i'd wipe the dirt off your name with the shirt off my back
Her head shakes slowly, not with disbelief, not anymore—but with that quiet, bone-deep sadness that comes from knowing exactly how this conversation will go and still hoping it might not. That maybe—maybe—this time, the tide will come in a little differently.
"That isn't good enough, Jack.." she says, voice softer now, gentler for the jagged edges it has to carry, because whatever blessing it was to be let in this close to the captain—and she knew it was—it wasn't far enough. "If you can’t ever learn to actually talk to me—like talk without assuming I’ll just know everything from crumbs you tell me—then you can’t keep biting my head off for not understanding." Her eyes flicker to his, something close to pleading lingering there for only a breath before it retreats behind steel and salt.
But when he leans back and throws it all on her—again—the ice in her belly shifts, melting just enough to flood her lungs before it freezes solid all over again. Of course he said she left first. Of course that was the story he'd built around it. "If that’s how you need to see it, we both know I'm not gonna change your mind," she says, weary now in a way that doesn't match the fire she usually carries, the resilience she pretends is armour.
But then her gaze drops, lashes low, throat working around a truth too thick to swallow. "From my side? I never left you. I told you where I’d be. I had a plan. A shitty, desperate, rushed plan, sure, but I was never going to let anything keep me from coming back to you." Her hands tighten around the edges of her coat, not for warmth, but to keep from shaking. "And I know you don't believe me or think it's stupid, but I really did think it was keep you safe." She exhales, small and tight, knowing he'd never see it that way and that he'd chosen to hate her because of it. "But there's a big difference between doing all that, and leaving because you're pissed off."
And when he throws her own words back at her—when he says he kept his pain on the ship—Flora looks at him, wounded and wide-eyed. "Yeah you sure did," she whispers, stunned. "You kept it here. All this time, just so you could say that there's nothin' between us now soon as I came back onboard."
"That isn't good enough, Jack.." she says, voice softer now, gentler for the jagged edges it has to carry, because whatever blessing it was to be let in this close to the captain—and she knew it was—it wasn't far enough. "If you can’t ever learn to actually talk to me—like talk without assuming I’ll just know everything from crumbs you tell me—then you can’t keep biting my head off for not understanding." Her eyes flicker to his, something close to pleading lingering there for only a breath before it retreats behind steel and salt.
But when he leans back and throws it all on her—again—the ice in her belly shifts, melting just enough to flood her lungs before it freezes solid all over again. Of course he said she left first. Of course that was the story he'd built around it. "If that’s how you need to see it, we both know I'm not gonna change your mind," she says, weary now in a way that doesn't match the fire she usually carries, the resilience she pretends is armour.
But then her gaze drops, lashes low, throat working around a truth too thick to swallow. "From my side? I never left you. I told you where I’d be. I had a plan. A shitty, desperate, rushed plan, sure, but I was never going to let anything keep me from coming back to you." Her hands tighten around the edges of her coat, not for warmth, but to keep from shaking. "And I know you don't believe me or think it's stupid, but I really did think it was keep you safe." She exhales, small and tight, knowing he'd never see it that way and that he'd chosen to hate her because of it. "But there's a big difference between doing all that, and leaving because you're pissed off."
And when he throws her own words back at her—when he says he kept his pain on the ship—Flora looks at him, wounded and wide-eyed. "Yeah you sure did," she whispers, stunned. "You kept it here. All this time, just so you could say that there's nothin' between us now soon as I came back onboard."
