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“Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you’d better run.”
-Florence and the Machine, Dog Days Are Over
It would be a far easier thing to say that Stede didn’t remember his journey home- that he’d simply stumbled away from Chauncey Badminton’s mangled body (gaping eyehole spilling blood, brains and viscera) and blacked out from the terror of it all, coming back to himself only on the familiar approach to the fancy front door of his father’s estate. But that would be- well, not a lie exactly, something more like a half-truth.
He remembered leaving the beach, finding his way back to the Academy’s dormitory and readying for bed clear as any other day. Less so, did he remember Edward’s shadowed, beardless face and his whispered instructions, but that could be attributed more to the haze of interrupted sleep than anything else.
It was the rest of the nights events that were the problem- those memories were strange, misted over and dream-like, beginning with the terror of waking with a gun to his face and being hauled into the wild, warm night. The stench of booze and desperation hanging palpably in the air, a gunshot and Stede’s own terrified screams that seemed to echo through the trees for an eternity, the surrealness and unreality of the whole ordeal unfolding in front of him.
And after that, the long walk (well, he was pretty sure he’d walked the whole way, as the burning in his legs seemed to suggest as such), and this he could only somewhat recall- his eyes must have been cast downwards for the journey, as a visualization of the jungle floor gave way to grassy farmlands to dirt roads and then pavement the closer to the destination he got.
There were other details as well that flitted in and out; the warmth of the sun as it had risen behind him, the parched dryness of his throat, the stares of farmers and children as he’d stumbled through town and the ache of his bare feet that had worsened over time. Chauncey had, after all, ripped him from his bunk without even allowing the common decency of boots.
Highly improper, not to mention rude to leave a man shoeless, even when supposedly leading one to one’s death.
(He remembered having that thought while leaning against a fence post for a breather, and had needed to stifle down a hysterical giggle with both hands.)
But the rest of it came to Stede from very far away, as though from deep underwater or like he’d been looking at himself from the outside in through a telescope. It almost felt like he hadn’t been present in his body, survival instincts having taken over all the important functions- guiding him away from the danger, pumping air in and out of his lungs, stretching and retracting muscles and pointing his feet in the correct direction, while his mind had simply… taken a break. Drifted off into the sky like a bubble caught in an updraft.
So, he hadn’t blacked out entirely, as those flashes of memory suggested, just taken temporary vacation from consciousness- a dissociation of the brain, as it were.
What an odd sight he must have been, a lone figure traipsing shoeless across the Barbados countryside in a loose cotton shirt and plain, scratchy breeches.
Then, before he could even really register the why or how, he was standing before Mary, a broken cup on the floor between them and tea seeping into the carpet that would surely leave a stain in the fibres if it wasn’t seen too quickly. Did he care about that? He wasn’t certain, maybe.
What did matter was that he was home, and home meant safety and ease and comfort, none of those things he particularly felt as he realised his wife would need at least some kind of an explanation of his actions.
It was all too difficult, too nebulous to explain, as they were served a cold lunch in the sitting room- the finer points of piracy, Blackbeard, both Badminton twins limp on the floor at his own clumsy hands- so he decided on the easy (cowardly) way out. He told her he’d taken the Act of Grace as a means to return home without consequence, and that the journey from the Academy had been tiresome, but of little note.
(And if, despite his ravenous hunger, the ham and cucumber sandwich went down bitterly, he kept that to himself.)
And then she’d asked if he intended to stay, tepidly and with a taut smile, he replied that yes, of course. That he’d made a mistake in leaving her and the children, his responsibilities behind with nothing but a letter. He apologised for the trouble, but now that he’d found himself home again, well, it was a splendid opportunity to fix things, wasn’t it?
That had to be what he wanted, deep down, must be why his body had led him here of its own volition. A do-over, a restart and resume to the life he’d been born into, free from all the horrid mistakes of the past few months. He simply must belong here, in this grand, perfect house with his grand, perfect family, not back on that ship with that crew or sailing to a foreign land in a dinghy.
Stede didn’t stop to ponder too long on how hard it might be to slot back into his place here and in proper society, or on whether the British navy would turn up at his door in the morning to drag him back for his ten years of service, or even if he thinks he deserves any of it. Those are all thoughts for another day.
It was only later, once the doctor had been to patch his feet, the children had been sent to bed and Mary was taking a far too long time in the bathroom readying for bed (which he found he didn’t mind), that Stede realised he remembered something else about the previous night.
He remembered looking back.
It was a flimsy memory, but he can grasp at it enough to make sense of it. It mustn’t have been long after the shooting, as he vaguely remembered his heart still hammering in his ears, so Chauncey’s body had probably still been warm, lying where he’d left it in the dirt behind him. He’d climbed through the jungle to the top of a hill, and turned to gaze at the ocean one last time before it would be obscured as he headed inland.
Stede had always had excellent eyesight for distance (far less so for closer objects, as he’d begun to rely more heavily on reading glasses in recent years) and the clear moonlit night only made it easier to take it all in- the calm waters, the moon, and if he squinted, the small dock on the edge of the jungle, and on it- oh, Ed.
There, a small figure in a billowing shirt sitting with their legs dangling off the end, dark curly hair falling down their back, so beautiful and ethereal and so lonely looking against the backdrop of endless dark water it had taken Stede’s breath away.
He’s waiting for me… Stede remembered thinking.
“I suppose, what makes Ed happy is…you.”
And hadn’t that been a surprise, the soft crashing of lips that Stede had leaned into immediately, reciprocated, even. Ed’s hands on his shoulders and neck and chest, pulling their foreheads in close. And the plan, that’s right, he’d almost forgotten in the chaos- sail away to China. How fanciful it all seemed, and how strange it had made him feel. Odd and almost hopeful and-
But then he remembered the sharp terror running through him like a lightning strike, and Chauncey’s last words thundering in his ears so loud as though his ghost was screaming them again from the depths of Hell itself.
The Devil, defiler, Baby Bonnet! Plague and monster, rending the greatest pirate in history to ruin, a dashed ship below the rocks of a lighthouse!
It really was all his fault- Ed wasn’t just alone on that dock because Stede hadn’t the guts to meet him, Ed was only there at all because of him. He’d come back to the Revenge, been captured by the English and then forced to sign the Act and shave his beard and give up his free life, and all for what? Stede Bonnet, God’s perfect rich boy, a snivelling, shoeless, snotty coward of a man.
Oh, what could he ever be to lovely Edward Teach, that beautiful, confident man with swagger and intelligence and shining dark eyes, but a burdensome waste of space and air and time? He’d been deluding himself from the start, of course he’d never truly deserved the man’s attention or affection. Who would ever want to run away with him, after all the terrible things he’d done?
“I think you’re right,” Stede had sobbed, pathetically, right before Badminton fell on his gun.
He had ran then, turned from the oozing body and the ocean and from Ed, so fast like he was that boy fleeing from bullies again, still every bit the scared child who just wanted to be normal and safe and to forget all the awful things that had happened to him, because of him. Like the Badminton’s bodies and the firing squad or the noose around his neck on a Spanish ship’s deck. Like the rowboat and the horse and his whole terrible boarding school experience.
In the present, Stede settled into his bed- the proper one, so big and imposing and soft and nothing like the hard bunk of the Academy or the cosy one in his cabin on the Revenge- and tried to settle the pit of shame and regret in his stomach.
After all, there had been no news in the morning or afternoon paper of the Dread Pirate Blackbeard being recaptured after an escape attempt, and Stede could only hope that meant he’d followed the plan to leave at sunrise. He couldn’t say if Ed would head to China and start that new life without him (after all, he’d seemed so awfully excited about it) or maybe he’d just return to his life of piracy. Either way, Stede was glad. And, in truth, sad.
I’m sorry I left you there, Ed, he thought, staring up at the plain bedroom ceiling, trying not to dwell on that last lonely image he’d ever have of Edward Teach. I wish things had gone differently, but you’ll be far better off without me. I’m sure of it.