Archive of Our Own ^beta

The flashes of light burned her eyes. 

That was the only thought Rose could fathom as she watched the crewmen disappear one by one. She could only wonder if Amos and Elijah had gotten an ending so peaceful. But, judging by the screams that still echoed through her mind in the few quiet hours they had gotten since, they hadn’t. Their endings had been grizzly and cruel. She could only hope she too was whisked away into a sudden light, despite her fear as she watched the others vanish. Vanishing would be easier than sitting here waiting, feeling the boat lash violently against the waves. The water was moving faster now, jostled by the storm. 

‘Rose, we have to abandon ship!’ Morgan screamed out, looking at her with pure, uninhibited panic. He ran back to her, grasping at the wheel in an attempt to steady himself and to right the course of their ship. He somehow still sounded like he was in control, even when he was soaked by rain and his eyes were wide in fear. 

‘What about the others?’ She looked off into the distance like she could still see The Ellen Austin. The rain had isolated the ships from each other. It had isolated her from Samuel, Margaret… John. She could see from a small glance to Morgan that he was thinking the same, though, he was probably thinking about his remaining crewmen and Captain Griffin. That look didn’t stay for long though, as another wave struck the ship and he was almost knocked off of his feet.

‘What about them?!’ His voice was strained. There was something that didn’t sit quite right with Rose. It was the same look the captain had earlier when the fog appeared; it made Rose wonder how much of the war Morgan had witnessed. ‘The Captain can handle it, we need to get to the lifeboats. Now!’ 

His hand grabbed at the sleeve of her jacket - John’s jacket - and attempted to pull her before going stumbling backward yet again. The combination of her being jolted by the swaying ship and him losing his balance. Despite the push and pull of the tides, she was frozen. 

Eyes widened. Breath quickened. The ocean groaned and gnashed its teeth. Rose realised the beating of her heart, the way her legs shook… This had never happened before. She was the brave one. She was the one dragging Samuel around after her, but she now stood on a precipice. She didn’t want to jump. Unresponsive as Morgan reached for her again, Rose could still see the flashing lights in her peripheral vision. 

‘Rose, come on! We need to leave! Rose…’ He trailed off as he looked at her. It wasn’t often that the bosun’s smile dropped, that he had no idea what to do beyond survive. But right now, he was running on fumes and trying to remember every piece of advice he had been given. He managed to get a hold of Rose’s wrist, turning her to face him. Her face was contorted. 

‘I... I can’t… I can’t go…’ Her voice was weak. It was never weak. She was loud and boisterous. Morgan’s eyes softened. 

‘Yes, you can.’ He seemed so sure. ‘You’ll be okay, Rose, I promise. I need you to come with me, we can-’ Thunder crashed overhead, and he flinched, pulling her close. The flashing had stopped, they were alone. A wave struck higher and the two hit the deck as the water crashed over them. Rose screamed, grabbing onto his lapels, hiding her face as though she thought this was the end. 

‘I can’t! Morgan, I can’t!’ She was rambling, eyes closed with tears running down her face and mixing with the salty water. She looked up at him, voice wavering as she managed to just be heard over the storm. ‘We’re not going to make it…’ 

That was another thing she had never done, admit defeat. Samuel would laugh at the notion, so would she. But she couldn’t anymore. Because there was no room for laughter. She was going to lose herself. She would never reunite with her brother, her friends. What would they be without her? What was the Stratford legacy with only one Stratford left to protect it? What would she leave behind? Would anyone care? She felt Morgan’s hands shake and realised she wasn’t the only one contemplating their demise. She could only imagine the similar thoughts he had. The Reese legacy had never begun. The Griffin legacy would die with Morgan too. That's why he wanted to fight, she realised, that’s why he wanted to carve a path to survival for the both of them. 

‘We can sure as hell try.’ Morgan hissed, seizing her hand in his and running beneath the storm. The deck was slippery and slick with rain, and yet he ran like he had nothing else he could do. They had to get to the lifeboats, they had to- 

‘Morgan!’ 

Rose screamed as a rolling wave took them both, their grip on each other enduring. Water crashed into the cargo-hold, carrying the two sailors with it. Everything moved too fast for either of them to think straight. Morgan grunted in pain as the water slammed him against a desk that sat in the corner of the room, bolted to the floor. He attempted to shake himself back into awareness, holding the bruise that was now forming on the back of his head. He pulled his hand back. He didn’t notice, mostly because he was soaked by the rain and the water quickly filling the room, but his hand was covered in blood that leached into the water as it now reached knee-height. Time was running out. 

Rose hadn’t spoken. Her breaths were shallow, empty as she knelt in the rising water. It was like she was praying, begging to a higher power to spare them. Morgan had seen that look before. Flashes of a younger self watching AJ do just the same played in his mind. He didn’t feel like an adult man grappling with his own impending death but rather a fifteen-year-old boy waiting for someone else to take command and save them. But there was no one else. Rose wasn’t a sailor. She was capable. She was brilliant; he thought she was brilliant. Morgan had to be the one to get them out of this and the weight was crushing. 

He waded through the water, reaching her as the air in the room grew thick with tension, fear and apprehension. Morgan’s calloused hand rested against the soaked-through shoulder of her dress. He was trying to be gentle with her, but he didn’t have time anymore. None of them had time anymore. 

‘Rose, come on!’ He had to raise his voice to be heard as the room was filled with the sound of rushing water. He didn’t have much hope, but this is all he could do. He tried not to drag Rose as she struggled to tear her eyes from the water, stumbling after him onto the top of the desk, which was almost submerged already. He struggled to pull them both to their feet, his vision blurred as pain seared his skull. The blood was still leaking from the cut on the back of his head. 

‘No one knows we’re here…’ Her voice was soft, he could hardly understand her. ‘We’re going to die down here, Morgan…’ It was a horrible acceptance; one he was delaying himself. She had seemed to make peace with it despite the fear written on her face. Morgan couldn’t. He shuddered as the water was back at his ankles. 

‘No, you’re not gonna die… I promised, right?’ His words came out in a few panicked breaths. He couldn’t hide his own terror. 

‘You did…’ 

‘I know, so I’m not letting you down, come on.’ He took her hands – that were buried in the overly long sleeves of John’s coat – and squeezed them lightly. It was a simple act of comfort as he shot her the best, most reassuring smile he could. ‘The waters going to keep rising… We gotta hope someone gets on board and can pull out the planks above us, we can get back on deck and get a lifeboat out of here.’ He explained the best he could, trying to keep his voice even as he felt water reach his waist, even as they stood on the desk. 

‘What if no one comes?’ 

‘They will.’ He wasn’t so sure. ‘Now, we need to tread water, okay? The ceiling is high up, we have time, but we need to try and stay up.’ He squeezed her hand before letting go. 

‘I can’t swim, Morgan.’ 

‘Well, you’re about to learn.’ He removed his jacket, tossing it into the rising water as he suddenly lost the ability to feel the desk beneath his feet. The water was too high. ‘Take my hand, copy me, I’ll keep you up.’ 

She nodded, voice too weak to speak up, but she had to try, she saw how much he believed in her. She couldn’t let him down. She kicked slightly as the water reached chest height. Morgan was clearly a much stronger swimmer than her, which is to say, he could swim. He had a death grip on her as he kept the two of them up, until Rose felt her head plunge into the water. She choked and sputtered on the seawater as she tried to keep herself up but suddenly moving her legs became impossible. Something was wrapped around her legs, constricting them. She felt Morgan’s hands under her forearms, trying to pull her above the water. 

‘Rose, come on, you can stay up…’ He tried to encourage as she struggled to stay above the water. ‘Come on…’ Morgan was growing desperate; he couldn’t fail her. He promised AJ he would protect the crew, and she was one of his crewmen. His sense of duty outweighed his self-preservation.

‘My leg’s caught-’ Rose managed to get out. It was in that moment that Morgan realised what it was. 

‘Your jacket, you need to take it off.’ He looked at John’s oversized coat that he had given to Rose. Well, it wasn’t oversized for him but for Rose, soaked with water, it was wrapping itself around her legs. ‘I’ll hold you up, just take it off.’ He was losing hope that someone was going to free them. 

‘I can’t!’ Rose was gripped by the fearful reality that if she stopped moving for a moment she would go under for good. 

‘Okay… Okay, you keep trying, I’ll get it.’ Morgan was used to laying down his life for others, it was what he had been taught. He took a moment, finding peace in the slowly rising water to place a hand on her cheek with a weak smile. ‘Don’t stop treading water, okay? No matter what happens. Close your eyes, just try to stay above the water, don’t focus on anything else.’ He knew what he had to do. He waited until he got a panicked nod before taking a deep breath and plunging himself into the water, a trail of blood formed behind him in the water. 

Rose looked up at the quickly approaching roof, thrashing and coughing as she tried to clear her mind. She couldn’t think about the others. John, Margaret…. Samuel. Where were they? Were they safe? Or had they vanished too? She tried to forget the taste of saltwater as she let her eyes fall shut. From The Sagitta to The Ellen Austin… From the paperstand to drowning in The Sargasso… She hoped her parents would look the other way. She hoped they wouldn’t see her fail. She couldn’t protect Samuel, herself, anyone. 

The irony was funny. She was the hero, she was meant to be the one saving the day, and now she was choking on seawater and waiting for Morgan to find some sort of miracle. If only she still believed in miracles. But she wasn’t a seven-year-old on the boat to America anymore. 

She gasped when she felt the weight lift from around her legs, felt herself be able to tread water again. Her head pressed painfully against the roof, but she was able to breathe a moment without feeling the sea water enter her lungs. Morgan did it. He gave her a few seconds longer. A few seconds where she didn’t have to thrash around. She turned in the water, trying to spot Morgan as he resurfaced. She followed his instructions, treading water the best she could as her head whipped around. The water hadn’t slowed but the panic had subsided, and acceptance settled in. 

Then she noticed that Morgan hadn’t come back up. 

There was no time for her mind to even process it as a bright light overwhelmed her. What was happening? Where was Morgan? Why hadn’t he come back up? The thoughts swirled as she was no longer floating. There was a solid floor beneath her. There was a woman standing in the doorway. There was a body on the ground. 

‘What… What’s going on?’ Her voice was soft and broken but she could be heard now, there was no other noise, just a ticking as her head whipped around. The woman stood, hands braced outwards, eye’s glowing just like the woman on the satellite. The body on the floor was still, in a sailor’s uniform, obscured by a long, heavy coat. Then it sunk in. 

She screamed, long and painful and wailing. She ran toward the body, legs shaking, barely sure of herself, ignoring the woman’s attempts to speak. She landed in a heap by Morgan. She tried to roll his body over, tried to be able to see his face. It was pale, his eyes were closed. But he promised, she wanted to scream, he promised they would be alright… But he didn’t, he promised that she would. He fulfilled that promise. She hated him for it as she pulled him close, voice wavering and breaking as she sobbed. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Rose, it’s okay… You need to get up now.’ The woman’s voice was soft but heavy. There was a horrible knowledge that she had failed. She hadn’t been able to save them both. 

‘No, it’s not! Make him get up! Bring him back! Please!’ Her voice left her in quick, sharp screams, heaving as the sea water that she had inhaled splattered against the wood. She noticed the blood on Morgan’s collar, seeping down his neck. His chest wasn’t moving. He wasn’t going to make it anyway; he might as well have done something worthwhile with his last moments. 

‘We don’t have time.’ There was a hand on her face, the same way Morgan had held her face before he went under. The woman looked at Rose, brilliant and ethereal. Rose would be in awe if there wasn’t a corpse on the floor. ‘I need you to take this… It’s called an orrery… I’ll see you soon.’ The woman forced a small golden machine into one of her hands. A glowing sun warmed her skin that was still slick with rain and saltwater. 

‘What about him? You saved me! Why can’t you save him too?!’ Her voice got louder as she looked at the woman, seeing her own tears reflected in her eyes. She didn’t have time to ask why or how. It was just like the satellite. She was more grateful for her life than in need of an explanation. But she could only wish that this woman had saved Morgan too.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t change what has happened… I wish I had gotten here sooner…’ She looked devastated, crushed by a weight that Rose didn’t understand, or she wouldn’t just yet. ‘My name is Ahlaam… And I will see you shortly, right now I need to move you and The Antikythera… Hold onto him, Dakkar will help you bury him on Lincoln Island.’ She was decisive despite the pain. 

Before Rose could ask anything else, light consumed her. It consumed the orrery, Morgan and the ship. It was blinding, the ticking was deafening. There was peace. 

Then Rose was on a beach, falling onto her knees and kneeling beside a cold, pale corpse in a sailor’s uniform. He let himself drown to save her. She didn’t try to get up and run, didn’t follow the sound of the dog barking. She just sat, as cold as he was. She looked at the skies, praying that someone else was looking at them too. 

It occurred to her that Neptune wasn’t visible from Earth. 

҉

Two weeks passed at a snail’s pace for Rose and in an instant for those still onboard the Ellen Austin. The five passengers. Samuel Stratford stood at the bow, watching the approaching island. John Herschel sat nearby, mulling over the millions of thoughts that clouded his mind. Margaret Cavendish stood with the mysterious woman, Sia, she now knew; the two of them discussing quietly. No one spoke to the other man. The one who’s soul had been pushed out of and pulled back into his body a mere hour ago. 

Captain AJ Griffin stayed strong at the helm of the ship as it sailed into the port of Lincoln Island. He had been told that the seemingly magical woman could have steered it herself, but he insisted. In a world where he no longer felt certain of reality and no longer trusted his own perception, this simple act was all he had left. The past hour was a blur of half-memories. The phantom ship, the bottle, those sick, sunken eyes and gleaming, predatory smile. They patched together to form a sense of the passage of time. But they also forced him to question his own identity. He was a wandering soul that could be ejected and dragged back into his body at the will of something more powerful than his own comprehension. Was he AJ Griffin? He didn’t truly know anymore. 

What he did know is that Sia had insisted he come with them to Lincoln Island. He didn’t truly understand why. He longed to be back in control, to be certain of himself. His crew was gone but his ship remained here though he was no longer fully in control of it. He wondered where they had gotten to, why he had been taken. Most of all he wondered where his bosun was. He had known Morgan since he was fifteen, and frankly an idiot. He had taken him under his wing. Ten years later he was AJ’s pride and joy. He didn’t know if he was alive, but judging by the continued reassurances that Ms Stratford was fine, he had to hope Officer Reese was too. There was something frightening, however, about the way Sia was tight-lipped around him. It was always ‘you’ll see’. He was a man who hated uncertainty. 

He looked up when he heard the others shouting and saw them waving themselves about absurdly in his peripheral vision. Their reaction piqued his interest when he saw Rose on the docks, waving back. So, at least someone had made it off of the Antikythera. He kept his composure as they disembarked. He tried to not ask a million questions as unfamiliar faces appeared before him, with technology strange and unfamiliar, with looks to each other that communicated some level of uneasiness. He noticed the way they referred to a man they dared not name. He had a fairly certain guess as to who that was. 

He waited in silence before one woman, the one who hadn’t seemed to stop smiling since they arrived – Ahlaam, if he remembered right – looked at him. Her face softened and he could see a pang of regret in her eyes. She stepped forward and cleared her throat, looking to the long-haired man beside her. 

‘Dakkar, would you like to show the others to where they’ll be staying? I’m sure everyone’s exhausted.’ Her smile was thin now, like she was holding back a thousand apologies. ‘Captain Griffin, Rose… If you two would like to follow me, I think we have something to discuss.’ Both women looked ill as the words left her mouth. 

‘If you would so like.’ AJ’s voice was curt as he felt his heart clench. It had been twenty minutes since they arrived, and he hadn’t seen his bosun. He had a fairly good guess on what they were going to tell him. He looked to Ms Stratford, who had been tucked into Herschel’s side. ‘Ms Stratford?’ He asked carefully. 

‘Of course.’ She stepped away from John, smiling weakly. ‘I’ll see you soon, stay out of trouble.’ That second statement was directed at her twin brother who stuck his tongue out at her while she was directed away by Ahlaam, face falling. 

They walked in silence for what could have been three minutes or three hours. Reaching a quiet clearing in the thick underbrush. It was when they stopped, when the sand met soft dirt that the two women looked at him and AJ sighed heavily. He felt the weight bearing down on him. He glanced to Rose, there was so much fear in her eyes. He knew that was the effect he had on those who didn’t know him well. He seemed cruel and domineering. The person who perhaps knew his true nature best was most likely buried in the dirt beneath his feet. 

‘Captain… We… I…’ The words wouldn’t come out as Rose’s voice broke. She would have hit the ground again if it weren’t for the immediate, firm yet gentle hug that held her up. AJ wasn’t one for comfort in most cases but now, he understood her pain. It wasn’t comparable to his own. He could feel the pit in his stomach and was counting down the moments until he could be alone, until he could scream in pure agony. 

‘It’s okay, Rose.’ He used her name for the first time, holding her close before pulling away from her, looking at the tears rolling down her face. ‘Just show me where he is.’ There was a noticeable wavering in his voice as he waited for Rose or Ahlaam to guide him to his adopted-son’s grave. Rose nodded in response to his question and stepped away. 

In the clearing there was a small pile of rock. It was crudely cut, clearly done hastily as dirt was unevenly placed over the pit in the earth where Morgan’s corpse now lay. AJ stepped toward it, staring with shaky breaths before kneeling by the grave. He looked to Rose again, eyes teary. It was a silent prompt to know what happened to him. She understood. 

‘We were drowning… I couldn’t keep myself up. He sacrificed himself to keep me above the water long enough for Ahlaam to get to us… He was dead by the time she arrived.’ She repeated a narrative and an answer she had clearly gone through a thousand times. She wasn’t sure how they would respond before AJ patted the earth beside him. 

‘Rose, you were never going to die. I know my bosun. In no situation would he rather live if he could have died saving someone else. He believed in people above all else, he believed in you. There was a reason he brought you aboard my ship. If you died, he would have torn himself apart.’ He managed a weak smile as a tear ran down his face. ‘It’s not your fault Rose. His story didn’t die with him.’ 

It didn’t. It lived with AJ, and it lived with Rose.