"After all that's happened to get us where we are, I want to see something good come of it. Nassau free from English rule would be a testament to the memory of all those men who brought me there in the first place. To Charles' memory, and to an idea and a story worth telling three-hundred years in the future."
Jack pushes himself away from the table, walks away a step and looks at the room full of unfamiliar things. He thinks of Eliot's hands directing a tiny globe of coffee around until it drew out his flag on a coffee shop napkin, how impossible and magical and satisfying that was, and feels a pang of regret that in his excitement about the library he hadn't thought to save it so that he could show Anne the result.
He turns back to her and sets his hand at the back of the dining chair.
"I met a man today." He pulls out the chair, sits down, then leans forward onto his elbows. His knuckles brush against the bowl and he glances down at the pineapple a moment before looking back to her. "He knew my name. Knew your name— without prompting. This man had no special interest in piracy and yet he drew my flag from memory."
"If that man's world is anything like our own it gives me hope for our success when we return. I want to live for that future." He pauses for a moment and sighs, letting his eyes wander over her face. There are other things that he'd have liked to live for. A wife. A home to come back to that he could call his own. Whatever does lie in their futures, and whatever she wants him to be to her now, those two things don't seem to be a possibility any longer. They probably never were a possibility, and he shouldn't let a couple nights huddled together against the incomprehensibility of this place make him hopeful for any change to that.
"The last time we left Nassau, leaving was the only choice available to us. If we are without choices again...if we get back to shore and discover there is no fight left there, I promise you we can dig up the cache—" He leans back in his chair, his side hitting heavy enough to make an audible thump against the wood, and gestures out with his hand. "—and flee to the continent with our necks intact."
"You and me..." he echoes the words slowly, as if he's unsure how they will feel coming out of his mouth. He falters short of continuing the sentence, his jaw working and finding no words. Anne wants to know what's after that and he can't picture it in his mind. He doesn't see a future there that makes sense to him. "I don't know what comes next, after that."
If the war succeeds and they take Nassau back, the only future he can imagine wanting is the one he already had— back on the account until he dies fighting, Anne still at his side.
He's silent for a moment before he adds, "There are worse endings than a blade. But if you want to go, we'll go."
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Jack pushes himself away from the table, walks away a step and looks at the room full of unfamiliar things. He thinks of Eliot's hands directing a tiny globe of coffee around until it drew out his flag on a coffee shop napkin, how impossible and magical and satisfying that was, and feels a pang of regret that in his excitement about the library he hadn't thought to save it so that he could show Anne the result.
He turns back to her and sets his hand at the back of the dining chair.
"I met a man today." He pulls out the chair, sits down, then leans forward onto his elbows. His knuckles brush against the bowl and he glances down at the pineapple a moment before looking back to her. "He knew my name. Knew your name— without prompting. This man had no special interest in piracy and yet he drew my flag from memory."
"If that man's world is anything like our own it gives me hope for our success when we return. I want to live for that future." He pauses for a moment and sighs, letting his eyes wander over her face. There are other things that he'd have liked to live for. A wife. A home to come back to that he could call his own. Whatever does lie in their futures, and whatever she wants him to be to her now, those two things don't seem to be a possibility any longer. They probably never were a possibility, and he shouldn't let a couple nights huddled together against the incomprehensibility of this place make him hopeful for any change to that.
"The last time we left Nassau, leaving was the only choice available to us. If we are without choices again...if we get back to shore and discover there is no fight left there, I promise you we can dig up the cache—" He leans back in his chair, his side hitting heavy enough to make an audible thump against the wood, and gestures out with his hand. "—and flee to the continent with our necks intact."
"You and me..." he echoes the words slowly, as if he's unsure how they will feel coming out of his mouth. He falters short of continuing the sentence, his jaw working and finding no words. Anne wants to know what's after that and he can't picture it in his mind. He doesn't see a future there that makes sense to him. "I don't know what comes next, after that."
If the war succeeds and they take Nassau back, the only future he can imagine wanting is the one he already had— back on the account until he dies fighting, Anne still at his side.
He's silent for a moment before he adds, "There are worse endings than a blade. But if you want to go, we'll go."