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Lying on his back on the deck of the ship, the sun drying his wet clothes, Captain Jack Sparrow was deep in thought. He'd arisen early that morning and taken a swim in the icy waters that they sailed on, thinking about various things. The water had cleared his head from the previous night.

After talking with Jessi, he'd immediately retreated to his quarters and drunk an entire bottle of rum. Even for an alcoholic, this was quite a bit, and he'd immediately passed out after drowning his muddled thoughts in his favorite drink.

Of course, he'd woken up with a terrible headache. But, after thinking about it for a couple moments, he realized that he was in the exact same situation that he was in the day he'd met Jessi. What had she really done with his life? She'd lost him his ship, for one, along with his crew. Second off, she'd forced him into the awkward situation that was between him and Anamaria. And, on top of that, she'd ensued a rather odd feeling in him.

He would ponder things for hours at a time that he never would have given a second glance to before he met her. So now he found himself in the same situation he'd been in two and a half months before, only with an abundance of pain, physically and emotionally.

"Jessi, what have you done to me, lass?" he asked the dead space above him, facing only the bluest of sky.

"I don't know... What have I done to you?"

Jack jumped and looked behind him to where the voice had come from. He smiled at the pretty bartender nervously and said, "Jessi, hi!"

"You didn't answer my question." she said suspiciously. "What have I done to you?"

He sat up straight and cleared his throat. "Um... I was just thinking a few things to myself. You know, about how you lost me my ship and all."

"How I lost you your ship, huh?" asked Jessi, smiling a little.

"Aye, how you lost me my ship." He nodded, totally unaware of whether she was believing him or not.

"Ah... Well, I came to ask you something."

"I'm listening."

"I want to just let you know that I am sorry about everything that I've said and that I've kept from you."

"Yes, well, I'm sorry as well, whatever it is that I've done to you..." He finished uncertainly, looking her directly in the eye.

"Good... Because I really like you a whole lot better when we're friends."

He nodded and smiled a little. "We're friends now, are we?"

She merely grinned in return and looked at her feet. When she looked up, Jack was standing only a few feet in front of her. "Jack, I believe we were friends from the moment you set foot in that bar."

He wasn't smiling anymore. He hadn't been smiling for quite a while now. He was outright confused. He looked deeply into Jessi's eyes. Could he really be in love? "Aye, lass, so do I..." was all he could come up with.

"Jack?" she asked him warily.

"Hmm?"

"Are you all right?"

"To tell you the truth, love, I'm not so sure..."

"What's wrong?"

"I... I don't know..." He smiled a little bit. There was the unnamed emotion again, though this time, he was quite sure that he knew what it was. After that talk with Anamaria, something had just clicked. And now every time he saw Jessi, he would ask himself the same question: 'If this is love, am I finally recognizing it for what it really is?'

All his life he had refused to accept love given to him in any way, shape, or form. Now, everything in his heart and soul was thrusting him toward Jessi in a way that he couldn't explain. His brain wanted him to stay as far away from her as possible, but the other two forces overpowered it magnificently.

"Jessi..." He reached for her face and touched her cheek gently with his hand, still looking into her eyes lovingly.

Her eyes glanced over to his hand quickly, then back to him. She didn't seem to want to look him in the eye, but she was soon running out of places to avert her gaze to.

Suddenly, she took his hand away from her face and looked at her feet. "Jack, you can't..."

"What?" He looked at her, a little confused.

"I mean... I'm not who you think I am..." She swallowed nervously.

"Jessi, what do you...?"

His voice faded into silence as she pulled the right sleeve of her shirt up, exposing a pirate brand.

Jack looked at it for a moment. "Jessi, I... Why didn't you tell me?" He finished, confused and hurt.

"Because, I didn't want to get involved with another pirate..." She was fighting back tears, her voice breaking a little.

"But Jessi, I-" He paused. "Another pirate...?"

She nodded, avoiding his eyes like the plague for, much like the plague, had she seen them, they would have killed her. "Tim Arlington... He was the first man I ever loved... He was also a pirate. We traveled together for several years and, right after he proposed... Well, there was a rebellion on the ship and, because Tim sided with the captain, the crew tied his hands together, gagged him, and strapped a fifty-pound bag of rocks to his feet... And they... Shoved him off the ship, into the ocean... I dove out after him, but couldn't find him in the deep waters, so I swam to the nearest island-Jaded Nook..." She sniffed and looked at Jack, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Jack was on the verge of tears himself. "So... Why is it that you really wanted to come out here with me?" He feared the answer.

"I just got a letter from him a couple weeks ago." She smiled through her tears, which made Jack want to cry even more. She proceeded. "He's told me that he's alive and living in Port Royal, so I came out here to look for him."

He swallowed, trying to force a laugh. "So, that's it then?"

The smiled faded from her face. "Jack, what do you mean?"

"I mean, you used me and our friendship so you could go look for your boyfriend?" He felt a lump develop in the pit of his stomach and work its way up to his throat.

Her mouth fell open in shock. "Jack, he meant everything to me, can't you even pretend to be happy-?"

"I don't want to hear it, Jessi." He interrupted her bitterly. "You broke my heart, and that's not something I can accept an excuse for. Savvy?"

Walking away, Jack felt the lump in his throat grow larger and larger. Finally, when he got to his room, he slammed the door behind him, locked it tightly, and pushed his back against it.

This was the first time Jack had ever opened his heart to anyone. Difficult as it was to love, he then realized how much more difficult it was to find out that the love would not be returned.

The handsome captain breathed deeply, carefully studying the sky he could see out of his window, trying not to think of what had just happened. Perhaps if he went to sleep, he would awake in a few hours to find it all had been a dream.

However hard he tried, though, his thoughts stayed with Jessi. And however much he wanted to hate her for what she had done, he still envisioned her face the first time he'd seen it, smiling at him sweetly, her gaze never faltering from his. And he knew-he loved her. He loved her more than anything.

What else could have driven him to the verge of tears? It all seemed so surreal-if only it truly was. He would be back to normal. Jessi would never have existed and he would still be the captain of his ship, not to mention the captain of his own heart.

Jessi had taken a tight grip on it and wasn't letting go anytime soon. The only part of him that Jack had control over was his mind. That did him no good at all, considering the fact that it was drowned in rum most of the time, and when it wasn't, it was drowned with thoughts of Jessi.

Yes, Jack was too far in to turn back now. So, he figured, the only thing left to do was to let go and accept the fact that he would always be in love with Jessi. There was only one flaw-she wasn't in love with him...

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