Author's Note: Thanks to Mae for showing interest in this idea.
Rating: K+ through T
Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean.
Book One, Chasing Dreams
Chapter One, "Part of the Crew"
She saw him in the tavern at Tortuga, which really wasn't anything new. Elizabeth hadn't been looking for Jack but it was a nice surprise to see him safe and sound after a few months.
"You look awful," She told him as she claimed his rum and the seat across from him. "I feel awful," He replied, studying her. "Why are you here, Lizzie?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "Because I can be. Why are you here?"
"I'm waiting for my ship to return. Barbossa commandeered the Black Pearl again," The man grumbled, eyeing his rum or rather, her rum.
"Maybe you should just kill him. That'd put an end to his folly," The lady pirate suggested. She noticed his gaze and tightened her grip on the bottle. "I did that once but a certain goddess decided that she had to ruin everything," Jack reminded her. "Oh that's right," Elizabeth said with a smirk. "Seeing as we've known each other for quite some time and that I have a ship and you don't, what say you to joining my crew?"
Jack examined his rings with great interest as he considered her offer. He really had no where else to turn to and, after the sheer adventure of the past years, he was rather bored by sitting around in taverns and cheap sex. "Yeah, alright," He agreed after a moment.
Elizabeth choked on her rum and set down the bottle quickly. "Are you serious?" Jack nodded solemnly. Elizabeth smirked. "Wonderful, but I want to add another condition. You have to do whatever I tell you or you'll walk the plank," She said.
Jack shrugged. He didn't really believe Elizabeth had it in her to make him walk the plank. "Whatever," He said, and she noticed the flash of a mischievous smirk, "you tell me, I'll do."
Elizabeth nodded and gave him one of her own playful smiles. "Well then, Jack, go with me to my ship and retire fore the night. You will sleep with the crew."
Jack stood up abruptly. "The crew?!" He cried. "Aye, Mister Sparrow, the crew. After all, you can handle sharing a room with a few other men. I hear tell that you've done so before," Elizabeth taunted. "It's Captain Sparrow, you must be jealous, and where'd you hear that?" Jack barked, growing agitated. "You aren't the captain, am not, and from a little bird," Elizabeth replied with a laugh. "Now go before I send you to the brig instead."
"You wouldn't dare," Jack snapped, though the look she gave him said that she most definitely would so he swaggered toward the door, followed closely by Elizabeth.
Jack shivered at the sight of Elizabeth's ship. The Empress, a junk, had once been Sao Feng's ship. It looked ominous in the dark.
"How goes things at Shipwreck Cove?" He asked as he glanced at the woman behind him. "Things are well. I've gotten to know your father," Elizabeth answered, looking out over the water instead of at him.
Jack sighed. "It seems that everyone but me has gotten to know that man," He mumbled. "You have yourself to blame," Elizabeth retorted, her eyes finally shifted to meet his. "You're the one that rejected him."
"Yeah, but he left me to be a pirate when I was a boy," Jack pointed out. "He abandoned me and mum."
He felt the old wounds, which he had once thought had been healed by time, being ripped open.
"And when he came to you to apologize you punched him and disappeared for eleven years," Elizabeth continued the story. She was tired of him refusing to take the blame, even partially, for things.
"He could have followed me."
"You rendered him unconscious."
"Well…it's not my fault he's so weak," Jack snapped as he walked up the gangplank and stomped over to the stairs to go below deck. "And it isn't his fault that you've run out of reasons to blame him for all your problems," Elizabeth replied as he disappeared from sight.
She sighed. It wasn't going to be easy to ward off the feelings she got when she was around him. It wasn't that she was really in love with him. She was just curious how he could make her feel. It had always been that way and probably would always be that way. Still, she wished she could just give in to the temptation. After all, he had agreed to do anything that she wanted him to do.
She relieved the man on duty and raised anchor. She didn't need her crew since they'd never taken the sails in when they'd made port and were still essentially ready to sail. Soon it was just her, the endless sea, and the Empress. They moved as one, causing her troubles to fade away.
Below deck, Jack punched the threadbare pillow he'd placed under his head, hoping to make it more comfortable. Unfortunately it did no good.
He missed his bed, where he could listen to the sounds of the sea instead of the snores and other bodily noises from the crew.
He knew they were no longer at port because of the way the junk ship creaked and wobbled as she glided threw the ever-moving water. He wondered how he had ever slept below deck before he had been awarded his own ship.
He really wasn't angry with Elizabeth. He knew that she was only testing him to see if he'd follow her orders. Surely he'd get his own room in the morning…right?
Elizabeth wasn't that cruel. Besides, they had a long, confusing history together. She couldn't do this to him. His thoughts went on like that until he drifted off to sleep.
The next thing he knew, he was staring into the face of a man who was uncomfortably close. The man said something that Jack couldn't understand because he didn't know the language.
"What?" He asked, moving his hands slightly to signal for the man to back up but he only inched closer, repeating what he'd said before. "No, I-I don't want a kiss from you," He insisted, confused and still tired. He ducked and slid off the cot underneath the man's arms before scurrying away, ignoring the laughs from the crew.
He could not, however, ignore the one laugh that belonged to a woman.
"He doesn't want to kiss you, Jack," Elizabeth assured him as she watched from her spot on the stairs. "He was telling you that you stole his cot."
Jack straightened and dusted off whatever dignity he had left with a nod. "Of course. My apologies," He said to the man, who didn't seem to understand but shrugged nonetheless.
"Is your hobby to watched men while they sleep?" He asked Elizabeth, fixing his shirt. "No. You woke us up with your talking and the watchman, your friend there, came to see what the matter was when he realized the perpetrator had stolen his cot," She said.
"My talking? I don't talk in my sleep," Jack insisted.
"Oh? That's what it sounded like to me."
"Then you were hearing things."
"Yes, we've already established that. You were carrying on about the Kraken and about Purgatory. You've frightened some of my crew," Elizabeth informed him.
"It's your fault," Jack accused before he could think. The effect of his words was visible immediately, though she tried to pretend it hadn't had any effect on her.
"You're the one who talks in his sleep," She snapped as she stood and walked up the stairs.
Jack's face fell as she left. He hadn't known that she hadn't forgiven herself. Surely he'd told her that it was alright by then, hadn't he? He couldn't remember.
After a moment of hesitation, Jack followed her up the stairs. "Elizabeth?" He called but received silence and bewildered looks from the men on deck. "Lizzie?"
She was crawling upwards in the rigging toward the foremast, fighting the tears that stung her eyes. Couldn't Jack just leave her alone? Hopefully he wouldn't find her.
Alas, he did. "Elizabeth, what are you doing up there?" He called when he spotted her. "Running from you and your idiotic remarks!" Elizabeth shouted at him. "I didn't think, Liz-"
"You never do!" She snarled. "Now leave me alone."
"Elizabe-"
"That is an order, Mister Sparrow!"
Jack sighed. What was he going to do with her? Defeated, he walked away so that she could be alone. He felt stupid for taking her orders, but he didn't want to get her more upset. After all, he knew that women could be really nasty when they were angry.
Hopefully things would be smoothed over and they could return to being friendly, rather than be in the captain-crewman relationship that they were currently negotiating through.