The shame, it seemed, followed her wherever she went. It didn't matter if her brother and her mother were dead or alive, present or absent, she was still ashamed, because she was still afraid.
She rose shortly after dawn, no longer surprised to see that Jack was already out of bed and out of the cabin. She'd been a little regretful of that fact in the few mornings she'd spent on the ship, but this particular morning she welcomed the solitude. She planned on keeping it close to her for the days to come, hugging the solitude as, once upon a time, she would have liked to have hugged her father.
It was easier to be ashamed by yourself than be ashamed for everyone to see.
After rising, she crept about the ship, finding dark corners and deserted rooms in which to finish the captain's laundry. If she encountered any of the crew, she kept her head up, eyes straight ahead, her steps light, not drawing attention to herself. She listened for Jack's voice and veered away from it, her cheeks burning. She'd fled last night, fled from among men who feared nothing simply because of a little shouting and a little broken glass.
Ridiculous, her educated mind told her, but her heart still trembled.
Because she'd done naught but work all through the day, stopping only to snag a piece of bread from the galley, she was finished with the dirty laundry by the time the sun started to glow orange instead of white-hot in the sky. Now, instead of large innumerable piles of soiled cloth, Jack's cabin was lined by neat, folded stacks of salt-roughened clothing.
"Are ye going to teach me somethin', then, or are ye just goin' to continue working yerself to bare bones?" Anamaria had watched, bemused and bewildered, as the woman swept about the ship like a hurricane, lugging her tub, soap, and clothes from bow to stern, port to starboard. She was lucky she hadn't fallen over yet, for in Anamaria's estimation, the missy was working on little sleep and littler food.
Amelia pressed a hand to her throat, feeling the helpless little shriek trapped there. She'd nearly screamed at Anamaria's words, at the silence of her day being broken. "I beg your pardon, Anamaria, I did not realize how late it was."
"Ye beg my pardon?" Anamaria's brows drew down and she leaned to look into the woman's eye. "Ye feelin' all right, high-nose? Ye seems a bit off."
"Fine," Amelia responded automatically. "Let me fetch my books, and we'll begin."
Anamaria continued to frown as the bronze-clad laundress walked across the decks, head down in a manner completely unlike her usual one. The woman had boarded the ship and threatened the captain straightaway, not a whit of fear or shame in her—so what on earth had bowed her head now?
Jack sat by the wheel of the ship, his attention drawn away from the sunset and to the small woman crossing the deck of his ship. What he saw wasn't primarily fear, but wounded pride. What he saw was a dampening of the fire he'd been so drawn to.
He wished he'd killed her ogre of a brother when he'd had the chance.
~~~
Determined to try and bring things to an even keel, Anamaria sniped at her instructor at every opportunity, wanting to rouse the woman's anger, or at least her exasperation. Anamaria didn't care for that thin look of exhaustion that Amelia was sporting, especially when she thought it might affect Jack.
"Why are ye doing this?" she asked, shoving the book in front of her away. "What's the purpose of tryin' to make me a learned woman?"
Amelia could have answered the question easily enough a few days ago, but now she was hard-pressed for an immediate response. The pirates lived with their own rules, by their own wits. They answered only to Jack, and they feared very little, if anything. So to what end was she educating Anamaria?
"It may be one day you'll tire of the seas," she said finally, hedging around the question. "You could get a job on land. You could find a man." At this, Amelia smiled a little.
Anamaria sighed heavily and studied her teacher carefully. "I found one, once." Her eyes flicked to the doorway of the wardroom and she stood, speaking lowly so only Amelia could hear. "And now, girly, it seems he's found you." She left the room, once again feeling the heavy regret that had begun to plague her more often than not.
Confused at the female pirate's declaration, it took Amelia nearly a full minute to look up.
She wouldn't have ever applied the word 'beautiful' to such a man a week before, but looking at him now, her weary brain and wrung-out emotions could conjure up no other word. He stood in the doorway of the wardroom, lounging negligently against the solid wood of the ship, cleaning his fingernails with yet another dagger, this one shorter and wickedly sharpened. The beadwork and miscellany in his hair caught the scant light below deck, but not half as much as his dark eyes did.
He was staring at her just as intently as she was staring at him, and when she finally broke her eyes away from him, he began to speak as though the moment hadn't passed at all.
"I got to ruminating earlier, and a sudden realization struck me. It's quite a shame, really, to have a ship with a pirate who can cook—not well, mind you, but he does cook occasionally, and he hardly ever tries to poison us—when not even the ship's stowaway will eat. In fact, it seems my literature-loving laundress has taken to starving herself. You know, love, should you be lacking for something to take up your spare time, I'm sure we can find something much better than watching your skin wear away to nothing." He paused for a moment, deep in further rumination. "I've seen a bit of that, and it's not pretty."
Suddenly wanting the motion, wanting something to keep herself busy, she began to gather her books, standing so quickly she knocked the underside of the table with her knees, wincing as she did so. "Pardon me," she said quickly, trying to pass him and knowing she'd surely fail.
"Alas, the day has come," he all but wailed, latching a strong, wiry hand around her arm and forcing her to be a captive audience. "Curse the day when Captain Jack Sparrow can't keep a woman for a few second's company. I knew the day would come, but I lament that it has actually come so soon." Rolling his eyes to meet hers, he pulled his full lower lip into a pout. "Surely you can spare my pride only a few moments, love, so as I don't become overwhelmed with the urge to fling myself overboard."
His grasp should have reminded her of another, the fingers pressing into the laddering scar up her arm should have seared phantom pain into the extremity. Instead, all she felt was guilt for having dragged this man into the hell she'd tried to escape.
"Listen and listen well," she enunciated slowly, twisting just enough to make him release her arm. "For I believe you'll be more than pleased to hear what I've to say next, as it's what you've been wanting me to say since I climbed aboard your ship."
His eyebrows shot up. "You've realized I'm the finest pirate in this half of the world, then?"
Ignoring his levity, she pressed on. "You never indicated to your crew that I'd tried to garner your favor before, and for that I thank you. Moreover, what I set out to say is that I made a mistake. You were right in denying me passage, captain."
He nodded sagely, fingers stroking his beard in a familiar habit. "Aye, love, I'd near to agree with ye, if ye're going to keep that attitude. For here I thought ye were a fighter, and so I thought to meself 'She'll do no harm to yer ship, Jack, a woman so fierce.' But be it as yer actually a coward underneath that shrew's tongue—" He shrugged elaborately, the theatrical regret on his face nearly comical. "—Well, then I'd say you are, indeed, inescapably correct in your conclusion that you don't belong on my ship and that you were, in fact, incorrect in pursuing me in the first place." He walked away from her and spoke without turning back. "Because frankly, love, I detest weak women." He heard the books hit the table and tensed, waiting for what he most fervently hoped would come next.
She shoved him from behind, making him stumble a bit. When he turned to face her, her eyes were filled with tears, but her chin was back up and her voice was gaining volume by the second.
"Listen to me, you purposefully ignorant thief, 'tisn't as though I'm shrinking away, 'tisn't as though I'm some lily-livered filly! I merely though this rickety, o'ergrown bucket with sails could take me away from my troubles, and instead all I got in exchange were more troubles, and bigger troubles, a trouble with a big mouth and hair decked like a bloody Christmas tree!" She reached out a hand and flicked at one of the thick locks hanging over his bandana.
He clamped his hand around her wrist, touching middle finger to thumb. "Don't touch my hair, love, if all you're going to do is hurt my feelings over it." But he was smiling now, gold winking here and there. It was much better to see an angry filly than a whipped one. Letting his dark eyes fall down from her eyes to her nose, her nose to her chin, and come to a rest at the expanse of skin from her throat down, Jack trailed a long, stained, work-roughened finger over the soft skin stretched over her collarbone. "You need to eat something," he said with finality. "I like to work a bit to see bones on a woman, savvy?" Winking at what she considered his own cryptic idiocy, he released her wrist and headed above.
Unbidden, Anamaria's words cropped back up in her head as Amelia put her hand over the skin he'd just touched. And now, girly, it seems he's found you.
"Damn you, Jack Sparrow," Amelia sighed, turning to retrieve her books. It was hard to think of the hard touches of another when she could still feel his fingers.
