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Chapter Text

1722 | LONDON

Felicity Somerset pressed her body against the back of her door in the still and ebony embrace of her second floor room. She focused her ear for any hint that someone was still awake nearby in the mansion; but she found none.

She opened the door with a soft click and her shoes dangling from her dainty fingers. Watching the shadows, Felicity scouted for movement and only slipped into the hallway when she found none.

She crept across the polished wooden floor, careful to avoid the one creaky floorboard near her mother's prized walnut-veneered commode. Her bare feet shuffled slowly down the marble staircase, pausing at the end of the carved oak balustrade on the last step where she listened like a statue in the dark to the shuffle of the house staff cleaning in the parlor. She stay like that and watched the faint glow of light emanating from behind the staircase, quietly hoping that they had no business in the opulent, empty foyer and would simply go about their nightly tasks behind that closed door.

Satisfied they would, Felicity bolted towards the front door, out it, and breathed only once she'd fled down the front steps.

Ignoring the gravel bruising the soles of her feet, Felicity didn't stop running until she had reached the stable a good two minute dash away, the London home was much smaller than their country home in the borough of Starling, but Felicity did enjoy the bustle and interesting faces their fancy town house provided.

Finding the stable empty from staff as expected, Felicity laughed boisterously as she fell against the back of the stable door, gasping to catch her breath between her laughs.

Once she had settled herself down, Felicity slipped on her shoes and walked by memory to the second stall where she found her horse, a large black stallion who answered only to her and the name Roman. He whinnied as she unlatched his stall and clipped on his bridle before she shushed him warmly.

“You're going to get us both in trouble,” she chuckled as she led him out of the stables and into the crisp, dark night.

It was a little after 11pm and the moon was just shy of full, peeking out from behind tufts of grey clouds on that uneventful Sunday full of stuffy engagements and necessitated wearing a corset that had left bruises along Felicity’s ribs.

She mounted Roman without a saddle and certainly not how any proper lady ought, but Felicity never counted herself as such, despite holding the title of one for many years.

The Somerset name was a titled one and the family came from money at least three generations old. The Duke of Starling, Fitzwilliam Somerset, was Felicity’s stepfather and, as the vast country Estate, the town house, and the fancy gowns bore testament too, their wealth was exceptional. But, for Felicity that had not always been the case. As a child she grew up until the age of 8, living amongst the muck of a rural farm with her mother, her real father having long since abandoned them.

By a chance meeting as the Duke passed alongside the road a stone’s throw from that small country house on a sunny Saturday afternoon, well away from the Estate and even the city he called home, he met and, he would say, instantly fell in love with Felicity’s mother.

It was testament to his fine nature that despite having a young child and barely a penny to her name, he married her just as soon as she accepted his proposal. The rest was history and one her mother was not fond of revisiting, but Felicity’s carefree life of riding horses however she pleased and chatting to pigs came to a rather abrupt end, and Felicity Smoak became Felicity Somerset.

The Duke was a fair and kind man, and Felicity held no ill towards him. But, he was a man of station and order and while he considered Felicity like a daughter, having no children of his own, he really didn't know what to do with her taste for adventure and wild nature, and due to that she so often found herself sitting on a chair in his study watching as he paced the woven rug with a fretful look on his face.

She had appreciated the education that had been afforded to her as it was one of the finest money could buy. But, even though seeing her mother in a comfortable life made Felicity wonderfully happy, there was an aching need in the pit of her stomach to feel the wind whip at her cheeks as she ran free.

Because with that perfect life, as some saw it, a whole host of expectations followed. For the most part Felicity abided by them dutifully; she was courteous and polite, she wore the right dresses and she smiled as any proper lady ought, but on Sunday nights... well those were all her own.

She rode fast and her cheek froze under the battering of cold air while she smiled in the face of it, but at around half eleven, Felicity stopped near the Blackwell Docks and inhaled the salty air from the brackish river.

It tasted like freedom.

She lifted the hood of her riding cloak over her head as she tethered Roman to a wooden rung. She pulled an apple from her pocket and offered him the same as she smoothed her palm down his ebony muzzle.

“Just half an hour and one drink,” she promised him and he butted his nose into her chest. “I promise no gambling tonight,” she started as she began to walk away, “I bled them all dry last week,” she added with a wink.

She strolled into the only tavern in town that wouldn’t have thrown her right out again, afraid of the scandal that having an unaccompanied young lady there at such a disreputable hour might bring.

Only one or two heads turned as she walked through the door, but with her hood low and her head bowed she walked straight to the table she'd become accustomed to, and no one gave her another look.

“One of these days your father is going to catch you in here,” a kindly and familiar voice chuckled as Felicity lifted the hood from her head.
“Best you bring me a drink before he does then,” Felicity laughed as she set down enough money for four.

“You don’t ever need to buy a drink here Miss Felicity, you teaching my daughter to read and write is plenty,” the man with spritely brown eyes remarked with an affirming nod of his head.
“Sara is my best pupil,” Felicity answered with a grin, “my only pupil but certainly my best all the same.” She pushed the money towards him, “But, what good is money if I can't give it to whomever I choose Mr John?”

Felicity looked up at the ebony-skinned man almost twice her stature and smiled as he took the coin from the table, albeit reluctantly. “How is Lyla?”
“She's doing much better now that she's in her fourth month,” John answered with a proud puff of his chest.
Felicity tussled her hand through her hair, a little wet from the light mist of rain she’d encountered on the ride and with a scalp that still ached from the 20 pins that had held her hair in place all day.
“I can't wait to meet the new little Diggle, will you let me babysit?”
“Of course, but you know you could be having your own,” John said with a smirk.
Felicity screwed up her face as the bar maid set a jug of ale down in front of her. “I'm not ready for that life and you know it.”

“Isn't there a Mr Palmer visiting again in the next week?” John teased as he absently brushed his dish cloth over the polished table top.
Felicity gulped down the honey ale and sighed. “He's a very kind man and not all too unfortunate to look upon, but he spoke so much last time about how astonishing the new wheels on the carriages are and I completely lost my mind.” She took another drink, and another sigh. “I think he might propose marriage to me John,” she groaned as she stared into the frothy drink, as though searching for answer, an escape, or both.

“Would that be all that bad? I've not heard a bad report about him. No doubt he'll make a fine husband,” John remarked as he settled back on the heels of his black boots that could do with a spit and polish.
“Perhaps,” she lamented, “but only for someone willing to be a good wife. I'm not willing to be either good or a wife.”
She chugged down a mouthful of ale while John laughed so heavily that his whole chest shook.

“I want adventure and freedom,” she sighed, listless. “I want out there.” She glanced out the window across the tavern to the choppy, midnight blue water, tinged by fronds of moonlight.
“You'd probably get seasick,” John teased, but Felicity ignored him as she stared out at the watery view.

“You can stay until closing in twenty, then I'll escort you home,” he remarked.
“You needn't...”
The man a good dozen years older than Felicity raised his finger to hush her. “Wasn't a request Felicity.”
She knew better than to argue with the tavern keeper so she nodded instead just as the door blew open and a boy maybe a year or two younger than Felicity ran in wearing a frantic look.

He made a beeline in his unlaced boots for John. “Know where I can find a mess boy to set sail on a merchant ship?”
John looked at him bewildered and the teen pulled off his hat and repeated the question.

“Come back t'morrow,” John grumbled as he flung the dishcloth over his shoulder and walked back towards the bar.
“Be too late 'en,” the boy remarked, smacking his lips together as he spoke. “The cap’n told me to do it a few days ago but I bloody well forgot ain't I,” he lamented as he wrung his woollen cap between his filthy hands.
“No one 'ere tonight,” John said with a steely huff; he wasn't about to cut the kid any slack.

Felicity watched as the dejected boy slunk towards the door. She looked back at John behind the bar who made himself busy chatting with some other patrons, and then she gulped down the rest of her drink, leaving enough for a second glass in the jug.

She had an idea.
Probably a terrible one; but she didn't stop to consider that.

Felicity followed the teen out into the chilly night, running to catch up to him in her dress that most would consider a nightgown flapping around her ankles.

“Excuse me, Sir,” she called out, but he didn’t stop walking along the pier. “Sir,” she called out again and he finally stopped and looked around, bemused.
“You talk’n to me?” he laughed with a slap of his leg.
She straightened her cloak to cover her simple gown as she stopped in front of him. “You said your vessel was looking for a crew member?”
“My what now?” he quizzed, his face screwing up.
“Your ship,” Felicity corrected.

He chuckled at her before he nodded and a flop of brown hair fell over his grubby face. “A mess boy Miss,” he answered.
“And what exactly does a mess boy do?” Felicity questioned as she idly toyed with the buttons on her riding cloak.

“Whatever the steward tells 'em to,” he replied with a quick bob of his head. “Peel the potatoes if we’re fortunate ‘nuf to ‘ave ‘em, or it’s just rice ‘n such.” Felicity watched as he chewed the inside of his cheek while he thought. “Gather the messes from the boys 'n hang em ready to be boiled I ‘pose, and uh clean the galley.” He wiped the back of his tattered sleeve under his nose and shrugged like he wasn’t sure what else to tell her.
Felicity nodded along, despite having almost no understanding of what was being explained.

“And whereabouts are you sailing to?” she asked.
He ran a hand through his salt-licked hair. “Sail for the East India Company ma’am, all the way to Bengal. Longest journey merchants take.” He seemed excited about the prospect and she watched his slender chest puff up with a sense of pride.
“I imagine you’re at sea some time then?” Felicity asked. She knew from overhearing conversations in the tavern that the trip to the Americas took near on six weeks.
“If the wind kisses our ass five months,” he chuffed. “If it don’t, it’ll be near on six.”
Felicity held the ends of her jacket tight around her slender frame as a breeze blew up off the Thames. “And when do you leave?”
“Sunrise t'morrow Miss,” he answered swiftly.
“I see.” The word rolled around her lips as her eyes drifted out towards the twisting river.

“I ain't try'n to be rude Miss but it’s a boy's work, ain't no fancy ladies allowed on deck,” the young man piped up, intruding on Felicity’s thoughts.
“Of course,” she said as she pretended to laugh at the idea. “However would a ship full of men cope with the presence of a lady?”
He nodded along, her sarcasm clearly lost on him. “Cap'n says wimmen are a just pretty distraction.”
“Oh he does, does he?” she mocked sweetly. “I bet he’s a real charmer.”
“We ain’t even allowed whores on for visits you know?” He blushed and Felicity smiled thinly.
“Oh I can only imagine. But, I'm enquiring for my brother, so that shan’t be an issue.”
The teen's wyes narrowed. “Is he as fancy as you? Because the pay is pretty shit but it’s food and something to do aye. If we make good time Cap'n throws in a bonus and we usually got enough rum about the place.”

“That sounds,” she paused, “wonderful,” she finished with a tight smile.
“If your brother wants the job he best show up t'morrow at dawn, Cap’n don’t like none being late.”
“And where should I tell him to meet you if he does?”
“Down Blackwall Port outside The Company, Miss. Big three-mast frigate, Verdant, can’t miss it. Tell him to ask for Mr Tommy the Quartermaster and tell him to not be late we leave at sunrise.”
“Of course thank you,” Felicity idly curtseyed.
“Big one far dock,” he called over his shoulder after he’d started to run off.
She nodded as he disappeared into the foggy night.

“Where'd you disappear to?” John asked, appearing a few moments later with a heavy jacket covering his shoulders.
“Just getting some fresh air,” Felicity lied as she walked towards Roman.
John shrugged as he followed her. “Come on I'll escort you home.”

•|•

The ride home took them past the affluent Mayfair estates and into the rolling green fields, and at her request, John let Felicity ride the last mile alone.

Once at home Felicity sat inside her room staring at the shadows of foggy greys as dawn approached.

There wasn't a single part of the idea stirring in her head that wouldn't have been considered by a logical person as thoroughly ridiculous.

But today Felicity didn't want logic.
She wanted adventure.

•|•

Big was an understatement.

As she stared at the brass nameplate Verdant near the bow of the ship, big was most certainly not the superlative she would have used.

The frigate was massive, although perhaps a little smaller than the East Indiaman ship beside her, but it wasn't just her size that stole Felicity's breath. There was something majestic about it as it stood proudly with an ornately carved mermaid figurehead. Caught in her hand was a single arrow and a cascade of hair covered barely her naked chest. She was beautiful but with a fearsome stare in her eyes, that spoke of a woman not to be trifled with.

Or perhaps that was just what Felicity chose to believe in that moment, because that seemed to give credence to the decidedly insane journey she was just about to embark on.

People shuffled past Felicity as she held a hemp sack filled with all the worldly possession she would have for the next however long over her shoulder, while she stood blinking up at the towering decks in front of her.

“She's impressive isn't she?” A voice said from behind, and when Felicity turned she was looking at a young gentleman in white linen breeches and a well-pressed pewter-blue civilian coat. His chestnut hair was tied near the nape of his neck and his face was cleanly shaven.

Something akin to a gentlemanly charm about him made Felicity smile as she idly touched her fingers to the small peak of her twill hat. She nodded in reply and he didn’t seem bothered by her silence.

“Fastest in all their fleet,” he said proudly as he nodded to a nearby East Indiaman. “Those things steer with the agility of dead man and they might just smell worse.” He made himself laugh and his smooth cheeks warmed pink at the apples.
Felicity managed a small but appreciated laugh, albeit slightly raspy.

“Are you the Captain?” Felicity asked, pressing her chin downward into her neck so that the voice that came out was deeper than the one she was accustomed to.
He laughed as if her words had been a spritely joke before he pointed upwards. Felicity’s eyes followed where he pointed to find a man dressed in brown breeches and an untucked white shirt, sitting on the tip of the bow spirit with a map book in his hands.
“That’s the Captain, I’m just the Quartermaster, Tommy Merlyn.” He tipped his tricorne hat, but Felicity’s eyes were narrowing in on the man who spoke so dismissively about women.

When she realised Mr Merlyn was just the man the young boy last night had told her to see, her eyes flung back down to find him walking towards the gangplank.

“Wait, I’m supposed to see you,” she puffed as she caught up to him. “I’m here about the mess boy position.” She stood up straight, a good foot (maybe more) smaller than the man and kept one arm tugging on her baggy coat, worn along the stitching.
“Roy find you?” he asked, almost suspiciously but still with a kindness about him.
Felicity nodded.
“You been to sea before?”
“Plenty,” she lied, “Just got back from the Americas.” Well, if she was going to lie, she might as well make it a more exciting one.
He stood back on the heels of his freshly shined shoes and slowly looked her up and down.
“How old are you?”
“17 the month just gone.” Another lie, she was in fact 19, but aware of her smaller stature and her youthful face kept from the sun’s harsh rays for the most part, she thought attributing that to youth might be more believable.
“Your parents know you’re here?”
“Orphaned Sir.”
“You’re here to work?”
“Yes Sir.”

She watched as he folded his lips contemplatively together as people shuffled onto the boat behind them.

Tommy knew they were short-handed after losing 10 men in the last turnabout, so sometimes you had to take what you got; even if that was a slight body with a ruddy face who didn’t look a day over 12. Oliver mightn’t be too happy about it if he knew his best friend and captain at all, which he did. But if the boy gave his age as 17, who was he to call the kid a liar.

“You’ll be paid a fair wage at each port when we arrive,” he remarked and Felicity nodded.
“We don’t tolerate thieving or laying about.”
She nodded again.
“One hot meal a day and rations at other times.”
It felt obliging, but Felicity nodded a third time.

He shrugged his shoulders and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard then boy, go see the steward in the Galley, you’ll take your orders from him.”
Felicity held out her hand and weakly shook the Quartermaster’s hand as she swallowed down the lump in her throat.

He’d actually brought it.

With her hair secured under her cap, her face free of all and any rouging, her breasts wrapped tightly to her chest with a bandage, and her small frame covered head to toe in clothes she purchased off a stable boy for more than what he’d earn in a year (enough to cover his silence as well), the man in front of her actually thought her a boy.

By the look on his face, a curiously odd one; but a boy nonetheless.

That was fine, she could take his slightly bemused look and simply avoid him – the ship was large enough.

“Thank you Sir,” she peeped, her voice sounding slightly squeaky at the ends as she tried to sound manly.

She didn’t linger any longer than was polite, worried he would soon enough see through her disguise, and instead as soon as he let her hand go, Felicity jogged up the gangplank.

“What’s your name kid?” Tommy called out after her.
Felicity turned. “Felix Smoak sir,” she replied before she stepped onto the boat.

Amazingly, the ship seemed even larger while standing on it. Awestruck, Felicity turned around in small circles as she looked up at the large masts that seemed to reach out and touch the heavens themselves while people – much braver than her – walked the ropes and nets between them. The cockboat in front of her, alone was nearly 10 feet long, and there were two of them sat in the middle of the main deck.

People must have looked like ants from the masts above as they scurried about carrying crates or rolling barrels and Felicity was well and truly gobsmacked at the vastness of such a thing.

This was certainly going to be an adventure.

•|•

Tommy got as close to the base of the bow spirit as he dared and gestured at his perpetually sour-faced friend, Oliver Queen.

Oliver looked up from his book and huffed out a sigh that Tommy heard, even at that distance, before he stood up and easily moved his way down the narrow beam of wood until he stood a foot away from the base.

“Freight on board?” Oliver asked, skipping the pleasantries they no longer needed.
“All accounted for, signed off on the load myself,” Tommy replied with a sideway grin. “Hauling silver and woollen goods, along with a shipment to deliver Good Hope of weapons and a few curiosities.”
Oliver huffed loudly at Tommy’s response. “They know the wool doesn’t keep as well on these routes so they can cheap us off at the other end.”
“There’s always another commodity we can get in Elmina that will pay better.”
Oliver scowled indignantly. “We aren’t trading in lives Tommy; never have, never will.”
Tommy threw his hands up in a shrug. “Always have to ask, the Company’s always pushing it.”
“It’s a good thing I don’t answer to them then isn’t it,” Oliver grunted.
“Be ready to head out just after sunrise Captain,” Tommy remarked, knowingly changing the subject.

And Oliver was glad for it.
“All accounted for?” Oliver asked as he looked over the men busying about on the main deck.
“Down two hands, but a crew of 120 ought to be enough,” Tommy remarked as he brushed a speck of dirt from his jacket shoulder.
“You’re far too fancy for this life Tommy,” Oliver quipped, just a dash of a smile at the corner of his lips, before it thinned out a moment later. “I asked for 130.”
Tommy jostled his shoulders as he stood with his hands behind his back. “You got 120.”

Both man stared blankly at each other before Tommy piped in again. “Stop in Cadiz and maybe you’ll find 10 more,” he answered with a smirk.
“Last time we stopped in Cadiz you delayed us for three days after you got yourself arrested,” Oliver grunted as he folded his lean arms across his broad chest.
“That was a trumped up charge and you know it,” Tommy bickered back.
“Any other Captain would have left you behind.”
Tommy laughed as Oliver climbed down the last part of the bow spirit.
“Good thing you’re not any other Captain,” Tommy said before he slapped Oliver’s shoulder with a hearty laugh.
“So who’s new?” Oliver asked as he watched the crew with steely eyes.
“Five new gunners, two deckhands,” he paused as his eyes fell on the young kid he’d let on the boat a few minutes earlier. “Oh and a Galley boy.”
Oliver squinted to the direction Tommy’s head nodded and his eyes fell upon a small, skinny figure dressed in clothes a size or two too big with a sack slung over their shoulder that was nearly as large as they were and a hat that covered most of their hair, but for a spring or two of blonde that they idly tucked behind their ear.

“How old is that one?” Oliver asked pointedly as his lips pursed.
“Says 17.”
Oliver turned to his friend with questioning eyes. “And you believe that?”
Tommy shrugged. “I have no reason not to, and you have a steward who was about to quit unless you got him a galley boy, so…,” he left his words hanging as he stretched out his hands.

Oliver turned his attention back to the new recruit, as the kid turned in small circles around the spot where they stood.

•|•

Strangely, Felicity felt a shiver up her spine that she couldn’t attribute to the calm early morning and reactively she turned towards the bow of the boat. He might have been standing half a boat away, a good 50 feet, but she felt the deep stare of the man she now knew to be the captain.

Instinctively she bowed her head and touched her ear as it warmed under his heated gaze, before she turned towards the aft and walked in the direction of the Galley – she hoped.

•|•

As the young recruit turned, their oversized sack skewed the back of their coat, riding it up on one end and exposed the seat of their white breeches.

Without a word, Oliver watched as they headed down the boat towards the steps that led down to the Galley. The slight, absent sway of their hips as they walk had Oliver cocking his head curiously to the side.

“How old is Roy?” Oliver asked without steering his attention away from the sight.
“17,” Tommy answered before he looked to where Oliver’s attention was kept.
“Ever seen Roy walk like that?” Oliver pondered as his brow furrowed.
Tommy cocked his head from right to left. “Takes all sorts I supposed,” Tommy shrugged.

Their view was severed when the boy disappeared down the stairs.

“Did you get a name at least?”
“Smoak, Felix Smoak.”

While Tommy walked away to ready the crew to set sail, Oliver couldn’t help but think there was something slightly peculiar about Smoak, but as the call went out to haul the anchors, Oliver pushed it away and made his way across the boat to the helm.

He bid a half-shrugged farewell to the blossoming City of London; it would be at least a year before he set foot back there.

And that suited him just fine.

|continuation coming December 5th 2019 

So, four stories.

One choice.

Twitter announcement  ||  Tumblr announcement

@someonesaidcake

Chapter Text

||day 2

There was something beautifully lulling about the sway of a ship on the open ocean that Oliver found himself deeply fond of; but the truth was dry land always felt so strange, so foreign to him.  The last time he’d stayed anywhere for long, it was Tortuga.  He’d visited his mother and sister there at their behest to bring word of his father.

He stayed barely three weeks and every night was a tortious one.

Oliver had lived amongst the smell of salt and the constant rock of the water since before he could remember.  On the sea he felt free, alive, home; and there was nothing he'd discovered that had ever compared to it...not even the warm breast of a woman.

It was deep into night on the second day that he lay on the top deck, the poop deck, and stared up at the vast midnight-blue sky above him.  He mapped the constellations in his mind and tracked the wind by how fast the thin greyish clouds moved across the night’s canvas.

Sure, he had one of the finest cabins on the ship, complete with a bed and velvet cushions, but he’d take the unmalleable wood beneath his back if it meant that view.

120 souls aboard the ship, but only a handful moseyed about the place in those wee small hours, keeping watch and making sure the Verdant stayed on course. The pigeons behind him cooed in their pen, with their feathers ruffled and their heads nestled into their breasts – even the homing birds were sleeping.

Oliver stood up; and although he needn’t, he checked his bearings against the sky he knew so well.  They were still travelling down the coast, but would soon hit open water where there wouldn’t be a land swell for as far as the eyes could see, so the map above them and Oliver’s ability to read it, was what kept his record of on-time shipments near perfect.

He rested his palms on the carved railing, twisting his calloused and permanently ink-stained fingers around the bevelled edge as he silently watched over his boat.  He caught sight of the small galley boy Tommy had hired, Felix, standing on a crate with his head over the side of the boat.  He smiled amusingly to himself as he decided the young buck might have overstated his experience on a ship and was, at that time, hurling up the night’s rations into the mildly-choppy sea.

For reasons that he wasn’t sure he could articulate (let alone understand), Oliver jumped down from the poop deck onto the quarter deck and made his way down the steps onto the main deck.  As he got closer to the kid, Oliver was surprised at the sound he heard; where he had expected retching, he found humming.

Before he could announce his presence, a plank beneath his foot squeaked and gave him away.  Felix turned sharply with expressively wide eyes that Oliver couldn’t quite tell the colour of in only the light of the waning moon.  But, they appeared light, pale – perhaps a blue or green.

The humming stopped and Felicity straightened her body rigidly.  Her chest was killing her and she would have done anything to unwrap the tight bandage around her breasts just a few moments ago.  But, standing in front of the bemused face of the captain, she was glad that she hadn't succumbed to her personal comfort in the end.

He was a tall man, she had been able to tell that even from a distance, but standing on a crate barely put her at eye level with him.  His shoulders were broad, but still lean, the body of a sailor she imagined.  Although a lot of captains would eat quite lavishly aboard such a vessel, his dinner order had been no different that night to the rest of the crew.

She couldn’t tell the colour of his eyes as they were shrouded in shadows, but she thought them blue.  His hair was tied back at the nape, but unlike his Quartermaster, it was not smooth nor was it fastened with a ribbon; in fact wisps of blond tendrils framed his face and whipped across it with the gentle breeze.  He wore no fancy cap and his clothes, while tidy, were surely not the fine clothing of the few Sea Captains Felicity had met at Sunday lunches in the past. 

His feet were bare and perhaps a little grubby, and his white shirt was untucked from his dark breeches and open down to the middle of his chest, showing off a smattering of twisted short hairs and the chain of a necklace that disappeared behind his shirt.

He was undoubtedly handsome, but Felicity knew men like him and what they had in God-given good looks, they lacked in virtually everything else.

“You sick?” he asked bluntly as he glanced to the railing the galley boy had been hanging over the edge of a few moments ago.
“No Captain,” Felicity remarked tightly.
Oliver’s eyes narrowed at the way Felix had quite properly said his title.  Most ship boys spoke in sharp, cockney accents that dropped most of the word, ending up with a short “Capn”, but Felix had enunciated it perfectly, albeit with an accent Oliver couldn’t quite place.

“Why were you hanging over the edge then?” he quipped.
Felicity touched the back of her ear as it started to warm with embarrassment.  “There are dolphins swimming alongside us Captain.  I enjoyed the view.”

Oliver glanced down and saw a small pod leaping alongside the bow, just like the kid had said.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” he asked without any recognisable emotion.
Felicity found his demeanour off-putting, and she wasn’t fond of the way he kept his narrowed eyes on her, as if trying to draw out her secrets.

But he was the Captain, and he’d asked her a question.
“I couldn’t,” she answered dryly.
“Sea sick?” 
Felicity noticed just a fraction of a smile as he said the words, as though he’d already pegged her and made up his mind quite completely.
“Not in the least,” she replied.

Oliver cocked his head to one shoulder, the accent was Londoner alright, but not the usual one he heard yelled around the docks.
“Hungry then kid?” he asked.
Felicity’s shoulders tensed at the shortness with which the Captain spoke; he was certainly not one for casual small talk.
“Excited,” Felicity shrugged as she finally stepped down off the crate.  The Captain’s size became even more apparent as he basically dwarfed her in shadows.  “There’s nothing quite like the smell of salt on a cool, nightly breeze.”

She watched his pensive lips fold together and she could see his bristled jaw tensing with perhaps more questions; but before he could ask them, Felicity excused herself with a small bow on her head and away she went, leaving Oliver still somewhat bemused by the young ward Felix.

||day 3

Felicity didn't consider herself a prude, and while she was likely considered, in polite society at least, to be of ‘faint and demure temperament’, as most titled ladies were, she was not naive to the male form, nor the intended use for it – although that information came second hand and mostly from talk she overhead in John’s tavern along the docks rather than personal experience (of which she might coyly admit to having none of).

Even so, on embarking on this journey she was quite prepared for gutter talk and perhaps the need to avert her eyes every so often when someone was perhaps changing clothes or had not fastened their breeches correctly.  However, what Felicity had not counted on was that on day 3, a particularly hot day with barely enough breeze to fill the main sail, much of the men opted out of wearing pants; entirely.

It would have been quite the controversy if her stout and prim Governess had known that at that very moment while Felicity swabbed the quarter deck as requested by the Captain, she was looking down on at least three bare bottoms and more cocks than she cared to stand and count.

There was simply nowhere to avert her eyes except down.

She paused for a moment to brush the sweat from her brow, resting her elbow on the top of the mop handle as she tried to focus her attention towards the vastness of the ocean surrounding them; they seemed so utterly teensy in the large scheme of things, a tiny ship on a massive canvas of blue, both below and above.

“Seen the Capn?” a voice asked from behind her.
Felicity turned to see a thin, lanky boy likely close to her own (real) age.  Unlike Roy he had a wispy start of a beard which he played with as he spoke, but it was clear he was still one of the younger ones aboard Verdant.

“Uh, no,” she replied quietly.  She had been moping the deck for near on 20 minutes after having finished the one above – the poop deck (a name which still made her giggle behind her cupped hand) and while her orders had come down from the Captain, they had been delivered by one of the other men at the Quartermaster’s request.

She had not seen either Tommy or Oliver in her time cleaning, despite Oliver’s quarters being on the same deck where she stood.  She hadn’t thought that strange until then.
“Felix right?” the boy asked and Felicity straightened her cap and nodded.  “The name’s Barry.”  He stuck out a grubby hand and Felicity reluctantly shook it.  “You the new galley kid?”
He said kid like she was at least half his age, which Felicity doubted very much.  Still, the hierarchy remained, and she was in no position to draw attention to herself.

“Aye,” she replied.
He leaned against the railing and folded his thin arms across his lithe chest.  “I'm training as a gunner,” he said proudly.  “Reckon I'll move on up from there.”

Felicity nodded as the sun continued to beat down from the arid sky, to the point where her last brush stroke had already dried without a trail.   “I best get back to it,” Felicity remarked but Barry didn't move.

Instead, he squinted at the captain's cabin door a few feet away.  While Felicity was unaware what the inside of the Captain’s Quarters might look like, she was aware that on most ships this size, his room was in fact made up of two rooms.  The first, a small room, a foyer if you will, would ordinarily be used to entertain guests or have meetings with more important members of the crew.  The Quartermaster’s cabin was also off this room, albeit usually a step or two down.  The second, inner room, was his personal chambers where he slept and did whatever else it was that journeying Sea Captains did.

“Him and Quartermaster been in there a long time,” Barry commented.  Felicity was unsure whether it was an opinion or a question, so she simply shrugged.

She had felt the heat of Captain Oliver’s suspicious gaze, and the less she saw him; the better.

“They only be having meet’ngs like that when summing’s wrong,” Barry remarked with a knowing nod.
“Meetings about what exactly?” Felicity asked nervously; her first thought went to the discussion she’d had with Oliver last night, perhaps he was on to her?
“This early in the trip?” Barry enthused, happy to garner her interest and answering knowingly, “has to be on account of some trouble I reckon.”
Felicity idly moved her mop two inches.  “What kind of trouble?”

But Barry didn’t get the chance to answer as the door opened and Oliver appeared, dressed in what appeared to be the same clothes Felicity had seen him in the night before.  Tommy was steps behind him as they walked out onto the deck.

Felicity immediately looked down and shrunk into the corner, hoping to make herself as insignificant as possible.  She thought perhaps it had worked when Oliver’s clunky boots stomped past her, but as he raised his hand to ring the ship’s bell, he glanced over his broad shoulder and looked at her; straight in her eyes.

Silly really, but all she could think at that moment was how she had been right about the colour of his eyes; they were blue.  Brighter than she might have expected, and in the daylight the looked almost like sapphires on a white sandy beach.  A pleasant, iridescent blue that seemed far more kindly that she might have expected.

They were blue.
Oliver thought to himself as he glanced over his shoulder at the galley boy.  A hue that reminded him of the Ocean along the African Coast, rich and tempestuous.  He had no thought as to why the need to discover their hue had been so encompassing, and he didn’t dwell on the same.  But, the need to know their colour seemed far too important to simply dismiss, and he felt all the better for knowing.

Felicity held her breath until Oliver turned his attention forward.  The sound that rung out from the engraved bronze bell was impressively loud and Oliver held nothing back as he sounded it four distinct times.

In what seemed like mere seconds, all pants were pulled up and the main deck flooded with nearly every soul on board.  Felicity inched her way to the staircase as she watched Barry slink down the one on the opposite side of the deck.  But Tommy, a few feet from her, gestured with his hand for her to stay which, with a shaky breath in her throat and a nervous twitch on her brow, she reluctantly did. 

Oliver stood, his sheer size imposing in itself, but his expression – or at least the side profile of it that Felicity could see, was even more striking.  He wore no kindness, or any expression whatsoever, that she could tell.  His eyes were locked forward and his lips, while still full, wore not even a hint of a smile.

“ ‘undred and twenty men on this ship,” Oliver spoke clearly.  He wasn’t yelling, but the depth of his voice and the stillness of the day allowed it to project all the way down the vessel.   “Some of you have sailed with me on countless journeys.”

A shouted cheer rung out from the few that Felicity assumed fell under that category.  Most were older than both the Captain and his Quartermaster, and while a life on the sea had tanned their skin like leather, it hadn’t dulled their enthusiasm for the deep blue mistress.

Oliver noted the men with a small but respected tip of his head before he hushed them with his hand.  “Some of you have been beguiled by the sea and all her temptations only a few times, or perhaps this is the first time she’s ever had you,” Oliver continued.  His words struck Felicity as she listened intently; she had never considered it until that moment, but husbands left wives, fathers left children, people left their lives, or barely had them to begin with, to sail the seas.  The pay was fair, and in some cases more than so, but offering oneself to the mercy of an unpredictable ocean was not done merely for coin.  Those who sailed; loved the ocean.

If it were possible, Felicity felt even more of a fraud.

“We are brothers,” Oliver shouted boisterously and another cheer erupted from the crowd on the main deck.  “We all suck at the clit of the ocean, hoping she doesn’t find amusement in our deaths.”  The raucous cheers became louder still, and Felicity swallowed an unexpected giggle; never in her life had she heard that word spoken out loud.

When Tommy glanced back, hearing her strangled giggle, she could do nothing but look around pretending to be just as surprised at whatever that noise had been.

“We sail together, we eat together, and we drink together.”
The applause and the sound of feet stomping the deck echoed like thunder.  Oliver let it carry on for what seemed like an eternity, but by Felicity’s count was only about 30 seconds, before he raised his hand and for the most part it ceased almost immediately.

“We don’t tolerate liars, cheats, or thieves.”
An eerie hush fell over the crowd and Felicity felt her chest tighten and her heart pound.

He knew, were the two words on repeat in her head.
He knew.

Oliver turned and his eyes tracked over Felicity as her teeth sunk into her bottom lip to keep it steady.
He knew.

But no sooner had his eyes fallen on her, they moved away and he took a weary step back which allowed Tommy to stand in front of him.

Tommy called out a name that Felicity had expected to be hers, so prepared was she in fact that seconds after he’d spoken it, she couldn’t for the life of her remember the same – only that it wasn’t her own.  

There was the sound of feet shuffling and a quiet hum of voices drifted around the deck as everyone searched for the person who belonged with the name.

“He’s ‘ere,” came a call from farther back towards the bow.

Oliver moved much faster on his feet than Felicity would have thought given his size alone, and before she could blink he had vaulted from the quarter deck and was marching through a parting crowd to where two men held a short strap of a man tightly in place.  Felicity inched closer, albeit still behind Tommy, to get a better view of the man.

He was not young, though his stature was deceptive in that nature.  His light brown hair was thinning and turning grey at the edges, but there was absolutely nothing remarkable about that man.  As Felicity continued to watch with a hitched breath – still apparently not believing herself to be out of the woods just yet – she noted that she might have seen the man a few times below deck.  She believed his name to be Stan, though she could have been mistaken.

Whoever had been holding him by the scruff of his shirt threw him down just as Oliver approached.  Stan scurried to his feet and shook off the assault with a cagey laugh; but the Captain certainly wasn’t laughing.

“Stan Marshall, you’ve been charged with stealing from the storeroom, both supplies and goods in the order of £15 pound,” Tommy announced officially and loudly.
The gasps were audible, and while Felicity knew little of what the wages aboard the ship actually were, she knew that Duncan, her stepfather’s head footman earned around £10 a year before tips, and Duke Somerset was renowned for paying a more than fair wage.

“Wasn’t me,” the man laughed, but it was more nervous than jovial.
“Two witnesses say otherwise,” Tommy calmly replied, while Oliver simply stood over the man. Silent. Imposing.
“They’re lying, I deserve to know who they are.”
Stan’s accent was thick, but it couldn’t hide the quiver in his voice.

Clearly tired of the back and forth, Oliver grabbed the man by his shirt collar and dragged him kicking and screaming, towards the side of the boat.

Every pair of eyes watched as Oliver, upon reaching the edge of the ship, picked the man up and dropped him over the side.  Felicity gasped, and so did every sailor but the ones that had taken many a journey with Captain Queen; they seemed amused and Tommy seemed annoyed.

In was only when Felicity heard faint cries for help that she realised Oliver hadn’t actually dropped the man, but rather was holding him by the wrist, over the edge of the railing of the ship.

“Here is what you deserve,” Oliver spoke between gritted teeth.  “Waste my time by lying and I throw you over the edge or tell me where you stashed what you stole and we’ll lock you in the bridge until we reach the next port.  What’ll it be?”

“Drop him,” some chanted from the crowd.

Tommy must have seen the worry etched on Felicity’s youthful face, because he turned to her and smiled.  “Not to worry Felix,” he remarked with a soft chuckle.  “He does this a lot.  I’ve only ever seen him drop a man once,” he finished with a decisive nod before he second guessed himself, “twice, but that second time wasn’t really his fault and I think we went back for him.”
“You think?”
Tommy shrugged but provided no further clarification.

“My arm is getting tired, best you make your choice,” Oliver shouted over the morbid chants coming from half of the crew.
“Alright, alright, I’ll show you,” Stan screamed, his voice breaking at the edges out of guttural fear.

Oliver hoisted the man up, his muscles bugling beneath the billowing sleeves of his shirt with a glisten of sweat across his brow, and after he pulled him over the railing he dropped him unceremoniously onto the deck.

“Tommy, he’s all yours,” Oliver called out as he slapped his hands together.
Tommy huffed and rolled his eyes before he made his way down the stairs.  The two friends passed by each other and Tommy leaned in with his hand on Oliver’s shoulder and whispered something in the Captain’s ear.  Whatever it was, it made Oliver smile – just for a fraction.

His smile was light, jovial, Felicity might even consider using the word mischievous, and it was in stark contrast to the emotionless face he had put on in front of his crew.

Stan was led away below deck by two men the size of two-men each, together with Tommy leading the charge.  Oliver stepped loudly up the stairs and quite unwittingly made Felicity jump.

“Don’t worry kid, I’ve only dropped four people before,” Oliver remarked, with a faint smile turning his lips uneven.
“Quartermaster said two,” Felicity replied as she coiled her svelte arms around her waist – albeit only momentarily when she caught Oliver looking quite perplexingly at her and the narrow waist her baggy clothes deceptively hid.
“That’ll be the two he knew ‘bout then,” Oliver quipped before he continued on his way.

He stopped just in front of the deck’s railing and nodded down to a spot near Felicity’s feet.  “You missed a spot kid.”

The disgraced man and his guards disappeared below deck and Oliver waited a silent few seconds before he raised his hands and laughed, “as you were men!”

Pants dropped and shirts were removed as everyone fell back into the level of comfort they had been enjoying earlier.  Felicity watched as Oliver threw his head back with a jovial laugh before he lifted his own billowing cotton shirt from his body and slung it over his shoulder.

It was clear, even with a shirt on, that Oliver was cut with carved muscles.  He wore his broad shoulders well and she had already noted the slopes of his biceps when they strained holding the man, but she hadn’t been quite so prepared for his naked chest in all its glory.  His skin was olive, tanned that hue by the kiss of the sun from long days on deck, and it was as smooth as a lake is calm, but for a small thatch of light brown hair across the centre of his chest and a darker trail that ran from his navel to below the waistband of his pants.

His torso seemed crafted not from stone, but from clay to give it a warmth that begged to be felt beneath curious fingers.  He was not large, there would have been perhaps 20 odd men that might have rivalled him in size and stature, but there was something powerful in his lithe muscles, as though his body was a perfect machine and not an inch of him was wasted.

Then there happened to be the matter of the ink drawn onto his skin.  She had not seen them so vibrant and wildly close, and in fact the only other time she had seen such a thing in real life was during a stroll with her parents in the park when they happened upon a beggar that hadn’t yet been moved on by a uniformed Bobby.  The Duke, even with his fine manners, referred to such markings as signs of a degenerate.  But, looking at Oliver's tattoos, all Felicity saw were things of art, intricate, delicate... oddly beautiful, and she couldn't help but wonder the story they told.

Felicity also caught herself wondering about the two chains he wore around his neck, the larger one was a bronze cross.  It was simple, without any ornate trimmings as Felicity was used to seeing, and it looked old, tarnished by salt water no doubt.  The second was of far more interest though, even if Felicity was unable to make out it’s exact nature. It was a little larger than a small coin and while it hadn’t seen a polish in some time either, she was almost certain it was gold and it appeared quite ornately carved.

She knew she was staring, but even fearing that he might catch her was not enough to force her eyes away from him.  There was a lick of sweat that covered his chest and glistened in the scorching sun, and her eyes followed a single bead as it rolled over the ridges of his stomach.

He didn’t look at her, thankfully, and the infinitesimal smile that she couldn’t contain was never exposed.  However, as he turned, giving her a view of his equally as impressive back, something else caught her eye; the blunt of a pistol – ivory if she wasn’t mistaken – tucked into his brown cotton trousers.

That view brought a sobering truth to the forefront.
Felicity had lied to get on Verdant.

She had just seen what they did to liars.

She refrained from looking up again as she set her mind to her task; there was simply no way they could find out the truth.

Oliver took his position at the helm at the front of the quarter deck and cast his eyes across the ship ahead of him while his time-blistered hands gripped the smooth curves of the ship’s wheel.  The sails were barely lifted and there was hardly a white cap in sight.  A smile crept on his lips as he glanced to the left; maybe there was a way to speed this up.

“Ship to portside,” Oliver called out and a flurry of activity proceeded his words.
Felicity glanced to the left, seeing the faint slopes of land on the very distant horizon.  It seemed their captain was going to take them closer to shore in the hopes of catching a breeze off the rolling landscape, and a current in the choppy waters.  But doing so brought its own risks, as the water was shallow and rocks lay like assassins beneath the waves.  She didn't need to be a well-seasoned sailor to know that hitting one would tear the keel apart.

Tommy appeared with worry tightly wound across his brow.  “Oliver, what are you doing?” he asked wearily as he watched Oliver steer towards the coast.
“All we need is a full sail and we’ll be in port tomorrow night.”
“Or we’ll be washed up on a coast line,” Tommy grunted.
“Have a little faith,” Oliver cheered, and his candour seemed almost youthful.
Tommy clapped a hand onto Oliver’s shoulder and shrugged, as though he knew there was nothing more to be said.  “If we make it to port by tomorrow night, first pint is on me.”
Oliver stuck out his hand and Tommy shook it.

A deal was struck.

Chapter Text

“Blowhole off starboard Captain!”
The shout came from high in the rigging of the main mast.

Tommy reactively took the wheel from Oliver's hand, anticipating exactly what his friend did next; Oliver, who Felicity had decided took an issue with using the stairs, jumped over the quarterdeck railing and landed heavy-footed on the main deck.  He ran to the right hand side of the boat and climbed effortlessly onto one of the cannons that was chained there for a clearer view.

“What do you reckon?” Oliver excitedly called back to Tommy who answered with a meandering shrug.  Felicity got the impression it wouldn't have mattered what response the Quartermaster had given; Oliver would do whatever he pleased regardless.  That was their dynamic.

“Drop the cockboat!” Oliver announced and men who clearly knew their job, moved one of the centre boats to the starboard side.  With ropes attached to either side, they began lowering the rowboat towards the water.

“Drop anchor,” came the next bellowed instruction from the rugged Captain.
Noises and life erupted around the deck and Felicity watched in a state of awe as people moved swiftly to follow the orders with no confusion.  It reminded her somewhat of the ballet shows she had become fond of, people travelling across the same stage without slapping into each other or falling.  Granted, the men on Verdant were hardly as graceful as the dancers, but they moved with the same precision – and perhaps passion – all the same.

“Eight men,” Oliver called and within seconds he had what he’d asked for along with a long, menacing harpoon in his grip.

With all on board the small boat, it was lowered the rest of the way to the water where the ropes were unfastened.  With confident strokes, the oarsman moved swiftly through the water to where the whale had been spotted.

“This isn’t a whaling ship,” Felicity wondered quietly to herself.
But Roy had been standing behind her, unbeknownst to her, and had heard her musing.  “Next port is a whaling dock, Cap'n can get a fair coin for it there.”

“Isn’t that at least half a day’s sailing from here?” Felicity wondered as she kept her eyes to the rowboat rocking in the water.
“Reck’n so,” Roy replied with a hapless shrug.
While Felicity had more questions she decided she was not going to get much of an answer out of Roy, and it was hardly her place to ask them of anyone of higher station on the boat.  She would have to just wait and see.

The rowboat halted and for a moment Felicity wondered if the beast they were hunting had out-played them, but that thought lasted barely a few seconds before a spout of water erupted into the air right alongside the small boat.  All Felicity saw next was Oliver standing of the front of the small boat, poised with the long spear in his hands, that caught the glaring reflection of the high sun, and then red.

A pool of scarlet flooded the once vibrant blue around the small vessel, spilling out even towards the larger ship.  The water thrashed with explosions of red and the small boat rocked violently in the turbulent waves.  Felicity didn’t count how many strikes it took, but unwilling to watch the slaying a moment longer, she stumbled away from the railing and fell back into the crowd, her eyes wet with tears.

She had never witnessed such a brutal death, nor any really.

She was not so naïve as to believe that death wasn’t sometimes violent and bloody, or that the food that sat on porcelain dinnerware at the Somerset Villa had once been quite alive, but this was quite something else.  This felt barbaric and cruel.

She mindlessly hugged her arms around her waist and leaned against the mast as she tried to stare into the calm distance on the opposite side of the boat and ignore the callous chants behind her.  She hadn’t imagined anyone else was watching, given how absorbed they were in the fight, but Felicity was wrong.  She wasn’t the only set of eyes not interested in watching the slaughter.

The other set belonged to Tommy.

His stomach for such things didn’t fare much better than hers.  However, his attention fell curiously on the young galley boy turned away from the crowd and staring forlornly out towards the gently lapping ocean.

He hadn’t given Oliver’s curiosity over the kid much weight; his friend of a great many years rarely trusted people he hadn’t studied across a card table or drunk under the table.  But perhaps….

He was not given the luxury to think on it anymore as the crowd of sailors cheered to signal Oliver had taken down the mammoth, and that meant more work to him.

The boat erupted into a flurry as the spoil was strung up with a dozen ropes from the bowsprit.  The stench was impassable and thick, and death must have been carried in the air for a great many miles as sea birds flocked to the skies above and sharks followed the ship as it carried off its kill.

Most men celebrated while others looked on awestruck, but Felicity felt neither.  In fact, all she felt was a deep sadness for the creature.

Oliver took the bottle of rum that was thrust into his hand before he took a long swig in time with the happy chants.  Each on board would see a cut of money from the whale, with the eight men who accompanied him seeing an even greater yield for their troubles.

But there was one he noticed quietly looking out towards the distance.  He excused himself with a nod of his chin and made his way over to where the young kid stood.

“You get used to the smell,” Oliver remarked as he held the bottle out towards Felix.
Felicity looked down at the gesture and shook her head.
“I’m not sure I would want to get used to the smell,” she remarked bluntly, although she held back much fiercer words; barely.
“That whale will fetch you an extra few coins in your pocket,” Oliver stated tersely.
Felicity pulled back her shoulders and looked at the Captain with narrowed eyes.  “Feel free to keep mine then,” she bit back.  She took one last look at the ocean and then back to Oliver.  “My galley shift starts soon, if you’ll excuse me.”

She moved past him, her shoulder grazing his arm, and disappeared below deck before Oliver could respond.  He blew out a breathy laugh before he took another, long, swig of rum; another green-gill. 

●|●

The boat anchored on the Azores, a group of nine islands 800 miles off the coast of Portugal by late afternoon of Day 4, winning Oliver the bet he’d had with Tommy, due in part to the coastal wind he’d lucked onto and bull-headedly or savantly – followed almost the entire way.

Either way, it proved that there was certainly some truth to the rumours below deck that the Captain was either brilliant, or thoroughly insane.  Felicity settled her mind on both.

The port sat alongside a small whaling stop and a few long miles from a port of a different kind.  Felicity had heard whispers, but not enough to fully understand what this other port traded in and why very little could be openly said about it.  But, whatever the case, it was fairly apparently that the Captain dissuaded talk of such a place aboard his ship, and either out of respect – or fear – the men respected the unwritten rule.

It was a busy little hub all the same and pylons of smoke lined the rugged low-level coast of the larger island, as the blubber of whales was slowly being melted down into oil.  None were allowed off the ship until Oliver and Tommy had struck a deal for their newly acquired cargo.

Back on board, Oliver addressed the ship with the same deep, baritone voice he’d used early, only this time there was just a fleck of a smile sitting in his dimple.  The proceeds from the whale would be shared between all souls on board.  The men in the rowboat would receive a higher portion.  Oliver never commented on what portion he took.

They were allowed to disembark, but all would be expected back on board before sunrise; any not would be unceremoniously left behind and their wages forfeit.  The thief would be left at port – a condemnation some murmured to be better than he deserved, while others felt that a fate worse than death.

Felicity simply pretended to understand both points of view, although she was mystified as to the reasons.

When Oliver was done speaking, he pointed them towards the tavern and exclaimed that he would not be fishing anyone out of any wells this time – a point which he made while looking firmly at his Quartermaster.

Felicity waited for most of the men to disembark before she gathered her things and set off in search of something she’d heard a few eager to visit; a bathhouse. 

As the sun began to set, Oliver watched the galley boy grip the strap of his knapsack tightly to his chest and take tentative steps down the gangplank to the dock.  He rarely ventured off the boat as he’d seen most of what these places had to offer and they held no interest to him anymore, but watching Felix curiously look around at the end of the pier made him reconsider his stance.

There was just something about that kid.

He jumped down from his perch atop three crates and made his way to the plank.
“What are you doing?” Tommy asked curiously.
Oliver was a man of routine, and his routine dictated he rarely ever disembarked.

“Just thought I’d take a look around,” Oliver replied with a nonchalant shrug.
Tommy laughed.  “Here?”
Oliver shrugged a second time.  “Sure, why not?”
“Because you never do,” Tommy remarked as he folded his arms across his chest.  His eyes zeroed in on his friend before they looked out towards the port, where he saw Felix heading towards the row of buildings.  “Nothing to do with the galley kid then?”

Oliver grunted but took a few quick steps forward just as Felix disappeared between two shacks.  “Does it matter?” he replied tersely before he jogged down the pier to where he’d last seen Felix.
But Tommy wasn’t placated.  “Maybe it does.”
Oliver looked around the corner and saw Felix walking hesitantly between the shops, still clutching his bag.
“There is something about that kid.”
Tommy sighed, as though this was a conversation they had had many a time before.  “What is your fascination with him?  Cook says he’s the best galley boy he’s had, burns the water so isn’t a chef, but collects the rations, organises the calls, and he’s quiet, which is a trait that old codger appreciates.”

Oliver walked a few steps and ducked in between two buildings while Felix kept walking. 
“You don’t think there is something odd about the way he carries himself?” Oliver queried.  He realised how wishy-washy his reasons sounded, but four days in and that kid had occupied most of his thinking.
“About you?” Tommy snickered, “yes, I think there is something very odd about you stalking some 17 year old boy.”
They followed another few steps until Felicity stopped outside a bathhouse and Oliver pushed Tommy roughly into the shadows of an alleyway. 

“I see nothing weird about that,” Tommy whispered as he nodded towards Felix heading inside the bathhouse.  “Kid just wants his cock sucked.”
Oliver watched with baited breath as Felix opened the door and stepped inside.  Tommy sighed, once again, as he pushed off from the wall and brushed the dirt from his coat.  “If it’s all the same to you Captain, I’m going to go to the pub and get shitfaced.”

Oliver brushed him away with a wave of his hand before Tommy left.

He knew it was crazy, but he couldn’t fight the thought that there was something Felix was hiding, something that sat just below his pretty eyes.

Oliver coughed at the realisation of the word he’d just narrated in his head… pretty.  He tore a hand through his messy hair and shook his head – he must have spent too long in the sun that day.

●|●

Felicity startled a little as the heavy door to the bathhouse closed with a thud behind her, but no one else flinched and she took a inhale of the warm, damp air that was lightly fragranced with a vanilla perfume.

A tall, willowy woman probably near to the same age as Felicity's mother walked through a gauzy curtain and smiled graciously at Felicity, albeit with weary eyes.

“What can we do for you sailor?” she asked with a hand of slender fingers resting on her waist.  She was dressed quite beautifully in a long scarlet gown with delicate beadwork along the hems and a filmy sash of lace.  It was unlike any dress Felicity had seen in either the bustling streets of London or the sprawling countryside.  She wore no corset or laces that Felicity could tell, and if there was a gown beneath her dress it did little to hide the tight buds of her pert nipples.

Felicity swallowed her wonderment enough to answer with a hushed tone.  “A bath please.”
The woman's lips curled into a smile that Felicity couldn't quite read.  “Private or public?”
She might have been preparing to explain the differences, but Felicity answered hurriedly without needing it.  “Private. I have money.”

She fumbled in her pockets for the money she'd stashed there, returning with enough to cover the tariff two fold.

The woman gestured for Felicity to follow, which Felicity readily did, through the same curtain and down a long marbled hall.  There were a few scantily clad women standing against the wet walls as clouds of steam sat near the ceiling.  They passed two public baths where at least 10 men, some of whom Felicity recognised from Verdant, soaked in the grimy water, naked, while they were entertained by a few pretty young women with tiny waists and petite breasts who seemed to play beguiled quite well.

The older woman stopped a little further down the hall in front of a slight woman, maybe a year younger than Felicity, who sat quietly on a slated wooden bench.  She had olive skin, glowing in the damp air, and silky brown hair that swept over her shoulders.  She wore simple garb; a cream dress that was stained around the ankles, with tiny frills of ribbon sewn into the seams.

“This is Penelope, she'll take you from here.”
The young woman stood and Felicity was surprised when she was a foot smaller in stature than herself.
The older woman took the coins from Felicity's hand and walked back the way she'd come.

“Your room is just down 'ere,” Penelope remarked as she shuffled a few steps down the hall with Felicity following behind.  Her accent was not British, but it was certainly pleasant to listen to, and her English was quite good.

She opened the door to a small room, no larger than the coat closet in Felicity's London home.  The floor was cold and wet but the air was warmed with the steam coming from the heated brass tub.  Much like a boiler, a coal fire beneath the tub kept the water warm; a relief to aching bones no doubt.

“You can get undressed and get in the tub,” Penelope commented and Felicity nodded gingerly.

She had never visited such a place and most who did frequent establishments like this, rarely spoke openly about it.  But Felicity cared very little and simply longed to scrub the stench of her travels off her skin, and this bathhouse seemed a good a place as any.

Penelope left and Felicity closed the door behind her before she quickly shed her clothes.  The relief of unwrapping her chest made her audibly gasp as she felt the pickles of blood coursing through her veins like tiny, bubbling explosions.

She stepped into the bath's warm and watery embrace, losing another sigh amidst the steam.  The heat stung at first, perhaps a little blistering, but she soon adjusted and sunk into the water with a third, pleasured sigh.

Felicity tousled her hair loose from its pins before she rested her head on the lip of the tub and melted into the sensation of warmth.

Then, no sooner had she relaxed into the water, the door opened and Penelope stepped back in the room, pulling her dress down her body as she walked forward with her head bowed.

“Please close the door,” Felicity peeped and Penelope looked up, started to see the distinctive curves of two breasts buoyant in the water.

“You're a girl!” she exclaimed before Felicity pressed a finger to her lips in a faint effort to hush her. “Meu Deus,” she whispered in her native tongue.
“Please, the door,” she begged, while she covered her chest with her arms.
Reactively, Penelope kicked the door closed, as she stood there wide eyed and naked.

“I'll have to get mam,” she whispered before she bent over to collect her spilled dress.
“Please don't, I can explain and I have money. Please,” Felicity continued, her voice and eyes both pleading with the stranger.  She considered speaking to her in Portuguese, a language Felicity had been taught and knew quite well, but perhaps the delicacy of the situation required Felicity not lose something in translation. 

Penelope looked at the interloper with curious brown eyes before she patted her tongue against her full lips and nodded.  “Okay, I'm listening.”

●|●

“So no one has figured it out?” Penelope asked as she lathered the soap through Felicity’s hair.
“No,” she laughed softly, “I don’t know whether to be proud or slightly offended.”
She brushed the soap rag down her leg and smiled.  “The Captain seems to be suspicious although he hasn’t said anything.”
“Is he just as they say he is?” Penelope asked, her voice lifting a little higher as she laughed softly.
“That depends, do they say he’s a sour-faced man who can barely bring himself to smile?” Felicity quipped.
“They say he’s rugged,” Penelope started.
“I’d say dirty, or unkempt.”
The two girls laughed.  
“They say he’s handsome.”
Felicity shrugged.  “I suppose if unkempt was your thing.”
“And they say he is a giver in bed.”
Penelope stood up and poured a little more oil in the bath before she bent down at checked the smouldering coals.  Felicity leaned her arms on the lip of the bath and curiously furrowed her lips.  “What does that mean?”
“Some men,” Penelope started, “most men are takers.  They come to places like this to get a cunt, but they’re never interested much in giving anything back.”

She spoke with such worldly knowledge that Felicity couldn’t help but wonder how much a girl, only 6 months her elder, had seen in this world.

“But men like your Captain, they say he never takes more than he gives,” she finished with a wink.
“And he would come to a place like this?” Felicity wondered.
Penelope shook her head gently.  “Don’t reckon he needs to from what I’ve heard.”

“Well,” Felicity sighed as she settled back into the bath, “he’s quite grumpy, perhaps a place like this would do him some good.”
“For the bath, or for the fucking?”
Felicity laughed as her cheeks flushed pink.  “Perhaps both,” she chuckled.

“Well, don’t you worry about me, I promise not to say a thing.”  Penelope unravelled a towel as she spoke.  “I would have done the same thing if I could leave this place.”
She held open the towel and Felicity stepped out of the water and wrapped the cotton square around her.  “Why can’t you?”
“And go where?” The girl said softly with a one shoulder shrugged; defeated.
“London, the Americas.”
“No place like that for me.”
“How much would a journey back to London cost you from here?”
“More than I have,” Penelope sighed.
“How much?”
“Five pound, I’ve managed to save ‘bout 3, but that’s taken me two years.”
Felicity nodded decisively before she rummaged through her bag looking for the small purse of coins she taken from home; just in case.
She folded enough for the journey into the young girl’s hand and closed it between her own hands.  “Once you get to London, find the Somerset Villa and give them this.”  She took a small signet pin from her bag and handed it to Penelope.  “Tell them you met with me, but please say you didn’t know where I was heading, only that I was safe and well and that I wished for them to give you a job.”
“Will they?”
Felicity smiled gently.  “If I know my mother as well as I do, I believe so yes.”
“And what if they ask more of you?”
“Tell them I will send word that I’ve arrived where I’m heading, but that I wouldn’t tell you any more details.  Tell them I have seen a great many wonders and I am most happy.  Tell them that I am deeply sorry for leaving as I did, but I had to.”
Penelope nodded.  “I will tell them all that.”
“Thank you,” Felicity whispered.
“You should dress now before Mam comes back.”

●|●

Felicity left with a smile on her face and a satisfaction she hadn’t felt in four days; clean.  She was aware such a feeling likely wouldn’t last long and she was refusing to dwell on the fact the next stop could be much longer than 4 days away, given the journey itself took anywhere from 4 to 6 months, but she would figure it out.

She would need to.

Because, despite the cuts on her fingers from peeling potatoes (a job she had not yet perfected, not even close) and uncomfortableness of wearing a strap across her chest for most of the day, she was free.  She was seeing sights she knew she might have never been able to.  She was learning and growing; she was doing something that no amount of money had ever brought her before – she was living.

With that feeling secure in her mind and heart she lifted her bag onto her shoulder and walked straight down the steps – and unwittingly straight into Captain Oliver Queen.

A strangled yelp popped from her lips as her eyes slowly wandered up his broad chest, through the smattering of hair that peeked out the top of his shirt, over his unreadable but softly pillowed lips, to his captivating blue eyes that seemed to hide a whole realm of secrets behind them.

“Did you have fun?” he asked.  His voice was gentle, almost soothing, and Felicity found that tone far more ominous than his loud booming one she had heard earlier.
“Yes thank you,” she answered politely.
There was a faint scent of vanilla radiating off Felix and Oliver subconsciously patted his lips together as the aroma wafted through his senses.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever stood this close to the lad, nor had he allowed his eyes to track over his smooth jawline.  “They gave you a close shave,” he remarked coyly.
“I don’t shave sir,” Felicity replied, anxiously biting the inside of her cheek.  “Can’t wait till I get to though.”  She swallowed and stepped back, uncomfortable at the closeness of where he stood.

“So, what did you do in there?” Oliver questioned while he widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest.
“What they usually do in there,” Felicity scoffed with a deep laugh.
“Enlighten me.”
She hated how utterly unreadable his face was and in that moment she very nearly slapped it just to see if then he might give a little away about what he was thinking.

But the door opened behind her and Penelope scurried out into the street.
“Felix,” she cheered with a smile as Felicity turned around.  “Thank you again,” she added softly, “for everything, you’re amazing.”
Felicity cupped Penelope’s face and offered her a sheepish wink that was hidden from Oliver before she leaned in and kissed her.  It was soft and chaste, but they both added salacious noises to make it appear far more amorous than it was, and when they finally broke off it was Oliver who appeared slightly uncomfortable.

“You’re welcome,” Felicity hummed with her deepest voice.
Penelope leaned in an gave Felicity a tight hug.  “Take care,” she whispered.
“You too,” Felicity replied.

Oliver waited until the young girl had run off down the street and disappeared from view before he cleared his throat and spoke.  “Never seen a whore so thankful.”
“She has a name,” Felicity retorted bitingly.
“Most men don’t care to learn their names.”
He was spitting back words just as quickly as she was firing them at him.
“Most men are shit at fucking.”
A smile cracked across his lips, but it was gone just as quickly.
“What does knowing their names have to do with fucking?” Oliver asked with a hidden smile.

“It’s easy for you, uh, us, men, to get aroused,” Felicity explained gruffly.  “But a woman makes love with more than just her body.” She side stepped Oliver and shrugged.  “Maybe next time you’re fucking, consider her enjoyment too.”
Oliver seemed both rattled and offended.  “They enjoy it,” he retorted.
“If you say so,” Felicity quipped before she started to walk away.  “Goodnight Captain.” 

Chapter Text

||day 19

Felicity was extremely proud of herself, not only had she managed to learn the art of peeling a potato (well, almost), she had managed to successfully avoid the Captain since their run in outside the bathhouse.  Tommy appeared far less suspicious of her and, whether by luck or by design, most of the Captain’s orders to date had come through his Quartermaster.

They had picked up a few extra sailors at the last dock and the crew was now sitting nearer to 130 men – well, not all men.

The steward, a rotund man who walked with a limp and who everyone simply called “Bones”, had taken quite the liking to Felicity, raucously announcing to anyone who would listen that he had finally gotten a galley boy who “shut the fuck up and just did what he’s asked”.  Given the scratchiness in Felicity’s throat that resulted from putting on a manly-ish voice, she had taken to answering most questions with a nod, or a grunt; a trade-off that Bones appeared extremely happy with.

Bones was scarcely seen in the Galley now that his apprentice was to be trusted.  This happenstance of good fortune served Felicity well, as she could often lock herself away in the kitchen, unwrap her chest, and have a quick sponge bath – time willing – every couple of days; a luxury especially during her short flow.

There was some talk below deck about why the Captain hadn’t been seen much in the last 12 odd days, and some well-seasoned sailors commented that he was like that every voyage and it had something to do with a message he’d received by pigeon on day 7.  No one but Oliver and Tommy were allowed to receive messages, so no one could offer any insight as to what the message might have contained, but rumours were rife that perhaps the Cap’n was married and his wife had left him – a rumour that was quashed rather robustly around a barrel of rum and a game of Basset by those who claimed the Cap'n would never “wench down” (Felicity assumed that meant wed).

The other swelling rumour was spoken in hushed tones and while no one directly came out and said it, there were hints of Piracy and the hangings down in the Caribbean as to the reasons for the Captain’s sparsely being on deck.  But, Felicity was unsure why Oliver, the Captain of a merchant ship on its way to India, would care about the rounding up of violent criminals enough that he would hide himself away in his cabin for the better part of two weeks.  However, she was in no position to ask questions and she simply decided on a third option; he was sleeping or drinking, or both.

Day 19 at sea was a day like the others that had proceeded it.  Felicity found herself playing a game of Basset with five others on the main deck under a cloudy sky and with happily bloated sails carrying them through the choppy, open sea; the coast hadn’t been seen for some ten days now.  Oliver had ordered a few nets to be dragged behind the boat, and while he never offered his reasons, Felicity overheard that he must have believed they were heading for bad weather and the fish always proved more bountiful in the days before a storm.

Regardless of his reasons, no one questioned him, and as the Steward was having an afternoon kip below deck, Felicity was told to be on hand to salt the catch and preserve it for the journey ahead.

She won the last round and collected the bounty of guineas off the upturned crate just as the call went out from Tommy to reel in the nets.  Felicity shoved her winnings into her pockets as the larger men on the crew worked to bring up the four nets.  They were swollen with fish that spilled across the deck once emptied.  Felicity watched for a few moments as the mat of fish flapped and jumped like living waves.  

The commotion was such that no one noticed Oliver had emerged from his cabin and was watching the sight unfold from the quarter deck.

Bones had ordered a crate of fish be kept fresh for that night's hot ration, but that all the rest could be salted and barrelled, and that was Felicity's job.  She reached for a fish but it slid easily from her hands and slapped its tail against her cheek before diving back into the pile.  Her second attempt was much the same, only that fish managed to launch itself over the side of the ship and back into the safety of the water.

Her third, fourth, and fifth attempts to grab even one fish became a play of comical errors and her crate remained empty.  The men around her weren’t any help, buckled over in fits of laughter, especially when her sixth attempt found her on her back in the pile of fish.

She lay in the slimy, gyrating heap staring up at the darkening clouds as the sound of boisterous laughing echoed off every plank, until a large hand jutted out in front of her.  Without seeing who it belonged to, Felicity took it with a grateful sigh.  It was only when she was on her feet again that Felicity realised the laughing had stopped and the calloused, firm hand was attached to a brutishly strong arm – an arm which belonged to their ruggedly handsome Cap'n.

Felix’s hand was undeniably soft.
And Oliver was certain that softness had little to do with filmy fish oil that coated the kid’s hand.

Those were not the hands of a seasoned ship boy.

Not a scar to be seen, and any nicks were fresh.

This kid hadn’t burned his palms with thrashing ropes, he hadn’t caught a fingertip between tumbling crates, or broken a finger which had eventually set crooked.  The hand Oliver was holding was new, undamaged... soft.  The kid had lied; he'd never sailed before, and Oliver was prepared to stake everything to his name on that fact.

Felicity felt the heat of Oliver's gaze more fearsome than any other time beforehand.  She tried to slip her hand from his grip, but he simply tightened it; and without struggling it free, she was stuck.  Panic washed over her, turning her skin ghostly pale as he wordlessly studied her captive hand.

Then, without a word on the matter, Oliver let her hand go and stooped down to collect a fish.  He hooked two fingers under the gill and lifted it easily.  “Like that,” he said gruffly and Felicity bobbed her head in a slow nod.

Oliver dropped the fish unceremoniously into the crate before he nodded down to a fish near Felicity's feet.  “You try.”
She bent at the knees and carefully balanced, a habit which grew from the inability to bend over naturally while wearing a corset and skirt.  She hadn't noticed the slip into such an arbitrary habit, but Oliver had.  However, he measured it as simply odd over anything more.  Felicity copied exactly what Oliver had done, it was wet and slick and wholly unpleasant, but she managed to keep all of that away from her expression as she lifted the fish and dropped it into the crate beside Oliver's foot.

“Good,” he said, dry and sharp.
He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest while Felicity counted out a crateful.

Aside from fish there was also a few other sea creatures caught in the nets, including a small pinkish squid.  Rattled by how Oliver simply stood there, leaning against the base of the mast with his completely, stupidly-unreadable eyes and those bowed, half-smirking lips, Felicity reached down and, before Oliver could voice a warning, she grabbed at the squid and a spray of thick, ropey ink covered her from the neck down to her chest.

She dropped the creature unceremoniously and blinked, dumbfounded down at the mess it had made.
“Not those,” Oliver said with a smirk. 
She grimaced back at him as one of the other men carried a sloshing bucket of water towards her.  
“Stay still,” he quipped as he lined Felicity up.
“No!” she reactively yelled.
Being drenched with water would undoubtedly make her simple cotton shirt cling to her body and very likely turn translucent.  There was a definite risk she might be found out; even with her wrappings a feminine silhouette (trimmed and nipped that way from a dozen years wearing a boned corset mind you) was hard to miss.

“I'll clean myself up, later,” she added with a husky laugh.
“It'll stain,” Oliver said with an ambivalent shrug.  “At least take your shirt off.”
Felicity swallowed the nervous lump in her throat; that was an absolutely terrible idea.
“It's  fine,” she brushed him off with what she hoped sounded like bravado.  All men were fond of bravado.

Oliver took the bucket and paced his massive stride three steps towards the stairs that led up to the quarter deck.  On the third step, he looked over his shoulder and grunted.  Felicity assumed that was a demand for her to follow.  It took her two and a half steps to match one of his, but she followed him across the deck, up the stairs, and towards his cabin.

He opened the door to his quarters and walked inside, but Felicity paused in the doorway, unsure if he meant her to follow.
“Inside,” he grunted and she basically stumbled a few steps inside before he nodded at the door and she closed it.

There was a feeling of dread welling up in her chest as Oliver pulled a key from his pocket, which was also tied to his breeches.  Wordlessly, and with only the sound of her thumping heart to keep her company, Oliver threaded the large, iron key into the second door.  It unlocked with a thud and Oliver walked inside, beckoning Felicity to follow with little more than a shake of his head.

She walked in just as Oliver set down the bucket of water he’d carried all that way without spilling.  Felicity let her eyes wander around his room – the Captain's Quarters – it was much larger than she might have imagined and a lot cleaner too.  The back wall was a line of lattice windows that let in the hazy light of the day.  All the furniture was deep oak, from the writing desk near the back to the four large, steeple-back chairs around a dining table near the centre; at least that was what Felicity assumed was underneath the messy pile of unrolled maps and charts.

His bed looked a lot like the window seat Felicity had in her room back in London, but it was set into a carved oak frame that had a single heavy red privacy drape in a lush brocade fabric, which was pulled back and fastened with a gold rope to the side.  Quite curiously there was a mirror on the long, back wall of the bed.  It took up most of the space and the frame was ornate and gold, something of beauty that rivalled even the finest Parisian furniture her mother was fond of.

While Felicity soaked in the rich colours and the beautifully crafted furniture, Oliver emptied the bucket of water into a silver wash bowl that sat on its own table.

“Clean up,” he spoke.  His tone was short, but not sharp and when Felicity turned to face him, he was setting out a wash cloth and bar of soap.
“Captain, I can clean in the Galley,” she said softly as her hand nervously knotted in the hem of her oversized shirt.
“You can do it here.”
She swallowed and it felt like knives.
“I prefer the privacy of the Galley,” she replied.

He nodded, as if he was adamant he knew every secret she held.
“You’ve not sailed before, have you?.”
Oliver watched as Felix squirmed.
Felicity waited anxiously for the rest, but it never came.

“Tell me the truth,” Oliver intoned.
“I haven’t,” she reluctantly accepted.
“You lied.”  He spoke so matter-of-factly that all Felicity could do was nod.
“You know what we do to liars here?”
“Yes sir, but...” 
He stopped her mid-sentence with a raised hand.  “Clean yourself up.”

He turned and walked out of the room.  A few seconds later, Felicity heard the thud of the door lock.

“Shit,” she cursed with a sigh.

●|●

Oliver was pacing.
Heavy boots scuffing weathered wood, a glance at his locked cabin door, a gritted mumble under his breath, and then more pacing.

Tommy hated it when Oliver paced.

“He lied,” Oliver grunted as he nodded his head towards his cabin door, behind which was the true focus of his words – Felix, the Galley Boy.
“So the kid has less experience than he said,” Tommy haplessly shrugged.  He didn't understand why Oliver was so bothered with what appeared to be a minor overstatement; after all, they'd had much worse during their sails together.  “Most people on this ship are lying about something.”

Oliver shot his Quartermaster a sharp glare which might have made any other man shit his breeches, but Tommy wasn't fazed in the slightest.
“Come on Oliver, Bones is happy and that grumpy bastard is never happy,” Tommy said with a listless sigh.

More pacing.

“What do you want to do, double back to Lisbon and hope the kid can speak Portuguese? Or pull back to the coast and stop at the next port somewhere near Ghana?” Tommy bickered.  
“We should,” Oliver grumbled.  But even with his ruthless reputation Tommy didn't take the comment seriously. 

“Come on like you weren't pulling shit at seventeen Oliver? I remember you at seventeen, you definitely were,” Tommy teased with a snicker, changing tact.
But Oliver wasn't amused.  “That's another thing, he doesn't look seventeen,” he remarked followed by a terse huff.
“What does seventeen look like? Barry is nearly twenty and he has five whiskers to his name which he's been growing and grooming for the last two years,” Tommy argued as he stood up and poured himself a whiskey.
Oliver brushed off Tommy's logic with a swish of his hand and a grunt.

Tommy swallowed his drink in one go and set about pouring another.  “You’ve been on the ocean since you were a babe still pissing on the deck.”
Oliver stopped pacing abruptly.  “We both know that was different.”
“Felix keeps to himself, and doesn’t make any trouble. Maybe we can teach him a skill or two,” he paused to swallowed down his drink, “ever think about that?”

Oliver lapsed into another pace as he combed his fingers across his hairline.  His peaked, full lips were quivering with words unspoken and Tommy sat down with his third drink.

Tommy only got the cup to his lips before Oliver stopped pacing and spoke.  “There is something else,” he sighed.  Something he couldn't place.
“What?” Tommy spoke into his pewter mug.
“I don’t know. Something,” Oliver shrugged.  If he didn't know better he might have used the word captivating... but that couldn't be right?
“Your hunch was right Oliver.”  Tommy set down his drink, untouched, “The kid has never sailed before, that’s it.”

That should have been enough for Oliver; and Felix's inexperience might have accounted for much of his odd behaviours, but no matter how hard Oliver tried, he just couldn't shake the something else he kept coming back to.

“You don’t think the kid is, weird?”  That wasn't Oliver's word of choice; but it would do.
Tommy shrugged, still with a untouched drink.  “No weirder than anyone else.”
“Clean, he's clean,” Oliver bantered.
Tommy laughed.
“His hand was clean and...” Oliver paused, he couldn't.
“And?” Tommy piqued.
Oliver sighed.  “Soft.  His hands were soft.”

Tommy eyed his friend with a hitched brow before he slowly took his mug to his lips and drunk it down languidly.  He set down the empty cup and sighed.  “Are we arresting everyone with clean soft hands now?”

Oliver had no response; a rare moment.

“Staying or going?” Tommy said simply as he leaned his back against the chair and crossed his arms across his chest.  “Your call Cap'n.”
Oliver huffed, grunted, and paced before he answered with one word.  “Staying.”

But that one word was soon annexed by four others, “but I’m watching him.”
Tommy stood and nodded.  “Yes Cap'n.”

●|●

Felicity steadied herself, rewrapped and dressed, when there was a sharp thud on the door, which she rightly assumed was a knock.

“Come in,” she replied, only realising after that it was hardly her right to either allow or deny the person entry.  This room wasn't hers.

The door opened and she was looking directly at Oliver's unreadable eyes.  He never said a word and it seemed like minutes passed in taunting silence.  But, Felicity didn't crack.

Instead, the silence was cracked by Oliver.  “You got fish to salt.”  He stepped to the side to let Felicity pass through the door.

By the time Felicity returned to the main deck, she had a nickname.
She was no longer Felix, she was Squid.

|| 20 days at sea

Felicity was there when it happened.

It had been an ordinary day.  The wind was steady and the sea only a little choppy.  It was day 20 and all and any land had well and truly passed the horizon.

Some ships travelled closer to the coastline of course, assuming that such a corridor of water provided some safety from pirates.  But the coastline stifled the true speeds a ship like Verdant could reach and with all sails on its three masts raised and full, it was cutting through the ocean like a  spoon through butter on a summer’s day.

The Captain had Felicity mopping again, the main deck this time, no doubt as penance for her lie... the only one she believed he knew about her.

The job in itself seemed thoroughly pointless and Felicity had not seen it done a single time since she'd walked on board the ship.  There had been no spills that would make the main deck either unsightly or unsafe, and no sooner had she mopped an area, crew were trudging through the same spot, rendering the clean useless.

 
●|●

At the same time, Tommy was at the helm steering the ship, though he appeared to be steering it with his feet while he sat back on a chair he'd dragged out onto the deck.  The Captain was idling around the main deck, shirtless and with an inconspicuous eye on Felix, just as he’d promised.

The sun ducked behind the overcast sky of monochromatic grey as a light smattering of rain began to fall.  It changed nothing, and while Felicity had yet to see just how tempestuous the ocean could be, no one on the crew seem concerned with the dirty sky and the hazy rain.

No one except Oliver that was...

He looked up to the sails affixed to the mizzenmast.  The wind was still steady through them, but they dropped and ballooned a few times in the seconds that he watched.  The clouds above the ship also seemed to loom down on them and the tip of the tallest mast was swallowed up by smoky clouds.

He walked a stoic and swift path to the starboard side of the boat, towards the bow, and starred purposefully at the sky they were heading towards.

Then he saw it.
Mushroom clouds encroaching down on the water, swollen and silent, above a churning ocean.

“Shit, sails down, turn to port!” Oliver called with such urgency that when Tommy sprung to attention the chair he’d been relaxing on toppled backwards.

Most of the sails on two of the three masts were unceremoniously dropped, but the last, the main topsail, was caught as a violent gust ripped through the rigging.  Oliver grabbed the shoulder of the nearest crewman.  “Get that down, now”.

Felicity watched as some of the less experienced men as they glanced around, unsure why the Cap’n appeared so panicked, they had seen far more angrier skies.

But it was not an ordinary storm that they were bearing down on at full knots, and Oliver knew it.
“TOMMY PORT!” Oliver shouted, his booming voice bridging the distance between the two men with ease.
Tommy’s hands were tightly gripping the spindles of the wheel, but he could barely budge it and the ship was fighting every inch he took.
“She’s too heavy Oliver, we’ve got too much drag.  She’ll tip,” Tommy called back, and Felicity could sense the panic in his voice.
Oliver's face tightened as he looked at the distending cloud.
If they didn't turn out of its path, Verdant would sink in an instant.

While 20 men struggled with the main sail Oliver sprinted to the helm.

“Hard port,” Oliver gritted as he threaded his hands between Tommy's on the smooth rungs of the wheel.  It took every ounce of brute force the two men could muster, muscles aching and bodies wrecked with pain, to turn the ship.  But, as it banked sharply to the left, the deck became a slide.

Felicity's feet flew out from underneath her as another sailor knocked into her.  He had at least 100 pounds on her and Felicity tumbled towards the edge until a hand reached out and grabbed her.  She looked up, thankful, at the worried face of Roy.

“Hold on,” he mouthed.  
As the ship turned at an almost impossible angle; Felicity could see the waves lapping over the starboard side balustrades.

Men clung on for their lives to anything that was bolted down and the air was thick with panic.

Then it hit.

It felt like an explosion, but instead of flames and smoke, the eruption was air and water; a rare and deadly phenomenon.

Decades after the last soul on that ship passed, scientists would name it a wet microburst, but Oliver knew it as a wall of mist that could sink a ship in seconds, a white squall.

And, had it not been for that knowledge, Verdant and her entire crew would have been sent to the sea floor without mercy.

As the vessel levelled back, men that had cowered crossed their hearts as the wind gusted up the sea into rocky white caps.  Amidst it all, a blood-curdling scream came from high above the deck; a sailor was dangling from the rigging near the main topsail.

Oliver moved quickly, drawing the knife from his loosely slung belt as he ran.  The instant he reached the main mast he sliced through a taut rope and slingshot himself into the floundering sails.

But he didn’t make it in time.

No one would have.

With a thud that echoed through the noisy skies, the sailor fell to his death a mere dozen feet from where Felicity stood alongside Roy.

Men rushed forward to help, but there was nothing to be done.

●|●

The hours afterwards proved sombre.  There was no merriment with dinner and no quarrelling about card games over a bottle of rum.  Instead, drinks were passed in memoriam.

The sailor, a lad who went by the name Scuttle (his real name was Harry), was 'buried at sea' and a few spoke fondly of him over dinner.

Felicity, or rather Felix, was given the Captain and Quartermaster's rations and told to deliver them to his cabin.  She would have rather not, but it had not been a request she could deny.

With two plates balanced on her lithe arm, Felicity knocked on the cabin door.  The door was opened by Tommy who moved to take the plates before Oliver halted him with a guff command.  

“Have him bring them in.”
Tommy shrugged hapless, before he stepped to the side and Felicity sidled into the lantern-lit foyer.

She set the plates down on the oak table, one in front of Oliver who was staring at a void across the room, and the other where she assumed Tommy was sitting.  Tommy thanked her with a soft, “Thanks kid.”

But, as Felicity started to move away, Oliver grabbed her slender wrist.
“Did you know him?” Oliver asked with his eyes lowered to his dinner plate of fish stew and crusty bread.
“Yes Captain,” Felicity remarked under her breath.  She didn't struggle to free her hand from his grip, in fact at that moment she had felt the intense need for human contact and that would do. “His name was Harry.”

Oliver let her wrist go and moved the same hand to grip his silver mug, from the smell that engulfed the small room, Felicity assumed it was filled with rum.
“I didn't ask his name, I already knew that,” Oliver remarked stoically.  “I asked if you knew him.”
“A little Sir,” Felicity replied before she bit her lip to stop it quivering.
Oliver took a long sip, letting the alcohol bite roughly at his throat.  “He was 19.”
Felicity kept her eyes low, fearful that raising them would give away the tears building at the corners.  He was her age.

“He didn't like potatoes,” Felicity absently noted as she recalled the extra ration of rice she would swap with him on occasions where she could.

Oliver reached into the cupboard beside him and took out another matching pewter mug.  He poured a generous nip and set it on the table in front of Felicity.
“Drink.”
She looked wearily at the cup. 
“On the water it’s a sign of respect,” Tommy explained what Oliver had failed to. 
Felicity collected the mug and raised it to her lips.  She had never drunk something that smelled quite so putrid as the rum she held in front of her nose at that moment.  In fact, Felicity had only ever had a few sips of Sherry in her life, and the ale John served, but it was fairly obvious he always watered hers down.

Alcohol, and especially such a concoction as sailors' rum, was not for a lady.

But on Verdant, she wasn't a lady.

“To Harry and his potatoes,” she quipped as she raised her cup.
Tommy smiled and raised his too.  Felicity swore for a moment that Oliver might have smiled to, but if he did, it vanished soon after he raised his drink.

And then they drunk.
Felicity wrongly assuming it needed to be down in one go, was surprised to find both sets of eyes curiously looking at her when she slammed the empty mug back down on the table.

It might have only been one drink, but as Oliver leaned over to fill her cup again, Felicity felt her tongue loosen and she asked something which had bothered her most of the day.

“Couldn't we have returned his body to his family?”
Oliver set the bottle down.  He didn't look angered or frustrated by her question, but neither did he look too happy about it; stupid unreadable face.
“Cape Verde is a week's sail away, more given we're limping with a broken sail now,” Oliver began as he leaned back on two legs of his chair with his heavy boots resting on a nearby floor chest.  “Know what happens to a body after a week?”

Felicity bit her lip.  In fact she did know what happened to a body after a week.  Her fine education had given her the opportunity to study the decaying rates of flesh; but Felix wouldn't have known that, so Felicity kept that knowledge to herself.

“What about his family?” Felicity asked as she collected her half-filled cup.  “They ought to be able to bury him.”
“His father died digging tunnels, his mother has four younger kids to feed, where would she have the money to bury him?” Oliver pointed out with neither sadness or anger.

Felicity's brow crinkled; money, or the lack thereof, had never factored into many of her decisions, she’d never need to consider that.

“You came on this ship because you thought you wanted freedom and adventure,” Oliver remarked astutely, with threads of what Felicity wrongly attributed to anger making his words sound sharp.  “But people die here, and the sooner you realise that kid, the better.”

Oliver downed the rest of his drink before he took his dinner plate and the half finished bottle of rum and trudged into his quarters, slamming the door behind him.

“Is he ever not an asshole?” Felicity huffed before she realised Tommy was still very much there.  She stepped back hoping the shadows of the room would somehow take her words back.  They didn’t.

“Occasionally,” Tommy laughed.  He leaned back and pointed to the notches carved in the wood above Oliver's door.  “See those?” he asked.
Felicity nodded.  How many wenches he'd had, would have been Felicity's guess, and it took her stapling her bottom lip with her teeth to not say it out loud.

“Each notch is someone Oliver has lost at sea with him as Captain,” Tommy spoke with a low sigh.  “He remembers every one and he pays their families a year's coin out of his own pocket.”

Tommy looked down at his cup before he raised it.  “To Harry and his potatoes,” he repeated with a sad smile. 

Felicity drunk silently to that toast as she counted the notches carved into the wood; there were 23 in total.

23 men.
23 sons.

Chapter Text

Tommy was reading by candle light as the boat rocked on the temperamental ocean.  He was going through the books, arduously deciding what they could trade off in Cape Verde to make a higher profit at the Cape of Good Hope.  Oliver had a head for the stars and the ocean, but reading a ledger to keep them in the black was Tommy’s work, an arrangement that worked for them both.

He was muttering under his breath while he added the numbers, when Oliver's cabin door opened.  Without looking up from his task, Tommy slid another flagon of rum across the swaying table.

“I need the crew ledger,” Oliver said, with a stoic tone and not even a remnant of a smile.
Tommy set aside his work and flipped to the back of the large ledger where the names of all souls on board were ascribed with wages, any debts, position, and next of kin in case an accident befell them.
“Who?” Tommy asked as he lay his palms of the flat pages; although he had a fairly good idea who Oliver would ask for.
“Felix,” Oliver answered while he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Tommy nodded, he had expected as much.
Oliver leaned against a beam and took a long drink as Tommy rode his fingers over the names he'd written himself at the start of their voyage.
“Next of Kin is a John Diggle, address in Blackwell Docks,” Tommy replied, a thread of a sigh in his answer.
Oliver lips folded pensively as his fist tightened around the neck of the brown glass flagon.  “I need a letter sent to him,” he explained while he scuffed the floor.
Tommy raised a brow but said nothing for a few moments, until he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.  “Can I ask why?” Tommy quizzed pensively. 
Oliver took a drink, letting the amber liquid burn down his throat, and when it was only remnants that remained, he sighed through gritted teeth, “I just do.”
Tommy readied his paper and quill.  “Yes Cap'n.”

●|●

The main deck was lit by moonlight and a few swaying lanterns as Oliver stepped out into it.  The sea was angry and he closed his eyes as he inhaled the salty air deeply, letting it settle in the back of his throat.

It was raining and the cold speckles blanched his face as a shiver ran down his spine.  Many a man tried to tame the ocean, but not Oliver.  He knew it was unruly and obdurate and it took whatever it pleased.  You didn't try to settle the tempestuous mistress.

As Oliver's eyes opened, he looked towards a glowing lantern swaying on a rope while it was tied to the mast.  Beneath the amber fronds of the light Oliver saw a figure on their hands and knees.  As he walked closer, the lithe frame became clear, it was Felix, and he appeared to be scrubbing a hard bristled brush across the sodden deck.

The wind was whipping Oliver's hair across his face and he noted that Felix had lost the hat he seemed to wear often.  His hair was light, blonde Oliver assumed, and it was fastened tightly at his nape.  Oliver hadn't realised the kid had long hair, but that was hardly unusual, most men on board did.

“It's not safe out here tonight,” Oliver spoke loudly against the howling gale.
Felicity looked up, breathless and chilled to the bone.  She knew her hat was tucked into her pocket and that her hair, while pinned and tied, was not covered.  But, she relied on the dim light and the hazy curtain of rain to keep her secret safe.

“I'm safe Captain,” Felicity replied, her voice barely carrying over the sound of the ocean's unrest.  She nodded down to the rope she had fastened tightly around her waist and tied to the mizzen mast.

For once, at least it seemed to her, the Captain didn't argue with her response and instead crouched closer to her level.  Felicity kept scrubbing despite the fact she could no longer see the red against the drenched wood in the thin strands of light her lantern gave off.  He stopped her hand with his and she looked up wildly at him.

“The rain will take care of it,” he said softly and while fractions of his words were lost to the wind, she understood what he was saying.  He knew she was trying to clean the deck, clean Harry's blood from the groves and nooks.

“Is this where you pretend you don’t care to look hard and stoic Captain?” Felicity balked, her hot tears had long since melded with the icy rain down her cheeks, but the lump in her throat still felt like fire.
Oliver's back stiffened but he never moved his hand from atop the Galley boy's hand, and in turn Felix never tried to pull away from it.
Felicity pinched her bottom lip sharply between her teeth to still it, regretting her biting words.  “I'm sorry, it's just that twenty-three is so many,” she said sadly.
Oliver nodded.  “Tommy told you?” He didn't seem angered by that truth, and in fact Felicity saw flecks of compassion in his demeanour. 
“You seemed so callous,” Felicity added.

Oliver took the stiff brush from Felicity's hand and dropped it into the bucket that she held tightly with the other hand.
“Inside,” Oliver spoke, the word came out more like a plea than an order, especially when he added a mouthed, please.  He looked tired in his soul.

They were below deck within a few moments and Felicity shook off the biting cold in the dim light afforded to them, but kept much of herself on the edges of shadows.
“The ocean isn’t for those who fear death,” Oliver remarked.  His voice was soft, almost whispered, but he spoke calmly and with a wisdom Felicity heard in his almost cold demeanour.  But, he didn't seem cold at all, quite the contrary in fact.
“You aren’t afraid of dying?” Felicity asked as she found a crate to sit on.  The boat still rocked and creaked as she blew raindrops off the tip of her nose.

Oliver sat down alongside her but kept his eyes straightforward and his hands clasped in front of his body.  His shoulders swelled in comparison to hers and her spine shivered at nothing more than the sheer size of the man.

“I’ll look death in the eyes and shake his hand when my time comes, and let the ocean take me,” Oliver answered, a hint of a smile on his lips.  “Live a good life now is about all you can do.”
He found a bottle of rum and Felicity swallowed a laugh at just how easy it seemed to be to find alcohol on this ship, it was as though a bottle was forced into every crevice just in case.

He took a drink and without moving his gaze towards her, he offered her a drink afterwards.

Felicity took a swig and it seems to taste less potent than the last time; perhaps, she wondered, she was developing a palate for bitter rum.  John Diggle would be proud, or mortified... definitely one of those things.

In the silence that enveloped them, Felicity stole a glance at Oliver's sombre face; there was no denying he was handsome, evenly ruggedly so.  But in those moments she saw something softer in the slight dimple beneath his lips and the softness of his brow.  He appeared almost...gentle.

It was with that in mind that Felicity pondered what he might do if he knew her truth.  All of it.  She took another drink before she handed it back.  Only then did he look at her and in a moment that felt frozen in time, Felicity considered telling him all of it... her name, her age, her reasons.

But before the words made it to her lips, he spoke and she lost her nerve.
“Are you afraid of death?” he asked.  Perhaps on any other, the question might have seemed a callous one, but Felicity never felt that way about his words.
“Of dying quietly, yes,” she offered by way of answer.  His brow hitched ever so slightly as he considered her answer
“Why would you die quiet?” Oliver enquired.

Felicity had a whole host of reasons, but every single one of them revolved around the feeling of being trapped as a women.  To be seen and not heard.  To be a quiet and conscientious wife. A demure mother. A wallflower. An innocent life behind a wall. A pretty trinket a man keeps in a box only to dote on it when pomp and ceremony demanded it.

There is no way he could understand.  And no way she could tell him.

“Sometimes the world isn’t the same for everybody,” she replied as she let her eyes drop to the floor.
Oliver took a swig then handed the bottle on again. “It is out here,” he replied simply.

Felicity swirled the liquid in the bottle, carefully watching it through the dusty glass.
“Do you really believe that?” she asked.
“Sure, it don’t matter where a man came from, we’re all brothers here,” Oliver answered.

Felicity bobbed her head in a slight nod before she took a drink.

A man.
Of course.

“Get some rest kid,” he added as he stood.
Felicity managed a feeble smile.  “Yes sir.”

/23 days at sea

They were still two days out from Cape Verde.  With a missing sail and fractured  rigging the ship was limping along, and it was clear many on the crew were getting restless.  They would stay docked at the larger island, Santiago, for a few days while the repairs were made.  It would significantly delay them, but the whispers beneath deck were saying they would make the time up taking a route that most avoided.

After the Cape of Good Hope most seasoned Captains steered their ship like a slingshot to Indonesia and then across to India. A journey that would take near 80 days.  But, there was another route which took a sailor through the ocean along the eastern coast of Africa.  This voyage shaved the time to nearly half, 52 days at best.

But, the stretch between the African Coast and Madagascar was known as the pirate's playground.  What ships didn't fall foul of the unexpected sea shifts, were often set upon by the last remaining fractions of outlaws.  Many were seasoned naval sailors, put out of a job when the peace treaties were signed to end the Spanish War in 1714.  They flocked to the Indian Ocean as the crackdown on piracy devastated much of the Caribbean.  But the Indian Ocean was easy pickings with it's lawless waters and sheltered bays to hide in.

It was a route many embarked on, but few succeeded to finish.

Rumours were rife as to why the Captain would take such a risk.  Those new to Verdant called him arrogant and foolish and many spoke with angry undertones.  But, those who had sailed many a journey with Oliver Queen at the helm seemed amused by the fear of others and quietly calm about everything else.

Felicity had seen how Oliver was a fine sailor, and she had counted all 20 canons on board that no doubt served as a deterrent to any opportunists.  But, would those be a match for merciless pirates?  Felicity had no idea, and no desire to find out.  

●|●

Oliver spent most of the previous three days sulking around his cabin.  Tommy had enquired why, but this was something he couldn't even express to his best friend and quartermaster, because it was something he struggled to understand himself.

He was feeling antsy, bemused, conflicted.

He needed a dim corner in a cheap tavern with easy women to entertain him.

He needed off his ship.

In all his years, Oliver had never felt that aching need, and while he struggled to conflate the two; he couldn't help but think it might have something to do with the galley boy.

●|●

It was late on that third night, after 23 days at sea, that Felicity was playing a game of Basset below deck with a rowdy night crew.  The rum was potent and the mood was boisterous.

And Felicity was winning.

Her pockets were bulging from coin she'd won from others, most of whom had cut their losses and left the table.  A few remained though, one of which was a large man with a permanent sunburn across the bridge of his nose and ruddy cheeks.  He wore a scar over his left eye and a scowl on his thin lips.  He was an old sailor with a reputation for being as surly as they came, but he could jimmy the rigging and tie a knot like no one else, and Felicity assumed that was why he was aboard.

“You've been cheatin’,” he mumbled, a gold tooth in his mouth catching the glint of the candle.

“I don’t need to cheat when someone is as bad at this as you are,” she jested.  There was a high chance she should have staved off her tongue, but she was never very good at that.

Felicity had seen the likes of men like him before at John's, however what she hadn't counted on was the pistol shoved down the back of his pants, or him suddenly presenting it with a humourless snarl.

“You been cheatin'.”
He slammed his weathered fist onto the crate and the cards went flying.
“I have not,” Felicity growled.  She hadn't been wearing a tight wrap around her aching chest for 23 fucking days to be called a cheat by some drunk old coot.

Perhaps her own inebriation was coming out too.
His hand shook around the pistol as men backed away, silent but waiting for the show.

“Put the gun down Jones,” Tommy announced after clearing his throat.
“Kid has been cheatin'.”

“I have not, he’s...,” Felicity started indignantly Tommy stopped her with his raised palm.
“Talk to the Captain if you have a complaint. You know the rules Jones.”
The man they called Jones set his pistol down with a frustrated huff.  “Aye Quatermaster. Is he awake?”

Tommy looked at Felicity and grimaced, though she didn't understand why.
“He is.”

●|●

Far more frequently than she would like, Felicity was once again standing in the Captain's quarters.  Oliver was sitting at his desk with his feet resting on top, boots and all.  White moonlight streamed in through his windows and his bed look untouched.  There was a plate of salted beef and an apple beside him together with a half finished flagon of what Felicity swore was water, surprisingly.

“Says you cheated,” Oliver remarked as he began to cut the apple with a blade that was overkill for a small apple.  He threaded no emotion through his words nor did he look up for more than a few seconds when he presented the remark to Felicity.
“Well I didn't,” Felicity responded, indignant that she even had to respond to such a baseless accusation.
Oliver feed a slice of the apple into his mouth from off the tip of the dagger.
“Says you beat him five times.”
As Oliver spoke, Jones bobbed his head furiously. “Maybe more. Ain't no one that lucky,” he added with a slur in his gristly voice.

“Luck has nothing to do with it you buffoon,” Felicity argued sharply.  Her step father would have been near-on horrified, and Felicity herself was taken aback at how easily her rage manifested itself.  Being on the ocean was freeing in so many ways.
“Who's he callin' a monkey aye?” Jones spat.
Oliver laughed crisply as another slice of apple touched his full lips.  “He said buffoon, not baboon,” he explained with a smirk.

Felicity crossed her arms and tapped her foot.  “It's not luck that he has a tell that's as obvious as the sea is wet,” she explained brusquely. 
Oliver shaved another slice of apple and handed it towards Felicity.  She looked down at it curiously before she shook her head.  Oliver shrugged then ate the piece himself.

After a few tortuously silent moments, Oliver set his feet down on the ground and rested his elbows on the edge of the map-lined desk.
“Alright, deal a hand,” he said before he pulled a deck of cards from his drawer.  He slid the cards to Jones who scooped them up and began to shuffle the same.

Oliver turned his piercing eyes at Felicity, who blinked away from their heated focus.  “You tell me his tell, and let’s settle this.”

She nodded without argument and when the hand was dealt she walked up behind Oliver and rested her chin on his shoulder.  She thought she felt him shiver as she pressed her lips to his ear and hid the same behind her palm.

Felicity had been right; he had shivered, albeit far from intentionally.  He felt lips near his ear and a river of warm air cascaded down his neck.  His attention was on each tiny breath the galley boy took as his fists bent the cards.

“If his hand is good he rubs his left ear.”  The whispered words felt like silk against his ear, but he kept his face devoid of such secrets and simply nodded.  He had heard.
“If it's terrible, he turns the signet ring on his right hand with his thumb,” she breathed. 

Her lips brushed against his lobe and for a moment, Felicity wished for more words that might keep her there.  He smelled musky, like a forest just after dawn.  It was neither intrinsically pleasant or unpleasant.  But there was something about it that sent a hot tingle down her core and tightening between her legs.

There was little she could do to help herself, and as she pulled back she inhaled his scent, tasting it on her tongue.

He'd felt that.
Hadn't he?
The deep inhale.
He'd felt that.

He shook the thoughts from his head and focused on the player across from him.  He turned the ring on his finger, just as the kid had said, and, as expected, Jones held a lousy hand.

Two more rounds proved Felix right.

“Looks like the kid was right, you’re a terrible basset player,” Oliver commented matter-of-factly as he set his cards down.  “Probably don’t play for money anymore,” he added before he went back to his apple and kicked his feet up onto the desk.

“Cap'n the kid...”
Oliver looked up and the threads of humour disappeared from his face, it was as though that slight tense at the edge of his lips or the raise in his left eyebrow might possess the kind of power that could stop a tempestuous storm in an instant, for it ccertainly made Felicity's breath seize.  “You have a problem with my decision?” he asked dryly.
Jones scowled at Felicity but shook his head.  “No Cap'n,” he retreated.
Oliver pointed the tip of his blade towards his door and Jones grumbled as he dragged his feet out it.

Felicity went to leave the same way.
“A word,” Oliver spoke, grit making his voice sound deep, almost foreboding and Felicity's breath stayed frozen while her palms trembled until she fisted them tightly at her sides.

“Father taught you to play like that?” Oliver asked while he looked down at his apple.
“No sir, my mother.”
Oliver cracked a smile.
“Fencing old men out of their coin would make her proud?” There wasn't malice in his words where Felicity might have expected them.
She shrugged, a lopsided, one-shoulder shrug.  “If they're so easily fenced, maybe.”

Oliver's smile stayed as he ate another slice of apple.  “Kid, can I offer you some advice?”
She looked around and shrugged.  “This is your boat Captain.”
He laughed huskily before he stabbed the tip of his blade into his desk and stood up.

“A friend on these waters is better than a pocket full of coin.  All men aboard have something to offer that's more valuable than gold.  A smart person learns it, a fool pits himself against it,” he warned as his fingers grazed the edge of his desk while he walked closer.

He stopped barely a foot from where Felicity stood and she felt the apples of her cheek grow painfully hot under his remarkably focused gaze.  There was nothing she could do to tear herself away from it and she felt her whole body swaying towards him, like a magnet.

She was drowning in his azure eyes, trapped by his presence, and caught by the smirk that playfully shifted his lips.  She could feel her heart thumping behind her chest and her lips parted, ready to confess and hope him a man of good humour.  There was tingles down the tips of her fingers and shaking breaths she could barely take.

She would tell him.
She had to.

Floundering for the words she drew a long but unsteady breath.

Then Oliver stepped back.  His azure eyes severed their pull, he cast her away, set her free.

“I'm suggesting you think about it,” he spoke softly before he turned away.
Felicity nodded as she took a sharp and silent inhale.  Relief.  “Yes Captain.”

●|●

Felicity caught up to Jones as he was cursing at the wind.  She thought he might punch her square in the face when she approached, but she approached all the same.

With an offer.

He would teach her his knots and in return he would be paid whatever she'd won from him that night and the first ale at the next port.

Once she had laid out her proposal she found herself flinching as his hand moved at his side.  It was only when he stabbed it out towards her that she relaxed and shook it.  With his animated laugh, and her quietly nervous one, they had a deal.

●|●

Half a day's sail out from port, the sea had calmed and the sky had blossomed into tufts of white clouds and vibrant blue skies.  The crew, while still restless, were in far better spirits at the prospect of cold ale and hot women.  The feeling on deck was jovial for the most part and many a shirt had been discarded, including Oliver's.

He was at the helm, one calloused and strong hand steering the ship while his eyes roved about the deck with an ever vigilant eye.  He'd set a bet with Tommy that they would lose at least 6 men on the shores of Praia.  The port town was vibrant and alluring to many a sailor.  Pirates often scoured the bathhouses and taverns in search of men hoping to make a quick coin, with little conscience about how.

Oliver himself had lived a few short weeks in a lodge above a tavern in the old quarter and he had considered trying to settle down in the same, but the sea called to him and life on the land was one he was unaccustomed to and all too soon he found himself, barely 17, aboard another ship heading for London.

There were moments he'd considered whether he might ever settle down to a complacent life with everything that one was taught you might need; the house, the wife, the children, and there were even parts of him that longed for the normality of having a place to call home.  But, he carried secrets and scars that he'd ask no woman to yoke themselves to.

While Oliver glanced across the deck his eye stopped on a curious sight just as Tommy approached. 

There was a stiff laugh as Tommy saw the same thing.  “Is that Jones?” he asked bemused.
Oliver answered with a broad smile and a small dip of his head.
“Is he teaching Felix how to tie his knots?” Tommy continued as he held his hand above his eyes to shield his face from the glare of the sun.

“Sure seems like it,” Oliver remarked, maintaining his smile.
Tommy's jaw dropped as he squinted, disbelieving his own eyes.  “Jones never teaches anyone anything,” he gaped.

“Seems like the kid changed his mind,” Oliver commented, his smile shifting to a smirk.
“Well I'll be fucked,” Tommy hummed before he turned to Oliver.  “The kid even has you smiling which I know is a miracle.”

Oliver's smile vanished and his eyes narrowed.  “Don't push it.”

Tommy laughed before he made his way down to the main deck.  When his back was turned, Oliver let the smile drift back onto his face; it felt surprisingly natural.

Chapter Text

||Priaia, Santiago Island, Cape Verde || day 25 

The port at Priaia was unlike the other Felicity had seen, because unlike the other port they'd visited, Santiago had the backing of the East India Company.  It was one of their trading ports and the bustle that awaited them on the docks proved this to be true.  There was cargo coming and going, and ships of all different sizes embarking and disembarking.  Merchant selling wares in the nearby markets goaded sailors off with promises of fine linens and precious trinkets.  It was colourful and alluring, a small island of vibrancy and decadence in an otherwise vastly empty ocean.

Oliver had already contracted for the repairs Verdant needed and many of the men had already abandoned the ship to the call of the taverns and whores, but Felicity's feet were idle as she stood from the vantage point of the frigate and studied every inch that she could see to the horizon.

London had nothing like it, at least not that she had ever been allowed to see, and for the briefest of moments she considered how easily one might disappear into the crowd and start again.

How she might...

“Bathhouse is that way,” a voice remarked from behind her.  She didn't need to turn to know that the softly gravelled voice belonged to Oliver and in fact she chose not to turn, basking for a few silent moments in his dangerously close presence.
“Is that where you're heading Captain?” Felicity enquired with a hint of a smile weaving through her words.
“Do you think I ought?”
His shoulder brushed hers and she laid her palm on the railing of the vessel to stop herself from swaying.  His candour was new and electric and perhaps it had something to do with the fact they were the only two about.

She took a sharp and dramatic inhale before she bobbed her head in a jaunty nod.  “After 25 days at sea, I don't think it would hurt Captain,” she teased.

Oliver laughed, and it was unlike any that she had heard.  It was neither forced nor sardonic, it was effortless and real, it was the laugh someone of his age ought to have yet he seldom did.  

She stole a look to the side of him as he too stared out at the landscape of wonder in front of them.  He must have seen it a hundred times, yet his face was youthful and happy and Felicity wondered if this place held fond memories for him; a first love perhaps.

Unbeknownst to Felicity, she was right.  Santiago did hold a memory that made Oliver smile, but it was not of love or riches, it was a memory of freedom; a time where he was not defined by a lineage that haunted him.

“Perhaps I will then,” Oliver remarked, his eyes still roving about the fringes of the bustle.  “Save me a place?”
Felicity, however, was looking elsewhere, following the defined lines of his sculptured arms; they were slender where others held bulk, but as he flexed quite mindlessly, their shape firmed and rounded and she once again noted that not an inch of his body was wasted.

But further down she saw his jacket clutched in his hand, and tucked curiously into a pocket was a letter, or at least that's what she thought it was.

It was then, with her eyes studying the edges of the folded paper, that a wayward sailor in a rush ran towards them.  But, a misstep saw him tumble over a coiled rope and topple into them, spilling at least Felicity like a skittle.  As Oliver stooped to help her up, the letter slipped further from Oliver's bundled jacket and while she stood up off the floor, Felicity saw a name; an unmistakably familiar one.

John Diggle.

Oliver was holding a letter about her.

Perhaps he saw her looking as his back stiffened and he wrapped himself in the jacket and tucked the paper down deeper.
“Enjoy your bathhouse,” he commented stiffly as he helped Felicity to her feet.  “Be back each night or let Tommy know otherwise.”
“Yes Captain,” she answered him softly, trying to hide her nervous and trembling breath.

He offered her a taut smile from one side of his mouth, sad...regretful even.  Did he know she had seen the name on the letter he carried in his pocket? She wondered.

She watched him saunter off the boat, looking to neither side or behind.  He was focused, and heading somewhere he clearly knew the way to.

In a heartbeat that felt like a thunderclap across her chest, Felicity made a thoroughly rash decision.

She followed him.

●|●

There was something to be said about being shorter than 6 foot, at least when it came to trying to discretely follow someone through a crowd of shouting merchants and scuffles between drunk sailors, but she managed it all the same.

A fact which surprised her.

She followed Oliver through the crowds, using everything from bolts of fabric and tall crates of spices as places to hide behind.  Once through the maze of vendors, Oliver strolled into the small cobbled streets that wove between unassuming buildings.

The crowd became sparse and at one point Felicity found herself crouching behind a bush as Oliver stopped to chat with an older woman with a long shock of grey hair twisted up into a tight bun as she swept the doorstep.

They seemed like old friends.  While Felicity was too far away to hear any of the conversation, it looked animated as Oliver took the snapped straw broom and finished sweeping the same step.  Through the branches digging into her body, Felicity watched him as he carefully set the broom to one side and dropped something small into the woman's palm.  She had no way of knowing for sure, but it looked like a small bag of coins.

Whatever it was, the woman cried as she braced herself against the crumbling brick facade.  Her head was shaking, trying to refuse the gift, but Oliver wouldn't take it back.

A few moments passed and Oliver left while the woman graciously waved from her doorstep.

Felicity waited anxiously for the woman to go back inside before she emerged from the bush, with scratched arms to show for the endeavour, and scampered in the direction she'd seen Oliver go in.

He hadn't gone far and she found him trading coin for something that smelled like deliciously roasted meat, formed curiously around a stick.  Absently, Felicity found her mouth-watering at the aroma and her stomach twisted into hungry knots. But those knots would have to wait...

Another few blocks and the huts and buildings became more dilapidated until the streets were dirt tracks and an overwhelming stench filled the air.

It was there that Oliver ducked into a door that creaked when he opened it and slammed shut behind him.  Above it hung a sign on one chain, it was faded and weathered, but Felicity made out the word tavern and two crossed cutlasses.

They had passed at least three other taverns, all much more reputable looking than this one, and that said nothing of the ones that bordered the docks or the newer, cleaner streets of the city.

Felicity was left with a conundrum; following him inside would likely lead to him being made aware of her presence, but idly standing outside wouldn't give her a chance to find out what was in that letter he carried.

It wasn't really a surprise to Felicity that her curiosity won out over her sensibility. It almost always did.

So she went inside.

●|●

Inside would be best described as a dungeon of degenerates.  The air was hazy with a cloud of suffocating smoke and rank with the smell of salted fish and ale; a rather unpleasant concoction.  But, both thankfully and surprisingly, no one paid any mind to a young kid slipping inside. 

It was hardly full and most of the patrons were huddled around a table where a man stabbed a knife between his splayed fingers, speeding up with every successful pass while the onlookers chanted him on.

A barkeep, a man over 7 foot in height and with shoulders that hung forward, glared at Felicity with his one good eye, the other appeared to be a white marble.  She swallowed heavily but didn't retreat; she'd made it this far.

Sinking into the shadows, Felicity found a table set back into the corner where she sat down and searched through the haze for Oliver.

She found him sitting at a table near the bar with his back to her.  There was another man with him, but his face was shrouded by shadows at the angle Felicity sat and she couldn't make out any more than broad shoulders and a tricorn hat.

●|●

“You have something for me?” Oliver asked the man as he drew in deeply on his tobacco pipe.
Wordlessly he slipped a leathery hand into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled letter.  He smacked it onto the table before he pushed it across to Oliver.

The man puffed out of a cloud of noxious smoke.  “Says he wants to see you.”  He spoke in hushed tones and from thin and cracked lips.
Oliver retrieved the letter from the table and stuffed it into his pocket.  “He says a lot of things,” he replied dryly.
The man sat back in his chair and it creaked under the weight of his massive frame.
“You should do what he's asked kid,” he snarled before he pushed the pipe back through his lips.

●|●

Felicity strained her neck to try and see their mouths moving in the hopes she could somehow read their lips, but it was a fool's errand.

Trying did however keep her so occupied that she didn't notice a looming shadow or a stiff humph from a figure beside her.

“I said you're in my seat,” the voice grunted and Felicity finally heard it.
She looked up to see a man as wide as he was tall with a round face and tiny beady eyes lost below a brush of thick white eyebrows.

His face was terse and everything about him said angry.  “Sorry,” she peeped before she stood up and tried to move away.
“That'll cost you,” he huffed as he grabbed her wrist.  
“I don't want any trouble, I'll move on,” she commented, but he'd gone looking for a fight and the waif of a kid sitting alone seemed like easy pickings.
“Not without emptying your pockets.”
“I don't have any money.”
“People don't come to places like this without any money.”  He brushed his stubby fingers along the butt of his pistol he wore in a holster over his shoulder.

●|●

“I need to get a letter to London, anyone heading that way?” Oliver asked wryly.
The man laughed.  “Fancy our heads right where they are, you know.”
Oliver’s expression didn’t shift.  “Is that a no?”
He puffed on his pipe while his eyes narrowed.  “It'll cost you more than your good name kid.”
Oliver nodded sharply. “Figured that.”
“Hades leaves tonight, for enough coin he could be pointed to London.  Still, remember where to find him?” he quipped snidely.
Oliver smiled tightly.  “Of course.”

He took another long drawl of the pipe before he nodded over Oliver's shoulder.  “The kid that came in after you is about to get a fist in his face,” he laughed menacingly as if the sight of it would be quite enjoyable.

Oliver's brow furrowed as he turned around.
“Shit,” he huffed under his breath as he stood up and his chair clattered to the floor.

Felicity gulped, between Oliver and the large man bearing down on her, she wasn't sure who appeared angrier.

“Kid is with me,” Oliver spoke sharply and the large man snarled as he looked up.
“Kid owes me a fee.”
Oliver glanced at Felix, who gave him a small shrug.  “What for?” Oliver questioned.
“Sitting in my chair.”
Oliver rolled his eyes despite the man being a lot heavier than him.
“Kid is with me and we were just leaving,” Oliver uttered through clenched teeth before a playfully endearing smile brightened his expression.  “Kid is too stupid to know any better.”

Felicity swallowed an indignant pout before it surfaced, she knew he didn't mean... or at least she hoped he didn't.  The fat man's grip on Felicity tightened and she winced at the painful pinch on her skin.

Oliver blinked down at Felix's twisting skin, remembering it's velvety softness before an inexplicable rage grew hot in his fists.

“Let the kid go,” Oliver hissed.
But he didn’t seem easily deterred.  “Don't think I will till I get my money,” he laughed.
Oliver smirked. “I was hoping you'd say that,” he breathed before he drew his fist back and catapulted it into the hanging jowls of the man's rotund face.

The sound was unlike anything Felicity had heard, it was heavy like a thud but the brittle sound of something cracking was the loudest of all.  He let go of her hand as he began to fall, and with a thunderous boom he landed, shocked and breathless on the floor.

Another man rushed at them but Oliver pulled the blade from his waist holster and pointed it inches from the man's face without so much as blinking. 

“You don't want to do that,” Oliver warned, flicking his wrist to turn the knife.
“Think I do.”

The man Oliver had been sitting with walked with a menacing thump and an eerie scrape as he dragged the tip of his cutlass along the dusty floorboards.

He raised the blade and held it near Oliver's throat.  Felicity's hand fumbled behind her to grip the edge of a chair behind her, she might get one blow in...

But Oliver didn’t flinch even slightly as the man hooked the chain of Oliver's necklaces under the tip of his sword and flicked them over his shirt.
“Think you don't,” he warned before he sheathed his sword.
Both the man ready to fight and the one on the floor backed away.
“I-I didn’t know,” the larger man stuttered as he pushed himself across the dirty floor.
“If we'd have known...”

Oliver grabbed Felicity’s arm and marched her out of the bar before she could hear the rest. 

“You followed me?” he hissed as he dragged her down an alleyway 
She wrenched her arm free and Oliver spun around, his face was furious.
“What does it say?” Felicity said bluntly before she pointed to his jacket pocket.  “The letter to London, it's about me isn’t it?”
“I ought to get you thrown off the ship,” Oliver spat back.
“Do it then,” Felicity retorted.
She was far more furious than she knew she had the right to be, but keeping her secret was taking a toll on her, to say nothing about the weird feelings the Captain was stirring in her.

“You're maddening,” he roared. “Do you have any idea what you could have gotten yourself into?”
“I’d ask you, but you wouldn't tell me,” she sarcastically declared.
“You want to know?”
She nodded her head tersely.
Oliver retrieved the letter he’d had Tommy write from his pocket before he pushed it into Felicity's chest.  It wasn’t hard at all, even though he was clearly angry, but his touch stole her breath all the same because his palm was entirely over her breasts, and even behind her wrappings, she felt a brush of delicious friction across her nipple.

Then he pulled back, and he left.

Left her standing there clutching the crumpled letter and nursing a beautiful pleasure tingling down her spine.

Hesitantly Felicity peeled back the Captain's wax seal and read the perfect penmanship carefully,

Dear Mister Diggle,

Aboard our ship we have a young lad who goes by the name Felix Smoak.  We believe the kid is younger than he might have said and may be missed by his family.

As Captain of this vessel, I assure you that Felix will be looked after and returned to London as soon as we return.  As we are on a long voyage, this will be some time. But he will be treated well, fed, paid, and learn a skill.

Please extend this letter to his family, should they need to hear the same.

Kindest regards,
Capt. Oliver Queen
Verdant.

The guilt was overwhelming and Felicity dragged her feet back through the market stalls with it weighted on her shoulders.  She'd thoroughly misjudged the Captain and he now had every right to throw her off right there and then.

She stopped when she saw him perusing some bolts of dyed silks a few feet away.  She swallowed her pride and walked tentatively towards him.
“I'm sorry,” she said softly as she held out the note to him. 
Oliver huffed without turning his head.  She watched his dimple twitch and his lips flex for a few tediously silent moments before he threw her a frustrated look.
“Did you have any idea what you were doing?” he said, anger pulsing through every word and inflection.
“I thought...,” she started to explain but Oliver stop her with a grunt.
“No, you didn’t think.”
“Why did you write this?” Felicity asked quietly, still holding out his note.
Oliver took the note and tore it in two.  “Doesn’t matter now,” he snipped before he deposited both pieces back into Felicity's palm.  He instantly regretted his hot-headed temperament, but it hid the anxious worry that he was still holding from the tavern.  Felix could have been hurt, the kid didn’t seem to understand just how close to danger he’d put himself.
“What was that place?” 
She knew he wouldn’t answer, she wasn’t really looking for one, but when she mentioned the tavern she did see him react.  He glanced down to the necklaces on the outside of his shirt and he tucked them back behind his shirt.
“Not a place for you,” he answered, and while his words were still terse there were threads of something else in his tone; something Felicity considered might be regret or sadness.

There was something about him, something he kept locked behind an unreadable expression and years at sea, something Felicity had an irresistible need to discover.  But not today, not now.

“What was the meat stick thing you had?” she asked curiously and Oliver's brow hitched, “it smelled amazing,” Felicity added with a tiny shrug.

A small smile appeared at the edge of his lips as he turned away from the fabrics.  “You hungry Squid?”
“I could eat,” she answered with a nod.

●|●

It wasn’t long after that the two of them were sitting at a table of a small kitchen in a brightly coloured building a short walk away from the docks.  It sat near the Island's edge but was tucked away in a place where you’d never stumble upon it by accident.  The table looked out to the ocean and was decorated with a plume of pretty star-shaped flowers, the colour of the ocean tips and with a delicate fragrance. 

“Plumbago,” Oliver remarked before his fingertip brushed the velvety petal with such care when he noticed the galley boy studying it.
“Didn’t figure you for a botanist Captain,” Felicity chimed.
It was hard not to smile in his presence, hard to keep herself that little bit guarded and in character.  Little did Felicity know, Oliver felt much the same way.
He smiled, but said no more.
“Have you always sailed?” Felicity asked, cautiously wondering where the line sat between what he would say and what he wouldn’t. 
“I’ve always been around ships,” he answered with his eyes to the ocean waves breaking along the rocky coast.
“Clearly I haven't,” Felicity ambled, garnering a small smile from the Captain's lips.
“Clearly.”
She straightened her back and clasped her hands on her lap beneath the table.  “I’m sorry I lied,” she admitted.
His smile shifted and he nodded, just the once, as though he accepted her apology and nothing more needed to be said.
“And I’m sorry for following you today,” she added quietly.
He turned his head to her, locking their eyes.  “What you saw today,” he started.
“I won’t tell a soul,” she finished.
He nodded and his smile returned.  His thanks unspoken, but clear.

She wanted to say more, it was right there on the tip of her tongue, but then two plates were placed in front of them and she once again gave over to her fear of telling Oliver the truth.

She glanced down at her plate, everything still had a head.
“Cachupa Rica,” Oliver explained, noting Felix's curiously raised eyebrow.  “It's their national dish.”
She prodded it with her fork.  “What is it?”
“Fish stew,” he reached into his plate and tore the head off a small orange fish before he ate the body, plucking out the tail and spine from his mouth a few moments later.  “If you got eels then the chef likes you,” he added with a laugh as Felicity stabbed her fork into the long, slimy creature.
“I think I have two,” she quipped.
“That’s good fortune out here,” Oliver commented.  She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.
“How do you eat this?” 
He nodded at her hands.  “With those to start with.”

●|●

With finished plates, and barely a few scraps of bread left, they sat back, stuffed and happy.
“How was it?” Oliver asked while he absently combed his fingers through his salt-licked hair.
“Delicious,” she exclaimed.  There had been something so freeing about eating with her hands, broth dripping from her fingers, with no care for womanly graces or decency.  She didn’t stop with half a plate to go because her corset made it impossible for her to eat more than a few mouthfuls, or society dictated that a woman ate sparingly to not appear gluttonous, at least an unwed one didn’t.

There was no cordial restraint, no forced pleasantries.  And it did not go unnoticed to Felicity that she ought to have a chaperone in such circumstance.

He'd refilled her ale and told her a few stories of storms and whales as the sun began to set in a sky of brilliant fiery orange and blush pink hues.  He’d asked about her home and she’d told him about the small farm she'd grown up on, changing the story just enough to have her a boy child and to remove the Duke from the equation, both of which she felt guilty about doing, but now wasn’t the time for the truth; no matter how it tore at her.  Back on the ship, when there was nowhere he could leave her (she hoped), she would tell him, only him, and she would pray the man she saw behind pale eyes and bowed lips, would forgive her that one last lie.

As Felicity stood up, she realised the last ale had made her a little drunker than she had planned and she stumbled her first step.  Oliver caught her by the elbow with a peppered laugh.  “You okay there squid?” he asked, but Felicity didn’t hear his words, all she saw was his lips, full, bowed, smirking, and she entirely forgot herself.

She leaned forward, tipping her chin up a fraction as her lips softly parted with a breathy sigh; she paused dangerously close to his lips, and felt a shiver down her spine as his tepid breath melted against her wet lips.

Oliver fought himself, his instincts, his wants, his desires...
He couldn’t.

He shouldn’t.
He can’t.

He stepped back even though the step felt like a chasm of regret, and then he let his hand drop to his side.  “We should get back.”

●|●

The next time Felicity saw Oliver after they returned to the ship,  he had a small knapsack draped over his shoulder and he was leaving.  As her ale-induced fog had begun to clear, Felicity started to realise what she'd done.  Oliver believed her a 17-year-old boy under his ward and she had overstepped boundaries between them with little thought to the consequences.

She had prepared herself to tell him the truth, but that opportunity left with him... into the shallow night.

“Where is he going?” Felicity overheard Roy ask Tommy.
She kept her eyes down, but her ears tuned to them, waiting for the answer.
“Says he has somethings to do, he’ll be back before we leave in two day’s time,” Tommy replied.
Felicity heard the surprise in Roy's response.  “He never stays ashore.”
She glanced discreetly over her shoulder to see Tommy shrugging.  “I know,” he commented and Felicity felt a clenching weight of regret in her stomach.  He’d left because of her. 

●|●

The next two days passed quietly and with little excitement and Felicity kept her head down, helping Bones restock the galley and whatever other tasks he had her doing.  She kept expecting to see the Captain amble onto Verdant with a smile, but that never came.  Not for two full days.

When Oliver did finally return he wore only the smallest of smiles, which he greeted Tommy with.  There were hushed words exchanged before Oliver made his way to the helm.  All the repairs were taken care of, and their voyage began again with a hearty cheer.

Felicity waited below the quarter deck with an anxiously pulled brow until Oliver glanced down, offered her an amicable smile and the smallest of nods.  Felicity took that to mean there was nothing more to be said on the matter, but she still had so much more to say...

|| 30 days at sea

In a stretch of water where the North Atlantic and South Atlantic oceans met, a week out from any nearby ports, and nearly two from any sort of landmass, they were travelling through sweltering heat and a calm, mirrored sea.

Felicity saw little of the Captain, by both choice and arrangement, as she kept herself busy in the galley and he kept himself busy at the helm.  There were a few passing glances, but no idle chatter and no drinks shared between them.  

It was on a particularly scorching day when the call went out from the crow’s nest that there was land approaching, an uninhabited island.  But, Felicity was unaware of it as she barricaded herself in the galley to give her chest some reprieve.

As she unwrapped, a sigh bled from her lips until a ripping sound made her gulp it down.  “Shit,” she gasped as she looked down at the tear down the taut fabric.  It was small, maybe 5 stitches at most, and she could certainly fix it, but she didn’t have the time or assured privacy to do that at that moment.  But, putting it back on could see the tear get worse and possibly irreparable.  She couldn’t take that chance.

Her chest was not ample and after nightly rations Bones would leave her alone till morning.  She would simply need to pass the day unwrapped, which if she was shrouded in baggy clothes, she considered she might just get away with.

She tucked her wrap away under a crate of potatoes and walked quickly to where she stored her gear in a corner of the crew deck, careful not to wake anyone sleeping from the night shift.  Felicity retrieved some extra clothes and took them back to the galley where she quickly covered her body in two shirts and a vest.  The heat was stifling, but she would manage.

Barely a minute later, Bones appeared in the doorway.
“Cap'n wants you on deck,” he grunted, his usual tone.
“Uh, me, or,” she wondered, afraid to breathe too deeply lest it gives her away.
Bones shrugged.
As Felicity was making her way to the main deck she heard the call to drop the anchor.  They were docking, but the last time she’d been above deck, there was no land on the horizon and no scheduled ports for some time.

The cheers Felicity walked into were from exhausted and hot men who'd apparently been given the rest of the day off to spend on a luscious island a short row away.  Only a handful would be allowed to stay and despite her protests, Felicity wasn’t one of them.

●|●

The island itself, Felicity admitted, was quite a beautiful sight to behold.  The beach was sandy and warm and the tall cliffs that surrounded it kept the breeze to merely a gently one that rustled through the tallest palm trees.  A fire pit was set up on the beach and a haul of fish was soon roasting on the flames.  

A few crates of rum had been carried ashore with them and the 100 odd men scattered in a few different directions; some laid out lazily under the shady branches along the beach, while others stuffed themselves with cracked coconuts and foraged fruits.

But most disappeared into the lush bush to where there was a waterfall and lagoon of crisp, fresh water.  While Felicity had elected to stay on the beach, Oliver sought her out regardless.

“Come to the water,” he said with an impish smile she didn't realise he gave only to her.
“I'm fine,” she shrugged him off with her own smile.

“If this is about,” he started but paused, his dimple twitching while he scouted for the words to finish that sentence.
“I’m sorry about that,” Felicity quickly said, keeping her head bowed sheepishly.  “Ale,” she offered as an excuse, albeit not a completely accurate one.

“Nothing to apologise for,” Oliver remarked kindly. “But I think it best you talk with Tommy if you need to, about that sort of thing.”
She squinted and the bridge of her nose creased.  “Tommy?” she asked inquisitively.
“He'll understand better than I would is all I'm saying.”
She didn't understand him at all but her curiosity would have to wait because she was slowly getting swept up in the vortex of his eyes, and what a beautiful place to drown.

“Help me carry that to the lagoon?” he asked as he nodded to two crates that she knew he could easily carry himself.
“Yes Captain,” Felicity answered.
Sure enough, he lifted both crates of rum easily before she took the half-empty one from the top.

The lagoon was a short walk away and Felicity had to appreciate that the breeze was far more cooling and pleasant than the small one on the sheltered beach.

The trees were alive with the sounds of birds and the scenery was vibrant with an entire oil painter's palette of colours.  Felicity was struck by its beauty and bewitched with the idea that in her old life she would have never had the chance to see it.

“It's beautiful,” she hummed.
Oliver set the crates down next to Tommy who appeared to be the only one fully clothed.
“You're not swimming Quartermaster?” Felicity asked as she set down her crate.
“Someone around here needs to maintain order with all these drunkards around,” Tommy teased as he patted the hilt of his sword.

Ever aware that her chest wasn't wrapped flat, Felicity nodded towards a grove of trees and a comfortable-looking rock in the shade beneath them.  “I think I'll sit there and read some.”

Tommy nodded but Oliver didn't.  He pulled off his shirt and his trousers without any thought, and then he was standing in front of Felicity in transparently-thin breeches, the linen practically glued to his sweaty thighs.  She felt the same tingle through her core as she tried to look anywhere but the bulge between his legs or the smooth crease from his hips that led down to it... or the twisty hair that sparsely mapped the way down his tight, carved, and toned chest which glistened with a fine veil of perspiration one could just weave their fingers through... If so inclined.

Which she was.
Terribly, degenerately, scandalously inclined to. 

“Come for a swim,” Oliver encouraged as he pulled his hair back and fastened it near his nape, the movement pulled his chest taut and Felicity's fingers ached to roam it.  But more than that, Oliver's smile was infectious and Felicity felt her hands tremble around the book she'd bought at the last port as though it was the only thing keeping her upright.

“I'll be fine over there,” she replied, his smile making one bloom on her face too.
He tapped her shoulder and she felt a rush that would have come out with a tantric sigh if she hadn’t have stapled her lips closed with her teeth.  “Ah come on squid. Captain's orders,” he jested, in high spirits.
She managed a small shake of her head.  Her body was beginning to betray her, from the hot flush down her chest to the wetness between her legs, she needed to leave.

He shrugged and looked back at Tommy who smirked in response.  It was apparently a code between the two of them that Felicity was wholly unaware of.  The next thing she knew, her feet were off the ground and Oliver was holding her tightly around the waist.

The shriek she let out came a moment too late as he jumped into the frigid water, dunking the galley boy along with him.

Her fear was instant and she did nothing to hide it from her face as both of their heads emerged from the pristine water.

Oliver was laughing as beads of water cascaded down his angled jawline, a few getting trapped in his whiskers.  But Felicity wasn't laughing, in fact when he looked across at the kid, all Oliver saw was an expression of absolute horror.

“Hey it's okay, put your feet down you can stand up,” he soothed, assuming her fear sprung from the water itself.

Her hat floated beside them and Oliver plucked it, drenched and dripping, from the water.  He stood up and the water level dropped to around his navel, but Felix stayed, swamped to the neck, treading water, and pale as anything.

“Hey Squid has long hair,” someone from behind noted with a half-boozed laugh.
Felicity reached up and touched the loose pins on her head before someone else added an opinion, “Kinda looks like a...”

The last word faded and Felicity never heard it as she looked at Oliver and Oliver looked at her.  Regret and sorrow filled her eyes and her lips quivered around a thousand words, but all she could whisper was one.

“Sorry.”

Oliver blinked down at Felix's shaking lips as the word dripped like a breath from between them.  He didn't understand...

There was no way Felicity was getting out of that moment without being found out.  But the only thing on her mind was that it was not how she had planned to tell him.  Not like this.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered again.

Then she stood up.  Her bare feet slipped on the smooth rocks but she kept her footing all the same and as she rose out of the water, everything became abundantly clear.

Oliver saw what she was apologising for.

Felix was a...

“Squid has boobs,” someone exclaimed loudly and not a single pair of eyes were looking elsewhere.

Oliver backed away, confusion and anger fought for control over his expression, but neither won as he watched her apologise again.

“Tommy,” Oliver called out, and he acted instantly to help Felicity out of the water.

“Holy shit, Squid is a woman,” came more voices, aghast.
The air was stiff, as was Oliver's expression.

Tommy drew out his sword and put Felicity behind his back.

“Take her back to the ship, now,” Oliver ordered.
Tommy nodded with his sword drawn.  “Yes Captain.”

Chapter Text

Before they reached the beach, Tommy shucked off his shirt and threw it around Felicity's shoulders.  His face was agitated and he appeared genuinely worried.  Felicity thanked him with a demure smile as the shirt covered at least some of her while the warm air and bright sun set to their task of drying her off.

“I should go back and talk to him,” she absently remarked as she looked back to the vegetation they'd just walked through.
Tommy grabbed her wrist, he was gentle but firm.  “Only place you're going is the rowboat.”  He paused to look through the clearing and roughly take stock of how many crew were enjoying the beach.

“Stay close behind me and don't stop for anything. Understood?” Tommy instructed and Felicity reactively nodded, though she didn't appreciate quite why he was so concerned; she'd sailed with these men for near on a month.  They knew her... well Felix. But, all the same...

Tommy's longer stride was hard to keep up, but Felicity managed.  She didn't know how, but word must have already spread because silence blanketed the beach, the drone of chatter and the strumming lute stopped immediately when they appeared. It was an eerie hush and Felicity felt a hoard of eyes pricking her skin.

Some were surprised, and they wore faces that mimicked the same, but a few were hot, dark, and menacing.  No one moved more than a few inches, but the thick ominous cloud that enveloped the beach was most definitely felt.

Tommy bundled Felicity into the row boat and while she would have offered to row, the taut expression on his face said she best not say a word until he did first.

“What were you thinking?” Were the first sharp words out of the Quartermaster's mouth halfway between the ship and the shore while he pushed the oars through the calm sea.

“I didn't want to swim,” Felicity argued, though his tight lips told her it wasn't just about the lagoon.
“That's not what I mean and you know it,” he answered with a pulled brow.  Felicity got the distinct impression he was trying to scold her.
“I didn't think it would hurt,” she offered softly.  It was hardly the answer it ought be, but Felicity couldn't give him a reason for her rash decision to board Verdant all those days ago in London, because she didn’t have one.  

She watched as Tommy opened his mouth, blew out air, closed his mouth, and then opened it again with mumbled words she didn't  hear.

“I know that I lied, and I'm sorry about that,” she started with her hands on her lap and the gentle rock of the boat making her body sway.  “But nothing has to change, I can still work.”

Tommy scoffed loud enough that Felicity swallowed the rest of her words.  “We can't let that happen,” he rebuked, and while he was speaking for both himself and the Captain, Felicity knew Oliver would likely have said the same.

“Do you know how many men are on the crew?” Tommy asked sharply.
“One-Thirty?” Felicity answered sheepishly.
“Know how many Oliver and I can vouch for?”
She shook her head softly.
“A little over half.  Just enough to stop a mutiny,” Tommy explained as he focused his anger down the oars.
“But I know most of them,” Felicity retorted, folding her arms.
“They knew you as Felix.  A lot of these men are great sailors but terrible people and now that they know you're a...,” he paused as if to assess the situation, “...a woman, you, they,” he shook his head to censor his own words.  “It wouldn't be good.”

They didn't speak the rest of the journey and when Felicity and Tommy boarded Verdant, most of her shirt was dry.  Regardless, Tommy hurried her into Oliver's quarters.

He looked around, in a bit of a state before he backed out the door and looked pointedly at Felicity.  “Stay. Here,” he said stiffly before he closed the door, and locked her in.

●|●

Felicity stood still and silent for a good long while, letting the circumstances wash over her and the reality settle in.  She considered herself reasonably smart, and certainly not naive (despite her somewhat sheltered life) but upon boarding Verdant in London she'd pushed all logic and consequence to the side, and pretended that none of it mattered, or wouldn't matter in this exact eventuality.

But, Tommy was right and, regrettably, Felicity knew it.  The crew, as a whole, would no longer see her as Felix the Galley Boy.  She would not be offered rum or asked to join in on a roaring game of basset.

She was a woman.
A lesser.

With those thoughts boring holes in her mind, Felicity walked slowly around Oliver's quarters.  
Nothing had changed since the last time she had been in there, but she couldn't help but consider they would change considerably once he returned from shore.

She had nothing to hide anymore.

She unpinned the rest of her hair and let it fall damp and wild around her shoulders before she shook her fingers through it.  Next, Felicity took off the shirt Tommy had given her and set it over the back of one of the chairs.

With a tentative touch, Felicity let her fingers glide over the intricately carved chair next to her as she imagined how long each stroke must have taken the carpenter.  She'd never truly appreciated the same at home as she went about her repetitive day.  Her eyes roved around the room much faster than her feet carried her and they soon landed on the desk still papered with maps.

She had only glanced at them before, but with time and solitude now afforded to her, she took a closer look at them.  The maps were hand drawn on parchment paper and not like anything she had seen before.  The ink was old and the paper was browning around the edges and wore creases from being rolled.  But, they were beautiful.  Ports were marked on the map with tiny and intricate sketches, flowers alongside each.  While it was in faded blank ink, Felicity recognised the star shaped flower alongside their last port at Cape Verde, Plumbago.

The coastlines of the map were detailed with cliffs and tides, small islands and currents.  Whoever drew those maps must have also had quite the imagination as mermaids and sea monsters, drawn quite beautifully, peppered parts of the ocean.

The other maps were much the same but contained areas Felicity had only read about in novels or overheard her step father ruing with cigars and esteemed friends; the Caribbean, the Americas and beyond.  She wondered if the skilful artist who inked the maps had seen these most wonderful places for themselves, and she suddenly felt a pull of envy at what such freedom and adventure must have been like.

She longed for that, so much so that her heart ached.  She couldn't explain it but the last month of sailing the majestic blue canvas had felt so unbearably freeing and so deeply natural; like she had been born into the desire.

And she would soon lose all of that.

Her heart sank with the reality, but even more so as she traced the hurt on Oliver's face that was embedded in her memory.

She had lied to him, quite effectively but wholly selfishly, and the guilt of that felt almost irredeemable.

Near where Oliver often sat Felicity saw a tattered leather journal bound with a cord of a coarse looking fibres.  Felicity had not seen a thing like it as it was not smooth or braided like most cords.  But, the cord took second place to the journal with frayed pages and worn creases near the spine.  Her curiosity piqued but, for once, she ignored it.  Something about the journal felt too personal.

Felicity walked to the windows and gazed out of them as her arms banded around her slender waist.  The view was awe inspiring, enchanting, and for longer than she realised, Felicity lost herself in it; the wispy clouds, the high sun, the wide blanket of brilliant blue... everything.

Oliver unlocked the door with a slow, almost silent turn of the lock.  The door however told of his arrival with a sharp creak, but the stranger in his cabin didn't seem to notice; she was caught in the rapture of the view and oblivious to his presence.  

He closed the door and locked it, an act which was more about keeping others out over keeping Felix inside.

Felix, Oliver wondered as he looked across to the curtain of golden hair in wild curls down her slender back.  It occurred to him he didn't even know the kid's name.  Oliver knew nothing about the person standing ahead of him, and it was that fact which worried him the most.

Everything had been a lie.
His worry gave way to a flash of anger and he cleared his throat to announce his presence.

Felicity spun around, suddenly aware that she was no longer alone with her thoughts.

For what felt like drawn minutes, they stood across the room from each other, trapped in an uneasy silence.

It was Felicity who spoke first.  “Oliver, I'm so sorry,” she breathed as she took a few small steps forward, bridging the canyon between them, both literally and whatever else that it was that made the air heavy with unspoken words.
“That's Captain to you,” Oliver replied sharply and Felicity instantly stopped approaching and sunk her chin into her chest.
“Of course,” she spoke softly, regret filling her tone.  She couldn’t be surprised by his tone, her lies were well deserving of the same.  “Captain, I am so sorry,” she said, without a hint of an excuse.  She had none, all she could do was admit her mistakes, though she wouldn't change them.  All said and done, Felicity would have still boarded in London, because it was an ache she had no chance of ignoring.

“What's your name?” Oliver asked bluntly as he took a handful of steps towards the middle of the room, still keeping his distance.
“Felicity,” she answered as she raised her eyes to look at him.

There was no mistaking, Oliver knew those eyes, and yet the person they belonged to didn't exist, not really.  He tapped his fingers absently on the edge of his desk as she stood near the opposite corner.
“Your last name?”
“Smoak,” she answered Oliver with a smile, hapless and whimsical; she hadn't lied about that... well, mostly.

Somerset held too much prominence, and she certainly didn't need that.  She used Smoak often, so it didn't feel like a lie.

Oliver didn't so much as nod.
“Are you seventeen?” Was his next question and it was asked just as dryly as the two questions before.
“No, I'm nineteen, six months shy of twenty Captain.”

“Your parents?”
“My mother and step father live in London.  I do not know my father, nor his whereabouts.”
He tore a hand through his salty locks.  “Do they know you're here?”
“I sent word to them that I am well.”

The room fell into silence until Felicity couldn't stand it a moment longer. “I know I lied to you,” she spoke softly as she closed the gap between them.
“Do you understand what you've done?” Oliver tersely interrupted. “This isn't about you lying to me, this is about what happens now.”

Felicity took another step towards him, hesitant and slow, giving Oliver the chance to halt her with his words or step back, but he did neither, and she stood - as herself - in front of him with a faint and apologetic smile.

Her features suddenly made sense.  The soft bow of her lips that he had so often pulled his eyes away from, the smooth, soft jawline, and the deep, Atlantic-blue eyes that held a thousand expressions.  
Finally allowing himself to see her, Oliver noted just how pretty she was, and how he had rued that notion only a few hours before.

“I know I've put you in a terrible position, but allow me to speak with the crew, explain myself as best I can. I'll work just as hard as I had,” she offered.  Her natural voice was softer, her accent now clearly English, and much like Tommy’s.
His face gave way to an expression, but Felicity couldn't decipher it; perhaps anger, perhaps fright? “Do you understand what they could do to you?” Oliver asked sharply.

While his words formed a question, he didn't give her a chance to answer it.  “A better fate would be to leave you on this island with a pistol, one bullet, and a bottle of rum.”  She drew back a step as he continued without pause.  “You would belong to the biggest, ugliest, fucker out there and he would take every part of you no matter how loudly you begged him not to.”

His harsh words made Felicity embrace herself as she swayed on the balls of her feet.  Before she knew it, the backs of her knees were skimming the edge of his bed.

“You would be nothing to them,” he ended with a gravelled sigh as he moved behind his desk and opened one of the drawers
“And what am I to you?” Felicity asked sadly, unsure if she wanted the answer or not.

Oliver sighed as he pulled out a pair of wrought iron shackles.  Although Felicity had never seen such a thing, she believed she knew what they were.  He walked towards her carrying the same, clunking at his side.  He took her hand and she didn't fight him as the first restraint locked around her wrist.

“What am I to you?” she asked a second time, her voice an intimate whisper as they stood so close that nothing louder was needed.

Oliver twisted the chain of the shackles around the curtain post of his bed.  His silence made a tear spring from her eye and she asked him a third, shaky time, “What am I to you?”

Oliver locked the second restraint onto Felicity's dainty wrist and stepped back.  He kept his emotions secret, buried behind years of practice.

“A liar,” he answered calmly before he turned and walked towards the door.

Felicity shook the restraints loudly as Oliver opened the door.  But he never looked back and the door closed with an empty thud.

It wasn't just his demeanour, or the coolness with which he spoke, that hurt.  But it was those final moments that made Felicity give way of tears.  Deep, regretful, sobs.

Not all for herself.

What she couldn't possibly know was when Oliver closed the door, his body fell limp against it and a deep, aching feeling saw his head drop into his palms.

Not for the lies, not for himself.
But for the worry of how he would keep her safe in a world of 'unsafe'.

That was how Tommy found him some 20 minutes later, with an uneasy look woven into his brow and a tight crease at either edge of his lips, while he paced the small foyer.

“Do we know her name?” Tommy asked with his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder propped up against the wall.

“Felicity,” Oliver grunted without halting his pace.
“Nice name,” Tommy remarked.
Oliver stopped and glared at his friend.
Tommy shrugged. “What? It is.”
Oliver huffed under his breath before he resumed his pacing.

“You're going to make me dizzy,” Tommy chuckled as he watched Oliver turn sharp, focused circles.
Oliver stopped abruptly, his boots scuffing up the dust.  “What was she thinking?” he growled, his hand furiously fisting at his side.
“Did you ask her?”
“I was too busy trying to decide what to do with her.”
“And?”
“Leave her here,” Oliver answered angrily, but there was no real bite to his bark.
“We're not doing that,” Tommy balked with an animated eye roll.
“Well we should!” Oliver huffed stubbornly.
“Okay,” Tommy breathed sardonic, “but we're not. So?”
Oliver returned to his heavy-footed circles while Tommy side stepped him and headed for Oliver's door.

“What are you doing?” Oliver demanded as Tommy threaded his key into the lock.
“Talking to the kid.”
“That's another thing, she's 19.”
Tommy paused with the key still in the lock, furrowed his lips and softly nodded.  “Well that's good for you then.”
Oliver's eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
Tommy brushed him off with a shrug.  “Oh nothing.”

He opened the door and quickly assessed the situation when Oliver followed him in.
“Oliver, did you, do you have her...shackled to your bed?” Tommy gasped.
Oliver shrugged.  “Yes.  So she stays put.”
Tommy ran an agitated hand through the floppy sides of his hair, now loose from his usually perfect ponytail.  “Oliver, you can’t just shackle a young lady to your bed unless she asks you to and she’s into that sort of thing.  Where is the key?”
Oliver reluctantly found the key in his pocket and handed it to Tommy before he braced himself against the wall.

With a sheepish smile Tommy unlocked the shackles, although he noticed Oliver hadn't tightened them as much as he could have and Felicity could have, with a little wiggle, gotten herself out of them if she wished.

She thanked him with a gracious nod and it struck him as strangely familiar yet very different; but he supposed that was normal in the circumstance.

Felicity stood up and smoothed her hands down her clothes.  “Am I a prisoner in these quarters?” she asked softly, her eyes tracking briefly to Tommy before anchoring to Oliver.
“We could lock you below deck if you'd prefer,” Oliver snipped before Tommy looked at him with a stern glare.

“You don't get to talk anymore,” he shot at Oliver before he turned his attention to Felicity.  “I'm sorry, Felicity is it?” She nodded.  “I'm sorry Felicity but right now this is the safest place for you.  Of course you don't need the shackles does she Oliver?” Tommy directed the question sardonically at the Captain who simply shrugged.

There was a knock on the door and both Oliver and Tommy glared at the same.  Oliver, who was closer, opened it, with his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

“Sir, there is a boat waving a white flag pulling alongside the bow, what should we do?” a crewman asked.
He attempted to look over Oliver's shoulder at the 'talk of the ship' but Oliver stood up straight and puffed out his shoulders, making any view of Felicity from the door impossible.
“From where?” Oliver asked brusquely.
“Flying British flag Cap'n.”

“Ready the canons but hold,” Oliver ordered with the pointed decisiveness Felicity had come to both witness and appreciate; provided such decisiveness didn’t land her alone on a deserted island.
The crewman nodded and disappeared to relay the orders.

“I'll see what's going on,” Tommy remarked before Oliver could ask and he left without waiting for an answer.

Felicity was going to say something when a flash of grey caught her eye.  Reactively she squeaked and Oliver squinted to where she was pointing.

“You have a rat,” Felicity grimaced as she watched it skittle under his desk.  Oliver laughed.
“That's Christopher,” he remarked as he walked around to his desk and found a stale cracker in the drawer.  He broke off a bit and left it near where the rat had been.
“You have a pet rat,” Felicity remarked with little surprise. In some ways it seemed fitting.

A smirk lifted one side of Oliver's lips, but before he could reply, there was another knock.

It was Tommy.

“Oliver you better come.”

●|●

The man standing on Oliver's ship was short, with smoothed hair and a neatly pressed uniform.  He was naval, British, and appeared thoroughly perturbed by the no less than three cutlasses pointed towards him.  He cleared his throat and absently pinched the lapels of his cobalt uniform as Oliver approached.

“Are you the Captain of this vessel?” he asked with a rigid smile.  He would be terrible in a Basset game; his face gave away too much.
“Yes,” Oliver answered.  He walked a step too close to be comfortable and the man reactively stepped back.  In Oliver's experience that meant he was harmless, and he nodded to the few men with tentative swords drawn.  They sheathed their weapons and the small crowd that had formed disbanded.  There was nothing worth sticking around to see.
“Captain Richard Carmichael, Royal British Navy,” he introduced himself with his hand extended.
Reluctantly Oliver shook it.  “Oliver,” he said tautly before he nodded to his Quartermaster.  “Tommy.”

“I carry news of a sensitive nature,” Captain Carmichael started, and as he spoke he popped himself up on the toes of his feet as if to give him a little extra height.  It did nothing to match Oliver's tall stature.  “Is there somewhere more private we could talk?”

Oliver considered his request silently, which made the man sway in his polished black boots, before Oliver nodded and led him towards his quarters.  Once inside the foyer, he shut the door and Tommy offered the man a seat.  He took it with little more than a polite nod and Oliver and Tommy sat down on the opposite side of the table.

“I’ve been asked to speak with the Captain alone,” Carmichael started, his eyes wandering towards Tommy who was wearing a grin.
“Tommy stays,” Oliver interrupted brashly.  Carmichael nodded.
“I've been sent by the Duke and Duchess Somerset.” As the primped man spoke, Oliver leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.  He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to know who those titled people were, but his face gave nothing away.

Tommy stiffened beside him, and a quick glance his way suggested that he was familiar with the name.
“You weren't easy to find,” he laughed.  It felt nervous, and the fact neither Tommy or Oliver joined in made it more so.  “We set out only two days after you did, this vessel sure can move.  We were on our way to Georgetown on diplomatic grounds, and fortunate to find you before our paths split.”
Oliver nodded, politely only.  He didn’t trust men in uniforms; it was a product of his youth.

“Anyway,” Carmichael hummed as he reached into his jacket.  He pulled out a sealed letter and laid it carefully on the table.  “I'm carrying this letter for you Captain, which should explain everything.”
He slid the envelope towards Oliver, but once he lifted his hand off the same, Oliver pushed the letter towards Tommy.
“I was under orders that only the Captain read it,” Carmichael announced brusquely.  It appeared he’d reached the end of his rope.
Oliver eyed him down as he continued to slide the letter to Tommy.  Tommy picked it up, opened it, and began reading silently.

He paused midway through; for now he'd read enough.  Tommy leaned close to Oliver and mentioned quietly that the letter was about Felicity.

Oliver acknowledged it with a nod.

“Is that all Mister Carmichael?” Oliver asked as he stood up.
The man fumbled as he too stood.  “Yes, quite.”  He straightened his jacket before he extended his hand.  Tommy shook it first and then Oliver reluctantly followed.

●|●

Once Carmichael was safely on his ship, Oliver and Tommy started back towards the cabin.  But, before they reached it, Oliver stopped Barry who was wandering about the deck.
“You’re the new galley boy,” Oliver said; a short, barked order.
It was near supper time and the last thing Oliver needed was a hungry crew and an agitated cook.
“I’m training to be a gunner,” Barry argued, his mouth staying gaped.
“Now you'll run rations.  Go to the galley and tell Bones.  First portion goes to my quarters, take it right away.”  Oliver left no room for argument as he and Tommy walked away.

Once inside the first room, they sat down at the table and Tommy retrieved the letter from his pocket before he began retelling its contents.

“It’s from the Duke and Duchess of Starling,” Tommy explained, “I don’t know them personally, but the Duke, Fitzwilliam Somerset, is a very wealthy man and a name I’m familiar with.”
“Who are they?” Oliver shrugged, he cared very little for titled aristocracy.
Tommy looked up with a drawn and worried expression.  “Her parents.”
Oliver laughed.  He hadn’t meant to, it had just erupted from his mouth.  It wasn’t that it was particularly funny, but as far as circumstances went, of course the girl he had locked in his room was part of the British Aristocracy.  Not only would he have to ensure amorous sailors kept away from her, he'd likely face some sort of trumped up charge in London about perverting a fine, young woman if she went back with so much as a scratch on her delicate, porcelain skin.

“They say that they understand she may have gained entry aboard the ship under the guise she was a young boy, and that we aren't to blame for her tempestuous nature,” Tommy continued.
Oliver laughed again.  “Well, at least that’s one less thing I have to worry about.”
“They ask that we find her...,”
“Done,” Oliver remarked as he nodded towards his quarters.
“...and that we deliver her to Port Lagos along the African Coast.”
Oliver tore a hand through his hair as there was a rapt on the front door.  Tommy tucked the letter back into his pocket and opened the door to Barry holding a dinner tray.  He looked displeased with his assignment, but simply stated he had the rations Oliver had requested.  Tommy led him to Oliver's quarters and unlocked the door.  “Leave the tray for her, ask if she needs anything, then leave.  Understood?” 
Barry nodded before Tommy let him inside, after which he sat back down at the table with Oliver.
“Why Barry?” Tommy asked.
Oliver looked up and shrugged one shoulder.  “If he tries anything, I’m certain she could take him.”

Tommy nodded, that surprisingly made sense. 

●|●

“Barry,” Felicity breathed with a smile as he walked in and kicked the door closed behind him, but it didn’t quite close all the way.
Her smile soon waned when she saw that Barry wasn’t smiling.  He set the tray down on the small dining table with a thud that almost spilled the plate’s contents.
“I’ve been demoted because you’re a,” he stopped to ruminate what word he ought to use.  “Girl,” he soon settled on.
Felicity stood up with her hands clasped demurely in front of her body; there was in fact some relief not having to fight all the little inclinations years of a governess and finishing school had so loudly drummed into her.  “I’m terribly sorry Barry and I will try to sort this out as soon as I can.”
“It ain’t like you can be back in the kitchen even if he does let you out of ‘ere,” Barry scoffed.
“And why not?” she asked.
He chuckled, although she hadn’t said anything she deemed worthy to warrant it.  “On account of you being a, ya’know.”
“A girl?”
He nodded with a smirk.
Felicity folded her arms and dropped her weight onto one foot.  “I’ve always been a girl Barry and I could do it all just fine beforehand.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but settled for a humph before he brushed her words off with his hand and headed for the door.

But, as he approached, he could hear Tommy and Oliver talking.

“Lagos is two week's sail from here and not any of it on our way,” Oliver grumbled.  He was up and out of his chair, searching for rum.
“We could catch up to the naval man in Georgetown, see if he can take her,” Tommy suggested, despite knowing Oliver’s answer would be no.
“He could be in Georgetown for weeks and she'll be no safer going back with him,” Oliver growled, his eyes only lifting when he found a bottle under his seat.
“Take her to St Helena and tell them to collect her from there?”
Tommy found it amusing to offer all these solutions, knowing full well that Oliver simply needed to grunt and grumble about the absurdity of what they were asking, before he agreed to do exactly that.
Oliver took a swig of rum.  “That’s a fucking terrible idea and you know it.”
“So?”
Oliver leaned one hand on the top of his chair as he used the other to pour liquor into his mouth.
“Does it help that they have assured us of payment for having her arrive safely in Lagos?” Tommy smirked.
Oliver’s eyebrow hiked up towards his hairline as he swallowed down a mouthful of rum.  “You should have started with that,” he quipped.  Tommy simply shrugged, Oliver’s pretence that it would have made any difference was humorous, though Tommy knew better than to suggest such a thing.

“How much?” Oliver asked as he set the almost-empty bottle down on the table.
“Almost double what we earn sailing to India.  Seems they want her back, in one piece,” Tommy answered, the last few words tacked on only for the sharp response Oliver’s face gave him.

Tommy folded his arms on the table as he leaned forward.  “The way I see it, we sail to Lagos, and we make a lot from delivering Felicity.  Throw the crew an extra few coins and they won’t care the voyage has taken a little longer.”

Tommy could tell by the look in his friend’s eyes that Oliver had already made his mind up, and that the show of considering the same with a furrowed brow and pensive lips, was exactly that – a show.

“Where are we taking her in Lagos?” Oliver asked after a few moments of silence.
Port Lagos in Nigeria was another of the Company’s ports, but the commodity they traded in made it a paragon of the divided between rich and poor, and it was not a Port that Oliver found any pleasure in visiting.
Tommy grimaced.  That was a part of the letter he had hoped to avoid for a couple of days at least – gods willing, he’d hoped Oliver wouldn’t ask at all.  But he had, and so he owed him the answer that lay on the note in his hands.  “It says that a Mister Ray Palmer will meet her there, her Fiancé.”

Chapter Text

“Fiancé?” Felicity scoffed after Oliver had presented her with the contents of the letter.  She read the letter, over and over, dreadfully sorry for the anguish she must have put her parents through but thoroughly ropable that the stable boy sold her out, and that she was now apparently engaged!

Oliver was pacing, and although he tried his best to hide it, she could see the anger simmering just below the surface of his demeanour.

“So is that what Verdant was for you? A place to run away from your dreadful step-father and your betrothed?” Oliver remarked, and his tone left no room for confusion; he was still very much sitting at angry.
“I didn’t board this ship because I was running away!” Felicity answered him, the letter still clutched in her hands.  “My step-father is a wonderful man, a kind soul, who very much loves my mother and has always cared for and looked after me, nor did I run away for the sake of a man, who until this very moment I thought in no other terms than a gentleman that might have shown an interest.  Certainly not a Fiancé.”
“Then why?” Oliver badgered, his voice raising to meet hers, “because from where I stand, that is how it looks.”
“You may think me a great many things Captain, but my reasons were my own and do not belong to any man, nor were they done for sympathy or rashly.”  She threw the letter onto Oliver’s desk as she fought with her own emotions.

“They might very well be your own reasons, but given that you have brought me into this by virtue of those reasons, then I think it’s only fair that you share them with me,” Oliver shot back.  Their voices progressively getting louder as the other did, and carrying through the door to Tommy, who was sitting, relaxed with his arms crossed and a smile etched on his face.

She brushed the tears that betrayed her angrily from her cheeks as they stood barely two feet apart.  “I was afraid,” she admitted bitterly.  Before he could question her words, she added softly.  “I was afraid of dying soulless.”

Felicity wrapped her arms around her waist and fell away from Oliver, turning her back as she looked out across the view his windows afforded.  “Do you know what it’s like to need something so bad that not having it feels like your soul is empty?”

Oliver uncrossed his arms as her words floated softly by his ears.

“Do you know what it’s like to fear that the only life you will ever lead will be one that should belong to someone else?” She turned slowly as she spoke and Oliver saw the tears welling in her eyes.  

“You told me that the best a person can hope for is to live a good life.”  Her voice was soft and quiet and as she spoke Oliver curiously felt his own anger beginning to melt away.  “To the outside world I was living, but inside,” she sighed clutching at her chest, “I was simply existing.  But, every moment I stepped on those docks in London and I looked out across the water, for a heartbeat I felt drawn to it.  Nothing about it made sense, but every day that I ignored it, it grew stronger until the ache consumed me.”

Her lips quivered as she spoke, recounting the times she let the ocean air brush against her skin as she imagined any life where it might glide through her fingertips.  It had been overwhelming and desperate; and unable to fight it a moment longer, Felicity had given into it.  It wasn’t something she could explain, but all she knew was that she needed to be on the ocean, just as clearly as she needed to breathe.

“The only time I’ve felt alive, really, truly alive,” she whispered as she walked closer, “was the time that I’ve been here, and if that is all I’m ever to feel, well then,” she took a breath and held it, before she expelled it with a soft sigh.  “It will have all been worth it.”

She stopped an arm’s length away from Oliver, and while her hands ached to brushed down his forearm, she kept it carefully pinned to her side.  “I am sorry for lying to you, but I can’t regret the very best decision I have ever made, and if you asked me if I would do it again,” she paused to glance down at the floor, before she raised her eyes; pristine blue and filled with pure clarity, “I absolutely would.”

Oliver looked away, unwilling to allow himself to be swept up in the eyes that had become so hauntingly familiar to him, and it was then he saw the note where she had left it.

“I’m sure your Fiancé will be glad to have you back,” he said softly.  There was no animosity in his words, though he kept his true feelings hidden.
“He’s not my…,” Felicity started, but Oliver drew back, unwilling to hear it.
He offered her the faintest of smiles before he walked towards the door.  “For what it’s worth,” he started as he stopped in front of it.  He turned his head slowly, twisting his body just enough to see Felicity over his shoulder.  “I know what it’s like to feel the ocean call to you and of feeling like a fraud in any other life you attempt to live.”

With those words, Oliver left.

●|●

Oliver came back later that night when the moon was well and truly high in the star-brushed sky.  They had started sailing again some hours before, and Felicity had watched from Oliver’s windows as the island disappeared from view.  She knew where they were heading, Oliver had sent Tommy to tell her as much, and after a very rudimental study of the maps on Oliver’s desk, together with the knowledge of how long it had taken to sail as far as they had, she made the evaluation that it would take approximately 2 weeks, or 10 days if the wind was in their favour, to reach Port Lagos.

She felt weak at the idea of returning to the same life she had left behind, and with a Fiancé no less, now knowing what the cool, salty breeze felt like on her lips, or knowing the exquisite beauty places like Cape Verde had to offer.  But, at least, she also knew that no amount of needlepoint, or dull Sunday strolls, could ever take the last month away from her.  She would live with her memories for a thousand lifetimes – and never tire of recalling them.

Perhaps, even, fate would be kind to her and on the journey back to London from Lagos, she might be granted a few memories more, sailing on the ocean, albeit in very different circumstances.

When Oliver entered the room, Felicity was still gazing out the back windows, watching the farthest part of the ocean as it disappeared from view, but she heard him enter and she turned to greet him with a smile.

“Have you eaten?” she asked, fixing the food on the tray that Barry had brought in some hours before.  She had lost her appetite, but had carefully covered the food and kept it away from curious Christopher, who, incidentally, had begun to take a liking to her, inching closer each minute she carefully spent coaxing him with dry crackers.
Oliver glanced down at the tray and looked surprised there was still a meal on it.  “That was for you Lady Somerset, or is it Duchess?” he said as he stiffly bowed his head.
“Don’t do that, please,” Felicity replied.  Even to Oliver’s untrained eye, she seemed uncomfortable with her title.
“You don’t enjoy your title?” he asked as he locked the door behind him.
“It says nothing of who I am, and even if it did, I most certainly didn’t earn it,” she replied brusquely.  “Would you have the world know you, only because of where you came from?  The Duke is a kind, good man, who has never treated me ill, but the title is his, and simply being his adopted daughter shouldn’t make it mine.  We are not our parents,” she explained as she turned back towards the ocean view.  “I would much prefer Squid if Felicity is off the table.”

She missed the twitch in Oliver’s expression as her words had spoken to him in ways she couldn’t yet understand.

“All the same, you should eat Felicity.”  As he spoke, he hid the door key behind in an empty cigar case at the bottom of his bookshelf.
She glanced over her shoulder with a small hint of a smile on her pale lips.  “I’m fine, but thank you for your concern Captain.”
He idly rubbed the back of his neck as he walked towards the centre of the room.  “In here you can call me Oliver,” he remarked before he dropped onto his bed and began taking off his boots.
She turned back towards him, her smile doubled.  “Does that mean I might have a chance to be back out there?” Felicity wondered as she nodded towards his door.
He didn’t answer, but his worried brow was enough.
She managed to keep a smile on her lips, “of course,” she said softly, “I understand.”

With his boots at the foot of the bed, Oliver collected a small pillow and a blanket from the shelf above his bed and laid them across his forearms as a knock echoed through the cabin.
“It’s Tommy,” the Quartermaster called through the locked door, before he proceeded to use his key and open it.
“Don’t unlock my door while I’m in the room,” Oliver grunted as he poked a grubby finger into the air.  “That’s our one rule here.”

“Ah good, you’re sleeping on the floor,” Tommy remarked, ignoring Oliver’s scolding.  He had earlier collected Felicity’s belongings from below deck and he placed them on a chair for her.  “Your things Miss,” he said cheerily.
“I’m not sleeping on the floor,” Oliver retorted, “she is.”  He handed the pillow and blanket to Felicity before he lit a small lantern and set to extinguishing the larger one that hung above them.
Tommy’s face was deadpan as he looked between Oliver and Felicity.  “You can’t be serious Oliver,” he finally said as Oliver lowered the strung up oil lantern.

“It’s fine Tommy,” Felicity interjected.  “I’ve been sleeping like that for the last month, a few more weeks won’t make a difference.”
Tommy stared at Oliver who, after extinguishing the larger lantern, finally looked over at his friend, now standing at the very edge of the soft light emanating from the small whale-oil lamp.  He offered Tommy nothing but a faint shrug.
“Unbelievable,” Tommy muttered under his breath as he left the room.  Oliver waited for the sound of the lock before he instinctively lifted his shirt and dropped it over the back of a chair.

The nearby lamp, lit up his muscly back like an oil painting and Felicity found herself studying the same with far more astuteness than she had ever studied any actual oil paintings.  Though she saw remnants of scars long-since healed, his skin was mostly smooth, and she could imagine gliding her fingertips across it, mapping each outline of every muscle, or tracing the edges of the beautifully drawn tattoo that covered half his shoulder.  It appeared to Felicity to be oriental in design, a dragon, but in the dim light she couldn’t make out its detail, and of course she had no idea about its significance.

And that was really none of her business.
“What does it mean?” she asked softly, surprising even herself that her mouth would go ahead and stage a mutiny against her brain – and her better judgement.

Oliver turned, and his eyes conveyed that he was unsure what she meant.  She had almost expected him to throw his shirt back on, either out of the sudden realisation that she shared his room with the young daughter of a Duke, or because she was far more erroneously nosey that she had any place being.

But he didn’t.

He stood there, facing her, his chest a canvas itself as the unsteady light played tricks with the shadows around him, his skin licked with perspiration.  Topless.

“Your tattoo on your back, what does it mean?” she asked.  She had already opened her mouth, she might as well continue.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Oliver remarked before he padded over to his bed.  Even without shoes on, he was a tall man with a commanding presence – at least where Felicity stood.

He nodded to the chair behind his desk.  “That’s probably more comfortable than the floor,” he mumbled.  “If you want to,” he added with an offhanded shrug.
Felicity turned his chair towards the windows, and sat down.  It was quite the view and it would do just fine.  “Thank you,” she said softly as she spread the blanket over her legs and rested the pillow behind her head.

A few moments later, Oliver appeared in front of her holding another chair which he set down in front of her feet.  “You can put your feet up,” he remarked dryly, “if you want to.”
“Thank you Captain,” she paused as she blinked up at him, “Oliver.”
He answered with a low hum before he made his way back to his bed.  A few moments later, the lantern grew dark and the room fell into shadows, but for the white glow of the moon which Felicity’s feet bathed in.

She smiled as she looked out across the calm sea, it was utterly magnificent.

It felt like home.

●|●

Felicity awoke to the sun streaming in through the windows and a slight pain in her neck; but beyond that, she also awoke to a wondrous sight of a pod of dolphins trailing behind Verdant.  Forgetting herself, she leapt up and bounded to the window with an excited peep.  They were jumping through the wake the ship was leaving behind, and based on the ripped waves coming from the stern, Felicity imagined the ship was moving quite fast.

With a smile plastered on her face she spun around to announce to Oliver what she could see, but she found his bed empty.  Her smile dropped a little as she lowered herself to the soles of her feet.  Of course he wasn’t still in bed; she wasn’t sure why she had expected that he would be, or even if he was – why he would care about the pod of dolphins following him.  Oliver had no doubt seen that exact scene a hundred times before.  

Once her excitement had died down, she stretched her body and wandered about the empty room.  She found a covered plate left on the table with no note, but she assumed it had been left for her and she was now feeling the pangs of an empty stomach.  

She settled down at the table and ate.

After only a few bites of the saltine cracker, with a sound that was becoming as familiar to Felicity as her name; the door unlocked and opened.
“Good, you’re eating,” Oliver remarked as he walked in.
“You must have been up early,” Felicity remarked as her eyes drifted back towards the sky; the sun hadn’t been awake that long.
“I don’t sleep all that much,” he answered her softly while he walked over to a large wooden trunk near the end of his bed.  Felicity watched as he pulled up the large brass clip and opened the trunk just enough to look inside.  From the angle and distance Felicity was sitting at, she couldn’t see what the travelling trunk contained, except for what looked like a few folded clothes on the top.  He found what he was looking for easily and closed it with an unexpected thud.

“I have these for you,” he said while he held a folded red gown in his hands.  “Well, not for you,” he corrected and Felicity smiled at his hooked brow.  “I have them.” He patted the top.  “And you can now have them.”

He left them on the table instead of giving them to Felicity, but she quickly brushed the salt from her fingertips and discovered the clothes for herself.

The ‘gown’ was actually a dupatta, an Indian shawl.  It was a delicate shade of red, brocaded with metal wrapped thread in a beautifully intricate design of laced diamonds and squares.  The sheer, almost translucent fabric was silk which glided softly through Felicity’s fingers and make her skin shimmer beneath it.  It was elegant and feminine, enchanting and whimsical, and thoroughly unlike any of the stiff, rigid fabric that filled her closet back home.

But it was one large rectangle of fabric without buttons, ties, or cotton tabs one might pin, and Felicity was unsure how exactly you would go about putting it on.

“The lady that sold this to me insisted that she show me how to put it on,” Oliver smiled, as though he could read her very thoughts.  Which, to some degree he could, she had stopped hiding her expressions from him now, and her confusion was evidently written in the crinkle across her nose.

He pointed to the other items he brought over.  “You put those on first.”

Felicity picked them up and while the fabric was not as beautifully adorned as the shawl itself, it was still soft and airy, and she couldn’t help but wonder to herself just how lovely it would feel against her skin, especially after wearing starched breeches and stiff cotton.

“The women in India don’t wear the…,” he paused as he made a crisscross gesture across his chest with his hands.
“Stays?” Felicity asked.  There was a high chance he didn’t know what they were called, so far Felicity hadn’t seen any like the ones she was forced to don day in and day out back in London.  But, there was also a chance that while he knew what they were called, he was trying to decide how he might speak decently in Felicity’s presence and perhaps talking about her common undergarments was a topic he was thought best to avoid for the most part.
He nodded.
She decided it was the second thing.

“I can wrap myself if my breasts are a problem,” Felicity offered sheepishly. 
“Your breasts are fine, …not fine, I mean, …they, you…can.”  He paused to take a breath.  “You can wear whatever you want.”
The truth was, they were fine – more than fine.  Oliver has seen her breasts, up close and wet, with her shirt glued to their shapely form.  And, while he had been surprised by them, he had also seen enough of them to know that they sat high on her chest and were a nice palm full.  Definitely fine.

“Oh okay,” she agreed as she unravelled the two piece lehenga choli; a long silk skirt and a cropped blouse with capped sleeves and a small ribbon in the centre.  The fabric was layered, making it less translucent, but it was still delightfully light and beguiling.

Felicity paused to look at Oliver just standing in front of her, until the realisation hit them both in equal measure that getting changed meant Felicity would need to get very naked first. 
“Oh, I can, uh, leave,” Oliver stumbled.  He’d never in his life been as flustered as he was at the moment.
Felicity shook her head and her hair bounced jubilantly around her shoulders, catching the fresh light streaming in from the windows and creating a sort of halo effect around her.  “You could just turn around,” she offered with a peeking smile.

Oliver nodded, of course he could.  He turned and kept his eyes downward.  After a few moments, Felicity lifted her ill fitting shirt and lay it carefully across the arm of the chair beside her.  She squinted down at her breasts, joking to herself that it was there fault she was in this mess to begin with.

She slipped the luxuriant blouse over her head and pulled it down to where it naturally sat around the bottom of her ribs.  She almost let out a sigh at just how splendid the handwoven fabric felt around her skin.  She had spent years, pushing and flattening and lifting her chest to get that ‘perfect’ straight back and heaving bosom under her chin, that the rush of something that felt like a gentle hand brushing over her nipples was truly a tantric experience.

“I’m not sure it fits,” she commented as she plucked at the hem of the blouse.  Perhaps it didn’t fit her, given her midriff was on display.

Oliver turned around slowly, giving her a chance to forbid him from looking if she wished.  But she didn’t, and he was soon taking in the sight of her; glistening blonde locks, a tiny but anxious smile on her naked lips, a faint blush down the threads of her throat, her chest wrapped in soft silk he knew the feeling of, and her bare midriff, soft and creamy.

“It was for my sister who is a few years younger than you, but it fits you,” beautifully, Oliver explained.
Felicity fidgeted with the embroidered edge as her nose crinkled.  “If it’s for your sister, you should keep it,” she started, worry haunting her eyes.
“I can get her another one,” Oliver remarked.
“Are you sure?” she asked, nervously encasing her bare skin behind her arms.
“I’m sure,” he promised, and his words soothed her worry.  “Now the lehenga, the skirt,” he continued as he picked it up and handed it to her.

Without prompting, Oliver turned around where he stood and waited.

Felicity peeled off her breeches and kicked them indifferently to the side.  Horrid, itchy, woollen things.  The air passed between her legs and she smiled at the situation she found herself in.  Half naked, in the locked room of a ship, with it’s very handsome and worldly captain, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

It read scandalous and salacious and Felicity could lucidly imagine the fainting spells and audible gasps that would follow if such a story was ever to be told around tea in the garden.  Oh, how her supposed Fiancé would renounce her and demand an end to the engagement!  

Perhaps her mother might send her to a solitary life in the country to save her daughter from the gossip and the judgment that would surely follow such a disgrace.  Felicity chuckled to herself at the absurdity of it, but then her smile shifted, it became uneven and mischievous; perhaps it wasn’t so absurd after all.

Felicity was quite imaginative, and she saw no trouble in weaving a story of lust and pleasure.  Confessions of insatiable debauchery embellished with tales of lost virtue and surrendered bodies, with the only one able to refute it, the handsome and bare-chested Captain, half way to India and not giving her even a second thought.  

Felicity was certain that with her virginity lost on the high seas, no socially-upstanding gentleman such as Mister Palmer, would even court her let alone marry her!  Perhaps, he might even leave her in Lagos, disgusted and appalled by her shameful indecent, and then Felicity could buy her way aboard another ship – honestly that time, and simply disappear.

Disappear.
A sigh drifted from her lips.
What a most wonderful thought that was to have.

She brushed the back of her hand absently down her body, following the curves it took; over her breast, nipped in at her waist, brushed across the small thatch of hair at her mound, before her fingers floated off near her thigh.

A most wonderful thought indeed.

Oliver didn’t mean to look.  He had not made the conscious decision to lift his eyes from the spot on the floor where he’d anchored them, but she had sighed – he soon realised she was blissfully unaware of the sound that had wafted from her lips, but she had, and it had made him raise his eyes.

His back was still to her, but when his eyes lifted he saw a hint of her reflection in the very edge of his mirror.  He hadn’t realised that before, or she had slowly drifted into view, but either way, he saw her.  All of her.  He saw her legs, shapely and bare.  He saw where her stomach dipped in and curved to her mound, which wore a playful brush of dark blonde hair.  And, he saw the way her hand drifted down her body, teasing and tempting his eyes and making his blood stampede south.

Holy shit.  He wanted to have her over his desk, kiss every inch of her body, make his room fill with the unashamed sounds of her pleasure.  He’d taste every inch of her until she came undone at least twice, and then, still warm with her climax, she would beg him inside her.  He would edge his thrumming cock slowly inside her and catch any of her gasps with a embolden kiss.  He’d hold himself back at first, fill her slowly and watching her back arch as her body stretched around him.

He’d relish every inch inside her warm and soft body, and when he was fully seated in her, he’d nest a while, and let the tiny tremors her body would make ripple down his shaft.

He would make her feel absolute pleasure, just to selfishly hear her whimper his name as another orgasm washed over her.

He would…

“Is this right?” Felicity asked, and her voice rudely catapulted Oliver back to reality.

Reality; she was not his, nor ever would be.
He was angry at himself.
Angry at every tormenting thought that bounced around his mind.
Angry at a man he’d never met; at parents she said were kind.
Angry at her.  No; angry at himself.  Not at her.

Oliver turned around, his smile deflated and his brow once again stoic.  Both of which Felicity noted straight away.

“That’s perfect,” he said quietly before the last remnants of his smile vanished.

She took a few steps forward and the full skirt that stopped just above her ankles swished against her bare legs, both playfully and sensually, as her fingertips ruffled through the soft pleats.  “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn,” she smiled widely, perhaps making up for his banished one.
“For a Lady of London? I doubt it,” Oliver quipped.  The entire outfit for Thea had likely costs what Felicity spent on an umbrella for sunny afternoon strolls, there was no match.
“Perhaps those clothes never felt like these do,” she whispered as she stopped a foot from him.
She swished the skirt against Oliver’s hand which hung at his side, brushing the gauzy fabric against his knuckles.

“I should go,” Oliver remarked as he drew away from her.
He tapped the edge of his desk, and pushed his fantasies away.
She was not his.

Oliver left without another word and Felicity was left holding the dupatta strangled in her hands.

●|●

After that morning, Oliver kept away from his quarters as much as he could.  Tommy would check in on Felicity, and Barry would reluctantly bring her rations, but Oliver never came.  Or, when he did, it was simply to collect something from his room and leave again.

He took a pillow and a blanket and offered her the bed.  When she asked where he might be sleeping, Oliver simply suggested that he’d found somewhere.  Felicity wiled away the hours watching the weather change, or the wind shift, or thumbing through the books that sat, unread and dusty, on Oliver’s shelf, too distracted she was to actually retain a single word she read though.

Two days passed like that, and as though mimicking the sombre mood that had befallen Felicity, the clouds darkened and the sea became rough.  The wind shifted constantly and steered them in the wrong direction with each change.  There was little to be done but drop many of the sails and inch through the ocean.

The slow progress was making some of the men restless and agitated, but the promise of extra coins – though there was no discussion over where the money would come from – did keep much of the murmuring to a minimum.

For two lonely days, Felicity felt more trapped than she had ever felt before, because she knew how much larger the world was now, and with every passing hour she drew closer to losing that world.

Sometime on the third day, when the sun had disappeared below the horizon and the moon was lost in a cloudy sky, while the rain battered the window panes like tiny bullets, Oliver appeared.

Felicity was in bed, but not asleep, and she had taken to leaving a lantern burning near the door in case Oliver ever returned, but he hadn’t carried it with him.  In fact, he’s not said a single word as he walked through the dimly lit bedroom.  

She sat up in his bed and peeked through the drawn curtains to see him searching for something in the shadows of the room.  She slipped out from under the blanket and quietly her feet landed on the floor.  She was only wearing a shirt, so she stole the blanket from his bed and wrapped it gingerly around her waist.

“Is everything alright?” she asked.  By the jolt she saw him make, he’d clearly been surprised to hear her voice.
“I thought you were asleep, please go back to bed.”  His words sounded tense and rigid, as if they were filtered through clenched teeth.  She assumed he was still mad at her.
He huffed into the shadows, crouched in front of the bookcase but clearly not finding whatever it was he was looking for.  Refusing to listen to his suggestion, Felicity went and fetched the lantern.  
“Use the light,” she said tersely as she carried it over to him.

It was then she saw the state he was in.  He was drenched, head to toe, and he wore his shirt twisted around his left hand.  His face was fiery but not from anger, he appeared to be in pain.

She set the lantern down as her eyes fussed over him.  “What happened?” she asked.  Her concern was unmistakable.
“It’s nothing,” he sighed, but she could tell by the tense threads of his throat that he was lying.
She brushed off his foolish denial and unwrapped the sodden shirt from his hand.  Surprisingly, Oliver didn’t fight her.  She spread his palm opened and his wound became apparent, Oliver’s hand was raw with rope burns that had brutally torn the skin.

“See, nothing,” he smiled as he sat down on the floor with a breathless laugh. 
“I thought you hated liars,” Felicity answered, smirking.
He chuckled as he slapped a short floorboard beside him and it shook loose from the floor.  With his uninjured hand, Oliver lifted the floorboard free and pulled out a bottle of moonshine.

He was thoroughly full of surprises.

Chapter Text

In 1644 the Scottish Parliament imposed an Excise Tax on distilled spirits.  The hefty tax of 13p on a third of a gallon didn’t go down too well, and this led to a rise in illicit distillation of clean, aged whisky and the world’s first bootleggers.

To avoid the tax many distilleries operated late at night, and there was coined the term “moonshine”.  A term which, up until that moment, Felicity had never – not even the once – heard of.

But, she was unsurprised to learn that Oliver was, along with his signed for wares and trades, carrying at least five crates of the smuggled alcohol, as apparently there was quite a thirst for it for those settlers who called the Cape of Good Hope home, and they would pay a hefty price for it.

By the time Oliver had finished his story as to the history of moonshine (a story which Felicity listened dutifully to, mostly due to the fact that any conversation where he wasn’t immediately angry at her, was a very welcomed change), a quarter of the bottle was gone; shared between his mouth and (painfully) over the wound on his hand.  A ‘one for me, one for the wound’ type situation Felicity didn’t fully understand.

However, he was relaxed (in other words tipsy) enough to let Felicity attempt to clean his hand, which she did so sitting on the floor in front of him with a wash bowl of water and a few strips of clean(ish) cloth.  It hardly seemed sanitary, but he refused to let her go down to the kitchen to boil some water and he was far too addled and the night was far too raging, for him to do it either.

With the bottle to his lips, Felicity gently dabbed the wet strip of cloth across his palm, slowly wiping away the blood and dirt that stained his hand.  She had to hold his hand close to her eyes as she struggled to see clear enough with only the small lantern for company.

“I’m sorry if this hurts,” Felicity remarked as she tendered to him far more carefully than he expected.  After all, he’d kept her locked and alone in his quarters for four days.  He was certain given that, that he didn’t deserve such a careful hand.
“I’ve had worse,” he bemoaned before he chugged back a mouthful of the potent liquor.
She looked up at him with taut eyebrows and he half expected her to scold him, perhaps a part of him might have even enjoyed that bickering.  But, she didn’t.

“Well,” she said with a beautifully drawn accent, “why don’t you tell me about them to distract you?”
He grimaced when she took the bottle from his hand and wet another cloth.  “Like that one?” she asked as she hovered the whisky-soaked cloth above his hand.

Oliver looked to where her eyes were pointing, and found the scar on his chest; it puckered the skin from near his armpit down towards the centre of his chest.  It was a wound he remembered well enough, but the recount of it didn’t distract him enough that he didn’t wince when Felicity pressed the alcohol into his skin.

He did, however, manage to groan behind a tightly locked jaw.

When he didn’t immediately offer Felicity an answer, she assumed that he remained tight-lipped about everything and she lowered her eyes to continue her task in silence.

It was then he surprised her with an answer.
“It was a knife,” Oliver remarked, perhaps because a part of him wanted her to look at him again; to feel her eyes lingering on his body – maybe that would be enough to sate the feelings swelling in his chest.
“And did the man who gave it to you come out of it worse off?” Felicity asked with a slight smirk lifting up the corner of her lips.
Oliver couldn’t help but smile too.  “Well, you can’t ask him I’m afraid.”
Felicity’s eyes widened dramatically.  “You killed him?”
She hadn’t expected the calloused laugh with which Oliver responded.
“Sadly no, son of a bitch sleeps next door now,” Oliver chortled, especially pleased with himself over the horrified face Felicity had pulled, “I just meant because he hates being woken up.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed before she blew a section of hair back from her face that had fallen forward, a necessary action as both of her hands were used in tending to the Captain’s hand.  Oliver reacted on instinct when he set the bottle of whisky down and tucked the stray hair back behind her ear.

He pulled his hand away before anything more could be said and, looking for something to quickly lift them from the silence that had fallen between them, Oliver pointed to a misshapen circular scar on the left side of his abdomen. 

“That one was a musket,” he casually remarked, feeling the ridges of the scarred skin with his thumb.
“I didn’t know you were in the forces,” Felicity commented, once again pinning her eyes to his hand, fully aware that she had probably stared at his chest for longer than any lady ought, and it was beginning to become deviant.

But when he shook his head and laughed, the movement alone was enough to drag her eyes back up; where she wanted them and where he might have too.
“Running from them,” Oliver quipped.
She looked at him with a warmly engaging smile, refusing to answer him right away, and Oliver’s attention hung on her every breath.

“Well then,” she remarked softly as her eyes travelled down and Oliver lamented their loss, “it’s a good thing whoever wielded the musket was a terrible shot.”

She set back to her task and the air around them became stagnant and suffocating in its silence.  Oliver took another drink, but it wasn’t enough to settle him and he started speaking again in the hopes that her eyes might wander back up to his.

And they did.

“The tattoo on my back is a Chinese dragon, I got it a few years back,” Oliver spoke as Felicity listened.
“And what does it mean?” she questioned astutely. 
“Dragons are believed to be the rulers of moving water and the weather, given I don’t want either of those things to kill me, I figured a little homage to the dragon gods couldn’t hurt,” Oliver replied as his free hand combed through his messy and damp locks.
“Their gods are dragons?” Felicity asked inquisitively.  The most she knew about a god was preached from a pulpit on a stifling afternoon in a crowded and stuffy church while she sat on a heinously uncomfortable wooden pew.  It went along the lines of every sin is counted and every person is a sinner, so the depths of your everlasting servitude was already written from the day you were born and carried with you until you died.

It had never inspired her to believe in such a deity, or at least not with the same devotion one apparently ought.

“Some of them see it like that,” Oliver explained, drawn to the whimsy on her face.  “The world is full of other gods, and religions, and people just wanting to believe in something.  In India they build temples and shrines to their colourful gods and they’re some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”

Felicity smiled through the tears that were welling up in her eyes.  Oh, how she would have loved to see them too.

“I’m sorry, I just…” Oliver started as he saw a glassy tear glistening in the corner of Felicity’s eye and caught in the light from the lantern.
She shook it away as nonsense and pushed a smile back onto her lips.  “No need to apologise, perhaps I will still see it one day.”
“Perhaps your Mister Palmer will take you,” Oliver said softly and without malice.
Felicity nodded.  “Perhaps.”  Although she knew as an almost certainty that he would not. 

Felicity finished cleaning Oliver’s hand before he pointed to what it was that he’d been searching for in the dark when she’d found him.  She touched a finger to the lid of the glass jar and Oliver nodded softly.  There was a label, but the language was unknown to Felicity.  The contents looked like melted candle wax, but when she opened the lid a wonderful cacophony of scents spiralled through her nostrils. 

Curiously, she pressed a finger into a tawny coloured balm and was surprised to find it soft and luxuriant to the touch, far more decadent than the finest creams and salves that lined her vanity back home.
“I can,” Oliver started, but she batted his hand away with a cascading laugh.  
“I’ve already done this much, just stop fussing about it,” she scolded him playfully.
Scooping a little on her middle finger, Felicity coated the edges of the wounds and gently dabbed a little salve nearer to the middle.  She could feel each wince he made, but he made no sound; not even the smallest of peeps.
“Do you have something to wrap it with?” she enquired and Oliver nodded to a small wooden box that the balm had sat alongside.  She opened it and found a long enough cotton dressing and a pin.  She wrapped his hand with the pin in her mouth and while she might not have been any sort of nurse, wrapping and pinning was something she was accustomed to, and she fitted it so snuggly to his hand and pinned it so precisely that she was quite pleased with herself when she was done.

“Thank you,” he said quietly and Felicity put her hand to her ear and laughed.
“I might need you to say that a little louder,” she teased.
Oliver relented with a smile.  “Thank you,” he said again, a little louder.

“Permit me to walk just a little while on deck?” she asked, her tone and her small smile, ever hopeful.  “I’ve begun talking to Christopher,” she added with a subdued laugh.
“That’s okay, the problem is only when you think he starts talking back,” Oliver remarked.  
He wouldn’t say it, but she was safer in there.  It was not well hidden that the men murmured about a girl aboard the ship.  There were a few that saw no issue with it, the Cook and Jones were two who continued to speak highly of her, irrespective of her falsehood.  But, there were pockets aboard that thought women on ships brought bad luck and the string of poor weather had only validated them.  That said nothing of the few who, given the chance, could hurt her for their own dark pleasure – and Oliver couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to her, not just on account of the payday that they were heading towards.

Felicity nodded slightly, it had been worth a shot, but his refusal (without actually refusing her outright) had not come as a surprise.
So, instead, she stuck out her hand and he glanced down at it confused.  “Do you want me to shake your hand?” he asked, perplexed.  London ladies sure were strange.  
“No silly,” she laughed, and Oliver couldn’t help but tip his lips into a smile which he tried to hide.  “I should like some of that drink.”
Oliver laughed, almost too wildly at such a suggestion.  “This is, no, not for you,” he remarked gingerly.
As Felicity sat opposite Oliver on the floor, neither of them taking the opportunity to move to any of the few seats around them, she crossed her arms over her chest with a dissatisfied huff.  “And why not?” she queried, somewhat brashly; the Governess would be appalled.
“This, is not for a Duchess,” he remarked, the alcohol starting to have an effect on the fringes of his words, slurring them ever so slightly.

She squinted before she moved much faster than he anticipated, and snatched the bottle from his grip.  Before he could warn her again of its potency, Felicity tipped the bottle back and filled her mouth with the distilled malt.

The first drip Felicity swallowed felt like fire down the back of her throat.  She might have screamed if it wasn’t for the fact she still had a mouthful of the liquor and she was almost certain her voice had disappeared into the inferno that was currently engulfing her throat.  She had no choice but to swallow the rest and she did so with Oliver smirking through the dim light at her.

“What is that?” she spat as her tongue hung numb from her mouth and she gulped at the dry air hoping it would somehow quell the sensations.
“Scottish Whisky,” Oliver answered with a chuckle.  “Also known as moonshine, and I did warn you.”
“Is it poison?” she quipped as she sucked on her hand.
“No,” Oliver replied before he shrugged, “mostly no.”
“Jesus Fuck,” she muttered, her eyes widening when she saw Oliver’s expression.

But she couldn’t exactly take it back…
“Is that any way a lady should be talking?” he jested, with feigned shock lifting a brow skyward.
“I wasn’t always a lady you know,” Felicity remarked, “and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve being doing a lot of things lately that a lady of London probably wouldn’t do.  I should think a cuss word would hardly surprise you.”

Oliver retrieved the bottle from her hand.
“Really, like what?” he ribbed before he took a purposefully slow drink.
Felicity’s lips furrowed as she tried to come up with something that would wipe the smirk off the Captain’s stupidly handsome face.  Her first attempt was woefully lacklustre, “I’ve moved fish.”
“Ohh,” he remarked dramatically, “You rebel.  I can just imagine the scandal.”
She punched his arm, barely enough that he could feel it, yet he faked injury to amuse her, and Felicity couldn’t help but notice how warm his skin was, despite the fact he was still damp as a result of the wild weather. 

“I’ve seen a least a dozen naked men,” Felicity added judiciously, a proud little glint in her eyes when she saw Oliver flinch.  “Don’t worry Captain, I didn’t see all of yours,” she added with a grin before she stole the bottle back while he was distracted.
“You haven’t seen…” He paused to eye her down as she took a sip, with a knowing, albeit secretive, smile still on her lips.
He shook his head, she hadn’t seen him.
“It was mostly covered, although I should say you might want to pick up some fresh breeches on your journey,” she teased him, her voice humming, which simply added to the worry that was tangled across his face.
“The ones you have are very thin and you do sweat an awful lot.”
The second sip Felicity took didn’t seem to burn too much as she had quickly learned not to fill her mouth with the biting liquor. 

Oliver shook off his worry and laughed, somewhat forced, before he took the bottle back and swigged it heartily.  “Well,” he sighed as the bottle lifted from his lips, “I’ve seen a lot of genitalia too.”
“That hardly counts!” Felicity exclaimed as the warmth of the whisky settled in her stomach.
He answered back almost immediately.  “It counted for you!”
“But for you,” she started while she pointed a slightly wonky finger at him, “it’s hardly surprising.  You’ve probably seen more breasts than I could imagine.  A whole barrage of breasts even.”
She took the bottle without the slightest resistance from Oliver, and sucked back a full swallow.
“I bet you’ve seen all sorts of breasts, from the nimble to the endowed, all different shapes and sizes, and no doubt you’ve also seen a fair few…,” she paused as she pointed her eyes downward.  “What might you call that Captain?” she asked quizzically.

It occurred to Felicity that in polite society they never spoke of it, let alone gave it a name, and now she simply had to know.
“What do you call it?” Oliver laughed after taking a drink; noting that the bottle was over half finished.
“I’ve never called it anything?” Felicity commented, her eyes wide but her brow crinkled.  “I suppose I’ve heard it called a lady’s delicate.”
She put a finger to her lips and considered it; there wasn’t really much ever said about that which sat between the legs of a woman, which in itself was quite the travesty and if she would have a say on the matter far more would be said about it.  They would write books upon books, and scholars would teach the beauty of the thing that was so widely seen as dirty.
Oliver’s smile softened, “I suppose it ought to be called that,” he answered, a tiny laugh escaping from his squirming lips.
She squinted tightly at him; she didn’t believe him in the slightest.  “That isn’t what you call it, and I know it!”

As she took another drink, Oliver – half-lucidly – decided it was best to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“I’ve stolen a boat before,” Oliver admitted with a lopsided grin before he stole the bottle back.
That did enough to make Felicity forget about the other matter; at least for the moment.
“A row boat?” she teased with her eyes playfully rolling back.
“Nope,” Oliver answered with a pop before he gulped a mouthful.  “About half the size of this one,” he said with a demonstrable nod while he sized up the cabin against his recollection.

“Although,” he started with a hum before he relinquished the bottle to Felicity, “it wasn’t technically stealing.”
She looked over the mouth of the bottle and Oliver could see her smiling through the glass.  “Oh, it wasn’t, was it?”
Oliver laughed as he took the bottle from her hands before she had a chance to take a drink.  There was less than a third left and even Oliver was starting to feel its effects.
“I won it fair in a card game, but the old codger refused to honour the wager, so I took it,” Oliver recounted.  He’d been all of 18 and the drunk sea captain who’d owned the vessel was without crew or destination, leaving the Brigantine easy pickings.
“Then what happened?” Felicity asked with a small gasp she hadn’t meant to expel.
“Piece of shit sunk before I was a mile out to sea.”
“You sunk it?!” Felicity exclaimed 
Oliver pouted.  “I did no such thing,” he argued obstinately.  “It had more holes than Bones’ pants.”
Felicity laughed exuberantly.  “That’s an awful lot of holes.”
“Tell me about it,” he bemoaned before a smile lifted his lips.

Felicity flexed her fingers to take the bottle from Oliver, but he taunted her with the same before she exclaimed something she’d forgotten.  “I kissed a girl!”
As soon as the words exploded from her mouth Felicity’s eyes widened and she repeated the exclamation softly under her breath.  “I kissed a girl.”
“You kissed a girl!” Oliver remarked, choking back the last dregs of his mouthful.  He’d forgotten that.
Without another word he handed her the bottle.
“Imagine,” she started cheerily as she brought the bottle up to her lips.  “Who would have thought my first kiss would be a girl.”  She took a slow drink, and it barely bit her throat. 
“That was your first kiss?” Oliver commented.  He hadn’t meant to sound so surprised, but he was... after all she was stunning, funny, smart, adventurous... and engaged.  Had her Mister Palmer never found himself unable to resist her lips if they were willing to receive a kiss?
Did such a man exist? 

Felicity felt the clammy warmth of a blush across her cheeks; she was embarrassed.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she fretted as she absently patted her cheeks.  It was clear the moonshine was making it impossible for her to hold her tongue and maintain decorum befitting a lady.  “I’m embarrassed now,” she hummed, cheeks stained red and her teeth clipping the edge of her pink lips.
“Don’t be,” Oliver urged.  It wasn’t Felicity’s fault her Mister Palmer was clearly an idiot...

“I mean you almost kissed me as Felix, so I don’t know if that counts,” she added with a nervous laugh.
Oliver’s back straightened.  “You almost kissed me,” he corrected tenaciously. 
Felicity took a second drink before Oliver took the bottle back.  “Why did you tell me to speak to Tommy?”  It was something she had wondered, but not had the gall to asked; moonshine it appeared was her gall.
“I thought maybe you liked both,” Oliver said with a lopsided shrug.
An eyebrow raised. “Both you and Tommy?” 
“No, both girls and boys.”
Felicity’s brow wrinkled as she tried to understand what he meant.  Then it hit her suddenly.  “Because Tommy likes both?”
Oliver said nothing, but his eyes confirmed she was right.

“Well, that makes a lot of sense,” Felicity remarked with a diminutive nod.
Oliver’s attention piqued, “Is does?”
With a finger poised near her lips, Felicity answered him softly, “Why limit yourself to just one person to kiss, until you find the person who you’ll want to spend the rest of your life kissing?”
Oliver sucked back a drink, if only to tear his eyes away from Felicity for a moment. “You kiss one girl and you’re an expert on kissing?” he teased playfully, and Felicity took it with a gentle laugh.
“Well I assume boys kiss differently to girls and people should appreciate both.”
“Why do you assume that?”
He lowered the bottle of moonshine to the floor and there it stayed, between them.
“You have different lips,” Felicity remarked with a smile that looked coy and knowing.

“Enlighten me,” Oliver commented, his lips also forming around an impish smile.
Felicity brushed her thumb across her own lips.  “Girls' lips are soft and gentle,” her eyes closed, a splay of black lashes catching the fronds of orange light.  “Delicate,” she added, barely a whisper.

The cool air whipped down her throat still coated in warmth from the moonshine as she opened her mouth and breathed in, shaky and unsure, before she moved her thumb from her own lips to Oliver's, peeking between her lidded eyes.
Her hand was quivering by the time her thumb brushed against his bottom lip, but he didn’t retreat from her, and her eyes fluttered open.  “Men’s lips are brasher, rougher, perhaps a little more forceful,” she breathed as her thumb swept from one edge of his lip to the other.  It was soft, perhaps a little sun-dried at the fringes, and small bristles of hair grazed her skin as it fell over the edge of his lip.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Oliver spoke quietly, his lips moving slowly behind her thumb.
She felt her breath stall in her throat as she inched closer. 
“Maybe both.”  The words came out whispered and shaky and she wasn’t sure he had even heard her, until he inched his body closer too.  “It should seem quite sensible that I should find out if my conclusion is the correct one,” she hummed, her voice thin and fraying, afraid that anything louder might shatter the fragile moment.
“That seems very sensible,” Oliver remarked, his voice also almost lost to the sound of the rain pelting against the window panes.

Oliver took her hand carefully from his face and entwined her fingers with his.  She could hear her heart thumping like a stampede behind her chest as she bridged the rest of the space between them.  They were so close that their knees touched and their hands lay, folded together, on her lap. 

Warm air, tinged with the remnants of moonshine, swirled between them with each impossibly slow breath they took.

“I enjoy being sensible sometimes,” Felicity sighed, her breath brushing across his lips.  “When it is for science and theory of course, I’m quite fond of both of those topics,” she added, her cheeks red and flaming hot below her skin.
Oliver said nothing, but his lips kept an engaging smile and his eyes never turned away.

“I’m talking too much aren’t I?” she fretted before she swallowed a lump in her throat.  Her eyes lifted to dive into his once more.  “I’ve been told that I talk too much for a lady.”
“Who would tell you such a thing?” Oliver sighed and she could feel his thumb smooth over the backs of her knuckles.
“My governess for one, she said a lady should speak less, in case her husband tires of her voice too earlier in the marriage,” Felicity remarked verbatim. 
“She was wrong.”  His words were strong even though his voice was low and hushed.  Felicity had never known a voice to make her body quiver, but his did, and she caught herself breathing unevenly in response.

“About your conclusion,” Oliver said, his words warming her lips blissfully.
“The one about how men and women kiss?”
“That’s it.”
Oliver took her face gently between his palms, they swallowed her face and the tips of his fingers brushed into her hair while his thumbs stroked the apples of her cheeks.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
Her eyes lulled closed, “For science and theory,” she sighed.

Oliver kissed her slow and soft.  There was no speed, no rush, just warmth and a delicateness that Felicity melted into as her hand rested on his chest.  As the kiss deepened her fingers curled into his warm, damp skin and she slowly lifted her body to her knees.

His uninjured hand fell like a feather down her cheek, her throat, over the thin fabric of her nightshirt.  Then she whispered his name, soft and fragile, muted against his lips. 

Faint, breathy, “Oliver.”
Painfully Oliver drew his hand back and then his lips.

He hated every inch of space he put between them, but he had no choice.  She was not for this world, for this life.  He wouldn’t hurt her, he would not ruin her; no matter how much he might have wished to.

When he looked at her, her eyes were wide and hopeful and her lips were wet from his.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, it was a mistake,” he said bitterly, and each word tasted like poison.  “Thank you for this,” he added quietly as he pointed down to his bandaged hand.   

He stood up to take his leave before Felicity understood what was happening.
“Goodnight Miss Felicity,” he said from near the door.
She offered him a faint smile, she understood.  Oliver might have appeared to the world as uncouth and without law, but he was bound by his own sense of duty.  To him, she was to be married to another, and he would not willingly offer her up to a life of scandal because of his own lust.

She could not hate such a man.  “Goodnight Oliver,” she breathed, but he was already gone.

She touched her lips gently.
Her hypothesis was right
They were very different.

●|●

Three days soon turned into four, then five and Oliver kept his unmistakable distance.  In turn, Felicity had gone through every emotion as the sun set on the fifth day; anger, tired, sadness, frustration... they had each had their turn, and at moments even more than one at a time.

In fact, at that moment Felicity was furiously frustrated.  She felt trapped and suffocated, and the more she paced the edges of the room which had become her prison, the more she realised she couldn’t take it a moment longer.

He'd been kind enough to have someone bring her some warm water and a bar of soap, but even feeling somewhat clean hadn't helped the itching below her skin.  Every sound outside the door had made her hopeful, but when it wasn’t him, she grew more distressed until she could think of nothing else.

It had just been a kiss, a small, fragile kiss.  Granted it had been only her second, but it had not warranted the Captain to take his leave and not return.  It was far more chaste than she had every intention of ‘confessing’ to when her feet were on dry land and Verdant had sailed off out of sight.

Felicity brushed her thumb across her lip, absently mapping where his lips had been, as she paused beside his desk and looked out across the high moon and the reflections it teased on the calm ocean.  A small knock pulled her attention and despite knowing it would only let her down, her hopes rose that it might be him...Oliver.

“Come in,” she remarked as she tucked her arms into her sides and plucked at the soft fabric of her skirt in anticipation.  The weather had grown a little colder and Felicity had draped the shawl over her shoulders in an effort to keep warm. 

When the door opened, her heart sank.
It was Tommy, carrying a blanket and wearing an apologetic smile.
“Miss Smoak, Captain thought you might need an extra blanket,” he remarked as he walked in and set the blanket down on Oliver’s desk.

The fact he had thought to consider her warmth and yet not come himself to see her for days, had a surprising effect on Felicity's mood and her anger turned to utter, absolute rage.
“Where is he?!” she demanded, her arms reactively folding across her chest and her striking eyes burning into the Quartermaster.
Tommy met her mood with an awkward and pacifying laugh.  “He’s ah, something came, uh, he’s….” His lips folded in on each other when he had nothing else to offer.

She straightened her back and huffed loudly.  “Well I demand to see him,” she said as sternly as she could.
Tommy continued to smile.  “Demand?” He was amused by her stance, it was no wonder Oliver didn’t know what to do with her.
She nodded decisively.  “Tell him to come to his room and talk to me or I’ll,” Felicity paused to look around.  “Oh, I’ll rip his books!” They were the first things that her eyes landed on, and while she wasn’t at all okay with that idea given her adoration of the written word, she needed Oliver to know she was serious in her threat.
Tommy’s smirk grew.  “I don’t think he’ll really care about those.”
“Fine,” she ruminated, “his maps then!”
Before Tommy could say anything, Felicity also added another threat, “Or I’ll break his windows.”  And, she wasn’t done quite yet, “I’ll go through his stuff, all of it.  I'll find his moonshine and I’ll tip it out. I’ll smash everything!”
She took a deep, unsteady breath as she tried to keep her composure.
“Alright,” Tommy answered calmly, still smiling.  “I’ll let him know.”

“Thank you,” she peeped.
Tommy bowed.  “You’re welcome.”

●|●

Felicity wasn’t sure exactly how long she spent sitting on Oliver’s desk contemplating, rather ridiculously, what she would have to start breaking first, before she heard him outside the door.

Oliver didn’t knock, and the sound of his keys in the door was rougher than what she had become accustomed to with Tommy.  She found herself holding her breath as her red top slipped down one shoulder, and the shawl that she wore dropped down her back, staying twisted around her elbows, but exposing the taut skin and shallow dips of her clavicle.

He walked in and closed the door loudly behind him.  “I see you haven’t started destroying things,” he remarked dryly as his eyes walked around the room.
Felicity pulled a bottle out from behind her back.  She had found another of the Captain's short plank stowaways and she was holding the bottle precariously over the edge of his desk with only two fingers.
“I thought I’d wait for an audience,” she quipped.
Oliver took three strides towards her, but he still felt a world away.
“That bottle is worth a lot of money,” he said through gritted teeth.
Felicity cocked her head to one side and smiled.  “I hope you have excellent reflexes then.”
The bottle swayed in her fingers before Oliver lunged forward and grabbed it.  He set it down angrily on his desk next to Felicity’s thigh before his eyes walked up her body; her bare midriff, her slender arm, exposed shoulder, ivory chest... all cast in teasing amber light and the glow of the moon behind her.

There was no doubt the shadows were playing tricks on Felicity's eyes, but as they danced through Oliver's eyes she saw a darkness drawing her in and her body shivered under its intensity.
His fingertips moved waywardly across her knee as Oliver drew dangerously close to her, forgetting everything he'd spent the last few days reminding himself.  Absently he licked his lips as his eyes focused on hers, full, pouted, and moist.

As he anchored his palms flat on his desk, either side of her thighs, his thumbs grazed her skirt and he felt her body quake at their touch.  His face stood barely a hand span from hers, and as they breathed their warm breaths circled and melted together in short and shallow drips.

She took the back of his neck with one hand and pulled his lips down onto her with a fierceness that Oliver didn’t even try to resist.  Her kiss was frantic and their lips mashed together in an explosion of breaths and tongues.  It was dark and desperate and so very deviously different from the innocence of their first kiss.

Her legs wove around the backs of his thighs, holding him closer and driving the kiss deeper while her free hand tore at his shirt before it blindly tugged it from his trousers and slipped underneath the loose cotton.  She hummed against his mouth as her fingertips discovered the ripples of his firm chest, while his tongue twisted around hers and he gently sucked her into his warm mouth.

After skating her fingers down the deep, carved crevice at his hip, Felicity lingered along the edge of his waistband before her hand tentatively dipped under it.  Oliver growled into the kiss while his thighs tightened and his cock began to throb in anticipation.  But, as her fingers slid towards his rear, Felicity found what she was looking for.

She pulled the blade from where Oliver kept it, and pressed it against his throat as her tongue teased the seam of his lips one final time.

“Let me out of this room,” she whispered against his lips before she pulled back.
She had expected surprise, anger, annoyance... but then her eyes fluttered open and she was met with a lopsided smile.

Felicity’s hand was shaking, despite her best efforts, but she kept it to his throat rigidly with her lips taut and expressionless.
“Let me out of this room,” she repeated, but unable to hide the quiver in her voice.
Still, Oliver continued to smile, his eyes half lidded and his lips wet.  He pushed himself against the blade until the sharpened edge of it pinched his skin.  He could feel her shaking, and he could taste her shaky breath on the tepid air.  “Do it,” he remarked coyly and without blinking.

“Let me out of here,” Felicity urged, holding her ground even though her heart was racing and her mind was addled.
“No,” he answered before he pushed harder against the knife and it began to ache in her hand.  A thin line of red marked his skin and Felicity shuddered to catch her breath.  His hand twisted around her wrist and without much, the knife fell from her grip.

But, before it hit the floor, Oliver’s mouth was on hers, lips crushing in on each other like waves pounding at a fractured rock.  Still holding her wrist, Oliver pushed her back and she went easily while her grip on his neck pulled him down too.  He nailed her wrist above her head as his lips left her mouth and pressed hot kisses into the threads of her neck.

Breathless she keened into him with a muted moan as her back arched off the planked desk and pressed her nipples, tight and budded up near his mouth.  He sucked one roughly before lapping at it over the gauzy fabric that covered it.

His name fell whimpered from her lips, begging him deeper and enchanting him with its softness.  Her hard nipples grazed his tongue and he could feel the heat pulsing off her body as she writhed beneath him.  

Every kiss he placed on her delicate skin she reacted too, and every place his fingers touched felt like a most beautiful torture, making Felicity ache with unsated need that tore through her body.  She felt faint, her breath hitched in her throat, while his hands were exploring her body and his lips marking her throat.

But, just as suddenly as her body had become captured by him, he released her, drawing his lips slowly from her pulse point before his hands too fell away.

“Don’t pull a knife on someone unless you’re prepared to use it,” he hummed as he bent down to collect it.
Felicity sat upright, her eyes wide and curious, her hair tangled around her face, and her breathing short and ragged.  She opened her mouth to speak, but all she was capable of was a soft hum.

“You should put a coat on,” he remarked as he plucked the edge of her fallen sleeve and carried it back up to her shoulder.  “It's cold outside.”

Chapter Text

Felicity stood on the edge of the top deck, facing the ocean behind them, while the wind swept her hair across her face and lifted her skirt like a scarlet flag.  She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there, but she prayed to herself that morning might stall so that she could spend as much time there as her legs could hold her up for.  Her eyes were closed and her breathing deep enough to taste the salt on her tongue.

She could sense Oliver’s presence behind her, but he kept his distance, sitting on the floor with the starry ceiling above them, as he wrote something in his small leather-bound journal she assumed.

“How do you ever go back?” she wondered aloud as her fingertips splayed to touch the wind as it passed by her.
Oliver looked up from his task, watching Felicity with a smile as she got impossibly close to the edge and her legs pushed against the railing.  “I don’t,” he remarked with a casual shrug that was lost on her.

As she turned around the wind whipped up her hair again and held it across her face like a mask that framed her eyes.  “You don’t?” she asked softly as she wrapped one arm around her waist, hugging his oversized jacket tightly to her frame.  The other arm she left at her side, keeping her skirt flat to the knee.

He folded the thin stick of willow charcoal he was holding into the book before he closed it.  “Land has never really suited me.”
“Where do you call home?” she asked as she held back her hair, which left her skirt to fly freely behind her.  It raised up to her thighs, the filmy fabric giving the wind no fight.  She ought to have stopped it, but in truth, Felicity didn’t want to and there was something both utterly deviant about the gusty air passing between her legs, and terribly daring because she hoped Oliver noticed.

He did.
It was hard not to.
He was sitting below her, albeit a few feet away.  
Her skirt was billowing behind her barely unfettered and her milky skin seemed to glisten in the moonlight, giving an illusion of satiny wetness.  All but the very tops of her thighs were revealed to him; of course he noticed.

All the same, he dragged his eyes away and fixed them at a chipped post on the railing across from where he sat.
“You’re sleeping in it,” he remarked dryly, but his smile gave him away.
“But you have a sister?” Felicity commented, her body swaying with the chilly air that filled their sails.  “She must live somewhere.”
Oliver glanced back, stealing a view of her to satisfy his eyes.  “She does.”

Felicity laughed the most enchanting and beautiful laugh Oliver had ever heard before she sat down beside him, with her legs tucked under her body.  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re quite the conversationalist?” Felicity teased as she smoothed out the wrinkles in the skirt he’d given her.

Oliver watched as her nimble fingertips moved across the silk, his own fingers aching with the memory of that feeling.  He was of no doubt that she was watching him watch her, but neither of them would admit to it, keeping their knowledge hidden behind coy smiles.

“No,” Oliver said while he shrugged, “no one has ever told me that.”
“Hmm,” she hummed, so close to his ear that the faint hairs on his neck lifted attentively.  “I can’t imagine why.”

A solace of silence fell between them, and neither tried to fight it for a good while, letting it blanket them in a peaceful calm.

“But,” Felicity finally spoke, ending the silence.  Not that Oliver minded.  “We should talk about what happened…,” he looked at her and she blinked down before finishing her sentence, “…before.”
“You mean when you threatened me?” Oliver answered with a smirk.  “That’d see most thrown overboard.”
“Granted,” she soothed, “but I actually meant what happened after that.”
She could feel the hot blush igniting in her cheeks, but thanks to the frigid air and the ebony night, she hoped Oliver wouldn’t notice such a thing.  “You kissed me,” she said softly.

When he looked at her she thought he might deny it, laugh off her words with a smile, and she would let him.  But, he didn’t.
“I did,” he answered, both his tone and his face were thoroughly unreadable and Felicity nipped her lip in frustration.
“That’s the second time,” she whispered before she soothed her tongue across the place she’d bitten.  “The first time you said it was a mistake.”

Her hands were scolding, her cheeks boiling, and her lips dry from each shaking breath; but there was still more to be said.  More that needed to be said.
“You didn’t say that the second time.”
“Because it wasn’t,” he admitted.
She swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Unless you want me to say it was,” he added.
She shook her head softly; she didn’t.
He plucked her bottom lip free from her teeth with his thumb and patted it tenderly.  “I kissed you because I wanted to, and I think you wanted that too,” he started.  His eyes locked to hers, neither daring to look away.
“I did,” she mouthed, the sound of the words lost to a gust of wind.
“So we both got what we wanted.”
She hung on to every raspy word that came from his mouth, and while not a single part of their bodies were touching, she felt warmth from his gaze and took comfort in his closeness.

“But,” Oliver started and their eye contact was lost, “that doesn’t mean it can happen again.”
She nodded, timid and unsure.  “Because…” she breathed, hoping he would finish her sentence with an answer she didn’t know.
“Because you and I have different lives which will take us down different paths.  You aren’t safe in my world and I don’t belong in yours.  I’m taking you to Port Lagos because it’s the right thing to do, you know it as well as I do Felicity.”

Her smile was fragile and faint, but she offered it to him all the same.
He was right.

She brushed back a tear before it slipped down her cheek; she hated that he was right.
“I won’t kiss you again,” he whispered as his arm wrapped around her shoulders, “and if you ask me to leave you alone for the rest of the journey, you’ll have my word that I will.”
Her head leaned against the front of his shoulder.  “I don’t wish that,” she whispered, barely above the sound of his heartbeat echoing in her ear.
“Would it be okay if we stayed like this a little?” she asked as her body pressed against his.
He lifted the jacket higher up her shoulder to keep her warm. “Of course,” he whispered into her head.

There was nothing to be said about it, and neither of them did, but that night Felicity slept under the covers of Oliver’s bed, and he slept on top of them; sharing the same space.  It was innocent and chaste, his hands staying by his side and hers curled under the small pillow, and it was without awkwardness or regret.

It was perfect in every way but one; it couldn’t last.

●|●

The next morning came with echoing knock on the door and the sun piercing the gap in the velvet bed curtains where Felicity hadn’t pulled them closed properly.  In her state of sleepy stupor, Felicity imagined it was Oliver on the other side of the door with breakfast.

She wet her lips.  “Come in,” she groaned, cursing at the fact he didn’t seem to appreciate a good old fashioned sleep in.

The door unlocked and began to open as something stirred behind Felicity.  It was only then that the reality of the situation slapped her awake, that wasn’t Oliver coming in... because Oliver was still asleep beside her.  The strangled sound she made in her throat must have been enough to startle Oliver awake and it took him only seconds to assess the situation; he was shirtless in bed with the engaged daughter of a Duke, even if nothing had happened – which, aside from the heated moment on his desk, nothing had – he knew enough of society to know how it would look.

But, even launching himself over Felicity and out of the bed in a few seconds wasn’t enough, and when he looked up from the floor, Tommy was wearing quite an amused expression.

“Found what I was looking for,” he remarked with lips he couldn’t keep straight.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Oliver stammered as he fisted his eyes and looked back at Felicity.  Her hair was a mess, her shirt had fallen down her shoulders, she was wide-eyed with his blanket clutched to her chest, and as for Oliver, he was shirtless and had just launched himself out of bed... he could understand the smirk his Quartermaster was giving him.

“I’ll give you a few minutes to uh, finish up,” Tommy said with a lopsided shrug.
Oliver clambered to his feet.  “No need, I’m ready,” he grunted as he reached for his shoes
“I’ll be right outside,” Tommy remarked before he pulled the door shut.

“Do you think he thinks...,” Felicity wondered, her words fading off.  Not that it mattered, Oliver knew what she was asking.
“Don’t worry, I’ll set him straight,” Oliver promised as he roughly pulled on each boot.
“Because nothing...,” she trailed off again.
“Nothing happened,” Oliver finished.
She nodded with her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her blur eyes blown wide.

“Well,” she hummed, “except for what happened there.”  She was pointing at Oliver’s desk with a smile that turned her lips up higher at one side.
Oliver’s lips folded into a smile.  “Except for that.”
“Which can’t happen again.” There was a question in her tone, echoed by a raised brow.
“That’s what we agreed.”
She nodded.  “Of course.”

Oliver collected his shirt as they shared silent smiles that resonated into their eyes.
“It's still not safe for you outside, some of the men...,” Oliver apologised with a waning smile.
She reached out for his hand and brushed her fingers over his knuckles.  “I understand,” she forgave.
But, Oliver offered something else.  “But tonight?”
Her smile beamed. “Please don’t be playing a cruel joke on me Captain.”
He shook his head.  “When the moon is at its highest, I’ll come collect you.”
She nodded as he buttoned his shirt and fixed his hair with a comb through of his fingers.  “Just no knives this time,” he teased while he tucked the shirt half into his pants.
“Yes Captain.”

●|●

“Don’t smile,” Oliver grunted as he met Tommy outside his door.
Tommy folded his lips together in a very weak attempt to hide his smile.  “I’m not smiling, are you smiling Captain?” he answered him, grinning stupidly.
Oliver pointed brashly towards Tommy’s mouth.  “You’re smiling.  Stupidly.”
“This is just my face,” Tommy apologised, stifling the laugh that was bubbling up his throat; but only momentarily, and it came out the instant Oliver huffed angrily.

“It’s not what you think.  The bed is plenty big enough for two people, that’s all,” Oliver grunted.
“Makes perfect sense,” Tommy chatted, every word tinged with a chuckle.

Oliver waved Tommy away with a frustrated huff as he headed towards the main door.
“But, as your friend,” Tommy started, catching Oliver’s arm at the elbow.  “What are you doing?”
Oliver turned around slowly and sighed.  “Nothing.  Nothing happened.”
“She’s engaged,” Tommy reminded his friend, with his smile fading.
“I know that, to her Mister Palmer,” Oliver retorted between gritted teeth.  Stupid Mister Palmer who hasn’t even kissed his Fiancée.
“Women in her position,” Tommy started delicately, but Oliver stopped him with a nod.
“I know Tommy.  Nothing happened and nor will it.”

And that was that.
It had to be.  

●|●

It was early afternoon and Felicity couldn’t settle her topsy-turvy stomach, and nor could she wish away the afternoon to bring the night; but she tried all the same.

The night prior had been a symphony of emotions and feelings, and while it had felt utterly exhausting – it had also made her feel ridiculously alive.  She had expressed herself in ways society would have frowned upon and she tasted the freedom such expression could offer.

She knew their destination was still set, and she could not be angry at Oliver’s dutifulness.  The truth was, she understood it.  Perhaps, even agreed with it.  This was her mess to sort out, and she would.

However, she could also still enjoy herself in the meantime.

Anxious to make the day go a little faster, Felicity began tidying and organising any surface she could.  She cleaned up Oliver’s desk, neatly setting out the maps in a careful pile, arranging the books by height, and using an old cloth to dust around and behind some of small trinkets.

Sadly that only took her about an hour, even with making the bed twice.  She wandered over to the lattice windows and began cleaning them as best as she could, and, rather surprisingly, she found the one on either end, opened.  Not wide, though she supposed a man or woman could fit through them if they sorely needed to, but having them open did lift the stale air and her heart swooned with the delicate salt caught on a light breeze.

If only she had known that they opened sooner, she might not have gone so crazy.

She fed Christopher some of her breakfast and she read a book she had already finished cover to cover, before she rearranged the books a second time, from smallest to largest, to see if it made any difference to the overall look of the bookcase – it did not.

However, while she was over by the door, she stumbled back, tripping on her own bare feet, and knocked the door handle.  To her surprise, the door opened a crack – it was unlocked.  Her eyes widened as she held it open just a crack and pondered what that could mean.  Had Oliver just been so flustered that morning after Tommy walked in on them in bed together, that he’d simply forgotten, or had he decided to trust her enough to not have her locked in his bedroom like a prisoner?

Felicity would have liked to have believed it was the latter, but in all likelihood it was probably the former.  She opened the door enough to look out through the crack; there was no one around in the small foyer that connected Oliver and Tommy’s respective rooms, but there was an awful lot of mess.

She squinted at the empty bottles and the books left off the shelf; and that was just what she could see through the slither of an opening.  Perhaps, she figured, she could just tidy up a little, or maybe see if there was something else to read.

After which she would return to her cabin dutifully, and await the Captain’s promise.  She would hardly do anything to jeopardize the little freedom he’d promise to extend to her.

She took tentative steps out into the foyer, watching the far door with every step she took.  She was certain the door out onto the quarter deck was locked, so there was some security in that.  All the same, she watched it closely, half expecting the door to swing open and for Oliver to be looking down at her most disappointed.

She moved reasonably quickly, tidying up a few of the bottles to put them neatly in a nearby empty crate and then she dusted off the books that were strewn about the place – clearly no one was in the middle of reading the same, and she nestled them neatly back into the bookcase.  He would know she had been there, of that much she was certain, but perhaps then realising that she had caused absolutely no trouble while technically roaming between the two rooms, Oliver might extend her confines a little wider.  

It was while she was clearing away the dirty dishes that had piled up in one corner, that Felicity noticed the only book clear from a layer of dust.  It was a ledger of some sort, large – the size of two books – and bound with a leather spine you could undo to add or remove pages at your will.  She often wondered how boats travelling the distance Verdant did kept sharp and accurate recordings of their wares, and it became apparent from simply looking at the book, that it contained Verdant’s manifest and property logs.

She was far more educated than most might have given her credit for and she was also well aware that Oliver travelling off his path towards Port Lagos would eat into their profits, so, she thought for a minute that perhaps her smarts could be of some use.  Reading the books two fold in Oliver’s cabin had made her rather learned on the shipments that the trading ports sold and bought and there would be no harm in seeing if she could find a way which would make a few extra coins for all of the trouble she had caused – irrespective of the large sum her parents would be paying.

She sat down and cracked the book open.  The penmanship of the notes was remarkably clean and oddly familiar.  It took Felicity a minute or so to recount where she had seen such wonderfully cursive letters; it had been the letter to Mr Diggle.

Odd, given she was certain the records were kept by Tommy.
Had Oliver dictated the letter the to Mr Diggle while Tommy had written it?
Granted, this would not have been unusual in the upper society Felicity was familiar with; her stepfather barely wrote any of his own letters that were not in themselves inherently personal.  But, the Captain didn’t seem the type to dictate a letter, and Tommy hardly seemed the type to dutifully write it out.

It was innately curious.  But, Felicity put it to one side as she set her thoughts back to the ledger.  In was somewhere in the count of what stocks they had, that she had a most brilliant idea.  She tore a blank piece of paper from the front of Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane a French book published a few years earlier that she was most certain Oliver would have no interest in reading, and began scribbling out a few notes.

Her list became quite long, four pages in fact (torn dedication pages from a couple of unread books), front and back, with a few tactical ideas to save both space and money, and to maximise the potential of what their sea voyage could make.  She was biting her thumb nail as Oliver walked in.  The surprise on his face at finding her sitting in the foyer was unmissable and she quickly stood to apologise.

But, before Felicity could, Oliver’s eyes tracked around the room and Tommy walked in behind him.
“Holy shit, I’ve never seen this room this clean,” Tommy laughed as he slapped Oliver’s shoulder and made his way towards his room.

Both Felicity and Oliver stood in a sort of awkward balance between silence and having the words sitting on the tips of their tongues.  They both listened to Tommy thump around in his room before he reappeared with a heavier coat for the evening.
“It was a good idea letting her out this far, she can clean my room next if she fancies,” he laughed as he gave Felicity a wink.
“I’d be happy to Mr Merlyn,” Felicity answered softly and with a brief curtsey.
Tommy left again soon after and the room fell into silence.

“You left the…” Felicity started as she nodded her head back towards his cabin door.
“Yeah, I figured,” Oliver shrugged before he ran a comb of fingers through his hair.
“I just, I thought.” Felicity let out a sigh when her words didn’t come easy and, defeated, she bit the edge of her bottom lip.
“It’s fine Felicity, you can be out here,” Oliver remarked and Felicity’s response was a blissful sigh.
“Thank you Captain,” she started before she tapped a finger to her lips.  “Out here is it Captain or is it Oliver?”
“It’s whatever you want,” he enthused, his normally straight lips pulling into a smile he, for once, didn’t try to hide.
“Oh,” Felicity laughed, “if it is to be whatever I want, then I shall call you Captain Frowns A Lot.”
She hadn’t expected him to laugh, so when he did it made her smile beam.  “Made you laugh,” she said softly as she plucked at her shirt.
“If you tell anyone I’ll have to throw you overboard,” he declared teasingly.
Felicity stuck out her hand.  “Deal.”  
Oliver shook it.

“What have you been doing?” Oliver asked, as he looked at the papers Felicity had written on.
“I have some ideas, I hope you don’t mind,” she fretted as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  It was then that Oliver noticed she had twisted her hair up and secured it with a quill, the feather sitting quite proudly at her crown.
“Ideas on what?” he asked.
She pushed them towards him and smiled, waiting eagerly for him to read them.
“Why don’t you just tell me your ideas?” Oliver encouraged as he tussled a hand through his salt-licked locks.
“I think if you just start here,” she leaned over and pointed halfway down the page, “all that above is just my workings.”
Oliver edged away from the table in search of a drink.  “You know Tommy does all of that,” he remarked as he opened a fresh bottle of rum.
“I know,” Felicity bobbed her head in agreement.  “I suppose I was just hoping you could read my notes, to see if I make any sense whatsoever before I speak with him.”
“It’s really just best you speak with him first,” Oliver commented.

She felt him put distance between them and her heart grew heavy.  The feeling was not new to her; she had attempted to speak with her step father’s accountant about a few investments the Duke had along the countryside and Felicity’s ideas of ways to bring more income to them without taxing the life out of those that lived nearby.  In fact, she had spent weeks checking her facts and running the numbers, and she had read every book any old boring banker had put out.  Granted, her ideas were new, but the Duke had more than enough capital behind him and she was simply asking for an opinion on the ideas.

The accountant, a dreary man a foot shorter than herself with pinched eyes and a rotund stomach, had looked at her with such a level of disdain before he had told her dryly that her future husband would no doubt tire of her insolent talking.

She had been 15, and nowhere near a marrying age.  And yet, all her cleverness and all her work was of no value – because all she was ever destined to be was the pretty wife of a well-to-doer.

While she never saw any of the same disdain in Oliver’s expression, the feeling was just as discouraging.  Back then, she had accepted the man’s critiques, albeit wholly unfair ones, and she had simply thrown her ideas in the trash.  But a few years on, and a lifetime of growth, saw Felicity unwilling to be so quietly content with rejection that time.

“Is it simply that you don’t trust me because of my untruth to you, or is it that you do not value my opinion because I am a woman?” she asked bluntly.
She watched as Oliver shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and he wouldn’t meet her eye.

Her stance softened and she sighed.  “Please Oliver, just tell me the truth so that I can make my peace with it.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said wearily before he looked up, “or because you are the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met.”
She felt herself drawn to him, and before she realised it, she had walked across the room to stand in front of him, his height towering about hers.

“Then what is it?” she whispered, her hands aching to touch him, but staying pinned to her side.
“It’s not that I don’t want to read your notes Felicity,” he sighed as he set the bottle, untouched, down.  “It’s that I can’t.”

Her brow pinched as she considered whether or not his words were genuine for only half a moment before she saw the look in his eyes; he wasn’t lying.

“You can’t read?” she asked softly.
“Point me to the stars and I know them like my own hands.  I can read their maps and I can follow their paths, but words,” he hung his head and it slowly swayed.  “Where I grew up, there wasn’t much use for them.  I’m sorry if you thought me a smart man, but I am not.”
Her back straightened and her arms folded instinctively across her chest.  “Smarts should only ever be judged in the context with which they are used.  A man could read a thousand books, consider himself smart and still walk off the end of a pier if he’s not watching his step.  I have seen you read the clouds and save the life of every man, and woman, aboard this ship.  I’ve heard you speak in dialects I couldn’t even think to know, and know more about this world than I ever will.  That is a lot smarter than most.” 

“Do you think so?” he chuckled.
She nodded decisively.  “I most certainly do.  Does that mean you don’t write either?” she asked.
“No, Tommy does that for me, I’m afraid if I tried it would be quite the unreadable mess, even for someone as smart as you.”
Her nose crinkled and he knew another question sat poised on her lips.  “Ask it,” he smiled.
“What is it that you write in your journal then?” she wondered aloud.
Oliver walked into his room without saying anything, retrieved his journal, and walked back to the foyer with it.  He opened to a page nearly halfway through and turned it towards her.

On the page was the most beautiful drawing of a mermaid, sitting upon a rock looking out across a moonlit ocean, her light hair caught in the wind, brushing across her face and far off look in her eyes, and perhaps she was smiling, but it was slight, hidden, secret   She was enchantingly beautiful and exquisitely drawn.

“You drew this?” she whispered, delicately touching the strokes of the charcoal.  She looked up in surprise with her eyes blown wide.  “The maps, you drew them too didn’t you?”

Oliver smiled as he nodded.  “Passes the time,” he remarked with a lopsided shrug.
Speechless, Felicity looked between Oliver and the drawing he held out to her.  “You are a most surprising man,” she breathed.

He closed the book and tucked it into the back of his pants.
“Would you like to learn to read Oliver?” she asked inquisitively.
“Maybe,” Oliver shrugged.  “Tommy tried once, but we always ended up drinking too much for either of us to have it make sense.”
“Well, a very smart man once told me that an astute person finds what they can bargain their skills for,” she started as she raised up absently to her tip toes.  “I should love for you to teach me the stars before I disembark at Port Lagos, in payment of that I will teach you to read.”

She swayed on the balls of her feet while Oliver considered her request with a pensive smile.  And then, he stuck his hand out in the small space between them.  
“You have yourself a deal Duchess,” he said with a wink.
“Excellent news Captain Frowns a Lot.”

A/N: No update next week so I can focus on The Line... get excited please😂

Chapter Text

Felicity’s idea had been a clever one, one that involved selling all the perishable items they had aboard, namely the woollen stocks, and taking on the nose the massive loss in profit that would result from doing it.  However, by then filling the hold with goods from Port Lagos to sell the same at the Cape of Good Hope, they would more than make up for that loss, and such a stake would also allow them to make a profit from carting wares on the short-haul journey from the Cape to India.  This would be profitable for perishable items, as not many took such a voyage in the time Oliver had allotted – due in part, Felicity was aware, because the route Oliver took (and consequently saved time by doing so) was through what was known as the Pirate’s Run.

Most ships stayed well clear of it, but in doing so those ships could not cart the perishable items for that short voyage, so the payment was a high one for those that could.  By Felicity’s calculation these small adjustments would make the entire journey a far more profitable one than any they’d taken previously, resulting in a happier crew.

Tommy had listened, checked her notes and calculations, and then wholeheartedly agreed without even a flinch of disbelief that a woman could come up with such a plan.  In fact, he was glad to have someone else that thought about the economical side of what was, in fact, their livelihood.

Oliver sailed because he loved it; but there were still crew to be paid and a book to balance.  Felicity’s input was most welcomed to the Quartermaster; something Felicity had never experienced before.

As promised, after nightly rations and once most of the crew had retired for the night, Oliver let Felicity out onto the top deck with the pigeons.  She lapped it up just as much as she had the night before, although the moon was a little greyer and the sky a little more cloudier, it was still a most beautiful sight to behold.

Felicity was sitting with her legs either side of a balustrade while her feet dangled over the side of the ship.  She was nowhere near to touching the waves lapping at Verdant’s hull, even as it pushed through the deep, seemingly bottomless, ocean; but as she watched over the edge with nothing but air between her toes and the water beneath, it sure looked to her as if she was gliding across the tops of the rugged ocean-scape, free and in high spirits.

Oliver was sitting alongside her, with his back propped up against the same banister and his sketch pad balanced on his knees as he drew.

“What inspires you, your drawings?” she asked absently as her eyes lay hung on the moon.
“The stories I was told as a child mostly,” Oliver remarked with a far off smile in his eyes.  His mother had loved to tell stories, and he had gobbled them up eagerly; but hers weren’t the only stories he had been told, and while many served as warnings to those that dared to take on the sea, he’d always found magic and beauty in them.

“Your mermaid was beautiful, but perhaps she looked a little sad?” Felicity wondered, her voice trailing off with a sigh.
Oliver turned to the page where he had drawn her.
“Some sailors fear mermaids,” he remarked as he set about finishing the shadowing on the rock where she perched.
“How come?” Felicity asked softly.
“It’s said that the voice of a siren can make a man crazy, have him walking his own plank, because he’s so mesmerised by her song.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Perhaps they’re only protecting themselves,” he mused.
Her lips folded together; she was thinking considerably.  “These legends of the sea, have you ever seen one?”
Oliver laughed softly.  “They’re not real Felicity,” he teased.
“And yet, you give her such attention, and such beauty that she seems so very real,” Felicity whispered as her finger brushed the page like the kiss of a feather.

He didn’t know why she couldn’t see it.  The face he had drawn was her own.  Each stroke of the pencil had captured a beauty that was sitting right beside him.  A beauty that had small threads of sadness as she looked out to a world that was not hers to touch.  It was the same veiled sadness that Felicity had worn the night before, the same fear that she would die soulless, in a life that did not feel like her own.

A curious smile on her rosy lips made the silence between them beautiful as it drifted up into her ruddy cheeks and caught the reflection of the high moon.  “Do the stars have names?” Felicity asked as she stood up and her shoulders involuntarily shuddered in a chilly breeze.  She had changed topics so freely and he wasn’t one to argue.

Oliver folded his willow bark pencil into his book and set it down near the blanket and pillows they had brought up with them.  He shook out the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders like a woollen cloak.  “Some of them do,” he said softly as he stood behind her.  She could feel him standing there, even without looking she knew he was close, and half a step backwards brought her back to his chest.  He sighed and the warmth of his breath bled across her cheek.
“Does that one?” she asked as she pointed towards a brilliantly bright one while her head rested against the front of his shoulder.
He laughed, soft and playful.  “Not that I’m aware of.”
“But” he started softly before he paused to move her hand towards a bright star in the distance.  “That one is Sirius, but we call it the Dog Star.”
He kept his fingers curled around her wrist and Felicity let out a faint sigh.  “Why do you call it that?” she spoke softly, relishing in the warmth of their bodies pressed together.
“Do you see the stars below it, one, two, three,” he counted out softly as he moved her hand just a fraction down.”  She nodded and he continued, “that’s the back and tail of the dog.”  She squinted as she tried to see what he was showing her.
“Tilt your head a little to the side.”  As he spoke he nudged her head a little with his cheek and she tipped it towards one shoulder.  “The star down there is his back leg, his stomach, and his front leg.”
As he spoke the image grew in her head and she could see the figure in the night sky.  “The three above Sirius are the dog’s head and ear.”

“I can see it,” she breathed with an excited tremor.
The corner of his lips brushed her cheek as he smiled and the moment was undeniably perfect as they fell into a calm silence.

“Are there others?” Felicity asked after a while, fracturing the settled silence with her perfectly-melodic voice.
“There is a whole sky full of them,” Oliver replied.  His eyes were heavy and his breath shallow before a yawn took over his body.
“I’m sorry,” she apologised with a sheepish smile.  “It just feels like I’m seeing this sky for the first time in my life, even though I’ve looked at it countless times.”

She was looking upwards with a smile laced into the corners of her lips and a twinkle in her eyes.  That twinkle may have been nothing more than the moon’s illuminating glow reflecting in her irises, but to Oliver it looked magical and he refused to look away.  He had also seen that same sky countless times before, but he still understood her wonder – because he felt it himself.

“Don’t,” he whispered and his lips caught the naked lobe of her ear.
She tilted her head to glance back at him.  “Don’t want?”
“Don’t apologise for seeing the beauty in something.”  Still holding her at the wrist, his fingers inched forward until they laced into hers.  “I wouldn’t,” he finished, whispered as she pulled both their arms around her waist.

“And what beautiful things do you see Captain?” she asked, nervously pinching her bottom lip between her teeth.
He said nothing, but the coy smile he wore on his rugged face spoke more than words before he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“The crystal blue lagoons of the Caribbean for one,” he remarked as his hand slipped from hers.
There was a flicker of pain and longing in her expression and a wanting sigh left hinged to her lips as he backed away from her.

Because he had to.

He put a little more oil on the small lantern beside the pillows they’d brought with them before he lay down with his head on one and his hands folded behind his head.

“The beaches of the pacific,” he commented with a full sigh.  “The first colours of sunrise and the last colours of sunset.”
She sat down beside him and smoothed the blanket first over her legs before she spread it out onto his.
“I know it’s not quite the same, but where I lived as a child we had the most beautiful sunrises,” she spoke softly with a far off smile tilting her head.  “Some mornings I would rise before it and run across the farmer’s fields and up this huge hill he had that overlooked the whole town, when I got there I would just sit and watch those first fronds of sunrise grow up from the horizon like it was magic.”
Oliver smiled at her recount as she brushed away a reminiscent tear with the back of her hand.
“And what about in London?” he asked, his soft voice carrying.
She glanced down at him and smiled.  “No one much cares about sunrises in London and I’ve no hill to climb up I’m afraid.”
She fussed with his blanket a moment more, making sure it covered them both before she lay back on her own pillow.

“Do you see the shape of the clouds?” Oliver remarked, untucking one of his hands to gesture towards a smear of greyish white across the night sky.
Felicity nodded.
“The thin wispy ones tell me the weather is fair and the wind is light, if they covered the sky like a sheet making a halo around the moon then it means it would probably rain the next day.  Circle around the moon, rain soon,” he recited.

“How do you know all this?” Felicity questioned.
“I’ve been around long enough to,” Oliver answered with a lazy shrug.
“You must have seen so much of the world.  All I’ve ever seen of the world has come from the pages of other people’s adventures.”
“You’ll have your adventures Felicity,” he commented as his arms settled back behind his head.
“After this one, I think my adventures will be limited to what I can see from the train window I’m afraid.”  Oliver could see the sadness in her expression before she pasted on a practiced and polite smile, and he wondered how many people had fallen for that; assuming she was happy behind it?

She leaned over and found the book she’d carried up onto the top deck with her.  “A deal is a deal, so perhaps a few moments to teach you now?” she asked as she rolled to face Oliver.
He moved his head to the side and smiled at her.
“Perhaps you could just read it to me, I don’t think I would be a very good student tonight.”
Felicity nodded as she cracked open the book; The London Spy
“The London Spy, written by Ned Ward, Seventeen Twelve,” she read aloud as before she turned the first page.
“Who is Ned Ward?” Oliver asked between a yawn that smacked his lips together.
“A satirical writer and publican of course,” Felicity answered with a laugh.  “This is said to be a complete survey of the London scene.”
“According to who?” Oliver balked, a chuckle shaking his chest.
“The man himself, Ned,” Felicity replied, a mocking puff in her voice.  “With its racy antidotes and sketches,” Felicity added with a hum.

She began reading the printed collection of periodicals that followed the first person account of an ostensibly innocent country gentleman visiting London, and all the debauchees he found there.  Felicity knew it to be quite the scandal in its time and such a novel was not assigned reading for any finishing school lady, such as herself.  All the same, this was not her first time reading it and she thought the vivid depictions of the ribaldry story might make for an animated read.  After all, reading shouldn’t simply be a chore of tongue twisters and enunciation.

She wasn’t wrong.
Oliver’s chuckles, while quiet, were playful and at ease, and he even checked a few of the more colourful words himself, but as the time ebbed away he found himself drifting off to the sound of Felicity’s voice and soon enough he was asleep.

Felicity blinked in the dim light before she set the book to one side and blew out the lantern, deciding to herself that she would relish the night sky for just a few more minutes before rousing Oliver to head inside.

But, despite her best laid plans, she fell asleep not long after. 

●|●

Tommy stood with a scrutinizing smile on his face.  Her arms were crossed over his chest, but his shoulders were loose and jostling with each chuckled breath he took.  He titled his head to one side, and then the other, before he tapped his foot lightly on the wooden floorboards.

But it made no difference.

He cleared his throat demonstrably.  Nothing.
A second time bore the same result; none.

He took a broad step forward until he was close enough to jab his foot into the dead weight of the leg in front of him.  He pushed it once, and the lump half covered in a blanket groaned.  He kicked it a second time and a slither of a single eye opened.

“Morning,” Tommy said brightly as he looked down at Oliver.
The Captain wasn’t exactly in a more compromising position than the one Tommy had found him in the morning before – at least this time he had a shirt on – but with one of his arms around Felicity who was sleeping nuzzled into his chest, it certainly wasn’t without its questionability.

Oliver squinted into the fresh sunlight as a shadowy figure standing above him started to come into view.
“Deck big enough for two people too Captain?” Tommy sarcastically remarked.
It took Oliver a few more seconds to understand his Quartermaster’s jest and it came with a jolt when a warm body moved beside him with a soft – and wonderfully feminine – sigh.

“Don’t start,” Oliver groaned as he finally understood his predicament and the smile presented on Tommy’s face.
“Wasn’t going to,” Tommy effused.
Felicity roused beside him, sitting up once she realised where she was.  “Oh forgive me Oliver, you fell asleep while I was reading, which I should take offense at but I won’t,” she started as she tugged on the blanket.

But, Oliver, knowing what was under the blanket on his side judging from the aching throb that greeted him between the legs, tugged it back enough to cover himself below the waist.

She squinted at his fight for the blanket, but didn’t continue it after she realised she was fully clothed and semi-presentable; at least as far as was necessary on Verdant.

“Anyway, you fell asleep and I thought just a few more minutes under the stars before I roused you would be okay.  Clearly I was just as tired,” she continued with a blush of embarrassment across her powdery cheeks.  “This is entirely my fault.”

He could see the worry etched across her brow and in the way she allowed her teeth to fret with her lips, so Oliver brushed his hand down her arm as he sat up on his elbows.

“It’s not a problem Felicity,” he soothed, forgetting for a moment that Tommy was standing next to them, but upon realising the same he promptly corrected himself as he retracted his hand.  “Miss Smoak.” 

“Is everyone down there?” Oliver asked, directing the question to Tommy.
“Full morning crew Cap’n,” Tommy replied swiftly.
“Could you please escort Miss Smoak to her cabin?”
Tommy nodded as he offered Felicity a hand.  “Yes Cap’n.”

Tommy helped her down from the poop deck to a few curious eyes, but not a soul said a word or moved from the spot where they had found themselves, as Tommy walked Felicity across the Quarter deck and into Oliver’s quarters. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Felicity remarked quietly as Tommy walked her inside the room.
“It’s not a problem Miss Smoak,” Tommy offered; a smile to match.

She lifted onto her toes, as she did when she had words floating at the tip of her tongue, unsure whether she should say them or not.
“Mister Merlyn,” she started, her eyes wrapped with curiosity that hitched one brow up towards her hairline. 
“Yes Miss Felicity?”
“I just wanted you to know that I think you are quite an extraordinary man and I think that is a most wonderful thing.”
Tommy looked down and his shoulders slumped a little.
“I do hope it’s okay that I know and you have my word that I wouldn’t speak a word of it to anyone else.  It’s just that when Oliver, the Captain,” she corrected herself with a shake of her head as she spoke quickly, “when he thought I was a boy he got it into his head that I had feelings for him, and he suggested that I talk to you about that, so you see I figured out what he meant after he explained it some.”
Her fingers laced tightly together and her smile faded to a shy one.
“It’s quite alright that you know Miss Felicity, but it would mean a great deal to me if you kept this to yourself.”
“Of course.  Not just because I’m only permitted to see you and Oliver,” she answered with a laugh.  “But I think that you are most lucky.”
His brows pinched together.  “How do you suppose?”
“Love is a rare and beautiful thing.  To see it as just love no matter who that other person is.  Beyond the social constructs and rigid make-belief of laws, I think that is a most amazing way to live.”
“If only more saw it that way,” Tommy remarked.
“I think that one day they will catch up to such thinking.” Felicity finished with a decisive nod. 

“Is there anything I can get for you Miss Felicity?” Tommy asked as he stood by the door.
She should have let the poor man leave and return to his duties, but she didn’t feel like she could suffer in her own silence just yet…
“You must have known Oliver quite some time?” she enquired tentatively watching the expressions on his face soften; he wasn’t tired of her questions yet.
“Quite some time, yes.”
“Did you grow up together?”
“We were boys when we first met, but no.”
“You’re from London aren’t you?”
She had peppered him with questions and yet he hadn’t brushed her off as petulant and left.
In fact he laughed at the last question, taking Felicity a little by surprise.  “What gave it away?” he asked.
She pointed down to his shoes and laughed.  “Also your hair, your clothes, and the enunciation of your words,” she added with a grin.
“I was both born and raised in London and my father still resides there,” Tommy answered 
“And your father, is he titled?”
Tommy shook his head lazily.  “No, but perhaps wealthy enough to buy one if the whim took him.”
“And yet you sail on a merchant ship, and not only that, a ship that isn’t owned by the Company, so without much of the benefits that a Quartermaster ought receive?” Felicity prattled, stopping herself only when she realised she was talking far too much for a lady.
“You’ve done your research Miss Felicity,” Tommy replied.  He was impressed.

But Felicity assumed his words were meant as more of a gentle reprimand and she offered him an apologetic smile in return.  “I’m sorry, I have been locked up so long that all I’ve had to do to pass the time is think and read, forgive my intrusiveness.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Tommy assured her.  “It is actually quite refreshing to have someone aboard who cares for such things.  Verdant was purchased with an advance on my inheritance.”
“But you don’t captain it?”
“I am no sailor,” Tommy replied with a shrug.  “Not when you compare the likes of Oliver.  An astute businessman finds the right person for the job, even if it isn’t him.  Very few embark on this voyage and of those stupid enough to, even fewer make it without shipwreck, or…”
“Pirates?” Felicity finished and Tommy nodded.
“Oliver is more of a sailor than ought to be natural, putting him at the helm just made sense.  One day we hope to have an entire fleet, running a company of our own,” Tommy explained, proudly.
“I’d never picked Oliver as the type.”

Tommy chuckled in agreement.  “By we, I mean me.  That one might just be my dream.”
“Don’t worry Mister Merlyn, you and Oliver have both been far kinder to me than I might have deserved.  I won’t do anything to jeopardise what you have both built here.”
The Quartermaster made light of her concern with a kind smile.  “I never imagined you to be trouble Miss Felicity, and I would not like to see either of you hurt.”

While his words were veiled, she understood them.
“Of course,” she said faintly, the answer bristling in her throat.  “Which is why I’ll be getting off in Port Lagos.  It’s for the best.”
Tommy simply nodded.  Whether he agreed with such a notion or not depended on your definition of best.  Irrespective of that, it was what needed to happen.

●|●

After nature had settled down, Oliver had splashed his face with frigid water and set about his morning tasks like nothing had happened... even if it had.  Given a few moments to himself up in the crow’s nest while he got his bearings, the truth hit him rather suddenly.

Felicity was unlike any other women he’d met, and he’d met a fair few in his time.  It wasn’t just in her undeniable beauty that she surpassed all others, but rather, what drew him closer to her, was the beauty beneath her skin that radiated through; the way she saw the mundane and wondered over the marvellous, her intelligence that was obvious to even someone as uneducated as himself, and her sense of adventure, albeit budding and perhaps a little naïve, he still saw it as a thing to be cherished, stoked, and appreciated.

The idea that a man would hold that all by virtue of marriage and not realise the value which it held, made him furious.  He hadn’t even kissed her! Her affianced. Idiot.

When Tommy returned from escorting Felicity, he found Oliver at the wheel with his hand placidly steering wherever the wind took them.  There wasn’t much concern about it though, because for at least another 3 days they wouldn’t come upon anything other than wide open blue space, so as long as the general direction was the correct one, there was little else to be minded.

Tommy braced his back against the waist-high railing that ran the edge of the Quarter Deck and watched Oliver with a knowing smile, until the Captain couldn’t take the smirk a moment longer and glared at his friend tersely.
“Permission to speak openly Captain?” Tommy said as he kicked one foot in front of the other.
“Not granted,” Oliver grunted.
But, Tommy carried on irrespective.  “I’ll speak as your friend who doesn’t need permission then.  Ray Palmer is a well-connected man.  And connections could grow or sink this endeavour Oliver.”
Oliver nodded sharply.  “What kind of a stupid name is Ray anyway?”
A chuckle left Tommy’s lips in response.  “That aside, he could…”
“I know Tommy,” Oliver interrupted.  “We’re still heading in that direction are we not?”
Tommy let the terseness in Oliver’s interjection slide without comment, knowing the place with which it came.  “That said,” Tommy began with a sigh as he raised a surrendering hand to appease Oliver’s tempestuous stare.  “I know you’ll do the right thing, and as both your friend and your Quartermaster I’ll support you, whatever that may turn out to be and irrespective of the consequences.”  He placed a comradery pat on Oliver’s shoulder after he pushed himself up off the railing.  “So are we still leaving her in your quarters all day?”
Oliver’s brow lifted half an inch towards his hairline.  “You agreed it was safer there.”

Tommy shrugged.  “I did, but maybe it could be just as safe up here.”
“What are you suggesting?” Oliver remarked, although the cogs in his head had already started turning.
“Exactly what I said Captain.”
Oliver left the wheel and Tommy took it with one steady hand as Oliver rung the bell that silenced the crew almost immediately.

When a hush had settled across the main deck, Oliver spoke; his booming voice projecting to the far end of the ship.  “We have a lady aboard,” he said with both command and authority and while a few pitter-patter of muffled objections could be heard, no one dared speak beyond a whisper.  “She is my guest and will remain my guest until we reach Port Lagos.”

Oliver looked across at the faces of the men looking back at him before zeroing in on a few that might look to give him trouble on the matter.  “As my guest, she will be given the freedom to walk about the main deck and you will respect the same.”

His stare became fiery and targeted until he saw the resolve break and each man bow his head.  “Let it be known that if any man aboard this ship so much as looks at her in a way that makes her uncomfortable or feel unsafe, I will bind your hands behind your back, tie a bloodied fish around your neck, and throw you into the ocean.  And when you see that fin start circling you, you’ll be wishing for a swift death that won’t come.”  A few looked at him, unsure whether there was any validity in his threat, but most nodded, fully aware that there absolutely was.

“Have I made myself clear?” Oliver barked sternly.
There was a flood of eagerly nodding heads and a resounding “Yes Cap’n.”

“That was particularly specific and gruesome,” Tommy remarked between just him and Oliver.  “Perhaps it didn’t need to be so graphic?”
“Why?” Oliver shrugged.  “It’s exactly what I intend to do.”

●|●

Felicity was sitting in her usual spot by the window feeding Christopher another cracker (his second so far that morning) as he perched himself on the arm of the wooden chair where she sat.  She looked up from her chair when Oliver entered and offered him a reserved smile that didn’t quite fill her cheeks.

She had changed into pants and a white cotton top that she wore knotted to one side, making it sweep her figure fetchingly.  She had also tied her hair back with a ribbon as though she had somewhere to go.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” she remarked before he had a chance to ask why she appeared forlorn.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he assured her as he strode further into the room.  “We both just fell asleep.”
Oliver gave her a cockney smile and she returned a faint one.
“But you asked Tommy to escort me, so I thought that you were perhaps a little angry at me,” she commented with a waifish shrug.
He brushed a comb of fingers through his hair and folded his lips together nervously.  “That wasn’t anything to do with you,” he promised, though her hitched brow said she didn’t quite believe him.

There was no way of explaining the predicament Oliver woke up with, that didn’t fall way beyond the realm of polite conversation, no matter how much her inquisitive eyes begged him.  He couldn’t very well explain to her that his cock was as hard as wood and sat rigid in his pants like a mizzen mast.

“Are you sure I didn’t do anything wrong?”
He nodded before she’d even finished asking the question. 

He opened the door wider and grinned.  “Would I be letting you out if you did?”
She stood up from the chair and Christopher scuttled away with his prize.  “Do not tease me or I will become insufferable,” she warned with wide eyes.
“You aren’t already?” Oliver teased, complete with a smirk. “I’m not teasing, but there are rules,” he added, replacing the smirk with a very serious face... Or at the very least, his attempt at one.
“Yes of course,” Felicity agreed.  She would have agreed to whatever rules he’d imposed, so hearing them felt unnecessary.
“You have to remain with either Tommy or myself at all times,” Oliver started and Felicity continued to nod.  “And, you can’t go below deck.”
She had expected more, but when Oliver said nothing further, she nodded enthusiastically.  “Yes, of course.”
He held out his hand and Felicity crossed the room quickly to take it.
“Come on then Duchess, your ship awaits.”

Chapter Text

The wind was especially excitable when they returned to the main deck and Felicity let out a heavenly sigh as its blustery fingers slapped at her face.  The night, and it’s calm, had been a pleasing distraction for the last few nights; but the wild buzz of the deck and the bright sun beating down on them had been what Felicity had missed the most, and being right back in the midst of it made her want to do much more than simply sigh.

It didn’t go unnoticed that a few eyes darted towards her and for a moment she instinctively shrunk behind Oliver, but the unreadable eyes that had caused her so much frustration in the past, narrowed in on those eyes staring back at them, and without a word passing between the Cap’n and his crew; everything that needed to be said, was said.

She could only imagine what he must have told them, but she trusted implicitly that he’d made the point clear and she would be safe in either his or Tommy’s company.

“I’m certain you had something to do with this Quartermaster,” Felicity remarked as Tommy stepped away from the wheel and approached them both.
“Don’t let it be heard that the Cap’n takes advice from anyone,” Tommy jested as Oliver slipped past him to steer the ship himself, with a smirk settling in on his face.
“Of course not, that would ruin his entire reputation,” Felicity commented as her and Tommy stood barely five feet from Oliver, who could hear their every word.
Tommy chortled as he crossed his arms over his chest.  “And what reputation might that be?” 
“The Stoic Captain of course,” Felicity recounted, a smile poised on her lips.
“Stoic is just another word for stubborn and bull headed,” Tommy declared, making Felicity laugh.

Oliver looked back over his shoulder and huffed.  “I could always send you back inside,” he said as he looked at Felicity.  He then turned  to Tommy, “and you I’ll throw in the brig.”
Tommy uncrossed his arms with a steady chuckle.  “I’ll take my leave then Cap’n and make my rounds.”
He tipped his hat to Felicity who thanked him a second time with a whimsical smile, before he scampered down the stairs towards the bow of the ship.

Felicity was happy enough to just enjoy the sunlight and the fresh breeze, but when Oliver beckoned her closer she eagerly obliged.
“Do you want to steer?” he asked as he nodded down to the large, wooden wheel.
She swallowed a laugh and shook her head.  “I couldn’t possibly,” she nervously answered.
“Why not?”
“Because…,” she paused to bite her lip, but no reason came.  She was just so used to not being able to in life, that she didn’t consider the why.  “I don’t know,” she breathed.
“Then c’mere.”
She closed the small gap in seconds and gripped her dainty fingers around two prongs of the wheel.  Her fingers didn’t touch, despite straining them, and she could feel the tug of the ship as she tried to keep the wheel steady.  “It’s not all that hard,” she remarked proudly with a light shake of her shoulders; she had honestly expected it to be far more of a fight to keep it steady.

It was only when Oliver laughed under his breath that Felicity looked down and noticed he was still holding onto the wheel with one firm grip near her knee.

“Let it go,” she pouted.  She wanted to feel the strength this beast had.
“Are you holding on?” he asked and she nodded.  “Are you sure?”
“Yes, quite sure,” she answered with a firm nod.
Oliver released his grip and the pull was instantaneous and powerful, nearing knocking Felicity off her feet.  He caught it two prongs up and held it steady once again.

“At least I stayed upright,” she puffed, a smile lifting up the corner of her lips.
Oliver walked around behind her and took the other side of the wheel, moving his hands until they held the ends of the same two prongs she was holding.  “That you did,” he said softly and his breath brushed against her cheek.

“It's no wonder your arms are rather large,” she remarked absently as she stared straight ahead at the choppy waters.
“Are they?” Oliver answered and Felicity could hear the smirk in his tone.
“Comparatively of course,” she quipped.
“Of course,” he answered with a breathy laugh.  “The trick is not to always fight for control,” he continued and each word tickled her cheek.  “Sometimes you just need to let it take you.”
“What if it takes you the wrong way?”
“Out here there are lots of different ways to get to the same place.”  As he spoke he turned the ship a little to port and it glided effortlessly through the waves.

After a few moments of quiet while Felicity chewed worrisomely on her lip, she finally asked a question that had sat on the tip of her tongue for some time.

“What do they mean?” she asked as she looked down, worried she would be met with reprimand.
“What do what mean?” Oliver asked with a chuckle.  He was looking around for something but all he saw was sky and sea.
“The necklaces you wear around your neck? They mean something don't they?”  As soon as the question had left her mouth she felt him go rigid behind her.  “That day in the tavern the man with a limp, he warned...,”
“They mean nothing they're just trinkets Felicity,” Oliver interjected tersely.
She swallowed back a soft exhale.  She believed him to be lying, but he owed her no explanation and she knew that.
“Of course,” she answered politely.

The painted smile soon followed when she remarked that her arms were quite tired and she would like to stop steering.  Oliver stepped to the side to allow Felicity to step back from the wheel... and from him.

He tore an agitated hand through his locks; she had such a beautiful natural smile that he had come to hate the one she wore in pretence, because it paled in comparison.

“I'm sorry,” he apologised, still a little gruff in his voice.
“You don't owe me an apology Captain.  It is not my business,” she assured him kindly.  For all her curiosity, she knew she had no right to ask such personal questions of him, and he was under no courtship or duty to provide her with an answer.
He looked over at her with a sheepish smile.  “I spoke brashly, for that I apologise. Not for my reasons for my answer, I hope you can understand Felicity.”

Flickers of her natural smile turned up the tips of her lips and plumped her rosy cheeks.  “I do, of course.”
She had not expected an apology, and she was most certain that most men would not have easily given her one for her impetuous query; so to hear the man she had once deemed an incorrigible hard-ass to offer her one instead of a scolding, was something remarkable.

Oliver had changed a lot in her opinion, and yet she felt neither of his sides were in conflict with the other; he was hard and regimented with his crew because that was what kept them alive, but the other side of him was kind and thoughtful – he remembered every sailor lost, visited their families, and purchased gifts for his sister.  

Two parts, of the one remarkable whole.

“Perhaps I might be permitted to ask another question?” she enquired as her smile grew.
“Would my answer change your next words?” Oliver returned with a chuckle.
“Well I am a pretty terrible example of a lady, so I should think not and I undoubtedly will continue to scoff in the face of society dictations,” Felicity answered, laughing warmly.
Oliver’s next laugh was robust and made his shoulders shake.  “I have almost no idea what you just said.  Ask your question Duchess, but I make no promises to give you an answer.”
“When was the last time you washed your hair?” she quizzed before she leaned closer and plucked a small feather discarded from a sea bird which was caught up in his tangled hair.
Oliver laughed again, enough that it startled a few birds that had perched on the railings for a free ride.  “Some time apparently.”
She hummed with a knowing smile but said nothing further about it.

●|●

The rest of the day was uneventful, but thoroughly pleasant.  Felicity shadowed Tommy for some time and under Oliver's watchful eye she even continued a few lessons from Jones where, adhering to her end of the bargain, she told him about the tell he was unaware he had.

His language was far less crass than she had heard it previously, and all aboard the ship definitely kept their trousers up.  If there were any particularly unhappy about her presence, which she was sure there were some, they were not obvious about it; a thankful respite.

That respite was likely due in part to the strong tail wind and the clear skies ahead; putting superstition to rest (at least at that moment), and, perhaps reluctantly, Felicity hoped the weather and mood continued.

Tommy returned her to the quarters before dinner rations, which gave her a few moments to freshen up with a damp towel and a comb; hardly luxuries, but she had become accustomed to the routine and it was pleasant to not have to spend hours vigorously scrubbing her porcelain skin until it bled at times.

Barry still harboured animosity as he clunked the rations on the table which Felicity had neatly set out for Oliver and her to dine at.  She had tried to apologise, yet again, that he was doing a task beneath him, but he would not hear her out and his disdain was apparent in the thud of the door closing behind him.

She had every intention of paying the wages of another galley boy if they could find one in Port Lagos and she hoped that would soften Barry... to her memory at least given she would disembark at the same port.

Felicity tried not to dwell on the inevitable; as dwelling on it would not make it any less of a reality but would only steal these last few days from her, so she left the thought there – fleeting and momentary.

Oliver arrived a few minutes later and her mood instantly lifted; his too.  Arriving back to his quarters felt oddly calming and he knew he would miss that when her journey came to an end.

They ate dinner with a lively conversation and rum drunk from flagons; though Felicity sipped while Oliver gulped.  He spoke of the islands deep in the Pacific with white sandy beaches and not a soul around, while Felicity spoke of the English countryside with its dewy morning air and sprawling fields.

Both places they adored.

When the plates were clear and Christopher had taken his share back into his hideaway behind the bookshelf, there was a rapt on the door.  Felicity expelled an excited peep as she scuttled over to the door and opened it.  Wearing a stupid grin, Tommy walked in holding a bucket of sloshing water that was steaming.  Felicity directed him to an empty wash basin while Oliver watched on with a brow raised in suspicion.

Once the first basin was filled, Tommy filled up a second, smaller one, before he wished Felicity a sardonic “good luck” and left.

“What’s all this?” Oliver commented as Felicity carried the smaller basin to the table.
She set it down in front of him and plucked his empty hand from the table.  “Humour me,” she quipped with a smile that made it impossible for Oliver to argue.
After wringing out a face cloth from that warm water, she dipped his hand into the same and left it to soak there.  “Sit back and relax,” she hummed as she dunked his other hand in the water too.
Before he could retort, she lay the warm, wet towel onto his face and patted it down.

Next, Felicity set down a bucket and an old muslin towel to collect any spills, behind his chair, while Oliver listened curiously to the busy little noises she made.  And, after she’d set up a few supplies on the side table she had carried over, Felicity peeled the facecloth off Oliver’s dewy face.  He blinked and scrunched his lips as the tepid air brushed against his moist skin, before he glanced over to her ‘work bench’ of supplies; soap, a straight blade, and a pair of scissors.

“What is all that?” he said wearily.
“Before I leave, I thought you could have a proper clean,” she chortled.
He glanced down at his hand soaking in the water as a smirk flittered across his lips.  “Wouldn’t a proper clean involve me being a lot more naked?”
He looked up to see the blush speckle her cheeks and begin to warm her chest.
“Perhaps not that proper then,” she flustered.  “Simply a shave, a hair trim, and a manicure.”
“Felicity you don’t need to do any of this.”
She shrugged her head towards one shoulder and laughed softly.  “I thought it might be fun.”  She bit her lip and a flustered sigh bled out from her mouth afterwards.  “It’s all rather silly, and I assure you none of this is important, and I like you just the way you are of course, not that you’re mine to have to worry about liking you or otherwise, I just…” she paused to breathe and Oliver took her hand with his dripping one.

“Just not too much off the hair,” he remarked.
She exhaled a kind sigh.  “That seems fair Captain.”

She washed his hair slowly with the lye soap she’d borrowed from Tommy (apparently he was the only man aboard the ship who found any value in it) and a careful hand that meant the water spilled into the bucket below him, mostly.

“You know most men wear powdered wigs,” she remarked idly, filling the space with banter before Oliver guffawed at the concept.  
“That’s a no to the wig then Captain?  Such a shame, I planned on purchasing you one when we docked.”  He could hear the gingerly way she spoke and he could imagine her rosy lips were turned up into a coquettish smirk as she spoke them.
“The higher the better I say, a great big monstrosity of a thing,” Oliver implored as Felicity’s fingers kneaded into his scalp.
“Of course, it shall be so large that you will have to stoop to enter any doorway,” she teased as she rinsed the last remnants of soap from his hair.

“I think a trim is unnecessary,” she spoke softly while her fingers combed through his wet hair.  The beads ran down her forearms like tiny rivers as a sigh lifted unexpectedly from her lips.  Almost immediately she pinched her bottom lip between her teeth hoping her had not heard it.

But he had.

Wordlessly he lifted a hand from the bowl of water and lay it on top of Felicity’s hand, stroking tiny circles of the back of it with his thumb.

There were words he thought of saying, but they all stayed locked behind his bowed lips.

Felicity held his hand as she moved around to the front of him.  With his second hand also free of the water and his body turned away from the table, their entwined fingers landed in his lap.  He watched as she swallowed deeply and her lips quivered when she breathed again.

“On to a shave now I suppose,” she whispered.
Impulsively Oliver’s other wet hand sunk into her waist, turning her white shirt translucent in the few places where water glued it to her skin.  She gasped at the sudden deluge against her waist and stumbled a step forward, towards him.  His other hand shot from her grip and held onto the other side of her body enough to steady the sway of it, but instead of holding her at arm’s length, Oliver instinctively pulled her towards him.  She didn’t fight him, and in a moment she was sitting on his lap, staring into the turbulent seas of his eyes.

Felicity leaned her face closer to his, putting her lips barely a hair’s breadth from his own and inhaling the warm air he breathed out.

“Oliver.”  She whispered his name, for no other reason than to hear it come from her mouth.  It floated between them, sighed and woven with desperation.

Feelings echoed between them both.

“Is he a good man?” Oliver asked, his tone strained and brittle as he forced himself to push her just a fraction away.  “Your step father, is he a good man?”
Felicity tried to stand up on her own, but his hands kept her there; perched on his lap.  And she didn’t try again.
“A very good man,” she answered softly.  “He loved my mother when a lesser man wouldn’t have, and he treated me as his own child.  My mother loves him greatly and I have both affection and respect for him.”
She could see the worry etched into the lines on Oliver’s face; perhaps she had finally been able to read it… or he no longer tried so hard to hide it from her.

“And what of Mister Palmer, is he a good man?”  His eyes dropped when Ray’s name came from his lips.
“Mister Palmer is,” she paused, a million words vying to be said – some true, many weren’t.  A sigh bled from her lips and her sodden waist sunk down with the weight of her next words.  “I’ve seen him be a kind man to those who serve and generous with his wealth.”

Her eyes filled with tears that she blinked back; but that was the truth.  Whatever she thought of the man as a fiancée, she had no cause to dislike him as a person.  He gave charity to people on the street, and treated his house staff well.  His donations to the church were large and admirable, and ostensibly he was intelligent and well-educated.  For any lady in her position, outwardly, Mister Ray Palmer was a suitable match.

Except that he wasn’t.

And not through any fault of his own doing; but simply because Felicity didn’t want “suitable”, she wanted something quite different; she wanted wildness, spontaneity, adventure – whether that be with a partner at her side or of her own making.

She wanted unsuitable.

Oliver’s hands shifted up her body, grazing her ribs as they stopped just below her breasts.

“If you told me you were afraid of him,” he stilled his voice, as he watched her eyes well up.  “If you told me that…then I would…”
Felicity cupped one of her warm hands to his bristled cheek.  A part of her wished those words could leave her mouth, that she could tell Oliver that the man they were heading to meet was awful and she feared for her life; but she had promised him that another lie would not pass her lips.

A shaky smile lifted her mouth at the tips.  “I know.  But, I cannot lie to you Oliver, I fear neither of them and they have given me no cause to,” she breathed, and he had his answer; though a part of both of them wished it was different.

“Perhaps I should move back,” she whispered as she glanced down; she was still sitting on his lap and his wet fingers were still soaking through her shirt.
“Do you want to?” he asked, rasped and gravelly.
She shook her head and a silent “No,” fell from her lips before she leaned closer to him, until her chest was pressed against his.

She felt it lift with a deep inhale while he wrapped his brawny arms around her body.  She gently lay her head on his shoulder and kissed the cusp of it over the top of his shirt.

Silent.
Unspoken.
Beautiful.

But, that beauty wrapped in sadness.

Because of the inevitable.

42 days at sea | 1 day out from Port

Eleven days.

It had been eleven days since that chilly plunge into a fresh water spring had exposed Felicity's secret.  In some respects it felt like a lifetime ago, but in moments like the one Felicity was experiencing as she read aloud to Oliver in a shady spot on the quarter deck... It felt like merely the blink of an eye.

Eleven days.

One day more.

Twelve days would see them in Port Lagos.

Her usually spirited voice was weak and mellow, and Oliver heard the lament in every word she read.  The wind had been kind to them; cruelly so, stealing away days as it filled all the sails.

By midday tomorrow they would reach their destination.

Those eleven days would be remembered as both a blessing and a curse; to find someone who can challenge you, inspire you, and open parts of yourself you had closed off for a lifetime was a blessing.  But, to live with the knowledge that such a person existed beyond your reach, was the ultimate curse.

Oliver had ruminated with the idea of turning the ship south and carrying on with Felicity by his side.  But, that was not his decision to make.  She did not belong to him... she belonged to no one.  He could offer her nothing of value, and knowing what may lie ahead in their journey, Oliver wasn’t sure he could even keep her safe.

He would have to settle his heart to twelve days.

For her part, Felicity felt wretched.  The salty air was no longer enough to keep the deep sadness at bay, and she could no longer suppress the tear that slid slowly down her alabaster cheek.  She let it fall, and the one that followed.  But, afraid that in moments she would be sobbing onto the browned pages of the book she was reading, Felicity bit her lips and the words ceased.

Absently Oliver caught the second tear with his knuckle as it ran down towards her jaw and when she looked at him, it was apparent she was about to apologise for the same.  “Do you want to fly Felicity?” he asked before she could.

“Have you been drinking again Captain?” she teased, and although her demeanour was lively for a moment, another tear escaped.  He caught that one too, in the palm of his hand; which he left to linger on her cheek.
“Come flying with me.” 
As he spoke he laced their fingers together.
“What do you mean?” Felicity chortled as Oliver pulled her to her feet.
Oliver said nothing as he walked her down onto the main deck and towards the main mast, being the largest, middle one.

Eleven days and Oliver no longer cared who saw him.

He twisted a dangling rope around his booted foot and then around his forearm and fisted the thick, braided, hessian.

“Do you trust me?” he asked as he gave the rope a testing tug.
She answered without a delay.  “Yes.”
He wrapped his free arm around her waist, tight enough that the air was pushed as a sigh from her lungs.  “Hold on,” he whispered, and an impish smile blossomed on his lips.
Felicity coiled her arms around his neck and nodded; she was ready.

He kicked the pulley release and the two of them lifted at least 50 feet into the air.  She screamed, muffled into his chest and bookended with a laugh before her feet touched down on the boom of the main topsail, the second sheet.  The boom was wider than she had imagined it to be from the ground, and her feet fitted comfortably on the same.  The wind was steady, but surprisingly gentle, and the air was filled with the rustling sounds of the sails; a sound she hadn’t heard from the deck below.

Above her were stepped two more sections with sails of their own, rigged and supported with booms, jeers and ropes that mimicked an intricate web or maze, but she dared not look down.  Still holding Oliver she felt his chest shake as a warm laugh floated from his lips.  

“It’s quite stunning here,” she remarked as she tilted her head to look through the gaps in the sale.  
“We’re not flying just yet Felicity,” he nodded upwards and she followed his gaze.  “We’re going up.”
“No we’re not,” she peeped as her head shook feverishly.
He unravelled a rope that was wound between two pegs nearby and carefully tied one end around her waist and the other around his, with barely two feet of rope between them.

“Do you trust me?” he asked a second time and she nodded, albeit slower and more conservatively.  
With Oliver shadowing and guiding her every step, Felicity began to climb the shrouds that joined the sections together.  The transverse cables of thick, rigid rope, were surprisingly stable and she climbed the ratlines like ladder rungs.  His calm, soothing breath behind her ear kept her focused, and while her heart was fluttering – it wasn’t in fear.

At the top of the second section they paused to catch a breath, and as the sail sheet got smaller, the view became even more impressive.

“Ready for one more?” Oliver asked as he looked skyward.
She swallowed her reservations like a lump in her throat.  “You promise that it’s safe?” she asked, her voice thin and trembled.
He tucked a loose section of her hair behind her ear while the wind whipped up the rest of it, tied in a low ponytail. 
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised, and she believed him.

The ropes became thinner and more sparse the higher they climbed, but Felicity pushed all her focus onto the next step and his reassuring presence behind her.

On the third boom, between the main skysail and the small main moonsail above, a platform had been built surrounding the mast that was large enough to lie down on should the mood take one.  Around it’s edges was a crude railing that would hit a person low on the shins if they knocked it, but would serve as a warning if needed.

“Sit down,” he said as he leaned in close to her ear.
The wind was far more playful at that height and it gently nudged her along until she sat down with her back against the mast and her hands shaking.

Oliver clasped her hands between his own, and she relished how completely he could envelop them.  But, she also noted that he wasn’t shaking in the least.

“Perhaps I should have mentioned I’m fearful of heights,” she peeped, surprised by the way her voice sounded both fractured and thin.
He smiled before he lifted her drooping chin.  “Look up Duchess, you’re flying.”

She looked up and saw an unimpeded and magnificent view of the ocean.  The foremast in front sat low enough ahead of them that it tapered off before it jutted into view and sitting down put them at the perfect height between the sail below them and the final sail above them; it really was like she was flying.

A happy sob left her mouth as her eyes welled up with ecstatic tears; she could see clouds dashing across the blue sky, and waves tumbling where a pod of dolphins dipped in and out of the pristine ocean.

Oliver released her hands and one absently lay on his leg while she inched a little closer to the edge.  Her other arm reached out in front of her and she spread her fingers into the air, smiling as the wind pushed through them.

Another sob in her chest released more tears which she let tumble down her cheeks like little blissful avalanches.

“I’m flying,” she whispered as she clutched his leg.
He rested his hand atop hers and smiled, but said nothing.

Afraid that if he said something; everything might change.

Chapter Text

Felicity turned to face Oliver, her cheeks were slapped pink from the wind and speckled with tears that glistened in the late afternoon sun.   Instinctively Oliver moved to brush them aside, but Felicity stopped him with a whispered “Don't”.

She enjoyed the sensation of the wind cooling the beads that clung to her face; it was tangible proof that she was there, alive and awake, for that moment.  He nodded gently, and without needing her reasons, he understood.

“You promised something on that deck,” Felicity started as she inched closer to him and her eyes drifted to the top deck behind them.  “Do you remember what that was?”  Her lips were full and her smile buoyant as she spoke.  
Oliver didn't need to look where her eyes were pointing, he already knew the promise she spoke of.
I won't kiss you again.

His unsteady hand drifted up to her mouth and his thumb brushed against her pouted bottom lip.  “Yes, I remember,” he answered her with a silvery voice.

Felicity leaned in and stole a chaste and fleeting kiss, but even in its briefness it was perfect.  “I never made any such promise,” she whispered as her lips hovered above his, threatening to pounce.
“Felicity,” he intoned; breathy, almost pained.
“Don't say what I already know, but stop me if you must.”
She edged her body forward, unsure and afraid that he would reject her, until there was no space between them.  His fingers knotted into the nape of her hair just as her lips fell delicately onto his once again. 

The sensual kiss was decadent and languid, as they cherished every second and every breath spent there, tracing the outline of lips which fitted together as though they were made for each other.  He stole every soft mewl that bled from her mouth when he traced the outline of it with his tongue, while her hands drifted down from his face to his chest, and anchored there, nails twisting wantonly into his shirt. 

Until they couldn't.

Breaking apart, Felicity's lips were swollen and wet and he soothed the edges of the same with his thumb before he pulled her into an embrace.

“Can we fly a little longer?” Felicity whispered as she rested her head against his chest. 
His eyes drifted closed, content but mindful it wouldn't last.  “As long as you like.”

Seconds ebbed into minutes before either of them spoke again.
“What is Port Lagos like?” she enquired quietly.  “Is it like Cape Verde?”
She listened as his lungs filled with air which he expelled with a sigh.  “It has been a while since I was there last.  It's busier than Verde, but only has a coast.”  Another sigh he hid on a breath.  “I'm sure the parts you’ll see there will be quite beautiful though.”
She laughed softly against his chest.  “And the other parts?” she quipped.
“Don't worry about them,” he assured her.

“You don't stop there often? Felicity hinted curiously as she raised her eyes to look at him.
He shrugged lethargically.  “They trade mostly in a commodity that we don't carry.”

There was little candour in his tone and she could that tell there was more he was unwilling to say.  But, afraid that delving into it might spoil the time they had left, Felicity said nothing more on the matter and they stayed that way until the sun began to dip below the horizon and the sky became alive with vibrant hues of orange and pink; burnt and beautiful.

Their descent proved just as tricky as the ascent, if not more so, and for most of the journey down Felicity held her breath.  But, with her feet firmly back on deck she asked a question that she already saw the answer to in his eyes.  “Will I see you tonight?”
Just like the sadness that dulled his azure irises, Oliver answered as she expected.  “It's best that I don't.”

Her breath shuddered and he longed to embrace her, but painfully he kept his distance.  “We're close to the coastline so it's best I stay and guide the ship.”
His reason seemed sound on the surface, but she knew it went beyond that.
“Of course,” she placated him softly, unwilling and unable to challenge him.
“Take whatever books you like with you for your journey home,” he offered while he attempted a smile.
“I fear I didn't teach you nearly what I promised I would,” she remarked as she swayed on her feet.
“You taught me more than you can begin to know.  You owe me no debt Felicity.”

Silence fell between them.
It was done.

●|●

Morning came far too soon.

Restless, Felicity had been awake since day break, but still the sound of the bell announcing that the ship was near to port was brutal, and came with the cruel realisation that the hazy pink sunrise over a canvas of blue was the last one she would enjoy from Oliver's window.

Verdant had kept its course through the night, straight and constant, and they arrived a few hours before expected.  She could hear the commotion and imagined the activity on deck as they stowed the sails and prepared to dock, but she begged silently for just a few moments longer.

Her bag sat packed beside her feet and Felicity had dressed and washed her face.  Her hair was tied back securely with a ribbon and her cheeks were pinched a soft rouge.  Her nails were cleaned as best as she could manage and her shoes were neatly laced.

But all of those things had been conducted and completed in silence and without her usual cheer for the day.  And, afterward, she continued to sit in silence, dressed in the clothes Oliver had gifted her with her back practiced and straight and her dainty hands rested on her small lap.  Every breath she inhaled felt laboured, and every exhale felt tortured as she sat on the brink of tears; but stoically she held them at bay.

Verdant was no place for her, she tried to remind herself; arguing with a heart that felt otherwise.  She had started her journey looking for something, but what she had found was herself, and she would not walk off the ship and into a life that was not hers to navigate.

Whatever happened, she was different now.

She would not ask Oliver for help; he had already done enough, and she would not jeopardise his livelihood any more than she already had.  No, this path was hers to navigate now.  She had begun it with deception, although not malicious, but she would finish it with honesty – whatever that looked like back in England.

She would not run.

“Felicity, I...” 
The soft voice was Oliver’s and while she had not even heard him enter, his presence didn’t startle her.
A sigh, a voice without a smile.  “I wish it could be different.”
She swallowed back tears, determined not to spill them. “I know,” she breathed and then tipped her eyes up to him.  “Thank you for everything.”

Unspoken.
Buried.

Silence.

“Have we arrived?” Felicity asked as she wrung her fingers together.
He nodded, single and solemn.  “We have.”
Felicity stood and smoothed her skirt down.  “So it’s time.”

Oliver collected her bag from the floor and twisted it’s leather strap tightly in his fist.  “You look beautiful,” he remarked.  For him.
“Are you sure it's alright that I keep this?” Her fingers toyed with the embroidered fabric that wrapped around her body.

A small smile, chivalrous and faint.  “Of course Duchess.”
His words made her laugh, just for a moment but it was enough.  

As they made their way to the gangway, Ray Palmer was already aboard after receiving word of their early arrival.  He looked up as they approached where he stood with Tommy before he waved, spritely at them.

He was not as Oliver had expected.  For a start he was much younger than Oliver allowed himself to believe; and he had a fleeting thought that Ray would be well and truly into the prime of his life and would die of natural causes shortly after the wedding leaving Felicity a widow and... 

He quickly shook the thought from his head before it had the chance to take root there.  In truth, Mister Palmer looked close in age to Oliver, so barely 4 years older than Felicity, and with, fates allowing, a long life ahead of him.  

He also appeared well-groomed and not at all disfigured, at least not in any capacity or place Oliver could see – another fleeting thought that had not come to fruition.  Rather, he was tall and well built, giving off the manifestation of a man who valued his appearance and had not given himself over to too much luxuries and laziness.  His hair was dark and secured neatly at his nape, much like how Tommy wore his. 

But beyond his outward appearance, he seemed genuinely happy to see Felicity.
That was by far the worst of what Oliver could have imagined; that Mister Palmer might actually care for Felicity.  

Perhaps Oliver had hoped for a sour man, to the point where chivalry dictated that Oliver could not possibly leave a young woman in Ray’s care or companionship.  He would step in, as a must, and accompany them both back to London ... Tommy would understand.

But, as they stopped a few feet from the tall, smiling buffoon, Oliver realised that was not the case.

“Felicity.”  He spoke her name kindly, and without any anger or frustration attached to it.  It was obvious, as the man practically hopped from one pristine black boot to the other, that he wished to embrace her, but dignity and decorum denied him the same.  Oliver felt his mouth absently smirk when he realised that he’d kissed this man’s fiancée, on no fewer than three occasions and yet Ray’s stiff adherence to outdated decorum saw him refusing himself even an embrace.

Buffoon.

“Are you well?” Ray ask genuinely.
She nodded cordially; from Oliver's vantage point he would say coldly.
But the buffoon didn’t seem to notice.
“You gave us all such a fright, but my eyes are both relieved and blessed to see you once again,” he gushed.
Tommy gagged silently behind the man and Oliver bit the inside of his lips to stop himself from laughing.

Felicity didn’t notice, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to see the Quartermaster's jest, until a two-word exclamation shot unexpectedly from her mouth.  “Your Fiancée?!”

Tommy’s eyes blew wide open but he managed to hide his laugh.  Oliver didn't even try.
“Perhaps I might speak with Felicity in private before we settle your payment Captain?” Ray enquired, turning to Tommy.
“Oliver is the captain,” Felicity corrected, more sharply that she had intended.
“My apologies Sir.”  He looked sweaty across the brow and had worry etched into the lines across his brow.
“You can talk in my Quarters, Felicity knows the way,” Oliver replied.

He hadn’t heard the gulp Tommy had made but he did see his Quartermaster throwing his hands upwards in utter frustration.

“Felicity, might we have a word?” Ray asked sweetly.
She hated that, she wanted to be mad and she wanted a man that might better match her temperament.  “Are we not talking now?”
Ray cleared his throat with an awkward cough.  “Captain, might you show us the way?”

Once they were in the first room of the Officer’s Quarters, Oliver turned around to leave them be, but Felicity glared at him when he reached for the door, making him stop where he stood, inadvertently blocking Tommy from leaving also.

“Your Fiancée?” Felicity asked a second time, calmer and without so much of the rage left in her voice.  “Forgive me Mister Palmer, but I do not recall such a question being asked and certainly I do not recall any such answer being given.”
“Yes,” Ray sighed as he looked at Oliver, but with his hands banded across his chest and his back leaning against the back of the door, it was clear this was as private as it would get.  “My apologies for that Felicity, I understand how presumptuous it must appear which is certainly not how I wish you to think of me, but your parents felt it would best if the men aboard this vessel thought you spoken for, in the hopes that...”
“You’re not engaged?” Oliver interrupted to ask.
Ray smiled politely at Oliver but offered him no immediate answer.
“Answer him, it is after all his ship,” Felicity encouraged brusquely.
“No Sir, we are not.  I have asked and been granted permission by her parents, but of course I intend to propose marriage to you Felicity in the most proper and befitting way.”  As he finished speaking he reached for Felicity’s hand and faintly brushed his fingertip down her wrist.

She had told him so.

Ray turned to the other men and offered them a cordial nod of his head.  “As for your payment due, it can be delivered immediately as soon as you are in a position to receive the same.  Both her parents and I are most thankful to you for her safe return and of course that you do not resent her wild nature,” he smiled broadly and his words were followed by a chuckle that was right at home in fancy houses and fine restaurants.  

Oliver didn’t reciprocate.  “Her nature is quite fine,” he commented dryly.
“Yes, of course,” Ray was flustered again, and his hands were clammy while his cheeks blushed pink.  “I just mean for a lady she is quite spirited in nature.”
Felicity cringed, she knew he meant well and it was something no doubt parroted from her kind stepfather, but she hated the prefix for a lady, as it continued the idea that they played by different rules in a game that was squarely in a man's favour.

“For a lady, she was an excellent member of my crew,” Oliver retorted, studiously ignoring the noises Tommy was making beside him.  “She was a fastidious learner with a brilliant spirit.”
Ray nodded eagerly.  “A fine wife indeed,” he said, off-handed.
And again, it was clear he meant no insult in his words; most men sought to suffocate such traits in a wife, and the idea that he wouldn’t was certainly refreshing.  But, the truth remained to Felicity that even for all his kindness and for all her spirit, she would still be just a wife.

A tempestuous wife.
A pretty wife.
A delicate wife.

And while nothing was inherently wrong with such a title spoken affectionately... it was not one she wanted to be tethered to for any less than the most insatiable, deep, passionate love and the promise of a life without the mundane.

“A fine person,” Oliver returned under his breath as he glanced across at Felicity, but only Tommy who was standing the closest, heard him.
“We are ready to receive that payment as of now,” Tommy chimed in, deciding the stagnant air needed to be slashed with a topic change.
“Right yes, of course,” Ray said with a chipper smile that was genuine, but Oliver detested all the same.  “You men have jobs to do and I’m holding you up.  I’ll have it brought to your ship immediately.”  He paused to rub his thumb down his smooth jaw; it was square and defined, but by no means harsh, and Felicity did admire the way he wore a smile effortlessly, where most men would refuse.

They walked in silence out towards the gangway before Ray stopped to admire the three-masted ship.  
“I must say Captain,” he started as he turned towards Oliver, “you have a marvellous looking vessel, such a design feat, truly remarkable.”  As he gushed he absently reached for Felicity’s hand and caught her fingers with just a brush; it was all a gentleman would do in polite company.

“You sail?” Oliver enquired dryly and with threads of mocking in his tone.
However, Ray didn’t seem to notice.  “I’m afraid I prefer the streets of Mother England over the sea,” he replied with a cordial dip of his head.
“Ah yes, the streets built by children,” Oliver said bluntly.
Felicity bit her lip as hard as she could take just to stop herself from laughing; whereas Tommy looked like he could throttle his best friend and overthrow his Captain.

A nervous laugh came from Tommy’s mouth which Ray mimicked soon after.  “It’s just a joke my good man,” Tommy jostled his shoulders to sell the laugh, despite seething inside.  “My Captain is nothing if not highly amusing.” 
Oliver ignored the knives Tommy was shooting him and simply shrugged before moving on.  “What vessel will you be travelling back on?” His sharp question was directed at Ray.
“A naval one actually; finest in the fleet.  But I am afraid we will have to stay at port for a few days before we set off home.”
“We will?” Felicity exclaimed, before repeating the question in a softer pitch.
Ray turned to her and smiled before his fingers brushed down her forearm and fell away at her wrist.  “Don’t worry,” he said warmly, “your mother packed you quite the trunk of clothes for the voyage and we are being hosted at a lovely Estate not far from here up on the hill.”
Felicity eyes drifted towards the hill in the background and while the distance was too far to see anything, she imagined any house with the view such a hill afforded to it, would be quite lavish.

“Oh,” Ray added with a pop of his lips and a smile in his ruddy cheeks.  “Your Governess has also accompanied us.”
Felicity cringed.  “How pleasant,” she said with a sombre smile.
“I’m glad you think so,” Ray responded; oblivious to the satirical tone of Felicity’s voice.  But, Oliver heard it.

“Our hosts have organised quite the banquet for tomorrow so you won’t be bored,” Ray hummed, still not seeing the closing off of Felicity’s demeanour.
But, Oliver saw it; she hated that Governess, and the last thing she wanted to do was put on a stuffy gown and parade around a room full of strangers while pretending to be quiet and demure.  She didn’t want to be back inside the cage of her existence; she wanted to fly.

“Perhaps I could see some of Lagos before then?” she asked softly, fragments of her smile still lingering on her lips – for pleasantry’s sake.
“I could see to that if you wish it,” Ray remarked kindly and Felicity nodded.  “I’ll enquire about a guide from our hosts as soon as we arrive back.”
“Oliver has been here many times, perhaps he could show us around later in the afternoon?” Felicity asked, quite without thinking, but not at all willing to take it back.

“I’m sure he has other things to attend to and would like to continue while the wind is favourable,” Ray commented, stiffly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Of course that was the case, Felicity lamented to herself; she had already caused him enough delay.

“Actually,” Oliver interjected.  “We were planning on giving the men a rest at port for a while.”
As soon as the words left his mouth he could sense Tommy’s mouth gaping, but he dared not look. But he couldn’t ignore him for long.  
“We were?” Tommy said perplexed. 
“Yes, we spoke about it.”
The two men shared a look before Tommy shrugged jovially.  “Of course we did Captain, how foolish of me to forget.”

“There, there, Quartermaster, we are all prone to mistakes,” Oliver smiled; wide and secretly smirked.
“Then it’s settled,” Felicity quipped and when Ray appeared mildly uncomfortable with the idea, Oliver smiled wider.  “This afternoon, after lunch and we will meet you on the docks.”

“That will be fine, of course, as you want Felicity,” Ray relinquished; he simply wanted Felicity to be happy.  “Four hours then Captain?”  

He extended his hand and Oliver reluctantly shook it.  

Turning to Felicity, Ray offered the crook of his elbow to her and politely she took it, before he led her off Verdant.  She didn’t look behind, afraid that doing so would seal in her mind the awful truth that she would never step foot back on it; and she was not quite ready for that reality.

Oliver watched them from afar as they met up with a man in a stiff uniform standing on the docks, likely their chaperone back to the Estate.  The buggy they were to travel in was small, but shaded from the sun and Ray offered his hand to help Felicity aboard.  Oliver waited for her to glance backwards, but even when she didn’t and the sides of the buggy obscured her from his view, he still couldn’t tear himself away.

“Streets built by children Oliver, really?” Tommy groaned as he hit Oliver’s arm with his elbow.
Oliver shrugged without looking away.  “It’s true.”

The small carriage pulled away and slowly disappeared into a crowd of people.  It was only when Oliver could no longer see it, that he finally looked away.

“He seems like a good man,” Tommy said, attempting to mollify the storm brewing on Oliver’s face.
His attempt didn’t work though, and Oliver’s response was an angry huff before he walked away.

●|●

Oliver hadn’t actually given much thought to the reality of seeing Felicity again.  Granted, he’d pulled his hair back and tightened his bootstraps to ensure that he was in fact “ready” to show her some of the sights of the port, but he’d become so accustomed to seeing her that he had not, in actuality, thought about the manner in which he might.

Or, more prudently, the way in which he might.

He had seen her dressed – somewhat convincingly – as a 17 year-old boy, and he’d seen her dressed more like a girl.

But, what Oliver had not seen – or prepared himself for – was to see her dressed as a lady.

A beautifully-exquisite lady.

So ill-prepared was he, in fact, that when she and Mister Palmer approached him he could not speak for a solid few seconds as his eyes took her in.

Her hair looked freshly washed and the strands of gold she had tied back with a long blue ribbon, reflected the scorching sun.  Her face was powdered, but not enough to disguise the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her cheeks were rosy.  Her dress was a pale blue with trimmings of brilliant white, and whatever she wore beneath the clinched fabric pulled her waist in narrowly while her chest sat nearly flat inside the bodice, with large, superficial ruffles framed the edges.

An ache in his chest found Oliver longing to tell her just how stunning she looked, but instead he took those words and hid them behind a tight smile, for fear a broad and enamoured one might give too much away.

“You came,” Felicity said warmly with a faint nod of her head acknowledging Oliver.
He found himself smiling at the small amount of surprise laced through her soft features.  “I gave my word.”
Oliver’s response was for Felicity’s benefit only but Ray acknowledged it with a properly-cordial nod.  “Felicity and I appreciate you taking time out for us,” he remarked.  It was only when he spoke that Oliver remembered he was even there and briefly noted he’d spoken with an ambiguous head shake.  It was also then that Oliver realised that Ray had changed into a slender and tailored navy coat with gold trim and matching breeches, teamed with ivory stockings and buckled shoes.

Intentional or not, it was a clear statement that Oliver's spit shine on his shoes paled in comparison; Felicity’s Mister Palmer was well-bred and rich.  Two things Oliver certainly wasn’t.

They started in the market set a few blocks back from the docks, it was teeming with life and the aroma of exotic spices danced through the afternoon air.  Woven baskets of dried fruits enticed the palate and fabric bolts in vibrant dyes and patterns drew the eyes.  Felicity asked an abundance of questions in a bombardment Oliver had grown used to, and even more so, fond of.  And he answered each one with an easiness that came from being in her presence.

“You are quite knowledgeable about such a primitive place,” Ray quipped, simply speaking up because it had been some time since he had.
“Primitive?” Oliver asked with a stoic expression.
Ray, recognising the unintentional insult of his remark, quickly apologised.  “My apologies, I simply meant it is quite a different place to London, don’t you agree Felicity?”
“Certainly,” Felicity replied with a soft sigh as she memorized the tantalising aromas circling her senses.  “That’s what I love most about it.  The places I have seen barely scratch the surface of the world out there, and yet I feel so much happier knowing they exist.”
“I shall be delighted if you tell me about such places,” Ray swooned. “On our journey home.”

Felicity answered his request with a demure smile; he really had been nothing but a gentleman and he had apologised again on the carriage ride home that her parents had included the notion of an engagement in the letter.  As much as she wanted to hate the man, for what he represented, she honestly couldn’t and didn’t wish to.

But, her heart lay elsewhere; she just wasn’t entirely sure where that elsewhere was.

Her shoes kicked languidly through the cobbled pathways, kicking up dust as she walked absently towards another thatch of streets where a few other people wandered.  The air was dry but humid and she could feel her chest chaffing behind the boned stays; what she wouldn’t give for a loose shirt.

Oliver stepped in front of her path and pointed towards a haberdashery stall that briefly took her attention, but her curiosity was piqued elsewhere, behind him, as a crowd of people gathered in a small square that sat a short walk away but obscured by a row of buildings.

“What’s down there?” she asked.
“Nothing of interest,” Oliver replied without even so much as a glance over his shoulder.
She didn’t believe him, but she was also feeling the heat far too much to argue with the man.  So, instead, she blithely turned to where he had directed her and moved that way, under a weight of a chemise, 2 petticoats, stockings, stays, a blouse, a full skirt, and a walking coat.

The feeling came on quite suddenly, with the stifling heat and the fact she hadn’t eaten a bite since the night before Felicity started to sway on her feet before a dizzy spell made her tumble… into Oliver’s arms.

His eyes looked panicked and for a moment all she could think to do was kiss him because that had always made him smile, and she did so love his face when he smiled.  But she was far too weak and dizzy to do anything but breathe, and even that was uneven and shallow.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered and a tiny smile lifted one side of her pale lips.
“Felicity dear, what’s wrong?” Ray asked, genuine and unabashed concern colouring his tone.
“Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Oliver asked and Felicity softly shook her head.  He’d made sure it was sent into his quarters before their arrival, but she had been far too heavy-hearted to eat anything.  “Water?”
She bit her lip and shook her head.

Oliver lifted her up, with her skirts flouncing as he did, and Felicity coiled her arms around his neck.  “Where is your buggy?” Oliver tartly asked Ray.
“Not far from here,” Ray asserted as he led the way back through the market-goers.

Once there, Oliver lifted her into the buggy and crouched down in the cramped space in front of her.  He put the back of his palm to her forehead; it was both hot and clammy.  Her head fell limp against the side of the buggy but she managed a small smile for him.

“How many layers of clothing do you have on Duchess,” he whispered, finishing with a laugh.
“About five,” she groaned as she struggled for a deep breath behind her most rigid one.
“That’s about four too many for this heat.”

He patted her knee gently before he hopped down from the buggy.  “She hasn’t eaten since last night and she hasn’t had any water either.  She needs to rest,” Oliver said, resigned, to the other man – who had not been oblivious to their kindly exchange.  “You should take her back to where you’re staying.”

“No,” Felicity whimpered, raising her head just enough to look around the side of the buggy.  “I’ll just rest here for a minute and then we can continue the tour.”
Oliver glanced back at her and smiled, one side higher than the other, before his smile dropped when he looked back at Ray.  “She should rest.”
Ray nodded before he extended his hand to Oliver, “I’ll take good care of her, and thank you.”

“Perhaps tomorrow then?” she pleaded, unwilling to let this be goodbye.
“I’m sure the Captain must be leaving,” Ray replied respectfully.
“Actually,” Oliver started impishly before he shook Ray’s extended hand, “we made excellent time and my men could do with the rest, so I’ll be here tomorrow.  I can meet with you at ten in the morning before the sun gets too punishing.”

If Ray was frustrated, he hid it well except for the small twitch to the left of his mouth.  But, Felicity was ecstatic, and he knew himself to be on too shaky ground to deny her happiness.

“Provided Felicity is feeling better, we will be glad for your company,” Ray remarked.  His comment was acknowledged by Oliver with a taut nod.

●|●

    
Felicity ate dinner sparingly that evening in her room, and even absently looked about the tastefully decorated bedroom for a small critter that she had become accustomed to sharing her food with each night, but of course, Christopher wasn’t there.

The house itself was, in fact, an Estate, with a few houses and a sprawling orchard that had workers busy in it late into the evening.  It was a beautifully decorated house with terracotta floorings and cane furnishings.  The view from her window looked towards the ocean in the distance, but it was by no means close enough to smell the salt that she had become acquainted with.  Still, she left the patio doors to her second-floor room open in the hopes that the gentle breeze that moved the gauzy curtains would also bring some of the sea to her.

She had tried to find some enjoyment in the books their gracious hosts gave her, but she read the same sentence a handful of times and still never really read the words on the page.  Her Governess was as sour as she ever was, perhaps even more so in the heat, and it was clear from the disdain she wore so outwardly that she thought of Felicity as a bit of a heathen and most certainly an embarrassment; but both of those things fared in Felicity’s favour as it meant the staunch woman did not wish to converse with her and bitterly kept her distance – lest some of Felicity’s ‘wickedness’ wear off on her devout character.

That suited Felicity just fine, and it gave her a lot of idle time to think about the only thing she cared to think of; him.

Perhaps the doors she left open weren’t just in hopes the wind would carry a far off scent to her, perhaps – while she wouldn’t admit to it – she wished it might bring her something else.  Someone else.

But, she lamented to herself with a forlorn sigh, if he’d wanted her to stay, he would have just asked.  Or, at the very least he might have told her something about how he was feeling, if in fact he was feeling anything at all.

A small knock on her bedroom door severed Felicity’s thoughts before she fastened the button on her night coat and walked barefoot to the door.  She unbolted the oat door and opened it a crack to see who the visitor was, after all supper had long gone and the moon was high in the night.

She was met with the pleasant face of Mister Palmer.
“Are you feeling well-rested?” he asked softly, but in the quiet halls even his soft voice seemed to echo.
“I am feeling much better, thank you,” she answered him with a sedated smile.  “I do apologise for any scene I might have caused this afternoon and for not dining with our hosts this evening.”
“Don’t worry Felicity, they understand, as do I,” he commented, warmth settling into his tone, which she did not believe to be fake.

“Might I come in for a moment?” he asked, his expression changing slightly to one Felicity recognised as nervous, perhaps even with a little trepidation in his pitch.  “Of course I will leave the door open,” he added.  He appeared to care more about Felicity’s virtue than she did, but she nodded to his request all the same.

True to his word, Ray left the door open as they walked deeper into her room.
“Might I just say you look quite radiant tonight,” he remarked with a shy smile.
“Thank you,” Felicity replied.  She did not wish to be rude.
“I know we haven’t had much time to spend together and that my journeys to London always seemed so short, at least to me,” he started.  His hands were shaking at his sides and a few times he brushed his palms against the edges of his coat; he was nervous and, aware of that, Felicity let him continue without interruption.  “But I wish you to know that I care very deeply for you and I find myself most beguiled by you.  I believe myself to be extremely lucky to be in your presence.” 

She smiled as he spoke, but every word he said; she wished had come from another man’s mouth.

“I planned to give this to you tomorrow evening, rather grandly,” he continued, genial as he fumbled through his pocket to find a small jewellery box.  “But I rather suspect you would hate such a grandiose gesture.”
She kept her hands pinned to her side as a breath lodged in her throat; she would have preferred him to be cruel, demanding, and rude – at least then she wouldn’t have felt bad for knowing she could never accept what was in his hand.
“I understand if you don’t feel this way about me yet, but I wish to make you aware of my feelings for you,” he paused to gather his thoughts before he continued, “You are as brilliant as you are beautiful, as tenacious as you are kind, and I hope to do everything in my power to ensure you have the life you deserve.  I believe you very capable of running the house and all decisions in that respect would be yours.”  He spoke with such conviction that Felicity could not bring herself to rebuke his words.

They were in fact kind ones, and she knew this.  Very few men thought of their wives as anything other than pretty and affectionate tokens to bare their children and dote on their every success.  It was almost unheard of for a man – especially a well-to-do one – to entrust his wife with anything that included finances or staff, she was merely an ornament to drape in fine jewellery to prove one’s wealth.

“I know that you are most fond of the countryside, so perhaps when we return to London you might like to look at boroughs we could visit, or perhaps even live in.  I trust you most implicitly.”

He held out the small box but Felicity’s hands stayed pinned to her side.  “Of course I understand if you would prefer not to accept this right now,” he remarked as he moved a trembling hand through his quaffed hair.

Perhaps it was ironic that the one man she did not love was so honest with his feelings, while the one she felt herself falling for had not been able to share his.

He stuffed the small box back into his pocket and chuckled lightly.  “I hope that you in time will forgive my nature Felicity, and know that I am willing to wait for you.”

All the thoughts Felicity had of confessing to lewd behaviour that were gross exaggerations in the least; outright lies at the most, fell by the wayside as she looked at this most awkward man who had done nothing wrong.

“Thank you for your patience, Mister Palmer,” she said softly while he reached into the top pocket of his coat.
“Your mother asked that I give you this letter.”  He handed her a sealed envelope and she took it gently from his hands.  “I will leave you to retire for the night.”

He reached for her hand and she did not resist him, and after lifting her hand up to his mouth, Ray kissed the back of her knuckles sweetly.
“Goodnight Miss Felicity,” he warmly said as he backed away.
“Goodnight Mister Palmer.”

Felicity read her mother’s letter by the light of a small lamp on her nightstand as she sat on the edge of the quilted bed.  She had worried it might have been filled with anger at Felicity’s tempestuous and senseless decision, but she found no such words.

Instead, she found a mother who spoke about how proud she was of her daughter, but how much she missed her.  She found the words of a mother who understood her daughter’s thirst for something else but expressed that perhaps it was not to be found in clothes borrowed from a stable boy.

Felicity felt tears welling up in her eyes as she read it as not a word of it was cruel or uncaring; perhaps it would have been much easier if there had been.

She spoke about Mister Palmer and how worried he had been after she’d vanished and how Felicity’s stepfather had reached out to him for help.  Her mother spoke kindly of the man and how he had poured much of his time and effort into finding the ship that had spirited her away.

They had been worried for her safety above all else, unsure what kind of vessel or crew she had found herself entangled with, and they had enlisted the help of studious sailors and officers to ensure that she was safe.

Her mother’s words expressed how she understood that Felicity might not feel love for the man, but that love was able to grow with him if she allowed it to.  However, the decision whether to marry Mister Palmer would be her own to make once she returned to London.

It finished with a line that Felicity had known since her youth when it was only the two of them and her stomach was hungry and her bed a mat of straw.

You are my most precious treasure and I will be proud of whatever path you travel because my footsteps will follow yours in my heart for all time.

My beautiful girl, I love you dearly.

When Felicity had finished reading the letter, her eyes were soaked with tears and her heart was heavy; disappearing into the world again without a trace would crush her mother, something Felicity realised she could never do.

She was to return to England.

●|●

She was to return to England.

Oliver repeated the mantra to himself with every stroke the willow bark made on the parchment paper in his hand, but even in repetition, he didn't want to believe it was true.

The lantern above him swung in the wind which cast shadows over his page, but it didn't matter; Oliver could draw her face with his eyes closed.

He was perched high on the bow spirit, with his legs dangling from the height above the temperamental coastal waves.

There was a constant ambience of noise in this distance but nothing Oliver paid attention to until he heard the very distinctive sound of Tommy clearing his throat rather loudly. 

He was in no mood to hear the inevitable lecture that he was certain he was about to hear, but he turned his attention towards him irrespectively.

“The payment is on board Captain and secured in your quarters under lock and key,” Tommy remarked pragmatically.  “Shall I have the crew rounded up?”
Oliver returned his attention back to his drawing.  “We won’t be leaving tonight.”
“Tomorrow at first light then Captain?” Tommy quizzed with a hint of impertinence.
“No,” Oliver huffed.
“Oliver...” Tommy started as the Captain got to his feet and tucked his book under his arm.  He moved to walk past Tommy, but his friend caught him at the elbow.  “We should go.”
“Not yet,” Oliver muttered before he pulled his arm free from Tommy’s grip.
“You're torturing yourself and you know it.”
“Not until I know she’s happy and safe,” Oliver said, taut and husky.
“And you think she will be...?” Tommy started.
But Oliver interrupted.  “Not until then.”
Tommy sighed.  “Yes Cap'n”

She was to return to England.
With the buffoon.

Chapter Text

If it were possible, Felicity looked even more beautiful the next morning.  The sun was fresh and a light breeze lifted off the ocean and kept the heat at bay, while fisherman with fresh hauls unloaded to a frenzy of sea birds vying for a dropped morsel.  But all that noise was drowned out by the thump of Oliver’s heart behind his chest.

She wore a pastel pink gown which complemented her pale complexion beautifully, and a single string of pearls around her neck.  Her décolletage was framed with silk ruffles and her hair was swept back from her face and pinned with a ribbon at her crown.  She still wore no makeup that he could tell, but she carried a lace fan in her gloved hands, which she used to cool herself as she walked towards him.

He paid absolutely no mind to the man walking a step or two behind and even less to the other people accompanying them.  The group consisted of Ray, the same stout naval man that he had seen them with the day prior, an older man accompanied by a woman who appeared young enough to be his daughter, but clung to him as a wife, and Felicity, the only one he cared to acknowledge with a smile.

Ray, ever the studious gentleman, introduced the other couple by their titles, the Marquess and Marchioness of Karlbrin, Lord Delabare and his wife Lady Susanna.  He'd looked at Oliver like he ought to know who they were, but Oliver wasn’t bound by social niceties and he simply nodded.

They were staying at the Estate where Felicity and Ray had lodging, and Lord Delabare was an owner of a cargo vessel much like Oliver's fine craft, Ray so eloquently informed.  But, Oliver gave up listening shortly thereafter and, instead, turned his attention to Felicity.

“Good morning Captain.”  Felicity spoke first and her mouth turned up at one corner to form a smile that Oliver had spent much of the night drawing.
“Good morning Duchess,” he responded as he fisted his hands at his sides to stop them reaching for her.
“Actually she’s not a Duchess, but I suppose one day she might be,” Ray interjected with a jovial laugh that Oliver found immediately infuriating, despite the intentions of the man being nothing of the sort.

“Ray, he knows,” Felicity assured him somewhat tautly, glancing back only momentarily.  “It’s a joke.”
“Oh,” Ray hummed, bobbing his head like he understood, “my mistake good man.”
Oliver said nothing, but his eyes narrowed and his lips tightened, at least until Felicity touched his arm and his attention fell immediately back to her while his face instantly softened.

“Have you eaten?” he enquired as her hand fell away from his arm.
“Yes,” she answered with a decorous nod, “quite well.”
“And you slept?”
“Enough.  My room is on the second story and overlooks the ocean which helped,” she effused. 
The two shared a gaze that drifted into silence, until Ray cleared his throat demonstrably.

“I was thinking Oliver, that you might be so kind as to show me where I might purchase some art pieces from? I would like to decorate my study back home with something of this journey.  Perhaps Felicity might use her impeccable tastes to help me,” Ray encouraged with an auspicious smile.
“Of course,” Felicity replied politely, “perhaps you might point us in the right direction Captain.”
Oliver looked at her before he relented and nodded his head north-east of where they stood.

Ray moved first and the others in the group had already started walking, but when Oliver attempted to follow, Felicity caught his wrist and held him back.  
“I’m also wearing three less layers,” she whispered with a blissful laugh.
He said nothing, but his smile grew tremendously. 

The Lady and Lord kept to themselves and the stout officer with no name Oliver could remember, kept a somewhat vigilant eye on Oliver as they spent some time looking around the place at some wares that took Ray’s fancy.  When he stopped to ask Felicity’s input, she offered him kind, but stalled responses and very little more than a polite smile or nod of her head.  

The truth was she had far too many other thoughts bouncing around her head and she was barely keeping them contained.  Last night she had made a decision, as graciously as possible she would thank Mister Palmer for all his sacrifice and help arranging her safe passage home, but she could not in good conscious accept his proposal either now or once they disembarked in London; she would tell him that she hoped they could remain friends and that he was a man that deserved something she was unable to give him… her heart.

Because it belonged to another.

And, today she would tell Oliver so – even if he did not feel the same way.  She would return to England so as to not be a burden any more, but on his return in some 6 months, and if he felt the same way she did, she would be waiting for him.

She had the very best laid plans.

It was a pity what they said about those…

 ●|●

It was nearing lunch and the sun’s heat had begun to make the stroll around the city more tiresome.  It was at one of their last stops that quite by accident something fell from Mister Palmer’s jacket to Oliver’s feet while Felicity was picking from an array of ribbons.  It was Oliver who stooped instinctively to pick it up and as he held it in his hand; he knew exactly what it was.

“I don’t know why I carry this thing around with me,” Ray said with a nervous laugh that shook his shoulders.  “Perhaps I’m just waiting for her answer.”
When the words left his mouth, the sheepish expression on his face told Oliver that, as a gentleman, he had said too much, or at the very least out of turn, and because of such, Ray stuffed the small ring box deep into the pocket which it had fallen out of.

Oliver wasn’t mad, he knew in himself that he couldn’t be; Felicity was making the sensible choice.

She had selected three ribbons, but only to squirrel away a few moments with Oliver alone while Ray went up to pay the shop keep.  She did not wish to embarrass or hurt Mister Palmer as her mother’s letter had shown the man to be both kind and considerate, so when his back was turned Felicity leaned in close to Oliver and told him what she could in those few seconds.

“I wish to speak with you alone about something later,” she whispered.  It was all she could manage to say before their travelling companions joined them, and to save from prying eyes and hushed condemnation, Felicity stepped a little further away from Oliver afterwards.  However, they said their farewell to briefly advise that they had some business to attend to a few streets over and they would meet up back at the Estate afterwards .

Oliver could not tell by Felicity's tone that she was both excited and nervous to speak with him, and his thoughts were clouded by what he knew lurked in Ray’s fine dyed coat, so he heard her words with a heaviness that he felt in his chest.

But before he could say anything in reply, Ray returned to them with Felicity’s ribbons.
“I’ll be sure to pay you back with interest in London,” Felicity smiled courteously as she took them from his hands.
“No need Felicity, truly it is my pleasure.”  He paused to pull a gold watch from behind his jacket and holding it by the ornate chain, he checked the time.
“We really should be leaving soon, we are to meet our hosts nearby for lunch,” he remarked and they made their way back through the markets.   

“A few moments more,” Felicity hummed, but before she waited for an answer, another direction stole her attention and she thought back to the curious way Oliver had stopped her heading a block over the day before.  It was also the way the Lord and Lady were heading.
“What is that way?” she curiously asked, watching for the same expression to make an appearance on Oliver’s face as it had the day before.
It did, a second later.  “Nothing,” he turned to Ray, “Where are you to meet your hosts?”
“I want to go this way?” Felicity remarked as she took a few steps towards the short alleyway that ran between the dishevelled factories.

The closer she got, the more she could hear what sounded like an auction taking place.  She had been to a great many with her step father, and she did so enjoy the rush of people all vying for the same item, eager to beat the other.

“It’s an auction,” she said with glee as her steps hurried towards the noise.
But Oliver stopped her, rather abruptly, by grabbing her wrist; a sight which did not go unnoticed.  “I said no,” Oliver bit back, his voice was barked, but no louder than Felicity was used to, and so she shrugged him off.  She tried to slip her hand free, but Oliver was holding it.

“Sir, perhaps you should remove your hand from around the young lady’s wrist,” Ray cautioned stiffly – and for the first time, Oliver heard the man’s voice without any joviality.
The Officer also had his hand on his sheathed cutlass.

“Ray it’s fine,” Felicity demurred before she turned her attention to Oliver’s hand on her wrist.  “Oliver you’re hurting me,” she expressed softly.  Instantly, Oliver released her hand, but she was still anchored by his eyes.
“If Felicity wishes to see the auction, then she will see the auction, you do not need to accompany us Mr Queen, if you prefer to wait here,” Ray said brusquely.
Oliver sighed heavily as he turned to look at Ray.  “It’s not what you think it is.”
“Surely that is for us to decide,” Ray argued, but even in arguing he wore a level of civility that Oliver would gladly smack out of him.
“Not her,” Oliver barked.
Ray raised his shoulders, and lauded the half foot of height he had over Oliver.  “I believe Felicity to be smart enough to make that decision.”
Oliver gritted his teeth and fisted his hand.
“Sir,” the officer interjected.  When he had the attention of both men, he nodded to where Felicity was already disappearing between the buildings.

By the time they caught up with her, she had emerged into the small square which was crowded with mostly men, some looked like sea captains – the proper sort with powdered wigs and tailored jackets, others looked more like Oliver, and a few wore the same aura about them in both age and pragmatics that her father did; they were all very white.  The Lord and his Lady were also there and they moved closer, happy to see the others arrive.

Where she expected to find furniture or livestock, she saw people lined up, shackled at both their feet and their hands.  Dark-skinned, slumped over, men, women, and children.

When Oliver caught up, he instantly saw the confusion on her face, she still didn’t seem to understand what she was looking at.

The auctioneer was a tall spindly man who wore a dark coat and sunken cheeks, his skin was deathly pale and his eyes were beady and rimmed with heavy lines, and at his hip he held a riding crop

A number was called and a small boy, no older than 8 was pulled from the line, a mother’s shriek broke the jovial ambience of the men nearby and Felicity gasped in horror as the auctioneer’s cropped struck her across the face.

Felicity lurched forward but Oliver caught her around the waist and pulled her instinctively into an embrace.  Her eyes were wild; filled with anguish and empathy and confusion all at the same time.

“What are they doing?” she asked, her voice thin and brittle.
“It’s a domestic workers auction,” Ray simpered, “some of them will be lucky enough to be heading to England to make fine lives for themselves.”
“Fine lives for themselves?” Oliver spat.  “These people are slaves, what fine life is that?”

“They’ll find themselves with a job and a roof over their head,” the Lord interjected.  It was apparent trading in human lives and misery was what afforded him a starry-eyed and obedient wife, and a wardrobe full of fancy three-piece suits.
“Not by any choice of their own,” Oliver shot back, his voice and expression clearly fuming.

“I don’t understand, they’re forced to leave?” Felicity lamented, her blue eyes crowded with confusion.
“Their sold like commodities, taken from their lives and their families so they can have someone to shine their shoes every morning,” Oliver spat.
Her fine features twisted in pain of what she was hearing.  “Families in England do this?”
Oliver nodded slightly.
“It’s the way it should be,” the Lord huffed, rolling his palm over the ball on the cane he carried.
“To who? You?” Oliver growled, and if it wasn't for Felicity he would have had the stuffy old man on the floor with one pointed punch.
“They’re savages, this way they’re given opportunities.”  The coolness in his voice was causing Oliver's rage to becoming blinding. 
“They’re savages?” he growled, “You are the one making money off the lives of other people.”
“That’s enterprise,” he spoke with a smirk.
Felicity held Oliver’s fist before he did something that would see him arrested.
“No, sir,” she chastised, glaring at the man and his silent wife.  “That’s something different, something demonic.”

She went to move away, when his rotund laugh stalled her.
“Stay Felicity, perhaps you should select some for yourself, a young lady to help you dress,” Lord Delabare enthused.
“I will do no such thing!”
“You’re stepfather the Duke has domestic help does he not?”
“Not like this, he wouldn’t,” as she spoke her voice cracked.  Surely not.
She looked at Oliver for confirmation, but he could not give it.  The truth was, most nobleman did and her step father was likely no different.

She turned to Ray, her eyes begging for the truth.
“Felicity it’s the way of the world,” Ray said softly.
“If that is true then I do not like this world at all.”

She walked away, the way she had entered, and both Ray and Oliver followed closely behind.  She stopped clear of the alleyway and when she turned, her tears had marred her cheeks with wet trails, but her eyes were furious.

“You need to stop this!” she shouted at both men.
“There isn’t anything either of us can do,” Ray said, and in an attempt to pacify her he reached for her, but she stepped back from them both.
Her attention turned to Oliver, but his expression said the same thing Ray’s words had.
“There must be something,” she begged, but neither man could answer her.
There wasn’t.

“You didn’t want me to see this?” she whispered as she looked at Oliver.
He shook his head softly.  “No,” he mouthed.
And so much of his words made sense.  “This is why you don’t come here, the thing you don’t trade in, it's people,” she breathed, repeating his words from their last day together.
“I don’t trade in lives, the place a person is born doesn’t make them anymore or any less a person,” Oliver remarked.

“That’s a shame, there is a lot of money in it,” Lord Delabare said behind them.
It wasn’t a perfect execution, and it was in fact thoroughly reactive, but nonetheless, Oliver's fist found it’s mark and the Lord went down in a guff of air while his silent wife actually smiled before she crouched down to feign worry.

“I want him arrested!” the Lord demanded.
“Perhaps we should leave,” Ray grimaced, unsure which allegiance he should take.
The Lord turned to the naval officer. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t see anything,” he said stiffly.  It was also a lie.

Felicity turned around and walked away, to which Ray followed, as did Oliver and the Officer, leaving the Lord and Lady alone in the street.

Ray caught up with Felicity, but before Oliver could the Officer held him back.
“I know who you are Mister Queen.”  He spoke calmly despite his hushed tone.
“I’m no one,” Oliver warned.
“Both you and I know that isn't correct.”  He nodded down to the necklaces which had come out from behind Oliver’s shirt.  “I’ve sailed much of these waters over 20 years for the Monarchy, and I have seen that trinket you wear before.”
Oliver’s eyes narrowed fractionally, but he said nothing.
“Do you need me to tell you where? Perhaps a name, Gambit, would suffice.”
“What do you want for your silence?” Oliver prompted dryly.
“Nothing, but to say Duke Sommerset is an old friend, Felicity is his step daughter and I would not see either of them tarnished.”
“You want me gone?” 
The Officer looked towards Felicity and Ray walking a few feet ahead of them.
“You intended to anyway.  Should Lord Delabare argue for your incarceration, no doubt the truth will come out.  What will she think of you then? Or of herself?”

Oliver felt his chest tighten as he looked over to Felicity...what would she think of you?
He didn’t want to know; he couldn’t face that.  He nodded before he tucked both necklaces away.  “I understand, thank you for your discretion.”
“I suggest you take up anchor as soon as you’re able.”
He took another stolen look at Felicity, his last, before he turned and walked the opposite way.

Felicity felt a shiver down her spine that made her turn around without provocation, just in time to see Oliver walking the opposite direction.
“Oliver?” she called out, but he did not stop.
A second time, and while he heard it, he didn’t pause. 

She ran after him without a second thought, and with his long stride it took her breath away by the time she reached him.
“You’re going because of that stuffy old man?” she panted, her cheeks a bright pink.
“You know I need to leave,” he said sadly.
Her brow crinkled.  “What? Why?” she breathed, almost silent.
What would she think?
“You and I both know I have to go,” Oliver advised as he started to fall back; afraid that if he didn't then...he never would.
“I’m sure our hosts would welcome you for lunch,” she pleaded as she reached for him.  He didn't reach back.
“You will be safe now.”
Her teeth fretted with her bottom lip as her eyes glasses over.  “I was safe with you.”
He sighed, “No you weren’t.”
He went to leave, but hesitated.  “Go climb your mountain,” he said with a gentle smile.  “Live your life Felicity, you’ll fly wherever you are.”
“Oliver please,” she begged, her eyes giving way to tears.  “There is something I have to say, something you need to hear.”
But, he knew he couldn’t stay a moment longer... What would she think of you?
“I have to go.”

With those last four words, Oliver left, leaving Felicity standing alone... frozen.

She’d had the best laid plans.

●|●

Oliver wasted more than an hour away in the corner of a seedy tavern nursing a sour expression and an entire bottle of spiced rum, while he tried to convince himself he’d done the right thing.

When he made it back to Verdant it was the middle of the afternoon and Tommy met him at the edge of the gangway.
“You smell terrible,” Tommy remarked.
But Oliver was in no mood to jest.  “Round up the crew, we leave in an hour,” he chided.  “Anyone not here gets left behind.”
Tommy kept his eyes to the docks and his lips tight.  “And Felicity, Captain?”
“Where she belongs, not here.”
Tommy sighed, he’d held his tongue for so long.  He chastised himself, sure that he could do it for few more hours, but when he heard Oliver stomp away he realised he just couldn’t.

“You stupid son of a bitch, no offense to your mother, she is quite lovely,” Tommy blurted out as he followed Oliver.
When Oliver spun around his face was like thunder. “An hour.”
“So that’s it then?” Tommy demanded.
“One hour,” Oliver spoke tersely before he turned sharply and walked away.
Tommy watched, on the precipice of a decision... but it was not his to make.  He roared under his breath out of frustration before he turned to a few crewmen that lingered nearby.
“You heard the Captain, round up everyone.  Check the gutters and the whore houses, we leave in an hour,” he huffed before he kicked his shoes into the wood beneath him.
 

●|●

Felicity's skin felt raw and the water was almost scolding as it was poured over her body, but she did little more than clench her fists in the cloudy water as her Governess directed the young maid scrub her more vigorously with the horsehair brush.  Perhaps, if she wasn't feeling so numb she might have protested the treatment, but in truth feeling something, even if it verged on torturous was better than the empty numbness she had felt since she watched Oliver walk away.

Everything from that moment; every breath and every step, felt laborious and weighted, and she had done very little to appease the feeling.

It was not just the water that scolded her in the small tiled bathroom as she sat in the copper tub, in fact the hot water tingling her skin was far less jarring than her Governess’ sharp-tongued words.  She had heard about the fiasco at the auction and how that ‘savage Captain' had assaulted a fine, upstanding man with his fists, while Felicity had assaulted him with her venomous words; tantamount in the horrid old woman's mind, to a most ungodly sin.

Felicity hadn’t tried to argue the rebuking either; none of it mattered.  She loved Oliver, stupidly she had fallen in love with a man who refused to love her back.  She bit back tears, knowing the same would anger the bitter old woman, but that didn’t stop her heart from aching... She didn’t envision anything would be able to.

“You’re fortunate I was able to speak with Mister Palmer and he is still willing to court you.  I can’t imagine why, but he has agreed not to judge such a gross transgression too harshly.”  Each word the shrew spoke echoed around the bathroom like the gnawing sound of a rodent and Felicity chose to ignore her entirely.

“Did you hear me?” she snapped.
Felicity looked up with steely eyes.  “You’re yelling, it would be impossible to not hear you.”
“Wretched girl,” she spat before she stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
“I'll pay for that later,” Felicity sighed as she let her hands float to the surface.
The maid immediately stopped scrubbing and Felicity winced when the water splashed against her back.
“I’m so sorry miss, she demand...”
Felicity smiled as the tremoring girl walked around to the side of the tub.  Her pale face was young and her demeanour was fragile.  “Please, it’s not your fault,” Felicity assured her.
“I heard about the auction.”
Felicity cringed, she imagined everybody had by now.
“It's about time someone hit him,” she leaned in and whispered.  “I only wish I had seen it.”
Felicity laughed softly. “It was something to behold alright, the fat bastard couldn’t get himself up off the ground.”
The young girl snickered behind her hand.  

●|●

It was nearing Oliver's rigidly-imposed departure time when Jones came aboard with another man, dragging a worse for wear Galley Boy between them.
“Jesus, what the fuck happened to him?” Tommy demanded as he looked Barry over briefly.  He was sporting a black eye, a cut lip and a skinned jaw on his face alone.  But, given he was limping, it didn’t appear anything was broken; except a rib or two maybe.
“Found him in a scuffle with some men he was gambling with,” Jones explained gruffly.  “They warned him to come back with their money or throw himself into the ocean with the anchor.”
“Betting what he ain’t got to pay back,” the other crewman added bluntly.
“Just need a few extra coins Quartermaster and I can make it back,” Barry said, his words were stunted and he buckled over afterwards.
“Fucking idiot boy,” Tommy hissed.  “You’re lucky we're setting sail and you better hope they drink so much their memories aren’t any good anymore.”

He looked at Jones before he nodded to the door that led below deck.  “Take him to the Doc and keep him down there.”
Jones nodded, “Yes Quartermaster.”
Tommy watched the last lights of the afternoon begin to fade from the sky with a heavy, regretful sigh as another member of the crew approached.
“All accounted for and on board Quartermaster.  Shall we loose the ropes?”
Tommy looked out across the dock, scanning for a face in the crowd that wasn’t there.  Whatever Oliver had done, he’d done it thoroughly.

“Not just yet.  No one on or off,” he ordered before he ran towards Quarters.

●|●

Felicity felt the tug of the laces on her stay force the air from her lungs and a strangled moan from her mouth as she gripped the bed post until her knuckles turned white.

She was thin naturally and a month on ship's rations had kept her that way, if not making her more so, so the need to lace her stay to the point of making it nearly impossible to breath seemed to have very little with clinching her waist to an impossible size, and so much more to do with her Governess' utter disdain for her ward.  Felicity would absolutely see the trite witch fired as soon as they set foot on London soil, if she didn't throw her overboard on the way.

“You best see that you lavish all your feminine attentions on your Mister Palmer tonight so that he does not think better of his decision to marry you,” she squawked from behind.
Felicity ought to have held her lips closed by any means possible, but her nature got the better of her and her response was almost immediate.  “I won't be marrying Mister Palmer so he won't have to worry.”

The next lace the Governess tightened might very well have broken a rib judging by the ferocity with which she pulled it and Felicity couldn't help but gasp out in pain.

“No other man would ever have you after what you've done, running off with a boat full of men doing god knows what.”  She knotted off the stay and carried on the task of getting dressed for the formal event that had already begun downstairs.

“It's a ship,” Felicity hummed, a response that, as predicted, angered the older woman and she stabbed a pin into Felicity, just below her waist, which was meant to fasten the stomacher to her stay.
“You shrew,” Felicity lashed out before she pinned the bodice herself.
“Lord Sommerset is a Duke and you are a...”
Felicity looked up sharply, “finish your sentence Governess, but know whatever words you choose will be repeated to the Duke as soon as I return.”

She closed her thin lips tightly and the rest of the dressing continued in silence.

●|●

“Alright,” Tommy announced as he barged into Oliver's Quarters.  He found the Captain sitting at his desk nursing a bottle of moonshine with his pet rat sitting nearby eating a stale cracker.

Oliver barely looked up to register Tommy's imposition.

“I know I said I would support whatever decision you made as both your friend and your Quartermaster, but given this is hands down the stupidest decision I have ever seen you make, I'm deciding to renege.”
“It's better this way,” Oliver spoke into the mouth of the bottle.
“You don't honestly believe that?!” Tommy badgered.
Oliver's palm slammed down onto his desk making Christopher scuttle away.
“Not now Thomas.”
“Thomas? You're calling me Thomas now?” Tommy laughed belligerently.  “The last time you called me Thomas you were piss drunk and half naked in a gutter and I bested you in a fight.”

“Still count that as a victory Thomas? I was so drunk I was seeing two of you.”
“You were a stubborn son of a bitch then and you are now too.  She would have stayed if you asked her.”

Oliver stood up suddenly and his chair toppled backwards.  “I won't ask her to give up her life for rotten planks and frayed ropes,” he raged before he jabbed a finger in the air towards Tommy, “you know what this life is about.”

Tommy stormed forward, his face mirroring Oliver's temperament; stormy and volatile.
“Of course I know what this fucking life is, I've lived it for the last 5 years alongside you since I dragged you from the gutter.  I have supported you when no one else would and I'm standing here now telling you you're making a mistake.”

“Maybe 5 years ago you should have left me there,” Oliver grunted.
“And 9 years before that maybe you should have let me drown.”

They leaned over the desk, neither backing down from the stance.  But, eventually, it was Tommy who softened first.  “But you didn't, and I didn't, and now here we are and I'm telling you that if you walk away from this, from her, you will regret it.”
Oliver tore a weary hand through his locks.  “She doesn't even know who I am, if she did...,” his words faded, what would she think of you?

“So tell her, give her the chance to decide that, maybe you'll discover she knows you better than you think she does.”
Oliver slumped down over his desk.
“She deserves to make the choice herself, but you never even put yourself in the race,” Tommy added. 
Oliver put the liquor to his lips but never took a drink.  “If I tell her and she walks away?”
“What will you have lost? You never cared much for your dignity before.”

Oliver corked the bottle and looked up.  “I'll never get into the Estate.”
“Not dressed like that you won't,” Tommy chastised with a laugh.  “But I think I can help.”

●|●

“I feel stupid,” Oliver muttered as he and Tommy hid behind a dilapidated fence.
“That's because you look stupid,” Tommy mocked before he looked around the corner towards the gated Estate.

The owners had clearly made their money on the back of other people's hard work, and as such they needed security posted at the front gate and no doubt walking around the perimeter.  

The banquet they were hosting was being attended by whichever stuffy nobility were around, and likely to cajole themselves on what a fine enterprise they were doing.  Oliver could barely imagine how Felicity was faring amongst it.

“Clothes are one thing, but I don't think I'm getting through there without a fight seeing as I don’t have an invitation,” Oliver commented as he nodded his head towards the guards.
“That's where I come in,” Tommy replied.
“And what exactly are you going to do?”
Tommy slapped Oliver's shoulder and took one last look at the gold silk ditto suit he'd forced his friend into.  “A distraction,” he answered with a wink.  “Tell her how you feel and who you are, and let the choice be hers.”
Oliver nodded as the two friends readied themselves.  Tommy looked nervously at the two guards almost twice his size, but he was a wily fella.

“I'm certain this is going to hurt,” he gulped.
Oliver half smiled. “I owe you one.”
Tommy bobbed his head with a nod.  “Add it to the list,” he remarked before he inhaled deeply and then took off running towards the gate.

Tommy Merlyn turned out to be an excellent distraction, and while both guards chased him around the side of the Estate, Oliver snuck in without any trouble.  He stayed near the hedge of rose bushes until he was certain no one had noticed him.  Straightening his coat and wearing a genial smile on his now clean shaven face, Oliver wandered into the crowd like he belonged there.

He kept watch for any of the men that might be able to recognise him, and resisted the urge to scratch the ridiculous powdered wig on his head.

But his 'disguise' worked and no one of the 20 odd mulling around noticed him.  Of course, the next problem he faced was finding Felicity.  He didn't see her in the ballroom which sprawled out into the garden, and she didn't appear to be in the lit courtyard which was choked with the smell of cigars and brandy.

He saw Ray in the distance and was pleasantly surprised to not find Felicity alongside him.  Stupid buffoon.

He ducked behind a pillar seeped with shadows as Ray glanced his way.  Unsure if he'd been spotted, he stayed put and studied his options.

“I know you,” a small voice whispered and Oliver realised he wasn't alone in the shadowy recesses.
He cleared his throat and tried to sound like Tommy as he chuckled out a, “I don't think so Miss.”
“No, I do,” the feminine voice remarked as the owner of the same stepped closer and out of the shadows.  It was Lady Susanna Delabare in a sapphire dress.  Her face was powdered white, but she looked more alive than she had on the arm of her husband.  “You're the sea captain that punched my husband.”

Suddenly Oliver's cravat felt suffocating.  “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”
She smiled and Oliver saw her youthfulness.  “That was phenomenal and honestly the best thing I have seen in years.”  She extended a gloved hand and Oliver blinked down to it.

“I should like to shake your hand good Sir.  Dare I say I would prefer to shake something else of yours, but it's fairly clear you only have eyes for your Mistress.”  
Oliver swallowed the hitch in his throat before he shook her small hand.
“Have you seen her?” he asked.
“She came down earlier, but I heard her say she was feeling unwell a few minutes ago so she may have gone back to her room.”

Oliver looked back at the large house.  “Do you know where it is?”
She nodded, “I can take you there, for a fee.”
“What's the fee?”
“A kiss,” she smiled as her eyebrow raised.
He took her hand and gently kissed her knuckles.

“Will that suffice?” Oliver asked warmly.
She shrugged her slender shoulders before she laughed softly.  “I suppose it will.  This way,” she hummed as she pointed towards the south.

●|●

“There, that window,” Lady Susanna said as they stopped near a secluded area.  The sounds of the orchestra had faded into ambience and the noise of chattering was long gone.  The air was warm and the window was actually patio doors that had been left open.

He turned around to see the view, and in the distance he could see the moon glistening on the ocean; remembering what Felicity had recounted of her view, it was likely the right room.

“Why are you helping me?” Oliver asked with a cocked brow.
“One of us young women about this place ought to get the cock she deserves,” the Lady shrugged.
Oliver breathed out a laugh as the woman shrugged idly.  “I'm not quite the lady he makes me out to be am I? And I know what you must think of me being with a man like him.”
Oliver shook his head lightly, “I don't judge you for your circumstance.”
She offered him a thankful smile.  “Want to know a secret?” she enquired coquettishly.  But before Oliver could respond, she continued.  “I've been stealing from him for years and hiding it away.  When the time is right I'll leave him to be with my lover, and on the way out I'll ruin his little enterprise.”
Frankly, Oliver wasn’t surprised and he hoped eventually one day word of the same would reach his ears.  “You are quite the minx Lady Delabare.”

A noise in the distance hushed them; people were walking towards them.

“You have no idea,” she answered with a grin.  “Now go to her and I'll see you aren't caught.”
She pushed him gently and Oliver ran towards the lattice that climbed up the side of the house.  He wasn't sure how sturdy it was but after quickly checking if it could take his weight, he climbed while Lady Delabare headed towards the approaching voices.

Oliver climbed holding his breath, until he reached the small patio.  The room was bathed in soft orange light that wicked with the gentle breeze, and peering in as best as he could, Oliver saw pretty shoes pacing back and forth, while the owner muttered to herself.

He couldn't hear the words, but he was positive he knew the sound of her frustrated voice; it was Felicity.

As quietly as he could, Oliver hauled himself onto the small patio and pressed his body against the wall.  He plucked open the gauzy curtain and peeked inside the room.

Felicity was pacing with one hand brushing against her ornately decorated skirt while the other clung around her waist.  She was talking under her breath, musing about how exactly it was that she found herself in this predicament and lamenting the room full of complete bores downstairs.

She knew it was only a matter of time before her Governess dragged her back to the gathering to be polite, and Felicity was contemplating how best to feign a fainting spell when she heard a noise from the balcony.  She stopped immediately and stared at the shadows the light cast on the sheer curtains.

It was precisely at that moment that a bird decided to dive bomb Oliver's powdered wig, perhaps thinking it looked perfect for the nest they were building nearby.  He swatted it away, but his knuckles caught the side of the house and an angry grunt fell from his mouth.

“Who's there?” Felicity barked as she picked up the nearest thing to a weapon she could find; a fire poker.
Oliver raised his hands and stepped into view, but shrouded in shadows and wearing clothes not at all his usual attire, she didn't immediately recognise him.
“What on earth are you doing in my room good sir?” Felicity said, guarded as she raised the poker and stabbed it in the air towards him.

“Technically I'm not in your room yet, and I'm most certainly not a good sir,” Oliver quipped, and with his hands still raised he stepped up into her room and into the light.
“Oliver,” she gasped as she stumbled forward, the fire poker still poised out in front of her.
“Whoa, whoa,” Oliver quipped as he raised his hands higher into a surrender.  “Do you think you could put that down?”

A soft peep popped from her lips before she dropped the poker on the ground and stumbled the last few steps forward.

It was then that Oliver took in just how beautiful she looked, and the finery he'd seen her in the times before paled in comparison.

Her dress was pale green with threads of gold woven into the fabric that caught the light as she moved, teasing the eye with an enticing shimmer.  The bodice sat tight and smooth across her chest, pushing her breasts to strain out the top with every quickened breath she took.  The sleeves stopped just below the elbow and were decorated with intricately stitched lace and satin ribbons.  

Her hair was pulled up, full, to her crown with a back section curled down and hung over her shoulder, while three white roses were pinned just above the other ear.  Her skin was porcelain and flawless, with rosy cheeks across her apples and a scarlet colour bled softly into her full lips.

She managed to stop his breath.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, keeping her voice at a whisper, lest they be heard.  “And looking like that?” she added, her pitch raising just a fraction as she took in the sight of him.

He wore buckled shoes and white stockings, breeches fastened just below the knee in a golden fabric embellished with buttons and woven stitching, while his snug waistcoat and knee length jacket made of the same elaborate fabric.  There was also a white ruffled shirt beneath that spilled down his front while a stiffened cravat wrapped around his neck.  His face was shaven smooth and his messy tendrils of hair she had come to adore had been replaced by a powdered wig that tied at the back with a long black ribbon.  He looked thoroughly regal.  And odd.

“I made a mistake walking away from you today,” he started as he inched forward, stopping when her full skirt brushed his ankles.    

Her lips parted to speak but his eyes begged her to just listen for a moment longer.  

“At least not without telling you the truth you deserve to know, the truth about me.”

Chapter Text

Felicity studied Oliver curiously, in all her time with him – both as Felix and as herself – she had never seen the expression that was facing her at that moment.  She had witnessed anger, confusion, annoyance, joy, and calmness; but what she saw in his flinching lips and his creased brow was fear.

Not the type of fear when faced with an insurmountable trial or frightful situation, but, rather, the type of fear that was coupled with worry of the unknown.  Whatever Oliver wanted to tell her didn’t come with bravado or self-assurance… it came with fear.

She wasn’t sure how to answer him, or even if he needed one to continue, but instinctively she reached for his hand and held it with her fingertips.

“They aren’t just trinkets,” he said quietly as his free hand dipped into his shirt and retrieved the necklaces he habitually wore.  “The cross belonged to my mother and it is nothing more than a ward for good luck, but the other,” Oliver paused as he ran the rough pad of his thumb over the other pendant.

Closer, Felicity could see that the circular pendant was in fact a coin, but not any she recognised.  The carvings on it were foreign, an inscription of some type that surrounded a second carving, an insignia that looked like an arrowhead.  It was tarnished and definitely old, but she could see it much clearer than she had ever seen it before.

“This holds an insignia that grants me passage through the Pirates Run and places just like it.”  He looked down to steady his thoughts.  He’d never told another soul about it; those who knew, knew because they lived by the same code, and the rest knew better than to ask.  “It grants me passage by birth right.  This is the insignia of my father and his father before him.  My father is a Pirate Captain and for many years I stood alongside him.”

He dare not look up, afraid of the recoil or fear he might see on her angelic features.  He couldn’t possibly have expected any less than horror.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he breathed, and in a moment that could only be described as masochism Oliver forced himself to look at Felicity, to take whatever look of disgust, hurt, or betrayal she had for him, because he was convinced that was what he deserved.  He didn’t deserve her gentle smiles, her soft kisses, and her light touch; and he never would.  He sins ran far too deep for that.

What he saw was confusion in her glassy eyes.
She didn’t understand.
How could she?

An angel could not understand the depravities of a demon, any more than a fish could understand the perspective of a bird.

All Felicity knew were that men like him stole, murdered, pillaged, and hung from gallows.

Her hands shook at her side as she tried to understand the words he spoke, and what they meant.  While she had once thought him reckless and crazy for attempting a voyage that others would not, she now knew it was not recklessness that drove him, nor was it sheer luck that had kept him safe all this time.

“Does Tommy know?” she asked, and her voice was far more whispered and frail than she had anticipated, but she feared saying it louder would somehow make it all much worse.
Oliver nodded slowly.  “He knows more than most.  When he was 10 my father and his crew, with me alongside, attacked a ship near in the Caribbean.  Tommy was on that ship with his mother.”  Oliver paused to hang his head, that had been a dark day and much had happened that had neither been planned for nor expected.  He could still taste the gun powder in the air, and feel the scorching flames as they tore the other vessel apart.  He had only been 10 himself, but it had imprinted on his psyche and all these years later the memories were vivid and brutal.

“No one survived on the other ship, at least not that we knew.  It was havoc as my father tried to untethered the ships to stop us sinking alongside them, but out the back of the ship, I saw a boy my own age clinging to a scrap of wood.  I lifted him aboard and hid him in my room for 2 weeks until we reached Port Royal where I got him to my mother and she found him passage home.  Nine years later the bastard found me again and offered me a job, more or less,” Oliver remarked, just a glimmer of a smile touching his lips.  

“Most men fear my father, and rightly so, he is one of the worst.  If I’m ever found out, his Majesty your King would see me share in his sins, and account for my own.  That’s why I walked away from you, why I had to,” he breathed, walking his eyes back up to hers.  “It wasn’t because I didn’t love you.”

“We aren’t our parents,” she said softly, but monotone.  “Otherwise, I would actually be a Duchess.”
“Felicity,” he cooed, and the way he said her name sprung a tear loose from her eye.  He moved forward but reactively she stepped back; just a fraction.  He couldn’t blame her.  He wouldn’t blame her.

“Why are you telling me this?” she enquired softly, unsure anymore what she should think, or feel.  Unsure, even, of her own words that she spoke.
“Somewhere along the line I fell in love with you,” he said quietly; they were more words he’d never said before.  “I don’t want anything from you and I know that you saying yes to Ray will be the fine choice, the right choice, but…,” he paused and she looked up.

Oliver dipped his hand into the lined pocket of his borrowed jacket and retrieved a folded piece of paper.  He held out the same to her, and Felicity took it timidly from his hands.  “Whatever decision you make, I’ll understand,” he started as he began to walk away.  He lingered just near the balcony doors, where the shadows reached out for him, and he took one last look at her.

In her fine clothes, styled hair, and delicate makeup she was truly a Lady.  But, beneath all that she was still very much the woman he loved; the woman who smiled at the stars and loved the feeling of the wind passing through her fingertips.  The woman who learned how to peel potatoes and fell into a heaving pile of fish to earn the moniker Squid.

“Verdant will sail at dawn,” he added, stealing those last few moments before he stepped back into the night.

Felicity watched, frozen, and unsure as Oliver hoisted himself over the railing around her balcony.  She opened the paper still clutched in her trembling hands.  It was the drawing Oliver had shown her, the one of the mermaid that she had admired so much, and written in the corner in handwriting that was not recognisable as Tommy’s neat penmanship, were the words 

It’s you.  It always was.

Her heart thundered behind her chest as a silent sigh fell from her lips.  The eyes looked so familiar now, the longing, the desperation, the quiet sadness that sat just below the surface.  That’s how he had seen her… he’d been the only one to see below the measured and polite smile she wore, and he had not judged that in the slightest.

He had never rebuked her for not being happy with the luxuries her parents’ life afforded her.  He had never belittled her desires, and never balked at her wishes.

He had seen her.
And he’d loved her all the same.

“Oliver,” she called out, way too loudly, but she cared not.  She ran towards the door where she had last seen him but the balcony was empty.

Her heart sunk as she held the drawing close to her chest.

“Yes Duchess?” a voice said from just below her.
She looked over the railing and found Oliver a few steps below, climbing down the trellis.

“Somewhere along the line, I fell in love with you too,” she breathed, with a smile locked across her lips and resonating into the pink apples of her cheeks.  She watched as he climb back up, until his face met with hers.  “You big dumb pine tree,” she whispered as she held his head in one palm.

Felicity leaned in and brushed a chaste but intimate kiss against his ruffled lips; he was smiling.

Oliver climbed back over the balcony and scooped her tightly into his arms before he kissed her deeply a second time.  Her body rose up his; supple against hard, as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gently walked him back into her room.  Pausing for only a moment, Felicity gently touched his smooth jaw and chuckled softly.  

“Tell me this will grow back,” she remarked coyly as she tapped his chin.
His hands drove down her body, but there was little of her he could feel beneath all her finery.  “In about two days,” he promised.

She unpinned his wig and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor.  “That had to go,” she announced with a coquettish grin before she ruffled her fingers through his natural hair, making it spill onto his shoulders in all its wonderful, messy, salt-licked glory.
“There you are,” she whispered as her fingers played with the ends of his hair.  “I don’t need until the morning to know my answer.”

Felicity looked up at him, a pleasant and genuine smile gracing her beautifully-red lips.  “I want to go where you go, whenever you go.”
“I can’t offer you all this,” he whispered as he looked around her room.
She lay her hand gently over his heart, and even through all his tailored clothes, he swore he could feel it’s heat.  “Will you offer me this?” she asked timidly.

But Oliver’s smile calmed her and when he placed his hand on top of her own, she stopped trembling.  “Completely,” he promised.
“Then that’s all I need.”

She led him back towards the bed, their fingers entwined and their separate hearts beating in unison.  She kissed him again, fleeting and achingly incomplete, but her nerves were getting the better of her.  There was a low throbbing in her belly and a warmth between her legs that tempted the next words from her lips.

“As well as your heart, might I have your body?” she asked as her curious fingers ran up the sides of his open coat.  She already knew what lay beneath his clothes, but finally allowing herself to act on those debauched thoughts was a most enticing prospect, and behind her layers of skirts and petticoats she could feel her body reacting to such an idea with wet anticipation.

“Here?” he asked, with a rasp in his throat that made Felicity chuckle.  She had rendered the Cap’n almost speechless.
“A good a place as any, and we are alone,” she whispered before she lifted onto her toes and stole a kiss from the corner of his mouth.

But, her words didn’t prove accurate as a loud knock on her door startled them apart.
“Felicity?” her Governess demanded through the door.
“Quick, hide,” Felicity whispered as she pushed Oliver towards a large wardrobe that he might be able to hide in.  They both knew that if he was caught there, trespassing, the authorities would likely be called, and given what he had just disclosed to her, that was a risk he couldn’t take.
“I’m unwell Governess,” Felicity replied sharply; hoping that would be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

“Open this door young lady, you cannot lock yourself away up here.”
To hell she couldn’t.
“Come back in the morning,” Felicity argued.
But instead of a reply, she heard the rattling of a set of keys.  The old witch was going to let herself in…

Felicity pushed Oliver towards the balcony instead, and he climbed over and down as quickly as he could, making it half way before Felicity took a deep breath and started to follow.

“Felicity Megan Sommerset!” her Governess screeched when she made it to the balcony and saw Felicity jumping down from the last step of trellis, and into Oliver’s waiting arms.
“It’s Smoak!” Felicity called back with a wicked laugh.
“Get back inside this instant.”  The older woman was trying not to yell, but every word she spoke was laced with venom for her ward.
Felicity laughed as she kicked off her shoes and took Oliver’s hand.
“You’ll have to catch me first!”

She ran towards the night with Oliver alongside her, together laughing at the absolute absurdity of it all.  Without looking back, Oliver helped Felicity over a waist-high fence that led into the orchards.

The night enveloped them while the thin white strands of light from the moon illuminated their path when it shone through the branches.  Once the lights of the house were well in the distance and the coast was on the horizon, Felicity stumbled and fell backwards in a fit of jovial laughter.

Oliver stopped above her and was about to ask her if she was okay, when she reached up, took his hand, and pulled him down to the ground.  With her massive skirt like a balloon around them, Felicity rolled onto Oliver before he had a chance to move, and planted a smattering of kisses on his lips, or near about.

Reactively, Oliver embraced her, pulling Felicity up onto his own and pressing every inch of her against him.  He kissed her with a deepness that pulled a longing sigh from her lips and had her body instinctively bucking against him.  Her clothes suddenly felt tortuously suffocating as a veil of heat pulsated down her skin.  Every inch of her felt broiling beneath her skin and longed to be touched by his rough fingers or his velvety lips.  Or both.

Oliver's hands were just as needy to discover her body with reckless abandonment, but all he could feel was the boning on her stay and the pins in her hair.  He tore his lips back from her, breathless, and she looked at him with wild and wide eyes.

“How do we get back to Verdant from here?” she asked, panting as her breasts strained against her constricting bodice.
Oliver stood and offered Felicity his hand, and once she took it – firm and sure – he lifted her up and pointed down a long sweeping hill.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked.
She looked to the docked ships in the distance with their lanterns swaying and the moon bathing them in a soft glow.  There was not a single doubt in her mind.

“With you,” she spoke as she squeezed his hands, “absolutely.”

●|●

They managed to run aboard Verdant with the few crew about deliberately ignoring them, and unhindered they fell into Oliver’s room with bright cheeks and barely a breath left between them.

Felicity’s gown was covered in a few inches of mud and who knew what else, her white stockings were also unequivocally ruined, and her hair was a mess of hairspray and leaf dander; only one of the roses remained.

Oliver hadn’t fared much better, the breeches Tommy had loaned him might never look like they once had, as they were spotted with dirt and wet with sweat.  But he had, for the most part, managed to protect the coat at least, which he’d shrugged off on the way and carried in his hands.

But, neither of them cared about how thoroughly wrecked they both appeared and, even breathless, they fell against Oliver’s door in a tangle of kisses and explorative hands.  Eagerly Felicity tore the tail of Oliver’s shirt from his breeches and ran her fingers underneath the billowing fabric to greedily feel every smooth form his chest took.

But it wasn’t enough.

She stepped back, walking deeper into the room which was lit by the large lantern above Oliver’s desk.  Reaching his desk, she carefully unpinned her elaborate coat from the ornate stomacher, all while keeping her eyes on Oliver.  She dropped each of the pins into an empty cup that sat nearby and, once she had freed herself of them all, she shrugged the coat down her shoulders and hung it carefully over the back of the chair.  He stepped closer, drawn to her, as Felicity made light work of unpinning her stomacher much the same.  Her skirt was next and she reached around easily to undo the ties that held that in place.  It fell like a beautiful weight – both physically and emotionally, and Felicity felt both relief and fear at the same time.

Sensing such, Oliver stepped closer and held her gently at the waist.  He kissed her forehead and she sighed softly at the contact.
“We don’t have to do anything tonight,” he assured her before he kissed her worried brow a second time.  “We’ll have the rest of our lives to.”

She smiled at his gentle words, but the ache coursing through her body did not want to wait to be sated, and neither did she.  Her dainty fingers, toyed with the lace at the top of his shirt, loosening it until it fell open to the centre of his chest.  “And if I wanted very much to do something tonight?”
“Then,” he whispered as he swayed gently with her, “you might need to tell me how to free you from the rest of this outfit.”

Felicity perched on the edge of his sturdy desk and lifted one foot as she held her petticoats up around her knees.  “I can’t reach to take them off,” she smiled as she looked down at the spoiled stocking.  It was true, in that the tight stay restricted her movement to a rigid and limited level, and there was no way she could peel each of her stockings off herself.

Wordlessly, Oliver knelt down in front of her and carefully lifted her petticoats a little higher to reveal the small ribbon tied around her leg, just above the knee.  He carefully undid the same, watching her eyes twinkle above him as one hand held her leg above the stocking; bare skin on bare skin.  After he’d removed the ribbon, Oliver slid the silk stocking down her leg and off her foot.  She laughed, ethereally, as she saw her feet too were stained with the fields they had run through.  But, Oliver saw only beauty and he placed a soft kiss just above her ankle.  He removed the other stocking in the same way, kissing that ankle too when he was done, before he grazed his hands up her thighs, as high as he dared to, while he stood up.

“What’s next?” he asked and Felicity touched the ties at either side of her top petticoat.  It was heavy and starched and it felt rough to her fingers, but Oliver untied the double knots with ease and it dropped like a pool around her feet.  Felicity untied the hip roll herself, amidst Oliver’s curiously hitched brow, and discarded it on the floor with her other items of clothing.

Finally able to see her beneath her layers of baroque finery, Oliver rested his hands on her hips and pulled her in for a fleeting but passionate kiss.  “What’s next?” he whispered against her lips and Felicity turned in his arms slowly before she guided her hair over one shoulder and revealed the intricate laces of her stay.

His fingers touched the knotted cord with a feathery brush.  He’d seen his mother dressed in one similar, albeit not nearly as decorative, but he knew Felicity’s body well enough to know that it had been squeezed to a near impossible size and he hated the idea that beneath such a cruel stitch of fabric and whalebone, she might be in some sort of pain.

He started at the top, his large fingers trying to loosen what was a tiny and brutally-tight knot.  “Does it hurt?” he asked as his eyes followed the sharp curve of her waist.
She nodded faintly.  “Quite a lot,” she spoke just above a whisper as she carefully hugged herself with one arm.
He leaned closer and kissed the seam of her ear.  “You won’t ever have to wear one for me,” he promised before he directed his attention back to the taut cord.  But, whoever had tied this off had done a thorough job of making it impossible to undo.

Felicity reached over Oliver’s desk, opened the top drawer and found the knife he usually kept tucked into his pants, before she handed the same to him.
“Cut it,” she announced and when he asked her if she was sure, she nodded demonstrably.

The blade sliced through the cord, fraying it immediately and Felicity breathed in the deepest she had all night, finally filling her lungs with air.  It was easy to undo the laces after that and when she finally felt it was undone, Felicity pulled off the stay and threw it down, as though it represented all the rigidness of the life she had determinately turned her back on. 

Nothing had ever felt so freeing… so absolutely right.

Felicity untied the last petticoat herself and the thinner silk fabric floated to the ground like a shimmering leaf.  The light hit her body and beneath her gauzy chemise, Oliver could see the silhouette of her figure.  Her fingers toyed nervously with the lace edging around the neckline as she tried to steady her racing pulse.

“Is it true that most stay like this when they’re together?” she asked, and a warmth blushed her cheeks as she spoke.
“Some,” Oliver replied gently.  “Is that what you wish?”
A smile lifted her lips lopsided.  “No,” she breathed as she held one of his hands between both of hers.  “I want you to touch me with these,” she continued, sighing as she traced her finger down the outline of his.  “I want to feel everything and I want nothing to be held back.  I want every kiss and every sensations to be only your skin on mine.”

He lifted his free hand to her face and cupped it tenderly, but instead of answering her with words, Oliver kissed her, slow and sensual; giving her every answer to every question.  

Felicity grabbed a hold of the hem of his shirt and guided it up and over his head before dropping it delicately to their feet.  Mesmerised, she touched his chest, feeling the tiny ripples beneath his sculpted skin as he breathed.  Simply because she wanted to, Felicity leaned forward and kissed just above his nipple, relishing the warmth she found there.  She kissed him a second time, near the centre of his chest, eager to explore and lost in the wonderful realisation that he wouldn’t stop her.  A third kiss by his neck, delicate and airy.  A fourth, rushed and amorous, along his shoulder. A fifth, with a graze of her teeth, near the bottom of his ribs.

“Felicity,” he panted her name and her ears devoured the sound of it.  She’d never heard her name attached to so much desire, nor did she ever wish to hear it from another man’s lips.
As she placed the sixth kiss down low on his stomach, she looked up.  His breaths were deep and his eyes were fixated on her.  His lips were smiling, but it was unlike any she’d seen him wear before, and she watched it as the seventh kiss sat right above his navel and her tongue painted through the smattering of hair she found there.

She could smell a rich aroma beating off him, musky and hot, and his skin was pleasantly salty to her tongue.  She had never tasted a man’s skin before, but she found herself craving it and to sate her desire, she ran her tongue through the taut lines of his stomach.

“Felicity,” he groaned, darker and raspier, and it snapped her attention upwards.  His lips were parted, expelling panted breaths, and his smile was gone.  She stood up and stepped back, fearful she had done something wrong judging by the shadows in his eyes.

“I’m sor-,” 
Before she could finish the words, his lips were on hers, wild and voracious.  So bruising and deep was the kiss that Felicity wondered if she might feel it for hours afterwards, and the very idea of that made her crave its savagery even more.

But, leaving the kiss incomplete, Oliver broke it and brushed his nose against hers.
“May I?” he whispered as his fingers gently pinched the ribbon on her chemise.  
She nodded and he pulled the end, popping the small bow open.  She shrugged and the light fabric dropped to the edge of her shoulders, where Oliver kissed it off the cusp.  It glided down her body, pulling a sensual sigh from her swollen lips.

As she stood there, naked and smiling, Oliver kissed down her graceful and feminine body making her sway, before he gently lowered Felicity, willingly, to his bed.       
 
Felicity expelled a tiny, quivered breath as her head nestled into the pillow.  The quilted blanket felt like a delirious pleasure against her naked skin and she writhed atop it as she settled her lithe torso onto her elbows.

She was naked to him, completely, and watching as his eyes as they devoured every inch of her made her breath quicken.

“Your turn,” she hummed as she nodded down to the breeches he was still wearing.  He unbuckled the tightly clinched gold buckles at the legs first and then unfastened the button fly without ceremony.

She fixated on him, idly chewing on her bottom lip with an excited expectation that was wholly satisfied when he finally dropped the garb.

Granted, Felicity...a virgin... had no real knowledge of the varying lengths and girth of such an appendage, but the way it sat quite prominently semi-erect she imagined it to be impressive on the scale of both.  The shaft itself was a pinkish colour as the blood engorged it, and small veins could be seen below the translucency on the stretched skin, but one was far more prominent as it ran the underside.  Above his shaft was a thatch of dark blond hair which originated from the trail down his navel, the same trail she had traced her tongue through moments before.

He laid down beside her and Felicity turned towards him to once more enjoy the smooth taut ridges of his chest.
“I'm afraid I don't really know what I'm doing,” she confessed with a whisper.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, holding her gaze. 
She nodded, not even needing a moment to consider her answer.
“Then relax,” he breathed while a gentle hand combed through the ends of her hair which had fallen over her breast.

He kissed her lips first, soft and sensual, as he allowed her tongue to scout his mouth and suck playfully on his bottom lip.  He hummed, letting her know he enjoyed her playfulness while his fingers began to trace the slope of her neck and down her shoulder.

His touch was so light that she wondered if she was simply imagining it, until a light push on the front of her shoulder lowered her back to the bed.

Oliver crept over her, holding himself above her body, but close enough that he could feel her breasts brush into his chest with every unsteady breath she took.  Leaving her lips, Oliver kissed a trail down the pink cords of her throat, pulling sigh after sigh from her pillowed lips.

But, when he looked up, Felicity looked embarrassed with herself.  “Sorry, I should be quiet,” she quipped, her ruby cheeks darkening.  It wasn’t so much of a rule, or at least not one she had been handed down at school, but women were to be quiet creatures, demure and with a pleasant and silent disposition.  Felicity assumed that applied even in sexual circumstances.  But, Oliver’s next words would prove that assumption utterly false.

“Make as much noise as you like,” he assured her before he pressed a silky kiss to the underside of her jaw.  
Reactively she moaned.
“That way I know what you like.”  As Oliver spoke, his thick index finger drew soft brushes under the crescent of her breast.
A tiny mewl trembled from her mouth and Oliver rewarded her with a tender kiss at the slope of her neck.
“Perfect,” he whispered into her skin, warm and flush.

His lips travelled down her body, decadent and slow and Felicity reacted differently to each area; at the centre of her breasts her breathing strained against her chest, while over the soft parts of her belly she twitched and a breathy laugh tickled the air above her.

He stopped just shy of the small thatch of hair and walked his eyes up her perfectly sloped body, smiling when he found her looking down at him.  But, instead of carrying his path down, Oliver skipped over her heat and placed the next gentle kiss at the crease of her knee.  Sliding his hand up her thigh, it nestled under her rear while the other held her under her slender calf.

Keeping his eyes on her, Oliver kissed up the inside of her leg while his thumb stroked through her slit, never quite making it to her resonating ache; entirely on purpose.

His mouth reached the top of her silky thigh and she looked at him with frenzied eyes.  But, he was not done yet and he crawled back up her body to kiss her full lips.  

Her body was thoroughly overcome when his mouth dropped to her breast.  They had never known pleasure and his attentions had Felicity arching her back off the bed and moaning his name, finding even more delight in the fact he did not once hush her.

With Oliver kneading and sucking, fondling and licking, Felicity’s body was alive with pulses that shook her body.  She twisted in his quilt and sobbed out his name, as pleasure overran her every sense; she could taste her own perspiration, smell her own arousal, see her damp skin, hear the desperation in her voice, and even feel the air stopping in her throat.  

Watching her, Oliver knew she was near the brink, locked in a heightened sense of pleasure that very nearly tipped over into unbearable.  “I’m going to touch you there now,” he pledged as his fingers trailed up towards the epicentre of her pleasure.

“Please,” she sobbed, though she barely knew what she was asking for.
Oliver parted her outer lips with two fingers and kissed the soft, velvety petals inside.
She cried out in pleasure as one hand knotted in his hair while the other fisted in his sheet.

Her nether lips grew wet with arousal as Oliver’s tongue swayed like the gentle ocean current through her folds, teasing and frolicking.  She moaned softly and her body squirmed with anticipation she didn’t quite understand, but she craved all the same.  Her sex swelled and throbbed and her mewls became more desperate with every pass his tongue made.

But, just when she thought she had felt every pleasure imaginable, Oliver found her clit, puffed out and swollen.  He circled it once with the heavy flat of his tongue, brushed it with a few light licks, and then curled his lips around it and sucked.  The muscles in her legs and back grew tense and Oliver continued to fondle her clit with his tongue, alternating both pressure and speed to keep her writhing on the edge.

A deep throb tore at her insides making her sob his name, near breathless, “Oli-li-ver.”
He knew what she wanted, what her body was calling out for, and he obliged by brushing his fingertip along her slick opening as his mouth continued to tease.

He pushed his digit inside her tight slit, just enough to lift her back off the mattress and fill the room with her fevered breaths.  Her entire body was consumed by the feeling as he gently worked his finger in and out, while his tongue relentlessly stimulated her sensitive clit. 

Her eyes blinked rapidly, her knuckles turned white, her body lurched, and her chest heaved, before sudden, seemingly-cataclysmic eruption inside her core tore at her seams.  She willingly surrendered herself over to the damp explosion between her thigh, thrashing her head back and jarring her hips forward as she climaxed.

Her eyes glazed over and her body shook completely out of her control before she squeezed her thighs together, and sandwiched Oliver there.  But, he didn’t mind – not in the least – as he slowly lapped up her release and relished the heady scent of her fresh orgasm.

As the last trickles resonated down her body and she began to melt into the mattress, Felicity grappled for Oliver and he obediently crawled up her body where she stole a kiss from his saturated lips.  The taste she found on his mouth swirled across her tongue as she lightly traced the seam of his lips.  It was velvet and sleek, salty but almost sweet.

“What’s that?” Felicity asked curiously.
Oliver smiled impishly.  “That’s you Duchess.”
A blush warmed her cheeks as she pecked his lips a second time, tasting herself on his mouth again.  

“We can stop there if you want,” Oliver remarked kindly as he lay down beside her to draw lazy lines down her arm.
Felicity shook her head in a tumble of messy hair while she reached out her fingers and brushed the tips over his erect member.  “I want to be with you completely,” she reassured him.
Circling her finger around his tip, Felicity found it wet to her touch and it twitched involuntarily with her attention.  “Please,” she whispered, catching her breath.

He kissed her reassuringly and lay her onto her back with a soft nudge.  Passing his fingers through her sex, Oliver found her still soaked from her last climax.  Wicking it between two digits, Oliver skirted her entrance and then pushed gently inside.  Her body shivered and her toes curled as she felt his fingers stretch her, curling down her walls and easing in and out, slow and measured, until she was as ready for him as she could be.

Hovering above her, his weight baring down on his palm, Oliver lined his cock up with her entrance.  Felicity reached down between them, grazing her fingers first through her own heat and feeling her wetness, before she found his shaft, throbbing and veiny.  She rested her hand there, wanting to feel him as he pushed forward, sinking his tip inside.

The first push made her gasp and her fingertips clench the quilt beneath her, as she could feel her body stretching around him before he settled himself halfway in.  The intensity of it pulled tiny pants from her lips before she moved her hands upwards to hold his head between both of her warm palms.  She grazed his nose with the softest of kisses, so delicate that it made Oliver sigh in response.

“I’m not so naïve to not know that this might hurt,” she breathed, tethering her eyes to his.  “But I want this,” she assured him, stroking her thumbs over his cheeks.  “I want you, and I want this.”
He bowed his head and she kissed the perspiration from his brow before his lips sunk into her neck.  
“I love you,” he whispered, breathy and gravelled, before he surged forward.

A tear sprung from her eye with the sudden rush, but it wasn’t pain.  It was something else… relief, pleasure, love.

He kissed the wayward tear from her cheek before he smiled down at her.
“I can feel you,” she whispered before she rolled her hips and sighed at the way her body felt utterly stuffed with him.
Tiny clenches ricocheted down his embedded shaft, pulling his lips up into an uneven smile.  “I can feel you too.”

He moved slowly at first, each thrust small and measured, as her hands explored his shoulders and arms, mapping the slopes with her palms.  Gradually, his pace quickened, pulling out further and sinking in deeper while she lifted her head and kissed the cusp of his shoulder, nipping the edge.

Oliver glanced down her writhing body as he began to move himself a little harder, a little faster.  His cock was covered in her white wetness, being remnants of her last climax coating his length.  Her leg twisted around his waist when he stilled himself for a moment, and unwilling to wait, she instinctively pushed him down, sinking his cock back into her.

He was close, barely holding himself back, as he reached between them and rubbed her sensitive nub between his calloused fingers.  Her head tipped back and a silent bleat turned her throat the colour scarlet as he quickened his thrusts, as hard and as fast as she could take.

Wild, her eyes found him, her lip was red where she had bitten it and her forehead was damp; she looked utterly perfect.

Her climax came with his name on her lips, and it surrounded his cock with slick warmth as he continued rucking against her.  His rhythm was lost and his breath ragged as he chased the edge of his own release.  Then, just as he reached it, Oliver pulled out, gripped his drenched shaft and tugged it the once, spilling his seed in white ribbons onto her powdery stomach.

She sat up a little on her elbows as Oliver bent down to kiss the tops of her thighs.  The sight in front of her; their naked, twisted bodies covered in the release of both themselves and the other, made her smile impossible to hide.

Felicity had once imagined weaving such a story to find herself blacklisted as a viable marriage mate and to abscond to the countryside for a life of solitude.

But as her fingertips gently traced his cheek, and his release warmed her skin, she knew that no embellishment was needed.

And, while such a vision appeared thoroughly scandalous and salacious, the moment was also tender, pure, and cradled in love… far better than any story she could have ever concocted. 

Chapter Text

After he'd carefully cleaned his sticky spend from her soft belly with an even softer laugh dancing from her smiling lips as he did so, the two unlikely lovers lay quietly entangled in each other, blissfully unaware of the trouble heading their way.

“So that was,” Felicity started as she ran her fingers gently through his light smattering of chest hair.  Her cheeks were flushed and her throat still wore a pinkish hue that spread down to her alabaster breasts.  “That was sex.”  A breathy laugh left her mouth barely a second after the last word did.

There was something so freeing about saying the word with such candour.

Oliver's finger mapped the pastel pink tendrils beneath her skin, circling her rosy nipple deliberately slow.  “It was,” he answered her with a husky tone that she felt quiver warmly below her skin.

She sighed, content. “I quite enjoy sex,” she said bluntly as her fingers trickled down to the brush of hair between his legs.  “I was under the impression it wasn't supposed to be that...,” she bit her lip before she continued, “pleasurable.”

“If it isn't, they aren't doing it right,” Oliver teased as he knocked her gently onto her back and hovered above her.
Her hands moved to his brawny shoulders and wrapped her fingers over the edge.  “Are there other ways of sex?” she enquired with a curiously raised brow. “Besides how we did it?”

He kissed her neck and she purred.  “There are plenty,” he whispered before he kissed his way down her collarbone.
She happily squirmed below him, her breathy laugh spurring him on.
“Would you show me them?” she hummed as his kisses reached the tip of her breastbone.  He rested his chin between her pert breasts and looked up her chest to meet her smiling, bright eyes.

“Of course,” he breathed.  But she sensed a reluctance in his tone.
“Oliver,” she cooed as her fingers brushed back his hair.
“It's just, are you sure... about me?”
She found the fret across his usually stern brow utterly endearing, not that she would ever tell him for fear he might try to hide it from her.

“I am the most sure about that,” she assured him warmly.  “You were young, you knew no different, but that's not who you are now.  You are a Captain who protects his crew and who looks after their families.”  As she spoke her thumbs soothed small circles over his smooth cheeks.  “Of your heart I am without doubt.”

He sighed as Felicity took his hand and laid it over her speeding heart.  “Never doubt my heart either Oliver, I love you.”
He pecked a kiss over the back of her knuckles, but his brow was still weary.  “And your parents?”
Felicity answered without delay, but her words were considered and calm.  “They will know I am happy and nothing else will matter.”
“Are you sure about that?” Oliver questioned impishly.

Felicity smiled as she brushed her knuckles down his cheek.  But she didn't get a chance to answer him before there was a knock on the door.

Oliver carefully covered Felicity with the blanket which she tucked up to her chest, before he threw on a shirt which skirted the tops of his thighs.  But, before he could dress any further, another knock sounded out, more hurried than the last.

The door opened before Oliver made it across the room.
“Oliver are you...,” Tommy stopped abruptly when he saw Felicity lying in the bed and Oliver without pants looking startled in front of him.  “Never mind, this would explain why there are a dozen officers on the main deck demanding to know where the kidnapped Lady Sommerset is.”

“Kidnapped?” Felicity and Oliver scoffed at the same time.
“Clearly,” Tommy remarked sarcastically as he swayed on the soles of his polished boots.  “All the same there are pistols drawn and an answer to be given I'm afraid, especially to your fiancée who appears to be leading the herd,” Tommy added as he looked to Felicity.

“I'll speak with him,” Oliver huffed as he stepped forward.
“Probably best you put some pants on Cap'n, I'll hold them at bay before they tear this ship apart,” Tommy commented before he left and closed the door.

“I should speak with him,” Felicity said as she stood up from the bed, modestly taking the blanket with her.
“No, they'll take you back if you go out there.  You're safer here,” Oliver raged as he found his own breeches and pulled them roughly up his legs.
“Not if they see for themselves that I am well and here by my own choice,” Felicity countered.

Oliver sighed.  “Nothing I say is going to stop you going out there is it?”
She smiled as she took his hand, using the other to clasp the blanket between her breasts.  “Nope,” she said with a pop of her lips.  “So how about we go together?”

●|●

As the two of them walked out from the locked quarters onto the main deck, it was clear that Tommy had not exagerated the truth; in fact there may have been more than he initially thought.  There was a stalemate of sorts, the officers with their drawn weapons facing down snarling crew with cutlasses drawn, while Tommy held both sides and an uneasy distance.

Felicity gave Oliver's hand a gentle squeeze, both for his assurance and her own.

“Felicity oh thank heavens there you are,” Ray said, exasperated and the worry across his brow seemed genuine.  He stepped a few feet closer as the crew parted to let Oliver and his Lady through.

“Are you hurt at all?” Ray asked quietly before his eyes turned sharply towards Oliver. “If you have touched her in anyway.”

Oliver held his tongue, but he couldn't hide the smile that crept onto his lips.  He'd touched Felicity in a multitude of ways...

“Of course I am not hurt, what are you doing here?” Felicity requested, though her voice was more demanding and forceful than she had anticipated it would be.
Ray looked confused by her words, or demeanour, or perhaps both.

After all, Felicity mused, a Lady didn't speak with such brashness.

But, when his concern still seemed genuine, Felicity realised there was more to it.
“Your Governess said a man, that man,” Ray accused with a finger like a dagger at Oliver, “took you from your room by force and into the fields. I rallied all the officers I could and searched for you before coming here.”

Felicity let go of Oliver's hand and walked two small steps closer.
“I am greatly sorry that you were lied to.  Please have these men lower their weapons.  There is no need for hostility here,” she spoke calmly.  For a few moments Ray did not react, and nor was he going to until Felicity touched his wrist with her fingertips.  “Please, Ray.”

He gave the order for the weapons to be lowered and a second later Oliver gave the same order to his crew.  Both sides, still uneasy, sheathed their swords and holstered their pistols.

“I am sorry that my Governess lied so egregiously to you.  I was not kidnapped nor stolen.  I left with Oliver willingly and I am here willingly,” Felicity assured him.
Ray's face looked saddened and his eyes seemed heavy in the light cast from the lanterns strung about and the full moon above.

“Have the men leave the ship,” he said to the man standing behind them and they moved quickly after the order was given.

Oliver gave a similar order and the men lolling about disbanded, leaving only Tommy, Ray, Oliver, and Felicity.

“I understand why you left,” Ray started softly, keeping his words between just himself and Felicity as best he could.  But, the still night carried them to Oliver's ears all the same.  “And I cannot pretend to not know what has happened between the two of you.”

As he spoke he swallowed a hitched breath in his throat and the words came out brittle and splintered.

“You have my word that none shall know of it and I will not abandon you for it.”  His back straightened, noble.  “I will still marry you and see your reputation upheld,” he finished with a kind smile and genuine concern.

But, Oliver heard only the words marry you and his eyes narrowed while he instinctively went to step forward.  But Tommy stopped him and nodded towards Felicity, as if to demand that Oliver allow her to answer Ray's proposal for herself.

Which she did, barely a second later.
“While it is kind of you to be worried for my reputation, I do not value it beyond my happiness.  I will be staying with Oliver, here,” she answered.

Ray's head nodded, just the once, after Felicity was done speaking and then he turned to Oliver and cleared his throat.  “A word if I might Captain?”
Oliver shook his arm free of Tommy's grip and walked a few feet away from Felicity, with Ray following.

“Is this true?” Ray asked curtly. “You have asked her to stay with you?”
“Yes, and there is...,”
Ray raised his hand to hush Oliver and, ignoring his instincts and the dagger tucked into his waistband, for Felicity's sake, Oliver hushed.

“Will you take care of her?” Ray asked; back stiff, shoulders straight.
Oliver's eyebrow twitched, but it was clear that Ray spoke with astute concern and not bitter rivalry as Oliver had anticipated.
“Of course,” he replied.
“And protect her?”
Oliver glanced towards Felicity as he answered, “With my life.”
Ray took a heavy inhale and released it just as deeply.  “She is not mine to give, just as it isn't for the rain to demand something from the ocean.  But, if she has seen to choose you then she must see something in you that I do not.”

Oliver was certain an insult lay beneath Ray’s chosen words, but he would let the affront slide... for her.

“She is as smart as she is beautiful, which is something rare and precious.  Treasure it, you will not find another like her,” Ray commented, melancholy swept up in his words.

Oliver's eyes again drifted over to where Felicity stood, wringing her hands together. “Of that, I am very well aware,” he breathed.
“If you hurt or abandon her, I will see to it you meet an early demise and not a soul will miss you,” Ray then warned brusquely.
“Is that a threat?” Oliver questioned with a furrowed brow.
“Threats are more often than not idle Captain. I assure you mine is a promise.”
Oliver smiled as he extended his hand for Ray to shake.
“That's the smartest thing I've heard you say.  I will see her safe and spend every moment I have making her happy.”

Ray shook his hand tightly and rigidly.

“May I speak with her for a moment?” Ray enquired as he glanced with a drawn expression to where Felicity stood.
“She is no more mine to answer for than she was yours,” Oliver answered with a cordial smile.
Ray chuckled breathily.  “I believe that is the smartest thing I've heard you say.”

It was clear both men were resting on their good graces, and Ray's especially noble ones, to maintain a truce between them both.  But, no mistake should be made; they were never going to be friends.

Ray stepped aside and walked towards Felicity with an almost imperceptible slump in his shoulders.

“Might I speak with you, only a moment given the hour?” he asked affectionately.
Felicity obliged with a kind smile and a small nod, after all the man had still done her no wrong, and while she owed him no debt for simple kindness, she did feel somewhat sorry for the man.

It was fairly easy to draw a conclusion about what had transpired between the three of them and Felicity was certain that if they hadn't already, rumours would soon spread about the young woman who ran away from her betrothed to be with another... and a merchant ship captain no less.

While that story hardly bore all the truth of the matter and she cared very little for her own reputation, she did feel for Ray who, through no fault of his own, would also find himself tarnished with a reputation of 'losing his woman to a lesser man'.

“Are you well?” Ray asked first, his voice soft and quiet so as not to be overheard and his eyes were kind and focused.
“I am well,” Felicity answered honestly.
“And are you certain of your decision?”
She found no accusation in his tone, but rather the softness led her to believe his concern was genuine and that he wanted to ensure her request to stay was not founded in coercion.

“I understand for some, my choice may not seem a smart one, but I assure you as clear as I am standing before you right now, this decision was mine and I would make the same tomorrow or a year from now,” she assured him.  Her words kindly but giving no room for confusion.

He nodded, small and just the once.

Felicity watched as he stood, agitating his fingers along the seam of his coat; there was more he wanted to say but something held his tongue.

“You need not worry about the words you wish to speak Mr Palmer, I will not take slight or offense at them,” she remarked with a pleasant smile.

“I knew from the time I first saw the two of you that I couldn't have your heart, because you'd already given it to another.  But, I had hoped in time that you might perhaps care for me even a half of how you do him.”  He blew out a soft but troubled sigh.  “I would have cared greatly for you Felicity.”

She briefly touched his arm as she spoke.  “Ray, you have shown yourself to be a good and kind man, please know that my decision does not alter that.  But, you deserve more than a woman who simply grows to appreciate you.  You, as much as I, deserve love.  That deep, beautiful, soul touching love that you feel in the depths of your stomach to the very tips of your fingers.”

“And, is he worthy of such a love from you?”
Felicity nodded softly and without pause.  “Every fibre on my being tells me he is.”

Ray's mouth cocked to a pleasant but lopsided smile.  “Then I am not a man to stand in the way and I will be sure that not a cruel word is said about you.”

“You are a most admirable man,” she thanked him warmly.
“Where might I find the kind of love you speak of?” Ray remarked, almost laughing and yet Felicity saw the honesty in his eyes.

“Stop looking in all the right places,” Felicity shrugged as she looked briefly around Verdant's deck.  “She might not be who you expect or what society demands, but when you find her you will most certainly know.”

As she finished speaking, Oliver approached on tentative steps.
“We are ready to leave,” he said softly, to neither in particular.
“If you would delay your leaving until morning I can see that Felicity's things are delivered first thing,” Ray offered.
Felicity looked briefly at Oliver, even without saying a word he understood what she wanted.

“We can delay until then,” Oliver replied, “we'll ensure we have the payment returned to you at the same time.”
“Keep it,” Ray commented, “I am sure Felicity's parents would wish you to.”

That was all that needed to be said, and after a brief and cordial goodbye, Ray left.

“So,” Tommy started as he swung on the balls of his feet.  “I take it you’ll be joining us Miss Smoak?”
As he spoke he glanced at Oliver with a cocked brow and the hint of an impish smirk.
Felicity felt the apples of her cheeks redden with a warm blush. “Is that, alright?” she asked softly, to which Tommy replied with a kindly chuckle.
“Of course it is,” he answered before he slapped Oliver's shoulder.  “But I’ll leave you to inform the men that the rest of the journey is a ‘cocks in’ one,” he added, laughing.

“Oh, not for my sake,” Felicity remarked.
Both Tommy and Oliver looked at her.
“I just mean,” Felicity began, flustered.
“You want to see them all out?” Tommy teased, and Oliver elbowed his side.
“No!” she protested, which made Tommy laugh harder.
“I think the lady doth protest too much,” Tommy bested before he slapped Oliver’s shoulder a second time and left them standing there.

“That’s not what I meant,” Felicity sighed, fanning her hand across her broiling cheek.
Oliver raised one brow higher than the other, before his expression changed to a smirk.  He pulled her close, tight into an embrace and delicately kissed the tip of her nose where the moonlight caught it.

“Where were we Duchess?” he whispered before he nuzzled closer.
“I believe we were naked, and you were extolling me on the many, many, different ways to be together,” she answered him softly, purred.
“We should get back to that then,” he whispered, and while she couldn’t see it, Felicity could hear the smile in his tone.

●|●

“Are we not leaving?” Barry fretted from his cot as Tommy strolled by.
He was holding a swab of cloth to his swollen eye and his cut lip fared no better.
“In the morning,” Tommy replied tersely.
Barry fidgeted.  “I though we were leaving tonight.”
Tommy let out an agitated sigh.  “Morning, and if you're simply concerned for yourself, don’t worry the gangway has been pulled aboard.”  He went to step away, but he paused, not quite finished.  “Don't wager what you don't have to lose,” Tommy warned.  “That’s the first rule.”

●|●

True to his word, Ray saw to it personally that Felicity's travel trunks were loaded aboard Verdant, filling Oliver's quarters; a fact which she apologised unnecessarily for.

Ray also promised to see that Felicity's parents received the letter she had written them in the early hours of the morning.  It did not go far into explaining her choice, but rather assured them that she loved them both and would see them immediately on her return to London in a few months.

She hoped they would understand. 

And, as the fresh sun glistened across the calm inlet sea, Verdant raised sails to half mast and sailed off for the next adventure, with Oliver at the helm and Felicity standing beside him.

●|●

With a steady breeze at their backs and a cloudless, azure sky ahead of them, Oliver moved behind Felicity.  She held tightly to the smooth handles, despite the fact he hadn’t let them go.  But, as she felt his presence behind her, she relaxed into his chest and breathed deeply the fresh, salty air.

“Where to Duchess?” he asked before he tenderly kissed the slope of her warm neck.
She sighed, content and blissful, at the endless view ahead of them.  “Everywhere,” she answered softly before she tilted her head enough to see him looking down at her.  “Will you show me everywhere Oliver?” she teased with a airy laugh.
He kissed her, brief but lovingly.  “Everywhere,” he replied, whispering.

Tommy cleared his throat loudly when it became apparent they had forgotten he was also on the quarter deck with them.

Felicity stiffened after she elbowed Oliver back a step.
“You have a room for that,” Tommy jested, his mouth turned to a smirk.
“We have your room for it too,” Oliver retorted as he nursed the side of his ribs where Felicity’s elbow had caught him.
“Noted Cap'n,” Tommy laughed, humourless. 
“He's simply teasing,” Felicity assured the Quartermaster as she left the wheel to Oliver's skilled hands.
“Am I?” Oliver quipped.
“Is he?” Tommy added, just a flinch of a smile before he climb to the top deck.

Felicity followed, and found Tommy tending to the two pigeons they kept aboard.
“He is, or at the very least he ought to be,” Felicity promised.
Oliver raised his hand and gave them a wave from below.

“Are you most certain it’s okay that I’m here?” Felicity asked, worry etched into her raised brow.
Tommy smiled, he found her worry amusing, but also endearing.

“Of course, provided you are here willingly and with full knowledge,” Tommy answered, and there was some concern in his voice.
“Oliver told me about his father,” Felicity said quietly, and the concern on Tommy’s face melted away.
“Good.” He glanced out the back of the boat to the coast disappearing from view.
“He also told me briefly of how you met,” Felicity spoke softly, gentleness coddling her tone.  “I am so sorry for your loss.”

Tommy took a drawn and deep inhale as he banded his arms across his chest.  “It's right that you should know,” he replied simply.
There was much more Felicity wanted to know, but she kept her curiosity locked behind her ruby lips.

“You must think it strange,” Tommy commented without prompting.
“I dressed up as a boy to gain passage on a ship heading across the other side of the world, I’m hardly one to speak of strange,” Felicity answered warmly.
Tommy chuckled as he nodded.  “That’s very true.”

“But, how is it that you don’t resent him for your mother's death?”
Tommy kept his eyes to the distance.  “Sometimes I wonder that myself.  But Oliver had no more say in those events than I did.  We were both products of our lives.  Had the Captain of our ship simply handed over the gold we carried then perhaps we would not be having this conversation.”  He glanced briefly down to Felicity, his eyes were sad and glassy with unspent tears.  Time hadn’t healed him completely; it never would.

“But he refused.  The first shot came from our ship, I remember it as vividly as I remember walking to this spot a moment ago.” Tommy paused to breathe in the memory; the flames, the soot, the confusion.

“As the ship broke apart in flames, my mother jumped with me and swam me away from the pull of the ship.”  His voice trailed off, splintered.  “I never saw her again.”

The next breath he took was loud and unsteady.
“Oliver and I were both powerless, but what he did afterwards was selfless. He owed me nothing and a Captain's son or not, his actions were tantamount to treason had they caught him.  In that moment he showed who he was, and who he wasn’t.”
“He wasn’t his father,” Felicity spoke, hushed.
Tommy nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Have you ever met him?” 
“Not since that night,” Tommy replied with a clenched fist.

He stepped back and turned to Felicity.
“Forgive me Lady Smoak, but I should attend to my duties,” he said, brittle and soft.
“Of course,” Felicity said before she stepped out of his path.

She stood alone on the top deck for a few moments before Oliver glanced her way and beckoned her down with a smile.

She returned to the space between his arms, with her head resting against his chest and her eyes tethered to the ocean ahead of them.

“Are you ready Felicity?” he whispered.
“Ready for what?”

He kissed her cheek before his mouth rested near her ear.
“For everything.”

Chapter Text

It was getting late, just barely before the second rations were delivered for the night when Felicity, yawning at the helm, excused herself to return to Oliver’s quarters.  He promised her he’d be there soon and watched her carefully as she walked the short distance to the door on the same deck where he stood.  Before she disappeared into the foyer room, Felicity glanced over her shoulder and offered Oliver a parting smile that he saw in the luminous and fresh moonlight.

Alone.
It was odd how accustomed Oliver was to being alone, and yet he missed the feeling of her standing nearby him, just watching the clouds shift or asking a question about the waters up ahead.

Time ebbed and his eyes grew weary until Tommy returned from supper wearing a smirk on his face.

“Any word around deck?” Oliver asked, keeping his voice low and his eyes tethered to the ocean ahead.  He had asked Tommy to keep his ear to the ground, listening for any dissention in the ranks, or any chance the crew knew exactly who Felicity was.
“That she’s a woman; most of them have figured that out” Tommy laughed at his own joke.  “As we expected, there is some murmuring about that fact, but no one of any importance and I’m almost certain they’re just pissed you’re,” he paused, wondering if he should use the same expressively crass comment he’d heard pass under the breath of a crew member, “well that your bits aren’t dry,” Tommy tactfully commented.  “That she’s the daughter of a Duke?,” he paused a second time to lay his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, “no, I think we’ve managed to keep that quiet enough.”
“Good,” Oliver sighed as his head bobbed faintly.  
“Reason?” Tommy enquired.

Oliver glanced at his friend and ship mate with a worrisome look on his face before he looked ahead to where they were sailing.  “It’s best no one thinks we’re carrying anything worth much,” he breathed, before he expanded the sentiment. “They let us pass through the waters because we drop them a cut of the proceeds, but a ransom on her might be worth their while cutting those ties.”
 
“And risk enraging your father?” Tommy countered.
Oliver let out a small, unamused laughed.  “I’m thinking he would be the first in line if he knew.”
Tommy patted Oliver’s shoulder a second time.  “I’ll keep my ear out, but I don’t think anyone would believe a woman with a fine life back in London would slum it on this ship, even with you in the equation,” he snorted; pleased with the terse smile it garnered from Oliver.

“Permission to speak frankly?” Tommy remarked as he leaned against the bannister.
Oliver glanced at him sideways.  “Have you ever needed permission to speak frankly?”
“Humour me,” Tommy roared with laughter.  He’d clearly had a mug with supper, but there was no doubt in Oliver’s mind his Quartermaster still very much had his wits still about him.  They were ‘seasoned drinkers’ and it would take far more than one mug to see them stumbling about.

“Permission granted,” Oliver chuckled.
“You look like your cock is about to commit mutiny,” Tommy said with an amused laugh.

Oliver would have slapped his shoulder if it wasn’t for the need that he keep the ship steady through the slightly choppy waters along the coast.

“Go on,” Tommy sighed as he kicked his foot into Oliver’s boot, “go be with your Duchess.”
“You’ve been drinking,” Oliver snorted in jest as he kicked Tommy back; fragments of the fact they were both boyish men in their mid-20s coming to the fore.
“Not nearly enough for it to make a difference,” Tommy balked.

There was no doubt in Oliver’s mind that Tommy was perfectly capable, but for his own amusement he let a tight smile and a cocked eyebrow say quite the opposite.
“If you’d prefer, I can go and check on Felicity and you can stay steer…,” Tommy started, but Oliver interrupted him with a sharp kick.
“Wheel is all yours Quartermaster,” Oliver commented as he offered the same to Tommy, who readily took it.  “Don’t kiss any rocks with the hull this time,” Oliver added before he dashed off.

“That was one time Oliver!,” Tommy called out over his shoulder, but the grinning Captain was gone.

●|●

When Oliver unlocked his cabin door and entered the dimly lit room, the first thing that hit him was the delectable smell of dinner; the cook’s famous fish soup if he wasn’t mistaken, hopefully with a roll or two of bread that hadn’t yet gone stale – the simple pleasures.  It was warm and inviting to his senses and it was only at that time that Oliver realised how famished he was.

But, the growl in the pit of his stomach and the saliva pooling in his mouth instantly took second place to the next thing to catch his attention; Felicity.

She was dressed in a chemise sewn from fine, gauzy silk, and embellished with delicate, hand-stitched lace.  The light above her played with the shadows that enveloped her, and through the sheer fabric he could see the tiny peeks of her nipples.  Her hair was loose and cascading down her back and over one shoulder in luscious blonde curls.  Her face was naturally pale, but she wore a ruby tint on her lips that drew Oliver stumbling a few steps closer.

A dozen words came to his mind, but all he could muster at the sight of her was a low, guttural hum, and a short, stiff moan.

She laughed at his attention, airy and joyous and the sound of it drew Oliver even closer until she sat just barely out of his reach.

“I’m really not sure why my mother would pack this, or what she thought I might be getting up to on my travels back to London, but all the same,” she spoke, warm and liquid; like a song to Oliver’s ears, as her dainty fingers toyed with the waifish fabric.

Still, words evaded him and another moan dripped from his parted lips.

“Perhaps she knew I might find someone worthy of seeing me in it,” she said, kitten soft and with a slight tremor in her voice as she took a few steps forward to close the gap between them.

It wasn’t as though it was the first time Oliver had seen her in such a state of undress, but there was something very real and intimate about it now that the pressure and the insatiability had somewhat melted away; revealing something far more precious.

She loved him.

And he loved her right back.

She touched his hand and he sighed, but still he hadn’t said a word since he’d entered.  “Oliver?” she whispered, hoping to coax something from him.

“I am almost certain I have done nothing deserving of you and the beauty that you possess,” he whispered as his hand drifted up to her cheek and brushed against it.  
His fingers were coarse and the tops of his palms were calloused where years of use had taken their toll; but all Felicity felt was warmth and softness.
“Both my body and my heart are mine to offer,” Felicity spoke softly as wicks of the lantern above them danced in her pale azure eyes, “and I offer them both to you.”

She held his hand against her cheek and breathed softly, the warmth of her exhale bruising down his wrist as a smile lifted his lips.  “I offer both of mine to you too, they’re not nearly as beautiful or pure as yours, but they are yours entirely.”
“Then,” she whispered as she lifted onto her toes and pecked his lips, “I’ll not hear another word about you deserving me.”
Oliver laughed breathily.  “Yes Duchess.”

A wafting smell of soup once again reminded Oliver of his hunger and he glanced down at the covered bowls on the table nearby.  
“Are you hungry?” Felicity asked, friskily grazing her nails down the cords of his neck.
“Are you?” Oliver answered with a question of his own.

Felicity rolled her luscious red lips together in an impish smile.  “Actually my body is aching for something other than food, but that could perhaps wait given the soup is still hot.”

Oliver glanced back at the food before he wrapped his arms around Felicity and pulled her tightly against his body.  “It’ll keep.”

She walked him backwards in the room until her knees grazed the edge of his bed.  “Perhaps you could show me another way,” she hummed, breathing so deeply that Oliver could watch her breasts rise underneath her wispy chemise.  The end of her sentence faded into a sigh, but Oliver knew what she meant.

He kissed her passionately, holding her lips to his own like plump magnet as his hands mapped her body under the thin gown.  

When finally their lips parted, he nuzzled his nose against hers and whispered just loud enough that she heard him.  “Turn around.”
Without questioning, Felicity turned slowly in his arms with lidded eyes and swollen lips.  She moved where his hands gently guided, until she found herself bent down looking at his blanket and her fingers knotted in the same.

She couldn’t see what he was doing behind her, but she felt the warmth of his airy touch as he grazed his fingers up the sides of her legs, gathering her chemise with them.  It draped around her waist, pooling into the rich red of his bed linen as a soft trickle of warm air misted her inner thighs.

Felicity let out a small peep when she felt the warm sensation of his lips kissing the very tops of her thighs, inching closer to her thrumming sex.

Her heady arousal drifted through Oliver's nostrils as he pressed his lips to her silken thighs.  He could hear each shaky breath that she took and the tiny muted mewls that passed between her pressed lips.  Intricately Oliver parted her folds with his tongue as she shivered above him, moaning salaciously while she idly rocked on the balls of her feet.

She was already wet with arousal and he gentle lapped up her slickness with deliberately long strides.
“Do all,” she began, her words stilted with unsteady moans, “do all men do this?” 
“Only real men,” Oliver commented from between her legs before he swept his tongue over her balled clit.
She shuddered in response, reactively arching her back and twisting her nails into the linen.  With his fingers gently stroking her, Oliver shifted her chemise so she could see him.  “The question is, do you enjoy it?”
She nodded her head fluidly as she struggled to breathe normally before he sucked the cusp of her mound and circled her hooded clit.  
“Very much so,” she sobbed happily.
Oliver hummed, sending sparks through her sex before he dashed his tongue through her folds and found a fresh gloss of arousal there. He skirted the tip of his finger around her slick opening and folded his lips around her sensitive nub.

Felicity could feel the nerves in her fingertips start to numb and pulses spasm down the muscles in her legs as the amber-hued room filled with the sounds of her pleasure.  “Please, don’t stop,” she begged him.
Which of course, he had no intention of doing.
He pushed his wet digit into her tight slit, holding it there to the knuckle as his mouth continued to pull Felicity to the brink of release.  She shuddered as her hips rocked down onto his finger, controlling both the speed and depth that it entered her.  Her mind was blank and her breathing was almost laboured.  Her cheeks had blushed scarlet and her eyes were wet at the corners.

Every inch of her body felt magnificent, and it was with that feeling that she felt her core bubble and a deep, shuddering explosion echo from low in her belly as her orgasm splintered through her body, warm and wet. 

As she rode through the waves, Felicity barely noticed that Oliver had moved and was holding her at the waist and tipping her hips slightly upwards.  Her nerves were firing like crackling flames biting at sap in the logs, and she was barely in control of any part of her body when she felt him kiss the slope of her neck.
“Do you want more?” he asked softly.
Her entire, expensive and tutored vocabulary, had long since vacated and all Felicity could manage in reply was a trembled, “Please, yes,” and a wobbly nod of her head.

He held his throbbing cock with one hand, passing it through her glossy folds until the shaft was slick and wet, before he eased the tip into her.  She hummed and arched, then tilted her head and sighed while Oliver slid slowly into her soft wetness.

Felicity was afraid her legs might give out as her body stretched around Oliver’s length and the last trickles of her climax prickled down her legs, but his brawny arm swept around her waist, and he held her tightly against his chest.

As he sunk down to the hilt, Felicity let out a tiny gasp before she rolled her hips and smiled at the way he was so perfectly nestled in there.  Honestly, if this was sex for everyone, she couldn’t understand why anyone would leave their bedroom.  There was a tiny pinch of pain, a sort of tug that dulled over seconds, but far more noticeable was the wonderful sparks of pleasure.

Only, something felt missing.
She sighed as she touched the veins that wove down the arm he banded across her stomach.  “This feel, exquisite,” she hummed, “but I miss seeing your face.”

She felt his breathy laugh drip down the side of her throat.
“Felicity, look up.”

She did, and instantly caught sight of his reflection...and her own.
Her hair was damp around her temples and her cheeks were vividly red.  Her lips looked plumped and her eyes near on ravenous.  Her porcelain chest was dusted with fine dew drops of sweat and her chemise had fallen down one shoulder and exposed her breast.

She watched, mesmerized, as Oliver’s fingertips circled her breast and rosy nipple, while his eyes stayed tethered to her reflection.

His thrusts were slow and measured at first, easing in and out, readying her body before his pace gradually quickened.  His brow too was dappled and his cheeks wore a pinkish glow while he was enchanted with the scent that lifted off her dewy skin.

Her hips shifted and his grip tightened as they moved together, pushing and thrusting, sinking and rising.  The sight that lay in front of Felicity was wildly intoxicating, she could not see below her breasts as they bounced with each deep plunge, but the pleasure she wore in her expression was beguiling and utterly enthralling.  She raised one arm, lithe and damp, and twisted it around the back of Oliver’s neck, holding him tightly as his cock bucked unevenly into her.

Her climax was far less explosive than the last and it came with a knowing smile as Oliver moaned into her neck when the warmth blanketed his shaft.

As his thrusts became uneven, and his breath became broken and hitched, Oliver felt the familiar tightening down his ass and legs while his balls swelled with a thumping ache.  He didn’t want to leave her beautifully warm and wet nest, but as the fringes of his breath strained and his cock shuddered, he did just that, pulling free of her before spilling his seed into the starched weave of a cloth that sat nearby. 

Breathless, Felicity slumped forward and rolled onto her side before she tucked her knees to her chest.  Just as breathless, Oliver fell down onto the bed beside her, heaving out a happy sigh as his trembling hand found her sodden cheek.

“That was...,” Felicity hummed as her fingertips ghosted down her side, “that was amazing.”
“Definitely amazing,” he whispered in reply before he kissed her forehead.

●|●

Once redressed, Oliver with his shirt unbuttoned to the chest and Felicity wrapped in a warm cloak belonging to Oliver, they sat down to eat their tepid soup.  But, Felicity did little more than push her spoon around the thick liquid while she fought with thoughts in her head.

“You don’t have to ask you know,” Oliver remarked with a hapless grin.
Felicity looked up, a faraway look in her eye and a question pinned between her brows.  “Huh?” she remarked softly.
“You don’t have to asked permission to speak frankly Felicity, I can tell you’re fighting the urge to say something.”
Felicity blushed across her powdery cheeks.  “Am I that obvious?”
“Afraid so,” Oliver teased.

She set her spoon to one side of her bowl and the next breath she took was deep enough to lift her shoulders before they slumped back down.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him,” she questioned softly, “your father,” she added for clarity.
“About four years, give or take,” Oliver replied, and while his words carried little affection or emotion, Felicity could feel both simmering just below the surface.
“That long?” she breathed.  
It wasn’t expressly a question, but Oliver answered it with a shallow nod.
“He’s been making contact, but so far we’ve avoided each other.”

Felicity nodded lightly as she picked up her spoon again to resume eating, despite more questions that bounced around her mind.

“You still have more you want to ask,” Oliver commented before he fed a large spoonful of soup into his mouth.
For the second time, Felicity set down her spoon.  “How is it that you stayed with him when your mother left?”
Oliver said nothing as he pushed his spoon through his soup.
“I’m sorry, I-,” Felicity started.
“No, it’s okay,” he assured her.  “You have every right to ask these questions, I’m afraid I’m just not accustomed to answering them.”

He took respite with a inhale before he lay his palms, clammy and quivering, on the table.
“My mother was a lot like you, educated, smart, beautiful,” he breathed, looking up as the last word left his lips.  “She fell in love with a man like me, my father.”
Felicity waited for him to continue, silent and understanding of his pause.
“He never deserved that love,” Oliver continued, his eyes dropping.  The truth was he never really believed he deserved that love either.  That his mother's mistake would inevitably become Felicity's.

“She tried to love him, to believe that he could be worthy of such love, but his heart belonged to the sea and the riches he could take from it.”  He felt his fingertips curl into the wooden table at the recall of how a man – his father – slowly destroyed a woman far better than he.

For years Oliver's mother had tried to bring lightness to his father; but instead his father’s darkness and greed enveloped them both.

“When she fell pregnant with my sister, she realised she couldn’t live the same life any longer.”  A deep breath steady him before he continued.  “She made arrangements to leave, but my father demanded she pay a price to walk away.”

Felicity watched as his breathing became shaky and his voice turned brittle, and instinct had her reach out to him, laying her small hand over his.

“Do not think ill of her that she would leave me,” he whispered and as he looked up, Felicity saw the pain in his eyes.  “I was nine, and I told her to go.  She had no choice, he knew that.”  He sighed, soft, almost frail.  “And so did I.”
“He kept you from seeing her?”
Oliver nodded softly, “For a time he sailed those seas when there were ships to be looted and no one willing to stop him, so a couple of times a year I saw her.  But not long after I met Tommy, those waters were sailed by naval ships and most pirates were pushed down to the African Coast.  It was years before I saw her again, by that time there wasn’t much left of her boy.”

He turned his hand over and held Felicity’s hand palm to palm.
“A few years ago I tried to live a normal life, but the sea always called me back and my father's price sat on my head too, so it never lasted long.”

“Thank you,” Felicity assured him, soft and kind.
“For what?”
She squeezed his hand gently.  “Trusting me.”

“Tell me about your parents,” Oliver encouraged, his stories enough for now.
“Well,” she started with a shrug, “there isn’t much to tell I’m afraid.  My mother raised me alone until I was about eight when she met the Duke and fell in love.  They married, we moved, I grew bored, dressed as a boy and lied my way onto this ship,” Felicity finished with a airy laugh.
“That part I’m familiar with,” Oliver teased.
“What can I say, perhaps the sea has always called to me as well,” Felicity added with a faint shrug, “much to my mother's dismay,” she added with a chuckle.
“Your mother doesn’t share that love?”
Felicity shook her head with an animated laugh.  “Goodness no, she can’t swim and has always hated the ocean.”
Oliver raised a brow, “You live on the banks of the London River.”
“Not quite,” she remarked with a wrinkled brow, “Our London Home is not her favoured residence.”
“You have more than one home?” he chuckled.
“The Duke does, I have not earned a thing of my own.”
“Well, that’s not true,” Oliver jested.  “Felix did earn his wages.”
Felicity sat up straight and smiled widely.  “I did didn't I? Perhaps I could earn my keep again?”
Oliver sat back in his chair wearing an unreadable smile.  “Not in the galley, but I think Tommy would welcome your input.”
“Then he shall have it,” she beamed.

“Your mother never told you about your real father?” Oliver enquired.
“She never spoke of him but to say he had left us when I was a baby,” Felicity responded before she paused to collect her thoughts.  “I never asked because it seemed to upset her.  We are quite the pair aren’t we?” Felicity finished with a faint laugh.
“Quite,” Oliver answered.
“And your father, will we be seeing him?” she asked.
Oliver inhaled slowly, and exhaled just as laboured.
“Not if we can help it.”

|22 days later

It took 24 days to travel between Port Lagos and the Cape of Good Hope even with a favourable wind and the sea on their side.  The journey ran them along the coast, as close as Oliver dared to sail given the jagged rocks and temperamental currents, but the view such a path afforded them had been entirely worth the days stood at the helm steering.

Not for him, Oliver had seen the tall cliffs and the rugged shoreline more times than he could count, but rather the look on Felicity's face as she studied the wild way nature had shaped the scenery with awe and fascination, was truly something to behold.

Delight peppered her expression as she watched the sea birds take off from their nesting cliffs, or when she spotted a small whale’s blowhole across the starboard side – which, despite the call from a few of the crew, Oliver let the majestic creature be.

The nights they spent  together were just as perfect; her warm body in his arms and the taste of her skin on his lips.  Some nights they fell asleep to stories about their lives; Oliver spoke of his younger sister, Thea, who was coming into her teenage years and growing wildly each time he saw her, and of the Americas he’d visited with its cold climate and bustling enterprise – it had moved all too fast for him, but he vowed to take Felicity there if she asked it of him.

During those nights, Felicity simply listened; appreciating every word the once stoic Captain offered to share with her.  She learned much, not just from his tales, but from the way he told them.  Some, such as his spritely sister, brought an unmatched joy to his face, and speaking about his mother and her fierce determination to disobey their father and his crooked life brought a measure of pride to his expression.  

He even spoke of a time where his mother helped another woman escape the life that had befallen her with a young child in tow.  He knew very little of the story, as secrets were kept for good reason, but the wife of another captain, far worse than his father even, had come with a young child in her arms to his mother, who had seen to it that she escaped in the thick of night with Oliver himself, at the age of 7, almost 8, walking with his mother, the woman, and her child through a forest to a rendezvous point.  He knew better than to ask questions, and it was safer to all that he knew very little about her, but he had never forgotten how his mother risked her own safety to protect another.   It had been that very thought in his head the night he saw Tommy floundering in the ocean.

Other nights they spoke little, but rather they discovered each other's bodies with slow and gentle fingertips and all the time in the world.  His body became like a map she studied; from the slopes of his chest to the markings on his back.  Where her fingers touched, her lips did also, until not a part of him remained unfamiliar.  Where Felicity found tight muscles and taut skin, Oliver found softness and suppleness, from the powdery mounds of her breasts to her slender waist and shapely thighs.  She felt like silk, and every response she made to his touch filled him with peace and pleasure like he’d never imagined.

As the 22nd day wound to a close, the sky was painted with pale pinks and copper tones and the last fronds of daylight disappeared below the horizon.  Felicity was beside Oliver, her head resting against his arm, as the crew hummed a shanty while they folded down the sails.

“You’ll need something sensible to wear,” Oliver remarked, a wispy smile playing with the corners of his mouth.
Felicity blinked up curiously before she glanced down to her clothes; she was dressed in a simple skirt and delicate apron, the least flashy of all her clothes her mother had packed, and of course she wore the corset tied loosely at the front and none of the petticoats.
 
He’d never mentioned her choice of clothing before.

“Is this still too much?” Felicity queried, her brow fraught with worry.  They didn’t want Felicity to appear too aristocratic, and her choice in simple clothing was to reflect that.
Oliver laughed and Felicity still wore confusion.
“I mean when we dock at Port, you’ll want to wear something you can walk in.”

Her gasp was audible.  
“I can get off the ship?”
“Of course,” Oliver intoned, “I can’t very well show you everything if you’re stuck on-board the whole time.”

●|●

When they arrived in port two mornings later, Felicity was wearing an outfit she had managed to fashion herself; instead of a flouncy skirt, she wore a thick petticoat that stopped above her ankles, it was red – made to be worn under a brocade scarlet skirt for evening wear, but it doubled easily as a plain skirt.  She also wore a white blouse, with no lacework and made of simple cotton, below a corset she had managed to dye blackish with the help of some curios she and Tommy found in the hull and squid ink...a nod to her moniker.  She swapped out the delicate cords on her corset for strips of dried hide and laced it up at the front.

She looked every bit the type of woman who belonged there.

●|●

Tommy made the exchanges as the crew waited by the gangplank.  Felicity had been right, and her suggestion had netted them far more payment than they otherwise would have gotten, and carrying a hull full of perishable goods the short distance to India would also pay well.  Her input had certainly been worth it’s measure in coin.

Satisfied with the transaction, he gave the signal that the crew could disembark for a few days of relaxation in the form of breasts and rum no doubt, while Verdant was maintained and the cargo were loaded aboard.  He’d see to all of that himself, offering Oliver the chance to enjoy his well-deserved break.

Idly, Tommy watched as the crew orderly disembarked, when one man...boy... caught his eye.  Barry, with his knapsack slung over his shoulder, made his way through the crew in a hurry that saw him pushing through a few who would not easily forget.

“Stupid kid,” Tommy muttered under his breath.
He was clearly in a hurry to lose more of his wages around a card table.

●|●

“Sensible enough?” Felicity remarked as she preened her skirt.
“Perfect,” Oliver gushed before he held out the crook of his arm to her.
She slipped her arm through his and took a deep and purposeful breath.

Because, everything awaited.

Chapter Text

The Cape, or Kaap de Goede Hoop, was under Dutch rule, a point made abundantly clear with the flags and military presence as Felicity and Oliver ventured off Verdant.  It had been since 1652 and there was no one vying to take it off their hands, given very few ventured to the rocky headland except for those ships sailing under the Dutch East India Company, or the ones like Oliver who took a chance through its seas under no banner but their own.  For most, it was a place to restock water and provisions for the journey onward to India (taking the long route of course) or for the arduous trawl home with a full hull and an anxious crew.

Either way, it was quite the bustling port and small hub, underneath the watchful and distant eye of a pentagon-shaped stone fort which looked over the colony in the distance.  Felicity knew only a small amount of Dutch, learned from a cook they once had many years ago, so she struggled when an older man with a weathered face spoke to her in hurried Dutch with what appeared to be a carved necklace in his hands.  However before she could express that she didn’t fully understand him, Oliver replied in what could only be described as fluent Dutch before he grabbed her hand gently and walked her through the rest of the busy port.

“You speak Dutch?” Felicity remarked, wide eyed as she swung her and Oliver’s hands together.
A smirk lifted his lips lopsided.  “You don’t Duchess?”
“Only a little, not nearly like that,” she teased before Oliver pulled her, weightlessly, into his arms.
“Guess I might have a few surprises left up my sleeve then after all,” he hummed, his lips so close to hers that she could feel him breathing.
“I guess you might,” she whispered back before she delicately kissed his full lips, slow and patient, telling him they had all the time in the world to discover each other.

“So,” she breathed as their lips fell apart, “where should we go first?”
“There,” Oliver said while he pointed to what appeared to be a stable in the distance.
“We have horses in England,” Felicity remarked coquettishly.
“Of course, but we’re not simply looking at them Felicity, we’re riding them.”
Her cheeks plumped out with a happy smile.  “Where to?”
“That’s a surprise.”

The surprise took them a fair way inland, where the tracks were worn from the feet of others and the land stretched out untouched for miles.  They stopped a few times for water and for Felicity to admire the transient freedom that she felt trembling through her bones.  This land was vast and possibly unforgiving, and yet she felt no fear at all with Oliver beside her, simply because she knew her trust in him was both implicit and well-founded.

Where they finally stopped was a small settlement that seemed to pop out of nowhere, and while they dismounted their horses in the middle of a handful of people travelling about; not a single one of them seemed bothered or confused by their arrival.

“Oliver!” a voice in the distance called out and a young boy, maybe around 10, with a wide smile and dark features, made his way running through the settlement.
“Jesus Aran, you’ve grown,” Oliver chuffed as the boy skidded to a halt in front of them.
Aran tipped his head to one side and his deep brown eyes mocked Oliver impishly.  “That’s what people do, they grow you know.”
“You don’t say?” Oliver answered sardonically.
Aran turned his attention to Felicity, flashing her a pearly smile.  “And who are you?” he cheered with a thick accent, but well-spoken English. “She’s much too pretty to be hanging around you,” he jested, glancing briefly back at Oliver.
“Don’t I know it,” Oliver answered while he looked at Felicity.
“I’m Felicity,” she said softly as she extended her hand to the child.
“Too posh for you too aye?!” he said with a boyish laugh before he shook her hand.
“Where is your mam?” Oliver questioned.
The boy nodded before he gestured for them to follow.
Felicity glanced up to the late afternoon sky, worried.  “Shouldn’t we be heading back to Verdant?” she asked quietly.
“Not tonight Felicity.” He smiled, took her hand, and walked her through the row of orderly tents, following Aran.

The young boy stopped outside a large tent where a woman with fair skin and ashen hair was tending a small garden.  She turned when Aran called out to her and, upon seeing Oliver she wiped her hands on her apron and walked towards them with a smile.

“Oliver, it is wonderful to see you again, a week or so late,” she said warmly as she patted his shoulders.  She was older than Oliver by a decade or maybe more, but her delicate features wore her age well.
“I got caught up Corrie,” Oliver laughed, gently and instinctively squeezing Felicity’s hand.
“I can see,” she said with a wink.  “The name is Cornelia, Corrie for short.”  She checked her hand for dirt again before she extended it to Felicity.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Felicity answered, taking her hand.  It was a hand which had seen its fair share of hard work and dirt was embedded below her chipped nails, but it was svelte and her grip was gentle.
“Bora is out hunting, but you’ll see him tomorrow if you stick around,” Corrie said to Oliver.  “Your house is as you left it.  Aran cleaned it up a few days ago, swears he didn't break anything,” she finished with a airy laugh before she ruffled her hand through her son's hair.
“I’ll be by in the morning then,” Oliver promised before he dug into his pocket and pulled out two coins.  He handed them to Aran who closed his small hands around them tightly.  “For cleaning the place up.”

They said their brief farewells and Oliver settled the horses near Corrie’s tent before he and Felicity set off into the fading light.

“Could I ask how you know all these people and where we're going?” Felicity wondered with a smile.
“Soon,” Oliver assured, “but first.”
He pulled a blindfold from his knapsack.  “Do you trust me?”
Without a word, Felicity turned around and held her plaited hair out of the way.  Of course she did.

The blindfold stole her sight but reassuringly, Oliver held her hand and gave it a small squeeze.  They walked a short distance, 5 minutes or so, before Oliver stopped her.  He guided her hands to two smooth, wooden beams, shoulder width apart; a ladder.
“Climb, I’ll be right behind you,” he whispered, and full of trust, she did, until there was no more ladder and he lifted her onto a slatted floor.  She sat there until Oliver helped her up.

The scuffing sound of her shoes on the floorboards was the only noise as Oliver walked her forward a few steps.  She felt him behind her before she felt the small tug of the blindfold.

The very next thing she saw was magic.

As the last moments of sunset painted the sky and the hues of blue chased the last tones of orange, the landscape before them was littered with scattered herds of animals; giraffes and elephants moseyed about while buffalo drunk from a small pond in the distance.  Birds migrated across the sky while others lifted off from the ground to join them.

It was truly magic.

A tear slid from Felicity's eye as she took it all in; every last inch she could see.
“I can’t offer you much in the way of big homes and fancy clothes, but I’ll show you everything you’ve ever wanted to see Felicity.”  He took her hand and brushed it across his lips, “I swear it to you.”
Felicity turned to face him, and cupped his head in one hand.  “This is all I have ever wanted, and all I need is you alongside me.”

Her thumb brushed up his cheek and his eyes closed softly.  “But what am I to give you in return?”
“Don’t you see,” he whispered, his eyes still closed.  “You’ve already given me it.”
“And what is it?”
“Peace.”
She delicately kissed his cheeks before her eyes danced around the small shack; it was built into a sturdy tree about twelve feet off the ground from what she could tell.  There was little more than a crude table and two chairs, a dry wash basin, a few crates, and a small double bed with a packed-straw mattress.  It was simple, but Felicity could imagine the most wonderful life in it.

The air was warm despite the hour, but as a breeze brushed against Felicity’s shoulders from the pane-less window, she sought the warmth of Oliver’s chest before he wrapped his sinewy arms around her.  They stayed like that for blissful moments, with no sound but the beating of his heart and the slight pitter-patter of rain on the crude tin roof above them.

That was until the small knock on the hatch by their feet separated them.
“It’s just meeee,” a small voice called through the cracks.  Oliver opened the hatch to find Aran smiling broadly at him.
“Did you miss me?” he beamed.
“Not in the slightest,” Oliver teased.
He pulled up a knapsack and placed it at Oliver’s feet.  “Mam said you might be hungry and I ate all the food you had here,” he laughed animatedly. 
“Oh, you did?” 
“It’s okay, you’ll find more,” the boy shrugged.

“ARAN!” came a call in the distance.
The small boy sighed.  “She told me not to make a nuisance of myself.”
“Well you have,” Oliver quipped.
“I don’t think you have at all,” Felicity countered with a whimsical smile as she nudged Oliver’s arm.
“Ah-Ha!” Aran cheered.  “She’s much smarter than you too,” he added before he slid down the ladder and ran off into the night.

“Will he be okay out there?” Felicity asked as Oliver closed the hatch and bolted it.
“He’s safer out there than I would be.  His family are Boers, that means they live off the land independent and they have for years,” Oliver explained.
“Aren’t they afraid?”
He stooped to pick up the bag Aran had left behind.  “Aran’s dad, Bora, sailed under my father for years until he lost his arm.  The Colony didn’t have much room for a man like him, escaped from a slave trader, sailed under a notorious pirate, and with one arm.  He and his family are safer out here than they ever would be in the Colony’s borders.”
“Is he still loyal to your father?”
Oliver smiled, somewhat grimly.  “In one way or another, everyone is still loyal to my father or they wouldn’t be alive.”
Felicity took his hand between her palms.  “And what about you?”
He looked down at the pendant hung around his neck.  “In one way or another,” he breathed.

●|●

The food Aran had brought for them was simple, but just what Felicity had needed; dried and salted meats which Oliver referred to as Biltong and a dish of yellow sweet rich, flavoured with cinnamon, sugar, and raisins, together with a skin of sorghum beer –  the cloudy liquid had a taste Felicity wasn’t particularly fond of, but not too bad all the same.

The rain had grown heavy and the air filled with a damp but pleasant smell, as the temperature remained somewhat mild.  The sounds of the raindrops on the roof above them were now a constant source of ambient noise as the two lay together; fill and sated.

Felicity’s body rolled gingerly against Oliver’s under the draped blankets that covered them both.  They were thin, thread-bare in parts, but provided enough warmth and a small amount of modesty to their naked bodies.  Oliver’s blanket was skewed around his waist and Felicity’s hand peeked out from her blanket to run over the smooth slopes of his chest.

He moaned, happily, as she continued drawing freehand lines over his stomach, playing briefly with the small brush of hair she found low across his pelvis.  One arm was around her and the other bent under his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

“A coin for your thoughts?” she asked, her voice a soft whisper, but he heard her above the sound of the rain as her lips sat close to his ear.
“Just wondering,” he breathed before he turned his head to look at Felicity.
She sat up on her elbow, still clutching the faded blue blanket in front of her chest.
“Wondering about what?” she teased with a playful smile.
“How the fuck I was lucky enough to find you,” he laughed as he pulled her body down onto his chest and pecked her lips impishly.

She laughed brightly before she pecked two kisses of her own onto the tip of his nose.
“I think it was I that found you Captain,” she hummed, her face just hovering above his.
“On my ship,” he countered with a wink.
“Tommy’s ship,” she corrected.
He drew a deep breath and anchored his eyes to hers as a hidden smile flirted with the edges of his lips.  “That sounds like mutiny Squid.”
“And what,” she paused to kiss him, “if it,” another kiss, “was?”
She felt his hands sneak under her blanket and climb her legs to her waist.  “I’d have to punish you,” he breathed.
She giggled and shivered as his fingers pinched gently around her waist, before he hoisted her onto his lap.  The laughed that bubbled from her mouth was airy and sweet and he knew he wanted to go every day for the rest of his life hearing it; making it.

But then the laugh stopped and a warm, seductive mewl came from her lips instead as she ground her body against his.
“It’s awfully pleasurable for a punishment,” she sighed as she felt his cock growing between her legs.  She twisted her hips, rolling them slowly, and Oliver moaned succulently in response.  

“Can we do it this way?” she hummed as her nails scoured over his shoulders and down to his sculptured chest.  She leaned down and kissed his sternum, tasting the saltiness of his skin with a soft purr.

During one of their nights together on Verdant, Oliver had already regaled Felicity with the pleasures of her on top and there was certainly something to be said for both the pleasure the position itself provided physically and the pleasure the view provided in an altogether new way.  There was something utterly and devastatingly pleasurable about the perceived power of her being on top.  She controlled both of their pleasures; the speed, the pressure, the depth – all in her control.

It had been her understanding that sex was simply a tool for a women to become pregnant.  The pleasure of such was only necessary for the man; without his pleasure being fulfilled there was no chance of a child.  It was as simple as that.

But, it didn’t have to be.
They could both derive pleasure for no other reasons than they wanted to.
A fact Felicity was happily discovering.

“And you’d enjoy that?” Oliver said with a lopsided smirk.
“Of course not,” Felicity lied, “who would enjoy their punishment?”
His hands slid up the insides of her thighs, slow and measured, feeling the trickle of goose bumps that erupted across her velvety skin.  “Good,” he breathed, raspy and deep.  He flicked open the sides of her blanket-gown, exposing her naked sex.  One finger dipped between her folds, and he sighed gravelly when he found her already wet with arousal.

She lifted off him just enough to slide his cock out from underneath her.  A bubbling and deep growl came from the pit of his stomach when her dainty fingers coiled around his thrumming rod and tugged gently up and down the shaft.

His bowed lips parted, his eyes beset on her, and his hands twitched on her thighs with every slow pass she made.  Felicity lapped up every second of it, adoring the way he sighed when she tightened her grip or the way his tongue swept over his bottom lip when she ran her thumb through his wet slit.

His pleasure.
Her hand.

Utterly perfect.

●|●

Although the night was well along, sleep still happily evaded them as they spent the hours doing everything but sleeping.

Still nursing a delicious throb between her legs, Felicity sat with her back against the wall and her knees tucked into her chest, holding the draping blanket across her body like a shawl that had slipped off her shoulders, while Oliver padded around the room, ass-naked with his flaccid cock swaying between his legs as he bent down to pick up some of the fresh fruit which had also been given to them.

He took a bite of the apple before he tossed another gently to Felicity.  She caught it and rolled the shiny red fruit between her palms as she continued to watch Oliver.

“You’re smiling,” he noted puckishly.
“You’re completely naked standing in front of me, how could I not be smiling?” she remarked before she took a bite of the luscious fruit.

Oliver walked over to the bed and collected his blanket from the floor, wrapping it like a skirt around his waist, without taking his eyes off Felicity.  When it was secured around his body, Oliver leaned forward and brushed his knuckle under her chin, lifting it slightly.  
“And are you happy?” he asked softly, genuinely hoping to find an answer in her eyes.
“Perfectly so,” she whispered in response, her eyes sparkling with the same answer.

“Only…,” she added, still whispering, as Oliver pulled away.
“Only?” he enquired as he sat down beside her.
“You know well that the only man I’ve been with is you,” she started, a nervous quiver in her voice.
“I do,” he answered her warmly, calming her nerves a little.
“And I’m not naïve to think that I would be the only woman you’ve been with,” she paused, looking down at the apple in her hands before she blinked up at him.
“You aren’t,” he replied, wisps of sadness in his voice.
She smiled softly as she nodded; that had not been a surprise and she did not resent him for the same.

“I won’t ask you if you loved them,” she paused to take a breath as the centre of her cheeks grew hot, “but have you ever been married before?”  Her eyes widened when she realised with all the other things they had discussed, there was one question that was remiss, “Are you married now?”
Oliver smiled as he cupped her face in his palm; her eyes were wide and fraught with worry.
“I am not married Felicity, nor engaged, nor have I ever been either of those things.”
She sighed out of relief and then snipped her lip between her teeth.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried into such things.”

His thumb circled her cheek.  “Yes, you should.  You should be able to ask of me any question you wish.  I will not hold back anything from you, I promise.”
“Did you ever love them?” she asked, unsure whether she wanted the answer.
“No,” he replied softly.  “I should have perhaps, but I did not.”
“Have any had your child?”
“No,” he answered without delay, but still soft and considered.  “I have never finished inside.”
“Oh,” Felicity said with a pop of air.
“I knew enough to know that I would never stay with them and how cruelly selfish of me it would be to leave them with a child.”  As he spoke his chin sunk to his chest; there has been some who had loved him and he had known, but he had never loved them back so he had never stayed.  

“And would you ever want children of your own?” Felicity asked, this time it was her gentle touch that raised his chin upwards.
“I do not think I would make a very good father,” he lamented quietly.
“You’re not him” she whispered assuredly.  “His sins are not yours.”
“Do you believe that?” he asked, tremored and soft.
Felicity smiled before she leaned in and kissed his lips, soft but passionately.
“With every part of my soul,” she breathed as her lips pulled back from his.  “Without a doubt.”

●|●

Barry ran through the muddy streets, his clothes sodden and his breath clawing at his throat.  He heard the noises behind him; they were gaining.  His heart shook and his bones shuddered as he skidded around another corner, into the thick darkness of another alleyway.  Still, they advanced.

Breathless, he paused with his back pressed against the side of an old shack, hoping the shadows would envelop him.  But his heart was fitful and as their voices grew deafly loud, he made another run for it.

But luck was not on his side that night and his foot found the edge of a horse’s imprint in the gravelly dirt, twisting his ankle and making him fall to the dirty ground.

He tasted the rank water and the filthy dirt, and before he could pick himself up, Barry felt the sharp pull of a hand on the back collar of his shirt.

“You owe us some money you little shit,” the menacing voice spat.
Catching his breath, Barry nodded.  “I have something better than money,” he whimpered as his shirt tightened around his throat.
“What’s better than fucking money aye?” another man huffed as he put his large face close to Barry, breathing the putrid smell of fish and beer over Barry’s face.
Barry struggled, but his feet weren’t touching the ground.
“Information,” he answered thinly.

●|●

The morning brought a hazy sunrise and a chorus of animal sounds, which Felicity promised herself to never forget.  The air was warm despite the early hour and after a quick wash at the basin, Oliver set everything back in its place and they bid farewell to his tree top cabin.

The air was dusty as a breeze blew across the arid landscape, but Oliver had promised Felicity they would venture back to the colony for a bath before returning to Verdant.

Back at the settlement, Aran met them with a broad smile that grew up from his mouth and shone in his eyes.

“Stay for breakfast,” he encouraged as he grabbed Felicity's hand and led her towards the tent.
Oliver shrugged and Felicity agreed; the bathhouse could wait.

The smells that greeted them inside the tent were wondrous and fragrant with sweet spices and warm oils and Felicity's stomach hopped with anticipation.

“May I help?” she asked Corrie, who was stirring a pot of what looked like rice and sliced fruit.
Corrie encouraged Felicity closer and offered her the stick to stir with a gracious and thankful smile.

“It is good to see you,” a deep voice remarked from behind Oliver while he stood at the edge of the tent watching Felicity.
He turned to find Aran's father, Bora.  A man almost 7 foot with shoulders that stood broader than a mizzen mast and richly dark skin.
“Bora, my friend,” Oliver cheered as the two men embraced as best they could.  “It has been so long.”
“Too long,” Bora corrected.
“Perhaps,” Oliver sighed as his attention fell back to Felicity.

“You've never brought a woman here before,” he teased as he set down his spear.
“I've never felt this way about someone,” Oliver answered quietly.
“Then she must be something.”
Felicity glanced over her shoulder and smiled across the room at Oliver.  “She certainly is,” he breathed.  She certainly is.

“Have you seen your father?” Bora’s voice turned hushed, his tone serious.
“No, not for some time,” Oliver answered, mirroring the older man’s tone.  “Have you?”
Bora shook his head.  “I've heard rumours, but not laid eyes on him in many moons.”

He paused, and his rugged face told Oliver there was more to be said.
“I know he's been asking for you,” Bora remarked.  The rumours that floated around the colony had told him as much.  Oliver's steely eyes shot to the man.  He raised his hands and laughed jovially which made his massive chest shake.  “Do not worry, I will not say a word.”
“It's best I avoid him on this journey,” Oliver said brusquely before he turned his attention back to Felicity.
“Good luck with that Oliver, truly.”

●|●

The bathhouse was far less opulent than the one Felicity had visited at the Azores, but it was clean enough and with very few patrons they were lucky to have a private room... for a price of course.  The air was thick with steam, and the smell of lit coals and bath salts tickled Felicity's nostrils, but as she lay in the warm water with her back against Oliver's chest and one leg perched on the edge of the copper tub, she knew there wasn't anywhere else she would rather be.

“They're far grander in India,” Oliver remarked as he gently washed her shoulders with a strip of drenched cloth.
“Well then we shall have to bathe there too, won't we?” Felicity chortled as she braided her damp hair over her shoulder.

Oliver leaned down and pecked an enchanting kiss at the cusp of her moist and bare shoulder.

“I have something for you,” he breathed and the coolness of his breath wove around the steamy air as it brushed against Felicity's neck.
Her leg dipped back into the water when she turned in his arms.  “You've already given me so much,” she intoned as her fingers dipped below the cloudy water to map his rippled stomach.

He reached behind his neck and unhooked the clasp that fastened his mother's pendant and chain around his neck.

When he put the same up to her chest, he smiled at how much larger it looked on her svelte frame, and the pendant hung beautifully between her full breasts.

“Oliver I can't keep this,” she whispered as her trembling fingers touched the edges.  “It was your mother's.”
“She told me one day that it would bring me something far more precious than treasure, and that I should hold that thing close and be sure to never let it slip through my fingers.”  He reached around her neck and fastened it.  “I believe that is you,” he whispered as he traced the chain down her chest.

“It's not worth much I know,” he started.
“It's the most beautiful thing I have ever worn,” Felicity breathed as she laid her hand atop his.  “Thank you.”

She laid her head down on his chest and closed her eyes softly to the sound of his heartbeat, and his quiet, perfect promise.

“I love you.”

●|●

With a floral scent lingering on her skin and his hair washed clean with pressed soap, the two of them emerged from the bathhouse with wide smiles and their fingers entwined.

They wandered through the market stalls, looking at beautiful carvings and art work and sampling street food that drew them with enticing smells.

The crowds were about, seas of faces they paid little mind too as they only had eyes for each other.

Her innocence never noticed the few steely faces that followed them, and Oliver's guard was unwittingly down, raptured in the woman who dared to love him back.

In fact, he didn't notice the crowds shifting and dissipating until they were alone on a small street together.

Well, almost alone.

A wiry man with his hand on his cutlass and a snarl on his lips stood in front of them and spoke with a menacingly brittle voice.  “He w'nts to sees you,” he spoke, chewing his tongue while he did.

As a second man, larger and heavier set than the other approached from the left, Oliver pushed Felicity behind him, shadowing her with his body.  There were at least three others encroaching.

“Tell him to fuck off,” Oliver sneered.  His voice deepening and beset with a low rasp.

The sound of boots scuffing the dirt path echoed through the silence.
“Tell him yourself,” came a reply in a smooth, richly deep voice Oliver knew all to well.

He looked up to meet familiar azure eyes.

“Hello Son,” Robert Queen remarked.  “Long time no see.”

...

Chapter Text

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Robert Queen was nothing like Felicity had imagined.

Where she had assumed to find a gritty smile laced with gold, she found soft lips surrounded by a neatly groomed beard of salt and pepper hair.  Where she had expected the thin, beady eyes like the pirates of stories, she found pale blue eyes much like his son's, worldly but almost kind.

Where Felicity thought she would find dirty and tattered clothes overrun with the stench of rum, she found the opposite.  He was dressed in finely tailored breeches and coat of thick, expensive wool, fit to his broad shoulders and statuesque frame.

He wore dark leather gloves and carried a carved silver-topped cane in his left hand.  His shoes were brush-polished recently and his greyish hair was pulled back and secured at the nape of his neck while a tricorn hat sat proudly on his head.

He wouldn't have stood out in a room of her step father's peers, and Felicity didn't know if that realisation was calming or whether it ought to be terrifying.

Simply put, Robert Queen had evaded capture because he did not look like a hunted man.

“Long time no see son, you look good,” he reiterated his initial words.  His accent was rich and decidedly English.  Almost proper, but with a slight roughness around the edges which seemed likely to claim attention when demanded.
Oliver stood rigid and silent, but Felicity could see the threads of his neck tighten as his jaw clenched.

Robert didn't seem bothered by Oliver's silence, rather the joviality in his eyes seemed to show he found amusement in it instead.

“And who is this?” Robert continued as he nodded towards Felicity.
A flick of Robert's wrist found Felicity pulled forward by one of the men, away from Oliver, who now had the sharp side of a cutlass pressed to his jugular.

“Let's not make a scene son,” Robert sighed as he took a step forward.
Felicity gulped but the older Queen did not advance any further, and instead kept his distance.  He tapped his cane on the ground and the other men fell back, releasing Felicity's wrist and removing the blade from Oliver's throat.

It had simply been to show what he could do; if he chose to.

“She's no one, just a day's amusement,” Oliver growled as his hands clenched at his sides.

Robert's eyes caught the lie, but not from his son's words or expression.  Rather, the truth came from the sight of a trinket hung around the young girl's neck.  A trinket which had belonged to Robert's wife.  A trinket which his son had threatened the life of more than one man who had tried to take it from him in the past. 

He would not give it to a 'day's amusement'.

But, Robert would let the lie slip. For now.

“Accompany me for a drink,” Robert remarked as he turned his attention to the younger Queen.  He was scowling, wearing his distaste as clearly as his mother once had.
“Another time,” Oliver spoke through clenched teeth.

Robert smiled.
“That wasn’t a request, you’ve used up enough of my good graces this year son.  Your amusement can come too if you wish.”

Oliver knew his father's tone. An order was given and it was without impunity.
“Allow me to accompany her back to her residence and I’ll meet you after,” Oliver offered.

Robert's lips rolled over each other as his gloved hand smoothed over the silver eagle head on his cane.  “And how do I know you’ll be good to your word?”
“You don’t, but I’m not sailing out of port for another day, so I’d not be a smart man to lie.”

Robert nodded.
“Don't forget the way Oliver.”

He stepped back and Oliver took Felicity's wrist before he hurriedly led her away.

“Walk quickly, don’t look back,” Oliver whispered, his lips brushing against her hair as he spoke.
Felicity nodded, two of her steps hurrying to keep up with one of his strides.  Their route was not direct and Felicity found herself quickly confused by the sharp turns and back ways they took, until finally Oliver slipped her into a small break between two buildings.  

The space was tiny and she felt the weight of his chest pressing against her as she tried to catch her breath.  His eyes were wild, all the softness she had seen on his face earlier in the morning had left, replaced with anger and threads of fear.

He looked down the way they had come, searching the crowds, but he saw no one.  They hadn't been followed.
“We need to get you back to Verdant,” he sighed as he looked down at Felicity, regret filling his eyes.
“And you?” she asked timidly; already fearful of his answer.
Oliver tore a hand through his sandy-blond hair.  “I have to meet with him.”
Felicity clutched his arm as her lips trembled.  “No you don't, we could just leave.”

He smiled gently, despite the storm in his eyes.  “If I do that then he'll come looking and that's the last thing I want.”
Still, her eyes begged.

“My father,” the bitterness of Oliver's words prickled his tongue, “he is more than just a pirate captain.  There are nine who control the seas.  Of the nine, there is one with his head above.  He decides when they're at peace and when they declare war.”

“A Pirate King?” Felicity whispered.  She had thought such a thing rumour, a tale to embellish the marauders’ reputations as a government of their own. 
Oliver nodded.
She drew back, reading his unspoken words.  “That's your father?”
“There is nowhere we could run,” he breathed wearily.
“Then I should go with you,” she started.
But Oliver stopped her with an impulsive kiss.

“No, please,” he pleaded.  “One word out of your mouth and they would know you’re not one of us.”  He sighed as he pressed his forehead against hers.  “He can't know that about you.”

Though there was a chance he already did...

“You have to trust me on this,” he asked as he held her close.
“Okay, I will, of course.” She touched his cheek tenderly.  “I trust you, remember?”

●|●

They walked the rest of the way to Verdant without trouble and when Oliver and Felicity were safely back, his eyes scanned the dock and waterfront.  If his father had sent men to follow him, they blended in well.

Once inside his quarters, Oliver began packing provisions into a small knapsack.
“I don't understand,” Felicity said, her blue eyes welled with tears and her knuckles white as she wrung her hands together in anguish.  “Why do you need to pack?”
Oliver looked at her with the gentlest smile he could muster.  “He means for me to meet him a short ways from here.”
He slipped a compass into the bag and reached for his pistol belt.

“How short a ways?” she whispered as she watched Oliver settle two pistols into the belt holster.
“I'm sorry,” he breathed.  It was better she knew very little of where Oliver would be heading.
“How long will you be gone?”
He smiled, lopsided; almost goofy and Felicity couldn't help but smile back.  “I'll be back by first light tomorrow,” he promised before he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

He found a long black leather coat in the bottom of his trunk and brushed it off with a weary sigh.  He hadn't worn it for years.

It still fitted.

So easily.
How easy it might be to fall back into the man who once wore it?

Felicity met him in the middle of the cabin with his cutlass in her hands.
“Promise me, by the morning,” she whispered as she held the weapon out to him.
Oliver settled in into the sheath before he held her dainty head between his palms.  “By the morning Duchess,” he promised.

On her tiptoes she kissed him, soft and passionate... and achingly incomplete.
“In the morning then,” she whispered before she watched him leave.

And then she cried.
Because the morning might not come; he knew it... and kissing his trembling lips, she knew it too.

●|●

Oliver found Tommy near the bow of the ship engaged in a friendly game of cards with a few others.  When Oliver approached, the Quartermaster stood when he sensed something was wrong.

“Do I ask?” Tommy questioned as they stood alone, away from the ears of anyone else.
“He's here,” Oliver answered, his eyes steely and his lips tight.
Tommy shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he reactively ground his back teeth together.

“Felicity is in my quarters.  She needs to stay there.  No one comes on or off tonight,” Oliver ordered.  “Anyone still off when you lift the plank, stays off for the night.”

Tommy nodded.  “Does she know?”
Oliver sighed as he glanced back towards his quarters.  “She does.  Please just keep her safe.”

Tommy laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.  “You have my word.”
“If I don’t come back,” the Captain started.
“Oliver…,” Tommy interrupted.

But Oliver needed to say it… just in case.
“If I don’t come back by noon tomorrow, I need you to leave.”
“No,” Tommy argued.
“It’s not a request Tommy.  You leave if I'm not back.  No matter what.”  His steely eyes locked with Tommy's.  “Promise me.”
Tommy stepped back and stood up straight.  “Yes, Cap'n.”

Oliver thanked him with a single, shaking nod.

“Don't make me keep that promise,” Tommy said stoically.  “Be back here.”
“I plan to.”

●|●

Hours later, when the sun had set and the air was damp with threatening rain, Oliver dismounted his horse and continued the rest of the way on foot down the rocky shoreline where the cliffs were carved from centuries of storms and where men lost their ways either by fate or by design.

His feet carried him by memory, each step more familiar than the last, until he reached a small inlet framed in by sheer cliff faces and jagged rocks.

He whistled, once and loudly.

A few moments later a light appeared at the mouth of a cave hidden behind brush; unless you knew where to look, you would miss it.

The man holding the fiery torch was old, his face carved by time.  One eye was all he had left to look at you through, and there was simply a puckered hole where the other ought to have been.  His hair was wiry, his stance crooked, but he was not feeble and only a fool with a death wish would assume that.

“What do you want boy?” the man spat as Oliver stood just on the fringes of the torch's orange glow.
Oliver turned his face towards the man and stepped out from the shadows.
“To see my father,” he said coldly.
“He's been waiting for you,” the man replied, jutting a bony finger out towards Oliver.
“Best we don't keep him waiting then.”

The man turned and walked with a limp back into his cave while Oliver followed, careful to match the old man's every footstep.

“You ain't changed much,” the man huffed under his breath as they reached the edge of a calm, mirrored lagoon, fed from the undercurrents of the sea at high tide.
“I'm surprised you're still alive,” Oliver remarked impishly.
“Death can have me when I say so,” he coughed as he leaned down to untie a small boat.  Oliver moved to help, but the man pushed him back with a wild glare.

“Follow the left,” he grunted as he handed Oliver the rope.
Oliver stepped onto the small boat and picked up the single oar from the beech floorboards.  “I remember the way.”

●|●

The left was a tunnel that narrowed to a width where Oliver could stretch out both of his hands and graze his palms along the walls if he wished.  The only light came from a lantern hung from a pole at the front of the boat.  But, Oliver was adept at seeing in the dark and he knew this journey better than he might readily admit.

At the end of the small tunnel, a sharp turn steered the boat towards a bright light and a chamber of noise that was also deeply familiar.

He pulled the boat alongside a planked wharf where he tied it down after he stepped out.  

The deep cavern was alive with the sounds of revelry and a strong smell of rum permeated the air.

One of his father's many "homes".

His shoulders slumped as he let out a sigh; home sweet home.

“Well I'll be damned, Oliver fucking Queen,” a chirpy voice said from behind him.
He didn't need to see her to know who it was.
“Sara Lance, tell me you aren't still hovelling around here?” he teased as he felt the cool end of a pistol against his neck.
“Ain't no other place like it,” she said as she lifted the pistol back with a laugh.

Oliver turned and the two old friends embraced. 
“Never thought I'd see you back in this place,” she said as they walked towards the noise.
Oliver sighed.  “Neither did I.”

The large man at the entrance nodded down to the weapons Oliver carried and grunted while Sara laid her pistol and sword onto the table.

Oliver blinked and smiled but the larger man grunted again.
“He wants you to leave your weapons,” Sara teased as she fished a knife out from her boot.
“Seems that way,” Oliver shrugged before he stepped to move past the man.

The heavy set pirate drew out his curved sword and pointed it at Oliver.
“I don't think he knows who you are,” Sara whispered as she also pulled a sharpened hairpin from her hair and lay it next to her gun.
“Seems not,” Oliver smiled.

Once naked of any weapons (that anyone could see) Sara strutted past Oliver and winked, but when Oliver moved to follow, he found a blade to his throat for the second time that day.

“Uh-uh giganticus,” Sara laughed, “you don't want to be doing that.”  She fished out the necklace from behind Oliver's coat and the larger man immediately fell away, his staunch demeanour quickly replaced with fear.

You didn't weapon check the son of the Pirate King.

The two walked in without a further word and the lights, sounds, and smells that met Oliver were exactly how he remembered them.  A planked floor ran between tables built on the cave floor and oil lanterns hung from the carved ceiling.  Men laughed and drunk, some with cards in their hands or easy women on their laps.  Deals were brokered and broken in that room.

A few saw him and those that recognised him grew quiet.  Oliver was well aware a few of them would like to see him dead... if only it was that simple.

They reached the middle of the room and Oliver looked towards the platform built at the end and sighed; his father was there embroiled in a hushed conversation with a trusted few.  Oliver used to be one of those. 

“You look good by the way,” Sara remarked as she handed Oliver a flagon of ale.  He didn't know when she had found the time to collect the same from the bar, but he accepted it without question.
“You ever think about leaving this?” Oliver asked as she moved them towards a table she had cleared with a glare.

Sara sat down and laughed.  “Who'd leave this?”
Oliver sat down opposite her, keeping sight of his father.
“I could never leave this life and become someone's dutiful little wife,” Sara continued after she drunk down half her flagon.
“I'd pity any man that tried to make you dutiful,” Oliver said with a smirk.
She shrugged with a smirk of her own.

“You have your own sail?” Oliver asked.  His father's conversation looked terse and he didn't envy the fellow who was sitting opposite him at that moment.
Sara gulped back a mouthful of ale before she ruffled her hand through her blonde locks that cascaded over her shoulders.
“Did, but we ran into some trouble and she sunk off the coast of Portugal.”
“Why were you that far up?” Oliver asked with a faint shake of his head.

Those waters were heavily guarded and to sail them as a pirate was near on suicide.
“Chasing gold,” she answered with a shrug.  “Luck wasn't on our side.”
“So now what?”
“I sail under your father when he dusts off the Gambit.”  She finished her drink.  “It's a good job.”

Oliver glanced up and saw his father sitting back in his chair staring down the cavern at him.

It was time.

“It was good to see you Sara,” he said warmly before he finished his drink and touched her shoulder as he stood up.  “If you ever want out of this life, you have a place on my crew.”
“That Quartermaster of yours wouldn't be too happy 'bout that,” she jested.
“He trusts me and I trust you.”
She smiled softly as she raised her flagon.
“Sail well Oliver.”

Oliver made the stoic walk down to his father, trudging up each one of the three steps before his father gestured him to sit down and, reluctantly, Oliver did.

A glass of golden liquid, whiskey presumably, was sat down in front of both him and his father.  Oliver left his drink untouched.

Robert's gloves were gone and his thick fingers were decorated with four rings.  The same ones he always wore; a ruby, an ornate signet ring, a plain band on his thumb, and a black pearl set amongst twisted silver vines.

“You came,” he remarked coolly before he sipped back his drink of choice.
“I gave my word,” Oliver replied, pushing the drink to one side.
Robert leaned over the table and slid the glass back in front of his son.  “Drink.”

Oliver took the glass into his hands and sucked the whole drink back in one gulp before he slammed it back on the table.

“You've settled here again?” Oliver remarked as he sucked in a breath that cooled his throat.
“Old habits,” Robert answered with a husky laugh.  “Moira loved it here.”
Oliver tensed, a man that nearly ruined his mother should never speak her name.  “She hated it here.”
Robert brushed off Oliver's response with a flick of his wrist.

“The girl you were with,” Robert started.
Oliver tensed in his seat.  “Just having some fun.”
Robert sat back and watched his son.  To anyone else the man's demeanour would appear aloof and impassionate.  But, Robert had taught his son everything he knew, including that face.

“She's very pretty for a day whore,” Robert commented, continuing to watch Oliver over the lip of his glass as he finished his drink.
“I like them pretty, more fun for me,” Oliver replied brusquely.

Robert waved and another drink was poured in his empty glass but when they moved to Oliver's, he placed his hand over the top of the glass, blocking it.

“What do you want?” Oliver hissed.
“Can’t a father speak with his son?”
Oliver gritted his teeth.  “Not in your world.”
Robert's hand slammed onto the table and both glasses shook.  “Our world!” he bellowed and the room fell silent.
“Is that why I’m here? Why you demanded to see me?” Oliver spat angrily.  “This isn’t my world anymore.”  
He took the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a glass.  “I don’t want your legacy,” Oliver jeered before he swallowed back the whole glass and slammed it, empty, back onto the table.

“You wear that necklace around your neck to get away with a lot, but you sit here like you’re better than us,” Robert growled before he too finished his glass.
“You want it back?” Oliver hissed before he tore it from his neck and threw it onto the table, “have it back.”
“You won’t get through the Run without it,” Robert chortled.
Oliver stood up and the sound of his chair legs grating across the floor echoed through the room.
“I’ll take my chances.”
Robert said nothing as he looked down at the necklace strewn across the table.

And then, in an act that would have seen anyone else tied to a anchor and given over to the sea, Oliver left.

●|●

Oliver was long gone when Robert finished another glass of golden liquid and sucked a breath in through closed teeth.  As he set down the empty glass he gestured to his Quartermaster, a Cantonese man of little words.

Sui Lung was thin and agile and he served the Pirate King with a vow written in blood.

“Are we sure?” Robert asked.  He kept his voice hushed and his eyes toward the band of bandits in front of him.
“The information came from someone on your son's crew.  It came to us through some gunners vying for a chance to sail under you Captain,” Siu Lung replied, his voice thin and brittle.   He was used to keeping secrets.

“And what did they say?” Robert asked as he picked a grape from a nearby bowl.
“She is the daughter of a Duke.  The ransom on her alone...”
Robert raised his hand and Siu Lung hushed.

“Did these men tell anyone else?”
“No, Captain.  They are loyal to you.”
Robert took a deep inhale as he rolled the grape around his mouth.

“See that it dies with them,” he finally said before he stood slowly from his chair.
Siu Lung's brow twitched.  “Captain?”

“He is my son,” Robert sighed as he plucked another grape from its stalk.  “Let him pass through the Run.  We will collect our normal fee in India.”

Siu Lung nodded, but his brow wore concern.
“If the other eight found out,” he whispered.
“Are you suggesting they would?” Robert growled with narrow eyes.
“No Captain, of course not.”

Robert smiled.
“He is my son, and under my protection and so is the woman travelling with him.  Whoever's daughter she is,” he warned before he retired to his room.

Whether or not Oliver would care to admit it to him; this girl with blonde hair and a sweet face was important to his son.

For all his sins; he still cared for the boy he had watched grow into a man.

●|●

Oliver rode through the night and early morning, nearing exhaustion when he finally reached the docks.  Tommy himself had kept guard over the plank and when he saw his Captain and friend walk down the pier, he let out a sigh of relief.

He ordered the plank to be lowered and Oliver stumbled aboard.

“Is she safe?” Oliver asked, his eyes drawn and his voice brittle and dry.
“She is well and waiting for you,” Tommy assured him.
Oliver closed his eyes and smiled as he leaned against the railing.  “Thank you Tommy.”
“And him?” Tommy asked bitterly.  “Does he know about her?”
Wearily, Oliver shrugged.  “I don't know but if anyone knows, he would know.”
“It's not too late to sail the long way Oliver, we'll need to leave some cargo to make more room for provisions, but we could be ready to sail by the afternoon.”

Oliver tore a hand through his hair and hung his head.  If his father wanted to find him, there was nowhere in these seas he could disappear... unless...

“I could stay here with her, take her inland until I can find a way back to London.”
“Oliver,” Tommy sighed, “that could take years.”
“If he knows about her, what choice do I have?”
“And would that stop him?”
Oliver sighed again.  He knew the answer... everyone in one way or another was loyal to his father.  “There was no way Oliver could be sure who to trust.”

A call from the docks tore Oliver from his thoughts.  It was a courier who carried a message for him.  Oliver took the small package.  It was sealed with his father's signet ring.  He tore it open and found a note and his necklace.

This is yours.  You earned it.  You earned your place.

Your path through the Run is under my protection.  We will collect our normal dues when you reach port in India.

May the wind fill your sails.

- R Queen.

“Can we trust him?” Tommy remarked.
Oliver looked up, the weight of the world dropped his shoulders.  “I don't know,” he answered honestly.   “But what choice do we have?”

Tommy nodded.  He understood.
“We'll be ready to sail in two hours.”
Oliver patted his friend's shoulder.  “Thank you.”

As Oliver started to walk away, Tommy remembered one more development.  “We hired a new galley boy,” he remarked.
Oliver turned.  “Where is Barry?” he asked with a raised brow.
“Son of a bitch picked up his things and left, said he had a better offer on another ship.”

Oliver shook his head, disappointed but not necessarily surprised.  The kid had his eyes on stations well above his ability.

“Did you check this time it's an actual boy?” Oliver teased.
Tommy smirked. “Never living that one down either.”

Oliver shook his head. “Nope.”

●|●

Felicity looked up with a breath hitched in her throat when the door to Oliver's cabin opened.  She had silently watched the sunrise alone in his room, her eyes welling up over the brilliant hues that had once brought her so much joy.

When Oliver dragged himself into the room, she finally gave way to tears out of utter relief.

She ran towards him and threw her arms around his slender waist while she buried her face into his chest, inhaling his musk to be certain he was no mirage.

“You're late,” she sobbed as she slapped his arm.

But Oliver held her tight; held her close.
“I'm sorry,” he breathed as he kissed her forehead.  “But I'm here now.”
“And for how long?” Felicity asked, whispered and shaking.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised.  “We still have a whole lot of everything to see.”

He kissed her damp cheek, soft and lingered, and his eyes closed, content at the feeling of her in his arms.  But, he had one question he needed an answer to.

“Felicity,” her named floated from his lips like a prayer, “If this is too much for you, I’ll get you home safe, I’ll find a way...”
She pressed her lips to his and kissed him tenderly.

“I’m staying Oliver.  I love you.”

Three beautiful words.
Unshakable.
Honest.

Hopefully, they would be enough.

Chapter Text

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The path was set and the crew was ready.  The sails were unfolded and the air was thick with trepidation.  Some, those who had sailed these waters before, knew what they were approaching.  However, others, with only rumours and hushed whispers in taverns to go by, wore their anguish clearly on their faces

Oliver had ordered all hands be on deck so that once Verdant rounded the Cape, the sails would be let out to full as soon as they could be.  It was risky, some might have called it foolish.  The waters between Africa and Madagascar were narrow, and rocky shorelines on both sides hid treacherously below the surface.  The weather was unpredictable and prone to wild extremes, and that said nothing of the unspoken dangers that lay in wait; Pirates made their homes on either side of the path and while Verdant was nimble and fast, it was larger than those that would pursue it.  The cannons she boasted would ward of most, but not all, and if she was outflanked there was little that could be done about it.

In other words, if Verdant and its cargo were a target, there would be little Oliver – or anyone else aboard – could do about it.

But, Oliver was also acutely aware that even taking a slingshot path to avoid the Pirate’s Run would prove no safer.

Even Oliver’s brow flicked, uneasy.  Taking his father’s word for anything was risky, but his options were few.  In truth, Oliver knew that if Robert Queen meant to break his word, no diverted path would stop him.  At best, they could try and reach Surat before his black heart got the better of him.

“Are you sure full sails is the best?” Tommy enquired quietly, so as not to be overheard by anyone on the crew.
Oliver nodded.  “It’s the best chance we have.”  He took the scope from his waistband and sured up the horizon in the distance.  “Cannons need to be loaded and ready at all times,” he instructed before he tapped the scope in the palm of his hand.  “Night crew is to be a full regiment.  Split the men into day and night, no rotations.”
“Aye Cap’n,” Tommy answered. “ Are we walking into a trap?”
Oliver tore a hand through his locks and blithely shrugged.  “I don’t know Tommy, but we need to be ready for one.”
“Drop the sails to half during the night?”
“No,” Oliver remarked as he shook his head.  “We stay full, the whole time.  We can make the journey in nine days, seven if the weather is on our side.”
“Oliver,” Tommy sighed, he turned his back on the crew ahead of them so no one could see the worry in his expression.  “Travelling at full speed will be dangerous these waters are precarious, and not just because of the pirates.”

The Captain was aware, but he did not begrudge Tommy’s concern.  “I’ll be at the helm, we sail through the night.”
Tommy shook his head in disbelief.  “It’s a ten day sail, you’ll need rest.”
Oliver glanced back to the door he knew Felicity waited behind.  “No, I know these waters, I can do it.”  He laid a strong hand on his Quartermaster’s shoulder.  “I’ll rest in Surat, and you’ll buy me a drink and tell me what a conceited asshole I am.”
Tommy laughed.  “I’ll hold you to that Oliver.”

“I need to go speak with Felicity,” Oliver sighed as he glanced back at the door once again.
“I’ll have the sails raised as soon as the ship is lined up,” Tommy assured as he patted Oliver’s back.  “Spend all the time you need with her.”
Oliver thanked his friend with a smile before he headed to do just that.

●|●

Oliver found Felicity sitting with a gentle smile on her lips feeding a quarter of a cracker to a very pleased Christopher who was at home on her lap.  She looked up when Oliver entered and her endearing, enthralling smile grew even more enchanting.  But, it soon faded, barely held on, when she saw the distress on Oliver’s eyes.

“You’ve come to tell me some bad news?” she breathed before she set Christopher down on Oliver’s desk and the nibbled cracker alongside him.  
Oliver waned in the middle of the room on swaying feet as Felicity walked to meet him.  Her touch against his bristled cheek made him sigh instantly and his eyes lull.  “It’ll be okay,” she smiled up at him, holding his gaze.  “Whatever you need to tell me, it will be okay.”
“I need you to stay inside here for this part of the journey,” Oliver requested and while it wasn’t entirely a request, Felicity agreed with a soft hum.  She had, after all, expected the same.

“But that’s not all, is it?” she coaxed a smile from his lips with a tip of her finger at the crease.
“I’ll need to stay on deck,” Oliver explained, and she understood the sadness in his eyes.
“Meaning I won’t be seeing much, or any of you?” she spoke with a forlorn sigh.
He gently kissed the heel of her palm.  “I’m sorry Felicity, but I know these waters better than anyone else aboard and to sail them at speed is no easy task.”
Her fingertips gently massaged his temple, soothing the worry threaded there.  “And you’re certain it can be done?”
He nodded.
Lifting onto her tiptoes, Felicity pressed a gentle kiss to his boyish smile.  “I will miss you, but of course I understand.  I would wait a lifetime for you,” she whispered, her words ghosting his lips.
“I’ll make it up to you in Surat,” he promised as he held her body tight against his, relishing the sensations of it for every second he could.
“And in the meantime, I have my most vivid memories to keep me company,” she chuckled, warm and beguiling.
“And your hands,” Oliver teased as he took one of her fingers and lightly sucked on the tip.
But her curious smile made him laugh, and he soon realised she wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Felicity,” he purred, before he kissed the next finger in the row, “have you ever touched yourself?”
He watched the apples of her cheek pink and her lips fold into each other as she tried to hide a soft and nervous laugh.  “I’m not sure I know what you mean?” she gushed.
His free hand stroked up the inside of her leg and she shivered against his body.
“The way I touch you; have you ever felt yourself that way?”

Felicity could feel the heat under her skin as it boiled down her throat and the top of her chest.
“I, I, could do that?” she asked.
She had certainly felt the heat between her legs, and was aware of the growing ache whenever she thought about Oliver, but she had never taken matters into her own hands.

He kissed her, fleeting and impulsive, but it left her craving more and the soft mewl she let out at its brutal, incomplete conclusion, made that all too clear.

“Let me show you,” he whispered as his mouth moved in close to her neck.
As if swept up in a gentle breeze, they moved towards the bed and Felicity let out a tiny, keening whimper of expectation when her knees grazed the edge.  He peeled her clothes away with ease, and she let him do it, relishing the feeling of his fingertips brushing against her skin.  Prickles rose in their wake and her heart felt like it grew wings as it beat fast behind her chest.  She wasn’t sure how much of it Oliver could see, or tell, but when he smiled, she imagined he knew all too well what she was thinking and feeling.

His palms slid up her svelte arms before they stopped at her shoulders and, holding her there, Oliver turned her slowly.  She moved without resistance and she felt her body swaying on her feet as he stood, tall in stature and wide in brawn, behind her.  

She faced the mirror and a chuckle bubbled from her parted lips before she ran her tongue across the seam. 
“Touch where I touch,” he whispered and wordlessly she nodded before only one of his fingertips drew up the side of her ribs, making her body tingle as it reached her breast.  
She traced his path with the tip of her index finger, matching both the slowness and the airiness of his touch.

His finger swept under the crescent of her breast, like a painter’s brush, and hers followed.  Around her nipple he teased, a little faster as a breath hitched in her throat.  She could feel her own hand shaking as she followed the same path of tight circles around her nipple, feeling the sensation of it tightening and coiling responsively. He moved to the other breast, mirroring the pattern and causing Felicity to gasp.

She could feel his breath misting her neck and she could see his gaze reflected ahead of her as his finger moved up towards her collar bone, and along the jutted bone.  Her hand was shaking as she followed him off the cusp of her shoulder.

And, before she could speak, Oliver held her hand gently by the wrist and raised it.  She let it rise with him, though it appeared limp like a puppet with him as the puppeteer as he guided her palm to her stomach.  His hand sat atop hers, and she could feel the warmth of her body beating off her skin.  A thrumming lower down in her belly grew louder and more consuming as he glided her hand down towards her sex.

The tips of her fingers reached the thatch of hair at her mound and for a moment she inched forward without Oliver’s guidance.
“Not yet,” he breathed and her fingers stalled.
Instead, Oliver moved her hand to her thighs, her hips, her ass, touching the slopes and curves with varying pressure and speed, until her body was swaying and her eyes were beginning to close.  The touch was mesmerising, almost taunting, and yet they were her own fingers.

She knew she was swaying and without his body behind her, it was very likely that Felicity would have crumpled to the floor like a marionette.  As if sensing the same, Oliver kissed her chin and smiled at her reflection.  “Lie down on the bed,” he instructed warmly and she did just so.

Oliver positioned himself behind her and she lay with her head in his lap.  He moved her hands back to her breasts, cupping and kneading them until a warm blush trickled down between them, like a river of pink between alabaster shores.

“Be as gentle or as rough as you like,” he breathed and his hands now simply ghosted hers as she touched her own breasts, feeling them mould into her small palms.

The back of Oliver’s nail drew a line down Felicity’s torso and like an obedient puppy her hand followed him, over the small rise of her belly and down to her mound.

“Let your hand drift where you want, where your skin begs it,” he whispered as his hand lifted off her skin.
Timidly a single digit brushed across the tip of her nether lips and her back reactively arched, begging her in deeper.  She hesitated only a moment before her longest finger brushed into the slick, warmth of her folds.
“Go deeper Felicity.  Do you feel how warm you are, how wet you are?” 
She could hear his voice, raspy and soft behind her as her fingers edged deeper, dipping into the wetness of her own arousal.
“Mmmhhhm,” she hummed, words escaping her. 

Her fingers creeped deeper until all she could see when she peeked through one eye was her wrist between her legs.
“Take your time, tease yourself until you’re begging for it,” Oliver remarked, his tone husky and faint.
“Like you do?” she jibed as her eyes flung up towards him and her lips curled into a smile.

She sunk a digit into her entrance; it was warm, wet and cushiony and her teeth nibbled on the edge of her bottom lip to stifle a reactive moan.  Oliver shadowed her hand with his own, and pushed her finger deeper making her sigh quite deliriously as her body clenched around her finger.

He made her move it in and out, faster and faster until the moment itself was a haze.  It didn’t even feel like she was in control, but when she looked again, Oliver had lifted his hand away and the speed and pressure were both her own doing.

“That’s it Felicity, feel your body clench.”
She nodded to his words, her breath panting and uneven.
“Keep going,” he continued and the sound of his voice made her thrusts quicken.
“That’s it,” he encouraged, his eyes were wide as they feasted on the sight in front of him.  “Are you almost there?”
She nodded frantically. 
“Use your thumb near the tip, find the little pearl there and rub it.”
Her eyes grew wet with water and her skin felt like the most wonderful fire as her thumb reached her clit.  She brushed it with uneven strokes and sparks like electricity vaulted down her legs.  A moan erupted from her lips, her eyes squeezed closed – but she didn’t stop.

“Keep going, don’t stop.”  His chants faded into the background as her whole body shook and tightened.

Trembling and thrashing, Felicity hurtled towards her climax until she came undone around her two fingers.  Her legs slammed closed, her shoulders rose and her back arched almost painfully as the sparks shook and shuddered through her body.  

After the last pulsing wave, her legs fell open and her drenched fingers emerged.
“Oliver, I…” she whispered as she lifted her fingers.  They were wet and glistening in the light as she held them above her body.
Oliver took her hand by the wrist and moved them to his mouth.  She watched, wide-eyed, as he fed the same into his mouth and licked, slow and smiling, each finger, over the knuckle, down to the apex, and up to the tip.
“Anytime you need to Duchess,” he purred as her cheeks puffed up with a smile.  “And I’ll make it up to you in Surat, twice as many times.”

She sat up and curled against his chest as the last tremors of her orgasm tingled through her core.  “That would be perfect.”  

●|●

Half way through the journey to Surat, Oliver was feeling the weight of the trip on both his soul and his brow.  But, ever alert, he kept one eye on the stars and the other on the small changes in the weather – from the shift in the wind to the pulling tides.

It felt something akin to walking down a dark alleyway, unsure what dangers lurked in the shadows.  He glanced up to the small flag at the top of the main mast as it whipped around in the playful night breeze.  It had been hoisted once they rounded the Cape and it’s dark green colour and emblem of a hoisin stood as a warning to anyone who might be looking on.

This ship was under the protection of someone that ought not be messed with.

Oliver could only hope it still held the same fear in each stitch, and wasn’t, in fact, a beacon of another kind.  Whether his father would keep his word or not was something yet to be seen, but Oliver knew better than to count on it.

While blood was important to the Pirate King, in Oliver’s experience it was not in fact the most important – and it was that small nuance that worried Oliver.

But, when Oliver spotted the coastline of India in the distance on the eighth day of straight sailing, he almost couldn’t believe his eyes.  They had made it.  Tommy offered to take the last stretch, but Oliver wasn’t prepared to release the helm until Verdant was safely docked, which came the earlier hours of the next morning.

His father had indeed, kept his word.

As a smaller boat towed them closer to shore Oliver stepped back from the wheel and wordlessly handed it over to Tommy.
“See,” Tommy smiled, “nothing to it.”
Oliver smiled, despite his exhaustion, before he fell back towards his cabin.

The door opened and Oliver stumbled inside.  The days had taken their toll from his eyes, and they were shrouded with deep shadows, while his cheeks looked sullen.  Felicity stood up expectantly and he ran towards her.  His embrace lifted her off her feet and she felt him sob into the crook of her neck, simply out of relief.
“We made it,” he said into her skin.
“So now you can rest,” she soothed him, stroking her fingers through the ends of his hair.
He set her feet back onto the ground and smiled.  “I promised to show you Surat.”
“And you will,” she quipped as she cupped his head.  “After you rest.”

Oliver opened his mouth to argue, but he had neither the desire nor the strength, and he soon fell into bed and slept for a solid six hours.

●|●

It was the middle of the afternoon when Oliver, blurry-eyed and dry-mouthed, awoke to the soft, pleasant sound of Felicity reading a book under her breath.  He was careful not to stir, to pull her from the mesmerising way her lips formed each word.  She was sitting on a chair with her legs tucked up and the book balancing on her knees.  When she wasn’t reading aloud, she was nibbling on the edge of her finger and whatever it was she was reading, had her thoroughly engrossed.

She fussed and gasped a little as she turned another page, but Oliver couldn’t stop himself from smiling and she soon caught the same out of the corner of her eyes.  Holding her finger in place, she closed the book and turned towards him.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked with her head dropped towards one shoulder.
“Long enough to know you talk to yourself when you read,” he answered as he sat up and combed his hair back with his fingers.
“Are you making fun of me Captain?” Felicity peeped.
He patted his lap and she moved gracefully to sit on the same, the book still in her clutches.
“Not at all Squid, I happen to think it’s adorable.”
Felicity laughed warmly as she ran her fingertips over his bristled jaw.  “Who’d have thought Captain Frowns A Lot would have ever found anything adorable?” she teased.
“Who’d have thought it alright,” Oliver said before he laughed.
“Seems this journey has changed us both,” Felicity remarked softly as she offered him a kindly smile.
He kissed her hand before he returned her smile.  “Seems it has.”

“I can fetch you some food, you must be hungry,” Felicity announced when Oliver’s stomach gurgled in the silence.
“I am,” he chortled, “but we can eat on shore, I know a few places.”

●|●

The best word to describe Surat was Vivid.

Everything about the coastal port and surrounding settlement was Vivid.  From the street performers to the variety of colours that lined the market stalls.  There were brilliant reds and deep purples, vibrant blues and calming greens.  Felicity had never seen such an array of colours, beyond the dull pastels of London and the occasional bright colours from France.

Everything from textiles to art bore a beautiful rainbow of colours and that said nothing of the paintbrush Mother Nature had bestowed on such a place.

Flowers grew in wild patches and in cracks in the pavements; vivid and blooming they stood tall and seemingly unafraid of being trampled by the hooves and feet that surrounded it.  At one such flower, Oliver bent down and collected a bright blue flower from between the cracks, before he offered the same to Felicity.  It was pale blue, almost translucent in the sunlight, with a yellow centre of pollen.  It had no scent, but it’s petals were soft and danced in the breeze.

“Blue Poppy, they’re rare this close to the sea,” Oliver explained as Felicity tucked the small flower behind her ear.
“You surprise me yet again Captain,” Felicity hummed as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“If you tell anyone I know about flowers, I’ll deny it,” Oliver answered with a smirk while people moved around the two of them.
“Fair enough,” she hummed as she touched the strap of the knapsack over his shoulder.  “So where are we heading?”

She inhaled and the smells of exotic food engulfed her, causing her to hum loudly at the prospect of tasting something that smelled that exquisite.

He winked, but said nothing as he took her hand and led her through the crowds.  The smells were enthralling, and unlike anything Felicity had ever encountered before, the air tasted rich with new spices and fragrant with lavish amounts of those that most used sparingly.  

There was no place to look that wasn’t filled with wonder and interest, and Felicity couldn’t help steering Oliver towards a stall of aromatic spices.  The older woman who was selling them had a kind face and was adorned with gold jewellery that Felicity admired from afar; these women wore jewellery to have it seen, over the English habit of keeping such for only such occasions where they could be flaunted.  There was something altogether far more endearing about wearing jewellery because you loved it and required no such invitation to wear it; over hiding it away in a jewellery box for most of your life.

The woman started speaking and Oliver translated as best he could; there were many different dialects and he was not even remotely fluent in any; just enough to order a drink and not insult anyone (or insult them, if the situation required).

“She says you are very beautiful,” Oliver said after the woman spoke.
She nodded as she directed Felicity’s gaze towards a basket of a fine powdery spice, light brown in nature.  She picked some up with her fingers and gestured for Felicity to touch and smell the same.  Felicity touched some of the powdery spice, milled smooth and fine, on the tips of her fingers.  There was no way to describe the smell, but to say that it was rich, deep, almost nutty.  Something like a roasted hazelnut, but without the aromatic sweetness.  It was certainly a captivating scent, despite being new and unfamiliar.

“She says it’s nutmeg,” Oliver continued, trying his best to follow the woman as she spoke.  When the next words came from her mouth, he wasn’t sure he’d heard it right, and a smile erupted across his face.
“What did she say?” Felicity enquired.
“I think she said it’s good for couples, for,” he paused to try and tame his smile, “making love.”
“An aphrodisiac?” Felicity said, as she blushed at the apples of her cheeks.
The woman nodded before she patted Felicity’s hand.  “You love,” she said simply.
Felicity looked over at Oliver and smiled.  “Buy the spice Oliver,” she teased.

Which he did.

They ambled through the rest of the market until they were simply walking the streets of Surat.  Felicity glanced back over her shoulder with an unsated hunger.  “I thought we would be eating.”
“We will be,” Oliver remarked and after a few steps more, he stopped outside a house.

The house was made of weathered bricks along the bottom and a smooth, greyish mudbrick for the rest of the walls.  It had wooden shutters on the open windows and it sat two stories tall.  It was not large, far from it, and yet it gave the illusion of space with it’s tall, cylindrical columns in dusky red, and the idea of grandeur with the cascading flowering plants from the second floor terrace.

Oliver knocked on the wooden doors and they opened almost immediately to a man near in age, with warm brown skin and a puckish glint in his eyes.
“The sea finally dragged your ass here!” he said with a boisterous laugh before he saw Felicity standing to the side, “and with someone else, finally,” he added with a far softer tone.
“Ganar, this is Felicity.  Felicity, this is Ganar, an old friend,” Oliver introduced the two.
“Old?!” Ganar gasped, “speak for yourself.  Please, come in.”

Inside was simple, and every piece of furniture had a purpose.  A fire was lightly burning with a pot cooking above it, where a most glorious smell was emanating.  There were two women inside the house, an older woman sitting in a chair by the corner of the room weaving something with her hands, and another who looked only a few years older than Felicity holding a small baby in a muslin wrap and tending to the cooking pot.

Introductions were made; the younger woman was Ganar’s wife, Nadira, and the older woman was her mother, Hadi.  The young baby was a boy named Anup, and another small child, a girl, that appeared from underneath her grandmother’s chair, was Ganar’s oldest child, Sai.

The five of them lived in the house together; not a house servant in sight.  Ganar was a fisherman and Felicity got the impression he and Oliver had known each other for a long time, though the specifics of that was not discussed.

Around a small rectangular table they ate the aromatic lunch, which Oliver called aloo sabzi and puri, and Nadira explained as potato curry and fried bread. It was certainly unlike the food Felicity was accustomed to, but her palate was pleased for the change from salted fish and dry crackers.

Talk sparked around the table, and before long it turned to Felicity.
“Where are you from Felicity?” Nadira asked as the two men were busy recounting a joke only they seemed to understand.
“London,” Felicity remarked, and the comment stopped Ganar mid-sentence.
“Oliver went to London?” he balked as he squinted at his friend.  “He hasn’t set foot on English soil for as long as I’ve known him.”
“Technically,” Oliver started as he ate a spoonful of curry, “I still haven’t.  Verdant was docked, and I stayed on board.”
Ganar laughed, and Felicity smiled graciously; she’d never considered the fact that Oliver and England weren’t exactly friends… only where did that leave them on their return?
“I have heard tales of London and its grandness,” Nadira continued, ignoring her husband’s interruption.
“London is a tale of two cities in many ways,” Felicity answered softly, “for many it has a grand air about it, but sadly for many others it has very little shine at all.  I suppose it depends on where your view is from.”
“Surat is not all that different it seems,” Nadira added with a smile.
“So,” Ganar started as he chewed his bread and pointed the rest towards Oliver, “how did someone from London end up with the likes of you?”
“Long story,” Oliver commented before Felicity could.

The conversation moved to the weather and Ganar’s vocation, before all the plates were cleared and Oliver took Felicity aside.
“I need to go out for a little,” he explained quietly.
Her brow furrowed but before she could ask him where, Oliver continued, “I need to pay my father’s men for allowing us passage.  It happens every time and,” he paused to brush his palm down her arm, “there is nothing to be worried about.”
“I should come with you.”
He smiled as he shook his head, “it smells far better here and I’ve already checked with Ganar.  You’ll be safe here and I won’t be long.”
She pursed her lips.  “How long?”
“An hour tops,” he leaned down and kissed her forehead.  “I promise.”
“I’ll keep you to that,” she sighed as his lips pulled away.

●|●

The tavern was a thirty minute walk away, but Oliver crossed the City in a little over half that, fully prepared to keep his word to Felicity.  He swallowed the smile he’d been wearing thinking about her and clutched his knapsack with a balled fist.

The smell of blood and ale no longer surprised him when he stepped inside the seedy establishment, and what few eyes crooked his way, almost instantly moved back to where they had been settled before.  No one asked questions.

He walked deeper into the room, taking the same path he had many a time before.  Tommy never made this trip, he wasn’t built for dealing with these kinds of people – bankers and investors were more his speed.

Oliver stopped in front of the familiar barkeep with a scar that ran through his lips and a grainy complexion.  Ordinarily, he simply handed over the fee and the rest was taken care of, but the scar twitched as the man told Oliver something else under his breath.
“In back,” he muttered.
Oliver rolled his eyes, there was a hardly a patron that wasn’t already drunk off their own tits in the tavern and no one appeared to be waiting to be served; but he was in no mind to argue.

Begrudgingly, Oliver walked through the heavy curtain and down the hallway where only one flickering oil lamp lit his steps.  He stopped at the first door on his left and knocked.  His knock was met with a gruff, “Come in” he recognised.

Oliver opened the door and found his father’s Quartermaster, Siu Lung, glaring at him from across the room.  They weren’t exactly enemies, but they certainly weren’t friends.  The man still held a grudge that Oliver’s departure left them without sailing master; it was a skill few possessed to read the stars as accurately as Oliver could – and had – as charts were often inaccurate and incomplete.  As far as Oliver was aware, the man they “found” to replace him, had not come willingly; a reasonably common occurrence.

But, Oliver surprise at seeing the old Quartermaster there was not the one to ultimately hold his attention; instead that belonged to the figure relaxing on a bull-hide chair beside him – Robert Queen was there also.

“Two times in so many weeks,” Oliver scoffed as he dropped the payment onto a nearby desk.  “Who knew I was so lucky.”
Robert stood up, a lit cigar in his fingers.  “It’s not luck you’re here Oliver, and you know that.”
Oliver said nothing, and instead turned to leave, but Siu Lung had bet him to the door and with his pistol pointed at Oliver, he blocked the door.

“Have a seat Oliver,” Robert encouraged before he drew in on the cigar and exhaled a cloud of ashen smoke.
“I’d rather stand,” Oliver answered rigidly.  
Robert shrugged.  “Suit yourself.”
“Payment is made, that’s all I’m here for,” the younger man said with a tense jaw.
“What, no thank you?”
His father’s cockish laugh made Oliver’s lips tighten.  “You’ve never needed one before.”
Robert smiled but kept his thoughts to himself.  
“Will you be heading towards Tortuga?” the patriarch enquired as he tapped his cigar into an ivory ashtray.
“I have business in London,” Oliver replied stoutly.
His answer made both the Pirate Captain and his Quartermaster laugh.  “Lady Britain hates the likes of us Oliver,” Robert remarked.
“Perhaps the business he has there is with the gallows,” Siu Lung added sardonically.
“She hates people like you,” Oliver corrected, “I am just a merchant delivering wares.”
“You know that isn’t true, not in your heart.”
Oliver’s lips turned into a lopsided smirk.  “And what would you know about heart?”
Robert stepped forward, putting himself uncomfortably close to Oliver – a trick which saw most men fall back; but not Oliver.
“It might be blackened boy, but I assure you it understands more than you might think,” he growled, his voice low and gravelled.
“Are we done here?” Oliver responded without blinking.
Robert looked up and nodded to Siu Lung who dropped his pistol to his side and stepped away from the door.

Oliver left without another word been passed between them.

“Shall we see him followed Captain?” Siu Lung asked.
Robert paused to smoke his cigar as he turned the ring on his other hand with his thumb.
“No,” he finally replied.  “Let the boy go about his business.”  Another slow inhale.  “Have you found who the snitch on his crew is?”
“No yet Captain, all they could tell us was it was some scrawny kid who’d lost a bet.”
“And them?” Robert asked as he sat back into his chair and walked his fingertip over his lower lip.
“Dead men don’t tell tales Captain,” the other man answered with a smile.
“Good.” 

Chapter Text

“I apologise for her,” Nadira remarked as she nodded down at her daughter Sai.  The young girl, barely 3 years old, had become fascinated with Felicity’s hair, weaving her small, chubby fingers through the golden locks and letting them pass over her tiny palms.  

She spoke very little and when she did, it was in her native tongue, but Nadira translated, briefly, that the young child was raptured by the lightness of both Felicity’s hair and her pale skin.

“She’s quite alright, I don’t mind,” Felicity replied as the young girl looked up at her wide-eyed.
The older woman, Nadira’s mother, Hadi, had said nothing since Felicity and Oliver had arrived, and had, in fact, stayed in her chair the whole time – including to eat lunch.
So, Felicity was surprised when she finally moved from her chair.  She was surprisingly agile and did not walk with either a cane or the assistance of her daughter.  She was slender and short, but as she approached Felicity her face lit up with a sort of youthful exuberance.

She spoke cheerfully, almost excited, but in words, Felicity could not understand and Nadira soon intervened with a playful scolding of her mother.
“What is she saying?” Felicity asked curiously.
“My mother was a devotee of the Goddess Rati, she seems to believe you possess the same sort of spirit,” Nadira explained while Hadi searched through an ornately carved mahogany chest. 
“The Goddess Rati?” Felicity repeated, careful to try and pronounce the name just as Nadira had done.
Hadi continued to talk without looking up from her task, while Nadira translated the same.
“Rati is the Goddess of love, the type between lovers,” Nadira explained, unsure of the common phrasing of words.  She pushed her palms together to try and gesture the insatiability.
“Lust?” Felicity answered and the younger woman nodded.
“Sex,” Hadi announced as she stood up with a book clenched in her hands.
“Forgive her,” Nadira said with a soft chuckle, “she is not used to visitors.”
Brushing off her daughter’s apology, Hadi carried the book to Felicity and offered her the same.

The title was written in Sanskrit, कामसूत्र but Nadira translated it as Kamasutra.
“She wants you to have it.  I don’t know if Oliver will be able to translate it, but there is artwork,” she explained with a lopsided smile.
Felicity opened to one of the pages and the blush on her cheeks reddened furiously.
“Kama is desire and passion without violating dharma, or the moral responsibility in a journey towards moksha, spiritual freedom,” Nadira continued, “but you do not need to accept the book.”
Felicity touched the edges and smiled softly.  “It’s a beautiful gift, it’s just that in England we aren’t so open about things.”
Nadira laughed as she translated Felicity’s words for her mother, who laughed warmly before replying in her native tongue.
“My mother says England must be quite boring then.”
Felicity laughed as she nodded, “it certainly is.”

●|●

Back aboard Verdant, and tucked away in their cabin, Felicity was busy settling some orchids she’d purchased from the markets into a tall pewter mug of water.  It certainly seemed a little ridiculous to be doing such a thing, but the fragrance and beauty of them was a memory she wished to hold onto for as long as she could.

Their journey back would have them only stopping once for supplies and would take them near on three months to complete.  It had been four months already since Felicity had seen London, and by the time they returned it would be over six.

“Before I forget,” Felicity remarked as she set the makeshift vase on Oliver’s desk.  “I was given something while you were away.”
Oliver looked up from the bed, where he had made himself comfortable with his shirt open and his shoes kicked off.  He rolled onto his side and perched up onto his elbow.  “And what was that?”
Felicity retrieved the book from her knapsack and handed it to Oliver while she attempted to keep her smile from overtaking her entire expression.

By the smile that lit up Oliver’s expression, he knew exactly what Nadira’s mother had given them.
“You know what this is don’t you?” Felicity teased.
“I’ve heard of it,” Oliver replied gingerly.
“Can you translate it?”
Oliver flipped to a few pages as he shook his head.  “I’m afraid not.  I can speak enough to get me by, but I can’t read it.”
“No matter,” Felicity cheered, “I’ve been told it has pictures.”
“Really?” Oliver said with a lopsided smirk.
“Nadira told me that it says sexual joy is chiefly derived from the feelings and emotions of intimate togetherness, from the magic and the poetry of it, which man and woman can create in each other. Erotic joy is not of linga and yoni alone; it is that of the whole being,” Felicity explained, her voice barely above a whisper.
“So not so much the act of sex, but who you’re with?” Oliver breathed as he stood up, their bodies so close she could feel every breath he took on her wet lips.
“Something like that.”

Oliver leaned around her and plucked an orchid from the arrangement before he gently dragged the tip of the petals down her cheek.  She inhaled a shaky breath as her eyes stayed tethered to his.

Invitingly, her tongue drifted across her bottom lip, wetting it seductively.  But, Oliver resisted the desire to kiss her, and instead delicately ghosted her mouth with the flower he held.  A sigh bled from between her parted lips, decadent and wet as Oliver drifted the flower down her neck and over the dip of her collarbone before meeting with the laces of her blouse.

He could see her nipples harden beneath the draping cotton as his mouth became dry and ravenous at the sight while blood stampeded towards his throbbing shaft.  Her nimble fingers unlaced the collar of her shirt and, once loose, she shrugged it down her shoulders.

His fingers ached to touch her delicate skin, knowing how soft and warm it would feel beneath his fingertips.  But, he denied the ache and danced the petals of the flower over her chest, as though the orchid was an extension of his hand.  She breathed unsteadily as heat flourished across her body and a deep crimson flush painted her chest, dripping towards her waist.

Every inch of her body ached and her core twisted as she reacted to him with shallow and trembled breaths that caught his name in a whisper.  She could feel her wetness pooling between her legs as her body clenched and thrummed with anticipation and excitement.  She wanted him, her body reactively craving him, readying itself.  Every nerve in her body pulsed and tingled to the point where she wondered if her finger were to touch a flame, whether it might cause an inferno.

As he knelt down in front of her, Felicity wrestled her skirt from her body; paying no care to the delicate fabric of it, before she kicked it free of them.  A sigh shuddered from her lips as his face inched even closer to her sex, corralling every thought and attention to that brimming heat at the apex of her legs.

She begged him with a thin and brittle voice, but the only words that left her mouth were his name and a whimpered, “please.”

He puckered his lips and blew softly against her skin, causing Felicity to sob forward and her knees to buckle.  Her eyes were wild and her lip wore indentations of her teeth, but Oliver was not done teasing her just yet.

The scent of her was enthralling, musky and floral with a hint of decadent vanilla pulsed off her skin, pulling him closer and whetting his appetite.

With her knees trembling, they moved wordlessly towards the bed where she fell naked onto it with a wanton sigh.  His clothes were soon discarded in a pile before Oliver perched himself above her, watching her willowy body writhe beneath him.

The orchid lay beside them until Felicity picked it up and drew a faint swerve down Oliver’s chest.
“Will you promise to love me?” she whispered as she painted the petal down his arm.
“With all I have to give,” he replied softly, not a hint of a lie to be found.
The tip of the flower grazed down his jaw.  “And for how long?” 
“In this life, and the next.”

She shifted below him, enough that her free hand could grasp his erect cock.  Tipping her hips, she dragged his throbbing head through her slick folds until the ache each of them felt became a blinding wave of small jolts crashing down their bodies.

Oliver leaned down and kissed her nipples, one then the other, slow and intricate, seducing a moan from her parted lips.  His tongue circled each one, edging her closer to climax as his breath misted down her pert mounds.
“In this life and the next,” he whispered a second time as she lined his cock up with her swelling entrance.
Her gaze travelled up his chest to meet with his eyes as he pushed himself forward, thrusting into her tightness.  She gasped, throwing her head back in pleasure as Oliver drove his cock deeper into her.  He nipped at the threads of her throat as she shifted her hips to take the last inch.  Nestled tightly in her cushioned grasp, Oliver stilled himself while the tiny pulses and spasms of her body trickled down his rod.
Her hand cupped his face and found it dewy with perspiration where her fingers met his temple.  “You can’t follow me to London,” she whispered, her lips fighting with each word she spoke.  “I won’t let you risk it.”
Oliver kissed her lips tenderly, holding them there as she cried softly.
“I’m not afraid of His Majesty and no trouble will find me, Duchess,” he promised after he pulled back a fraction.
“How can you be so sure?”
His thumb playfully tapped her quivering chin.  “Trust me.”
He rocked his hips gently back and forth, slowly thrusting in and out of her as she threaded her fingers into his hair.  His pace quickened and her body moved in time with his, as the air became damp and thick with their breaths and pleasured moans.

Her heels grazed down his legs as their bodies entwined, while friction grew like a tempestuous storm between them.  Lucidity mixed with insanity as their matched pace thundered them towards climax and the sound of skin slapping coloured the air.  She was saturated, and his cock glided, frictionless, with her wetness coating it.

“Stay,” she breathed, her voice shaky and cracked as she fought to breathe deeply.
Oliver smiled, lopsided and uneven as the backs of his thighs tightened and his vision grew hazy.  “I won’t leave you,” he managed, near breathless himself.
“Stay inside,” she urged, holding his head between her shaking palms.  “They won’t be able to deny a child, nor the child’s father.”
His pace slowed as he burrowed into her eyes.  “Felicity…,” he sighed, the last fraction of her name trailing off.  His expression was one of worry, but he stayed inside her, moving just enough to keep them both on the edge.

“The Duke is an honourable man and a man with a great many friends.  He is also a man of duty,” she whispered as she lifted her damp forehead and pressed it against his.  “If I am carrying your child, he will not deny you.  Be thoroughly discouraged by me certainly,” she continued with an airy laugh, “but I had no chance of avoiding that the moment I stepped foot on Verdant, so it might as well come to some use.”
Oliver remained quiet with a smile on his swollen lips and a crinkle in his damp brow, allowing Felicity to continue.
“He has enough money and enough pull that would see you safe.”
He could see her eyes wild and her teeth holding her lips closed, as though she had more to say, but not the breath to say it.  Oliver peppered her lips with ardent kisses before her head dropped back onto the pillow.
“And what is it you want?” Oliver asked.
She smiled as she drew her thumb across his lower lip.  “I want you to stay,” she whispered, “for all of those reasons, but mostly because I’m very much in love with you.”
Her cheeks crinkled the corners of her eyes as she smiled softly before he leaned down and kissed her temple.
“I’m very much in love with you too Felicity,” he answered, also as a whisper that ghosted his warm breath across her cheek.
She held his muscular shoulders as he poised himself above her.
“So stay,” she breathed.

Gradually his slow ruck quickened, building the friction and anticipation up between them until the air around them became thick with frenzy and warm with arousal.  Slickness coated his shaft and misted down her thighs as their words diminished, replaced instead with deep and panted breaths.

Her body crushed around him, her climax hitting her like a glorious storm that embedded her nails into his shoulders and made his name fly pleasantly from her lips.  Her spend shrouded his cock in fresh warmth as he thrust insatiably forward, chasing his own release.

His knees buckled, his thighs tightened, and jolts of pleasure ran down to his fingertips, causing them to tighten in the bedsheets, seconds before he let himself go inside her.  His warm ribbons spilled into her as small, uneven thrusts milked the last of their climaxes.

The future might have been uncertain, but they were both certain they would face it together.

●|●

The morning was warm, and the light that dappled into through the latticed-glass windows was delicate as it gently roused Felicity from her sleep.

But, before her eyes opened entirely, Oliver smiled to himself as she idly patted her full lips together and the hand that lay under her pillow shifted as she faintly sighed.  The blanket sat crumpled at her waist, exposing her milky chest and her nipples, which were a powdery-rose colour.  The charcoal didn’t breathe as much life into her as he saw with his own eyes, but each stroke he made across the parchment paper was mapped carefully, and each tiny crease or freckle was intricately drawn as if he was afraid of missing a single one.

When he’d woken beside her that morning, his brow was weary and his thoughts almost burdensome, she wanted to return to England, and they would, but what he might find when he lands there was troublesome to his soul.  Despite Felicity’s assurances that it wouldn’t matter, Oliver had no way of changing his past, and while, perhaps, he could live a quiet life unnoticed by anyone that mattered, he wasn’t sure if that would be possible after walking into the house of a Duke and declaring that he was in love with his daughter.

But, when he turned to see the languid smile on Felicity’s serene face, he knew he was willing to risk all it for her.  

She woke with one eye, peeking up at Oliver, but he continued to draw – because he could, he was certain, draw her from memory alone if he wanted.

“You’re watching me sleep now?” she asked with a coquettish laugh.
“Am I not supposed to?” he answered, grinning.
“Come back to bed Oliver, it’s far too early.”
As she spoke, Felicity sat up on one elbow before she saw the drawing in his hands.  “May I?” she asked softly as she reached a delicate hand towards him.
He pulled back, just out of reach, with a puckish smile.  “You told me to come to bed.”
“Oliver,” she pouted with a raised brow.
He handed over his drawing and she sighed softly when she saw it.  It was stunning… it was her.

“You could make quite the living as an artist,” she remarked as her eyes traced the careful lines of charcoal he’d made, bringing life to each masterful stroke.
“I only draw what I love,” he started and Felicity looked up at him quizzically, “you would have me selling drawings of only you.”
His laugh was warm and light, both parts of Oliver he did not often show, yet they felt so natural around her.
“That is quite the predicament,” Felicity pondered as she tapped a fingertip against her full bottom lip.  “I guess I shall have to pay you then.”

Oliver answered in only a smirk.
“Yes, it’s settled, in England you should paint me, quite naked and very erotically, and we’ll hang it above our fireplace,” Felicity continued, with a sharp bob of her head.
“Whatever you want Duchess,” Oliver replied, grinning.

“I’ll need something very scandalous to wear, perhaps just a gold necklace and a drape of red silk,” Felicity teased, as her fingers drifted down her chest.  “We should go out this morning and find something perfect for it.”

She sat up and the sheet slipped completely from her body.  Oliver plucked his drawing from her hand and dropped it to the floor with a smile.
“We’ll definitely do that,” he paused as he crawled onto the bed, “after.”
“After what?” she breathed with a mischievous glint in her eye; she knew exactly what he meant.
“After,” he whispered before he kissed her lips, slow and passionate.

After.

●|●

The markets were alive with the bustle and hustle of traders when Felicity and Oliver stepped off Verdant.  There was something to be said about just how alive the area felt and Felicity knew she would ultimately miss it.  However, perhaps such a place existed in London too and she was determined to find it if it did.

She was admiring a bolt of purple silk, edged with the finest, hand-stitched gold thread when the air around them grew even noisier.  Oliver was only two feet away, waiting for a merchant to wrap an ornate necklace Felicity had purchased when the chaos erupted.

It started in a flash; first Felicity’s eyes were drawn to the fringes where she saw the familiar face of Barry Allen.  He waved and curiously she waved back.

What happened next felt surreal.

A herd of livestock nearby were spooked with the loud and echoing sound of a pistol shot.  They crashed through a stall, sending a shockwave of noise that startled both a nearby horse and bull that had been carrying wares.  The sound of shattering urns and infuriated merchants boomed like a chorus as another fight on the other side hedged Felicity and Oliver into the noise.

Another shot rang out and people scrambled, pushing Felicity further from Oliver.  He ran towards her, forgetting her purchase, but a horse and rider reared up in front of him, blocking the way.  Felicity soon found herself lost in the bedlam, being pushed along with the crowd until a hand reached out and grabbed her, pulling her roughly to the side.

She wore relief as she expected to see Oliver.

But the face she saw was definitely not his.

She screamed as the tall, behemoth of a man, lifted her into the air.  Her legs went kicking as she tried to find some tenement or connect with anything, but nothing.

She screamed again.

And that one Oliver heard.

He searched for her in the crowd until he finally saw a flash of blonde disappear across the other side of the marketplace.

He ran, knocking through people without care or thought, but by the time he reached the space, there was nothing except a tear of purple fabric lying in the mud.

●|●

With a pistol and a sword drawn, Oliver burst into the tavern where he knew he’d find his father, rage beset across his entire demeanour.  
Weapons were drawn by no fewer than twenty men, to match his own, but his blade needed only to cut the throat of one – his father – who Oliver found sitting at a table of consorts.

“Where is she? I will fucking kill you,” Oliver spat as he pointed the tip of his cutlass at the throat of his father.
Robert Queen simply smiled; it was not the first sword he’d had sitting so dangerously close to his neck.  He was also certain that it would not be the last.

That it was, in fact, his own flesh and blood holding such a threat, was however a new and almost amusing development.

It was clear, however, that Oliver did not share his father’s amusement for the situation when he pointed his pistol at the Pirate King too, a threat that said Oliver did not care for his own safety in marking any one of the other men that had made him their target, and in fact, his sole purpose would be to take Robert’s life; even if it also meant his own.

“Leave the room,” Robert said sternly as he gestured to the men around him.
Their quizzical looks were quickly withdrawn when he repeated himself loudly, his booming voice echoing through the pitched ceiling.
The tavern emptied leaving Oliver with both his weapons still pointing at his Father.
“Do you mind putting that away?” Robert remarked as he batted his hand against the side of the cutlass.
“Where the fuck is she?”
Robert narrowed his eyes at Oliver before he pushed the sword away, nicking his own skin.  His thumb brushed over the small scratch, wicking up the spot of crimson that had started to form there.

“I take it you’ve lost someone,” he remarked stoically as he reached for his ale.
The sword was back to his throat before he could take a drink.  “You took her, and I want to know where she is.”
“If you’re referring to your female friend, I made no such order. But,” he started as he sat back with his arms crossed. “If you thought you could bewitch the daughter of a Duke and not have me hearing about it, you are more foolish than I thought.”
Oliver’s hand waivered and his father seized the opportunity to slap the blade flat between his hands and twist it out of Oliver’s grasp, sending it clattering to the table.

Robert pulled a pistol from his belt and stood up, both men now with their weapons drawn at each other across the table.
“You knew who she was,” Oliver said through gritted teeth.
“You have a leak in your crew, a young fella, terrible at cards, bets with money he doesn’t have.”
Barry.
Oliver’s jaw grew tense and his cheeks hot with rage.

“But, if you knew who she was…?” Oliver’s voice trailed off.  It wasn’t exactly like his father to forgo a payday such as having Felicity to ransom would have given him.
“Did you not think I would notice the necklace she wore around her neck?” Robert commented as he holstered his weapon, despite Oliver still pointing his.  “That belonged to your mother, and I’ve seen you fight a man with your bare hands at the age of 13 when he tried to take it from you.”
Robert Queen finished his drink and dropped the pewter mug onto the table.  “You wouldn’t hang it around the neck of some whore you picked up in port along the way.”
“Why let us pass?” Oliver asked suspiciously.
“You are still my son.  And I did more than simply let you pass, I gave the order and buried the information that had come to me.  Whoever took her, did not come from my fold.  No ransom from a Duke would be worth my wrath.”

Oliver’s shoulders slumped and his body gave way to a sob.
Where was she?

“Who is she, Oliver?”
“Her name is Felicity Smoak,” Oliver sighed as he fell into a chair and dropped his head into his palms.
He didn’t see his father’s lip quiver.  “I thought her name was Sommerset?”
Oliver looked up and faintly shook his head.  “That’s her step father’s name, the Duke, but she goes by her mother’s name so as to not be recognised.”

Robert dropped onto his own chair, his eyes wide and his mouth aghast.
“Oh son, what have you done?” he breathed.

And for the first time ever, Oliver saw something in his father’s eyes he had never seen before; just a fleck, but there nonetheless – he saw fear.

●|●

Felicity’s head felt heavy and cloudy and her limbs felt lethargic, like anchors, as she slowly came to her senses.  There was a strange taste of tin in her mouth and her lips were cracked and dry before she ran her tongue between them.

The first breath of air she consciously took was unexpectedly warm and dry as she fought to open her eyes.  First one, and then the other, until her surroundings cleared through the foggy haze.  She was somewhere unfamiliar; beneath her was a bed with a mattress that was thin, but not uncomfortably so, and a blanket was folded at her feet.  A fireplace across from her explained the warmth that billowed like cushions around the room and cast the wooden floors and walls in a reddish glow.  There was a table with two matching chairs and a vase of fresh-cut flowers – something like an orchid, but the colour looked like a deep purple.  A set of drawers was near the foot of the bed and there was a tattered rug in the centre of the room.  Lastly, there was an armchair in one corner with a small, empty bookshelf nearby, oddly on the armchair sat a wooden doll with a scarlet and ivory dress.

The sight of her sitting there, staring out in a serene silence with painted lips that had dulled over time, drew Felicity, and it was then, as she tried to sit up on the bed, that she realised her wrists were bound together with shackles, as were her ankles.

She gasped, as if finally realising that the windowless room was not simply a figment of her imagination; which meant that her last memory of Oliver in the market with her, the tall man, the sudden rush of air as she screamed… that was all real too.

She heard the rattle of the door and reactively she curled up into herself as best as she could just as the door opened.

A man, tall, with a comb of grey hair walked it.  He wore dark clothes, leather and wool, and he dragged one leg ever so slightly as he walked.  His face was drawn but wore little emotion from what Felicity could tell.  A scar at the edge of his lip twisted whatever smile he might give as the skin around it puckered.  His eyes were pale blue, almost grey, and they were fixated on Felicity.

She swallowed down the fear that began to rise up from the pit of her stomach; she would not give this stranger any such satisfaction.

He didn’t speak as he left the door ajar and walked deeper into the room; but instead of heading toward her, he walked to the armchair where he picked up the 15-inch doll and brushed a tuft of fine hair back behind her lace bonnet; as if he cared for the child’s toy.

“You look just like her,” he remarked, his voice was neither loud nor deep, and if it weren’t for the fact Felicity was chained to a bed, she might have considered it almost; aristocratic.  She could not place his accent, as it sounded not unlike an English one, but dappled with many more she had heard along the journey, making it oddly unique – and yet a part of her found it hauntingly familiar.

“That’s a doll,” Felicity replied, but her throat was dry and her words came out hoarse and brittle.
He laughed, oddly robust for his wiry frame, and something about it made her recoil, fighting her chains.  He set the doll down carefully and then turned to face Felicity.

“You look just like she did the day she left,” he spoke, low and disgruntled.
“Please, I don’t know who you mean, I don’t know you, you have-,”
“Of course you don’t know me anymore, that’s what she wanted,” he interrupted, the words spitting like venom from his mouth.
He walked a few steps closer, the sound of his heavy boots echoing in the silence.  “Felicity.”  He said her name as neither a question nor a statement, but the fact he knew it sent a shiver down her spine.

One more step closer brought him close enough that she could see the dark rims of blue around his pupils.  “You look just like her,” he said faintly.
“Who?” Felicity reacted as her chains shook.
“Your mother,” he sighed.  “My wife.”

surprised?

Chapter Text

Your mother
My wife
The words echoed in Felicity's head as a frail shiver trickled down her spine.

The man in front of her with cool eyes and a calculated smile was her father.
There was no logic in that, no proof, no real tenement in what he was saying, and yet an eerie wash down her body told her it was true.

“You were born Felicity Kuttler in this very room,” he spoke coolly.  There was no warmth in his words and his expression was a blank canvas free from emotion, as though he only spoke in facts – devoid of any humanity.

Felicity kept silent and careful to hide any of the many emotions she was feeling from her expression.  But, her silence didn’t seem to faze him and he continued without her input.
“From the moment you could, you crawled towards the ocean.”
A smile tipped his thin lips unevenly and his chest shook just a fraction with a small, almost embittered, laugh.

Felicity flinched, recognising the feeling that had always travelled through her veins, the call of the ocean, and the reason she had stepped onto Verdant in the first place.  There had always been an unexpected pull towards the ocean, one she could never quite explain when asked to.

He saw the flinch in her otherwise stoic demeanour.  “She calls to you still, doesn’t she? The ocean?”
Her brow pinched as her eyes grew wet, but her expression was caged and unsure.  Because, she recognised one very important thing, if the man standing in front of her was truly her father, why would her mother have kept her from him? And, perhaps more importantly, why had she left him in the first place?

There was much Felicity was unsure of, but what she could not deny was an overwhelming sense of trepidation.  Her mother had fled this man and buried her footsteps, so she must have had a reason.

“You expect me to just believe this?” Felicity asked as her eyes mapped out the room.  “You’ve told me nothing that anyone with a quick tongue and a liar’s disposition couldn’t.”
His smile twisted, as though her rebuttal amused him before he took something from his pocket and threw it onto the bed beside her.  It was a silver locket, the size of a compass and ornately decorated with carefully engraved vines that circled the edge.  Felicity studied it tentatively before she took it into her hands.

To the sound of her chains clinking, Felicity dubiously opened the locket.  Inside was a picture of the man standing in front of her with a woman standing beside him who bore a face that had changed very little over some eighteen years; a face that was vividly familiar even in the grainy and faded paint – it was a portrait of her mother.  And, in her mother’s arms was a small baby, no older than a year.

A child Felicity could only presume was her.

//

Tommy Merlyn tugged a frustrated hand through his hair, messing his usually perfect mane, as he paced a small spot near the bow of Verdant.  The air was heavy with impending rain and the clouds seemed to mirror the mood as the big, puffy balls of grey lingered ominously.

“Her father?” Tommy asked, his voice thick with trepidation but husky as he tried to keep his voice low and secretive.
Oliver nodded slowly, there was more he hadn’t said – more he couldn’t say – but he had told Tommy what he needed to know; Felicity’s father had taken her and Oliver was going to meet with him.  
“So you’re going to go see her?” Tommy asked his second question with a little more surety.
Oliver nodded again.
The hand that Tommy had been raking through his own hair now landed decisively on his hip.  He nodded, sharply and just the once.  “When do we leave?”
Oliver had expected such a response, in fact, he would have been surprised if Tommy had not suggested such a thing.  However, where he was going, Tommy could not follow.
“We don’t, I do,” Oliver explained.

Tommy laughed, boisterously enough that he caught the brief attention of a deckhand across the other side of the bow.
“You’re going alone to a pirate-infested island to get back the daughter of a Duke, whose real father happens to also be one of the nine pirate captains who run the seas? I’ve always known you were a crazy fucker, but Oliver, that’s madness,” Tommy spoke under his breath, so much so that his words sounded hissed. 

“I won’t be alone,” Oliver assured him.
But it didn’t have the desired effect.  “Your father?” Tommy scoffed.
Oliver shook his head slowly.  “He can’t be involved, but he’s given me a small ship and a handful of crew which will be enough.”

Tommy, frustrated, moved his hand back to his hair and proceeded to pace once more.  “If he’s her father, then maybe she’s safe with him,” he remarked, his tone softening – perhaps out of hope that there might be some truth to be found in his words.
But, they both knew what Oliver said next was true.  “If she was safe with him, then her mother probably wouldn’t have left.”

The Captain ran an unsteady finger across his troubled brow before he continued.  “I need you to take Verdant and leave,” he instructed, a sort of sternness in his tone like he’d already made up his mind.  “Make sure the Company knows that you’re leaving.  Make it memorable to them so they’ll be no doubt when you left.  You can’t get mixed up in this,” he added, a war brimming in his turbulent voice.

“In what?” Tommy questioned bluntly.  If Oliver meant for him to follow his instructions, the Quartermaster expected honesty in return.
But, Oliver shook his head in response, believing it was better Tommy didn’t know.
“Take my flag and you’ll be granted clear sailing as far as you need, but take the spice route and stop for half a day; no more.”

Tommy listened as Oliver spoke, but his arms were folded across his chest and his brow was pensive.

“Once you reach the open ocean, put up full sails until you get to Cape Verde.  Burn the flag before you dock and restock the galley there, but stay only as long as you need to.  From there, sail back to London without stopping.”  Oliver finished with a decisive nod.  He hadn’t had time to consider all eventualities of what he was about to do, but he was confident that – at least insofar as it involved Tommy and his legitimate business – they would be far enough away to have complete and plausible deniability.

But, Tommy wasn’t easily won over to the idea and, with his arms still crossed, he offered an alternative.  “I’ll wait for you in the spice islands, we’ll sail back to London together,” he insisted.
Oliver shook his head tenaciously.  “No, you need to keep going and get as far away from here as you can.  I’ll meet you in London.”

A few drops of rain fell from the dreary sky and Oliver knew it was time to go.
There were storms brewing, but not from above.

“Did you consider this is just what he wants?” Tommy asked bluntly as Oliver began to walk away.  He closed the gap as Oliver hesitated.  “That he’s trying to get you back?” he added in a bitter and hushed whisper.
Oliver nodded, that was a very real thought he’d had; that his father had orchestrated all of this to force Oliver to start a war that the ever-studious Pirate King couldn’t without the backing of others.  It was not farfetched to imagine his father using him – using Felicity – but it was not an option for Oliver to simply do nothing.

What Robert Queen had told him about Felicity’s father may have been embellished, but even if a fraction of the ruthless Captain’s reputation was based on fact, the woman Oliver loved could be in very real danger.

“Maybe,” Oliver admitted, “But I have to go, I love her.”
Tommy sighed, defeated.  He knew there was nothing he could say to his friend and Captain to change his mind.

“Promise me that you’ll leave as soon as you can,” Oliver urged as he lay a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.  “You built this business and I won’t see it dragged into a mess.”
Reluctantly Tommy nodded and as Oliver patted Tommy’s shoulder before the often-sullen Captain smiled.  “Thank you Tommy,” he said softly.

“Just tell me what you mean to do Oliver?” Tommy pleaded.  “Tell me what I’m leaving you to do?”
Oliver’s smile vanished.  His soul was weary and his head even more so, but he knew what he had to do.
“I’m going to start a war.”
 

//

Gunpowder and leather.

The scents were rich in the dank cellar where Oliver stood staring into a cracked mirror.  The clothes he wore were fragments of an old life, reminders of a villainy he'd tried to put behind him.  His shoulders slumped in the dark ebony jacket that flared at his hips and grazed the middle of his calves, before he secured two pistols into hide straps that crossed over his broad chest.

A long and sharpened sword sat at his left hip while a dagger sat on his right.  The black leather boots he wore were fastened and reinforced with threads of plaited hide and beaten silver sewn between leather swatches.  They were heavy and as he took a step back he was reminded of the burden he hadn't borne in some time.

“You always hated those,” Robert Queen chortled from behind.
Oliver caught his father's reflection in the mirror but gave him no response.
“They'll serve you well in combat though,” he added as he strutted towards Oliver, a glimpse of pride on his weathered face.  
Still, Oliver remained silent.  “And to be sure, combat is what you will find.”

Oliver turned sharply when Robert was standing beside him. “And how can I trust you? Trust what you tell me is true?”
Robert's smile was unfettered.
“You can't,” he answered as he shrugged, “but you will have to.”

He handed Oliver a rolled-up sheet of parchment and dubiously Oliver took the same and unravelled it.  It was a map, crude and unfinished, but a map all the same.
“This is the best we could do.  He's always been a suspicious asshole and people don't simply walk on and off that island,” Robert explained.  Not that he needed to.

Oliver rolled up the map and shoved it into his corded belt.  “It'll do,” he remarked.
“You understand why I can't go with you?” Robert commented as he picked up a tricorn hat from the table nearby and dusted it off.
Oliver nodded.  For all their lawlessness, Pirates had a code; no war was started within their ranks without a vote.  And, Robert would not risk asking for one to be taken given the merits in front of them. 

Noah taking his daughter, even without her approval, was not looked upon as wrong.  Calling it so would have Robert laughed out of any clandestine meeting.

Oliver was going it alone; for her.

“If he catches you,” Robert started wearily.
Oliver interrupted with a gravelled response, “You had nothing to do with it, and I shouldn’t expect you to save me.”
Appeased, Robert continued. “If you make it to the Cape of Good Hope, wait three days then come and find me, you’ll know where.”
If
That word wasn't a mistake and Oliver knew it.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing – that she’s worth it?” Robert questioned.
“I’d go to the ends of the earth for her,” he promised as Robert handed him the tricorn. 
“Then you’re ready to face Noah.”

Oliver dropped the hat onto his head and stared at his blistered reflection.

Ends of the earth for her.

Robert tapped one of Oliver's pistols.  “Shoot first son, because he will.”

//

The next day, a crisp morning where dew was heavy in the air and the sea was agitated, Oliver watched Verdant depart with Tommy at the helm.  Two small Company vessels accompanied the frigate, ensuring that if the London Branch asked questions, the date of departure would be clearly recorded in their own records.

Oliver smiled, lopsided and only to himself as the misty fog began to lift; Tommy was clever for doing that.  Both of them knew that if Tommy or Verdant were implicated in piracy in any shape, the ship could be forfeit and Tommy could face prison.  This way, their manifest would show them already gone by the time the skirmish broke out.

He watched as long as his eyes could see before the ship he'd called home for years disappeared over the horizon.

Of course, Oliver hoped that everything could be settled without the need for weaponry of any kind; but he'd be a fool to place his trust on such a notion.

There was likely no way what Oliver was about to do would go unnoticed.  But, it would be better if any whispers that made their way through the seas spoke of this as in-fighting amongst the pirate scum; nothing more, nothing less.

The way Robert Queen told it, Felicity's father, Noah, known to most as Grey Ghost had a woman, Donna Smoak, he'd taken from an embassy ship sunk off the tip of Africa.  She was young, petite, and beautiful.  Either in an act of self-preservation or simply because she eventually knew no better, she became his wife.

Few ever saw her, mostly because Noah's jealously was as short and crude as the shark tooth he wore around his neck.  Rumours grew rife that she had borne him a child, but the baby had no visitors and none of the other pirate wives were allowed to visit.

Robert didn't know how she escaped, though Oliver could tell by his expression that he had unspoken suspicions.  As a result, Grey Ghost tore the seas apart looking for them both, not for love but out of anger that such a woman had gotten the better of him.

The rest was a history that Robert didn't delve into, likely because he deemed it unnecessary for Oliver to know, or - perhaps more likely - he was covering tales of his own trail of havoc and destruction when Moira Queen left.

Oliver soon moved towards his own ship, a small schooner, which was being loaded for the journey.  She was agile and fast but with only 4 canons she would be dead in the water if they lost the element of surprise.

The journey to where he would find Felicity, was not long – a little over half a day at full sails, but Oliver would wait until nightfall in two days’ time, affording Tommy a sizeable head start and giving himself enough time to prepare.  From there he would make a path that would take longer and require hiding in the shallows of a nearby island cluster for half a day, but doing so would give Oliver the veil of darkness.  In total it would take him four days to get to her

He just hoped she could wait that long.

//

Felicity had listened to the shuffle of feet walking by her room all night, and, as the last embers of the fire dimmed to charcoal, she assumed morning had come.

Her eyes were tired, but she had dozed off lightly only a few times during the night and even then it was not restful or lingered.

Her lips were dry and she attempted to smooth down her turbulent locks with a comb of fingers as she sat upright on the bed.  She wasn't initially afraid of Noah, her father, but something told her that she should not easily take that for granted.

She stood up slowly, glad for the freedom removing the shackles had provided.  Her eyes ambled around the room before she wandered towards the haunting doll.

Up close, Felicity could see the age in the doll and the blemishes in her painted complexion.  She had been cared for, but time had taken its toll irrespective.

A rattle of keys near the door drew her attention as Felicity smoothed down her wrinkled skirt.

It opened and an older woman with pinched features grunted at her.  Felicity took that crude communication to mean she ought to go over there and when the older woman gestured with her head to follow her, wordlessly Felicity did.

There were no windows down the hall and lit gasoline lanterns made the space almost asphyxiating.  The wooden walls were unpainted and the floor creaked with almost every step.

They passed three other doors, all of them closed, before they stopped outside a double door.  The woman with small, suspicious eyes squinted at Felicity sharply before she opened the doors and walked in.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was also no windows in that room.  But, where much of what Felicity had seen was unfurnished and rather bleak, that room appeared decorated.

It was a dining room of sorts with red tapestries and a roaring fireplace made of cut stone.  The long rectangular table in the centre seated 12 at a rudimentary count and a feast of fruit and loaves of bread was laid out from one end to the other.  It reminded Felicity of Sunday breakfasts in London when they had guests.

It was only when he announced his presence with a cough, that Felicity realised Noah was standing in one corner, studiously studying a map hung on the wall by a dagger in each corner.

“Sit,” he remarked without turning to face her.
But Felicity stayed standing as the doors closed behind her.

“I was with a man in the market, I need to get a message to him,” Felicity said calmly, even though her nerves were frayed and her lip stung with a nervous quiver.

Noah turned and walked towards the table.
“Oliver Queen?” Noah remarked rhetorically.  “I know the boy, but do you?” he added and his lips seemed to be smiling.
Felicity ignored his baited words.  “I wish to get a message to him.”
Noah slouched into the chair at the head of the table.  “Sit down Felicity.”

Reluctantly, Felicity slipped into a chair three seats away from where Noah sat.  The food smelled delicious and the pang in Felicity's stomach reminded her that it had been some time since she had eaten.

But, that could wait, she determined.

“Is there a way to get a message to him?” she asked astutely.
But the question went ignored.  
“I suppose I should thank him for bringing you all this way,” he chuckled before he sliced a wide blade through a mango. He carved off a section and slipped it between his thin lips as he kicked his feet up onto the corner of the table.
“I’ve been looking for you for years and you just drop into my lap, ” he continued before a rapt on the door drew his attention. “Come in, ” he bellowed from his seat.

Felicity had her back to the door, but she heard it open and she recognised the sound of hesitant feet walking in.
“You wanted to see me Cap'n?” a young voice questioned.
Felicity's brow pinched; she knew that voice. 

She looked around the edge of the chair to see the familiar face of Barry Allen, then like a badminton racket to the head, Felicity realised what had happened.

“You told him, you son of a bitch,” she hissed as she ran towards him, toppling her chair with a loud clunk as she did.

“You have her fight in you,” Noah exclaimed before he roared with laughter as Barry skittered backwards.

“He came offering the ransom of a Duke’s daughter, not knowing who he really had,” Noah added as he brought a goblet towards his lips.

Felicity spun sharply to face her father.
“Why am I here?” she asked brusquely.  Whatever his plans were, she'd rather know sooner.
“You belong here,” he replied casually.

“I belong where I wish to belong,” Felicity argued tersely. 
Noah laughed breathily.  “With your Prince?”

“Am I free to leave or not?” she queried boldly.
Noah took a long drink and when he was done he pressed a linen napkin to his lips before he carefully dissected another slice of mango.

“Not, ” he finally answered coldly.  “Now sit down.”

But, Felicity was not done.
“You keep me here against my will, for what purpose?” she fumed; Barry was no longer the focus of her anger.
“You belong to me, no one steals from me and gets away with it,” he said coolly.
“No one stole me,” she retorted.

The anger that burst through Noah’s expression and words was violent, like a sudden volcanic eruption from a dormant cone.  It came loud and with his fist crashing down on the table.  “She did!” he roared and Felicity jumped at the explosion.

He stabbed the knife he held into the plump flesh of the mango and his jaw tensed as a dark smile returned to his lips.  “She did,” he repeated, menacing and calm, “and she will pay for it.”

He drew the knife out of the fruit, calculated and slow before he licked the juices from the blade.
“Or,” he breathed, “you will.”

Chapter Text

Dry eyes see all the painting for what it is.

That was a saying Donna Smoak was fond of, and as a child Felicity never really understood it.  The first time she recalled hearing it, she was around eight years old.  She’d fallen while walking back from town and grazed both her knees.

As a child of only eight, she sat on the loose metal near a ditch that smelled like rotten eggs and wailed as though her short life had all but ended and that she couldn’t possibly go on a moment longer; her will had completely left her.

It was undoubtedly dramatic, as children tended to be, and Felicity, even many years later, remembered how her mother sat down beside her, held Felicity’s head close to her chest and said those few words.  At first, Felicity had thought she was being chided, but when she looked up at her mother through sodden eyes she saw only her gentle smile and a kindness in her eyes.

It was then that her mother pointed out towards the field ahead of them and guided Felicity’s eyes to the view.  It was quite magical, the sun had not quite set and wouldn’t for another hour or so, but it had bathed all the sky in a palette of pinks and oranges with brush strokes like an artist.  The rolling hills were carpeted with spring flowers and a flock of sheep were taking advantage of the lush grass to graze upon.

It was a sight to behold and as Felicity sat upright and brushed the tears from her eyes, she forgot about her grazed knees and bruised pride.

A few years later, in the luxury of their country estate, Donna spoke the same words when a flighty horse threw Felicity from her saddle.  The abrasion on her arm was superficial, but she was frustrated and angry with the temperamental horse and her emotions gave way to tears.  Ever so calmly, her mother repeated those words dry eyes see all the painting for what it is.

Angrily, Felicity asked her mother what she meant by that and how unfair it was that any one should be ashamed of their tears.  But, Donna explained that it was neither wrong nor foolish to cry, only that sometimes it stops us from seeing all that we need to see.

The horse was not ill-tempered or bad, but rather he had thrown a shoe that had left a splinter in his hoof; he was in pain.

Sitting across from her father as his angry words spewed from his thin lips, Felicity did not feel pity or empathy for the man, but she reminded herself of her mother’s words and she bit the inside of her lip to stop it quivering.

She kept her eyes dry to see the bigger picture.
If she fought the man, he would see her chained in her room without a hope.  But, if she kept her emotions guarded and her wits about her, she might just see the opening she needed.

Dry eyes see all the painting for what it is.

Dutifully, Felicity took a mango from a platter and set it on her plate before reaching for a small bread roll.  “Perhaps you might permit me to see where we are?” she asked calmly, speaking only when she could control her voice enough to hide all emotion from it.
Noah’s face softened markedly before he nodded.  “We could see to that,” he remarked.
Felicity forced a cordial and demure smile onto her lips.  “Thank you father,” she answered, ignoring the bitterness that speaking such a word left in her mouth.

//

After breakfast, Noah excused himself and asked that Felicity stay in the room for a few moments.  There was little other choice as he left the scornful woman who’d collected her from her bedroom in the room with her keeping a silent but vigilant watch over her.

He return, as promised a few minutes later with a young man close in age to Felicity.  In many ways, he reminded her of Oliver with broad shoulders and an impish smile, but he wore his dark hair cropped shorter, almost to the skin on one side, and a tatty braid from the back of his hair lay limply over his shoulder.

His clothes were old, but not shabby, and consisted of worn leather pants and a dark shirt he wore open at the laces.  He walked with a confidence that also reminded Felicity of her beloved and her heart felt heavy at the realisation that he simply wasn’t.

“Adrian, this is my daughter,” Noah introduced.
Felicity kept her hands pinned to her sides as did Adrian.

“You'll show her around the island,” Noah continued.
His choice of words was particularly telling to Felicity.  There was no consultation or consideration for what might she want, because it didn't matter and Felicity doubted it ever would.
“Yes Captain,” Adrian replied.  There was something distinctive in his accent, and though Felicity couldn't place it, she was certain it was not British.

Noah left without another word and Felicity took a slow, steadying breath before she stepped forward and extended her hand.  There was certainly no telling who she could trust and who she couldn't, but she needed to know about the island she was standing on and if that meant acting the ever-charming daughter of a Duke... or in this case a Pirate Captain, then so be it.

“Felicity Sommerset,” she said with her svelte hand extended.
Adrian stared down at it and shrugged.  “I know who you are,” he said coldly.
His demeanour was also much like her Oliver's when they first met, to the uncanny point where Felicity absently worried that they might be somehow related.

“Only way you're getting off this island is attempting to swim for it, you'll be dead before you get past the breaking waves.”   His eyes looked her up and down briefly.  “You'll either drown or a shark will eat you for lunch.”
“Charming,” she muttered.
“You might think the Captain being your father will help you some,” he continued with a sardonic smile, “but it won't.  He told me to shoot you myself if you try to leave.”

Felicity retracted her hand and sat it absently at her hip.  She honestly didn't doubt the threat.
“Duly noted,” she quipped.
“Good,” Adrian said, not an ounce of an emotion to be gained from his face.  “Keep up then.”

//

Felicity did indeed keep up, despite her heavy skirt and her somewhat impractical shoes, she managed to fall no more than a few footsteps behind Adrian, even with his large stride and his adept footwork.  There wasn’t so much a path to follow as there was a smooth track beaten into the dirt by constant foot and hoof traffic as it wound around the cliffs and joined the structures on the island together; the island that most called Devil’s Bridge.

From the vantage point of the highest peak, which they reached via a pulley system built into the rock face, it was apparent the island was not particularly large given Felicity could see where almost every edge of it fell away into the sea.  There was little in the way of beach, although Adrian did state that the tide was high at that particular time, which could account for the same.  Most of the terrain was rocky and mountainous, but that had not stopped those that lived there from building with the gradient of the land and using the imposing nature of the Island to their advantage.  It appeared less like an island paradise and more like a fortress.

There seemed plenty to do, and men moved about quickly between the different levels using planked ramps or pulleys systems much like the rickety one Felicity had traversed upwards in.  She’d had done so with her eyes screwed shut and a hitched breath in her throat, but not doing so hadn’t exactly being an option.

Adrian said nothing unless she asked a question of him and he chose not to ignore it, so all she was able to garner from him was that most came and went from the island, but at any given time there were nearly 200 men roaming about it.  

Despite her nervous disposition and the crude way she had arrived there, the highest peak of Devil’s Bridge was something quite magnificent to see, and the many sights and sounds drew Felicity to the very edge before Adrian grabbed her arm.
“Don’t get too close to the edge, it’s a long way down,” he stated coolly as she stumbled back from the precipice that fell away into the angry waves.
Felicity nodded as she swallowed a lump in her throat and curled her toes into her shoes, as if to anchor her feet there.

The day was pleasant and a salt-licked breeze passed cheerily over Felicity’s cheeks while she inhaled deeply to taste the air.
“Why do they call it Devil’s Bridge?” she enquired, looking over her shoulder to where Adrian had made a seat for himself on a small boulder.
He was using a blade to clean the underside of his boot and even though Felicity was sure she had spoken loud enough to be heard, he ignored her question.

She stomped towards him and, from sheer frustration she kicked his foot rather abruptly which finally caused him to look up.
“Why do they call it Devil’s Bridge?” she asked a second time, far less courteous than the first.
He smiled, half-cocked and amused.
“Bossy aren’t you?” he laughed, light and unusually animated.  In fact, it was the most animated he had been the entire time they’d been outside.
“Some might say that,” Felicity replied while she banded her arms around her slim waist.  “Comes with the territory I suppose,” she added with a smirk of her own.

He stood up, and it became apparent just how much taller than her he was, much like Oliver – in fact Felicity would have hypothesised they were almost exactly the same height, or perhaps Adrian was just a little taller.

She stood her ground as he slipped the blade he was using back into a sheath he wore strapped to his muscular chest.  

“Over there,” he grunted at her before he looked towards the east and Felicity’s gaze followed.
At the edge of the Island was a wooden bridge that had seen many years and very little in the way of maintenance that bridged a gap of a maybe 10 feet to a stone pillar.

Felicity wandered towards the structure to gain a better look and when she stood nearby the plank and rope bridge, she could see that the tall column of stone seemed to rise like a pike from below the turbulent waters, although perhaps low tide revealed more of its footing.  Either way, it was not large enough to hold a horse and the only life that grew on it was a small smattering of white wild flowers that seemed to frame the edge of the stone island. 

“That rock is the Devil’s Bridge,” Adrian remarked as Felicity stood at the edge of the bridge structure.  “They say that if you jump from it just right, a person can survive it.”
“And if the jump isn’t just right?” she asked, peering as close over the edge as she was willing to get.
“Straight to meet the Devil,” Adrian replied coarsely.
“Has anyone ever jumped?”
“Plenty,” Adrian said, shrugging.
“Anyone survived?”
“Just one that I’m aware of, always thought it was a rumour, but some older ones around here swear they saw it twenty-something years ago.”

Felicity’s knees started to quiver and she walked back from the edge to settle them.
“Some crazy pirate with a death wish and a few flagons of rum under his belt no doubt,” Felicity remarked mockingly.
“A woman from what I heard.”
Felicity stopped walking and turned to Adrian.  “A woman?”
Adrian shrugged as he walked past Felicity.
She started on after him to catch up.  “Who?” she pestered, but Adrian said nothing until they reached the pulley system which had taken them up there.
“Your mother.”

//

There wasn’t much Adrian could, or would, tell Felicity, and everything he did tell her was prefaced by the fact that the tale came from old sailors with a few drinks under their belts.  But, as legend (some said) would have it, not long after Noah brought the woman who would later become his wife to Devil’s Bridge, she managed to escape.  Cornered, but unwilling to return, she jumped from the stone column into the depths below.  No one would ever say if she did that hoping to live, or imagining death was a better option.  Either way, she survived, but they fished her out of the waters and the story tells it that she decided her place was on the island that had spared her life.

Felicity’s scepticism and the reality that her mother had in fact escaped (or tried to) at least one more time, led Felicity to believe that the notion she wanted to stay was watered-down truth, if any truth at all.  But, she kept her thoughts to herself as they made their way back.

By the time they reached her father’s house; a structure built into a cave (which explained the lack of windows and the chill that seemed to sit in the air), Adrian had softened and he spoke more casually about the natural treasures the Devil’s Bridge was home to.

But, there was an immediate shift in his demeanour when they walked into her room and found Noah waiting.  He had rearranged the room somewhat, pulling the arm chair that had once sat in the dim corner in front of the lit fire.  There were a few dresses laid out on the bed, none particularly fancy, but they appeared laundered and pressed.  They were all muted colours, pale blues and cloudy greys, and none had any fancy trimmings or lace detailing.  

Noah stood up from the chair with a fragility that Felicity knew better than to mistake for weakness.  The differences between Robert Queen and her father were quite telling, but she would not make the mistake to assume that either was less brutal than the other.  By deduction, Felicity would say that Robert commanded with charm and wit, while her father led his crew by fear and greed.

“Did you enjoy your walk?” he asked, his shoes scuffing on the floor as he walked towards her.
Felicity lowered her eyes, believing her father would find a pleasure in assuming that she was both amiable and malleable.  There was something to be said for creating the illusion of weakness to hide strength.  “I did, very much,” she replied softly.
“Good.”  There was a tone of indifference in his voice and Felicity felt that it wouldn’t have mattered what her response had been, his reply would have been clouded with the same apathy.

He nodded towards the bed and Felicity walked over to it obediently.  “The dresses are no doubt a little less formal than the ones you have become accustomed to, but they will do you just fine,” he said dispassionately, with a thread of disdain in his tone.
Felicity touched the fringes of one, a blue and cream dress that felt stiff between her fingertips.  “Thank you,” she answered.  While they were not extravagant, the dress she had been wearing since she was kidnapped was heavy and cumbersome, so perhaps the lighter dresses would prove to be a blessing after all.

Noah replied with a gruffly puff of air before he turned his attention to Adrian.
“She is to be yours,” he said coldly.
“What?” Felicity snapped, unable to control her tongue.
But Noah simply glanced over his shoulder at her without saying a word before he turned back to Adrian, awaiting his response.
“Captain?” Adrian queried, but his stance stayed rigid and his demeanour cool and unaffected.
“Take her as yours but do so now, and we’ll have it be known,” Noah instructed without a hint of regret or even hesitation.  “If not you then another,” he added with frigid sharpness.

Adrian’s brow pinched as he looked briefly at Felicity, whose mouth was agape and her eyes glassy with confusion.

Noah’s heavy hand landed on Adrian’s shoulder before he leaned in closer and spoke quietly into the younger man’s ear.  “Break her will like I had to with her mother.  Show no restraint for her tears and no hesitation for her pleas.  Then we’ll have word sent to your father that our families have united.”

Adrian swallowed heavily.  “Yes Captain.”

The door closed heavily and the sound of the bolt sliding into placed echoed like a crack of thunder through the room.  Despite the roaring fire and her heavy clothes, the room suddenly felt icy and a shiver ran down Felicity’s spine as she pressed her knees into the edge of her mattress.

Adrian said nothing, his eyes fixated on a spot on the floor by her feet as his dark brow furrowed.  As he looked up, she saw the shadows encircling his eyes making them appear hollow and dark before he walked towards her on weighty steps.

She was caged in by four walls, but she backed towards one until her shoulders grazed against the rough boards.  But he followed her, silent and resolute, and any of the softness she had thought she’d seen in his eyes had dissipated, consumed in shadowy embers.

“I will fight you,” she breathed, her voice shaking as it passed over her lips, “and I will never stop fighting you.”
His hand grabbed at the neckline of her dress and as she pulled away from him, the fabric ripped down the seam an inch or two.  Her hand thrashed out at him and her nails caught his cheek, drawing blood when she scratched as violently as she could.

He stepped back and touched his fingers to his damp cheek, noting the blood he dabbed away.
“That should do,” he sighed as he wiped his fingers on his shirt tail.
He walked silently over to the chair her father had vacated and slumped down into the same before leaning forward to warm his hands in the fire’s glow.

Felicity, her breathing ragged and her heart pounding against her chest, held the ripped seam together with one hand as she wrapped the other around her waist.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered with a thin, brittle voice.
Adrian turned just enough to see her before he turned back towards the fire and settled there.  “I don’t want to hurt you, but it’s in your best interests to pretend like I did,” he said calmly while he rubbed his palms together.
Afraid of her swaying knees, Felicity fell back onto the edge of her bed and pinched her eyes together tightly in an effort to still her trembling voice.
“Why?” she asked faintly.
“If not me then your father will send in another, and I doubt they will show the same restraint.”
Felicity bit the edge of her bottom lip.  “Why do you restrain yourself?” she asked cautiously.

She watched in trepidation as his shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.
“There will be a war over you and I plan to be on the right side of it,” he explained calmly.  “Oliver will come for you.”
Her heart fluttered at the mentioned of his name, but it was soon replaced with a nauseous feeling at the idea he would face this Island, this stronghold, for her.

Adrian found a small bottle of rum in his pocket and popped the cork before he drew it to his lips and took a swig of the potent liquid.

Felicity gathered all her wits about her, stood up walked to where she could see Adrian’s face.  “I don’t understand, what war?”
He smiled behind the glass bottle, but took his time to drink again before he answered.
“Your father chose me as the bastard son of another of the Nine Captains.  He means for us to make an alliance when he challenges Oliver’s father,” Adrian remarked as he rested his hands and his bottle on his lap.  
“Oliver is not part of that anymore,” she replied brusquely.
Her response drew a smile to Adrian’s lips, but she couldn’t determine whether it was out of amusement or malice.
“He will be,” he replied stone-faced, “because of you.”
Felicity absently let her hand drift to her stomach, it had been the first time she’d thought about their last night together and the promise he’d made her.  Perhaps, at that very moment, she was growing their child in her womb.  She knew he would do anything for her, even if it was foolish, even if it meant turning his way back to the world he’d left behind.  Felicity knew, as sure as she knew her own heart, that Oliver would start a war for her.

“What is it you want in return?” she asked, knowing no favours and no restraint came without its price.
“You leave and I leave with you to get passage onto the Gambit.”
“Can I trust you?” she asked prudently – as much as anyone could trust a pirate willing to leave their captain.
Adrian shrugged before he took a long drink.
“You can't trust any of us, but the way I see it, you'll need to,” he responded.

Felicity extended her hand towards him as her shoulders stiffened.  “Okay,” she determined.

He was right; she didn’t have much of a choice.

//

The next day Felicity requested to see the island at low tide, a request which was granted, somewhat acrimoniously, by her father.

Devil’s Bridge at low tide was an island with a few white sandy shores and flocks of seabirds roosting in the treetops.  But, the shoreline was still unforgiving, with deep drop offs and unpredictable currents that Adrian explained had taken their fair share of sailors.  There was one dock that Felicity had not seen the day before, but it was small and sat alongside a building where many men slept when onshore.  No larger boats could dock close to the Island and the only way on or off was by rowboat.  The larger vessels were docked in a sheltered alcove that was the perfect location for an ambush on any unsuspecting journeying ships that ventured too close.

The evening was much the same as the one before; Felicity ate dinner in silence a few seats away from her father who drunk more than he ate.  After which, she was escorted by him back to her room where Adrian was waiting.

True to his word, he did not touch her.  But, the pretence that he did was maintained.

As it was also on the third night.

//

The next morning, day four as Felicity counted them, Noah announced himself with a thunderous rapt on her door.  She was already dressed for breakfast but hesitated speaking up for a few moments more to steady her demeanour before she told him to enter.

He was wearing a foul look on his face and the smell of rum followed him into the room like an arid cloud.

“Tell me about her,” he said gruffly as he slumped into the chair that was now sat in front of smouldering embers.
“She is kind and generous,” Felicity started, her tone soft and her words cautiously chosen as she went about fixing the blankets on her bed.

Noah laughed obnoxiously, rocking back on two legs of the chair and Felicity imagined how satisfying it would be to tap her shoe against one and send him toppling to the ground.

But she resisted, barely.

“Where does she live?” Noah demanded.
“France,” Felicity lied without missing a beat.
Noah stood up and his glassy, pale eyes fixated on Felicity as he dragged his feet towards her.  “Are you lying to me girl?”
Without blinking Felicity responded coolly, “No.  They have a home in the south of France, an estate with a vineyard.  We simply visit England on occasion.”

Noah flapped his hand in the air as he groaned his displeasure; Felicity was not sure what, in particular, he was displeased with, but it appeared he believed her lie and that was all that mattered.

Whatever had caused her mother to risk her life on a chance to jump from the tip of Devil’s Bridge and then to escape some years later with a young child in tow, was something Felicity knew she ought to be thankful for.  And, for that, she would keep her mother’s location secret for as long as she had the breath in her to do so.

“And what did she tell you about me?” he growled, slurring his words as he spoke.  It was barely sunup and he was still drunk from the night before, and judging by the bottle she could see sticking out from his jacket pocket, he was clearly of no mind to sober up any time soon.

“We never spoke of you,” Felicity answered, but before the last word had time to fully leave her lips, Noah drew back his hand and slapped her cheek, hard enough that Felicity’s head snapped to the side.  Reeling from the assault, she caught her breath, lifted her head, and stared the stranger down.

“For years I wished I knew you, knew who you were.  But, it’s clear to me now that mother keeping you a secret was a blessing,” Felicity spat, her cheek red and hot.  There was no doubt his slap had stung, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

He raised his hand a second time and Felicity saw the malice and hatred in his grey eyes as she stood her ground, but before he could hit her a second time, Adrian was standing between them.

“Is she mine?” he asked sharply.
Noah lowered his hand and laughed off the moment before he fetched out his bottle and took a drink.
“She’s got a big mouth on her, just like her mother had,” Noah growled as he pushed the bottle back into his pocket.
“Then let me teach her to shut it,” Adrian answered with a smirk.
“Cut out her fucking tongue for all I care,” Noah said, laughing with cold amusement.  “Just be sure she learns her place.”

He walked out of the room briskly before slamming the door behind him.

“Are you trying to incite him?” Adrian huffed when he turned to Felicity.
“It hardly seems difficult to do,” Felicity retorted before she touched her fingers to her throbbing cheek.
Adrian sighed as he briefly checked her face.  “Just tell him what he wants to hear.”
“No,” she answered softly, “my mother kept me from him for a reason, so I’ll keep him from her for the same.”
Adrian scoffed as he folded his arms across his chest.  “Then you’re a fool.”
“A title I’ll happily wear in that case.”

Adrian lifted a tatty blanket folded at the end of Felicity’s bed and tore two long strips from it.
“He’ll expect you to have marks,” he said, despondent.
“I understand,” Felicity softly replied as she held out her wrists to him.

//

It was the evening of that day and the cloth burns on Felicity’s wrists still hurt a little, but she was also playing up the pain for her father’s benefit; and it appeared to his amusement as he smiled every time he caught a glimpse, to ensure that he didn’t become aware of her and Adrian’s deception.

She had not been allowed out to see the island that day and while she pressed Adrian for a plan to get off, he seemed to think that, for now, staying put was the best choice.  But, when compelled, he told her he would see what he could do and would go to her that night with a plan.

“You’ll write her a letter,” Noah said, abruptly interrupting the sound of the splintering wood burning in the open fireplace nearby.
“Saying what?” Felicity answered as she pushed her food around her plate.
“Her life for yours.”

Felicity looked up to see Noah nonchalantly cutting through his meat.
“I don’t understand,” Felicity piqued.
“If she returns to me then you’ll be free to go,” he explained, an impatient tone in his voice.
“And what of your promise to Adrian?”
Noah smirked before he wiped his mouth across his sleeve.  “That will be his problem, not mine.  He’s taken you each night and the sealed letter to his father has been written.”

Felicity stilled the anger bubbling up from the pit of her stomach as she focused on the wooden plate in front of her and took two, long breaths.
“She will not return,” Felicity spoke softly into her plate.
“If it’s for you, she will.”

“She won’t, because I won’t write such a letter,” Felicity replied stoically.
Noah’s expression hardened immediately and his face grew red with rage while his lips twisted into a snarl.  The table shook when he banged both his fists into it, spilling both Felicity’s goblet and his own before he gripped the edge and lifted the table while he stood.

His frailty had certainly been an act as he lifted the heavy, laden table with ease and sent the contents spilling to the floor before he flipped it like rubbish.

He grabbed a blade from his belt and stormed towards Felicity.  Before she had time to move he had her tightly by the wrist, twisting his fingers brutally into her skin.  
“You can still write a letter with eight fingers,” he snarled as the tip of the blade caught the reflection of the lantern above.
“You’ll have to take them all,” Felicity fearlessly spoke as she looked him dead in the eyes.  “I will never write that letter.”

The door flew open and Barry ran in puffing with mud covering his pants and his moppy hair sodden with water.

“Someone’s ‘ere Captain, there’s fires in the forest,” he panted as he stooped to catch his breath.

It was then, with the door open, a sound could be heard in the distance, loud and echoing; a bell.
Noah howled, infuriated, before he drew his sword from its sheath and stormed towards the door.  “Keep an eye on her,” he hissed at Barry before he left.

Barry closed the door behind Noah and shook off some of the night’s rain from his shoulders before he turned with the intention of warming himself by the fire.

But, he made it only half way before his face left an imprint on the heavy silver platter Felicity swung at him; accurately hitting her target.

He fell to the ground unconscious with a thud.

“That’s for being a rat, Barry Allen,” Felicity remarked before she dropped the platter on his chest.

Chapter Text

For such a wiry fellow, unconscious, Barry sure was heavy was the thought going through Felicity’s head as she dragged his cataleptic body by his feet towards a heavy chair with the intent of tying him up there.

But, as she paused for a moment to survey how much further she needed to drag him, she heard the sound of the wooden floor creaking just outside the door.  Making a hasty decision, Felicity grabbed the same silver platter which sported a new dent in the very centre of it, and hid herself behind the door.

She heard a second creak and the sound of heavy footsteps pausing outside the door as she tried to still her thumping chest.

The door rattled a little before the hinges creaked an alarm.  With a lump in her throat and her brow creased, Felicity readied herself to strike once again.

A foot strode in, dark leather boots tied up with strips of dried hide, and just as Felicity raised the platter above her head, the intruder spoke.

“Felicity, are you in here?” Adrian whispered and Felicity expelled the breath she had been holding with a relieved sigh which made him spin around.  “Why are you behind the door?” he laughed quietly.
“Getting ready to hit you over the head,” she replied sardonically as she tapped the heavy platter against her leg.

It was then, as Adrian closed the door behind him, that he saw Barry’s out-cold body.  “You did that?” Adrian remarked, and he almost sounded impressed.
“He had it coming,” Felicity responded, matter-of-factly.  “Now help me tie him up.”

Adrian moved him effortless onto the chair and Felicity tried two of the knots Jones had shown her aboard Verdant with a speed and proficiency that Adrian was definitely impressed by.
“Who taught you that?” he remarked as he gagged Barry with a knotted cloth.
“We aren’t all helpless damsels,” Felicity answered with a smirk and a lopsided shrug.
“Good to know, you’ll be able to keep up then.”

When they were both satisfied Barry could neither move nor call for help, Felicity followed Adrian to the door and stayed behind him as he checked the hallway.

“It’s empty, come on, let’s go,” he said as he ushered Felicity from the room.
Amenably and quiet-footed, Felicity jogged down the hallway, barely a foot behind Adrian, until they reached a door at the end of the dim corridor.
“In here,” he directed but Felicity paused.  
“Why are you helping me?” Felicity asked, her eyes narrowing.
“I told you,” he said, urging her into the room which was barely lit with the lantern he’d picked up on the way.  “I want off this island, and on the Gambit.”
Felicity was not so naïve anymore to believe a man should be taken at his word; but, with no idea the way out of that building let alone off the island, she wasn’t left with any other choice.
“Give me your pistol,” she demanded with her shoulders back and her expression stiff.
“I’m not giving you my pistol,” Adrian chortled, but when he saw Felicity wasn’t kidding, his laughter died off.  “Oh you’re serious?”
“If you want me to trust you, give me your pistol.  It leaves you with your sword and whatever else you have stashed against your body,” she commented resolutely.
Adrian paused to see if she would flinch, but when she didn’t he reluctantly pulled his loaded pistol from his chest holster and handed the same to her.
“Would you like to take a few minutes to frisk me over to see what else I have that you might want?” he asked with a flirtatious glint in his eyes.
“That’s not necessary, but I’ll take the holster too,” Felicity replied as she nodded to his chest.
He grunted, but handed it to her all the same before he once again ushered her into the room.

She moved inside and Adrian closed the door behind them.  As he held up the lamp and Felicity put on the holster, she realised they were in a bedroom and, judging by the ornate decorations and the large four-poster bed in the centre, she guessed it was that of her father.

“Why are we in here?” she asked brusquely and for a moment she had hoped that she had remembered what Oliver had taught her about shooting a pistol, lest she need it.
Adrian strode towards a desk near one of the corners, but just before he reached it, he kicked up a woven mat to reveal a trapdoor underneath.
“If I wanted to hurt you Felicity, I’d have done so already,” Adrian remarked as he stooped down and lifted the heavy door.
As ominous as it might have been, Felicity didn’t doubt that what Adrian said was true.  He’d had every opportunity to hurt her, but he hadn’t.  That alone was reason enough to follow his instructions when he told her to climb down the ladder.

The tunnel at the bottom of the ladder was dark and damp and an eerie breeze made a groaning sound through the network of caves they were standing it.  But, there was little time to think about its darkness or what creatures might be inhabiting the same space after Adrian replaced the hatch and started with the lantern to guide them, down the narrow shaft.

With her dress flouncing with every step and becoming heavier with the water and mud she dragged it through, Felicity paused for a moment, stopping Adrian too.

“Need a rest?” he remarked impishly before he nodded to the walls, “Just don’t touch the sides, lots of nasty creepy crawlies down here.”
Felicity smiled sardonically at Adrian before she took the blade from his waist belt and tore away at the length of her dress.  With most of her skirt shed, Felicity handed Adrian back his knife and nodded in the direction they had been walking.
“Let’s get going then,” she commented 

The exited the cave labyrinth on a cliff face just above the dock.  The air was cold and a temperamental ocean wind whipped the taste of salt against Felicity’s lips as another scent was caught in the air; smoke.  

She looked behind as they traversed a narrow beaten-path down towards the docks, and saw the sky on the other side of the island was glowing orange and thick with grey smoke.

“The island is on fire?” Felicity remarked, remembering what it was that Barry had said to her father before he’d left.
“Lightning must have hit some dried trees out there,” Adrian remarked, pausing briefly, “works in our favour because everyone else is on the other side of the island.”
“You have a way off?” Felicity queried.
“Managed to secure a small row boat and then passage on another vessel just off shore, no questions asked.”
As Adrian spoke, Felicity starred into the orange halo and took a deep, unsettled breath.  Something about it.
“But we have to go now, if we don’t get there before dawn they’ll go without us,” Adrian urged as he reached for Felicity’s elbow and gently tugged it.

“No,” Felicity sighed.  “That’s Oliver,” she said with a decisive nod towards the burnt sky.  “He’s here.”
“There’s no way he’d start an attack on the island,” Adrian retorted.
But, Felicity wasn’t having a moment of doubt; she could feel him – his presence.  Oliver was on that island looking for her, so she wouldn’t leave it.
“You said it yourself, a man fighting for love is a dangerous fighter indeed,” she replied softly before she turned to Adrian.  “You should get on that ship and take the passage.  You have done me a great service getting me out of the house, you owe me no debt,” she spoke calmly before he feet changed direction and she pointed herself towards the fires.  “But, I’m going this way towards Oliver.”

Adrian watched as Felicity started to disappear into the jungle growth before he looked down towards the empty docks and then back towards the fiery distance.  “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath before he took off after Felicity.

When he caught up to Felicity she was smiling.
“I’m only helping because I want on the Gambit,” he grunted.
Felicity nodded, “Of course.”
“That’s the only reason, and it’s a selfish one,” he huffed as they walked side by side.
“Of course, I understand,” Felicity remarked, still smiling.
“It ain’t because I’m a good guy or nothing,” he added sternly.
Felicity paused and tried to hide her smile.  “No one will ever think that of your Mister Adrian, you have my word.”  Felicity turned back towards the jungle and inhaled the almost-suffocating smoke.  “Now, keep up,” she said gingerly.

//

Another body slumped, unconscious to the ground before Oliver dragged him a few short feet into a bush.  He’d managed to subdue most that he’d come across, sparing his sword and pistol as best as he could, though he knew it wasn’t likely to always be possible and that they would show him no such mercy.  The fires he had started on the far end of the island were doing the trick in drawing attention, but they were already spreading much farther than he had anticipated due to a strong wind and brittle conditions.

It had been his hope to thin out the hundreds that came and went on the island by forcing those who may have stopped for a time to choose between fighting an insurmountable red demon or flee to their vessels and not give a second thought to the Devil’s Bridge.  And, it would seem, most took the first option.

If there was one thing Oliver knew about his pirate kin, it was that they put their lives on the line for only two things; revenge and money.  The fires he had started on the island gave neither of those things satisfaction.  In the end, all that would remain on the island were those under Kuttler’s banner.  He was still vastly outnumbered, but a little less so perhaps.

The map his father had given him marked the most likely place Felicity would be and he was now 200 yards from the same, carefully picking off and rendering unconscious any stragglers heading towards the other side of the island.

Crouched in a bramble, Oliver listened to the sound of footsteps crunching through the jungle’s undergrowth.  Most pirates, foolishly, showed very little comradery when it came to fighting and they rarely travelled in groups, an advantage for Oliver in picking them off and an advantage to them in his being able to do so non-lethally.  

But, there was something different about the footprints he was hearing approach, for a start there were two sets, varying weight and pace, and they were approaching fast.

There was no way he could risk one getting off a shot of a pistol and alerting others to where he was, which meant his first strike needed to be lethal.  He steadied himself and drew the small dagger from his hip belt.  For most, they would assume Oliver was both proficient and at ease with taking the life of another – and perhaps once upon a time he was careless over the value of a life; but taking a person’s life was not something he strived to want to become comfortable at, and any time he was faced with such a decision, he did not take it lightly.

Only one was carrying a dim lantern and they moved away from the beaten tracks.  Oliver tightened his grip and prepared to strike.  He saw the first shadowy figure move through the trees at a distance where all he could make out was a rough stature; short and slender.  That one carried the lantern low and kept it dim.  The second moved closer to where Oliver hid and his presence was far more imposing.

Oliver moved quickly and in seconds his blade was at the man's throat hesitating a moment before he followed through.

“Wait! He's with me,” Felicity pleaded as she raised the lantern.  The light illuminated the glimmer of a sharp blade and a familiar set of azure eyes.  “Oliver,” she sighed.

Oliver's hand dropped immediately and he stumbled towards Felicity with a tremble tugging his brow.  “Duchess?” he whispered as his fingers tentatively skimmed her cheek.
“You came,” she breathed before she lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed him chastely.
His fingers tumbled through her hair.  “Always,” he promised softly before he affectionately kissed her.

“Great, this is lovely, let’s get to your boat,” Adrian remarked sarcastically as he brushed his fingers over the slight scratch on his throat from Oliver's blade.

Remembering the intruder, Oliver turned sharply as drew his sword, pressing it into Adrian's chest.  “Who the fuck are you?”

“Jesus Christ,” Adrian huffed as he instinctively raised his hands.  He looked over Oliver's shoulder to Felicity, “could you call off your beloved?” he mocked.

“Oliver,” Felicity said warmly as a lopsided smile rose on her lips.  “He's with me.  He helped me escape.”
Oliver seemed less convinced, and his blade tip stayed where he held it.  “Trust me,” Felicity soothed, “and if he tries anything you have my permission to run him through.”
“Charming,” Adrian laughed.

Oliver’s brow stayed pensive, but he dropped his blade.  “He comes with us?” Oliver asked.
Adrian brushed a patch of dirt from his trousers as he spoke.  “To the boat then?”
But, Oliver ignored his response, waiting instead for Felicity’s.  “To the boat, in return for him helping me,” she affirmed.
“Okay,” Oliver commented, dubiously but appeased, before he held Felicity’s hand and walked her back to where he’d left his boat.
“I literally just said that,” Adrian huffed.

They met with some trouble along the way, but, with Felicity behind him, Oliver managed to stay his blade for most, the same couldn’t be said for their companion.

“These are your fellows,” Oliver said curtly as Adrian drew his blade back from another body.
“You think that would stop them killing me?” Adrian mocked.
“And yet we’re supposed to trust you?”
Oliver was sizing up Adrian and both men stood with their chests puffed and their fiercest expressions.
“My deal is with her,” Adrian gruffly replied as he flicked his head towards Felicity.  “If you have a problem with its terms I suggest you take it up with her.”
“Given it’s my ship, you can make your deal with me,” Oliver grunted.

“When you’re done pissing on each other, could we get going?” Felicity remarked as her hands rested on her hips. 

//

Without encountering any others, they broke through the jungle onto a pebbly shore where Oliver had hidden his rowboat just out of sight.  As he pulled away the fronds he’d covered it with, Adrian glared down in disbelief.

“Where is the Gambit?” he asked before looking out towards the vast ocean, squinting in the hopes he might make out some lights on the large, impressive vessel.
Oliver laughed as he began to drag the boat down towards the lapping waters.  “Not here,” he commented, almost smirking at the look of utter dissatisfaction on the interloper’s face.
“But she’s out there, right?” Adrian quipped as he nodded towards the ebony distance.
“Nope,” Oliver popped.
“Fuck.”

The sound of gunfire ripped through the still air and with the same crack, Adrian clutched his leg and fell to the ground, seconds before Noah Kuttler appeared with freshly lit torches blazing and a handful of men behind him.

The boat was barely a metre from the ocean’s edge but with at least three muskets pointed at him, Oliver had little choice but to raise his hands in surrender.  Felicity, who had leaned down to check on Adrian, found his wound was superficial – the bullet had simply grazed his flesh, but his acting skills on remaining still on the ground were second to none.

“Give me your gun,” he whispered as Felicity stayed crouched.
In the shadows she slipped the same from her belt and he pressed it, hidden, behind his back.

“I set out to catch a daughter, I get a Duchess and a Prince,” Noah laughed dryly before he turned his attention to Adrian, “and a traitor it seems.”

Noah walked towards Felicity as she rose to her feet.  “Tell me daughter, who shall I kill first?”
“I’ve heard about you,” Oliver spat, drawing Noah’s attention away from Felicity.  “People once feared you,” he added, mockingly.
“They still do,” Noah laughed, boorish.
“No they don’t,” Oliver jested.  “You’re a joke, your own men are turning traitor on you,” he continued as he nodded towards Adrian.  “Your own daughter wants nothing to do with you and those who haven’t abandoned you yet surely will when you turn against the King.”
“You speak about things you don’t know boy,” Noah spat.
“Don’t I?” Oliver smirked.  “Save what little you have left and let us leave.”
“Your father hasn’t come with you, the counsel wouldn’t have allowed it,” Noah scathed as he stood a foot from Oliver’s face.
“Are you will to wager a bet on that?” 

As the last words left Oliver’s mouth, the distraction gave Adrian a chance to raise the pistol.  A shot at Noah was hindered by the angle, but he made a clear, and fatal shot, at one of the men standing with him.  The torch he was holding fell from his hands and the dry undergrowth where he stood erupted into flames.

It threw the others into disarray and gave Oliver time to draw his sword against Felicity’s father, while Adrian ran towards the other men who were startled into inaction.

Another shot rang out, followed by the distinctive sound of steel clashing against steel.  Felicity tugged the boat the rest of the way towards the water as the shoreline quickly became engulfed in angry flames.

When Adrian had fought off the last, he met Felicity by the boat and pushed it the rest of the way until the lapping water lifted it buoyantly.  “In you get,” he encouraged as he held in still against the tides.
“Oliver needs help,” Felicity said as she watched the two men fight with a ferocity that was almost deafening.
“Seems he’s doing quite well on his own,” Adrian remarked, nudging Felicity towards the boat.
“Give me your sword,” she demanded, and Adrian offered only a sigh in objection.  “Hold this boat.”

Adrian nodded reluctantly as the waves became more possessive and he focused his strength on not letting go.

As Felicity ran towards the fight, Oliver’s elbow caught Noah’s face, knocking him back as a dry tree fell nearby, consumed with fire.

Oliver kicked Noah’s feet out from under him and the older man fell to the ground as ash spilled into the air, clouding it with soot.

Oliver raised his blade, preparing to strike, before Felicity reached for his arm.
“His life should be mine to take,” she said softly as she pointed the tip of her blade at Noah’s throat.
Oliver lowered his cutlass in response.

“You tried to destroy my mother, but she survived and escaped you,” Felicity spoke, her tone unflinching and fearless.  “I am her daughter.”

She raised her sword as a fallen limb of a tree embered red-hot nearby.  Her blade crashed down on the log, sending a splinter of hot ash onto the side of her father’s weathered face, burning it.

“Remember that I spared your life this night,” she said coldly as she stepped closer.  “But you will always be dead to me.  Never try to find me or my mother or I will rain down more than tree ash on you.”

Those were the last words Felicity said to her father before the three left the Island on a boat and into the dead of the night.

//

The boat they met with was small, and ill-equipped for any major sea battle – both observations Adrian noted the moment they stepped aboard.   But, there was the hope that with Oliver’s nouse and luck on their side, they could out-manoeuvre and outrun any who might give chase.

And for some time, it appeared luck was on their side and that Noah might have listened to his daughter’s warning, but when the lanterns of a ship hell bent on seeking vengeance appeared in the distance behind them, it was apparent luck was no longer theirs that night.

The cannon fire ripped through the wooden hull with little resistance, and there was little that could be done that would get them far enough away.  The ocean was vast, and many islands dotted the canvas, but no close bays would be sheltered enough to hide them.

There was only once choice to be made and Oliver made it with a heavy heart when he called for the cockboat to be brought to the edge.

The plan was simple; the crew would abandon ship with whatever supplies they could take and take refuge in one of the small atolls nearby, hopefully unnoticed by the ship gaining on them.  Oliver would stay aboard and steer the vessel away Noah’s ship, giving the crew enough time to escape and a diversion that would lead Noah away from where they were heading.

There was no guarantee to it; there rarely every was.  But the order was given decisively and all moved quickly to see it through.

All but one.

Felicity didn’t move.

“I’m not leaving you,” she protested, loud enough to be heard over the seas that had turned angry on a dime.
With his eyes fixated ahead and his arm struggling to keep the ship on course, Oliver answered her without the brusqueness she had expected.  “I need you to Felicity,” he pleaded, just before the heavens opened their gates in an apocalyptic-esque deluge.

“No, Oliver.  I know you think me hot-headed, stubborn, and foolish, but if I get off this boat and leave you to it, you won’t try your hardest to come back to me safe and well,” she argued as the tears streaming down her face danced with the rain drops that fell against her cheeks.
Oliver looked at her, the unspoken fear in his eyes told her there was truth in her words.

She placed her sodden hand over his and held it as tight as she could.  “If I stay with you, I know that you’ll do everything in your power to keep me safe, which will keep you safe.”  She smiled weakly and trembling, “it’s just that simple Captain,” she breathed and a spiral of steamy air dissipated from her mouth.

“Oliver, the boat is ready,” Adrian called above the gusty wind.
“Lower it,” Oliver ordered before he lifted his necklace over his head and held it out.  “When you find my father, give him this.  He’ll honour any deal you made with me,” he paused to rub his thumb over the back of Felicity’s hand, “with us.”
“Ain’t she coming?” Adrian questioned after he took the pendant from Oliver.
“No, I’m not,” Felicity answered while she threaded her fingers into Oliver’s.
“You have your orders,” Oliver added with a lopsided grin.
“Poseidon have mercy on you both,” Adrian offered kindly before he carried the orders back to the rest of the crew.

She walked back to Oliver, wrapping her arms around his waist before she pressed her wet cheek to his soaked back.  Even in the brewing storm, she could hear his heartbeat above it and it’s soothing thump brought a smile to her lips.

They readied the boat to lower into the water through the cloudy night.  There was an uncertainty about whether their safety was any more assured than it would be staying on the boat, but the choice was made; as was hers.

Only, perhaps there was another choice.

She glanced back to see the swaying lights of her father’s boat.  They were almost within range of his cannons and it wouldn’t take much to sink them once they were.  But, perhaps…

“What if we hit him?” Felicity spoke excitedly as she turned to face Oliver.
“The cannons on here are shorter range, by the time we’d have him in range, he will have sunk us with his,” Oliver explained, without anger or annoyance.

But, that hadn’t been what Felicity meant and the excitement stayed on her face.
“I don’t mean with cannon fire, I mean with us.”
Oliver looked down, his curiosity thoroughly piqued.
“He’s coming up on the starboard side, right?” she enquired, glancing back to confirm her suspicions.
Oliver nodded.
“If you were looking to sink a ship on your starboard, what cannons would you load?”
Oliver’s lips turned into a smile as he followed along with Felicity’s words.  “If the odds were as bleak as ours are, I’d have all the cannons on one side, ready for when we were in range.”
“Which means his port side is unprotected.”

“By the time he saw what we were doing, he wouldn’t have the time to adjust,” Oliver remarked.
“His boat is larger and more cumbersome to turn.”
“Felicity, we’ll never win,” Oliver sighed.
“We don’t have to win, we just need to hit him hard enough that it hurts.”
Oliver tore a hand through his drenched hair.  “Then he’ll have you.”
Felicity pursed her lips before a sudden thought turned them into a broad smile.  “Not if we’re not on the boat.”

She glanced around before picking up ropes near the rigging.  “If you steered the ship, how much rope would you need to make sure that wheel doesn’t move?”
“A shit load,” Oliver remarked, the wind was unfriendly and unpredictable.  “But,” he breathed, “it just might work.”

//

The ropes were straining despite the expert knots Felicity had tied and there was no guarantee they would hold, but they had no more time to second guess themselves or this (somewhat) insane idea.

With a jarring turn and their breaths in their throats, Oliver turned the boat and it was now heading towards what they had been running away from moments before.

The rowboat had been lowered already and would wait for them with a single light on the bow to guide them for the short swim they would make.

With the cellar doors of the ship thrown free and their hands entwined, Oliver and Felicity leapt clear of the tow of the boat and into the black, icy waters.

The sudden stabbing cold stole Felicity’s breath and she gasped as the air was slapped from her lungs.  The shock startled her, but with her hand still gripped in his, Oliver swam her towards the light.  But, she kept her focus, ignore the icy pain that was making each stroke like torture, until, shivering, she clambered onto the boat with Adrian’s help and Oliver right behind her.  

The quarters were cramped, but the tiny row boat stayed afloat under the weight, and all they could do then was hope Noah wouldn’t come looking.  Adrian blew out the small lamp and the dark, cloudy night enveloped the small boat, with everyone on board holding their breaths.

The currents and waves carried them further away from the boats, but they could see the scramble of cannon fire in the distance and they saw the moment their ship collided with Noah’s and the chain reaction of the exploding gun powder Oliver had packed near the bow.

It wouldn’t be enough to sink the far larger Galleon, but it would be enough to send it limping back to where it came from; they hoped.

And, it turned out, their hope was well-placed.

After the initial flurry and bedlam that ensued in the distance, and after flames destroyed much of their main sail before they could extinguish it, Noah had little choice but to turn around and head back to Devil’s Bridge.

For as long as he could he had men scouting the dark waters for any sign of either Felicity or Oliver, but in the wake of the debris from the ship they were on nothing was found.  Raging, he ordered his ship to turn around, imagining he would hunt them down at dawn, a few hours away.

“He’s leaving,” Felicity spoke softly, her breath coiling like a smokestack on the banks of the River Thames.
The air was frigid, but the pain of breathing it in had subsided a little, or perhaps her throat had just become numb to it.  It was not freezing, but it was cold enough to sting her cheeks with each tousled breeze.

The moon granted them enough illumination that they could see each other’s faces and the genteel smiles they each wore.  There was, after all, little to smile broadly about.  While her father was sent scurrying away, they were adrift in an ocean with little idea where they actually were and even less of an idea what they ought to do about it. There was little point in rowing without any direction to be scouted, but the oars stood at the ready in case there came a time that they could be used.  

But, the truth was plainly out of their hands and the waters would see them drift in whichever direction it whimsically decided; the best they could hope for was an island where any pirate-inhabitants were loyal to Oliver’s father.  That, perhaps, wasn’t the tallest of orders as many of the islands that dotted those parts were hideaways for various scoundrels looking for a sheltered bay and easy fishing waters to replenish their supplies before they set off to pillage and create mischief.  Many also stopped for no other reasons than to spend a night on land where drunken wager-fights were less likely to damage their ship.

It was hardly a savoury crowd to be seeking out, but it was their best hope.

“Tell me about London,” Oliver said softly.  His voice was brittle and Felicity could hear his teeth chattering as he spoke, as the two of them huddled together near the stern of the boat.  They kept their voices to a soft whisper, keeping their words just between them as they rest of the crew sat sullen and spoke only a few times to each other.
“What would you like to know about London?” she asked as she brushed her palm across his cheek.  She was far from warm herself, but the heat between them felt warm to the touch and gave them both a fleeting moment of respite.
“What did you love about it?”
Her lips furrowed as she thought about it.  As much as she had felt suffocated in London, there was much to enjoy about it, much she had chosen – perhaps subconsciously – to ignore when the call of the ocean was so very loud.
“The streets are beautifully cobbled, and there is nothing quite like taking a carriage around the fine parks, or a taking a train to the countryside,” Felicity reminisced fondly.  So clear was her memory that she could almost hear the distinctive sound of trotting hooves on cobblestones and the faint sounds of aviary birds.

“But,” she started with a soft laugh that drew Oliver’s smile up to his eyes, “you’d hate London.”
“You think?” he remarked as he pressed his cheek deeper into her palm.
“It’s dirty and loud and so very crowded, you’d be going crazy after a week if you even lasted that long.”
He laughed; he doubted she was wrong.
“What about the countryside?”
She sighed in a blissful remembrance.  She had been most happiest there – at least before she’d ventured onto Verdant.  “You’d find plenty to do with yourself, I’m sure of it,” she commented warmly.  “And if there was a moment of idleness, I’m sure I could imagine up a way to fill it,” Felicity added with a smirk.
“Idle? With you around?” he teased.

A moment’s silence passed and Oliver’s breathing grew a little more laboured.  In spite of that, his smile remained – albeit lopsided.

“Would we live there, in the countryside?” he asked.
Felicity nodded as she hummed her approval.  “For a time perhaps.”
“That’s a fine place to raise a family,” Oliver said with a grin.
“And how many ought we to have?” Felicity playfully enquired.
He responded with barely a pause.  “Four.”
Felicity chuckled sweetly.  “And you’ll teach them to sail, even the girls?”
“Especially the girls!” Oliver announced.  “You’ve shown that being a woman is not a flaw nor a reason to not.”
“Good,” Felicity sighed.  “And each year we’ll sail away somewhere wonderful,” she continued as her eyes became heavy with exhaustion.
Oliver’s body was fairing just the same, and his lids too began to close.
“Somewhere warm?” he asked wistfully.
A soft laugh, almost lost to wind.  “Somewhere warm,” she promised.

“Tell me more about our children,” Oliver requested.  His voice was thin and hoarse.
Felicity rested her head down against his sodden chest, the drenched fabric sticking to her skin.  But, she delighted in the soft sound that met her; his steady heartbeat.  
“Two boys and two girls,” she started softly as a vision of them danced around her mind.  The boys had mischievous grins like their father and the girls had his piercing eyes.

She saw them in a paddock blanketed in lush spring grass and a forest of wild flowers.  The air was warm and perhaps a little salty as they stood on a clifftop that overlooked a calm, pristine blue ocean.

“They’ll be smart and brave, fearless but kind,” she continued, her voice growing softer with each word as she went deeper into her dream.
“Just like you,” Oliver added, breathless.

His eyes had grown too weary to keep open too, and his mind was filled with a picture not unlike Felicity’s, but they were walking along a beach, the children running in and out of the lapping waves as Felicity and Oliver walked a few steps behind, their fingers entwined and their steps almost identical.

Both lapsed into their memories, pleasant and distracting.  The air stilled, as the darkest moments before dawn enveloped them.  Haunting and quiet were their own breaths, and growing more shallow with every passing minute.

Time disappeared, lost and forgotten, and as the horizon promised thin swords of light, Felicity raised her eyes to a glowing star approaching.  Her lips were blue, her voice all but gone, but when she saw the encroaching wooden boat, she tried to alert Oliver.

But, her thin and brittle words were lost and his eyes stayed closed, as were the rest of the crew; exhaustion having taken them too.

She reached for a knife tucked into her belt; she wouldn’t go easy.

“Felicity?” a voice said through the morning fog.
“No, no, no,” she breathed, her pale, icy fingers curling around the hilt.  She wouldn’t go without a fight.

“My name is Sara, I sail under Robert Queen.”

Felicity sighed and her head dropped back onto Oliver’s chest, a mix of exhaustion and relief taking over.

That would do.

Chapter Text

The gentle rock of the ocean woke Felicity slowly as she stretched her legs beneath a warm, quilted blanket.  As her eyes peeled open, threads of daylight forced them closed again, only for them to part once more to adjust leisurely.

After the morning fog lifted a little from her head and the sun no longer tormented her vision, Felicity’s first lucid thought was of Oliver.  With a startled breath she realised she was the only body in the bed she was lying in and the room was eerily quiet.

“Oliver,” she said, as loud as her hoarse throat would allow.
“Morning, Duchess,” came the smooth, deeply baritone voice of her love.
She searched the room speedily with her eyes before she found him sitting at a desk by the door, just slightly concealed by the bed curtain.  When she saw him a wave of relief flushed over her body and presented like a soft, content sigh passing over her lips.

She sat further up in the bed, but felt too exhausted to do much more than place her bare feet on the hard wooden floor.  “Where are we?” she asked as she looked around the square cabin.

There wasn’t much to it, although it was neatly kept and the furniture that resided in it was reasonably-fine quality.  That furniture consisted of the bed she was sitting in, much like Oliver’s curtained bed aboard Verdant, but the drapery was a navy blue velvet tied back with a knotted black cord.  Where Oliver sat was a small desk, carved intricately on each of the four legs, sturdy but no doubt bolted to the floor as a precaution.  The chair he sat on was basic, unlike the ones from his Captain’s quarters, it had a short, rounded back and looked almost unstable on its spindle-like legs.

There was a small table that seemed to match the chair placed beside the bed with an unlit lantern atop and a single drawer that appeared to be locked.  Across from the bed was a large travelling trunk that would need no fewer than three men in order to move it.  Above that was an empty shelf with a thin layer of dust which was illuminated by the small, porthole window beside the bed.  A window Felicity could only see out of from the bed when she stretched her neck as tall as she could.

There was a coat hung on a hook on the back of the door and a oil painting of a woman lying provocatively in bed near the small, empty shelf.

“On the Gambit,” Oliver said stoically before he stood up, “Sara was kind enough to give us her quarters.”
“You don’t seem happy about being here,” Felicity noted as she watched Oliver brace his bulky frame against the bed post.
He sighed, despondent, before his lips turned up into a whimsical smile.  “I’m happy to be here with you,” he said before he pushed off from the bed post and knelt in front of her knees.  He rested one hand on the cusp of her bent knees and cupped her dainty face with the other.

“Are you well?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper as his eyes floated from hers to her stomach.

She rested her own hand low on her belly and nervously bit her lip.  There was no way of being sure, no way to know for certain if she even was pregnant, let alone whether or not their harrowing escape had being detrimental to any possible child.

Her eyes closed gently, fanning her dark lashes over her porcelain cheeks while she took slow, painfully deliberate breaths to try and focus her thoughts.  There was a stirring in her belly, below her navel, like a fluttering of nerves, but the sensation was something that didn’t pass in a matter of moments, but rather grew a little more intense the more she focused her thoughts there.

It was Felicity’s honest belief that inside her grew a child, their child, and that it continued to live and grow with every passing minute.  She would hold onto that hope, believe it, and cherish it.

Her eyes opened and Felicity collected the hand Oliver had rested on her knees and guided it to the same spot on her stomach.  “I believe we are just fine,” she whispered before she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
“It’s best my father doesn’t know,” Oliver commented, offering no further explanation.  But, Felicity didn’t need one; she trusted that Oliver knew the man and that his decision was one rooted with its own reasons. 
“Of course,” she acknowledged softly.
Oliver lovingly left his hand on her stomach and a broad smile overtook his expression.

“What of the other crew? Are they safe?” Felicity asked after a few moments had passed.
“They’re fine,” Oliver promised, “your Adrian has already made his request to serve on the Gambit,” he added with a chuckle.
“That’s what he wanted after all,” Felicity remarked.  Still, while Adrian’s motives were – in fact – self-serving, she would still appreciate the risk he took to ensure her safety.  It was, she decided, almost honourable, and she reminded herself to say such a thing to him; if only to see his, no doubt, unamused reaction to such a word being used on his behalf.
“For what it’s worth, I vouched for him with Sara, but the decision will be my father’s to make.”

Felicity tousled her hand through Oliver’s free locks and smiled when he returned the affection with a brush of his thumb over the apple of her cheek.
“How long have I been asleep?” Felicity asked before a small yawn escaped.
“A few hours, but perhaps you should rest some more,” he answered as he winked.
Felicity pouted her naked lips as she tugged on his arms.  “Come back to bed with me?”

Before Oliver could answer, there was a swift knock on the door.  As he stood up, Oliver kissed Felicity’s cheek and then made his way over to answer the door.

Opening it, he found Sara on the other side with some clothes draped over her forearm.
“I brought Felicity a change of clothes, figured she might need something other than man’s britches,” she said with a laugh as Oliver invited her in.

Once inside, Sara turned to Oliver with a knowing, almost forlorn look.  “Your father is asking that you meet him on deck.”
Oliver looked at Felicity who smiled warmly.  “I’ll be fine, you should go,” she said, answering the question that was threaded through his azure eyes.

//

Oliver found his father standing on the quarterdeck evaluating his busied crew and the vast ocean before them.  The day was clear and crisp and the winds were strong on their tail, pushing the large Man of War ship through the glassy ocean.  The vessel was impressive and it stood as one of the largest, most heavily fortified ships to sail under a Pirate’s banner.

The Gambit was three decks above water and another two below.  She had a total of 120 cannons and a vast hull to hold enough ammunition to sink a naval fleet; should his father deem it necessary or amusing.  She was built with large sails that gave her a speed almost incomparable, and a rudder that provide precision that was almost unheard of for a ship her size.

She was undoubtedly a formidable warship, yet she boasted intricate carvings and gold trimmings that would have rivalled a ship under royal command.

Beautiful but deadly.

“She’s a clear day,” Robert remarked as he stood, cautiously watching in all directions.
For all his father’s many failures, as a sailor; he had none.  An aspiration Oliver once wished to live up to.
“Indeed,” Oliver remarked casually as his eyes drifted up towards the translucent blue skies.
“We’ve given a place to Adrian aboard the crew, a gunner no less,” Robert remarked cordially.
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased,” Oliver replied, his tone in keeping with his father’s.

Robert turned to face his son, he was dressed in all the splendour Oliver had come to know; tailored clothes and polished shoes, an ornate belt buckle crafted from gold bearing the Queen crest, his sharpened cutlass hung at his hip, and a fine leather holster fit snugly to his chest holding two ivory pistols.  It was all a symbol of status for the Pirate King.  His hair was neatly tied at his nape and he wore a tricorn hat to make his imposing stature even more so.

Robert Queen was no slovenly figure as some might assume, but rather he held a deadly elegance that only a fool would mistake for weakness.

“There is always a position on board for you son,” Robert remarked.  Where other’s might have said such a statement with fondness, Robert did not.  The use of the word son was not given as a familial closeness, but rather as a duty-bound direction.
“I’ll work for my keep on board, but once we make Port, I’ll be taking my leave,” Oliver replied, not even a thread of reservation in his tone.
“We could take you as far as Lisbon, but no further,” Robert explained.
Oliver had expected no less, to sail any closer to England would bring attention that the Gambit did not need.  While none had the where for all to seek him out in the Indian ocean, they would hardly let him pass through the more guarded channels without push back.

“We’ll make our own way from Lisbon,” Oliver agreed with a small, but gracious nod.
“London has nothing for you Oliver,” Robert announced as he turned his attention back to the seas ahead of them.
“I made a promise, which I will keep.”
With his hands on his hip and the sound of gulls vying for their take of the fish stirred up in the wake of the Gambit, Robert cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes.
“I could be persuaded to allow Ms Kuttler to stay aboard with you if you remain with us,” he suggested.
“Her name is Ms Smoak, but I suppose it serves you better that she use her father’s name,” Oliver retorted sharply. 
Robert turned abruptly on his heels.  “What are you insinuating boy?” he pushed curtly.
“Why did you follow me, why did you come?” Oliver questioned brusquely.
“You are my son, a mere thank you will suffice,” Robert said with a scathing tone.
Oliver laughed, brutal and honest.  “I have been your son my whole life and you’ve left me to my own fates plenty of times.  Nothing is that simple to you.”

Robert said nothing, his face was as expressionless as a calm sea – but Oliver knew that calm seas still hid much below their surface.
“Where is Noah?” Oliver asked; he had his suspicions.
Robert lifted his head up and kept his focus on the tufts of clouds that had begun to form in the sky.  “That’s none of your concern now is it? You wanted off the table boy so you don’t get to look at the menu I’m afraid.”
A breathy laugh passed through Oliver’s lips; he should have known.
“You set this all up didn’t you? We’re just puppets in your hands.”
Robert shot his son a volatile glare.  “I used the cards that I was dealt like any good pirate would.”

Oliver stepped back before he combed his fingers loosely through his hair.  “You knew that Noah would come after her and that the ship you gave me would never survive against his.”  As Oliver spoke, the depth of his father’s game play became even clearer.  “You needed him away from the Devil’s Bridge and you needed him to attack a vessel that was yours, because that would be an act of war.  You wanted Devil’s Bridge, you always have, and this gave you the opportunity to take it.”

Oliver fell another step away, his father’s plan made no allowances for whether either he or Felicity survived – that didn’t matter.
“Was it you that told him about Felicity?” Perhaps it hadn’t been Barry after all.
“That’s something I can’t claim to,” Robert replied, a smirk still set on his lips.  “Had I have known who your little trinket was, we would be having a far different conversation.”  He shrugged his shoulders with indifference.  “As it turned out, this worked much better anyway.”

It didn’t need to be said, but the inference was clear to Oliver; had Robert known that Felicity was the daughter of Captain Kuttler, he would have dangled her life in a bargain far more precarious.

“Where is Noah?” Oliver asked tersely.
“He’s dead, which is the same fate you would have faced if I didn’t fish you out of the ocean, don’t forget that,” Robert answered, his tone bitingly sharp.
“Only because it happened to serve your best interests.  You took his Island, you took his daughter.  You proved who you are by using us.  That’s the father I know,” Oliver spat.  “Once we part ways, I want nothing more to do with you.  You’ll have no son and I’ll have no father.”

Oliver turned to walk away, but just before he reached the stairs, his father’s voice pinned him back.
“Every soul on this ship works for their keep Oliver,” he said coolly.
“I’ll do her work and my own,” Oliver responded, his tone in kind, “but she’ll not lift a finger for you.”

Robert laughed, it was light and almost amusing.  “This will always be your life Son, no matter how far you try and run from it.  You’ll always come back to it.”
Oliver smiled, assured in himself and the better life that he would have with Felicity.  He would always love the sea and it’s freedom, but he knew the life he might be lucky enough to live out with Felicity would be far greater than anything else.

He said nothing, his smile was enough, and he left his father on the quarterdeck with nothing further.

//

Felicity finished getting changed into the clothes Sara had given her, and took a minute to check herself in the chipped mirror on the back of the door.  The stay was made of undyed leather but without boning it sat quite comfortably around her middle, scooping under her breasts, and laced up in the front, and small straps ensured it fitted her tightly without the need to push the air from her lungs.  A white cotton blouse sat underneath it with billowing sleeves that were capped just below her elbows.

The leather pants she wore were also surprisingly comfortable, and not starched or stiff like cotton breeches often were.  A leather skirt which opened at the front and stopped just above her knees provide Felicity with a little more modesty than the pants alone gave and a thick leather belt with double buckles sat loosely on her hips.  She expected that such a belt would ordinarily hold a weapon of some sort, but in her case it was bare aside from an empty coin pocket stitched onto it.

“Do they fit alright?” Sara asked through the closed door.
After giving herself one quick glance over, Felicity opened the door.  “I think they fit alright,” she remarked timidly as her fingers brushed down the finely stitched stay.  “They seem quite expensive, are you sure-“
Sara stopped her with a smile.  “Don’t worry about it, I have plenty and that one is brand new.  Looks like it was made for you.”
“It’s a far cry to what I’m used to wearing,” Felicity remarked.
“Mmm,” Sara nodded in agreement, “there isn’t much of a choice, a big skirt or an even bigger one,” she laughed.
Felicity laughed too.  “I know that feeling,” she commented, “But I will see to paying you for these fine clothes once I return to England.”
“No need,” Sara assured her, “Any friend of Oliver is a friend of mine.”

Speaking of which.
Felicity rolled her lips together idly before she gained the sureness to ask her next question, “You and Oliver have been friends a long time?”
“Since we were kids, my father served on his father’s crew,” Sara explained.
“Pardon me if this sounds awfully intrusive and I don’t suppose you need to answer if you don’t wish to, but were you and he ever,” she paused, unsure how to actually ask the question and worried that perhaps she shouldn’t.
“Did we ever fuck?” Sara asked crassly, but with a smile.
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I was asking,” Felicity responded, chuckling softly.
“No, it’d be a bit like fucking a brother if you ask me.  He’s a good man, but that was never for us.”

Felicity tried not to make her relief obvious, but relieved she was.  Of course, it wouldn’t have changed how much she trusted and loved Oliver now, and she was under no illusion that he was as unexperienced as she had been – a fact she was already aware of and Oliver had already spoken to – but Felicity always thought it better to know one way or the other.

“I’ve had a few men,” Sara continued, “but I fancy the company of a woman much more now.  So if you ever tire of Oliver, you just let me know,” she jested, though Felicity got the feeling below the jest lay a large hint.
“I’m very flattered,” Felicity said, bowing her head gracefully, “and I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Both women laughed softly.
“He adores you, you know,” Sara added warmly.  “I never thought I’d see the day Oliver Queen would settle down on land, in England no less, but I expect he’d follow you wherever you asked.”
“I’m not sure he’ll be happy there,” Felicity sighed.  It was a troubling thought that often floated through her mind; was she ensuring his lifelong misery?
“Oh, I think he will.  The call of the ocean is a loud one, but I hear it subsides when it’s time.  I think he’ll be happy in whichever corner of the world you’re in.”

“Did you ever think about leaving?” Felicity asked, a curious lift in her brow.
“There isn’t much for me that isn’t here,” Sara replied apathetically.  “I can sail circles around most, if not all those blokes that sail Frigates for the East India Company, but they’ll never give me a chance to set foot on one, let alone captain it.”
Felicity nodded, she understood perfectly, probably more than any words could express.  After all, that was how she found herself in that entire predicament – both for better and for worse.

“All the world see us as are mothers and wives, dutiful and courteous,” Felicity sighed.
“Cooks and cleaners, if we aren’t fit to be married,” Sara added sarcastically.
“And yet, we’re capable of so much more.”
Sara nodded decisively, “If they’d only give us a chance to prove it.”
“If this journey has shown me anything, it’s that we are.  And I intend on going back to London and demanding that it be known.”
“You’re a braver woman that me,” Sara remarked.
“I don’t want my daughters, or their daughters, believing that their worth is dictated by who would marry them, and I hope one day soon that the world catches up with that.”
“I think you’ll see that it does.” 

And she would certainly try.

//

Days passed into weeks without incident, and the ship was plenty large enough that Oliver could escort Felicity about the main deck without an altercation with his father.  However, much of his time was spent working, ensuring that it could not be said that he rested on his last name above hard work.  During those times, Felicity passed the time in their cabin reading a few books Sara managed to find, or writing her own letters.

They weren’t destined to be sent anywhere, but looking out the porthole window on the last legs of what had been a life-changing journey, Felicity developed a desire to pen her own story in letters.  Letters to her mother, her step-father, Noah, Oliver, and even herself.  Small moments in time written down in ink so that she could remember them in the years that would follow; either in fondness or something else.  Perhaps one day they would become something more than musings masquerading as letters, but for now it did her soul well to write them out.

In the evenings, Oliver would return, exhausted but happy.  She’d read to him until the lantern burned out.  Sometimes they were the passages from the books she had been reading, other times she spoke in hushed whispers her own words.

He would listen, adoringly, and a few times he would look over her shoulder when his eyes were not too heavy and follow along with the words that she said, learning to read them.  When his exhaustion finally took him, she would stay awake a little longer, gently combing her fingers through his hair and hoping that what Sara had said would be true; that he would be happy with her and that he would not grow to regret his decision.

Oliver had told her what his father had said about Noah during one of those evenings.  She had not cried, how does one cry for a person they don’t know and who would have not shed a single tear for them? And yet, she did feel a sort of sadness.  Perhaps she had just not looked close enough for any goodness.  Perhaps, she had just needed to hear from her mother that he was not to be missed.

Either way, she settled into an uneasy silence with the knowledge that he would no longer be a threat.

Their journey to Lisbon would take nearly three months, and they were a third of the way through that journey when Felicity answered a knock on the door, assuming it was Sara bringing the fresh skin of water she’d promised.

It wasn’t, and instead Felicity opened the door to Robert Queen.

For all she knew about him she knew he was feared by a great many and for reasons well-deserved.  But, standing in front of her his demeanour was not fearsome, his charm almost settling, and his genteel smile calming – it was an unnerving juxtaposition between knowing a shark could devour you should it wish and yet seeing how gracefully it swims through the ocean.

“Captain,” she said softly, bowing in a small curtesy.
“Miss Smoak, there is no need for formalities, you can call me Robert,” he answered her.  His voice was velvety, and remind Felicity so much of Oliver’s, albeit a little more whiskery.
“Is there something I can help you with?  Oliver isn’t here at the moment,” Felicity enquired politely.
“It’s you I wish to speak with if I may, Miss Smoak.”
His tone was soft, and his stance was not in the least bit intimidating.  Still, Felicity toyed with what she ought to do.
“No harm will come to you aboard this ship Felicity, either by myself or at the hands of any of my crew.  I don’t expect the word of a pirate to mean all that much, but I do hope that it means enough.”

Felicity opened the door a little wider and welcomed him in, after all she was not under any disillusion that he couldn’t force his way in should he wish to.

“Do you play?” he asked nodding to the ornate boxwood and ebony chess set that sat on the desk.
“Somewhat,” Felicity replied.
Robert gestured for her to take the chair as he pulled over a stool and set to tasking placing all the pieces.

“Oliver seems enamoured with you,” Robert commented before he turned the board to make Felicity the lighter side.
“As I am with him,” she replied, making her first move with a pawn.
Robert moved the mirror piece, matching Felicity’s move.  “He means to follow you to London.”
“At least for a time,” she replied dutifully making her next move; another pawn.
His fingers brushed over the smooth tip of the fluted bishop before he glided it through the diagonal gap.
“The King of England would see me hang for my crimes, would you agree with such a sentence?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know your life Captain, nor the crimes you may have perpetrated,” Felicity replied demurely, moving her knight by it’s carved, bowed head.
He smiled and it seemed he was pleased by her response before he made his next move.
“And what of Oliver’s crimes? Do you know of them?”
“Do you blame a boat for drifting where the currents take it Mr Queen?” Felicity asked astutely as her knight took his pawn.
“Of course not Miss Smoak,”
“Well, in kind, I no more blame Oliver for the choices he once made when he knew no better.”
“And so you have changed him?”
“No,” she spoke softly, her eyes anchoring on Robert’s pale ones.  “He had changed himself long before he met me, I simply saw it.”

The game moved quickly, with pieces taken and strategies forged, until only a handful of pieces remained.

It was Robert’s turn and his Queen carefully guarded the King as Felicity surrounded him.  He tapped the bulb of the Queen before shifting his rook nearby.

Felicity moved her queen to line up with the ebony Queen and Robert moved quickly to strike her from the board.

“You left your Queen unguarded,” he remarked coyly as he folded his arms across his chest.
“No,” Felicity answered quietly as she moved her bishop, caging in the ebony King with the pieces that surrounded him.  “I sacrificed her.  Checkmate.”

Robert looked down at the board in disbelief, she had indeed won.
“A good Queen will do what needs to be done to protect those she loves,” she said gently as tears formed behind her eyes.  “I love Oliver with all my heart and if the King of England comes for him, he will have to fight his way through me.”

Silently Robert stood, lifted up the King into his hands, and smiled.
“I can see why he is fond of you Felicity.  He would not ask and you do not need it, but,” he said softly, pausing to place the dark King in her palm, “you have my blessing.”

//

The Port of Lisbon was bright and flourishing with life that could been seen even from the distance where the Gambit took anchor.  The ship was far too large and too noticeable to make dock in the actual port, but a rowboat journey of ten minutes would see Felicity and Oliver on dry land.

The trip had taken just shy of three months, nearly 80 days, and there was no trouble to be had along the way.

But, something did grow in those three months as the small blossoming of a bump on Felicity’s belly provided her and Oliver with all the confirmation they needed; she was pregnant with their child.   She hid it well beneath her clothes and while she was tired most days and famished the others, she had been fortunate to escape with just a small bout of nausea at times.

As Oliver helped Felicity onto the small rowboat he took one last look around the Gambit.  What he saw had been a part of his life for a long time, but at that moment he felt at peace with stepping off it into whatever the future held.

“A word,” Robert said before Oliver himself could board.
The two men stepped to the side, with Oliver cautiously anticipating what his father might say.

“You’re not me Oliver,” he said softly as his eyes glanced towards the horizon.  “And that serves you well,” he added as he turned towards his son.  “Learn from my mistakes, and follow your own path.  She will be your greatest treasure, like your mother should have been for me.”
He offered his hand and Oliver shook it.
As they broke away, Robert offered one more remark, “I hope one day to see what you become son.”

“Are you sure you won’t journey with us to London?” Felicity asked Adrian as he held the guideline.
He laughed warmly at her suggestion. “Not in a million years.”
“A million and one then?” Felicity teased as Oliver climbed into the boat.
“Keep up with that one,” Adrian said to Oliver with a smirk as he nodded at Felicity.
“I plan to,” Oliver replied before he shook Adrian’s hand.  “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
“It was immeasurably honourable,” Felicity added, smiling.  And, just as she had predicted his face was unamused at the use of such a word.  

It was then time to say goodbye to Sara.
“Maybe I’ll visit you in England one day,” she said with a breathy laugh.
“You’d be welcome on any ship I have command of,” Oliver promised.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Felicity thanked her for her clothes and her kindness before the boat was lowered into the calm waters.

Felicity took a long inhale of the salty air, letting it sit, easy, in her lungs and on her taste buds before she exhaled it and took Oliver’s hand.

He squeezed her tenderly before the rowers with them guided them through the water.  
It would take a few days to secure passage onto a London-bound ship, but from there the journey would only be a little over a week.

She had been away from London for six months.
It was time to go home.

Chapter Text

Lisbon was remarkable.  Like India, they took pride in their magnificent array of beauty and colour and harnessed the vibrancy of both what they wore and what they sold.  There was much Felicity longed to purchase, from hand-painted pottery to oil paintings that used splashes of scarlet and magenta in ways no English nobleman would dare hang in his parlour; which is precisely why Felicity wanted them.

But, there was no such thing as buying passage on a merchant ship, so they would have no luggage and no means to transport any of it back.  However, Felicity noted each and every stall along the bazaar that she would one day return to with the hopes of purchasing some of the exquisite pieces.

They would linger in Lisbon for only as long as it would take to secure passage back to England, and while Oliver tried his hand at bargaining their trip with the coin his father made sure to give him, no ships currently at the dock and setting sail soon would hear of such a thing.

Every soul on board worked and for a certainly not a single one would take a woman.

It was then Felicity knew what she needed to do and, purchasing a pair of breeches and a linen shirt that swamped her tiny frame, Felicity once more became Felix.

“Do you still want to kiss me?” she teased as they packed their belongings into one small bag.
The lodgings where they had spent the night was comfortable enough, but the view of the ocean had been, in Felicity’s opinion, worth far more than the two small coins they paid.
Oliver wrapped his arm around Felicity’s middle and held her tightly against his chest.
“I don’t think it would matter what you wore or looked like, I’d want to kiss you,” he breathed before he placed a delicate kiss near the base of her neck.
“Well, if Felix is to be your brother, you better keep your hands to yourself this week,” she laughed warmly as she spun in his arms and cupped her hands to his jaw.

As much as he didn’t want to leave that moment, the sun was well and truly awake and they had a ship to board.  He kissed her forehead one last time and grabbed their only bag which he slung easily over his shoulder.

“I think I can handle a week,” he said with a wink as he walked towards the door.
Smiling at his tight ass as he walked, Felicity laughed to her, amused, before she replied in a whisper, “I’m not sure I can.”

//

The boat they hoped to gain passage on was at least half the size of Verdant and far more bleak in appearance.  Her name was Siren and with the scarring on the hull and broken balustrades along the top deck, she hardly resembled the gothic namesake of the ocean.

But, it was only a week and it would have to do.

They met the Quartermaster, a stout fellow with a ruddy nose and thin lips almost invisible behind a coppery beard.  As instructed by Oliver, Felicity stayed behind him with a navy twill hat pulled low over her forehead and her hair pinned tightly to her head.  She had wrapped her breasts as well as she could, but in her current state, there was no way she could wrap them as tightly as she once had.  Despite the fine weather, she was also wearing a heavy coat on top of her shirt to make sure she kept her body well hidden.

“Thought there was only one of you?” the Quartermaster spoke in choppy English as an unlit pipe hung from the corner of his lips.
“No Sir, myself and my younger brother,” Oliver replied.
“Only have a need for one of you.”  He sniffed as he spoke and Felicity noted how utterly different a Quartermaster he was compared to Tommy.
“A half wage each will be fair,” Oliver countered, but the man was having none of it and shook his head roughly.

Felicity tugged Oliver back where they could speak in private.
“We’ll wait for another,” Felicity whispered as other sailors shuffled past them, oblivious.
“Another willing to take on new sailors from Lisbon could be another month, maybe more.”
“Then we’ll wait that long, England isn’t going anywhere,” Felicity teased.
“No,” Oliver answered with a smile, “but in a month’s time your belly will be harder to hide and I don’t think they’ll buy it’s on account of too much rum.”
Felicity pursed her lips before she nodded.  “Point taken.”
“Let me handle it,” Oliver said calmly, resisting the sudden urge he had to kiss her.

The walked back to the Quartermaster who had lit his pipe during their absence.
“We’ll work for no wage, just passage to London,” Oliver offered, but the man replied in a thin smile.
“Only got enough rations for one of yous,” he grunted.
“Then we’ll take rations for only one, you won’t lose nothing and you’ll gain two pairs of hands,” Oliver bartered.
“Your bother doesn’t look like much of a hand,” the Quartermaster laughed, no doubt referencing Felicity’s height made more apparent by her oversized clothing.
“I can peel a potato just fine, or mop a deck,” Felicity interjected with a gruff sounding voice.

“A’ight then,” the Quartermaster agreed, “no wages and only one ration between yous?”
He stuck out his hand and Oliver shook it.  “Deal.”

As they walked aboard and found an empty corner below deck, Felicity had her own reservations.  “One ration between us isn’t much Oliver,” she said quietly.
He smiled, soothing and calm.  “It’s a week, I’ll be fine, just be sure you take your fill first,” he added as he nodded down to her belly.  
She squinted at him, knowing full well he’d go without if she was hungry, and he could see the reluctance to agree to it.
“Promise me?” he begged, “that’s what matters most.”
It was only a week she reminded herself before she gave him a small placating nod.

//

The Siren set off just after breakfast with a crew of no fewer than 200 souls and all sails pulled taut with a gusty sea breeze at their tail.  Oliver watched the clouds closely and noted that the air itself felt dense and the clouds, while white, seemed heavy and stagnant.

His instincts told him there was a storm on its way, but they appeared a few days ahead of it and it was likely they would outrun it, or it would die down.  Either way, he reminded himself, it was only a week.  

//

Day 2 brought a small shower and a bitterly cold breeze off the Celtic Sea but the clouds grew no more ominous and the sea still remained mostly calm.

Oliver worked the sails and despite the growing inclement weather, the Captain, an older man who wore a powdery wig and dressed like a nobleman who’d gone without a bath for months, seemed in a hurry to make the route as quickly as possible.

In itself, that was not bad, but he’d turned the boat towards the English channel far earlier than he needed to and they were heading out into the wider ocean where the seas can be far more stirred up by storms.

Oliver would have taken a path that saw the boat head towards the Biscay Bay.  It was sheltered and vast and they could raise a half sail while they waited for the storm to pass onwards or die down.  It might have added two days, but if they were caught by a freak wave in the sea, there would be no coming back from it. 

Still, they pressed on.

//

Day 3 grew even worse, and the sea was choppy and unpredictable.  The men were growing weary of the Captain’s decision to still head towards the open sea, lining them up for the narrow English channel well before they needed to.

Felicity spent her time in the galley, peeling potatoes and keeping to herself, but even she could see the way the crew were beginning to murmur.

//

Day 4 was expected.  The day was as dark as the night and the clouds opened their floodgates with rain that pelted the deck so heavily that it could be heard two decks below.  Despite the sails floundering in a wind that was sudden and uneven, the Captain ordered them to remain at full sail.  It appeared to Oliver he was hoping to power through the storm, but a ship the size of the one he Captained and with a storm this volatile, it was nothing short of suicide.  And, most of the crew knew it.

//

Day 5 It was no surprise when the deck erupted into fearful calls of mutiny as the crew pleaded with the Captain to head back towards the Bay while they still could.  But, his arrogance and stupidity saw him unwilling to listen and he barricaded himself in his quarters with his orders still standing – full sails, stay on course.

“Get back down below,” Oliver ordered as he saw Felicity had been sent up on an all hands on deck order.
“They told us all to get up here and pin down the sails,” she shouted above the blustering winds and heavy, icy sheets of rain.
“I don’t much fucking care what they told you, get below deck now,” he demanded.  His shirt was wet through, and virtually translucent on his body.  His skin was soaked and his muscles were burning as he and others fought with the rigging.  

The waves were so high that as the vessel rocked in the turbulent sea, water crashed over the sides and turned the deck into a river that swept away everything in its path.

Before she could answer a sound that could only be described as unearthly ripped through the storm.  It was a crack not unlike thunder and most looked to the skies assuming they would soon see lightning flash across it.  But, it was not a force of nature that made such a sound, it was, in fact, the sound of splintering wood and one of the smaller masts snapped off, two thirds up.

The deck, which was already in a state of bedlam, erupted into sheer chaos driven by panic as the large chunk of broken wood swung perilously from a twisted web of ropes and rigging.  It took only seconds for the jarring ocean to shake the broken last from the rigging, fraying and snapping the ropes like twine, before it smashed into the main deck with such force that it speared through the planks.  While most jumped free of it, at least five men were caught beneath it.

Oliver knew what would happen if the other sails weren’t cut loose and if the mainmast split in the same smaller, the weight of it would surely tip the boat and send them all to the bottom of the ocean.

Looking at Felicity, Oliver knew as surely as he lived and breathed, that he would die before he saw her resigned to that fate.

It was no safer below deck than it was above and the rain would surely be pouring in through the damaged deck, so with a heavy heart, Oliver begged her to stay put, whatever happened.

She tried to call him back, begging to know what he meant, but he ran towards the debris without turning back.  He helped get two of the men that had survived the mast collapse and clear the debris to get the hole sealed as best they could.  

“Drop the sails,” Oliver yelled at the Quartermaster who hadn’t moved an inch.
“The Captain's orders stand, we'll sail through it,” the Quartermaster declared, an ignoramus at best, a murderer at worst.
“We'll die before we see the break in this storm, let her down,” Oliver roared, his anger pouring from each word like a volcano.  His love and his child were on this boat, he would not fail them.
The crew shouted in agreement, calling for the same thing, all-knowing enough to see the strain in the rigging and the fragility of their buoyancy.

There was no more time for idle words.

Oliver pulled the blade from his waistband and ran towards the mainsail.
“Boy, don’t even think about it,” the Quartermaster yelled as he raised a pistol in the pelting rain.
Through the chaos and the storm, Oliver only saw Felicity, hugging the railing.  Her eyes were on him like she knew what he was about to do.  Time felt like it stilled in those few seconds and he imagined telling her all the wonderful ways he loved her, all the light she had brought into his life, and the purpose and future he now saw.

He might not get the chance to tell her all that, but he hoped she knew.

As he drew the blade across the rope, he heard a bang in the distance, then a sharp, debilitating pain ripped through his thigh and the smell of gunpowder flashed through his senses.

The crew erupted into anarchy, and the Quartermaster didn't have enough bullets to see it controlled.  He was overwhelmed in seconds and many more followed Oliver's example, gathering the sails down.

But, Felicity felt only anguish and pain as she rushed towards Oliver.  His pants were awash with crimson, but he smiled as he lifted his hand to her face.

She cried into the rain that marked her cheeks as she tore her sleeve and did her best to keep him alive.

Day 6

With the mutiny came sense and the ship took refuge in the bay while the storm continued to destroy anything in its path.  The crew had put Oliver in the now-empty Captain's Quarters, the Captain relegated to the same fate as he would have sent them all.  The bullet was lodged deep in Oliver's thigh and there was no medic on-board fit to remove, nor any assurance that if they did, that he wouldn’t bleed out within seconds.

It was dangerous to leave the bullet where it stood, but it was even more of a gamble to remove it.  His fever was high, making his body shake with a cold sweat as he dropped in and out of states of lucidity.

Felicity, Felix, stayed with him, mopping his brow and begging him not to leave.  None questioned the bond between the brothers and only when they were alone did Felicity whisper quietly about their child growing inside her.

There was nothing more that could be done other than to pray that they would make it to London before Oliver's body stopped fighting.

Day 8 saw them limping towards the English Channel and as they approached Day 9, Oliver seemed to have fought off the worst of it, or so they imagined.  He was weak, barely eating, but sitting up and doing his best to assure Felicity they would be fine.

Day 10 was filled with uneasy promise, with the colour returning to his face and his ability to move slowly around the room.  But, the site of the wound looked no better and the flesh around it started to grow greyish.

What should have taken them 7 days, took them nearly 12, but they arrived late in the evening to the English docks, with the heavy loss of three crew and the secrets of a mutiny that would never be borne witness to.

London had not changed, but the eyes with which Felicity saw it had.  The night was cold and dreary.  Heavy fog and smoke from the lines of factory chimney stacks melded together to block out much of the stars Felicity had come to love.  The air was rank with smells from a nearby abattoir downwind, and people moved sluggishly about the eerie docks with a slowness she could not blame them for.  The City was bleak and uninspiring; how could it’s workers be anything but.  

Oliver was up and walking, but Felicity feared he did so with pain which he hid behind a smile for her benefit.  Still, he insisted he was fine and that he’d see a doctor at her insistence in the morning.  Exhausted and worried, Felicity stepped down onto the docks she had run away from six months ago.  Back then, it had felt vast and exciting.  But, after seeing so much of the world, it felt so very, very small.

“Oliver?” Felicity remarked as she felt him stumble the step next to her.
He smiled, affectionate and soft, knowing he’d kept his promise to get her home.  But, the pain throbbing through his body and the numbness that had stolen his toes the day before, became too much and he collapsed beside her, weak and barely conscious.

She screamed his name as her small body tried to hold him up from the wet cobblestones, but she was buckling under the pressure.  Most who passed by ignored her or glanced over only for a moment, as they saw only two sailors in filthy clothes without two coins between them.  She carried him as far as she could until his weight became too burdensome and she could go no further.

On her knees with Oliver convulsing in her arms, Felicity cried as she begged him to stay with her.  The lamp above them was lit and its amber light gave her the chance to look upon him sadly.  Her hat fell from her head and the street fell quiet.  They were alone.

“Felicity?” a familiar voice called a few feet away.
She looked towards the voice and realised her feet had taken her on memory to the little tavern she knew so well.
The voice was John Diggle's and he was carrying the trash out.
“John, please help,” she begged, her voice thin and broken.  “Please help him.”

//

With John's help, they arrived by carriage at a late hour to Felicity’s London home and were met by the housekeeper who turned pale at the sight of Felicity.  The commotion woke the house and as Felicity's mother ran down the stairs to meet them, all Felicity saw on her face was of utter relief.

But relief turned into fear when John and another man carried Oliver into the parlour.  They sent word urgently for the Doctor, who answered quickly to the behest of the affluent.

Felicity was shoved from the room as towels and boiled water were demanded of the house staff.  The bullet was still in Oliver's leg and leaking its poison into his bloodstream.  The situation was dire, the outlook grim.

Felicity pressed her back against the beautiful wallpaper in the foyer and felt the moment her legs gave way with a sob.  She slid down the wall and cried without restraint.  He had seen to getting her home, she just prayed his strength was enough to keep him here with her.

“Felicity,” Donna Summerset said quietly as she crouched beside her daughter.
Felicity looked up, her tired eyes wet and bloodshot. “My beautiful girl, you have changed so much,” Donna said warmly as she ran her fingers through Felicity’s hair.  “And yet, I’d recognise your face anywhere.”
They embraced and Felicity cried softly into her mother's shoulder.
“They’ve drawn you a bath upstairs and we have some fresh night clothes laid out in your room,” she said, soothing and kind.
Felicity had never expected her mother to be anything else.  Disappointed perhaps, but never angry.
“I can’t, I need to be here,” Felicity cried as she looked to the doors that hid Oliver from her.
“I’ll be sure the Duke keeps your vigil Felicity, but you need rest.”
Felicity rubbed the tears from her cheeks.  “I’m fine, I need to stay here.”
Donna’s thumb brushed over Felicity’s pale cheek.  “If not for you, then rest for the child you're carrying.”
Felicity blinked, shocked.  “How did you know?” 
“A mother knows,” Donna said kindly.
“Are you displeased?” Felicity asked nervously.
Donna helped Felicity to her feet.  “Do you love this man?”
Felicity answered without pause, “Very much.”
“And has he ever hurt you?”
“No, not even for a moment, not ever,” Felicity knew her words to be law.  Oliver would never hurt her.
“And does he love you?” Donna asked as she guided Felicity towards the stairs.

Absently, Felicity’s hands mapped the edges of Oliver's pendant around her neck.  “I believe so,” she replied quietly, not through hesitation, but because she hoped it was enough to keep him on this earth.
“That’s a beautiful pendant,” Donna admired, but her smile vanished as she saw it closer. “Where did you get this?”  Her voice had changed and carried fear in its tone.

“It means something to you?” Felicity wondered.
“Felicity where did you get this?” Donna pleaded.
“From Oliver, it belonged to his mother.”

The colour had drained from Donna’s cheeks and her eyes had grown fearful.  “There are many things I haven’t told you, haven’t been truthful about my daughter,” she started while she wrung her hands together.
“If this is about my father, I know,” Felicity breathed, holding her mother's trembling hands.  “I’ve learned a great deal and I know there is much to talk about.”
“That necklace, I’ve seen it before,” Donna whispered.

Felicity exhaled a long, uneven breath.  It suddenly made sense.  “The woman and her child,” Felicity breathed.  “Oliver told me a story about how his mother and he helped a woman and her young child.  That was you.”  
Donna nodded her head slowly, her eyes wet.  “Such a kind boy.  You were crying, so he gave you that necklace to play with and it calmed you down,” Donna said warmly as she held the pendant delicately on the tips of her fingers.  “I remember it so vividly.”

A moment elapsed in silence, before Donna spoke again, “He’s a…?” she asked, the inference clear.
“He was,” Felicity admitted, “but a long time ago.  He’s a good man.  I can’t lose him,” she cried softly.
Donna straightened her shoulders and brushed away her own tears.  “With every breath in me I will see that I return his mother good deed, I promise you, child.  He will have a home here.”

Chapter Text

AN/ from my heart, to yours.

May it feel.

The sound of waves lapping against a deserted beach and the crisp smell of the salty ocean was a welcomed awakening to Oliver’s weary soul.  He moved slowly as first, one eye opening and then the other, taking in the sights of the puffy white clouds above him and the bright, pearlescent-blue sky.  His feet were bare and as he wiggled his toes, he could feel the fine sand falling between them.

He sat up as a flock of seagulls noisily fought over the unfortunate sand crab that had ventured too close to the surface.  The sea was laid out before Oliver, a beautiful tapestry of moving blue with the faintest whitecaps in the distance.  It always seemed so vast, and yet Oliver never felt lost on it.

There was no boat along the shoreline and no sign of life in the tropical treeline behind him.  A sudden surge of panic enveloped him at the realisation he was alone and isolated. 

He stood up, his feet now aware of the scorching heat pulsing through the sand.  He ran the few steps to the shoreline where his feet rested in the cooler sand and the water lapped against them.  He turned a slow circle, taking in the sight that was spread out around him.  The island seemed smaller, even more so than it had just moments before.  The seas seemed rougher.  And the clouds grew darker.

A name on his lips broke through all the confusion.
“Felicity,” he whispered.
“I’m here, my love,” the wind whispered back as it brushed through his hair.
He turned, trying to find the source, but all he found was emptiness.
“I can’t find you,” he stammered as he dropped to his knees.
The sea grew turbulent behind him and the gulls took to the skies.
“I can’t see you,” he pleaded as the clouds above him turned a menacing coal-grey.

The wind howled and he closed his eyes tightly, trying to hear her voice again.  “I’m here,” it said, faint but familiar.  “I’m right here, beside you.  All you need to do is wake up,” the wind told him.
He wanted to believe her.

The current grew vicious in the water where he stood, and as the swells behind him grew, he felt the tug of it in the water as it rose to his knees.  It pulled him back, relentless and unforgiving.

He struggled with it at first, but looking down the water had risen to his waist and the shore was so far away now.  He didn’t have much fight left.  Surrender.

“Oliver, stay with me, take my hand,” the wind called to him.  Warmth enveloped him, calming and quiet.  He closed his eyes and breathed in, sharp and sudden.

His eyes cracked open, the light was bright and stringent.  His body was heavy and limp and he groaned quietly.  Felicity looked down at him with a damp washcloth strangled in her hand, while the other clasped onto his cold hand.  Her breath was frozen and her eyes painfully red from the long night and day she had spent crying.

His wound had nearly turned septic and the Doctor was unsure if he would ever regain the use of his leg.  Should he not, it would need to be removed from the thigh down.  He had wavered in and out of consciousness for much of the day and into the afternoon as Felicity sat with him, gently clearing the sweat from his brow as his body fought off death’s knock.

It was her twentieth birthday and all she wished for was for him to come back to her.  He’d whispered her name and she had held his hand as tightly as she could, begging him to stay with her, to come home.

And as his eyes began to open, she knew he had listened.

The room was unfamiliar, the beach had gone.  The clouds were replaced with the ivory awing of a bed and the only light he could see came in thin strands that barely touched each of the walls.

“Oliver,” Felicity whispered.
His head turned towards the angelic sound and her face slowly came into focus.  “Felicity,” he breathed.  His voice was fragile and thin, almost unrecognisable.
She brushed the damp cloth across his head, cooling the fever that still gripped him.  “Good morning my love,” she said, smiling.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Oliver sighed.  He tried to lift his head, but his body was too weak.
“Sssh, my love, rest,” Felicity encouraged as stroked her fingers through his hair.  “We’re safe here.”
“Are you well?” he asked.  His voice was still husky but it was not as fragile as it had first been.
Felicity rested her hand on her brimming stomach.  A maid had loosened some of Felicity’s dresses overnight and they now fitted comfortably over her pregnant belly.  “We’re both well, you got us home, just like she promised,” she soothed before she leaned in and kissed his cheek.
He sighed, content and long.  “Good,” he whispered.  His eyes began to grow weary and tired as he fought to keep them open.
“Rest Oliver, I’ll be right here.”

She let him drift off into a peaceful sleep as she held his hand and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I’ll be right here,” she promised.

//

Nearly an hour later, Donna and a maid entered the room with a tea tray and some lunch for Felicity.  She had turned them away in the mid-morning, but after hearing Oliver’s voice, she was far more content to take a few moments away from his bed to eat.

She sat at the oak desk near the window as Donna drew the heavy curtain back from the window just enough to bask Felicity in the warm, afternoon sun.

“The doctor will be over shortly again to check on him,” Donna said kindly as she took Felicity’s place beside the bed.  She checked the man who Felicity’s adoration for was apparently.  He was breathing soundly and his skin was no longer feverish to the touch.

“He woke up and spoke to me,” Felicity said quietly as she buttered a square of toast.
“Surely a good sign then,” Donna remarked as she offered Felicity a kind, motherly smile.  “Did you speak with him about his leg?”
As she spoke, Donna lifted the bottom corner of the heavy quilt.  His foot was still swollen and pale, but it had not turned greenish at least, a sign the Doctor had ordered them to look out for.
Felicity shook her head softly.  “I didn’t wish to worry him.”
Donna lowered the blanket back over the man she barely knew, and yet felt a strong affinity for.  “When he is well enough for such news, it is best given by you over the clinical coldness of a doctor,” she commented and Felicity agreed with a nod.

With a small knock, a maid entered the bedroom and offered a pleasant curtsey.  “Miss Felicity, you have a visitor in the parlour, a Mister Palmer and his companion.”
Felicity stood up and brushed her palms down her dress.  She hadn’t expected word to travel that fast of her arrival back in London, but Mr Palmer was well connected so it was not entirely a surprise that he might come visit.

“Will you stay with him for a few moments?” Felicity asked her mother.
“Of course,” Donna replied as she walked over to where Felicity stood.  She straightened her dress and brushed a loose curl behind Felicity’s ear.  “Do not be ashamed of what you and Oliver have created,” Donna encouraged kindly as she gently brushed her hand across Felicity’s stomach.  “I care not what any one should say on the matter, and so neither will you.”
Felicity smiled broadly.  “I am not ashamed of love, nor of the product of such a love.  But what of you and the Duke, I do not wish to bring any harm to his or your good name.”
“Oh psft,” Donna laughed, “let them talk, their idle lives have so very little interest that they must steal excitement from ours.  We will face them as we’ve faced everything my dear, with our shoulders high and our smiles unwavering.”
Felicity gave her mother a hug before she took one last look at Oliver sleeping, and then left.

As Felicity entered the parlour she found Ray admiring the painting above the fireplace while he spoke of its origins to a young lady, who’s face Felicity could not see, seating on the settee nearby.
“Mister Palmer, what a pleasant surprise,” Felicity said warmly as she closed the door behind her.
“I admit, I was unsure about visiting, but it was my wife who convinced me we should,” Ray enthused as the woman stood.
“Your wife?” Felicity remarked, she should have dampened her surprise in polite company, but she’d barely slept for 12 days, and after six months away, she’d almost forgotten how polite company behaved.

The woman turned and smiled graciously at Felicity.  The recognition was instant.  
“Penelope?!” Felicity shrieked and the young girl, also forgetting decorum and polite society rushed forward to embrace Felicity.  
“The two of you are married?” Felicity wondered excitedly.
“It’s a long story I’m afraid, but I came to see your mother and, just like you said, she graciously gave me a position working here,” Penelope explained as Ray tenderly placed his arm over her shoulder.
“When I returned from Azores, I came and spoke with your parents to assure them you were well and that you had sent your love.  I had spent much of the voyage home thinking about what you had said to me, about how when you feel love deeply and for real, there is nothing else that matters.  Penelope came into the room and I was thoroughly besotted with her,” as he spoke, Ray looked down at his smaller wife with such affection that there was no doubt it was genuine.  “She rejected me at first,” he chuckled.
“I thought he was drunk or just looking for a quick time in the pantry,” Penelope added with a wink.  “So I told him all about my past, where I had come from and what I had done to survive because I thought that would surely put him off.”
Felicity smiled.  “It clearly didn’t.”
“I courted her as a gentleman should, and we were married just a few weeks ago.”
As Ray spoke, Penelope held out her hand and the beautiful diamond ring on her finger.  “I owe you much more than I can ever repay Felicity,” Penelope spoke as tears welled up in her eyes.
“You owe me nothing, but I am so pleased to see you well and happy.”
Penelope squeezed her husband’s hand tightly.  “I am so very happy.”

“We heard about Oliver, I wanted to come and offer anything I can do,” Ray said, his tone turning softer, more apt for the solemn occasion.
“Thank you kindly for your offer.  He is resting now and I hope he can make a full recovery,” Felicity spoke quietly, her heart still heavy.
“The Duke is well placed himself, but please Felicity if there is anything we can do to help you both, let us know.  I, too, owe a great deal to you.  Before Azores, I thought marriage was to only be something of convenience and that it ought to meet the approval of society.  You told me otherwise, and I was blessed to see the world with far purer eyes, and I am finally truly happy for it.”
“Perhaps there is one thing I might ask of you.  Oliver’s quartermaster Thomas Merlyn, I believe he would have docked with the Verdant some months ago.  I have no means to reach him and yours will be a face and name he recognises.  If you could get word to him, I would be most grateful.”
Ray nodded decisively.  “I will see that he knows you’ve both returned.”

//

Oliver stirred in the bed, rousing himself awake with a dry throat.  The small slithers of daylight through the opened curtains still gave his eyes reasons to squint, but in their light he saw the shadows of a woman sitting quietly in a chair across the room.

“Felicity?” he asked, sitting up a little in the bed to better his view.
The woman stood and walked forward a few steps.  It was not Felicity, but an older woman with a pretty, youthful face.  Her hair was pulled back into an intricate fashion of curls and braids and she was dressed impeccably.  As she stepped closer, Oliver could swear her face was familiar, as though he’d seen it before but so long ago that his memory was not perfect.
“Where is Felicity?” he asked as the woman stopped near the chair beside his bed where Felicity had sat earlier.
“Felicity is my daughter, she will be back in a few moments,” Donna said softly as she stared at the hauntingly recognisable eyes.  It had been years, almost eighteen, since she had seen them.  They had belonged to a boy then, just a child, but a child who wore so much on his small shoulders.  He hadn’t smiled much and he’d talked even less.  He walked with a toughness that she had never doubted was a product of his environment and no doubt necessary for his survival.  He had led the two woman, his mother and herself, through the wilderness, swinging a sharp axe to hack away at some of the growth in their way.  He had been vigilant and stoic, but when Felicity had grown tired and upset, he took time to sooth her with a gentle word and the pendant he wore around his neck.

She could never have forgotten those eyes.
And she never imagined she would see them again, all these years later.

She brushed back a tear that slipped down her powered cheek and Oliver bowed his head.
“Forgive me, milady, I know that it must be hard to imagine your daughter returning to you with the likes of me, but I promise that I care deeply for her,” Oliver assured her softly.  He was under no memory of coming into the home, but he could only imagine the way it must have looked.

“Years ago you helped your mother walk a young woman’s and her child to escape a brutal and cruel man, do you remember such a trip?” Donna asked calmly, her hands clasped in front of her.
“I do,” Oliver replied, “Felicity told you the story?”
Donna shook her head serenely.  “She didn’t need to, I was there.  The woman you and your mother helped was me.  The child with me, was Felicity.  The kindness I was shown at the risk to yourselves was remarkable.
Oliver’s eyes widened with surprise as he recounted the memories he was left with and knowing what he knew now of Felicity’s father.  How had he not seen it before?

Donna continued, poised and eloquent, and Oliver could tell where Felicity got her presence from.  “As you know, I have since married a man whose wealth is vast and whose connections and many.  He too cares very much for Felicity and we want only the best for her.  You may name your price and we will pay whatever it is that you ask, for both your acts as a young boy and for bringing our daughter home safely to us.”  When she was finished, she took a calm and considered breath and nodded demurely, allowing Oliver to speak.
“I ask for no such reward Ma’am, neither for then or for now,” he promised.
“Do not fear, I will not look harshly on your price,” Donna remarked, cordial but pleasant.  “All I ask is that you tell Felicity before you leave.  A woman should not be kept waiting for a man who does not intend to return.  Your child will be taken care of finely and we will see to it that Felicity and the child will feel no ostracism in response to the circumstances.  We are indebted to you Mister Queen, and for that we owe you your price.”
Oliver sat up a little further in the bed, using all the strength he could muster to do so.  His body was still weak and even the smallest task of sitting upright took its toll.
“Ma’am, Duchess Sommerset, I do not wish for any money.  As a child, I helped you and your daughter because it was the right thing to do.  My mother taught me that even a pirate is capable of good deeds and where he can, he should.  She asked for no reward and neither do I.  As the man you see before you, I did not rescue your daughter any more than she herself rescued me, and what I did, I did because I love the very bones of her.  I am not good with words or sentiment, but as I am alive this day, all I want is for Felicity to be happy.”
“And do you love her?” Donna enquired.
“With every breath I take and with all my heart,” Oliver vowed.  
“Then, I ask something of you Oliver, I ask that you do not let your pride get in the way,” Donna started.  “Felicity would live in the gutter with you if that was where you wished.  But with a baby on the way, I ask that you stay on here a while, that you allow both the Duke and I to take care of her needs in the best way that money can buy, and that you too take advantage of the same and stay with us.  Money does not inevitably lead to happiness, I think we all can both appreciate that.  But it can offer some comfort and safety in a time where Felicity requires both.  I beg of you please, if you love her, stay under this roof and be our guest.”
It was an honest request that Donna hoped would find favour in Oliver’s eyes.  It would take a humble man to accept the help of another, and especially in the face of one that could provide much more than he would be able to.  But, Donna did not wish to see her grandchild born in the cold room of a backstreet lodging and her daughter’s life put at risk because of a man’s pride.

“She is best here, with you.  My pride will not be foolish enough to think otherwise.  I would wish to work for my keep in whatever jobs you or the Duke see fit,” Oliver replied.
Donna smiled graciously.  “For now, you can rest.  Work will inevitably come and I shall leave the talk of business between you and my husband.  But, thank you, for bringing her home to me and keeping her safe all these months.  She is a piece of my heart.  I will have a maid fetch her now, she will be glad to see and speak with you. I am sure.”
As Donna made her way towards the bedroom door, Oliver spoke up.  “Lady Sommerset, the money, was that a test?”
She nodded demurely.  “Of course, an unworthy man would have taken it.  You, Oliver Queen, passed, but I think I already knew you would.”

//

Oliver was sitting up in bed when the doctor came that afternoon.  There was damage to his leg they could not fix and much of the feeling had gone from below the knee.  It was not out of the realm of possibility, but Oliver being able to walk again would require hard work and determination, and even then, a cane may be required for the rest of his life.

It was news Oliver took quietly, almost stoically.  Perhaps, he just wasn’t ready to believe it yet.  Felicity sat with him throughout it all, poised, but her presence undeniably soothing as she held his hand between both of her own and drew faint little lines with her thumb.

The next day brought a much welcomed visitor; Tommy Merlyn.
Ray had tracked him down a day’s journey out of London, securing a few more investors for Verdant Shipping.  He’d travelled back by carriage through the night and had arrived a little before lunch.  

Oliver was enjoying the midday sun in the garden when Tommy arrived.  At first the quartermaster hesitated upon finding Oliver wheelchair bound, but within moments the two friends were embracing happily.

“You stink,” Oliver remarked as Tommy took a chair beside him.
“You’re a sight yourself you know,” Tommy bickered back as the two stared out to the edge of the back garden of posies and poppies.

It was something of a throwaway comment, as Oliver looked cleaner than Tommy had ever remembered him looking.  His hair was brushed back and tied at the nape of his neck.  His bear was neatly trimmed with barely two day’s growth, and his clothes were laundered and starched; a loose fitting shirt and tan trousers, with boots that had recently seen a polish.

“You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” Tommy remarked after Oliver had recounted the events of the last few months 
“Don’t let her hear you call her that,” Oliver jibbed as he shifted in the uncomfortable wooden chair.
“How is that?” Tommy asked reluctantly.  He’d avoided asking Oliver about it earlier, but it seemed then was a good opportunity to comment on the proverbial elephant.
“Temporary,” Oliver replied.  At least he hoped it was.  “Perhaps you should sail Verdant yourself.”
Tommy brushed him off with a smile.  “She’s in need of repairs and the crew are in need of a few months with their women, we made plenty in the last run to wait around.  Although I have become very fond of Christopher, so I will be adopting him.”
Before Oliver could object, Felicity arrived with a tray of cool lemonade and jam scones.
“You look very pregnant,” Tommy remarked. 
“I suppose that’s better than telling me I look fat,” Felicity replied as the maid left the tray on the glass table.  She was holding a thin pillow which she kindly offered to Oliver, slipping it behind his back.  “The Doctor will be around after lunch, be sure to tell him about the pain,” she said quietly.
Oliver smiled and offered a faint nod that Felicity didn’t entirely believe.
“Sit with us,” Oliver encouraged as his hand floated up to her blossoming belly.
“In a moment, mother had me picking out drapery for the nursery,” Felicity smiled before she excused herself, promising to return in a little bit.
Tommy looked at the scones and brushed his hands together before he stood.  “I should wash up before I eat,” he remarked with a smile.  “I’ll be back in a moment.  If you eat them all while I’m gone we’ll no longer be friends.”
Oliver laughed as Tommy walked away.  “Don’t tempt me!” Oliver jibbed loudly.

Tommy caught up with Felicity just inside the house.
“How is he?” he asked, worry threaded through his curious brow.
“I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you,” Felicity answered softly.  Oliver was both a private and a stoic man, the possibility that he may never walk proudly again was not her news to share.
“You know that fool won’t tell me himself,” Tommy ribbed fondly.
“Oliver is strong, but most times he is in pain,” Felicity admitted.  
“Is there anything I can do to help him?”
Felicity brushed her hand down Tommy’s arm fondly.  “Do not treat him any differently than you would, I know how much he would value that.”
“And you, are you well?”
She took a long inhale as her hand rested on her stomach.  “Tired, but well.  Thank you for coming to see him Tommy.”
“Of course, I’ll come as often as I am allowed.”
She smiled brightly.  “I’m sure Oliver would appreciate that.”

Tommy kept that promise.

//

Over the next four months, the Duke hired a man to help Oliver to dress and change and wheel him around when needed.  It was a reliance Oliver hated, but Felicity insisting on doing it in her state had forced his hand and made him accept the help of the hired man.

He could move his leg and stand for short moments and take a few steps with his cane, but walking unaided still felt like an almost unreachable goal.  There was no expense spared on his recovery and Felicity stayed beside him in moments even when his frustration and pain reduced him to tears.

The baby moved so frequently that Oliver would take comfort in resting his hand on Felicity’s stomach so feel the small jabs and big waves.  It would remind him what he had done it all for and how easily he would make the same decision again.  He would gladly surrender his leg, even his life, if that meant keeping that child, and the woman he adored, safe.

They moved into a bedroom downstairs in the east wing, as the stairs were too much for Oliver and his temporary room was – Donna decreed – far too small for the both of them.  It was a move that set a few tongues wagging no doubt; Felicity and Oliver were not married and society knew very little about the Sommerset visitor.  However, inside the estate’s walls, they ate meals together where the Duke often asked Oliver a great many questions about the shipping business and the opportunities faraway places such as India presented, though Oliver was unsure if his interest was professional or simply polite conversation.

Felicity grew more beautiful every day.  Her cheeks were rosy and her hair full.  She barely wore it tied back, preferring it freely over her shoulders, he loved it like that too.  In bed, they touched each other gently, and the first time he reached climax into her hand, they were both ecstatic that at least that part of him was in fine working order.  

However, their intimacies needed to be creative.  Oliver could not hold himself up and Felicity’s stomach got in the way of more conventional positions.  But, she could straddle him, riding his cock in slow, increasing and decreasing circles while he stroked the inside of her legs until she found her release, and – because both of them lacked the stamina required to get Oliver to finish, Felicity would sit to the side of him and alternate between her hands and her mouth to bring him release.  A task she was both fond of and extremely proficient at.

//

On one evening, they were joined for supper by Ray and Tommy, who had stayed on to enjoy some of the Duke’s fine liquor and share stories and played chess around a stoked fireplace in the drawing room.  The Duke and Duchess had already retired to bed as had much of the staff.

A few weeks away from giving birth, Felicity felt the night much earlier than the others and after her seventh yawn while she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, Oliver leaned over and rested his hand on her leg.
“Perhaps you should retire to bed,” he said softly while he smiled at her.
She touched her hand to his and smiled back.  “I think I might need to,” she said before another yawn.
“I’ll come too,” Oliver remarked, but Felicity shook her head.
“Enjoy your company and game a little while longer.  At the rate I move, it’ll be nearly an hour before I’m ready for bed.”  She stood up and addressed both Tommy and Ray.  “It was lovely to see you both.  Ray, please tell Penelope that we’ll have lunch in the Garden tomorrow if weather permits.”
Both Tommy and Ray stood.
“I will, she will be most happy to see you,” Ray replied.

As Felicity walked towards the door, a sudden, crippling pain had her bent over and instinctively Oliver rushed towards her.  But he had forgotten his cane and he stumbled after only a few short steps before he too was stopped.  Ray, who was closest to Oliver, moved to help him back to his chair and Tommy went to Felicity’s aid.  But the moment had passed and she was upright once more, brushing off the three men’s concern.

“Quite the pair aren’t we,” she smiled as she leaned it to kiss Oliver’s forehead.
He held her stomach and gave it a gentle kiss.  “Goodnight my baby, be kind to your mother tonight.”

//

In her nightgown and with her hair falling loose down her shoulders, Felicity was pulling back the blankets on her and Oliver’s bed when she heard a commotion down the hall.  There were raised voices and shouting.

In bare feet and without a dressing gown, Felicity ran as quickly as her feet could take her down the hall, towards the disturbance.

The commotion led her to the drawing room, officers had come into the house demanding to see Oliver, they knew who he was and they would see him arrested for piracy. 

“Felicity, go back to bed,” Oliver pleaded as she flew into the room where men were pulling him from his chair while others held Ray and Tommy back with drawn pistols. 
“I will not,” Felicity replied tersely before she tugged on one of the officer’s arms.  “Who are you that you can enter this house late in the evening and take a person from inside it, a man in a wheelchair no less?” she raged.
He moved to brush her aside but Felicity wasn’t going anywhere.  “Out of the way, miss.”
“Or you’ll what, take me too?” she mocked, sizing the tall, wide man up.
“Felicity, stop, for the baby,” Oliver begged.
With Felicity’s distraction, Tommy stole the gun from the officer who had it pointed at him and turned it on its owner.
“Thomas, put the pistol down, they’ll be no use for it!” Oliver ordered.

“If you want him, you’ll have to go through me,” Felicity said, as she pushed her way between the officer and Oliver.
Tommy, after setting the gun down on a table, stood beside her, “and me.”
“Also, I’m afraid, myself,” Ray added.

“What is going on here?” the Duke asked.  The commotion had woken most of the household.
Donna pushed into the larger officer who had his hand around Felicity’s wrist.  “Get your hands off my daughter you uncouth imbecile, or I will cut it off with the bluntest knife I can find.”
“What is the meaning of this, are you aware whose house you’ve entered unannounced?” the Duke roared as he stood in his embroidered robe and slippers.
“This man is under arrested,” the cockney officer spat.
“For what crime?” the Duke replied tersely
“Piracy, a law from the King himself.”
“Says who?”
Another officer, perhaps a more seasoned one, answered.  “We’re not at liberty to say, but we have orders to arrest him.”
“This man works for me and has done for some time, since his youth in fact,” the Duke fibbed with the straight face of a seasoned gambler.
“This man?” the officer questioned.
“Yes, are you calling me a liar?”  Duke Sommerset took a step forward and while he was not a particularly tall or imposing man, two of the younger officers instinctively took a step back.  “Perhaps your superiors would like to hear how you barged into the house of a Duke, woke up his entire household, and called him a liar in front of his wife and daughter.”
“We have it under good authority that this man sailed under the notorious Robert Queen, there is a warrant out for the arrest of any such man.”
“And what authority is this, that they share the same last name? I do hope you’ve come with more than that.  My Barristers will enjoy their time with you on the stand and I’ll see to it myself that someone ends up in the Tower over this.”
The thinner officer turned to Oliver.  “Is your name Oliver Queen?”
“You’ll ask him no questions at this hour or in this manner,” the Duke interrupted.  “Get out of my house or I’ll have you shot.  My footman is a crack shot.”
Reluctant, but unwilling to escalate matters, the handful of officers left, empty-handed.

They returned the next morning at the more sensible hour of eleven, a handful of officers who waited outside after Donna refused them entry and two superiors and two more officers who met with Oliver and the Duke behind closed doors.  Felicity had begged Oliver to run away that night, but the Duke had insisted that running would only validate the charges.  A point which Oliver agreed with.  Although he would take martyrdom over seeing Felicity or her family embroiled in any legal issues.  

“Felicity, you must rest,” Donna urged as she watched Felicity pace the hall outside the room where Oliver was.
“I can’t, they're deciding the fate of the man I love behind a closed door and I don’t even get to have a say in it,” Felicity sobbed.
Donna stood in front of Felicity forcing her to pause a moment while she brushed back her hair.  “You are a wonderfully wild woman Felicity, I see the future in people just like you.  Fighting for those without a voice,” Donna remarked proudly.  “But do not think you are powerless, we hold much more power than many realise.”
She brushed back one of her daughter’s tears and turned to a maid nearby.  “Bring us two chairs.  We shall both sit and wait.”

They waited another hour before the door opened and the officers left with their heads bowed.   Another man, a superior, shook hands with the Duke and offered Felicity and Donna a cordial goodbye as he left.

“So?” Donna enquired of her husband.
“All is well, they recognise their mistake and they won’t be returning,” the Duke replied without further explanation.  “But I request a few more moments to speak with Oliver alone if I may.”

Felicity slumped back into her chair and waited.

Nearly 30 minutes later the Duke emerged, kissed Felicity briefly on the forehead and walked Donna away from the room.  Felicity rushed forward and found Oliver sitting towards the window, pensive and still.

“Your stepfather is an honourable man,” Oliver said softly as Felicity made her way to him.
“You look tired,” she sighed as she saw his drawn, pale face.
“I have come into your life and created such a mess of it,” he remarked as he stood, leaning his weight into his cane.
“That’s not true. I was miserable before you.  You brought me joy, you showed me beauty,” Felicity enthused as her hand touched the side of his face.
He hobbled closer to the window, each step laboured and no doubt painful.  “I can barely stand.  How is it that I’ll provide for you?  The Duke has offered me a fleet of ships, but I can’t ever sail like I once did, I won’t climb the masts or feel the wind at the top.  I am no good at anything else.”
“You silly fool,” she whispered as she stood in front of him, her back pressed to the large window.  “I shall climb them for you and write you the most wonderful poems about them, and you’ll draw what I see.  You’ll captain the ships because your value isn’t in your legs, it’s in your brain and your knowledge.”  She kissed him softly and she felt the tension release from his body.  “You, Oliver Queen, are clever and brilliant and we shall find you something to do, of that I am most certain.”
“That would never work,” he whispered.
“And why do you say that?”
He smiled.  “You’re afraid of heights.”
She laughed gently.  “I guess I will just have to not be.  Whatever we do, we will do it together.”
“I love you,” Oliver breathed.
“I love you too.”

For a moment they stayed still and quiet, enjoying the peace they had found with each other, until a tightening across Felicity’s stomach had her doubled over.  Her eyes shot to Oliver, frozen as the pain intensified.

A puddle of clear liquid on the floor said the rest.
The baby was coming.

//

The labour was long and exhausting, but Oliver stayed beside Felicity through it all as did the women attending and her mother.

At the request of Felicity, the 6 pound infant was born at a little after one in the morning in a copper tub of warm water.  A little girl with a tuft of dark blonde hair and pale blues eyes that fixated on her father with reverence.

In the hours after her birth, Oliver held the small baby to his chest, swaddled in a blanket, as Felicity rested nearby in their bed.  In the quiet moments before sunrise, Felicity woke a little and reached out to Oliver who was sitting in a chair beside her.
“Is she sleeping?” she asked, her voice soft and frail, but her smile as bright and warm as it ever was.
Oliver nodded as he moved his arms carefully to show Felicity their daughter.  “I haven’t wanted to put her down,” Oliver whispered, “I want to hold her forever.”
“Sit with me?” Felicity asked quietly.
Cautiously, Oliver moved from the chair to the bed as their baby stirred in his arms.
“I suppose she’ll need a name soon,” Felicity hummed, her head resting against Oliver’s shoulder.
“How do you feel about Grace?” Oliver asked.  “It’s a word that has always reminded me of you.”
Felicity brushed her hand softly down her baby’s arm.  “Grace,” she repeated like a whisper and the little girl’s fingers stretched out to grip Felicity’s hand.  “I think she likes it.”

“For a middle name, she can have either your or your mother’s if you wish,” Oliver offered, but Felicity shook her head.  
“Let her have something magical,” she sighed.
“My mother used to tell my sister a story about a mermaid deity, one of the daughters of Nereus, the sea god.  She was both wise and beautiful, and symbolised everything kind about the sea” Oliver started, the story a fond memory of the time last time he had seen his mother and sister.
“And what was her name?” Felicity asked, her eyes watching over Grace with adoration.
“The daughters were called Nereid, and even Poseidon allowed them to carry his trident.  Fable tells it that they will help only the true and good of heart and while they live in the Aegean Sea, they have been known to swim to the Celtic Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar.”
“And do you think she protected us in that storm Oliver?” Felicity wondered as she glanced up at him.
“No,” he whispered, “I think she protected you and our daughter, because you, my love, possess the truest heart I have ever seen.”
Tears formed in the corners of Felicity’s eyes which she let fall down her cheeks.  “Then we shall have to thank these daughters, and name ours Nerida, in their honour.  Grace Nerida Queen,” Felicity breathed.  It was perfect. 

Oliver gently rested Grace into Felicity’s arms before he turned to face her.  “I have something for you, something I was planning on giving you last night after supper.”
She smiled wondrously bright as Oliver pulled a small velvet bag from his pocket.  He opened it carefully and she noted how the calm, quiet, and stoic Captain’s hands were shaking as he dropped something small into the palm of his hand.

“It’s not much and certainly not as fine as you deserve, but I had Tommy buy it out of the wages owed to me and I promise to buy a finer one just as soon as I’m able,” he started as he slowly opened his closed fist.  Sitting in his palm was a dainty silver ring with a sapphire at its centre.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want a diamond, but the blue of this one reminded me of the ocean, so you’d always feel like it was with you,” he explained softly as Felicity felt more tears rushing down her cheeks.  “I’ve asked both your mother and the Duke if I may, but the decision will always be yours Duchess,” he breathed.

He held out the ring to her and it looked even more delicate pinched between his rough fingers.  “Squid,” he started with a smile, “Would you do me the greatest honour and be my wife?  I promise to care for you in every way I can, to listen to your stories and to draw you any picture you wish.  I will love you with every breath I take on this earth.  Forever and not a moment less.”
Her hand rested on his cheek, their baby in her lap.  “Yes,” she answered him softly.  “And I won’t ever want another ring, this one is perfect Captain.”

They kissed, decadent and warm.  Comfortable but excited.
Because before them was a new chapter in a book not yet written.

But, it would be.  One day.

Chapter Text

The gentle fragrance of pale yellow jasmine and dusk-pink gardenias filled the small room where Felicity stood in front of a floor length mirror.  Flowers sat on a nearby table, bound with tightly wrapped ivory ribbon and a delicate string of pearls.  There was little in her attire that most would demand for such a day as that one.  Her corset was simple and trimmed with elegant, ruched lace along the top. 

The coat and skirt she wore were the same soft, pearlescent ivory of the ribbon around her flowers.  But, carefully adorned with blue ribbons sewn into the fabric at its edges and the same tied in a bow around her waist.  She wore no pinned stomacher or layers of petticoats or any manner of rolls to widen her hips.  Felicity wanted Oliver to see her as he knew her, and there was no way she could move about freely with all that nonsense weighing her down.

Even on her wedding day.

The daughter of a Duke was expected to have a wedding of such grandeur and opulence with a list of all the influential people in attendance.  There should have been garden seating and a violinist to accompany her walk.  Flowers would have decorated every inch of their grand house and guests would have come in their finest outfits or risk becoming a social pariah.

But, that life was someone else’s to lead.  Not Felicity’s.

“Are you ready?” her mother asked as she placed the final flower in Felicity’s braided hair.
“With all my heart,” Felicity replied, taking one last look at herself.

It had been a year and a half since Felicity had made that wild decision in her bedroom as she stared at the shadows of foggy greys while dawn approached.  It had been illogical and thoroughly ridiculous, but she had wanted adventure.  She had wanted to live a life that was hers to explore and discover.

She had found that.
Her strength, her determination, her fearlessness. 
Felicity had found herself.

And, along the way, she had found a man worthy of the most valuable thing she possessed above all else; her heart.

She had not left London looking for love.  In fact, she had decided that such a notion was likely not compatible with adventure and exploration.  But, she had found it.  In her Captain, in her Oliver.  She had found a man that never judged her, never tried to alter her, and taught her how to soar.

And today, she would marry him on the quarterdeck of the docked Verdant, polished and newly refurbished with the company name of Merlyn & Queen emblazoned on the nameplate.  It was a feat that was made possible with money from a Duke who saw a future beyond merchants of wares, and towards how people might one day travel simply for the pleasure of doing so.

With the ocean as their backdrop and everyone they loved aboard, Tommy married them, with a smile on his face and an unspent tear in his eye.  Oliver, dressed in a finely embossed white and blue coat, but his tell-tale black boots, still walked with the aid of a cane, but even with his limitations he danced with his wife as the sun began to set.

Later, as dusk settled into the horizon, Felicity and Oliver bid farewell to her parents, Ray and Penelope, and Mr Diggle and his family.  With a vivid pink sky ahead of them and the Verdant’s sister ship, Scarlett, beside them they raised their sails to half.

Scarlett was another three-mast frigate, only a few feet smaller than Verdant, purchased and refitted under the Merlyn & Queen banner.  She would make the route Oliver once had, trading spices and fabrics with the Indian continent while Verdant made the shorter voyagers.  The first of which would be to the Caribbean to visit Oliver’s mother and sister.

There had only been one person in Oliver’s mind who he trusted to sail such a journey, and while the idea took some convincing, Sara was now Scarlett's proud Captain.

Oliver had another destination.
“Are you ready?” he asked Felicity, the tail of her dress blowing in the wind as she held 6-month old Grace close to her chest.
Felicity took another look at the small crowd waving them off at the docks before she breathed in deeply and set her sights ahead.  
“I’m ready,” she replied.

And, she was.

Oliver looked back at Tommy and gave the signal.
“Take us out, Quartermaster.”

Oliver wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and gently kissed her temple as Grace lifted her chubby hand into the breeze and giggled.

What a beautiful life it would be.

And what an exquisite story it would one day make.

The tale of Squid and her Cap'n.

/the end

AN/ I'm not sure I actually have the words to properly, succinctly, and honestly express what I'm feeling right now.  Every time I finish a story, there is a rush of sadness and pride and an overwhelming hope that it will be everything you needed it to be.

I always start a story knowing almost exactly how it will end.  But, you have ventured with me and I truly hope that it had been a journey worth taking.

I bid 1722, Squid and Cap'n, farewell with so much love.

My penultimate fan fic.

I am terrible at goodbyes, so I will save it for now.

Be well, be safe.

Black lives matters.

Wear a mask.

Fuck D*nald T*ump.

Crisp Rat is the worst Chris.