Disclaimer: I don't own POTC; I just really really wish I did
Chapter Five: The New Cook
After the fiasco in the middle of the night, Rachel went back to her hammock to try to get a few more hours of sleep before sunup. It seemed no sooner had she fallen asleep was she woken again with the cabin door being flung open and a roar echoing off the walls.
"Get up, ye mangy dogs! Get yer breakfast and get t' work!" yelled none other than Captain Jack, and left as soon as he heard feet hit the deck.
Rachel leapt right out of bed when the door banged against the wall and almost had her dagger in hand when she realized it was just Jack waking the crew. She grabbed a shirt out of her trunk and threw it on over her nightshirt along with a few of her effects and headed off to the galley.
When she got there, the first thing she noticed was the crew scrambling around barrels of fish and bread, hurrying to get on deck as soon as possible. She waited until there wasn't a mad dash for the food and chose just bread instead of the cold fish. Rachel wondered if some of the fish were even dead yet.
She joined the crew at the table and listened to them talk about why they weren't heading for La Paz. When she was seated, it was the first thing she was asked.
"Rachel, why are'n we takin' ye home? 'Ave ye decided t' help us with th' treasure after all?"
Everyone was as silent as they could be while rushing to finish their meal, waiting for Rachel's response.
"It's a bit of a long story, really. I awoke in the middle of the night from a nightmare that we docked in port at La Paz and straight away we were attacked and seized by the Navy. Tha's when I realized tha' Captain Sparrow said before tha' he heard someone in Port Royal say me name," she paused for effect and took a bite of her bread. When she was done chewing, she continued. "I woke up an' convinced the captain to turn away from La Paz seein' as we could all be hangin' at th' end of a noose by sundown if we kept our course."
The crew looked at her, still confused. Not quite understanding the story and also not understanding why the more she spoke, the more loose her accent became.
Rachel sighed, finishing her bread, "If they knew who I was, then they would know where I live."
Finally the crew understood and finished their breakfast; decided to ask her about her speech later when they had more time. They all heard Jack's footsteps coming loudly down the hall to the galley. By the time he opened the door, the crew was filing out past him with a few casual greetings, Rachel being at the end of the line.
"We be headin' fer Tortuga, mates. We should be there by sunset if th' wind's good. Wha' do ye plan on doin' today, love?" Jack asked, stopping her from leaving with the rest of the crew, who were already on deck and at their regular morning duties.
"I want to help the crew," she stated plainly, as if it were an obvious fact. Jack frowned at this.
"Yer not goin' t' help, there ain't no need," Jack said stubbornly, not allowing her to help in his thanks for saving his life.
"You know, Captain-" Rachel was cut off.
"Ye can call me Jack, as long as I can call ye Rachel." Jack made a deal with her.
"Fine, Jack, you don't really expect me to take passage on your ship and just sit here and do nothin', do you?"
"Aye, ye can jest sit there an' look pretty," Jack grinned, leaning up against the doorway still blocking her to exit from the galley and go up on deck.
"Jack Sparrow! I will not allow you to treat me differently just because I saved yer life an' I'm a woman! I will be assigned some job on this ship, and said job will be assigned now!" she raised her voice with her hands on her hips defiantly.
Jack could see why she would want some job to do on the ship. She could get bored quite easily, so he thought in silence about a job she could do.
"Will ye allow me to cook? There is obviously no cook aboard this ship, and I'm sure yer crew would be delighted to have food set out fer them and it would also save some time so there wouldn't be no scrambling about to get at the food barrels." She paused. "What say you?" she asked.
Jack thought for a moment, and finally gave in. "Aye, ye can cook," he sighed, "All th' food is either in here or in the next room there," he said, pointing to a door on the other side of the room. "And ye can also help me out with th' location of th' treasure if ye would," Jack stuck out his hand, "Do we have an accord?"
Rachel nodded in agreement and shook his hand, "Agreed. Do ye eat the same food th' crew eats?" she asked, letting go.
"Aye, jest bring it to me room. If I'm not there, set it on th' desk." Then he turned and walked out of the galley, leaving Rachel to her own devices.
Rachel decided to take advantage of the morning and look through all the food that was in the room and also in the kitchen. After taking into account what was there, she threw together some sort of mixed lunch for the crew just in time.
The crew filed into the galley along with Jack, which apparently was some sort of oddity according to the crew's sidelong glances, but everyone quickly dismissed it and focused on the cooked food instead. They all seemed to be very happy that they did not need to go bustling around the food barrels anymore in hopes of grabbing some sort of food item.
Rachel sat down and joined them in eating. She half listened to the conversation going around the table, but did no contributing to it except the occasional nod and smile. It wasn't until she was addressed when she paid full attention.
"So Rachel," a young lad named Jonathon started, "I think tha' yer really joinin' our crew here because ye have yerself a secret,"
Rachel froze, momentarily thinking that they had found out her secret one way or another, but decided not to jump to conclusions just yet. All eyes were on her, including Jack who noticed that she had tensed up visibly from Jonathon's comment and watched her closely.
"What?" she asked, trying to keep the slight squeak out of her voice, which she did so fairly successfully.
"I think tha' yer secretly in love with one o' us, tha's wha' I think," Jonathon said with a playful grin which just barely hid that his real feelings were anything but playful. Jack and Rachel were the only ones who caught that extra something, but both chose to ignore it.
"Oh!" Rachel exclaimed, relieved that they had just been joking around. 'I have to learn to take it easy,' she thought. "Oh, yes, like I would have an attraction for you, Jonathon. You are much too young and skinny for my liking." Which Jonathon was. He had to be 16 or 17 years old and was the skinniest looking lad you'd ever see.
Jonathon, a bit miffed by the comment, said, "Well, yer mother seems to like 'em young an' skinny then." After the chortle of laughter that filled the room, all eyes were again on her for a response. Rachel stiffened at the mention of her deceased mother, but did not make any sort of retort to him. He did not know what happened.
So instead, Rachel fired back, "So does yer sister."
That set everybody off laughing, even Jack. The crew all left the galley at the end of their meal, Jonathon at the end of the line, giving her one last glance before disappearing up to the deck.
Rachel began to pick up the dishes when a voice came from the door. "Ye alrigh' Rachel?" asked Jack. Rachel jumped and almost dropped the plate in her hand. She quickly turned around and scolded him for sneaking up on her.
"Don't do that Mr. Sparrow!" she said teasingly.
Jack grinned and walked into the room, "It's Captain! Captain Sparrow! But I told ye t' call me Jack. An' why shouldn' I?" he asked, still grinning and walking, slowly getting closer and closer to her. Rachel didn't back away. She was never one to back away from someone, they were to back away from her.
"Because next time," Jack had stopped just inches from her, both trying to remain unfazed by the closeness of their bodies, "I could mistake you for someone else and accidentally kill you." She said calmly, a small smile playing on her lips.
Jack glanced down and noticed her precious dagger in her right hand for the first time. "How do ye pull tha' thing out withou' me knowing?" he asked lowly, his eyes raising slowly from the dagger but got stuck staring at her breasts instead of her face.
"You do'n notice it because you're too busy staring at my breasts to know wha's goin' on anywhere else,"
His eyes shot up to her own, not the least bit ashamed at being caught, although he quickly changed the subject, the two still standing dangerously close to one another.
"Did Jonathon's comment bother ye any?" he tried.
"No," and with that, Rachel turned away with the plates in hand and set them in a basin to be washed. When she turned back to go get the rest, Jack was standing right behind her, again getting dangerously close. Rachel bit back a growl of displeasure.
"I think it did, I could tell by yer face,"
"How would ye know anything about me, you've known me for one day," she asked a little coldly.
"I'm good a' readin' body language," he grinned, unfazed by her slight coldness to him.
Rachel took the opportunity to stop talking about her mother and took the one step needed to close the small gap between them. She pressed her breasts against him as she spoke.
"I bet you are, captain," she murmured, slightly smiling and leaning closer to his face. Jack was just about to react when a voice interrupted them.
"Captain! Gibbs said-" Jonathon stopped short when he saw the close proximity between his captain and Rachel. Jack turned around, now serious and a little pissed off at the interruption, away from Rachel to face Jonathon
"Gibbs said..." Jack said, waiting for him to finish his sentence. Jonathon quickly recovered, but the pep had left his voice in exchange with bitterness.
"Gibbs said tha' a storm was comin' up, sir."
Jack whisked past Jonathon with one last glance at Rachel, and ran up to the deck.
Rachel, unsure of what to do during a storm, brushed by Jonathon and headed up the stairs to the main deck. She noticed towards the north that there were massive storm clouds; one didn't need to be an expert at sea to know what those clouds meant. As the ship starting to hit rougher waters, she and the crew were having problems staying in one place, but Jack seemed to have the best sea legs in the world because he didn't appear to be swaying at all from his position at the helm, shouting orders to the crew and keeping his eyes straight ahead.
Rachel made her way up to the helm with some difficulty, and approached Jack.
"Jack, what can I do to help?"
Jack's eyes shifted from the sky to her just like their first meeting all over again, the déjà vu giving her goose bumps.
"Nothin' at all. Ye do'n know nothin' about sailin', an' I do'n want ye gettin' thrown overboard. Go below deck an' wait this storm out."
Neither had noticed an enraged Jonathon come up the helm steps behind them. He reached out and meant to push Jack over the side of the Pearl, but a rough wave hit the ship and instead of pushing Jack, he fell into Rachel, casting her overboard and just barely saving himself.
Chapter Five: The New Cook
After the fiasco in the middle of the night, Rachel went back to her hammock to try to get a few more hours of sleep before sunup. It seemed no sooner had she fallen asleep was she woken again with the cabin door being flung open and a roar echoing off the walls.
"Get up, ye mangy dogs! Get yer breakfast and get t' work!" yelled none other than Captain Jack, and left as soon as he heard feet hit the deck.
Rachel leapt right out of bed when the door banged against the wall and almost had her dagger in hand when she realized it was just Jack waking the crew. She grabbed a shirt out of her trunk and threw it on over her nightshirt along with a few of her effects and headed off to the galley.
When she got there, the first thing she noticed was the crew scrambling around barrels of fish and bread, hurrying to get on deck as soon as possible. She waited until there wasn't a mad dash for the food and chose just bread instead of the cold fish. Rachel wondered if some of the fish were even dead yet.
She joined the crew at the table and listened to them talk about why they weren't heading for La Paz. When she was seated, it was the first thing she was asked.
"Rachel, why are'n we takin' ye home? 'Ave ye decided t' help us with th' treasure after all?"
Everyone was as silent as they could be while rushing to finish their meal, waiting for Rachel's response.
"It's a bit of a long story, really. I awoke in the middle of the night from a nightmare that we docked in port at La Paz and straight away we were attacked and seized by the Navy. Tha's when I realized tha' Captain Sparrow said before tha' he heard someone in Port Royal say me name," she paused for effect and took a bite of her bread. When she was done chewing, she continued. "I woke up an' convinced the captain to turn away from La Paz seein' as we could all be hangin' at th' end of a noose by sundown if we kept our course."
The crew looked at her, still confused. Not quite understanding the story and also not understanding why the more she spoke, the more loose her accent became.
Rachel sighed, finishing her bread, "If they knew who I was, then they would know where I live."
Finally the crew understood and finished their breakfast; decided to ask her about her speech later when they had more time. They all heard Jack's footsteps coming loudly down the hall to the galley. By the time he opened the door, the crew was filing out past him with a few casual greetings, Rachel being at the end of the line.
"We be headin' fer Tortuga, mates. We should be there by sunset if th' wind's good. Wha' do ye plan on doin' today, love?" Jack asked, stopping her from leaving with the rest of the crew, who were already on deck and at their regular morning duties.
"I want to help the crew," she stated plainly, as if it were an obvious fact. Jack frowned at this.
"Yer not goin' t' help, there ain't no need," Jack said stubbornly, not allowing her to help in his thanks for saving his life.
"You know, Captain-" Rachel was cut off.
"Ye can call me Jack, as long as I can call ye Rachel." Jack made a deal with her.
"Fine, Jack, you don't really expect me to take passage on your ship and just sit here and do nothin', do you?"
"Aye, ye can jest sit there an' look pretty," Jack grinned, leaning up against the doorway still blocking her to exit from the galley and go up on deck.
"Jack Sparrow! I will not allow you to treat me differently just because I saved yer life an' I'm a woman! I will be assigned some job on this ship, and said job will be assigned now!" she raised her voice with her hands on her hips defiantly.
Jack could see why she would want some job to do on the ship. She could get bored quite easily, so he thought in silence about a job she could do.
"Will ye allow me to cook? There is obviously no cook aboard this ship, and I'm sure yer crew would be delighted to have food set out fer them and it would also save some time so there wouldn't be no scrambling about to get at the food barrels." She paused. "What say you?" she asked.
Jack thought for a moment, and finally gave in. "Aye, ye can cook," he sighed, "All th' food is either in here or in the next room there," he said, pointing to a door on the other side of the room. "And ye can also help me out with th' location of th' treasure if ye would," Jack stuck out his hand, "Do we have an accord?"
Rachel nodded in agreement and shook his hand, "Agreed. Do ye eat the same food th' crew eats?" she asked, letting go.
"Aye, jest bring it to me room. If I'm not there, set it on th' desk." Then he turned and walked out of the galley, leaving Rachel to her own devices.
Rachel decided to take advantage of the morning and look through all the food that was in the room and also in the kitchen. After taking into account what was there, she threw together some sort of mixed lunch for the crew just in time.
The crew filed into the galley along with Jack, which apparently was some sort of oddity according to the crew's sidelong glances, but everyone quickly dismissed it and focused on the cooked food instead. They all seemed to be very happy that they did not need to go bustling around the food barrels anymore in hopes of grabbing some sort of food item.
Rachel sat down and joined them in eating. She half listened to the conversation going around the table, but did no contributing to it except the occasional nod and smile. It wasn't until she was addressed when she paid full attention.
"So Rachel," a young lad named Jonathon started, "I think tha' yer really joinin' our crew here because ye have yerself a secret,"
Rachel froze, momentarily thinking that they had found out her secret one way or another, but decided not to jump to conclusions just yet. All eyes were on her, including Jack who noticed that she had tensed up visibly from Jonathon's comment and watched her closely.
"What?" she asked, trying to keep the slight squeak out of her voice, which she did so fairly successfully.
"I think tha' yer secretly in love with one o' us, tha's wha' I think," Jonathon said with a playful grin which just barely hid that his real feelings were anything but playful. Jack and Rachel were the only ones who caught that extra something, but both chose to ignore it.
"Oh!" Rachel exclaimed, relieved that they had just been joking around. 'I have to learn to take it easy,' she thought. "Oh, yes, like I would have an attraction for you, Jonathon. You are much too young and skinny for my liking." Which Jonathon was. He had to be 16 or 17 years old and was the skinniest looking lad you'd ever see.
Jonathon, a bit miffed by the comment, said, "Well, yer mother seems to like 'em young an' skinny then." After the chortle of laughter that filled the room, all eyes were again on her for a response. Rachel stiffened at the mention of her deceased mother, but did not make any sort of retort to him. He did not know what happened.
So instead, Rachel fired back, "So does yer sister."
That set everybody off laughing, even Jack. The crew all left the galley at the end of their meal, Jonathon at the end of the line, giving her one last glance before disappearing up to the deck.
Rachel began to pick up the dishes when a voice came from the door. "Ye alrigh' Rachel?" asked Jack. Rachel jumped and almost dropped the plate in her hand. She quickly turned around and scolded him for sneaking up on her.
"Don't do that Mr. Sparrow!" she said teasingly.
Jack grinned and walked into the room, "It's Captain! Captain Sparrow! But I told ye t' call me Jack. An' why shouldn' I?" he asked, still grinning and walking, slowly getting closer and closer to her. Rachel didn't back away. She was never one to back away from someone, they were to back away from her.
"Because next time," Jack had stopped just inches from her, both trying to remain unfazed by the closeness of their bodies, "I could mistake you for someone else and accidentally kill you." She said calmly, a small smile playing on her lips.
Jack glanced down and noticed her precious dagger in her right hand for the first time. "How do ye pull tha' thing out withou' me knowing?" he asked lowly, his eyes raising slowly from the dagger but got stuck staring at her breasts instead of her face.
"You do'n notice it because you're too busy staring at my breasts to know wha's goin' on anywhere else,"
His eyes shot up to her own, not the least bit ashamed at being caught, although he quickly changed the subject, the two still standing dangerously close to one another.
"Did Jonathon's comment bother ye any?" he tried.
"No," and with that, Rachel turned away with the plates in hand and set them in a basin to be washed. When she turned back to go get the rest, Jack was standing right behind her, again getting dangerously close. Rachel bit back a growl of displeasure.
"I think it did, I could tell by yer face,"
"How would ye know anything about me, you've known me for one day," she asked a little coldly.
"I'm good a' readin' body language," he grinned, unfazed by her slight coldness to him.
Rachel took the opportunity to stop talking about her mother and took the one step needed to close the small gap between them. She pressed her breasts against him as she spoke.
"I bet you are, captain," she murmured, slightly smiling and leaning closer to his face. Jack was just about to react when a voice interrupted them.
"Captain! Gibbs said-" Jonathon stopped short when he saw the close proximity between his captain and Rachel. Jack turned around, now serious and a little pissed off at the interruption, away from Rachel to face Jonathon
"Gibbs said..." Jack said, waiting for him to finish his sentence. Jonathon quickly recovered, but the pep had left his voice in exchange with bitterness.
"Gibbs said tha' a storm was comin' up, sir."
Jack whisked past Jonathon with one last glance at Rachel, and ran up to the deck.
Rachel, unsure of what to do during a storm, brushed by Jonathon and headed up the stairs to the main deck. She noticed towards the north that there were massive storm clouds; one didn't need to be an expert at sea to know what those clouds meant. As the ship starting to hit rougher waters, she and the crew were having problems staying in one place, but Jack seemed to have the best sea legs in the world because he didn't appear to be swaying at all from his position at the helm, shouting orders to the crew and keeping his eyes straight ahead.
Rachel made her way up to the helm with some difficulty, and approached Jack.
"Jack, what can I do to help?"
Jack's eyes shifted from the sky to her just like their first meeting all over again, the déjà vu giving her goose bumps.
"Nothin' at all. Ye do'n know nothin' about sailin', an' I do'n want ye gettin' thrown overboard. Go below deck an' wait this storm out."
Neither had noticed an enraged Jonathon come up the helm steps behind them. He reached out and meant to push Jack over the side of the Pearl, but a rough wave hit the ship and instead of pushing Jack, he fell into Rachel, casting her overboard and just barely saving himself.