Jo pushed the cabin door open with her hip, the bowl braced between both hands, and the first thing she registered was that Amelia was awake.
Propped against the cot frame with her good arm folded beneath her head, the other hand resting loose on the bandage at her side. Watching the door. Watching Jo. Her eyes tracked the bowl, then Jo's face, and something in her expression shifted — not quite surprise, not quite expectation. Something in between.
"You're supposed to be resting," Jo said, and she heard how sharp it came out, how close to worry.
"I'm propped." Amelia's voice was rough, scraped from a throat that hadn't spoken in hours. "That's resting."
Jo crossed to the desk and set the bowl down. The broth sloshed — she'd carried it too fast, the motion of the ship and her own speed working against her. She wiped her fingers on her breeches and turned.
Amelia hadn't looked away.
"It's just broth," Jo said. "Swee said you need to eat. That you haven't—"
"Swee talks too much."
"She worries. They all do." Jo pulled the chair from the desk, dragged it closer to the cot, and sat. The wood scraped against the floorboards. She sat forward, elbows on her knees, close enough to feel the heat coming off Amelia's body through the thin linen of her shirt. "I worry."
The silence stretched. The ship creaked. Water lapped against the hull somewhere below. Amelia's hand moved — slow, careful — and found Jo's wrist.
Her thumb pressed down, right over the pulse point, and held.
Jo stopped breathing.
Amelia's fingers wrapped most of the way around, callused and warm, the pressure firm but not tight. Her eyes stayed on Jo's face, watching whatever her thumb was reading in the beat of Jo's blood.
"You're fast," Amelia said. "Your heart."
Jo's mouth opened. Closed. She didn't pull away.
"Yours was slow when I came in," she managed. "I could hear it. From the door."
Amelia's thumb moved — a slow drag across the inside of Jo's wrist, then back to the pulse point. "It's faster now."
Jo felt it. The double beat under her own, the one she could sense through the pad of Amelia's thumb. Two hearts. One hand. The whole cabin holding its breath.
"You should eat," Jo said.
Amelia's mouth curved. That slow, dangerous smile, softened at the edges by exhaustion. "That's what you came to say."
"I came to bring you broth."
"And now you're sitting."
"Yes."
"And I'm holding your wrist."
"Yes."
Amelia's thumb stilled. The cabin was warm, the morning light slanting through the small window, catching dust motes in the air. Jo could smell her — salt and sweat and something underneath, something like the iron tang of the blood she'd cleaned off this floor two nights ago.
"I dreamed about you," Amelia said.
Jo's chest tightened. "Good dreams or bad?"
"Don't know yet." Amelia's hand stayed on her wrist, but her eyes drifted to the window, to the light. "You were standing on the stern. Pointing at something on the horizon. I couldn't see what it was. The sun was behind you, so I couldn't see your face either. But I knew it was you."
Jo swallowed. "What did I look like?"
"Like you belonged there."
The words landed somewhere deep in Jo's chest, just below the collarbone, and settled there like something heavy and warm. She didn't know what to do with them. She didn't know how to hold a thing like that without breaking it.
So she reached for the bowl instead.
"Eat," she said, lifting it. "Then you can tell me the rest of the dream."
Amelia's hand fell away from her wrist as Jo straightened, and the absence was a cold thing. Jo ignored it. She settled on the edge of the cot, the wood groaning under her weight, and held the bowl out.
Amelia looked at the broth. Looked at Jo. "You're going to feed me."
"If I have to."
"I can feed myself."
"Then do it."
Amelia's eyes narrowed, but there was no heat in it. She pushed herself up a little straighter, the movement pulling at her side, and Jo saw the flicker of pain cross her face before she smoothed it away. She took the bowl. Their fingers brushed. Neither of them acknowledged it.
Amelia drank the broth straight from the bowl — no spoon, no pretense. Jo watched the way her throat moved as she swallowed, the way her hand trembled slightly from the effort of holding the bowl steady. She'd been stabbed three days ago. Had nearly died. Had lost enough blood to leave her pale beneath the weathered skin. And she was sitting here, drinking broth, watching Jo like she was the one who needed protecting.
"What?" Amelia said, lowering the bowl.
"Nothing."
"You're staring."
"You're injured."
"And?"
Jo leaned forward, one hand braced on the cot beside Amelia's hip, close enough to feel the warmth of her thigh through the blanket. "And I watched you almost die. So forgive me if I stare."
Amelia's jaw tightened. She set the bowl down on the floor beside the cot, half-empty, and her hand came up — not to Jo's wrist this time, but to her face.
Her palm settled against Jo's cheek, rough and warm, fingers curving around her jaw. A thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, light, barely there.
"I'm not dead," Amelia said.
"I know."
"I'm not going to die."
"You don't know that."
"I know I have a reason to live now."
Jo's breath caught. The words sat between them, naked and impossible to take back. Amelia's hand stayed on her face, steady despite the weakness in her arm.
"That's not fair," Jo whispered.
"I know."
"You can't say things like that when you're hurt. When I can't—" She stopped. Swallowed. "When I can't trust that you mean them."
"I mean them."
"You're feverish."
"I'm honest." Amelia's thumb moved again, tracing the edge of Jo's jaw. "There's a difference."
Jo closed her eyes. The ship rocked. The light through the window changed as a cloud passed. She could feel every point of contact between them — Amelia's palm, her thumb, the edge of her fingers against Jo's neck. She could feel her own pulse, fast and loud, and she knew Amelia could feel it too.
"When you're better," Jo said, and opened her eyes, "when you can stand without bleeding, when you can hold a sword again — then you can say things like that to me. And I'll answer you."
Amelia's hand fell away. She leaned back against the cot frame, the movement careful, and her eyes found the window. "And if I'm not better?"
"You will be."
"The blade went deep, Jo."
"Kofi said the wound is clean. You'll heal."
"Kofi is a carpenter."
"He's also the closest thing you have to a surgeon, and he said you'll heal." Jo stood, picked up the bowl from the floor. "So you'll heal. And then you'll take me swimming in water so clear I can see the bottom. And then—" She stopped. Set the bowl on the desk. "And then we'll see."
"And then we'll see," Amelia repeated, and there was something in her voice Jo couldn't read. Not humor. Not bitterness. Something quieter.
Jo turned. Amelia was looking at her, head tilted against the cot frame, the morning light catching the hazel in her eyes.
"Come here," Amelia said.
Jo's feet moved before she decided. She crossed back to the cot, stood at the edge, looking down at the captain who had taken a blade for her, who had held her in the water, who had touched her jaw and called her beautiful.
"Closer," Amelia said.
Jo sat. On the edge of the cot, where she'd been before, inches from Amelia's hip. Close enough to count the freckles across her nose, to see the faint white line of an old scar at her temple.
Amelia's hand found hers. Laced their fingers together. Held.
"I'm not good at this," Amelia said. "I don't know how to want something without taking it. I don't know how to wait. I've never had to learn."
Jo's throat was tight. "What do you want?"
Amelia looked at their joined hands. Brought Jo's knuckles to her mouth, brushed her lips across them, slow. "Everything," she said against Jo's skin. "All of it. But I'll wait until I can stand to take it."
Jo's eyes burned. She didn't cry. She squeezed Amelia's hand instead, felt the answering squeeze, the warmth of callused fingers around her own.
"Then heal," she said. "Quickly."
Amelia's smile was tired, but real. "Aye, Captain."
Jo laughed — a wet, surprised thing. "Don't call me that."
"You gave an order. That makes you captain."
"I gave a suggestion."
"On my ship, suggestions from pretty women are orders."
"I'm not—"
"You are." Amelia's thumb traced the inside of Jo's wrist, where her pulse was still hammering. "You're the prettiest thing I've ever seen, and you brought me broth, and you stayed when you could have left. That makes you pretty. And good. And mine."
The word landed like a blow. Mine. Jo felt it in her chest, in her stomach, in the space behind her ribs where she'd been hollow for so long she'd stopped noticing.
"Yours," she repeated, testing it.
"If you want to be."
Jo looked at their hands. At Amelia's fingers, still holding hers. At the bandage peeking above the collar of her shirt. At the slow rise and fall of her chest.
"I want to be," she said. "But I want you to be able to stand when you say it."
Amelia's laugh was a rasp, cut short by the pull at her side. "Fair."
The ship creaked. The light shifted again. Somewhere above, a crewmate shouted something in Spanish, and another answered, laughter trailing across the deck.
Jo didn't move. Amelia's thumb was still tracing patterns on her wrist, idle and warm, like she had all the time in the world.
"Tell me about the rest of the dream," Jo said.
Amelia's eyes went distant. "You were pointing at something. I couldn't see what. But you were smiling. The kind of smile you don't give anyone else."
"What kind is that?"
"The one you gave me. On the stern. That morning."
Jo remembered. The dawn light, the British ships gone, the wind in her hair. She'd felt like she was standing on the edge of something. She hadn't known what. She still didn't.
"It was a good dream," Amelia said, "even if I couldn't see your face. There was something in the way you stood. Like you knew exactly where you were going. Like you'd already decided."
Jo looked down at their hands. "I have decided."
"Have you?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"Here is not the same as decided."
Jo lifted their joined hands, pressed Amelia's knuckles to her own lips — a mirror of the gesture Amelia had made a moment ago. She felt Amelia's breath catch.
"I decided when I let go of that rope ladder," Jo said. "I decided when I stood on this deck and told the British Navy I was crew. I decided when I slept in this cot and woke up with your heartbeat under my ear." She lowered their hands, held them between them. "I decided, Amelia. I'm just waiting for you to catch up."
Amelia stared at her. The hazel eyes were dark, unreadable, and then they softened — cracked, opened, let something through.
"Another week," Amelia said. "Maybe two. Then I'll catch up."
"I'll hold you to that."
"I know you will."
Jo released her hand, stood, picked up the bowl. "Rest. I'll bring you more broth at midday."
"Jo."
She turned at the door.
Amelia was watching her, propped against the cot, pale and wounded and utterly unbroken. "Thank you. For coming back."
"I told you," Jo said. "I'm exactly where I want to be."
She stepped out into the passageway, the door swinging shut behind her, and leaned against the wall for a long moment, eyes closed, heart hammering. The ship moved beneath her. The crew moved above her. And somewhere in the cabin behind her, Amelia Thorne was healing — for her.