"Think of me
Think of me fondly
When we've said goodbye...
Remember me
Once in a while
Please promise me you'll try..."
Two weeks of Hell...
Two weeks of torture...
Three weeks and I still hadn't accepted that Jack was dead.
I now lived in Tortuga, bartending at the same pub Jack and I had gone to so many times. We had gone there my first time to Tortuga, we had met Eva Shapiro there, Edmund Ricci had revealed himself there... it was too much to stay away from it, although I felt like that was exactly what I wanted to do.
Edmund had been at the bar every night, always tipping me much more than I deserved. He knew that these last days had been the slowest of my life, even if I fell asleep quickly through tears and exhaustion.
Many times Lucy, the old bartender, had told me that doing what I was wasn't the best way to make money. She had told me that the men were all over me when I waited on the tables.
I had nearly slapped her when she told me I would make an excellent whore.
"How dare you?" I had attacked her with my tongue, when my hand had not the strength to strike her.
"What do you mean?" she asked, "This work isn't cut out for a woman like you. I'm just opening the options for you, love." I shook my head, about to pick up a glass and polish it, ending up in just setting it down.
"I'm sorry." I said, "I know you just want to help... but there is no chance that I'll ever work in a brothel." I shook my head, bringing my hand to the back of my neck and tangling it in my hair. I sniffed, shaking my head and leaning against the back of the bar.
I had fallen apart that night. I sat hunched beneath the bar, crying and hugging myself close.
No other man would ever touch me.
My hand restlessly scrubbed the glass, circling the inside and back to the out. This was the third time I had scrubbed this glass... it was so clean I doubted it could go any further. I shook my head, putting it down and picking up another glass that was already clean.
"Honey," I looked up to see Lucy with a tray in her hand. It was donned with two bottles of rum, two mugs, and a platter of some sort of meat that I dared not touch or let near my nose.
"Yes?"
"Take this to the table in the back," she said, handing me the tray. I straightened my dress and nodded, taking it from her and walking around the bar. I ignored and dodged the hands that reached out to touch me. I scowled as one hand came in contact with my leg and held back the urge to dump the reek of meat onto this man's head. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Edmund, sitting in the corner, watching me as I struggled with my urge.
"Here you are, sir." I said, not really looking at the man at the table, only taking in that he was a blonde pirate with more manners than I had seen here as he thanked me.
I started my way back to the bar, my shoes clicking on the hardwood floor. I watched not only the floor for spills or people but all around me for any sign of danger. Anyone could tell that I had changed a dramatic amount in the way I presented myself in Tortuga. There was no figure for me to cling on or trust in now...
The doors to the bar swung open and hit the wall beside it. I paid it no attention and continued on my way to the bar, picking up empty rum bottles and putting them on the tray as I went along. A round of gasps echoed around the bar and I turned.
"Christina!"
The tray fell from my hand and glass shattered.
A figure was being towed between two others in the door. Blood splattered on the ground through the loose bandage around his tight muscled stomach.
My jaw dropped as the dreadlocked figure, his shirt gone and his hat in a short, rugged man's hand. The other man had his dark blonde hair smeared with blood from a gash on his forehead.
"Jack!"
