James could not believe the things he had been doing lately.

So many bad ideas, so many things he knew would end in undesirable ways -- and he'd done all of them. He'd stuffed his reasoning away in a tiny metal box in the back of his head and ignored its rocking and screeching.

And tonight was no different. That box struggled away in the corner of his mind. James simply chose not to see it.

Operating with half a crew was not new to James; he had done this before. Some of his greatest victories had been with only a fraction of his men behind him. But, tonight was no ordinary heist. The stakes were not made of gold. They were alive and breathing with beating hearts. Every time the doubt crept in, he just thought of Olivia's heartbeat, the silky gold of her hair, the sound of her voice in his ear, whispering I love you . . .

He still could not believe it. Couldn't believe he'd fallen so completely in love so fast.

She plagued his thoughts, the most beautiful deadly disease on the seven seas. If it was the last thing he'd do, James thought, he wanted to see her one more time, to ask her a question. A question that would change their lives forever, if they survived.

James sighed, looking around him. Dressed in pitch black, he and his fifteen man crew crouched in the darkness together, waiting in silence for James' signal. Nine were dead, seven were fading, four were recovering. He'd had to leave one of his best swordsmen, Skeeter, on the Fina because he couldn't stop crying. He would let anyone else touch Andy's corpse. James hadn't realized they were together until now.

Thinking about it, he wondered who else they would lose tonight.

He took a deep breath, running his fingers along the hilt of his sword. Giving the signal would meaning losing this moment of peace, the quiet before the chaos. Ending the instant in which his men would glance between each other, exchanging barely - legible nods of faith, of trust in one another. The time when they thought to themselves, I could die here.

James looked up, Jesse's rosy face floating into his mind. That puddle of blood on the deck after it was done, the one he had stood by for so many hours, wondering, wondering if it belonged to his daughter. If the shred of fabric skittering by in the breeze had once covered her. If, if really, she had existed at all.

He looked at the deck, invisible in the blanket of night. Thought of Olivia, thought of Heath, thought of the ring tucked away in his boot, and whistled, loud and angry.