Anyway Both the Engines Are On Fire

Burns cleared his throat. “On behalf of his Majesty the Sovereign King of England, you are hereby charged with treason and piracy. Let it be shown that Miss Dana Scully did willing aid Captain Stella Gibson, a known criminal, under penalty of death.” He pulled a roll of parchment from his satchel and held it out to Scully. She expected to see a smug glint in his eye, after he'd sabotaged Stella for refusing his help, but she saw none. If anything, he still looked hurt.

The parchment denoted a list of charges against one Captain Stella Gibson: treason, sexual perversion, piracy, aiding and abetting a jailbreak, destroying a ship of the Royal Navy. The final charge, she noticed, had been added recently. She wondered who had brought back word that Governor Spender was dead. Had some sorry, stranded soldier been spotted at the Hall of the Moerae and picked up by a passing ship? 

The soldiers had already cuffed Mulder. She counted them in her head—twenty-three including Burns—and let them clap her in irons. She and Mulder couldn’t take these men on their own. Not even with Stella could they face down three against twenty-two, with nowhere to escape but a waist deep spring. Stella could die now, Scully lamented. She could eat and drink and die.

She held out her wrists. As Burns clapped the irons on her, she spat in his face. The men readied their bayonets, making to shoot her, but Burns lifted his hand. With the other, he wiped his stubbled cheek. “I do my job, Miss Scully. No more, no less.”

“You’re a coward,” she snapped, but one man tugged on her chains, and she stumbled forward into a trudging walk. Mulder walked in front of her, and she tried at intervals to peer around his broad back. They were moving swiftly uphill, following a narrow footpath that exited the spring but never properly led them out of tree cover. Scully’s thighs burned as they crested one hill and began to trace another, and she pressed her iron-clad hands against her legs. 

Eventually, they exited the forest and began to marched up a cobble street. The surrounding buildings were uncharacteristically silent. This was Tortuga; of that Scully could be certain, but it was no part of Tortuga she’d seen on her last visit. Rather than the raucous pirate port and derelict docks, this section of Tortuga was mostly residences. They were poorly lit, some of them collapsing, and she couldn’t see a single bar or an inn. She turned her head for a better view and caught a glimpse of the see, far below them at the bottom of a steep hill. The golden lights of proper Tortuga glittered against the sea—smaller than she’d expected from this distance, but promising. 

Wherever you are, Stella, Scully silently pleaded, don’t do anything rash. What could she expect from a woman who, up until a few days ago, had been more or less invincible? Unkillable Davy Jones, save for her heart in a box buried on a legendary island, was made mortal again, and she wasn’t sure Stella’s understanding of risk had caught up to her yet.

As Burns and his men led them through a maze of wet, silent streets, they crossed another unit of British soldiers. Their uniforms were crisp and their faces soft and youthful. Clearly, this was a new Navy outpost. Scully wondered if Spender had intended to take Tortuga—if so, his death had left a smattering of idle units in dangerous locations. That would certainly explain the empty buildings, and the morose air of this place. 

“Oi! Tell the Commodore we’ve captured Wanted men at the port.”

“ At the port, Mister Burns?” one of the soldiers asked, in a tone that suggested Tortuga more or less terrified him. 

“At the spring,” Burns clarified, and the kid let out a visible sigh of relief. 

Scully held back a derisive snort—she had been that kid, once; Mulder had been too. Weeks at sea had culled any inclination she once held to hold back from a fight she had any chance at winning. She hoped Mulder understood that, so if she saw a chance at escape he’d trust her and take it. They had always done that for each other—chosen to trust. She hoped it would save their lives again tonight.

“The Commodore has already gone to bed. He said I shouldn’t wake him barring emergencies.”

“Tell him in the morning, then.”

“He’s leaving for Port Washington in the morning, Sir.”

Burns huffed the beleaguered sigh of a man who resented his station but knew he could do nothing to improve it. “He won’t leave until he confirms this job is done. I won’t leave until I’ve my reward.” He gritted his teeth, forcing an imperious snarl into those final words, and Scully recognized the intimidation tactic. She’d heard Stella do the same to Burns himself, and later to Spender. Burns had been her crew-mate, long ago. Had Stella learned the trick from him, or he from her?

“We’ll send for him in the morning,” one of the soldiers pipes up.

“Send him to the jail,” Burns said harshly, then gestured for his men to continue. 

So they would be spending the night in a prison cell… she supposed there were worse things. She’d never been inside a jail, though she’d seen the brigs of a few ships. She’d even locked herself in a brig by mistake as a child, playing hide-and go-seek with the Quartermaster’s boys on her passage from England. A jail was just a brig that didn’t move, and she supposed once she’d been locked up for her crimes she’d have to call herself a real pirate. 

Absently, she thought of her mother and the house on the hill. It wavered in her memory like a dream, that place. She remembered it sun-bathed and golden in the evenings, and the tired creak of the front door as her mother rushed to greet her after a day in the archive. Not for the first time, she worried what her mother would think if she trudged home one evening with an eye patch and a criminal history to her name. But Maggie Scully took most people in stride at her age. More so, Scully worried her mother would hear of her arrest and pull strings, or worse, put herself into legal trouble trying to get them out. Worst of all, what would Maggie do if her daughter never returned from sea? So many loved ones missing, claimed by Davy Jones’ Locker, transformed into sea mist. She couldn’t bear the thought of Maggie being the only Scully left, and even if she’d nothing else to live for (and Scully had plenty), that fear alone would’ve spurred her to survive and escape. 

The prison was a small, low-roofed building that had clearly been converted from residences. Cells were located in the basement, with a Navy courthouse above them. The cells themselves could hold no more than two or three people, and a couple of the privateers cackled as they tossed Mulder and Scully into a single cell. 

“Don’t have too much fun,” one of them sniggered, winking at Mulder. Mulder made a face and then a rude gesture, and Scully hid a smile beneath her hand. A wave of fondness for this impulsive man washed over her as Mulder sighed and sat back against the stone wall. She came over and sat beside him. 

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I suppose. You think we’re getting out?” he asked, craning his neck to look at her in the corner of his vision. They used to talk like this often—seated side by side in the archive, glancing between paperwork and one another’s faces. Scully found that with a missing eye, she couldn’t perform the motions anymore, and she turned to face him fully. 

Mulder looked utterly dejected, his lower lip sticking out and his face smeared with grime. He’d gained back a little of the weight he’d lost during captivity, but he was still too thin. His collarbones jutted out from the collar of his shirt. 

“It’s not a lost cause. I suppose we’ll have to wait until morning to see the Commodore, and then maybe we’ll have a better sense of our predicament.”

“They won’t hang us.” It came out as a question.

“If they sentence us to death they’ll have to carry it out in Port Washington,” Scully said, a kernel of hope taking root.

“And if they don’t?”

Scully shrugged. “Maybe they’ll let us rot in here ‘til we either die or break out.”

“Stella could come for you,” Mulder said, his expression absolutely unreadable. 

Scully replied, “she would. Not immediately, but she will. Mortal, she’ll have to go about it carefully.”

“And you’ll go be a pirate.” There was something wistful in Mulder’s voice—a grief she hadn’t noticed before. She recalled their earlier conversation, and his insistence that he’d go off searching for something else, whatever that was. She hadn’t given it a second thought beyond excitement for him; Mulder was always chasing some nebulous legend or another, and he’d never be satisfied with the answers he found. There’d been a momentary pause in the conversation, as they mourned an era of their lives largely spent together coming to an end. Now, though, Scully studied his expression, his stiff arms, his eyes that had always twinkled with unwavering faith. And she realized, for the first time, that Mulder loved her. 

The force of this knowledge hit her like a cannonball to the chest. Mulder loved her, had quite possibly loved her for years, and he’d contented himself with long days and nights spent poring together over research. He’d chosen the intimacy of a shared quest over the possibility of losing her. He’d made a calculated choice, and Scully noticed with a stab of heartache that it hadn’t been the wrong one. Oh, Mulder. 

Mulder had been taken, and Scully had absconded to his rescue and fallen in love with a pirate. And Mulder… he’d just dabbed whiskey over her eye socket and promised her it would be okay. She wanted to hold him and tell him the same tonight, that they’d be all right; they’d get out of here, and their lives would be right again. But the best possible ending for Scully wasn’t the same as for Mulder. In her best possible ending, she sailed with Stella into the horizon. She parted from Mulder, at least in some ways. She’d offered Mulder a place on that ship, but he was right—he could never take her up on it. 

The truth was, Scully loved Mulder. She loved him fiercely enough to cross an ocean. She also knew she couldn’t love Mulder the way he wanted her to, and that alone necessitated their parting. It tore her up inside. She curled into a ball next to Mulder, their arms brushing in a reassurance the other’s body was still alive. 

They passed the night like this, curling against the back wall and shivering occasionally. They slept with their backs together, but were woken at intervals by the scrabbling of rat feet on a dank floor. They hadn’t been given a chamber pot, and they took turns relieving themselves through the bars, in the empty adjacent cell. It was, she decided without question, worse than a brig. She missed the ship’s gentle rocking, and the sound of waves lapping on wood. At least the brig moved. The jail was stagnant. Without windows, she couldn’t tell the time, but she spent what felt like hours staring at the ceiling, pretending the specks of mold were stars. 

The Dutchman will always come back for you, Stella had promised. Scully believed her. She was repeating this mantra in her head when the basement door opened, and Captain Burns walked into the room, flanked by two soldiers and followed by a familiar face. 

“Commodore, we apprehended them at the port-side spring. You’ve seen the documents for their arrest, and you’ll see their faces match the descriptions given by the port authority.”

Commodore Skinner gazed at them expressionlessly. His bald head was covered by a wig, and he wore a fitting uniform that Scully had never seen on him before. His eyes darted between Mulder, Scully, and the parchment in his hands. He seemed to read it over a couple of times before turning to Burns and offering his hand. 

“Excellent work, Captain. You’ve apprehended two dangerous pirates. I’ll take things from here.”

Scully pressed her lips together, avoiding Skinner’s eyes. Mulder, to his credit, said absolutely nothing. 

Captain Burns shook Skinner’s hand, but his brow furrowed. “And the reward for their capture?”

“Of course.” Skinner handed him what appeared to be letter with the official stamp of the king. “Good for the stated amount in any English port. You’ll see it’s signed and dated. I unfortunately lack the authority and means in Tortuga to give you the gold myself, but you’ll find that a larger, more equipped settlement such as London or Port Washington will have no trouble ensuring your payment.

Burns squinted at the document for a few seconds, as if checking it for tricks or loopholes, then gave another one of those long-suffering sighs and tucked it away. “Thank you, Commodore. I understand you’re making for Port Washington this morning?”

“I am, Captain.” The title caused Burns to perk a bit. “Our vessel departs in an hour, though,” Skinner laughs and scratches his forehead, “they can’t right leave without me.”

“Well, I’ve good information the Flying Dutchman has made port in Tortuga. Its capture would be most beneficial to Her Majesty’s Navy.”

Skinner raised his eyebrows. “The Flying Dutchman? Why, Burns, you ought to know better as a seaman yourself. That’s nothing more than a children’s tale.”

Although Burns appeared sufficiently cowed, he risked a glare at Scully. She didn’t take the bait. “Only a rumor,” Burns assured him. “Although my source has been highly reliable in the past.”

“A reliable man can believe in all sorts of fantasies,” Skinner said mildly. “Now I’ve got to hurry here. And you ought to rejoin your men.”

Finally, finally, Burns trotted up the stairs. As soon as his footsteps had disappeared, Skinner approached the bars. Scully hurried to speak with him, and Mulder got to his feet behind her. 

“Miss Scully, I’ll not deny I thought you were dead,” he whispered, clearly relieved. “Mulder, too.”

Mulder stared at him as if he were an apparition. “Sir, what are you doing in Tortuga?”

“I had a feeling Admiral Spender was up to something, and I sent a few men to investigate. Wouldn’t you know it, he sent me to check on the outpost here,” Skinner admitted. “No doubt keeping me on the fringes of his machinations.” He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and began to try them in the lock. “I hear he’s dead, and you two were involved. Care to enlighten me?”

“He’d enlisted Paul Spector to help him find Davy Jones’ heart,” said Mulder. They explain the rest in bits and pieces, leaving out the particularly gritty details as Skinner—still in his wig and uniform—broke them out of jail. Scully said little about Stella, and Mulder followed her lead, only mentioning that Davy Jones was real pirate, and the title had passed from man to man. 

Skinner cuffed them loosely once they’d had a chance to collect themselves. They had to appear as prisoners, he explained, or else he wouldn’t be able to bring them safely to Port Washington. Once aboard, they could dress as passengers, assuming false names until they made berth. Their arrest records, unfortunately, could be neither destroyed nor expunged without a pardon from the crown. Skinner’s was not the only copy; a second had been drawn up and left in England, in case they crossed the Atlantic. 

“While I’m grateful you’re both alive, I must urge you to be careful. And heed my words, as this may be the last time I address you both by name—Mister Mulder, you can likely plead your case at Port Washington now that word of Spender’s death has traveled. I suspect the survivors of the incident would not hesitate to sully his good name if they were promised a respectable sum for doing so. Miss Scully, I fear we may not meet again after this journey. To do so would amount to treason. Are we understood?”

They nodded and shook his hand. 

*  *  *

Skinner led them toward the port accompanied by a guard of ten men. Ten were necessary, Skinner explained, to stave off the rowdy port crowd. Skinner’s ship was not marked as Navy for the same reason, instead docked as a simple merchant ship. No one would recognize or suspect it until the sailors began to board. They walked with bags over their heads, tied to ensure they couldn’t wriggle free. Theoretically this move prevent them from running off, but it also meant the sailors wouldn’t recognize their faces once they’d set sail. 

Just outside Davy Jones’ Locker—the very pub where Scully had met Dani—they staged their escape. A crowd had begun to gather, and occasionally someone threw a rotten fruit or a stone at them as they walked. In the chaos, Scully broke free of formation and ran into a group of onlookers. Mulder broke in the other direction, and Skinner could be heard shouting after them! as they ran. Scully wound through people and stands, making a full circle around the pub before she darted inside, panting. She only had a few minutes before they’d rendezvous with Skinner at the ship. He’d delay his men on a wild goose chase; meanwhile Mulder and Scully would wash and change into more respectable clothes.

Still catching her breath, she scanned the pub for Stella. A few blonde heads milled about the morning crowd, but she recognized none of them. She turned toward the bar, hoping to find Dani, but instead the young man called Anderson was washing glasses with a rag. A newcomer filled pints beside him for sallow-looking men who had probably been there all night. 

Scully caught Anderson’s eye and rushed over. “You seen Dani?” she demanded.

Anderson shot her a suspicious look. “The Captain came back,” he said brusquely, angling his eyes toward the newcomer. “She and Dani are going over charts. I thought you would know that, seeing as you’re traveling with her.”

Scully slapped two coins and a piece of parchment on the bar-top. “Give this to Dani, and tell her to give it to… the Captain.” Stella, she’d almost said, but apparently that wasn’t the right answer anymore. 

“Normally, I wouldn’t ask the contents of a letter like that,” he started, “but you and I both know our Captain is in a more vulnerable position now. So what is your aim here, Miss Scully?”

“Bloody pirates,” she muttered. So damned suspicious. She wondered if Stella had come by, searching for her. She wondered if Stella had entertained the possibility that Scully and Mulder had run off together. They’d left three half-filled water barrels behind. 

“Burns is here,” she explained in a low voice, hoping he’d understand. “He kidnapped me at the spring, and my only out is going back to Port Washington. This letter says that, and also some things you probably don’t want to read. She said she’d come for me, so if she meant that she’ll know where to find me.” She left out the Dutchman and Mulder’s name. Better not leave those details to chance and gossip. 

For a moment, Anderson simply stared at the letter as if it might bite him. Then he tucked it into his pocket. “I’ll see she receives it,” he said simply.

Scully squared her shoulders and replied, “you damn well better,” before marching out the door. 

She snaked through back alleys and winding, filthy streets toward Skinner’s ship. In the distance, she heard a soldier shout something, and veered an extra block in the opposite direction. Once in awhile, she had to stop and get her bearings in the narrow streets, feeling for a trusty ocean breeze. She still searched for a glimpse of Stella every time she passed by a group of people. As she approached the port, she allowed herself to slow just a bit, hoping against hope she’d spy Stella’s face in a sea of travelers.

When she arrived, Mulder and Skinner were already waiting for her. Both of them were red-faced and puffing, so her detour obviously hadn’t delayed them too long. Skinner led them to the Captain’s quarters, which were brighter and less feminine than Stella’s. He handed them bundles of civilian clothes and ordered them to change quickly. 

When Scully stepped into that tub of water, she thought she might melt. She hadn’t bathed in fresh water since she left Port Washington, instead swimming in the Caribbean Sea and allowing salt to crust her skin. A splash of water here and there had protected her face and intimates, but water had been a precious resource, and drinking more important than bathing. She scrubbed her hair and scratched the dirt off her face. She removed her make-shift eye patch, slowly peeling the leather away where it had stuck to her skin. The initial searing pain of the wound had faded to a dull ache, and she risked touching the scab to feel how it’d healed over. Harsh, crusty skin beneath her fingertips made her cringe, but it was at least an improvement upon the last time she checked.

Stepping out of the bath, she was instantly struck by how tan she’d become. Her chest had grown freckled in the sun, and her arms had muscled from fighting lessons and, more recently, hauling sails. She put on her chemise, then her corsetry, then the overskirts. While her clothes had never suffocated, and indeed she’d worn them comfortably for years, she felt unexpectedly restricted by layers of ladies’ dress. It didn’t help that the chemise was a tad small and the overskirt a bit too wide, such that she had to tuck it slightly into other layers. 

She combed her shorn hair, noticing for the first time its choppiness. She even took a pair of shears quickly to the ends to try and even it out. Too bad—if anyone asked, she’d tell them she burned it on a newfangled stove. 

When she emerged, she tucked her arm into Mulder’s as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Laura Petrie,” she’d call herself to the crew, and this was her husband, Robert. They were merchants seeking new prospects in Port Washington, but after a frightening run-in with smugglers and pirates had found themselves in Tortuga instead, with only the clothes on their backs and few coins to buy passage. Despite their rotten luck, they were determined to make a new life for themselves and were immensely grateful to the Navy for allowing them to travel as passengers aboard Her Majesty’s ship. 

Mulder glanced down at her, eyes full of hope. “Ready to go home?” he asked.

Port Washington wasn’t the end of her journey. She knew that one day she’d see Stella’s sails crest the horizon, and she’d climb aboard the Dutchman as a living ship. But that didn’t forbid her from calling Port Washington “home.” The city had raised her; her mother, God willing, would live there for many years to come. And the house on the hill would stand watch, awaiting her safe return.