Fear of Falling [Treasure Planet Fanfic]

Chapter Twelve: Treasure A-Waiting

"Gentlemen," the captain gasped, trying to punctuate the silence with some uplifting strings of words, "We must stay together and . . . and . . ."

Doc removed his spectacles in frustration, "And what? What?! We must stay together and what?!"

Captain Amelia looked at him with a sort of dazed, adoring emotion, "Doctor, you have wonderful eyes," she sighed.

"She's lost her mind!" Doc declared.

"Well, you gotta help her!" Jim demanded.

"Dang it, Jim, I'm an astronomer, not a doctor! I mean, I am a doctor, but I'm not that kind of doctor. I have a doctorate, it's not the same thing. You can't help anyone with a doctorate. You just sit there and you're useless!" Doc slapped his hands over his head, and Jim could swear her saw a few tears slip out of his eyes.

"It's alright, Doc," Jim patted his back, "It's alright,"

"Yeah, Doc!" B.E.N. chimed in, "Jimmy knows exactly how to get out of this. It's just Jimmy has this knowledge of things,"

Jim strolled over to the threshold, where Vanesa sat on the ledge thinking over their situation. Jim went to the other side and peered into the night as B.E.N. slipped behind him, "Jim, any thoughts at all?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, looking up at the R.L.S. Legacy floating above the clouds, "Without the map, we're dead,"

"If we t-try to leave, we're dead," Vanessa pointed into the forest, where a small campfire glowed, casting the withering trees into darker shadows.

"If we stay here -"

"We're dead! We're dead! We're dead!" Morph mimicked.

Vanessa sighed as she stared into the night sky. The clouds above were blocking her view of the stars, which drove her into a deep discomfort. She looked back to Jim, and noticed her bandana still wound around his arm, stained deep red.

"You sh-should take that off," she claimed, "Not b-because I want it back, which I d-do, but it m-might get infected,"

He nodded, grateful for the short distraction, and removed the piece of fabric. His wound was more shallow than she remembered, and was covered with crusted blood.

"It d-doesn't look too bad," she said as he stretched his arm out to get a better look, "It'll heal f-f-fine,"

"Ooh, ooh! I have a clean bandage in the back!" B.E.N. ran into the back of his home. Jim tried to give Vanessa her bandana back, but she refused.

"Keep it f-for good luck," she said, "Just don't l-lose it,"

Jim looked down at the fabric, fingering its smooth texture, "Why is it so important to you?"

She reached over and pulled at a corner of the bandana, which held two initials.

"K.K.?" he asked.

"Kamal Kendrick," she whispered, "My f-father. This is all I h-have left of him, at least until I f-find my parents again,"

Jim contemplated asking a question he'd been asking all throughout their journey together, one that he desperately wanted an answer to. It was a question that she'd refused to answer.

"What happened?"

Vanessa took a deep breath and glanced out the entrance to the sky, hoping the clouds had disappeared, only to find they hadn't. She visibly trembled just thinking about it.

"You need to tell someone, Butterfly, and it might as well be me," he claimed, "It's such a burden to keep it a secret for so long,"

He was right. He was absolutely right.