Chapter thirty - hang.

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After spending some time in content companionship with the Aurora, the Freighter collectively made a decision for the two ships to remain near to one another throughout all of our travels in the near future. Lisa was still taking Gerard's bunk, and Gerard was still sleeping in mine, most of the time with me, but sometimes not– I was beginning to take to spending my nights awake, watching the stars, and thinking. I didn't have very much to think about, but I made myself more conscious of everything that crossed my mind, and I strung out every good thought that came to mind. It was a somewhat calming process.

When we made port a week or so later, I was fairly accustomed to returning to my bunk to find Gerard in it, and having to persuade him to let me in there as well, so when I retired to bed to find my bunk empty, although it was a bit of a relief to be able to go to bed without having a tedious little debate first, my thoughts were taken up with where Gerard could have gone.

Several days later, Gerard was still missing and I was starting to get fairly worried, but the captain made nothing of it, and neither did Lisa, so I supposed that should have been of some reassurance to me. I couldn't stop thinking about what he could be doing out in the village though. Surely there was nothing so important to prompt him to waste his money on accommodation in the town when he could just stay here. Unless he was dealing with somebody who he didn't want to know of his connections to the Freighter and the Aurora. Oh, fuck.

My worries were almost confirmed– when I had visited the town I had seen a man that looked suspiciously like the captain of the Hangmen, and I had brushed it off as trickery of the light. Now I knew it was most likely not something my mind had conjured up, but more probably just as disastrous as my mind had made it seem when it was a worry.

It was no longer a worry. The thought had gained a lot more gravity than that. It was a fear, now.

When Gerard returned, his mind was shut off and sheltered, and he scarcely spoke to anyone save for Lisa for the rest of the day. And when the two of them talked, there was something off about it. I couldn't work out what was different, but there was something there, something behind the casual smiles that Gerard flashed at anyone who walked past him and Lisa as they shuffled down the corridors that wasn't normal.

I tried not to think about it. I tried to divert my mind to the good thoughts– Gerard had his brother- sister- now, and he felt like he could confide in her. As much as I wanted the person he was confiding in to be me, I knew I should be happy. I mean, I was indirectly the reason that Lisa was there at all. Or perhaps even directly the reason. Yes, that made me feel quite a bit better. And I trusted Lisa. I was sure that if something bad was happening she would tell me.

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Lisa rested her chin in her hands, and leaned forward across the table. Her painted lips twisted into a grimace, and her carefully shaped eyebrows fell as she sighed. "It's the Hangmen," she said.

"Oh," I said. "Fuck."

"Yes, rather. Fuck."

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Gerard was acting the way Ryan had been acting before he killed himself. This was not a coincidence. Mother Mary.

I sat on my heels, mindlessly polishing daggers from the weapons chest. Gerard paced up and down behind me. "I didn't seek them out, if that's what you're thinking," he said.

"You could have just left," I told him. "Turned around, and walked away. Would it have really been that hard?"

"I bumped into them, very literally, Frank. I don't think they would have let me just walk away."

"You didn't need to tell them all of our secrets," I hissed.

"They weren't secrets. Christ." Gerard scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands. "They just wanted to know where you were from, and if you were the first kid I'd plucked from a room with a balcony. Nothing remotely incriminating."

I dropped the dagger I'd been cleaning, and a metallic clatter echoed off the wooden floor. "You don't know how they might use that information," I growled. "Why did you tell them, Gerard?"

"Because," he snapped. "Because I wanted to know the truth about Ryan. I knew he couldn't have sold us out for money."

I raised an eyebrow. "So it wasn't for money?"

Gerard glared at me. "I hoped it wouldn't be. It was."

"So you've gone and given a detailed biography of me to the people who want to kill us."

"They don't want to kill us, they just want to use you to get to Parade Fountain."

I groaned. "Doesn't it only work once?"

"They don't know that."

"You know you've just made this whole situation a hundred times worse."

Gerard sighed. "Yes. I wasn't thinking straight."

I gathered up the shining daggers laid out on the floor in front of me and dropped them in the chest. "You're never thinking straight."

Gerard caught the side of my arm when I went to leave. "Please, Frank."

I huffed. "Please what?"

"Forgive me. Please."

My anger didn't hold. I petted Gerard's hair. "You fucker. Always."