Theory for what happened between the conclusion of Black Sails and the beginning of Treasure Island: part 3
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
So. Billy inherits Flint's treasure map. Against all odds, he is now the sole heir of Flint's legacy, and... He doesn't know what to do with it. He has no interest in the cache, not anymore. But it wasn't just the map Billy left Savannah with.
Because ultimately, Flint's apology doesn't matter. It's too late now. The damage was done and there was no repairing it. Getting the treasure wasn't going to turn back time and restore Billy to whom he used to be. It wouldn't heal the wound in his heart. It wouldn't bring Gates or his brothers back. It sure as shit wouldn't redeem him for the immoral things he did.
Knowing he is the only person in the world who knows where the treasure is now, and knowing it's still there in Skeleton Island, ripe for the taking, changes absolutely nothing. All it does is add one more weight to an already heavy conscience. One more stone on the pile he will be dragging behind him for the rest of his life. And although Flint has deemed him his rightful heir, Billy hates him more than ever.
To quiet the voices of regret, guilt and self-loathing, he turns to drinking. With each passing year, he grows more irascible, more cruel, more ruthless. By the time he turns forty, everyone willing to put up with him has left. Ben Gunn is the last to abandon him. Billy returns to England, always on the move, never settling in one place too long because if he does, he'll be discovered by a nightmare of a man with only one leg. He never stops moving and he never stops drinking.
Billy Bones dies somewhere in England, on a small roadside inn called The Admiral Benbow, from an apoplexy caused by excessive drinking. He dies a bitter, angry old man, afraid and utterly alone, without a single soul in the world to mourn him or even care that he's gone.
Meanwhile, Silver receives a visit some years after Flint died from a certain Benjamin Gunn. He tells him about his disenfranchising with Billy Bones and how he was looking for a job on a ship, would Silver please take him on as a sailor? For old times sake?
Except Silver isn't a pirate anymore. He has Madi to consider, their relationship is being chaffed to tatters as it is and so he has to fight with everything he has to keep it intact for as long as possible before their bond inevitably snaps for good. He's too busy trying to make it last just another year, another month, another day, and appreciating every second he gets to spend with her, before it's all over.
Of course, he doesn't tell Ben Gunn any of this; only that he has retired and won't be returning to sea again. Not for a long time, at least. But before Ben departs, he reveals something that might interest Silver, something that he feels someone should know in the eventuality of Billy's demise: Flint has gifted the map to the treasure to none other than Billy Bones.
And Silver is MAD. OH, HE'S SO ANGRY HE FLIPS TABLES, SMASHES THINGS WITH HIS CRUTCH, HE RAGES LIKE A SPOILED CHILD BECAUSE HE KNEW!! HE KNEW FLINT WAS LYING!!!!!
Fuck that old man. Fuck that asshole, who even at death's door managed to find a way to send him a final "fuck you" from beyond the grave!!
After he calms down though, the gears in his head start turning. There is a map to the location of the treasure. A treasure that could spark a new revolution. A treasure that might be his only hope of ever doing right by Madi and patch things up for good. This... This might just be exactly what he needed to fix everything.
If he could get his hands on that map.
He tells Madi all about it, enlists the help of his old friend Israel Hands, and they set off to track down Billy.
It's not easy to find him. Despite his hate for Flint, Billy hated Silver just as fiercely, and took Flint's last request to heart. For as long as he lived, he would never let it fall into Silver's hands.
But, eventually Silver and his band of ragtag thieves, drunk on the idea of getting their filthy little fingers on Flint's treasure, catch up to him at the Admiral Benbow. Just in time to deliver him the Black Spot, just in time for his heart (and his liver) to finally give out, and just in time for a young boy named Jim Hawkins to find the Captain's treasure map and set off on his own adventure.
And hence, Treasure Island begins.
The End.
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