Disclaimer: If you haven't figured out by now that this isn't mine . . . . .
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Two Lose Ends to Tie:
With Jack and Elizabeth:
"Just have a seat Jack. There are some things I think you need to know about Winn that she is unlikely to ever tell you."
"Why would I –" Elizabeth looked at him with enough disbelief to make him pause. The dratted woman isn't going to buy anything I say, blast her eyes. "As I was saying, I'm all ears."
"That's better."
With Winn:
Unable to voice more than a whisper, Winn asked, "Choose one for what?" She asked the question, but was dreading the answer.
"You will choose one of these men to be your husband, and you will be married before you leave here at the end of the week. This notion of yours, that you can care for yourself and that you need no one in your life will end before any of us is a year older."
Winn in her shock and confusion, felt the world start spinning and saw the world go black before her eyes. I think I'm about to faint.
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"Just have a seat Jack. There are some things I think you need to know about Winn that she is unlikely to ever tell you."
"Why would I –" Elizabeth looked at him with enough disbelief to make him pause. The dratted woman isn't going to buy anything I say, blast her eyes. "As I was saying, I'm all ears."
"That's better." Elizabeth settled the skirts of her dress around her as she took a seat on a conveniently placed stone bench. Satisfied with their placement, she looked at Jack who was still standing. Raising her eyebrows, she asked tartly, "Are you going to have a seat?"
Jack leaned firmly on the wall behind him. Just because this woman had things to say that he was interested in hearing didn't mean he had to listen to her. "Can't say that I am. If you have something to tell me, luv, please do so."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Please, understand that not only is this hard to do, but that Winn will most likely kill me when she finds out I told you, so don't go about acting as if you're the one doing me a favor. Winn is a very private person. But she wasn't always as bad as she is now." Elizabeth sighed in remembrance, then started her narrative.
"Winn and I grew up together, or more precisely, I grew up while having her around. Our mothers had been great friends as children, and after they married they continued their association despite their different social circles. Every week, Mother would go to visit Clair, Winn's mother. I would spend my time playing and tagging along after Winn and whichever of her brothers that happened to be around. They simply treated me as another child, unlike at home where I was the only daughter of a man steadily growing more admired in political circles. Sometimes I think Mother felt more comfortable at the Morgan's than she did in her own home." Elizabeth shook her head, trying to remain on track.
"When Winn's father died, her mother seemed to loose any interest she had left in living. She simply gave up on herself and on her family. Winn cared for her. She wouldn't let anyone but Mother help, and that was grudgingly. What Winn didn't know was that Clair had been sick with consumption for some time, and that her father's death simply hastened her mother's. My mother knew which is why she insisted upon caring for her friend – she didn't want Winn to work herself into exhaustion, to lower her resistance to the disease. Ironically, by doing so, Mother caught it herself and died about a year and a half later.
"After her mother had died, Winn started to act like a different person at times. Not all the time, but when someone would reprimand her, or chastise her for wild behavior, she would . . . I don't know. She seemed to melt in front of you, drawing into herself. But that was the extent of it. Other than that she was happy, well adjusted, if a little too conscious of the fact that she had been taken in and was living off of charity."
Elizabeth paused in her story. Her part in all this was going to be hard to admit. Looking at Jack, she saw that she had his full attention, that he looked more serious than she had ever seen him. Lifting his head in acknowledgement of her tale, Jack asked, "What is it that you're puttin' off saying, luv?"
Studiously rearranging her hands in her lap, Elizabeth continued her tale. "Winn was normal until the death of my mother. You see, my paternal grandmother had come to run the household during the last days of my mother's illness. She had never accepted the fact that Mother wished to keep friends from her childhood instead of making friends that would help influence and advance Father's career. So when Mother died of a disease she had caught from a friend, Grandmother lashed out at Winn. She told Winn that it was all her fault that not only had her own mother died, but that mine had died as well. She said that had Winn been a better daughter, she would have been able to care for Clair on her own, that her mother would have found the strength to live and care for her own daughter.
"She went on and on for nearly an hour, and the entire time I sat in the same room with them and said nothing to defend my friend. She only even looked at me once, with a strange look on her face. It was as if she was trying to gauge my reaction to what was being said. I was young and still in shock from losing my own Mother, so the conviction in Winn's eyes didn't register to me until later. Not until I realized that Winn had started laughing less, had started behaving herself more.
My incorrigible playmate, my partner in crime was gone. Instead there was a stranger living with me. She still told fantastic stories that made you lose all sense of time, still would sing sea shanties as she went about her work," Elizabeth shook her head. "But she had started wearing those glasses. I couldn't tell what she was thinking anymore. When I would try to give her a hug good-night she'd accept it, but she'd manage to keep herself distant on some level."
Looking up from her lap, Elizabeth spoke straight to Jack. "It's as if she became afraid to love anyone. I noticed it. Her brothers noticed it when she came out here. She was still Winn Morgan, but it was as if she had an invisible wall around her that kept her from truly interacting with any of us. We would see what she wanted us to, and anyone who pressed for more got lashed with the sharp side of her tongue. The only time that she truly let herself be herself was when she was too angry to do anything else.
"But you, Jack Sparrow, you managed to invade her little fortress somehow. Your mistake was giving her time to think about her situation. She's a quick adapter, and once she's decided that something fundamentally is, it's hard to convince her otherwise. And she's once again decided that being alone is what she wants, so she's trying to remove you from her life."
Standing up, Elizabeth approached Jack. "I've seen the influence you've had on her, Jack. It's a good one. You've gotten her out of her shell for the first time in years. I don't know what it is that you want from her, but I think I may have an idea. I've seen the way that you look at her." Forestalling Jack's objection to that statement, she continued, "I doubt that anyone else really has, or credits it to more than you being flirtatious, but we've all noticed how Winn acts around you. She may not want to admit it, and you may not want to admit it, but she feels something for you. And if I know my friend, it makes her mad and she's fighting like anything against what her heart is telling her. She'll keep fighting until she feels it's safe to stop."
Elizabeth stood, shaking out her skirts. "I don't know want you want, Jack, but I think you have the right to know that should you want it, she would be yours, totally and completely, once she got used to the idea. She's never been one to come around to any way of thinking without a fight, so if you decide you want her in your life you're going to have to convince her of that." In the distance they both heard a door slam.
Almost as if it had been a signal for life to resume all of the children came racing out the patio doors, yelling and screaming as if they would never have another chance to do so. Under the cover of their youthful hollers and howls, Elizabeth gave Jack one last piece of advice. "What you do with the story I just told is entirely up to you. I would advise you to think about what I said though. Nothing with Winn is ever easy, mostly because I think she enjoys being difficult. She may make your life a misery, but it would at least never be dull." And with those parting words, Elizabeth left to find her husband.
"You will choose one of these men to be your husband, and you will be married before you leave here at the end of the week. This notion of yours, that you can care for yourself and that you need no one in your life will end before any of us is a year older."
Winn in her shock and confusion felt the world start spinning and saw the world go black before her eyes. I think I'm about to faint. When the world steadied again and her vision returned, she found herself disappointed. A faint would have provided a rather convenient escape from this.
Winn found she was having difficulty breathing. Shock and rage were coagulating into a mass of emotion that was beating at all the controls she had. One by one each wall, every defense, all her barriers were swept away in a single wave of emotion. In the face of such passion there was only one thing she could do.
She looked at her grandfather, the full force of her horror and pain in her eyes. He was still speaking, so did not notice the anguish in her face. "If you fail to make a selection from the available captains on this island by sundown on Friday night, then your brothers and I will decide who will suit you best and you will marry them on Saturday. Either way you will –"
Somehow she managed to whisper a single word past the lump in her throat. "No. . . ." Turning, ignoring Morgan's commands to come back, Winn raced from the room, unable to say where she was trying to go except for away. Reaching the front door she threw it open, and then slammed it shut as she exited the house.
Blind to what was around her, she ran. She ran without destination, without purpose, thinking in a muddled fashion that if she ran fast enough she would be able to leave this mess behind. But she couldn't run fast enough to escape the echoes of her name on the wind or the sound of running footsteps behind her.
She was grabbed from behind, abruptly stopped. "Let me go!" The hands on her shoulders spun her around even as she fought to escape.
"Freddy, stop. It's just me." Ry was afraid he knew what had set his little sister off. Grandfather must have hatched his plan, but from the looks of it, it had backfired more than he had expected.
"Let me go!" Winn continued struggling.
"What happened?"
"Please –" Winn became aware of the tears running down her cheeks. It was more than she could take. Stomping down in the same motion that had made Jack release her when they had first met, Winn tugged herself free. And once free, she continued running.
I can't, I can't, I can't!
Winn wandered down the streets of Osprey Point, not really seeing what was going on around her. She had tired herself out running to the settlement which was some four miles from Swallows Rest, and had spent what was left of her stamina wandering the streets in a daze. The only thing that kept her moving now was the emotions still roiling inside her.
She had reached a point where she could no longer think, her mind exhausted and unwilling to begin processing her grandfather's decree. When she had come of age she had thought that she had successfully escaped being married off to suit an old man's whim. Apparently she had been more wrong than she ever could have imagined.
Her journey led her past the respectable houses and shops of upper Osprey Point down to the seedier lower section of the town. Warehouses and taverns alike had sprung up, many of them having been in business since the settlement had been founded.
Dusk was approaching, although Winn didn't necessarily notice. She did notice, but with the same inattention that she noticed that the air was growing colder, her feet were growing tired, and she was growing hungry, but these seemed inconsequential when compared with her grandfather's announcement. It was this very inattention that led Winn into dangerous territory.
Winn had been passing a darkened alley, still unconscious of what was going on around her when she was grabbed by a pair of arms and slammed into the plank wall of a dilapidated warehouse. "Lookee what we got 'ere, Johnny, Tooth. A skirt wand'rin' the streets lookin' for a bit of bizness." Winn snapped to herself only to find herself cornered by several unwashed and extremely drunk sailors. She didn't even waist time trying to verbally correct their mistake. Instead she went directly for her hideout knife. She managed to knife the one holding her, sending him to the ground, before the other two attacked.
In the fracas she was thrown into the side of the building, her head slamming into the wall with a great deal of force. She howled in pain and rage. Losing control of an already frayed temper, she attacked blindly and was pinned to the ground for her efforts. Whoever had pinned her started reaching for her skirts, animosity rolling off him in waves, when a blur knocked him to the side.
Before when could even stand up her attacker was unconscious and the last fleeing. "Well, I must say that you waste no time getting yourself into trouble, spitfire." Getting to unsteady feet, Winn turned to her rescuer and to her great surprise found a friend.
"Alex? Alexander Thomas?"
"I'm so glad that you remember me. I was afraid that maybe your sense had been taken by whoever lopped off your hair." Alex came forward to offer a supporting hand to the woman who had been a near constant companion in his teens. He was shocked when she let him support her weight, nearly collapsing against him in fatigue, pain, and the aftereffects of fear. Holding her as he would a sister, he asked, "What's wrong, spitfire? Don't tell me that these thugs got the better of you."
"Nearly." Winn glanced at the man she had killed, her stomach rolling uneasily at the sight. It was one she never got used to seeing. One she thought it would best if she never got used to seeing.
Pulling herself upright, she swayed as the pain in her head intensified before settling into a dull pounding. She moaned, then whispered in an enervated voice, "I hit my head pretty hard."
Alex guided her out of the alley. "Well, better your head than something that could have actually been damaged." Walking to a nearby horse, he lifted her into the saddle with only a small amount of difficulty. "In harbor for only two days and already injured. I think you may have broken your old record."
"Sod off." When felt the world start into sudden motion beneath her. "Where are you taking me?"
"I assumed that your home would be a good place to start." He wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her on the horse.
"Ughn . . . ."
"Hold on. I know you don't like horses, but we'll have you in your own bed in no time."
Henry Morgan stood in his study, looking out his window at the cove before his house as he listened to his grandsons quietly take their seats behind him. Winifred had taken things harder than he had predicted. Sighing in regret, he gripped the back of his chair as his heart started beating out of time once again. He waited for it to settle back into its normal rhythm before he took a seat. "I trust you all know why I called you in here?"
Ry, in an unusually bad mood from having his littlest toe broken by his younger sister replied, "Does it have anything to do which why my toe is broken?"
Morgan frowned, his eyebrows nearly meeting over his nose. "Just because you taught Winifred to defend herself is no reason to be disrespectful, Ryan Mitchell. As long as I am the head of this family, you will address me with respect. Is that understood?"
Ry nodded, somewhat shamefaced. "Sorry, Grandfather."
Silence reigned in the room for several moments. Richard shifted uncomfortably in his chair, a nervous habit when he wanted to say something he didn't think would be well received. Morgan looked at him. "Speak up, boy. I don't care if you think I won't like it, I will have you be an honest man."
"Well . . . if Winn reacted so strongly to the . . . the, umm, suggestion that she get married, then hadn't we –" he didn't get to finish the sentence. In an unprecedented move, the Morgan women barged in on the conversation between their men.
"What was that all about?" demanded Cat. She was in full captain's wife mode, something that even Morgan had to grudgingly respect. "I have never in my life seen Winn so upset. What have you men done now?" The word 'men' rolled from her lips in the same way one might say 'incompetent fools.'
Morgan stood up. While he might admire courage in a woman, he also expected them to know their place. "It is obvious that my grandsons have failed to school you in the proper courtesies given to the head of this household. . . ."
"Oh, we know what the 'proper courtesies' are, we just don't care at the moment. What did you do to make Winn so upset?" Cat, usually a good humored woman, felt her own temper starting to smolder in the face of this male superiority. "Dance around the issue all you like, but we will have an answer before any of us leave this room."
Grace and Sarah came up to flank their sister-in-law in unvoiced support of this rebellion. From the looks on their faces, all the men knew that they meant what they said, as well as many other unspoken threats.
Richard had always been the first to fold among the three brothers. Staring at the floor, he muttered, "Grandfather told Winn that she had to get married before the end of the week." This information was met with silence by the three women.
"You idiots. You poor, ignorant, clueless, oblivious, idiots. How is it that you can read the skies and the winds so well, yet be so insensible to what is going on in the life of your own relations?" Elizabeth had joined the little party, having set Will and Jack the task of making sure none of the children did anything too dangerous. She joined the three other women who immediately picked up where she stopped.
"Have you no eyes in your heads?" asked Grace.
"Have you not seen how Winn has changed?" challenged Cat.
Morgan had had enough of this mutiny. "If you cannot keep civil tongues in your head you shall all be banished to your rooms for the remainder of this visit!" he roared.
"If you don't stop promoting your own agenda and start thinking of your granddaughter, you're going to lose her forever!" Cat was not about to back down. "What made you think of such a harebrained idea as an enforced marriage in the first place?"
Ry spoke up, somewhat in awe of his wife. "Well, you're the one who pointed out the difference in Winn's behavior, and you're the one who said –"
"Did you not stop to consider the cause of those changes?!" his wife interrupted. "People don't change a lifetime of behavior simply because they wake up one morning and decide to! There has to be a catalyst that makes them stop and think about how they're living their lives. Have none of you even remotely considered what that may have been in your sister's life?" Silence met this question. Cat and her supporters looked disgusted. "When did you first notice a difference in the way that Winn was behaving, Ryan?"
"The day we left Port Royal?"
"Is that a question or an answer?"
"An answer."
"Good." Cat turned to Elizabeth. "Did you notice a change in Winn when she came to visit you?"
"Yes. She seemed to be distracted, as if there was something on her mind that she couldn't stop thinking about."
"Grace? How about you?"
"Oh, yes. On ship she acted as if the children were a refuge for her instead of her being an adored form of entertainment for them."
"Sarah, what did you notice?" Sarah reached up to touch her hair. She pantomimed it falling around her face. "Oh yes, she cut her hair."
Giving each man a quelling look, a warning to keep his mouth shut until her point had been made, Cat continued. "Anyone else have anything they'd like to add to this list? Wearing dresses more often? Skipping mealtimes? Getting rid of her spectacles? We're agreed that these are changes, correct?" The men nodded. "Good, then here's the icing on this badly mixed cake. Winn asked me what love was aboard ship. How an emotion could be recognized. Have none of you noticed that no one asks such a question unless they themselves are falling prey to love?"
This last caught Morgan's attention. "You're tellin' me that my granddaughter has fallen in love?"
"No, we're telling you that she was in the process of admitting that she was falling in love, a process that has undoubtedly been halted due to your heavy-handed decree." All of the women glared unilaterally at the men irrevocably convinced that such incompetence could only be perpetrated by the male of the species.
"If you think that you have so many answers, then why don't you tell me who my granddaughter has fallen in love with?"
"Who did she have a run in with before she started changing?"
The family had settled down to a tense dinner when Alex arrived at Swallows Rest with Winn. It was the most uncomfortable for Will and Jack who hadn't yet been informed of the afternoon's events. The children took no notice of their uncommunicative elders, talking and laughing, and occasionally squabbling among themselves. The first thing any of them knew of their guest was a shout coming from the foyer. "I've found something that I think belongs to you folks! You'd better come claim her before she collapses at my feet."
Setting her napkin down firmly, Cat got up from the table. The other's followed after her to find a shockingly pale Winn being held in the arms of a man with blond, sun-bleached hair. "Oh my goodness! What happened, Alex?" Cat had been introduced to the young man some years before.
Before he could answer, they all heard Winn feebly protesting, "Set me down, Alex. I think I'm capable of standing on my own feet."
"That's why you collapsed the last time I let you try, right?" Winn merely groaned in reply.
"Just because I like you doesn't mean –"
"– that I can get away with that. I know. You've been saying that for years." Alex released Winn to Ryan who had come up at a look from Cat. He leaned over and pecked his friend on the head, saying, "I'll be by tomorrow to hear the story behind all this. It'd better be good, or I shall be severely disappointed in you."
"Ry, take Winn up to her bed. I'll be up in a minute." Watching her brother leave, she asked the man before her, "Where did you find her and how did she manage to get covered in blood?"
"I found her in an alleyway being accosted by three men who seemingly thought she was a cheap prostitute. The blood came from the man she managed to knife before the other two set in. She's gathered a rather impressive goose egg on the back of her head that ought to be looked at before she goes to sleep." Alex nodded to each of the rooms occupants, "Captains Morgan, Mmes. Morgan, guests – I'm afraid that I must take my leave. I'm already running late for a rather important meeting with some rather shady characters. If you will excuse me?" Alex's eyes were caught by a strange man in the back of the group. He pulled them away when the Morgan patriarch stepped forward to bid him goodnight.
"Of course, Captain Thomas. Thank you for returning my granddaughter to us."
"It was my pleasure." And with that, the man let himself out. Jack watched him go with unreadable eyes, wondering just what that man's connection was to Winn.