Penance
by Luvvycat
- Chapter 2 -
Exodus
The crew collected whatever supplies had washed up on the Locker's shores, transferring them to the Pearl and preparing her for sailing. Jack and Barbossa moved amongst them, both shouting out orders, squabbling like children over who was actually Captain and, thus, authorised to give the orders. Fiercely competitive combatants that they were, and with the long history of ill will between them, it didn't appear as though the issue would be resolved anytime soon. In the classic example of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, neither man seemed willing to give even the smallest amount of ground to the other.
For the most part, Elizabeth tried to stay out of Jack's way, which was just as well, as Jack seemed to be making a point of avoiding her also. Every so often she would look up and see him staring at her, a cold and decidedly unfriendly look in the dark mirrors of his eyes which disturbed her deeply. Not that she didn't deserve his rancour. She expected she would feel the same, if he had betrayed and sent her to her death ...
She remembered the brief exchange she and Will had had on the Hai Peng, just before Barbossa had driven the ship over the waterfall, into World's End ...
"How long do we continue not talking?" Will had asked her.
"Once we rescue Jack, everything will be fine ..." was her reply.
Well, they had rescued Jack. But everything wasn't fine, was it? No, it was about as far from fine as it could possibly get ...
She eventually retreated to the relative seclusion of the stairwell leading down to the hold and crew's quarters, trying to collect her disordered thoughts. It had not escaped her notice that Will also seemed to be eschewing her company of late ... in fact, it appeared he could barely stand to look at her at all, let alone touch her, ever since the day the Pearl was reclaimed by the sea …
But he found her now ...
"You left Jack to the Kraken?" Will said, emerging from the shadows of the hold, his deep voice softly accusing.
Elizabeth could not look him in the face, didn't want to see the condemnation hinted at by the tone of his voice. "He's rescued now. It's done with," she said, quietly, the promise of tears roughening her voice. Not by a long shot, missy! Jack's voice, insinuating, rang in her head, taking her back to another time and place, and much more pleasant circumstances between her and Jack, when he had spoken those very words to her. The memory brought a slight blush to her cheeks.
Will turned away from her, and she rose to her feet to stand at the bottom of the stairs. She took a hesitant step toward him, wanting to explain, needing to unburden her conscience, at last, after the past months of secretive silence. "Will, I had no choice ..."
"You chose not to tell me." She couldn't bear the hurt in his voice—not hurt that she had actually lured Jack to his death, but that she had kept it a secret from him ...
"I couldn't!" she maintained, trying to find the right words so he would understand, but all she could come up with was, "It wasn't your burden to bear."
He turned back to her, his face filled with wounded anger, his voice so soft she could barely make out his words. "But I did bear it, didn't I? I just didn't know what it was." Pain and confusion pooled in his eyes, flooded his face. "I thought ..." He let the words trail off, but his dark eyes spoke volumes.
Reading them now, she had an epiphany, the scales finally falling from her own eyes as she at last understood the reason for his distance, his withdrawing from her since the day they lost Jack and the Black Pearl. Drowning in her own guilt, Elizabeth had thought Will's suddenly coolness toward her had been because he suspected what she had done to Jack, and was repelled. Now, peering at his face, she finally knew what it was ... what he had been thinking since that last day on the Pearl ...
"You thought I loved him," she said. Conflicting emotions swamped her ... regret that Will had suffered these past months under the mistaken belief that she no longer loved him, uncertainty at her own confused feelings where Jack was concerned. Did she love Jack? She couldn't answer that question, her heart so torn asunder as to be unreadable to her ...
Not that it made any difference what she felt. Jack hated her now, with good cause—how could he not, after what she had done to him? And Will was well on his way down that prickly path himself ...
She turned away, intending to retreat up the stairs, but Will grabbed her, rougher than he had ever been with her, forcing her back against a support beam. "If you make your choices alone, how can I trust you?" he said in a near-whisper, both pain and passion lacing his voice.
Her heart twisted inside her chest, thinking of the other secrets she had kept from Will, the other ways in which she had betrayed him ... with Jack. To make matters worse, mixed in with the guilt and pain were memories of exquisite pleasure—desires awakened, fed most deliciously, and ultimately satiated at the touch of Jack's hands and mouth—a touch that, even now, more than a year later, she still craved, like a drunkard craved drink …
"You can't," she whispered back, desolately, and, harsh though it was, it was nothing but the plain, unvarnished truth. She saw the stunned look on his face and felt, not for the first time, that Will was slipping away from her, ten years of love and affection now tainted, poisoned, practically annihilated, not through any fault of Will's, but because of the things she had done ...
Breaking free of Will's grasp, she turned and fled up the stairs, away from the sight of his wounded and accusatory eyes ...
Jack was at the Pearl's wheel when he saw Elizabeth emerge from belowdecks, clearly upset. Shortly after, Will also came back up on deck, and from the looks they were giving one another, from opposite sides of the ship, he knew that ... something ... had passed between them. Nothing pleasant, apparently.
And some wicked little imp inside of Jack was capering in delight, to see the two lovebirds so desperately unhappy ...
It served them right.
It served her right!
Ever since that moment in the Locker—when he had heard that voice spilling again into his ear like poisoned honey, calling his name, and turned to gaze upon the terrible, beautiful face that had seduced him to his death with a black-widow kiss—he felt as though some sort of madness had gripped him, pulling him in two different directions, tearing his heart and soul apart in a welter of exquisite agony.
One second, he wanted to strangle her ... wrap his strong, calloused fingers around that delicate silken throat and squeeze the breath out of her, watch gleefully as fingertip-shaped bruises sprang up around that lovely neck like a string of dark pearls and the life seeped slowly out of those deep amber eyes like precious rum leaking from a cracked mug ...
The next, he wanted to take her in his arms, absorb her through his very skin, kiss her rapturously with mouth and tongue and teeth until she begged for mercy, throw her down and make love to her again and again, lose himself in her body through endless sun-drenched days and delicious velvet-wrapped nights, until they both expired, carried to the heights of Heaven and the very depths of Hell itself in the sweet, agonising throes of ecstasy ...
At present, he was content to maintain his distance, and keep a cautious eye on her. Not so much that he didn't trust her, though there was an underlying element of that ... he just didn't trust himself around her, in his present state of mind. He was afraid of what he might do, were he to finally be alone with her.
Without restraint …
Without witnesses …
It wasn't until early evening, when most of the crew were belowdecks at their dinner, when Elizabeth plucked up her courage, and sought Jack out. Despite her tremendous reluctance to face him and the consequences of what she had done, she felt the need to settle things with him; they couldn't continue on this difficult voyage without clearing the air between them. They had too much to accomplish in too short a time, and they couldn't do it if everyone spent untoward time and effort avoiding, or hating, one another ...
As luck would have it, she found him, alone, in the Captain's cabin. Apparently, he and Barbossa had come to some sort of grudging arrangement on who would have use of the main cabin at which hours ...
As she slipped silently into the room, she idly noticed that Jack appeared not to have touched his dinner—the plate sat there, neglected, the food cooling and drying in the candle-warmed air of the cabin—but, telling from the nearly empty bottle on the table in front of him, he had already consumed a fair quantity of rum. She didn't know if that would help or hinder her current purpose.
When he at last became aware of her presence, he heaved a deep sigh and, without looking up, said, "What is it you want, Miss Swann?" His voice was harsh, his tone reeking of displeasure. When he raised his eyes to her, they were as dark and hard as twin pieces of flint, no trace of warmth in them, only a stony wariness and a thinly-veiled animosity.
Now that the moment of confrontation was here, she had difficulty finding her voice, any words she might have said drying up in her throat under the withering intensity of his stare. Jack just sat there, transfixing her with that obsidian gaze, as she struggled to find the right words.
"Well?" he said at length, with impatience.
Her heart was pounding in her chest, thrumming in her ears, nearly loud enough for him to hear across the room, she imagined. She tried to swallow past the sudden tightness in her throat, but all she seemed to be able to manage was a quavering whisper. "I—I came to try to make amends, Jack. To apologise for ... for what I did." His eyes remained coldly distant. "To—to seek your forgiveness ..."
"For what, luv? For murdering me?" His voice was cutting, flaying her with barely-contained anger.
"Well ... yes," she admitted. Her words trailed off at the pitiless expression on his face. Clearly, he wasn't going to make this easy for her. And why should he, after all? She was guilty as charged ...
If anything, his eyes got even harder, flint transforming now into black diamonds, glittering dangerously in the flickering candlelight. "Of course, why should I hold such a trifling little thing against you? What's the life of a scurrilous, lowlife pirate worth, after all? Certainly not as much as that of a governor's daughter, or a blacksmith's apprentice." His tone dripped with sarcasm that stung her like vinegar poured into an open wound.
Elizabeth flushed, disconcerted by his temper, and the lingering trace of madness in his eyes that had been there since his rescue from the Locker. But what had she expected? Mercy? Understanding? "I had hoped that we could put that behind us, get past it ..."
His intense gaze remained fixed on her as he raised the rum bottle to his lips, draining it in one long swig. He slammed the empty bottle back onto the table with such force that it was a miracle it didn't shatter, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Have you any reason to expect my forgiveness? And, tell me, Miss Swann, how in bloody hell do you think you can atone for what you did?" he sneered, bitterness making his baritone voice with its soft cockney accent, usually seductively pleasant to listen to, grate against her ears. She flinched at the vehemence in his tone, the banked rage simmering in the black cauldron of his eyes.
"I ... I don't know." She felt the beginning of tears prickle her eyes, but knew that tears would not move him, so she refused to let them flow. Nevertheless, she averted her gaze, so he would not see their telltale, embryonic glimmer silvering her eyes. "You ... you seemed to understand why I did it, at the time ..." She remembered the look on his face when she had snapped the shackle around his wrist. The wide grin, the sable eyes looking down at her with unabated desire, frank admiration ... perhaps even, unless she had imagined it, a trace of love ...
"I'm not sorry ..." she said in a resolute voice, with only the smallest hint of a tremor, as much to convince herself as him ...
"Pirate!" he whispered, his voice low, intimate, sending an involuntary thrill down her spine, conveying a wealth of feeling in that single word ...
"Well, luv, that's the funny thing about death—it has a way of drastically altering a man's perspective. Try spendin' some time yourself in Hell, and I'm sure you'd come out of it changed, too ..." he said caustically.
"But … but I have been in Hell, Jack, these past months. It's been absolute torture for me, knowing what I did, torn with guilt about it all … knowing that you were gone, and it was all my fault …"
His eyes flared, and she found herself practically scorched by the fury in them, though his voice remained cold as ice. "Hell, you say? Darlin', you don't even begin to know what torture is …so don't try to tell me how much you've suffered!" Belatedly, she remembered the innumerable scars and the brand he carried, evidence of past torments, the unbearable agonies he had been made to go through during his lifetime. No, torture was not a word to be bandied about lightly, with Jack Sparrow ...
"I—I lied to you that day, when I said I wasn't sorry. I am sorry, Jack! I'm so terribly sorry, but, in my defence, it's the only choice I could have made, at the time ... in those circumstances, to save all our lives," she went on.
"All lives, that is, except me own!" Beneath the anger, she thought she detected an undercurrent of hurt in his tone, like the desolate cry of an abandoned child ...
Her thin veneer of composure fragmented into a million razor-sharp shards. To her chagrin, an errant tear slipped down her cheek, burning a trail like acid down her face, and she dropped her eyes from his. "Tell me what I need to do to make it up to you. Anything within my power to give you, is yours ..."
This seemed to mollify him somewhat, for he fell silent. At his continued silence, she looked up, to find his dark eyes upon her, raking her body with a speculative, and disturbingly lustful, gaze.
Yes, even that ... She nodded in resignation, tacitly agreeing to the unspoken demand conveyed by his eyes. "If ... if that would settle our debt ... make things square between us ... I will ... You can ..." She blushed suddenly, not able to complete the thought.
But he picked up on her meaning all the same. His soft voice oozed with malice, and any likening to a child she may have fancied quickly evaporated. "So ... for the sake of receiving absolution, you would trade your virginity to me? You are still a virgin, aren't you, darlin'?" he added, nastily. "Perhaps that status has changed since you sent me on me merry way to the Locker." He laughed, a short, harsh bark that held no trace of humour nor amusement in it. "Sorry, luv—but I make it a rule not to sleep with people who try to murder me. Or, in your case, actually succeeded ... for which I suppose I should congratulate you for your ingenuity. Better men—and women—than you have tried to take me life over the years, without success."
Then his eyes went over her again, slowly, touching upon the soft fullness of her lips, the swell of her bosom, and he crooked a lecher's smile that had nothing of softness about it. "Then again ... we might consider that more of a guideline than a ... hard and fast rule." He looked at her steadily, his eyes burning with a dark and dangerous sexuality, and cocked an eyebrow, suggestively.
She turned her back to him, trying to collect the frayed strands of her dignity, which was impossible for her to do with the penetrative pressure of his eyes on her. She took a deep breath in an effort to calm her jangling nerves, then, releasing it in a deep, shuddering sigh, shoulders slumping slightly in defeat, she made her decision ...
Reaching down, she unfastened the buckle of her belt, letting it fall uncaringly to the floor, then started untying the sash tightly cinching her narrow waist, her fingers shaking so that she could hardly manage the knot. She at last slipped it off and also let it fall. She had started undoing the fastenings at the front of her black silk tunic, when she heard a sound behind her ...
Jack was suddenly there, spinning her around, wrapping his fist in her hair, yanking her head back as he forcefully took possession of her mouth, his kiss brutal, bruising. As she gasped at his ferocity, he plunged his rum-flavoured tongue into her mouth peremptorily. Reaching down to grasp her buttocks with both hands, he pulled her roughly against him, pressing his groin to hers. She felt him through the layers of clothing, hard, against her lower belly.
He broke from the kiss to whisper fiercely against her lips, "Feel what you do to me, Lizzie—what you still can do, after all this time, in spite of everything?" He pushed her against the wall of the cabin, her back slamming against the dark panelling, his ungentle hands roaming freely over her, groping her breasts through the thin silk of her tunic, burying his face in the curve of her throat, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder, dragging his tongue up the length of her neck. He kissed her again, ferociously, and one hand travelled down to rub her through the crotch of her oriental trousers.
She trembled, equal parts fear and—perversely—desire. His violence frightened her, yet at the same time, she couldn't keep her traitorous body from responding to the feel of Jack's hands, his lips, his body against hers, welcoming with rising heat even these rough touches.
The past few months had taught her much about violence as, in preparation for their quest, she learned from Barbossa how to defend herself—and to kill—with sword and pistol, rifle and knife, handling these weapons with new confidence and deadly skill that surprised even the tough old Barbossa, and appalled Will. Having lost her moral innocence that fateful day on the Black Pearl, and with the stain of Jack's murder already on her soul, she had found it disconcertingly easy to kill, revelling in the catharsis it brought her as she slashed or shot her way through anyone who stood between her and finding Jack …
…the same, slightly mad Jack who now pressed closely against her, pinning her to the wall with his body as he breathed in her ear, "I could take you, Lizzie ... take you hard and fast like a man takes a half-crown whore, use you mercilessly, and still make you scream in ecstasy in the end. This is something I know how to do ..." Then a shudder ran through him and, with a groan of torment, he grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her away from him. She landed in a sprawl across his bed. "But, God help me, though I still want you with every fibre of my being, I don't know how to forgive you. How does a man forgive his murderer for killing him?" He shook his head, and a little bit of the fury leached out of his eyes. "You expect far too much of me, luv." He crooked a humourless grin. "You always have."
He picked up her belt and sash from the floor, and tossed them onto the bed next to her. "Now, go! Before I change me mind, and take you anyway ..."
Grabbing up her effects, she got up from the bed, and, propelled by Jack's dark look, fled the cabin, her hair mussed, face flushed, her tunic still half-unbuttoned ...
She didn't see Will lurking in the shadows, watching her go ...
Not long after, Gibbs rapped on the door and poked his nose into the cabin. "Cap'n?" he asked tentatively, then fell silent as he saw Jack sitting at the chart table, head buried in his hands, every line and aspect of his body bespeaking anguish, the candle glow glinting like shards of fire off the ornaments in his hair and the many rings adorning his long fingers. As Gibbs stepped into the room, his boots crunched on broken glass, and he looked down to see the remains of a shattered rum bottle on the floor. No wetness in evidence, though, so the bottle had been empty when it was thrown ...
"Jack?" he dropped the formality, worry for his friend flooding his lagoon-blue eyes, and came quickly into the cabin and shut the door. "Are ye all right?"
There was a soul-deep sigh, and then Jack raised his head, not quite able to disguise the turmoil in his black-rimmed eyes fast enough as he quickly schooled his face into a mask of detached composure. "What is it, Gibbs? Problems with the crew? Is that whoreson Barbossa gettin' too out of hand? Or is Cotton's parrot and that infernal monkey goin' at it again?"
"No," Gibbs replied softly, "Just wanted to apprise ye on our progress. We're holdin' steady on our course, and the waters be calm, though the wind's dyin' down a bit."
"Good," Jack said, somewhat distractedly, then added, "Thank you, Mister Gibbs."
Rather than retreat at Jack's implied dismissal, Gibbs approached, hesitantly. Alone, away from the prying eyes and ears of the crew, Gibbs spoke to Jack in the gentle tones of a friend rather than First Mate to Captain. "What's the matter, Jack? What be troublin' ye?" His voice dropped even lower. "Is it the Locker, and what ye went through …?"
Jack was silent for a moment, then, responding to the concern in Gibbs' voice, he sighed again and replied, his voice a soft, deep, and slightly troubled rumble, "No. Not quite. Or, at least, not entirely ..."
Gibbs studied Jack for a moment, and then realisation dawned. "Oh! Then it be about ... her."
Jack glanced up sharply, and the dangerous look that flashed through his eyes would have daunted a lesser man. But Gibbs knew Jack well, and was undeterred.
"What happened, Jack?"
Jack closed his eyes, as though in pain, and was silent so long that at first Gibbs thought he wouldn't get an answer. But then, he replied in a hoarse voice threaded with misery, "She came to me tonight, Josh, beggin' for my forgiveness. And I entirely lost control of meself." A spasm of self-loathing passed across his mobile face. "What I almost did to her ... what I wanted to do to her ..." His hands tightened into fists, his suntanned knuckles going white with tension.
"But ye didn't, did ye?" Gibbs said, soothingly.
The corner of Jack's moustache twitched in a swift, ironic grin. "No, thank the Lord. But, by God, Josh, I wanted to do her violence ... and, even worse, I would have taken the greatest pleasure in it!" he hissed through clenched teeth, his burning eyes hinting at the fury he had felt.
Gibbs ventured to lay a sympathetic hand on Jack's shoulder. "Aye. And then ye wouldn't've been able to live with yerself after." His tranquil blue eyes regarded Jack as the clenched hands relaxed, opening to lay flat against the table before him.
"No. I wouldn't've been able to live with meself," Jack near-whispered, looking down, contemplating those strong brown fingers that had once moved over Elizabeth's soft flesh, delivering pleasure, but which tonight had itched to bruise and abuse that same flesh, to bring pain and abasement rather than ecstasy.
Gibbs sighed. "Ye know ... it be said that those wot spend even a day in the Locker come out of it with their wits addled. To be condemned for eternity to its torments is like to drive a man slowly and completely mad."
Jack slanted him a sidelong glance, eyes narrowed. "What are you sayin', Gibbs?"
"Only that there may still be a bit of that madness rattlin' about in ye ..."
"And that's why I behaved as I did tonight?"
"Aye. All I know is, in the near ten year I've known ye, I've never seen you even come close to beatin' up a woman. Even with what some men might consider plenty of provocation."
Jack's mouth twisted into a frown. "Mayhaps ye do not know me as well as you think, Gibbs. This is not the first time I've harboured a desire to inflict bodily harm on our dear Miss Swann." He thought of that day on the rum-runner's island, when he had aimed a pistol at her head, so very tempted to pull the trigger ...
"Aye. But havin' the desire, and actin' upon it, are two vastly different things, Jack." His craggy face creased into a knowing smile. "Why, you could no more harm that gal than cut off your right arm ..."
"All the same, Gibbs ... I wouldn't stake me life on that assumption, if I were you."
Gibbs' smile only broadened. "That's a bet I'm willin' to put good money on, Jack. And you know me … I don't bet on anything but a sure thing." He studied Jack's face. "Will ye be forgivin' 'er then?"
Again, that ironic twitch of his mouth. "You know me, Gibbs. I'm not a very forgivin' man, and I don't take betrayal lightly." His mouth spread into a rueful grin. "Why, just look at me and Hector ... I kept that pistol and shot for ten years, bidin' me time, savin' it for him, waitin' for the opportune moment to pay him back for his perfidy. And I felt no regret whatsoever when I finally got the chance to settle the score."
"Aye," Gibbs agreed. "And well he deserved it, too, I reckon. But there's a big difference between him and Elizabeth, Jack." He paused, then went on, softly. "Ye weren't in love with Barbossa ..."
Again that flash of a dark look from Jack. "Gibbs ..." he said warningly.
"Don't bother denyin' it, Jack. I know ye too well, and I got eyes ... I seen how you look at 'er, how you react to 'er whenever she's within yer sights." He shook his head. "Ye got it fer her ... bad! Worse than you've had it for any other woman."
Another spasm of pain crossed Jack's features, but for all that, his tone was a shade lighter when he responded, and the demons dwelling in the abysmal depths of his black eyes had retreated somewhat. "Yes ... now, if I could only get rid of it, we'd all be much better off ..."