Chapter Text
It was a beautiful morning. The sun was rising in hues of brilliant pink, with the golden rays of light reflecting crimson red against soft clouds diffusing into a pleasant haze. Stede Bonnet was rowing a dinghy, arms burning with the exertion of steady work. His clothes were plain, and all he had along with him was the bare minimum. A true bare minimum too, not the private libraries and secret wardrobes he used to consider “minimal.” There was enough rations to last a single person a good few days with careful planning, a small tin box containing a flint, and a bit of dry tinder, his weapons, and the clothes on his back. The rhythm of the rowing became mechanical, moving simple and strongly across the easy morning waters. His mind was filled with thoughts of … That moment. The kiss. With Edward. Oh good lord, he was already blushing like a schoolboy again. He could almost feel the ghost of Ed’s lips against his - though he would love to try that again with a touch more facial hair. He paused for just a moment, as a familiar yet distant sound echoed across the waters. Stede wiped the sweat from his brow with a linen sleeve, looking around for the source of the noise. Almost like … Voices. The voices of his crew! He scanned the horizon, eyes eventually falling on a distant and, quite frankly, tiny island.. Basically no more than a sandbar with two or three trees. What was the crew doing there? Oh goodness. What on earth had happened in his few days of absence?
“Captain! Captain Bonnet!” Olu shouted, peering through his pocket spyglass. The crew momentarily paused their halfhearted attempts of cannibalism to see if Oluwade actually saw the captain or if he had been bewitched by sirens, or perhaps just heatstroke. But upon a moment’s observation, the rest of the murderous pirate crew were cheering, waving their arms, and Wee John was trying to light one of the scraggly coconut trees on fire to get Stede’s attention. Well, the fire hadn’t started right, but soon enough Captain Bonnet had switched directions and had started rowing in a (sort of) beeline towards them nonetheless. He had hardly gotten one foot out of his rowboat before the Swede had tackled him in a hug - and had practically climbed him in the process. The story of how Edward had sort of gone off the deep end, painted his face in charcoal, thrown Stede’s books overboard, and then abandoned all of them here the previous evening was pieced together from their whirlwind of stories, and had Stede Bonnet sitting down on the edge of the boat just to take everything in. The emotional rollercoaster from meeting back up with Mary, threatening her new boyfriend, faking his death with admittedly a very good bit of fuckery, expecting something of a heroic welcome home or at least.. Not this. Ed had been doing so well as of late. It took the wind right out of his sails.
After a long time of quietly pondering how much of an ass he had been, Stede finally spoke. “Well men, I do believe we’re in a bit of a pickle.”
He left his rations with the men, as he couldn’t be sure how long he would be gone and they needed the water and food much more than he did. The only things he kept was the clothes on his back, his weapons, and half a petrified orange kept in a small pocket. “Take all this,” the captain said, handing everything over to the crew that had saved his life so recently, “I’m going back aboard my ship to see if I can’t come to an elegant solution.” “But sir! How do you expect to stop him? None of us combined could overpower Blackbeard.” Black Pete commented, with just a touch of sarcasm. Stede let it go. Not being certain of what had happened to Lucius must be hard on him. “No, I’m sure you’re right. Ten men could never win against him. A hundred. A thousand wouldn’t win. But maybe one will do it.”
With a heartfelt goodbye to all his friends, he was off. The sun was moving higher in the sky and he had to move quickly. The machinations of a plan were piecing themselves together in his mind. The first step, of course, was just to get there unseen. The second step was to get into his secret tunnel system and rescue Jim, Frenchie, and Lucius, wherever they were being kept. They could take the dinghy should all go poorly. Step three was going to be a bit trickier to manage.