"Steady, Kenway," Kidd's voice was all but a distorted blur with the whirring ocean winds and crashing waves to the Welsh Captain, who sailed his ship onwards with the vigour of a bull seeing nothing but red.

"Be careful, man! We're bound to end up a wreck-" a concerned Kidd continued, nervously eyeing their friend who was still fiercely concentrated on the ocean waves, praying that sooner or later the view of Havana would crop up on the horizon.

Ever since leaving Tulum, Edward's mind had been a storm itself. A collation of opposing emotions - rage, hope, fear and happiness all stirred into this deadly concoction that blinkered him from wanting to do anything but charge full speed to Havana.

The prospect of finding you alive was something he was so desperate to be true, yet behind that first primary emotion of delight was a sadness and deep blackened rage of betrayal from Vane. Why would he make such a cruel lie about your death? Put so many through heart break?

It appeared the Captain of the Ranger was more of a bastard than Edward could have ever anticipated.

"Edward, what if you get to Havana and things aren't as you hope? She could still be..." Kidd paused with anxiousness in his tones, sighing softly. "I've only ever seen you like this with coin and even then it's worrying, mate. I just don't want you getting hurt anymore by this."

Swallowing hard, Edward seemingly gripped the wheel of the ship tighter in his grasp, raising his head as he looked sternly out across the vast crystal blue seas.

"I ain't thinking about that, Kidd." He replied, a steady inflection to his tone. "Whatever I find it will be... some form of closure." His blue eyes flitted down to the deck beneath his boots, and the memory of your smile and your frame in his lap ghosted across his mind in anguish. He so hoped you would be alive and well.

"Aye, well I'm hoping the lass is ok." Kidd added, patting Edward on the shoulder as the two continued across the oceans, Edward's angry tenacity wavered somewhat.

For the moment.

-

Some hours later

Sleeping aboard a ship was a task you'd never quite grown accustomed to, and it was certainly not something you enjoyed. The endless churn of the waves and the rise and fall of the ship constantly set your senses into disarray - and you faired much better up on the deck and in the sea air.

Pushing to your feet, you dusted down the dress that was far too pretty for this pirate vessel and headed out of the Captain's quarters and into a blazing early afternoon sun.

The crew milled about the deck, tending to their duties - be that on the rigging or maintaining the various cannons and weapons aboard (something Charles Vane never left himself short of).

The man in question soon spotted you, out and about from the protection and safety of the cabin. His eyes could not help but drift to you, as you stepped leisurely and aimlessly in that casual yet flattering summer dress, trying to look the part on a ship that you were far too precious for (in Vane's eyes at least)

"Nice to see you topside at last," he announced, averting your attention quickly as you regarded the rugged Captain with an amicable smile, ascending to the quarterdeck to join Vane at the wheel.

"Aye, well I can't say I got much more sleep. After all this time and I'm still useless at trying to rest aboard." You replied, leaning on the railing that guarded the deck and peering down over the rest of the crew.

"So, how many more days until we reach Nassau, do you think?" You asked, an innocent enough question.

Thankfully you current position facing out onto the rest of the ship meant you missed the uncomfortable look on Vane's face, one that detailed much guilt and shame. Feelings that were nipping close to his heels and soon enough, he was sure they would fully bite.

"We... we aren't heading to Nassau, love." Vane's voice had all but been abandoned of its former chipper tone, and as you turned to face him he looked increasingly worried. "We need to talk about some things, some things you should know."

You hated it when he was serious like this, it was a rarity for a man who took so much joy in chaos and disarray. If often only entailed bad things.

"Might be best if we head into my quarters." His speech seemed uncomfortably pressured, and Vane only had to take a quick glance and a quiet word before a member of the crew took place at the helm so the pair of you could have a chat.

Confusion plagued you, and already you were thinking the worst. When Vane's hand fell at your back to guide you down towards the deck and to the office doors, the sickness you felt pitting in your stomach was incredibly harrowing.

Something did not feel right.

The moment those wooden doors closed behind you, you stepped far away from the Captain, turning to find him already looking sheepish and overwhelmed.

"Vane what is this about? What has happened!?" You cried, balling your fists, your whole body racked with anxious tension.

"Is it Thatch? Kidd? Edward-!?" You're heart was breaking with every assumption that flailed madly through your head, and to see you already disintegrating before his eyes was too much for Vane.

He crumbled at last, the foundations of this self absorbed and possessive lie falling away, cracking like the most brittle of wood or stone.

"We can't go back because I told them you'd died." He delivered the statement with a shakiness that radiated primal desperation rather than fear.

"After what happened at the manor," he swallowed hard, unable to look at you, "I couldn't go back and bloody tell them about you being taken. Then Kenway would just find out from fucking Hornigold what we had done." His eyes nervously flickered up, and judging by the plea that engulfed his expression he could tell you were so shocked and enraged, you had been stunned to silence for the moment.

"You know what would happen to us? Kenway would have us fucking strung up! His mate and his girl behind his back! I don't want that life for neither of us, lass."

You were struggling to find an appropriate response in your head, stumbling back slightly as your bottom hit the edge of the fleet map table.

A deathly silence occupied the air, one in which your thoughts and feelings grounded themselves at last, having somewhat processed through your brain.

"Out of all the things you could have done, you told them I was dead!?" You couldn't help but scream, letting your head fall into your hands.

"It was the only way I could save you without putting us both at risk!" Vane growled, an alien sound indeed to hear those rumbling tones filled with so much emotion that wasn't sadistic delight.

"(Name), just listen to us for one bloody second," he tried to step closer, and the more he did so the sickness rose in your throat. "I've got a plan. I'm going to sell this ship and find us somewhere to settle, just me and you. It'll be better than Nassau! No pissheads, no nobheads- just us."

You lashed your head up, like a snake lurching out. Your hands forced forwards, pushing Captain Vane out of your space.

"Well you're fucking wrong there, because there would be a pisshead and a nobhead. You!" Your voice was brimming with unbridled animosity.

"This wasn't about protecting me from Edward. This was about keeping me from him!" You challenged, your words hitting a particularly sensitive part - and you watched attentively as the desperately pleading Vane melted away into seething Vane, the man you had always vowed you'd never want to be on the receiving end of.

You witnessed a certain dangerous flame glowing behind his eyes.

"But what about me and you?" His tone had lowered somewhat, unnervingly steady but in the way a man might sound before he becomes unhinged.

"What did that mean, at the manor?" He stepped forwards again, and a fear you did not like pitted in the base of your stomach. In all the times you had seen Vane become angry, he had never given you this feeling of terror before. "You told me you loved me."

You sighed, another word that could be held in so many contexts. You realised now the whole ordeal had been one huge mistake, a slip up where you had allowed yourself to stray between the lines for the sake of trying to please everyone.

Yes, you loved Vane as dearly as anything... but that love was one founded on great friendship and trust. Not an intense love in the romantic sense... not like you felt for Edward.

As your (eye colour) eyes hit the floor, you realised just what a mess you had entangled yourself in.

"I do love you Vane," you suddenly said, deciding to be honest rather than chase another lie down the rabbit hole, "but I should never have slept with you. I see now that was a huge mistake, and in doing so I've have just made you believe that the love I feel for you was... more intense than it is."

A stormy silence fell across the office, one in which you didn't want to lift your eyes and face the consequences of your blunt, but honest truth. In a matter of seconds you had torn down the fantasies Captain Vane had been thriving off for some time, his paradise dream of rescuing you and escaping from the madness of your lives.

Deep down he had always had some feeling it would be too good to be true - but now the reality was staring him in the face, he did not wish to believe this was the case. The beauty of his fantasy splintering away.

"Just my fucking luck, ey?" He chuckled with a dangerously precarious sarcastic rumble, "it's always been me, coming to your rescue, your beck and call and still that ain't good enough?" He stared straight at you with a coldness you didn't much care for.

"Vane I don't want to hurt you, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't love you the way you want me to, but it's how I feel." You pleaded, "this... this has gone too far. Take us back to Nassau." Your voice cried out, raw with emotion and frustration. This lie had snowballed into some dangerously possessive fantasy that you wanted out of.

Vane cocked his head at you, much like the man would if faced with pleading garbles from a Spanish captain. As if he did not understand the cries that escaped your lips.

"No, we're not going back there." His snarling low tones inflected with more venom than usual.

"You're not ruining it for us." He seemed aggravatingly unreasonable, even more so than usual. The Vane who you admired a lot was a ghost of the man you saw stubbornly planted before you like some deranged monster.

And so he turned, all coat tails and rigid posture - exiting the captain's quarters and leaving you in the lurch, a weighty sickening feeling in the base of your stomach and a hot headed feeling of both pure anger and dread alike.

You had to get out of this mess, you'd not left one prison in Havana just to be bound in another by a man you had once trusted with your life.