it was after guarma. after the wet air had clung to your lungs, after the heat had dried every last prayer from your tongue. after the dream of survival had turned thin. after hosea’s body was left behind like something from another time.

and something in you never settled again.

everyone carried grief like splinters under the skin, sharp and constant. but you were coming apart. not loudly, but with the quiet tearing of something sacred. you lashed out like an animal at an old wound, needing pain sharp enough to feel real. the camp whispered about your temper. some thought you’d lost it. others barely cared. with everything falling apart, what was one more crack.

but charles cared.

he saw it when micah spat his poison, words meant to cut, and you moved before thinking, like the insult had been carved into your own spine. no warning. no pause. just the crack of bone against fist. his nose broke. your hand broke. the thin thread holding you back snapped. you kept swinging. not for justice. not for pride. but for release.

it took two men to pull you off. you were shaking, breath coming wrong, mouth bloodied with someone else’s blood. you weren’t even there. not really. you were still on that cursed ship. on that island. at the gallows where hosea’s body fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

you hadn’t spoken since that night. you hadn’t cried. so now, you bled.

charles found you behind the wagons, hunched and raw, like something feral trying to crawl back into itself. he didn’t speak at first. just crouched low, steady, his presence too gentle for you to deserve. he took your ruined hands and began to clean them, slow, careful, like tending something sacred.

“don’t do that again,” he said quietly. not angry. not cold. just tired and afraid.

you said nothing. the silence between you pressed down, heavy with things too painful to name.

he rinsed the next scrape, thumb brushing your broken knuckle before wrapping it. “i get it,” he whispered. “i do. but this isn’t helping. it’s only hollowing you out.”

you stayed quiet. there was nothing left to say.

he worked in silence, his jaw tight, holding back everything he couldn’t let out. and then, soft and breaking:

“you protect everyone but yourself. and i don’t know how to save someone who doesn’t want saving.”

he knew what hosea was to you. even if the words were never said. child, heir, blood. it showed in the way hosea waited for you after jobs, eyes searching until you appeared. the similar tics and words and features.

you hadn’t been given time to mourn. no space. no chance. so you carved your sorrow into bruises, made your pain into something visible.

charles tied the last bandage with hands that trembled slightly. then he sat back and looked at you. not with pity. not with judgment. but with the quiet grief of someone realizing he might lose you too.

“stop throwing yourself away just to remember you’re alive,” he murmured, his voice breaking just the slightest bit. he cleared his throat.