Chapter Text
To Jack’s unbelievable relief, Anne began to heal in the days it took them to get to Nassau’s harbor. She gained consciousness, was able to speak, able to sit up. The first time Anne woke, Jack hadn’t been there. Instead, she had been left in the care of the crew’s surgeon, an older gentleman with a kind nature named Mr. Henderson. However, Mr. Henderson’s kind nature meant nothing to Anne. She tried to open her eyes only to realize they were swollen shut, temporarily blinding her. Hands were on her arms, hands she didn’t know. These hands were rough and calloused, thick—nothing like Jack’s nimble fingers. Anne had awoken in darkness with unfamiliar hands touching her enough times to learn how she ought to react if she wanted to protect herself. Despite the pain now threatening to force her back into a restless unconsciousness, she lashed out an arm, swinging until she hit something hard, and not stopping until a familiar voice entered the room.
When Jack finally entered--alerted to her consciousness after a frantic crewmember rushed above deck to tell him that Anne was awake and very, very unhappy--the scene before him stopped him in his tracks, a dumbfounded look slapped across his face. Two men were pinning Anne down to the bed as she thrashed under their grasp, spitting out as many curse words as her jumbled brain could think of. Mr. Henderson was in the corner, hands over his bloody nose. It was surely broken based on the odd angle and the amount of blood… How in the world had Anne managed that? He scoffed, half impressed, half exasperated.
“Get your fucking hands off me…” Anne growled before one of the men tightened his grip, and Jack heard a quiet grunt of pain escape her lips, her brow furrowing just a centimeter more, and his stupor was broken.
“Let go of her, come on.” He waved his hand, every muscle in it straining against the instinct to turn it into a fist and bring it down hard on the table--the instinct to create a safe distance between her and the rest of the world. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to protect them . He had never felt that urge, that swell , until Anne. Hadn’t even known it existed. His parents certainly hadn’t felt it. Neither had his brother. Then they had died, and he had really been alone. And the world he had been catapulted into had been just as unforgiving as his previous one. He learned quickly to adapt, of course. He had always learned quickly; intelligence was really all a boy of his stature had to protect him. The world began to divide itself into two categories: people who mattered and people who didn’t. And the people who mattered seemed to live a lot longer. But, more importantly, life was irrelevant to the people who mattered because they were granted an afterlife. They were granted immortality. They were granted a story. So that was the man he was determined to be, a man who had control over his destiny, control over the story they would surely tell about him in the centuries to follow his glorious death. Attachments made control like that difficult. He was for himself and himself only, because God knows no one else would be.
Then, on his way home from a ball, James Bonny decided to stop into a pub with his newlywed bride, Anne Bonny. Only fourteen, but the rumor mill had already decided she was a rare find and a charitable one, given the state of her family’s house. Jack Rackham had chosen the same particular pub to drink at that night after finally slipping away from the horrid crew of the Cupid’s Arrow , a merchant ship he had been sailing on these past months. He had been drinking heavily, as he had done most nights lately. His youth and his intelligence had begun to fester into paralyzing fear of squandering his own potential. To combat it, he spent the nights in various pubs drinking and coming up with elaborate reasons why it wasn’t his fault he had amounted to nothing in his eighteen years, it was the world’s. He was face deep in a pint when his eyes locked on hers from across the room. Those steely blue eyes that somehow seemed centuries old despite belonging to a girl with barely a decade under her belt. James Bonny had her by the arm, yanking her behind him like a dog on a leash. She was beautiful, Jack had to admit. But her fine features were tinged with something feral and wild.
All night, he watched the strange creature with the fiery hair and eyes like ice. He watched James Bonny display her to his friends, making crude jokes to each other while their eyes stayed fixed to every inch of bare skin. He watched James ply her with more alcohol than she could drink until the fiery edge he had detected in her hours before had been numbed to a drowsy discomfort.
It was nearly morning, and Jack was slumped over the bar, his head resting on his hand while he stared at Anne, whose posture mirrored his own, and fantasized about the feeling of sliding his knife across James Bonny’s throat. The pub was practically empty now, just a few regulars asleep on the bar, another group of sailors celebrating some milestone or another, and James with his men. His eyes were starting the get heavy, and as his lids drooped, the blurriness made Anne’s hair look like fire.
His eyes shot open again to the sound of a slap, and suddenly, he was staring at Anne’s crumpled frame on the floor, a hand pressed to her cheek and injustice burning in her stare. He shot to attention as James dragged her off the floor--that was when Jack noticed the clean scratch on the side of the man’s face--and wrapped a hand around Anne’s neck.
Jack hadn’t even known it was happening. He certainly hadn’t planned or chosen to do it. It was that powerful swell of fate that pushed him forward. It placed his knife in his hand and moved his feet across the bar with a certainty he didn’t know he possessed. He slit the man’s throat. It wasn’t the first man he had killed, but it was the first man he’d killed because he wanted to. The blood had sprayed over Anne’s horrified face, soaking her pale blue dress as James slumped to the floor between them. Then Jack had grabbed her hand and never let go.
And that urge stayed with him. So he turned her into a boy until she learned to defend herself, and in the meantime, he and his knife were enough to defend them both. But Anne grew up. She grew up into a better beast than he could ever dream of being, armed with only two knives. Before he knew it, she was protecting him when his overactive mouth got him into trouble, not the other way around. And while that wasn’t a position Jack found to be comfortable, necessarily, he had to admit they were a formidable pair. Between his brain and her brawn, there wasn’t much the two of them couldn’t weasel their way out of. So that urge became easier to bite down in front of the crew or in front of Anne when he accused him of treating her like some girl .
Then came Mr. Milton and his hammer. And that swell in his chest was back, and this time it was telling him to take Anne and run. Run as far away as fucking possible from Nassau as fast as he possible could. Fuck his name, fuck his reputation. Anne had wanted out. She had wanted out from the very beginning, he knew that. And they had it in their hands, and he went back because he couldn’t bear changing his name ? And despite managing to absolutely fuck everything up, as he is so often prone to do, Anne had followed him yet again, as she is so often prone to do.
And now she was laid up in this hammock, eyes swollen shut, bloodied and bruised, all because of him. And these men who didn’t matter still had their hands on her, and that urge was back, and for a brief moment, his fingers grazed his knife. But then Mr. Hendricks repeated Jack’s request, and finally, the crew members let her go.
“Leave us.” Jack bit out, trying to find some satisfaction in watching the men scurry away. Mr Hendricks lingered by the door, blood still dripping through his fingers.
“Her hands need to be cleaned and her bandages changed. I was trying to before…” he petered off, in a nasally voice. Jack sighed and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, never taking his eyes off her.
“I’ll do it. Just… just go find someone who can fix your face.” He heard Mr. Hendricks begin to shuffle slowly out of the room, and he sighed, rolling his eyes before finally taking them off of Anne.
“You will be compensated for the… difficulties, of course, Mr. Hendricks.” And with that, Mr. Hendricks’ steps got much quicker, and finally, the world was how Jack wanted it: just the two of them.
“Jack?” Anne rasped, a hint of fear in her voice only he could detect. But it was enough to bring him to her side in a second, and suddenly, her nose was filled with the familiar saltwater scent of Jack. She breathed in deeply, trying to savor it, let it flood over, and remind her body she was safe. She was safe because Jack was here. She wished she could see his face. Anne learned quickly that despite how much Jack talked, his words were often meant to obscure information, not relay it. He may have mastered his tongue, but his face was a different story. It had always been painstakingly easy to read and try as Anne may, she had never been able to teach him how to keep his damned face still.
“Jack, what happened?” Her voice was charred, her throat raw. She heard him sigh.
“Darling, I thought we were past the point of having to talk about why we don’t hit crew members?” Despite herself, she felt her lips twitch into a smile. Although she couldn’t see, Jack smiled back, beaming down at her. There had been a time very recently when he hadn’t been sure he would ever see that sly smile again.
“Can’t see. You weren’t here.” The last part came out smaller than she would have liked, and she knew Jack noticed. He cringed under her words, swallowed them down, and added them to the growing pile of things to be guilty about before forging ahead.
“Well, I’m here now. Just me.” He saw her release some tension at that statement, letting some of the pain etch itself into her features. Jack grimaced, watching her face contort slightly as she struggled to take deep breaths.
“How bad is it?” She questioned, and again, Jack was at a loss for words. Her hands were practically destroyed; she wouldn’t be using her knives anytime soon, that was for sure. And that, Jack knew, would crush Anne harder than any hammer could.
“Jack, goddamnit--” she cut herself off as her voiced raised into a hacking cough. Jack waited, wincing as the wound in his chest grew with every ragged breath, until finally Anne caught control of the episode.
“Tell me how bad it is. I’ll find out sooner or later anyway.” She heard him shift in his seat, mumbling a few strings of nonsense before changing his mind. His silence was answer enough, however, and she swallowed hard against the lump that was starting to grow in her throat.
“I know my hands are fucked , okay? I can’t feel ‘em, Jack. So just tell me.” And finally, Jack relented as he heard her voice snap and crack as she struggled to get the words out, and tears started to leak from her swollen eyes. Tears.
“No, darling, don’t--” he cut himself off before he could say the word, knowing it would do nothing but embarrass Anne. “You’re going to be fine, Anne. I just need to clean you up a bit, give you fresh bandages. You just need rest, that’s it.” He gingerly reached for her hand, taking it in his before she roughly pulled it away.
“I’m not gonna to let you do this, Jack.” She hissed out, pulling her hand protectively to her chest and sliding away from him.
“I can handle playing nurse for a while, Bonnie.” Jack grabbed the small bowl of water and a cloth from the floor and placed them on the small table next to him.
“My hands don’t work.” Anne was never one to disguise the truth. Not like him. He liked to hide it in dark corners until he bought himself enough time to find a way out of it.
“They don’t work now . Patience, you’re not invincible.” He grabbed for her hand again, but she held it firm, and he huffed in annoyance.
“Now is not the time for pride. Just let me see your--” he started, but Anne cut him off.
“What use am I to you without my hands, Jack, huh?” She questioned in her apathetic, gruff voice, like the words meant nothing, but tears were still tracing paths through the grime and blood on her cheeks. Jack scoffed, as if that would stop the air from being sucked out of the room. As if that would stop the cold sweat that broke out across his skin, as it always did when the subject of his separation from Anne was brought up.
“What are we talking about, here?” He questioned in his own way, like the words meant nothing. Fuck , he needed to find some footing in this conversation. He had been at a loss for words for too long, and what else did he have? He was completely unarmed… but then again, so was she.
“You can’t be the captain of this crew and my nursemaid,” she put plainly with a grunt. He scoffed again.
“So I won’t be the captain of this crew. Let’s leave, Anne.” The words flowed out of him like water, propelled by the anxious instinct to bolt. He waited for Anne to finally relax, to smile as she realized she could finally get out of this because he would go with her. Instead, her body stiffened, features twisting into a confused expression.
“What? Why?” She questioned as if he was proposing they dress up like each other and waltz around the deck.
“Why? Why? Darling,” he laughed dryly, and Anne scoffed. She would have rolled her eyes if she could have. “That massive man with the hammer, he almost--” he cut himself off, finding he couldn’t say the word.
“We’re done here. We’ve overstayed our welcome, that much is clear.” He finished, swiping his hand through the air as if the decision was final. Anne just sighed.
“So let me see your hand, come on.” He held his out, waiting for the familiar weight of hers, but she kept it securely against her chest.
“What about the story? What about Jack Rackham?” It felt so silly now, Anne lying here in this disgusting hammock, all because of a name no one would have remembered anyway. God, what an absolute idiot he was.
“What about him? I heard he was only as good as his shadow anyway.” He smirked, and so did she, and he knew that it would make her smile, calling her his shadow. He knew it would make her think about when they had been young and Anne would cling to Jack, rarely speaking to anyone but him, putting fear into the hearts of any man who dared lay a hand on him; men who would then spin tales of Jack Rackham’s shadow striking from the dark. He knew she would think about those times because he thought of them, too.
But it wasn’t enough, and the smirk fell from Anne’s face.
“I’m not gonna be the reason you give it up. Don’t want that kind of responsibility.” She grunted in pain and let out a short wheeze. Each strangled noise felt like a hand squeezing Jack’s heart.
“So what exactly do you want me to do? Just drop you on the nearest beach and sail away into the sunset?” Jack stood up and threw his hands in the air as Anne grunted in approval. Once Anne had sunk her teeth into something, it was nearly impossible to get her to let it go. And in this case, it seems that Anne thought she was a necessary evil in Jack’s race for reputation.
“Honestly, Anne, don’t be ridiculous. Do you really think all you are is a weapon to me?” If only Anne could have seen the devastated look on Jack’s face. She would have slid her icy blue eyes to meet his for a moment, and she would have nodded, silently telling him she understood.
“I told you before, I can’t be your wife, neither. And you can’t be mine. We’re partners. Equals. This ain’t equal.” She sneered in the direction of her hands. More frustrated tears were falling down her face. God , he wished she would stop crying. He hated seeing it, hated seeing it more than the blood and the bruises and the bandages. It was so unlike her, so un-Anne, it made him want to scream. If she would just let him hold her hand, if she would just stop crying… if she would just stop blindly following him and his stupid, stupid ideas…
“It certainly isn’t. You gave up your hands for my fucking name. A name that doesn’t even matter . You did it because you knew I couldn’t, because you knew--just like everyone else--that try as I might, I can’t talk my way out of being beat to death with a hammer.” His voice was rising, but he didn’t care. It felt good to yell. If Anne wasn’t going to berate him for everything that had gone wrong since he left Anne and returned to Nassau, then he would do it himself.
“Jack…” Anne’s voice slipped into that soft, gravelly voice she only used with him. His chin trembled, but he wouldn’t let it break him, her saying his name like that. He didn’t deserve her comfort; that was the whole point.
“You’re not doing that to me , Bonnie. You’re not denying me the opportunity to try to at least pay a fraction of the debt I now owe you. That I’ve owed you for a while, really.” This time, Anne didn’t need to see Jack’s face to understand. She knew what it was like to have a debt that needed paying. Hell, that was the whole reason she had clung to Jack all those years ago. She couldn’t let him out of her sight, not until she found a way to pay him back for what he had given her. And a life was a hard thing to quantify, a hard thing to settle a tab for.
“Ain’t like that.” She sniffed hard, her tears finally ceasing, thank God . Her hands slowly fell from her chest, resting loose across her stomach. Pain was still etched into her features, and Jack knew she was fighting against her own exhaustion to stay awake.
“It is, darling. Let me pay you back, please?” He reached for her hand, and this time, she let him take it, wincing slightly at his touch. Slowly, he peeled back the bandages, wincing as the crescent moon gashes came into sight. He could feel Anne battling against the pain beside him, struggling to keep silent, still concerned with reminding the world that suffering meant nothing to her.
“I know, I know…” he whispered as he began to wash the blood off her hands, not stopping until he could see her pale skin and the water in the bowl had turned a deep shade of red.
He gripped her arm tightly as he poured the dark rum over one hand and then the other, not even feeling the tears that trickled down his face as she howled in pain. Then he ran his hands through her bloody hair and planted a soft kiss on her forehead, whispering the hard part was over.
He was silent as he methodically rewrapped her hands, letting himself be carried away in the simplicity of the task, finding a sense of peace in the crispness of the white bandages against Anne’s grimy skin. At some point, Jack was struck with the realization that Anne’s chest had begun the steady rise and fall Jack had fallen asleep next to for years, and she was asleep. He kissed her forehead again, two tears falling silently on her hairline.
Bandages complete, Jack gingerly placed her hand back at her side, leaning back in his chair until the twitching of Anne’s fingers had him sitting up again.
“C’mere,” Anne tapped the rope of the hammock with her finger, every other muscle completely still. Wordlessly, Jack obeyed (how could he not) and slid into the hammock next to Anne, carefully pulling her into his chest. Muscle memory took over the moment the two were in each other's arms, and they turned into each other, interlocking their bodies in the same perfect way they had for years. Anne pressed her forehead against Jack’s chest, breathing in the blood and saltwater scent that hung on his skin.
Jack pressed a protective hand to the back of Anne’s head, pressing her closer to him as if he was scared she would vanish. He pressed his face to her hair, not caring that it was matted with blood and dirt. He was just so grateful that Anne was tangible beneath his touch, that she was really here with him and not in some watery grave meters beneath the sea. As sure as the sun set in the West, as sure as a red sky means danger, Anne and he were two halves of a whole, and so they would remain until their ship appeared on Nassau’s horizon.