Maybe

[intheheart]

Title: Maybe
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Maybe love's worth it after all.
AU: EPIC PIRATE AU
Notes: none.


The sun picked out gold highlights in Olivia's hair, gilding the curls that she tucked behind one ear. She bent down, to better hear whatever it was that Summer was saying to her-- a moment later, she laughed and straightened, then pointed to a rise of grass sprinkled with bright, colorful wildflowers. Summer put her hand in Olivia's, and off they went, swinging a basket each.

Jake watched her go from where he lay in the grass, and wanted to follow her.

"You should ask her," Ivy said, from behind him.

Jake didn't bother to jump. Ivy enjoyed sneaking up on him, and he'd long since gotten used to it. "Ask her what?"

"To marry you." She sat down beside him, spreading her fingers in the soft spring grass. "She would, you know."

He sighed, rolled over and stared up at the sky, a happy, merciless blue. "I know she would."

"Mmhmm." Ivy leaned over into his field of vision and raised an eyebrow. "So you haven't asked her because..."

"Because I won't convert," he said. "And I can't ask her to convert."

She shrugged one shoulder, then leaned back out. "The pair of you could live in sin. Or you could fake being Christian again. Not like you're not good at it."

Jake gave her an evil look. "That's blasphemy."

Ivy looked down the length of her nose at him. "I live with a woman," she said. "In every possible way. That's fornication, and maybe sodomy."

"Sodomy is something very specific," Jake said. "I don't think you're sodomizing Gina."

The slow grin that spread across her face was something he really could have done without seeing. "And I'm not, as far as you know."

"Let's keep it that way." He rolled back over, propped his chin on his folded arms, and watched Olivia bend to pick a flower then place it behind Summer's ear. "I can't, Ivy. Jews aren't even supposed to be in England. If I get caught, it's... I don't know. Exile at the best."

"She'd go with you," Ivy said. "Jake, she wants to be with you. You should ask her."

"I can't," he snapped. "It's not worth the risk. What happens if someone finds out what I am? Social ostracism, exile, death if the plague comes back or someone needs a scapegoat? No. I am not worth that. Not for her."

Ivy was quiet for a long moment. Finally, she asked, "Don't you think you should let her decide that?"

Jake didn't answer her. Ivy would think that love was worth anything, because as far as she knew, it was. Her mother had left a comfortable and privileged existence for her father, and if it hadn't worked out the first time, it certainly had the second. And then there was Gina, who'd done the same for Ivy, and now danced in the middle of the meadow, her skirts swirling around her legs, the sun glancing off her blonde hair to make a specious halo. The two of them were happy.

But Ivy was a pirate. Ivy could pack up and sail somewhere else any time she wanted. Jake had to live here, had to run a business and stay unnoticed. And so did Olivia. They couldn't afford love.

Love didn't solve anything. Love caused more problems than it solved. Love...

Olivia sat down in the grass, braiding Summer's hair with flowers, occasionally tilting her head back to feel the sun on her face. Their child would have her gold-touched curls and blue eyes, and maybe his jeweler's hands, or his faintly pointed ears. On spring days they would go out to this meadow and pick flowers, and then they'd come home, and put their child to sleep, with the lullabies his mother and her father had sung to them. And when they went to bed Olivia's hair would smell of flowers, and her skin would be soft under his hands.

Love didn't solve anything.

But maybe... the problems would be worth it.

Maybe he would ask her after all.