Disclaimer: PotC and all characters belong to Disney. I do not own anything.
+o+o+
Jack stumbled upon her in the Faithful Bride. Quite literally. He was drunk, moaning the loss of his beautiful ship, and she was in his way.
It took him a moment to realise what his boot had gotten caught in. At first, he was only glad about the fact that the person seemed in a worse condition than him and in no way able to fight him for the kick. Then, he noticed the long, black hair, the olive skin and finally, the facial features so familiar to him.
Jack raised his eyebrows as he kneeled down next to Anamaria. She could hold her liquor well and in all the years he knew her, he had never seen her in such a state.
With a sigh, he wrapped an arm around her waist.
"You're not going to slap me, are you?"
Anamaria answered with a moan.
"Thought so."
The room swayed as Jack straightened up. He almost lost his balance but caught himself at the last moment. Damn, this was not how he had intended to spend the night. He had come to the Faithful Bride to get drunk, so drunk that he'd forget about Barbossa having stolen his ship – again – and then seek some pleasurable company. Not Scarlett or Giselle, they hadn't been too happy when they had abandoned him at the docks, but someone new. Someone he didn't know yet.
Definitely not Anamaria.
With a sigh, he carried her up the stairs to his room. He sighed again as he took in the small space. The chest, not even large enough to hold his boots. The bed squeezed into a corner.
The only bed.
"You're going to pay for this in the morning, luv," he told his former first mate as he lowered her on the bed. For a moment, he considered going back downstairs, then heard Anamaria retch. She barely even turned her head before the vomit came out. An image of her suffocating on her half-digested dinner came to his mind and he sighed for the third time in five minutes.
"Ana, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"
+o+o+
Jack woke up to the woman's soft snores. Daylight filtered through the tiny window. It didn't surprise him that Anamaria was still asleep. The night on the floor had been rough, so he woke up earlier than usual, and she'd had so much alcohol that she'd probably sleep on for hours. Just why on earth had she gotten that drunk?
Jack shook his head, knowing that asking himself these questions would bring him nowhere, and prepared himself to get some breakfast. He'd be back by the time she woke up.
Apparently, Anamaria wasn't one for sleeping in, not even when she was drunk. Jack should have known, they'd known each other for a long time and she'd sailed on the Black Pearl for many months.
+o+o+
When he came back to his room, the bed was empty.
Jack whirled around and checked behind the door, just to make sure that she wasn't hiding there to slap him, but he didn't find anybody.
He shrugged. Anamaria was a grown woman, she could do whatever she pleased to do. She'd decided to leave the Pearl, so she wasn't even a member of his crew and he owed her nothing. But she was his friend and as much as Jack tried to push the thought from his mind, he knew that he cared about her.
Oh well. Nothing to do about that at the moment. Maybe she'd show up at the Faithful Bride again this evening, maybe he'd cross paths with her elsewhere in Tortuga. It wasn't that large a place and Jack had other things to worry about.
Things like the Black Pearl, which had sailed away with Barbossa.
He took out the charts from under his coat and was just about to unroll them, when the door flew open.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
An accusing finger pointed into Jack's face. He tried to dive down, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the slap that followed.
"You should have woken me up. They've left without me."
Jack shook his head a little, his cheek stinging from her palm, and turned back to face her.
"How about 'hello Jack, it's nice to see you?' Or maybe 'Thank you, Jack, for getting me out of that hell when I was too drunk to do so myself?'"
He caught her hand this time and smirked.
"I see you haven't lost your spirit. That's at least one thing."
His eyes travelled down her body and she understood what he was referring to.
"Rough times," she said as her only reply, as if that would explain why she had gotten so skinny in the last couple of months. Why her eyes were bloodshot and she looked as if she hadn't eaten for weeks.
Jack let her get away with it. She was a pirate, just like himself, he knew how life could be splendid at one moment and turned upside down at the next.
Like it had just happened to him.
Only with the difference that he knew Barbossa would come back for the charts.
"And now your captain left without you."
For a moment, Jack thought she was going to slap him again. But he still held her hand and was prepared to catch the other one. What he hadn't expected, though, was her getting slack in his grip and hunching over.
He let her go as she headed for the bed, sat down and rubbed her face.
"He wasn't a good captain, anyway. But you know how it is for me."
Anamaria wouldn't pronounce it in front of him, but Jack knew what she was talking about. Problems finding a ship. Gibbs wasn't the only superstitious sailor in these waters.
"Well, good thing you have me, then. I'm an excellent captain, luv."
"And you don't have a ship."
Jack hadn't expected that, but it didn't surprise him. News travelled fast in Tortuga.
"Ah, just a small obstacle we'll overcome in no time." He waved the remark away. "And then we're going for the Fountain of Youth. Are you in?"