Title: Of the Sea
Rating: PG-13
Chapter Title: 26. Questions
Summary: Some unexpected guests arrive.
Timeline: Wednesday, July 21, 1675
Author: Cicatrix (Marin K.)
It was Anamaria's rough voice that answered him. "Y'oughta come see this, Cap'n," she said. Jock nodded to himself, gave what was meant as a noise indicating the affirmative to the closed door, then took a moment to adjust his composure from that of a worried man to the demeanour of the carefree pirate captain he preferred the world to see him as. After no more than a few seconds had passed, he emerged on deck with a gold-toothed grin on his face and his affected sea-legged stagger.
"What should I be seein, luv?" he asked, but the question was unnecessary and she knew it. He had immediately seen the approaching vessel, a small but sea-worthy crap with a white flag high on her mainmast. A Union Jack flew below the white flag, and while the Black Pearl's captain was wary, he was sure his ship could outgun what would be a much smaller opponent. Squinting against the late morning sun, Jack could make out three figures standing at the prow of the shit, two in trousers and one in skirts. His brows furrowed comically in consternation.
"Wonder who it is and what they's be wantin'," Anamaria pondered aloud at his side.
Jack shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, "Don' know," he replied, "but I wager we'll know soon enough." Louder, in what he privately referred to as his "captain's voice", he shouted, "Prepare to be boarded—and somebody get a bloody plank over here!"
It was some minutes before the other ship, which Jack soon identified as the October Rose, came up alongside the Pearl.
"Permission to board?" a voice came from the other ship.
Jack grinned, recognising the owner of the voice as William Turner. Beside him was his wife Elizabeth, who wore a grin nearly as savage as her husbands. Shame those two live like 'civilised' people, Jack thought to himself. The second man, Jack assumed was the captain. He was nervous, but what honest sailor wouldn't be, bringing his ship alongside the famous pirate vessel?
"Granted," Jack called across the gap between their ships, "if y'll wait a moment, we've got a plank 'ere, and some rope."
Within several seconds, the pirates aboard the Black Pearl had successfully secured the plank across the space between ships, and a line kept the two ships from drifting apart. Will crossed first, followed closely by Elizabeth. The October Rose's captain preferred to remain aboard his own ship, and Jack did not blame him for wanting to.
"What brings the pair'o'ye t'me ship?" Jack asked, as soon as Will and Elizabeth were safely on board. "I mean," he went on, "I know y'love me an' find it hard to live without me, but I hardly expected y'to follow me 'round the Caribbean."
Will burst out laughing at the second part of Jack's dialogue, causing the pirate captain to give him an exaggeratedly hurt expression. As Jack muttered something about a need to find better friends, Elizabeth said in an undertone only the three of them could hear, "It's about Matthew, or rather, Miriam."
Jack sobered immediately. "We ought to go below decks then," he said, "if you'll follow me."
They found him sitting on his bed, sword unsheathed and laying across his lap. Matthew stared intensely at it, ran his hand over the handle and the flat of the blade. He did not look up as the key turned his lock and the door opened.
Jack looked at him, with pity in his heart that did not show in his kohl-rimmed eyes. As if she plans to cut the child out of her stomach, he reflected, but despite the nature of his thoughts, he grinned and ushered Will and Elizabeth in before him and closed the door behind.
"Matt," Jack said, and he was greeted with an empty expression, a face that was an emotional blank slate. Seeing his guests, the emptiness was replaced by a frown.
"What are they doing here?" he asked sharply.
"Why, they've come to see you, of course!" While the pair looked at each other, Elizabeth and Will stood as much to the side as they could in the tiny room that was crowded by four people, a bed, and two closed chests.
"...Of course," Matthew echoed tonelessly. He stood and turned towards the newly arrived pair. With an added rough edge to his voice, he asked of them, "Why?"
Will edged closer to the one who called himself Matthew, although as he approached Matt crouched, scooping up the young cat Morgan who'd been anxiously skirting between the many pairs of feet. He stood again, and looked at William Turner expectantly.
"Miriam," Bootstrap's son said very quietly, and instead of the expression of shock Jack had expected, Matthew did nothing but smile sadly and shake her head.
"I should have expected you'd figure me out—although, I'd hoped you'd forgotten me."
Will shook his head, "I had. It was more a series of coincidences that spelled it out for me. Your visit, Elizabeth's realisation that you were a woman, and Commodore Norrington's arrival with the news that a woman by your name had been kidnapped by one Captain Jack Sparrow."
Miriam snorted at the last of the listed twists of fate, saying quietly something along the lines of "kidnapped indeed," before she looked at Elizabeth with an unusually honest smile. "I knew young William wouldn't marry a silly chit of a girl. I should have realised that a smart woman wouldn't be fooled by my disguise," she said. Motioning to the bed, she added, "Please, there's not a lot of room, but do have a seat." Elizabeth and Will sat on Matthew's bed, while Jack and Miriam with Morgan in her arms had to make due sitting on the large flat-topped chest Miriam had dragged to the Black Pearl from her home in Tortuga. The other, round-lidded chest she'd retrieved from the Aurora sat in the opposite corner near the foot of the bed.
"So," Jack said conversationally, looking in Miriam's general direction, "I kidnapped you?"
With a gentle laugh, Miriam gave a rueful shake of her head, "First I've heard of it, but if that's what the commodore thinks, it must be true." They grinned at one another.
Elizabeth frowned. Gently, she said, "The Royal Navy is after you, Captain Sparrow, to 'rescue' your 'captive'."
Miriam mirrored Elizabeth's frowned. "Rescue me?" she asked, "I'm hardly of any importance to them. I'm no noblewoman, and plenty of commoners have been kidnapped by plenty of pirates, and the navy never concerns themselves with them. Why bother with Miriam Sharp?"
It was Will who responded with a wry smile, "Norrington will go after almost any reason to get Jack, and this one just happens to be convenient." Addressing Jack, he added, "I think he regrets giving you that head start a year ago."
Jack laughed, "Aye, and he'll never catch me now."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I wouldn't be so sure of that."
A slow smile spread across the pirate's face, and he spread his arms in an exaggerated manner, causing Miriam to duck, and he said, "Luv, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow... Savvy?"
Before Elizabeth could say anything, Miriam sat up, her brows knitted. "Why does our good commodore think Jack kidnapped me?"
Will shrugged. "The Royal Navy received an anonymous letter some time ago, apparently from pirates, claiming to have kidnapped a woman named Miriam Sharp, and they demanded a gold brick in payment for her return. The Royal Navy was about to send a letter of refusal, since Miriam Sharp was no one important that they knew of, when they received another letter saying an unknown person would be making the payment, and to please send a letter to Tortuga as directed by the pirates' letter informing them the gold would be aboard the Lady Anne in a box of rum..." he trailed off and Miriam nodded.
"Of course," she said, "we stole that gold, so they assumed you'd kidnapped me, raided the ship, and simply weren't handing me over." She paused then, "But who footed the bill?"
Will shrugged again, "We don't know. No idea who they are, or how they came to know you'd been taken."
Miriam frowned, an expression repeated often amongst the four, "But the fact remains that nobody kidnapped me."
"I suspect," Jack said, "your old crew figgered you fer dead, and decided they could safely ask for ransom, and they would just... conveniently not return you."
The woman nodded, "That must be why they came after me after they found out I wasn't dead."
Elizabeth and Will looked at Jack and Miriam and in confusion. "If you'd care to explain?" Elizabeth said politely with a smile one might expect from the governor's daughter.
Miriam deposited Morgan into her lap and allowed the kitten to curl up and rest. She straightened her shoulders as she sometimes did before she launched into a tale. She began, "I was at my home in Tortuga one evening..."
"I still don't know what became of Caroline, but I suppose it's of no use worrying about it," she said, finishing her story.
"So that's where your cat... er, Morgan, came from," Will said.
"Ship's cat," Jack amended.
"My cat."
"Ship's—" he began again, but Will cut him off.
"Don't argue with a woman, Jack, when she's got her mind set on something, you'll never win."
Miriam and Elizabeth exchanged grins while Jack sighed exaggeratedly.
There was an extended pause in the conversation until Jack asked, "Will you two be returning to your ship, or will you be staying on with the Pearl?"
The pair looked at each other, exchanging look until Elizabeth said, "We'll be staying aboard." Jack smiled.
"One of you best be getting above deck and telling your fearful captain that, or else they'll be thinking I've taken two more captives, and I'm under the impression that's the last thing I need."
Will nodded and stood, and Jack opened the door for him and then followed him out. Elizabeth was about to stand when Miriam shook her head. "Please," she said, though she did not plead, "stay. It's been too long since I've talked to another woman as myself." Elizabeth smiled and settled back onto the bed, and Miriam pushed the door shut with the tips of her fingers. "I'm sorry to be an inconvenience."
"You're not."
"Thank you," the older of the two women said, and then she sighed sadly before smiling. "You're a lucky woman—he's a good man, I'm surprised every woman in town wasn't after him."
Elizabeth laughed, a gentle, lilting sound. "It's likely, I'll admit, but I don't know if he recognised anyone else as being female—or if I recognised anyone but him as male."
Miriam laughed in return, "That sounds like the William I knew as a child—whenever he wanted something, he'd do whatever it took to get it. A very determined child, and no different as a man, I imagine. Perhaps that is why he did not recognise me and you did."
They fell to talking quietly as women did, and Jack and William did not return. They spoke of many things, the freedom that Miriam saw in piracy, the safety that Elizabeth found in her happy marriage. Love was a subject much discussed, as well as men. They reminisced about their separate adventures with Jack Sparrow, and then chatted about the pirate captain's quirks for some time. Eventually they even discussed dress and fashion, something that Miriam had not been interested in for years.
"I've not worn a dress since I was... twenty, I think, and I'm now nine-and-twenty. Nearly a decade," Miriam confessed, "though I'll most likely be forced to resume the habit in the near future."
The younger woman looked at her curiously, "Why is that?"
"I will be forced to leave the Pearl soon. It..." she trailed off, frowned, and then began again, "I love this ship, but it is no place to rear a child." She put her hand on her stomach.
Elizabeth clapped her hands together with delight, "You're with child?" she asked, "Oh, that's wonderful!" After a pause, she added another question, "Who is the father?"
The look in Miriam's eyes was dark, and her grey eyes were like the ocean's depths before a turbulent storm. "I don't know," she said honestly. Elizabeth's expression indicated she did not understand. "It's one of many men I would not have taken to my bed if I'd had any choice at the time." As understanding dawned on her, Elizabeth's face took on a look of disgust and extreme pity. Miriam's voice was cold, not out of cruelty, but rather a forced apathy that shielded her from the past, and she said, "Don't pity me. It's a risk I took, and I will accept the consequences of my actions."
Elizabeth looked at her as if she were insane. "A consequence? A consequence of your actions, Miriam? I refuse to accept that—that rape is a legitimate consequence of piracy!" she exclaimed in shock.
Miriam put a finger to her lips in a motion for silence, then put that hand to good use, stroking Morgan's head. "Elizabeth, not all good pirates are good men. Jack is both, and Will, and so are most of the men, and women, aboard this ship. But some pirates are out for more than freedom, they want things you'd rather not give, and when you sail with them, you take a risk. You risk that they might take what you'd rather keep to yourself. The second you set foot upon their ship, you take whatever hand is dealt to you, even if it is rape, even if it is a child you would not have chosen yourself." She was calm, not the woman who had crept up the stairs earlier that day and knocked tentatively on the door to Jack's cabin, needing an ear for her pain. She no longer felt; she had no more energy to feel that day.
"You're even crazier than Jack," Elizabeth said.
"Aye, maybe I am." Indeed, she thought, it's very likely. But what woman wouldn't be, after what I've endured?
Author's note: As proof that I really am back and intent to write again, another chapter a day later! I'm on a roll, aren't I? Although I'm going on a small vacation within a vacation tomorrow, so it will be a few days before my next chapter, but still. Answers to a few questions, and then more questions after that.