Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

-- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

Dare was pretty sure he was dead.

Or at least deep beneath the ocean and about to be dead. He tossed and turned, fighting the shards of pain ripping up his head and lungs. Fighting to break through the darkness surrounding him. He had flashes of awareness – flashes of color and light. And each time, the beautiful face of what must be an angel was right there looking down at him.

Individual words pierced the haze of his mind. Geometric shapes of language that stabbed him and prodded him with sharp edges but had no meaning to the chaos in his brain.

His head hurt like it'd never hurt before, and he'd certainly been a victim of many mishaps considering his calling. Life on the high seas wasn't exactly designed for the faint of heart—or the fragile of bone. But this was different. His brains – if he had any left – were surely leaking out his ears.

Someone or something opened his eyelids, and the light from the lamp spiked into his eyes. He tried to remember how to form words but managed only a harsh grunting noise that he hoped to the nine hells somebody recognized as the word stop.

The light went away, at least, and they let him close his eyes, but that's when it occurred to him that he might not be dead after all. Unless he was in fact caught in the first level of the nine hells; trapped for eternity for a life filled with misdeeds and self-absorption.

A gentle voice that rang with an undertone of silvery bells spoke next. "You're going to be fine, Dare. It's only a concussion."

He reached out instinctively, and a warm, slender hand clasped his. He knew that voice.

Lyric.

Another voice, this one slightly deeper but still female, spoke next. "He took a hell of a hit, Lyric. But it's almost as if he's healing right in front of my eyes. If I hadn't seen it, I never would've believed it, and I would insist that you go to the hospital head trauma unit. But he’s gone from a major injury to a mild concussion in the space of the last ten minutes."

"Well, the way he fought with the EMTs to not get in that ambulance made it pretty clear that he wasn't in any major trouble. Nobody who was at death's door would have had that much energy," the silvery voice said, still sounding concerned, but with an edge of laughter.

Dare started to sink again, then, and after that only snatches of sentences made it through to his conscious mind.

"... watch him."

" Thank you. I'll ..."

Then the voices faded to unintelligible sounds in the background, and he let himself go back under, inexplicably reassured that the owner of that silvery voice would keep him safe.

* * *

"Dare? I need you to wake up. Can you look at me?

Lyric. He opened his eyes. Even shadowed by the light of the lamp behind her, he knew her face.

A cloud of riotous curls surrounded her face and touched her shoulders, and her eyes looked dark in the shadows, but he knew from six years of looking into them were beautiful copper, a color as rare and precious as the armband that contained the magic of his spirit bond with Seranth. He started to raise his hand to touch the band, but the movement made him wince.

"Dr. Miller told me not to let you sleep too long. She wanted me to keep checking your eyes, but of course we know I can't do that. Can you hold still for a moment while I take a picture to send to the doctor?"

Before he could answer, a light flashed in his eyes, making him flinch. But he realized immediately that he had already improved a great deal, because the light was far less painful than the last time. All credit to superior Atlantean healing powers, of course.

Maybe, though, some credit went to the woman seated at his side.  He was too tired to pursue the thought…

The next time Dare woke up, the room was swimming around him. Waves of sensation buffeted him from all sides, but unlike his dive into the ocean, this was a gentler current. He felt like the shore might be in sight. He opened his eyes and realized he was in a bed. In a room.

A room on land; not his berth on Luna.

Lyric.

He remembered calling her name in his mind. The portal—it must have worked. The room was rimmed with shadow; lit only by a bedside lamp on a small wooden table. He glanced around, curious about this place. Her private sanctuary that perhaps held her secrets as much as the mystery in her copper eyes. In six years of knowing her, he’d never once seen her bedroom.

He laughed a little at the thought. The men and women he caroused with regularly at dockside bars would never believe it. Captain Dare of the Luna – celibate. Perhaps celibate wasn’t the word. It had been six years since he met her, and he was a man. But the encounters he’d had with other women since then had been brief and unsatisfactory. For some reason he couldn't understand, after the first time he’d met Lyric, the vision of her eyes, her face, and her curls and even the sound of her voice seemed never to have been far from his mind.

His thinking was still muddled. That crack on the head had been no joke. At least his crew…wait. His crew. What had happened to his crew? He tried to reach out on the Atlantean mental pathway to reach someone – anyone – who might have heard what had happened to his ship and crew. None on board were Atlantean, so he had no way to reach them directly.

His brain flinched from the attempt, though, and he heard nothing in return. Perhaps he was too far away or too injured. He’d try again as soon as his head quit pounding quite so much.

And the unicorns – Bingley and Jane. By Poseidon, he hoped they had survived. If he'd caused the world to lose two such magnificent creatures, he’d never forgive himself.

If he ever told her about it, Lyric probably wouldn't forgive him, either.

Lyric. His mind kept wandering off from the most important question. Where was she? He tried to sit up but fell back against the pillows, weaker than he'd realized.

"Lyric," he croaked out of his damaged throat. "Water."

Just then, whether in response to his raspy call or not, Lyric appeared in the doorway with a bottle of water in one hand and that infernal camera device in the other.

"Water," he repeated, holding out a hand.

She stopped in the doorway staring at him, eyes wide. A smile like the sun rising over the horizon on a calm day at sea spread across her face.

"You're awake. You're talking," she said unnecessarily. He already knew both of those things.

“Water.”

She rushed over, uncapping the bottle of water as she came. "Here you go. But just sips, please. Dr. Miller said to give you a little at a time so you didn't bring it all right back up." He tried to raise his head, but before he could put any real effort into it her hand slid under his neck and supported him so he could drink.

Dare closed his eyes at the sheer bliss of the cool water sliding down his throat and her cool hand on his head. He tried to be a gentlemen and not notice how close her delightfully round breasts were to his face, but gave it up as a lost cause.

After all, he wasn’t a gentleman – he was a pirate.

"How are you feeling? I should take another picture of your eyes for –"

"No," he said firmly. "I have definitely had enough of that damn flashing light in my eyes." He winced at the thought. “I'm fine. Superior Atlantean healing."

Lyric sat down in a chair that was pulled up next to the bed. She must've been sitting there next to him for hours, because every memory of the night that was coming back to him contained the image of her face.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought my problems to your doorstep. I didn't have–" He stopped just short of admitting there hadn't been anywhere else he'd rather go. The admission seemed at once too much and yet not enough. It'd taken him five minutes to become fascinated with this woman and then he’d spent the next five years—no, six, now--fighting his attraction. She was human. She was an artist. She was a self-professed homebody.

The last thing she needed in her life was a pirate of poor reputation and worse deeds.

"I'm glad you did. Here, drink a little more. Are you hungry? No, you're probably not hungry. Dr. Wilson said the head injury would make you nauseous for a while. But when you're ready, I can make you some soup. I have half a roasted chicken I could put in with some carrots, and maybe I could find some onion and a little –" She broke off, looking flustered. "I'm sorry I'm babbling. I've been, I have to admit, worried sick about you. I wanted you to go to the emergency room, but you quite strenuously refused."

When she said it, he remembered something. A chaotic moment of battling someone who was trying to hold him down. Suddenly alarmed, he looked up at her.

"I didn't hurt you, did I? Or anybody else?"

She shook her head. "No. You were quite gentle with me. And it's not like the EMTs don't have experience dealing with unruly patients. They were quite competent at restraining you in order to secure vitals. Between the three of them," she added ruefully

“Luckily, my neighbor Dr. Miller, Penny, was walking her Goldendoodle, so she came in to have a look. She said she'd be glad to keep an eye out for you if I was definitely sure that I wasn't going to send you to the ER in restraints."

Dare scowled. "I have no good experience with restraints. It is well for them that they stopped when they did. Even half-conscious, I could well have hurt someone."

Lyric smiled. "Yeah, we kinda got that,” she said dryly. "Superior Atlantean strength, huh?"

He took another long drink of water but then could feel himself slipping back under. He was so tired. So very tired, as if he hadn't slept in weeks instead of only days. The trip had been a rough one, and he’d only caught catnaps in his cabin a few times. He felt like he could sleep for a week.

But only if he could stay here.

His breath caught in his chest. "I can stay, can't I? Just until I feel better? I would not wish to be a burden upon you, but –"

She rested a slender hand on his forehead, and he closed his eyes in relief at her cool touch. Sudden waves of heat began to wash over him, and his mind went hazy.

“Of course you can stay, Dare. Don't worry about anything. I'll take care of you, and what I don't – or can't – do, Meredith or Dr. Miller will help me with."

Every muscle in his body relaxed at her promise. "So tired," he mumbled. "So very tired."

"Sleep, then. Sleep, and I’ll watch over you."

He drifted off on currents of tropically warm water and the surprised realization that she was singing to him.

"So beautiful." Had he said it or merely thought it? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem to matter.

She touched his face and spoke again, so softly that he almost didn’t hear. "Oh, Dare. I was just thinking the same thing about you."