Chapter: As a Ship Did Fall

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Then she was lost. For the trailer surged over her, scooping the horse toward the cab like a butterfly in a book and crushing it there in a final thunderous slam of metal.

-- The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans

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-Aboard the Dauntless-

The ocean stretched before him like a vast blue canvas, ready and waiting for the gouging marks that the hull of his ship would bring. During those months when he searched there were endless nights of drink and pain and then fretful sleep, all intertwined and anonymous like the ropes of a ship. But it was morning now, and those nights were behind him for the time being.

James Norrington watched the pirate ship that they were fast approaching, the hull skimming across the water like a frightened swallow. It was not the ship—no, the Black Pearl had eluded them for so long that he felt as if they would never find her—but, nevertheless, it was a pirate ship and pirates were outlaws and he was the law.

What a terrible profession, he'd thought some nights ago, to be the law. There are no variable rules for a commodore, only black and white and punishment.

The ship was small, and now they were close enough that he could read the name: The Scarlet Storm. They drew up beside the pirates.

A noise, deafening in its volume, and a shudder beneath his feet. The pirates had been ready, more capable than he had predicted. They fired again and again, and Norrington shouted orders to his crew's ears, although they were already deaf with panic.

His ship trembled and then collapsed, sloping into the sea with a groan. His beautiful, grand ship, his Dauntless.

Sophia was gone now, too. His hope of seeing her again, of loving her again, was shot into oblivion with the destruction of his life. She was lost to that pirate.

And, Norrington thought, just before the water took him, The Scarlet Storm was a rather fitting name for such a pirate ship. The water that he sank into was clouded with his own blood, a cloud of lost life, scarlet with abandoned hopes.

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-Aboard the Black Pearl-

Jack had paid Sophia little mind when she revealed that her uncle lived in Port Ayuda; he'd been distracted by the way her hips and body were moving faintly to the rhythm of the ship as it streaked through the water, and she'd grown strangely silent, wandering off soon after.

He now sat, thinking mutely, on the narrow stairs that led to the captain's position at the bow of his ship. It had been far too difficult for his liking to leave Sophia, her small bulk shrouded in the sheets and a smile curving the lips that had enticed him so the night before, after he'd woken several hours before, and he had been very tempted to simply lie back down next to her, wrap an arm around her waist, and draw the warmth of her body to him again.

He could not afford to become emotionally involved in their relationship, for she was his captive and key to finding a treasure that he had only dared to dream of.

This was nothing but a physical relationship.

Now, if only he could convince his emotions that such was true things would go perfectly smoothly.

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The feeling as if something was terribly wrong first assaulted Sophia's senses in the early morning and lasted well into the afternoon. She now shivered, rolling her shoulders quickly to rid her skin of the strange crawling sensation and trying to focus on the potatoes she was chopping for tonight's dinner.

Her mind wandered, not for the first time today, to her husband, and a swell of guilt rose in her chest. She was betraying him and their vows of marriage. And yet, her vision of James' face was growing fuzzy in her mind, instead replaced by the fascinating sights she had seen during her time on the ship, the members of the crew, the endless sea, and Jack.

Sophia smiled faintly and shivered again, although for a reason other than crawling skin.

Naught but fifteen minutes later, said pirate sauntered into the galley and stood at the entrance, his frame blocking the afternoon light's path through the doorway. He watched her hips sway to a melody that only she could hear and could feel his body already beginning to respond to both the sight and their close proximity, for the galley was small. Sophia noticed him only after he spoke.

"I think you've been choppin' potatoes quite long enough, love."

Slowly, Sophia set down her knife and turned around to face him, smiling slyly in response to his wayward grin. "You think?"

Jack didn't answer, instead striding quickly over to and, with a hand on either side of her waist, hoisted her up so that she was sitting on the counter, her thighs straddling his waist. Sophia landed hard on her rump with a faint grunt. "That hurt, Jack," she retorted, swatting his shoulder playfully.

Jack wasted no time and promptly buried his face in the soft place where her neck met her shoulders, his voice muffled as he spoke. Sophia could feel him smile against her skin. "'S been hours, Sophie. Bloody hours."

Sophia gave a squeak, her eyes wide as she glanced quickly out the open door, waiting for someone to walk by and spy them. "It's the middle of the day, Jack! You can't expect—"

He silenced her with a sound kiss, his tongue probing about her mouth, simply tasting and remembering her sweetness. He allowed his fingertips to toy idly with her nipple beneath the thin cotton blouse and pressed his pelvis and noticeable arousal into Sophia's own hips.

Despite her insecurities, Sophia let out a soft moan.

Jack reached backwards with a booted foot to shut the door.

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Like had been replaced by love. And love was the plummet dropped down into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And responsive out of his deeps had come the new thing—love. That which was given unto him did he return. This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in whose light White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expands in the sun.

-- White Fang, Jack London

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A/N: I am soooo sorry for both the horrendous wait that you all had to endure and the OBSCENE shortness of this chapter, in which nothing much happened except for poor Norrington getting the old fly swat—I don't consider this much of a loss or a major plot event at all, mind you. The combination of awful finals ("We can't just have a test like all the normal people," the teachers say, "we have to give you overly-stressed teenagers yet MORE projects that last months and take up astonishing amounts of time!") and computer troubles account for this. I feel thoroughly ashamed and, at this very moment, am hitting myself on the head with a rather large dictionary as punishment for my lateness because you all can't come here and do it for me.

The reason I can't write more for this chapter is that I have to get up at three in the morning to get on a plane tomorrow and it's already 11:00. Four hours is not sufficient sleep time.

Speaking of planes (don't kill me), I'm leaving for Hawaii for two weeks tomorrow. What luck that right after I finish school and actually have time to write, I have to leave. I apologize repeatedly for my terrible. . . terribleness. So I should have a chapter up again in 2 ½ to 3 weeks. I'll try to write a little when I'm on vacation but I won't have access to a computer and a really don't like writing my stuff by hand. I'm SO sorry.

Good news for me: by this time tomorrow, I'll be digging my toes into Hawaiian sand!

(Again, don't kill me.)