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Description

“I won’t let disaster repeat itself. I’ve seen it too many times before.”

Name: Sir Marcus Quincy Plymouth, Knight of Boston
Nicknames/Aliases: “Marco”, “Mark”, “Big M”
DoB: June 4, 1875
Current Residence: Boston, MA
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 205lb
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Notable features: scar on right cheek along upper jawline, about 3-4” long; scar on left side of the waist, close to chest, about 6-7” long; scar of third-degree burn covering left shoulder; countless 1/2" long shrapnel cuts on left side of torso, between collarbone and hip

Branch of Service: United States Navy, Royal Navy
Rank: Captain, Commander
Command: USS Massachusetts (BB2 from 1897-1913, BB59 1942-Present), HMS John Adams (1915-1919)

Awards:
American Campaign Medal (WW2)
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (10 battlestars) (WW2)
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal (1 battlestar) (WW2)
Philippine Liberation Medal (WW2)
Philippine Presidential Citation (WW2)
World War 2 Victory Medal
World War 1 Victory Medal
Distinguished Service Order (WW1)
Victoria Cross (WW1)
Navy Occupation Medal
Spanish Campaign Medal with Bronze Star(S-AW)

Personality: Marco is an ideal model to which one may aspire in serving the US Navy - proud, confident, fearless, and faithful - and is a distinguished figure in the ranks of His Majesty’s Grand Fleet. He can be pushy in trying to help those around him, his mannerisms hint at a cocky attitude, and on one or two occasions in recent years he’s grappled with alcoholism. He can also obsess over minor mistakes and work himself ragged to correct them, overthinking to the point of panic. The Spanish-American War left him scarred both physically and emotionally, and since the day he lost his father Marco has tried everything he could to protect others from the same pain he suffered or help them cope with its effects.
Regardless of his flaws, his heart is well-placed and his morals neatly arranged. He likes filling his spare time with cooking meals, playing piano, and melee exercise, anything to avoid going idle. His favorite memories include cuddling with his partner Anna Carlisle, especially before a crackling fire on cold winter nights.

Bio: Marco was born to Matthias and Emily Plymouth on June 4, 1875, and throughout his early years he grew to idolize his father. Both had heavy influence from Grandma Charlie, who raised her growing family under Puritan ideals. While the changes were subtle, Charlie modified her teachings to fit the various settings her son and grandson found themselves in.
Starting at 13 years old, Marco trained for five years in saber dueling, firearms, and hand-to-hand fighting under Matthias’s tutelage, and graduated fifth of his class after four years in the US Naval Academy. By legacy Marco was given the rank “Captain-Lieutenant” on his first mission aboard USS Monitor. Proven worthy of his own command, Marco was promoted to captain and given command of his own rig, USS Massachusetts.
However, this promotion came during the Spanish-American War. Marco’s first real assignment, captaining his own vessel, was to join the Great White Fleet off the coast of Havana, Cuba, and block any Spanish or Spanish-allied vessels from entering the harbor. He arrived on July 3, 1898, to carry this mission out.
While anchored beyond the port, Marco’s classmate Nicholas Patrick (captain of BB1 “Indiana”) caught word of a duel some ten miles to the west, and sent Massachusetts to investigate. “Cristóbal Colón”, one of three Spanish cruisers trading fire with the ironclad, shot the Monitor a killing blow as Marco arrived on scene, and Massachusetts scared the enemy vessels away. All but one of the Monitor’s crew left the ship. Marco took a lifeboat to the foundering ironclad and found his father balanced against the turret, throwing a salute to his rescue ship. Despite Marco’s pleas to jump overboard, Matthias did not leave his post. Propellant charges inside the magazine ignited, detonating it and splitting the hull in half. A flying shrapnel piece sliced into Marco’s cheek along the jawline. As the smoke and surf cleared the last of the Monitor’s mast slipped beneath the waves. Its captain did not breach the surface.

Marco was the most devastated in his family, and chose not to attend the memorial service.

Life at home wasn’t easy. His brother Michael was temperamental and hated doing the hard work that came with running their grandmother’s hotel.

Each Christmas, when Emily’s family came to celebrate the holidays, Marco often found himself chatting with his cousin Alan. The pair became like brothers after several such gatherings over the years. Daniel Comanche, an Omaha redskin, soon made the duo a trio with his arrival in October 1902.

Alan’s mother Victoria grew increasingly hostile toward Marco as the years came and went. Marco remembers Christmas 1911 as the point he started trying to stand his ground against his aunt, but it backfired and he was severely reprimanded for his poor behavior. Mike joined the adults with a young lady from the British shipping company Cunard Line, Caroline ‘Cara’ Princeton. She played a decent performance on the old piano in the hotel lounge, leading the assemblage in various carols. However, Mike and Cara’s relationship was only there until the new year.

Marco found a partner for himself in mid-January, Alexandra Miller. She was a close friend of Marco's growing up, loved singing along to the tunes he played, and her father Hank owned a flower shop in the market district (as a family friend he offered the Plymouths a large bouquet of white lilies and pink carnations, when the news of Matthias' death reached him).

On April 14, 1912, Marco left the hotel for his usual seaboard patrol. He rounded Cape Cod about 9pm that night and caught a signal from several hundred miles to the east, saying a ship had struck an iceberg and was going down by the head. The callsign was MGY. Another ship, callsign MPA, responded five minutes later saying their ETA was two hours. Marco wanted to rush out to the scene as fast as he could and render assistance, but cursed his choice for requesting additional firepower over greater fuel range and did not make the trip. According to current research, he couldn’t have made the journey in time even if he had the fuel range.
Massachusetts docked at the western head of Brooklyn Navy Yard the next morning, waiting for word of the mysterious signals from MGY. Little did he know that that ship -allegedly the largest in the world - was on her maiden voyage and had presumably sunk with great loss of life. Was it a troop carrier? A merchant cruiser? A warship?
For three days the code left Marco perplexed. Nothing matched his book, and he didn’t have any transmissions to link a name to it.
As he was having lunch on the crow’s nest he saw a small trail of smoke plume from a black-topped red funnel, which crowned a small steamship. This couldn’t have been MGY, he’d seen much larger vessels dock here before. Maybe this was MPA (See full encounter in “Angel in the Black” or “April Fate”)?

As he approached the gangway to get a closer look at the rail, the throng of reporters and journalists swept him aboard the Carpathia and he was soon lost in the corridors. He tried picking his way out when he heard a frightful scream at the end of a hall. As he neared where the scream had come from, he heard a faint weeping. While he didn’t want to invade the privacy of whoever was in the room, instinct took hold and opened the door.

He tried consoling the young lady sitting on the bed in the darkened room, until Cara escorted him off the ship and nearly threw him down the gangway despite his protests.

For a full month Marco was left stuck with the feeling that he didn’t do enough to help the half-frozen lady in the dark. He knew he couldn’t go back to Cara’s ship lest he suffer her wrath, but he couldn’t stand by and do nothing either.

Marco tried calling the signature he noted, MPA, and to his surprise a response came back. He seized this moment to explain everything, that he didn’t board willingly and got lost inside the ship, he asked the first voice he heard where the exit was, and instinct drove him to trespass on someone that he thought needed his help. The tapper on the other end agreed to meet him in a local coffee shop the next day to get a clearer picture. Who else joined Marco at his table but Cara. Mike broke off his relationship with her after the new year, and the little captain returned to work.

Cara also had explaining to do, that the frozen lady in her room was Anna Carlisle, the commander of RMS Titanic - this ship, the largest in the world, had sunk on its maiden voyage with more than half of its passengers and crew. The frozen lady had also mentioned to Cara that Marco bore a horrifically close resemblance to her abusive lover Monty, and locked up when she saw his face.
Marco and Cara slowly formed a friendship in the passing days, closer than what they started back at Christmas.
Cara went out to a housewarming party in mid-May, after parting ways with Marco and promising to keep in touch. On the way back to her ship she told Marco that the frozen lady was feeling okay enough to accept his visit.

The next day he knocked on the door to a top-floor penthouse suite near New York’s meatpacking district. A lady with blonde hair and cyan eyes answered the door, and introduced herself as Anna Carlisle. It seemed like things were going well as the pair talked, but something Marco said about the ocean made Anna’s blood run cold. He tried to apologize and comfort her, but she shoved him out as he crossed the threshold and slammed the door in his face(See “The Warmth of May” for the full series of encounters).

By December of 1912 Marco and Anna were on good enough terms for her to spend the holidays with him and his family. While he enjoyed the time he had with Anna, it was marred by his aunt Vicky and little cousin Nathan. On the bright side Uncle Harvey kept his wife and younger son in line long enough for the celebrations.

In the summer of 1913 Marco ran into Olivia Carlisle (Anna’s older sister) as his ship was anchored off Coney Island, following another coastal patrol. Cara was with her on the beach, enjoying a cold drink beneath Olivia’s parasol, and waved to the captain as he dragged his lifeboat up the sand. Marco, understandably exhausted, took up her offer to sit in the shade with a drink. Olivia mentioned a telegram she got from Anna back around Christmas, which told of a pleasant holiday with Marco. Ollie doubted it, and still believed Marco was really Anna’s ex-fiancé Monty in disguise.

The meeting went smoothly until Lucy Tania arrived with none other than Anna in tow. The former had convinced the latter to take a day out on the beach; Anna agreed reluctantly, fearing the risk of sunburn and sand getting in her clothes.

Anna confirmed to her sister that all was well with Marco, again supported by Cara’s experience. Olivia still had her doubts, but conceded that Marco was at least a decent bloke.

As Christmas again approached, Anna invited her family to spend the holiday in Boston. Olympic made a special voyage that week, and while Mike tried his usual tricks to hook the girls Marco offered refreshments and comfort aplenty to each of them. He’d even prepared gifts for them: to Olivia came a whalebone carved in Olympic’s likeness; Anna got a necklace of blown glass beads; and Brittany, the Carlisles' youngest, was given a journal and pen. Dan lightened the mood with carols on his clarinet, and with her mother’s help Emily had prepared a feast fit for kings. Alexander was impressed at how well the Plymouths (with the exception of Mike) treated his daughters, and in an offhand remark gave his blessing for Marco and Anna’s marriage should they decide to stay together.

When World War 1 broke out in August of 1914, Marco booked Anna a ticket home aboard Lusitania. Here, seizing his chance to command a more modern ship, he enlisted into the Royal Navy and was placed fairly high in the command chain given his veterancy in the Spanish-American War. He was required to take a year of training (during which he visited a beleaguered Lucy near the Old Head of Kinsale and offered condolences to Cara and her older sister Carmen following the loss of their brother Calvin) but after he completed his final exams he was given command of the new battlecruiser HMS John Adams.

His first assignment came on May 26, 1916, as a letter from First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. Marco was ordered to join the Grand Fleet in defending the Jutland peninsula and pinning Germany out of the North Sea. After a tearful goodbye to Anna's family and in a debt of gratitude, Marco left the mansion and set sail out of HM Dockyard, Portsmouth.

Marco waited for four days off the coast of Jutland before the lookouts spotted German battleships approach from over the horizon. John Adams, a light battlecruiser against at least a hundred heavy battleships, and with no other allies beside it, was ordered by its captain to engage the advancing High Seas Fleet. The biggest naval battle of the war was about to begin (see full story in "The First Sailor").

After two days of thunderous fire, the Grand Fleet arrived and shielded the John Adams as it escaped to Scapa Flow.

Her Majesty Queen Alice heard the story through her sister Amelia, who gave Marco his order to disengage. When the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, she sent for Marco's presence at Westminster Palace in London. When he got there the newspapers were already hailing him a hero. "Iron Captain", "Jutland Defender", and "The First Sailor" were some of the many nicknames given to him.
Royal guards escorted Marco to the throne room. The crowd watched in proud silence as he approached the throne and knelt before the Queen. She made a speech detailing Marco's heroics, and declared he had just as much British blood in him as he had American. She took his sword and dubbed him Sir Marcus, Knight of Boston, and bid him to rise. Alice gave the new knight one of the highest honors of his career, the Victoria Cross. She also gave him a Distinguished Service Order and a Victory Medal. Marco thanked her for the honors, humbled beyond his wildest dreams, and knelt to profess his loyalty to the crown. He was escorted from the palace amid deafening applause.

The next day Marco was given a ride back to Liverpool aboard the Royal Train, and a special carriage brought him the rest of the way to the Carlisle home. Anna, having shut herself in her room for a large stretch while Marco was gone, was overjoyed at seeing him outside her door and leapt into his embrace.

The captain and his princess sealed their vows on December 18 that year, and have remained faithful to each other since.

While Marco and Anna are now happily in love, the road from where they started was long, rough and arduous. Seems par for the course for one of America and Britain's most resilient captains.

Update 6/01/23: Redraw

Update 2/27/24: New timeline

Description

“I won’t let disaster repeat itself. I’ve seen it too many times before.”

Name: Sir Marcus Quincy Plymouth, Knight of Boston
Nicknames/Aliases: “Marco”, “Mark”, “Big M”
DoB: June 4, 1875
Current Residence: Boston, MA
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 205lb
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Notable features: scar on right cheek along upper jawline, about 3-4” long; scar on left side of the waist, close to chest, about 6-7” long; scar of third-degree burn covering left shoulder; countless 1/2" long shrapnel cuts on left side of torso, between collarbone and hip

Branch of Service: United States Navy, Royal Navy
Rank: Captain, Commander
Command: USS Massachusetts (BB2 from 1897-1913, BB59 1942-Present), HMS John Adams (1915-1919)

Awards:
American Campaign Medal (WW2)
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (10 battlestars) (WW2)
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal (1 battlestar) (WW2)
Philippine Liberation Medal (WW2)
Philippine Presidential Citation (WW2)
World War 2 Victory Medal
World War 1 Victory Medal
Distinguished Service Order (WW1)
Victoria Cross (WW1)
Navy Occupation Medal
Spanish Campaign Medal with Bronze Star(S-AW)

Personality: Marco is an ideal model to which one may aspire in serving the US Navy - proud, confident, fearless, and faithful - and is a distinguished figure in the ranks of His Majesty’s Grand Fleet. He can be pushy in trying to help those around him, his mannerisms hint at a cocky attitude, and on one or two occasions in recent years he’s grappled with alcoholism. He can also obsess over minor mistakes and work himself ragged to correct them, overthinking to the point of panic. The Spanish-American War left him scarred both physically and emotionally, and since the day he lost his father Marco has tried everything he could to protect others from the same pain he suffered or help them cope with its effects.
Regardless of his flaws, his heart is well-placed and his morals neatly arranged. He likes filling his spare time with cooking meals, playing piano, and melee exercise, anything to avoid going idle. His favorite memories include cuddling with his partner Anna Carlisle, especially before a crackling fire on cold winter nights.

Bio: Marco was born to Matthias and Emily Plymouth on June 4, 1875, and throughout his early years he grew to idolize his father. Both had heavy influence from Grandma Charlie, who raised her growing family under Puritan ideals. While the changes were subtle, Charlie modified her teachings to fit the various settings her son and grandson found themselves in.
Starting at 13 years old, Marco trained for five years in saber dueling, firearms, and hand-to-hand fighting under Matthias’s tutelage, and graduated fifth of his class after four years in the US Naval Academy. By legacy Marco was given the rank “Captain-Lieutenant” on his first mission aboard USS Monitor. Proven worthy of his own command, Marco was promoted to captain and given command of his own rig, USS Massachusetts.
However, this promotion came during the Spanish-American War. Marco’s first real assignment, captaining his own vessel, was to join the Great White Fleet off the coast of Havana, Cuba, and block any Spanish or Spanish-allied vessels from entering the harbor. He arrived on July 3, 1898, to carry this mission out.
While anchored beyond the port, Marco’s classmate Nicholas Patrick (captain of BB1 “Indiana”) caught word of a duel some ten miles to the west, and sent Massachusetts to investigate. “Cristóbal Colón”, one of three Spanish cruisers trading fire with the ironclad, shot the Monitor a killing blow as Marco arrived on scene, and Massachusetts scared the enemy vessels away. All but one of the Monitor’s crew left the ship. Marco took a lifeboat to the foundering ironclad and found his father balanced against the turret, throwing a salute to his rescue ship. Despite Marco’s pleas to jump overboard, Matthias did not leave his post. Propellant charges inside the magazine ignited, detonating it and splitting the hull in half. A flying shrapnel piece sliced into Marco’s cheek along the jawline. As the smoke and surf cleared the last of the Monitor’s mast slipped beneath the waves. Its captain did not breach the surface.

Marco was the most devastated in his family, and chose not to attend the memorial service.

Life at home wasn’t easy. His brother Michael was temperamental and hated doing the hard work that came with running their grandmother’s hotel.

Each Christmas, when Emily’s family came to celebrate the holidays, Marco often found himself chatting with his cousin Alan. The pair became like brothers after several such gatherings over the years. Daniel Comanche, an Omaha redskin, soon made the duo a trio with his arrival in October 1902.

Alan’s mother Victoria grew increasingly hostile toward Marco as the years came and went. Marco remembers Christmas 1911 as the point he started trying to stand his ground against his aunt, but it backfired and he was severely reprimanded for his poor behavior. Mike joined the adults with a young lady from the British shipping company Cunard Line, Caroline ‘Cara’ Princeton. She played a decent performance on the old piano in the hotel lounge, leading the assemblage in various carols. However, Mike and Cara’s relationship was only there until the new year.

Marco found a partner for himself in mid-January, Alexandra Miller. She was a close friend of Marco's growing up, loved singing along to the tunes he played, and her father Hank owned a flower shop in the market district (as a family friend he offered the Plymouths a large bouquet of white lilies and pink carnations, when the news of Matthias' death reached him).

On April 14, 1912, Marco left the hotel for his usual seaboard patrol. He rounded Cape Cod about 9pm that night and caught a signal from several hundred miles to the east, saying a ship had struck an iceberg and was going down by the head. The callsign was MGY. Another ship, callsign MPA, responded five minutes later saying their ETA was two hours. Marco wanted to rush out to the scene as fast as he could and render assistance, but cursed his choice for requesting additional firepower over greater fuel range and did not make the trip. According to current research, he couldn’t have made the journey in time even if he had the fuel range.
Massachusetts docked at the western head of Brooklyn Navy Yard the next morning, waiting for word of the mysterious signals from MGY. Little did he know that that ship -allegedly the largest in the world - was on her maiden voyage and had presumably sunk with great loss of life. Was it a troop carrier? A merchant cruiser? A warship?
For three days the code left Marco perplexed. Nothing matched his book, and he didn’t have any transmissions to link a name to it.
As he was having lunch on the crow’s nest he saw a small trail of smoke plume from a black-topped red funnel, which crowned a small steamship. This couldn’t have been MGY, he’d seen much larger vessels dock here before. Maybe this was MPA (See full encounter in “Angel in the Black” or “April Fate”)?

As he approached the gangway to get a closer look at the rail, the throng of reporters and journalists swept him aboard the Carpathia and he was soon lost in the corridors. He tried picking his way out when he heard a frightful scream at the end of a hall. As he neared where the scream had come from, he heard a faint weeping. While he didn’t want to invade the privacy of whoever was in the room, instinct took hold and opened the door.

He tried consoling the young lady sitting on the bed in the darkened room, until Cara escorted him off the ship and nearly threw him down the gangway despite his protests.

For a full month Marco was left stuck with the feeling that he didn’t do enough to help the half-frozen lady in the dark. He knew he couldn’t go back to Cara’s ship lest he suffer her wrath, but he couldn’t stand by and do nothing either.

Marco tried calling the signature he noted, MPA, and to his surprise a response came back. He seized this moment to explain everything, that he didn’t board willingly and got lost inside the ship, he asked the first voice he heard where the exit was, and instinct drove him to trespass on someone that he thought needed his help. The tapper on the other end agreed to meet him in a local coffee shop the next day to get a clearer picture. Who else joined Marco at his table but Cara. Mike broke off his relationship with her after the new year, and the little captain returned to work.

Cara also had explaining to do, that the frozen lady in her room was Anna Carlisle, the commander of RMS Titanic - this ship, the largest in the world, had sunk on its maiden voyage with more than half of its passengers and crew. The frozen lady had also mentioned to Cara that Marco bore a horrifically close resemblance to her abusive lover Monty, and locked up when she saw his face.
Marco and Cara slowly formed a friendship in the passing days, closer than what they started back at Christmas.
Cara went out to a housewarming party in mid-May, after parting ways with Marco and promising to keep in touch. On the way back to her ship she told Marco that the frozen lady was feeling okay enough to accept his visit.

The next day he knocked on the door to a top-floor penthouse suite near New York’s meatpacking district. A lady with blonde hair and cyan eyes answered the door, and introduced herself as Anna Carlisle. It seemed like things were going well as the pair talked, but something Marco said about the ocean made Anna’s blood run cold. He tried to apologize and comfort her, but she shoved him out as he crossed the threshold and slammed the door in his face(See “The Warmth of May” for the full series of encounters).

By December of 1912 Marco and Anna were on good enough terms for her to spend the holidays with him and his family. While he enjoyed the time he had with Anna, it was marred by his aunt Vicky and little cousin Nathan. On the bright side Uncle Harvey kept his wife and younger son in line long enough for the celebrations.

In the summer of 1913 Marco ran into Olivia Carlisle (Anna’s older sister) as his ship was anchored off Coney Island, following another coastal patrol. Cara was with her on the beach, enjoying a cold drink beneath Olivia’s parasol, and waved to the captain as he dragged his lifeboat up the sand. Marco, understandably exhausted, took up her offer to sit in the shade with a drink. Olivia mentioned a telegram she got from Anna back around Christmas, which told of a pleasant holiday with Marco. Ollie doubted it, and still believed Marco was really Anna’s ex-fiancé Monty in disguise.

The meeting went smoothly until Lucy Tania arrived with none other than Anna in tow. The former had convinced the latter to take a day out on the beach; Anna agreed reluctantly, fearing the risk of sunburn and sand getting in her clothes.

Anna confirmed to her sister that all was well with Marco, again supported by Cara’s experience. Olivia still had her doubts, but conceded that Marco was at least a decent bloke.

As Christmas again approached, Anna invited her family to spend the holiday in Boston. Olympic made a special voyage that week, and while Mike tried his usual tricks to hook the girls Marco offered refreshments and comfort aplenty to each of them. He’d even prepared gifts for them: to Olivia came a whalebone carved in Olympic’s likeness; Anna got a necklace of blown glass beads; and Brittany, the Carlisles' youngest, was given a journal and pen. Dan lightened the mood with carols on his clarinet, and with her mother’s help Emily had prepared a feast fit for kings. Alexander was impressed at how well the Plymouths (with the exception of Mike) treated his daughters, and in an offhand remark gave his blessing for Marco and Anna’s marriage should they decide to stay together.

When World War 1 broke out in August of 1914, Marco booked Anna a ticket home aboard Lusitania. Here, seizing his chance to command a more modern ship, he enlisted into the Royal Navy and was placed fairly high in the command chain given his veterancy in the Spanish-American War. He was required to take a year of training (during which he visited a beleaguered Lucy near the Old Head of Kinsale and offered condolences to Cara and her older sister Carmen following the loss of their brother Calvin) but after he completed his final exams he was given command of the new battlecruiser HMS John Adams.

His first assignment came on May 26, 1916, as a letter from First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. Marco was ordered to join the Grand Fleet in defending the Jutland peninsula and pinning Germany out of the North Sea. After a tearful goodbye to Anna's family and in a debt of gratitude, Marco left the mansion and set sail out of HM Dockyard, Portsmouth.

Marco waited for four days off the coast of Jutland before the lookouts spotted German battleships approach from over the horizon. John Adams, a light battlecruiser against at least a hundred heavy battleships, and with no other allies beside it, was ordered by its captain to engage the advancing High Seas Fleet. The biggest naval battle of the war was about to begin (see full story in "The First Sailor").

After two days of thunderous fire, the Grand Fleet arrived and shielded the John Adams as it escaped to Scapa Flow.

Her Majesty Queen Alice heard the story through her sister Amelia, who gave Marco his order to disengage. When the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, she sent for Marco's presence at Westminster Palace in London. When he got there the newspapers were already hailing him a hero. "Iron Captain", "Jutland Defender", and "The First Sailor" were some of the many nicknames given to him.
Royal guards escorted Marco to the throne room. The crowd watched in proud silence as he approached the throne and knelt before the Queen. She made a speech detailing Marco's heroics, and declared he had just as much British blood in him as he had American. She took his sword and dubbed him Sir Marcus, Knight of Boston, and bid him to rise. Alice gave the new knight one of the highest honors of his career, the Victoria Cross. She also gave him a Distinguished Service Order and a Victory Medal. Marco thanked her for the honors, humbled beyond his wildest dreams, and knelt to profess his loyalty to the crown. He was escorted from the palace amid deafening applause.

The next day Marco was given a ride back to Liverpool aboard the Royal Train, and a special carriage brought him the rest of the way to the Carlisle home. Anna, having shut herself in her room for a large stretch while Marco was gone, was overjoyed at seeing him outside her door and leapt into his embrace.

The captain and his princess sealed their vows on December 18 that year, and have remained faithful to each other since.

While Marco and Anna are now happily in love, the road from where they started was long, rough and arduous. Seems par for the course for one of America and Britain's most resilient captains.

Update 6/01/23: Redraw

Update 2/27/24: New timeline