PiratePrincess91: I DON'T like killing/hurting my characters, but I have
to do it sometimes...usually for plot-related reasons. But don't worry—I
just...oh, just read the story!
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(Oooo...It's the last chapter. / But I'll add a epilogue to explain a few things. So there WILL be another chapter, but it isn't an OFFICIAL chapter.)
Ruby Of the Sea
Chapter 8
An End To the Tale
Nicole had stayed awake all night, listening to the story unfold, and keeping watch over her adoptive sister.
As Ruby told the story, her face expressed all of the emotion that it had restrained while telling the previous segments. She smiled, cringed, wept, and rage filled her weak frame.
During the end of her story, Ruby's tears had created little rivers that fell from her eyes, towards the sides of her face, and eventually collected into little lakes that wet her hair.
At about three in the morning, Ruby fell into an uneasy sleep, and Nicole gratefully accepted the few minutes of rest for herself that it allowed.
It was only about 4:15 AM, when Ruby suddenly sat up. Her eyes were glazed over, half in a dream, and half in a hallucination, but she seemed aware of her surroundings.
"Jack!" She shouted weakly, pushing the covers off of herself and standing to head towards the door.
Nicole quickly jumped into her way. "Lay back down, Ruby! Captain Jack isn't here!" Nicole's eyes filled with tears, "He won't ever be here..."
"No..." Ruby's eyes were unfocused and started past Nicole, "I have to go save him...find Turner..."
With a start, Nicole realized that Ruby was reliving those moments before Jack's death. "No, Ruby. Lay down. You can't help him."
Ruby was violent with delirium, and harshly pushed Nicole aside, dreaming that she was one of the guards that had restrained her before.
"Someone help me!" Nicole shouted out the door as she desperately held Ruby back by keeping a grip on Ruby's skirts.
Then suddenly, all of Ruby's strength left her, and Ruby fell forward, and was caught just in time by Mr. Louis, who had heard Nicole's shout, and rushed in.
As he placed Ruby back into the bed, Mrs. Louis came in too.
"Jack...come...ship..." Ruby muttered disjointedly as she passed out.
"Well," Mrs. Louis said stoutly, "that settles it. Nicole, go and get dressed. We are going to the port to go and meet Dobson!"
As Nicole looked up at her mother's tired, worried face, she realized that it would do no good to protest, and she headed back towards her room with a heavy sigh.
Within an hour, Mrs. Louis and Nicole were at the port, waiting for Dobson's ship to come in.
Nicole looked around, quite bored. There were only a few people at the docks: a few navy men; a woman in whooped skirts; a dirty beggar; a group of ragged children standing in a circle, poking and prodding at something; a drunken, swaggering man with dreadlocks; a—wait!
Nicole whirled about to look at the man that had just walked past. 'A drunken, swaggering man'?
"Captain Jack!" The word escaped her lips before she could stop them, and she could not call them back in.
Nicole glanced nervously at her mother.
"No, no dear. Dobson isn't here yet, and do not refer to an elder by his first name." Mrs. Louis hadn't even looked away from the ocean.
Nicole bit her lip. It couldn't be Jack...Jack was dead. The drunk man, however, had stopped in his tracks and was staring at Nicole a bit strangely.
Nicole quietly slipped from her mother's side, and ran over to the man.
"Jack Sparrow?" She breathed, a bit awed.
"'Captain', love. 'Captain'." He corrected her, but with neither relish, nor disgust in the slightest.
Nicole stared up at the pirate that she had once dreamed of meeting. He looked scruffy, drunk, sad, and almost lifeless. His looking scruffy was to be expected, living at sea for months at a time, and if the stories that she had heard held any accuracy at all, then his being drunk could be dismissed. But his sad and lifelessness was a bit unnerving. He was supposed to be gung-ho and sprightly!
After a moment's silence, Jack spoke again.
"What is it ye be lookin for?"
Nicole breathed deeply to calm her nerves.
"Jack," she whispered, and the captain leaned in to hear what she was saying, "I know Ruby."
Jack straightened, and over at Nicole quizzically.
"Who be Ruby?" He asked.
Nicole shook her head, "Oh, you don't know her as Ruby!" She nearly laughed, "You would only know her as Jo!"
The look that then came into Jack's kohl-rimmed eyes was one of a mix of surprise and joy, but before he could ask her anything Nicole was being jerked back by Mrs. Louis who had just seen Dobson getting off of a ship, and was quickly headed towards him.
Jack followed behind Nicole at a safe distance so that the Mrs. Louis wouldn't be suspicious, but close enough to hear anything that Nicole might say.
Nicole tried to mouth the location of her home to Jack, but she only discovered that the Captain wasn't very good at lip-reading.
Finally, when Mrs. Louis was talking with Mr. Dobson, Nicole managed to wrench her small hand from her mother's and hurried back to Jack.
Nicole quickly told him the address of her home, just before Mrs. Louis took her hand again, and quickly began taking home.
"Hurry, Jack! She's hurt!" She called as she dissapeared into the crowd.
"Dear! I've told you twice today not to refer to Mr. Dobson as 'Jack'!" Mrs. Louis scolded as they hurried back to the house.
'Jo, hurt?' Captain Jack was still taking everything in. He had to get to the house that the child had told him about soon...but he had only ever been to this port once before!
Jack tilted his hat further, and began stalking the group of three. He had followed them quite a ways, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around, and his eyes met a navy-man who he had stolen from once.
"It's you!" The man grinned, "You'll be paying for what you stole from me earlier, you filthy pirate!" And with that, the man swung a fist at Jack's face.
The captain easily dodged. "Do we have to do this now?" Jack asked in an annoyed tone.
Obviously the navy thought so, and tried a rapid succession of punches, though all poorly aimed.
Again, Jack dodged, and retaliated by punching the man in the face.
The man, now looking a bit tired, was angry, and plowed into Jack with his shoulders.
This tactic took Jack by surprise, but he slipped away from the navy- man, and in the process managed to trip him up.
Before the man could stand back up, Jack took the but of his gun, and hit the man's head with it, knocking him out effectively.
A bit angrily, Captain Sparrow put up his gun, and looked about for the party he had been trailing.
He groaned. They were gone, lost in the crowd, and left him with little idea how to get to the Louis household.
With a sigh, the pirate captain began asking for instructions.
When Dobson, Nicole, and Mrs. Louis returned to the home, Ruby was quite possibly more delirious that she had ever been in her life.
The shadows in the ceiling took on the shapes of ships and battalions, and the imagined waves sent them tumbling and tossing.
As the group of three that had just been at the port, the ceiling's shadows took a new form in Ruby's eyes.
It was not a boat or the ocean, they first took on a sort of ovalish shape, and then details began forming. Two eyes; a nose; a mouth lifted in a drunken, yet friendly, smile; and finally a braided beard and hair entered her hallucination.
"Jack." She smiled and lifted her hand, trying to touch the image that floated tauntingly just out of her reach.
Ruby closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was on the Black Pearl again. It was dark, but she could still see well.
Ruby walked to the window, and found that the moon was full. Then she felt arms around her waist. She turned to find Captain Jack Sparrow holding her.
"Jack!" She said, "I thought they had killed you!"
Jack didn't reply, but drew her in, and Ruby closed her eyes, ready for the kiss.
When it didn't come, she opened her eyes again, and there was the Judge from the court.
He grinned wickedly, still holding her as Jack had been until she had closed her eyes.
"Let go of me!" She screamed, and pushed away, but her hands went through him as if he were smoke.
She screamed again, but this time, she clawed furiously, and managed to escape from his arms.
Ruby ran until she was backed against a wall. The wall turned 90 degrees, and suddenly Ruby snapped back into reality.
She was in the sick-room's bed, and there was not judge there. With a pang of sorrow, Ruby realized that there was no Jack either.
"Ruby, Jack is here!" Said a familiar voice. It took Ruby a moment to realize that it was Mrs. Louis who had spoken.
"Jack...?" She asked breathlessly.
Then a semi-unfamiliar face leaned over the bed, and she found herself faced with Mr. Dobson.
She was severely disappointed. It wasn't Jack! Then her hallucinations caused Dobson to change. His straw-blond hair and hat turned powdered white, and his face aged before her feverish eyes. He was no longer a young navy captain, but the judge.
"No!" she screamed, "You killed Jack!" She tried to jump out of bed, but found herself too weak, and contented herself with clutching at the vision, and screaming insults and accusations.
Dobson jumped back when Ruby began screaming.
With a confused look, he asked Mrs. Louis for an explanation, but she could find no words.
Nicole moved to the window, and prayed that the pirate captain would hurry.
It was nearly evening before Captain Sparrow found the home that Nicole had given him the address of, and he bounded up the steps, three at a time.
When he reached the door, Jack pounded on the door, waited about half a second, then pounded again only harder.
Soon, Mr. Louis opened the door. At the sight of the disheveled pirate, he visibly paled, and tried to shut the door.
But Jack put his hand on the door and pushed it open.
"I'm sorry sir, but I must find Jo!" He exclaimed as he ran past the frightened man, and quickly poked his head into several different rooms.
"There is no one in the house named Jo!" Mr. Louis said, trying to keep his trembling voice even.
"Ruby!" Jack corrected himself.
"There is no Ruby!" Mr. Louis was becoming desperate.
"What's going on?" Mrs. Louis, who had emerged from the sick-room, asked.
When she saw Jack opening a door, looking in, then exiting the room, she screamed, this in turn sent the Navy Captain out of the room, with Nicole at his heels.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Dobson demanded.
"Captain Jack Sparrow!" Nicole shouted in joy.
Ruby heard Nicole's shout, and pushed the blankets off her. She had to find Jack.
Using quite a bit of her strength, she pushed herself out of the bed, and walked to the door.
Her frame was much thinner than it had been before, and her nightgown hung on her shoulders limply.
"Jack!" She exclaimed when she saw the pirate captain.
She took about ten steps forwards, then the remnant of her strength left, and she fell forwards.
She braced herself for the impact of the floor, but instead found Jack's arms around her.
"Jack..." She repeated, and lifted a hand to touch Jack's unshaven cheek.
"Cummon, Jo, love, you need to get back in bed." He lifted her up easily, and took her back into the sick room.
Mrs. Louis, Mr. Louis, and Dobson watched the events open-mouthed, but Nicole scuttled after Jack and Jo, and watched from behind the door post as they entered the sick room.
Jack carefully laid the frail, weak girl back down onto the bed.
"Don't leave me, Jack!" Ruby pleaded as Jack tenderly placed the covers back over her.
"I won't, love. I swear by me ship and me life." Jack carefully slid a pillow under Ruby's head.
Jack delicately took one of Ruby's hands in his own, leaned in, and kissed her softly.
Ruby sighed, and fell quietly fell asleep, almost before the kiss was over, confidant that things would be better when she awoke, and she knew that Jack would still be holding her hand.
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(Oooo...It's the last chapter. / But I'll add a epilogue to explain a few things. So there WILL be another chapter, but it isn't an OFFICIAL chapter.)
Ruby Of the Sea
Chapter 8
An End To the Tale
Nicole had stayed awake all night, listening to the story unfold, and keeping watch over her adoptive sister.
As Ruby told the story, her face expressed all of the emotion that it had restrained while telling the previous segments. She smiled, cringed, wept, and rage filled her weak frame.
During the end of her story, Ruby's tears had created little rivers that fell from her eyes, towards the sides of her face, and eventually collected into little lakes that wet her hair.
At about three in the morning, Ruby fell into an uneasy sleep, and Nicole gratefully accepted the few minutes of rest for herself that it allowed.
It was only about 4:15 AM, when Ruby suddenly sat up. Her eyes were glazed over, half in a dream, and half in a hallucination, but she seemed aware of her surroundings.
"Jack!" She shouted weakly, pushing the covers off of herself and standing to head towards the door.
Nicole quickly jumped into her way. "Lay back down, Ruby! Captain Jack isn't here!" Nicole's eyes filled with tears, "He won't ever be here..."
"No..." Ruby's eyes were unfocused and started past Nicole, "I have to go save him...find Turner..."
With a start, Nicole realized that Ruby was reliving those moments before Jack's death. "No, Ruby. Lay down. You can't help him."
Ruby was violent with delirium, and harshly pushed Nicole aside, dreaming that she was one of the guards that had restrained her before.
"Someone help me!" Nicole shouted out the door as she desperately held Ruby back by keeping a grip on Ruby's skirts.
Then suddenly, all of Ruby's strength left her, and Ruby fell forward, and was caught just in time by Mr. Louis, who had heard Nicole's shout, and rushed in.
As he placed Ruby back into the bed, Mrs. Louis came in too.
"Jack...come...ship..." Ruby muttered disjointedly as she passed out.
"Well," Mrs. Louis said stoutly, "that settles it. Nicole, go and get dressed. We are going to the port to go and meet Dobson!"
As Nicole looked up at her mother's tired, worried face, she realized that it would do no good to protest, and she headed back towards her room with a heavy sigh.
Within an hour, Mrs. Louis and Nicole were at the port, waiting for Dobson's ship to come in.
Nicole looked around, quite bored. There were only a few people at the docks: a few navy men; a woman in whooped skirts; a dirty beggar; a group of ragged children standing in a circle, poking and prodding at something; a drunken, swaggering man with dreadlocks; a—wait!
Nicole whirled about to look at the man that had just walked past. 'A drunken, swaggering man'?
"Captain Jack!" The word escaped her lips before she could stop them, and she could not call them back in.
Nicole glanced nervously at her mother.
"No, no dear. Dobson isn't here yet, and do not refer to an elder by his first name." Mrs. Louis hadn't even looked away from the ocean.
Nicole bit her lip. It couldn't be Jack...Jack was dead. The drunk man, however, had stopped in his tracks and was staring at Nicole a bit strangely.
Nicole quietly slipped from her mother's side, and ran over to the man.
"Jack Sparrow?" She breathed, a bit awed.
"'Captain', love. 'Captain'." He corrected her, but with neither relish, nor disgust in the slightest.
Nicole stared up at the pirate that she had once dreamed of meeting. He looked scruffy, drunk, sad, and almost lifeless. His looking scruffy was to be expected, living at sea for months at a time, and if the stories that she had heard held any accuracy at all, then his being drunk could be dismissed. But his sad and lifelessness was a bit unnerving. He was supposed to be gung-ho and sprightly!
After a moment's silence, Jack spoke again.
"What is it ye be lookin for?"
Nicole breathed deeply to calm her nerves.
"Jack," she whispered, and the captain leaned in to hear what she was saying, "I know Ruby."
Jack straightened, and over at Nicole quizzically.
"Who be Ruby?" He asked.
Nicole shook her head, "Oh, you don't know her as Ruby!" She nearly laughed, "You would only know her as Jo!"
The look that then came into Jack's kohl-rimmed eyes was one of a mix of surprise and joy, but before he could ask her anything Nicole was being jerked back by Mrs. Louis who had just seen Dobson getting off of a ship, and was quickly headed towards him.
Jack followed behind Nicole at a safe distance so that the Mrs. Louis wouldn't be suspicious, but close enough to hear anything that Nicole might say.
Nicole tried to mouth the location of her home to Jack, but she only discovered that the Captain wasn't very good at lip-reading.
Finally, when Mrs. Louis was talking with Mr. Dobson, Nicole managed to wrench her small hand from her mother's and hurried back to Jack.
Nicole quickly told him the address of her home, just before Mrs. Louis took her hand again, and quickly began taking home.
"Hurry, Jack! She's hurt!" She called as she dissapeared into the crowd.
"Dear! I've told you twice today not to refer to Mr. Dobson as 'Jack'!" Mrs. Louis scolded as they hurried back to the house.
'Jo, hurt?' Captain Jack was still taking everything in. He had to get to the house that the child had told him about soon...but he had only ever been to this port once before!
Jack tilted his hat further, and began stalking the group of three. He had followed them quite a ways, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around, and his eyes met a navy-man who he had stolen from once.
"It's you!" The man grinned, "You'll be paying for what you stole from me earlier, you filthy pirate!" And with that, the man swung a fist at Jack's face.
The captain easily dodged. "Do we have to do this now?" Jack asked in an annoyed tone.
Obviously the navy thought so, and tried a rapid succession of punches, though all poorly aimed.
Again, Jack dodged, and retaliated by punching the man in the face.
The man, now looking a bit tired, was angry, and plowed into Jack with his shoulders.
This tactic took Jack by surprise, but he slipped away from the navy- man, and in the process managed to trip him up.
Before the man could stand back up, Jack took the but of his gun, and hit the man's head with it, knocking him out effectively.
A bit angrily, Captain Sparrow put up his gun, and looked about for the party he had been trailing.
He groaned. They were gone, lost in the crowd, and left him with little idea how to get to the Louis household.
With a sigh, the pirate captain began asking for instructions.
When Dobson, Nicole, and Mrs. Louis returned to the home, Ruby was quite possibly more delirious that she had ever been in her life.
The shadows in the ceiling took on the shapes of ships and battalions, and the imagined waves sent them tumbling and tossing.
As the group of three that had just been at the port, the ceiling's shadows took a new form in Ruby's eyes.
It was not a boat or the ocean, they first took on a sort of ovalish shape, and then details began forming. Two eyes; a nose; a mouth lifted in a drunken, yet friendly, smile; and finally a braided beard and hair entered her hallucination.
"Jack." She smiled and lifted her hand, trying to touch the image that floated tauntingly just out of her reach.
Ruby closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was on the Black Pearl again. It was dark, but she could still see well.
Ruby walked to the window, and found that the moon was full. Then she felt arms around her waist. She turned to find Captain Jack Sparrow holding her.
"Jack!" She said, "I thought they had killed you!"
Jack didn't reply, but drew her in, and Ruby closed her eyes, ready for the kiss.
When it didn't come, she opened her eyes again, and there was the Judge from the court.
He grinned wickedly, still holding her as Jack had been until she had closed her eyes.
"Let go of me!" She screamed, and pushed away, but her hands went through him as if he were smoke.
She screamed again, but this time, she clawed furiously, and managed to escape from his arms.
Ruby ran until she was backed against a wall. The wall turned 90 degrees, and suddenly Ruby snapped back into reality.
She was in the sick-room's bed, and there was not judge there. With a pang of sorrow, Ruby realized that there was no Jack either.
"Ruby, Jack is here!" Said a familiar voice. It took Ruby a moment to realize that it was Mrs. Louis who had spoken.
"Jack...?" She asked breathlessly.
Then a semi-unfamiliar face leaned over the bed, and she found herself faced with Mr. Dobson.
She was severely disappointed. It wasn't Jack! Then her hallucinations caused Dobson to change. His straw-blond hair and hat turned powdered white, and his face aged before her feverish eyes. He was no longer a young navy captain, but the judge.
"No!" she screamed, "You killed Jack!" She tried to jump out of bed, but found herself too weak, and contented herself with clutching at the vision, and screaming insults and accusations.
Dobson jumped back when Ruby began screaming.
With a confused look, he asked Mrs. Louis for an explanation, but she could find no words.
Nicole moved to the window, and prayed that the pirate captain would hurry.
It was nearly evening before Captain Sparrow found the home that Nicole had given him the address of, and he bounded up the steps, three at a time.
When he reached the door, Jack pounded on the door, waited about half a second, then pounded again only harder.
Soon, Mr. Louis opened the door. At the sight of the disheveled pirate, he visibly paled, and tried to shut the door.
But Jack put his hand on the door and pushed it open.
"I'm sorry sir, but I must find Jo!" He exclaimed as he ran past the frightened man, and quickly poked his head into several different rooms.
"There is no one in the house named Jo!" Mr. Louis said, trying to keep his trembling voice even.
"Ruby!" Jack corrected himself.
"There is no Ruby!" Mr. Louis was becoming desperate.
"What's going on?" Mrs. Louis, who had emerged from the sick-room, asked.
When she saw Jack opening a door, looking in, then exiting the room, she screamed, this in turn sent the Navy Captain out of the room, with Nicole at his heels.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Dobson demanded.
"Captain Jack Sparrow!" Nicole shouted in joy.
Ruby heard Nicole's shout, and pushed the blankets off her. She had to find Jack.
Using quite a bit of her strength, she pushed herself out of the bed, and walked to the door.
Her frame was much thinner than it had been before, and her nightgown hung on her shoulders limply.
"Jack!" She exclaimed when she saw the pirate captain.
She took about ten steps forwards, then the remnant of her strength left, and she fell forwards.
She braced herself for the impact of the floor, but instead found Jack's arms around her.
"Jack..." She repeated, and lifted a hand to touch Jack's unshaven cheek.
"Cummon, Jo, love, you need to get back in bed." He lifted her up easily, and took her back into the sick room.
Mrs. Louis, Mr. Louis, and Dobson watched the events open-mouthed, but Nicole scuttled after Jack and Jo, and watched from behind the door post as they entered the sick room.
Jack carefully laid the frail, weak girl back down onto the bed.
"Don't leave me, Jack!" Ruby pleaded as Jack tenderly placed the covers back over her.
"I won't, love. I swear by me ship and me life." Jack carefully slid a pillow under Ruby's head.
Jack delicately took one of Ruby's hands in his own, leaned in, and kissed her softly.
Ruby sighed, and fell quietly fell asleep, almost before the kiss was over, confidant that things would be better when she awoke, and she knew that Jack would still be holding her hand.