Milady*Sparrow: Wow! Thank you, that was such a sweet review! and YAY, I'm on someone's fav. author list! *does the
dance of joy*. I hope you continue to enjoy it :).
*6*
The night had closed in for a second time without Jack or Jade leaving his cabin. Both crews had taken to making
sniggering suggestions about exactly what WAS going on behind the closed door, which only served to increase Will's
personal concerns. "It's Jack isn't it lad? He's never been unobliging with pretty young gals" said Gibbs. "Cap'n
Quinn'll eat your Jack lad alive!" sneered one of the girls from the Sea Demon, laughing at the offended look on Gibb's
face.
In fact, actions inside the cabin were perfectly respectable, if a little cluttered. Maps, routes and scraps of paper
smothered the small room, with the two of them pouring over one map laid out across the table.
"Then it would be best to go across the Cavernous Slope..."
"The Cavernous Slope? The rocks there are like daggers! What's wrong with going across here?" exclaimed Jade, leaning
down and tracing her preferred route around the slope with a finger. Jack blew a large section of her hair that was
getting in his way to one side before shaking his head, "The sea around there's too unpredictable, and the winds we've
been having would end up with you being carried miles off course.". She raised a challenging eyebrow "Don't think I
can handle a storm or two Jack Sparrow?" she retorted, eyes sparkling with barely concealed humour. "It doesn't matter
what I think. It's the Captain who has to do the thinking when you're on an expedition, and since I'm not going to be
on this expedition, nor doing the thinking, then I think I'll have to do less of the thinking for you, so you can rely
on your own thinking." he said swiftly, raising his eyebrows sarcastically in return. She grinned slightly and rolled
her eyes. He had always tried to do that to her in the past, confuse her with his silvery tongue, talking in riddles, or
at least so fast that all he said seemed like riddles. "Ahhh but I know that you didn't go over the Cavernous Slope
yourself last time" she replied, grinning knowingly.
He flopped back down in his chair and viewed her suspiciously, his kohl-smudged eyes wary and calculating. "How d'you
know what route I did or did not take?" he said finally, his tone subtly edged with steel. She shrugged, affecting a
casual attitude as she sat on the table. "When I heard the Pearl was headin' to Port Royale, the same port you were at,
I sent Gretchen, a girl from my crew, to keep an eye on things. To save your drunken hide if necessary, to tell me what
was goin' on, pay for informers about the place so I'd know what happened to the Pearl. 'Course I wasn't expectin' Will
and Liz to get involved. I never thought Barbossa would find Bootstrap's boy." Jack left his questioning regarding
Jade's knowledge of what had gone on for another time, as well as his objections to his 'drunken hide' needing to be
saved. Other questions he wanted answered demanded attention.
"Why did you never try and contact me?"
She smirked unpleasantly, not meeting his gaze and picking at her boot. She became painfully aware of his hot stare that
never seemed to leave her, but refused to meet it. It had been years, and she wasn't a fool enough to think she
mattered more than dirt to a pirate who had never displayed attachment to anything other than rum, wild living, and his
precious ship.
"Honestly? I didn't think you'd remember me." she said finally, through meticulously gritted teeth that maintained a
blank voice, filtering out feeling. Still refusing to look at him, she missed the flicker of disbelief across his face.
How could he forget her? She was one of the Lost Dead he quietly mourned every day, though no one would ever know it.
She was... Jade.
"I've thought about you over the years." he said after a pause, leaning closer. She let out a snort of laughter,
wrenching her hat off and throwing it on the bed, shaking her hair out. "Was that after the first or last bottle of rum
of an evenin'? Or in between the fiftieth and fifty first whore's bed you've lounged in?" she said derisively, the
tirade seeming far less righteous when her brain desperately requested a bottle of the afore-mentioned rum. Jack
ignored this comment, slowly untangling the earring from his mussed hair and flicking it through his fingers. "I thought
about the talks we used to have at night when the rest of the crew was asleep. I thought about how you could down more
rum than half of the men I've ever met. Most of all, I thought of how a girl who was too scared to protect herself,
found strength enough to protect me." He gripped her wrist tightly as she continued to elude his gaze, forcing her to
look at him. "Why save someone like me when you wouldn't even save yourself?"
Her eyes misted slightly, and she shook her head before shrugging "I don't know. You just seemed worth saving." she
replied after a soft silence, smiling and giving a short, sad laugh at her own sentimentality. Her gaze shot back to
him as she felt him gently turning over he clenched fist. Unclasping each tightened finger patiently, he placed the
earring in her palm before closing her fingers around it again, both hands pressed over her own. Jade's breath caught as
she ended up trapped in that look she had dreaded and dreamt of all at once. There was now not just one proud pirate in
this equation, not one person who despite all the evil they had seen would maintain the free idiocy of someone who did
not care.
Life was not to be taken seriously when it could end in a heartbeat.
And certain things, were not for saying.
As if sharing this thought with her at the exact same time, Jack flashed her his trademark charming grin "Of course I'm
worth saving luv, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!" She laughed and relaxed, the tense moment dispelled. Her heart remembered
how to keep beating when Jack was touching her and she raised a sarcastic eyebrow.
"I'm sure Jack"
"Captain Jack Sparrow Jade luv." he reminded, laughing when she rolled her eyes, keeping his hands over hers, not
wasting an opportunity to have her skin against his. He rubbed one callous thumb over her knuckles, sombreing slightly
"I'm glad you're alive Jade." he said.
I've missed you he thought.
She grinned, not acknowledging the fast beating of her own heart, or that Jack was stepping dangerously close to the
territory of what remained unsaid. "So am I mate." she laughed.
I've missed you she thought.
There was a moment of warm silence between them before he grinned again, cheekily. "Told you I'd give you that once
Barbossa wasn't around." continued Jack, nodding towards the earring in her hand. Her face dropped and all happiness
and relaxation was lost. She stood up sharply and dropped the earring into his lap. "Perhaps you should keep it for a
while longer then." she said quietly before marching from the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Jade had noticed Jack the instant she had stepped aboard the Black Pearl. But of course she had, he was the roaming
face, the drunken devil watching at the edge as her heart pounded with fear. He was the beautiful one. He commanded
the wary respect of the crew who never knew quite what to make of him. Those who thought him a fool were proved wrong
very swiftly. Maybe he was a fool, but a clever one. A dangerous one. Not that he mattered to her. She had to contend
with her lot, with her fate as the whore of Barbossa. But she learnt to live with her lot. As the first few weeks of
resistance had gone on, when every time he kicked her and beat her and took her, a piece of her died, she had realised
the merit of staying mute. Staying silent. If survival meant that she must lie on her back, stare at the ceiling,
think of anything but what was happening to her, then she would.
And she did. Jade went cleanly from the screaming resistance to the perfect sea wench. She mended, she cleaned, she
cooked. Let Barbossa think he had her trained, as he clearly did, laughing with the rest of the crew as she meticulously
fixed their shirts, made their meals. Whatever he needed to believe if it would keep her safe. When he dragged her onto
his lap as she served them and smothered her neck with bristly offensive kisses she allowed it, tolerated it. Used the
sugary tones she had created for seduction, just for him. The false, grotesque endearments that almost choked in her
mouth as she thought of what she was reduced to. She did it. Tried to avoid the stare of Jack. Jack.
Never sure whether he was the one problem, or the one saving grace of her curse on this ship. Because she never knew
whether it would be better to die completely, and let Barbossa have the shell of what she was. Or whether the last
resistance of all her true attention being on the Captain of the ship was truly sweeter than any other kind of
resistance. When her resolve of life had crumpled and all she had wanted was death, Jack had been there, with his
bizarre charm and idiotic clumsiness. Whether either of them had wanted the others attention, they now received it
avidly, though neither would ever dare admit it. He never did anything to act upon his promise of protection, but he
didn't need to. The fact that she now shared a bond, however flimsy and unjustified, with someone else aboard the ship,
made Jade feel more safe. Whilst the rest of the crew resembled a faceless mass to her, he stood apart. He did not
ignore her. He did not see her just as Barbossa's whore, the woman who he could make mend his shirts. In the
smallest ways he made himself someone to her. He offered her rum when they sat down to drink, he didn't grope her as he
walked past simply because he could. He was, no matter how ridiculously the word seated itself with him considering his
crazed behaviour and profession, a gentleman. A ruthless, drunken, egotistical, deranged, lecherous, gentleman.
And so slowly, Jade began venturing out from under Barbossa's heavy constraining arm at night as he slept, to stand on
deck. It gave her peace, time to assemble her thoughts - what few were left. It allowed her to be fully herself once
again, to stop the lie in which she wanted Barbossa's attentions and was willing to be a cook and skivvy for this
abhorrent crew. As if on mutual understanding after a few first chance encounters, nearly every night, at least for a
short while, Jack was also on deck.
Desperate to make sure he did not get the wrong idea, she wrapped herself heavily in a blanket, trying to cover the
contours of her body beneath her nightgown. She had to preserve herself, she couldn't dare risk stepping out from the
boundaries Barbossa had set. If he even knew what she did every night... And all the more worse if it was Jack, his
Captain, the man Barbossa had to bitterly consider his superior. She would receive the pain for his attentions, get the
beatings for any looks exchanged, because Jack could not be touched.
The talk was at first limited, for what did a young girl turned whore and a pirate have to say to one another? But Jade
didn't care, it was enough to have a companion of sorts when she felt so utterly alone and so utterly false the way she
was now. For whatever reason, she did not feel she had to maintain the face of the 'lover' of Barbossa, around Jack.
Inevitably, she was sure this reason was because of the almost tangible brooding resentment between Barbossa and Jack.
Barbossa was old, and vicious and twisted, and to serve under a man who was none of these things, who had no wish to
kill for no reason, to butcher and destroy, plainly aggravated him. Jade did not need the words to see all too clearly
in the looks that were cast and the teeth that were gritted, what picture was painted between the two.
"How have you been then Jade?" exclaimed Jack, only for her to put a shushing finger to her own lips, motioning for him
to stay quiet. He nodded theatrically and mimed silence, which Jade had to bite down her on her cheek not to laugh at.
They were a bare few feet from where Barbossa and the rest of the crew were drinking, in the small galley where Jade was
collecting up more bottles for the crew. Even talking to Jade was not allowed, unless it was a demand or a lecherous
comment, and so Jade cautiously settled the bottles on a tray as she replied.
"I've been all right. Bored, restless, but what can be expected when I'm just the skivvy?" "And a damn fine skivvy too
luv., but we must see about teaching you some of the rudiments of sailing a ship." said Jack, trying to snatch one of
the bottles off the tray only to have his hand slapped. Jade's heart swelled with good humour at Jack's stupid antics,
and with the prospect of actually learning things on deck. The background feeling of fear, that Barbossa would see them,
never quite left her however. "I see no more bruises. Of course I could give a far more thorough check..." said Jack,
his eyes raking her body before he gave her a lazily cheeky grin. Jade's cheeks bloomed with embarassment as she
swatted him with a cloth, before she became serious once more. "He hasn't had cause to hit me for a while. When you're
forced to dance with the devil, you learn the tune he likes very quickly." she murmured quietly, shuffling the bottles on
the tray, wanting to delay her return. "I thought maybe you'd started to enjoy yourself."
Furious, Jade turned and punched Jack directly in the face, as soon as she did it realising how stupid it was. He
smacked hard up against the wall, a look of total surprise on his face as blood dripped from his nose.
"What's goin' on round there?"
Frozen in utter fear, Jade looked at the ground, her heart in her mouth.
"Nothin' much Barbossa, just got a demonstration for how to ward off sailors in Tortuga."
The crew laughed, and sound continued. Jade looked up in shock that Jack had covered for her even after she had punched
him. "I... I'm sorry..." she managed to stutter, but he shook his head and grinned. "You're a little spitfire aren't
you luv?" he said before returning to the table.**
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uhhh hee hee? I'm not really sure about the first bit, I didn't know if Jack was coming across right at all. Gah, ah
well, plz tell me what you think :) XX
dance of joy*. I hope you continue to enjoy it :).
*6*
The night had closed in for a second time without Jack or Jade leaving his cabin. Both crews had taken to making
sniggering suggestions about exactly what WAS going on behind the closed door, which only served to increase Will's
personal concerns. "It's Jack isn't it lad? He's never been unobliging with pretty young gals" said Gibbs. "Cap'n
Quinn'll eat your Jack lad alive!" sneered one of the girls from the Sea Demon, laughing at the offended look on Gibb's
face.
In fact, actions inside the cabin were perfectly respectable, if a little cluttered. Maps, routes and scraps of paper
smothered the small room, with the two of them pouring over one map laid out across the table.
"Then it would be best to go across the Cavernous Slope..."
"The Cavernous Slope? The rocks there are like daggers! What's wrong with going across here?" exclaimed Jade, leaning
down and tracing her preferred route around the slope with a finger. Jack blew a large section of her hair that was
getting in his way to one side before shaking his head, "The sea around there's too unpredictable, and the winds we've
been having would end up with you being carried miles off course.". She raised a challenging eyebrow "Don't think I
can handle a storm or two Jack Sparrow?" she retorted, eyes sparkling with barely concealed humour. "It doesn't matter
what I think. It's the Captain who has to do the thinking when you're on an expedition, and since I'm not going to be
on this expedition, nor doing the thinking, then I think I'll have to do less of the thinking for you, so you can rely
on your own thinking." he said swiftly, raising his eyebrows sarcastically in return. She grinned slightly and rolled
her eyes. He had always tried to do that to her in the past, confuse her with his silvery tongue, talking in riddles, or
at least so fast that all he said seemed like riddles. "Ahhh but I know that you didn't go over the Cavernous Slope
yourself last time" she replied, grinning knowingly.
He flopped back down in his chair and viewed her suspiciously, his kohl-smudged eyes wary and calculating. "How d'you
know what route I did or did not take?" he said finally, his tone subtly edged with steel. She shrugged, affecting a
casual attitude as she sat on the table. "When I heard the Pearl was headin' to Port Royale, the same port you were at,
I sent Gretchen, a girl from my crew, to keep an eye on things. To save your drunken hide if necessary, to tell me what
was goin' on, pay for informers about the place so I'd know what happened to the Pearl. 'Course I wasn't expectin' Will
and Liz to get involved. I never thought Barbossa would find Bootstrap's boy." Jack left his questioning regarding
Jade's knowledge of what had gone on for another time, as well as his objections to his 'drunken hide' needing to be
saved. Other questions he wanted answered demanded attention.
"Why did you never try and contact me?"
She smirked unpleasantly, not meeting his gaze and picking at her boot. She became painfully aware of his hot stare that
never seemed to leave her, but refused to meet it. It had been years, and she wasn't a fool enough to think she
mattered more than dirt to a pirate who had never displayed attachment to anything other than rum, wild living, and his
precious ship.
"Honestly? I didn't think you'd remember me." she said finally, through meticulously gritted teeth that maintained a
blank voice, filtering out feeling. Still refusing to look at him, she missed the flicker of disbelief across his face.
How could he forget her? She was one of the Lost Dead he quietly mourned every day, though no one would ever know it.
She was... Jade.
"I've thought about you over the years." he said after a pause, leaning closer. She let out a snort of laughter,
wrenching her hat off and throwing it on the bed, shaking her hair out. "Was that after the first or last bottle of rum
of an evenin'? Or in between the fiftieth and fifty first whore's bed you've lounged in?" she said derisively, the
tirade seeming far less righteous when her brain desperately requested a bottle of the afore-mentioned rum. Jack
ignored this comment, slowly untangling the earring from his mussed hair and flicking it through his fingers. "I thought
about the talks we used to have at night when the rest of the crew was asleep. I thought about how you could down more
rum than half of the men I've ever met. Most of all, I thought of how a girl who was too scared to protect herself,
found strength enough to protect me." He gripped her wrist tightly as she continued to elude his gaze, forcing her to
look at him. "Why save someone like me when you wouldn't even save yourself?"
Her eyes misted slightly, and she shook her head before shrugging "I don't know. You just seemed worth saving." she
replied after a soft silence, smiling and giving a short, sad laugh at her own sentimentality. Her gaze shot back to
him as she felt him gently turning over he clenched fist. Unclasping each tightened finger patiently, he placed the
earring in her palm before closing her fingers around it again, both hands pressed over her own. Jade's breath caught as
she ended up trapped in that look she had dreaded and dreamt of all at once. There was now not just one proud pirate in
this equation, not one person who despite all the evil they had seen would maintain the free idiocy of someone who did
not care.
Life was not to be taken seriously when it could end in a heartbeat.
And certain things, were not for saying.
As if sharing this thought with her at the exact same time, Jack flashed her his trademark charming grin "Of course I'm
worth saving luv, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!" She laughed and relaxed, the tense moment dispelled. Her heart remembered
how to keep beating when Jack was touching her and she raised a sarcastic eyebrow.
"I'm sure Jack"
"Captain Jack Sparrow Jade luv." he reminded, laughing when she rolled her eyes, keeping his hands over hers, not
wasting an opportunity to have her skin against his. He rubbed one callous thumb over her knuckles, sombreing slightly
"I'm glad you're alive Jade." he said.
I've missed you he thought.
She grinned, not acknowledging the fast beating of her own heart, or that Jack was stepping dangerously close to the
territory of what remained unsaid. "So am I mate." she laughed.
I've missed you she thought.
There was a moment of warm silence between them before he grinned again, cheekily. "Told you I'd give you that once
Barbossa wasn't around." continued Jack, nodding towards the earring in her hand. Her face dropped and all happiness
and relaxation was lost. She stood up sharply and dropped the earring into his lap. "Perhaps you should keep it for a
while longer then." she said quietly before marching from the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Jade had noticed Jack the instant she had stepped aboard the Black Pearl. But of course she had, he was the roaming
face, the drunken devil watching at the edge as her heart pounded with fear. He was the beautiful one. He commanded
the wary respect of the crew who never knew quite what to make of him. Those who thought him a fool were proved wrong
very swiftly. Maybe he was a fool, but a clever one. A dangerous one. Not that he mattered to her. She had to contend
with her lot, with her fate as the whore of Barbossa. But she learnt to live with her lot. As the first few weeks of
resistance had gone on, when every time he kicked her and beat her and took her, a piece of her died, she had realised
the merit of staying mute. Staying silent. If survival meant that she must lie on her back, stare at the ceiling,
think of anything but what was happening to her, then she would.
And she did. Jade went cleanly from the screaming resistance to the perfect sea wench. She mended, she cleaned, she
cooked. Let Barbossa think he had her trained, as he clearly did, laughing with the rest of the crew as she meticulously
fixed their shirts, made their meals. Whatever he needed to believe if it would keep her safe. When he dragged her onto
his lap as she served them and smothered her neck with bristly offensive kisses she allowed it, tolerated it. Used the
sugary tones she had created for seduction, just for him. The false, grotesque endearments that almost choked in her
mouth as she thought of what she was reduced to. She did it. Tried to avoid the stare of Jack. Jack.
Never sure whether he was the one problem, or the one saving grace of her curse on this ship. Because she never knew
whether it would be better to die completely, and let Barbossa have the shell of what she was. Or whether the last
resistance of all her true attention being on the Captain of the ship was truly sweeter than any other kind of
resistance. When her resolve of life had crumpled and all she had wanted was death, Jack had been there, with his
bizarre charm and idiotic clumsiness. Whether either of them had wanted the others attention, they now received it
avidly, though neither would ever dare admit it. He never did anything to act upon his promise of protection, but he
didn't need to. The fact that she now shared a bond, however flimsy and unjustified, with someone else aboard the ship,
made Jade feel more safe. Whilst the rest of the crew resembled a faceless mass to her, he stood apart. He did not
ignore her. He did not see her just as Barbossa's whore, the woman who he could make mend his shirts. In the
smallest ways he made himself someone to her. He offered her rum when they sat down to drink, he didn't grope her as he
walked past simply because he could. He was, no matter how ridiculously the word seated itself with him considering his
crazed behaviour and profession, a gentleman. A ruthless, drunken, egotistical, deranged, lecherous, gentleman.
And so slowly, Jade began venturing out from under Barbossa's heavy constraining arm at night as he slept, to stand on
deck. It gave her peace, time to assemble her thoughts - what few were left. It allowed her to be fully herself once
again, to stop the lie in which she wanted Barbossa's attentions and was willing to be a cook and skivvy for this
abhorrent crew. As if on mutual understanding after a few first chance encounters, nearly every night, at least for a
short while, Jack was also on deck.
Desperate to make sure he did not get the wrong idea, she wrapped herself heavily in a blanket, trying to cover the
contours of her body beneath her nightgown. She had to preserve herself, she couldn't dare risk stepping out from the
boundaries Barbossa had set. If he even knew what she did every night... And all the more worse if it was Jack, his
Captain, the man Barbossa had to bitterly consider his superior. She would receive the pain for his attentions, get the
beatings for any looks exchanged, because Jack could not be touched.
The talk was at first limited, for what did a young girl turned whore and a pirate have to say to one another? But Jade
didn't care, it was enough to have a companion of sorts when she felt so utterly alone and so utterly false the way she
was now. For whatever reason, she did not feel she had to maintain the face of the 'lover' of Barbossa, around Jack.
Inevitably, she was sure this reason was because of the almost tangible brooding resentment between Barbossa and Jack.
Barbossa was old, and vicious and twisted, and to serve under a man who was none of these things, who had no wish to
kill for no reason, to butcher and destroy, plainly aggravated him. Jade did not need the words to see all too clearly
in the looks that were cast and the teeth that were gritted, what picture was painted between the two.
"How have you been then Jade?" exclaimed Jack, only for her to put a shushing finger to her own lips, motioning for him
to stay quiet. He nodded theatrically and mimed silence, which Jade had to bite down her on her cheek not to laugh at.
They were a bare few feet from where Barbossa and the rest of the crew were drinking, in the small galley where Jade was
collecting up more bottles for the crew. Even talking to Jade was not allowed, unless it was a demand or a lecherous
comment, and so Jade cautiously settled the bottles on a tray as she replied.
"I've been all right. Bored, restless, but what can be expected when I'm just the skivvy?" "And a damn fine skivvy too
luv., but we must see about teaching you some of the rudiments of sailing a ship." said Jack, trying to snatch one of
the bottles off the tray only to have his hand slapped. Jade's heart swelled with good humour at Jack's stupid antics,
and with the prospect of actually learning things on deck. The background feeling of fear, that Barbossa would see them,
never quite left her however. "I see no more bruises. Of course I could give a far more thorough check..." said Jack,
his eyes raking her body before he gave her a lazily cheeky grin. Jade's cheeks bloomed with embarassment as she
swatted him with a cloth, before she became serious once more. "He hasn't had cause to hit me for a while. When you're
forced to dance with the devil, you learn the tune he likes very quickly." she murmured quietly, shuffling the bottles on
the tray, wanting to delay her return. "I thought maybe you'd started to enjoy yourself."
Furious, Jade turned and punched Jack directly in the face, as soon as she did it realising how stupid it was. He
smacked hard up against the wall, a look of total surprise on his face as blood dripped from his nose.
"What's goin' on round there?"
Frozen in utter fear, Jade looked at the ground, her heart in her mouth.
"Nothin' much Barbossa, just got a demonstration for how to ward off sailors in Tortuga."
The crew laughed, and sound continued. Jade looked up in shock that Jack had covered for her even after she had punched
him. "I... I'm sorry..." she managed to stutter, but he shook his head and grinned. "You're a little spitfire aren't
you luv?" he said before returning to the table.**
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uhhh hee hee? I'm not really sure about the first bit, I didn't know if Jack was coming across right at all. Gah, ah
well, plz tell me what you think :) XX