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"Look, I brought him, you can stop your whining," Jack says. His voice is thick enough that Ed knows he's not really mad at Izzy. Not for anything Izzy's done, anyway; he's spent the last four days on a blanket in the corner of the gundeck that Abe uses as a surgery. Maybe for something Izzy might not be able to do.
Ed crouches at Izzy's side. "Hey, Iz," he says softly. He hates to see him like this, skin pale and clammy with sweat, eyes unfocused even as his hand trembles out aimlessly. Ed catches it and holds tight. "Can he hear me?"
Abe the surgeon shrugs. "Ears should be working fine, unless someone stabbed those as well." Ed glares at him, and he sighs, scrubbing his round red face with a handkerchief. "It's not the wound, boy. It's the fever and the laudanum. Now it's just a matter of time. Either he'll pull through or he won't."
"You don't have to be an asshole about it," Jack says.
"You're young," Abe says patiently. "It happens." Ed has nothing to say to that, won't acknowledge a world where a man can write off his friend so easily. "You can have five minutes with him, then I'm putting him under for a while."
"We want to be able to talk to him," says Ed.
"And I'm telling you that it's kinder to let him sleep, Teach. I'll be back."
As Abe slips through the curtain, Ed turns his focus back to Izzy. Izzy who'd covered Ed's back in the raid, who'd emerged from the fight still standing, only to be struck with infection three days later. It isn't fair. He'd been fine.
"Iz, can you hear me?" he says, rubbing his thumb over Izzy's knuckles.
Izzy lets out a soft, high sound, moves his head a little. "Ed?" he says, more air than voice.
"Yeah," Ed quavers. "Yeah, it's me, mate. Jackie said you were asking for me. So I'm here."
"Give him some water," Jack says, pushing a waterskin at them. Ed pours a few drops into Izzy's mouth, then a little more. He swallows, probably more on instinct than by conscious choice, but his voice comes clearer.
"I don't… feel right," Izzy says. He tenses his limbs as if to try and move to a sitting position, gives up before he can do more than bend his knees.
Ed shushes him and holds his hand tighter. He's seen Izzy wounded, sure, but never this weak. If there's one thing Izzy's not, it's weak. "Just rest," he says.
Izzy nods minutely, draws in a shaking breath. "Ed. Edward."
"Yes," Ed says. "It's me and Jack. You're gonna make it, Iz. You have to."
"Ed," he says again, like it's the one thing he's sure about. "I never got to…"
Ed feels the tears spring to his eyes. Izzy thinks he’s going to die, and there’s not a thing Ed can do about it. There's so much they’ve talked about, huddled close in the soft quiet crescent of a hammock, or side by side high up in the rigging. "No, you're gonna. It's gonna happen. We'll have our ship, it's gonna be brilliant."
Izzy shivers, a trickle of sweat disappearing into his damp hairline. "No, I…" he labors, struggling to keep his eyes open. "Meant to tell… you that I…"
"You what?" Ed whispers urgently, pulling Izzy's hand to his chest, his grip tight enough for two. "Tell me."
The thin privacy curtain is pushed aside. "Alright, give him some space," says Abe. Izzy tries to speak again but his voice has gone so soft that Ed has to bring his ear down to Izzy's chapped lips.
"We need another minute," Jack says, making a wall of his body.
"You need," Abe says firmly, "to fuck off." For a moment it seems they're actually going to put hands on each other, but after a few fraught seconds, Jack steps aside. "Good lad," says Abe, and approaches Izzy with the laudanum bottle.
Izzy's shallow breaths tickle the little hairs around Ed's ears. "I… l-lo–"
"Sit back, boy," Abe says, reaching between them and turning Izzy's face towards him. With practiced motions, he pulls down on Izzy's chin with his thumb and shakes a few drops from the bottle into his mouth; Izzy mumbles for another moment and goes still. Abe pulls Izzy's eyelids back, revealing pinprick-small pupils at the center of sightless eyes. He stands and regards them, Izzy prone and drifting in dreams, Ed still clutching his limp hand. "You two matelots or something?"
"Yeah," Jack supplies, after a beat. Dazed, Ed nods his agreement.
"Hm," says Abe. "Well. Nothing's certain yet. Come back after your next watch if you can sit quietly."
"Yes," Ed says. "I mean, thank you. I will." Carefully, he lays Izzy's hand back down at his side and stands.
"C'mon, man, let's eat," says Jack, leading him out of the curtained surgery.
"Matelots?" Ed whispers. His head is spinning like some of the drug had splashed his own lips.
"Eh, whatever it takes, right?" Jack shrugs. "Now he'll let you back in. What was Izzy trying to say, anyway?"
"I love you too, Iz," Ed whispers against Izzy's knuckles later that night.
Two days later when Izzy's fever finally breaks, Ed tells him again, and this time he gets to hear it back.