Happy Thanksgiving to all in America!! [Obviously I live in America (though
not quite American *grin*)]
AN// If this pans out the way I have it in my head then we're talking a double digit amount of pages here. Talking... 15 pages on Verdana size ten. (That's my default font preferences.) Well now I shall go on before I waste any of those fifteen pages. *grin* And after finishin please review!
Chapter 11:
"What?!" Patricia cried out stepping up to the man almost a full head taller than her. "Jack! I SAID that there would absolutely be NO treasure hunting involving what I... do you understand that? ME, MYSELF and I, found! That gold was stained with blood and I'll not have you exploit it!"
"I have no intentions with following your orders, little madam," he said softly, putting a hand on her cheek. She immediately slapped the hand away and glared at Jack.
"Do NOT call me little!"
"What! What treasure?!" Elizabeth cried out confused.
"From last night, you idiot! Must everything be spelled out for you, milady?" Patricia derided.
"Don't be petty, love. This is not the time for your paltry rivalry with Miss Swann..." Jack rolled his eyes.
"There is no such rivalry," she growled in a dangerously low voice. "Let me tell you something Sparrow. You might have seen some man disemboweled before. You can care in the least about such things. Had I seen it I wouldn't have been bothered in the least because, contrary to popular belief, I'm no pure, innocent virgin." Will started at that accidental confession. "But a man died with that gold as did a whole ship of over two dozen men including his son who revolted against him, ready to kill him at one faulty move. I don't know about you but mutinous thoughts seem to stab at a soft spot... Or maybe you're too high and mighty to be the victim of such betrayal?"
The mention of mutiny sparked a fire in Jack and he grabbed Patricia by the shoulders pushing her against one of the deck walls. Will made a lunge towards the pirate but Jack just shouted for William's retreat. "Now you listen here, Miss Taylor." The dark eyes bored into hers and for a moment, Elizabeth and Will thought that Jack might actually lay a harmful finger on Patricia. "I shall have no talk whatsoever of a mutiny on ANY boat I command, understand?"
"Yes," Patricia said bitterly.
"And I am your captain and I will be addressed as such," Jack ordered.
"Aye captain." Jack promptly backed off and stomped away to the wheel.
"Bastard," Patricia muttered and she stormed down to the cabins.
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AnaMaria looked through the gold shimmering before her.
"This is unbelievable," she said in a hushed voice.
"The treasure of the Maiden Blue! We'll be rich! We can buy all of Tortuga if we find the all of it!" Gibbs exclaimed rummaging it the same way Jack had done so hours ago.
"But how'd it come by here? Jack didn't explain," AnaMaria doubted. "It was meant for the colonies. What are they doing so far south? The currents don't even pass this way had they been washed up here from the north."
"They didn't wash up here. They were deliberately sailed to the Caribbean," a voice answered. They turned and saw the young woman they were introduced to at The Watch.
"Deliberately?" AnaMaria asked.
"Yes." Patricia walked in and grabbed the leather journal and tossed it to the other woman's lap. "That will explain it all but in a nutshell, the whole ship had a mutiny and decided to take the gold here. They stopped at an island just south west of Tortuga, I'm guessing, and they were pretty much massacred by the natives."
"That seems like quite a typical story to come by," Gibbs said distractedly.
"You don't know how they were massacred," she shot back.
"Disembowelment?"
"Half the time but something strange went on..." Patricia sat down and looked at the treasure, mesmerized. "The captain... Abegnale was just wounded. Not fatally, mind you. He said 'twas but a scratch... but he died. And another man, his name slips my mind, he was also only scratched but from what Abegnale writes he was sucked of his blood. His wounds refused to heal..."
AnaMaria's features darkened and Jack entered just to hear her say, "I don't like this. I don't think this treasure is a good idea to find."
"What?! You're Kidding me!" Jack exclaimed the same time that Patricia shouted, "Thank you! Someone who understands!" They looked at each other with completely opposite expressions of triumph and confusion.
"Why the hell not?!" Jack cried out.
"I just... Hasn't your past experiences taught you anything of accursed treasure?!" AnaMaria snapped.
"Accursed yes... Those buried in the sand by a rowdy groups of arrogant bastard, no," he answered cheekily.
"You'll end up straight like Barbossa," AnaMaria said scathingly. "You're a rowdy arrogant bastard yourself..."
"But a not-so-stupid, rowdy, arrogant bastard much unlike that aforementioned arse," Jack retorted.
"Who's Barbossa?" Patricia interrupted feeling left out of the banter.
"You haven't told her of the Pearl?" AnaMaria asked almost in shock.
"The Black Pearl?" Patricia interjected again.
"She probably already knows with her father's stories..." Jack answered in a defensive tone. "And 't isn't a story I love to hear about so NO I haven't repeated it me self." Jack strode to the treasure, grabbing some gold and carrying it like an infant in his arms. "... Beautiful."
"I don't know the story. What story? Tell me the story!" She wanted to whine some more until the three pirates looking at each other holding a silent conversation told her what she wanted but at that moment, Will entered not having the least care for any hunt for some rich cache.
"Tricia?" he murmured, putting a hand on her arm. Patricia looked up at Will in surprise. "Tricia, please come with me..."
"I need to talk to Jack and where's Elizabeth?" she asked trying to distract him. Elizabeth, as if on cue, entered the room and saw Mr. Gibbs at the chest.
"Mr. Gibbs?" Elizabeth called aghast, finally recognizing the man. "What are you doing here?" They started to begin a conversation whilst Will took Patricia's attention again.
"Please, Tricia love, come on the deck with me," Will pleaded. Patricia least wanted to go up there alone with Will. She was, at length, tired of harboring feelings for Will and truth be told she wanted out of this painful friendship though it was breaking her heart to think of losing her best friend but it was breaking her heart as well just to be with him.
"Fine..." she muttered. Will led her out and took her on deck. The port was quite busy and noisy so they went to the far side of the ship again, away from the buzz of Tortuga. "What is it?"
"Do you actually believe what you said to me?" Will asked keeping her hands in his.
"Of course I do. I wouldn't have said it otherwise," she replied. Then Tricia finally saw the crestfallen look that captured his face. "Don't tell me you think I'm wrong." Will just ignored her scoffing comment.
"You've really thought so shoddily of me that you thought I cared for you less than Elizabeth?" he asked saddened.
"Don't tell me you think I'm wrong," she repeated now quite incensed by his lack of knowledge of his own feelings.
"Patricia, you should know that I care about you as much if not more than Elizabeth..." He wanted her to understand that the love he had for each of them were different. And that he may have been in love with Elizabeth, he would still have died for the woman before him now but instead of looking flattered at his assertion, she laughed.
"Bollocks if I ever heard any," she chuckled taking her hands out of Will's. Neither noticed how AnaMaria, Gibbs, Jack and Elizabeth had come up to watch the two, enthralled.
"How can you say that?!"
"I can because I've known it since I was ten!"
"Known what?!"
"Known that you would ALWAYS love Elizabeth more than me no matter how much I loved you!" Patricia had meant it for him to understand that her feelings had outgrown friendship for quite some time now but that BARELY subliminal message bypassed Will completely and Elizabeth groaned inwardly at just how daft the boy was.
"You are a sister to me! You'll never be any less. I'd die for you and you know that! To find out that you think any less of me was the biggest insult I could have suffered from you."
"God, you are such an idiot sometimes! Why can't you ever see what's right in front of your eyes?!" she cried out now so aggravated with the conversation that she was tearing.
"What are you talking about!? You're talking in circles! You keep on telling me that you love me when I already so obviously know that!"
"Oh my god!" Jack groaned out loud, throwing his hands up and turning his back on them in frustration. "That man is TRULY Bill's son."
"You know I love you but you don't know how much!!"
"Of course I do! I'm not stupid!" With that, the other three that departed from Port Royal laughed out loud.
"Stupid is an understatement, William," Patricia laughed.
"What the hell are you saying then?!!" Patricia was ready to pull out her hair with aggravation. With one last effort to make him see the true extent of her feelings, she put her arms around his neck and bent him down to her lips.
Will had no time to react at all. One second, he was agitated beyond reason, the next he felt the same lips he felt a night ago on his except this time, they were real and they were prodding his own open. After a few seconds, Will finally responded, his mouth opening in a moan. His eyes closed, finding that he wanted to continue kissing his best friend, and his hands found her waist to pull her closer but she broke away, tears in her eyes.
"NOW do you finally see?" she asked defeated. Patricia tore away from Will, not wanting to stay to hear the apologies saying he didn't feel the same she was afraid would come from the lips she's finally had the opportunity to taste fully. She ran and jumped to the pier to hide in the crowd and headed towards The Watch.
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"AnaMaria, follow her and make sure she's safe," Jack ordered softly and took like a wind after the unnerved girl.
"No, I will," Will disrupted. He was about to give chase but Jack pulled him back. "Let me go, Sparrow. I need to get to her."
"You think she'll really want to face you right now?" Jack asked.
"I'll MAKE her face me!"
"He's right, Will," Elizabeth murmured. Will's face calmed from its near panic.
"What WAS that?" he asked completely confused.
"You are probably the most dense man on Earth!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"I don't know. His old man might give him a run for his money," Gibbs muttered.
"What?" Will asked, not quite sure he had heard right.
"Nothing." Gibbs immediately turned aside and looked at Jack, apologetically.
"This is making my head hurt," Will mumbled. "Just leave me be till the woman brings Tricia back." He put an aggravated hand through his hair and went downstairs to clear his head.
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AnaMaria found Patricia at the corner of the near-empty room crying softly. Her thoughts wavered again at just how much the teenager reminded her of an old friend she'd lost some time before. She quickly got a drink from the bar server and put it on the table for Patricia to drink.
"Drink that," she ordered. Patricia looked up and saw AnaMaria looking at her with stern eyes.
"What is it?" Patricia asked her voice cracking.
"Just something to help you straighten out..." Patricia took a whiff of the liquid and cringed.
"It smells like alcohol..."
"You're a bright one arentcha?" AnaMaria rolled her eyes sarcastically. She looked at the clock and saw that it was ten past three. "Have you eaten yet?"
Patricia shook her head as she took a sip of the coarse liquor. It burned her throat but it somehow eased all the tense muscle that contracted in her body and her mind seemed to slip from rationality so she drank a little more. AnaMaria called for bread and when Patricia had drunk half the glass, she began to devour the food presented before her. Four hours later she had eaten two loaves and had drunk more pints of rum she could count (then again, at that point, she was drunk and couldn't count to two...) whilst AnaMaria was slowly and carefully nursing hers to keep sober... Patricia was drinking herself into a stupor.
"... And then dada left. Died cuz the horsies went mad," Patricia continued leaning on the table as AnaMaria leaned back in her chair amused, listening to the young girl tell her story in half-slurred words. "Me an' Will gots to be roomies at Browns! I put away all the money da left me to live wit Will like pitiable bloody dogs... And den Brown became a damn alocololic... Promised meself I wud neva drank a drop ov aloco... acolo... This stuff..." She pointed to her newly filled mug and took a swig. She laughed loudly, her whole body leaning back but kept herself from falling.
"Fat chance of keeping that promise now..." AnaMaria chuckled.
"Ya! And tisn't even da first of my drunken self coming out..."
"Isn't eh? When was the first then?"
"First and ONLY time mind you... Did back a year ago. I fell in love with the daftest jackass on Port Royal didja know?" AnaMaria nodded hearing that phrase for the hundredth time already that day. "Yea well, Lizbabeth got engaged to some old fart who wore a damn wig. Ole enuf to be her fada. Willy went all boohoo. Me? Depressed. Felt like stabbing him if I had to comfy him one more time about neva getting the wun he lubs. Like he knew what it was like... Bastard..." Patricia put her chin on the table, reminiscing.
"So took me onesies off to a pub one night and got drunk, slept with some strangler in one o' dose teensy streets and Will neva knew a damn thing. Doesn't notice me, dats why... I coulda danced in front of him with nuttin but a pearl necklace and he wouldna noticed." She said it so sadly that AnaMaria felt for her. Her tears were coming down again and she started to sob. Her head started to hit itself on the table whilst chanting, "Bastard... bastard... bastard... bastard." AnaMaria put her hand out stopped the head from regaining contact with the wooden table. She smiled understandingly at the girl and just looked at the wreck of her on the other side of the table.
"I think it's time we went back to the ship," she said kindly.
"No!" Patricia shrieked. "I won't! You can't make me." That's when AnaMaria realized her mistake of letting Patricia wallow in her sorrows amidst a pool of intoxicating fluids. "I won't face him... He'll say 'Sorry, Tricia- love, but you know I'm madly in love with Lizbabeth there who's married to the head of ALL of the British Navy in the Carbarrean. But you'll always be my lil sis no matter what.' No... I won't live with that. No!" Patricia's head fell again onto the table, chanting her mantra but her shrieks had turned the heads of the pub proprietors that had begun to fill the room. Two men that AnaMaria was a bit acquainted with came up the two women.
"Ana... Need a little assistance?" one named Sergio asked.
"Would you mind?" she asked. "She's drank enough to satisfy Jack Sparrow and I can't get her back to the ship without her kicking up a storm on the way."
"No problem, Ana," Antonio grinned. The two well-built men took up an arm of the limp Patricia and began to drag her through the streets with AnaMaria closely following. Patricia kicked and screamed bloody mercy on the way and Sergio and Antonio could barely keep her up. They were reaching port and the two brothers were ready to just drop and run when Patricia caught sight of the ship and let her weight drop. Sergio and Antonio grunted as the girl fell to her knees sobbing.
"I don't want to go... Please AnaMaria... Please," Patricia pleaded. Her seriousness helped her sober up even if it was by the most minute fraction. "I've lived most of my life... bearing Will not loving me... I've survived almost solely on the tiniest chance he'll love me back..." She curled into a ball, hiding her face in her hands on the cobblestone road, convulsing in tears. "Please... please don't make me go back and listen to him say that all I was living on was just an illusion..."
"You don't know that!" AnaMaria cried out. "You don't know that at all! How could you know if you don't go over there and listen to what he has to say?!"
"I don't want to listen... I want to keep my 'what ifs' and have the satisfaction he didn't have the chance to completely shatter in a hundred words or less. I'd rather slowly die than hear those words from Will..." she sobbed.
"You need to get to the ship..." AnaMaria said. "Get off the streets. You need to get in before it gets dangerous... The only reason that no criminal has touched us is because Antonio and Sergio are with us... Go back..." Patricia just sat on the ground, silent for a few moments then finally spoke.
"I'll go back if I don't have to talk or see Will until I'm ready..." AnaMaria nodded. She looked at the uncomfortable looking men with a request.
"Wait here. I'll be right back." And she ran to the ship to make good of the deal.
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"It's dark! We... I need to go after her! She could be hurt... She could be dead!" Will raged while ropes held his hands back around a mast to keep him from running. "Why won't you let me go??!!" He had emerged from his seclusion still thoroughly confused at sundown and found the ship to still lack Patricia's presence. He had tried to go out and look for her but all three remainders had told him no. Finally, at Jack's orders, hew as tied against a mast to keep him from doing something stupid. Even Elizabeth sympathized with this action so she just sat down next to Will as he was dying down from his rantings.
"Will, she's safe with AnaMaria," Elizabeth said in a soft voice as Will's head drooped forward in misery.
"I need to know she's safe..." he replied tears falling down to the wooden flooring.
"But making her face you will make her runaway more," she explained. "She's finally confessed that she loves you... She's probably afraid that you'll reject her now that she has... You can't make her face you right now. She'll run, no matter what you say." Will remained quiet. "I'm curious, though..."
"Curious to what?" he asked his voice cracking with shedded tears.
"Do you love her?"
"Of course I do," he answered automatically.
"I mean, the way that SHE loves YOU."
"I..." His voice wavered, trying to think it through. "I don't know... I've been asking myself that all day but I can't find the answer."
"It's an easy question, Will," Elizabeth snorted. "Do you love Patricia Taylor? Do you care about her above all things? Do you love her laugh? Do you love having her all to yourself and no one else's and have no purpose of allotment? Do you dream about her at night? Do you love having her arms?"
"I don't know if I love her romantically but I do care about her... I'd die for her... Do anything to keep her from harm..." Elizabeth smiled, hearing the wistful tone in his voice.
"Continue," she prodded.
"I... I love her laugh, yes. It's so... so uninhibited," Will went on. His tears were clearing and he was sitting up properly now. "And it goes up and down as if she's unintentionally singing..." He thought for a second and remembered the party and his jealousy at the frenchman holding her hand and at Jack when he had touched Patricia even in the slightest. "She's mine," he said resolutely. "And no... I'm NEVER sharing her with anyone.."
"What happens when she gets married?" His head furrowed at the newfound possibility. He never really though his Tricia would get married to someone else and leave him to fend for himself.
"I... I don't know," he answered. "I guess... I'd be happy for her... more really for the groom to get someone like Tricia to care for him..." Even on his ears, his manner sounded completely halfhearted.
"Well I guess you won't have to share since you'll have to give her away completely. No sharing there..." Elizabeth grinned.
"I'm NEVER giving her away," he snapped bitterly. The he coiled back realizing that he sounded irrational. Of course he had to. Was he really feeling so selfish to keep his Tricia to himself for all time, even when he found a wife of his own? Then he mentally admonished himself for connecting a possesive pronoun to her name.
"YOUR Tricia?" Elizabeth had caught it and Will just scowled. "Nevermind..." Then, Will's mind went on to the last two questions.
"I dreamt about her last night..."
"In a romantic fantasy sort of way, Will," Elizabeth interjected. "Dreaming that she cooked you green eggs and ham isn't exactly saying much of anything..."
"It WAS in a romantic sort of way..." he spoke softly. "But I've had dreams of her for years now... And at first, I was really embarassed... But then, afterwards... after awhile, we were always so affectionate with each other that we were pretty much doing living my dreams without the romantic strings or the kissing... or..." He blushed slightly. ".,. umm yea..." His face straightened out. "I always held her in my arms... We'd spend nights just holding each other sometimes and... Romance never really sprouted in reality..."
"Okay so let me get this right.. You'd die for her, love her laugh, never even THOUGHT of sharing her with any other man, much less giving her away on her wedding day, dream of her everynight for quite some time now and would spen nights just holding her content with JUST that..." Will nodded. "And you don't know if you love her? My god! You are so incredibly stupid, it should be recorded!"
"Okay!" Will cried out defeated. "Okay... so maybe I do love her..." he sighed. He heard a whoop from behind and saw Jack grinning.
"And we do make some progress!!" Jack shouted from his post. He gave a cheeky grin and Will returned it with a scowl that softened when he heard Elizabeth's soft love.
"Okay... fine... so maybe I'm in love with her." Then he turned when he heard the quick footfalls of AnaMaria returning, and to Will's trepidation, she was returning alone...
AN// Okay so this DID pan out the way I wanted it to but it continued a little too long. Not giving a break in between and ending without a cliffhanger is really... not me. *grin* To continue would've been tedious for tedious.. IONO. That was how I perceived it so I'm calling a halt here and I'll update... REALLY soon.
Just Review please!!!
AN// If this pans out the way I have it in my head then we're talking a double digit amount of pages here. Talking... 15 pages on Verdana size ten. (That's my default font preferences.) Well now I shall go on before I waste any of those fifteen pages. *grin* And after finishin please review!
Chapter 11:
"What?!" Patricia cried out stepping up to the man almost a full head taller than her. "Jack! I SAID that there would absolutely be NO treasure hunting involving what I... do you understand that? ME, MYSELF and I, found! That gold was stained with blood and I'll not have you exploit it!"
"I have no intentions with following your orders, little madam," he said softly, putting a hand on her cheek. She immediately slapped the hand away and glared at Jack.
"Do NOT call me little!"
"What! What treasure?!" Elizabeth cried out confused.
"From last night, you idiot! Must everything be spelled out for you, milady?" Patricia derided.
"Don't be petty, love. This is not the time for your paltry rivalry with Miss Swann..." Jack rolled his eyes.
"There is no such rivalry," she growled in a dangerously low voice. "Let me tell you something Sparrow. You might have seen some man disemboweled before. You can care in the least about such things. Had I seen it I wouldn't have been bothered in the least because, contrary to popular belief, I'm no pure, innocent virgin." Will started at that accidental confession. "But a man died with that gold as did a whole ship of over two dozen men including his son who revolted against him, ready to kill him at one faulty move. I don't know about you but mutinous thoughts seem to stab at a soft spot... Or maybe you're too high and mighty to be the victim of such betrayal?"
The mention of mutiny sparked a fire in Jack and he grabbed Patricia by the shoulders pushing her against one of the deck walls. Will made a lunge towards the pirate but Jack just shouted for William's retreat. "Now you listen here, Miss Taylor." The dark eyes bored into hers and for a moment, Elizabeth and Will thought that Jack might actually lay a harmful finger on Patricia. "I shall have no talk whatsoever of a mutiny on ANY boat I command, understand?"
"Yes," Patricia said bitterly.
"And I am your captain and I will be addressed as such," Jack ordered.
"Aye captain." Jack promptly backed off and stomped away to the wheel.
"Bastard," Patricia muttered and she stormed down to the cabins.
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AnaMaria looked through the gold shimmering before her.
"This is unbelievable," she said in a hushed voice.
"The treasure of the Maiden Blue! We'll be rich! We can buy all of Tortuga if we find the all of it!" Gibbs exclaimed rummaging it the same way Jack had done so hours ago.
"But how'd it come by here? Jack didn't explain," AnaMaria doubted. "It was meant for the colonies. What are they doing so far south? The currents don't even pass this way had they been washed up here from the north."
"They didn't wash up here. They were deliberately sailed to the Caribbean," a voice answered. They turned and saw the young woman they were introduced to at The Watch.
"Deliberately?" AnaMaria asked.
"Yes." Patricia walked in and grabbed the leather journal and tossed it to the other woman's lap. "That will explain it all but in a nutshell, the whole ship had a mutiny and decided to take the gold here. They stopped at an island just south west of Tortuga, I'm guessing, and they were pretty much massacred by the natives."
"That seems like quite a typical story to come by," Gibbs said distractedly.
"You don't know how they were massacred," she shot back.
"Disembowelment?"
"Half the time but something strange went on..." Patricia sat down and looked at the treasure, mesmerized. "The captain... Abegnale was just wounded. Not fatally, mind you. He said 'twas but a scratch... but he died. And another man, his name slips my mind, he was also only scratched but from what Abegnale writes he was sucked of his blood. His wounds refused to heal..."
AnaMaria's features darkened and Jack entered just to hear her say, "I don't like this. I don't think this treasure is a good idea to find."
"What?! You're Kidding me!" Jack exclaimed the same time that Patricia shouted, "Thank you! Someone who understands!" They looked at each other with completely opposite expressions of triumph and confusion.
"Why the hell not?!" Jack cried out.
"I just... Hasn't your past experiences taught you anything of accursed treasure?!" AnaMaria snapped.
"Accursed yes... Those buried in the sand by a rowdy groups of arrogant bastard, no," he answered cheekily.
"You'll end up straight like Barbossa," AnaMaria said scathingly. "You're a rowdy arrogant bastard yourself..."
"But a not-so-stupid, rowdy, arrogant bastard much unlike that aforementioned arse," Jack retorted.
"Who's Barbossa?" Patricia interrupted feeling left out of the banter.
"You haven't told her of the Pearl?" AnaMaria asked almost in shock.
"The Black Pearl?" Patricia interjected again.
"She probably already knows with her father's stories..." Jack answered in a defensive tone. "And 't isn't a story I love to hear about so NO I haven't repeated it me self." Jack strode to the treasure, grabbing some gold and carrying it like an infant in his arms. "... Beautiful."
"I don't know the story. What story? Tell me the story!" She wanted to whine some more until the three pirates looking at each other holding a silent conversation told her what she wanted but at that moment, Will entered not having the least care for any hunt for some rich cache.
"Tricia?" he murmured, putting a hand on her arm. Patricia looked up at Will in surprise. "Tricia, please come with me..."
"I need to talk to Jack and where's Elizabeth?" she asked trying to distract him. Elizabeth, as if on cue, entered the room and saw Mr. Gibbs at the chest.
"Mr. Gibbs?" Elizabeth called aghast, finally recognizing the man. "What are you doing here?" They started to begin a conversation whilst Will took Patricia's attention again.
"Please, Tricia love, come on the deck with me," Will pleaded. Patricia least wanted to go up there alone with Will. She was, at length, tired of harboring feelings for Will and truth be told she wanted out of this painful friendship though it was breaking her heart to think of losing her best friend but it was breaking her heart as well just to be with him.
"Fine..." she muttered. Will led her out and took her on deck. The port was quite busy and noisy so they went to the far side of the ship again, away from the buzz of Tortuga. "What is it?"
"Do you actually believe what you said to me?" Will asked keeping her hands in his.
"Of course I do. I wouldn't have said it otherwise," she replied. Then Tricia finally saw the crestfallen look that captured his face. "Don't tell me you think I'm wrong." Will just ignored her scoffing comment.
"You've really thought so shoddily of me that you thought I cared for you less than Elizabeth?" he asked saddened.
"Don't tell me you think I'm wrong," she repeated now quite incensed by his lack of knowledge of his own feelings.
"Patricia, you should know that I care about you as much if not more than Elizabeth..." He wanted her to understand that the love he had for each of them were different. And that he may have been in love with Elizabeth, he would still have died for the woman before him now but instead of looking flattered at his assertion, she laughed.
"Bollocks if I ever heard any," she chuckled taking her hands out of Will's. Neither noticed how AnaMaria, Gibbs, Jack and Elizabeth had come up to watch the two, enthralled.
"How can you say that?!"
"I can because I've known it since I was ten!"
"Known what?!"
"Known that you would ALWAYS love Elizabeth more than me no matter how much I loved you!" Patricia had meant it for him to understand that her feelings had outgrown friendship for quite some time now but that BARELY subliminal message bypassed Will completely and Elizabeth groaned inwardly at just how daft the boy was.
"You are a sister to me! You'll never be any less. I'd die for you and you know that! To find out that you think any less of me was the biggest insult I could have suffered from you."
"God, you are such an idiot sometimes! Why can't you ever see what's right in front of your eyes?!" she cried out now so aggravated with the conversation that she was tearing.
"What are you talking about!? You're talking in circles! You keep on telling me that you love me when I already so obviously know that!"
"Oh my god!" Jack groaned out loud, throwing his hands up and turning his back on them in frustration. "That man is TRULY Bill's son."
"You know I love you but you don't know how much!!"
"Of course I do! I'm not stupid!" With that, the other three that departed from Port Royal laughed out loud.
"Stupid is an understatement, William," Patricia laughed.
"What the hell are you saying then?!!" Patricia was ready to pull out her hair with aggravation. With one last effort to make him see the true extent of her feelings, she put her arms around his neck and bent him down to her lips.
Will had no time to react at all. One second, he was agitated beyond reason, the next he felt the same lips he felt a night ago on his except this time, they were real and they were prodding his own open. After a few seconds, Will finally responded, his mouth opening in a moan. His eyes closed, finding that he wanted to continue kissing his best friend, and his hands found her waist to pull her closer but she broke away, tears in her eyes.
"NOW do you finally see?" she asked defeated. Patricia tore away from Will, not wanting to stay to hear the apologies saying he didn't feel the same she was afraid would come from the lips she's finally had the opportunity to taste fully. She ran and jumped to the pier to hide in the crowd and headed towards The Watch.
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"AnaMaria, follow her and make sure she's safe," Jack ordered softly and took like a wind after the unnerved girl.
"No, I will," Will disrupted. He was about to give chase but Jack pulled him back. "Let me go, Sparrow. I need to get to her."
"You think she'll really want to face you right now?" Jack asked.
"I'll MAKE her face me!"
"He's right, Will," Elizabeth murmured. Will's face calmed from its near panic.
"What WAS that?" he asked completely confused.
"You are probably the most dense man on Earth!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"I don't know. His old man might give him a run for his money," Gibbs muttered.
"What?" Will asked, not quite sure he had heard right.
"Nothing." Gibbs immediately turned aside and looked at Jack, apologetically.
"This is making my head hurt," Will mumbled. "Just leave me be till the woman brings Tricia back." He put an aggravated hand through his hair and went downstairs to clear his head.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
AnaMaria found Patricia at the corner of the near-empty room crying softly. Her thoughts wavered again at just how much the teenager reminded her of an old friend she'd lost some time before. She quickly got a drink from the bar server and put it on the table for Patricia to drink.
"Drink that," she ordered. Patricia looked up and saw AnaMaria looking at her with stern eyes.
"What is it?" Patricia asked her voice cracking.
"Just something to help you straighten out..." Patricia took a whiff of the liquid and cringed.
"It smells like alcohol..."
"You're a bright one arentcha?" AnaMaria rolled her eyes sarcastically. She looked at the clock and saw that it was ten past three. "Have you eaten yet?"
Patricia shook her head as she took a sip of the coarse liquor. It burned her throat but it somehow eased all the tense muscle that contracted in her body and her mind seemed to slip from rationality so she drank a little more. AnaMaria called for bread and when Patricia had drunk half the glass, she began to devour the food presented before her. Four hours later she had eaten two loaves and had drunk more pints of rum she could count (then again, at that point, she was drunk and couldn't count to two...) whilst AnaMaria was slowly and carefully nursing hers to keep sober... Patricia was drinking herself into a stupor.
"... And then dada left. Died cuz the horsies went mad," Patricia continued leaning on the table as AnaMaria leaned back in her chair amused, listening to the young girl tell her story in half-slurred words. "Me an' Will gots to be roomies at Browns! I put away all the money da left me to live wit Will like pitiable bloody dogs... And den Brown became a damn alocololic... Promised meself I wud neva drank a drop ov aloco... acolo... This stuff..." She pointed to her newly filled mug and took a swig. She laughed loudly, her whole body leaning back but kept herself from falling.
"Fat chance of keeping that promise now..." AnaMaria chuckled.
"Ya! And tisn't even da first of my drunken self coming out..."
"Isn't eh? When was the first then?"
"First and ONLY time mind you... Did back a year ago. I fell in love with the daftest jackass on Port Royal didja know?" AnaMaria nodded hearing that phrase for the hundredth time already that day. "Yea well, Lizbabeth got engaged to some old fart who wore a damn wig. Ole enuf to be her fada. Willy went all boohoo. Me? Depressed. Felt like stabbing him if I had to comfy him one more time about neva getting the wun he lubs. Like he knew what it was like... Bastard..." Patricia put her chin on the table, reminiscing.
"So took me onesies off to a pub one night and got drunk, slept with some strangler in one o' dose teensy streets and Will neva knew a damn thing. Doesn't notice me, dats why... I coulda danced in front of him with nuttin but a pearl necklace and he wouldna noticed." She said it so sadly that AnaMaria felt for her. Her tears were coming down again and she started to sob. Her head started to hit itself on the table whilst chanting, "Bastard... bastard... bastard... bastard." AnaMaria put her hand out stopped the head from regaining contact with the wooden table. She smiled understandingly at the girl and just looked at the wreck of her on the other side of the table.
"I think it's time we went back to the ship," she said kindly.
"No!" Patricia shrieked. "I won't! You can't make me." That's when AnaMaria realized her mistake of letting Patricia wallow in her sorrows amidst a pool of intoxicating fluids. "I won't face him... He'll say 'Sorry, Tricia- love, but you know I'm madly in love with Lizbabeth there who's married to the head of ALL of the British Navy in the Carbarrean. But you'll always be my lil sis no matter what.' No... I won't live with that. No!" Patricia's head fell again onto the table, chanting her mantra but her shrieks had turned the heads of the pub proprietors that had begun to fill the room. Two men that AnaMaria was a bit acquainted with came up the two women.
"Ana... Need a little assistance?" one named Sergio asked.
"Would you mind?" she asked. "She's drank enough to satisfy Jack Sparrow and I can't get her back to the ship without her kicking up a storm on the way."
"No problem, Ana," Antonio grinned. The two well-built men took up an arm of the limp Patricia and began to drag her through the streets with AnaMaria closely following. Patricia kicked and screamed bloody mercy on the way and Sergio and Antonio could barely keep her up. They were reaching port and the two brothers were ready to just drop and run when Patricia caught sight of the ship and let her weight drop. Sergio and Antonio grunted as the girl fell to her knees sobbing.
"I don't want to go... Please AnaMaria... Please," Patricia pleaded. Her seriousness helped her sober up even if it was by the most minute fraction. "I've lived most of my life... bearing Will not loving me... I've survived almost solely on the tiniest chance he'll love me back..." She curled into a ball, hiding her face in her hands on the cobblestone road, convulsing in tears. "Please... please don't make me go back and listen to him say that all I was living on was just an illusion..."
"You don't know that!" AnaMaria cried out. "You don't know that at all! How could you know if you don't go over there and listen to what he has to say?!"
"I don't want to listen... I want to keep my 'what ifs' and have the satisfaction he didn't have the chance to completely shatter in a hundred words or less. I'd rather slowly die than hear those words from Will..." she sobbed.
"You need to get to the ship..." AnaMaria said. "Get off the streets. You need to get in before it gets dangerous... The only reason that no criminal has touched us is because Antonio and Sergio are with us... Go back..." Patricia just sat on the ground, silent for a few moments then finally spoke.
"I'll go back if I don't have to talk or see Will until I'm ready..." AnaMaria nodded. She looked at the uncomfortable looking men with a request.
"Wait here. I'll be right back." And she ran to the ship to make good of the deal.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
"It's dark! We... I need to go after her! She could be hurt... She could be dead!" Will raged while ropes held his hands back around a mast to keep him from running. "Why won't you let me go??!!" He had emerged from his seclusion still thoroughly confused at sundown and found the ship to still lack Patricia's presence. He had tried to go out and look for her but all three remainders had told him no. Finally, at Jack's orders, hew as tied against a mast to keep him from doing something stupid. Even Elizabeth sympathized with this action so she just sat down next to Will as he was dying down from his rantings.
"Will, she's safe with AnaMaria," Elizabeth said in a soft voice as Will's head drooped forward in misery.
"I need to know she's safe..." he replied tears falling down to the wooden flooring.
"But making her face you will make her runaway more," she explained. "She's finally confessed that she loves you... She's probably afraid that you'll reject her now that she has... You can't make her face you right now. She'll run, no matter what you say." Will remained quiet. "I'm curious, though..."
"Curious to what?" he asked his voice cracking with shedded tears.
"Do you love her?"
"Of course I do," he answered automatically.
"I mean, the way that SHE loves YOU."
"I..." His voice wavered, trying to think it through. "I don't know... I've been asking myself that all day but I can't find the answer."
"It's an easy question, Will," Elizabeth snorted. "Do you love Patricia Taylor? Do you care about her above all things? Do you love her laugh? Do you love having her all to yourself and no one else's and have no purpose of allotment? Do you dream about her at night? Do you love having her arms?"
"I don't know if I love her romantically but I do care about her... I'd die for her... Do anything to keep her from harm..." Elizabeth smiled, hearing the wistful tone in his voice.
"Continue," she prodded.
"I... I love her laugh, yes. It's so... so uninhibited," Will went on. His tears were clearing and he was sitting up properly now. "And it goes up and down as if she's unintentionally singing..." He thought for a second and remembered the party and his jealousy at the frenchman holding her hand and at Jack when he had touched Patricia even in the slightest. "She's mine," he said resolutely. "And no... I'm NEVER sharing her with anyone.."
"What happens when she gets married?" His head furrowed at the newfound possibility. He never really though his Tricia would get married to someone else and leave him to fend for himself.
"I... I don't know," he answered. "I guess... I'd be happy for her... more really for the groom to get someone like Tricia to care for him..." Even on his ears, his manner sounded completely halfhearted.
"Well I guess you won't have to share since you'll have to give her away completely. No sharing there..." Elizabeth grinned.
"I'm NEVER giving her away," he snapped bitterly. The he coiled back realizing that he sounded irrational. Of course he had to. Was he really feeling so selfish to keep his Tricia to himself for all time, even when he found a wife of his own? Then he mentally admonished himself for connecting a possesive pronoun to her name.
"YOUR Tricia?" Elizabeth had caught it and Will just scowled. "Nevermind..." Then, Will's mind went on to the last two questions.
"I dreamt about her last night..."
"In a romantic fantasy sort of way, Will," Elizabeth interjected. "Dreaming that she cooked you green eggs and ham isn't exactly saying much of anything..."
"It WAS in a romantic sort of way..." he spoke softly. "But I've had dreams of her for years now... And at first, I was really embarassed... But then, afterwards... after awhile, we were always so affectionate with each other that we were pretty much doing living my dreams without the romantic strings or the kissing... or..." He blushed slightly. ".,. umm yea..." His face straightened out. "I always held her in my arms... We'd spend nights just holding each other sometimes and... Romance never really sprouted in reality..."
"Okay so let me get this right.. You'd die for her, love her laugh, never even THOUGHT of sharing her with any other man, much less giving her away on her wedding day, dream of her everynight for quite some time now and would spen nights just holding her content with JUST that..." Will nodded. "And you don't know if you love her? My god! You are so incredibly stupid, it should be recorded!"
"Okay!" Will cried out defeated. "Okay... so maybe I do love her..." he sighed. He heard a whoop from behind and saw Jack grinning.
"And we do make some progress!!" Jack shouted from his post. He gave a cheeky grin and Will returned it with a scowl that softened when he heard Elizabeth's soft love.
"Okay... fine... so maybe I'm in love with her." Then he turned when he heard the quick footfalls of AnaMaria returning, and to Will's trepidation, she was returning alone...
AN// Okay so this DID pan out the way I wanted it to but it continued a little too long. Not giving a break in between and ending without a cliffhanger is really... not me. *grin* To continue would've been tedious for tedious.. IONO. That was how I perceived it so I'm calling a halt here and I'll update... REALLY soon.
Just Review please!!!