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She’s not sorry.
That, she thinks, is the most startling part of it. She looks at the gunpowder marks on her hands - at the blood on her dress, and she’s not sorry. She can smell the smoke that still clings to her hair, only made worse by the amount of it coming from the burning city they’ve just left, and she’s not even remotely sorry about any of it.
“Fire,” she orders, and James nods to the gunners, echoing the order. As the guns go off, she watches, unmoving, her eyes fixed on the town as it burns. She can’t go back in time and give Thomas a proper burial but this, she thinks, might just be tribute enough to convince God to let him into Heaven if He truly does make a practice of damning suicides and not, as she suspects, welcoming them with open arms. She watches for a while, and then she turns without a word, going to James’ cabin, where she stands, numb, watching the men as they scrub the blood out of the floorboards and off the desk and then clear away, leaving her alone.
“Miranda?”
James sounds concerned, she thinks distantly. His voice is tentative in a way that she has not heard it in long years, and she understands why - truly, she does. She remembers when he came home, after his first voyage on the Walrus. She remembers the gentle tone of her own voice, and the slump in his shoulders. She remembers, too, the way that any traces of horror at his crimes that he might have felt had faded away in the wake of Thomas’ death, and she understands, now. She had never properly known, before, how he could bear it, but now -
She would do it again.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He’s entered the cabin, while she was musing, and sat down at her side, taking her hand in his. He turns it palm upward, examining the burns she’s garnered from the flash of the powder, and reaches for the cloth and the bowl of water he’s brought with him. His own hands are clean, finally, and Miranda can see a bandage wrapped around one wrist.
She shakes her head.
“No.” She allows him to bathe her arm - allows him to see to the cut on her brow, and to aid her in removing her outer garments and loosening her stays, all without a word. At last, he offers her one of his shirts - the last remaining white one, she realizes with a touch of amusement, and a pair of trousers that fit oddly but are nonetheless a vast improvement over her ruined skirts.
“I’ll see what I can do about finding you a pair of boots,” he says. “I’m not having you slip over the side trying to work in those.” He gestures toward her shoes, which lay discarded on the floor, and she looks up, momentarily startled. He offers her a half-smile. “I assume you’re not going to agree if I suggest dropping you off in Nassau again,” he says, and she shakes her head.
“No,” she answers, her voice half-choked with rage still. “That’s over. I can’t go back.”
“I know,” he answers, and she turns to him.
“How can you possibly know?” she asks. “You’ve had your vengeance, these ten years past. You killed Alfred and I sat back and did nothing. You’ve fought and struggled and I sat there and judged and now -” She cuts off, as James comes to sit next to her again, his arms wrapping around her as she weeps, clinging to him half out of grief and half out of shame. She has not bothered much with the latter emotion since she married Thomas, but she feels it now. She has sat, and she has judged him for his anger, and all this time -
“If you hadn’t done it, I would have,” James says, and she raises her head.
“You think this is about Peter Ashe?” she asks, and he raises an eyebrow.
“Isn’t it?” She shakes her head, and he frowns minutely.
“Then what?” he asks, and she swallows hard, trying to find the words buried amid her anger and her grief.
And she is grieving, she is startled to realize. She could call it her grief for Thomas stirred up again by events on shore, and she would not be wrong. She could say that she’s grieving the loss of her hopes for a peaceful end to the war James has been waging for the past ten years, and that would not be entirely dishonest either, but the truth is far more complicated. She’s grieving, yes, but grieving for herself - for the woman she was that died in a dining room with a gunshot ringing in her ears and Peter Ashe looking at her in shock while his daughter wrestled with Colonel Rhett for the weapon.
“I killed Peter Ashe,” she says at last, “I held the gun in my hands and pulled the trigger and I - James, how did you feel when you realized that you could never go back to being that dashing Naval lieutenant you had been when this started?”
He looks at her, shocked, and then understanding, and holds her all the more tightly, his lips coming to rest against her forehead, his arms wrapped around her with one hand buried in her filthy hair.
“I’m sorry, James,” she whispers. “I’m sorry for these last ten years. I didn’t - support you, the way I should have. I didn’t -”
James shakes his head.
“You did what seemed right,” he answers. “Christ, Miranda - what the hell else could you have done?”
She shakes her head, tired beyond belief suddenly.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “Something. Anything, rather than what I did. I - I’m sorry, James.”
He looks at her for a long moment, and then shakes his head, dismissing the argument.
“You’re here now,” he says, and she wraps her arms around him in return, holding him tighter than she has in what feels like forever. She is here now, and she is not going anywhere. From now on, they do this as partners - as the couple they should always have been, that Thomas had intended for them to be.
“You asked me once what happened when I came home wearing this,” he says finally, when they have sat quietly for several moments, just taking the time to be with one another. He gestures to the tattoo concealed under his shirt, “and this.” He reaches up to touch the earring in his left ear, and she looks at him, understanding. “Do us all a favor,”he says wryly, “and don’t commemorate this the way I did.” She can’t help it - a small laugh works its way out of her.
“I already wear earrings,” she says. “And I haven’t been part of a raid yet.” He laughs in return, and they smile at one another, and suddenly, she can’t resist doing what she’s been wanting to since he told her he wanted to give Flint up for good. She asks the question with her eyes, and sees the moment he understands what she’s asking. She moves her hands upward from his chest to his shoulders, and he leans downward, bringing his mouth to hers. His hands shift positions until one is at her waist and the other is cupping her face, and they do not move for several moments, kissing one another slowly, carefully, taking the time to be tender and loving. They haven’t kissed like this in years, but now, finally united as one in purpose and understanding, there is no hurry and no tension, and when Miranda finally pulls away, they are both breathless. James shuts his eyes, breathing deeply, visibly relaxing, and when he looks at her again, there’s something infinitely gentle in his eyes.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” he says, and she shakes her head.
“No. But we’ll take care of one another. No more hiding.” He nods, and she rests her head against his shoulder, finally feeling some of the anger settle instead of roiling within her. She exhales, and feels as though she has reached some manner of equilibrium, new and different though it may be.
A knock sounds on the door, and they both sit up, not letting go, but paying attention.
“Yes?” James calls, and Abigail Ashe’s voice answers him.
“Mr. -" she starts, and then corrects herself. “Captain Flint - Captain Vane would like to speak with you. It’s about Mr. Silver.”
James’ expression darkens, and he shifts, removing his arms from their position around Miranda.
“Tell him I’ll be there in a moment,” he says, and she can practically picture Abigail’s determined nod, and her movements as she walks away down the deck, still awkward in her borrowed clothing and shoes, but already beginning to move like the man she has taken as her mentor now that Peter has been revealed to her for his true self.
“Are you ready?”
She nods. She’s exactly where she belongs, now - here, on this ship, with James, and perhaps that’s all she truly needs to begin setting things to rights.