First off, it's been a terribly long time since I updated this, and I certainly shouldn't be doing it
right now. I have finals this week, and by all rights I should be studying, not relaxing with fanfic.
But that doesn't really matter. I proudly present you with:
*Chapter Five*
Jack Sparrow had never previously considered sleep a talent, but he was starting to be quite
impressed with young Miss Turner's ability. Really, it was amazing.
She could sleep for days, he reckoned, and grinned. And she'd missed dinner for the second time
of his ship.
He looked at her, Anamaria's old bunk an island in a sea of mending, sleeping peacefully but
looking slightly peevish. Either she was hungry, or that nasty dress was making her as miserable
as Elizabeth's had. She lay, rather delicately, on her side, swathes of crumpled skirt flowing on
either
Either way, he reasoned, he was probably in the right waking her up.
Once again, he needed somebody to talk to, and she was the only one who didn't actually have to
up early in the morning. He didn't have to justify it, did he? She was on his ship, and he was in
charge. Anyway, she should be grateful that she was here, safe and sound. His dark eyes drifted to
her hands; rather rawer, they were, than hands were generally meant to be. Safe-ish and sound-
ish, anyway. Better than she could possibly have expected on most pirate ships, anyway. So he
shouldn't really feel guilty, waking her. But she looked so peaceful...
Lilian turned, slightly, and murmured something, and let the blanket fall a little further from her
torso, revealing a very nice view. Perhaps he ought to wake her up after all.
She frowned a little, in her sleep, and a hand crept to the front of her bodice, tugging weakly at it
as if to free her chest from the bone-and-iron prison.
Should wake her up, then, if only to help her out of that contraption.
Her hand fell away, and lay, slightly curled, at her side, and she turned again.
Her hair fell down past her shoulder blades, slightly curly, a dark brown, like Will's. Most of it has
escaped its untidy braid. Her dark eyes were veiled behind long, dark lashes. Her lips, full and
delicate, like Elizabeth's, parted slightly, and she sighed.
Hadn't actually decided -how- he was going to wake her, after all.
And the girl was quite a sound sleeper.
Jack was a pirate, after all, and, though his honor definitely existed, it was also very fond of him.
A little kiss wouldn't hurt, after all. Maybe the gel wouldn't even wake up. Maybe she would.
Maybe it would earn him a clobber and a week of sulking, but it was worth it to find out.
So he knelt, a little awkwardly, by Anamaria's bunk, and slipped an arm underneath her shoulders,
turning her slowly until she faced him. He smoothed the hair from her face, tracing the line of her
cheek until his fingers rested beneath her jaw.
And he kissed her.
Slow and gentle; wouldn't do to jolt the little kitten out of dreamland too quickly, would it? She
was soft and warm and angelically peaceful. He would have grinned, had his mouth not been
otherwise occupied. She shifted closer to him, sighing a little, but remained asleep.
He had taken the one risk tonight. Inwardly, he shrugged, and decided to push his luck a bit
further. Stronger, deeper let the hand at her jaw trace downward, let the hand beneath her
shoulders come up and tangle in her hair and give him a little more control.
Still sleeping, by the gods. Perhaps he ought to start getting insulted. But she was purring, softly,
and snuggling closer to him by the minute.
He might have been safe; might have untangled her from his arms and left her to what would now
be extremely pleasant dreams. But the fates, or, perhaps, the Black Pearl, have far too much
humor.
The boat rocked, in a sudden wind or a sudden wave, he wasn't sure, just as the warm, sleepy
kitten edged a few inches closer to the edge of the bed, and, with a sharp thump that did no
kindness to his left elbow, the both spilled backwards.
It could have been worse. Anamaria's bunk was not very high, and Jack Sparrow has a pile of dirty
canvas to break his fall. And, of course, Lilian Turner had Jack Sparrow to break hers.
Fuzzy with sleep, stiff and constricted by her dress, she could do little more than roll off his chest
and drag herself into a sitting position and stare quizzically at the Captain. He sat up, looking
rather more dazed than a simple tumble should have made him, and he seemed not at all inclined to
move.
"Was trying to wake you, darling," he said cheerfully. "Dreadfully deep sleeper, you are. I was
starting to think you'd been poisoned."
"I don't recall falling asleep on the floor," she said, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it. "And
I'm not usually such a sound sleeper. Anyway, why did you want to wake me?"
"Only sleep soundly on the sea, don't you," he murmured, and she nodded. "Anyways, I thought
you might like a spot of dinner, as you seem to have slept through it again."
"You -said- you'd wake me," she pointed out.
"I did wake you."
"For dinner."
He smiled, cheerfully; it made his face look disturbingly young. "Dinner it is, milady," he said, and
took her by the hand.
His cabin was elegant, ancient and messy. Coins, maps, papers and other odds and ends were
swept carelessly to the floor as he cleared the table for her. Barbossa had made his mark on this
room, and Jack was still in the process of cleaning him from it.
Dinner consisted of cold potato stew, spicy and rather good, dry-but-tolerable biscuits and a bottle
of old, cloudy wine. A bowl of fruit rather decadent, for a pirate's ship sat in the middle of the
table. Lilian ate quietly she entered the waking world slowly, and wasn't up for conversation.
Jack, too, seemed lost in thought.
Staring at some point on the wall, he reached for the fruit bowl, and removed an orange, which he
began to idly toss from hand to hand. He seemed, for a few minutes, content with his game; the he
reached, and purloined another orange and an apple and began to juggle.
The fruit arced and spun. Jack, like any good performer, paid little attention to it. His beat was a
little uneven, and he occasionally stretched to catch a wayward orb, but he didn't let a single fruit
fall.
At some point, Lilian had left her food and now she was watching him appraisingly. His faraway
look vanished, and he smiled and winked at her. "Impressed?"
"Sorry," she said, with half a grin. "Can't oblige. I can do that too."
"Oh? Let's have a demonstration then."
He tossed an orange to her, and she caught it in her left hand easily. The other two fruit followed,
each a bit harder to catch. Concentrating, Lilian began.
She tossed ranges and apple from hand to hand with just as much ease as Jack had; in fact,
showing off, she speeded up a bit, adding a fancy twist to each spin.
He was not to be outdone. He rose from his chair and grabbed more fruit from the bowl and began
to juggle in tandem with her. Across the table, Lilian rose as well, letting her fruit move in wider
circles, and he followed suit.
She fumbled a catch, and instead of letting her apple drop, she batted it towards him. Without
missing a beat, he caught it, sending an orange across the table to her in its place.
Six fruit were in the air, flying from hand to hand, from Jack to Lilian and from Lilian to Jack in
ever more complex patterns. At some point he had grabbed a few more fruits, and added them to
the mix, at which point Lilian was starting to get overwhelmed.
Finally, a pineapple, of all things, flew towards her at an alarming pace, and she dropped her
current jug to deflect it. Jack, snickering, lost track of his own pattern. The stared at the carnage
around them; at least eight or nine fruits were scattered across the table and around each player, in
various stages of squished and bruising. Jack idly picked up a bruised and bleeding apple and
examined it carefully, distracting himself from the strangely talented young lady who was gathering
oranges from his cabin flood and laughing to herself, albeit a tad nervously. After all, where -does-
one go from a midnight juggling match, particularly when one party had recently stolen an
oblivious, if rather nice, kiss from the other?
"How did you learn to do that?" he asked curiously.
"Taught myself," she said idly. "And after that, it impressed the little ones so much that I kept it
up. How did you learn?"
"Don't rightly remember. But it's fun, isn't it?"
"You...don't remember?"
He didn't seem to be paying any attention now. "Memory's an odd thing, kitten." He held his apple
up to a candle as one might an egg.
For a long, strange moment, she stared at him, perplexed, as he seemed once again to gaze off into
the distance.
"Eh?"
He smiled, faintly. "Oh, '...a man can remember the world beyond the horizon, and the dark side of
the moon, but not what he ate for breakfast.'"
"You've seen the dark side of the moon?" she asked quietly, trying not to snap him out of his
reverie.
"Hmm?" He turned. "Nah, kitten. I was quoting."
"Quoting who?"
"Don't remember. Me, mebbe. Does it matter?" He flung out a dramatic arm, as if to expound a
dramatic Shakespearean monologue, and said: "Sun's about to rise. And crew, too, come to think
of it. How long have you been wearing that dress?"
"Um. Nearly two days."
"Isn't it uncomfortable?"
"Very."
"Feel free to borrow Anamaria's old clothes. You're a bit shorter than her, but you should be able
to manage."
"I would love to," Lilian said. "If I could get this miserable getup off in the first place."
He grinned, and, Lilian frowned in annoyance. It had taken two days and a very roundabout
conversation to come to this: she wouldn't ask for his help and he wouldn't offer it, but the
understanding had been reached.
"At your service, milady," he said softly, reaching for her hand. "Although we should probably
return to your cabin first."
Lilian blushed, more at his touch than his insinuations. But the next thing she knew, she was back
in her mess of a cabin, while Jack Sparrow was deftly and slowly unlacing her corset.
"Tie your hair up, darling, I'm having a bit of trouble," he said, and the long dark curls were swept
up and secured with a bit of string she'd picked up somewhere. It left an expanse of creamy back
and shoulders visible above the low back of her dress.
She couldn't see him, that was the problem. Couldn't see, but she could feel him, warm and strong
and almost safe, and he left his fingers run down her spine, and she shivered. There was a quiet
"hmm" behind her, and he did it again, and then, as if there was no subterfuge going on, continued
plucking at the last of the laces, until several pounds of dress slid to the floor at Lilian's feet and
she turned to face him, which might not have been the best idea.
He was scant inches away from her, and her eyes were level with his chest. His eyes were on -her-
chest, and she was standing before him in a thin white cotton slip, designed more to keep scratchy
fabric from her skin that for any actual concealment. She flushed, and tried to back away.
Between the mending filling the cabin and her newly relinquished dress, she was standing in nearly
a full foot of fabric. Backing away was not an option.
Falling ungracefully with a soft thump on her rear, however, was.
Jack, true to his nature, laughed out loud. "I -do- keep you off-balance, don't I, kitten?"
"Jack Sparrow, you are an ass."
"Captain."
"Captain Jack Sparrow, you are an ass. Thank you," she added, as he hoisted her up. She laughed,
for the first time since she'd arrived on his ship, a true, joyful laugh. "Now go away, and do
something captain-ly."
"Why?"
"Because I need to change, and I am -not- doing it with you here."
"Even if I ask nicely?"
One good push propelled him out the door, which was promptly shut behind him.
"No," she said cheerfully. "Not yet, at any rate." And Lilian turned to root through the trunk of
musty clothes for something more suitable for a pirate ship.
right now. I have finals this week, and by all rights I should be studying, not relaxing with fanfic.
But that doesn't really matter. I proudly present you with:
*Chapter Five*
Jack Sparrow had never previously considered sleep a talent, but he was starting to be quite
impressed with young Miss Turner's ability. Really, it was amazing.
She could sleep for days, he reckoned, and grinned. And she'd missed dinner for the second time
of his ship.
He looked at her, Anamaria's old bunk an island in a sea of mending, sleeping peacefully but
looking slightly peevish. Either she was hungry, or that nasty dress was making her as miserable
as Elizabeth's had. She lay, rather delicately, on her side, swathes of crumpled skirt flowing on
either
Either way, he reasoned, he was probably in the right waking her up.
Once again, he needed somebody to talk to, and she was the only one who didn't actually have to
up early in the morning. He didn't have to justify it, did he? She was on his ship, and he was in
charge. Anyway, she should be grateful that she was here, safe and sound. His dark eyes drifted to
her hands; rather rawer, they were, than hands were generally meant to be. Safe-ish and sound-
ish, anyway. Better than she could possibly have expected on most pirate ships, anyway. So he
shouldn't really feel guilty, waking her. But she looked so peaceful...
Lilian turned, slightly, and murmured something, and let the blanket fall a little further from her
torso, revealing a very nice view. Perhaps he ought to wake her up after all.
She frowned a little, in her sleep, and a hand crept to the front of her bodice, tugging weakly at it
as if to free her chest from the bone-and-iron prison.
Should wake her up, then, if only to help her out of that contraption.
Her hand fell away, and lay, slightly curled, at her side, and she turned again.
Her hair fell down past her shoulder blades, slightly curly, a dark brown, like Will's. Most of it has
escaped its untidy braid. Her dark eyes were veiled behind long, dark lashes. Her lips, full and
delicate, like Elizabeth's, parted slightly, and she sighed.
Hadn't actually decided -how- he was going to wake her, after all.
And the girl was quite a sound sleeper.
Jack was a pirate, after all, and, though his honor definitely existed, it was also very fond of him.
A little kiss wouldn't hurt, after all. Maybe the gel wouldn't even wake up. Maybe she would.
Maybe it would earn him a clobber and a week of sulking, but it was worth it to find out.
So he knelt, a little awkwardly, by Anamaria's bunk, and slipped an arm underneath her shoulders,
turning her slowly until she faced him. He smoothed the hair from her face, tracing the line of her
cheek until his fingers rested beneath her jaw.
And he kissed her.
Slow and gentle; wouldn't do to jolt the little kitten out of dreamland too quickly, would it? She
was soft and warm and angelically peaceful. He would have grinned, had his mouth not been
otherwise occupied. She shifted closer to him, sighing a little, but remained asleep.
He had taken the one risk tonight. Inwardly, he shrugged, and decided to push his luck a bit
further. Stronger, deeper let the hand at her jaw trace downward, let the hand beneath her
shoulders come up and tangle in her hair and give him a little more control.
Still sleeping, by the gods. Perhaps he ought to start getting insulted. But she was purring, softly,
and snuggling closer to him by the minute.
He might have been safe; might have untangled her from his arms and left her to what would now
be extremely pleasant dreams. But the fates, or, perhaps, the Black Pearl, have far too much
humor.
The boat rocked, in a sudden wind or a sudden wave, he wasn't sure, just as the warm, sleepy
kitten edged a few inches closer to the edge of the bed, and, with a sharp thump that did no
kindness to his left elbow, the both spilled backwards.
It could have been worse. Anamaria's bunk was not very high, and Jack Sparrow has a pile of dirty
canvas to break his fall. And, of course, Lilian Turner had Jack Sparrow to break hers.
Fuzzy with sleep, stiff and constricted by her dress, she could do little more than roll off his chest
and drag herself into a sitting position and stare quizzically at the Captain. He sat up, looking
rather more dazed than a simple tumble should have made him, and he seemed not at all inclined to
move.
"Was trying to wake you, darling," he said cheerfully. "Dreadfully deep sleeper, you are. I was
starting to think you'd been poisoned."
"I don't recall falling asleep on the floor," she said, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it. "And
I'm not usually such a sound sleeper. Anyway, why did you want to wake me?"
"Only sleep soundly on the sea, don't you," he murmured, and she nodded. "Anyways, I thought
you might like a spot of dinner, as you seem to have slept through it again."
"You -said- you'd wake me," she pointed out.
"I did wake you."
"For dinner."
He smiled, cheerfully; it made his face look disturbingly young. "Dinner it is, milady," he said, and
took her by the hand.
His cabin was elegant, ancient and messy. Coins, maps, papers and other odds and ends were
swept carelessly to the floor as he cleared the table for her. Barbossa had made his mark on this
room, and Jack was still in the process of cleaning him from it.
Dinner consisted of cold potato stew, spicy and rather good, dry-but-tolerable biscuits and a bottle
of old, cloudy wine. A bowl of fruit rather decadent, for a pirate's ship sat in the middle of the
table. Lilian ate quietly she entered the waking world slowly, and wasn't up for conversation.
Jack, too, seemed lost in thought.
Staring at some point on the wall, he reached for the fruit bowl, and removed an orange, which he
began to idly toss from hand to hand. He seemed, for a few minutes, content with his game; the he
reached, and purloined another orange and an apple and began to juggle.
The fruit arced and spun. Jack, like any good performer, paid little attention to it. His beat was a
little uneven, and he occasionally stretched to catch a wayward orb, but he didn't let a single fruit
fall.
At some point, Lilian had left her food and now she was watching him appraisingly. His faraway
look vanished, and he smiled and winked at her. "Impressed?"
"Sorry," she said, with half a grin. "Can't oblige. I can do that too."
"Oh? Let's have a demonstration then."
He tossed an orange to her, and she caught it in her left hand easily. The other two fruit followed,
each a bit harder to catch. Concentrating, Lilian began.
She tossed ranges and apple from hand to hand with just as much ease as Jack had; in fact,
showing off, she speeded up a bit, adding a fancy twist to each spin.
He was not to be outdone. He rose from his chair and grabbed more fruit from the bowl and began
to juggle in tandem with her. Across the table, Lilian rose as well, letting her fruit move in wider
circles, and he followed suit.
She fumbled a catch, and instead of letting her apple drop, she batted it towards him. Without
missing a beat, he caught it, sending an orange across the table to her in its place.
Six fruit were in the air, flying from hand to hand, from Jack to Lilian and from Lilian to Jack in
ever more complex patterns. At some point he had grabbed a few more fruits, and added them to
the mix, at which point Lilian was starting to get overwhelmed.
Finally, a pineapple, of all things, flew towards her at an alarming pace, and she dropped her
current jug to deflect it. Jack, snickering, lost track of his own pattern. The stared at the carnage
around them; at least eight or nine fruits were scattered across the table and around each player, in
various stages of squished and bruising. Jack idly picked up a bruised and bleeding apple and
examined it carefully, distracting himself from the strangely talented young lady who was gathering
oranges from his cabin flood and laughing to herself, albeit a tad nervously. After all, where -does-
one go from a midnight juggling match, particularly when one party had recently stolen an
oblivious, if rather nice, kiss from the other?
"How did you learn to do that?" he asked curiously.
"Taught myself," she said idly. "And after that, it impressed the little ones so much that I kept it
up. How did you learn?"
"Don't rightly remember. But it's fun, isn't it?"
"You...don't remember?"
He didn't seem to be paying any attention now. "Memory's an odd thing, kitten." He held his apple
up to a candle as one might an egg.
For a long, strange moment, she stared at him, perplexed, as he seemed once again to gaze off into
the distance.
"Eh?"
He smiled, faintly. "Oh, '...a man can remember the world beyond the horizon, and the dark side of
the moon, but not what he ate for breakfast.'"
"You've seen the dark side of the moon?" she asked quietly, trying not to snap him out of his
reverie.
"Hmm?" He turned. "Nah, kitten. I was quoting."
"Quoting who?"
"Don't remember. Me, mebbe. Does it matter?" He flung out a dramatic arm, as if to expound a
dramatic Shakespearean monologue, and said: "Sun's about to rise. And crew, too, come to think
of it. How long have you been wearing that dress?"
"Um. Nearly two days."
"Isn't it uncomfortable?"
"Very."
"Feel free to borrow Anamaria's old clothes. You're a bit shorter than her, but you should be able
to manage."
"I would love to," Lilian said. "If I could get this miserable getup off in the first place."
He grinned, and, Lilian frowned in annoyance. It had taken two days and a very roundabout
conversation to come to this: she wouldn't ask for his help and he wouldn't offer it, but the
understanding had been reached.
"At your service, milady," he said softly, reaching for her hand. "Although we should probably
return to your cabin first."
Lilian blushed, more at his touch than his insinuations. But the next thing she knew, she was back
in her mess of a cabin, while Jack Sparrow was deftly and slowly unlacing her corset.
"Tie your hair up, darling, I'm having a bit of trouble," he said, and the long dark curls were swept
up and secured with a bit of string she'd picked up somewhere. It left an expanse of creamy back
and shoulders visible above the low back of her dress.
She couldn't see him, that was the problem. Couldn't see, but she could feel him, warm and strong
and almost safe, and he left his fingers run down her spine, and she shivered. There was a quiet
"hmm" behind her, and he did it again, and then, as if there was no subterfuge going on, continued
plucking at the last of the laces, until several pounds of dress slid to the floor at Lilian's feet and
she turned to face him, which might not have been the best idea.
He was scant inches away from her, and her eyes were level with his chest. His eyes were on -her-
chest, and she was standing before him in a thin white cotton slip, designed more to keep scratchy
fabric from her skin that for any actual concealment. She flushed, and tried to back away.
Between the mending filling the cabin and her newly relinquished dress, she was standing in nearly
a full foot of fabric. Backing away was not an option.
Falling ungracefully with a soft thump on her rear, however, was.
Jack, true to his nature, laughed out loud. "I -do- keep you off-balance, don't I, kitten?"
"Jack Sparrow, you are an ass."
"Captain."
"Captain Jack Sparrow, you are an ass. Thank you," she added, as he hoisted her up. She laughed,
for the first time since she'd arrived on his ship, a true, joyful laugh. "Now go away, and do
something captain-ly."
"Why?"
"Because I need to change, and I am -not- doing it with you here."
"Even if I ask nicely?"
One good push propelled him out the door, which was promptly shut behind him.
"No," she said cheerfully. "Not yet, at any rate." And Lilian turned to root through the trunk of
musty clothes for something more suitable for a pirate ship.