Chapter Text
one stormy night
Lightning cracked spectacularly through the steel gray sky outside the cabin window. Stede smiled to himself. The storms had frightened him at first, all those years ago when he’d decided to pursue a life on the sea. No longer. Now the sound of thunder sang him to sleep, the steady rocking of the ship beneath him a comfort instead of a bother. His heart thumped contentedly in his chest as he lost his grip on his book and it smacked him in the jaw, startling him awake again. “You’re falling asleep there, love,” his favorite voice came to him through a cloud of pipe smoke at the other end of the bed. Ed set his pipe on the table and with gentle hands removed the book from Stede’s chest.
“No, no,” Stede protested, “it was just getting good!”
Ed’s lips twitched up in a smile beneath his beard - much more silver than black these days - and he placed the ribbon bookmark between the pages before carefully setting the book aside. Thunder rolled again all around them as Ed leaned close and placed a kiss on Stede’s sleepy smile. “We’re catching up to that Spanish merchant ship, should be upon it by tomorrow night. You’ll need your rest, Gentleman Pirate.”
Stede scooched over to make room for Ed beside him. “Come, dear, I’ll rub the pain out of that old creaky knee before bed.” Ed grinned and lie down beside his co-captain.
The next loud sound came from within the ship and startled the both of them to a sitting position. “A stowaway, Cap’ns!” shouted Buttons, bursting through the door to their cabin and dragging behind him a small figure in fine but disarrayed linens, long brown hair falling from a lady’s style and clinging to her face with sweat.
“A-Alma…?”
All the color drained from Stede’s face as he recognized his teenage daughter before him, dark circles under her eyes and sick on her chin. “Hello, father,” she replied with a weak smile. Another thunderclap startled them all but Buttons - unfazed steady as a rock as always - and the young girl fainted on the floor.
“Poor thing’s bad seasick.” Ed leapt up and swept the girl from the floor, laying her gently on the sofa. “Fetch us a cold rag, Buttons.”