Chapter Text
Edward Teach — the pirate known as Blackbeard — is dying.
It was always going to be like this. Nothing ever lasts. Death finally caught up to him. What was it that’s said? All the good pirates are dead. Ed has come to terms that a long, happy life is not for someone like him.
So here he is: bleeding out on a ship, while the battle rages around him. Shot in the shoulder and stabbed at least three times — he lost count — not to mention stomped on by accident. Or not on accident. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Here the legend dies.
He didn’t know the attack was a trap until it was too late to escape the inlet. He was reckless. He’s been reckless since… Since…
Explosion. Debris rains over him. He wheezes, coughs. Blood comes up in his throat. He tries to move but his limbs don’t work.
Surprisingly, he isn’t afraid to die. Life hasn’t been that great as of late, if he’s honest. Nothing new, nothing to live for. Does he have regrets? Sure. Wouldn’t have stayed ‘round the Ocracoke inlet, for starters. He should have drank less. Not get that tattoo on his right thigh. Maybe travel, just for traveling’s sake.
He should have told him yes.
He wonders if Stede Bonnet was afraid when he died. Probably. Ed wasn’t there but he read about it. The Gentleman Pirate Bonnet briefly escaped prison before being apprehended, and his only request upon execution was to be holding a bouquet of flowers.
Ed sees it in his mind. White knuckles clenched around stems of fresh flowers — he imagines them as lavender, Stede’s favorite — then the lurch of the gallows and the flowers slipping from his fingers to fall on the ground while his body twitched and convulsed until going still.
How fitting that he’s dying within weeks of Stede. Ever since they met, their lives have been inextricably entwined, like the cords of a rope — but they left each other unraveled, frayed.
I’ll be seeing you soon, Bonnet.
“Blackbeard.”
He opens his eyes — he doesn't know when he closed them — sees Lieutenant Maynard the pirate hunter standing over him, cutlass in hand.
“Go ahead, man,” Ed says, and Maynard swings the blade up and brings it down and—
—Ed wakes up gasping, his hands at his neck.
Because there was a moment when he felt it, felt the blade slice through his neck, severing — but his head is very secured and connected to his shoulders. He runs his hands over again and again, just to be sure, through his hair, down the line of his neck, over his shoulders and arms.
He can move his arms. Last he remembers he was immobile, and in so much pain… But other than feeling a tad hungover, he feels fine.
As his heartbeat slows from rapid pace, his surroundings come into focus. He’s not in a puddle of his own blood on a deck, but wrapped in blankets in a hammock. His hammock. In his cabin. On the Queen Anne’s Revenge.
He sits up.
He’d believe this is heaven but he doesn’t believe in that. He doesn’t believe in hell, either. Perhaps it all could have been a terrible dream — Ocracoke, the ambush, his defeat and subsequent death — but that doesn’t explain how he’s here. He’s been on the Adventure. He hasn’t been on the Queen Anne for months, not since he ran it aground on a sandbar. He had left her to rot and be taken by the sea…
He climbs out of the hammock, walks over to his desk where there’s a mess of papers. He rifles through them, looking for anything that could explain what the fuck is happening.
“You’re awake.”
Ed knows that voice, that hoarse timbre laced with constant irritation.
“Izzy!” Ed can’t help but grin — Izzy is alright, Ed didn’t do anything wrong, it’s okay—
At his over-enthusiastic greeting, Izzy makes one of what Ed thinks of as his Izzy-faces: mouth pulled into a scowl, forehead wrinkled, eyes harsh and judging.
“Anyway…” Izzy gestures to the table. “Lookin’ for something in particular?”
“Uh.” Ed has to force himself to look away from him. “The daily log. Need to review something.”
Izzy strides over to the table and finds the log within two seconds.
“What would I do without you?” Ed says, although he doesn’t have to imagine what he’d do without Israel Hands at his side because he has.
Izzy gives a grunt of acknowledgment.
Ed opens the book, flips through pages, and his heart is thudding loud in his head like he’s in the center of a storm—
He turns to the most recent entry.
August 22nd, 1717.
Ed collapses into the chair.
“Haven’t got around to writing yesterday’s yet,” Izzy tells him, so — it’s August twenty-fourth. Seventeen-seventeen.
The time he had left was November 1718. It’s a whole year before the end.
This can’t be true. Impossible. It’s some sort of fuckery — but he knows it can’t be, because he’s on the Queen Anne and Izzy is here and not convalescing in North Carolina and when he pushes up his sleeve the place where his most recent tattoo should be is only blank space.
Life wasn’t horrible enough the first time around, but he has to live it again?
Maybe this is hell, after all.
He sets his head down on the book. Tries not to freak out. No reason to alarm Izzy because then he’d get all…Izzy.
August. In this lifetime, he hasn’t yet met Stede Bonnet. Their chance meeting is sometime in September.
Ed could change that. He could sail far north and avoid Stede entirely. He could find Maynard and kill him before he has the opportunity to hunt him down at Ocracoke. Knowing what he knows, how it all ends, he could walk away from this life. It’s tempting. He’s thought about it, he admits. Giving up the Blackbeard persona and being just Ed. What's stopping him? He must’ve been cursed to return to this time for a reason. A reason…
When Ed found Stede, he was half dead and his ship half damaged, and had no idea how to be a pirate. Without Ed’s help, there’s no chance Stede will survive the season. If that.
He thinks of Stede. Of his blond curls, his silly sing-song voice, how he always smelled so good. How his nose crinkled when he’s confused. His sleepy smile first thing in the morning. The warm press of his skin against his.
He tried cutting Stede Bonnet out of his life. It didn’t turn out so well. And here he is: again back at the start.
Ed cannot imagine a life without Stede.
They met in Nassau. If Ed could find Stede before he’s attacked by the Spanish, keep him from getting injured, give them a different meeting… Where was Stede before the Spanish man-of-war incident? Ed is certain Stede told him. Stede did—does? Does a lot of talking.
This Stede wouldn’t hate him. Ed could make things right, before there was the chance for them to go wrong.
“Captain?”
Ed forgot about Izzy.
He looks up at him. Despite Ed’s efforts to hide the distress, Izzy has that strained expression which Ed knows is disguised concern.
“Set course towards Nassau,” Ed says. He stands, goes to the window. “We’re gonna do some exploring.”
Izzy nods. “What’re you looking for?”
“Something I’ve lost.”
Ed looks out, to the expanse of the sea.
Where are you, Stede?