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Chapter Text

----- Chapter 1 -----

--------

What will be left when I've drawn my last breath

Besides the folks I've met and the folks who've known me

Will I discover a soul-saving love

Or just the dirt above and below me

--------

Certainty has become a stranger to Thomas.

If he tries, he can remember a time when he was certain of a great many things. Politics, morality, society, his place within them. Now, everything he does comes a half-second later; there is a half-step of hesitance before any action he takes.

They tell him he went mad; Thomas believes them. It is maddening indeed to not trust himself - and Thomas knows the feeling intimately.

He isn’t sure of the exact moment he lost his mind. He knows it happened - he knows that he has been committed to Bethlem because of it. He knows he is not better yet because he still remembers things from his brush with insanity. Shining red hair, two loving smiles and two pairs of hands reaching for him. Words whispered between them, a trust born of a common goal that had felt unbreakable.

He remembers screaming, when they first brought him here. Panic and pleas and insisting that he wasn’t mad. They’d told him he was not able to see properly, that the devils that had taken him still had their grip on him. That he couldn’t trust what they whispered, the comforting lies they told. 

Peter has told him what really happened, of course. His doctors have told him. 

They have told him and bled him and told him and bathed him in ice water and told him again, until he cannot remember the details of his old life.

They tell him the doubt is a part of healing, that once he has begun to second guess what he thinks is true - but cannot be - that they can truly begin to help him.

This is what he is told:

Miranda had taken James McGraw - his liaison to the Navy and best friend - as a lover, and the two had conspired against him. They had plotted to make him look the fool so they could run away together and the betrayal had caused him to go mad. To imagine things that hadn’t really happened to save his heart.

As part of their plot, James convinced him to propose a plan that would cause immeasurable damage to the British Empire. In a time of war, mercy was not an option and cowardice even less so. Peter had stepped in to see James and Miranda removed from his side, asking for the aide of his father to see Thomas helped.

It doesn’t add up, not with what he remembers. 

It doesn’t make sense with Miranda crying as he was taken away. It doesn’t make sense with the memory of James that morning - for once asking him to stay in bed. None of what the doctors have said in however long he has been here - weeks? Months? - makes sense. Not with what he holds in his head.

Then again between the lapsing of time and the hazes he falls into when a fever or delirium takes him, little does.

By now Thomas has learned to stop asking questions. What they call doubt he has taken to calling acquiescence. He doesn’t know how long it has been since he’s come to Bethlem but he does know that if he doesn’t ask questions they won’t make him go in the ice baths. If he allows them to help him and does not try and force his delusions to be reality - to make himself sicker - they have promised that eventually treatment can be almost pleasant. They want him to get better, after all.

He had promised Peter he would try to get better, at one point. He isn’t sure when. Peter makes sure to bring it up every time he visits though, so it must have happened at some point. 

So, he allows the indignities and the affront to what he had once called right and even sacred.

So, he doesn’t spend long thinking about the life he used to lead. Instead he spends his time reciting bible verses out loud and trying to forget and trying to convince them he believes what they’ve told him. 

Somewhere dark and deep he hopes that if he can survive long enough, he will stop feeling guilty about not being strong enough to fight for the memories he holds. One day, he hopes, he will stop apologizing to the ghosts of lovers who never existed, for allowing his fear to silence whatever truths their tears hold.

-----

Thomas wakes from a dream - a memory? a nightmare? - in which he and Miranda and James are sitting together in his study. Miranda has her arms around his shoulders as she and James share a smile. He can’t recall what the smile is for. 

He wonders if he will ever leave Bethlem and, if he does, if he will be able to keep his wits. Or if the madness will come creeping back like this. If he will start thinking these dreams were reality again.

Screaming from the next cell interrupts his thoughts. Hoarse and agonizing, the voice belongs to the old man the doctors call Henry. Henry stopped communicating with words two weeks after Thomas arrived. Truly gone mad, he cries and screams at no one, when nothing is around. Both Thomas’ days and nights are punctuated with Henry’s haunting sounds. 

Thomas doesn’t cry out anymore. He’s learned from Henry that it doesn’t help.

He remembers how Whitehall used to whisper of his madness - Cassandra’s gossipers, as he’s taken to thinking of them. How he had been determined to pay them no mind, until after their predictions came true. How he had thought his faith in himself could save him.

Now, he remains silent unless he is spoken to - so much so that the guards have taken to calling him Silent Tom. He takes his medicine without a fight. Doesn’t cause trouble when they take him to the baths or his bleedings. He’s pleasant, they all say. Thomas wonders what that means for him - that he is so complacent in the face of his own destruction. Once he would have argued for the virtue of taking the shortcomings of one’s life with grace. Now it just makes bile rise in his already raw throat.

Miranda’s smile comes back to him.

As another of Henry’s screams echoes, Thomas wonders if perhaps it wouldn’t be kinder to let him be mad. 

---

His father is dead.

Peter has come to visit him, to tell him his father is dead; killed in cold blood by pirates.

“James McGraw was on the crew that did it,” Peter says. He wonders if that means Peter has seen James, but he knows better than to ask.

“Surely this should cement what I’ve been telling you as truth. The man wanted nothing for you but ruin. He may have been planning to turn pirate from the start.” 

Peter says the words as if they should be the final nail in a coffin Thomas has already been buried in.

He hears himself agreeing. He supposes it’s true but more importantly, it is what Peter wants to hear.

“I’m glad you’re getting better, Thomas. Truly, it’s so good to have hope that one of my dearest friends might recover from the horrors life has thrust upon him.”

-like a rocky promontory-

The words flit through his mind, echoes of Peter’s. Thomas knows what they’re from. Half an image follows them before Thomas quickly dismisses it.  

The echo and the image of James as a pirate fills his mind, despite how he tries to concentrate on Peter’s words. Does that mean James and Miranda are in Nassau? If they are, what does that mean for the plan they had helped him craft?

Peter stays for a bit, tells Thomas about how much his daughter Abigail has grown since he was in London last. How the Carolinas are full of disease and backwater merchants. 

“-I’ve been able to find a more reliable source of labor than the natives - who were much too preoccupied with fighting us rather than helping to build the new settlement. The Africans we’re importing are much more complacent about the work - better workers too. Grateful for what they’re given in exchange.”

He remains quiet. Peter seems to expect something else, but Thomas simply has nothing to say. The silence seems to unnerve Peter, and he takes his leave - “I understand you need your rest. It’s good to see you, old friend.” Thomas doesn’t acknowledge his exit; only sits, quietly, contemplating. He knows he should feel sorrow at his father’s passing. After all, his father is the one who brought him here so that he might recover. He should feel anger too, perhaps, at James for the act.

And yet -

Something still doesn't add up. Hard as he tries to take Peter’s words as truth his mind still whispers to him. So Thomas sits, and thinks. Sits, and thinks, and waits for his medicine to help him make sense of everything again.

-----

“Isn’t that Lord Hamilton’s son?” 

“The one ‘went mad with grief because his wife was fucking a navy man?”

Thomas can’t see the men clearly through the window in his door, but he doesn’t have to. He keeps his gaze steady, straight through the window to the wall the taller one is obscuring. They’re all the same, and he finds he can tell more from their voices than the people themselves at any rate. 

It’s become a passtime, of sorts. While they watch him, he listens to them. Sees how long it takes before his gaze unsettles them and they move on to another. The shrieking amuses them. His silence unsettles. 

It is the one act of defiance he allows himself, under the pretense of dumbness. He may be mad and broken, but under the gaze of those who can do nothing to him, he remains unashamed of his fate. 

He studies the way their shadows shift, uncomfortable, when they realize their gossip does not affect him. How their conversation stills as they move quickly to another. Henry is always a favorite. 

Every so often he will get one, always singular, who will look at him as silently as he looks back. Who will stay a still, silent shadow until another visitor disturbs them. It is these visitors he learns the most from; who teach him that even on the outside, madness persists. 

-----

It is some time later when Peter comes to visit him again. Thomas isn’t sure if it has been mere months or a year or more. He only knows it has been some time. Inside the hospital it matters very little whether it is July or December, except for whether he will misbehave for an ice bath, or trade whatever small favors he can for another blanket.

“The doctors say you’ve made amazing progress, my friend. They think you’re ready.”

Ready? 

“For what?”

“To start reintegrating into society of course! Perhaps not back to London. You’re still much too sensitive for the types of games politicians play, but I’ve found you a quiet place in the colonies where you can continue recovering. There is a place very near the Carolinas - which have finally begun to turn a profit under my governorship, thank God - where men such as yourself are allowed a modest but productive role in society.” 

It strikes him, the phrasing Peter uses. -men such as yourself-

Something about Peter is off. Has it always been off? The man himself does not seem different so perhaps it is simply Thomas’ mind finally clearing and allowing him to notice details he had previously been missing. 

Thomas knows Peter is expecting some kind of reaction to the news of his release. Pleasure, happiness. Thomas thinks of the other visitors he has had, and he notices how Peter shifts away at his lack of response. 

----

Henry dies soon after Peter’s visit, his screaming cut off sharp and sudden some time after lunch. Thomas tries not to focus on why the quiet seems so deafening.

----

Two weeks later, he is on a ship bound for the new world.

-----

I'm a doubting Thomas

I took a promise

But I do not feel safe

Oh me of little faith

Chapter Text

----- Chapter 2 -----

Sometimes I pray for a slap in the face

Then I beg to be spared cause I'm a coward

If there's a master of death

I bet he's holding his breath

As I show the blind and tell the deaf about his power

--------

His first thought when they disembark in the New World is of how much space there is. The port of Charles Town is large but the town is unfinished in many places; the only fully erected barricades are around the port and half-built houses litter its edges. Beyond the rise of the walls though, Thomas can see a multitude of treetops and mountains in the distance. He lets his mark as a half-wit allow him a slow descent off the ship, and takes the time to appreciate the view. 

A man steps into Thomas’ line of sight, drawing his attention away from the wilderness. Thomas recognizes disdain in the man’s gaze.

“This is him?”

“Yes, the man Lord Ashe sent in our care - bit of a spooky one if you ask me. Hasn’t said two words together since we left London. The crew will be glad to be rid of him - bad luck to have an idiot aboard.” 

Thomas shifts his gaze back to the sliver of mountains he can still see.

“Fine. Mr. Tomlin, my name is Captain Rhett. Follow me.” 

Who?

There isn’t anyone else around, and both the other men are staring at him expectantly. Thomas feels something like fear grip him. It seems like such a little thing, holding onto a name that has no meaning anymore. But it’s his .

The other man only seems to grow more irritated by his silence.

“Tomlin, now. ”

Thomas follows. 

When later Thomas tries to correct him, Rhett just sneers. “Thomas Hamilton died in Bethlem sixteen months ago. And you’ve got enemies the Lord Ashe doesn’t want to find you. So, if you please Mr. Tomlin.”

The bile that settles in his throat doesn’t leave for the rest of the day.

It takes them the better part of two days to reach their destination. During the journey, Thomas learns that Captain Rhett is a man who loves to hear himself talk almost as much as he hates pirates. Thomas is not quite hungry for news of the outside world but he feigns interest in Rhett’s venom. Despite everything his doctors at Bethlem instilled in him, he still listens for James’ name.

When Rhett tires of speaking, Thomas studies the landscape out the window of the carriage. They travel through grassland and forest alike and a small part of him - so small it goes almost unnoticed - marvels at how large this New World is. It had been described to him of course, but even in the countryside of London, even on his trips to Paris and Berlin, the world had never felt this vast. He feels something open up inside of him at that - a yearning for what this place could be that is so familiar it almost slips past him. 

The moment he recognizes it - bright and gasping for air - he tamps it down. He’s not out of the care of his doctors for two months and already he is slipping.  

They arrive outside heavy, formidable gates, and Rhett leaves him in the care of a man who looks like he cannot be any older than Thomas himself. 

“Governor Ashe said he would like a report when Mr. Tomlin is settled in,” Rhett says as Thomas sees money exchange hands. 

A shiver runs through him. 

Thomas isn’t sure what exactly the money is supposed to buy, but he doubts it has anything to do with freedom. As he is led away from the gates they pass short rows of crops with men working them. Others with rifles watch those men, and Thomas realizes with a sinking feeling where it is he has been sent. Certainly not freedom, then.

Owing to his condition he is given the day to adjust, he is told. Instead of the fields he is taken to a small building on the edge of the main property. It looks recently and hastily put together, composed of a single large room with bunked beds lining two of the walls, and an empty area he assumes is to be their living space. 

When he is alone, he sits on his bed and stares at nothing. It’s familiar.

--------

The next morning Thomas is put to work building rows for what he is told will be cotton plants. The first day he works slowly and meticulously, unsure of how much error to allow in the unfamiliar task. One of the other men working the field sidles up to him.

“You’re working too hard. They don’t care what you’re doing, just that it looks like you’re doing it. Watch me.” 

Thomas looks over to see the other man striking the ground quick and light, barely moving anything around as he does.

They work beside each other until the other man outpaces Thomas. 

His hands are still raw and chafed when the day ends, but he is able to eat something of supper before he falls asleep.

It is only as he is gingerly picking at the cold, thick, stew he realizes. he doesn’t remember what the man looked like, and he’d forgotten to ask his name.

-------

Peter does visit him, a few months after he arrives at the plantation. 

When Thomas asks him how long he will work here before he is freed, Peter looks away.

“Mr. Oglethorpe has assured me that you’ll be treated well here - the work, he says, is rewarding for many of the men.”

“Until I die, then.” 

“Is there somewhere else you'd like to go?”

The words are needlessly harsh and Thomas rolls his tongue inside his mouth. Even sick as he is, there are quite a few places he'd like to be rather than a laborer’s camp. But he doesn't say anything else, and Peter doesn't apologize.

--------

Savannah is hotter than Thomas has ever experienced. He falls to heat stroke the first summer he spends in the fields. While he is bedridden, he lets himself imagine James is sitting at his bedside and Miranda is the one changing the cold towels that appear on his forehead. 

Sick as he is, he finds he can muster neither the reason nor the strength to fight them off. They bring him comfort and it is, he posits in his delirium, all right to be mad while one is sick. Surely the spectres will fall silent when he is well again. Either that or he’ll die, and what he sees now will make no difference at all, then.

The delusions had led him to sin back in London - and to behavior unfit for society; to plotting a course of action no sane man would take against criminals. But here, in a sick bed unable even to feed himself - what harm can they do?

The fever fades, but Thomas finds his ghosts do not. 

All of the false memories he has tried so hard to suppress start creeping back and he finds it difficult to parse them from the ones he was told were real. 

When he is cleared to return to field work he feels different. More irritable and angry. He no longer tunes everything out, keeping his head down, working himself until he is drained. Now his head is filled with conflicting memories and he finds himself distracted. His attention is drawn to every conversation, every word spoken and every sound that is not of his own making. It is agonizingly torturous, every sound equally loud in his mind until he wants to scream.

His physical weakness does not help his attention - he has to stop every few minutes to catch his breath. 

“Keep working, Tomlin.” One of the guards will call to him from the edge of the field. Thomas grits his teeth but does as the guard says. He isn’t stupid enough to try and pick a fight. Stupid enough, or brave enough. Absently he thinks James - the real one or the one in his false memories - would have been brave enough.

---------

By late August his body has mostly adjusted to the work. His palms have calloused over and muscle memory has formed from the work. But now it is harvesting season, and the change in routine is exhausting him all over again. He finds he barely has the energy to eat and even then he is far too tired to taste any of it. Thomas drops on his bed as soon as he can when the day is over. The guards are pushing them to get the crops harvested, apparently due to the heavy storms that will come later in the season. The increased workload means that Thomas is among those singled out, new and slow as he is.

The other men are milling about, and Thomas listens to their conversations to drown out the noise inside his head. One voice draws closer than the rest and he feels someone lean over the bed.

“You keep lettin’ them treat you like shit they’re just going to keep doing it, you know.” 

Turning his head towards the voice, he sees a man he knows as Robert Evans. Robert has brown hair, with the kind of shaggy cut he thinks makes him look roguish but really just makes him look boyish. He’s young - younger than Thomas is at least, with the kind of infectious personality Thomas used to cultivate. In a way, Robert reminds him of James. He isn’t afraid of a fight. He’s been talking about escape since the first time Thomas met him. 

“You don’t remember me, do you?” 

“Who is it you think I’ll remember?” Though Thomas knows of Robert, they haven’t spoken more than two words to one another. 

“Not from here. Back in London,” Robert clarifies.

And at that, Thomas almost has to laugh. 

“I went mad. Even if we did know each other, it’s likely as not I’ll have misremembered you. I try not to dwell on a past I might have made up entirely.”

“You weren’t mad.” 

Something in Thomas rails against the surety with which Robert says it. He was mad. He had to have been. Peter had said. He can trust Peter. “Sixteen months in Bethlem Royal Hospital would suggest otherwise.”

“You weren’t mad. I remember you, Thomas Hamilton, and you weren’t mad.” 

...He was, though . Wasn’t he?

Thomas rolls all the way over and sits up, looking up at Robert properly. “We knew each other, in London?” 

“Only briefly. My parents sent me here when they realized what a radical I was set to become. Suppose it didn’t help they found me fucking Phillip Dunster, either.” There is something in the story that catches Thomas’ breath. A familiarity he can’t quite wrap his senses around. He feels like he’s holding two equal weights in his head but one should be heavier than the other. He can’t remember which it is. 

But Phillip Dunster’s name he does remember. 

“You were Dunster’s lover?” When Robert nods it’s a lifeline, something urgent that opens up inside of Thomas and he grabs hold of it with both hands. 

“My God then you’ve been here all that time?” 

“I think it’s been about two years now. I was one of the first.” Robert sounds cheerier than Thomas thinks he has any right to be. “What landed you in Bethlem?”

“I-”  

“And don’t say you went mad.”

Thomas stops, the uncertainty taking his voice away. Again the damned silence of uncertainty. He wants to speak. To say - something. Anything. What would he say? 

But the words won’t come. Robert waits a bit, shifting on his feet until it’s clear Thomas isn’t going to answer. 

“A bit of advice from that man you don’t remember being? It’s no use living if you live as if you’re already dead.”

He leaves but Thomas doesn’t move to lay back down. Instead he lets the words turn over in his mind. They bring others, phrases and vague notions of belief that he spends the night piecing back together. 

Chapter Text

--- Chapter 3 ----

-----------

A familiar knock on the study door draws Thomas’ attention. He calls for Miranda to enter before resuming running his fingers through the soft strands of James’ hair - admiring how they shine in the fire’s light. He has to tilt his head back to see her, resting as he is against the arm of the lounge he and James are laying on. It’s almost too warm - laid out as he is with his Lieutenant pressed against him and the fire crackling in the hearth. Outside, the cold of autumn has just started to set in but in this room there is none of its chill. 

“Won’t you come join us?”

Miranda raises an eyebrow when she draws near, a tray of food in her hands. 

“And where exactly would I sit?” 

“Plenty of room on top of Thomas, still,” James offers, a cheeky grin pulling at one corner of his mouth. Miranda returns the look before she motions for Thomas to sit up. He does so, but only halfway so as not to disturb James. It’s enough, though, that Miranda can sit where his shoulders had been, so that when he lies down again this time it is with his head in her lap. 

She looks down at him, her hair falling in gentle ringlets around her face today and he can’t help but reach up to one of them. “You look lovely.” She flushes with the compliment.

“I thought you two might be interested in a light lunch but it seems I’m unprepared - I neglected to bring any apples for all the sugared honey falling from your lips, husband.”

James snorts, and Miranda catches his eye, and Thomas feels completely at ease - here - with these two. He lifts his head in a silent plea to be fed and Miranda acquiesces, holding a grape just out of reach, so that he has to stretch his neck further to -

“Tomlin, back to work!” 

Thomas comes back to himself, the sun feeling somehow too harsh and direct, even here under the shade of the orchard. The days are still long and hot even in September and it feels wrong.

Trying to sink back into the daydream now is useless. He is on edge and jumpy and the feeling of contentment has vanished altogether, just like the loving ghosts who brought it. He feels like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t in a way that has nothing to do with his delay in returning to the field.

He knows it is likely the scene was a dream his subconscious created to soothe him. The winter which lies ahead will be filled with no such warmth and he will need all the comfort he can muster. 

Just like all the others, though, these visions feel real. And he never dreams of anything other than happiness, when James and Miranda visit him. There is never a touch of the cruel or sinister as Peter insists had lived in them. Try as he may, Thomas cannot bring forth a memory that isn’t like the daydream had been - loving, joyful.  Even the arguments are always sincere, things made of a desire to understand or enhance rather than undermine. 

He thinks of Miranda, and of James, rolling one of the persimmons he had been eating in his palm delicately. He must return to the field - but something in him hesitates. No, deliberately delays. He lifts the fruit over his head so that he has to lean back, tilt his chin upwards to let it fall in. He is both the giver and receiver in the indulgent display, and the taste on his tongue is bitter, almost sour. But the act itself feels delightfully sweet. 

---------

Winter in Georgia, Thomas is relieved to discover, is a great deal milder than in England. Almost halfway through and the mud on the ground has yet to freeze into solid ruts, and there has been only one small dusting of snow. Although the warmth causes other problems in the form of deep, sucking mud and constant dampness, Thomas appreciates what he can. 

He has been set to putting planks across the more well used paths, planting them into the mud in hopes to prevent the horses and carts getting stuck. His work partner is one of the newer arrivals. Fair haired like Thomas himself, and even lankier, Timothy Gibbons is a slow but steady worker. Refuses to let the guards harass him into going a hairsbreadth faster than he wants to. Thomas tries - has tried since the beginning - to do the same, but something left over from the self-preservation he’d learned in Bethlem hangs over him. Despite his best efforts, he finds that he hurries himself every time one of the guards passes by. 

The next time it happens, Gibbons mutters a fervent “fuck this,” and throws the plank down into the mud instead of placing it, splashing the passing guard with cold, murky water. 

“Watch what you’re doing, Gibbons.” Even though they aren’t meant for him, the words send goosebumps down Thomas’ arms, the warning in them clear. The guards won’t discipline them for much, but they’re men given authority, and the man they answer to rarely leaves the sanctity of the main house.

“We’re going as fast as we can without killing ourselves. Lay the fuck off.” 

Thomas knows what’s about to happen before it does. So does Gibbons, he realizes, as the other man braces his legs.

The butt of the guard’s rifle hits him squarely in the shoulder and he falls. “Mouth off again and I might see to it that today doesn’t count towards your term.” 

He moves on without waiting for a reply, which is just as well since the one Timothy mutters under his breath would certainly count as a repeated offense.

“Why do you do that?” Thomas asks as the other man wipes the mud from his face and rolls the shoulder where the guard had hit him. 

“Because it’s not fucking right. They think it’s funny breathing down our necks. I’m here because I defaulted on a debt but we’re treated like fucking reprobates.”

Some of us are just that, Thomas thinks. But he doesn’t say it. Not many of the men here are like Robert and himself, prisoners of a political game. More of them are like this man, who fell on hard times or committed petty crimes and were sent here with a promise of freedom after their sentences were completed.

“And besides,” Gibbons continues, drawing Thomas back out of his reverie. “Even if I were a murderer, doesn’t mean he can get his jollies lording over us like we’re animals.” 

“There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“No? Maybe there should be.” 

Robert’s words echo through Thomas’ mind. This isn’t right. They all know it. Much as Thomas was relieved when he learned that Oglethorpe refused to purchase actual slaves, the debtors and prisoners he employs instead are rarely permitted to leave. Thomas has never seen one leave, at any rate. Oglethorpe keeps them in line with fear, preaches mercy, and practices hypocrisy. It isn’t right or fair or any of the things the civilized world calls itself. 

“Maybe so,” he agrees. 

---------

The third day, Thomas decides, is the worst. Every week Oglethorpe employs the local surgeon to shave the men, and Thomas has decided that the third day after his visits is the worst. The hair growing unfamiliar on his face and neck prickles and scratches, and irritates his skin until he is constantly uncomfortable. He tries to avoid touching his face, tries to keep his hands from picking and exploring the new territories he had known so differently in his old life. But on the third day, it is always the worst. 

-------

Movement by the gates draws Thomas’ attention from weeding the fields. Now that spring has set in there is more work than they could possibly hope to accomplish with their numbers, so he isn’t surprised to see a small group of new men being led inside the gates. What holds his attention is the man leading them. Peter stands at the front of the group, greeting Oglethorpe with a warm, familiar handshake. The image makes Thomas nauseous. 

He watches Peter and the men disappear along the road as long as he can before returning to his weeding. With every clump he counts back through the new arrivals, and finds that with many of them, there had been a coinciding visit from Peter. Not every one. Their visits have been growing more sporadic as Thomas refuses to adjust - be grateful for the life afforded to him here, in Peter’s words. But enough of them that it cannot be coincidence.

Before now he’s chalked Peter’s sporadic visits up to how long the journey is and his duties as governor. Now, he wonders if Peter was too ashamed to face Thomas, after having delivered some number of men to a similar fate. 

Peter has taken on a rather different view of what constitutes a benevolent society than the ones he had expressed in London. He makes a point of telling Thomas about the trials of pirates he holds - they are now such spectacles people have started to travel even from outside Charlestown, if the name of the pirate is big enough. 

The first time he had told Thomas with satisfaction that he had hung a pirate of Nassau, Thomas knows it was not a delusion that he had heard James’ voice clear in his head. 

“Did he repent?” Thomas remembers asking. 

“They never do,” came the reply. 

Thomas isn’t sure if the change in Peter is a side effect of his new found power or if he has always held these views, and just never expressed them to Thomas as such. But Peter is no longer the man Thomas thought he knew. Fitting, he supposes, since Thomas bears very little resemblance to his old self, either.  

The more time which passes between Peter’s visits, the more his memory starts to clear and return, and with it his conviction. The more he wonders how on earth Peter knew he could send Thomas to this place at all. 

Thomas recalls thinking, before, that perhaps Peter didn’t understand the situation he had put Thomas in - that perhaps he really did believe that he was improving Thomas’ life by sending him here instead of to freedom. Now, the weight of the truth reveals his still-present naivety. Peter knew. He just didn’t care. 

Didn’t care, or thought Thomas and his depravity too far beneath civilized society to deem a choice in the matter. Oglethorpe had needed more bodies, and so Peter had provided. 

Peter departs that day without speaking to him. 

----------

The ghosts, he has to assume, are not the ones who lied, then. If they truly do haunt him, he relegates them to benevolancy - for nothing that brings him as much comfort could truly mean him harm. 

-----------

Sometimes Thomas wonders if James is still among the crew of Captain Flint. If he is still a pirate. If he is still alive. 

Peter doesn’t say, on any of his visits. He doesn’t ever mention James or Miranda and it is like they have ceased to exist. 

Thomas has not dared ask if there is a pirate McGraw among the infamous crew when new men come, paying their way into acceptance from the others with news of the outside world. 

Pirates are always a source of interest, but few have names besides the captains. And Flint’s name is chief among them - his blood thirstiness and violence a subject of great interest to the men who wish to, but cannot, visit the same violence on the men who have wronged them. 

But a McGraw is never mentioned, and Thomas doesn’t know a hope he could hold onto if it is because James is dead. So he does not ever mention James to anyone but the shadows who visit him in his mind’s eye.

There are plenty of stories of the pirates of Nassau, though. Particularly, of Captain Flint - and if he cannot get stories directly about James, those will have to do. There are stories of how Flint leaves no ship un-plundered, does nothing by halves, and that surely half the spoils of the new world travel through his hands. How he is a demon shrouded in darkness who employs other monsters on his ship. How they are all scarred and brutal, with extra, pointed, teeth and others so monstrously tall they tower over the bow of the ship even before boarding. 

Flint’s ship - the Walrus - has just as many stories told about her. They say she is capable of chasing down any prey, huge yet nimble in the water with her demon captain. That her crew climbs aboard with giant hooks like tusks. And if the captured crew fights back, that she seizes them in her jaws, coming alive herself to sink the ship and crew with her guns and fire. 

Something in this amuses Thomas, and he thinks that such a mythical crew would suit James. He remembers, even, a story James had once told him about walruses. Of a time his grandfather had gone up north, hired by a fishing expedition in the northern waters when they had encountered one of the norse behemoths. In James’ story the thing had nearly sunk the ship in its rage after the crew had tried to kill its cub. 

Imagining James on a ship like that, and Miranda perhaps living well off the spoils - spoils that in a roundabout way are owed her as the wife of a Hamilton - is just enough of a comfort that between the stories and his ghosts, Thomas manages not to miss the real people so much. 

-------

“That’s not true.” 

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He doesn’t even know what he’s responding to, in truth. The guard looks up in surprise - it’s the first time Thomas has spoken to one of them without being directly spoken to since he arrived. 

“What?”

Thomas can feel his body start to shake, and he can’t make himself repeat the words. The guard who had been talking approaches, and Thomas tries to stop himself from shrinking back. He’s only partially successful. 

“Do you have an opinion, Mr. Tomlin? Thought you were a mute.” Thomas tries to remember what was said that had made him react. What the truth had been. But he can’t, and now it’s not important to him to be right, he just wants to avoid the trouble. He has to keep his head down - to stay as unremarkable as possible. He keeps his eyes averted and when it’s clear he’s not going to speak again the guard moves away with a satisfied grunt. 

That night Thomas will lie awake and run the scenario through his head, again. Each time he comes up with a different answer to the guard’s question. By the time he falls asleep, he’s almost convinced himself one of those scenarios happened, instead of the one that did. He’ll wake up the next morning and vomit when he realizes he doesn’t know what happened the day before. 

-------

And God said: ‘Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas; and God saw that it was good.

He’s been staring at the beginning of Genesis for what feels like hours. He’s beginning to feel like that dry land, like something has been pulled from him. It’s not a perfect metaphor - surely he could find a better one if Oglethorpe allowed them any books besides this one - but something in it has stopped him. Stuck him to this page. He knows if he continues he’ll get to Adam - and Eve. To the story he had meant to read, if only because the memory attached to it comforts him. But here he is, stuck pondering the divide between sea and land. Who he is now - all these vast swaths of dry land, uncovered and laid bare without their oceans to cover them. Of all the things that live in that deep water he has no access to, no boat nor oars to reach them with. And he’s not strong enough to swim.

“Doesn’t reading a book usually work better if you turn the pages?” 

Robert. 

Thomas lets out the breath he’s been holding. 

“Probably. Although by this point I really should have this one memorized.” 

Robert laughs and shifts from foot to foot. Thomas looks up from the pages to meet his eye just as he begins to speak.

“We could use your help. You’re the smartest one here - by measures.” This again, then. 

“Book smarts aren’t what you need, Robert. And I’m the last person you should be turning to for advice on how to lead a revolt.”

“Why not? You’ve read about all of them, haven’t you? All those historical battles? You can think of the logistics if you don't want to fight. But we need a planner, and I’m not good at that sort of thing.”

“I think you’ll find my plans of late haven’t worked out too well, either.” He gestures with the bible as his mind turns back to London. Oceans away, and more.

He can’t explain the hesitation he feels any better, and Robert won’t push again, not like Thomas would have. Thomas hides behind that knowledge and feels cowardly.

For all of his posturing and drive, Robert is very much still a young man at heart, easily spooked out of a conversation by silence. And he respects Thomas. Thomas doesn’t mean to discourage him. 

He looks down at the bible still in his hand, his finger still between the pages of Genesis.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help.” 

“Then what? You say you support us - I know you think that Oglethorpe is a bloviating hypocrite. So what’s stopping you from helping us do something meaningful with our lives?”

The last time I led a plan for a revolution -

“Are you familiar with the story of Icarus?” Robert nods. “He’s not exactly the one you want leading the charge, is he?”

Robert pauses at that. It’s the closest Thomas has ever come to mentioning his past. 

“Is that what happened to you? Flew too close to the sun?” 

Thomas thinks of blinding smiles and passion that had scorched him to his core at times. Of the feeling that with James at his side, anything was achievable. Of Miranda’s warnings. So many warnings. Of Peter, and his insistence that Miranda and James had betrayed him. Of how it feels like he’s still falling some days.

“Something like that.”

Robert takes a breath and lets it out, frustration clear. 

“Alright. But - Tom.” Robert pauses again. Thomas recognizes the face he makes when he’s trying to connect two lines of thought. “What if he’d been able to right himself?” 

It’s thin. They both know it, but Thomas appreciates the gesture. Robert truly has been a friend to him, here. He looks down again at the Bible. He’s still in the beginning - when Eve had been tempted. Like Icarus with his sun, and Eve with her apple. 

He remembers Bethlem. The price he paid for giving in last time to this urge to fix and change things. How long it’s been since his treatment has been more severe than a medicated tea.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” he repeats, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

---------

“Where else was I supposed to send you?”

“I was never mad, Peter.”

“Perhaps not, but you were a liability your father and I feared would drag us all down.”

“You made me think that I was mad - seeing visions and making up things that had nothing to do with reality! You made me believe James” - he has to stop and draw a shaky breath against the anger blooming in his chest. “- that Miranda and James had betrayed me!” It feels good to yell, to be some semblance of the man he had been. That man who had felt justified in his anger. It has been years since Thomas has felt this feeling but oh, he is feeling it now. 

“You could not - would not - realize the danger, especially with McGraw siding with you against any better judgement he should have had. I had to separate the two of you before you caused us all to be tried for treason. If that is not madness I do not know what else to call it! ” 

“Do you know where they are?” 

“No.”

“Would you tell me, if you did?”

“I can’t see how the information would be of any help to you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. To know that the people I loved, who loved me, are alive and safe. Why would that information help me.”

“You must understand why I wouldn’t tell you, even if I did know.”

“When was the last time you spoke to them? Please just tell me this.” 

“It was years ago, before you’d left Bethlem. I haven’t spoken to them since I informed them of your death.” 

At that, Thomas feels a hand close around his throat. “They think I’m dead.” 

“Your father and I thought it best that they not have any reason to want to return.”

“So you told them I was dead?” Oh, God. He tries not to picture it; what James and Miranda might have done when they’d received a letter like that. 

And, too, the knowledge that he will never see them again. If they’d thought him alive, perhaps - but there would be no possible reason for either of them to seek out a dead man. 

“It was for their own good. And now I am telling you, for yours, to let this go.”

“Leave.” 

Peter steps back.

“You must understand that what I did, I did for all of our safety. We are all alive - and that is more than I can say for what would have become of you and your Lieutenant had you continued on the road you were on.”

“I said, leave. I can rationalize why you did it. I can even understand why you would - for your own personal reasons. What I cannot do is stomach the thought of looking at the man responsible for all that has happened to me, knowing you could have spared James and Miranda further torment but didn’t. That sort of needless carnage of the soul, I cannot forgive.”

“Thomas -”

“Peter.” Thomas can barely get the word out around his rage and he has never, not in the entirety of his time at Bethlem, nor the years he has spent here, felt so close to violence. Peter must see something of that truth in his eyes, because he leaves. 

Robert meets him when he returns to the barracks and immediately recoils. 

“Jesus, Thom, what happened?”

Thomas feels ill. He cannot do anything except wave Robert off, retreating to his bunk and turning to stare at the wall. By the morning he hopes he will be all right but now, he mourns. Everything. Peter’s betrayal, the certainty that his loves have left him. His fate here. He stares at the wall and lets the tempest of his emotions rage inside him. There will be time to sort them out but for now, he lets them crash over him, an overfull river, flooding its banks. 

It feels final.

This realization that Peter has, all along, been keeping from him that James and Miranda think him gone. The knowledge that there will be no rescue. No reunion. No chance at all of returning to anything of his old life. 

He had thought he had been over this grief. Had thought he’d put any hope of living outside this place out of his mind. Only now does he recognize the last shred of his old self still hanging on - listening for scraps of news about James, Peter’s friendship, not wanting to fully commit to anything to do with a rebellion. He realizes it has all been in service of waiting for his old life to resume, somewhere deep within his heart. Waiting for the madness to clear, to see the truth and be able to have Peter free him. 

Hours later, after the waves have crested and crashed and receded, he feels empty. And into that emptiness he lets it go. His loves, the longing for them, the hope that there can be anything but what is, here. He cannot be the old Thomas, anymore. The one waiting for them. Like he hopes they are - carrying on somewhere - so must he. He doesn’t sleep, but when the others start to rouse for the day, he does too. Heavier. But in a way that means his steps fall sure. They are not heavy with grief, but with purpose.

Robert eyes him with concern, and wariness. He must have heard the tears. The sobs Thomas had let out at various points throughout the night had not been silent. But that isn’t what Thomas needs, sympathy. He is all right, he realizes. Or, he will be. He meets Roberts eyes as he draws close.

“I’m with you.” 

Chapter Text

“Damnit, Ben. Stop moving.” Thomas dips the rag and wipes at the still fresh wound on Benjamin Maddick's leg. The alcohol must sting, Thomas knows, and the other man’s leg twitches again. 

“Sorry, but Christ that hurts.” 

“It'll hurt more if it gets infected. What were you thinking?”

Ben grimaces but this time manages to stay still as Thomas continues to clean the wound. 

“What we're all thinking - even you and I know it. That I don't want to die here.” 

Thomas certainly does know the feeling. Death is a constant - with how hard they are worked and how little they are given to show for it. Too many men have met their end during the years Thomas has been here - and for things he knows would have been unthinkable in the life he used to know. 

“There are better ways to go about it.”

The sinking feeling Thomas had experienced when he saw Ben start running from the edge of the field still hasn't left him. For a day after they had seen him slip through a premade whole in the fence and disappear,  Thomas had almost believed he'd escaped. That he had somehow evaded the dogs and guards to make it to Savannah or beyond. 

But no. The dogs had caught up to him even before dusk. Ben had told Thomas how they had corralled and kept him treed until the guards caught up. The large bite out of his calf Thomas is treating is the remnant of one escape he'd tried to make from them. 

When they'd been awoken at dawn to witness his punishment, Thomas had felt his hatred of their confinement grow almost unbearable. 

Now, Thomas has volunteered to care for the injuries. 

“Christ, Thom, it's clean!” 

“What?” He looks down at the wound and swears an apology when he sees his scrubbing has opened the edges. He grabs for the powdered charcoal and pours it around the edges, pressing with his cloth until the blood stops seeping out. Ben swears softly when Thomas finally removes the pressure.

"Touched a nerve, did I?” 

Thomas grimaces, feeling chagrined. “Sorry.” Ben doesn't press and Thomas re-bandages the wound in silence, taking care not to get distracted again. 

“This will take a while to heal. You'll be lucky if you walk without a limp.”

“I expect I'll still end up back in the fields before long.” 

Thomas considers his words carefully. 

“You're lettered, aren't you? You can do sums?”

“A bit. What, hatching a plan for me, are you?” 

Can he trust Ben with this? Thomas doesn't know the other man well, and Robert hasn't mentioned him as a potential partner. But if he was willing to risk punishment for freedom once...

“As a matter of fact, Robert and I have been trying to convince Oglethorpe to let someone else take care of the books.”

Ben raises an eyebrow.

“Purely for his benefit, of course.” Plausible deniability, until he's talked with Robert. He would like to hope he's learnt his lesson from Peter. “The plantation is failing, but he can't leave to find support because he cannot allow the shipments to get delayed and further reduce profits. And the guards are either unreliable with sums or too lazy to be counted on.”

“But a laid up former clerk with a gambling problem is just what he needs,” Ben drawls. “Why would he let me near the books?”

Thomas shrugs. “You won't be dealing with the money directly, and it would mean he could get some use out of you while you're laid up.”

He sees Ben thinking and he waits. He's made his case. 

“I assume you've got a motive of your own besides benevolent feelings towards our detainer.”

Thomas doesn't say anything. He resists the urge to tell Ben anything before he himself knows the plan. But he does meet the other man's eyes, holding his gaze until Ben laughs.

“You're good, Tomlin.”

----------

Ben’s unsuccessful escape and punishment have the men on edge. When Thomas returns to their quarters the air is somber, the conversations low and quiet. A voice draws his attention to the corner near the fire.

“Tomlin? How’s Ben doing?” It’s Isher. Another of the younger prisoners and a friend of Robert’s. 

“He’ll live, the worst of it is the leg.”

“Poor bastard. Really thought he had a chance.” Thomas nods in agreement, but he’s more focused on another group of men, engrossed in a conversation by the fire. Robert had said he’d been gathering a small number of other defectors. In retrospect, he’s not sure why he hadn’t expected Timothy to be a part of the group. He and Robert are engrossed in a hushed conversation when Thomas draws near.

“-a way to free everyone. We can’t leave the place intact.”

“We haven’t even come up with a way to get our group out. I don’t know how we can-” 

Robert catches sight of Thomas mid conversation. 

“Tom!” He waves his hand, gesturing for Thomas to join them. “Help me out?” 

Timothy narrows his eyes briefly at Robert, but then picks up the thread of the conversation again. “We can’t commit to taking everyone with us. Given what happened to Ben, I’d say it would be lucky if we made it out in a small group.”

“If we could get everyone to work with us-” Robert starts. Thomas cuts him off with a shake of his head. 

“We can’t count on that.”

“It’s for their benefit,” Robert argues, leaning forward on his stool in his passion. “Who wouldn’t jump at the chance of freedom?”

“Some of them are content to wait for it. Not everyone is like you and Tom,” Timothy points out, and Thomas is glad he didn’t have to be the one to raise the point. But Robert persists.

“You’ve been here three years now and how long do you still have on that seven-year bond?” Robert probably wants to make a point, but Timothy just shakes his head sadly.

“Five years give or take - but that’s the point, Robert. Even if it takes me forteen years to work off my debt, when I do I’ll be a free man with land. And if a man could keep his head down, or is younger than I am, he might even make off with a good life at the end of it. Why would he risk that for an escape plan that is almost guaranteed to get at least a few people killed?”

Robert looks to Thomas.

“Sorry, he’s right.” Thomas admits, his mind back in London. “Men rarely want to fight for a cause they have no stake in. Especially when doing so could hurt them.” He thinks of all of the men he had considered friends. Everyone who had gathered around him, espousing beliefs in freedom and enlightenment. They had all been so firm in their support for those causes of equality - until they’d been asked to risk so small a thing as a reputation on it. 

“But they could be free sooner!”

“And destitute,” Timothy adds. Thomas nods his agreement.

“Robert,” Thomas says, as gently as possible, because he remembers that fire and has no desire to douse it. “We cannot convince everyone. And even if we could, I don’t know any way to feed and house eighty odd fugitives. The best thing to do is get those who are like us, who have no hope of survival within the system, out of it.”

Robert sighs heavily. He’s clearly upset, his face is red and his breathing is coming in short bursts. Thomas reaches over to put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“I know you want to change things, but we can’t do that here. Once we’re free, and safe, maybe. But those things have to come first.” He hates saying it. Hates how his old self would have hated him for it. His old self would have hammered alternatives until the only possible way forward was Robert’s line of thinking. Equality and an opportunity for everyone. But it seems the best they can hope for, in the situation, is merely to get themselves out.

Robert still doesn’t look happy but he shrugs Thomas’ hand off and takes another deep breath. “Fine. What do you propose then?” 

“A small group, no more than ten, ideally,” Timothy starts. “The smaller our group the easier it will be to get away unnoticed. And, the fewer mouths we’ll have to feed until we find somewhere safe.” 

Thomas nods. “I’d agree. I don’t like it any more than you do,” he says when Robert starts to open his mouth. “But the other option is splitting up as soon as we’re out, and I like that even less.” 

“Any idea how we escape?” 

“Actually, I do.” 

He tells them about Ben, and the tentative plan to get a hold of the plantation’s finances. 

“How will that help us, though?” Robert asks, but Timothy smiles.

“You know for a lord you’re crafty, Tomlin.” 

“What do you mean?” Robert asks, still apparently not catching on.

“If we can get an in with the bookkeepers, it’s possible we can skim some of the profits without Oglethorpe knowing.”

“More than that,” Thomas interjects. “We’ll also know when shipments are going in and out. What and when.” This time it’s Robert who picks up the thread.

“You think we might be able to hide in one of them?” 

“Or overtake the drivers. Something. I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admits.  “But I assume we might be able to hide in the tobacco, or one of the corn exports. Something loose.”  

“It’s something we can work with, anyway,” Timothy agrees. “You think Ben will help us?” 

“He’s interested. I didn’t tell him anything other than I might be able to get him work inside the house, but he suspects.” He and Timothy both turn to Robert. “Do you think we can trust him?”

“Not to reveal our plan? Absolutely. To be able to wait long enough to not expose us? I'm not sure. You might have noticed he's impulsive. S’why he lost so much to the dealers.” Timothy snorts in agreement and Robert shrugs.

Thomas thinks about their options.

“I don’t want half partners,” he decides, thinking of Peter. “Either we tell him everything and he agrees, or nothing.”

Robert nods. “All right.”

“Wait, though, are you thinking of taking him?” Timothy asks warily. “We can’t take a cripple.”

“We can take care of him, and he might not be crippled for life.” 

“And what happens when we’re pursued?” 

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” Thomas feels something ugly building in his chest. Fear, almost. “You know I’m not the strongest either, with how many times I’ve been sick with fever. I couldn’t outrun the guards either.”

Timothy puts his hands up. “All right, Christ.” But he does look sorry, and perhaps a bit worried. “Thought you were better.” 

Thomas shrugs, still upset at the thought of leaving a man behind. “I probably won’t ever be. I was sick for so long in Bethlem, and now here, I don’t know if my lungs will ever recover fully.” He shakes his head. “But the point is, I don’t want to be left behind, and if Ben helps, he should have the chance to get out too. After that escape and his injury, he has more motive than most to want out. If he helps, and he wants out, he is coming.”

Robert nods. “We’ll tell him. Tom, you should probably be the one to talk to Oglethorpe. He likes you, doesn’t he?” 

Thomas laughs. “Like might be a strong word, but I think I can convince him.” They turn their conversation to other topics, but Thomas finds he is only half-occupied, his mind finally given something to latch onto. 

-----

The next morning, after he’s tended to Ben’s leg, Thomas inquires about a meeting with Oglethorpe. 

To his surprise one of the guards collects him just before dinner a week later. He is led into a small office piled with art and maps and books. He wonders not for the first time if he and Oglethorpe might have been friends, in another life.

“I assume this is about Mr. Maddick?” 

“It is, sir.” 

“How is the leg? Nasty business.”

Thomas clenches his jaw against the words that want to come out. He knows that pointing out it was Oglethorpe’s own policies that gave him the wound - and created the circumstances he got it in - wouldn’t help Ben.

“It seems to be healing.” 

“Good!” Oglethorpe starts to get up. 

“He won’t walk again, Mr. Oglethorpe.”

The other man pauses in his motion before sitting back down. 

“Ah. I see.”

“He’ll need a job sitting.”

“Well we have the mill-”

“I was thinking he might be an asset to your bookkeeping.” 

“No. No, I do the bookkeeping myself. There is too much to entrust to someone else.”

“How long does it take you to do the books for a place like this? It must take most of your day, does it not? You could easily give some of that responsibility to the men here. Many of us are lettered.”

“I know you are aware, Mr. Tomlin, of why I won’t do that.” 

Thomas grins.

“I am. But surely you could trust your inmates with some of it. The time tables, or deliveries for the plantation.”

“He can work in the mill once the leg has healed as much as it will.” 

“He won’t be able to properly control the grinders. Mr. Oglethorpe, please consider my offer. Do you really want more blood on your hands? Isn't’ the point of this place to give the men here a better life?”

“There is always a risk of injury, Mr. Tomlin.” 

“What you are asking practically guarantees it.” Oglethorpe meets the glare Thomas gives him. A thrill runs through him when Thomas realizes he almost doesn’t have to fight not to look away. “Ben won’t be able to work as anything but a desk clerk if he does leave - and he will be allowed to leave, will he not?”

Oglethorpe meets his eyes steadily, but Thomas’ courage finally gives out and he curses himself for looking down at his hands, briefly. 

“As with all the indentured men here, he will leave when his debt to England and to me has been satisfied.” 

“Then why not give him a job that he might be able to keep when he does?” 

Oglethorpe is quiet, but eventually he waves his hand in acceptance.

“All right. You make a good argument. As long as it does not affect the profits in any way, I will allow him to work in the house, rather than on the plantation itself.”

“Thank you, sir.” And he means it. This is not the first time he’s felt triumph since he was taken to Bethlem, but it feels more significant, in a way, than his own personal victories. 

As Thomas starts to leave, Oglethorpe calls him back again.

“Is this how those salons of yours ran, back in London?”

Thomas feels the corner of his mouth lift, and a bittersweet feeling rises in his chest.

“Sometimes.” 

-------

As he returns to the workers’ side of the plantation, Thomas tries to quell the feeling of uneasiness about how simple it had been to get Ben into Oglethorpe’s good graces. Over the few years he has been here he has learned a bit about the man who keeps him. Thomas has learnt that the man is, at his heart, a good man. Misguided and as blinded by his privilege as Thomas used to be, but he does seem to be coming around to the ideas Thomas mentions, on the few occasions they have to speak.

Thomas tries not to think too hard about where that puts him in relation to who he used to be. The person that can no longer exist in the world in which Thomas does now. 

Oglethorpe has benefited from their labor the same way Thomas had from the hundreds of unknowns who made his life in London possible. Who made it possible for him to talk of God and reason and the right while being so ignorant to the plight of those with less. So much so that James had seemed a beacon of enlightenment when he’d come into Thomas’ life. An immeasurable signal of strength to rise from such lowly status to Thomas’ parlor. It has come to Thomas, in the past years, that for James there had been no other choice.

I need someone to help me ensure that Nassau survives. And I cannot do that with a partner that might be more concerned about advancing his career than he is about realizing this goal. 

And James. His James. What other choice had there been for a man born the son of a Carpenter's Mate but to rise? And yet when given the choice between continuing his ascent, making himself safe, and carving for himself a place - instead James had chosen Thomas. 

It stings more than a little, how much Thomas had thought he understood what that meant. How little he had truly known that decision would cost James. 

But perhaps this is his second chance. The opportunity he had sought to give England, now perhaps given to Thomas himself. 

As he enters their barracks, he looks around the room that serves as the common area. Each man here has a story of a fall from grace. Even the debtors and the men from Gaol have a story of a higher moment in their lives. And now, here they are sat in the same room as Thomas himself - fallen from every grace he’s ever known.

He sits down next to Robert, who is talking to some of the others. 

Even though they are all prisoners, confined and tired and almost to a man angry, Thomas finds himself feeling rejuvenated by the time he spends with the other men. He has spent so long letting his mind run in circles chasing his own thoughts. Letting it chase its tail worrying over its own madness. But for just a moment, he can let it rest, listen as the men tell stories of their lives, or argue over a bit of gossip that’s reached them - an old poem someone half remembers. 

There is no grand fight, for most of the men here. Most of them are simply waiting for the pennance to be over so that they can resume whatever normality will be afforded to them afterwards. In them, Thomas sees what could have been the outcome of his pardon plan. Not men changed from the inside out, but men placated into usefulness. Given everything he has learned since his imprisonment, Thomas isn’t sure anymore if he is upset that their plan had not worked.

He puts the thought away, though. There is no use berating a man who has been dead for years, nor a plan that will never again see the light of day. Instead, he focuses on what he can do in the present. 

“Only by living in the present,” he murmurs to himself.

In the present, they are discussing options of where to go. New York, Boston - even Nassau has been suggested; something in Thomas had twisted violently at that.

“Are we to spend the rest of our lives running, hoping that we never run into anyone who knows where we’ve come from?” 

He has become something of a de facto leader, but this opinion has proven unpopular amongst the others before, and no less so now.

“You have a better idea?” Timothy asks. He is still just as surly towards the guards as the first time he and Thomas had met, but Thomas has learnt that the man is more than just an obstinate temper. 

“No,” he has to admit. “But there has to be one. I can’t see how a life spent running is any better than one spent here.”

Timothy snorts, Robert looks disappointed, and Ben, well. Ben looks at the leg he still can’t stand on and Thomas thinks he might see something of agreement in the other man. 

“What about the Yamacraw?” Ben suggests. Thomas shifts on the stool he’s sat on. 

“What about them?”

“Couldn’t we ask them for help? They’re friendly with colonists.”

“They’re friendly with Oglethorpe. ” Robert interjects. “Who’s to say they don’t tell him all about our plans the moment we talk to them?” 

Robert has a point, but the thought nags at Thomas. He lets the others throw the idea around - Ben seems to be the only one truly in favor, but there are others who are willing to consider it. 

A pause, as the others turn to him. 

“Who’s the one who normally deals with them, when we need supplies or Oglethorpe sends them things?” 

“I think it’s Edgar, but he’s as loyal as they come to Oglethorpe.” 

 “Shit.”

“Tomlin, you speak what, five languages? Why don't you see if you can offer to teach them something. Perhaps the Bible, and the word of Christ.”

We are fighting a war in the service of the son of God.

Maybe. “How many does Edgar speak?”

“Edgar barely speaks English, the dumb sod.”

“Perhaps he could join, then, when I offer to teach the Yamacraw to read.”

-----

Timothy pulls Thomas aside when the others disperse. Thomas has come to appreciate that the other man gives good advice and has low expectations that keep his own in check. He tries not to think of James. He is not wholly successful. 

“You really think you can convince Oglethorpe to let you off the plantation? Aren’t you the one that Lord paid to have kept here till you’re dead?” Timothy asks in a hushed voice.

It stings, that truth, and the reminder of Peter’s betrayal. 

“Perhaps that’s all the more reason I can convince him to let me go. You and the others have at least a nominal chance of seeing the other side for those gates again. For me, I doubt I’d leave here even in a wooden casket.”

“I don’t see how that’s an argument for your going.”

“Whatever he’s become, Oglethorpe wanted this place to be different. You’ve heard how he talks about Peter’s profiting from the slaves he brings in. Maybe I can appeal to his sense to see good done in the world. It isn’t like we’re all that different, in that regard.”

“He can’t be reasoned with, Tom.”

At that, Thomas has to smile.

“I have been accused on more than one occasion of not giving a damn.”

-----

And so it is that two weeks later Thomas finds himself on the back of a horse, headed to the Yamacraw. The natives have apparently maintained their weariness of Englishmen with guns, so it is just Thomas and Edgar who make the journey. Edgar eyes the large sack of pamphlets and papers Thomas has tied to his saddle.

“You really think they’re gonna be interested in this stuff? What’s in those pamphlets anyway?”

“Religion. Oglethorpe has asked for my assistance in converting those of the tribes whom we can - in an attempt to save their souls.” It was easy, once Thomas had found the through line to Oglethorpe’s interest in the natives. Like so many others, like Thomas himself had heard at more than one of his own salons, these people needed English salvation - English civilization - in order to be considered human. 

“Why not send the pastor? He gives good sermons.” Thomas perses his mouth, glad that Edgar rides slightly in front of him.

“The pastor is a good teacher of Englishmen, but it may have escaped your notice that he loses patience with those who question scripture.” Thomas doesn’t try to hide his own chagrin, and Edgar laughs. 

“That why he banned you from speaking up?”

“I tend to understand why questions might be had, yes. Which is why it made sense that Oglethorpe send me. I do not doubt the word of God, merely its interpretation by men.”

“Most of them can’t even speak English. How do you think you’re gonna teach them about God?”

Thomas shrugs.

“One word at a time, I suppose.”

Of course, when they get to the village Thomas is immediately taken by the life in it. It has been years since he has seen a child up close, or indeed anyone but the men who inhabit the plantation. They must have been spotted ahead, as a man who Thomas assumes is the chief waits for them.

He is old - possibly one of the oldest men Thomas has ever met. Despite his age, though, there is a regalness and a curiosity that Thomas recognizes instantly. His dark eyes sparkle with interest when he spots Thomas - as far as Thomas knows this is the first time someone other than Edgar or Oglethorpe have visited from the plantation itself. 

Edgar greets the man and introduces Thomas to him as “Tomochichi.”

“And this is Henry Tomlin.” He still hasn’t stopped flinching when the name that is not his is applied to him. He had stopped trying to fight its use - preferring instead to go by the moniker of “Tom,” but every time it is used he feels false.

Tomochichi studies him before extending a hand. Surprised, Thomas takes it. 

“You thought we did not know of your customs?” His voice is amused, and Thomas feels instantly less embarrassed, more at ease.

“Forgive me, I wasn’t sure how much contact you’ve had with us. I’ve been rather out of touch with English society myself, as of late.”

Tomochichi ends the handshake and turns to speak to a rail thin man Thomas hadn’t even spotted until he’d moved forward. “Toonahawi will take care of our business today, Edgar. He needs the practice. I would like to hear what Mr. Tomlin is here for.” Edgar nods and addresses the other man with a friendly nod. Thomas watches with interest as they take the horses and walk out of site, deep in discussion already. 

“So, what has Mr. Oglethorpe sent you here for? Has he finally agreed to our school?”

“Your what?” Thomas feels a bit lost, trying to assess what Oglethorpe has and hasn’t told him. Tomochichi sighs, but it isn’t unkind. 

“I have been asking Mr. Oglethorpe for an English school for my people. I believe it is inevitable - your kind's existence with us, and I would like to ensure my people are as familiar as possible with their new neighbors. Familiarity brings understanding, yes?”

Thomas takes in a breath. “Unfortunately the English saying goes that familiarity often brings contempt, but I think I like your line of thinking better.”

Tomochichi smiles. “So you have come to teach us.”

“I have come to teach you,” he confirms. “And perhaps learn something myself.”

“Even better. Come, I will show you around.”

They spend the better part of the day acquainting Thomas with the village. He is surprised to discover just how different the culture and living style of the Yamacraw is from anything he has ever known to understand. Thomas hasn’t felt as alive or full of wonder since he had first met - well. 

Since he and James had begun their own dream of a better, more cohesive world. Tomochichi, Thomas has learned, already knows quite a bit of the English and their ways. And those of the Spanish. Thomas has to admit that the Yamacraw chieftain may be more knowledgeable about the civilized world than he himself is. He had been ecstatic at Thomas’ suggestion of teaching his people how to read and do written arithmetic, although he had also pointed out maths and uses of physical language to Thomas that had never even occurred to him before. The buildings, Thomas recognizes, are similar to some of the newer buildings Oglethorpe has built, with thatched rooves and sides reinforced against the weather much the same. Tomochichi is delighted to hear this, remarking on his desire for a positive exchange between himself and the English.

Thomas admits to himself, a small worry. He feels a wall he hopes he can bridge - a Tomochichi who is happy with Oglethorpe and with assisting with British rule may not be the beacon of hope he and the other men had hoped he would be. 

Still, they talk of the school, of lessons and what Oglethorpe and the chief want the Yamacraw to learn, and of what Thomas himself can teach. In the end, it is pressing dusk before they are ready to depart. 

“You are sure you know the way?”

Tomochichi sounds doubtful, but Edgar nods confidently. 

“I’ve been going this route for years now. Haven’t taken a misstep yet.” 

Thomas has his own doubts, but only because he is truly out of his depth. Trust comes easy to him even now, but faith, he keeps under lock and key. 

Still, they set off into the coming darkness and Edgar seems easy enough as they progress. 

“Are you sure this is the same route as before? It seems to be taking longer to get back than it should.” Thomas remarks, a sense of uneasiness coming over him. It is well and truly dark now, and he can only dimly make out a path in the starlit night. 

“I know the way,” Edgar insists, but he sounds somewhat less confident than he has when talking to Tomochichi earlier. “It’s likely feeling longer because we’re tired, and so are the horses. They’re moving slower.”

Thomas thinks that if anything the horses have picked up their pace in the last hour, but he doesn’t say it, and they keep moving. 

A bit later, Edgar’s horse spooks suddenly in front of Thomas and he sees the man hold on through the first shy, but when the horse twists and bolts Edgar lands heavily just off the path. 

Thomas grabs tightly at his horse’s mane as it shies from the sound, and he hears Edgar cry out moments after he hits the ground. 

“I’m coming!” Thomas yells, but stops in his dismount at Edgar’s disagreement.

“Don’t! There’s a snake -fuck - a rattler.”

Thomas’ blood runs cold. 

“Can you get to the path?” A faint affirmation makes him move as close to the edge of the path where Edgar’s painful grunts come from. Thomas takes a chance and dismounts the skittish horse when he sees Edgar’s arm appear from the tall grass.

He pulls Edgar up and helps him hastily onto the back of his horse, clambering up behind him. The other horse is nowhere to be seen and Thomas laments the journey they’re going to have to make now, with Edgar likely to be delirious.

“Are you hurt other than the bite?” Thomas asks once they’re both steady. Edgar groans, collecting himself before he answers.

“I don’t think so. But we should head back to the Yamacraw.”

“What? Why? We’ll be closer to the plantation now, won’t we?” 

“Oglethorpe doesn’t have any remedies on hand, Tomlin.” Oh.

Shit. Of course. 

“The Yamacraw have some basic medicines for rattler bites. I’ll be better off spending the night with them.”

Thomas turns the horse around, hoping he can find his way back through a path he’s already traversed in the dark. They pick their way through, Edgar’s increasingly labored breathing the only benchmark of time.

It feels like forever when he hears a second set of hoofbeats coming from the path ahead. He calls out and is relieved to hear an answering shout.

When the rider stops in front of them Thomas thinks he vaguely recognizes the man from the Yamacraw village and breathes a sigh of relief. 

“He’s been bitten by a rattlesnake. Can you help him?” Edgar is barely conscious, moaning softly and leaning over the front of the saddle. 

The Yamacraw man looks him over briefly and nods, gesturing before turning his horse around and setting back down the path. Thomas urges his horse forward, the animal is also sweating and huffing, and keeps trying to turn around, but moves on when Thomas continues his urging. 

When they arrive at the village the man whistles and the three of them are met with a group of people, and Thomas is surprised to see Tomochichi among them.

“He’s been bitten by a rattlesnake,” Thomas repeats, unsure if it’s needed as the man who had led them back to the settlement is already talking in a low hushed tone, but he is exhausted and nervous and he feels Edgar leaning more heavily against him.

One man comes forward and gestures towards Edgar. Thomas dismounts and hauls Edgar off too, grateful when one of the people around grabs hold of the prancing horse. 

“Where do you need him?” He asks, but is relieved when two of the crowd come forward and take Edgar from him, quickly half carrying and half leading him to one of the tents. 

“Are you all right, Thomas?” It is Tomochichi, close to his shoulder, and Thomas is surprised when, instead of answering, he feels a leg give out. 

“Toonahawi, take Mr. Tomlin and get him warm and get him some water. 

Thomas tries to mutter a thank you but he isn’t honestly sure what comes out of his mouth, as the shock and relief set in. Exhausted and half delirious with the stress of the last few hours, he follows silently, not really registering anything except the bed that is offered to him.

Chapter Text

Thomas wakes with a start, unaware of where he is or how he got there. He knows that it is not Oglethorpe’s plantation and this is not his bed. The room is small, but not damp - something he had come to associate with his cell in Bethlem. For a moment he panics, thinking he has been taken in the night again. The dark is unfamiliar and louder than he has known since Bethlem’s screams echoed shrill in his ears. 

He sits up quickly enough to make his head spin and he sees a shadow come forward. A ghost or a guard he isn’t sure, but he’s not about to let them have him, either way. 

“Leave me alone!” He says it without thinking, and it's his own voice that breaks the spell. He’s never had a voice, before, in Bethlem. He never spoke, and certainly not like this. The shock of it brings him somewhat back to the present. Edgar, the snake. The Yamacraw.

Thomas recognizes the figure now, when it comes into the light of the hearthfire. It is the young man Edgar had spoken to earlier that day, though Thomas cannot remember his name. In truth, he thinks shakily, breathing heavily and feeling as if he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin, he isn’t truly sure of even his own being at the moment. 

“Calm, Mr. Tomlin.”

Of course. Tomlin. The name Peter had given him.

“I’m sorry,” he manages, still struggling to speak around the tightness in his chest. “Nightmares.” The man nods. “I’m sorry I-” he has to pause again to breath. “I don’t remember your name.” 

“Toonahawi.” The man is young - much younger than Thomas had first realized. He thinks, maybe, about Robert’s age. Thomas nods his acknowledgement, unable to force more words out. The man looks at him for a few moments longer before speaking again. “I will return.” 

Thomas watches him leave, wondering at how the Yamacraw have learnt so much English. He supposes - having known Oglethorpe for many years and with Tomochichi’s eagerness for a Christian school - that they may have started learning it themselves. 

When Toonahawi returns he carries a cup that smells strongly of herbs. Thomas grimaces. 

“Tea. Just tea,” he reassures. “It will relax you.”

Thomas braces, but takes the cup. He takes a few lungfuls of the smell and swears he already feels calmer. He delays drinking the tea however, until the young native notices his hesitance. 

“It will not harm you.”

“I know. In here,” he points to his head. “But in here-” and moves the hand to his chest. “I’m not so sure.” 

“You have had a bad experience with medicine.” It’s not phrased as a question, but it is one. Thomas nods, holding the cup near to absorb the warmth and sniffing again, but still unable to get himself to drink. 

“I suppose you could say that.” He looks around, suddenly remembering Edgar’s fall, and the bite. The events of the night. Toonahawi follows his gaze. 

“Your friend lives. Recovers, maybe not. But he will live.” 

Thomas thinks it an odd distinction at first but, when he thinks about his own condition - in not even being able to drink tea prepared by someone else - perhaps he understands just fine. 

“Thank you. And your people. For...helping us.”

“Should we have let you wonder, lost? Let Edgar die?” Thomas raises his eyebrows in acquiescence. “We desire good terms with your people. You will not be leaving soon. Uncle says so. So, we must forge a peace. That peace does not strengthen if we let your people die when we can help.”

Thomas contemplates that, and realizes that he has completely misread the interactions between Oglethorpe and these people. 

“I had offered to help teach your people our religion, but don’t your people have your own customs? Your own ways that you want to protect?” 

The long forgotten past creeps up on him again, at that thought.

The New World is a gift, Lieutenant-

He closes his eyes briefly against the flare of pain in his chest the memory brings up. Of James-

When he opens his eyes again, he sees Toonahawi considering him.

“We do. And there are those of us who wish to keep them. But Uncle says that we must learn your ways too - as we are aware of the customs of the other tribes and nations, so that we can exist together.”

“Somehow I don’t think England is going to feel the same about you.”

Toonahawi smiles, and Thomas sees a bit of familiar mischief in the younger man’s smile. “Uncle has visited there. Said it stank, but that it was wonderful too. Your people are funny, he told me.”

Thomas lets out a bitter chuckle. “My people. I haven’t considered them thus in years, and yet to you I must seem so similar to them.”

“Can I ask you a question now?” 

“Of course.”

“Edgar has also told our people that some of you go, but most of you stay at the plantation for life. But he said that you are not slaves. Can you explain?”

Thomas takes a breath, stares at the tea going cold in his hand. “I can, although I’m not quite sure where to start.” He thinks of James. Of Miranda. “The most obvious place - I haven’t talked about in years.”

Toonahawi remains silent, waiting patiently in a way that Thomas envies, for all its familiarity. He remembers being the same, when James had struggled to tell him about some shame or ill temperament, back in London.

James.

The name, for all that he has given up hope of ever seeing the man attached to it, still pulls at the entirety of his being. 

“I am, for lack of a nicer word, a prisoner of Oglethorpe’s. I was delivered to him by a man I had once thought was a friend, because I fought to introduce a better world to a society that is stuck where it is.”

He fights the sadness back, the bitterness he still feels towards Peter. It is a useless emotion, but that does not stop it from boiling up until he feels it wanting to spill out of his mouth.  

“When I was sent to Oglethorpe, my friend gave him a different name that I have been called since.”

“Henry Tomlin.”

Thomas nods.

“Yes. I was too sick and weak to truly resist at the time - the effects of the medicine I was given. And since, well. I suppose it hasn’t seemed important until recently.”

“What changed?”

Thomas stops himself. The obvious answer seems to be that the prospect of escape - of possibly living a life out of the control of others has him grasping at all the pieces of his old self he can. There is something deeper, though. Something he almost does not want to recognize.

“I suppose...I’ve regained my hope.” 

Toonahawi regards him then with a long stare. “Your hope for this better world?”

“No. That world, I’ve realized - even the one I wanted - is not possible. It is still feeble and corrupt. I suppose I’m still searching for the answer to what’s next...but I feel as if I’m finally ready to ask the question again.” That seems to please the other man. He smiles, and Thomas answers the smile with one of his own.

“You are a very interesting person.” Thomas smiles, revels in the connection of another human.

“What about you? Your people. I know that our arrival cannot have pleased them all, and yet your uncle seemed very pleased that I had come to teach you.”

“My uncle,” Toonahawi starts, his expression wry but fond. “My uncle is a bit like you, perhaps. Excited about a world he only dreams in, that is perhaps not able to be created in this world.”

“I had gathered a bit of that. But he is respected here, yes? Your people like him?”

“We do. He is very wise, and good, and I feel he knows a path that is better than the other Yamasee chiefs, who cannot see past their anger, as righteous as it may be. They cannot see that a path, even a path paved with truth, when coated with blood, is not a path to walk on.”

Thomas considers that. Considers their plan for the plantation. How similar the words that Toonahawi speaks are, in idea at least, to what he had proposed in London. Perhaps all is not lost, for them to form some sort of alliance. 

A noise from outside seems to draw Toonahawi’s attention and he grimaces as he looks back at Thomas. “I have kept you awake when you should be resting. Sleep. Drink the tea if you would like, but I hope you feel calmer, regardless.”

He does, in fact, feel so much better than just a few minutes ago. “Thank you for talking with me. It helped quite a bit.” He smiles, attempting mischief for the first time in a while. It feels cracked, like dusting off an old unused bit of machinery. “And I promise I won’t tell your uncle what you did.”

Toonahawi laughs, a loud, deep thing. “Oh, he would be delighted to learn his curiosity is infecting me.” Thomas joins in, and something else uncurls in him again. Joy. Hope growing stronger.

As Toonahawi gets up to leave he pauses by the doorway. 

“What was your other name?”

Surprised, Thomas answers.

“My name was Thomas Hamilton.” It feels odd in his mouth. He has almost forgotten what it feels like to say his own name.

“Thomas Hamilton,” Toonahawi repeats. “If you would like, that is what we will call you.”

“I would like that very much.” He has to push the words out around the lump in his throat. His voice sounds strange, soft and forced, even to his own ears. 

Toonahawi nods.

“Of course. We will wake you in the morning and send word to Oglethorpe of your safety.”

-----

It is Robert and Timothy who return with the scout that had been sent to the plantation. Restless and blasting through the entrance to the camp, Robert’s eyes set instantly on where Thomas is seated outside one of the buildings. 

“Thom!” He flies off the horse, and Thomas is once again grateful that the Yamacraw seem to be skilled horse people, as one of them grabs the reins even before Robert has hit the ground. Robert is on him in the next second, enveloping him in a fierce hug.

Thomas returns it briefly before pushing him away. Timothy has reached them, then, and Thomas is vaguely surprised when the other man also pulls him in for an embrace. 

“This one was worried sick about you. Was convinced you’d died.”

Thomas winces at the words. Edgar is still feverishly asleep.

“I think we got lost, but one of the horses spooked.”

“A snake,” Timothy nods. “They told us. How is Edgar?”

“They say he’ll live, but I’m not sure about anything else.” He feels a bit guilty, but he is starting to be strangely pleased. Not, of course, that Edgar is hurt, but if he is no longer able to make the trips to the Yamacraw, it would solve a number of their problems at once. 

Briefly he wonders what the old Thomas Hamilton would have thought of that.

Timothy nods, but Thomas realizes that Robert’s attention is wholly elsewhere. Toonahawi walks up to them, and Thomas introduces the three of them, although he feels slightly silly doing it.

“We will keep Edgar here until he recovers, but you should return with your friends.”

“Actually -” he hesitates. He is in no hurry to return to the plantation, to work he has even at the best of times struggled to keep up with. To the pressure and the guards. “I was thinking perhaps I could stay here, if I’m not needed at the plantation. I could work with Tomochichi on his school, so that it is in place when Oglethorpe returns.”

“I will ask him,” Toonahawi nods, and gestures for Thomas to follow him. Timothy and Robert follow, for lack of a better directive to follow.

Thomas and Tomochichi speak, briefly, and the chief is as pleased as Thomas hoped he would be at the offer. 

“Of course we would be delighted. And you can help Edgar as well, and we will teach you the way back that we use, should you need it. I cannot be sure what path you took, or if it was Edgar’s usual route, but we will show you the correct one.” 

Thomas smiles, and turns to his friends. “Join me? I think we have our own plans to discuss before you return.” The two nod, but Thomas sees Toonahawi’s gaze linger on them as he leaves them in the room Thomas had used the night before. When he leaves, Robert’s gaze lingers on the door.

“Are they all that....tall?”

Thomas laughs, and he hears Timothy give a snort as well. “So far he’s the tallest I’ve seen. He’s rather smart, though, as well.” Thomas raises an eyebrow, and Robert at least has the good sense to blush.

“I’m just saying...”

“We both know what you were saying, Rob.” Timothy interjects before turning to Thomas. “So, I assume this changes our plans for an alliance with these people?” Thomas nods, but he feels his excitement bubbling to the surface again.

“I think there’s a real possibility here. Tomochichi is very interested in the ways of the English, but I think he would be open to helping us if we can sway him to see what Oglethorpe is doing is wrong. And Toonahawi,” he gestures towards the door with his chin. “He certainly could be brought along to our side. He’s Tomochichi’s nephew.”

“You two talked?” Thomas laughs at the different tones the two men use, even as the question is the same. Timothy sounds surprised, pleased, but Robert sounds incredulous.

After the stress of the night before Robert’s wide eyed incredulity makes Thomas laugh, and soon they have left the planning of the rebellion to the side for the moment.

-----

Early the next morning Thomas is awoken by the sound of someone entering the small room he is occupying. The figure is not one his bleary eyes recognize, and it takes a few blinks to orient himself to the dim light. When he does, a woman stands before him.

She is squarely built, with a frame that suggests muscles lay beneath the formless tunic she wears. The look she gives him is unimpressed as he looks around for the clothing he’d removed last night. Something heavy lands squarely in his lap. It is a set of the same sort of clothing he’s seen the natives wear.

“My clothes?”

“Are being cleaned. Unless you were planning to let the blood and dirt stay in the cloth forever.” Her accent is surprisingly thin and she sounds more like he would expect an Englishwoman to sound. 

“Forgive me, who are you?” 

“For now, my name to you is Mrs. Musgrove.” She nods to the clothing sitting in his lap. “Put those on, if you’re going to be staying here and working with this tribe you’re going to learn about it, first.”

She leaves without confirming he’s heard, and for a second he is left dumbstruck. As he sits staring at the space where she had been standing just moments before, Thomas feels a tiny laugh bubble out of him that grows to a full and incredulous thing. 

He dresses and turns down the bedsheets, unsure if it’s proper but feeling the need to anyway. When he exits the room Mrs. Musgrove is leaning against the wall. She raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Good humor in the morning?”

“You remind me of my wife. I have missed her, and it was good to feel put in my place again, I suppose.”

She watches him for a second, but Thomas cannot read anything in her expression. 

“Come on then.” She leads him towards a long building. 

---

The next few days sees Thomas repeatedly hit over the head with his own ignorance. To his own embarrassment, he realizes how much he has still held onto the prejudice of thinking that English society and the way they do things is the most advanced there is. 

During the days either Mrs. Musgrove or Toonahawi leads him around the village, introducing him to various tribespeople and teaching him the basics of their way of life. They start to teach him their language, too. Although Thomas speaks several European languages, the language of the natives is wholly unlike any of them and Thomas is fascinated by the differences in the ways their language is so totally different from the ones he knows. On the second day Mrs. Musgrove starts speaking to him only in the Yamacraw’s language; the surly woman seems to enjoy challenging him, smiling in amusement as he trips through the language in response to her usage of it. 

On the rare occaisions he has time to lend to Thomas, Tomochichi on the other hand seems to use Thomas’ presence to practice his own English, grilling Thomas on the proper usage of each word and part of speech. It is through these conversations that Thomas begins to understand just how removed from English society the Yamacraw are, how different their way of thinking is and how it has shaped the way they use their language, and the way they live their lives. 

Toonahawi mingles both languages with an ease of tongue that Thomas envies - the young man is incredibly intelligent and eats through the conversations he has with Thomas in a way that Thomas finds entirely too reminiscent. 

“So these are the only crops you grow?” 

Toonahawi has led him to a wide field where several women and a few of the older children are tending a variety of plants. The field looks wholly different than the neat rows of crops that Thomas and his fellows tend at the plantation. To his eye, it looks more like a wild and unkempt field than a planned crop.

“We tend many crops and plants that we eat. This field is for the things that do not readily grow themselves.”

“All on top of one another? Does that not make it harder to grow?”

Toonahawi laughs. “I cannot understand why you English do not understand that things work better together.” Toonahawi walks over to the edge of the field. There are corn stalks growing tall but as Toonhawi points down, Thomas notices many large gourds and pods sprawling about in the shade of the stalks.

“These do not like sun,” Toonahawi explains. “The corn keeps them cool, and gives the vines room to grow. The pumpkins and squash protect the corn from the deer, who cannot walk easily through the vines.” He points to a different part of the field, where a variety of vines are growing on stakes, again with other plants and bushes surrounding them. “Those need a tall space, but have fragile roots. The other plants protect them, so that they can grow tall and strong. Everything works together, Thomas. If you separate them, they cannot grow as strong.”

Thomas considers that as they walk around the edge of the village, where trees of various heights grow. Thomas wonders if there is a design to that too - but he doesn’t ask, yet. 

As they make their way around Thomas begins to notice other things he had assumed to be mistakes - oversights due to the small number of people in the village. Now, though, he wonders if they do serve a purpose, just not one he can understand yet. 

“Do you think we - the English, I mean - have something to offer you, like the crops?” 

Toonahawi tilts his head, considering. “My uncle certainly does - and with how few our numbers are the help of Oglethorpe has kept us from going hungry the last few winters. But-” Toonahawi falls silent, his mouth pursing. He seems to be considering whether to continue. 

“What?” Thomas urges.

“I just had a thought, but I - forgive me, Thomas. The relationship between the tribes and your people - it has not been kind to us. My uncle tries to make the best of it, and wishes that we do as well, but it is not always possible to do so.”

Toonahawi squeezes his shoulder genially before retreating, before Thomas even has the opportunity to ask him about his sudden change of mood.

------

“Thomas.” 

The sound of his name draws Thomas’ attention from the field, especially when he notes the worried furrow in Tomochichi’s brow.

“Is something wrong?” 

Tomochichi’s frown deepens. “It is Edgar. He is getting worse.” 

Worry settles in Thomas’ stomach. “Worse how?”

“The limb is dying.” 

“Is there anything you can do?” 

Tomochichi nods severely, his brows still knitted. “We will have to remove the arm. It is the only way to save his life.” 

“...Is there a reason you haven’t? It sounds like a good enough solution, given the circumstances...”

“Edgar does not want us to remove his arm.” 

Oh.

“I know he is stubborn - I was hoping you could convince him.”

Thomas nods. “ I will try. Edgar and I are not the closest of friends, but I will try.” 

Tomochichi’s brows relax, and he nods, gesturing for Thomas to follow him. He is led into the medicine house where Edgar has been staying. 

“Brought an Englishman to convince me, have you?” Edgar sounds tired, weary. Upset and ragged.

“They thought I might understand your hesitance, I suppose,” Thomas says, shrugging and sitting next to the bed. He nods to the medicine woman and Tomochichi and the pair leave together, so that it is just himself and Edgar. 

“Why won’t you let them take the arm? They’ve told you-” 

“And then what? What use do you think Oglethorpe has for a one-armed man?” 

“You know that Oglethorpe will still take care of you. We will find something for you to do-”

“Like what, working the mill so I can lose the other arm?”

“You can still work with the livestock, or perhaps help with the accounting, I could teach you what you’ll need-”

“You’re as dumb as ever, Hamilton. Too kindhearted and soft. If I die, I die. Worse ways to go, and I won’t spend the rest of my life bent over a desk like Ben or a kept man and an invalid. I was supposed to be free, but now even if I do get to leave, I won’t have nowhere to go or nothing to do.” 

“You’re not useless just because you’ve lost an arm. I’m sure we can come up with something for you to do - physical labor isn’t the only thing men like us-”

“Men like us? You and I aren’t anything alike, Tomlin.” Edgar’s bitter tone surprises Thomas. “You’re smart, real smart. I know why Oglethorpe sent you and not me to teach these people. If it were you here sure, you’d probably be happy to lose an arm if it meant you could have desk duty. But me? I can barely read the Bible. I’m not a thinker. The best thing I had going for me was that the pastor trusted me to know how to preach God’s word to the savages, and I’ve got a head for memorization.”

“We can still find something for you to do,” Thomas insists, trying to turn the problem over in his mind to find a solution. “But even if we can’t - we - the other men - wouldn’t let you waste away.”

Edgar raises an eyebrow.

“So sure of that, are you?”

An idea catches. 

“Yes. I am.”

There is silence as Edgar waits, expecting more. More that Thomas is trying to decide whether or not to tell him. He takes a deep breath.

“Can you just trust me? I have an idea but I can’t - there is more I need to do before I can make you a formal offer.”

“Oh?” Edgar asks with a raised eyebrow. 

“We’ll take care of you,” Thomas insists again. 

Edgar looks doubtful, and, Thomas thinks, perhaps a bit scared. He looks at his arm - the wound is open to promote draining but Thomas can see the blue black skin, and the bright yellow-white puss that leaks from it. Until now he has been able to ignore the smell but now it threatens to suffocate him as he stares at the cause. 

Thomas draws his gaze from the wound, and Edgar meets his eyes. 

“Fine, but you have to promise me you’ll put in a word for me.” 

“I promise.” 

As he leaves he pulls the woman who has been tending him aside. 

“May I speak with you?” 

The woman nods, but waves him out. “I will speak with you in a moment.”

He idles for a few minutes outside the building until she emerges, wiping her hands on her deerskin. 

“What is it, Thomas?” 

“I was looking over the numbers for Oglethorpe and noticed…how few your numbers are. Compared to even five years ago, there are a good deal fewer of your people, based on the things you are trading for. Is there some trouble?”

The woman, Onawa, grimaces, and looks back into the building she had left. “It is true, there are fewer of us now than there were even two years ago. Ten years ago, there were many more of ours and other Muscogee peoples than there are now.”

“Why? Has something happened?” She levels him with a stare that makes him feel, for the first time since he has been here, very stupid. The sound of someone approaching, and an angry voice he recognizes.

“Your people happened.” Thomas turns to see Mrs. Musgrove standing behind them, arms crossed as if she expects Thomas to disagree. 

“What do you mean? Surely you haven’t lost that many to fighting?” 

“Not wars, no.” Onawa interjects, a disapproving look to Mrs. Musgrove. “Do you know why so many of your people die of Yellow fever?”

“Because we are not used to it,” Thomas says simply.

Onawa nods. “You white men carry many strange illnesses with you.”

“Don’t lie to him, Onawa. It isn’t all so innocent as that.”

“Contact with us has caused this loss?” 

Onawa and Mrs. Musgrove nod, one a tad more gently than the other. 

Thomas feels a great sense of nausea at the realization - and at yet again how naive he has been. He leans against the side of the building for support. 

“How many?” 

“What?”

“How many have died, because of us?” 

“In our tribe, perhaps two hundred. It is better now, but we have lost so many already we struggle to feed the ones who are left.”

A dark thought hits him, what he had seen in the fields and the numbers for Oglethorpe now making sense.

“That’s why Tomochichi is so eager to join the colonists.”

“And why we need so much from you. Before your people, we were able to harvest and hunt what we needed. We moved our people south when your people came here, but we were driven back by the Spanish. Now, we live in between you, but we have lost too many to defend ourselves from either. To wars, to fights with other tribes. To illnesses you bring with you. To the weapons you bring with you. And with both fewer healthy people and the Cherokee enabling war, we cannot keep up with the land, nor our own demands.”

Thomas is silent, sorrow and guilt creeping up in him. This most recent blow to the way in which he has always viewed the English’s arrival to the new world…

“We truly are a plague,” he says bitterly. “Even when we try to help. I assume these diseases get worse, the more contact you have with us?”

Mrs. Musgrove nods. “Oglethorpe is kind, gives us medicines and knows not to send anyone who is sick. Others have not used the knowledge of our weaknesses so kindly, or blame us for the fevers that claim your people.” 

Although he does not confirm it, he has a feeling he might know who she is speaking about. 

“Is there anything we can do?”

“Keep your people away.”

Hope of an alliance seems to be slowly dwindling, and Thomas fears he will return to the plantation with good news for neither Oglethorpe, nor Robert and Timothy.

----

In the evenings he has begun seeking Toonahawi out. They converse, and he finds that the young man has a grasp on the nuances of politics between the English and the Yamacraw that astounds him. But there is still something that bothers Thomas. He is struggling to put it into words that do not sound patronizing, but he knows that Toonahawi can tell it’s there. 

When he sees the progress being made on the materials and building for the English school, Toonhawi side-eyes him. 

“Something wrong?” 

“It bothers me.”

“What does?”

“This....it feels like I’ve got a sense of deja vu. Oh - the feeling I’ve done this before.” Ten years ago, he sees James and himself sitting in a study, coming up with a way to reintegrate troubled men back into a society that wants nothing to do with them. 

“What about it bothers you? That we seek education?”

“No,” he answers quickly, because that is not it. “It is...” the words struggle to form on his tongue. “The English do not want you to learn their ways or to become one of them.” 

Toonhawi grins, like he’s already figured this.

“Then what do your people want?” 

“To make you look like them. To make you give up everything that makes you yourself. To push you into a box in which you do not fit so neatly and carefully that when you inevitably spill out, they can call you monstrous. England only wants to bring its gospel to others so that it can keep its own in line. ‘See how much better than these monsters you are,’ is all they need from you.”

Toonhawi’s eyes have lost their mirth, and Thomas feels sick. Feels sick that he ever thought that what he and James were doing was benevolent. That it was anything other than seeking to destroy with kindness. 

In a way, he is glad he didn’t succeed. While he wants to believe he would have seen the truth, he fears the kind of blindness that could have led him not to. 

“You have some experience with this.”

Thomas nods, not trusting his voice.

“You were born one of these monsters?”

That draws a laugh. Born a monster. Perhaps. For all the fancy trifilings he’d been given as a child his father certainly came to see him that way. 

“No. No one is born a monster. Monsters are created. Every last one of them.” He thinks of James, turned pirate after being outcast for nothing worse than loving and defending Thomas. He thinks of James with a noose around his neck for the crime, and has to steady himself before he can speak again. 

“They are created by a society that would rather see difference as something to be destroyed, rather than celebrated. I was born a Lord. And so I suppose I was never deemed dangerous enough to be a monster. Only a madman.” Only dangerous enough to be imprisoned for the rest of his life. He realizes only belatedly that he is perhaps showing too much of his hand. 

He turns to look at the younger man beside him to see himself being watched. 

“Even among our people, there is fighting. Why do you think this is a uniquely English experience? The creation of monsters?” 

Thomas pauses at that. He’s never considered the Yamacraw’s relationship within itself, or with the other tribes. He feels his cheeks color as he realizes the existence of yet another bias. 

“You don’t all agree-”

“And often those disagreements lead to bloodshed - to prisoners turned slaves. Even within our tribe, I am sure you’ve noticed there are many different opinions and ways of life.”

“I suppose...the difference is that England seeks to gain control through the demonization of all others. It is more than a simple disagreement. It is more that - oh, for example anyone who disagrees with the norms could reasonably be expected to be hung for it. Your people don’t seem to be interested in the same sort of hunger for life that I know England feels for the places it wants to hold power over.” 

“Hunger is a good word for it.”

“England, its Queens and Kings, the Lords. They see only a land to be devoured; a people to be conquered. I suppose that’s the difference.”

He sits up straighter at the realization. At a way to voice his thoughts. “Your people may fight, but it is with a certain respect for each other, and for the land. You do not desire to spread yourselves past where your discrepancies end. England does not want to fight for some imagined wrong: she wants to destroy to make room for herself to grow. To feed the spillage of her own self-importance.”

Again, he has to swallow down the nausea and regret. Shame is not something he has ever ascribed to, but he thinks that perhaps he should feel it now. To attempt to ensure he is truly on a better path, now.

“I do not know if we would not feel the same, if we had the same power England does.”

“I suppose the difference is, you don’t.”

Toonahawi smiles, his brows knit as he ponders. His gaze shifts and Thomas turns to see Mrs. Musgrove standing at the edge of the circle. She makes a movement of her head and Toonahawi gestures to Thomas and then rises, walking over to her. Thomas follows.

“Tomochichi and I need to speak with Thomas.” 

Toonahawi nods, Thomas follows Mrs. Musgrove, and the conversation hangs on the unfinished note. Even as he talks with the Chief about schools and knowledge and integration, his mind is stuck on the conversation.  

------

It is the last day he has been granted to stay with the Yamacraw, and Thomas finds himself sitting at the edge of the field where the Yamacraw are working. He watches as they pick berries and harvest various plants. 

A group of older children wades through the savannah’s grass and trees, their baskets starting to overflow as they talk joyfully in a language he cannot yet fully understand. 

“What are you thinking about, Thomas?” 

The voice takes his attention from the scene, and he finds the old woman Onawa who has been treating Edgar standing behind him. He has been so engrossed he hadn’t heard her come up. 

“Nothing much.” His mind has been buzzing for days but now, for the last however long he has been sitting here, it has been silent. Watching the Yamacraw working. Resting, perhaps - or mulling. Thinking over everything it has seen.

“Whatever that nothing much is, it is very loud,” the woman says, smiling knowingly at him. He has spent a good deal of time with her, as Edgar’s injury has worsened and now slowly started to get better, and he finds that he likes her sardonic wit. She is very different than Thomas himself, able to convey meaning with a glance rather than words, and much of their conversations happen in silence. He likes her company. 

She sits next to him and they begin one such conversation, both staring at the harvesters. Silent and still, but her presence changes his thoughts. 

It is a few long moments before Onawa breaks the silence again. 

“You are a much bigger thinker than Edgar and even, I think, than Mr. Oglethorpe.”

“How so?” 

Onawa nods. “You see in everything, a change. Possibility. Genuine interest in how to make things work together.”

“And if those things ought to be kept separate?” 

“Nothing is separate. Not now, not in the past. Certainly not in the future.” 

“But certainly some things cannot coexist together.” He knows that the kind of land England wants to build here will not suffer even friendly natives like the Yamacraw. “The English will not let this stay as it is.”

“You have your doubts about what Tomochichi and Mr. Oglethorpe want to achieve.” 

“I think....I have seen what happens when a person tries to change how England thinks.” 

“What would you have us do instead? Fight? Like our brothers and sisters in the other Creek Nations? Fight, and make ourselves enemies of something we have no hope of defeating?” 

Thomas flushes, and shakes his head, even though her question had held no anger.

“No. I’m not sure what the answer is. Just that assimilating into what England wants its conquests to be will only help those who ...can.”

“Not men like you.”

He starts, and turns to stare at her. “What do you mean?” 

“I’m not sure, but there is a reason you were sent to Mr. Oglethorpe’s, isnt there? And from the way you reacted just now, I do not think it had to do with a prison sentence.” 

Thomas laughs and considers that. “Played my hand, have I?” Onawa smiles back.

“You are not very difficult to read,” she says simply, and leaves it at that. In the silence that follows, Thomas ponders both conundrums. The personal, and the larger one. 

“You’re right - I am not someone England would ever welcome back. But then, that is why I am at Oglethorpe’s in the first place. I tried to change too much too fast, and I thought I could handle the blowback. I was wrong, because I did not understand what England truly was. How strongly she holds the convictions she does.”

"I was under the impression that your reasons for being imprisoned were political, and yet the way you are speaking now does not make it seem so."

"The political reasons were mostly a veneer for the fact that my father thought that my personage and ideals would destroy our family's name."

It comes out more bitter than he intends it to, and they fall awkwardly silent. The people in the field are leaving, emptying out as the afternoon draws on. Onawa does not move, and so Thomas stays. He wants to -

“Do you know what a two-spirit is?” Thomas turns to look at her and shakes his head. 

“They are people who are born with both the spirit of a woman and that of a man, and occupy both roles, and neither.”

“I’m sorry?”

“People have always existed between the roles rigid societies place upon them. We must be free to adapt ourselves to the tasks and lives we are suited best for. You seem to have a bit of that need in you - to occupy a role you were not expected to play."

Immediately Thomas thinks of Miranda, and his throat closes up.

“Yes, well. As I've learned many times over the last few years, England does not appreciate when people do not fit into the plans that have been made for them.”

Onawa nods sympathetically.

“From what I have heard of your religion and of your way of life - from Oglethorpe and other such men - it seems as though there is very little room for interpretation of what a human being may be in it.”

Thomas laughs, a bitter, pained thing. It hurts, not only for what has been buried in him, but how much he, and James, and Miranda buried for so long. What was taken from them for sheer prejudice against difference. And how he had once thought he could so easily change the ideas that formed it.

“These two-spirit people...” he is trying to formulate the question he wants to ask. Carefully, how to say what he needs to know. “They’re loved, here?” Onawa smiles, and it looks kind. 

“They are among our most cherished.” 

Thomas feels a tear falling before he can stop it, wipes it away hastily. Onawa has seen, of course, but she doesn’t comment. Her voice is, perhaps, gentler when she speaks.

“My Halona is one such person.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” 

“We will have to remedy that. I believe you would like Halona. A very opinionated person, much like yourself.”

The name strikes Thomas, though. And perhaps Onawa has indeed guessed why he was sent to the plantation without him having to tell her.

“A union between two people - who are not a man and a woman. That is accepted here?”

“Love is accepted, here. The physical forms of the love are less important than the bond that is created and the good for the community that comes from it.”

The words settle over Thomas, bringing memories and wishes, and inspiration from long ago back to the surface. James and Miranda both weigh heavily in the forefront of his mind. Onawa stands, stretches and begins to head back. Thomas hears her turn a few paces away.

“Will you join me?”

“I think...” He has too much to think about. Too much old grief coming to the surface. “I think I would like to sit here, for a while. You have given me quite a bit to think about.”

“Was it helpful?”

Thomas nods, unable to speak with the ghosts he has started to see, just at the edge of his vision. James, Miranda, the love they’d shared that could have been so much more had they not had to fight for it. 

“Do not stay too much longer, when dusk sets in there will be more danger, and you will be missed at home.” 

He hears, more than sees, Onawa leave. The emotions he feels are too raw to cry out; they only cleave at his chest with regret and sadness. Not emotions he deals in, normally, for they hold no purpose for him in finding a way forward. But just for a few hours, he supposes, he can imagine what it might have been like, had he and his loves made their way here together. Or perhaps been born here, rather than England. 

It is not past dusk when he returns, but the light is mostly gone. In the dimness, he finds Toonahawi waiting by the edge of the village for him. “Onawa said she spoke to you and that I should make sure you did not forget to come back. Is everything all right?” 

Movement in the corner of his eyes catches Thomas’ attention and he sees Onawa sitting by the fire, an arm wrapped around someone who, now that Thomas knows who it is, he realizes he has seen before. They are resting easy with the others, talking around the fire and something settles back into place in him. He smiles, shakes his head to clear it and then nods to Toonahawi. 

“Yes. I’m fine. Just nostalgic, I suppose.”

“Nostalgic?”

“Missing people I’ve loved. Who I still love.” It feels disingenuous to say otherwise. Toonahawi looks over to Onawa and some recognition crosses his face. When he meets Thomas’ eyes something so recognizable it aches is in his eyes. 

“If you would ever like to share of them, memories spoken can honor those who are no longer with us.” 

Thomas nods, but the grief is still too raw from thinking about the past for too long. “I may do that, eventually.” 

Toonahawi nods, satisfied. “Good night, Thomas.” 

And with that Toonahawi turns and leaves. Thomas stands at the edge of the gathering of buildings, listening to the sounds of a community that has, in only a few days, become more of a home to him than thirty years in England had felt like.