Disclaimer: Only 2% of the money people see in their bank accounts actually exists, and considering I'm not even getting any of this imaginary currency, does this matter?
AN: Still grateful for the reviews and the prayers/well wishes for my family. I am writing primarily after midnight now, so please forgive any mind-wandering that occurs.
A Taste of Misery
Part 18
Will gestured the nervous doctor to follow him, aware of Ana-Maria rising and falling in, silent and cat-like, behind the man. Unconsciously holding his breath, he pulled back the curtain and gestured towards the pirate, his hand halting halfway through the motion.
The change in the pirate's appearance was nothing short of miraculous. All of the dried blood had been wiped off his body, though a few spots showed fresh blood welling up.
Those weren't the changes that immediately caught his eye, though. Elizabeth had taken his razor and shaved off the man's blood-matted mustache and beard. She had removed the beads from his hair, and it lay, dark, limp and wet, but no longer bloody and matted, in a parody of a halo around his head. The rings had been removed from his fingers. The kohl that seemed to permanently line his eyes was absent.
Will had never seen the pirate captain seem so . . .
"Well, he doesn't look so much like a raging lunatic of a pirate, does he? Looks almost respectable." Ana-Maria moved closer to the doctor, her lip curled upward in a snarl. Will motioned her back quickly.
Respectable. That wasn't the word that Will would have chosen to describe how Jack looked.
No, he would have said vulnerable.
Vulnerable. That was a word that Will had never associated with the pirates, not when they were his enemies and not when they were his friends, but that was how Jack Sparrow appeared to him in that instant.
Elizabeth rose from her seat next to his bed, holding a bulging rawhide pouch with a drawstring to close it. She pressed it gently into Ana-Maria's unprotesting fingers.
"They're his. I had to, to clean all the blood off . . ."
The female pirate nodded sharply, tying the drawstrings to her belt with a few quick motions. Will wondered how long he and Ana-Maria had sat in silence for Elizabeth to accomplish all that she had.
"Good lord, what did they do, torture the man?" The doctor had started examining the unconscious pirate on the cot. "There's evidence of old bruising as well as new. There's a possibility that damage could have been done internally . . ."
"Ye'll not cut him open."
The doctor turned, eyes wide, and froze, rather like a rabbit suddenly faced with a fox, as the female pirate stepped forward, hand on her sword hilt.
"Of . . .of course not. Whatever you wish."
"It's not what I'd wish, good sir. It's what he would wish." Ana-Maria nodded toward Jack, gently removing her hand from her sword.
"Of course. Well then . . .I can bandage the wrist easily enough, but he's already burning with fever. You did right to clean the wounds. I have a salve that you can place on the worst of the cuts and burns . . .how on earth did he get some of these injuries? Never mind . . .I'm sure I'll hear about it in the morning when I go to check on that young lad at the fort . . ."
"Brian? He's going to be all right?" Elizabeth leaned forward.
"I don't know, m'lady. He still hasn't regained consciousness, but hope is high. He'll never look the same again though, poor lad. Permanently scarred, that side of his face will be, if not disfigured entirely." The doctor seemed more relaxed as he talked to Elizabeth. "You shouldn't be up and about like this, if I may take the liberty to say such, not in your condition."
Will shook his head vigorously to head off her barrage of rebukes before it could even start.
"How badly is Jack hurt?" Will still stood by the curtain, trying to reconcile his memories and knowledge of the pirate with the motionless figure lying in his house.
"I don't even know why he's still breathing.
He must be the most stubborn person in the world. As long as he is breathing, though, let's
keep it that way, at least until the debacle at the fort is worked out. The major concern is the fever at the
moment. Get water into him if you
can. Keep washing him down with cool
water . . .if you have ice, pack that around him." Will shook his head. Ice
was an exceedingly precious commodity, especially in the Caribbean, and one
that he and Elizabeth had never indulged in, though Elizabeth's father could
probably have gotten some somehow.
"I'll be back tomorrow to see if I still have a patient."
The doctor rose and let himself out, leaving behind a small bottle of ointment.
"I'll look after him tonight. Ye and Will need your rest." Ana-Maria settled down onto the chair next to the cot, leaving no room for argument.
Will and Elizabeth gave in without a fight, closing the door between their room and the main room of the house, giving the female pirate time and space to do whatever she needed to begin healing not just her captain but her own heart.
