As promised (thanks so much, mercywriter!), my Patriot fic...this may take a long time to write, and fear not, I am NOT giving up on Winterstar, it's just taking a while to write the next chapter.

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The gulls are screaming now, soaring down in the dusk to land haphazardly on the banks of the river. My son reaches out toward them, eyes lit a bright blue in the flush of the sunset, and I catch him around the waist, hoisting him up into my arms before he manages to fall over the railing and into the Charles. He laughs and pushes at my shoulder, babbling about the “white birds”.

I turn toward the east, away from the sunsets that are always so disappointing here, thin clouds turning the western sky a pale gold-pink but with none of the dramatic colors that I so loved in Charles Town. Before me, listing a little in the tide-out water of Boston Harbor, is a ship. One that will take me back to England and away from this godforsaken place which has cost me everything I ever loved.

William plucks at my dress collar. “Mama,” he says insistently, “Mama, white birds! White birds for Daddy!”

William does not remember his father. We visit the grave every year, and I tell him how his father loved the gulls of Boston, wild and fierce and free, unburdened by anything and free to fight out their personal battles over the eternal waters of the Atlantic, soaring and diving until they nearly skim the waters and shooting back up into the sky, their shrieking calls searing through me in the last warmth of the day. I close my eyes for a moment, holding William closer. He looks at me curiously, his father’s eyes so wide and innocent in his little angel’s face with my burnished-gold hair, and I smile wanly at him. “Yes,” I say slowly. “White birds for Daddy.”

And we leave the shores of America behind us forever.

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This is the only chapter that will be written in the first person, for all of you who have a strong aversion toward 1st-person, haha. The next chapter will also be much, much longer.

Please review!