Phantom

It was another quiet night on board the Silver Eagle. Rocked by the gentle toss and turn of the waves, Jerald slept peacefully.

Until a series of loud knocks sent his hands flying for his battleaxe.

His fingers had already closed around the hilt of the massive weapon before his mind fully caught up to the proceedings. With a groan, he heaved himself up into a sitting position, not quite letting go of the axe, but not immediately hurling it towards the door either. Everything was pitch black.

"Who goes?" he yelled, not caring if he inadvertently woke up everyone else on the ship.

"Edmund!" a male voice yelled back, slightly muffled through the thick, scarred wood of the door. "Open up, we've got trouble."

Jerald swept a hand down his face. Several possibilities ran through his mind, but he was too drowsy to give any of them more than a passing consideration. He might have acted with greater haste if he'd heard swords clashing abovedecks, a storm ravaging the ship, or something else that obviously needed immediate attention... but he heard nothing.

Dressed in the tattered shirt and shorts that served as his sleepwear, he got up and opened the door. Edmund the cabin boy was there, shifting from foot to foot in a manner that implied both impatience and anxiety.

"What'n the blazes is goin' on?" Jerald thundered.

Edmund didn't even flinch. "There's something wrong with the Captain," he said clearly. Jerald's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion.

"You gonna elaborate?" he asked. "Is he hurt? Sick? What's up, Edmund?"

"I don't know for sure. I was walking past his cabin and heard... noises."

"What kinda noises?"

"Groaning, mostly."

Jerald's first assumption was that Edmund had caught the captain in a... private moment. But that seemed unlikely. If Zach ever did anything of the sort (and Jerald was beginning to have doubts), he probably made great efforts to stay quiet.

"Groaning," he repeated, injecting a note of healthy disbelief into his voice. But if Edmund noticed, he was not dissauded.

"As if in pain," he clarified.

Now that was a bit more concerning. "Ya sure?" Jerald murmured.

"Ninety-five percent sure."

"OK." Jerald heaved out a long sigh, realising that he probably wasn't getting back to sleep for a while. A part of him considered brushing this off, trusting that Zach was fine and rolling back into bed, but he knew he wouldn't forgive himself if something turned out to be really wrong. Besides, Edmund wasn't a total idiot. If he was worried enough to knock on Jerald's door for help... Well, let's just say you don't wake a sleeping bear without good reason.

Dismissing the other man, he fumbled his way down the dark belowdecks corridor until he reached the door to Zach’s cabin. While the interior wasn’t much different to any of the other rooms down here, the door had been subtly decorated with a gold ring hanging from the knocker. Just a little personal touch to set Zach apart from his subordinates.

Jerald grasped it, then stilled. Leaning forwards, he put his ear close to the wood and listened intently for any sound.

All was silent for a while - long enough that he began to assume Edmund had been mistaken or playing a prank. Then, just before he pulled his head back, he heard a soft yet clearly painful groan on the other side of the door. He instinctively knew that the owner of that noise had fought hard not to let it escape, but failed.

He tightened his grip on the knocker and brought it down – firmly, three times.

All sound within the cabin ceased. Jerald could picture the captain freezing solid, then reaching for the nearest available weapon. He eased back from the door, just in case Zach decided to plunge his sword through it.

To his relief, it didn't happen. Instead, the door flew open, and he was met by the sight of a half-dressed and haggard Zach gripping a bare cutlass and staring back at him with wild eyes.

He slowly lifted his hands. "Relax, Cap'n. Just me," he said, deliberately keeping his tone low and soft. It wasn't as soothing as he'd hoped; whenever he tried to make his voice quiet, it came out sounding more like a growl.

Nonetheless, it had the desired effect. Zach lowered his blade, the fear in his eyes quickly giving way to suspicion and annoyance. "What the hell are you playing at, Second?! It's the middle of the night!" he barked.

Jerald let himself fall into a more casual stance, folding his massive body into the least imposing shape he could manage. What he was going to say, and how he was going to say it, hadn't been planned. It didn't matter; he knew Zach would rather he cut straight to the point. "Gotta talk real quick. Can I come in?"

Zach's impulse was probably to say no, but after a moment - during which he scanned Jerald and the surrounding corridor with deepening suspicion - he sighed and stepped back. "Get in. But this had better be important."

"Will be, Cap'n."

Unlike his own cabin, Zach's was illuminated by the flickering glow of a candle. It sat in a glass that had been fixed to the nightstand to prevent it from falling over when the ship rolled or pitched. Zach's bed was neatly made, but there were some light creases in the sheets as though he had been sitting on top of them before Jerald arrived. The whole place looked rather cosy.

But Jerald wasn't here to admire the room. As soon as the door shut behind them, he allowed himself to fully and openly inspect Zach, unsure what to expect.

In the orange light, Zach looked... well, rough. His hair was starting to come loose from its ponytail and he wasn't dressed for bed, though he'd stripped off his outer coat, scarf and boots. His blue eyes were as piercing as ever, but they were marred by dark circles underneath. His face looked drawn and his muscles were tense. Every now and again, a faint tremor ran through him, and that was perhaps what worried Jerald the most.

"Look, Cap'n, I'm gonna cut to the chase," he announced. "I'm worried about you. Just had someone banging on my door, telling me that you were hurt or somethin'. That’s what they seemed to think, anyway.”

Despite already looking like he was on the verge of a breakdown, Zach managed to tense even more at this.

"...I don't know what they thought, but it was clearly nothing of the sort," he said. His eyes were like chips of winter sky, and his voice reflected them. "You should know better than to assume that anything those brainless oafs say is in any way accurate."

Without bothering to ask permission, Jerald sat himself down on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, normally I'd agree with ya," he said, shrugging, "but I decided to check, just in case. And when I got outside your door, I heard it, Zachary. Noises. Groans of pain. Whatever you’d call ‘em."

Zach was staring him down - or trying to. Even with Jerald sitting on the bed, he was only slightly taller.

"Then you're just as brainless as the rest of them," he said, upper lip curling with furious scorn. "I was not making any noise.”

Jerald met his gaze and wasn't surprised when Zach started to look away after just a few seconds of contact. He already knew that he was right - he wasn't going to be fooled by Zach's attempts to gaslight him - but it was still grimly satisfying to see proof.

"Don't play around, Cap'n," he said quietly. "We both know, if you try, we're just gonna spend the night runnin' in circles with each other. I'm not gonna be fooled by that talk. Just tell me what's wrong."

Zach jerked forwards, his drawn blade flashing in the candlelight. Jerald had nowhere to run to - he'd put himself in a vulnerable position by sitting on the bed - but he knew he wasn't in any danger. Zach was mostly bark and no bite, defensive rather than aggressive, and despite having sharp steel a foot away from Jerald's face they both knew he wouldn't do anything.

"Nothing is wrong!" he snarled. "If you're too idiotic to understand a simple sentence--"

"Nah, that's not it. Maybe I'm stupid for thinking you'd actually listen to me, instead of actin' like a giant hermit crab as usual, but that's the only thing I'm stupid for." Jerald shifted his position, just slightly, and watched Zach flinch back as if expecting a hit. "C'mon, Zachary, quit making this difficult."

He wasn't in the best of moods himself, having been rudely jolted out of what was shaping up to be a very peaceful sleep, and now having to deal with Zach's obstinate nature because no-one else could. But he stayed calm. Allowing any frustration to seep through would just increase the likelihood of Zach clamming up. So he sat quietly, watched expectantly, and hoped desperately.

In the end, it was something unexpected that broke the stalemate.

Zach was just opening his mouth, probably to say something caustic again, when all of a sudden his face twisted - unmistakably with pain. He began to hunch over, a groan building in the back of his throat. When he dropped his sword in order to grab his right wrist with his hand, Jerald knew something was really wrong.

"Woah, woah, easy, Cap’n. Come here, sit down."

He was able to pull Zach down onto the bed with little resistance, which only worried him more. Keeping a cautionary hand on Zach's shoulder in case he did try to run away, he ran a critical, searching eye over the captain's slight figure. He couldn't see any injuries or bloodstains, though he would have been surprised if Zach had managed to acquire an injury, considering the last few days had been nothing but peaceful sailing.

However, he couldn't fail to notice the way Zach was gripping his right wrist - just below the stump of the old wound. He was wearing his hook prosthetic and Jerald couldn't see any signs of damage. He was baffled.

"Zachary," he murmured. "C'mon, you gotta tell me what's goin' on. You're kinda scaring me."

"...Hurts," Zach forced out. It was a mark of how much he was suffering that he hadn't even tried to evade the question.

"What hurts?"

"My hand."

Jerald slid his eyes back to the spot Zach was gripping.

"Hate to break it to ya, Zachary, but your hand's been missing for a couple o' years now."

"I know that, you... blithering idiot!" Zach snapped. "It’s just--" Whatever he'd been about to say next was promptly cut off as a wave of fresh pain rolled over him, so bad that his body began to curl inwards and the groan he'd been holding back was unwillingly wrenched from his throat. It was such a quiet sound, yet it tugged at Jerald's heartstrings.

"OK, never mind about explainin' now. What can I do, Cap'n? You got any painkillers, anything like that?" he asked.

Zach shook his head minutely. "They don't work for this. I just have to wait for it to pass."

"Well, that's rough..." Casting around for inspiration, Jerald moved his hand down from Zach’s shoulder to his back. Slowly at first, but with increasing confidence when he wasn't violently rebuffed, he began to rub the tense muscles there.

He wasn't sure if it really helped or if Zach was just in too much pain to bother stopping him, but at least it didn’t seem to worsen the situation. Harsh shadows and a slanting plane of candlelight danced over Zach's face, showing an expression drawn tight with barely-controlled agony. No more groans escaped him, but his breath was ragged, laboured, giving away everything he was feeling. His one remaining hand never loosened its vicelike grip on his wrist, as if he could lessen the pain with nothing but the pressure.

Then, after what Jerald felt sure was several minutes, his body eased.

It didn't happen straight away, but Jerald saw the pain leaving him bit by bit until the bowstring tension had given way to a faint trembling, and finally, stillness. He held back the urge to speak until Zach's breathing levelled out.

"The hell was that, Cap'n?" he rumbled.

Zach was beginning to uncoil himself. He looked even more tired than before, and there was, perhaps, a hint of embarrassment in his face. But that wasn't the important thing.

"Phantom pain," he said in a low voice. "It started a few weeks after I lost the hand."

Jerald vaguely remembered hearing the term before, but couldn't quite draw forth a definition from the back of his mind. "What exactly is that?"

"It's possible to feel pain in a part of the body that doesn't exist anymore."

Jerald felt his eyebrows go together. "How is that possible? There's nothing there to feel pain in, Zachary. That's kind of the whole point."

"I don't know!" Zach snapped, a bit of his usual ire creeping into his voice. "Obviously, it isn't a physical sensation." He rubbed his wrist to dispel a lingering twinge.

Two years. It had been two years since Zach lost his hand. This fact, insignificant before, was suddenly very important.

"Hold up," said Jerald, straightening slightly. "You're tellin' me that you've been having this problem ever since you lost the hand? That was bloody two years ago! How's this the first time I'm hearin' about it?"

Zach averted his gaze. He was the only person Jerald had ever met who could look ashamed and proud at the same time. "I don't make a habit of advertising my weaknesses."

Trying to convince Zach that his phantom pain wasn't a sign of weakness would be a lost cause, so Jerald moved along. "How often does this happen?"

"Not... often. In the beginning, it was almost every day. Now it's once or twice a week, at most. And it normally isn’t this... incapacitating. Most of the time, I can easily subdue and conceal it.”

While slightly reassuring, this didn't completely erase Jerald's worry... or guilt. The idea that Zach had been suffering with this problem for two years and nobody had even noticed until now was not a pleasant thought. Realistically, he knew that if Zach didn't want a part of himself to become common knowledge, he would go to massive lengths to hide it, to the point where even Jerald couldn't be faulted for remaining unaware.

But that didn't stop him from wishing he had known.

"No cure for it, I'm guessing?" he said.

Zach drew in a quiet breath, clearly fighting exhaustion. "No. Not that I know of."

Jerald eyed him for a moment, then said, "Lemme help you get that hook off. Can't be comfortable."

He had done this once before, but generally Zach preferred to struggle with unbuckling the heavy prosthetic on his own - better that than to let anyone see how weak he was.

Now, he surrendered control with nothing more than a warning glance. Moving slowly, he pulled his shirt off to reveal the tough straps and buckles that ran up his arm and over his shoulder; the metal hook needed a lot of support to keep it in place. Jerald relied on his faint memories of last time to figure out the surprisingly complicated straps. Zach mostly just sat there, bowed over his knees, not helping unless it was to move his arm in a better position. Candlelight displayed the various small scars littering his body.

"Go to bed, Cap'n," said Jerald, dropping the pile of leather and steel on the nightstand with a clunk. He had to resist a curious impulse to run his finger along the wickedly curved edge of the hook - a weapon as much as it was a tool. “I gotta go and kip.”

"I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I’ll have your guts,” said Zach.

Jerald huffed out a quiet laugh. "See ya in the morning, Zachary. Let me know if anything comes up."

When Zach didn't say anything, he hauled himself to his feet and padded out of the room. Edmund was nowhere to be seen and the entire ship was dark. He closed the door, shook his head, and continued onwards to his cabin.