Hidden Island Chapter 31, part 2 of 3

Hidden Island
Chapter 31, part 2 of 3

The Kestrel sat in a lagoon surrounded by drooping, wide-leafed trees. She was roped to a thick trunk near her bow, with her keel resting comfortably on the shallow, sandy bottom. The storm was waning. The rain still fell but was less fierce. Her crew finished getting the crates up on deck and lowered the gangplank to the shore.

Captain Vex was lying on the back bench of the aft castle with her tricorn hat covering her face. She listened to the raindrops hit it and shivered slightly in the cold. She was tired. Still, there was a lot to deal with, but she knew she needed to sleep. The trouble was, she didn't know if she could. So many of her crew had died, and she could not stop thinking about it.

"We're ready to go ashore, Captain," Danica's voice said.

Belita pushed her hat back, peered beneath it, and nodded. "Go ahead. Get the crew situated. I'll follow."

Danica nodded and vanished from Belita's periphery. She put her hat over her face again and lay there, trying to muster the will to move.

Eventually, the cold did it. Without the struggle for survival to focus on and keep the body warm, the chill set in.

It was a summer storm, so it wasn't all that cold, but the wind at night on wet clothes eventually became impossible to ignore. She'd started to shiver, so she sat up with a slight groan.

Her body was tired from the long, stressful night. She fixed her hat, took a breath, and forced herself to walk tall and proud before she saw any of her crew. Sometimes, the show was all she had left.

The moment she entered her cabin's door, her performance dropped. Her shoulders sagged, and her mouth opened. Her room was a wreck.

The floor was wet. Her rug was sopping and bloodstained. Smears of red arced across every wall where wounded sailors had leaned or slumped.

Her bed was stripped to the mattress and decorated with splatters where the layers of sailcloth had soaked through. Her navigation desk was dismantled and tossed haphazardly in a corner. A pile of wet laundry sat unceremoniously in a corner. The whole room stank like the bilge.

All she could manage to say was, "What?"

Bella's face leaned out from the washroom door frame. "Belita!" The witch's eyes tracked the Captain's expression and followed her gaze around the room. "Things got messy," Bella said apologetically.

"Aye, that was expected, but why does it smell so bad?" Belita asked.

"Well, the... intake? Was under water," Bella tried to remember the right way to describe what Jack had done.

"So, Jack and Quinn disconnected it. They tried to attach other pipes to get it above the water, but that didn't work. So, she connected it to your bathtub."

One of Blita's eyes narrowed as she ran through her knowledge of how the bilge pump worked. She knew how to use it but didn't know how to fix it. She paid other people for that. Still, she understood enough to follow what Bella was saying. "So, my bathtub is now pumping up bilgewater?"

Bella nodded, looking apologetic. "I've been here pumping it since Jack got it working."

"Well, you have my thanks, but ye can stop now; we're beached so we may be sinking. We can take our time pumping out the rest," Belita said.

Bella walked out into the bedroom. She was naked. "So, what now?"

Captain Vex considered asking the witch why she wasn't wearing any clothes but decided against it when she remembered who she was talking to. She shrugged. "We go ashore and get some rest."

"Oh, thank the stars." Bella breathed a sigh of relief.

Captain Vex eyed her footlocker. Usually, that would have been taken ashore by her crew. Mister North must have forgotten to give the order or hadn't gotten to it yet. Belita wouldn't bring it up after the night they'd all had.

"Ye might want to get dressed before we go ashore."

Bella shook her head. "I want to wash off first. I only have one set of dry clothes left, and I'm covered in bilgewater."

"Fair enough," Captain Vex said with a small, amused smile. "Put your locker on top of mine. We'll carry them out together."

She opened the Captain's cabin door and ducked inside. Reeve was pulling on his pants while Doctor Kalfou poured a bucket of water on the floor to rinse away some of the blood. Reeve was bandaged in three places on his torso and another two on his right arm.

"Mister Reeve, the Captain wants you to take over for Mister North," Bella said.

Reeve grunted an acknowledgment. "She says anything about what we're doing now?"

"Just that, Mister North needs to prepare for the crew to sleep on shore," Bella answered.

"Good," Reeve nodded. He picked up his hook and headed for the door. "Thanks again, Doc."

As the big Bosun left, the wounded filed back in. Doctor Kalfou had managed to clear away most of the piles of cut-away clothing, amputated limbs, pools of blood, and other grim clutter. Bella sat down on the bed. She was used to staying awake through long rituals. Bonding her familiarity had taken her nearly two full days. She'd always prided herself on her ability to keep focused. Tonight was testing her limits. It was the fear and feeling like she was constantly in the way. Something had gone wrong at the end of her ritual; she had no idea if it had worked, and she still hadn't had time to figure it out. It had been nothing but one crisis after another. Even now, with nothing left that she felt like she could help with, she still couldn't let go of the knot of anxiety she'd been holding ever since she'd been recruited to help Doctor Kalfou with the wounded.

She knew where it came from. She didn't want to think about it. Focusing on tasks and trying to help the wounded had been a good way of not thinking, but now there was nothing left but waiting, and trying not to think about it became thinking about it. She tried to breathe slowly and evenly, closing her eyes and focusing on calming herself. It didn't help. If anything, it was making her feel worse. The room still smelled like blood and sweat. The walls felt like they were closing in. She abruptly got up and went back out into the rain.

Her first thought was to head toward the prow where Will was, but as she got closer, she could hear him calling directions back to the Captain, who helped her correct the ship's course as it moved down the narrow inlet. Now would be an awful time to distract him. Besides, after she'd made such a big deal out of not worrying him so he could stay focused, going to him for support seemed like a poor choice.

"Where's the bilge?" she asked the nearest sailor, focusing hard on composure.

He looked over his shoulder momentarily, seeming surprised at the question. He continued hauling on the rope in his hands, helping heft a cargo net full of supplies up from below and gesturing with his head. "In the hold.

Just past the cabins, to the right. There's a hatch in the floor."

She thanked him and headed back below the decks. She felt like she was going in circles. A small, mirthless laugh escaped her lips. It was an apt metaphor. Back and forth, round and round the ship, feeling like she was going nowhere, just like she felt in her head. She stared at the hatch in the floor without really remembering walking down the stairs or the hall. She wondered how long she'd been standing there. Recognition of what she was looking at finally dawned on her. Jack's equipment harness, hat, and tri-barreled firearm were hanging from a hook above the hatch.

Quinn's swords hung next to them.

"You're losing it, girl," Bella muttered to herself.

She hauled on the hatch, opening it. The smell hit her hard. She made a face, took a small breath with her head turned away, and called down. "Jack?"

A few moments later, she got an answer. "Yes?" Jack's voice sounded strained.

Bella wrinkled her nose and started climbing. "I'm coming down."

"What? Why?" Jack called up to her.

"I want to help," Bella called back.

"That's a bad idea, Bella," Jack replied.

"Why?" Bella stopped near the bottom of the latter. She couldn't see the floor. She was climbing down into disgusting, salty water. The smell was nauseating. The only light was from a lantern hanging from a hook on the wall, and the room looked like a ribcage inside. Curving beams narrowed downward and disappeared into the water. In the direction of the prow, the Blige extended past the lantern light, a narrow hallway full of water vanishing into the darkness. The waterline was angled. The further into the dark the hallway went, the higher the water was. By the time the light ran out, it was nearly at the ceiling. Toward the stern, she could see Jack and Quinn up to their ribs in the disgusting brine, doing something to a set of pipes that were mounted to the back wall.

"I just... need something to do." Bella didn't know what else to say.

Jack looked back at her, concerned at her face. "Are you wounded? Hurt in any way?"

"No, I don't think so, why?" Bella asked. Jack had a way of asking completely unexpected questions. It gave Bella's mind something to do besides spin, and she was already starting to feel slightly better.

"This water is just waiting to cause an infection. Do you have another set of clothes?" Jack continued.

"One more, yes," Bella said.

"Alright. Come on down," Jack shrugged, still sounding dubious. "Step carefully. It's deeper than you think. You won't be able to touch the bottom in the middle. You'll need to walk on the curve of the walls or tread water."

Bella made a face and lowered her foot into the cold, slimy water. "Why is the room shaped like this?"

"Because this is what ships are shaped like under the waterline," Jack said. "The keel is beneath us, and the hull curves out from it."

Bella looked at the room again. Now, its strange shape made sense. It hadn't even occurred to her that they were underwater. "So, what are we doing?"

"Trying to fix the bilge pump," Jack answered, returning to her work. "The water rose too high. Now it's flooded."

"How can I help?' Bella asked. Her skirts lifted in the water and billowed around her as she sunk deeper into the murk. She found the curve of the walls and awkwardly made her way towards Jack, using the rib-like beams as hand-holds. With how much the room was angled, it was almost like climbing.

"We're trying to extend the intake pipe with some spare sections. You can help hold tools we aren't using now," Jack explained.

Bella trudged through the water. "Alright."

All she could see of what they were working on was part of a handle sticking out of the water. "That looks like the bathtub pump in the Captain's washroom," Bella said.

Jack nodded. "They're all the same system. The bathtub pipe pumps seawater in. These other pipes pump bilgewater out." She was crouched a bit, submerged to the neck, and working blindly below the water's surface.

Quinn stood next to her with a large wrench in one hand, three lengths of pipe cradled in the other, and a pouch hanging from his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Bella asked.

"Trying to find the right pipe," Jack said. "I think I have it. Can you take that stuff from Quinn?"

"You're adding more pipes?" Bella asked. Quinn passed her the three pipes and the pouch. They were all
surprisingly heavy.

"Do you know how a water pump works?" Jack asked.

"No. Well, sort of. Will has one in the lighthouse. It draws water up from barrels at the bottom," Bella replied.

"Exactly," Jack nodded. "Right now, we're inside the barrel. It works by drawing in air and using it to push the water through the pipe. The problem is that the air intake is submerged." She took Quinn's hand and guided it below the surface, letting him feel whatever he'd found.

"Oh," Bella said. She didn't understand how it all worked, but she could see how pulling water in and pushing it back out wouldn't do anything if the goal was to get rid of the water.

Quinn and Jack switched places. Quinn's wrench disappeared below the surface. He fiddled with it underwater, and a moment later, he started pulling on it.

"So why is the air thing so low?" Bella asked.

"It isn't. It's about five feet off the floor. Usually, that's plenty, and it still keeps the intake reasonable for repairs.

The bilge isn't supposed to get anywhere near this full," Jack explained.

Quinn reached out of the water towards Bella. She stared at his hand for a moment before figuring out what he wanted, then handed him a length of pipe. It disappeared below the water.

After a few moments, Quinn shook his head. "This is not going to work, Mistress."

"Why not?" Jack asked.

"The intake faces out. We need it to face up," Quinn said.

Jack's eyes narrowed in thought. "Find the elbow pipe. Turn it."

"I did, Mistress," Quinn said. "It is also connected to this one." He reached out of the water and tapped one of the pipes mounted to the walls.

Jack looked pained. "They ran the captain's washroom to the same intake."

Bella was not following the conversation and stood there holding the extra pipes. Quinn waited patiently while Jack thought. A moment later, Jack's face lit up. "Wait, this is good! Let me in." She crouched next to Quinn, and her hands disappeared below the water again. "We can remove this pipe here and run the intake pipe straight to it."

Quinn followed Jack's hands and looked up at a pipe disappearing into the ceiling. "I think I see." He handed the length of pipe back to Bella and started to work beneath the water again. For a while, they were all silent.

The hollow ping of the wrench occasionally knocking against the pipes beneath the water echoed against the rounded walls. Then Quinn handed Bella another length of pipe. This one had a three-way connection attached to it and another short length with an odd-shaped bulb on the end. He traded that one for the one he'd handed back to her previously.

Bella looked at the odd section of pipe she'd just been handed. "Is that the... intake?"

"Yes," Jack said, holding her hand beneath the water to help Quinn fit the other pipe into whatever they were working on.

"It's going to be too short now," Quinn said.

"I know," Jack nodded. "We'll bring the next section above down to it. Then the gap will be out of the water."

"It will still be too short," Quinn pointed out.

"I know," Jack said. "You'll see."

Bella felt like she was listening to a secret code. Although she understood each word, she was utterly lost in its
meaning. Quinn nodded and kept working. A short while later, he finished and looked up. "How do you want to disconnect the upper section?"

"Lift me?" Jack asked. Quinn nodded, handed Jack the wrench, and then picked her up by the waist like she weighed nothing. He lifted her above his head and settled her onto his shoulders. Bella's brows rose at the show of strength, but Jack rode it out like usual. Once settled, she reached up and clamped the wrench onto the pipe where the two sections joined just above her head. It took a lot of straining and leaning back to put her weight behind her efforts, but eventually, the pipe turned. After that, the work was short. Jack disconnected the upper section and handed it down to Quinn, then slid off his shoulders and down his back. He lowered the section of pipe about six inches into the water and started connecting it. Bella tilted her head, beginning to understand.

"So, that pipe is now attached to where the air intake was?" she asked.

"Yes," Jack nodded, catching her breath from the work she'd done disconnecting the pipe.

"So that's it. Now the pump can get air into the pipes?" Bella asked.

"Well, no," Jack said. "We had to disconnect the pump handle when we pulled out the intake. So air can get into the pipe, but there's no way to push it along."

"So you have to reconnect the handle?" Bella asked, feeling lost again.

"Sort of. I don't think we'd be able to reconnect the pump handle with the parts we have. It's in the wrong place to do what we need it to do," Jack said. "But there's another pump handle upstairs, so we're connecting to that."

"The washroom," Bella smiled, feeling like she understood what they were doing.

"Exactly. We are turning the captain's bathtub into the outflow for the bilge."

Bella giggled. "She is going to hate that."

"Well, she might be able to salvage her ship if this works," Jack shrugged.

Quinn finished connecting the pipe. There was a six-inch gap between the one he'd just reconnected and the one above it, running into the ceiling.

"That doesn't look good," Bella said. "Wait, why is there a gap now?"

"There was a gap below; you couldn't see it under the water. That was where we removed the intake. So we moved the pipe section down to get the gap up there instead," Jack explained.

"How's that help? There's still a gap," Bella asked

Quinn gave her a slight nod and a look that might have been appreciation for vindicating what he'd tried to point out earlier.

"Because now I can see it," Jack smiled. "Watch. Quinn, I need to stand on your shoulders."

Quinn made a stirrup with his hands, and Jack stepped into them. Then she put her foot on his shoulder as he lifted. A few moments later, she stood on his shoulders, roughly face-level with the gap between the pipes, leaning on the wall for balance. Quinn held Jack's ankles and stoically ignored the disgusting water dripping onto his head from her clothes.

"Bella, in that suitcase, there's a roll of oily cloth and a couple of pipe clamps. Hand them here," Jack said, reaching down toward her.

Bella scrounged through the bag until she found what Jack was looking for and passed them to Quinn, who carefully handed them to Jack. Bella watched in amazement while Jack balanced like an acrobat and wound the oily cloth around the gap in the pipe, over and over, layering it tightly, creating a makeshift tube from it.

Then, she used the pipe clamps to seal the cloth to the pipes. It only took a few minutes to finish, then Jack stepped into Quinn's waiting hands and lowered herself back into the water.

Jack was grinning with satisfaction. "There. It will leak a bit, but it should work well enough. Let's go try it out,"

"Did you just make a pipe out of a rag and some weird metal bits?" Bella asked, not sure what she'd just watched.

Jack laughed, "Well, I wouldn't describe it quite like that, but yes."

Jack's pride and happiness made Bella's heartache. The night had been so challenging that it felt like forever since she'd felt anything good, and now there she was, face to face with that self-satisfied grin that always used to drive her crazy. It was so familiar but far away, and yet right before her. Something inside her felt like a dam breaking. She didn't even notice as the pipes she was holding tumbled out of her hands into the water. She threw her arms around Jack and buried her face against her neck, sobbing. Jack stiffened for a moment, then returned the embrace.

"You alright?" Jack asked.

"No. I'm not," Bella choked.

Jack just held her quietly while she cried it all out. The fear, the confusion, the bitter ache she'd been carrying since Jack had first showed up back in Bastard's Bay, the resentment she still couldn't let go of, the helplessness and panic that she'd bottled up to help the wounded, and the relief from coming so close to death tonight. All of it poured out onto Jack's dirty, wet shirt.

Eventually, she ran out of tears. All she could do was gently shake her head against Jack's neck.

"It's going to be fine. We survived," Jack said, gently stroking Bella's wet hair.

Bella tilted her head, brought her hands to Jack's face, and pulled their lips together. Jack tensed again but relaxed and gently kissed her back. When they stopped, Jack leaned back to look at Bella. There were tears in Jack's eyes, too, but her happy smile was even more expansive. Bella watched as worry crept in. "You sure you're not going to regret that later?" Jack asked.

"We almost died," Bella said. "That puts a lot of things into perspective."

"It always does," Jack nodded.

"I'm never going to get what I want if I can't let go of the past," Bella said, full of self-admonishment and determination.

"What is it that you want?" Jack asked.

Bella blinked back tears and paused, trying to find the right words. After a moment, she smiled sadly. "A family."

Jack's brows rose. Then she looked down at herself. "Well, I can't help with... that. Wrong plumbing."

Bella's eyes went wide. "What? No, that's not-" She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Just... shut up." Bella kissed her again, feeling Jack's laughter against her lips. The dam that had broken inside Bella had left her feeling drained. This kiss began to fill her up again with something good. The emptiness she'd been carrying around for years felt gone. She didn't know if it would return, but it didn't matter. A powerful joy bubbled inside her, and she escaped as laughter mirrored Jack's. Suddenly, the two women found themselves giggling into each other's lips. When it had finally run its course, they rested their foreheads against each other.

"In all the ways I dreamed of this moment happening, I never imagined it inside a stinking bilge," Jack grinned.

Bella wrinkled her nose and laughed. "I don't care."

"Me either," Jack shrugged and kissed her again. "We still have work to do, though."

Bella sighed and let Jack go. She did a double take as she saw Quinn and remembered he was there. He'd watched the entire scene. She wasn't even sure he'd moved. His eyes were the same impenetrable darkness they always were. "Sorry for all that," she said with a shrug.

Quinn raised a single eyebrow. "I do not understand your apology."

"I felt like I should apologize for..." Bella trailed off, not able to find the words. "It's just a little strange being watched like that."

"Then the apology should be mine. Would you like me to turn away in the future?" Quinn asked.

"Well, no. I suppose not. I'm just... I forgot you were there watching and got embarrassed," Bella admitted.

"I did not anticipate your discomfort at being watched," Quinn said.

Bella glanced at Jack questioningly, not sure what to say. Jack laughed and shrugged. "You did just do a naked ritual in front of the whole ship."

"That's different!" Bella insisted.

Jack smiled. "You two will have to get to know each other better."

"I don't usually feel self-conscious," Bella sighed. "It always catches me by surprise, which, of course, makes it worse. I got so lost that I forgot it wasn't private. That isn't very comfortable. Also, I know you two are... together.

Most people don't like when their partners kiss other people. I've had enough jealousy aimed at me over the years to feel nervous at the possibility of it."

"Quinn, what do you think of what just happened?" Jack asked, looking pointedly at Bella as she spoke.

"I am glad for your happiness, Mistress. You have desired this reconciliation the entire time I have known you," Quinn said.

"You aren't jealous?" Jack asked.

"Of course not," Quinn said, sounding a bit offended.

"Why not?" Jack continued.

"Jealousy is selfishness. Love should be selfless," Quinn answered firmly.

Jack raised a knowing eyebrow toward Bella. "See?"

Bella laughed and rolled her eyes. "Alright, you've made your point." She smiled at the green warrior. "You are different than I thought you were, Mister Quinn."

"Thank you," Quinn said with a nod.

"Well, I'm going to go see if the pump works. You two can stay down here in the stink and awkwardly dance around your questions and answers for as long as you want," Jack snarked.

"How about we put that off for later?' Bella asked Quinn. The big man nodded again, faint amusement showing on his stoic face.

The three of them shuffled back towards the ladder.



To be continued