Summary: A short story about how my OC Stuart Thomas (005) lost his eye. Lots of hurt/comfort and adorable kid Q. Bright Star 'verse. Takes place in 1994, a couple of years after "Bed, Breakfast, and Bandages."

Notes: Medical stuff, but I'm not a doctor. I consulted Google only. I'm sure I got most of it wrong. Also, this is from the POV of my OC Stuart Thomas, who appears in other stories in my Bright Star 'verse.


Pirate

1994

Whoever was knocking at the door of the flat had been out there for a solid three minutes, but Stuart Thomas, who had until very recently been Agent 005 of MI6, couldn't be arsed to answer it.

The reason for this was that he was currently sitting on the cold tile of his rather nice bathroom, heaving his guts out into the toilet.

Damned cancer. Damned poison coursing through his veins, no matter that they called it 'medicine.' This didn't feel like any medicine he'd ever had, and he'd had plenty in his eight years as 005. He had, however, been poisoned many times before, and this felt rather comparable.

He heard (but only barely, to the extent that it was only a feeling) whoever was at the door pick the lock and slip in, and decided that he didn't care.

If it was someone who'd come to kill him, he'd welcome death. Better a quick bullet to the head than this miserable, ignominious decline.

He sagged back against the side of the bathtub, too drained to keep his eyes open. He gasped for breath; he had been trying and failing to catch his breath since before his diagnosis of lung cancer.

Silent footsteps in the hallway, barely perceptible.

The bathroom door was open, so all the intruder had to do was look in…

"You look like a twelve-hour corpse, Thomas."

Damien Bloody Drake.

Stuart found the energy to curse at him, albeit with none of his usual flair (or long-windedness, the reason being that he had very little breath to spare).

Damien tucked the gun back into his shoulder holster and filled a glass (one which Stuart had begun storing there since the nausea had started) at the sink. Crouching down on his haunches before Stuart, he handed him the water and told him to drink it in the gentle tone he usually used with his little boy.

Stuart angrily told him what to do with the damned water in three languages. A long bout of ragged coughing ruined whatever effect that might have had.

Damien huffed an annoyed breath out through his nose and rubbed Stuart's back. Once he was done coughing and spitting bloody phlegm into the toilet, Damien ordered him to stop being a bloody idiot and drink the damned water before his kidneys failed from dehydration.

Then he got up and walked out of the bathroom, leaving Stuart feeling strangely bereft.

Had he...gone?

God, Stuart berated himself. He was pathetic, wasn't he?

He heard Damien murmur something in the other room and a high voice chirrup something back.

Oh, God. Had Damien brought Danny with him? Had Stuart's friend really brought a four-year-old to visit a very sick man? Not only a sick man, but a favored uncle who had always been willing and able to play with him. An uncle who had always been active, who now had only one lung and one eye due to his recent surgeries to remove the metastatic tumors in the cancerous organs.

And really, that was it, wasn't it?

He didn't want Danny to see him like this.

Wasn't that why he hadn't told Damien about his cancer or being forcibly retired from active duty in the first place? He'd known that his friend would come rushing to help him, having lost none of his protective instincts and fierce loyalty in the four years since his retirement from the 007 designation.

Damien returned after some time, and thankfully, Danny wasn't with him. The other man saw the expression on his face and shook his head, sighing. "Come on, Stuart. Drink the water. I've put the kettle on so you can have tea later, but you need the fluids now."

He reached over Stuart into the combined bathtub/shower stall, stuck the bath plug into the drain, and turned the knob to begin filling the tub with warm water.

"What're you doing?" Stuart slurred.

"You're taking a bath. You'll feel more human after. Drink."

Stuart snorted into the glass and sipped a little of the water while Damien looked on approvingly. Seeing that Stuart had so far kept the water down, Damien flushed the toilet so the smell of bile wouldn't trigger the sick man.

"What did you do with the kid?" Stuart asked, resigned that Damien was not going to go anywhere, no matter how Stuart railed against it, and really, he hadn't the strength to protest any further.

"He's rearranging your bookshelf."

Stuart nodded at first, then realized that he owned all of three books and looked at Damien inquiringly.

"He brought his own," Damien said dryly. "He knows you well enough to predict that your shelves would be rather bare."

"Why?" Stuart asked, furrowing his brows. "I hardly read when I had both eyes; how much reading does he think I'll be doing with only one?"

Damien leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, as though waiting for Stuart to come to some kind of conclusion.

Which he did, but only after his sluggish brain decided to sputter into action.

"No," he said angrily. "No, you are not staying here to nurse me to health, Damien Drake. Go away and take your kid with you."

Damien was looking down at him thoughtfully. He nodded, then pushed himself off of the wall with an easy grace and turned to leave the room. "Chicken soup. It'll do you good."

Stuart groaned. "What are you going to make it with? Haven't a thing in the fridge."

Damien smirked. "Yes, I'd predicted that. We stopped at Tesco's before we came here." He paused. "Good try, but you're nowhere near your usual pigheadedness."

Then he disappeared and soon the sounds of groceries being put away could be heard coming from the kitchen.

Stuart sighed, exhausted. Well. Not what he'd expected when he'd gotten up that morning to intense nausea and bone-deep pain, but he supposed that it wasn't too bad.

Yet.

Danny had yet to see his disfigured face. The incision from the lung surgery was alright; the scar along the back of his rib cage would soon blend in among the dozens of others already there, but a missing eye was a different matter.

Stuart hoped that the little boy wouldn't be too frightened of him. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but it would hurt terribly if Danny showed any sign of being scared of his beloved Uncle Stuart.

. . . . .

Presently, Damien came back and turned off the tap, swishing his fingers in the water to test the temperature. Evidently having approved of it, he turned to Stuart and examined him, assessing him.

"Do you think you can manage on your own?" he asked, his lips pursed, as though uncertain of how far he could intrude on his friend.

Stuart sighed, and hung his head in defeat. "No," he admitted softly. "I don't think I can get up." He hated this, all of this. The nausea, the pain, the breathlessness, his body's betrayal.

Damien closed the door and pulled his sleeves up. Kneeling, he gently tugged the sweat-soaked shirt over Stuart's head, being careful not to aggravate the stitches on his ribs and the area around his right eye, which were both still taped over with gauze. Damien peeled the white square back from the cut they'd made to remove part of the diseased lung and tsked at his slowed rate of healing - this, at least, was something more or less familiar - but he didn't touch the other surgery site.

Damien patiently helped him get the rest of his clothes off, then slipped an arm under Stuart's shoulders and lifted him into the bath.

Stuart hissed at the sudden heat on his clammy skin and grasped at the side of the tub.

"Too hot?" Damien murmured.

Stuart shook his head. "'S fine. I'm cold, 's all." He sighed and relaxed into the warm water. "'S nice. Thanks."

"You sit there and soak for a few minutes. Don't drown, you hear me, Stuart?"

Stuart waved a hand at him dismissively, his head tipped back and eye closed. "You said something about soup. Go make me soup."

Damien called him an unsavory name that he would never utter in the presence of his son, and left the room shaking his head in fond exasperation.

Stuart revived after he'd warmed up a little and half-heartedly began to scrub himself with the soapy washcloth. Damien was right; he did feel better now that he was able to wash off the sweat and stench of sickness. He gave the bottle of shampoo a longing look but decided against it; his hair would fall out soon enough anyway and he was too exhausted to try it.

Damien slipped in again at that point, and offered to wash his hair, doing so in a quiet manner so as not to embarrass his old friend.

Stuart gave in with a sigh; it would feel good to be clean all over.

"Can you get your eye wet?"

"Mm," Stuart murmured. "Bit of a horror show to look at. But yeah. Need to change the gauze anyway."

Damien carefully peeled the tape off, then gasped. Loudly.

"Good god!" he cried dramatically, clutching at his chest, "How horrible! Absolutely terrifying!" He lifted his hands to his eyes, as though to ward off the terrible sight.

Stuart glared at him with his one eye.

Damien rolled his two good eyes and turned to toss the trash in the bin. "You do realize that an empty eye socket is not the worst sight I've seen, you idiot. Four years away from the business haven't really made me forget, you know?"

He leaned his forearms on the side of the tub. "If you want to talk about a real horror show, then Ivar's legs - or lack thereof - after the shark got him was probably the worst thing I've seen someone live through. And -" here, he fixed Stuart with a look that reminded him of how perceptive the man was, "- Danny isn't going to run away screaming either. He thinks Ivar's prosthetics are fun, for goodness' sake. He's only ever been interested in the scars, never frightened. So you don't have to worry about that, either."

Stuart pursed his lips and fixed his good eye on his knees. "Ivar's legs have been like that since before Danny was born. He doesn't know any different."

Damien just looked at him. "He loves you," he finally said. "He knows that you're very ill, and that you've had surgery. He's aware of the consequences. He had Q pull all sorts of medical articles for him and he's making me read them, too."

Stuart snorted. "He's never been near anyone really sick. He's never seen someone die." He looked at Damien. "Are you going to do that to him? If- If I don't make it…"

Damien raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you going to make me explain to him why we let Uncle Stuart suffer and die alone when we could have done something about it? He adores you."

Stuart huffed.

"Just let me wash your hair," Damien said, pushing his sleeves back up his arms. "And we'll see how it goes after that. He's keen to see you. At least let him snuggle with you for the afternoon."

Stuart chuckled. "No one in his right mind would turn down a snuggle session with the most adorable kid in the world."

"Exactly," Damien said, lathering the shampoo, "Though I have had my doubts about your sanity. I do hope you won't prove my suspicions right."

"Wanker." Stuart splashed bath water at his smirking friend.

"Oh, did you want soap in your good eye? That can certainly be arranged."

"You can't treat me like that. I'm a bloody invalid. I've got cancer and everything."

. . . . .

Stuart had to stop stalling.

He had been in his room 'getting dressed' for an unaccountably long time, and he really, really needed to stop stalling. If he kept this up any longer, Damien would come back to check if he was still alive.

Finally, with a final self-conscious touch to his eyepatch that covered up the unseemly gauze and tape over his excised eye, he ventured out of his bedroom and out into the hallway where he could more clearly hear Danny chattering happily to his father, who responded every now and then.

They were in the kitchen, but upon hearing Stuart's pained old-man shuffles, Danny came scampering out, followed by Damien and the Drakes' mutt of indeterminable breed, Puck.

'Christ, even the dog's here,' Stuart thought glumly.

"Uncle Stuart!" Danny exclaimed brightly, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "Oops, too loud?" he queried worriedly, covering his mouth with both hands.

Stuart's face twitched into a smile, then creased back into a flat expression to hide his emotions. "It wasn't too loud, Danny," he replied, and resisted the urge to touch his eyepatch.

Danny came closer, cautiously, as though he sensed that his uncle was a ticking time bomb ready to blow. Nevertheless, he stared up at the eyepatch with open curiosity. "Does it hurt?" he asked, a little line furrowing into his forehead at the thought of his uncle in pain.

Stuart shrugged. "It's alright." He took care not to fidget under the inquiring gaze.

Danny pouted, then walked very deliberately up to him and hugged him gingerly. "Am I hurting you?" he whispered. It was evident that he was trying to avoid touching Stuart's right side.

Stuart let the smile spread across his face. "Nah," he said softly, "I could use a bigger hug, though, Danny. Think you can manage that?"

Danny grinned widely, then squeezed his little arms tighter. "Like this?" he said, leaning his cheek against Stuart's left hip.

Stuart wanted to pick the little boy up and hug him properly, like he was used to, or at the very least, kneel down to his level, but he knew that he didn't have the strength for either of those. He barely had the energy to stand as it was. Instead, he closed his eye and ran his hands through the tangled mop of dark curls and down the small back, holding the innocent child tightly against himself and anchoring himself against the boy.

"Yeah," he whispered roughly, "I really needed that hug, kiddo."

"I know," the child replied, "Daddy said so."

Stuart opened his eye and met the father's understanding gaze. "Your daddy's a smart man," he croaked. "Nearly as smart as you."

Danny giggled and reached for his hand, tugging his uncle gently towards the sitting room. "Come and see what I did, Uncle Stuart."

He led him to the sofa, then made him sit down and covered him with a big, fluffy blanket that Stuart recognized from the Drake household, mostly because it had a large Batman logo emblazoned on it. Then, he proudly showed off the bookshelf, in which he had arranged dozens of books, arranged neatly by genre and then by author's last name. Of course, only the bottom three shelves were filled, as that was as far as the small boy could reach, but it was admirably done, and Stuart said so, with gusto.

Danny beamed at him and came back to the sofa, plopping himself down right up against Stuart for the snuggle that Damien had promised him. The dog made itself at home by sitting on top of Stuart's feet. He looked down at the mutt, who grinned doggily up at him and wagged its tail.

'Little shit,' he thought fondly down at it.

Damien brought Stuart a steaming mug of tea with lemon and honey and instructed his son to make sure that his uncle drank every drop of it (the sneaky bastard!). Danny had taken the order very seriously and had gotten straight to work.

Once the mug was empty, the two of them sat in a comfortable silence, the little boy tucked up against the side of Stuart's chest warming him from the inside out. Stuart tipped his head back; he was exhausted. He could sleep. He could definitely fall asleep like this.

Presently, however, he became aware of eyes looking at him. Staring at him, rather, and very intently. He cracked his own eye open and looked down at the little boy, who had his curious green eyes fixed on the black eyepatch.

"Yes?" he asked groggily.

Danny pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Uncle Stuart?" he said solemnly, "You look like a pirate."

Of all the things the little boy could have said, that was not what Stuart had been expecting.

He barked out a startled laugh. "A pirate. Alright. I can live with that."

Danny grinned brightly, having gotten a favorable reaction out of his uncle. "Yes, a pirate. It's cool."

Stuart looked fondly down at his nephew. God, how he loved this little boy. "Do I have a pirate ship? Maybe we could have Ivar join us, eh? What with his legs."

Danny giggled and nodded. "Yes! You can be the captain, and Uncle Ivar can be the first mate, and Daddy-"

"He can be the cook," Stuart said loudly, knowing that Damien was listening in from the kitchen, where he was making something that smelled warm and comforting.

Little Danny laughed uproariously. "Yes! Daddy can be the cook!"

"And what about you?" Stuart said, smiling at the happy child, "You don't want to be Captain Drake? Say, do you know about Sir Francis Drake? He was a famous pirate in the days of Queen Elizabeth I."

Danny fixed him with a trademark Drake Look. "Of course I know!" he huffed indignantly. "We're related to him!"

Stuart's eyebrows shot up. "Really? I never knew that." He looked over his shoulder to where he could see Damien smiling at the two of them. Damien nodded in confirmation.

Huh.

"Anyway," Danny said in that tone of voice that he used when he stated the obvious, "I want to be the quartermaster."

Stuart snorted. "Of course you do. You'd make a great quartermaster."

Danny beamed, then said seriously. "I would. I would be a really good quartermaster."

Stuart hugged the little boy tight. "You would, you really would," he said into the soft curls that smelled like that kids' shampoo Damien liked to use on Danny. "You'll be amazing at anything you want to do."

. . . . .

Epilogue

Ivar Bryce squinted against the glare of the bright sun on the sparkling waves. He read the name painted in an elegant hand on the side of the boat again, still puzzled. "The Francis?"

"The Francis," Stuart Thomas confirmed with a wink to Damien Drake, who stood next to them. "Good name for a pirate ship."

Ivar looked at him quizzically, then shook his head with a resigned sigh. "This is one of those British jokes that don't make a lick of sense, isn't it?"

The two British ex-agents exchanged amused glances and laughed, further exasperating their American companion.

Stuart boarded the boat (his boat - a reward to himself for surviving his battle with cancer) without even getting the least bit out of breath, which he considered a marvelous feat since he had spent agonizing weeks hooked up to various machines that breathed for him and pissed for him and- anyway, he was done with all of that.

He spotted two figures (one old and one young) on the deck examining the knots that held the sails down, and hollered at them.

"Hey, Quartermaster!"

Q straightened and waved at him impatiently. "In a minute, Thomas, in a minute."

Stuart smirked. "I wasn't talking to you, Q. This young scalawag is my quartermaster on this here pirate ship, eh, matey?" He motioned to the six-year-old standing next to the old man. Danny's dog ran in circles around them, barking excitedly.

Danny laughed delightedly and saluted. "Aye aye, captain!" His hat toppled off with the movement and he scampered after it with a cry as it blew away in the strong breeze. Puck chased after the hat, too, but the wind was faster as it teased both dog and master by blowing the hat this way and that.

"Captain of a pirate ship, with Danny as the quartermaster?" Q chuckled, delighted. "Who's first mate?"

Ivar and Damien had followed him onboard and were now watching them with bemused expressions, with Damien also keeping an eye on his son, who was still chasing his flyaway hat across the deck.

"Oh, Danny thought the legless wonder might want to be first mate," Stuart said, eliciting laughter from the American, "Looks the part, you see. And of course Damien's the ship's cook."

"Of course," Q said, rolling his eyes in a way that plainly said, 'Idiots' in the fondest of ways.

"Daddy!" Danny exclaimed from the other side of the boat, struggling to hold on to the dog to keep it from jumping over the side but nearly being dragged overboard himself instead, "My hat flew into the water!"

Stuart threw back his head and laughed. He began stripping his shirt off. "I'll get it for you, Danny. Be there in a tick."

As he jumped into the cold water, he reveled in the newly returned strength in his limbs and vowed to cherish each moment of his new lease on life.

. . . . .


Note:

Sir Francis Drake was a real pirate from the late 1500s. I didn't start this series with the idea that the Drakes were related to that Drake, but I'm happy with it. I originally wanted them to be related to the other Francis, Sir Francis Walsingham - the Queen's "spymaster," but this works, too. Maybe in another 'verse.

Regarding quartermasters on pirate ships: They were in charge of the ship's inventories and weapons storage, and also were the first to board the ships they invaded so they could calculate the price of the booty. Then it was their job to divide it all up fairly. Bit different from MI6's quartermaster's duties. Also, apparently there were first mates only on merchant ships, not pirate ships, but the other positions (pilot, master gunner, boatswain) didn't sound quite right for the flow of dialogue so I decided to take some artistic liberties on that point. I'm sure Danny would have done some research after this episode anyway, so he'll be correcting the men once he gets his hat back.

Cancer: As I keep saying, I know nothing about anything medical. Dr. Google is my resource. Anyone battling cancer is a hero. *round of applause*

Boats: Again, I know nothing. If it floats, it's a boat. Unless it's a duck or something. Then it's not a boat, obviously.