Chapter: Thieves
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All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and out knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.
-- The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
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It wasn't until next morning that Sophia discovered the multitude of expensive trinkets Jack had hidden in his jacket. She found said garment forgotten, strewn across the floor of his cabin along with the remainder the clothes which had been so haphazardly thrown the night before in their frenzied attempts to get at each other's bare skin in the least possible amount of time. She had yet to find her new dress, and had a sneaking suspicion that it would be hiding in some outrageous place. Crammed between the two pallets that encompassed the bed, for example.
Picking the jacket up and administering it a hearty shake, she gave a little yelp and jumped backwards as to protect her toes from the falling candlesticks, silverware, and jewelry that announced their presence with a series of loud clangs. The disturbance prompted a grunt from Jack, who lay on his stomach on the small cot, unabashedly naked. Jack had been feeling very content—due to the recent strenuous activities, no doubt—until now.
"Jack, where did you get these?" Sophia asked, kneeling down to examine the sparkling ornaments.
Jack groaned and sat up, his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his eyelids sleepily. "Nicked 'em."
Sophia was not surprised, and was about to voice her disapproval when the door flew open and a boisterous Gibbs stalked through the entryway. "Jack—"
Sophia interrupted him with a loud shriek as she dove to grasp the crumpled blanket on the floor and cover her nakedness with the scratchy wool, blushing furiously. Gibbs stared at her with an open mouth, and then averted his eyes carefully, a red tint to his cheeks as well. "Gibbs!" Sophia exclaimed, her voice utterly offended as she clutched the blanket to her breast. Jack, on the other hand, completely ignored the fact that he was nude and looked to his crewmate with polite perplexity.
"'Ello, Gibbs! Lovely morning, innit?" Jack grinned at him. "Wha' is it you wanted?"
Sophia couldn't help but feel a smidgen of sympathy for the old man as he fought between embarrassment and the willingness to answer his captain's question. That sympathy was soon lost as she remembered that she was, in fact, naked, and the man standing before her was not, in fact, Jack.
"Ah, well. . . Y'see. . . crew was wonderin'. . . how long afore we leave th' port?" Gibbs stammered, his eyes flicking quickly towards where Sophia sat, her legs drawn up to her chest and the blanket pulled to her shoulders.
"S' tha' all? Very well, we set sail tomorrow morning," Jack calmly answered, grinning jovially.
Sophia, seeing that the exchange was over, pointed towards the door resolutely. "Get out, Gibbs, and next time remember to knock."
Gibbs cast an apologetic look in her direction. "I'm sorry, Miss Sophia. Didn't mean—"
"OUT!"
As the door slammed behind the old seaman, Jack finally let out a few chuckles despite Sophia's pout. She dropped the blanket and stood up, and, after more than several minutes, finally found her clothes. They were in one of Jack's desk drawers.
Jack continued to laugh. "It's not funny, Jack!" Sophia barked.
"Ah, Sophie. But you were not fortunate enough t' see the look on yer face."
Sophia huffed and threw one of her new fancy dresses at him playfully. The expansive skirts draped over his face, and he had to bat the fabric away in a clumsy show of feyness from his head, only to catch one last glimpse of Sophia before she swept out the door.
Fighting a roguish grin, Jack fixed his expression into one of mock gravity. "There'll be no livin' with 'er after this."
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Sophia opted to remain on the ship when Jack and the rest of the crew decided to spend one last night at the tavern before leaving the following morning. Despite Sophia's protests that she was perfectly capable of preventing the ship from floating away, Jack left Andrew to watch over her. Sophia, feeling very much like a toddler who needed babysitting, retired to Jack's cabin to sift through the books in his possession.
Naught but an hour later, Sophia heard voices. Quietly, she creaked the door open and glanced outside.
Andrew was dead. Torn and bloodied on the deck like pomegranate juice, his hands bound with rough rope. The quiet man who Sophia had often talked with while playing cards and had come to be her friend was gone. Men in dark clothing whispered and wandered about the ship, lifting trapdoors, sneaking down into the brig, edging towards the cabins. They'd come to find a nonexistent treasure. All the swag from Chamberlin Manor had been squandered and sold away for useless purposes, left to float away like paper in the wind. Sophia backed away, hyperventilating severely in her panic. They were coming this way. They were coming to check the captain's quarters.
Suddenly, Sophia's mind cleared, as minds often do in such a situation, and she began to formulate a plan. She would sneak out of the room, climb down the edge of the ship and onto the dock, and find Jack. She knew he was in the same tavern that he and the crew had been in the day before. The Weary Stag.
Sophia opened the door more quietly this time. She kept her body tight against the edge of the wall and in the shadows that hid her so perfectly. The thieves did not notice a thing. She edged around to the railing of the ship and glanced down the ten feet or so she'd have to descend. There was a sliver of dark water between the ship and dock. She tried to ignore the possibility that she would fall and drown in the most painful of ways.
Her mind was remarkably clear as she climbed, using the various irregularities in the wood as ledges for her hand and feet to grasp. Finally, her feet landed on solid ground, and, ignoring the weakness in her knees and the grieving pain in her gut, she set out at a run, hoping the darkness of the night would hide her. She heard no raised voices, no sound of alarm, and her shoulders relaxed minutely as she ran.
The rest was a blur. She could not remember which route she took to get to The Weary Stag, only that she arrived there in an astonishingly short period of time. Her chest hurt with a combination of grief for her friend and fatigue from her blind run. She threw open to door of the tavern, her eyes searching for Jack.
She found him with a woman on his lap. Sophia watched his hands as they wandered over her body, she watched him kiss her, she watched him pick her up and start to take her to the bed that she knew was on the next floor.
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There's something about battle that rouses lust in men. Ares and Aphrodite. Stags fighting for the right to cover a herd of does.
-- Daughter of Troy, Sarah B. Franklin
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A/N: Yes, I know that this chapter is very short, but I am leaving for two weeks in an hour and figure you all would rather have a short chapter than no chapter. Am I right?
As I said, I'm going on yet another vacation. Visiting cousins in Oregon, and then shooting down to California to visit more family and take a strenuous five-day hike at 10,000 feet in Yosemite. I'd much rather be here, writing, if you hadn't guessed. I'll be back around the 25th, so expect a chapter some time on the 27th. I think those are the right dates.
Anyway, I'm terribly sorry. I know that two weeks can seem like a long time, but you can look forward to Sophia's reaction to Jack's unfaithful escapade. And how can we forget those naughty crooks?
