Chapter 14: In the Morning Comes a Different Story

A/N: thanks for the reviews—

Everywhere Yet Nowhere, freak and proud(x2), kungfuchick

This is some shameless advertising for my new fic. It's called the Pain Without the Pleasure but I put it up like 8 days ago and only got one review. Here's an excerpt:

I knew we shouldn't have come back to the Black Pearl with Jack, he always gets himself into a mess and this time Elizabeth and I are caught in the middle of it.

I know what I saw! I know what they're doing to her! And we have to save her. But how and what's the cost?

This is all my damned fault. God knows what they're doing to her right now and there's no fucking way to save her…

Go read it. If you like it tell me, if you don't tell me that too. Suggestions are greatly appreciated. Its good to know what the reader thinks should happen.

"Ana?" he said opening the door with a great hope that he wouldn't be hit with a dagger. She always threw daggers when she was angry. He found her in the position to throw the dagger, the blade in her finger tips bent over her shoulder.

She sighed putting the dagger down to her side. "Aye." He walked into the room, carefully pulling the door behind him.

"Ana, I know what's wrong wit you. Claudia told me." She looked at him with shock clearly written on her face. "I made 'er," he added quickly.

"Jack--" She gazed at him for a moment two sets of chocolate colored eyes meeting each other. "I'm sorry Jack."

"No need to apologize love. I's not your fault."

"Yes it is… if I wouldn't have left him," she broke the gaze searching the room for something unknown. "…none of this would have happened. I sh--" Jack walked up to her putting a rough hand on her cheek.

"You did what you had to do Maria. There's nothing wrong with that. Ana… look at me Ana."

"Jack don't make me…" her eyes were downcast; the dagger in her hand suddenly had a renewed interesting factor to it.

"Look at me Anamaria." He spoke gently to her in the kind of voice that could make you believe the grass was red if he said it. A hand was taken into his and placed on his cheek. She looked up at him feeling the hairs of his beard on her wrist and palm. She saw the same thing this time as the last only minutes ago:

A chocolate hand on a peach face.

But in this moment she could see something she hadn't seen before. In his eyes… the eyes that would bore deep into your soul, something was there. There was no lust, they held no drunkenness but could it be what she thought it was… love? She had seen this feeling before, no she had never heard it but she had seen it. She had seen those eyes filled with love day in and day out but this time she was actually realizing it from another way.

Yes there was love in his eyes but hers… In her eyes there was uncertainty, worries, fear.

"Anamaria… You don't have to worry anymore; you don't have to be afraid." He held her hand close to his cheek.

"I shouldn't, I know, but I can't help it." Tears welled again this night threatening to fall.

"Don't," he said using the opposite hand to brush a strand of her hair back behind her ear.

Ana took a deep breath. "What do you see when you look at me?" Jack obviously wasn't prepared for this and his mouth was slightly ajar.

"What I see when I look at you is," he started looking deep into her eyes searching for the right words to describe the pirate before him. "I see a pirate. A beautiful, graceful female pirate, with whom I'd trust me rum, ship and me own life." His words were sincere though Anamaria was still not satisfied nor convinced.

"What else?" That was what he saw. There wasn't any thing else to say but: the woman he loved.

He lifted her face to once again meet his eyes, all the while stroking her cheek. To any other woman the grass was red at this very moment but this, in fact, wasn't just any woman "That's what I see Maria."

"Then maybe you're blind." Jack stood there like a fish out of water not knowing what to saw as she walked out of their cabin onto the deck. He had known what she meant but he thought that he would be able to woo her into forgetting it. Forgetting everything she had thought about it. About Claudia, her past life, her skin, whatever problems she had about Marcel. If only for a few minutes, in those minutes he wanted her to feel loved.

He soon followed her lead out into the dark midnight sky that hung over the ocean and the Black Pearl. She stood on the deck hugging her arms around her midsection. She stared at the ocean, watching as the seemingly black waters of the Caribbean lapped against the ship.

"Anamaria." He peered around her shoulder to get a look at her face from behind. Well she had either become as deaf as Jack was blind or she was ignoring him. It was at least 3 minutes before she said anything, still peering at the ocean. She had lived on the water for 8 years but the ocean never ceased to amaze her.

"If you're not going to tell me what it is you see then I don't want to hear it Jack."

"Ana… OK," he took a deep before starting again. "You're a… Negro pirate woman--"

"That's what I expected you to say," she said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Well, what else do you want me to say Maria?" he said raising his tone unintentionally.

"I don't know what I want you to say Jack. Just don't lie to me." She felt him wrap his arms around her stomach from behind.

He whispered into her ear, raising her hair and warming her skin. "When I look at you, I see the woman I love."

"You do?" She asked shocked to hear the words come from his mouth. Sure he showed it but she had never thought that Captain Jack Sparrow would speak the words aloud.

"I do." She was glad to hear the words but…

"Jack, I love you too but this doesn't change anything. I can't help feeling that--"

"Don't. Don't feel anything but you and me right here, this morning."

So that was all she felt. She knew that after the sun rose 6 hours later she would not feel this way but for right now, for these few minutes she would feel beautiful, safe and loved in his arms. And the sun would bring doubt, worry, guilt, pain and clearer sight. But for now what she wanted was to be in someone's arms…