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Ed leaned against the railing of the main deck, staring at the rising moon.
" Something the matter Boss?" He looked up the see Fang and Ivan looking cautiously at him.
"Hmm? Nah, mate." he straightened. "Any idea where Izzy is? Can't seem to find him."
Fang and Ivan looked at each other. "Probably on the 'head," Fang mumbled. "you know, cleaning his..."
Ed nodded.
Ed found Izzy where Fang said he would be, barefoot and drawing seawater. Izzy was aware of his presence, he always was, but he chose to not turn and continued as Ed stayed quiet, watching him till he sat down on a barrel.
"How is it?" Ed asked.
"I'm not dying."
Ed nodded and looked at him properly for the first time in weeks. He looked tired, drained. Eyes that didn't want to focus, but didn't care to shift their gaze. Ed remembered his face all those weeks ago, bright, blinding with fear-tinged hysteria. Joy? Tried to remember his face from when he pushed Ed into becoming the Kraken. Remembered from before. Before everything. The face he was looking at now felt only passingly similar to the man he had known his whole life.
"Er... Mate?"
"Was there something you wanted, Captain?"
Izzy doesn't call him Blackbeard anymore. He is not Blackbeard. But Izzy doesn't call him Edward anymore like he used to either. He is just Captain now.
"I... wanted to talk."
"About?"
Ed shrugged, "Everything?"
"Are you asking me, Captain, or telling me?"
"Look, Stede thought we should talk. About, you know, everything that happened."
"Everything that happened?"
"Everything since Jack and the English and all that? We didn't exactly get a chance to, what with everything else."
" Stede thought that, did he? Of course, he fucking did!" Izzy's lips twitched, uncertain whether into a sneer or a snarl." Well, you can go tell Stede we talked. If that is all Captain?"
Izzy turned away from Ed and continued unwrapping the bandage around his foot.
Ed sighed and sat down, leaning against the railing and looking out to the sea.
"I wanted to talk, Izzy. I… I don't think I know how to, though. Don't know how to say what I mean to say."
To you. Izzy hears it even when it is not said. He shrugged. "We don't talk. Haven't in years. Why try now?"
"Come on Izzy. We talked all the time. At least we did before coming onto the Revenge."
"No, we didn't."
Ed looked at him like he was trying to puzzle something out. Izzy shook his head and turned to the sea, sticking his foot out to pour the sea-water on the stump of his toe.
"That can't be true. Three decades and all we built, all we achieved. It can't be true that we never talked."
"Has been true for more than half that time."
"Why?"
Izzy looked at Edward for the first time that evening, trying to figure out whether the question was rhetorical.
"You became Blackbeard."
"And Blackbeard doesn't talk." Ed sighed.
"No, Blackbeard doesn't talk ."
"You always knew what to do, though."
Izzy shook his head. "No. Yes. Sometimes. Sometimes I guessed. You waved a hand or smiled, looked in a kinda way and I learned to guess what you needed."
"Not me. Blackbeard."
"Blackbeard."
"But I talked! Sometimes. Told you what I wanted."
"What you wanted was fickle as the fucking wind in the doldrums." For the first time in the evening, the slightest tinge of emotion coloured Izzy's words. Frustration. Regret. He wasn't sure. "You told me a lot of things! You told me you wanted to kill Bonnet. You say a lot of shit. Always have. You say things you don't fucking mean and you mean things you don't say." Izzy paused, finished cleaning his foot, and started wrapping it up again. "I knew that. I suppose. I stopped listening to want you wanted and learned to hear what you needed."
"Well, you heard wrong, mate."
"You never complained. Not before Bonnet."
"No, I didn't."
"Why?"
"Dunno." Ed looked at his hands. "S'pose I knew what you wanted from me too. It worked, didn't it? Whatever you did bloody well worked for Blackbeard. Even if it didn't always work for me. It's all that would've mattered to you."
"No. Wouldn't have been all that mattered". Izzy continued to stare at his dressed foot, unwilling to look at anything else. Unwilling to look at Ed.
"I… don't know if I can believe that."
"That's fair."
Izzy moved then to put on his boots. Despite his best efforts, his face twitched in a slight grimace. Ed stared.
"I didn't really want to hurt you, you know. "
"Yes, you bloody well did."
"Don't think you wanted to hurt me either. "
"Yes, I did!"
Ed looked up, searching for an explanation in his face.
"Thought hurting you was what was needed, to keep you safe. Thought it was what Blackbeard needed. Thought a lot of shit. Thought… thought, when all this was over and we came out on the other side, you would see it. You always did, in the end."
“I didn’t. Not always.”
“But you never said anything. You let it be.”
“I let it be.”
“Because we don't fucking talk.”
“Because we don’t fucking talk.”
Izzy figured that was all there was to be said. He picked up his cane. But Ed spoke again surprising him.
"So you guessed wrong? Was that all this was? All of this? Everything that happened?"
Izzy shrugged, standing up. "What else do you want me to say? It's what it is. You can go tell your boyfriend that we talked. " The word boyfriend still sounded bitter in his mouth.
"Nah, mate."
Izzy looked at Ed, waiting.
"We didn't always see eye to eye. But you've never been this wrong before."
Ed raised his hand to grasp the railing to stand up, and Izzy instinctively stepped forward to support him before pulling back. Ed looked at the retreating hand and at Izzy’s face before reaching out. Izzy paused and bent down to grasp Ed’s elbow with his free hand, helping him up.
Izzy wanted to walk away, but it felt like too much effort. Everything felt like too much effort.
“You didn't want to hear what I was saying.” Ed’s voice was closer. Softer.
“I couldn’t”
“Why?”
“Didn't know how.” Izzy looked at Ed. Too close. Too open. Too unfamiliar. “Captain”, he breathed, “Edward, I didn't know how! You were saying and doing shit I didn't understand. Making choices that made no sense to me. I didn't understand. I don't fucking understand.”
“Even now?”
“Even now.”
“I wish you would.”
“I don't know how.”
Ed turned to the railing, staring at the horizon.
“Wish I told you more. Before. You were my closest friend.”
“I was. At least I thought so. Guess I was wrong.”
“You weren’t. Not always.”
“Doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
“Izzy…”
“I am tired. I am so fucking tired. I am tired of fighting for who I thought you were.”
“I know. You are not fighting anymore.”
“No. I gave most of my life to a bloody ghost. Doesn't make any fucking sense anymore. ”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I never knew you”
“Sometimes. Not always.”
“I never knew you!”
“You did. You can! Now!”
“I am too old for new tricks, Edward.”
“Izzy, mate, you are almost a decade younger than me”. A smile, small.
“Serving Blackbeard ages a man, doesn't it? " A smirk. A shrug. Something in between.
“Then don’t.”
“I am Blackbeard’s First Mate.”
“You don't have to be. Not anymore.”
“Then what the fuck am I?”
“My friend.”
“Your friend can't keep you safe.”
“Then don't.”
“Edward! Don't fucking ask me to watch you die.”
“I won't.”
“That's a lot of faith you have. You don't really know everything, Edward.”
“Of course I do! I am Blackbeard.”
“No. No, you are not.”
Ed looked at Izzy for a moment. And another.
“We are though. Together.”
“I won't be here.”
“Yes, you will.”
Izzy shook his head. “I don’t understand what you are saying anymore, Edward. I don’t understand what you want.”
“You are always here, Izzy.”
“It was Blackbeard’s right to assume that.”
“Not mine?”
“Not yours.”
“Still. I think I will.”
“You don’t want me to stay. Not really. I am… inconvenient.”
“You are my friend. The only one I have.”
“You have Bonnet"
“It's not the same.”
"You have a whole fucking ship of soft-bellied idiots you'd listen to your stupid lyrics."
"You are the only one who'd tell me they are stupid."
“You are just being greedy.”
“I am a pirate.”
“Are you?”
“I don't want you to leave Izzy. Didn't want you to leave, even when you were threatening me. I hurt you because I was afraid you would leave.”
“I know.”
“I won't apologize for it. I know you don't want me to.”
“Good. I won't either.”
“Not because I don't want you to.”
“No. Because it doesn't matter.”
“See, you still understand me”
Izzy closed his eyes.
“You should go back, Edward”
“We are not done.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What else is there?”
“All the things I wish I had told you before.”
“And we will do that now, will we?”
“Yes”
“Why?”
“Because Stede taught me how to.”
“I won't always know how to hear you.”
“That's ok. You'll learn”
“Will I?”
“Yes.”
“That'll take a bloody long time”
“Do we have a long time, mate?”
A breath. Two.
“Yes... Maybe.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”