A/N: Title is from 'Moon and Sea' by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

You are the moon, dear love, and I the sea:
The tide of hope swells high within my breast,
And hides the rough dark rocks of life's unrest
When your fond eyes smile near in perigee.
But when that loving face is turned from me,
Low falls the tide, and the grim rocks appear,
And earth's dim coast-line seems a thing to fear.
You are the moon, dear one, and I the sea.
― Moon and Sea by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It was the obvious contrast of Abigail's head feeling very warm and her feet feeling very cold that woke her. Her fingers curled into the sandy beach and her eyes opened. Blinking slowly and then quickly, she tried to focus her eyes.

Sand.

Seaweed.

Broken wooden boards.

Her ears identified the sound of the surf and she realised that was why her feet were so cold; waves continually washed over them.

Abigail sat up.

Her head swam and pounded with her movements, but she ignored the pain in favour of staring at the beach she had clearly washed upon.

Trying to make sense of her surroundings, she thought back. She remembered the ship she boarded that left Philadelphia heading towards South America. She remembered practicing her sketches so that the group she travelled with realised her usefulness. She remembered the group of missionaries on board with along with their Bibles and their misguided, if well-meant, ideals. She remembered standing on the deck watching as another ship approached them on the starboard side while a storm stirred port side.

She remembered thunder and lightning and monstrous waves that tore at the sails and the masts and she remembered sliding along the rain-slick deck and falling into the sea and wondering if this was how she died.

Apparently, it wasn't.

With shaky legs, she got to her feet. Her dress was still in one piece, with only a few tears. Her hair was one long mat of snarls and her shoes were heavy with water. She scanned the horizon, hoping to see something, anything, which could be identified as a rescue.

Nothing.

Only waves under a clear blue sky and a rising relentless orange sun.

A groan resounded somewhere on her left and she stumbled back as she looked around.

It was a man.

A very large man lay on his stomach with a flat wooden board pinning him to the ground.

Abigail abandoned her shoes in the sand as she hurried over to him, the sand warm against her stockings. Grasping the edge of the board and biting her lip, she shoved the board off of him; his body rolling over in the process, exposing his face to her.

She froze and stared down at him; all thoughts left her save one.

Reverend Abbott was correct, she thought as her hand lifted to cover her lips. The Lord truly works in the most mysterious of ways.

The man she'd once sailed with named Billy Bones groaned once more and then slowly opened his eyes. He blinked up at the sun and then turned his head. Upon seeing Abigail, he stilled and stared.

Abigail stared back, completely unable to say a word.

After a long moment, Billy, with a voice as rough as tree bark, said, "Well, fuck me."

Quite, Abigail thought.

After helping him to his feet, they stared at the sea, side by side, and Abigail felt oddly calm. Her head ached and her mouth tasted of salt and she had the feeling that she might be sick sooner rather than later due to all the seawater she suspected she swallowed, but still she felt…calm.

Her journey's aim had been to escape the mundanity of society and judging by the events of the previous night, Mother Nature clearly wished the same for her. So she resolved to do as she had done for the last two years – wait and observe. The time since Charles Town and her father's death had taught her patience, if nothing else and she knew that Mr Bones had to be considering their situation.

She took a moment to look her companion over, if only to reassure herself that it was truly him. He looked much the same as he had on that fateful voyage to Charles Town, if with a few more lines beside his eyes. He hadn't said anything since his initial expletive and seemed content to just stare out at the ocean.

While she hadn't forgotten a moment of her time with Captain Flint's crew, she'd been amongst city dwellers for so long she wasn't exactly used to seeing so much bare skin. His arms had various cuts and scrapes and his upper arm had a nasty looking scar that nearly encircled the muscle. She glanced at his face, only to find him looking at her, one eyebrow arched.

Abigail cleared her throat as he stared down at her, his eyes sharp and bright.

She smiled slightly and said, "I'm very aware that of the two of us, you're the more experienced and knowledgeable person. However, I want to help with whatever you're planning to do. I'm not afraid of hard work."

He looked at her; really looked at her. In a way that she wasn't sure she'd ever been looked at before; his eyes seemed to take all of her in, her words, her body, everything. She fought the urge to fidget under his gaze as her body flushed from the examination and simply stared back.

"What makes you think I have a plan?" he asked after some time.

"You don't have a plan?" she asked. "You're the ship's boatswain, I assumed—"

"I'm a man overboard," he corrected her. "I'm quite possibly considered lost at sea. If you're expecting a ship to suddenly appear on that horizon to pick us up, I'm afraid you're going to be very disappointed."

"They won't look for you?" she asked looking out at the endless horizon, the waves far calmer than they'd been the night before.

"They might," he said rubbing his jaw. "But we were limping when that squall came upon us. They'll need to make repairs before they even consider mounting any kind of a search. If they decide to mount a search."

"But…" she trailed off and bit her lip.

She felt his eyes on her. "But—what?" he asked.

"I had the impression that the crew thought very highly of you," she said. "They certainly seemed to when I last was in your company."

He chuckled and leaned down to pluck a shell from the sand that he turned over in his hands.

"'Thinking highly' of a man doesn't always mean a search party," he said. "And the captain has other things on his mind than a potentially drowned boatswain."

He drew his arm back and threw the shell a great distance with a mere flick of his wrist. Abigail watched it skim across the surface of the water before it disappeared into an oncoming wave.

"I believe the more pertinent question here is, will someone come looking for you?" he asked turning to face her.

Abigail stared out at the ocean before shaking her head and giving voice to the sad truth that had been whispering in the back of her mind since she awoke, "No. No one will come looking for me, Mr Bones. I'm quite alone."

Billy didn't believe her.

Not just about no one looking for her; he was having a very hard time believing in her; in her actual presence on this beach beside him.

When he'd come to and saw her standing over him, her head haloed by the rising sun, he'd honestly believed he was dead and she was some sort of angel.

But then he saw the state of her and knew that no angel would look so earthly. Her simple blue dress was torn along one shoulder and Billy could see her chemise peeking through the ripped fabric. She had a scrape on her temple and another on her cheek. He knew he wasn't much better. His fingers ached from clinging to ropes during the storm and then to God only knew what whilst he was in the water.

iAt least the company is a fair sight better looking than the previous bunch I washed up on/i, he thought.

Still, he reached down for another shell to give his hands something to do as well as to stop himself for reaching out to touch her to make sure she was real and not some strange fever dream.

"I find that hard to believe," he said skimming the shell. "Your family –"

"My closest relatives live in England, and by closest, I actually refer to some distant cousins who have no wish to be associated with me," she said. "After my father's death, I lived with some friends of his in Savannah and then in Philadelphia." He watched her out of the corner of his eye and saw her lift up her chin. "I reached my majority six months ago and had no further need of their support."

He frowned and shook his head. "Miss Ashe-"

"Abigail," she said looking at him. "Please. Call me Abigail."

"Right," he said. "Right, well then, Abigail, you're a very long way from Philadelphia, what the fuck are you doing here?"

Her cheeks coloured at his language and he felt a slight pang of remorse for being so blunt, but he needed to know what she was about and hell, he was a pirate, wasn't he? He wasn't going to tidy up his language for her.

"I assume you mean what was I doing on the Hadley," she said and he realised she meant the name of the ship they'd come upon in the squall. "I was travelling to the coast of Brazil on a nature expedition. The Philadelphia Nature Society wants to embark on a study of the tropics."

Billy stared at her, certain that she was speaking English, but unable to fully understand her.

"You were travelling on a…nature expedition?" he asked, attempting to wrap his head around any woman voluntarily going on a voyage of that sort.

"As I said," she said, her eyes glancing to his and then away.

"And they were letting you?" he asked. "A woman on an expedition?"

"They had no choice," she said, that chin of hers lifting once more.

"And why is that?"

"Because I'm funding the expedition," she said. "They had to allow me to accompany them or I wouldn't let them touch a cent."

He stared at her. "You funded an expedition?"

"You say that as though it was something beyond the pale," she said frowning. "I assure you, expeditions are funded by private individuals all the time."

"Are they funded by single young women?" he retorted and her cheeks flushed once more. "Right, thought not."

"I don't see how I choose to spend my inheritance has any bearing on our present situation," she said, her voice soft but firm with only the slightest of wavers.

"It has bearing because I'm trying to determine if the people you've invested in will come looking for the woman who holds their purse strings," he said.

She looked out at the ocean. "I've already told you, no, they won't. I've already given them as much as I could and they made it quite clear that I was responsible for my own well-being. Were I to perish or injure myself on this trip, they would only do the bare minimum to assist."

"Charming people you travelled with," he said.

"Travelled with far worse," she replied sharply before she looked away frowning. "I beg your pardon. I wasn't referring to you and your men."

"Be all right if you were. And you wouldn't be all that far from the truth," he said easily. "But I'd like to think we wouldn't tell a woman that she was on her own and that she had to either sink or swim. Did you truly head out to the South Americas without a companion?"

"I made sure that we timed our departure to coincide with a group of missionaries," she said. "There were another two women in their party and I spent most of my time with them. Although, they were quite clear in their disapproval of me, as well." She faced him. "Mr Bones, I'm very sorry to repeat it, but no one will come looking for me."

He furrowed his brow and looked out at the sea. Making a decision, he pointed. "Do you see that line of surf out there? Beyond the still of the bay, where the waves are crashing?"

"Yes," she said looking at where he indicated, her hand rising to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.

"This island is uninhabited because of that reef out there," he said. "It's a sharp line of rock and coral that circles this island and it will rip a small boat to shreds unless you catch the tide and the angles right. It's difficult enough with a full crew of men. And it's nigh on impossible with only one. And a man would have to be either a fool or a drunk to attempt it on his own."

"And you are neither," she said matter-of-factly.

It was his turn for his cheeks to flush, but he just cleared his throat and nodded. "My point being, unless my crew decides that they don't want to give me up for dead, and if what you say is true and no one will come looking for you..."

"Go ahead, Mr Bones," she said softly looking up at him, clearly comprehending what he was about to say. "You may say it aloud."

Billy took a deep breath and faced the ocean once more as he said, "We are very much stranded on this island."

A/N: Oh, if you've made it this far, I hope you enjoyed it and we're in for a long one! This story has taken over my brain and I have serious plans for these two. I wish I could say that I'll update weekly, but life has a way of getting hectic this time of year. However, I have this whole thing outlined from start to finish and I'm in it for the long haul. Do let me know what you think!