Author's Note: okay, this took me awhile to post, but that's because I wanted to make sure that it was perfect. There's a lot of skipping forward time-wise. Jack's gone a long time, and I really didn't want to explain how each and every day went – just wanted to give you a taste of how Winn spent her days. This chapter was really just killing time until the next, one of those expletory chapters that every author hates to write, but must so the story flows. Hope you enjoy it.
Please, all of you let me know what you're thinking. I love hearing from you, even if I might have made you mad . . . which I most likely will. Read, you'll find out what I mean.
**************************************************************************************
Last Chapter:
Speaking to the dog as much as to herself, Winn said, "He's coming back. I'm just watching for him." Waiting, watching, and praying – a woman's lot in life. One I hate but can't avoid. She rested a hand against her belly, over the part of her that possibly harbored new life. A life she felt so unqualified to watch over. Waiting. More waiting. But . . . perhaps . . . . Perhaps it'll be all right. Taking a deep breath she thought, It has to be all right. I'll make sure it's all right.
**************************************************************************************
Slowly, ever so slowly, the days and weeks passed. Winn was taking Cat's advice and taking things easy, but doing so left her with so much unused time on her hands. Her days were spent with a mask on. She gardened, drew pictures for the younger children, told stories to all the children, and talked with her family. She still hadn't found a way to tell her brother and grandfather the news of her pregnancy, afraid of how they might react. She was already limiting herself and her activities – she wouldn't be able to bare it if they limited her further. So she smiled and brushed off any concerns over why she wasn't her normal active self.
Her nights were another matter altogether. She slept fitfully, haunted not by dreams of her past, but of her future. In some she was happy, her husband by her side as they watched over a sleeping child. Others were filled with wailing and pleas for a missing husband to come home. And yet others were filled with pain, as she knew that she had once again failed to deliver a healthy child. She took to sleeping on the floor at night. Kept warm by a blanket and her faithful dog, a large pillow cradling her body, she was able to spend hours staring out her window at the sea when her dreams made sleep seem undesirable.
Before she knew it, a month had passed without any word from Jack. It was that afternoon that Ry found her in her bedroom packing a seaman's bag with clothing.
"What do you think you're doing?" He didn't really need to ask, but he thought he would clarify things before he squashed any plans of leaving that his headstrong sister might harbor.
"I'm going after Jack. This is ridiculous. He's sent no word in a month. A month, Ry. It takes a week to reach New Providence from here, and that's if he was being cautious. You said that he was going to send word when he found out where our mystery man was hiding. We've heard nothing." She turned from her packing to face her brother. "I can't take it any more, Ry. You don't know what it's like, always being the one to sail off, but never the one to wait. It shreds your nerves, pricks your mind, corrodes your sanity. No matter how hard you try to focus on other things, the what-ifs are always at the back of your mind, waiting for an opportune moment to rush in and wreak havoc on your tenuous peace of mind. I need to know if he's safe." Her face crumpled as the tears she had fought to suppress made their way out. "I'm so scared that something's happened to him. I have to know, Ry. I can't go on like this. What if he's hurt, or imprisoned, or dead, or simply not coming back? I have to go."
Ry was somewhat alarmed. It had been more years than he could remember since he had seen his little sister cry. She didn't resist as he hugged her, tried to calm her. "Well, I think I can lay a few of your fears to rest. We know he's not imprisoned or dead, because none of the navies in the area would be able to keep from crowing that news from their battlements. You know that. The importance of a catch like Jack Sparrow? Word would sweep the Caribbean like wildfire. The very absence of news should be an assurance that he's still alive." Before she could comment on how that statement lacked the assurance it was supposed to carry, he continued, "And you don't have to fear that he's left you."
"How would you know?"
"Because your oh-so-intelligent husband asked me to pass along a message to you before he left."
That got her attention. She lifted her head from his chest and demanded, "What? What was it?"
"He said, 'Tell Winnie to stay out of trouble and to remember my promise.' What promise are you supposed to remember, Freddy?"
"That . . . that he'd never abandon me when I need him." She sighed and relaxed against him. "I suppose that means that I have to believe him and wait here for him to come back, doesn't it?"
"I suppose."
"So . . . are you still planning on leaving?"
"Not at the moment, but don't you even think for a second that I've abandoned the thought entirely. If I don't get word soon, I will leave. And I will make Jack very sorry that I had to come after him."
The very next day, a dried up old salt approached the manor. He had a sealed letter that he said was meant for Mistress Sparrow. The man at the gate took it and had it brought directly to Winn. When it was delivered to her, Winn immediately excused herself from the conversation she had been having with one of the maids, murmuring something about important news. Going to her room, she locked the door behind her and settled down on her makeshift bed where she could watch the sea as she read.
Opening the missive with hands that trembled slightly, she saw that the writing was Jack's. She stared at the letter with hungry eyes, somewhat unwilling to find out what had been written to her, but needing to know anyway.
Winnie,
I certainly hope this letter finds you faster than I've been able to find this thrice-blasted Greek I've been after. I really hope that it finds you at Swallows Rest, and not on some ship headed for the Bahamas, because if it hasn't, then you and I need to have a long talk about what "I'm not leaving you" means, because we obviously have attached different meanings to the term. Winn smiled, shaking her head at just how well her husband had come to know her. Yeah, I can't believe that I know you that well either, but I'm willing to go with it if it keeps you safe.
I'm sorry that I haven't written sooner, love, but so far my search has been rather disappointing - my prey elusive. I didn't want to write until I had some forward progress to report, but that doesn't seem as if it's going to be possible. I already have the feeling that I may have delayed too long, but I have faith that you're at your Grandfather's. Perhaps not waiting patiently and perhaps cooking up horrible plans for vengeance, but I can live with that. At least I hope I can. You can be downright vindictive when you're in the mood to be. (And you can stop making faces.) Anyway, enough blather.
I don't know how he got word that I was looking for him, but somehow Stephanopoulos found out and he's gone into hiding. Good to know that I have a reputation as someone you don't want to mess with – not helpful when I'm trying to get information from flighty characters. Doesn't give me much respect for the man though. Hiding instead of doing what he can to eliminate the threat to him and his employer? Shows how hard it is to find decent henchmen these days.
I have managed to find out that Stephanopoulos works for a smallish Italian merchant firm, a family run operation. It seems as if their heyday was a decade or two ago, and since then they've been just able to keep their heads above water. A family by the name of "Gandolfi." Sound familiar? I didn't want your guess to be right, but it seems as if our current difficulties do stem from that unfortunate incident you mentioned. I'll do my best to make sure that there are no lasting repercussions, however. And that wasn't a jibe regarding your culpability in all this – just a simple statement. If you must read into it, read that I want to keep you safe from all that I can.
Must go. I have an appointment with a rather unscrupulous barber for a trim. Or at least for a shave. It seems as if I still appear too much the pirate – although not enough for the local militia to take any real interest in my activities. But I want to flush Stephanopoulos out, so a change of appearance does seem to be in order. I've decided that a more "respectable" facade would help to facilitate my mission. I'm not going to let the man touch my hair though – I've spent too many years and dodged Cat's scissors too many times to give it up now.
Sorry I drugged you, Winnie, but you didn't leave me with much of a choice. I need to know that you're safely tucked away, just as you need to know that I'm still safe and evading the law and thinking of you. All of this is simply biding time until it's safe for me to come and fetch you, love, I hope you realize that.
Anamaria says you need to practice that trick throw she was teaching you – it's still as weak as the wine in a cheap alehouse.
I'll write as soon as I have more news.
Remember my promise,
J. Sparrow
Nearly another month passed without any more news from Jack. Winn took up cross-stitch again out of desperation to keep her mind off her absent husband. She eventually started making practice samplers on black fabric since the blood from her pricked fingers was adding an illusion of a massacre to what was simply a disastrous coagulation of tangled threads. Winn also started taking midnight walks on the beach with Pige, sleep at night becoming something she wouldn't even consider unless exhausted. She hadn't been away from her husband for this long since she returned from laying her past to rest in England. She hated it. She wondered if this was how Jack had felt when she had left him and made a mental note to ask him when he came back.
She carried his letter with her most days, needed the reassurance of the last few lines. A reminder to practice a difficult knife trick, a promise of more news when more news was to be had, and an admonition to remember a promise – all written in a few succinct lines. So like Jack.
When she was counting down the last week before Jack would have been gone two months, another missive arrived at the house. This one was shorter than the last, Jack's concealed excitement making itself known in every individual letter.
Winnie,
found the Greek and got the news I wanted. Our mystery man, one "Ignazio Gandolfi" is interred on a nearby island. I won't tell you where for fear that I'll find that you've arrived there before I can. Suffice it to say that I should have this business wrapped up in another week, two at the most. Be watching for me.
Stay out of trouble,
J. Sparrow
With this news, Winn found it easier to sleep at night, knowing that her husband would soon be with her.
The next day she was eating breakfast when her Grandfather emerged from his study. He studied her for a moment before asking, "Winifred, are you putting on weight?" After that, her secret was out, and she was almost glad it was. Her clothing was starting to be less roomy than she preferred, her belly starting to curve out softly – proof of the life within her. There was no doubt as to whether or not she was pregnant. There were just the internal doubts that she was going to be able to carry the child to term, but she didn't voice those. She wouldn't voice those to anyone but the child's father, and he was taking his own sweet time in coming home. "Com'on Jack, you've got people depending on you. Come back."
"I'm sure I have no idea how you managed to talk me into that, Cat," Winn complained as she collapsed into one of the many armchairs in the house's main parlor. "I hate shopping for clothes. Hate it even more than I hate waiting for Jack to come back." Which should be any day now.
"I know you do, dearest, but you're the one who said you wanted to get some new clothes – ones that would help conceal your . . . enhanced figure."
Winn ruefully placed a hand over her belly. By Cat's (and the midwife's) estimation, she was nearly four months along now, and she could believe it – her abdomen was starting to round out, providing growing room for the child within. It wasn't enough to see without careful examination yet, but in another month or so, people would be able to tell she was pregnant without examining her with a hard eye. All that was missing from keeping her content was her continued lack of a husband. He had been gone for nearly three months now, and Winn was starting to settle into a life without him which made her mad. She didn't want to be able to go on without him at her side.
Remembering that Cat was still in the room with her, and was most likely waiting for a reply to her previous comment, Winn said, "Yes, I know I was the one who suggested it. The last thing I want is for Jack to be able to take one look at me and guess the news I have for him. It's just that I hate having to stand through fittings, and having to listen to polite chatter about how 'radiant' I'm looking."
"Winn, we were gone for barely more than two hours. The shops we went to are used to catering to not only unique styles, but to your own tastes. There was no haggling over price, color, or quantity. The seamstresses know you so well that all they had to do was take new measurements and calculate for continued growth. You were sitting most of the time. What exactly are you complaining about?"
"The memory of past visits?"
Cat rolled her eyes. "You're incorrigible."
"So I've been told. I'm also hungry – don't forget that in your assessment of my character."
"You're always hungry."
"That's not my fault, now is it?"
Another week passed in this manner with Winn getting more and more fidgety with each passing day. No matter how hard she stared at the ocean outside her window or listened for a knock at the door, Jack didn't show up and neither did any more ancient mariners baring notes.
Three weeks to the day after Jack had said he would be back (at the latest), Ry once again caught Winn musing over travel arrangements. "Oh no, there is absolutely no way that I am going to let you off this island, Freddy, so stop thinking about it."
She ignored this declaration. "Something's wrong, Ry," she said in a faint, distracted voice. "I know there is. There was some variable or element of Jack's great plan that turned on him. And I don't even know where he is, or was, or was headed. There's too much at stake for me to sit by and twiddle my thumbs as I wait for a capricious fate to inform me of recent events."
"There too much at stake for you to go haring off," he shot back, staring pointedly at her stomach. "Or are you forgetting one important little detail?"
"I'm not forgetting my state of health, Ry. I never forget. I've been so good, taking things easy, letting others do things for me that I would never let them do if I were my normal self." She crossed her arms over her chest and started pacing the room. "But I'm not Penelope, Ry! I can't wait idly by, weaving and reweaving the same piece of cloth for ten years as I wait for my seafaring husband to return. I might as well weave my own burial shroud because that would be the death of me. That man will be the death of me."
"Let me go then." Winn stopped her pacing and looked at her brother quizzically. "Give me a week at sea to conduct a basic search, and if I find nothing, I'll come back and . . ." he hesitated over what he was going to say, but in the end could stop himself. ". . . and we'll both go to Nassau to see if we can track down your errant spouse."
"Is that a promise? Or are you simply trying to placate the temperamental pregnant woman?"
Ry muttered under his breath, "There's nothing simple about pregnant women." Seeing Winn glare at him, however, he answered her question. "I promise, even though both Grandfather and Cat will have my head for it." Holding up a hand to underscore his words he said, "But I'm only doing this because I have faith that the Black Pearl and your captain will be showing up here any day now."
Winn stood in the middle of the room, her hands slowly clenching and unclenching at her sides in indecision and nervousness. "You swear upon the graves of out parents that you'll keep your word?" He nodded, understanding her agitation all too well to take offense at her doubts. "Very well, we have an agreement. I'll stay here until either you or my husband return." She held out a hand for them to shake on this. He did, and then left to break the news to his wife and to gather his crew.
That night Winn dreamed of sparrows. While she and Jack had been sailing on their wedding trip, they had seen natives in Sri Lanka trapping groundbirds with large nets. In her dream the same method was being used, but the birds being caught were sparrows. She watched them furiously beat their wings, trying to escape the silken prison, but all they succeeded in doing was tiring themselves out. Finally only one bird was still trying to escape. It was unsuccessful until another, larger bird came along and ripped the net open. It and the lone sparrow flew off, but a man stepped out of the shadows of her mind and shot at the bigger bird. She heard a cry of pain, but couldn't tell if the bird had been killed or merely injured.
She awoke to find streaks of lighting making their way down the sky and rain beating against the window. Rubbing her face with her hands, she wished that Jack had never taken it into his head to start calling her his little Kestrel.
Grandfather keeps homing pigeons. Maybe I should have insisted that Jack take some with him, even if it meant agreeing to stay behind from the start. At least that way he would have a method of regular communication, and I wouldn't be sitting around nearly out of my mind with worry. What had started out as a day of sketching had degenerated into an afternoon of pulling weeds and trimming plants. One of the side gardens had been shamefully neglected, and Winn couldn't help herself from taking matters in hand. It was about all she could take into hand these days. Ry was due back in four days' time and all Winn could do was worry about what news he might come back with, which was driving her mad. That was how she had come to be working on her hands and knees, grinding mud into the skirt of her dress, and sweating enough for her loose hair to stick to her face. She was hoping that physical labor would tire her out enough that she might sleep uninterrupted that night.
She was working on taming a particularly wild rose bush when a shadow fell over her, claiming her attention. She looked up, shielding her eyes against the sun. It was Cat. "What is it?" In all the years that she had known the older woman, she had never seen Cat's face so empty of emotion.
"You have visitors at the main house." For a moment Winn felt relief fill her. She had been afraid that something had happened to Ry as he was out doing a favor for her. Cat held out a hand to help Winn to her feet. "Grandfather told me to come and fetch you."
Not bothering to ask any more questions, Winn walked back to the house as quickly as she could without breaking into a run. She knew that these "visitors" must have something to do with her husband. Please, let everything be all right. Entering the house through the kitchen, she heard familiar voices coming from Morgan's study. When she recognized whom the voices belonged to, she did break into a run. She didn't, couldn't understand why she would hear Anamaria and Gibbs, but not Jack.
The three sailors in the room turned when they heard Winn appear in the doorway. She was covered in dirt and grass-stains, strands of her unbound hair sticking damply to her face, her eyes ignoring the small group in favor of trying to discover if the room held anyone else. After confirming that Jack was not in the room, she asked in a voice choked with emotion, "Where is he? Where's Jack?" Gibbs and Anamaria looked at each other, and then back at their captain's wife, their eyes calm.
A chilling sense of fatalism flowed over Winn, freezing her racing heart and sending it plummeting although she barely noticed. "He's not here, is he?"
"No, miss." Gibbs was the one to answer her.
"Where is he? Where's the Pearl?" Morgan's private room overlooked the cove before the house where ships connected to family were free to take harbor. The cove was empty. Jack never takes a berth in the town. He always takes anchorage here.
"Well . . . ." Gibbs was unsure of what to say. Best to tell the plain unadorned truth, he thought. But before he could open his mouth, Anamaria beat him to the punch line.
"The Pearl is near destroyed, her captain lost." Anger laced the female pirate's words.
All three people watched a small tremor work its way through Winn's body, watched her mouth open and close helplessly and silently, and jumped forward as the woman slumped to the floor, unable to support herself under the weight of this news.
**************************************************************************************
Okay, please don't hate me for that. Please have faith in me. The story will continue with either a full chapter or an interlude up by late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
Author Thanks: jackfan2, ao_hoshi, jigglycat, Ginny-Star, mooney, completeopposites, Clover the Sea-Beast, Saiya-gurl, bobo3, SuzzieQue, captainsparrowsfeistylass, Eledhwen, KawaiiRyu, BeBe, ScratchyCat
