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“Is it just me or was the grave marker a bit off?”
The wedding has wound down now, leaving the flatness that always follows a party, even a normal one, nevermind one that took place too soon after a funeral. Fuck the captains for being in such a hurry anyway, not as if Lucius and Pete needed their permission to fuck all over the ship.
“Yeah,” Fang agrees, voice heavy, “how’s Izzy—“ his voice breaks “— how’s Izzy going to walk now?”
“Don’t!” Jim hisses at Archie, cutting off an eye roll, moving round the table to put their arms around him. “You made him such a good leg, Fang.”
Fang tries a smile, but it’s a small, sad thing and it just makes Jim even sadder. “You all helped. He still needs it.”
“That’s what I’m saying. He needs it. Fuck it, I’m going to go give it back to him.” Jim’s exhausted, in the grips of an adrenaline crash, but they won’t be able to sleep with the vision of Izzy, stuck again, unable to move, while his beautiful leg weathers on the beach, its gold paint peeling, flaking off in the sun, his cravat rotting in the rain, his ring — his precious ring that he was so secretive about — falling into the sand, lost forever.
“You’re shit at rowing. I’ll come too. Give him back his leg.”
They’re moving quietly, getting a boat over the side, when Wee John’s voice comes out of the darkness. “You leaving? You said you would. Don’t you want to wait for morning?”
Jim is suddenly even wearier. “I don’t know man. I thought I would leave. Kind of sick of it all now, you know? So I might just stay here. Maybe we won’t get killed.” Maybe they would. Maybe it wouldn’t matter even if they were. “We are going to give Izzy back his leg.”
“He can’t walk without it,” Fang adds.
“Is there space in that boat for me?”
“It’s not that small— Oh! Yeah, of course, Wee John, you should come too.”
“I just need to go get something.”
Wee John goes off below while Jim and Fang finish getting the boat into the sea. Wee John comes back on deck with Frenchie in tow, clutching his guitar.
“He never got a chance to give us another song. I thought …” He trails off.
They all clamber down into the little boat and Fang takes up the oars. It’s not far to the beach. There’s a weak light in one of the windows of the shitty little cabin. Jim hopes Ed and Stede are too busy to look out and see what they are about to do.
When they reach the grave, the others hang back, but Jim falls to their knees and starts digging away the soft sandy dirt. Fang joins them, and together they scrape the dirt away, Fang’s tears fall openly, and then Jim is weeping too. They’d been too stunned when Izzy was laid in the ground. Too outraged at cruel fate.
“Fuck, Izzy,” they pant now, “a rotting leg couldn’t kill you, how could you let a bullet do it, man? Didn’t even let me try.”
They’d thought, after the leg, and Aunty, that maybe, just maybe, they were good at this. Raised to kill, good at saving lives. Wouldn’t be such a bad life, would it?
They’re getting tired, but they can’t stop now.
“Careful,” Fang says, voice thick. “He’s just there.”
Without noticing, they’ve dug all the way down. Jim’s fingers brush the leather of Izzy’s waistcoat, where the shroud has shifted.
They look up, at Frenchie and Wee John silhouetted against the starlight. John holding Izzy’s leg, gold paint gleaming faintly; Frenchie’s hand wrapped around the neck of his guitar. Jim realises that their free hands are clasped together.
Fang reaches up. “Give it here,” he says, “so I can give it back.”
John leans down, the leg extending into the pit.
And then he straightens. “No,” he says.
“No? What the fuck, man! You knew what we came to do, give it here,” Jim hisses at him.
“No,” John repeats. “I also have something for him, and I’m not getting in that hole. And neither should he be down there. Bring him up.”
“Yes!” Frenchie’s voice is vehement. He sets his guitar on the sand and kneels down. “He shouldn’t be buried in dirt.”
Fang bends, bracing himself against the side of the hole, and slides his arms under Izzy’s body. “Is this okay, Izzy? Am I crushing you?” he whispers. He straightens, Izzy held against his chest. “I’ve got you. Shhh, I’ve got you.” He raises him high, and lays him gently on the side of the hole.
Grasping Frenchie’s hands, they scramble up after him.
Wee John is on his knees in the dirt, fingers deftly passing Izzy’s cravat around his neck. “Give me the ring,” he says, and Frenchie passes it over.
“Don’t drop it!”
“Course I won’t fucking drop it!” He threads the ring into its place and tying the knot.
“Did he ever tell you whose that was?” Frenchie asks.
“Not me,” says John.
“Me either,” says Fang. “All these years, he never said. It was just always there, he never took it off.”
He kneels too, and reaches for Izzy’s leg, sliding it into place and fastening the straps. “There you are, Izzy.” His voice breaks, and he remains where he is, hand on the golden hoof. “There you are.”
Wee John is holding something else now. A little pot. “Guys,” he says, “I thought … I dunno … maybe a little more gold paint?”
Fang nods his head vigorously. “Make him beautiful.”
John dips a finger into the pot and rubs it delicately over Izzy’s closed eyelids. The gold shines in the darkness.
Frenchie has picked up his guitar again, and he strums a chord, hums a phrase. It’s the lovely French song. Jim’s throat is too thick to force any sound out, but in their mind, they sing along, just like they did when they were all a happy family, on the deck of the Revenge and Izzy sang for them. The same deck where he defied Blackbeard and saved them all.
No one speaks for a while after Frenchie lets the wordless song fade away.
They didn’t think this through, they only knew Izzy needed his leg.
Now they say: “Guys, we’re not putting him back in the dirt.”
“Of course not,” John agrees.
“You belong at sea, Izzy,” says Fang, and picks Izzy up once more. “Let’s take you home.”
*
Izzy’s body barely makes a splash when they slide it over the side of the little boat, far out in the sea, beyond the Revenge, weighed down with a big rock from the beach.
They watch as it drifts down, ring and leg and gold face paint gleaming through the water.