Captain Jack Sparrow was almost asleep when the girl arrived in his cabin for the third time. At the now-familiar poof, he sprang out of his berth and faced her warily. For the past week he had been sleeping fully clothed, jumping out of bed at the slightest sound. Ha ! he thought. I knew that would eventually pay off. Thankfully, she was standing on the floor rather than lying in his bed.
"Lauren, how kind of ye to drop in," he said ironically. She blushed. He gestured toward a chair. She took the hint and sat down. She still had that look in her eye. What did I ever do to deserve this ? Jack asked himself as he took his customary seat, bottle close at hand. Oh, I don't know, might it be all that pillagin' and plunderin', maybe ? he responded to himself. Ah, sod off ! the first internal voice retorted, peeved. The pirate poured himself a glass of rum. I'll be needin' this.
"Um, sorry if I woke you," Lauren stammered, embarrassed. She had come on a whim, and now wondered briefly if it had been a good idea.
"Oh, no trouble, no trouble at all, love," he replied, rubbing his eyes with one hand and taking a healthy swig of rum. The girl looked relieved. Sarcasm is wasted on her, obviously. Belatedly, Jack remembered his manners. "Little drink, then ?" he asked, indicating the bottle with a lordly wave of his hand.
"Uh, no," she replied, slightly shocked. "Thanks...I'm not old enough to drink alcohol." Yer not old enough to be visitin' me cabin in the night, either, Jack thought, exasperated. She gazed at him with those big, heartbreakingly innocent blue eyes. No, not likin' that look in them, not at all. Jack's own brown eyes rolled to the ceiling beams. As usual, they failed to inspire.
"Well, I wanted to thank you for helping me with my math." She smiled disarmingly, suddenly becoming animated. "It's great, I got a 'B' this semester."
"Ah. Good," he began, then frowned, leaned sideways a bit and peered at her. "Gettin' a bee would be a good thing, right ?"
"Hello ? Of course it's good." The expression she used was unfamiliar to Jack, but the sarcasm was not lost on him. "I mean, not as good as an 'A', but for me, it's great." She thought for a moment. "Why, what did you get when you did well in school ?" Lauren asked.
The captain of the Black Pearl raised his eyebrows. "Not beaten," he replied, shortly. His formal education had all taken place before the mast.
"Oh," said Lauren, her voice small. She blushed again, traced the white rings, left on the table from countless glasses of rum, with her fingers. Jack noted that her fingernails were shiny and blue. Some kind of paint. Interesting. She wasn't wearing the bracelets that had intrigued him before. A thin brown scar ran along one forearm. He wondered, momentarily, what had caused it, before his mind and eyes wandered on in their inspection.
The girl continued to stare at the table, her discomfort so palpable in the tiny room that it made his skin crawl. He shuddered, took another drink of rum. "So, ye're British too, are ye ?" he asked, attempting to break the tension. Can't place the accent. The girl looked at him blankly. "Yer flyin' the Union Jack, love," he said, saluting her briefly. She cocked her head, frowning. "Yer, um, shirt ?" he pointed at the British flag that adorned the front of Lauren's T shirt.
The girl blushed furiously, started to cross her arms over her chest, then seemed to reconsider and left them at her sides. She lifted her chin defiantly. The girl's stubborn refusal to be totally intimidated by him did have a certain charm, Jack admitted to himself. It was also intensely annoying. "I'm American, actually," Lauren replied.
"Ah." he steepled his fingers, considering her answer. Risked another glance at the flag. "Wasn't there somethin' about a war ? War of Independence, wasn't it ?"
"That was like, over two hundred years ago," Lauren informed him. "England and America are allies now."
"In yer world," he clarified. She nodded. " I suppose that makes yer world the future, then," he said, shifting his weight and sitting up straighter in his chair.
"Kind of. You know," she said slowly, trying to be tactful, "Your world isn't real. I mean, yeah, it's set in the past and all, but it's from a movie."
Captain Jack Sparrow cocked an eyebrow at her, turned slightly and pointed vaguely toward the cabin window. His arm swung in a wide arc, indicating the sea. "So what yer sayin', love, is I'm nothin' more than a fairy tale invented for yer amusement ?" The pointing finger described a circle in the air, jabbed in her direction.
"Um, no, I guess not." She hesitated, honesty battling with diplomacy. "Well, actually, no offense, but...yes."
Jack's mind absorbed this idea. His ego discarded it as irrelevant. This is my world. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, love," he declared with a cocky grin. "I'm real. Now, it seems ye may have misplaced yerself in my world, but that's no concern of mine." And it's high time ye took yerself out of me world, he decided. "Look, ye need to get back home. To yer own world, where ye belong," he said, not unkindly. "Go ahead, do that thing ye do." Leaning back in his chair, he waited, expectantly. His hands raised up towards her, fingers pressed together, then abruptly splayed apart. "Ye know, love...poof."
"Yeah, ok. It's getting late," she responded, obviously let down. Her shoulders actually slumped. The pirate's shoulders slumped in unconscious empathy. "Oh ! Wait, I forgot ! I wanted to ask you something !" She perked up, smiled brilliantly at him.
She really knew how to keep a man off his guard, he thought, a bit desperately. "Yes, love ?" he queried.
"Edward. Did you happen to meet a young boy named Edward recently, in Tortuga ?" she asked, leaning forward eagerly.
"Edward, Edward...Oh, ye mean young Eddy. Aye, ye know him ?"
"I wrote him," she replied, proud, yet suddenly shy again.
Jack's eyes roamed over the ceiling. His right hand gripped an imaginary pen, unconsciously scribbled in the air. The eyes swooped back to meet hers, quizzical. "Wot, our Eddy ? Thin lad, dark curly hair, can't complete a full sentence without sayin' 'Arrr' ?"
"I wanted him to sound authentic," she said, defensive. "You know, like a real pirate." She looked concerned. "You don't like him ?"
"Let me see if I understand, love. Ye say ye wrote him. Ye mean, one of yer movie stories ? Ye wrote about him ?"
"Um, yeah, I wrote that he joined your crew, and he did, didn't he ?" The girl looked pleased with herself.
Jack laughed out loud, delighted at the thought of Eddy as a figment of this girl's imagination. That would explain a lot. "Well, let's see, love... he's a complete lunatic, goin' to give Anamaria a heart attack one of these days, terrible vocabulary..." Blue eyes widened, not certain how to take this assessment of her creation. "Wonderful singin' voice," Jack went on. He chuckled and raised his glass to her in salute. "Oh, aye, we like him just fine."
Lauren grinned again. "Oh, that is so cool," she crowed. Jack jumped in his seat, gave a disgruntled sigh, leaned back in his chair. The girl continued to smile and stare at him with those innocent blue eyes.
"That really is cool," she said again, dreamily. "Uh, yeah, I should be going, huh ? Well, all right then," her voice trailed off. Then, softly, "Goodnight."
Poof.
Captain Jack Sparrow shook his head ruefully and drained his glass. Looking around the cabin shiftily, he got up after a few minutes and began, cautiously, to undress. Sleeping in me clothes is too uncomfortable, he thought, unbuckling his sword belt and laying it aside. He startled at nothing, spun around, sighed with relief that no one was there. It'll be a week at least before she comes back, he reassured himself. She's never come back twice in one night, he tried again, as his self refused to be reassured by his first reassurance. Weaving slightly as his eyes peered from one side to the other, the pirate crossed his cabin and dropped into his berth. Exhausted, he fell into the first deep sleep he'd enjoyed in days .
