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Chapter Ten:

In The Heat of the Night

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"We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs…"

"I love this song!"

Sarah threw her head back and laughed merrily as she watched her two companions stumble around the growing fire. She lolled in the delicious warmth of the flames, every now and then turning to absorb the cool breeze coming in with the tide. Her mind was dizzied by the sensational luxury of the outdoors, with the sand beneath her and the sea at her feet, and then something not supplied by nature, but by a certain buried cellar. The sweetness of the rum flowing through her system made everything seem all the more beautiful—the crystalline stars, the writhing bonfire, and most of all the deep blue blanket of the ocean. Like a broken mirror, the world it reflected was twisted and bizarre. Absolutely perfect, Sarah mused.

"Come join us!" Elizabeth commanded gleefully, spreading her arms and giggling. "We're not having any fun without you."

What was left of Sarah's rational mind noted that Elizabeth's state of complete misconduct didn't nearly match up with the diminutive empty space in the young woman's bottle.

Sarah's drunken mind, which was overruling the others considerably, told her to do exactly as Elizabeth said. But for the sake of modesty, she hesitated.

"Oh no," she said unsteadily, smiling at her feet. "No, no, no."

"Come on," Jack slurred. "What're you going ta do down there? Build a bloody sand castle?" He offered her a hand—it wasn't much incentive to get up, considering he might fall over if she actually accepted the appendage. "Come on, Miss Burke, show us some o' that feminine cheek you've been shoving down my throat for the last week."

Sarah spat out the rum she had been about to swallow. Wiping her mouth, she grinned up at the pirate. "Just for that, I will." She ignored his hand and pushed herself clumsily to her feet. Once she felt steady enough, she hitched up her shift and smiled.

She had never been thankful for the Irish step dance lessons her mother had put her through for the first fourteen years of her life. Not until now, that is.

Concentrating as hard as she could without making her head ache, she counted the rhythm silently as she performed what she could remember of a slip jig she had done in a recital when she was thirteen. Her feet pounded against the sand in a soft whispering beat, her smile beginning to grow with her confidence. When she completed the last step, she went into a little curtsy and looked up at Elizabeth and Jack, waiting for their response.

The corners of Elizabeth's mouth turned up in surprise. Jack's eyes widened, and with a murmured 'whoa', he promptly fell over.

Sarah dropped herself down next to him, rubbing her feet. Elizabeth snorted and, with a shake of her head, gestured toward the pile of kindling to indicate she was going to stoke up the fire.

"When I get the Pearl back, I'll teach 'em that song, and you can teach 'em that dance, and we'll do 'em all the time!"

"And you will be positively the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main," Sarah cooed, leaning back in astonishment as soon as the words left her mouth. She wasn't that drunk.

"Not just the Spanish Main, love—the entire ocean—the entire world!" Jack declared, gestured out to sea. "Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know." He turned to her, his eyes glittering expressively. "It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails—that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is…"

Sarah hung onto his every word, suddenly entranced by the way his mouth moved when his spoke.

"…Is freedom."

She exhaled heavily as he finished the sentence, her body utterly relaxed. Despite the alcohol blurring her senses, she felt that abruptly she understood exactly what Jack had really been saying to her all along. The part of her that accused the drunkenness was readily ignored—she wasn't that drunk. She liked to think Jack would've made sense to her even if she had been sober, his simple little speech having reached her so much. When she closed her eyes, she could see her and her father on his sailboat, clear as Jack's face beside her.

It had never meant much to her then—not until he was dead.

"What're you thinking of, love?" Jack asked curiously, his tone shrewd. Perhaps he wasn't that drunk either—though Sarah deemed that unlikely.

"My father," Sarah blurted out, surprising herself yet again. She thought one thing and said another—her mouth was out of control. When Jack said nothing, encouraging her to continue, she added reluctantly, "Sailing." She said it like a question, asking Jack if her answer pleased him.

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Uhuh. My father and I sailed." He looked wistful for a moment, but then transferred his attention back to her. "Where's he at now, your father?"

"Gone," Sarah replied emotionlessly. She meant to say dead, but she didn't. Jack understood anyway.

"My condolences," he said respectfully in his sailor's drawl. There was a pause, and then Jack began carefully, "I suspect…that's why you keep to yourself, so often."

Sarah's head pivoted sharply to look at him, but she didn't glare. "You mean I haven't told you anything about me," she elaborated. "Well, to be fair, you haven't told any of us anything about you either."

He smiled at her, his gold teeth blinking in the firelight. "I assumed you knew me enough from all the stories."

"You said the stories weren't true."

"That I did," Jack agreed. "Not entirely, at least. It still takes a certain kind of man for people to tell stories about him, don't you think?"

"A pirate with a great deal of luck." Sarah smirked. Jack gave her a look and she shrugged consentingly. "A lot of luck and then something else," she amended.

"There, see," Jack said happily. "You know all about me. Now, what about you?"

Sarah groaned at his inescapable logic. She looked at him, then at the fire, and then at the sky, delaying childishly. Finally, she muttered, "I have no family here."

"Well then, where are they?" Jack persisted.

"In England," Sarah replied shortly, and truthfully. Just not in this century.

"And you came here alone, because…?"

Sarah leaned forward to hug her knees, pushing herself forward in the sand so Jack left her sight. "Look, I don't have to talk to you about any of this," she said angrily, trying to keep her voice from revealing the tears welling up in her eyes as she thought of her sisters.

"Apologies, love," Jack said quietly behind her, and she heard the rum in his bottle splash around as he took a drink.

Sarah looked at her own bottle, lying on the ground a few feet away. Suddenly she was furious at herself for even drinking anything—for actually getting drunk on this stupid island, with a rude pirate and a stuck-up aristocrat, for helping strangers in some surreal adventure that she had never even heard of—for not even trying to get back home when her family was probably worried sick about her, even though they hadn't spoken for months and months…

Despite herself, she let out the quietest of sobs, hot, heavy tears rolling down her cheeks as her face stung in the warmth of the fire. She breathed in carefully, her entire body shaking as she emitted another sob, even when she pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle the sound. She felt as though she was sitting in a boiling pool of shame and hate, all the anger and awkwardness she had felt over the last six years seeping out of her pores like pus.

Then something touched her, a divine coolness spreading across her back as she felt human contact for what felt like the first time in decades.

She turned in towards Jack, hugging herself and crying as he rubbed her back and held her against his chest until her sobs quieted and she could breath more steadily. "They hate me," she whispered brokenly. "They hate me so much."

Jack used a finger to tilt her face up so she was looking him in the eye. "Love," he said gently, "In my experience, those who dislike you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious."

Sarah's lips unwillingly formed a small smile, and she let out a choked laugh.

"And, also in my experience," he continued, even more gently, "When your family seems to dislike you, it's because they can't stand seeing what they've done to you."

"Where did you learn—" Sarah's sentence was smothered by a pair of lips—Jack's lips, to be precise—as they suddenly covered her own.

At first she tensed, the hands against his chest preparing to shove him away—but then she didn't. She reveled in the amazing feeling of touch—hands burning through her thin shift, lips passing roughly from her mouth to her cheek to her neck, stubble scratching the soft skin of her jaw, solid arms encircling her waist—

And then as quick as it had come it was gone, and Jack was staring down at her, as she lay wide-eyed in the sand. They watched each other almost suspiciously.

Sarah refrained from asking something as naïve as 'what was that?' She knew exactly what it was. She just had no idea what to do about it.

"Is this because you're drunk?" She asked finally.

"Is it because you're drunk?" He retorted.

They both stared at each other again. After a moment, Jack sighed.

"If you're not going to say anything else, I'm going to kiss you again."

"Alright," Sarah agreed quickly.

More prepared this time, Sarah responded as vigorously as he. She brought her hands up to feel each hollow and arch of his face as he kissed her, then moved them down over his shoulders and up around his back. She delighted in the feel of muscle and old-world toughness that she didn't suppose she would ever find in a man from the twenty-first century. The sweet taste of rum was stronger in his mouth than hers. She felt its beautiful burn spread across her lips as he planted kisses on every part of her mouth, toying with her lower lip just a little bit longer before traveling down to her neck and collarbone. His hands stroked her sides, then flitted across her middle, barely brushing the bottom of her breasts. She arched and then gasped softly as her body relaxed again.

Jack had somehow untied the top few laces of her shift, and his lips were dancing lower and lower. Then his hands took over again as he worked at the laces, bringing his mouth up to her ear and murmuring her name. She turned her head to capture his lips and kissed him hard, screaming inwardly for him to hurry up and finish with the strings.

When he did, his precious mouth moved back to the crevice between her breasts, leisurely pushing away the fabric of her shift, bit by bit. His hands reached back and pulled her legs up around him.

It wasn't until then that she fully realized what she was doing.

He felt her stiffen before the words even escaped her lips, and he immediately backed up. Sarah could have kissed him for his understanding, but at the moment that would've been a bad idea.

"I assume you're not about to tell me this is the first time you've done this," he said breathlessly. She gave him a resigned smile.

"It's not that," she said. "Jack, if I kiss you, it's because I want to. If I do…well, what we were about to do, with you, it's because I'm drunk."

He stared down at her, his fathomless gaze prying into her mind. She stared back openly. "We've only just known each other a week," she pointed out, a little dejectedly.

Jack gave her a lopsided grin, but a respectful one. "And we've only gotten along for the last five minutes." He moved off her, lying down at her side. She watched him with flushed cheeks.

"Thank you," she murmured. She moved closer and rested her head against his shoulder, draping an arm across his middle.

"I'm not as bad as you think," he replied, shrugging it off.

"You're not at all bad," she agreed with a mischievous grin, her meaning entirely different than his. He let out a bark of laughter and brushed a kiss across the nearest available part of her face, which happened to be her nose.

For a brief while they lay in silence. Jack stared vacantly up at the stars, while Sarah fidgeted with the hem of his shirt collar. Staring at her fingers, she commented lightly, "You don't seem so drunk any more."

"Had to keep an eye on Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth?" Sarah inquired, a little more frostily than she had intended. "Why?"

Jack glanced down at her, clearly detecting the icy undertone in her voice. Sarah raised her eyebrows innocently. "Because the bloody girl's a menace," he replied, equally as cold. "She's not the type to just blink away the memory of Will. Thought she might be up to something."

"Are we really going to do nothing to help him?" Sarah asked quietly, inwardly sympathizing with her female companion.

Jack propped himself up on his elbows, letting her drop onto the sand. "We're stranded on this goddamned island—what in hell can we do to help him? I'd think it would be slightly difficult for us to save him from here." Sarah recoiled in affront as he suddenly sat up. "Don't ask me about that bloody Elizabeth when you and her have practically started the bloody Will Turner fan club." He flapped his hand at her emphatically, as though brushing her away.

Sarah felt her face heat up in anger and embarrassment. "I don't know why I even bothered to ask," she snapped, rolling over so her back was to him. "You're too busy griping about your stupid ship to think about anyone else."

"It's not like I owe the boy anything," Jack retorted. "Nor you, for that matter."

Sarah knew instantly he was referring to the incident at Isla de Muerta, and she cringed. "What about his father?" It was her last attempt to restore her side of the argument. "You were friends, weren't you? You must owe him something."

Jack's countenance was stony. "Will's father," he began slowly, "Was a member of the crew that marooned me here the first time around."

Sarah felt her stomach tighten with guilt. It was the same feeling she got when she accidentally threw a ball too hard at her friend in elementary school, or when she accidentally her friend's dead relative that the girl missed horribly. She closed her eyes tightly, swallowing the hard fist of pride caught in her throat. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Of course you are," he replied callously. He seized his bottle of rum and drained it, then lay back in the sand a few feet away, closing his eyes.

Sarah stared at him, her mind screaming, then turned around and tried to sleep.

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Author's Note: Undoubtedly my favourite chapter yet. And I got to squeeze in a quote from The Libertine. Hope you all enjoyed it! If I get ten reviews, I'll promise to update within the next five days. Yes, I am groveling. Ta, loves!