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The northern wind was cruel. It tore through the deck of the Lost Revenge, the salt was thick in the air, and frost gathered on the worn wood as if winter itself wanted to drag the ship into the deep sea.
Harry gripped the wheel tighter.
The world blurred around him, the water was dark and the sky darker. He could no longer tell where the sea ended and the storm began. His hands bled where the ropes had torn his palms, but he didn’t let go. Not yet. Not until he had something to bring home.
He’d made her a promise. And he didn’t break promises to Uma.
It had started with an argument. A quiet one, the kind that hurt worse than shouting.
“I don’t need gold,” Uma had said, standing on the dock, arms folded, refusing to look at him.
Harry had frowned, mouth twitching like he might grin but never quite managing it. “No, but you deserve it.”
“And if you die trying to prove that, what good does it do me?”
He hated that tone in her voice, the calm kind that only showed up when she was furious and heartbroken at the same time. The kind of calm she’d learned growing up on the Isle, where showing fear meant someone would use it against you. Even him. Especially him.
“You think I’m doing this for show?” he asked, trying to meet her gaze. “For pride?”
“I think,” she said quietly, “that you’re still trying to earn something I already gave you. You don’t need to lay the world at my feet to be worthy of me, Harry.”
He swallowed hard. “But I want to.”
A pause.
“I know,” she said. Then added, like it cost her something: “But I’d rather have you than all the treasure in the sea.”
He could’ve stayed. He should have.
But his pride, his foolish, romantic pride had already carried him to the edge of the dock, already halfway into the storm.
“To your feet I’ll lay the gold,” he whispered, brushing his lips against hers one last time. “Or I won’t come home.”
The storm had been waiting for him ever since.
And now, two weeks later, Harry sat alone on the deck, the crew silent below. Lost time. Lost direction.
But they hadn’t lost everything.
Because down in the hold was a chest of gold, real gold. Stolen from a northern trade fleet with sails like ice and teeth like wolves. He had the bruises to prove it. The crew members that had gone with him had bruises to show for it as well. Because even though Harry was their first mate, they were lacking their real captain right now and God they needed her. Harry, though still breathing, hadn’t slept in days.
It wasn’t worth it. Not truly. But it was a promise.
When the Lost Revenge returned, battered and frostbitten, Uma was waiting on the dock. Arms crossed, face unreadable.
She watched in silence as the gangplank was lowered. As the crew disembarked. As Harry finally appeared, limping, soaked, and carrying a heavy wooden chest over one shoulder.
He dropped it at her feet.
Her brows knit.
“I told you,” he said, voice rough with cold, “I wouldn’t come home without it.”
“And if you’d died out there?”
He smiled. It wasn’t the usual grin, it was more tired, more worn. But it was his.
“Then at least you’d know I meant it.”
Uma’s eyes shimmered, though her jaw clenched like she refused to let the emotion show. Not here. Not in front of the everyone. Not when every part of her wanted to scream, I never asked for this.
Still, she stepped forward. Reached up. Brushed her fingers along the line of his jaw, now cut and scabbed.
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
Harry leaned into her touch. “Takes one to love one.”
She let her hand fall. “Next time, bring yourself home. That’s the only treasure I want.”
He looked down at the gold he’d nearly died to find. Then back at her.
“Then I’m the richest man alive.”
That night, in the quiet of her cabin, she didn’t open the chest. She didn’t need to. She sat on the floor with Harry’s head in her lap, running her fingers through his hair as he drifted off to sleep for the first time in days.
She would never tell him she’d cried the night he left. Would never tell him that even though she couldn't go, she had wished she had thrown all her other priorities to shit just so she could've been with him. Would never tell him that every day he was gone, she walked the deck scanning the horizon, whispering curses and prayers into the wind.
But she would tell him this softly, when the world was asleep.
“You’re home. That’s enough.”
And for once, Harry didn’t try to prove anything. He just reached for her hand, held it tight, and stayed.