be able to do so again soon, even if not today. His thoughts raced with imagining that her current and future desires lead to him. Yet his years living in a world that he knew to be more cruel than kind braced him for the sting of disappointment and the preparation for his forever in her orbit, no matter how long it took for her to welcome it.

Madi reached over for Silver's hand and held it firmly. Something resembling a strangled gasp from her lover whispered against her ear. Yet he wasted no time intertwining their fingers as if he intended to meld them into one.

"I would have proudly sacrificed myself in our war to secure a better life for my people. And for yours, because I know that was important to you, too. To the end of my days, I will believe in what we hoped to accomplish."

Focusing on her words, Silver tried not to squeeze her hand too tightly, fear of her pulling away from him rising up in his chest. He brushed her bare fingers, the ones that used to bear the rings he'd chosen for her, had slid on himself the night before that final voyage to Nassau began. It was so she could look like a 'proper pirate,' he'd told her at the time, though they both knew it for what it was. A promise. Rogers men must have taken them from her. Civilized? Time and again they proved more the barbarian than any of them.

He vowed that, if given the chance, he'd replace them. Only next time, time he'd declare his promises to her plainly and to the world.

A pause before she found her voice once more. "I will also remember that I did not plan to die in such a noble manner," she said, smiling sadly. "I planned for victory and the spoils that allowed a true life for all those under my care and others like us that we could help. I planned to do so with you by my side."

At that, Silver did squeeze her hand in his and covered their joined fingers with his other hand at the idea of such a premonition. Funny. When Flint had said this, Silver had thought it another of his manipulations. He'd never intended to rule beside Madi, content to watch her rule as she saw fit. Yet when she said such things to him now, it stirred a deep ambition and anticipation of what that they could accomplish together.

"The war has gone away, John. Many things have changed for both of us. I am still here. We are. We were always enough."

John's cascade of relief seemed tangible both to him and the woman beside him. He closed his eyes, brought their joined hands to his lips and held them there.

"Please, say it again, my love."

He heard her movement, felt the warmth of her closer to him. When he opened his eyes, he caught the descent of her head to his shoulder as she curled into his side. It felt like yesterday and tomorrow and forever.

"You are enough for me, John Silver," she murmured. "And I would like to meet our sons and daughters as well."

John kissed her fingers again and returned them to his lap. He released one of his hands, and moved his arm to embrace her fully, fearing the fragility of their connection, and the desire to fortify it in steel and gold and all the love of which he was capable.

They sat there silent and content, knowing that this symbolized only the first step in a long journey of rediscovery. They would need to learn how to love in this new world Silver had ushered in, and not the easy pure love of their courtship, but the complex intricate love of true partners. The sun grew lower and lower in the sky, the wind gusted, the waves thundered, yet they did not release one another.

In those long moments together, they accepted that they would not return to this spot for some time, this gateway to Nassau that held so many memories of what could have been.

Finally, Silver kissed her softly on the crown of her head resting against his shoulder, and he began the process of slowing rising to his feet. Madi followed fixing her skirts and pulling her shawl more tightly around her. With one last look, Silver followed Madi down the hill, to their home.

They had a life to build and their future awaited them.

End