Disclaimer: Still not mine, although I am enjoying commandeering them for this little venture of mine. It is highly entertaining.
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Basis for the Chapter:
"Yes, well, it appears as if your Captain Sparrow has caught Grandfather's attention. I got a letter from him today from the crew of the Heron telling me that I should bring Sparrow to him as soon as could be arranged. Apparently, Grandfather wants some answers as to why one of his ships came into port without any sails."
"You're telling me that we're to transport that man to Grandfather's island."
"Yes, but there's more. . . ." Winn simply glowered. "We're to bring him as a guest."
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Winn was not well pleased. In fact, one might say that the sun appeared dark in her eyes. (And taking into consideration that it was night . . .) She watched as her brothers picked up a semi-conscious Jack Sparrow from the ground. She was savagely delighted to see that his left eye was already swelling and turning black. By tomorrow morning, he'd be hard pressed to see out of it. Petite self indeed.
"Ry, how're we going to him out of here without disrupting the wedding party?" Marcus asked. He looked at Winn, "We weren't expecting to find him here. We really weren't expecting you to knock the man senseless."
Winn just rolled her eyes, trying to contain another outburst. "That man was born senseless. Use the servant's stairs. No one important will be coming up those." Winn watched as Captain Sparrow collected himself enough to stand without support. "Next time you attempt to upset me, I'll take you on, and I'll show no mercy." She had to admit the man kept his promises. Staring him down, refusing to feel a thing, Winn spat, "Get him out of my sight."
Turning her back, she heard a sharp intake of breath behind her. Ignoring it, she calmly returned to pulling the pins out of her hair with hands that trembled. She would be hard pressed to say if it was with anger, exhaustion, or the adrenaline that was still rushing through her. Hearing the door close behind her guests, she crossed to it, making sure it was locked. That done, she went to bed.
"I know her type – she's not as strong as she appears, but she does have a core of iron. You push her too far, and she might just make you regret it." Ana Maria's warning rang in Jack's ears just as surely as the door to the Kingfisher's brig did. Too bad he hadn't paid more attention to it the first time he'd heard it. He definitely was ruing his actions now, but then he hadn't known earlier what he knew now. I suppose that's always the trouble with hindsight.
"You understand that we need to keep you here until we put out to sea? After that you'll be free to wander where you will." Ryan Morgan curiously studied the man who had managed to so upset his sister. Despite the black eye, he exuded an air common to the Caribbean; a laid back, go with the flow, laissez-faire attitude.
"Aye." Jack studied his surroundings. As brigs went, this one wasn't too bad. It even had a hammock in which to sleep. "I appreciate the free lodgings, mate."
"I'd offer you asylum as well, but I'm afraid that we'll also be lodging my sister on the trip to Grandfather's. Your best move would be to stay out of her way. What did you do to make her so upset?"
Jack studied the man. "Have we met? You look somewhat familiar."
"I've captained the Kingfisher for near ten years. It's possible that we've crossed paths in Tortuga."
"Hmm. . ."
Seeing that no other information was going to be forthcoming, Ry took his leave. He did have a wife and a brother to answer to for all this. Unsure of what he was going to tell them, knowing that there was no way he could reasonably (or safely) ask his sister for the tale surrounding this night, Ryan went home.
Jack listened to the man leave. A decent sort really, he's taken all this in stride. God knows he had reason to come after me after walking in on that little scene. Settling down in the hammock, Jack started to ponder the information he had recently gained.
No wonder the blasted woman had never let her last name slip. It would have saved him a world of trouble if she had. Morgan. Winifred Morgan.
"You'd never make it as a pirate, luv." "You might be surprised, Captain." Surprised indeed. The little minx. Despite all the times and all the states of undress in which Jack had caught Winn, he had missed one little thing – the brand on her upper right arm. A bird of prey, claws extended, pouncing on its victim, a ship at sea. The brand made famous by a rather famous pirate. "Pirates, like dogs, can smell fear. Although I don't entirely believe Grandfather when it comes to that."
"By the Code of the Order of the Brethren, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew," Jack recited from memory. It was something any pirate worth his stolen salt had memorized. "Winnie is Morgan's granddaughter."
"However, I will tell you that my grandfather will not be pleased when he hears of this. Remember that, should you ever have enough sense to rue this." Once again, Captain Jack Sparrow, a man who claimed to learn from past mistakes, had grossly underestimated his opponent.
For the second night in a row, Winn Morgan got little sleep. As much as she wished she could blame the excitement of the past day, or the thought of leaving in the morning, possibly the moon being in her eyes, or even Pige making whimpering sounds in her sleep, Winn was usually honest with herself. The reason she couldn't sleep was that she could still feel on her lips the pressure of her first kiss, and could still hear in her ears the confirmation of all her fears.
Why do I keep on about this? The man is a pirate, pirates lie, and he enjoys doing anything and everything he can to get a rise out of me. That's what tonight was - a mind game. It should mean no more and no less to me than anything else the insufferable man has done. But it did. Changing positions for the seventh or eighth time inside an hour, Winn opened her eyes – having them shut wasn't doing her much good.
But that's the problem. Everything the man does or says simply means too much to me. It all touches me far more than it should. Why can't I just ignore the bloody man? And that was what it all boiled down to really – the fact that this one man had managed to get past all her defenses, to crush all her resistance as far as impartiality and unconcern went. Somehow he had made her care, the bloody scoundrel.
Her earlier words came back to haunt her. "You touch a single hair on his head and I'll come after you next. This is between the Captain and myself, and I forbid you to enter into it." Yes, those were the words of detachment and disinterest.
So what do I do? What can I do? I don't want to care. I don't want to feel. Do I let this . . . fascination . . . run its course? Do I do everything I can to avoid him? Sighing, Winn closed her eyes; the moon was down, having them open wasn't doing her much good. "The last time I checked, lass, pirates were never considered a convenience." "Tell me about it."
Slowly and fitfully falling asleep, confusion and questions running through her mind even as she slumbered, Winn managed to make it through the night. And if her dreams held a bit more of Jack Sparrow then they normally did, that's understandable. It's not everyday that a girl receives her first kiss from a man who may be her enemy . . .
Today, unlike most others, it was easy to get up. Or, at least to get out of bed since Winn had spent little of the previous night actually sleeping. Instead she had passed the night thinking between short bouts of unconsciousness. After hours of judging actions, weighing words, and reviewing things in the light of hindsight, Winn had come to a single decision – she was a reckless hothead and tended to act without any forethought at all. But only when it came to Jack Sparrow. Why?
With her family or with her few friends, she . . . she . . . she put on a mask when around them. She either folded to their requests or she talked her way out of them, but she never said no to them. She never really spoke her mind. She said what people expected her to say. Why don't I speak my mind? Is it because I'm afraid to find out what it is that I actually think?
She thought of the stories that she told her nieces and nephews, stories full of dragons and pirates, brave men and women, failures and happily ever afters. Why do I tell those stories? Why, if I find it impossible to believe that happily ever afters really happen? Am I fooling them by saying they exist, or am I fooling myself when I say that I don't?
Sitting there in her bed that night, unsure and confused, her hand sore from its impact with Jack's skull, Winn wondered if anyone ever truly grew up. For years she had thought that being grown up was the ability to act with consulting everything and everyone, to make decent decisions. She thought it was being able to depend on one's self – but here she was in a mess of her own making. A mess that was going to be painful to correct. Maybe it's being able to clean up those messes instead of leaving them to get messier.
I have to apologize. The thought was a bitter one. Not only would she be apologizing to a family member, who would most likely easily excuse her, but she was going to have to apologize to a man who managed to rip off her mask every time they met. If it's that undependable, maybe it deserves to come off. The very thought scared her. Somewhere, some time over the past years she had forgotten how to live without it. She had fallen asleep thinking these thoughts, completely exhausted.
So that's why Winn was awake, dressed, and in the process of packing the last of her belongings when a knock came at her bedroom door.
Opening it, she found Cat and Grace on the threshold. Smiling wryly (and without much actual humor) Winn said, "I see those brothers of mine have sent in the cavalry. Were they afraid that the raging harpy of last night hadn't completely cooled down yet?"
"No, they just thought it might be prudent to stay out of sight for the time being. They weren't too sure you'd be feeling hospitable towards their gender at the moment. Not that they would tell us why you might be upset. Would you care to?" Grace's unlimited curiosity was out in full force today. Winn was clearly short on sleep, and she even appeared to be preoccupied to some extent. Two men from Ry's crew came into the room, picked up Winn's trunk, and exited.
"How long do we have before the Kingfisher leaves port?" She doubted it was enough to tell her story is all its complex and dizzying glory.
"Hmm . . . that bad, huh? Sounds like this is a conversation that will have to wait. You can explain everything to us later." Cat knew her husband was eager to complete this trip as quickly as was humanly possible. The thought of having a peeved Winn on his ship for even a little under a week had actually caused him to shudder the night before.
"Us?" Winn questioned as the three women left the room and the house.
"Yes, Marcus decided it would be advantageous to send the girls and I on ahead on the Kingfisher while he finished tying up some lose ends here. He'll follow in a day, or more likely two." As she spoke, Grace rested a hand on her belly.
Eyeing Grace's mildly pregnant form uncertainly, Winn asked, "You're not prone to seasickness when you're pregnant, are you?"
Grace laughed, "Believe it or not, the only time I can ride a ship without getting seasick is when I am pregnant. It's a joke at the fort that Marcus, one of the youngest and most resourceful captains that His Majesty's royal navy has ever seen, is married what has to be the worst sailor in the entire Caribbean."
The carriage ride to the waterfront was short in comparison to Winn's sister's ability to talk so early in the morning. Being short on sleep and naturally not a morning person, Winn simply watched the greenery pass by her window, ignoring their attempts to draw her into the conversation. Catherine and Grace both observed her, some concern in their eyes, but each thought that whatever malady that their youngest sister-in-law was suffering from would soon be explained, so they made no attempt to draw her out of her shell.
When they boarded the ship, Cat and Grace wouldn't even let Winn go put her pet in her assigned cabin. Ryan watched as his wife and sister-in-law bundled Winn into his cabin. They disappeared from view without a glace to spare him. Shrugging and thinking something about women and gossip, Ry gave the order to raise anchor, cast off from the mooring, and to set sail for a small island in the Bahamas.
Apparently whatever pow-wow that the womenfolk had been so intent upon having was rapidly discussed and resolved. An hour after they had entered his cabin, Grace and Winn emerged, Cat standing in the doorway. Grace left the other two, after a hug for Winn, to go check on her hopefully sleeping children who were interred in the same cabin Winn had occupied days before.
Cat gave Winn a kiss on the cheek, then said something in a low voice. Nodding in her husband's direction, she gave an encouraging smile. Winn nodded back, grasping Cat's hand.
Leaving his wife, Winn came in his direction, her attitude and bearing in stark contrast to what they had been last night. She wasn't furious, for one thing. To all appearances she seemed nervous and conciliatory. Reaching him, she asked, "Can I talk to you for a moment, or do you have things you need to attend to?"
"You have my full, undivided, and most humble attention." This brought a bit of a smile to her eyes (which were surprisingly spectacle free) before her countenance became serious again.
Taking a deep breath, as if to calm her nerves, Winn said, "I just want to apologize for yelling at you last night. You had done nothing to either raise or deserve my ire and I behaved like an amazingly ungracious child. And not just that. I also want to apologize for being so . . . so distant these past few years. I . . . I was wondering if you would forgive me." Winn watched the deck, studying her bare feet.
"Oh, Freddy. You know I forgive you. In fact, I think I need to offer my own apology." Winn looked up, startled, completely unable to form a protest in her surprise. "Actually, I think we all – Marcus, Richard, and I – need to apologize. I think we managed to spoil you in our desire to see you happy. Now, don't start looking at me like that," Winn was glowering. "You know it's true to some point. We wanted the best for you, and in doing so we may not have gone about things in the right way. I think we managed to teach you that the way we behaved was the way that all men behaved."
Winn snorted. "No, I should have known better than that. I think that I'm old enough to own up to my own mistakes and messes. But thanks for the out, even if I'm not taking it."
Ry grinned. "What are big brothers for?"
Winn suddenly reached out and hugged her brother, something she had rarely done since before he left home to make his own life. Trying to hold back tears of giddiness and relief, she said, "Thank you." They remained like that for several moments.
Pulling away, Winn commented with a laugh and a sniff, "Well, just one more to go."
"What do you mean?" Ry was intrigued. Winn's behavior was highly unusual.
"I mean that I still need to apologize to our, umm . . . our guest. Can I have your keys? I might as well let him out while I'm down there."
Ry handed his keys over. "Are you sure that's such a good idea? What if –"
"Then I probably deserve it. Besides, I can take care of myself should the need arise." Winn looked her brother in the eye. "This is something I need to do, Ry. I may not like it, but it still needs to be done." Ryan nodded in understanding.
She left her brother, determined to get this last apology over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. When she was halfway across deck, Ry yelled after her, "It's good to see that you're not peeved, Freddy. I'm not sure I could have taken that for the entire trip." Winn made a semi-rude hand gesture at her brother.
"Just because I like you doesn't mean you can get away with things like that, Ry! You'd better watch yourself – I still know how to pull a good prank!" And with that she disappeared down the hatch that led to the brig, her stomach roiling with anxiety and apprehension. Despite being on her brother's ship, she felt like she was about to beard the lion in his den. Let us hope that pirates really can't smell fear . . .
Like Winn, Jack had spent part of the night in contemplation. Part of it was simply regret that he was unable to inform his ship of a change in plans. If Winn's grandfather really was the famous Morgan, then this was an opportunity that could not be allowed to pass. After all, the man was a legend. Part of it was wonder at how such a tiny woman could deliver such force with such a tiny fist. It certainly doesn't seem possible if one just looks at her. Other equally idle thoughts occupied the Captain for part of the night. It wasn't until after he had fallen asleep that he had any real regrets however.
"Looks as if you were correct, luv. Had you been truly attractive, I doubt these two fine gentlemen could have diverted my focus from your petite self." The scene in his dream was markedly slower than it had been in real life. For just a moment before she had walloped him, Jack had seen straight into Winn's totally unguarded eyes. In his sleep, he could actually tell what he saw. They had been utterly bewildered for a second or two, then hurt shone out for about half a second before the anger had set in.
Waking after dawn, he thought to himself, Ok, I probably deserved what I got, that may have been going a little too far. But what was she expecting me to do, undressing like that? She's lucky that's all she got away with.
Caught somewhere between regret and a mixture if rising indignation and self-righteousness, Jack's train of thought was broken by the small clinking sound of keys hitting each other. Assuming it was Captain Morgan coming to let him out, he raised his hat from his eyes. Not the captain, but the cat. Winn Morgan stood in front of his cell, bottom lip caught between her teeth, uncertainty evident in her very bearing. The personification of vengeance from the night before was gone, replaced by this.
Lowering his hat again, Jack asked, "Come to survey your handiwork, Miss Morgan?"
As he was not looking for her, he missed the look of mingled surprise, sorrow, and guilt in her eyes. Why is this so hard? Taking a breath and trying desperately not to reply in kind, Winn said, "No. Not unless you want to take a look at yours." When his face turned towards her, Winn held out a hand for his inspection. Getting up for a closer look he saw that her knuckles were bruised, a few even sported scabs. "I'm not sure which is harder – your head or my hand." Winn's voice was almost too quiet to be heard over the creakings of a ship in motion, her lip still caught between her teeth.
"As interesting as that surely is, I believe that you're interrupting my sleep, Miss Morgan. If you would be so kind as to leave. . ." Jack purposely threw her own words back at her. Upon seeing her, Jack had decided to settle on mild irritation as what he was feeling.
"I actually came down here so that you could leave . . . or go above decks at least. We're between four and five miles away from Port Royal. Has anyone given you breakfast yet? Because I'm sure that I could find some somewhere if you would give me a moment." Winn cursed her tongue for betraying her nervousness. She really didn't need to appear a rambling idiot at the moment. Deciding that action was better than talking, she reached out to unlock the door. Jack's hand intercepting hers made her jump, a scream just barely contained behind her locked lips.
"Are you sure that's a good idea, lass? Bein' down here, all alone with a pirate whom you've just happened to have wounded recently? What makes you think I won't wrest these keys from you then lock you in here? Or do something worse?" Jack's voice was low, even more intense than it had been after their sword fight.
Winn started to tremble, the anxiety getting to her. She had never seen him act like this, and she was unsure of how to deal with it. Forcing some iron into her spine, determined not to appear too weak, she said in the same quiet voice she'd been using, "I've decided to stop assuming anything when it comes to your actions, Captain Sparrow. All I can do is hope that you won't hurt me, but even I can't say that I deserve to get off scot-free for what I did."
Jack examined her, noticing that her knuckles were white with restrained action, that her hand was trembling in his, that her feet were free of their ever-present boots, and that her glasses were nowhere to be found on her person. Realizing what it all meant, Jack let her go. Tiredly he asked, "What's wrong, luv? Come to play the penitent to a pirate?"
Winn cursed silently as she unlocked the door to the cell with a hand that refused to quit trembling. "More along the lines of an apology, Captain Sparrow. If you even want to hear one, that is."
Jack stepped out of the cell. Now she was face, well, head to chest with a very unpredictable man. Without her boots, with him in boots, she was dwarfed. She remembered all too well how much strength the man could exert should he chose to do so. If revenge were truly his intent right now, there was little she would be able to do to stop him. Why did I think I would be safe alone with him? He's a pirate. Why didn't I let Ry come down with me? Because she wanted no one else to witness this, that's why.
Crossing his arms and leaning into her personal space, Jack drawled, "Go ahead, luv, if it will make you feel any better."
Thinking, I never would have guessed there would be a day that I would be glad to be called "Winnie," Winn took a deep, shuddering breath. Letting it out, she said in an even quieter voice than the one she had been using, "I want to apologize for my behavior, Captain Sparrow. During the entire time of our association I have pushed you to lengths that most normal men and few pirates would tolerate, simply because I was annoyed to be diverted from my chosen plans. I have behaved like a spoiled child in regards to some of my actions, like a naive schoolgirl in my belief that you were a safe person to appear before in a state of dishabille, and like a hypocrite for harming you when you acted upon what I was unintentionally offering. I never should have given you that black eye, much less have ever tried to intentionally irritate you. I just want to say that I am sorry, and that I understand if you demand some kind of repayment."
Jack remained silent through all this, wondering what had happened to so change the woman he knew. To tell the truth he greatly enjoyed matching wits with Winn, enjoyed annoying her, enjoyed watching irritation light up her eyes. He had even enjoyed that little swordfight, once it had gotten started, drawing it out simply to see how she would react. It would have been easy to disarm her at any point during the duel (no one ever won if they did nothing but defend themselves), but it had been a beautiful thing to watch. Winn in action forgot all about whatever it was she was trying hide, forgot to guard herself. He had gained nearly as much insight into her from that fight as he had from the sketchbook. Dishonestly clever. . . .
Thinking of the sketchbook, Jack remembered the drawing of that afternoon garden party. The Winn he saw before him now was the one that had been captured on that piece of paper – an awkward girl trying desperately to remain unnoticed. Which explains why she came down here alone.
"Aye, I'll not deny that a bit of repayment would go a long way in soothing the hurt done to my eye." Winn looked up at him for the first time since he had left the cell. She looked to be caught between anger at his flippancy and trepidation at what he would claim for repayment.
"What is it that you want, Captain?" If Jack hadn't been standing so close to her, he never would have heard the query.
"Ten questions. Ten questions with honest answers from your lovely self." Confusion and relief battled for domination over Winn's face. Without her glasses, this internal fight was clearly visible to Jack. "That is, as long as you're not too scared." That solved the battle – irritation won out again.
"That is acceptable, Captain Sparrow. If I may take you to your cabin now? I'm sure that you must be ready to break your fast. If you will follow me?" Winn led a grinning Jack Sparrow above decks.