Can felt like he had just been punched in the face. Which was understandable, considering he just had been, but it wasn't only his nose that was aching something fierce, a tight and relentless pain coiling in his heart, the same that had been living there in various stages of grief for the last two years. Every agonising ounce of regret that he'd been trying so hard to bury rising straight to the surface, as the only woman he had ever truly loved collided back into his life for a painfully brief and beautiful moment, before walking away. Disappearing, once again, like a shadow into the night, like a whisper lost in the noise of conversation, swallowed by the darkness of the side alleys of Touson as he stared after her, too stunned to move.
---
Sanem felt the rain before she saw it. The darkness having hidden the heavy grey clouds that had been lurking overhead. Tiny splashes of cold falling gently against her face that seemed so out of place considering how temperate the evening had been so far, and how warm the tears felt as they trailed down her cheeks. Allowing only a few to escape before she brushed the trails away with the back of her hand, shaking her head to dislodge everything that her mind was clinging onto. The image of his face, smiling and shocked and so unfairly happy to see her. And those eyes. Eyes that were now nothing more than a painful reminder of everything she'd had to give up, and everything she'd been trying so hard to move on from.
She walked as fast as she could, the others scrambling to keep up behind as she followed the path back to her ship. Her home. Letting out a sigh as the familiar sight came into view, trying to ignore Ceycey's inebriated excitement over who they'd just run into, and Deren's pleas for him to 'shut the hell up'. Her lungs were almost aching when she heard the comforting creak of the Albatross' floorboards under her feet again.
Giving a brief glance to check everyone was on board. Sharing a nod to Osman who appeared to be sat half-way through a game of cards with his sister and Deniz, hunkered over a makeshift table formed from a plank of wood and two oak barrels. So they had stayed. She'd give herself time to process that later.
Osman frowned at the look on her face - which Sanem, naturally, could not see, but assumed looked justifiably startled and pale.
Deren shouted the orders so Sanem wouldn't have to. The ships heavy ropes untangling from the dock's cleats and allowing them to drift away. Deren gently caught her captains arm a moment after the sails were set loose and Sanem had made a beeline for her cabin.
"Are you alright?"
Sanem nodded. "Just get us out of here, okay?"
---
Once his heart had stilled and his mind had cleared, Can found his feet instinctively walking along the path she'd just disappeared down, his men following behind as they tried to keep pace.
Be still. Just be still and let me reach you, we've spent too long in this game. But the Albatross had already set sail by the time he had reached the harbour, as fast as he'd been walking, Sanem had been walking faster, and the brief minutes of shock had given her all the time she needed to slip away from him. Like trying to catch the feather of a dandelion with his bare hands, every move he made just pushed her further out of his reach.
He just wanted her back, to be able to talk to her, to explain what had happened. It was the same need that had been fueling every one of his decisions since the night he'd lost her. He just wanted to apologise. To say the words he'd been practising for the last two years, which were now just crumbling into 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry'. He didn't even care if she said it back.
He found his ship, though to call it 'his' was not entirely true. It was heavy and clunky despite its small size, and entirely unfamiliar, like stepping into somebody else's well-worn shoes. But it was all he had for now. The men stood as he entered, preparing the ship in the disorganised rush as their night-off abruptly ended with his shout of command.
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On The Wings Of An Albatross
Fanfiction"It was pure luck, really, that this hadn't happened sooner. Two years of keeping out of his reach had really been testing the limits of fate, and the sane voice inside her head kept telling her she would have to face him eventually. The world was b...
