A/N: This chapter is a little weird, as it contains some Liz/Jack confrontation. I hope it doesn't bother any of you too much...
Jack and Lizzie both had a rather hard time of getting to sleep that night. At around two in the morning, Jack had voiced the opinion that the sugar from the donuts and the caffeine from the several cans of Coke Classing they had chugged in the earlier part of the evening had given their bodies a permanent buzz. One that might last for the next twenty years.
Sleep continued to elude them, and casual conversation was slowly started as the early morning hours grew closer and closer. Idle chitchat. Nothing remotely interesting, until Lizzie asked a rather off-topic question:
"Where did you get all your money, Jack?"
"What?" An automatic answer, although a question shouldn't really qualify as an answer to another question... he threw himself offguard for a moment by his own mental calculations. He always seemed more alert when he didn't have any rum... and he didn't like it one bit.
"Well... I mean, you haven't really gone to work or anything this whole time I've been with you, and yet you have enough money to fly the both of us to Jamaica, where we stayed in a very nice hotel... and you have enough money to fly us both from Jamaica to Las Vegas, where we stay in Caesar's Palace. It just doesn't make sense... unless you obtain all of your finances illegally..."
Through this little observation Lizzie spoke very quickly, as though she were afraid he would interject. And as she finished, Jack saw the shadowy outline of his companion sit up in bed, her tangled hair adding distortion to the ill-defined figure.
"The only reason I'm saying this," she continued, barely allowing herself time to draw breath, "is because you had no qualms about kidnapping me. It makes me wonder what other things you're capable of."
Jack stared at the inside of his eyelids for a moment, not quite sure what to say. The truth had never been one of his favorite options, although now it seemed like the right thing... But if she found out how he got all his money -- swindling famous idiots -- and he allowed her to return home, he'd be locked up. Hadn't he taken them to America to avoid being locked up? Hadn't he been trying to safeguard himself, and the girl he had abducted? Hadn't he been running -- no, avoiding the law to emancipate both he and Lizzie from responsibilities? Wasn't this a completely selfless act?
No,
Wasn't this a nearly completely selfless act?
No...
Wasn't he being kind to her by saving her from the evils of controlled environments?
No.
What was he being, then? A blasted lunatic and a bloody prat?
Yes,
Drat... And she deserved to know how he came to acquire his funds -- even though it wasn't her life and it would normally be none of her bleeding business?
Yes.
Double drat.
"I'm not a stinkin' hit man, if that's what you mean," he said with a sigh. "And even if I were, would you want to know?"
Pause.
"I suppose I would," she replied, "so that I'd know I was most likely in danger..." She leaned over to the nightstand and turned on a lamp. "What is it you do occupate yourself with, then?"
"You're still afraid of what I might be capable of?"
"Very,"
She stared at him from the other bed, her eyes gleaming with a slightly fearful curiosity. The need to tell the truth was eating at his brain. Subconscious morality, he thought bitterly. I really must stop watching those blasted made-for-TV movies...
"If you really want to know," he said. "I... well..." I steal films, songs, and software and make them available to people for free. Then I wait around until someone gets hacked off and offers to pay me a very nice sum of money to leave their property alone until it's legally released. How hard is that to say?
"I had an incredibly wealthy grandmother who happened to be very fond of my cheeky ways. She left me all of her inheritance,"
Apparently, very hard.
"And the briefcase I first saw you with?" Lizzie pressed.
"That was a few weeks after dear old Gran passed..." he said, making sure he sounded quite forlorn.
She gave him a very peeved look. "As original and slightly touching as that story is," she said, "I know you're lying. Over the phone with Gibbs you said your occupation would get you jailed... Since you don't seem to want to share your real job with me, I'll be forced to assume the worst."
"Which is...?"
"That you are, in fact, a 'hit man' -- and the evidence of that lies not only in the threats you make, but also to the fact that you seem to make light of death."
"Well, aren't you an observant little thing,"
"I have to be," she said, her words containing a certain degree of melancholy now. "I'm kidnapped, terribly afraid of my abductor, and... And I think I want to go home."
This triggered anger in Jack, for some unknown reason, and he found himself sitting up in his bed as well. "Home?" he said, as though the very idea were preposterous. "Do you have any idea what'll happen if you go home?"
"I'll be safe," she said through gritted teeth. "And I won't have to put up with lying, vicious dogs like you."
"No, you won't have to put up with people like me," he shot back. "But you will have to put up with being locked in your house, because your father will not let you out of the house when he finds out you were kidnapped by a forty-year-old man and dragged all over the world. You'll be kept in a nice glass cabinet made for life-sized pocelain dolls, and you'll be married to the first idiot your father approves of. You'll lead a life that consists of doting on said husband and having excessive amounts of children until you're too old and too tired to carry on any longer. If you're lucky, you'll be driven to suicide before you hit fifty, but if your luck runs out -- which it probably will -- your attempts will be fruitless, and you'll find yourself forced to spend up to seventy years with your arranged husband.
"Do you really want that, Miss Elizabeth Swann?"
She stared at him, her eyes wide. "Heavens, Jack," she said slowly, her voice very quiet. "One would almost think that you didn't want me to leave."
"Yeah... I did see a couple that looked awfully like those two," said a flight attendant, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at Will, who was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable. "They were on my flight, actually... To America. I think I heard the girl saying that they were headed to Las Vegas sometime during the trip..."
Will smiled, amazed at the luck he was having. If only Norrington could see him now!
"Thank you, Miss," he said, shaking her hand. "You have no idea how grateful the United Kingdom's police force is for your services."
"Anytime," the flight attendant replied with a smile... a smile that seemed a little too friendly for Will's liking. He decided to get himself out of there.
"Right," he said, nodding at her. "Well... thanks again."
And before the flight attendant could make a move on this English Muffin, he was off searching for the fastest flight to Las Vegas, Nevada.
I'm sorry, but I have to delay that A/N... It'll come next, I promise! And now I have to go deal with a brother who thinks he needs to act like the Spawn of Satan... *sighs in despair*