Chapter Text
Light starts to filter through, casting a pink hue to the darkness; Izzy's eyes flutter open.
Above him is an expanse of dawn-drenched color. Burly, mountainous clouds move slowly across the sky, round and thick as cotton wool. If he reaches his hand out, he thinks, he could touch it, and he wonders: would it be soft? Izzy recalls soft, held, as he watches his own fingers try to brush against the blanket above him.
His arm is heavy and drops back to his side before he can reach his goal. But he remembers to breathe, and the muffled noises around him start to clarify.
That clarification sharpens, brightens nearly beyond his imagination. A sudden wave of exhaustion overtakes him. He closes his eyes and sinks into the warmth of it.
Jim wakes to a riotous sky. Oranges and reds, rays of yellow light around towering clouds and swaths of deep blue behind them cross their field of vision, and it takes a moment for them to understand what they're seeing.
There is a cacophony on deck, and they can't hear it for the ringing in their ears. Under their back, they feel the ship rock slightly, as though coming to a slow, eventual rest; it takes another moment for their mind to catch up and remind them of what's just happened.
They sit up, take inventory of themself. Wet but not nearly as soaked as they should have been, not too cold. Aching from where they had been thrown to the deck as the ship had passed through that last mountain of a wave. Not as bad as they thought they'd feel. Around them, the sea is as still as it's ever been. The sunlight breaks through the storm behind them, and glitters across the water. The sky before them grows more and more clear the further out they look.
Those who'd stayed below are coming up now. Jim hears yelling but can't place it to them. They're not sure where, exactly, the screams are coming from. Archie darts out into the sun first, then Olu, though neither come towards Jim.
The rest of the crew, the handful of them who had stayed above deck to steer through the storm, look to be accounted for. Buttons is coming down from the bowsprit, Auntie untangling herself from her safety line on the mizzenmast, Fang running to Ivan—
Fang, running to Ivan. Ivan, rolling onto his side on the deck and spitting out sea water. A different man, with muddy blond hair sticking to his scalp, muzzily getting onto his hands and knees, as Archie drops to his side.
The sound of their own blood pumping through their veins starts to overtake the ringing in their ears. Jim tries to breathe, and looks, and looks, and looks—
Ed is stumbling away from the helm. He walks in a daze, down from the quarter to the main. Drugged, hypnotized, cursed, Jim isn't sure which, but he moves with a single-minded purpose towards a fixed point in space, and it's enough for Jim to track. They roll onto their knees, stumble to their feet.
Izzy.
His hand is dropping to his side, as though he'd raised it himself moments earlier. He must have, Jim thinks, briefly, blink-and-you-miss it. Maybe Ed had seen it; maybe Frenchie had, as he scrambles and scuffles over to Izzy as well.
Now, though, Izzy lays so still on the deck, and Jim thinks he looks exactly as he'd want to: his golden limb strapped on properly, his cravat tied perfectly under his collar, his ring set squarely just above the knot and glinting in the new day's light. His saber is in its sheath, seated perfectly at his side and tied onto his thigh. It takes a moment for Jim to see the rise and fall of Izzy's chest, and when they do, they let out a breath of their own that they hadn't realized they'd been holding.
Before Jim can make it to Izzy, Ed is there. He kneels down wordlessly and picks Izzy up; he ignores whatever it is Frenchie is trying to say, and carries Izzy below.
Jim moves to follow, darting after Frenchie, brushing past even Olu as he tries to speak to them.
In the space between wakefulness and sleep, in the strange crowded noise cluttering his mind, Izzy hears a voice. Frenchie—take his leg off, at least, can't be comfortable with all that wet leather—and it takes him a moment to register what's happening. There's a scent of rain, seawater, wet wood and something else he wants to chase. The feel of a body pressed against his, or his body pressed against another, before he's laid down on something hard and unforgiving.
Still. Whoever lays him down, lays him down gently. More gently than he'd expected. He misses their warmth.
In the galley, Frenchie fumbles with the cravat around Izzy's neck. His hands are still slick and cold from the storm, shaking slightly. There's red still pressed into his skin, the soft petals refusing to leave him as he tries to work. Ed's taking the prosthetic off, then the leather trousers until Izzy—back from the dead, impossible Izzy—is down to his smalls, laid out on a table just big enough to hold him.
Distantly, he hears Jim saying something to him. When he glances at them, all he can see is a mouth moving, all he can hear is the air around them.
Jim turns their eyes to Izzy. Frenchie, for a moment, can only stare back at them; whatever has captured their gaze isn't for him, not yet.
So he waits a moment, until the time feels right, or right enough, to look down at Izzy again. Tries to rub some warmth into one arm as Ed tries to do the same with the other. That's the thing, Frenchie thinks. No time to worry, only work; he focuses on what, who, is in front of him, and blocks everything else out of his mind.
Olu had expected more devastation, perhaps.
He hadn't expected three dead men back in the world of the living, or the panicked look in Frenchie's eyes as he'd passed by, or Jim barely noticing him on their way to wherever it was Ed was taking Izzy.
He looks around the deck for something to do. Archie is closest, whispering something to, of all people, Jack Rackham. Olu touches her shoulder gently. "Hey," he says.
"Oh," Archie says. She grins up at him. "Hiya. Wild night, eh?"
Olu nods at Jack. "You good with this guy?"
"Yeah, fine," Archie says. She punches Jack lightly on the shoulder, friendly and casual. "We went to snake cult together. I'll cut him if he gets out of hand."
Her voice is light and carefree, but Olu has known her just long enough to hear the edge of toughness in it. He leans down and kisses the crown of her head. "Yell if you need anything."
"Go find Zheng," Archie says. Olu can't argue, and does what he's told. Zheng is not far, and he moves to her.
"Not sure what's happening," Zheng says. She's shivering slightly; Olu wraps his arms around her.
"Need to get you lot warmed up," he says. "We'll figure it out later."
"Someone's gotta take the helm," Zheng says.
Olu glances behind him; the others have come out, eyeing the deck just as warily as they see Ivan and Fang. He's not sure if they'd seen Izzy yet. He thinks they must not have, if they're up here and not crowded below with Ed, Frenchie, and Jim.
He makes eye contact with Jackie and asks, "Could you—"
She's already heading to the helm, with the Swede by her side. "I got you," she says.
Olu breathes a sigh of relief. "Pete, Wee John—"
Wee John nods and says, "On it."
Stede is the last of them to emerge. Olu isn't sure where he was during the storm; he thinks he'd seen Stede dip into a corridor, but he'd lost track in the darkness and turmoil.
Stede looks as stunned as Olu feels in the moment. He swings his gaze between Archie and Jack, and Fang and Ivan, before settling on Olu with fear, hope, and confusion painted across his face. "Did I see...I couldn't have," Stede says. "Ed was carrying..."
Olu and Zheng share a glance. Turning to Stede, Olu asks, "Where can you help?"
"What?" Stede mumbles.
"Where can you help?" Olu repeats, sharper this time. He doesn't mean to be, but the anxiety radiating off Stede's body feels contagious, and Olu can't risk letting him, or anyone else, spiral. A job, something to do, some way to chip in might help the both of them. "Focus. Need all hands right now. Where can you help?"
Stede stands frozen on the spot.
When he'd walked out of the storage room, he hadn't expected to see what he'd seen in the galley. Izzy, trembling and twitching on the table as Roach checked him over, Ed, Frenchie, and Jim hovering nearby. His mind hadn't registered it at first, and it had taken the cleansing sunlight, and the sight of two more impossibilities on deck, for him to realize what he'd witnessed.
Now, he stares at Olu as though the captain were speaking another language.
It's Roach who saves him. Roach, who has come up on deck now, possibly trying to find either of the other captains—Frenchie, like Ed, had seemed lost in his own mind. Roach, who pushes past Stede, looks at Olu and Zheng, and says, "The captain's cabin has a fireplace. Move everyone there. It will be better than trying to get them into the kitchen in front of the stove."
"Yes," Stede murmurs. He thinks of Ed, whose sole regard was rubbing warmth into Izzy's stripped down, limp body, and Frenchie and Jim who had seemed focused on the same. None had bothered to get out of their own storm-soaked clothing. Stede wants nothing more than to go back to Ed and coax him away, warm him up himself.
But something triggers him to listen to what Olu, Zheng, and Roach are saying. He brings himself back to the present and says, "Yes. Not sure about the firewood situation, but I can empty and break down some crates to burn."
They look satisfied with his answer. Stede takes hold of that satisfaction, lets it move him. There's still a part of him screaming to stay by Ed's side, unwilling to think of any other course of action; he quiets that inner voice and gets to work instead.
Olu breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of Stede's retreat. None of this makes sense, and the last thing he needs is any crewmember catastrophizing over the strangeness of it. "Right," he says. "I'll stay on deck with the others. Roach, you need anything?"
Before Roach can answer, Buttons says, "Ahead of the storm, I'd taken the liberty to assemble a few things for you. Poultices and such."
"You knew this would happen?" Olu asks sharply.
Buttons eyes him shrewdly. "I did not. The sea merely asked me to prepare, and so I did."
"Gentlemen," Roach interrupts. "Could we focus? I have the dead come back to life and the living cold, wet, and at risk for fever."
Olu nods; Roach's tone is enough to snap him back to the reality of the situation. "Right. We can discuss who knew what and when later." Roach nods, Buttons dips his head in agreement. Taking a deep breath, Olu adds, "I'll be at the helm. Roach, take anything and anyone you need."
In the cabin, Stede tears a crate apart with his bare hands. He is heedless of the noise the wood makes as it splinters and cracks. The time spent finding the crate and hauling it up is lost to him, an empty, dark space in his memory.
In the periphery of his awareness, Stede knows that Zheng will soon have Izzy, Ivan, and Jack brought into the room. He creates fire as quickly as he can, thankful for his steady hands and single-minded focus; when the flames light the place up, he opens his auxiliary closet.
Not even two weeks ago, he'd stood in the same closet, staring at his fine silks and wools, slashed and torn but still on their hangers. He'd told himself then that he would keep them, just in case the scraps could be made useful in some other way. Now, he grabs a great pile of them and turns back to the cabin.
Auntie watches him from the door for a moment before coming in; she pushes past him, rests her hand briefly on his arm, squeezes him gently, and then pulls her own pile together. The fine bedchamber he'd had crafted for the ship is too far from the fireplace, and too small for the three men who need it. Stede lays down his armful of scrap and fashions some kind of nest out of it, as close to the fireplace as he dares.
There is warmth and softness again after the hard chill. Izzy smells soap, this time, floral and sweet. Familiar leather. His face is tickled by long, damp strands of hair.
But he also feels, strangely, the cold ocean waves lapping at his foot. He is somewhere, elsewhere, and nowhere. He hears voices coming from across the sea, fading, and he sinks, and he sinks, and he sinks until the sand buries him deep.
Ed eyes the soft piles of wool, silk and linen closest to the fire. Izzy feels lighter than he should feel in Ed's arms; he tries not to think of why. He tries not to think of why the pile of beautiful fabric in front of him is torn and cut through in places, either, and focuses on lowering Izzy gently down on the bed closest to the flames.
Someone is speaking to him; Frenchie again, he thinks. Ed pulls his boots off, shakes the last of the rain off his leathers, sits cross legged on the deck, and pulls Izzy, wrapped in vibrant silk and linen, into his arms.
It doesn't take long for Zheng to appear in the captain's cabin. Her instruction makes quick work of getting the returned men situated properly, covered in fresh dry cloth with their soaked clothes laid out on the table nearby. Stede watches Fang and Lucius with Ivan; Ivan, it seems, is mostly aware of his surroundings, giving one word answers whenever Fang asks him something, and able to lower himself down to the makeshift bedroll.
Jack takes a bit more work. Stede thinks Zheng might intervene, as she nervously glances at Archie, but Archie manages to manhandle Jack with not much more than a smile and a joke. Zheng visibly relaxes by the fire, her own clothes still dripping from the storm.
Roach comes in soon after, darting between his three patients with a level of calm precision that Stede's not sure he's ever seen in him. Certainly there had been no reason for Roach to have performed as a surgeon under Stede's captaincy. But it still shocks Stede to see it, for whatever reason.
Stede crosses the room, lets himself fade into the shadows of the passageway, and watches them work. Fang with Ivan, Archie with Jack, Jim hovering near them but eyeing Frenchie and Ed with Izzy. He looks away from Ed quickly; he can't keep his eyes there, for fear that his resolve might finally break, that he might rush to Ed's side, and—that he'd be in the way.
The Revenge carries them forward. His old clothes, destroyed in what he imagines was a fit of anger or despair, serve as good, soft, warm bedding. The crew he'd assembled—Roach, Frenchie, Lucius, Jim—work in tandem with Ed and Zheng's people, and Ed and Zheng themselves. Stede lets his fingers touch the smooth lacquered wood of the doorframe, and then leans heavily against it, as though he could make himself a part of the ship if he tries hard enough.
There's no place for him here. There's nothing left for him to do.
Impulsively, he allows himself to look at Ed. The firelight paints his skin a glowing gold, and leaves glitter in his eyes. Ed curls over Izzy, murmuring something Stede can't make out, something Stede might not have even noticed had he not seen the jump of the shadows across Ed's cheek and jaw. Under the blanket of damaged clothing, Izzy doesn't react. His left arm falls limp to the deck, loosened from Ed's grip. Frenchie, sitting cross legged on the other side of Izzy, reaches out to lace their fingers together.
There's a certain weight to the way Ed holds himself with Izzy. Stede isn't sure he'd ever seen it before. Maybe it hadn't been there. Maybe, he thinks, he simply hadn't been looking. And yet it's a familiar tableau; Ed curled small, as Izzy lays in his arms, an open desperation on his face half hidden by the shadows and the fall of his hair.
His own arms ache to hold Ed. Every muscle in Stede's body cries out to go to him, and his skin needs to feel Ed's skin. But Frenchie meets his eyes suddenly, and it's enough to startle Stede out of his reverie. Just long enough that Roach can move from Ivan's side towards the doorway, just long enough for Stede to hear Roach tell him, "Check in on everyone on deck, then join me in the galley," just long enough for Stede to nod and head out.
If he's not needed here, surely he can find someplace where he is.
Lucius focuses on his breathing.
He'd seen Pete head out onto the deck and take up work with Wee John—makes sense, he thinks, Pete's an actual fucking sailor regardless of all his bragging and bombast. And Lucius still isn't, not really, regardless of the months he'd spent on different ships trying to survive.
So he breathes, in and out, slowly. He'd helped Fang bring Ivan into the cabin, and now he waits for Roach to come by again, or Zheng, or anyone who has any idea of what's going on around them.
He tries not to think too hard about Jack Rackham a few feet away, or the chaos he'd brought to the lives on the Revenge that one day months ago. Thinking about Izzy—or thinking about Frenchie, or Ed—also feels too overwhelming, to the point that even looking in their direction makes it impossible to get air into his lungs.
Ivan, though. Ivan's a bit easier. Fang's friend, and Fang's quietly speaking to him, his smile watery and weak. Lucius can deal with this; knelt next to Fang, Lucius can put his arm around Fang's shoulders, squeeze him tight, and say, "I'll get you both some water, if you like."
Ivan looks at him gratefully. "Tea would do him good," he says. His voice sounds raspy, as though unused and foreign to him.
"C'mon man," Fang says with a slight whine. "I'm the one who's supposed to be taking care of you."
Ivan sighs and wraps his blanket more tightly around his shoulders. "'S'all right. Take care of each other, yeah?"
It's only a brief back and forth, but it's just long enough that Lucius starts to feel the cabin around him. The walls feel tight suddenly, and the atmosphere heavy and stifling. He swallows thickly.
Awkwardly quick, he kisses Fang's cheek. "I need to—I'll go get started on that tea, yeah?"
Ivan takes him in quickly, then glances away. Fang looks at him longer, confused at first; in the firelight, he sees the tightness of Lucius's brow, the way his jaw clenches and doesn't seem to unclench. He squeezes Lucius's hand. "Go," he says. "We'll be okay."
Lucius barely has time to thank him before he needs to rush out of the room.
"Came back on the same spot he left," Frenchie says.
It breaks Ed out of his reverie. He'd been hypnotized by Izzy's troubled but steady breathing, caught in a pattern of mirroring him, when Frenchie speaks. His voice is barely audible, but it's enough, given how close they're sitting. Ed shakes his head slightly to clear it. "What?"
"It's just, as co-captain," Frenchie says. "It's my responsibility to keep track of this sort of thing. Where he landed, that's where he'd flown away."
Ed frowns at Frenchie. He thinks Frenchie's expression is strangely blank, until he looks closer and sees the tension in his shoulders, the fear in the set of his eyes. "You good, man?"
Frenchie takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment. Then he lets it out and says, "Doesn't sound like he's got water in his lungs, at least."
"Oh," Ed says. He looks at the heavy, damp poultice Roach had placed on Izzy's chest. "That thing'll help if he does, I reckon. Don't know what's in it though."
"Amazing what comes up out of the sea," Frenchie says. "When you least expect it."
Ed shakes his head again. He tries not to think too hard about what the sea chooses to send or not send. Always present, always a part of him since the day he was born, if his mother was to be believed, and by his estimations always fickle and unknowable. Instead, he watches Izzy breathe. Izzy's body is warm in his arms, though limp. "Yeah." He looks at Frenchie again. "You sure you're good?"
"I'm captain," Frenchie answers. His eyes flicker across Izzy's body, as though searching for something and coming up short, and he holds Izzy's hand tighter in response. "Supposed to be good, aren't I?"
An unsettling cold lump forms in Ed's chest. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, that's what it's all about."
The Revenge tries to call to her child.
Izzy, swaddled in torn summer wool deep inside of her, feels a hand squeeze his, but does not call back.
Once she has a moment, once it seems everyone is settled in their own space around the cabin, Zheng approaches Roach by the fireplace. It's not been an hour since they'd sailed out of the storm with three new souls on board, and Roach has just returned with a kettle of water to make tea for the room.
Zheng stands next to Roach, musters up a smile, and says, "Hi."
Roach smiles back easily. "Hi."
Ice successfully broken, Zheng shrugs tightly. She's standing with her arms crossed and her back to Ed and Frenchie, who refuse to leave Izzy's side, as well as Fang, who can't tear himself away from a man she gathers must have been a close friend. Archie is tending to the third, but she doesn't seem quite as attached, or quite as torn up, as the other three, and mostly seems to be trying to distract Jim as they sit and take guard duty over the whole scene.
Half whispering, she leans in and asks, "What the fuck?"
With a frown, Roach looks down at his kettle as it hangs over the fire. "You don't want tea?"
"No, I do, I—" Zheng nods at the scene behind them. "I mean that."
Roach sighs and lights his cigarillo on an ember in the fireplace. "I've never seen anything like it," he admits. "I know Izzy was dead. I took care of him before the burial. Cleaned him. This is not a mistake I would make."
"It was no mistake," Buttons intones.
Zheng nearly runs into the fire out of shock. She presses a hand to her chest and glares at Buttons as he stands at her side. "Fuck's sake—where did you come from?"
"Edinburgh," Buttons says. "Or thereabouts."
Roach nods at the plush robe Buttons is swamped by. "I'm surprised to see you wearing all that," he says.
Buttons turns his stare to Auntie, as she emerges from the auxiliary wardrobe with more clothes to pile on the three men. "'Twas a gift freely given and happily received," Buttons says.
Roach nods and takes a draw from his cigarillo. "So what, in your professional opinion, do you think happened here?"
Izzy's prosthetic is leaned against the wall beside the bed. Buttons motions to it. "The ship gave that to him, yes?" he asks.
"It came from the old figurehead," Roach answers. "We worked together to build it. Lucius wrote him a note calling Izzy the new unicorn."
Auntie comes and stands close to Buttons. "It's an ancient magic," she murmurs. "Cast unknowingly."
"Aye," says Buttons. "And by my reckoning, it can't be the half of it. For the sea to be this powerful under only a waning crescent moon, there must have been even stronger magic called upon somehow. And for the Revenge herself to have a say...you lot have played with something none of us mere mortals can comprehend."
"Is he part of the ship?" Zheng asks. She looks at Auntie with a furrowed brow. "What about the other two, then?"
"Blackbeard knew them, which means Izzy did too," Roach answers, his voice barely above a whisper.
Auntie regards Ed warily from a distance. "There's something about that one," she murmurs.
"Yeah," Zheng says. "He's Blackbeard."
Buttons shakes his head. "I know of what she speaks. He's mortal like the rest of us, human. And yet..."
Roach eyes Ed warily; Ed seems to be lost in Izzy, holding him tightly and occasionally tucking blankets and heavy woolen clothes closer around his sleeping form.
Frenchie, on the other hand, is nearly too focused on the room around him, jolting at any new sound and glancing around as though preparing for an ambush. Fang looks to be weeping as Ivan holds him, shaking his head as he murmurs softly to him. Archie is the only one who seems at ease about the situation.
And Jim—Jim crawls to Fang, puts a hand on his shoulder. They whisper something to him that quiets him slightly, and shares a knowing, soft look with Ivan. Out of Jim's sight, Archie's easy grin disappears, replaced by something more concerned, more calculating, and she focuses on making sure Jack's getting warmed up. A front, Roach surmises of her bearing. For Jim's benefit.
Roach shakes it off. "Never mind. We will come to answers to all of our questions later, surely. The priority now is to keep them alive, given the sea has seen fit to return them to us."
"Agreed," Zheng says. She shudders slightly—from the cold damp, she tells herself.
"You should get out of those clothes," Auntie says.
Zheng hesitates, then shakes her head. "And change into what? Don't exactly have anything else to wear here."
Auntie points her thumb back at the auxiliary wardrobe. "There's piles of gaudy nonsense back in that closet, some of it's not in the worst shape."
Before Zheng can respond, two things happen:
First, Stede barges back into the room, and says, "Auntie, Zheng, you're needed on deck—your ships, they're on the horizon, headed straight for us."
Second, a panel opens in the room. Something spits out of the wall, silver and pale. A man, Zheng realizes, bleeding slightly from his head.
Ned Low sways on his feet, grips his skull, says, "How stupid do you have to be to sail into a storm," and promptly collapses.