Author's Note: This story is based on my story The Perfect Storm. However, this is only a one-shot and therefore these events never happened in the main story itself and never will!

Something went wrong.  Something felt wrong.  The girl's senses slowed until she was seeing the world tilt as she fell forward onto the deck of the ship.  She struggled to remember how to breathe.
She tried to think of how she got here.  What had happened?  She remembered the pirate coming toward her with a gun, hitting her over the head.  That had only disoriented her, though.  Something else had happened afterward that she couldn't remember.  Her vision blurred as she raggedly gasped.  There was someone she wanted with her… who was it?
Then she heard a shouting above the chaos of the fighting. "Felicia!" came the voice, closer now.  Or was it further away? "Felicia!  Oh no." The unknown face behind the voice she knew so well carefully picked her up underneath her arms and dragged her away from the fight.  She saw men falling and weapons aimed with precision at other victims.  She felt a pain envelope her.  Where was it?
"Thatcher?" Felicia called, surprised at the echoing sound of her own voice.  The boy's face was then consuming her range of sight where they were safe in the captain's cabin.
"I'm here, Felicia."
"It hurts," she whispered, finally finding the source of the pain.  She drew her hand from where it was clutching at the torn fabric at her stomach.  Blood the color of her hair stained her fingers.  Felicia swayed at the sight, throwing herself onto Thatcher, into his strong arms.
"Oh, Felicia," he murmured. "We can fix it.  You'll be alright." He was trying to be strong for her.  She laughed in near disgust.
"No, Thatcher, no.  It's too deep," she whispered, finding herself in a coughing fit immediately after.  Thatcher held her so tightly to him that she could feel his heartbeat against her arm.  He started to cry, rubbing his hands up and down her shoulders.  This couldn't be happening to him… to her.  Felicia whimpered when the pain started to disappear.  She knew it was going to happen.  It was over.  Their journey was over.
She found the strength to look up into Thatcher's eyes. "Do you remember when we met?" Her eyes were shining with heavy tears and an emotion that Thatcher couldn't place, but could feel himself.
"You shocked me with lightning," he said with an empty smile, trying to at least make her feel better.  She shook her head.
"No, the very first time we met.  When your mother brought you to our home and I was called out of the garden and into the foyer?"
"You were covered in mud," Thatcher said, reminiscing and forgetting for a moment Felicia's sate.  His mind was thrust back into the past where he relived an experience that changed his life.  Young Thatcher Demins stood there with his mother, one hand gripping her cotton skirt, ready to hide at a moment's notice.  Felicia's grandmother and mother stood there speaking and waiting for their little girl to come in, dainty and ready for a new acquaintance.
A child burst through the door and into the hall, mud plastered in her long, red, disheveled hair.  She wore a flowery play dress of blue and green, and her knees were scratched and scraped.  What Thatcher would never forget was the wild look in her round hazel eyes.  They were two glowing orbs of beauty and passion, all wound into fascinating expressions of perfect joy, windows into the soul.
Thatcher was brought rushing back into the present as Felicia coughed again and softly moaned, holding tightly to her wound.  He placed his hands around her waist and decided that action needed taken now, or she could never be saved.
He tore his shirt away and ripped a long strip away from it, carefully pulling Felicia's shirt up just enough to expose the wound, which was inflicted by a dagger.  Ever so gently, Thatcher wound the cloth around her midsection and tied it through his blurry vision.  As he worked with a concentrated, determined expression, he barely noticed it when Felicia placed her fingers softly on his arm.
"Thatcher, I-" she was cut off with a sharp pain, but then her eyes filled with emotion again and she continued. "I love you."
Something made Thatcher's throat begin to close.  He allowed the tears to stream down his face. "I love you, Felicia."
He carefully turned her around so that he could properly face her and he supported her around the waist with one hand, placing the other under her jaw.  She was trembling, but the love in her eyes transported them both to a place where the pain didn't matter anymore.  Thatcher didn't hesitate to lean forward into his dearest and closest friend and brush his lips against hers.  Felicia shuddered and he paused, but when she calmed and took another breath they shared their first and final kiss.  Felicia felt more alive now as she was dying than ever before.  She leaned into Thatcher and broke off the kiss, opening her eyes and staring into his.  He could no longer ignore the pain he saw her experiencing, but there was nothing he could do.
"Thatcher, will you do one more thing for me?" He couldn't protest that it would only be one more thing.  He knew she was going to die just as much as she did.  She shifted her weight to stand and so he helped her up onto her feet, even though she shook in his grasp. "Can you carry me onto the deck?  I have to tell you something." He wanted to protest, to keep her where she could be safe, but how could he refuse her?
Thatcher lifted her up in his arms as delicately as possible, though Felicia still winced.  She held her warm arms around his neck, a touch he was not familiar with but longed for still.  He was fluid in his movements and quick to get Felicia safely up onto the deck, where the fight was dispersing and ending.  He could see several men he knew still fighting for their lives, trying to protect their ship loyally.
The boy held close his love even as he placed her down on her feet, which still held her strongly enough for Felicia to place one hand on the railing and the other in Thatcher's hand. "I wish we had had more time together," she said, "but fate takes its toll, and I don't have much time to explain this to you." She grasped at her wound once more before continuing and looking up at the stars. "I realized my power of lightning when my parents disappeared, but it wasn't until recently that I learned I could feed off of its energy.  It can make me stronger if I wish for it to."
Thatcher gasped. "Why haven't you done it?  Felicia, save yourself!"
She let her tears fall, pure and free. "I can't, Thatcher.  I can't cheat my fate.  This was meant to happen."
"But we were meant to happen!" he cried, distraught.  Felicia threw herself upon him and they embraced lovingly. "Why do you resist life?"
"Because I am not afraid of death," she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear over the tumultuous roaring of the waves underneath the ship.  The night sky was clear and picturesque; the stars were bright and shining, smiling down on one of their own.  Felicia was the most beautiful of them all. "I love you, Thatcher," she whispered, placing her hand, which was growing cold and shaking, on Thatcher's cheek.
He took her hand in his and cried. "I love you, Felicia." And they looked up together to the stars.  A small streak lit up the sky and flew out of sight, over the constantly tossing horizon, and Felicia took a satisfying, calming breath and leaned backward into her love's arms.  With that the night was silent, only the waves tossing against the ship's hull any sign to Thatcher that time carried on as it had before.

The Mute Swan is said to remain in silence all its life until, when it is prepared to die, it sings one beautiful melody.  Represented in love, passion, and a flourishing friendship that died far too young, Felicia and Thatcher's story was never forgotten and told many times over in their land.  The stowaway with unnatural powers to wield lightning and the boy thrown into the mix that had reunited with his childhood friend together told a wonderful tale while alive.  Their first and last kiss symbolized the beauty of love and everything they could have had and felt together in one moment that was all the time Felicia had left.  Thus the final note of her melody drifted off into the cool evening air with the shooting star they had witnessed, Felicia's Swan Song.