Chapter Text
Jack had lost track of the time. It could have been days, weeks, months, since he had been thrown here by Gaines, waiting for his end to arrive. He stared down at the ground, at the scuff marks he had made in the sand. The earth below him was speckled with red, from the blood that had flaked off of his hands—Belle’s blood.
He closed his eyes as a wave of nausea washed over him. He didn’t know if she had made it. Gaines had dragged him out of the operating room as soon as Jack was finished, not even allowing Jack to see if she was still alive. Fagin had given him some time, allowing Jack to see her say his name before he was dragged off again. Still, there could have been complications, there was a strong possibility that she still wouldn’t have made it. There was a possibility that her heart would still give out. She—
Jack leaned his head back against the wall. Fagin had left a while ago, freed of his bonds. Jack wondered where he was now. He had left again, left Jack alone in the cell. Who knew, Fagin was probably off, celebrating, planning his next heist, like he had done when Jack was just a boy, thirteen years old, left alone to rot in a cell.
It was dark in the cell; night had fallen. Jack sighed, staring up through the tiny window at the stars above. He missed the feeling of wind, the sun shining down upon him. He missed the feeling of freedom, something that he had craved for so long. But all he had now were memories.
Memories of the first time he had been thrown in prison. Just thirteen years old, he had pinched the watch and been punished for it. Jack had been hopeful, he knew that Fagin would get him out of it. Or so he had thought. Instead, he had been left alone in the cell, shivering and desperate. It was Captain Grimm who rescued him. It was he who gave Jack a life, a second chance. He had saved Jack’s life and brought him a new one. He wondered where the Captain was now. He wondered really what came after death. He was close to it, after all.
Jack wasn’t afraid. He wondered if he should have been. He knew that his end was nearing, that the noose awaited him soon. Gaines would make sure of it, he would personally be the one to kill him, to bring about Jack’s end. He was sure that Gaines would make him suffer, yet he found it hard to care. If it truly was his end, he just needed to know if Belle had survived or not.
He thought of the others. The Prof. Lady Jane. Sneed. Jack wondered what they must think of him now. He wondered if they thought he was dead by now, though Gaines probably wanted to make as large of a spectacle of his death as he possibly could. That was what he had been taunting Jack with, after all. It had been his personal goal to bring about Jack’s death.
And memories of Belle. Lady Belle. How she smiled, the way that her face lit up every time in the surgery room. He remembered the first day they met, her determination to force him to do the surgery on Charlie with ether. He had admired her from the start, as soon as he found out who she really was. He remembered their first kiss, over Sneed’s unconscious body. The adrenaline still coursing through him, as he operated, removing the bullet from where it had dug into Sneed’s thigh. The brightness in her eyes whenever she talked him through a new surgery. Her beautiful smile as they lay next to each other. Belle. She was everything to him.
And finding her, lying in her room as she struggled to breathe. It was the worst day of his life, the one that he had been dreading, finding her there. Having to do the surgery, a gun pointed at his head the entire time. He was glad for once for Sneed, who had intervened at the last moment, forcing them to allow Jack to do the surgery.
Belle had pushed him, sometimes to his limits, and he loved her. He had never really known love before this, not from a family, not from another person. But he realized that he truly loved her. She was all that he could think about, he missed her when he wasn’t with her. All he wanted was for her to be happy, for her to be alive. But he didn’t know if she was and it broke him inside.
Jack heard the door creak open and pushed himself up. Someone entered in the darkness before him, grabbing him. The chains holding his wrists together fell open before he could ask who it was. Jack was hauled up, and pulled out of his cell. He wanted to struggle against them, but he found that he had no strength to do so. A hood was pulled over his head, smelling faintly of cigarettes and Jack was dragged along by them.
He could tell they were heading toward the docks as the smell of the ocean and the sound of waves crashing grew stronger. Jack suddenly wondered if this was how he died if Gaines would just throw him overboard a ship, killing him that way. Would it be worse, he wondered, than the noose where the crowd would watch him die? He didn’t know the answer.
Jack was forced down onto his knees and the hood was pulled off of him. He blinked, trying to get used to his surroundings. He was on the deck of a ship, his hands bound behind him. Someone stood before him and Jack could do nothing but stare. This was the same man who helped him escape, the very man who had sent him to prison in the first place.
“Oliver?”