Archive of Our Own ^beta

... A world that we survived. A world that is no more… Until all that remains of any of it are stories bearing only a passing resemblance to the world the rest of us lived in.

*

After Flint’s exile, she doesn’t hear anything from Silver for a year. At first, she wonders what is becoming of him. And then, he becomes an afterthought. She has too much to do; too many things to attend to. Jack’s incompetence in matters of management has not disappeared since the last time they were in possession of enough money to make Nassau stable; only this time, instead of wasting money, he insists on not being discreet enough about wearing the black. Anne doesn’t reign him in.

The Guthries exhaust her on a daily basis. Despite their remoteness, she receives almost weekly correspondence; some letters arrive before she has had time to send the answer to the ones before them.

But those are all minor inconveniences, she knows; they disappear when she wakes up in the morning to realize, day after day, that all she sees is of her making, of her not repeating Eleanor’s mistakes.

She thinks a lot about Eleanor.

*

Eme had gone to Maroon Island after the end of the war, but, eventually, she comes back to Nassau.  She asks Max if there is a place at her service, and Max makes one. It’s Eme who brings her the first letter after a while.

(it’s been a year)

“From Long John Silver, Ms. Max.”

It’s a name heard often enough around Nassau that Max hasn’t had time to forget about it; but it always sounds different uttered in the mouth of drunk sailors, like it’s not someone she’s known. She’s never taken to the sobriquet. She thinks of John and remembers being angry at him, more often than not, and also scared, sometimes, but she also remembers they let each other live, and it’s not something Long John Silver is famed for doing. It’s hard to reconcile both thoughts, so she often doesn’t try to. She lets the legend be the legend, and lets her own memories inform her judgement.

Silver, like her, hasn’t grown up with a pen in his hand, though he’s clearly learned enough to be intelligible over time. Dots of ink pierce the paper in places.

Dear Max,

I hope you are well. I am to be married in two weeks time. It would be my pleasure if you could attend the ceremony, which will be held on our island. Arrangements can be easily made for you to be brought here, if you would so please.

JS

She had assumed he and Madi were already married. Apparently, they’re not. Anne mocks her for going. But she knows John is short both on friends and family. She shouldn’t feel indebted to him for sparing her life, during the war for Nassau; but she does.

Jack tells her to wish them happiness on his behalf. As far as she can tell, the more time passes, the more guilt he feels at having conspired with Silver to betray Flint. He wonders on which side of history he’ll be remembered, now that he’s survived Vane, Teach, and Flint.

She knows he realizes his name died with theirs, and nothing he’ll ever do again will make him shine as bright as he did when he was their second.

*

John,

Please find enclosed the money we agreed upon, as a gift for your wedding. I am sorry my presence upset your wife in any way.

You should have thought twice about inviting a whore to your wedding.

Max

*

Max,

Thank you for the money. I should have told Madi about our story beforehand, it was my mistake. Our relations were tense this past year. You’re welcome on the island whenever you wish,

Please let me know if you hear word from Savannah.

Yours,

JS

No word comes from Savannah, and she doesn’t want to ask for some. Whenever she thinks of Savannah, she pictures herself holding a tempest inside a jar; and she wonders how long she can do that, how long before she hears word that Captain Flint has burned the plantation to the ground and is on his way to Nassau to make her pay for conspiring to take his war (and freedom) away from him.

But no words come, and she doesn’t ask for some. She could, to help John move on. To help him find peace. She could also tell him lies; or just tell him stories about Flint’s fate. But ignorance suits her and she couldn’t fool John with stories of her own; not when he was the craftsman behind all the stories which had decided Nassau’s fate.

*

Max,

Have you heard any word from Oglethorpe’s plantation in Savannah, or from your sources in Port Royal, regarding Capt. Flint’s xxx?

JS

She doesn’t answer that one, hoping silence might somehow put the matter to rest. She doesn’t know what the scratched last word was supposed to be. Fate? Well-being? It’s too scratched.

*

John,

Word has come to me – though it was through questionable sources – that Billy Bones was found marooned on Skull Island by a crew eager to excavate Flint’s treasure. But Jack said he saw Billy die. Do you know of any of this? To what extend should I fear for my safety – and Nassau’s?

Max

She gives the letter to Eme with orders to go to Maroon island right now; and suddenly the room is empty, save for Mary’s figure, sprawled on the bed half-asleep.

“You look worried.” She tells Max.

They’ve never told her much, the three of them. Mary knows they knew legendary people intimately – no one would ever be able to stop Jack from bragging when bragging can be made. But she cannot know how many threads in the war for Nassau connect back to the intimacy of their lives, to words only they heard, and fears only they felt. Max and the Ranger crew.

“You weren’t sent to hurt us, were you?” Max asks.

Mary laughs. The idea is preposterous, but this scares Max. This is about a ghost coming out of the grave with the capacity not only to haunt them but to kill them. She hires extra guards and tries to force Anne and Jack to forego any expedition for the moment.

“If the rumours are true, Max, he will see soon enough that the war has long been over. There is nothing he can do.”

“He can seek revenge, Jack.” She almost yells at him, a day after having sent her letter to John.

“Let him come.”

“You’re stupid.”

She hears Anne and Mary shrug behind her, a form of laughter. Maybe they’re right, and she shouldn’t worry that much. But she’s reached her place on Nassau’s throne not by being right, but by being cautious.

*

He doesn’t come for her, or for Nassau, or for John and Madi. He goes for Flint. But they will all learn about that years from now.

*

Max,

Rumour has it you are with child. I couldn’t refrain my curiosity; how true is that? If true, I wish you rest and health.

I am thinking of captaining my own ship, and wondered if we could make an arrangement the likes of which you have already applied to Rackham – or so I’ve heard. If you’d allow me, I can come to Nassau to have this conversation. If else, you are most welcome in my house.

Yours,

John

*

It’s bullshit.

You can come to Nassau with Eme. You’ll find the island changed enough; and its inhabitants with shorter memories than you might have presumed. I do not wish to incur your wife’s misplaced displeasure at my presence in your house.

Yours,

Max

*

She hadn’t seen him in three years, and only heard directly from him through the two letters he had sent to ask her about Flint. He had never answered her missive about Billy Bones. But despite Eme’s comings and goings from Maroon Island, she hadn’t been told about his leg.

It stands much shorter than it used to – it has disappeared almost all the way up to his hip. She stares a bit too long, and his face cynically creases.

“It’s been a while.” He says.

*

Jack’s ship should have been back a week ago, when she hears word of the capture. She tries everything she can, but it’s too late, and for the first time since she’s been in charge of this island, she remembers what powerlessness feels like.

*

Max,

Is Jack truly dead?

*

Yes.

*

Anne is on the corner of their bed. Without Jack (without Mary), it looks too big, too empty. Anne is not crying. Max has known hardships; God knows she has. But loosing those people still tears at her soul in ways she’s never felt before.

She was never scared, when Anne, Jack, and Mary left to go at sea. She could watch the horizon fearlessly – they had survived Flint and Rogers, what could happen, now?

She should have been more scared. Maybe she could have changed it – this. She wishes she’d told Jack goodbye. She feels mad at Anne for not having said goodbye; for having said the words she said instead. And she feels mad she’s lost Mary. Though she never loved her the way Anne loved her, she was part of all of this, too. Anne had brought her to their bed, and Jack had shrugged, and Max had smiled, and it was them. It wasn’t supposed to end at the end of a noose.

Not for a man like Jack.

*

One day, she realizes it’s been ten years. Ten years of Nassau being hers. It’s not going to last much longer now. Rogers is back, except he’s learned more, accumulated more wealth, made more friends.

Anne sneers every time she hears his name, and tells Max that it’s about time anyway that they leave this fucking island. It’s taken too many parts of them – and time makes it seem like everything it has given them in exchange was never going to be enough to make things even.

*

John discharges his ship’s cargo at night. They rarely talk now, but she has something to say this time. She walks the length of the beach, with only the dim lights of the ship mirroring on the waves to guide her. The sailors unloading on the beach recognize her, almost bow, and she tells them to take her on board.

They’ve been the rulers of this world for ten years, but it’s always a peculiar feeling to walk to a Captain’s cabin as if it was her birthright. John is reading, but stands when she enters. She closes the door and walks to the chair on the other side of his desk.

“Thomas Hamilton is dead.” She doesn’t bother sliding to him the note which had informed her of that fact. “Quietly, in his sleep. Mr. Oglethorpe wishes to know what he is to do with Flint, now.”

John’s eyes evade hers, and he stands up, abandoning his book, to go sit near the window, his crutch thumping three times on the wooden floor.

After a while, she asks him:

“What do you suggest?”

“I wish him out of that place.” He says. “But I’m afraid he’ll kill me the second he gets out.”

They’ve had this conversation twice over the last ten years. The first time Madi was there, and it was ugly. Part of the reason she hated Max – beside her first impression that her and John had been former lovers – was because she had learned that day that Max had also conspired to have Flint disappear, away from them and deprived of his freedom. They all saw the necessity, because they all knew Flint’s capacity for destruction – because Madi had seen less, she understood little.

Max quietly breathes in. She’s thought about this. A lot.

“He’ll never hurt you. Nor Madi.” She says.

“I put him in a -.”

She doesn’t want to have this conversation again, and cuts it short.

“I know what we did. But if he’d wanted out, he’d have gotten out. He never did. He’s not going to hurt you if we let him out.” You were his friend, she almost says, but she doesn’t want to reiterate the last time she’s alluded to Flint and Silver’s relationship in terms of emotions.

“Are you arguing in favour of letting him out?”

It’s a radical change from what she’s been saying for the last ten years – but, yes, she is.

“Rogers will take Nassau from the Guthries soon enough. No wars, no blood. Just money. I’ve already made arrangements for Anne and myself to quietly disappear before push comes to shove and she might be found again. I suggest you do the same. And I see no reason not to let Flint go, too. Now that his lover is dead...”

She trails off, unsure of what she truly wants to say. But there’s something unspoken about this change of circumstances – time has changed so many things, and they both resent Flint so little, now that all is gone. In a sea of unspeakable things, it seems almost unbearably cruel to keep Flint chained to a place where the man he abandoned the war for is no longer.

“Am I also supposed to make arrangements to leave?”

“I’m afraid that was also one of the reason I came to talk to you. I believe Rogers will turn his eyes to your wife’s island as soon as he feels he has secured Nassau. I urge you to find some place else for them. I can assist, of course.”

She sees many emotions cross his features; before settling on anger.

“Why are we not fighting this?”

But she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. They’ve stopped the war; they cannot start it again.

*

She stops paying Oglethorpe for Flint’s pension. In the beginning, she wonders if he’s not going to come and request the war they’ve taken away from him, but soon enough she hears news of a man resembling the legendary Captain Flint drinking himself to death in Savannah, every night of the week.

She doesn’t tell that fact to John when she sends him her last letter from Nassau, and gives him the address of where she’ll be in the Spanish colonies.

*

I’ll be in Bristol. My address there is enclosed to this note.

Though the voyage is longer, you are still welcome at my house. Madi wishes you well. Give A. my best.

Take good care, dear Max.

Yours,

John

*

For years, she doesn’t hear from John Silver. Rumour tells her a man closely resembling Billy Bones – or so people think they remember – claims to be in possession of Captain Flint’s map. She doesn’t believe a word of it, until Anne tells her that she’s heard the same from a man who knew Billy, and is positive it is a real claim.

Why Flint would have given Billy the map, she doesn’t know. She’s afraid John will hear of it, and immediately assume that this was Flint’s revenge for what John had done to him.

Well, maybe it was.

But maybe it was Flint unburdening them all of the never-ending obsession they had with the cache – knowing it was somewhere, knowing it was no tale, and yet never trying to reclaim it. Or maybe getting them rid of Billy Bones. They’ll probably never know.

*

She had assumed it would end with Rogers restoring full and unchallenged British rule over Nassau. But he has done so, and still she feels like she lives in the past. Her and Anne can wake up in a new bed, make love in new sheets, under the light of a new window, and still she feels like she belongs to another place, another time.

But one day Anne comes back home, and, upon closing the door, quietly tells Max:

“Flint’s dead, I hear.”