Thanks to all of you who left such kind reviews for the previous chapter. I admit, I am always slightly nervous when I think about the reception of my works, and all of you who reviewed or added this story to your favorites and alerts made my poor heart swell. Now, this next vignette was based loosely on a little reference to a book made in the previous chapter... Enjoy!
How to Argue and Reconcile, by Lady Kaceemort
Four days. It had been four bloody, angry, infuriating days since Jack and Elizabeth Sparrow last spoke. Their fight– blown entirely out-of-proportion and actually slightly comical– was heated and astronomical, one not seen between the two, well, ever.
And all of it was about a hat. One ruddy, old, weather-beaten heat. Oh, and a little book written in Hindi with colorful illustrations...
Jack rushed furiously around the Black Pearl's main deck, peeking into crates and barrels, scouring every nook and cranny, and questioning any man he passed. He was a man on a mission... a man in search of his hat.
Flinging open the Captain's ebony cabin doors, Jack stormed inside to find Elizabeth calmly sitting at the table, mending one of his shirts, her pregnant stomach poking out slightly. If he hadn't been Hellbent on finding his hat– nay, friend– Jack's heart would have melted into complete porridge and he would have been so endeared to his Lizzy, acting like a nice, little wife for her husband, he would have thrown himself at her feet and sang all her wonderful praises.
But as such, Jack could not register anything like that at the present
Jack dashed around the room opening drawers and wardrobes, hoping for a sign of his beloved hat. "Lizzy, darling, have you seen me hat?"
Elizabeth raised a curious eyebrow, still focused on her needlework, as a small, secretive smile flew on her lips.
"You know," Jack explained frantically, "leather, brown, three points?" Jack gestured wildly. "Usually seen on my person at all times."
"Perhaps you should play greater attention to your own belongings, rather than someone else's, Captain," Elizabeth replied cooly.
Noticing her less than inviting tome, Jack sighed and plopped down quite unceremoniously beside her at the table. "What's the matter, love?" What've I done, he added mentally. She only called him "Captain" when she was either mocking him or angry at him. Not good.
Elizabeth finally looked up for her work and sat it down in her lap. "'What's the matter love?'" she mimicked in a high-pitched falsetto. "I'll tell you 'what's the matter', Captain! You are a bloody thief!"
"I prefer pirate, love. You know, it's part of the job and all. 'We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack. Drink up, me heart--'"
"I know you're a bloody pirate! I wasn't talking about that!" Elizabeth all but screeched at Jack.
"Then, love, do explain what you meant to explain, before I explained what you explained originally."
"No riddles, Jack. Not now. You stole from me."
Jack dawned a confused expression and held his hands up innocently. "I don't know what you mean, love. I've stolen nothing from you except some rather breath-taking kisses and... other things," he added coyly.
"Don't play innocent with me, Jack. You know exactly what you did."
"I never swore I was innocent, Lizzy," Jack drawled out with a smirk. "In fact, you're not that innocent either, there, love. All thanks to that book..." Jack sighed dreamily with a touch of awe and reverence, then caught his mistake.
Oh bugger.
Elizabeth seethed. "Yes, Jack, that book. The book you STOLE from me after I told. You. NO."
Now, Lizzy herself could be rather scary. But a pregnant Lizzy was absolutely terrifying. "Lizzy, dear, I like to think of it as, um, borrowing for educational purposes, really."
A frustrated yell erupted from Elizabeth's mouth as she grabbed her head with her hands. Jack had the decency– and forbearance– to look abashed.
"Would it help if I apologized?" Jack asked sheepishly.
One look from Elizabeth silenced him.
"Well, then, I'm just gonna go look for me hat..."
As Jack turned around to escape to the safety of the deck, Elizabeth said, "You won't find it."
Jack turned around quickly. "Why's that, love?"
A truly evil, maniacal grin touched her lips.
Comprehension, like a wave, crushed on Jack. Narrowing his dark eyes, he asked, "What did you do with my hat?"
"If you turn around, Captain, you might find it half a day's journey back, at the bottom of the ocean floor, strapped to a cannon ball," an unconcerned Elizabeth explained airily.
If Jack hadn't have loved his Lizzy very, VERY much, and if she hadn't have been carrying his progeny and all, he would have drawn his sword and attempted to kill her.
Instead, he started yelling at her. And Elizabeth, quite loudly, yelled right back.
No one on the crew knew what all was said between the husband and wife, except, of course, the husband and wife in question. Only snippets of the conversation could be recalled from the crew as they abandoned their work and listened at the cabin's doors.
"Good for nothing wench!"
"Sodding, smelly pirate!"
Sounds of things heavy being thrown were heard.
"Murderer!" followed by some unrecognizable words. "...Tried to make me bloody KRAKEN food!"
"Wish it could have done its job, scoundrel!"
This time, the sound of something heavy was heard colliding with a person.
"That bloody hurt!" they heard their Captain yell. They all winced appreciatively in unison.
"Get out! Get out!" Elizabeth screamed.
They all jumped as Jack stormed out of the cabin, looking murderous.
"Go back to Daddy and your bloody William!" Jack turned and screamed back into the cabin. "I don't want you!"
As he slammed the doors shut furiously, something collided with the doors, making them shudder angrily.
Jack registered the flabbergasted crew. "Get back to work, you mangy curs!" he growled. "Mr. Gibbs," he beckoned lowly the man, "make a course for Port Royal immediately."
"But Cap'n--" Gibbs protested.
"Do it now!" Jack barked fearsomely, his eyes flashing with anger and something else– was it hurt? Regret?
Inside the cabin, Elizabeth rocked herself back and forth on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably, knowing she was wrong, wishing she could have Jack hold her and tell her it was alright.
But he never came.
Elizabeth confined herself to the cabin, taking meals only from the nice Mr. Cotton, who took pity on her.
Jack, however, was always on deck, seen in the constant company of large bottles of rum.
They were both miserable, but they were also both too proud to admit it to each other.
When they were but a day's journey away from Port Royal, Jack summoned over Gibbs and ordered him to tell Elizabeth to get her things together. Gibbs, however, refused.
"No, Cap'n, I won't do it. Lock me up in the brig or whip me, I don't care. But I won't break Miss 'Lizabeth's heart like that."
Jack raised himself to his feet drunkenly. "Very well, then, I'll do it meself," he said, taking a swig of his rum as he stumbled over to face the cabin. He rapped curtly on the cabin's door, and heard a feeble, "Come in."
Jack walked inside and looked at Elizabeth for the first time in four days. Her skin was ashen grey, like she was sick or dying, her hair matted and in disarray, her tear tracks crowned by her red and puffy eyes. She was laying on the bed, both of her hands resting on her enlarged stomach. Jack's heart broke to the point he was forced to avert his eyes to look away from his pitiful wife lest his own eyes mist. The room, he noticed, had been tidied from the remnants of Elizabeth's projectile firing she had commandeered four days ago.
Jack cleared his throat. "We, ah, will be... um... reaching..."
He couldn't say it. He couldn't tell her he was taking her back. He didn't want to tell her.
Because he didn't want her to leave.
Jack's eyes met Elizabeth's as a single tear fell down her cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered meekly.
Jack rushed to her and clung to her in his arms. "No, love, I'm sorry."
"I shouldn't have taken your hat."
"I shouldn't have stole your book first."
"Oh, Jack, I love you, and I'm sorry I overreacted. I can't live without you..."
"Lizzy, my love, I'll see to it that you never have to."
And then their lips met for the first time in four days.
Quite some time later as they lay in each other's arms in the tangled clothes of the bed, Jack rubbed a calloused hand on Elizabeth's stomach.
"I suppose I'll have to find me a new hat," Jack sighed.
Elizabeth squirmed slightly. "About that..."
"Shh... love, you already apologized. Quite nicely, I recall."
"No, it's not that. Well... I didn't exactly tell the truth," Elizabeth admitted.
Jack raised a dark eyebrow. "You lied?"
"No! I just well, use some... creative license."
"You did lie! You bloody pirate!" Jack grinned appreciatively.
Elizabeth flushed. "Yes, I lied. I didn't drown your hat. It's in my trunk, safe and sound."
Jack, in all his naked glory, jumped up from the bed. "HA," he scurried over to the trunk. He placed the hat on his head and looked at Lizzy's sultry gaze.
"You've never looked better, Jack."
Jack's grin widened. "It's the hat, love."
Again, quite some time afterwards, Jack and Elizabeth emerged from the room together, hand-in-hand. Gibbs sighed, thanked God, and walked towards the two.
"Captain, Miss Lizzy," he greeted with a smile.
Elizabeth returned the kind man's smile with a warm one of her own. "Mr. Gibbs, where are we heading?" She looked around and focused on a near-distant island that looked vaguely familiar.
"Uh... Cap'n?" Gibbs asked, not knowing what to tell the lady in front of him.
Jack smirked and threw an arm around Lizzy's waist, pulling her closer towards him. "Port Royal," he told Elizabeth with a broad, golden grin. "I'd like to go greet my father-in-law..."
On that ominous note, we shall end this short anecdote. Once again, thank you for reviewing, and make me even happier by reviewing some more! All criticism or general like/dislike is welcomed.