Captain of the Bloody Rose

Joseph considered him for a moment before sighing, staying where he was. "Just.... giv e me a moment for the numbing to kick in..." he ssaid, honeslt unable to walk at the moment even if he tried unless he wanted to colapse form the pain.

After a few moment of awkward tension, Joseph began walking, his walkingstick over his shoulder rather than in his hand.

He walked with the elderly man to the inn, all the while his mind wondering.

It didn’t take long for Collins to get his tools set up and Joseph on his stomach on the hard bed. Immediately Collins could see that the fluid build-up in Josephs spine was very bad, probably exacerbated by however the hell he had survived that storm. Without wasting any time he took out the long needle and began drawing out the fluid, a process that took much longer than before since there was more to remove and in more places. When he was done the relief on Joseph’s face was tangible.

“There ya go. Must feel a bit better now.” Collins said, putting his tools away, and taking a seat on the wooden chair across from Joseph.

“How the hell did ya survive mate?”

"God either hates me or loves me; havnt decided which it is yet." he admitted, sighing, though remaining on his stomach. "All I recall is falling overboard, a sea monster, and waking up in the doctors room."

Collins couldn't tell if he was kidding or not about the sea monster....

"I suspect, I'm just a lucky son of a bitch."

“I’d say so.” Collins said, leaning back into the chair. It had to be pure luck as far as Collins was concerned. To survive that storm, it was pure and simple miracle. Collins had never been a god fearing man, but at that moment he was certain that God had some kind of plan for this boy.

“And here you are gathering a crew for a new ship I hear. Quite the accomplishment.”

"Isn't my first crew, Collins, though I can assure you one way or another it'll be me last." he said closing his two toned eyes, fighting off his own bad memories. "If you're lookin for work, I would love to have you on board."

HE glanced at the man before pushing himself up to sit. "NOw it's your turn. What happened after I got washed over?"

Collins sighed, dreading the question and yet feeling like maybe Joseph was the one person who needed to know above all others. Maybe he could help where Collins kept failing.

“After you fell overboard…well things can be easily described as gone to hell. Jane well, I think she lost it a bit. She wouldn’t leave her cabin for three days. Nothing would get her to speak, or move, or anything. Then all of a sudden she came back and she was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Jane was always hard, but she turned almost cruel. Like punishing her crew was her way of dealing with the pain she couldn’t deal with inside. Then when we finally made it to port she announced that everyone was to leave, no answers given, nothing. Just shove off. Though she did say she knew you’s had been set up. Said someone untied yur rope and that’s why ye went overboard.”

He paused then, not sure how to continue from there. Her cruelty during the couple weeks it took them to get to port had scared even him. What was far more terrifying was her emotionless, like she had been cut off from everything.

“That very night she sold the Bloody Rose and everything she owned and just disappeared. Fell off the face of the earth. I looked high and low for her for four months before I finally found her. She was in a pub, piss drunk, mumbling to herself. Screamed when she saw me, and then told me to shove off, leave her alone. But, I saw something in her, something that scared me. So I kept around, followed her I guess you could say. Wanted to make sure she was alright, hoped I was wrong.”

He took a deep breath and rubbed his chin as he tried to come up with the best way to say the worst part of it all.

“I think she’s losing it. She moves from place to place seemingly without purpose. I don’t think she let herself grieve ya see. She’s been hallucinating as well, seeing people where there are none. I heard her mumbling about Skip the other day, and then just an hour ago running out the bar hysterical because she saw you. I don’t know if you heard her that night over the rain and the water, but when you went overboard she screamed something fierce. It’s a sound I’ll never forget. Tore through the heart. All of us heard it even down below, over the gale outside we heard that sound.”

He shuddered a moment and went silent, lost in his own memories.

"I didn' hear her. Didn' see anyone or anything really." he admitted. He blinked and looked down, realizing he had his hand on his stomach. It had become almost a force of habit. "Lost half my insides... the doctor who found me said he was amazed I was still alive after the patch job he did... Guess I'm good at commin though." he chuckled a bit. "Though, cant eat much more than bread without getting sick all over the place." he mused.

That explained how gaunt he looked.

Collins frowned and shook his head, muttering something about incompetent hack jobs not knowing what they were doing. He walked over to his bag and pulled out some bottles and an empty vial. Silently he began to mix the different liquids together before putting them in a vial and then corking it. He turned back to Joseph and handed the vial to him, filled to the brim with a clear colored liquid.

“Pour two drops into a glass of water and drink before eating. It’ll calm yur stomach so you can eat properly.” Collins truly was a medical genius sometimes.

Joseph blinked and took it. "... Not to sound wishy washy- but I love you." he said putting the vile into his pocket. "So... You're telling me Jane thinks she saw a hallucination when she saw me?"

Collins nodded, sitting back down into his chair heavily.

“I’m actually certain that she thinks you’re a hallucination. You gotta understand. She saw you go overboard with her own two eyes. She’s certain you’re dead and she’s been trying to squash down any hope that you might have survived all this time. Then suddenly she see’s ya in a bar. That’s quite the shock to her system. It saddens me to say it but losing you and Skip on the same day unhinged our great Captain, and I have no idea how to save her from herself.”

"Easy. Prove to her I'm still alive... Even if we dont, she'll come to terms on her own. I did." he said. "More than once mind you. And Jane is a strong woman."

Collins nodded though he didn’t look convinced. Joseph hadn’t followed Jane around like he had, hadn’t seen her slowly fall into a pit he wasn’t sure she could get back out of.

“Well I wish you the best of luck. She’d say she’d kill me next time she saw my face and in her state of mind I don’t doubt she’d do it in an instant.”

“Honestly, the human mind is not wired to deal with tragedy after tragedy. When this all happened she was still mentally recovering from her near death, and you had just recovered as well. She’d spent every waking hour in that room with you, just talking, trying to do whatever she could to keep you alive. Then she loses Skip and takes a great wound as well, on top of recovering from her broken rib and everything else. That storm and losing you I think was the last straw on her mental psyche.”

Collins closed his eyes and rubbed it, before snapping it open again.

“I honestly thought she’d never come out of that room. Somehow though she did and whatever she did to cope with everything then its not working any more. If you do decide to confront her, please exercise extreme caution. I hate to say it, but she’s unpredictable at this point.”

"I'll knock her out of it." Joseph promised. "You just lay low.... I would hate to have the only doctor who can help me get himself killed senselessly." he said. He stood up, then handed Collins the bag he carried with him full of coins. "Get yourself any supplies you're running short on. By the end of the week I hope to have both you and Jane on my ship."

Collins took the gold with a shocked expression not sure what to say but nodded none-the-less. He would head into the market the next day as soon as it opened and get the supplied he needed. Not having a steady pay like he had on the Bloody Rose had really cut into his stores. He had been running low on a lot and had had to go without to eat.

“Thank you Joseph. Are you going out to look for her tonight?” He asked, looking in the bag to see how much he would be able to buy.

He nodded. "Yeah. If you need anymore, stop by the docks tomorrow." he said. "It's all I have on my person."

The bag held about 20 silver pieces with gold mixed in.

he grabbed his walking stick, having lost his sword in the ocean blue. His necklace as well... The sharpened drift wood was what he had for now.

Collins nodded, and cinched the bag shut. He doubted he’d need more than what was here, but if he did need more he’d just nick it. No need to spend more of Josephs money than necessary.

“Good luck.” He said, as Joseph left the room, hoping he’d have more luck with Jane than he had.

Jane herself was wandering through the town, a cloak pulled tightly around her as she walked the lonely streets. It was late at night and no respectable woman would be out alone. Not if she had any sense. Jane should’ve been on her guard at the very least considering what had happened to her the last time she had wandered at night, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She made her way to the docks and bypassed the ships, refusing to look at them. She always avoided looking at the ships when she passed the docks, afraid she’d see the Bloody Rose someday. Instead Jane went straight for the beach and sat down in the sand, looking out over the waves. A crescent moon shone in the sky offering some light along with the stars. She looked so forlorn, so alone, on that beach. From the streets she was hardly noticeable, and if someone did see her, she looked more like a ghost than a human.

She was left to look out over the ocean for a good half hour before the sand crunched lightly behind her.

"Jane?" Joseph asked lightly, hopig his voice was soft enough not to spook her. "Please look at me..." he begged.

Jane froze again, her eyes going wide in fear. She didn’t turn to face him. Instead she pulled her knees up to her chest and held her head tightly.

“Not again. I’m not drunk. This can’t be happening. He’s dead Jane. He’s dead. Face it.” She said, over and over again, her voice shaky and full of fear. She was going insane. This was it. She’d been trying to fight it for so long and now she was really losing it.

Joseph stepped closer, sitting beside her. When he was sure she wouldn't look at him willingly on her own he wrapped his arm around her, forcing her onto his lap with his arms around her, surrounding her.

"Stop." he said softly. "Don't fight me. I'm here. I'm real... I'm alive." he promised into her ear, pressing his lips to her neck. He kissed her, trailing down her shoulder, resting his forehead on the back of her shoulder. "I thought I lost you forever..." he said, his voice cracking slightly. He couldn't show her tears. it was one thing for a woman to cry in front of a man... But entirely different for a man to cry in front of a woman.

Jane had kept her eyes closed, even when began kissing her neck. Did she dare believe this was real? She’d had dreams like this certainly. Ones that felt so real that when she woke up she wanted nothing more than for life to just end. Had she not promised Skip she probably would have killed herself within those first few months.

It was those arms around her. Everything else she could ignore. She’d heard it before vividly, felt it before. But the feeling of his arms around her, the safety and comfort of those arms, that her dreams could never recreate, and that was the feeling she felt now.

Slowly she opened her eyes, afraid that when she opened them she’d be alone after all. Instead he saw his tanned arms, felt his breath on her neck, heard his voice. What was once a river overrunning a dam inside her mind, became nothing but broken fragments left of a dam with a raging rapids. In that moment, when the realization that he wasn’t dead at all, formed and got through to her, she broke down sobbing.

Turning in his lap she lifted his face, looking into his eyes with her tearful green ones. The tears overflowed down her face, as she traced his face with her fingers, memorizing every nook and cranny.

“You’re alive.” She breathed, before burying her head in his shoulder and sobbing, her shoulders shaking with the force of each cry.

Joseph kept his arms around her, keeping her safe, close to him. He placed one hand on the back of her head with his arm lining her spine, the other arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

He let her cry, looking out at the water as he rocked slightly. The water was the only think keeping his own tears inside. He let her cry, just taking in her smell, not realizing how he had grown to miss it over the months. "I'm alive, I kept my promise, see?" he said softly as she cried. "I didn't die, I did my best. I'm sorry." he whispered, tilting his head down to kiss her neck, trailing up her jaw.

He wasn't a lustful kisser. No. This was passion far beyond simple lust. This was him trying to confirm to himself what he was saying. That he was alive, and she was in his arms.

She sobbed into his shoulder as he talked, letting out everything that she had held in those long months. The tears she should have shed those three days she shed now, and in plenty. The lonely wanderings searching for something, anything to hold on too. Late nights drinking herself into a stupor. The pain she had felt when she nearly lost her leg to infection when she neglected taking care of it. All that time she had felt cut off from everything, her emotions, and now it all came back in a rush.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, looking him in the eyes, desperation written there clearly. It didn’t occur to her that when she fell off the face of the planet that he wouldn’t have been able to tell her. That he might have heard she’d died or something like that. She had heard such rumors when she first went incognito. Yet, in her grief and sadness, and her utter relief it hadn’t occurred to her that all this time, he might have thought she was dead as well.

His two toned eyes were shimmering with tears as he raised a hand cupping her face. "I....." he swallowed and closed his eyes before continuing. "I thought my curse had taken you away from me...." he admitted. "I heard you died....That you had killed yourself, been hung, sank to the bottom of the sea in the storm."

His voice cracked. it actually cracked. "I even contacted my old friend, the priest.... There's a grave--" he cut himself off shaking his head. he had spent an entire week at her grave stone, praying to anyone and everyone, offering everything to have her back. It was more than he had done for his wife. And there was a reason too. He truly loved Jane. She truly knew him.

The tears streamed down her face as he told her what he had heard. Told her what he had done. He didn’t need to say he had made a gravestone for her. She could already see the truth there shining in the tears in his own eyes. It was no less than what she had wanted to do for him, what she would have done, had she been able to face the very idea that he was truly gone. Suddenly, the words that she couldn’t say when they’d been together, the words that had been haunting her since the moment she saw him fall into the seas, came pouring out of her mouth.

“I love you Joseph. I think I loved you the moment I realized I couldn’t kill you. But I was so afraid to tell you. Afraid you’d reject me. Afraid you couldn’t forget her.” She was referring of course to his wife, the woman he’d destroyed her family for. “ I kept it hidden. Was cruel and harsh when I should have been kind. Pushed you away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. When you fell…I couldn’t.. I can’t…it felt like I was watching everything that meant anything to me die. I’d already lost so much, and now I’d lost the only thing in the world that made me smile.”

She paused, praying against all hope that he wouldn’t push her away. Wouldn’t turn away from her at this most critical moment.

Joseph opened his eyes, looking into hers for a moment. He shook his head, at himself not her. Words weren't coming out of his mouth like he wanted them to... So instead, he leaned forward, catching her lips with his own and kissed her. Not just a light peck either. It was a deep, hungry, fiery kiss. The kind that would leave both partys breathless when they finally broke apart.


He pulled back, only enough to rest his forehead against hers, the bridge of his nose running against hers. "Here I thought the feeling was one sided." he admitted quietly. "And after I tried my damndest not to fall in love too, I still managed to fall head over heel for you."