Author's note: Many of my faithful readers may not know that I posted TWO CHAPTERS over the weekend, due to the website having some email alert issues... be sure to read those chapters first, mates! Here is a little mid-week surprise for you... a sweet, shorter chapter that will lead into a much darker story in history... and a big "go raibh maith agut" to me mate who found a snippet of writing that I needed for this chapter, which I had managed to drop into the computer maelstrom... she knows who she is, so "thanks!"! Enjoy! Pirate Cat

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Quietly, Jack closed the door of his and Janie's small, cozy bedchamber behind him, leaving Elizabeth to her editing and leaving it up to her to hide the small gift from Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ron in the box that was stashed underneath her and William's huge bed up in their room, dubbed long ago as the Honeymoon Room... the clandestine box that was jokingly refered to by the captain and the Turners as the Baby Sparrow Treasure Chest.

With stockinged feet tiptoeing softly in the darkness, his eyes were aided by the small Victorian night lamp that sat upon Janie's dressing table. It had been a real, oil burning lamp at one time, but Jack had it wired for electricity so that Janie could enjoy it at all times... it's soft glow lit up a pool of warm light only large enough to enable one to see their way to the bathroom in the middle of the night without stubbing one's toe on the uneven flagstone floor. Jack paused and looked at the tiny night lamp... it was pink opalescent glass, with bead fringe hanging from it's silk shade, and Janie had seen it in a small shop during a trip to London in 1888, and simply had to have it... a trip to London that, in spite of his untrustworthy memory, he remembered quite well...

Dismissing his thoughts, and holding his beaded braids against his bare chest in order to quiet their customary jingling, Jack very carefully and ever-so-delicately slid himself in between the sheets of his side of their large feather bed... it was always cause for a giggle to think that their bed, with it's heavy walnut headboard and handmade quilt, took up most of their room. There was spare little space left for any other furniture, other than a nightstand upon each side, and Janie's mirrored dressing table. The nightstands were identical, covered with identical lace doilies... the tables were of heavy walnut, like the headboard, and of the first furnishings that Janie obtained in the 1700s, but each table had it's own odd trinkets and baubles that were distinctly Jack's or Janie's.

Janie's always had her tortoiseshell hairbrush, her clock, a bottle of rosewater to sweeten the bedsheets, and always some small wee fancy or another... Jack's table mostly had a crock filled with a very odd assortment of sea shells and pebbles, coins and beads, exactly like the crock that still sat upon his shelf in his cabin upon the Pearl... small bits of polished glass, and other things that he was always attracted to, and always seemed to be emptying from his pockets... plus his old flintlock pistol, which he still cleaned and oiled daily. It held one single shot, and was still in perfect working condition. Like his sword, which was hanging on the wall above their bed, and his tricorn, which he still wore even in 2007, the pistol was an integral part of him that had never been stored away, nor would it ever be, as far as Janie was concerned.

The night was as deep and as soft as velvet, as it was threatening to rain out in the forest beyond their partially opened window. The lace curtains were fluttering slightly, and the air was humid. Jack reached over to make sure that he had hung his bandanna on the finial post earlier, as he always did... it was a compulsive action, but he always felt better knowing where his effects were in the darkness... he silently pulled the leather string from the long pigtail that was formerly adorned by a reindeer shinbone in another time, and sighed with pleasure as he shook that hair loose and let it luxuriously spill down to mingle with the rest of his fluffy hair that had taken quite a life of it's own since Janie had so industriously shampooed it the day before...

It was then that Janie's whispered Irish lilt startled him a little, "So... what were you and Izzy laughing about, just now?"

"'Ow long have ye been awake, mo ghrá?" Jack's eyes widened, even in the darkness... he hoped that Janie had heard nothing of the wonderful wee gift that Izzy was instructed to stow "above deck" in their room.

"I've been awake only as the two of ye laughed, and ye tried to sneak into our room," Janie giggled softly, "Ye were talking to yourself, just now..."

"I was?" Jack pushed himself down under the sheet, "... oh!..." and Janie immediately moved over and up against his side. The captain took a deep, pleasured breath as he gathered her up, and said, "We were talkin' about th' wild debauchery wot William, Wills, Joshamee an' meself partook in upon th' night we spent wif Papa an' Keif las' year." Grinning and stretching, Janie could see Jack's gold teeth glitter in the dim light, as he said, "Wild debauchery... almost like Tortuga, tha' night was... before it became one big waterpark an' vacation spot fer tourists wearin' pirate costumes." A slight note of disgust was detected in Jack's husky voice. "Ah well.. those were th' days, aye?"

Janie was nestled in Jack's arms, as he laid on his back and blissfully sighed. She traced his chest with a finger, and bluntly said, "Jackie... I know that you have not taken advantage of the wenches in port for nearly 300 years...' she paused, and softly asked, "... do ye miss that, like ye miss the old Tortuga?" This question was greeted with stunned silence, and Janie could feel Jack turn his head and could feel his eyes trying their best to stare at her.

Jack was shocked, and it was even in the darkness of their bedchamber that he could feel Janie's cheek burning hot against his shoulder. "Wot th'... why..."

Janie's whisper grew even quieter, when she said, "I just wondered if ye miss that kind of freedom, Jack... now that we've been 'married' for all of these years, and have a baby on the way... do you miss it?... were some of those women ... beautiful?" her voice trailed off.

It took him a very long moment to let these absolutely absurd questions sink in... Finally, his hand went over hers as she rested it over his heart, and he said, with an almost melancholy finality, "I do not miss the wenches, lass. 'Twas my own fault tha' my legend tha' I made up for meself included somethin' such as tha'...if anyone thought tha' I I enjoyed tha' part o' th' legend tha' I foolishly concocted, I fooled 'em, din't I? I fooled 'em all...Just ask William or Joshamee. That part o' me legend did not happen nearly as much as I said it did... "

Pausing, his hand went down over her pregnant belly, and stayed there, protectively. "I know wot yer thinkin', lass... yes, I visited wenches here an' there as a young man, an' aye, befo' you an' I claimed some ownership over each other... but when we parted in a bad way prior t' my bein' afflicted wif th' Black Spot, I never touched another woman in tha' way, Janie. I couldn't.

'... when I fled Ireland, ashamed tha' I couldn't prevent ye from bein' sold int' marriage t' Sean O'Hennessey, I would bed a doxie, now an' then, but most times it was fer profit, I'm ashamed t' admit... I used meself as a leverage t' find out this thing an' that from those wot I 'ad loosened up wif glib, smooth words an' cheap rum, an' I'll be th' first t' say tha' it was filthy dealin'... ye know how much I hate bein' touched, Janie, an' you can be assured tha' there was very, very little touching involved... jus' find out wot I wanted t' know, get th' deed done t' pay for said information, an' leave...leave 'em a coin t' think they'd been paid, an' steal the rest o' their money an' jewelry t' go get drunk for wot I'd just done...it was a very, very cold feeling... a very dirty feeling... but I could find out things wif sweet lies an' shiny coins, like where me Pearl was last seen, an' when... can ye understand tha', love? It's all part o' bein' a..." and Jack paused, then said, bitterly, " ... a legendary pirate."

There was a silence between them, and Jack continued, sadly, wondering why the love of his life still wondered about such things, after all of these years, "... most o' them did not like me at all, after they found out wot I was about... all I was worth t' them was a bit o' shine... an' I was pretty much th' only one wot would get slapped so regularly in public fer tellin' 'em honestly not t' bother with pitchin' woo, for I cared for a woman in Eire tha' was more beautiful, an' didn't need t' paint her face t' look like an angel. An' I was thinkin' t' meself, tha' very same woman was much too good fer th' likes o' me, but she cared fer me wif all o' her 'eart, anyroads..."

He sighed, heavily, as it bothered him that Janie would bring this up, over two centuries later... he began to withdraw his hand from her belly, and she stopped him, pressing his hand back over the blessed life, within her, that they had created in such love... pulling him even closer to her, she paused, and then leaned over and kissed him, and said, softly, "... I'm sorry, darlin', they were silly, folly questions. I was being' selfish and foolish, wasn't I? Here we are, almost 300 years later... ye chose me to share those 300 years with, and no one else, and you have shown time and time again how much you love me...why did I make you feel that you had to say all of that? Can ye forgive me? " Jack snickered, as she lightly brushed her eyelashes against his dark cheek, with a sweet butterfly kiss. He liked that.

Pausing, she chuckled softly, running her fingers through his black hair, and Jack smiled as she said, in a sweetly naughty way, "... I wish that those wenches could know, now, whenever we've made love, and when we made this wee one, here," she patted her middle,"... there was a LOT of marvelous touching involved!"

Hugging her close under the covers, the captain nuzzled his face into her neck, and tickled her with his mustache,"And in nearly three centuries, YOU have never slapped me!"

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An hour passed, and Jack and Janie kept whispering to each other, as the light in the great room clicked off and it was evident from Elizabeth's rather loud yawn that she was retiring for the night... it was now nearly midnight, and the gathering thundershower was now tapping a branch of the tree just outside of the bedchamber window against the glass... the lace curtains began to ripple harder, and the leaves in the forest just beyond were rustling ... the sound of the waterfall could be heard in the distance, but would soon be silenced by the sounds of the trees and the breezes... as it did nearly nightly during this time of the year, thunder rumbled... in the distance, an owl hooted softly.

Janie's hands were mischievously finding Jack's exposed ribs under the light blankets, and Jack's toes were finding Janie's... they had discovered very, very early on - when Jack was three and Janie was five - exactly where each other was ticklish. Suddenly, Jack leaned up on one elbow, and said, his eyes nearly glowing in the light of the night lamp, "Janie... do ye remember th' very first time tha' we took ye int' London? I should think tha' ye wouldn't need t' ask wot ye asked me t'night, if ye did..."

Janie stopped her efforts to playfully capsize her love in bed, and looked straight into his dark chocolate eyes... "Yes... you're right... " Her cheeks flushed hotly at what she was about to say, and she finally laid her head against his shoulder, as she said, "I felt truly beautiful, then... because you took me to a part of London to see what the dark side of life really looks like, away from the docks and the waterfront that you and your crew stayed near... you showed me just how those people live who have few choices... like someone else I know." Janie slowly laid herself down as she had before, tucked into her Jackie's side, lovingly. She reached up, and stroked his hair away from his face.

"Aye, lassie, I had t' show ye jus' why I chose my life wif you... th' life tha' I always wanted, before Beckett took it all away from me..." Jack's eyes closed halfway, and he snuggled his Janie close to him, their arms twining around each other. "William an I had t' take you an' Izzy t' th' Whitechapel District... where th' soiled doves were desperately tryin' t' get by wif sellin' themselves t' the dregs o' mankind... an' as if they didn't have t' struggle enough t' keep alive..." the captain paused, ... as he wickedly squeezed Janie until she squeeked, "Ye scamp!" ... "As if they didn't 'ave enough t' contend wif..." his voice whispered, "... they were bein' sought out by an evil spectre in th' streets o' Whitechapel who was never caught... an evil spectre who called 'imself 'Jack the Ripper'..."

Janie shivered, as the winds tossed the tree limbs, outside, like grasping, frightening, murderous hands...and she waited, like a wide eyed little girl, for her beautiful gypsy boy to recount the tale of her very first foray into the streets of a macabre side of the city of London that she hoped to never see, again...

To be continued...