MAES 15: Savior
AN: I know several other fanfic writers have had a crack at this most common of missing scenes. In my opinion the_elb’s three-part fic, “These Dull Colors” is the best of them all. If you haven’t read it, check it out. Some fics say that the sword Jack threw away was his patriotic fund sword, yet he still has it in later books, so I think it was his usual saber he throws overboard. Also, I should warn you all that this is probably one of the sappiest, smarmiest things I’ve ever written, so be prepared for much gushiness. Hopefully it won’t seem too out of character for Stephen, but from what I’ve learned of the ways of victims recovering from torture, emotional outbursts are neither uncommon, nor even a bad thing. It’s keeping it all inside that’s indicative of more serious problems…
Savior
Stephen Maturin was dreaming again.
He knew he was dreaming, because surely none of this could be happening. He had told Jack, in his painfully written note, not to try and rescue him. He had said to try and warn Sir Joseph about the traitor, Griffiths, in the government. Above all, he had said that Jack must not attempt a rescue.
Perhaps he should have repeated his instructions to Maragall verbally. The message had been written in charcoal and had probably smudged by the time it reached Jack. Even if it hadn’t his hand was not exactly clear.
Yet this dream, this marvelous dream of Jack coming to his rescue after all, of Dutourd flinging himself from the window to escape Jack’s vengeance, seemed more real than the other, earlier ones had been. He certainly spoke to this vision of Jack as though it was real, talking to him urgently about what must be done. He had planned for this moment of improbable rescue, and shaped his own delusions accordingly. But this dream went on, continued past the point of rescue, and included Jack and some other men carrying him down to a boat on a stretcher. He could have sworn, almost, that the sharp tang of salt air was real.
The rocking of the vessel seemed real, too. Almost like a cradle in its effects. He let himself sink into sleep, certain that when he woke from this dream, as he had all the others, that Dutourd would be back, that his dream of Jack would disappear like mist burned away by the sun’s rays and he would face yet another day.
Before his senses left him entirely, he whispered in his mind to the vision hovering at his bedside, looking at him with unspeakable sadness and regret.
I had the most wonderful dream last night, Jack. You came, and you saved me from the pain, and I was never so happy…Jack…
0~0
“Captain.”
Jack Aubrey jerked upright in response to Mr. Floris’s voice. The ship’s official surgeon had been with Doctor Maturin in the great cabin since Jack had brought him back aboard. Part of Jack had wanted to stay with his friend, to not let him out of his sight, but Floris had insisted that he and his assistants alone should tend to Stephen, and Jack, secretly relieved that he would not have to witness his friend’s body being tended to, had left without protest.
It had been bad enough seeing Stephen stretched out on that…that…machine without seeing the full extent of what his weeks of torture had reduced him to. Listening to Floris’s report would be bad enough. And the surgeon would report to him, he knew. Floris may have all the respect for a patient’s privacy that was necessary for a trustworthy doctor, but this was a special case. Stephen’s recovery would take months, if not longer, and they were both due to leave the ship in days. Jack had not the means to hire another physician, and Stephen would likely be incapable of tending to himself for a long time. He would need someone with him who was aware of the extent of his injuries, and so be able to tend to them. In this case, Jack knew he was the best option.
Floris removed his bloody apron and handed it to a ship’s boy, who took it and scurried off. “Dear God,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “The things we do to our fellow man…”
“How bad are his injuries?” Jack asked in a tight voice. Stephen had been very bloody, and Jack knew that blood spread around like that often made wounds look worse than they were. All things considered, it was a foolish hope, he knew, but he clung to it.
“Very bad, but that’s only to be expected. I’ve put right what I can, but it will be a long time before he is completely healed, if that’s even possible in some respects.” He looked sharply at Jack, as though weighing him up.
“Go on, sir. If he could survive it, I’m sure I can manage listening to it. Indeed, I must, since he will be in my care for some time.”
Floris nodded. “Very well.” He took a paper from his pocket and began reading.
As Jack listened to the litany of injuries and what must be done to tend to them, he felt a white-hot anger swallowing his heart. He had personally killed very few men on this mission, but at this moment he wished there were a hundred more to kill.
0~0
Stephen came back to awareness slowly, and almost immediately noticed discrepancies between what he had expected to find upon waking, and what actually seemed to be. There was no uncomfortable wood beneath his stripped body, no whistling Poitier in the next room, no smell of his own blood and vomit scenting the air around him, no scratching from Dutourd’s pen as he wrote to his master that Stephen was still resisting their best efforts to make him speak.
No, this was different. This was the familiar rocking of a ship on the waves, the feel of a hammock supporting his limp, pain-filled body, the faint scent of laudanum and its flavor on his tongue, and a quite recognizable snoring coming from his immediate right, toward the windows that let in early morning light.
As recognition spawned hope, and hope became certainty, his breath began coming faster. He felt a prickling sensation at the corners of his eyes, and before he even realized what was happening, hot tears were flowing down the sides of his face. He gasped as almost silent sobs overtook him, squeezing his eyes shut, telling himself that no, it couldn’t be. His captors had finally pushed him past the point of sanity, and this reality was not what it seemed to be. He had not been rescued, he was not aboard the Lively, and Jack was not in the next hammock over, fast asleep and snoring in his usual manner. This could not be real.
But it was.
All his experience of dreams had taught him how foolish it was to hope. His greatest dreams had either ended in disaster, or had never been fully realized. His vision for the Revolution first of all, falling into a state of affairs worse than the one the so-called ‘citizens’ had been trying to end. His desire to marry dear Mona, destroyed by her death. His plan to become a doctor, and help people…had been made real, because of the man not three feet away from him. The man whose presence convinced Stephen that he had made Stephen’s most recent dreams of rescue come true, as well as the other.
From the first day they had met, Jack Aubrey had been his savior. He had, quite unwittingly, rescued Stephen from a purposeless life in Minorca by offering him honest work on board his sloop. Over the years they had now known each other, his friendship had been an incomparable balm to Stephen’s world-weary, jaded soul. True, they had had their disagreements, but they had come through them and both been made the stronger for it.
And now, Jack had saved him again. Rescued him from the hellhole that Stephen thought he would never leave alive.
That, he supposed, was why he was weeping now. In all his life, he could never remember being that important to anyone. Perhaps his godfather might have risked his life to save Stephen’s, but if so, he’d never had to. Jack had not only been granted the opportunity, he had taken it. Perhaps the writing on his message had been smudged so badly that Jack had not been able to tell it was a demand that he not attempt a rescue. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered either way.
Although everyone called him Jack, Stephen knew his real name was John. No-one, not even Mrs. Pearce or Queenie had ever called him by his birth name in Stephen’s hearing. Yet, Stephen had long found it fitting: John was a Hebrew name which meant ‘God is gracious.’ And all his life, Stephen had longed for, wished for - indeed, prayed for - and dreamed of a friend as close as this, and although he had made many friends in the years of wilder youth, none of them could be called permanent. He had lost touch with most of them, and although he was reasonably certain that if he ever happened to meet any of them again, they would be as easy together as ever they had been, he also knew that being separated from them did not affect him greatly.
In that sense, Jack was entirely different. Not only did Stephen feel a great sense of relief and even pleasure in his heart whenever he and Jack were reunited after any time apart, not only did Jack’s own pleasure in his - he knew - often difficult company seem wholly genuine, but his was also the face Stephen had seen most often when his tormentors had done their best to wrest his secrets from him. He was the one Stephen had always dreamed of coming to his rescue, when he had dared to entertain such ideas at all. He was the one person Stephen had prayed to see at least once more before he died, if his captors succeeded. Jack Aubrey was the only person Stephen Maturin had ever dared to pray for, in any sense, even before he’d known just what he was asking God for.
That prayer for a friend to help him had been answered. Twice. By the same man.
God in his mercy grants our heart’s prayers. He gave me this friend, who has given my life meaning. And he gave me this savior, to raise me up out of the pit where my enemies had cast me.
He smiled through his tears. The feeling of relief that he knew so well from those other times he had been returned to Jack’s side was glowing in his heart again, strengthened. Perhaps it was because of the pain and despair of these last weeks that it seemed to be as powerful as it was, but if so, Stephen didn’t care, for it was this feeling that convinced him even more than what his other senses were telling him that this, right now, was real. He had been rescued; Jack had saved him, and as he always did when he knew Jack was nearby, he felt perfectly safe.
Such a feeling of safety could never be imagined, only felt when it was real. This was real. This was no dream. His own personal savior had rescued him again.
The ship’s bell sounded, breaking his reverie. In his own cot, Jack’s snoring abruptly stopped and he groaned, mumbling to himself as he sat up and looked blearily around the cabin. His eyes rested on Stephen, and he seemed startled for a moment, but then leapt up, saying in a worried whisper, “Stephen! How long have you been awake? Floris said he gave you enough laudanum to keep you asleep for most of the day, and I confess I was glad to hear it. How do you feel? Can I bring you anything? Some water, perhaps?”
Stephen opened his mouth to reply in the negative, but realized his throat was in fact too dry to speak. Jack seemed to realize this, for he fetched a decanter of water and quickly poured a glass, sliding his hand behind Stephen’s head to raise it from the pillows and allow his friend to drink without choking.
Stephen tried to ignore the pain in his skull at Jack’s touch. The water flowed down smoothly, irrigating his throat as thoroughly as spring rain after a drought. He drank all the glass contained and looked earnestly at the decanter. Jack poured another glass and Stephen drank it more slowly than the first.
Now that he could speak, he had no idea what to say. He knew what he wanted to say: gratitude, demands for an explanation, curses for even considering such a hare-brained thing, asking where they were now, what was going to happen. But, taking in that familiar form, his mind noted a discrepancy and, seizing on it, he asked, “Where is your sword?”
Jack’s hand went to his empty scabbard. “Oh, that. I, ah, don’t have it anymore.” He looked away, seeming embarrassed.
“Did you lose it?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Then, what, exactly?”
Stephen knew the value Jack placed on his non-regulation cavalry saber. He had once asked Jack why he did not use the Navy’s lion-headed swords, issued to all officers of Jack’s rank. Jack had replied that since he had reached his adult size, most blades seemed too small to him; undersized and incorrectly balanced to suit him. Cavalry sabers, being designed to reach an enemy from horseback, were longer and slightly heavier than most swords, and Jack had found the style suited him perfectly. Stephen had to admit it was a good match of man to weapon: with Jack’s unusually long arms and longer blade, he could easily attack a man without coming into his opponent’s range, most of the time. This meant a smaller chance of Jack being injured in a battle, and Stephen was all in favor of that.
His current saber (he had gone through several, over the years) was particularly precious to him. He had gotten it just before the Nile, and it had seen him through that action, as well as the ones following. He had worn it when he had been read in as captain to the Sophie. He had given it up in surrender to Christy-Palliere when his sloop had been taken. It had been restored to him after two court martials. With it, he had boarded the Fanciulla. With it, he had boarded and taken the Cacafuego.
Jack’s reply, therefore, stunned him. “I threw it overboard. Last night, when Mr. Floris was tending to you. I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.”
Stephen felt his throat tighten. He suspected why that was, and it both touched and embarrassed him. “You truly are the most romantic creature, my dear. How on earth shall you replace it?”
“There are other such swords, you know. I could easily find one once we reach land. Perhaps I’ll get something fancier; a gold-plated hilt perhaps?”
His light, jovial tone reminded Stephen of something Jack did not, could not know yet. He closed his eyes and tried to find the strength he would need to hurt Jack. He could not find it. He felt miserably selfish in his unwillingness to blight Jack’s natural cheer with bad news, delaying the inevitable merely so he might bask in the sight of his friends’ happiness and hope a little longer. No, he must do what he could to repay the debt he owed Jack, by not letting him go on any longer in hopes that could not be realized.
A blighted gift, indeed. He thought bitterly. He saves my life, and my idea of repaying him is by telling him that he is not rich, as he thought he was. That mere political jobbery has robbed him of his rightful dues, and that he cannot marry the young woman he loves. But allowing him to go on believing until the news reaches him from another source is no kinder; my silence will not change anything, merely delay the executioner’s blow.
“Jack, there is something I must tell you-”
“Is it bad news?”
Stephen swallowed painfully. “I’m afraid so, my dear, for you see-”
“Stephen,” Jack said gently, “I beg you, if it is not pressing news, nothing that can be dealt with now, I beg you, leave it be for a while yet. I would not have this morning shadowed by anything.” He traced the dried tracks of salt on Stephen’s cheeks with his fingertips, pressing so gently Stephen felt no pain. “Can you not let me enjoy your presence? Can I not glory in the sight of you here with me, alive and safe, if not entirely well yet? My heart has been in greatest terror for you since Maragall brought me your message. I scarcely expected that I would find you alive, and yet I did! You may think me a blackguard Stephen, but in spite of how I found you I do not think I have ever been so relieved in my life as I was when I realized you were yet breathing. I was so afraid I had lost you forever, you see, and-” His voice choked off abruptly, and he bent his head to rest on the rim of Stephen’s cot, overcome entirely.
In spite of the lightning bolts of pain that radiated from his fingertips to his shoulder at the slightest movement, Stephen lifted his hand and moved it to rest on the crown of Jack’s head, feeling the warmth and noting that the pain in his fingers lessened at the spreading heat.
“My dearest Jack,” he whispered, his voice unsteady. “No, not Jack. Not now, and not last night, either. John,” he said fervently as the tears started flowing again. “Oh, my dearest soul, how well your name suits you.”
Jack chuckled weakly. “You’re the first person in about twenty years who’s called me by my Christian name, you know. Mother always did, and I asked her once what my name meant, but she only smiled and didn’t tell me.”
“Do you not know, joy?” At Jack’s shaking head, he said, “I wonder if she knew what it meant, or if it was a lucky chance on her part to name you so aptly. It means ‘God is gracious’; in Hebrew, of all things. Though perhaps ‘Jonathan’ might have suited you even better: that name means ‘God has given’ or more accurately, ‘gift from God’ and you certainly were, to me at least. Indeed, you are still.” He smiled and stroked Jack’s hair as best he could. “You always have been, brother.”
Jack raised his head at that, and Stephen could dimly see the redness in his moist eyes. “I think you do me too much honor, Stephen. I only did what I had to.”
“You did not have to do any such thing, Jack. Indeed, I told you not to try.”
“Did you so? Your message was poorly written, and the charcoal had smudged so badly I could only make out a few words. Most of what I learned was from your friend.”
“Ah,” Stephen frowned, feeling vaguely disappointed. “So you did not know I was telling you to stay away, to not attempt to help me? Just so. I suspected as much. I should have written that message in ink, if there had been any about.”
Jack shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have come for you anyway.”
Stephen’s eyes darted to him sharply. The comment had been of the throwaway sort, Jack’s tone what Stephen would expect him to use when commenting on the weather. But the words…the words were perfectly sincere, and they brought the prickling back to his eyes. He felt himself teetering on the verge of - something that terrified him more than the sight of his tormentors arisen from the grave. Something he did not want to contemplate, let alone overtake him.
But it was no good: Jack had noted the stiffening of his face, the increased pace of his breathing, the way Stephen was suddenly looking anywhere but at him.
It was ironic, Stephen would decide later, that the one time we might have welcomed, even asked for, an embrace from another person was when he was in no fit state to receive it. Jack did the best he could, however, bending over Stephen in his cot and pressing his unshaven cheek to Stephen’s own. He held Stephen’s bandaged head in his hands and whispered directly into his ear, “Do you hear me Stephen? It wouldn’t have mattered if you or anyone else had told me to stay away. I’d have defied anyone, broken any rules or promises, stormed that house single-handedly if I’d had to, if it meant I could save your life. I’ll always come for you Stephen, as long as you need my help, I’ll come to you. Please believe that.”
“I do,” Stephen gasped, making no pretense of hiding his tears. “I do, Jack. I always did. Even when all my reason told me that I would never see you again, I kept seeing you in my dreams, imagining you had come to save me. I think my heart was trying to tell me what my head insisted was impossible, that you would come for me if I could but hold on.” With great difficulty, and a good deal of pain, he raised his arms to cross over the back of Jack’s neck and shoulders, holding his treasure as best he could. “My dearest friend; my heart’s consolation. I always knew you would rescue me. You always have. Do you have any idea what you mean to me? Ever since that first…” he could not speak any more, nor did he have to.
With greatest care, Jack eased his own arms behind Stephen’s back, embracing his battered body as much as he dared. In spite of his care it hurt, but Stephen considered it a fair exchange for the warmth and sense of perfect peace he found in Jack’s arms. How long we wept he knew not; later he would wonder why no-one had tried to disturb the captain in all that time, but then recollected that Killick, although an impossible man at times, was also loyal to Jack, and had a keen ear for the going’s on in the cabin. The steward had likely taken it upon himself to divert the cabin’s visitors for a time.
When he could finally regain some control of himself, the front of Jack’s shirt was a soggy mess, and Stephen was too exhausted to even feel embarrassed by it. All the pain and terror that he had kept carefully bottled inside while in the presence of his captors had been purged from him in the company of the one man on earth he would ever allow to see him brought so low. He knew without asking that Jack would never speak of this, unless Stephen raised the subject himself. Nor would Jack ask why at times Stephen had pressed his face to his chest and screamed himself hoarse, his cries of remembered and present agony muffled from other ears by Jack’s flesh. Nor would Stephen ever mention the inexpressible comfort he’d found when, his sobs lessening at last, he had pressed his ear over Jack’s heart, and the steady sound of it thumping strongly in his body was found to be more soothing to his troubled mind than any lullaby ever sung to a child.
When his last hiccups had stopped, and the weariness that follows such bouts had spread a welcome numbness through his body, Jack let go of him at last, laying him gently back on the pillow. If he had the strength to speak or even move, Stephen would have begged Jack to keep holding him until he really did fall asleep; the feeling of his warmth withdrawing almost made him start weeping again, but Jack only sat on his own cot, and clasped Stephen’s bandaged hand carefully between his own much larger ones.
In time, some of the words he had meant to say earlier found voice. “Thank you, Jack.” He said, looking directly into his eyes. In a way the words were too simple for conveying what he felt, and yet he knew Jack would understand. He had seen exactly what Stephen had been rescued from, and he would know that the lack of more eloquent phrases to express it did not mean a lack of gratitude.
“My, dear, I beg you will not mention it, that you will not thank me now or ever again for this. I saved you as much for my own sake as yours, you know. I do not know what I would have done, if I had lost you.”
“You say that as though you think it shameful to want me as a part of your life. I do not find it so. On the contrary, I cannot tell you what it means to me, to know I am that important to you. To think that I am so necessary to you.”
“What I feel toward you, Stephen, goes far beyond necessity, I think. It is like that, only stronger. But there is no justification in such cases, I believe. Only love. I do love you, you know.”
“Just so. It seems God does answer prayers.”
“Does he, so?”
“Yes. All my life I prayed for you, for one such as you. Even before I knew your name I wanted all that you are. I wanted one such as you in my life. You said I should not thank you, and so I won’t. But I shall thank God daily for his mercy in sending you to me. Now, before, and always.”