"Well, she could buy herself a bit o' time. But strikes me she'd get herself hurt a-carryin' a sword. We can get 'er practiced up, but she'll be a-needin' somethin' more. How's about a knife?"

Pryce pulled his from at his back and handed it off to Nathan.

"Think you could handle that?" asked Nathan as he handed it to her.

Cate balanced the weapon in her hand, feeling its weight. The steel shone coldly in the sun. "It was a long time ago, but I used to have one," she said quietly.

Nathan caught her tone and sobered. "Your husband?"

Nodding, she swallowed an unexpected lump. "He thought I should be able to protect myself." The irony in the repetition of that theme brought a faint smile. "He and his men taught me how to use one, how to kill."

Nathan hesitated, the men circled around staring.

Forcing a smile, she gripped the handle with overt confidence. "So, what would you like me to do with this?"

The awkward moment past, Nathan's graveness deepened. "You'll need to be able to protect yourself and be ready to kill, if you must. Could you do that?"

Cate's throat tightened. A cold ball formed in the pit of her stomach. "I've done it before," she said, meeting Nathan's gaze.

It wasn't meant as to be cavalier nor bold, but facts were facts.

"Fair enough." Nathan clapped her on the shoulder in assurance.

With little hesitation, Mr. Pryce was voted best knife-bearer and, therefore, Cate's new master.

Pryce's knife was returned to him. Nathan pulled a dagger from his boot and handed it to her. "Go ahead, luv, show us what you have."

Cate rolled the scrimshawed weapon in her hand, its ivory patina glowing. Well-balanced and compact, it was considerably larger than the one lost in her bag of belongings on the Constancy. It had been a singh dhu, a tiny Highlander's stocking knife. Switching hands, she wiped her palm again, and then re-gripped it several times, until the comfort spot was found.

"'Pears like she knows what she's doing already," observed Hughes as she and Pryce circled each other.

"That's right, Mr. Cate," called Towers. "'Under hand is always better than over'and."

"If you're as short as you are," jibed Smalley. "Overhand is a much better kill if you're tall."

Their arguments faded from consciousness as Cate focused on Pryce. Slightly crouched, his grey eyes held hers, measuring and waiting. The corner of an eye barely twitched and he dove for her arm, seeking to grab and twist. It was the same move her brothers had used. She slid away and come around to knee him in the backside. He shot forward, the pirates cheering. He stumbled, and then whirled back around.

At first skeptical, Pryce now settled in for a true contest. In one flowing move, he seized her arm and jerked her around to poise his blade at her neck.

"That's a kill," declared the by-standers and cheered for more.

They skirmished time and again, taking up various scenarios of possible assaults: from behind, the front, or ambushed. Nathan and the others shouted suggestions and encouragements, intermixed with jeers when either was bested. A few times, Nathan or Pryce called a halt, in order to give pointers on stance or angle. By virtue of his strength and reach, Pryce prevailed most of the time, but Cate was able to win enough to prove capable.

Both perspiring heavily now, Pryce posed as an assailant and grabbed Cate from behind. The momentum sent them tumbling to the deck, Pryce coming down on top of her. He cuffed both her wrists in one hand and forced her arms up over her head. She struggled to wrench free, but his hips held her tight. His weight brought her breath short and her anguish rose. The cheering faded and she heard only his heavy breathing as he grunted and wriggled on top of her. Drops of sweat pattered her skin. She looked up into eyes no longer familiar, predatory and lusting, on a face she no longer knew.

Panic surged. Cate screamed and thrashed, berserk to escape. The weight on top of her went away. More hands came at her, groping and tugging. Shrieking, she batted at them, pleading for them to leave her be.

And they did. Cate sat up into a blur of faces, slack-jawed and goggle-eyed. Movement. A person knelt next to her, Pryce poised behind him, wearing a mask of bewildered guilt. She blinked several times before sorting out that the face before her was Nathan's. His mouth moved, but it was like he spoke a foreign tongue. He reached out. She jerked away and lurched to her feet. Warding off more hands, she raced down the deck to the forecastle rail, stopping only because she could run no further. Splaying her hands across her stomach, she looked down. No blades this time. No blood, no agony, nothing, not this time, but...?

They're gone. You know it. They're gone!

She collapsed against the rail and dug her nails into a kevel, seeking an anchor against being dragged back to the nightmare.

Something touched her shoulder. Cate shrieked and whirled, blindly swinging out with the knife she still clutched. A man stood there, his face obscured by the glare of the sun at his back. He shifted, and she saw it was Nathan again.

"I'm sorry." It came out in a thin gasp. Shrinking back tighter against the rail, she looked down at the knife, suddenly strange in her hand, and dropped it.

"Are you well?" His inquiry was carefully measured.

Cate mutely nodded, starting again when he brushed her arm. Recoiling as if seared, he spread his hands before him in a display of good faith.

"I'm sorry." The words came out in a quavering wheeze. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. "I didn't mean to-"

"You're shaking."

"I'm all right." Cate put up a hand to assure him, but buried it in the folds of her apron upon seeing how violently it trembled. "I'm fine."

Nathan wasn't convinced. "Allow me to take you the cabin. You're scaring the hands."

Senses congealing, Cate became aware of the men clustered at the waist. They bore the quizzical look reserved for the deranged, and wasn't she: fighting hands that weren't there, screaming at faces that didn't exist? Nathan tentatively took her by the elbow and eased her down the forecastle steps. Numbness gave way to mortification. She walked woodenly next to him toward the cabin, drawn by its promise of refuge. She thought to apologize, but couldn't bear to see their revulsion and pity. Instead, she ducked her head to hide behind the protective curtain of hair that fell down around her face.

Once inside, she paced before the stern gallery.

When does the nightmare of reality become just a nightmare?

Or is one doomed for them to always be as one? Is the reality bent by the dream into something worse than it really was? Everyone claims time heals everything, but when? How long? How much of one's life must be devoured, before it finally goes away?

Cate was seized with the urge to tear at herself, rip away skin and muscle, down to the bone, if she must, to be rid of the terrors that lay within.

"Don't tell me it's only a dream," she seethed, making short paths like a caged cat. "It was real. I've lived it. I'll carry the scars to my grave. All I have to do is look and I know it was no dream. It was a nightmare, but it's in the past...except it's still here..."

She drew up, realizing she had just said far more than intended, far more than she had ever admitted to herself let alone to anyone else. Panting like a half-maddened dog, she turned to find Nathan had withdrawn to the far side of the room. He stood uncommonly still, as if fearing any movement might precipitate something worse. Surely he thought her crazed by now. There was none of the accusation or disgust expected; only the intent gravity that came with seeking to understand.

"Would you be greatly fraught if I were to beg you to come away from the window?"

The unexpected direction of his comment stopped her in her tracks. She looked at the window, and then him.

"You think I'm so hysterical I might jump?" she asked coldly. Wild-eyed and hair probably resembling oakum by then, she had to have appeared quite the madwoman. In the spirit of easing the demonic resemblance, she made a furtive attempt to smooth her hair.

"You did before," he said evenly. "And again, or tried, at any rate, from just there." He gestured to the sill between the two guns.

It took Cate a moment to follow his meaning: her first night aboard, she had attempted to jump, overlooking, of course, that the act had been prompted by Nathan attacking her.

"That was different. I was scared...then," she said with a vague gesture, and resumed her agitated path.

Nathan regarded her narrowly. "And you're not now?"

"No! I mean yes...But no...not...Damn it!" she shrieked with a vehemence that startled them both.

Cate took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in an effort to recompose. "No, it's not pirates...this time."

He forbore pressing the point. He ventured close enough to shepherd her to a chair. Grabbing up the rum bottle, he poured her a small dose. "Drink."

She fumbled for the glass, nearly spilling it. Nathan dared to come near enough to guide her unresponsive fingers around it, and then to her mouth, retreating as she drank. The resulting shudder pulled her back into her body. Her heart slowed and the humiliation settled deeper. She felt Nathan circling, as if observing a lunatic, afraid to go near and yet more fearful to leave her alone.

"Thank you," she said hoarsely, her throat tightened by drink and embarrassment.

"Might you allow a hint as to what that was all about? Did you really imagine Pryce aimed to attack you?" His query was carefully posed, gleaned of all accusation.

"No, I mean, yes, I know...but no..." Cate dug her nails into her scalp, hoping the pain might help bring a cohesive thought. "I know! I mean...I know he didn't mean anything."

"Then what-?"

"Nothing!" She slammed her hand on the table hard enough to cause the glass to jump. She drew in another deep breath and shakily blew it out. "It's nothing; I'll be fine. Just leave me be."

She felt rather than saw Nathan stiffen. Falling back a step, he curtly nodded. "Very well, then, by your leave."

Regret for being so short with him added the crush of guilt Cate already harbored. She rummaged through her mental morass to find the proper words, ones that didn't sound hollow or trite, to make amends. She squirmed around in the chair to find that he hadn't left, but only retreated to the cabin's shadowy perimeter. Boots thudding hollowly on the planks, he muttered as he paced. On one pass, he darted near enough to snag the bottle from the table and drank through his agitated orbits.

Head braced in her hands, a part of her wished Nathan would leave her to her misery. And yet another-a very large part-was so very grateful that he was there. To have someone who cared, to catch her if she fell, meant so much, and yet she had no words to tell him.

Slowly, the rum did its part. The world coalesced further: her blood no longer hammered in her ears, her breath slowed to something less than near-hysterical gasps. She could hear the Morganse's song of wind and canvas, and felt the ship's motion with the swell. The sky was still blue, the sea was still as deep, and the world was still there, right where she had left it.

Nathan scuffed to a halt somewhere near. He made several false starts before settling on, "You're rather good with a knife, for a woman, that is."

"For a woman, I've had plenty of practice," Cate retorted, bitterly.

"You failed to mention you've a skill at wrestling."

She looked up, glaring. "For a woman?"

"For a woman."

Nathan's tentative boyish smile touched a chord, and she reluctantly did so, as well.

Damn him for being able to make me smile on command!

"As I said, I had five brothers," she said.

Sensing it safe, Nathan ventured nearer. Propping his hip against a chair, he loosely crossed his arms. "What you lack in strength, you gain in wile."

Cate made an unladylike noise in the back of her throat. "I suppose that could be the story of my life."

She emptied her glass.

"Aye, there's a ring o' truth in that," Nathan said, refilling it.

Closing her eyes, she leaned back and sighed. "I'm sorry; I didn't intend to..."

What? Make a complete spectacle of yourself?

Nathan rolled his eyes toward the slap of bare feet passing overhead. "Some of the hands think you devil-possessed. What with those eyes, and now this...Poor bastard, Pryce only figures you wish to cut his throat."

"I suppose he would," she said, grimly rubbing her face. "I'll apologize."

"Don't be surprised if he runs at seeing you coming."

"Is it that bad?" Cate peered up from under her hands.

Nathan contained a smile. "That bad."

Groaning, she buried her face in her hands. "I don't know what comes over me sometimes!"

In a moment of bald honesty, this wasn't the first time, nor second, nor even third. The spells came from nowhere, dissolving as quickly as they erupted. Perhaps Bedlam was where she belonged, somewhere that she could be prevented from hurting not only herself, but everyone around.

Nathan took another drink and pensively rolled the bottle between his palms. "Darling, we all have our dunnage to lug about. 'Tis not necessarily the weight of it, but where we choose to stow it."

Cate looked up into a gaze that allowed her a glimpse at the burdens that dwelt behind his curtain, not to equivocate, but to assure that she wasn't alone. The heavily-fringed lids lowered; the curtain closed once again.

"Thank you, Nathan, I'll remember that. Sometimes, you are a very wise man."

He broke a square-toothed, gold-laced flash. "Scary, isn't it?"

Chuckling to himself, he swaggered toward the door. He paused at the table to pluck a mango from the plate of fruit, kept there by Mr. Kirkland, in hopes of tempting his captain into eating. He sniffed it, and with a curl of his lip, put it back. He gestured toward the skylight, and the quarterdeck overhead, as he ambled out.

"I'll be just there, if you find you've need of me."

Once alone, Cate buried her head in her hands and gasped, self-loathing only adding to the dejection and embarrassment. On the brink of a breakdown, she grabbed the glass and quaffed it down. Balling her fists, she closed her eyes once more, and inhaled deeply. When she opened them, the world was still there. The terrors were gone...like a dream.

Dark was soon to fall. A thunderstorm had rumbled through earlier in the day. It had been Cate's excuse for her self-imposed seclusion in the cabin. Too embarrassed to be seen after her breakdown, she had spent the remainder of the day there. Frustration had come in many forms during that time. She tried to read, but the words wouldn't stay in focus. She tried to embroider, but couldn't concentrate.

She had gleaned what embroidery supplies she could from the Littletons' belongings and made up a small piece to work on. Needlework had been a lifelong love. It had also been her salvation over the last several years. Many a night had been spent hunched next to a sewing lamp, in order to meet a customer's last minute demands. Now she had the joy of doing it at her leisure, the pleasure dampened only by the desperate limit of thread, only a precise amount being allowed each day.

The storm still hung in distant flat-bottomed billows. The rays of the surrendering day streaked from behind it in plumes of orange and lilac. The bell ending the second Dog Watch was just rung, one of the abbreviated two-hour periods allowing for the evening meal. It meant most of the hands would be on the forecastle, including the afterguard. There was a good chance she would catch Pryce on the afterdeck. It was rare to find Pryce alone; perpetual motion, he was, but he often lingered there.

It was dark enough for her to use the shadowy margins of the deck without notice, hence avoiding having to face the men or feel their stares. She hung about feigning interest in water and sky. Cocking her head, she didn't hear Pryce's voice among those forward, and so looked aft.

Her intent to apologize was bracketed with trepidation. She was of two minds regarding Pryce. His bearing and ability to verbally pin anyone who provoked his wrath to the bulwarks still scared her. And yet, he could laugh as readily as shake the hands' bones. Once past the ferocity, he was a kindly sort: pleasant, responsive, and courteous. An endless font of tales and superstitions, he was ever-willing to share his repertoire. His authority unquestioned, and would suffer no laggardliness or shirking, but he was meticulously fair.

It was that fairness upon which she relied now.

In the dusk, she could see his shape on the afterdeck with someone else. The last ray of daylight flashed on ivory rings: Hodder. Facing the water, she waited for Hodder and his telltale clatter to pass, and then mounted the curved steps. She regretted having to virtually stalk Pryce, but things needed saying. She sincerely regretted her actions; the man didn't deserve having to spend the night wondering.

"A peace offering?" She held up the mug of grog, procured from Kirkland.

At the sight of her, Pryce had ducked around the wheel. He was making for the steps when she displayed the drink. He stopped, his head coming up like a hound on a scent. Seeing his reluctance to reach for it, she set it on the binnacle between them and slid it across. Beatrice, blithely preening there, was obliged to pull her tail feathers out of the way and made a rude comment. Pryce waited until Cate had retracted her hand fully before seizing upon the mug. He took a long, badly needed draught, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.