Pirates of the Caribbean Oneshots

Another Path

The small kitchen was warm and smokey, lit only by the fires dancing flames.

A sofa, so faded and worn it was impossible to guess its original colour, was pushed right beside the fireplace, heaped with soft blankets and heavy, colourful patchwork quilts.

The door latch clicked as someone came into the cottage.

"Soracha?"

Slowly, a head emerged from beneath the covers on the sofa, hair dishevelled.

Soracha let a wry smile twist her lips as she saw who her visitor was.
"You're not supposed to be here," she murmured, half in Gaelic, her voice rough and hoarse.

"Lydia told me." Edward Teague perched himself on the arm of the sofa where Soracha's head was resting, a hand resting briefly on her forehead.

"Fuck off."
She ducked away from his hand, indicating the other arm of the sofa as she pulled the covers tighter.

He relocated, dark eyes fixed steadily on her.
"When were you intending to tell me?"
His voice was quiet and calm, betraying nothing.

Soracha shifted herself to sit more comfortably, fiddling with a thread in one of the blankets.
"What did Lydia tell you?" she asked, needing to know what he already knew.

"That you're sick. You're coughing blood. You're not eating, not really sleeping or sleeping too much. You're hot and shivering at the same time. Sounds like a flu to me, though coughing blood means it's probably more serious."

"She'll make a great doctor."
Soracha sighed, coughed and ran a hand through her silver-streaked auburn hair.
"And you're too feckin' clever for your own good."

Her eyes met his, looking at him directly, gaze steady and open.
"I have pneumonia Edward."

"You need a doctor."

She laughed harshly, trailing off to painful, deep coughs that left blood on her lips.
"I am a bloody doctor. And there's nothing that can be done, the illness is too advanced, I'm too old, an' me lungs are already fucked anyway. This'll finish me."

A hint of a smile touched Teague's lips. "I did tell you to stop smoking."

"I was never going to listen to ye about that, which you know full well. You had as much hope of making me stop smoking as I had of gettin' ye to stop drinking whiskey."

"Not a hope in hell then," Teague said with a chuckle.

Soracha grinned, a proper grin that put a sparkle into her emerald eyes, though it did nothing to hide the dark shadows of exhaustion underneath them.

"Who else knows?" he asked after a moment.

"Just Sahara, Lydia an' you. The only people who are goin' to give a shite when I die," she muttered.

"Roxanne will care. So will Jackie," Teague said, stretching out his legs.

Soracha waved a hand tiredly. "Well you can tell them. I-"

"Sora?"

"Aye Lydia?" the Irishwoman asked, an affectionate smile appearing on her lips as her goddaughter spoke.
"Soracha" had been a mouthful for her when she was little, so she'd called her Sora, and was now the only person permitted to address her like this.

"Tea with whiskey."
Lydia carefully gave Teague and Soracha a steaming mug.

"Thank ye."

Lydia nodded, climbing onto the sofa to curl up at Soracha's feet, her head resting on her godmothers knees, eyes watching her.
"Is it good?" she asked.

"Perfect."
Teague and Soracha answered together, making them both grin.

"Good," Lydia murmured, fiddling with her sleeve.

"I wish I could help you!" she exclaimed suddenly, hitting the sofa with her fist. "I'm supposed to be a doctor, like you, but what good is that if I can't help you?!"
Her voice broke, eyes suddenly filling with tears.

Soracha took a slow sip of tea. "Come here Lydia," she said softly.

Lydia stretched herself out until she lay alongside her, the old, sagging sofa wide enough to accommodate them both comfortably.

"You are learning a very valuable lesson in a very hard way. You can't help everyone, you can't heal or save every single person who gets sick or hurt just because you're a doctor. Sometimes, no matter what you do, no matter how much medicine you use, your patient is not going to survive. It was the hardest thing I had to learn. It doesn't mean you're a failure, doesn't mean you did anything wrong. It was that person's time, you had to let them go. The best thing to do is stay with them. Nobody should have to die alone."

A fit of coughs followed Soracha's speech, blood on her hand when she lowered it away from her mouth once the coughing stopped.

She rested her head back, breathing ragged, pain in her eyes.

"Is...is there anything I can do for you?" Lydia asked, her voice shaky.

"Aye. Get Sahara. I'm sure we can fit four people on this...sofa..." Soracha answered, finishing off her tea, her voice fading, breathing becoming faint. The empty mug slipped from her shaky fingers and shattered.
She coughed weakly as Sahara came in, curling up.

It turned out that yes, they could fit four people on the sofa.

And so, tangled in the limbs of the people she loved most, peaceful, quiet and knowing they loved her too, Soracha closed her eyes for the last time.

After all, death was just another path, one she was quite ready to take.

A/N Thank you to IsilwenofRivendell for letting me use her OC Lydia. Xx