**Author's note: This is a very short chapter, not because I felt rushed, but because this chapter ends precisely where it needs to. If I go any further, I'll ruin it. Some things are best said in few words, and hopefully I've done that with this particular segment. More to come soon, so never fear! This story's not quite over…**
She stepped outside the cabin, needing to be away from the smell, away from the sight of her brother lying on Jack's floor. A nightmare, she told herself, would have felt more realistic. The blood running into her palm had began to dry, caking itself in the creases of her hand, but her sliced fingers were still bleeding freely, dripping onto the deck of the Pearl.
He'd found her. Though she'd ran away, sailed miles, he'd managed to find her, to touch the small window of her life where she'd done as she pleased. He'd managed to ruin her respite, and to what end? He'd died for it.
Philip had died, and she had killed him. Feeling sick, Amelia went to her knees in the center of the quarterdeck, not caring about the pirates who stopped to look at her strangely, not hearing the questions about her hand, the inquiries as to whether or not the miss was all right. She held her fist out in front of her and watched, transfixed, as her blood continued to drip.
Jack, she thought, the name tearing another hole into her, wider and deeper than the cuts on her hand. It didn't take an educated woman to know his ship was his life, and in less than a week she'd managed to turn the whole thing hull-side up and sail-side down. Taking a deep breath, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, using her left hand to brush the hair away from her face.
He stood in the doorway of his cabin, where less than a day before they'd been in one another's arms. His face was grave, no sign of the usual mockery it held, and he watched her intently, mouth set firmly.
He hadn't meant for her to see her brother like that, and certainly hadn't meant for her to take any part in finishing it. Now, seeing the ashy paleness of her face, the blood dripping off her hands, he damned himself.
He damned himself for not protecting her as he'd wanted to, for being too proud to give into the instinct that had grown over the past week. As they stared at each other, frozen with the moment, Jack swore he'd protect her in the best way he knew how.
"Jack," she said quietly, extending her blood-streaked hand. Her voice was steady but small, barely carrying over the distance between them.
"That's Captain, love," he corrected automatically, crossing the space to her in a few economical steps. It was neither the time nor the place for games, for taking his time. He knelt by her side, immediately taking her hand in his and examining the cuts on it.
She watched with numb interest as he shook the red kerchief from his sleeve where he'd tucked it. Not letting go of her hand, he set his teeth in the tightly woven cloth and pulled, rending it down the middle and tying a half around first her thumb then around her forefinger. When his eyes met hers, she registered that the wickedness had turned to weariness.
"My fault," she said flatly. "I killed him."
He felt his chest tighten at her words, and he reached for her good hand, chafing both of her hands with his and trying to banish the chill that seemed to have set into the short fingers. "I think we shared in that particular duty, love." She'd been brave, much braver than he'd ever have given her credit for.
But she shook her head at his words, hollow-eyed but insistent. "I drew him here," Amelia said.
Gibbs and another pirate were dragging her brother's body out of the cabin, the weight of it making a horrible sliding noise on the wood.
"Take deep breaths, now, love." Jack stroked his hand down the side of her face, thinking of his father's dead body, Barbarossa's wide-eyed shock in death.
She leaned in, resting her forehead against his chest as the tears began to roll silently down her face. "Thank you," she whispered as she turned her cheek to his chest and felt his heart beating.
"For what?" He had to strain to hear her, the noise around them so great and her voice so tiny.
"For this morning." She closed her eyes and the weeping stopped, but Jack sat still, kneeling on the deck with her in his arms.
By the time he thought to move, night was on them, and Amelia was asleep.
~~~
He'd deposited her in one of the wardrooms, packing his own blankets down for her to sleep on. No one challenged him, and not a single one of the men entertained so much as a wayward thought about the lady. She had shown herself true that day.
The ship was quiet by the time he went back above, the moonlight slicking over the wood of the ship, making the Pearl glow. They were still anchored, bobbing up and down in one place on the Caribbean, the Larksong anchored close by.
If he'd not had more respect for watercraft, Jack might have burned it just on principle. But respect aside, he had use for the small ship.
It would serve as the last leg of Amelia's passage. It would be the freedom she'd longed for in the first place.
Protecting her at all costs meant sending her away.
Young Johnny Sparrow had fled his home as soon as his father died, preferring the anonymity of other places, the clean slate that came from having no memories attached to his surroundings. Being in a ship meant those surroundings constantly changed, the slate constantly wiped clean.
The Pearl would never be clean for her. Neither, he knew, would he, for as she'd withdrawn the knife from her brother's side, she'd seen Jack do the same. They were bound together by the blood of her brother.
The only problem was, Jack thought, they'd been bound before that.
