The sea is blue. Or rather, that unique mix of green and blue, shadow-black and frothy white and all of it constantly changing, that it is convenient to call blue.

The sky is blue too, sparklingly bright, and patched with an indeterminate shade of purple-grey, storm warning enough even for those ignorant of the Caribbean's tricks.

The island sand is a delicate mixture of yellow and white. Golden is where the sea meets the shore and highlights it in vivid water-colours. Halfway up the beach marks the change where the sun has bleached it to almost white. Driftwood is scattered in the dunes, a variety of light browns and greys that the mind instantly labels silver.

The shells aren't there until you look closer, and then they're everywhere and you wonder how you could have ever missed them. Each beach has its own signature assortment, this one a host of tiny orange and brown shells each worn away into the shape a five-pointed star.

The Commodore has stretched his long legs out in front of him, and is leaning back, arms braced casually behind him for balance. The pure golds and whites of his uniform put the sands to shame, infinitely distracting. His hair—it looks soft and tempting with just the barest hint of a curl—is brown, but the sun somehow manages to turn that gold too.

A lazy salted breeze brushes the fine grains over everything. Driftwood, shells, and Commodore.

His wig is strewn beside him, and you know it will be filled with sand when he picks it up. He knows too, but you can see from his rare half-smile of contentment that he couldn't care less.

He's a treasure. You think helplessly that he's both silver and gold and something else as well. And then you stop thinking altogether, because he turns to look at you, and that half-smile blazes into a full smile that hits you with the full force of the man's overwhelming contentment—small word as that is, to describe something so brightly, brilliantly unbreakable.

And you smile back, a few shades brighter and a few shades softer, and a few shades more sincere than your usual golden grin.

For a moment out of time, everything is perfect.