Vallin waited.

He sat in his chair, leaning forward against the desk with his hands clasped together.

He didn't hear anything from outside, but he knew it was happening. He hoped it was. Or rather he didn't.

Maybe. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he should take it back. He should take it back—

The door swung open, and she appeared in the frame, the barrel of a pistol caught under Bates' chin. He struggled in her grasp, unable to get out.

"How did that happen?" Vallin asked Bates. He was so glad it happened. He was so furious it happened. He did not rise from his chair, he did not look at her. He'd done enough today. He deserved a drink now.

"Respectfully, sir," Bates began, "I think you knew exactly how that happened."

Vallin leaned back in his chair for a moment, running his hand through his hair. Liquor, liquor, liquor. That's all his thoughts consisted of. Rum, then a little splash of terror over having to speak to her. To look at her. He rose.

She was finally looking him in the eye, but this time it was him that couldn't meet her gaze. He held his hand out palm-up, outstretched to her.

She placed the gun in his grasp, and he closed his fingers around it.

He wanted to touch her very carefully, to make sure she was real. He was sober, so she had to be real, but he just couldn't trust his mind these days. He wanted to brush his hand over her gently, but he wanted to scream until his vocal cords snapped and broke. Toss her against the wall violently, rip her apart until she promised to stay.

"Go, Bates," Vallin said, his voice beginning to betray him. It was always the first thing to go—his voice, then the drop of his shoulders, then the muscles in his face. It all fell from his grasp so quickly these days.

Bates spun on his heel and slammed the door behind him. Vallin couldn't care less about him being upset. In his life recently, very few things rose to a level of interest. Fear, anger, relief—those emotions didn't really find him much anymore. Everything existed on the same plane, except for her. She floated above everything else, pulling him into a ghost-like reality where everything suddenly mattered very much. The way his hair looked, the way he smelled or walked, but not how Bates was feeling.

Vallin took a small step back. Away from her, those pretty eyes, that pull towards her. Her, and every vicious thing she brought with her, was home.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her voice was still beautiful, still smooth on the consonants and rough on the vowels.

Vallin closed his eyes. Just her voice for now. When he felt a little stronger, a little more stable, then he'd focus on her face, too.

"I know that means nothing," she said, taking a cautious step forward. "I know it doesn't mean anything after all this, Vallin, I know that. But I still need to say it."

"You can have strategist," he said, keeping his eyes closed and staying that safe distance from her. "We'll appoint you in the morning."

Her face lost every edge it ever had. "That doesn't matter—"

"It doesn't?" he asked, opening his eyes. All this time, he'd felt so low, so sad, so depressed—he never even thought to feel angry, betrayed, upset. He never realized how he might be justified to feel such things. "Strategist, power?" he asked. "Those things don't mean anything to you anymore? That's all I have left to give you."

She took a deep breath, clearly having trouble forming her thoughts, a trouble Vallin had never known her to have. A second went by, then another second.

Then finally, "I thought leaving was the only thing that would make me feel whole. I didn't know I was leaving a part of myself here—"

"Don't give me that bullshit," Vallin snapped. Betrayal, anger, but mostly betrayal. "I was always in it more, from the very beginning. Did you plan it all out? Let me suffer for a year so I'd give you what you want when you came back? Then you get it all, don't you?"

She shook her head, violently. "I didn't plan any of this. I've been miserable—"

"Don't you talk to me about miserable," he said, and she flinched, just slightly. At that, he lowered his voice, "Look around you, Novari. Do you see anything sharp in here? Liam took everything I could slit my wrists with the second time I tried. Don't you talk to me about miserable."

Novari blinked. That was all she could think to do. This was Bardarian. He didn't do...things like that.

"Miller sewed me back up," Vallin said. "Gave me a bag of someone else's blood and sent me back to misery. I begged her not to, but she did it anyway."

Novari felt her eyes watering again—because she could picture all of it, Miller, the blood, him begging her to stop. The iron smell of it in the air, his skin mauled.

"Vallin," she said softly. She brought her hands to his face, but he pushed her away. The liquor was so far out of his system that he couldn't even begin to think about thinking. She was here, she was back, but he just couldn't let go of what she'd put him through. He just couldn't let her walk back in here and have it all go back to normal. Terror would cloud his mind every time she got the least bit upset. Every time she didn't get something she wanted, it would be a threat of this feeling on repeat.

"You know what?" he mumbled. He reached for the pistol again. Handed it to her. "You should've shot me. I think you should've. Why don't you?"

Novari didn't even bother taking it. She tried to step back, but she already had her back against the wall.

"Take it," he said. "It's so much quicker than this awful game. I know how this goes. I give you strategist, but it's not enough. You want first mate. So I give that to you, too, but eventually that gets old because nothing is ever enough for you. In the end, you're going for my hat. You're going to kill me when your ambition gets too big. And of course, we only get that far if some other man doesn't pull your insatiable attention away first. So let's skip all those steps. Just shoot me now."

Novari shook her head, tried to melt back through the wood away from the pistol. He couldn't be right. She learned. She wouldn't do this again. She would sit idly, sleep quietly in his arms with no complaints. She would never, ever take advantage of that again. She knew now—what it felt like to hold a pistol to his head, and she knew she couldn't do it.

"Take it," he said, his voice getting louder.

"No."

"Take it!" His voice echoed off the wood, shattering their reasonable conversation. He pushed it into her hands, forced her fingers around it.

"Stop, stop!" Her panic spiralled when he pulled her finger into place over the trigger, put it to his head. He was still stronger, and she couldn't fight him with just her arms.

"Shoot me," he breathed, his breath on her face. He smelled of liquor, still, as if it was in his pores and his body forever and would never leave. "By the Devil, Novari, just shoot me. I beg of you."

His voice cut out, his face relaxed. Novari was still fighting his hands, his arms, hoping that she could beat him. Hoping he wouldn't go this far. Hoping there was a way she could put him back together.

"Shoot me," he whispered, tears in his eyes. They spilled over the rims, made the irises look even bluer. "Shoot me."

He put pressure on the trigger, and Novari panicked. She kicked at his stomach and threw the pistol across the room the moment it was out of his grasp. It smashed against the cabinet across from her and fell to the ground with an unsatisfying thump.

Vallin stumbled back, then stumbled to the floor. It was just another one of the unmanly, embarrassing things he'd done since she left. His back hit the desk behind him hard, and his neck cracked a little.

Novari got to her knees in front of him. His eyes fluttered, the tears fell. For the months without her, for the pain, the heartbreak, the exhaustion. For everything. For this sober clarity, for this recollection of pain.

Novari couldn't hold her face steady. Vallin wished he could sketch the colour of those beautiful glassy eyes. He'd almost forgotten what they looked like up close. The edge of her bottom lip quivered just slightly, and she lifted her hands to his face.

"Don't do this to yourself, love," she whispered.

"I can't—" he broke off for a moment, reaching out to her. "I can't live without you."

"You won't," she promised.

He nodded, his ocean eyes shining. Then, in a delicate whisper, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said. "It's okay."

"I'm not me," he said, simply. Like he was in a million pieces on the floor, unable to move. "Nothing works without you."

"I'm not me, either, love," she replied, but her voice didn't hold that eerie calm, that cunning nature that it always did. Almost like she was telling the truth.

"Please don't leave," Vallin whispered.

She rested her forehead against his. "I'm staying," she said.

He let out the longest breath he felt he'd ever taken. The tears still rolled down his face, over his liquor-stained mouth.

"Oh, love. It's okay. You'll be okay." She wiped the tears from his face and put her lips to his hands. She pulled him into her and laid his head against her. "It's okay. We'll be okay."

Vallin closed his eyes. Tomorrow, he'd be a man again. Tomorrow, he'd be a captain again. Tonight, he was just a heartbroken boy.

"I'm staying," she repeated. "This time. Forever."