There was a scream of a horse and a sudden stampede started, the horses
rushed away, frightened by whatever it was that Dan had done. They galloped
past with a noise like thunder. Dan melted out of the darkness next to him.
Her black patched stallion darker than darkness itself. Jack turned to her.
"We ride now, if anyone gets in the way trample them. Just don't stop, your horse enjoys that sort of thing anyway."
Then her horse reared up and she sped forward, leaving a pale dust trail behind her.
Jack shook his head and chased after her retreating back.
***************************************************
He hated to gallop through the forest during day, but at night he had no warning or heed of his certain death. He was forced to trust his horses' good sense. Which he had not much faith in at all. He wanted to yell endlessly, but the need for silence weighted his breath.
Needless to say he did not enjoy the sensation.
He heard faint yells up ahead and peeked over his horses' mane.
Dan had met up with the trackers, who had just pulled up a net; unfortunately they were not prepared for her fast approach. The stallion bore down on them, showing no intentions of stopping.
Only three of the six stood their ground and hoisted the net higher as she approached. The stallions' long strides covered the ground and just when it seemed like both horse and rider would tumble and break their necks the powerful beast leapt off the forest floor and sailed flawlessly over the half ready net, it landed on the other side. Skidding for only a second and then resuming its run.
Jacks' mouth hang open for a few seconds, then the more immediate problem of how he was going to make the net hit him.
"No, no stop" he said through gritted teeth as he heaved back on the reins in a desperate attempt to stop and change direction.
He was alone. He hadn't really expected Dan to stay, or had he?
Sometimes he wondered.
He should have learnt his lesson by now. He was supposed to rely on no one but himself.
The horse spun, just in time. She rose to her back feet and kicked out at the men around her. They encircled her, raising their hands in an attempt to calm the beast. But Jacks' mare would not be calmed, she reared again and again and struck out, while Jack clung on to her for dear life.
He could not die yet, he had to kill Barbossa, this was not happening.
There was a wild yell, that sounded like some sort of battle cry and Dan came crashing out of the forest. She fell upon the forest hunters, like a demon upon her enemies.
The hell bound stallion kicked both back and front, Dan hung on tightly yelling fiercely and only adding to the chaos.
The men parted and the stallion gave chase trampling one to the ground. Jack didn't look down at the mangled body. He wasn't sure he could stomach it.
"Move!" she yelled at him and he turned his horse and jumped into a run in any direction he could. She was racing along side him, swerving under the few tree branches that hung low enough to knock her off her horse. Jack spared a glance at her.
She smiled at him from her horses back, her teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and Jack realized with a shock that she was actually enjoying this.
Her head spun to the left, then to the right and then she looked behind her. She grimaced.
"What?" he shouted over the noise of his mares' hooves.
"They're driving us to the cliff. The horses won't make it; we have to get out and quickly. When I say, jump off your horse, don't stop her let her keep running."
"Did you say CLIFF!" he shouted in alarm as she screamed out; "NOW!"
Jack was still clinging desperately to his horse; he was slightly in shock. What was she talking about?
He looked at the ground beneath him, and then he looked slightly ahead. His heart stopped and his mind froze. There was no ground in front of him, his horse tensed beneath him he felt her muscles bunch.
He couldn't even scream he was going to die terrified.
Then an arm snaked around his chest and he was yanked full out of his saddle, his head reeling as he was jerked violently backwards.
In front of him his horse reached the ridge, then with an impressive leap she flung herself over the ravines' edge.
He stared open mouthed, as he hung in the air in Dan's grip. One of her arms wrapped around his chest the other gripping a tree branch.
He still stared open-mouthed even as his horse made the other side. The stallion still by her side.
*****************************************
"Climb up" Dan gritted into his ear. The strain of holding him up was getting to her.
Jack came back to himself. The guards were right behind them.
He stretched up, grabbed the branch and pulled himself up easily.
Dan pulled herself up too, but more slowly. He watched intently, as she moved, so slowly, along the branch. Every move seemed to pain her. She shimmied across the branch until she sat with a sigh, where the branch met the trunk. Here she leant against the tree.
She seemed completely unworried by the rapid gain of her enemies below and unfazed by the fact that both horses had left. In fact she appeared to be half asleep from where Jack was crouched in the tree.
He was having a difficult time staying in the tree. He was shaky from adrenaline loss and the tree did not sway like the riggings of a ship.
He crawled slowly over to her, keeping a firm hold on the branch below him. When he was three feet in front of her he looked up from the branch he had been so intent on, and realized that she was not asleep, the moonlight reflecting off her eyes proved that, her eyes were merely half open.
She gazed at him from under her lidded eyes. Actually they were slits rather than eyes and Jack had the huge urge to shudder. In some ways she seemed scarier than any demon Jack could imagine.
Or perhaps what scared him most was that Jack; who was adept at judging character, could not place her. She was strange, unpredictable and violent at times.
He had just settled himself into a bough meets trunk nook when he realized whom he had just described. He smiled somewhat ruefully to himself that, with an ironic twist he enjoyed, he had found what it must feel like for a person to meet him.
Personally he didn't care for the feeling that robbed him of all sense of readiness.
It seemed that he had changed a great deal. This whole adventure he had had so far seemed to consist of yelling and blundering around. Which was most unlike him.
He only just managed to resist the sigh on his lips as the hunters crept stealthily into the bush below him. They moved like dark shadows across the forest floor, scouring it like ants as they searched all hiding places for Jack and Dan. Who both sat silently above them, watching their enemies make fools of themselves.
* "They weren't on the horses. There is no way they could have made it otherwise" one spoke quietly.
*"Sir, one of the men was trampled by the stallion. The girl managed to break up the net and a few are injured. We found Tulio with an arrow through his eye. She must've chased him down" one of them said after coming up behind the first one that had spoken.
Jack couldn't tell what was being said since he could not speak Spanish, something that was really starting to annoy him, but he got the main idea when one of them dragged up the body of a companion and dumped him at the feet of the person who was evidently in charge.
The body was rolled onto its back and Jack was treated to a full view of a horrible eye wound.
The leader and those he was talking to, moved off still whispering to each other, and someone else replaced them. The other shadow-shrouded figure stood directly below the branch that Jack and Dan were resting on.
"That girl is a menace and a beast" he said quietly to himself and walked away. Jack blinked and then realized it was the translator, which had actually spoken a whole English sentence.
Jack looked again at Dan; she was asleep. Breathing quietly and perfectly still.
He stared impassively at her, just checking that she was indeed asleep and not watching him still. Then her face was illuminated by the moonlight that filtered through the tree branches as the wind gentle pushed them aside.
There was no gleam of eyes; she really was asleep. Although her breathing was rather shallow for someone delving deep in sleep.
Jack scooted closer, listening hard to her breathing pattern. It was irregular and hitched if she inhaled too deeply. He frowned. He was no doctor but he knew when something was wrong. One of her arms was lying limply on her lap and Jack tried to look closer without waking her.
The men below had cleared off, by the sounds of it they were returning to their camp.
Jack supposed that Dan meant to sleep in the tree. But he wasn't so sure that he wouldn't roll out of it in his sleep, so he soon became restless. Sitting there was extremely boring and soon Jack became painfully aware of Dan' breathing pattern since it was all he could hear in the cool night stillness.
There was most definitely something wrong. Finally the boredom caught up with Jack and so he decided to snap away a twig from above and poke her resting arm. He thought that if she didn't feel it then it must be broken.
He poked it once rather gently and she immediately jerked awake and sucked in her breath sharply as if pained her. Definitely not broken then, Jack thought grimly as she turned to stare at him.
"What?" she asked sounding annoyed. Jack blinked, how was he going to explain this?
"You've hurt your arm", he stated bluntly. She stared at him.
"I have NOT hurt my arm", she said moving it off her lap where it flopped ungraceful next to her.
Jack continued to frown at her, and for the first time he seemed to be making her uncomfortable by his gaze. She returned it; but her eyes were fidgety and they didn't hold the cold angry kind of look they always did.
"Give me the arm", said Jack, stretching out his hand expectantly.
"No" she said sharply and held the arm to her chest like it was an infant.
"Give it", he said trying to pull it away from her chest. She immediately started to squirm away from his grasp. What followed was a silent struggle against stubborn girl, and determined pirate.
Suddenly Dans' eyes widened in shock as she felt herself and Jack plummet from the tree to the awaiting ground below. Unfortunately their small battle had edged closer and closer towards the edge of the rather broad tree branch, until finally the couple had fallen right off the edge, Dan backwards Jack almost on top of her.
On an instinct, she reached her good arm out to see if she could grab anything to stop her fall. And perhaps unfortunately she did find a handhold.
Her arm was twisted the wrong way around, so her hand was palm down. So as soon as she came into contact with the branch her hand clasped around it and held fast. Jack was still stuck to her arm. Partly because he hadn't realized he was still holding it but mostly out of numb fear.
This all happened in a blur, one second safely on a tree branch, the next halfway to the ground.
Anyway, Jack could see the painfully solid ground right below him when Dans' arm snagged the smaller tree branch. She swung backwards, Jack holding onto her injured arm tightly.
Jack had of course been yelling a single swear word the whole fall, so he didn't hear the small pop and squishy sound that occurred as Dan took the full brunt of Jack and her as well as gravities momentum onto one arm.
But he did hear the excruciating yell that Dan let out as he pulled on her injured arm and as her once good arm was yanked clean from its socket.
The pain was too much for Dan, nor could she hold the weight. She let go almost immediately and they both continued their descent to the ground, where they landed upon the leaf littered forest floor with a soft rustling and a hard 'oof'.
But their fall had been broken by Dans' interference so Jack was basically unharmed. Maybe a bruised shoulder, which had hit the ground first and taken his full weight. He slowly rolled onto his hands and knees with a groan and shuffled his way through the leaves to where Dan had fallen. She was partly covered by the brown, orange and red leaves from many autumns before.
He got closer to her, and saw something that made his heart stop in his chest. Dan was still, very very still.
And there was a thin trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. Jack almost stopped breathing. When blood was coming out of someone's mouth they were either dead, or had been hurt somewhere in the head and where never the same again.
He reached out and wiped away the blood trail, and to his sheer relief he felt where she had bit her lip. So she had merely bit into her lip, and was still fine. He had only just registered this when she sucked in a huge gulp of air. Her stomach heaving as she could once again draw breath.
So she had only been winded.
If he had been a religious man Jack would've thanked God, instead he thanked his lucky stars.
With the return of oxygen she awoke. Her eyes fluttered half open and she let out a soft moan.
From under her heavily lidded eyes, Jack saw her pupils swivel to look at him.
"Now are you going to tell me you're fine?" he asked raising one of his eyebrows and flashing her a grin. Although he was still feeling shaky and sick from the pure adrenaline and fear that had assaulted him as he had fallen into the darkness below, and then found Dan the way she was.
She gave a weak smile and attempted to sit up and maintain a shred of her dignity. But as soon as she got half an inch off the ground a wave of nausea overcame her and she flopped back down panting.
Then her mind started to work and she attempted to ask a question, which took three tries to get her voice working. And once it did, it was thin and wispy.
"Were we heard? Have the soldiers gone?" she asked only slightly worried, and more concerned about the fact she couldn't feel her fingers on either hand.
"No, I think they all left luv" Jack reassured her. Now showing his many colored teeth.
She gave a tiny sigh, which ended sharply as she sucked her breath through her teeth from the pain of it.
Jack frowned. Surely an arm wound wouldn't affect her breathing
"I'm gonna have to look at that arm luv" he crooned softly. Hoping that she wouldn't protest again. Surely not, after all that.
She nodded sharply once, and with a grim determined look on her face she turned her head away. Not wanting to see what he would do.
He grimaced. Pitying her for what she was about to go through.
The arm that had tried to stop their fall was dislocated. He could see that right away. The other was hurt too. Whatever had been wrong before was now worsened.
Gently he picked up the dislocated arm, where it was right next to her. She was amazingly un-tense about it. He chanced a glance at her face and realized that she had fainted dead away from the pain, as soon as he had touched her arm.
He then rotated the arm until it was straight out from her shoulder, and then brought it a little more towards her. When he thought it was right he shoved it as hard as he could back into the socket of her shoulder.
She gave a soft sound of pain, although her mouth was tightly shut. He grimaced again as he moved the arm around again. Rotating it in its' newly re-found socket.
She was now breathing heavily, the pain still lingering although most likely lessened.
He put the arm down. He would see to bandaging later, he had done all he could for now.
Instead he moved to her other arm. There seemed nothing at all wrong with it. Jack considered the limb, before hoisting it up to eye level by holding the elbow. He took the wrist, looked down at the unconscious Dan, and then rotated it only a little. Her face twisted in agony unguarded. And Jack experienced the horrible feeling of her arm bone splinter away beneath his fingers.
He pulled a face of pain for her. Ouch, was the only thing that sprung to mind. In all his years at sea he had never learnt how to fix a fractured bone. He supposed she would just have to not use it for a while. At least until the swelling went down.
Looking around himself for a bandage or something similar to make a sling of sorts he realized that there wasn't one. if this place had been a ship he'd have one. He looked at his vest, the one he had stolen from a Spanish man in a bar before he had been arrested, what seemed like weeks ago. It was rather tacky, and he decided he didn't need it, so he shrugged out of it and ripped it into shreds. Which he tied together where necessary to make a good strong sling.
Satisfied with his handiwork, he applied it to his still fainted patient, so that both arms where incapacitated. He grinned at the reaction she'd have when she found out, and was pleased with the fact that he could climb a tree to get away from her; she most definitely wouldn't be able to follow.
He chuckled softly to himself.
He then sat next to her amongst the dead and dieing leaves, waiting for her to regain her senses. He was sure she would soon. Since even now she was stirring.
The cool night was filled with the sounds of crickets, and the silent glow of the stars above made it almost magical, despite where he was and all that had happened.
Dan came to groggily. She felt like hell to say the least and the grinning face of Jack Sparrow that assaulted her vision as soon as she could see clearly was not the most welcoming of sights.
"Aww, damnation. Am I still here?" she asked trying hard to keep the pain out of her voice. Jacks' grin broadened and he answered her question with annoying chirpiness.
"Aye, you're still here and I am glad to see you're happy ta see me" he said grinning maniacally.
She didn't bother replying to his statement and sat up with his help. She looked at him, crouched in front of her and watching her like a hawk.
"What?" she asked in annoyance "What are you staring at.?" her question died as she looked down at her arms. Both in slings and secured tightly enough to stop her from escaping their restraints.
Jack watched in a kind of breathless anticipation, wondering how she would take this.
Her first reaction was surprise, then dismay at the situation, followed quickly by insurmountable rage, frustration, a hybrid of anger and self pity, then resignation and finally acceptance.
The pirate captain watched them all flicker across her face almost faster than the time it took him to recognize them.
When she looked at up him again her face was hurriedly schooled to calm indifference.
Then quite unexpectedly she gained her feet as easily as if she had floated to them. Jack blinked as she started forwards.
"Don't stand there gawking, or we'll never get you to that blasted boat" she called over her shoulder impatiently.
Jack blinked again. Women, no matter how much time he spent around them he would never even begin to conceive how to understand them.
He followed mutely. Watching her stumble on some hidden tree branch and the miraculously regain her balance without the use of her arms.
He grinned for the next hour and a half.
"We ride now, if anyone gets in the way trample them. Just don't stop, your horse enjoys that sort of thing anyway."
Then her horse reared up and she sped forward, leaving a pale dust trail behind her.
Jack shook his head and chased after her retreating back.
***************************************************
He hated to gallop through the forest during day, but at night he had no warning or heed of his certain death. He was forced to trust his horses' good sense. Which he had not much faith in at all. He wanted to yell endlessly, but the need for silence weighted his breath.
Needless to say he did not enjoy the sensation.
He heard faint yells up ahead and peeked over his horses' mane.
Dan had met up with the trackers, who had just pulled up a net; unfortunately they were not prepared for her fast approach. The stallion bore down on them, showing no intentions of stopping.
Only three of the six stood their ground and hoisted the net higher as she approached. The stallions' long strides covered the ground and just when it seemed like both horse and rider would tumble and break their necks the powerful beast leapt off the forest floor and sailed flawlessly over the half ready net, it landed on the other side. Skidding for only a second and then resuming its run.
Jacks' mouth hang open for a few seconds, then the more immediate problem of how he was going to make the net hit him.
"No, no stop" he said through gritted teeth as he heaved back on the reins in a desperate attempt to stop and change direction.
He was alone. He hadn't really expected Dan to stay, or had he?
Sometimes he wondered.
He should have learnt his lesson by now. He was supposed to rely on no one but himself.
The horse spun, just in time. She rose to her back feet and kicked out at the men around her. They encircled her, raising their hands in an attempt to calm the beast. But Jacks' mare would not be calmed, she reared again and again and struck out, while Jack clung on to her for dear life.
He could not die yet, he had to kill Barbossa, this was not happening.
There was a wild yell, that sounded like some sort of battle cry and Dan came crashing out of the forest. She fell upon the forest hunters, like a demon upon her enemies.
The hell bound stallion kicked both back and front, Dan hung on tightly yelling fiercely and only adding to the chaos.
The men parted and the stallion gave chase trampling one to the ground. Jack didn't look down at the mangled body. He wasn't sure he could stomach it.
"Move!" she yelled at him and he turned his horse and jumped into a run in any direction he could. She was racing along side him, swerving under the few tree branches that hung low enough to knock her off her horse. Jack spared a glance at her.
She smiled at him from her horses back, her teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and Jack realized with a shock that she was actually enjoying this.
Her head spun to the left, then to the right and then she looked behind her. She grimaced.
"What?" he shouted over the noise of his mares' hooves.
"They're driving us to the cliff. The horses won't make it; we have to get out and quickly. When I say, jump off your horse, don't stop her let her keep running."
"Did you say CLIFF!" he shouted in alarm as she screamed out; "NOW!"
Jack was still clinging desperately to his horse; he was slightly in shock. What was she talking about?
He looked at the ground beneath him, and then he looked slightly ahead. His heart stopped and his mind froze. There was no ground in front of him, his horse tensed beneath him he felt her muscles bunch.
He couldn't even scream he was going to die terrified.
Then an arm snaked around his chest and he was yanked full out of his saddle, his head reeling as he was jerked violently backwards.
In front of him his horse reached the ridge, then with an impressive leap she flung herself over the ravines' edge.
He stared open mouthed, as he hung in the air in Dan's grip. One of her arms wrapped around his chest the other gripping a tree branch.
He still stared open-mouthed even as his horse made the other side. The stallion still by her side.
*****************************************
"Climb up" Dan gritted into his ear. The strain of holding him up was getting to her.
Jack came back to himself. The guards were right behind them.
He stretched up, grabbed the branch and pulled himself up easily.
Dan pulled herself up too, but more slowly. He watched intently, as she moved, so slowly, along the branch. Every move seemed to pain her. She shimmied across the branch until she sat with a sigh, where the branch met the trunk. Here she leant against the tree.
She seemed completely unworried by the rapid gain of her enemies below and unfazed by the fact that both horses had left. In fact she appeared to be half asleep from where Jack was crouched in the tree.
He was having a difficult time staying in the tree. He was shaky from adrenaline loss and the tree did not sway like the riggings of a ship.
He crawled slowly over to her, keeping a firm hold on the branch below him. When he was three feet in front of her he looked up from the branch he had been so intent on, and realized that she was not asleep, the moonlight reflecting off her eyes proved that, her eyes were merely half open.
She gazed at him from under her lidded eyes. Actually they were slits rather than eyes and Jack had the huge urge to shudder. In some ways she seemed scarier than any demon Jack could imagine.
Or perhaps what scared him most was that Jack; who was adept at judging character, could not place her. She was strange, unpredictable and violent at times.
He had just settled himself into a bough meets trunk nook when he realized whom he had just described. He smiled somewhat ruefully to himself that, with an ironic twist he enjoyed, he had found what it must feel like for a person to meet him.
Personally he didn't care for the feeling that robbed him of all sense of readiness.
It seemed that he had changed a great deal. This whole adventure he had had so far seemed to consist of yelling and blundering around. Which was most unlike him.
He only just managed to resist the sigh on his lips as the hunters crept stealthily into the bush below him. They moved like dark shadows across the forest floor, scouring it like ants as they searched all hiding places for Jack and Dan. Who both sat silently above them, watching their enemies make fools of themselves.
* "They weren't on the horses. There is no way they could have made it otherwise" one spoke quietly.
*"Sir, one of the men was trampled by the stallion. The girl managed to break up the net and a few are injured. We found Tulio with an arrow through his eye. She must've chased him down" one of them said after coming up behind the first one that had spoken.
Jack couldn't tell what was being said since he could not speak Spanish, something that was really starting to annoy him, but he got the main idea when one of them dragged up the body of a companion and dumped him at the feet of the person who was evidently in charge.
The body was rolled onto its back and Jack was treated to a full view of a horrible eye wound.
The leader and those he was talking to, moved off still whispering to each other, and someone else replaced them. The other shadow-shrouded figure stood directly below the branch that Jack and Dan were resting on.
"That girl is a menace and a beast" he said quietly to himself and walked away. Jack blinked and then realized it was the translator, which had actually spoken a whole English sentence.
Jack looked again at Dan; she was asleep. Breathing quietly and perfectly still.
He stared impassively at her, just checking that she was indeed asleep and not watching him still. Then her face was illuminated by the moonlight that filtered through the tree branches as the wind gentle pushed them aside.
There was no gleam of eyes; she really was asleep. Although her breathing was rather shallow for someone delving deep in sleep.
Jack scooted closer, listening hard to her breathing pattern. It was irregular and hitched if she inhaled too deeply. He frowned. He was no doctor but he knew when something was wrong. One of her arms was lying limply on her lap and Jack tried to look closer without waking her.
The men below had cleared off, by the sounds of it they were returning to their camp.
Jack supposed that Dan meant to sleep in the tree. But he wasn't so sure that he wouldn't roll out of it in his sleep, so he soon became restless. Sitting there was extremely boring and soon Jack became painfully aware of Dan' breathing pattern since it was all he could hear in the cool night stillness.
There was most definitely something wrong. Finally the boredom caught up with Jack and so he decided to snap away a twig from above and poke her resting arm. He thought that if she didn't feel it then it must be broken.
He poked it once rather gently and she immediately jerked awake and sucked in her breath sharply as if pained her. Definitely not broken then, Jack thought grimly as she turned to stare at him.
"What?" she asked sounding annoyed. Jack blinked, how was he going to explain this?
"You've hurt your arm", he stated bluntly. She stared at him.
"I have NOT hurt my arm", she said moving it off her lap where it flopped ungraceful next to her.
Jack continued to frown at her, and for the first time he seemed to be making her uncomfortable by his gaze. She returned it; but her eyes were fidgety and they didn't hold the cold angry kind of look they always did.
"Give me the arm", said Jack, stretching out his hand expectantly.
"No" she said sharply and held the arm to her chest like it was an infant.
"Give it", he said trying to pull it away from her chest. She immediately started to squirm away from his grasp. What followed was a silent struggle against stubborn girl, and determined pirate.
Suddenly Dans' eyes widened in shock as she felt herself and Jack plummet from the tree to the awaiting ground below. Unfortunately their small battle had edged closer and closer towards the edge of the rather broad tree branch, until finally the couple had fallen right off the edge, Dan backwards Jack almost on top of her.
On an instinct, she reached her good arm out to see if she could grab anything to stop her fall. And perhaps unfortunately she did find a handhold.
Her arm was twisted the wrong way around, so her hand was palm down. So as soon as she came into contact with the branch her hand clasped around it and held fast. Jack was still stuck to her arm. Partly because he hadn't realized he was still holding it but mostly out of numb fear.
This all happened in a blur, one second safely on a tree branch, the next halfway to the ground.
Anyway, Jack could see the painfully solid ground right below him when Dans' arm snagged the smaller tree branch. She swung backwards, Jack holding onto her injured arm tightly.
Jack had of course been yelling a single swear word the whole fall, so he didn't hear the small pop and squishy sound that occurred as Dan took the full brunt of Jack and her as well as gravities momentum onto one arm.
But he did hear the excruciating yell that Dan let out as he pulled on her injured arm and as her once good arm was yanked clean from its socket.
The pain was too much for Dan, nor could she hold the weight. She let go almost immediately and they both continued their descent to the ground, where they landed upon the leaf littered forest floor with a soft rustling and a hard 'oof'.
But their fall had been broken by Dans' interference so Jack was basically unharmed. Maybe a bruised shoulder, which had hit the ground first and taken his full weight. He slowly rolled onto his hands and knees with a groan and shuffled his way through the leaves to where Dan had fallen. She was partly covered by the brown, orange and red leaves from many autumns before.
He got closer to her, and saw something that made his heart stop in his chest. Dan was still, very very still.
And there was a thin trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. Jack almost stopped breathing. When blood was coming out of someone's mouth they were either dead, or had been hurt somewhere in the head and where never the same again.
He reached out and wiped away the blood trail, and to his sheer relief he felt where she had bit her lip. So she had merely bit into her lip, and was still fine. He had only just registered this when she sucked in a huge gulp of air. Her stomach heaving as she could once again draw breath.
So she had only been winded.
If he had been a religious man Jack would've thanked God, instead he thanked his lucky stars.
With the return of oxygen she awoke. Her eyes fluttered half open and she let out a soft moan.
From under her heavily lidded eyes, Jack saw her pupils swivel to look at him.
"Now are you going to tell me you're fine?" he asked raising one of his eyebrows and flashing her a grin. Although he was still feeling shaky and sick from the pure adrenaline and fear that had assaulted him as he had fallen into the darkness below, and then found Dan the way she was.
She gave a weak smile and attempted to sit up and maintain a shred of her dignity. But as soon as she got half an inch off the ground a wave of nausea overcame her and she flopped back down panting.
Then her mind started to work and she attempted to ask a question, which took three tries to get her voice working. And once it did, it was thin and wispy.
"Were we heard? Have the soldiers gone?" she asked only slightly worried, and more concerned about the fact she couldn't feel her fingers on either hand.
"No, I think they all left luv" Jack reassured her. Now showing his many colored teeth.
She gave a tiny sigh, which ended sharply as she sucked her breath through her teeth from the pain of it.
Jack frowned. Surely an arm wound wouldn't affect her breathing
"I'm gonna have to look at that arm luv" he crooned softly. Hoping that she wouldn't protest again. Surely not, after all that.
She nodded sharply once, and with a grim determined look on her face she turned her head away. Not wanting to see what he would do.
He grimaced. Pitying her for what she was about to go through.
The arm that had tried to stop their fall was dislocated. He could see that right away. The other was hurt too. Whatever had been wrong before was now worsened.
Gently he picked up the dislocated arm, where it was right next to her. She was amazingly un-tense about it. He chanced a glance at her face and realized that she had fainted dead away from the pain, as soon as he had touched her arm.
He then rotated the arm until it was straight out from her shoulder, and then brought it a little more towards her. When he thought it was right he shoved it as hard as he could back into the socket of her shoulder.
She gave a soft sound of pain, although her mouth was tightly shut. He grimaced again as he moved the arm around again. Rotating it in its' newly re-found socket.
She was now breathing heavily, the pain still lingering although most likely lessened.
He put the arm down. He would see to bandaging later, he had done all he could for now.
Instead he moved to her other arm. There seemed nothing at all wrong with it. Jack considered the limb, before hoisting it up to eye level by holding the elbow. He took the wrist, looked down at the unconscious Dan, and then rotated it only a little. Her face twisted in agony unguarded. And Jack experienced the horrible feeling of her arm bone splinter away beneath his fingers.
He pulled a face of pain for her. Ouch, was the only thing that sprung to mind. In all his years at sea he had never learnt how to fix a fractured bone. He supposed she would just have to not use it for a while. At least until the swelling went down.
Looking around himself for a bandage or something similar to make a sling of sorts he realized that there wasn't one. if this place had been a ship he'd have one. He looked at his vest, the one he had stolen from a Spanish man in a bar before he had been arrested, what seemed like weeks ago. It was rather tacky, and he decided he didn't need it, so he shrugged out of it and ripped it into shreds. Which he tied together where necessary to make a good strong sling.
Satisfied with his handiwork, he applied it to his still fainted patient, so that both arms where incapacitated. He grinned at the reaction she'd have when she found out, and was pleased with the fact that he could climb a tree to get away from her; she most definitely wouldn't be able to follow.
He chuckled softly to himself.
He then sat next to her amongst the dead and dieing leaves, waiting for her to regain her senses. He was sure she would soon. Since even now she was stirring.
The cool night was filled with the sounds of crickets, and the silent glow of the stars above made it almost magical, despite where he was and all that had happened.
Dan came to groggily. She felt like hell to say the least and the grinning face of Jack Sparrow that assaulted her vision as soon as she could see clearly was not the most welcoming of sights.
"Aww, damnation. Am I still here?" she asked trying hard to keep the pain out of her voice. Jacks' grin broadened and he answered her question with annoying chirpiness.
"Aye, you're still here and I am glad to see you're happy ta see me" he said grinning maniacally.
She didn't bother replying to his statement and sat up with his help. She looked at him, crouched in front of her and watching her like a hawk.
"What?" she asked in annoyance "What are you staring at.?" her question died as she looked down at her arms. Both in slings and secured tightly enough to stop her from escaping their restraints.
Jack watched in a kind of breathless anticipation, wondering how she would take this.
Her first reaction was surprise, then dismay at the situation, followed quickly by insurmountable rage, frustration, a hybrid of anger and self pity, then resignation and finally acceptance.
The pirate captain watched them all flicker across her face almost faster than the time it took him to recognize them.
When she looked at up him again her face was hurriedly schooled to calm indifference.
Then quite unexpectedly she gained her feet as easily as if she had floated to them. Jack blinked as she started forwards.
"Don't stand there gawking, or we'll never get you to that blasted boat" she called over her shoulder impatiently.
Jack blinked again. Women, no matter how much time he spent around them he would never even begin to conceive how to understand them.
He followed mutely. Watching her stumble on some hidden tree branch and the miraculously regain her balance without the use of her arms.
He grinned for the next hour and a half.