Alice knocked on the door to Jack's cabin, the rain from the storm overhead pouring over her. She would have normally just walked in, seeing as this was where she now slept, but she didn't know what sort of mood he was in still. When there was no reply, she knocked again, this time earning a loud grumble. She opened the door and strode in, earning a glare from Jack.
"I didn't say you could enter," he ground out, but Alice smirked.
"You didn't say not to, either," she answered, striding over to the table. Jack set down his instruments and haphazardly rolled up the chart he had been plotting. "What's going on, Jack?" He glanced at her, but quickly looked away, pretending to shuffle through some papers. "Jack," she growled, giving the man a hardened stare.
"None of your business," he grumbled.
"The hell it isn't!" she yelled, pleased to see him jump slightly.
"Don't you have work to do?" he asked, standing quickly and striding between Alice and the table.
"Don't try to change the subject," she said pointedly. Jack stared at her for a long moment before stepping around behind her. She turned to face him and he quickly moved forward, trapping her against the table so that she had to look up to see his face. He was now grinning maliciously, and she tried to work out why.
"Perhaps," he started, "everything is just getting to me. Stress," he added, grabbing her hips tightly. Alice gasped. "And perhaps, if you've no other work to do, you'd like to help me." He kissed her roughly, and Alice fought to not kiss him back. His fingers quickly tangled in her wet hair and he gave a small, sharp tug; when she yelped in response he drove his tongue into her mouth, grinding against her with his hips. Alice tried pushing him away, but he wouldn't relent, so she did the only thing she could – she bit him. However, this did not have the effect she intended, as he now shoved her back on the table, quickly crawling on top of her. "Don't want to play nice? I don't have to," he growled, nipping sharply at her neck.
"Jack, stop!" Alice yelled, pounding her fists against his back.
"You're only making me enjoy this more," he said, squeezing her breasts roughly through her soaking wet clothing. "Isn't this what you've wanted?"
Alice quickly changed tactics. She tangled her fingers into his hair and pulled his face to hers, kissing him deeply and passionately. This had the intended effect, as Jack suddenly tried to back off. She held him fast with one hand, using the other to roughly pull at his gnarled dreadlocks. This time, he bit her.
"Ouch!" she howled and, in the instant she loosened her grip on him, Jack was off of her, standing a couple feet away and glaring. She brought her hand up to her lip, which was now bleeding. "What the fuck did you do that for?"
"You started it," he responded childishly, his eyes watching her warily.
"What is your problem?" she hissed, getting to her feet.
"My problem?" he asked angrily. "My problems, is more like it!" he yelled, emphasizing the plural.
"And they are…?"
"Still not your business!" Alice just stared at him incredulously for a long moment.
"You know what? Fine. I'll go and leave you to your problems," she spat.
"Fine by me," he grumbled, walking around her and back to his seat, his eyes never leaving her. Alice strode to the door angrily, glaring back at him when she reached it.
"Whatever they are, you had better figure them out. For all our sakes," she growled and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
The storm was considerably mild, though that did not make it any more enjoyable to work in. Alice wandered the deck, monitoring the rigging; much of the crew was asleep belowdecks, so it would be best to catch any problems early. Though still annoyed, she was no longer in a furious rage at Jack. It was clear that something weighed heavily on the captain and, though she was desperate to know what it was that would cause him to act so unlike himself, she was resigned to waiting for the answer. She took a long swig from the bottle in her hand, happy that the rain had mostly stopped. The deck was pitching about, but it was not as bad as the first storm they had lost the Royal Navy in, and it definitely didn't compare to the hurricane. She carefully made her way to the helm, greeting Cotton with a smile which he returned in kind. Gazing out across the sea, she could make neither heads nor tails of where they were, and she wondered if the mute man knew.
Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by a voice wailing out unintelligible words, and she ran to the railing to peer at the deck below. She saw Jack running across the deck frantically, screaming out a long diatribe, with Gibbs and the rest of the crew scrambling about in his wake. As he began lashing himself to the mast, Alice ran down toward him, but Gibbs was there first.
"Which port?" he asked Jack.
"Didn't say 'port'; said 'land'; any land," she heard Jack reply.
"What is it now?" she asked.
Jack's retort was cut off as monkey Jack swooped down and grabbed the captain's beloved hat, scampering off into the rigging with it. Jack hissed at the monkey, and they watched in horror as the creature threw Jack's hat over the side and into the raging sea. Many of the crew ran to the side, looking down into its depths.
"Jack's hat!" Gibbs yelled. "Bring her about!" he called.
"No!" Jack said. "Leave it!" The entire crew stopped and, in that instance, Alice and the rest of the crew knew something was terribly wrong; Jack cherished that hat more than anything, save his compass and the Pearl. "Run," he simply said before running to hide behind the stairs outside his cabin door.
The entire crew was still frozen, except for Gibbs, who turned to look at them.
"Back to your stations, the lot of yeh!" He yelled before walking over to Jack, and Alice followed. "Jack?" he asked quietly, but the captain merely shushed him. Gibbs looked around at the crew and then back to him. "For the love of mother and child, Jack, what's coming after us?" he asked in a whisper, and Alice saw Jack look about a bit frantically before locking eyes with Gibbs.
"Nothing," he huffed out.
"What?" Gibbs replied in disbelief.
"Nothing!" he hissed. "Now… land!" Gibbs stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head and running up to the helm.
Alice stared at Jack from between two of the steps. She opened her mouth to say something, but his eyes locked with hers; the terror in those depths, visible through the darkness, was enough to shock her into silence, and she followed in Gibbs' wake.
It was a mark of their fear that the crew worked diligently, not once asking further questions about Jack's panic-stricken outburst. Even Alice didn't ask about it, but she was deeply puzzled; Jack's erratic behaviour only served to intensify that. He restlessly wandered between his cabin and every deck, striding uneasily from bow to stern and back in no discernible pattern. Not wanting to raise his ire once more - and not wanting to be consumed with his frantic and nonsensical mutterings - Alice had taken to sleeping in the galley. She was still wary of being belowdecks with many of the new crew, and access to the galley was fairly well-monitored. But the time spent sleeping in an actual bed had made sleeping on wood much less tolerable. She hoped they would make port soon, and perhaps find out what Jack was in such a panic about.
However, for someone desperate to get to land, Jack didn't make it easy for them. They tried to drop anchor several times, but Jack would always stop them, saying they had to get further away, and so they continued on Westward. As they trailed along the African coast, they began spotting many sails in the distance – more than any of them were comfortable with, especially since many were English. When Jack told them that they had worse things to worry about than the Royal Navy, their worry became too much to handle.
Gibbs decided it would be best to return to the Caribbean, thinking it would help to return Jack's sanity some, but their captain fought tooth and nail against the idea of crossing the open ocean. Finally it was Marty who managed to subdue Jack long enough for them to make the crossing: He dipped into his medicinal supplies, pulling out his stock of opium. Jack readily indulged in it; the drug's supply consumed him long enough for them to make it halfway through the journey. However, his distress returned fourfold when he came out of his haze to find them in the middle of open water.
What was worse, it had been too long since they had last careened the ship, and the growth along their keel was compromising their speed more and more. Jack had reached the point of stark-raving mad by the time they sighted land once more.
"Pull in and drop anchor at once!" he proclaimed wildly, becoming a babbling mess as they sailed on in search of a sheltered cove to put in to.
They found one relatively quick and, before they could even drop anchor, Jack dove off the side of the ship and swam for the shore. Alice's stress and frustration from this journey melted away quickly as, after seeing this, she began to snicker, and was soon caught up in howling, tearful laughter. And she wasn't the only one – most of the crew had joined in, even the ones who were trying to fight it.
Once they had managed to calm themselves down from their outburst of hysteria, they set about careening the ship. Duncan and Tearlach gathered a search party to go looking for Jack, and many of the newer crew joined them, happy to get away from the vessel. Once the tide was perfect, the remaining crew set to work, hauling the Pearl to her side as best they could. It would have been quicker work if not for the fact that they refused to unload the ship; they wanted nothing more hindering them from escaping in case the navy found them here. Though it was hard work, they managed to get quite a lot of it done quickly, thanks to their large numbers. When the worst of it was done, most of the crew set off to find Jack and the others, who had not returned. The remaining dozen or so were able to complete the work without too much difficulty, though it took longer than they would have liked.
Once finished, they found a spring and resupplied their stores of water, and even managed to catch some wild game nearby. Their concern for the others kept growing until Gibbs decided they ought to do some scouting. Cotton and a bulky man named Jerome stayed behind to keep an eye on the ship, and the rest headed ashore, wary of what they might find.
The jungle was dense, and Alice was cursing the mosquitos within the first ten minutes, much to Marty's amusement.
"It's funny until we all come down with malaria," Alice grumbled, effectively silencing his chuckles.
That first night after everyone else had prepared to sleep, Alice found herself deep in thought, once again pulling out the time-travel device. She couldn't bring herself to open it this time, though, and she turned it over in her hands. She knew now that, even if the light had somehow returned, it was unlikely that she would return to her time again. So much had happened here, and she was irrevocably changed by it all. She sighed sadly and sat there nodding her head, a few tears escaping. She closed her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered to herself. "Mark, David… Even Paul." A sad smile crept across her face, and she set the device on the ground, covering it with some of the surrounding earth and patting it softly. She turned over and lost herself in her thoughts, sleep claiming her rather quickly.
"We should have found something by now," Gibbs told them at the end of their second day.
"It's eerie," Marty stated. "I feel like we're being watched." Everyone involuntarily looked around after he said this, and Alice couldn't shake that feeling all through the night.
It was just before midafternoon on the third day of trekking when Leech spotted something on the ground. He plucked it off the ground and turned it over in his hands.
"It's Kursar's hat!" Marty exclaimed, pointing at the battered straw accessory.
They looked at one another uneasily as Leech further examined it. There was a sudden rustling of leaves and, before they could draw their weapons, they were surrounded by numerous natives wielding spears and daggers.
They had tried putting up a fight, but they were vastly outnumbered and soon found themselves with crude weapons to their throats before being bound together, except for Alice. The natives were incredibly wary of her, and they didn't even want to take her at first, an argument ensuing between several of them.
"Dabu dabu bombalay!" one had shouted, staring at her wide-eyed.
"Ah, meranta dabu dabu," another had said, nodding his head as he too looked at her.
They carried on like this for several moments, with 'dabu dabu' the only words being repeated every time they looked at her. They finally came to a consensus and forced her to walk ahead of the rest, several weapons trained on her, as they were led far inland.
"This is awful," Alice had whispered tearfully as they were forced across a very rickety bridge.
"Aye, an' it gets worse," Gibbs grumbled. "These're the Pelegostos." Several of the others gasped at these words, but Alice knitted her brows in confusion.
"And…?" she coaxed.
"Cannibals," Marty clarified, and Alice was horror stricken.
"Great," she replied mournfully. "Since you know so much," she directed at Gibbs, "any chance you know what 'dabu dabu' means?"
"Can't make heads nor tails o' what they be blabb'rin' about," he answered. "Jack'd know, if he were here, that's fer sure."
"Fat lot o' good that does me," Alice huffed. Her thoughts turned morbid as she contemplated Jack's demise.
She didn't have to think about it for too long, though. They reached the village proper that night, the natives stirring into a frenzy at the sight of more 'food'. Alice received more glares, and even a few hisses, and the words 'dabu dabu' were repeated often in her direction. She just continued forward at spear point until she saw something that made her stop cold.
Seated before them, on an elaborate throne half constructed with skulls and bones, and crowned with a large headdress, was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow.
