Breathe

"Wesley," a disembodied voice echoed around him. It felt so familiar. Warm. Feminine.

"Yes, ma?" his own voice responded tiredly, but it wasn't him that spoke the words. Well, not exactly.

A familiar scene unfolded around him. He recognized the space as his childhood home, and as he looked upon his mother, roughly the same age as he was now, he knew it was a memory.

She laid upon the singular cot in their small, one roomed abode. Her skin was pale and glistening with sweat. At first, he wondered if she was ill, but when he saw a younger version of himself, just a boy really, sitting in a chair beside her with an infant baby girl swaddled in his arms, he realized she was recovering from childbirth.

"You don't have to keep holding her, honey. You need to sleep, too."

Wesley's younger self simply shook his head, gazing fondly down at his little sister. His expression fell a little as he turned his gaze to his mother.

"She's having trouble breathing again," his younger self informed her, returning his gaze to watch the child as she slept. Wesley remembered that at the time, he had thought that if he kept watching the rise and fall of her little chest, it wouldn't stop. That he could somehow will her to keep breathing through the night. She was so small, so fragile, and all he wanted was to protect her. "Is she sick?"

Wesley's mother didn't know the answer, but she did her best to explain what she knew to her eldest child.

"Some children are born before they're ready to be," she said in a soft, motherly tone. "Your sister wanted to see the world before it was her time to. Before this morning, she was in a safe, warm, protected place, but now she is in our world and there is nothing to protect her from the cold and the dangers we cannot see."

"I'll protect her," young Wesley said, cradling her close.

His mother smiled softly. "I'm sure you will," she said, "but she has to protect herself first. If she is strong enough, she will survive."

"But she's so small," he said.

"Being small doesn't mean you're weak."

Young Wesley was silent as he let her words sink in. After a while of contemplation, he asked, "What's her name?"

"I haven't given her one yet," his mother said.

"Why not?"

"If she survives the first few days, then I will name her."

"Why wait that long?"

Wesley's mother's lips pressed together, but she answered him regardless. "Because her death would be hard enough without getting more attached."

Wesley didn't like that way of thinking.

"That's stupid," he said, wrinkling his nose a bit in distaste. She had made it this far and that was a feat in and of itself. Wesley knew his mother had had a stillborn son a few years before he was born. It was sad to think about, but not an uncommon occurrence. Children were precious and sometimes the gods needed them back before they had really begun to live. He figured she at least deserved a name.

"Well," his mother said, "What would you name her, then?"

Young Wesley thought about it as he looked down at the girl's peaceful face. Though he couldn't see them at the moment, he knew she had bright blue eyes, similar to his own, though his had darkened over time. He had no way of knowing whether her eyes would stay blue like their father's or turn honey brown like their mother's, but he quite liked them the way they were. It was like looking at the sky, or the ocean.

"What about Waverly?" he asked his mother without taking his eyes off of his sister. "Like ocean waves."

She hummed in thought for a moment before saying, "I like it."

The boy smiled softly at her response.

"Waverly Roberts."

----+------+----

Wesley wasn't sure exactly what triggered the odd flashback, but he suspected it had something to do with the grave dirt he was shoveling into the hole he had created just hours earlier. He hadn't buried his sister, since she had passed from her illnesses while he was away working on a merchant vessel in the middle of the ocean, but he had buried his mother. Now, as he was covering the remains of a man he never knew, thoughts of them resurfaced. Valentine crossed his thoughts too.

He had so many doubts. So many questions.

But he could not ask them.

Andromeda pored over one of her leather bound tomes as he worked. She was muttering in a guttural language he could not understand nor identify. It had roots in something familiar to him, but he could not place it. He wasn't sure how Andromeda knew it, nor of how she could read it. Most women weren't taught to read, and Wesley would've expected literacy to be even more uncommon in a siren woman. Hells, he only learned to read when he started rising in ranks on the ships he found work on. It was one of the skills that had helped him rise to his position as captain of the Queen Adelaide.

Wesley continued shoveling, mindful not to disturb the candles Andromeda had set out earlier. The sight of them rooted him even more firmly to the present and caused an uneasy feeling to rise in his gut.

How had it come to this? When had he gotten to the point where he would willingly help a witch perform a magical ritual to bring a less than savory man back from the dead?

Shivers crawled across Wesley's skin as his mind unhelpfully recalled the sounds of the bone key grinding wetly against the bone of the corpse as he twisted it thrice before abandoning it to drown in a sea of loose earth. The repetitive chants leaving Andromeda's lips only added to the eerie ambiance, which was not at all helping Wesley's nerves.

Everything about what they were doing was unnatural, but despite his instincts screaming at him to run, Wesley stayed focused on his task.

Before long, the grave was level. Andromeda stopped her recitations abruptly and everything went incredibly still. It was as if the entire night was holding its breath.

Wesley wanted to ask what was happening but he didn't dare break the silence. He feared that if he even twitched the resurrection would fail and all of their hard work and hope would be for naught.

"Call to him," Andromeda's voice made him flinch. When he didn't take action immediately, annoyed lavender irises snapped to him and urgently continued, "Something's wrong, Wesley. He's lost. Call his name!"

"Val?" he tried, but it was barely audible. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Valentine."

Wesley gripped the wooden handle of his spade as if it was his lifeline. He was sure his knuckles were turning white but he could not look away from the loosened earth.

"Val, if you can hear me come toward my voice."

When he was met by only silence, Wesley felt fear circling his heart like a hand made of ice. What if it didn't work?

"I need you, Val. Please. Come back to shore." His voice became thicker with every word. With frustrated tears growing in his eyes he turned to Andromeda and asked, "Is something supposed to be happening?"

No sooner than the words had left his lips, something did happen. As if a mighty gust of wind had rained down from directly above them, all of the candle flames bent away from the grave and went out with an audible flutter. Except there was no wind. Not even a breeze.

Wesley's eyes were wide as he stared at the grave. Had he not seen Valentine use magic before, he would have never believed what he was seeing now was real. Even still, his mind stuttered, as if slipping down a steep slope of loose stones, and struggled to find solid footing.

It was only when a soft thud sounded beside him that he snapped out of his trance. Wesley whipped his head to the side only to find that Andromeda had collapsed. He swore under his breath and rushed to her side.

Kneeling beside her, Wesley's breath was stolen from his body. It was clear to him now that this magic came with a price. Andromeda, her breathing shallow and her body frail, had appeared to age decades in mere seconds. Her once short ebony curls had grown down to her hips and were now as silver as the moon that watched over her. It was a stark contrast to the ashen brown of her skin which had thinned and folded noticeably as wrinkles on her face.

"Andromeda?" he asked, lightly slapping her cheeks to see if she would wake up. She hadn't said anything about this. What was he supposed to do?

She coughed weakly all of a sudden. Except no. It wasn't her. She hadn't moved and the sound had come from behind him.

Wesley whirled around and immediately fell back as he stumbled away from the grave. A pair of arms had clawed their way free from the earth, and a messy dark head of hair wasn't far behind them. The figure wheezed again before slumping against the ground in exhaustion. Wesley recovered from his shock surprisingly quickly and crawled forward to finish unearthing them.

He scooped dirt away with his hands. He couldn't see the man's face, since it was covered with his hair and resting against the dirt, but he had a feeling it was him. Even though the malnourished limbs and sickly pale skin weren't exactly recognizable as a fearsome pirate captain, it wasn't enough to dissuade the racing of his heart and the wholeness he hadn't felt since the day Valentine left the island.

After digging enough to get a good hold on the man, Wesley wrapped his arms around his torso and hauled him free from the earth. Luckily, he came up fairly easily, and the next thing Wesley knew, there was a man on top of him.

He quickly sat up, holding him so that his back draped across his lap and his head rested against his shoulder. With his free arm, he brushed back long strands of messy black hair to reveal a beautifully familiar face.

Relieved tears ran down the merchant's cheeks, and he was caught off guard when a weak hand reached up to feel them.

"Wes," Valentine breathed before Wesley watched another pair of lavender eyes disappear from his view.

"I'm here," he said, but Valentine was already unconscious.

----+------+----

A/N

IT'S HAPPENING CHILDREN!!! VAL HAS BEEN INVITED BACK INTO THE GROUPCHAT!!!

What's your favorite beverage?

See you Wednesday,

-Mora Montgomery