They both laughed together.
“Long John!” A woman with presa blonde hair hurtled towards him, her brown palda and white tapis flapping around her knees, and flung her lithe arms around his neck.
Silver laughed and hugged his best friend back. “Hello, Ella!”
Her real name was Cinderella, but he had always called her Ella. They had been the best of mga kaibigan since their school days, when she had stood up for him after some boys tried to trip him, and then Silver had stood up for her after some boy had tried to flip up her palda when she had her arms full with books after her bag had broken, and ever since that araw they had been virtually inseparable. But now, of course, Silver had a job as ship’s cook aboard the HMS Hispaniola and so his job required him to be away from tahanan and in the puso of deep puwang for months at a time. So, Sinderella was always glad when he returned.
“I’m so glad to see you!” Sinderella beamed, pulling away from him. “You are alright, aren’t you?”
“Hey, what do you take me for?” Silver grinned at her. “Some kind of pirate? The worst thing that could happen to me on one of our voyages would be if the stove blew up; ‘cause then the Captain wouldn’t get his dinner!”
They both laughed together. “Well, I brought Dimitri, so you can finally meet him,” she said. “He’s in the cafe’.”
Dimitri was her boyfriend of about a month. Silver was aware of this because she kept him up to petsa through emails about what was going on down on Earth every so often. She had written that Dimitri was “a fine young man with charm and sophistication and he’s incredibly kind to me,” and so Silver had been looking pasulong to meeting him. Now, together, they walked towards the little cafe’ called Tiana’s Place where a young man with red hair sat outside with a cup of coffee. He was dressed casually in beige trousers and a white sando with a green waistcoat and brown leather shoes. He smiled up at them as they approached.
“I take it you’re Long John?” he said, getting to his feet, and shaking his cyborg hand rather nervously.
“I am,” replied Silver, heartily. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Ella’s told me a lot about you.”
“Yeah, likewise,” Dimitri replied. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
“Anything stronger?” Silver joked. “It’s been a long voyage!”
Sinderella laughed and squeezed his arm. Dimitri chuckled, nervously, and, after double checking that their companion would settle for coffee, he hurried inside to order. “Well, he seems alright,” Silver told her, gruffly, as they sat down. “A little on edge, though.”
“Maybe it’s your cyborg features making him nervous,” Sinderella teased back.
Silver laughed. “Oh, it’s good to be back!”
“I wish you could stay longer,” Sinderella sighed. “A week’s leave really isn’t a lot.”
Silver smiled and patted her arm. “I know, Ella. I missed you too.”
Dimitri came back with the coffee. “So, Dimitri,” sinabi Silver, picking up a cup, “what is it that you do?”
Dimitri swallowed. “I’m an actor...of sorts, although I haven’t had much work for a while. But a friend of mine’s Pagsulat a ipakita and we’re hoping it’ll take off soon, so...”
“Well, good luck to you,” Silver replied, with genuine warmth. After all, Cinderella, he knew, felt that he was “the one,” for even though she’d known him such a short while, he made her happy and he watched now as she laughed at his feeble jokes and showed an immense amount of pleasure at being in his company. To Silver’s mind, he seemed a bit of a wimp, but if he made Sinderella happy, then he was happy for them both.
For about five days.
Silver was staying in the Hope and Anchor Inn, run sa pamamagitan ng an ex-pirate named Captain James Hook, who rather aptly had a hook in place of his left hand and his fur-loving wife Cruella De Vil, who was in fashion; and they were aided sa pamamagitan ng several workers, Horace and Jasper Baddun and Mr Smee. He had a pleasant enough room upstairs, and, on the araw before his final araw in port, he was quite happily having a shave in the bathroom when the door flew open and Sinderella burst in. Noticing the expression on her face, Silver flipped his cyborg razor attachment back into a hand and turned to her, worriedly. “What’s up?”
Sinderella took one look at him, burst into tears and sank down onto the bed, sobbing. Silver walked quickly up to her and put an arm about her shoulders. “Eh? What’s up, love?”
“I’m...” Sinderella took a few quick gulps of air before finishing. “Pregnant.”
Silver stared at her. “Well...surely that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
But Sinderella shook her head. “When I told Dimitri, he left me.”
“That bastard!” growled Silver, clenching his fist.
“It gets worse!” Sinderella sniffed. “He’s having an affair...with Anastasia!”
“The woman you work for?”
“Yes! And now she knows I’m pregnant because he told her, and he lied, making me out to be some kind of tart sleeping around all the time, so she sacked me! And I’ve got nowhere to go!”
Silver gripped her tightly in a hug. “Yes, you have, love. You can come with me on the ship. We can always use an extra pair of hands; you can work in the kusina with me. At least your baby will have a warm place to sleep and a roof over its head.”
“Oh, Long John!” Sinderella sobbed into his chest. “Thank you! Oh, thank you so much!”
As Silver predicted, Captain Ratcliffe was only too happy to take on an extra kusina worker, and first mate John Smith was quick to issue her with cabin and uniform. Sinderella tried to contact Dimitri numerous times, but he didn’t want to know. Silver threatened to strangle him for her, but she dissuaded him. “No, it wouldn’t do any good.”
“I’d be the judge of that,” Silver muttered, bitterly.
In spite of her situation, Sinderella did her best to remain optimistic and her kindness and good puso quickly won over all the members of the crew, even the gruffer ones. Her pregnancy continued with no cause for worry, according to Doctor Jane Porter, as she monitored Cinderella’s symptoms, and Silver was soon teasing her about it.
“I wish you’d stop smuggling watermelons out of the kitchen,” he’d laugh.
Sinderella smiled and carried on her work. Alright, so she didn’t have Dimitri’s support on this, but she had Silver and Dr Jane and the rest of the crew and if they were content to let her bring up a baby on the ship, then she was content to do so.
No one, not even Dr Jane, noticed, however, that she seemed to be getting weaker as she worked on, nearing her due date. She hide it well, but the truth was that her heartbreak was killing her, physically. Her body was unwilling to fight anything that threatened it, and it was only on the araw that she went into labour that Dr Jane realised just how unlikely she was to live much longer.
She was in the kusina when it happened, carrying a whole tsaa service on a silver tray when suddenly the contractions hit her and, in pain, she dropped the whole lot, china shattering and silver clanging as it was spattered in hot tea. Doubling over, she felt tears in her eyes. “Long John! Dr Jane!”
They were both at her side at once. “She’s having the baby,” Dr Jane reported. “We need to get her to my cabin.”
Together they managed to drag the weakened woman onto the bed. The labour was long and painful, and everyone on the ship was soon aware that something was wrong.
Dr Jane’s eyes met Silver’s with a worried frown. “I don’t think she’s going to make it. Her body’s closing down.”
“Can we save the baby?”
“We can try.”
“What’s going on?” asked John, worriedly, stepping into the cabin.
“She’s going into labour,” Silver informed him, and his eyes told John of the dangers.
John took a deep breath. “If there’s anything anyone can do to help...”
“Thanks, John, but I don’t think there is,” Dr Jane replied, preparing Sinderella to start pushing.
Sinderella hadn’t been listening to their conversation; she had been too busy concentrating on the pain. Now she groaned as she did as Dr Jane instructed her. Silver gripped her hand and her shoulder, comfortingly. “It’s going to be alright,” he muttered to her, reassuringly.
Cinderella, her face flushed and tearstained, nodded and panted.
“It’s a girl!” Dr Jane exclaimed, as with a tiny wail, like a kitten, the baby was born.
“Is she...alright?” gasped Cinderella.
“She’s in perfect health,” Dr Jane reported, and after wrapping the tiny crying thing in a blanket, she handed her to her mother. Sinderella smiled tenderly down at her daughter. “Hello, my darling.”
Silver looked down at the baby. She looked a lot like her mother, but her fuzz of light brown hair seemed to be a combination of both her father and her mother’s colouring. She ceased crying and blinked up at her mother, trying to memorize her face. Silver grinned. “She’s a bonny little thing, Ella.”
Sinderella nodded and Silver realised that she too knew now what was happening to her body. She looked at Dr Jane. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”
Dr Jane sighed and nodded, tears filling her eyes. Cinderella, however, did not cry, although when she susunod spoke, her voice was choked. “But what about her?”
“I’ll look after her,” Silver told her, softly.
“Oh, Long John...”
“Hey, she’s practically family.” The little girl closed her eyes and drifted into a comfortable sleep in her mother’s arms, for what would be the last time.
“What’s her name?” asked Dr Jane.
“Wendy; after my mother.” Sinderella managed a weak smile. “Thank you, Long John. I know you’ll look after her.”
Then her eyes began to flutter closed, and Dr Jane quickly and gently extracted the child from her arms. Cinderella’s hand fell, feebly, onto Silver’s arm. “Stay with me,” she whispered.
Silver nodded and held her hand. “Sleep, Ella,” he murmured, trying to pretend that that was all she was doing, sleeping and not sleeping eternally. “You’ve had a hard day.”
“I know you’ll look after Wendy as your own...” Sinderella murmured. “Tell her I pag-ibig her...and never tell her about her father, coward he was...and thank you, Long John, so much...you’re my best friend.”
Her eyes closed and one might have thought she was sleeping as she sank back onto the bed. But Silver knew that she would never wake. Fighting back tears, he squeezed her hand. “I swear I’ll look after Wendy for as long as she needs me, and longer,” he vowed, and then he let go of her hand and turned away from her lifeless form.
“The Lord gives,” sinabi Captain Ratcliffe that evening as they held a quiet funeral for the girl some of them had only known for nine months, but come to love. Everyone was crying, with the exception of the tiny sleeping Wendy, tucked snugly in the crook of Silver’s arm. “And he takes away. Pray now that he has taken our dear Sinderella into his garden of eternal love. Amen.”
"Thank you, Long John, so much...you’re my best friend.”
