Aisling had just finished at the salon on board. She’d had her hair trimmed, shaped, and styled, her eyebrows waxed as well as a whole body wax as well. She felt fantastic, that is until the call came from Blake. Her heart dropped and when she tried to ask questions, all she was answered back with was that she needed to get down to the brig as soon as possible.
Instantly she was on high alert and she made her way through the ship. When someone tried to stop her, she politely took the time to say hello, but ended whatever conversation they were wanting to start by telling them she was late for an appointment; let them take that as they wanted.
It took a few minutes to get to the brig, too long minutes if you asked her. But soon she was in the hall and nearly jogging down to the area where security was. “Bear!” She called out, have with worry but half relief as well to see him pacing. “What happened? I had a call…” she trailed off as she came to a stop in front of him, her hands going to cup his face so she could see into his face. “What happened?”
Bear couldn't wait to get back to their cabin, and he could have walked there himself but he kind of did just want Aisling to come get him, drag him away from the brig. When he finally saw her, something in him eased a little, and he felt a lump in his throat. He swallowed it back down, but he looked miserable. “Hey,” he greeted. “I... let's go back to our room,” he said, arms going around her before he could stop himself. He hugged her tight, needing to settle himself a little.
Aisling wrapped her arms around Bear, holding him just as tight as she looked back towards the brig with confusion set on her face. She had no clue what was going on, and until she knew she was sure the turmoil in the pit of her stomach would continue. “Sure,” she murmured and pressed her lips to his cheek. Not fully letting him go, she wrapped one arm around his waist and took his to wrap over her shoulders, her free hand linking their fingers together.
“First,” she said as she started to lead them back to the elevator. “Tell me if you were arrested. After that we can be silent until we get to the room if you want.”
“I haven’t been arrested,” Bear assured her. “I...yeah.” He fell quiet like she said they could, and headed back to their room with her. Once they were safely inside, he locked the door and reassured himself that this guy was alone, that there weren’t pirates lurking all around the ship...probably. Fuck, there could be.
He didn’t know where to start. “...you look beautiful,” he told her, even if he still looked miserable. He had noticed she’d gotten her hair done and such. He forced himself to leave the door and barley convinced himself not to put something heavy in front of it. He itched to, though. Then he went to get himself a stiff drink to calm his nerves a little.
“Okay. Good…” Though Aisling still did not understand why she’d been called to retrieve him from the brig. Still, she’d promised silence and silence was what she gave him. An understanding silence. She kept glued to his side, not unlocking from him as they moved through the ship. In the elevator she pressed even more into him, hoping to relieve whatever stress he was feeling at the moment.
It took a little while, but soon they were in their room and she finally did unhook from him. Her eyes tracked his movements and she knew there was something severely bothering him. “Thank you…” she murmured, surprised and pleased that even in his moment of being distracted by something else entirely he’d noticed her and that she’d been to the salon. She followed him to the bar where their liquor was kept and continued to watch him as he poured himself a drink.
“Babe…” she spoke quietly. “Please...tell me what has happened.”
Bear poured himself another drink after he killed the first, downed that one and poured a third before he spoke. “One of the pirates is onboard,” he said quietly. “He I guess just blended in with the ship and escaped punishment, and--” he took a drink and then turned and threw the glass at the wall, shattering it there. It was nowhere near her, the opposite direction, and he breathed hard as his fists balled up then released several times. “He held me captive, Ash. I’ll never forget his fucking face, that son of a bitch held me captive.”
Aisling watched quietly as Bear downed one drink, poured another, downed that one and poured yet another. This was serious. Very serious. When he finally did speak, what he said took her by surprise. A pirate? Her mind instantly went to that day, what had happened, but was quickly brought out of her reverie when the glass shattered. She jumped, jolted by the action, and then she was moving to stand in front of him. She did not touch him, knowing that if he was in the throes of memories of what had happened to him while being held captive that it would not bode well; she would wait for him to touch her first.
“Bear...Theodore?” She spoke softly, her face upraised slightly to look into his. She used his given name, something that she rarely did. “Take a breath. Let it out slowly. You’re okay…” she murmured. “They have him captive then? That’s why you were down there?”
He did as she instructed, taking a deep, deep breath. He shut his eyes and let it out slowly, counting out the beats like he told people who’d just been through a trauma. By the time he was finished with a few exhales, he was feeling slightly less prone to rage, but still. He noticed his hand was shaking, mostly because he reached out to lightly touch her elbow. “I was just walking down the hall and he passed me. And I think he was trying to duck down or something, or maybe my mind is making that up, I don’t know. I just recognized him. So, I hit him. Hit him til he stayed down then I dragged him to the security office. Dustin said that they’re keeping him.”
He didn’t realize it but he did actually look like he’d been in a scuffle. It wasn’t like the guy hadn’t landed a couple blows himself, Bear had just had animal fury on his side. His hands were bruised up bad, two of his knuckles split.
Aisling watched Bear closely, unconsciously breathing as she’d told him to do with him. The moment that he touched her elbow opened the door for her to touch him and that was what she did. Her hands reached out, one taking his to survey his split knuckles. She brought his hand to her lips and she placed a kiss to it before she looked up at him.
“Oh Bear…” she whispered, her other hand now lightly cupping his face as she took on any bruises that were starting to appear there. “I’m so sorry.” She knew that seeing the other man’s face had had to bring up all those memories that he never talked about. Memories of everything that that had happened to him in those months as a prisoner to the pirates.
“Let’s sit down? Let me clean your cuts. You can talk to me, tell me everything that happened… or not. What are they going to do with him? Kick him off the ship and hand him over to authorities?” That’s what they should do, she thought.
He nodded, thinking sitting down was a good plan. He’d sweep up the glass later. He took her with him as he headed them through the cabin to their bedroom, with the ensuite bathroom. He walked in, and sat on the ledge of the huge tub. He was quiet for a long few moments, just trying to line his thoughts up. “I don’t know what they’re going to do. I just don’t think he belongs here,” he said. “He was with people who killed others, who held hostages, and this ship wasn’t the first they hit. I don’t know how long he was with them but he was when they took me captive,” he shared.
In the bathroom, she pulled out a first aid kit and then started to doctor his hand. At first it was just silence, but she knew given time he would speak again. She cleaned the cuts on his knuckles, though bandaging them would be a no go other than to wrap a bandage around his hand, which she did. Then she worked at his face, lightly dabbing at any blood from cuts.
“No,” she answered when Bear finally did speak. “He does not deserve to be on this ship,” she agreed fully on that aspect. “But I hate to be the one to say this, because I despise the pirates, too, but just because he was with the people who killed others does not mean he was a killer himself,” she pointed out gently. “But he did help hold you hostage? Hurt you?” She hoped that Bear had beaten the crap out of the guy. “Babe, I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and to have all those memories flooding you again…”
He thought to himself that she was pretty good at this, the patching him up thing. It felt nice. Not that he planned on making it a habit. “I have no idea if he was a killer or not, but he certainly fucking aided and abetted them, even if he didn’t take anyone down himself,” Bear said. “Accessory.” That was the word he was looking for. He also bit back a surge of anger, knowing that she was just talking, she didn’t mean to trod on issues. “And just because he didn’t kill anyone doesn’t mean he didn’t hold me captive. Because yes, he did. And he did whatever he was fucking told, which means when I was getting too hard to handle, they didn’t feed me, they didn’t give me water, sometimes they beat me down physically,” he said, looking away. Then he looked back to her, finding her eyes. “...I don’t care if he killed anyone, Ash. He was there. I remember him, sitting outside my cell, making sure I didn’t get out. He was there, and he helped them.”
It was Aislings way to try to see the good in people before the bad. She wanted to see that this guy that had hurt her husband had other reasons to do what he did. Maybe he was told to do it or he’d be hurt himself, maybe...maybe...she was having trouble coming up with good reasons. Her heart hurt for him, and when his eyes sought hers once more, it was all she could do not to cry for him. He’d been through so much, she knew, but it hadn’t been until now that he’d let it show through.
Done with doctoring him up, she slid her hands over his shoulders and then back up until her thumbs could graze along his jawline. “Then we do what needs to be done to get him off this ship,” she murmured. “But until then, you’re safe. Even if he is here, he hasn’t tried to hurt you since and he can’t hurt you now. I’m here and I definitely will not let him.”
“Pretty sure he's already done enough,” Bear said quietly. He looked down, giving himself another minute. “I'm going to go clean up the glass,” he said. It would give him something to do. Something to concentrate on. He reached up to give her wrist a squeeze before he disengaged and stood, heading back toward the kitchen. He needed a distraction, and to try and figure out how to process this. So far he was doing a shit job at coming up with a course of action.
Aisling stepped back to give Bear room enough to stand up and move. As he left the bathroom, she cleaned up and put the first aid kit back where it belonged. She was giving him his moment to breathe, to maybe straighten out his head and to not have her up his ass. One thing she’d learned not from school, but from her brother was that it was always best to give a little breathing room.
Finally, she stepped out of the bathroom and out to where Bear was, watching as he cleaned up the glass that had shattered to the floor.
“Bear?” It was the only syllable she spoke as she stood there, watching him. She didn’t want to be in therapist mode right now, she wanted to be in wife mode; it was difficult to counsel family members anyway and she wasn’t sure if he even wanted her to be that to him. To be his wife, though, was simple.
“Yeah?” he asked, sweeping up the glass, and he pulled a dish rag out of a drawer so he could wipe down the wall where alcohol had splashed down it. He didn’t know what else to say. He was feeling all over the place, though the general theme of all those things was ‘bad’. He was just feeling very, very bad.
Aisling had never felt at such a loss of words as she was feeling right then. She slid her hands over her jeans, letting Bear clean up the mess he had made. Maybe she should help him, but she felt that he was trying to keep himself busy for the moment and so let him continue.
When he spoke just the one word, a question to her question, she frowned. She had hoped that he would have taken the initiative to talk. He was, she thought, maybe as stubborn as her brother. “You’ve never talked to me about what happened,” she started slowly. “Which I understood and have never pressured you in doing so, thinking that when you were finally ready to peel back that scar you would. But...I think... “ she let out a small sigh. “Instead of that scar being gently peeled back, it’s been ripped open and I just… maybe it’s time to finally tell me everything.”
He took a beat to remain calm with everything, sweeping up the last of the glass and dumping it in the bin. Then he took a dish rag out of the drawer and wet it down, putting dish soap on it so he could clean up the alcohol running down the wall. “I have a lot of anger right now,” he said, not looking at her, trying to find all the splashed spots. “And I don’t want to direct it at you,” he tried to explain. “And I know you’re being you, and doing what is probably best, and I’m positive there’s reasons for the approach you’re taking, but from here it feels like you’re either trying to justify what he’s done, or you’re taking his side. You’re sympathising with him, not me. I’m sure there’s something in psychology land about playing devil’s advocate or whatever, but now really isn’t the time for me. I’m allowed to be upset, and I shouldn’t have to talk to you while you’re sitting there telling me things like ‘well maybe he never murdered anyone’ or ‘well he hasn’t tried to hurt you since’.” He was finished with the alcohol and he put it in the sink, finally looking back at her. “I’m going to go for a walk, okay?” he told her. “I need the air, I need to clear my head, everything just feels bad right now.”
Strike one against being a wife. Aisling took the hit hard, guilt washing over her for not being able to be the side of herself that he needed. She blinked and tried to adjust her thinking, to adjust herself. “I’m sorry,” she frowned. “I’m not sympathising with him. I’m just….I’m doing this all badly,” she sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry.” It was all she could say at the moment. She was failing and what she had said had upset him and rightly so. She took a breath and then nodded when he said he was going to go for a walk. What could she do? Tell him no and force him to talk?
“I’d rather you stayed,” she looked at him. “But I get it. I’ll be here, when you’re ready to talk.”
“Well, there isn't exactly a handbook for how to deal with a spouse who has to face their torture-kidnappers,” he said with a sigh. He nodded, and before he left, he did press a kiss to the top of her head. But then he was out, just heading to wherever, probably the jogging track so he could take a breath. He didn't want all this anger in his house.