The Black Pearl is Boarded (edits for style as of 4/08)
"Hey! Wait! I-I mean I'm sorry, Miss, I mean, Ma'am, I'm sorry but you can't go in there. I mean you shouldn't even be aboard - who are you? - but you definitely can't go into the cabin. Captain's orders - he's not to be disturbed."
The woman turned around slowly. He saw that despite her perfect figure and the girlish wisps of hair that escaped their updo to tickle her neck, he had been right to call her ma'am. The woman was at least twenty-five years old. Handsome, he would call her. Striking. Some might even say beautiful, but the cabin boy liked his ladies frail and delicate, and this woman who so foolishly prepared to disturb the captain during his rest was anything but.
"He'll see me," she said imperiously.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but he's said he won't see anyone. Even Captain Sparrow hasn't been allowed to..."
"Is that so? How does he eat?"
"We...we leave his meals outside for him and then go away, ma'am. He doesn't even really eat them. Ma'am, I don't think I should be telling you-"
The woman took a step closer to him. "It's no secret that the Pearl hasn't put to sea in almost eight weeks," she told him. "The only reason I can see for that is one of them is unfit to travel. Jack's accounted for - I found two girls and a barkeep who swear he's been in to see them every night - so who does that leave?"
"Ma'am, please," the boy begged her, truly miserable. "He would kill me if he knew I'd told anyone. Or if I let anyone in to see him before he can come out on his own. You have to understand-"
His voice trailed off as she reached into her gown and pulled out a very small, ladylike pistol. She cocked it and fired a bullet into the deck. "There," she said, "Now I've fired on your ship and I'm an enemy. I invoke the right of parlay. You must send me to one of your captains to make peace immediately. As Jack is -ahem- occupied, that means..."
"But...but..." the boy swallowed. "But only a pirate can invoke the terms of the pirates' code, and-"
"-And she," said a voice from behind them, "Is most definitely a pirate."
The cabin boy looked simultaneously relieved and terrified. "Captain, I'm so sorry we woke you-"
Barbossa ignored him and held out his hand to the woman. "Miss Elizabeth. Come in."
He had cut a fine figure in the doorway, unusually clean and dressed to the pirate nines and standing fully erect, but as soon as the door closed behind them he collapsed against the wall with a string of curses that made her smile.
"I… Captain, I think I've missed you."
He began painstakingly to undo all the buttons of his coat. "Should have shown him the shoulder."
"That was my next move," she agreed, suppressing a smile. "It was a very last resort, I assure you - I no longer prance around half-dressed in front of strange men."
"Pity." Barbossa finally got the coat off his shoulders. "Elizabeth... not that I don't welcome ye gladly... but what are you doing here?"
When the bandage came into view she grimaced - eight weeks and still fresh blood? "You can have three guesses."
He let her help him sit down on the bed slowly and lie back in a huge mess of pillows. She got him a drink - water, with a glare at the mountain of rum bottles that littered his desk - and while he sipped, asked a fairly stupid question: "How are you?"
"Charmed, as ever."
She'd always been aware that she missed her pet pirate, but until that moment Elizabeth had not realized just how huge an itch his presence would scratch. "Likewise, Captain," she said, meaning it.
She left the ship an hour later and prowled the streets of Tortuga until she found what she was looking for. There was a bit of a limp that almost threw her off, but the hat and the sash and those wild gestures were unmistakable even from behind. "Excuse me! Exc-" Elizabeth sighed and reminded herself that she was not in a Port Royal drawing room. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: "Jack! Oy, Jack Sparrow - over here!"
He froze, turned around slowly, and smiled. "Lizzie, darling!" He held out his arms to her and, fancy dress notwithstanding, she gave him a hug. All too quickly he pulled away. "I heard you were here, love, poking about Tortuga looking for good old Jack Sparrow... but on second thought I doubt it's a sudden pressing need for my company that's brought you."
She didn't mince words. "Why hasn't he seen a doctor? It's not going to heal on its own."
"You haven't changed much," Jack complained at her lecturing tone. "Pish-posh, Lizzie, he'll be fine. A little salt air and-"
"Jack, you know he doesn't look good..." She took a closer look at the pirate then, and couldn't resist reaching out to touch his cheek. He was a good decade older than she was, and didn't exactly take pains to keep up his appearance, and yet… it seemed that the years had done nothing at all to him. He looked exactly the same as when they had parted ways nearly ten years ago. Instantly, ill-advised magical bargaining came to mind. "But you look good... too good. You haven't gone and done anything stupid, have you?"
Jack's upper lip pulled off his teeth as though he were about to bite into something rotten. "Define stupid."
"Jack!" Elizabeth overcame all her years of respectability to smack him in the arm. "What did you do?"
"What, the face or the..." he gestured vaguely towards his abdomen.
"Both."
"It was two bullets to the gut, love," Jack explained. "Tore straight through and out the other side. He should be dead. We went to Tia Dalma, but the strongest pick-me-up she had… while it did keep him alive and have those lovely side effects you've doubtless noticed in both of us… it didn't do enough."
She wasn't unduly surprised that Jack had decided to take a swig of his friend's medicine. "What about a doctor?"
Jack shook his head. "I brought two in at knifepoint, but they both said right away it was fatal." And then Barbossa was so annoyed he shot them both dead and said: now how's THAT for fatal. But he didn't tell her that.
Elizabeth found Jack a convenient target to absorb her frustration and worry. "And yet here you are cavorting around the city with your whores. You're so very concerned for him, Jack, I'm touched."
"You've been out of the game too long, love," he reproached her gently. "You've forgotten how to scheme. Barbossa's taken it into his head that he wants to die at sea. You know and I know that if we put to sea he'll get his wish – right now he's not fit to go anywhere. Here at least there's food and rest and medicine. Therefore I am trying to keep him in Tortuga as long as I possibly can-"
"-By refusing to return to the ship to take command," Elizabeth finished for him. "He's not quite pigheaded enough to try and set sail on his own."
"Exactly."
"But Jack, that's a temporary measure at best. He's not getting better. He needs help."
"Help?" Jack's voice jumped half an octave. "And what sort of help d'you have in mind, then, eh? Who's going to come and help a pirate – and who could do anything about a torn-open belly like that anyway? Hmm? Please – I'm all ears!"
Elizabeth didn't mind being vented at – at least it meant Jack was worried and doing the best he could. "Who indeed," she murmured… and then her eyes got very wide. "Jack!"
"Idea?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes! Did you know, I almost died when Willie was born. A friend of my father's – a doctor, a good one – he saved my life." Elizabeth's gaze slid sideways and she hoped Jack wouldn't notice her getting a little evasive. "He's a bit, er…unorthodox… but you know the captain couldn't be much worse off no matter what we did to him."
Jack's eyebrows went up.
Elizabeth wasn't sure what question he was thinking at her, but the answer was definitely: "I don't know. But I'll go back to Port Royal right away and talk to him."
"You'll persuade him?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "If it comes to that," she said stoutly. "In fact I will kidnap him if it comes to that, but Jack, I'll be back here with this doctor on the very next ship that sails."
Jack laughed and they were both too keyed-up to notice that it was a little forced. "Now you're talking, love. It's worth a try, eh?"
TBC.
Remember, the story is in THEN/NOW format. Next chapter will be a THEN.
