Author's note: I know that this chapter is far too short considering how long it has been since I last updated. My apologies but I work in retail finance and you do NOT want to know what October-Jan is like. Please consider this a teaser for Chapter 14 b (&c?): What Captain Sparrow Gets coming soon to a computer near you now that I actually have the time to write it! Thank you to all my reviewers and I will reply using the reply function henceforth since apparently replying within the chapter is now verboten. Happy New Year!
Blood of Avalon: Chapter 14a: What Jack Wants
"What are ye doing still a-bed ye lazy lubber?"
This must be a nightmare. It was inconceivable (to use a 'Jack' word) that Captain Sparrow was in our cabin at the crack of dawn the morning after his wedding. It must be another random bit of magic, some apparition cast by Mallory's unconscious mind. I pulled a pillow over my head in an attempt to ignore it.
"Elizabeth ye dulcet, daring, deceitful, darling let's see the goods."
"Captain Jack Sparrow" Elizabeth snapped back in her most aristocratic tone. Apparently, however unlikely, (though according to Mallory when it came to Jack the unlikely was likely), Jack really was in our cabin. I let the pillow slip onto the floor. "You knaughty knave" Maybe Elizabeth had read too much of that Shakespeare gent last night "how dare you barge into our cabin without so much as a 'by your leave'?"
"Pirate, luv" Jack reminded us with a golden grin. "Lass, don't leave poor Jack in suspense."
What on the Sea were the two of them talking about?
Now, Elizabeth's cheeks flushed. Nothing but a thin coverlet to hide her nakedness from Jack didn't shame her but whatever she was about to admit did. That bothered me almost as much as it would appall her father. Unlike the Governor, I understood that her lack of propriety was part of what made her Elizabeth. I loved her because of it and in spite of it much like Mallory loved Jack because and in spite of the fact he was a daft idiot. Of course if Elizabeth had had a sense of propriety she never would have returned my feelings either, so I gritted my teeth and said nothing.
"I didn't get it" she admitted very quietly.
Jack blinked at her like she'd just said pink whales were storming the beaches.
"Ah, lass, I give ye one, simple mission and ye fail. Lizzy, I thought ye wanted te be a pirate."
Elizabeth started to sit up without thinking and then snatched the blanket back up over her breasts. Jack's face went from hopeful to crestfallen in a split second. Old lecher. If he wasn't a dear friend I'd have challenge him to duel over it. I briefly entertained the idea of doing it anyway just to get the fact that his leering bothered me through hi s thick skull. The only thing stopping me was the thought that the sneaky cheat would find some way to humiliate me.
"I don't see you with his journal either" she snapped back, eyes flashing "Sea never gave me an opportunity but we did learn some fascinating things. Your brother was quite…chatty last night."
"Me brother? Chatty? 'Bout his royal highness?" Jack's tone grew progressively more strident. He turned as if to head for Mallory's cabin and propriety be damned I went after him naked as the day I was born.
"Jack" he stopped dead and blinked at me. I could feel my cheeks flaming but I had to talk to Jack before he barged in to Mallory's cabin. From the look on Jack's face he'd have been less surprised (and undoubtedly more pleased) if Elizabeth had followed him in this state than I. I wished I'd at least grabbed a pillow or something.
"We have a serious problem, Jack. It's bad. Worse than you could possibly imagine."
A moment of complete and utter seriousness from the usually irrepressible Jack "I know he was chewing on the business end of a pistol. It doesn't get any worse than that and he didn't go through with it, whelp. Best that ye and yer bonny lass get…suitably attired afore we depart for the Pearl." He grinned wolfishly "Unless the two o ye are planning te start a new fashion trend…"
I ducked back into our cabin just as my father emerged from his. The fancy party wear we had had on last night was in a shambles from the fight and would take far too long anyway. I ripped open the dresser and was surprised to find plain but well made clothing that would fit both of us. I tossed Elizabeth the shift and dress while I pulled on the britches and shirt. I whispered a thank you trusting that the air would deliver it to the proper party.
Elizabeth was hot on my heels as I stopped dead in the companionway. Mr. Not Cotton was holding Jack at sword point.
"This is mutiny, mate" Jack growled "And I've very little time or tolerance for mutineers these days."
"Becalmed" the parrot protested while Mr. Not Cotton simply stared stoically ahead. I had been in a hurry because I was worried Peregrine might do something to Jack I hadn't considered that Mr. Not Cotton might be a threat.
"I gave ye a direct order ye scabrous dog and ye defied it. How is defying yer Captain not mutiny?" Jack seemed far more angry than afraid.
"Becalmed", the parrot repeated.
"Well, since I definitely ordered ye, and ye definitely defied me, I assume that yer no longer a member o me crew."
It wasn't really a question but the parrot squawked "Wind in the sails."
"Me brother thinks ye were sent te Avalon te help him."
"Wind in the sails, wind in the sails" the parrot cawed, bobbing his blue head.
"But is that what YE intend?"
"Wind in the sails" the parrot nearly shrieked while Mr. Not Cotton remained utterly motionless.
"Then we're on the same bloody side mate" Jack made to move forward and the tip drew a trickle of blood. Jack backpedaled nearly colliding with my father and drew his pistol. "Then the question is mate – are ye willing te die for me brother?"
The sword never wavered which meant Mr. Not Cotton had to have the strongest wrist on the Earth because while that wasn't the heaviest cutlass I'd ever seen it was no light practice blade either.
Mr. Not Cotton never flinched as Jack cocked and took aim.
"Jack, what are you doing?" I hissed but he ignored me as he and Not Cotton stared at each other. Elizabeth flinched behind me digging her fingers into my shoulders but there was no blood.
Now the parrot answered very firmly "Wind in the sails."
Jack stroked his beaded beard. "I swear te ye I mean him no harm, Mr. Not Cotton."
The parrot paced up and down on his perch.
"And I'll wager that there are better targets for your blade than poor Jack Sparrow." Jack sighed when the man didn't even blink "I take it he's flat aback then?"
"Wind in the sails."
"Can I just bloody look in the window then?"
Mr. Not Cotton pivoted with military precision so that the blade remained between Jack and the door but he could now look in and Jack, being Jack, just had to press the situation. Mr. Not Cotton with one swift flick sent both beaded strands of Jack's thin beard to the deck.
"Don't ye think yer taking this all a mite too seriously?" Jack asked. Mr. Not Cotton's response was to push him back with the flat of the blade.
"Bill" Jack barked.
"Aye?" my father responded.
"Ye'll remain here with Mr. Cotton and keep watch over me brother until he regains consciousness. Will, milady, yer with me."
Captain Jack Sparrow was not a happy man I thought as I rowed and he worked the tiller. Elizabeth was filling him in on all we had seen and heard with me clarifying or adding a bits she'd missed.
"Failure, despair, guilt, and grief" he muttered when she reached the end of his first fight with a mardeth. "I wonder if that's in order of importance? So what did ye discuss next?"
Elizabeth moved on to Jane and Jack exclaimed "I'm named after a bleeding bird!"
"A bird that salvaged his sanity" I pointed out as I rowed "and that he held dear but let fly freely."
Jack seemed to mull that one a bit before nodding to Elizabeth to continue. I stopped her when I realized that she'd missed Argellion's death "When he paused, when you asked him if he was alright. He wasn't he was remembering something else. He was remembering the night he killed Argellion."
Jack leaned forward and Elizabeth's brows shot up "And how do you know what he was thinking William Turner?" she asked tartly.
"I guess it was because of the link when he healed me and him being so tired but there were times last night when I could see through his eyes. Remember what he was remembering."
When the morning sun caught all the gold in Jack's grin I was nearly permanently blinded "So ye know what's amiss with me brother and how te set it right?"
I shook my head "I just know what he was thinking about last night." That was more than enough for a lifetime.
"Ye mean te tell me ye had free access to plunder and pillage me brother's mind and all ye did is look at what he showed ye?"
"Some of us aren't thieves" I spat back as I dug in too hard with the oars and sent water over both of them. Part of me wanted to apologize to Elizabeth for that but she'd been giving me the same look, like I was an absolute idiot for not ransacking the poor man (elf, whatever)'s mind while I had the chance. And that's assuming that I COULD have.
"Will, we only want to help."
I believed that of Jack, I was less sure of Elizabeth. "Do you want to hear or not?"
They both nodded and I started to tell them but midway through I found myself weeping. And the harder I fought to stop, the more I told myself that I hadn't even known Argellion, the more tears flowed down my cheeks. "Sorry" I muttered as Elizabeth passed me a blue handkerchief that had to have come from the cabin aboard the Peregrine. Speaking of thieves. The story tumbled out in fits as starts but I left out the bit that it hurt him to talk to Wind, Sea, and Peregrine there was no need for them to find out from me.
"What did ye say they were called" Jack interrupted "the things that slaughtered Argellion, not the El'lan word but its meaning."
"Drainers of life, devourers of hope" I answered and what Jack implying hit me like a hammer. How much of Mallory's despair had been natural and how much had been the result of the monsters he was fighting? I had been so caught up in Mallory's grief and despair that I hadn't even considered that the despair might not be his own. "He was going to do it Jack. He was going to gut himself on a dagger I forged." My dagger, my hand. Something I had made had nearly ended Mallory's life. I made weapons. I knew that they were going to draw blood but this time it had nearly been a friend's and the thought made me want to wretch. Until Jack I'd always imagined them killing pirates. After Jack I'd imagined them killing evil pirates. Now I couldn't shake the image of one of them killing the man who had taught me to forge them. "He's even worse right now. The only thing holding him here is duty."
Jack drew a long breath, "Argellion died before the curse was broken, Mallory was fine at yer wedding" Not if you listened carefully to my father but he was a far cry from the shattered man in the windowsill last night too "so something bleeding well happened not long after."
"There's more Jack. He's not just afraid for you. He's terrified of you. After your father you're the last person he wants to be anywhere near right now."
A miracle occurred. I rendered Captain Jack Sparrow utterly speechless. "I don't know why Jack, but it's true."
Jack licked his lips and then spoke "I'm not proud te admit it but I wanted that, in that split second that I hit him in the stair well all those years ago, when I threw him out o me life. I wanted te hurt him, and wanted him te fear me. It looks like I got what I wanted even if I don't have a clue why."
Jack's words sent a shiver up my spine because according to Mallory Jack did get what he wished for. "I think he knows how to overthrow your father but he won't do it. I think that's what Meleri keeps trying to tell us and I think it involves you somehow."
When Jack looked up his eyes were as brown and round pupilled as ever but they were Dragon's eyes anyway "Damn it all te hell!" he growled "but I wish ye'd gotten that journal Lizzy. I want te know what's amiss with me brother, I want te know why he's afraid o' me, and I want te know how te overthrow the bloody King O' Avalon."
My entire body broke out in goose flesh. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was what was left of the link to Mallory, maybe it was the touch of Old Blood that ran in my veins but I knew all the way to the core of my being that Jack's wild talent had just rearranged the course of the Universe to grant his wishes and all I could think of was Mallory's words 'sometimes it gets him what he wants in a completely different way'. We'd barely survived Jack's last wish. I desperately hoped things when better this time….