Chapter Text
To say that Theodora Byrne was having a time of it would be a vast understatement. In the span of a few days, she'd gone from hiking in twenty-first century Ireland, to dying of exposure on a piece of driftwood at sea. With barely more than a few seconds between those two experiences. Then, as if that hadn’t been enough, she'd discovered that that patch of sea was, in fact, in the eighteenth century. By that point, being confronted with a cast of characters that should have been fictional, and having her life saved by them was just the cherry on top.
And through it all, it had been so tempting to greet it with the mild good humour of a parent being told by a toddler that gnomes lived at the bottom of the garden. But now the Interceptor had docked at Port Royal, and she was being forced to confront the fact that this was all real. If not, it was the most expensive prank anybody had ever pulled off - and with the collusion of actors who had not seen the costumes for these roles in the better part of twenty years…and hadn’t aged a single bloody day since. All aimed at her. A certifiable nobody, so far as Hollywood was concerned. And that blasted mouse, for that matter. Time travel was beginning to seem more likely.
All she could do, standing there on deck, was gawk.
The gangplank was lowered to the dock to allow for disembarking, but Theo paid no attention to the men doing it. All she could do was stare at the docks - at the passing men and women, all in elaborate historical dress. Not a car, phone, nor anything even slightly modern in sight. She couldn't even be pleased that, true to her earlier assessment, she now knew exactly how fucked she was - because that amount was astronomical. Not only uncountable to humans and mortals alike, but inconceivable, like trying to wrap one's mind around the size of the universe itself. Fuck. Fuuuuuuck.
"Are you well, Miss? You've gone white as a sheet," one of the men fixed her with a concerned frown.
"I…" her voice came out high and reedy. "I - I'm just nervous. About crossing paths with the pirates. Captain Norrington told me they would be the first order of business."
"We keep a stern eye on them, don't you worry about that, but it would still be best if you heeded the captain and kept well away," the man nodded solemnly.
Any feeling in her extremities was long gone - even the infuriating burning itch that had set in about the sun burn. Squeezing her hand into a fist until her knuckles started to turn white, she couldn't feel a damn thing, there was no pain to drown out the static slowly filling her head, just the slightest sensation of pressure where her nails dug into her palm.
"Right," she said numbly. "I'll do that."
Until the one pirate who might just be mad enough to believe her story, and might actually be able to help her, came to Port Royal. Part of her feared the sailor would insist on escorting her back to the captain's quarters, but thankfully he seemed too frazzled with the amount to be done and departed almost immediately after. She had to act now, before she was sent indoors - before anybody paid any real attention to what she was doing.
After one more glance around to make sure everybody was well and truly too busy to pay her any mind at all, she strode towards the gangplank. It felt impossible at first - she could barely feel her damn legs beneath her, but she forced herself to keep moving. And keep going she did, right until fingers slid their way into the crook of her arm, gently, but still firmly enough to halt her in her tracks.
Eyes widening until she was doing her best impression of a startled owl, Theo’s shoulders tensed until they ached in a way that rivalled the complaints of her sunburns, where the hand now pressed her dress into them. Expecting to see an incredibly unimpressed Norrington, she instead found that Lieutenant Groves was her captor. There was no fury on his face. Nothing even closely resembling anger. In her limited experience of him, she already suspected that provoking a reaction like that would take a hell of a lot. But there was still a level of authority there, and he spoke in a tone that might’ve left room for a little arguing, but one that also told her there’d be no winning that argument.
“I must advise that you remain where you are, Miss Byrne, for the sake of your own safety. Were the proceedings not explained to you?”
“I…er…yeah. Yes. They were. But it looked like there’s still plenty of time to slip away now.”
Immediately, she cursed her own choice of words.
“You are our responsibility, Miss Byrne. When the pirates have been removed to the cells, I will escort you to the church.”
“Oh, I didn't need an escort.”
“You have not been here before, have you? How do you expect to find it on your own?”
“I assume it’ll be the one with the bell,” she replied.
Her response was a little drier than she intended, her annoyance bleeding through as she watched her precious chance at escape breezily pass her by. And it was difficult to say whether she grew endeared by him, or more annoyed at him, for how he just barely managed to bite back a laugh at her response - because while he seemed to be laughing with her, and it definitely wasn’t meant nastily, it was doing absolutely sod all to help her. And neither was he. However much he thought he was.
This was one particular instance where she very much struggled with the idea of the thought being the thing that counted.
“All the same, if you arrive with an escort, the veracity of your tale will be confirmed and they’ll be more inclined to help you. Captain Norrington’s name is worth much in Port Royal, and I fear that without his confirmation, you’d receive all but the barest minimum of help. A crust of bread and a spare blanket, perhaps.”
“I don’t need any of their help,” she replied sourly. “I can find my own food.”
The laugh that drew was a stunned one - like he wanted to believe her, but her claims matched up to an insistence that she was capable of flying or turning wool to gold.
“And not by stealing, either,” she added as an afterthought.
Because it wasn’t even worth considering what the views of the Irish were like in these parts, in these times. They were hardly rosy from the English at the best of times back home, either, they just had pesky laws about hate crimes and discrimination that got in the way there.
“I did not suggest that I thought you a thief,” he said gently.
And, thankfully, didn’t seem to take her defensiveness as something suspicious in and of itself.
“But the fact remains,” he continued. “I cannot in good conscience allow you to venture forth and live on your wits.”
“So you’re suggesting that you doubt my wits now.”
The look he gave her then was an exasperated one. “My concern is for your safety, Miss Byrne. And for my own skin if you manage to slip from our grasp and into uncertainty, should Captain Norrington learn of that fact.”
“Lieutenant Groves, please. You can pretend I just vanished. Nobody needs to know.”
“I cannot. It is for your own good, and soon you’ll learn that.”
And wasn’t that a bit of miserable foreshadowing where the treatment of women in this time was concerned? Theo bit down on the inside of her cheek, and sidled away, shaking off his grasp as she did so. He allowed it, but only when he realised that her intent was not to go racing towards the gangplank. And he refused to take his eyes from her for too many moments at a time afterwards.
Theo had no choice but to resign herself to her fate. It would've been a whole lot easier if she could even guess at what that fate might look like.