Archive of Our Own

Madi found him at the entrance to her room. He was standing hesitantly, too hesitant to fit the image of captain Flint that she had come to know well, a red book clutched in both hands. She had only stopped by her room briefly on her way to some final tasks before their departure.

“Can I help you?” she asked, holding herself high and making clear that he was intruding on her space.

Flint nodded, the movement hesitant and giving him time to adjust his words. “Tomorrow when we set sail for Nassau, we will be going to war. A war in which all space must be dedicated to our singular task of defeating England. As such my books will hardly be worth the space they take up. Silver had mentioned that you have an extensive library, so I thought I might be able to store them here, until we can make safe a permanent home for them in Nassau.”

“I can find a place for them,” Madi said, offering her hand to take the book.

Flint nodded his thanks, something flashing across his face as handing the book over became real. He looked down at it, layers falling from his face as he traced the pattern on its cover.

Madi looked away. She didn’t know if she could make sense of the new man in the face she had seen covered in the blood of their enemies, and she had no right to intrude on his private moment.

Flint placed the book in her hand. “I’ll bring the rest by this evening if that’s alright,” he said, regathering himself and filling his voice with certainty and thoughts of logistics.

“That’ll be fine,” Madi said. Flint gave a nod and headed away, returning to the work of their final preparations. Madi turned back to her room and glanced at the title on the book’s spine. She didn’t recognize the name Marcus Aurelius. Her father had never brought her his works, nor had she seen the name in the pamphlets he would bring.

She placed the book on her shelf, between Don Quixote and a copy of the fourth Folio. She resisted the urge to open the book and look for some sign as to why it meant so much to Flint. Instead she let it sit on her shelf and then turned back to their final preparations and her final chance to enjoy her home before heading to war.

Flint placed Don Quixote back on the shelf next to Meditations. Silver lay on Madi’s bed, finally managing to find a few minutes of sleep despite his pain. His breathing was soft and quiet and the grief had slipped from his face. Flint moved on to the next book that Silver had been looking at, placing it back on the shelf, but his eyes stayed on Meditations.

He wondered if he should take it back, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He wanted it to stay, for it to provide some testament to the kindred spirit that he had recognized too late.

Once he had returned each book to the bookshelf he found his hand on the spine of Meditations. He pulled it into his hands, briefly wondering if perhaps Madi had done the same. It would be one more touch of her ghost amongst the thousands throughout the camp and in every plan for her war.

He could feel her settling on the cover, joining Miranda and Thomas. Their ghosts spoke jointly their rage and pain. He wondered if they would have found such agreement if they met in the world of the living. There were too many ghosts there, and too many more who had only settled onto his shoulders, Eleanor and so many of his men who he had led to their deaths.

Silver stirred behind him. Flint returned the book to its shelf, and turned, leaving his own pain to focus on Silver’s.

Madi’s tears were beginning to fade when she noticed the red on her bookshelf. It wasn’t quite where she had left it. Most of her books weren’t. Still, they had all been returned gently to their shelves, someone having taken their best guess as to where each book went and being close to the mark each time.

She hoped it had been Flint who had done it. She hoped that he had had the chance to touch the cover of Meditations before he had set sail to her rescue, not knowing that he would never return. She stared at the book, but didn’t quite dare cross her room to it. It felt invasive to do so, like Flint should remain as the last one to touch that book. It was a silly thought, but she let it lie, let her thoughts drift to Silver and the rage at what he had done.

There were a few men she knew would help her kill him if she asked. She turned their names over in her head but couldn’t bring herself to go looking for them. The thought of seeing Silver hurt made her sick even as a dark voice told her it would be right.

She spent the next day refamiliarizing herself with her home, welcoming the newcomers, those who had escaped from Nassau and the two babies born since she left. She ran her hands over the repairs that had been finished, the places where fresher colored wood and carefully placed nails covered the scars of British mortars.

She heard again and again that Silver had headed off into the trees, limping towards the bluffs like he used to with Flint. She nodded each time. There was no reason to let on the division between them. Not when all it would do was bring more worry and fear that she would be unable to alleviate.

She returned to her room in the afternoon, carried there by thoughts of that book. She pulled it from the shelf, needing to remember Flint more than she needed to maintain the memorial. She felt its weight in her hands as she sat down in her reading chair, and felt its old weathered cover before finally she opened it.

The inscription stared up at her. The man behind the initials was easy to guess. She had heard the name several times from Silver, first in a serious story and then in confused curiosity as he wondered who was worth waging a war over. Madi could still remember describing Silver as she explained who would be worth doing that. She remembered what she hadn’t said as well, that perhaps it wasn’t just about one person, but about the possibility for all people.

She traced the looping letters and hoped that Flint was truly in the arms of this man who she would never meet, who Flint had never even told her about. She had never quite dared ask him. At first she had known it would be a grave overstep which would destroy the little trust they had for each other. And then once she began to know him, there had always been a battle or threat to focus on instead.

Madi turned the page, seeking some sign of Flint in the words.