Disclaimer: I don't own PotC. But I want to be a pirate. Unfortunately that isn't the same thing, though. Shame.
A/N: So. Don't ask me why watching the new PotC movie made me want to write Elizabeth/Jack. It shouldn't, if anything I should be writing Jack/Angela, but… I don't know, I liked her character, but not enough. (Ahhh, Eliabeth. I love you, but you chose the wrong pirate. The completely wrong pirate. *sigh*)
Even years later the effects of that one damsel in distress, or more accurately that most distressing damsel, rang in the air like the toll of the gallows' bell. It was not always obvious to anyone save himself, but there were odd moments when he thought Gibbs noticed, or maybe he was just too drunk and paranoid, jumping at blimey shadows.
But he'd pull out the compass, looking for some booty or rum or even a nice adventure (and at the odd unfortunate moment a ship and a crew) and its needle'd spin round and round and he knew; she'd be out there somewhere with a smile on that pretty face, besieging any poor soul who thought her less than she thought she'd be, just as she always had. The compass would point and his heart would twinge, because he followed it once, thinking there'd be treasure or rum or port (or rum) at the end, but there wasn't.
There was only that great trouble of a lass with bright and narrowed eyes, the slightest hint of a pout, hands firm on her cocked waist. He'd spun around the second he'd laid eyes on her and barely got out by the skin of his teeth, his heart beating up a rage in his chest double time. The crew had been most confused over why they'd port and then set sail within a matter of minute, but the Capt'n was an odd one and so they left it be.
His heart, apparently, could not just leave bloody well enough alone, however.
"Bloody mutinous scoundrel," he accused the object drunkenly, squinting down at the stubbornly pointed needle while he clung to his beloved Pearl's helm and a bottle of rum, both in the same hand. "I most certainly do not want to go that way. Trouble lies that way and you get yourself into enough such nonsense as it is without that slight of a lying lass around."
The needle swayed side to side as if to mock him, but then that might have just been him trying to find his feet on the accursed moving deck. A little forlornly he wished he had three hands, so he could glower at the bloody compass, cling to his ship, and take a swig of rum all at once, but he ended up dropping to the deck to have some booze instead. And since he was a sailor, and not just any sailor mind you, but a pirate captain, he decided that the compass had indeed answered him mockingly and so he slurred back.
"No, no, no, no, mate, you've got it all wrong 'ere; that most distressing damsel is something you most certainly do not want anywhere near your precious ship. Boats carrying the girl get attacked and kidnapped and a number of other unpleasant things that have already happened to your boat a number too many of times. You do not, and I repeat this only once more, do not want that wench in your most adventurous and fulfilling life."
And then after another moment of quiet thought, much drinking from a nearly empty rum bottle, and even more staring at the compass' unmoving face, he added thoughtfully; "even if she made one hellova pirate king."
Gibbs, who had taken over the helm when Jack dropped to the deck, took all his mutterings and oddities in stride, for the most part. Things like that asprang when sailing on the Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow and it wasn't the first time he had scolded his compass, and the man knew deep down in his gut it wouldn't be the last. And he knew, for the most part, that it'd much like the other cases had, and so Gibbs waited it out as quietly as he could.
Jack threw back his head and touched the bottle to his lips, but nothing fell to fill his throat. Blinking bemused he pulled back the container and stared at it, having to work a bit more than usual to focus on its colored glass. "Why's the rum gone again?" He asked, before the motion of the ship jostled his arm and drew his attention to what his hand held. "Oh," he muttered, sigh caught in his throat, eyelids drooping heavily; "that's why."
The needle pointed to his left, out South over the great black rolling waves of his lady love the Sea, not wavering no matter the times he glowered or waved his arm back and forth. "Gibbs," he said, not bothering to pick his head up as he lumbered to his feet, "turn the ship due North and keep 'er there 'til I tell 'ya otherwise, savvy?"
"Aye aye, Capt'n," Gibbs replied dutifully, swinging the Pearl round due North, used to not knowing where they were going or where they'd end up (since they were not always one in the same with Captain Jack Sparrow). But he was close enough to catch the fading remark of the drunken man, staggering to and fro on his most precious ship, same as it always was when the compass pointed in that most unwelcome direction.
Very quietly, as if talking to someone who should've been there, Jack told the sea and the stars and his precious Pearl, "it wouldn't have worked out between us, love; it wouldn't have worked out."