Aboard the Jackdaw: Under Edward Kenway And The Black Flag

40: A New Beginning

Everything seemed to happen in the edge of the distance. Anna's mind went numb as her eyes watched Edward painfully wrap Simon's body with a cloth. With heavy silence, Edward gingerly laid the babe's unmoving body at the bottom of Ah-Tabi's rowboat.

Anna felt her own feet guiding her inside of the rowboat next to Boney, who was still wailing in labor. Adawalè and Edward silently followed Anna onto the rowboat.

Once they all climbed inside, the men began to row away from the prison.

Ah-Tabi took the fugitives to his ship which lay anchored just off of the coast.

Boney began to scream loudly as the pain of every contraction multiplied. The sharp screams of Boney's childbirth tortured Anna's grieving psychy.

Anna held her ears and buried her weary, bloodshot eyes into her knees. The screeches laced with agony made her want to jump overboard and sink into the depths, but Anna was too weak to stand, and she felt like she was already sinking into a dark abyss.

Once the men had rowed to the side of Ah-Tabi's ship, his Assassin crew hauled up rowboat up onto the deck.

Boney was immediately rushed to the doctor's office by Ah-Tabi and his men. Anna felt herself being dragged down to the doctor as well. She breathed a whimper with every painful step, but she didn't utter a word.

Once Anna was placed into a sitting position on a cot, Edward grabbed her cheek with frailty and rubbed circles with his thumb on her dry skin, trying to pull her out of shock.

However, Anna's eyes remained trained to some invisible object far past the floor of the doctor's cabin. Edward's touch which she longed for the past nine months went unnoticed.

All she could think about was her baby. Surely something that had caused so much worry couldn't be gone so fast.

She vaguely heard Edward's worried voice calling her name, but she could not escape from the prison of shock back into reality.

Then, Boney screamed again and Anna jolted back to life in a horrified start. She squeezed her eyes shut in dread and threw herself against Edwards chest.

When dawn came, Boney's baby girl was born, but the baby girl didn't survive labor.

Grief and pain consumed Boney. Her health was still in grave danger, and the doctor ordered strict bed rest for her. Anna slowly reached out her comfort to Boney, and the two women cried for hours over their life-shaking loss; of both their babies and their friends. Captains Kenway and Ah-Tabi barely regocnized the two.

Ah-Tabi set his ship on a course for Great Inagua. Kenway and he agreed to bury the bodies of Kidd and the babie's there. They would also recuit men, gather supplies, and allow the women to rest there. The ship was no aid to their frail health.

Ah-Tabi paced the deck of his ship with Kenway, and asked him a weary voice,

"Kenway, the last I saw Kidd alive, I had sent her to deliver a letter to you. Did you ever receive it?"
He asked.

Edward coked his head at Ah-Tabi slowly,

"No I did not." 
He replied.

Ah-Tabi stopped walking and sighed heavily,
"I read it, Kenway. Pardon me, I assumed it to be something about the whereabouts of the Sage. But the note was from England. It was about your wife."

"What about my wife?"
Kenway demanded with sudden defensiveness.

.

By the time that Ah-Tabi's ship had reached Great Inagua, Boney and Anna were released from the doctor's care with strict orders to rest all day, and walk only when needed.