Spun

Part Four

by : epiphanies







...taking a few steps back....

Rose quickly wiped her tears when she heard heavy boots approaching. She reached over to a top drawer and felt around until she found what she was looking for. With a last sniff, she slipped the dagger into her garter, stood up, and smoothed out her dress. The door opened, and there stood Jack.

"Time to go," he said softly. He wouldn't look at her. She narrowed her eyes.

"Make me walk the plank."

He met her eyes then, and they were in pain, sufficient pain for a man who had already tried to drink his woes away. She stepped forward and slipped her hands behind his neck.

"You do not wish to say goodbye, Jack."

He leaned into her, nearly breaking, she felt him, and then he kissed her with such a softness that he had never kissed her. He pulled away and gently removed her hands from his neck.

"I don't plan to," he whispered sadly, and pulled her out of the chamber.



...

"So," Jack turned to Aurolyn with a rather raw lip, "You wanted to see me ship?"

She hesitated. Did Jack know who she was, was that why he was acting oddly? Had he known since the very night before? But she couldn't ask. Perhaps if the crew of the Pearl saw her and asked, everything would come out.

She took his hand and let him pull her up off of the dune, "Of course."

...

What was a maiden to do on the island of Tortuga? Alone? Without her lover or her friends, or her ship that she had come to know as home?

Rose shook out her hair and squinted as the Pearl disappeared into the ocean line.

"Goodbye, Jack," she whispered regretfully, then turned away.

She meandered into a bar on the only strip Tortuga patronized and walked past the sultry women wearing too much face paint.

One called out, "Why, if it isn't Rose Sparrow."

Rose whipped around, "I have never been called that, and if one does continue to call me that, they shall be truly sorry."

"She's touchy," she heard whispered as she turned back around, "Her darling fledgling has sailed off into the sunset without her."

"No doubt with that young dark thing, Anamaria."

Rose clenched her fists, sighed, and released them as she swung unenthusiastically into the tavern. She was ravenous.

"Pint, darling?" asked the serving wench. Rose checked her saddle bag, the only purse she owned, and found a lonely piece of eight. She held it up, and the wench nodded.

She slipped it across the bar and it was replaced with a foaming tub of alcohol. She sniffed it. Rum. She took three steady swigs, then caught her breath. She had never been interested in heavy drinking, but then again, she'd never been marooned on a pirate island by her pirate true love seeking for her a long, prosperous life without him.

"Jack is daft," she found herself telling the wench, "He doesn't think I'll end my life for him? I'll stay with him even if they have a mutiny?"

"They want to mutineer Captain Jack Sparrow?" the wench gasped, and Rose nodded fervently, "They're all daft!"

"Do you think they'll kill him?" asked a redheaded barmaid who was serving wine to the more refined customers.

"Of course not," Rose glared at her, "They'd stick him on a tiny island with nothing but a pistol. That's the harshest of deaths, for a pirate. Want to go out fighting, savvy?"

The latter word shot a venomous arrow straight through her heart, and she began to cry.

"Oh, love, don't worry," the redhead patted her comfortingly, "He's Captain Jack Sparrow. He'll rope some sea turtles and escape to find you."

Rose raised her head to glare at the maid, "That's daft and impossible."

The wench shrugged and filled another pint ("on the house,") and Rose returned to her sobbing.



....

Aurolyn took a ginger first-step onto the rocking ship called The Black Pearl. Jack eyed her with a slightly-more-than-mild interest.

If she wasn't related to...he blanched and gulped a little bit as her hand ended up on his shoulder for a split second....if she wasn't, may the Powers help him, he was in trouble.