Chapter Text
For as long as Will could remember, there had always been a boat.
He’d grown up surrounded by water. He’d learned to walk on the shifting, tilting decks. His father liked to joke that Will had wobbled on land, making up for the loss of the waves.
Will had a job before he could write his own name. He had callouses by the age of seven, from working whatever rigging his tiny hands could manage. His father had taught him his lessons, rather than send him to a school. Harrison Graham needed all hands on deck if he was going to keep their little family afloat.
They were fishermen, primarily, but eventually they’d expanded. Will was the best boat mechanic one could find in London’s harbor, and his father eventually found partnership with another fisherman. They leased the boats, and Will repaired them when they returned from their voyage.
It was a humble life, but Will had never known anything else. It was impossible to miss something he’d never had. Besides, in order to miss something, one had to have the spare time to think about it. Will only stopped moving to eat or sleep. Every other moment was for the boats.
Or his dog.
Medic was a stunted approximation of a bull terrier. Will had found him as a pup struggling in the muck of the Thames. It wasn't uncommon for people to toss aside unwanted litters, and this pup seemed to have been the only one of his own to have made it.
Will had nursed him back to health, carried him in a sling on his chest as he continued to work, despite his father's assurances that the mutt wouldn't survive the summer.
Medic was four, now, and thriving.
Plus, he made a good name for himself along the docks by keeping the rodent population down. He also won favor with Harrison in that he earned his keep; Medic was paid for his work in scraps and treats and came home with a full round belly. He even joked that the dog lived better than the human Grahams did, some days.
Most of Will’s days were spent out at sea, but there was still a small flat to come home to. It was sparsely furnished, but still cramped. Harrison slept on the sofa so that Will could have the one room with a door, and they worked around each other. Harrison insisted that Will needed the space more than he did.
And perhaps he did, in a technical sense. Even if his marital bed wasn’t quite what his dad imagined it to be.
After Medic, Beverly Graham was the light of Will’s life, if only because she had never expected more from him than he had to give. And what he had to give was very little at all. Certainly not intimacy .
“Making you lunch,” Bev said. Will looked up from his tea, still half asleep. Her dark hair was tangled from sleep, falling in messy waves from where she’d tied it back the night before. One of Will’s longer shirts hung off her shoulders down to her knees and the sleeves had been folded five times over to rest in a bunch at her elbows. She looked about as awake as he was.
“No need for you to be up this early.” The sun hadn’t yet risen, and Beverly wouldn’t be out on the Nola with Will today.
“If I don’t make you lunch, you won’t eat,” Bev said, placing a fond kiss on the top of his head.
“Lunch is an expense we don’t need. Breakfast suits me just fine.”
“When you eat it.” Bev shot him a knowing look, heading back towards the bedroom.
Initially, they'd met because of work.
Will's dad fixed the boat Bev and her parents had come to England on, from the mainland.
"It's a miracle she made it," Harrison had told Bev's dad as he regarded the half-shattered little vessel and Bev translated what she could understand from the hand gestures. "It's a miracle y'all made it."
The docks had seen an influx of Russian Jews coming through in the 1880s, most came into one port and out through another, and Harrison found they were some of the most honest when it came to pay or barter. No one had it easy, but a Korean-Russian family that spoke Yiddish and little else had it harder than most.
Bev's parents had tried to pay with heirloom candlesticks, embroidered cloth, the clothes off their backs. Harrison had told them he’d fix up their boat and let them crash on the main room floor if they helped with some cooking and clean up. Will was a tot still, only seven, and when he wasn't able to join Harrison on the boats themselves he wasn't the best at keeping house. Besides, Harrison thought Will could use more of a feminine touch in his life; his mother had run off not long after Will had turned three, and Harrison was a gruff man by nature and necessity.
"Nosh and a good kip, that's what y'all need." Harrison had said, cutting all other bartering options off at the root.
Bev had gone by Beylke then, and the five-year-old and her mother made the flat look neater than it had ever been in all the time the Grahams had lived in it within the space of two days. Bev’s dad helped Harrison with the repairs, and started to pick up some English that way, and Bev’s mum found a way to turn what Will had thought were useless leftovers into entire meals. Strange jiggly jello with bits of meat in it made from chicken feet and leftover bones, coffee ground from dried and toasted acorns, dandelion tea. She’d tell Will later, when language wasn’t such a barrier, that coming from a land where hunger was the norm, one got creative. If it was edible, they’d find a way to eat it. If it wasn’t, it just meant no one had tried to eat it yet.
They were meant to only stay until the boat was fixed, until they could turn her bow towards the hopes and dreams that lay over the horizon in America.
They ended up staying in London forever.
Will and Bev had grown up side by side, even when her family found a room and moved out a few months after effectively moving in. She'd been determined to befriend the weird wild-haired boy and was relentless in her pursuit. She borrowed Will's books, his clothes, his accent. By the time she was eleven, and Will thirteen, she had no accent whatsoever, and while Will remained home schooled his entire life, Bev had been sent to one of the schools in the city. She cut her teeth on playground bullies and ingrained racism well before any child her age should have.
Maybe that was why it had been her idea to get married when they hit ‘that age’, too.
"Look, you know Papa will find a goddamn matchmaker otherwise," she'd said, passing Will's cigarette back to him. They were staring out over the nighttime docks, a bottle of cheap wine stolen from Bev's house and a cigarette stolen from Will's. "Help me out here."
“A matchmaker would do better for you than I would.” The wine was acrid, too-sweet. It did the job, though, which was to make them drunk enough to forget the day’s aches.
Will was nineteen; Bev was seventeen. Together, they had a handful of shillings and a few more handfuls of secrets. Will could not have found a more suitable wife, and Bev turned heads wherever she went. She swore like a sailor and worked harder than most of them. She knew her way around a book as well as a boat, and the last thing she wanted was to be tied down by tradition.
“A matchmaker doesn’t know me like you do.” Bev stole the wine from Will’s grasp, swallowing the last of it with a grimace.
“She’ll know more men,” Will said. “She might find you someone more well-off. Someone who could offer you a proper house. Maybe with a garden.”
“She’d just as likely find me a drunkard,” Bev argued, “or a guy three times my age who can’t keep his fists to himself. Besides, I’ve no skill with plants, you know that.”
“I’m not Jewish,” Will pointed out, stubbing the cigarette out against the sole of his boot. He knew a fair bit more than most, from their shared childhood, but religion had never called to him, Judaism or otherwise.
“On anyone else, that might be a flaw, but Papa loves you,” Bev reminded him. “Besides, you’ve had Shabbat with us often enough, you probably could lead the prayers.”
She wasn’t wrong. But Will’s bilingual ability ended at holy day recitations and a colorful array of curse words in Yiddish he’d picked up from Bev’s dad.
“I’m wasted as a husband. I’m out more than in. I burn every meal I cook. I--”
“ You are the best friend I’ve ever had,” Bev said firmly. “The only friend. And you won’t ask to share my bed for more than sleep.”
Will’s cheeks burned, and it wasn’t from the wine. He cleared his throat and fiddled with his hands, fingers calloused and dirty and too-dry from the salt water. Will’s earliest memories tasted of salt water. He knew for a fact his last would be the same.
“You deserve a family--”
“I don’t want one,” Bev shrugged, shifting to sit closer to her friend, shoulder to shoulder. “Mama and Papa want me to have one, your dad probably wants grandbabies too. I’ve got enough family with my lot and yours.”
Will swallowed and chewed the inside of his lip. There had been a brief period about a year before, when hormones had flooded through them both, where they’d wondered if they would work together sexually. There had been half-drunk fumbling and an awkward kiss and both had laughed it off as a failure.
And now…
“You’ll be stuck with me,” Will reminded her, unnecessarily. “Through my shitty moods, and bad weather, and slow business over winter, and--”
“I have been for years already, what else is new?”
Will sat quiet for a while longer, and Bev puffed out a breath through her nose, gently shoving her shoulder against his.
“You can sleep with whoever takes your fancy, Graham. I’ve got tough skin, won’t take it personally.”
Will blushed, somehow, even deeper, and shook his head. “I wasn’t-- that’s not--”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Bev countered. “You’re worried you’ll find someone you actually want to bed, and be too much of a gentleman to say so, and martyr your way through our married life together. Right?” Will swallowed. Bev hummed, victorious. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If it’s a girl, that’s easy enough to work around. And if it’s a guy--” Will almost choked on his own tongue. “Then I’m the perfect cover. Think about it.”
Will had thought about it.
They announced their engagement to their families two days later, and were married under a canopy later that year. According to Bev’s dad, who had hugged Will and cried for joy when the ceremony was over, Will was the only goy to have married a Jewish girl in seven generations of their family.
They were still married six years on.
Bev returned, now, carrying Medic in a fireman’s carry, and grunted as she set the wiggling dog down. “If you’re out on the water today, I get our son for transport help.”
Medic scampered over to Will’s chair, scurrying into his lap and knocking the breath from his belly. “Helping or hindering?” he asked, scratching behind the pup’s ears. “Last time you had to fish the hammer out of the sea.”
“He got over-excited,” Bev said, turning to fetch her own cup of tea. “I promise to keep a better eye out for stray cats this time. Plus, I’ve got all the tools tied to my belt or Medic’s vest, now.”
“We can’t afford to replace anything.” Will sighed, rubbing his eyes.
Before their marriage, finances had been a source of minor irritation, but nothing that gave Will a pang of longing or regret.
Now, on the other hand, he was acutely aware of how little he had to provide for Bev, of how far they managed to stretch their meager supplies. Bev worked too, as much as a woman in London Harbor could manage, but Will still felt the weight of ignored responsibility on his shoulders. He was the man, he was the head of the household. He was supposed to bring in money and food and keep his wife comfortable. He was meant to be there to stand up for her when idiots started in on what a freak she was; a working woman, a cross dresser, a chink.
And yet, Bev still made him lunch. She brought in just as much money as he did, she hauled nets with him and Harrison and grew callouses of her own on hands that shouldn’t have seen any. She shouted back in a colorful mix of three languages that she wasn’t fucking Chinese, ya knob.
Will didn’t deserve Bev, that much was clear. And she deserved so much better.
“Don’t spoil my fun. Medic loves helping mama, don’t you, boy?” Bev interrupted with a laugh. “Worst comes to it, I’ll just dive down and retrieve whatever sinks. I’m a better swimmer than you are.”
Happy to have the attention of his two favorite people, Medic gave a happy little wriggle that dug his paws right into Will’s poor bladder.
“Oof, alright, stupid boy, you’re with your mum today.” He manhandled the dog to the floor and kissed the curve of his nose before making his way to the bathroom. He’d go out further than usual today and toss his nets there in hope of a good haul. His dad would chew him out later for going that far out on his own but… they needed the money. They needed the food.
By the time he returned to the main room, Bev was scratching Medic’s belly as he lay sprawled in her lap. On the table was a wrapped up little square of wax paper, no doubt the last of their bread with hard-won butter within it for Will’s lunch. She looked up when Will tugged her hair gently and kissed her cheek.
“Be careful.” She said.
“You too. Don’t lose a finger to the saw.”
Bev barked a laugh and narrowed her eyes at Will. “No sawing today, today we’re chopping wood.”
“Even safer,” Will winked and took his sou’wester down from its hook. “Tell dad I’ll be late, but I’ll have something.”
“You always do.” Bev reminded him softly. Will sighed, nodded, and shoved his feet into his boots.
He always did. He always had, for the last few years of their shared life together. He hoped he could keep that up, could do better, could somehow find a twenty-fifth hour in the day, but he knew in his heart that if they wanted some kind of life, any kind of life, it would have to be outside of London’s exorbitant rents.
Will was twenty-five and Bev twenty-three when an uncle of a friend of a friend mentioned to Harrison that with the popularity of pleasure liners, new ships were looking for crew out in Liverpool.
“All them fancy boats,” he said, as Harrison checked out his little vessel, “full’uh them rich folks with nothing better to spend their money on than being ferried back an’ forth between ‘ere an’ those Americas.”
Harrison asked how he knew, and the man explained that one of his drinking buddies was a coal shoveler on the Lucania. Harrison gave him a discount, and the man promised to put in a good word for Will over on the commercial docks.
When the opportunity presented itself, Will grabbed it with both hands and dug his nails in. He and Bev had left that very night, a bag of belongings each and Medic aboard the family’s oldest little fishing boat -- the only one they could spare -- on their way to Liverpool. Will had known that a lot of the navy boats were out that way, but war frightened him to his very core, and the idea of ending up on a ship that could take fire wasn’t an option. But pleasure vessels… those he’d never actually considered.
Will was hired as a carpenter aboard the RMS Campania -- the Lucania’s sister ship -- in the fall of 1897, two weeks after they’d berthed their little boat and made it their temporary home. He worked his hands to the bone, month on month off, as the liner ran her route from Liverpool to New York.
The first months were hard, he and Bev hadn’t actually been apart for longer than a week since they were kids, but the first paycheck had Will and Bev richer than they had ever been in London. They could afford to move out of the boat and rent a room above an inn, and Bev took a job as a maid for the landlords downstairs.
It wasn’t easy work. Will came home from his on-months only to set himself to work amongst the docks, repairing engines and sails until his fingers bled. Bev’s back and feet were always aching when they met back in their room for the night, and even though the stories she told of the rowdy customers made them both ache with laughter, Will hated that she had to work there at all. Their rent included partaking in the breakfasts and dinners supplied for the inn’s customers, but they still never seemed to stop moving. With single-minded determination, their savings built by the week, but in such small increments that they seemed never to increase at all.
If Will allowed himself to dream, it involved doing right by Bev. Having enough for a proper flat, something where the kitchen and the sitting area were separate, and the commode wasn’t by the stove. Pulling enough in at the end of the month that she could stay home, like the wives of the Campania’s passengers always did, feet kicked up and a book in her hand as she smoked fancy cigarettes.
She’d be bored to tears and back on the docks within the week, but at least Will would have given her the opportunity to relax. He’d be providing for her as a husband should.
Still, it was better. Better than shoving themselves into a tiny flat with Will’s dad, better than starving when pay ran thin towards the end of the month Will was away at sea.
But the Campania herself…
Will couldn’t stand most of the passengers. He resented their snobbery, their finery. The way their eyes shifted over him as though he wasn’t there at all. Even those in second class looked at him like he was vermin. He wondered if any of them understood that without him, and the engineers, and the coal shovelers, their boat wouldn’t be moving at all. Two thousand passengers relying on just over four hundred crew to keep them in their fantasies.
But he’d loved every single boat he’d ever worked on, and the Campania was no exception.
She was a twin-screw steamer and had some of the most advanced engines Will had ever seen. They were enormous, had their own compartments in case of a hull breach, and were truly a masterwork of engineering. Whenever Will had a spare moment, he would shadow the engineers, asking questions, offering input, sharing cigarettes as they looked down over the water frothed furiously by the propellers.
Within a year of his initial employment, Will was promoted to Ordinary Seaman and offered accommodation in steerage for his family. Bev was more than happy to relocate to the ship, and Medic was snuck on board beneath her jacket. It didn’t take long for him to make himself known to the crew, however, and charm the bosun into allowing him to remain on board. As on the docks, he started to take care of the rodent problem, and was soon given a crew tag for his collar: Chief Ratter.
For several months, he outranked Will.
As Will earned the sea hours necessary to progress to Able Seaman, Bev started her own slow infiltration of the engineering department. She’d always been a quick study, and here she proved herself to the rough and unshaven sea dogs that worked the engines of the steamer they all called home. Officially, she became part of the crew just before the dawn of the new century. Unofficially, she’d been the engineer’s assistant from the moment she set foot in the boiler rooms.
Living on the water also had other advantages: namely, income. While they both served on the Campania for six months of the year -- three on sea, three on land -- they were provided with food and lodging, and every penny saved added up.
With careful planning, they secured a small flat in New York, kept another in Liverpool, and spent every second quarter as far from their families as they could get. For no other reason than to avoid endless questions about starting a family and settling down, now that Bev was ‘getting on in years’.
“I’m twenty-six for Christ’s sake,” she muttered, tossing her cigarette overboard. Will playfully shoved his shoulder against hers.
“Practically dead then,” he joked. “Soon you’ll start forgetting your own name, confusing Medic with an actual infant.”
“That’s another thing,” Bev replied, pointing deliberately with her finger. “I hate that they refuse to acknowledge our child. We have a son. He just happens to be a tub on four legs who drools when he’s happy.”
“Long as you love him,” Will snorted, grinning when Bev laughed and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. They’d welcomed the new century on board the Campania with the crew, and life was good. Life was very good, but it could be better. Will sucked his lip into his mouth. “I was thinking of putting myself forward for quartermaster now that Jenkins has retired.”
“Good,” Bev stretched her arms over her head with a delicious groan. “Do it.”
“That’ll mean we’re on the sea more than we’re off it,” Will reminded her. “The QM is on almost every voyage.”
“Yeah?” Bev raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
And so at twenty-eight, Will had applied for the position.
There was just something to sailing. It sank under Will’s skin. Saltwater ran through his veins. There was a peace and freedom to his life on the Campania-- difficult though it was-- that could not be found on land. Even New York, as far from the pressures of their family as possible, was not far enough. Sure, the city moved and breathed and screamed in its own way, but it was only with the rocking of the waves beneath his feet, nothing but blue on the horizon, that Will finally could let himself relax.
He moved without needing to think. He performed his duties with little real effort required, the ship falling into obedience beneath his fingertips. He received his promotion to QM. The crew trusted him, relied upon him. Will knew every name of every crew member, from the captain all the way down to the younger O’Malley in the engine room, the lowest on the totem pole. He even knew the maid staff, and had coaxed them out of more than one extra dessert for Bev in the past, in exchange for cuddle time with Medic.
By late spring of 1903, Will had shed both blood and tears for the Campania, and not a soul alive knew it better than he did, he was certain. He was well on his way to achieving the settled life he’d imagined for Bev, either in a little townhome or on a boat of their own. A few more years and they could stop the crazy schedule, return to three months on sea and three on land, get another dog, maybe.
Anything was possible.