Tudor was a fitful sleeper, but Jack didn't notice that she was slowly commandeering all the space until his head thumped against the floor, taking the blanket with him.
Tudor's head jerked up, startled at the loud thud and profanity. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then leaned over the edge of the bed and saw him, half on the bad, half off. "Oh, sorry," she blushed a little. "I suppose I'm just not used to sharing a bed." She let a cat like yawn.
"Then do ye mind helping me back up, lass?" he said, when he ceased with his string of colourful language.
She smiled coyly. "Maybe I should leave you down there." She teased "Keep the bed to myself and get a few more hours sleep." She winked at him.
"Or I could just come there after ye.", he answered in an equally playful tone.
She didn't answer him but yawned and stretched. "Lord I'm exhausted."
By this time Jack had managed to pull himself back onto the bed and was once again beside her, "We don't need to go anywhere. Go ahead and sleep if you like."
"I can't," She said with a shrug, sitting up, wrapping the sheet around her. "Once I wake up I can't sleep again for hours." She started looking around the cabin after picking up and discarding her ruined corset.
"Suit yerself." He shrugged, and rolled over in the bed.
Tudor looked up at him from the trunk she was rummaging around in. "Don't you have any spare clothes around here? A pair of breeches? Anything?"
"Don't really know." He said, not even making an effort, instead, still sprawled out in bed.
"Well, you could get up and help me look." She flung his trousers at him, landing them right in his face.
He sat up, grumbling, as he started to pull on the garment. "Love, I wouldn't much mind if ye stayed in that sheet all day." He said with a grin, his gaze following her from one side of the cabin to the other.
She looked at him with a coy smile and a raised eyebrow. "You wouldn't." She stated simply and continued to rummage, opening cupboards and rooting through chests, pausing only when coming across a pile of old, musty books. Jack stood and crossed to the table the bottle of rum sat on as she sorted through the stack. "You have some great titles here." She said in awe.
"Wouldn't know." He said offhandedly after taking a sip of the rum he poured for himself.
She looked up quickly, then remembered. "Oh, right, you can't read." She said, then stood, careful not to trip on the hem of her 'toga'. "Well, we'll just have to change that, won't we?"
"I don't know who you're thinking of including in that 'we' of yours, but if you're thinking of sitting me down an treating me like some adolescent pupil, you might as well do an about face and retreat." He said with barely concealed panic.
She frowned at him for a moment, then shrugged, her expression blank and devoid of all emotion. "Fine, it you want to be uneducated for the rest of your life – which most likely won't be that long anyway – not a problem for me." She said indifferently.
"Well, alright then, no worries." He took a larger swig of the rum bottle he held in his hand. "You could look in there." He gestured to a trunk she had not yet investigated.
"Suppose Norrington was right." She sighed under her breath, then threw open the lid. "Oh, good guess!" She said, lifting a pair of breeches.
She had to suppress a giggle when she heard a choking noise and sudden, violent coughing from behind her. "And what, merely out of curiosity, did the good Commodore say about me?"
Tudor shrugged apathetically as she also fished out a leather waistcoat from the trunk. "Oh, I don't remember. Something about you being a, and these are his words, not mine, a 'Low-life, illiterate reprobate that most likely wouldn't take the opportunity to better himself if it came along." She said grabbing her shift off the floor and pulling it over her head. "He also said he should have hanged you when he had the chance, but my logic is if you don't have Pirates, you can't have Commodores." She continued as she pulled the breeches over her shift and discarded the sheet. She paused at the absolute silence and turned to see him considering the bottle he held intently. "But don't do something you don't want to do just to try and prove Norrington wrong. You owe him nothing." She stated with firm sincerity, and then refocused her attention to the button fly on the breeches she found. "And after all, you do have your pirate pride to consider. I can't imagine what hell you would catch from your comrades if they found out that you were been treated like an adolescent pupil – and by a woman none the less." She said, tugging at the waistcoat, trying to get it on, but getting her arm caught in the process. She felt Jack's hands lift it onto her shoulders then smoothing down the collar as gently as he could. She turned to look at him. "Ta." She said softly then smiled at him, a warm caring smile that no one saw often. She moved to kiss his cheek, but checked herself, feeling awkward, and then turned for the door.
He stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "I can't promise much, but I'm willing try if the offer still stands." He said with a bit of his old gusto as he lifted her hand and kissed it.
She smiled her old, familiar smile, cocked her head to the side, then putting her hand behind his neck, she pulled him into a deep and passionate, if short, kiss. Then, with a wink, she headed for the door, Jack following closely behind her.
Her hand had just clutched the doorknob, when Jack's arm caught her around the waist and spun her back towards him, the door swinging open, unthought-of. He pressed her against him and tilting her head back, returned her kiss.
She finally managed to pull away, laughing and stumbling out the door, Jack still not letting go of her. "Are you coming?" She asked pointing to the deck with a shake of her head.
He looked at her as if she were insane. "I'm only half dressed." Now Tudor looked askance at him. He let go of her, swaggered back into the cabin, grabbed his hat, placed it jauntily on his head, and then swaggered back for the door. Tudor laughed and pushed him back through the door. "Go put a shirt on you crazy pirate!" She said with a laugh.
Taking his hat in hand he retreated into the cabin, grumbling good-naturedly. "Bloody Woman, comes an' nothing's ever the same 'gain." You could tell from the gleam in his eyes and the slight twitching at the edges of his moustache that he was thinking mostly about the benefits of these 'changes'.
Tudor stood for a moment and then followed. "Jack." She said in a small voice just inside the door. She heard a muffled grunt from within the shirt he was putting on. "What am I to do on board? I'm not a sailor . . ."
"I don't know." He replied roughly. "Go have a look in the armoury if you like."
"Alright." She almost skipped of, her eyes shining and a silly grin on her face. There was also an indistinguishable mumbling about 'toys' as well.
"Insane wench." He chuckled to himself, then after straightening the shirt, he sauntered out on the deck, strolled over to the railing and stood looking smugly out at the sea.
"Morning Jack!" Jack snapped his head to see Will standing just down the railing next to him, a similar look on his face.
Jack grunted. "You seem mighty chipper for this early in the morning."
Will blushed. "It just seems like a wonderful day to be alive!" He said, and enormous grin spreading on his young face.
"Had a good night, eh Will?" Jack clapped him soundly on the back.
"Yes . . ." Will replied, the blush taking over his face. "I never thought I could feel this . . . " He started to search for a word.
"Satisfied." Jack added helpfully.
"A woman is a wondrous thing. A woman's companionship is like . . ." He started to expound.
Jack looked pensive for a minute. "It's like being drunk. The world is swimming, ye're not sure if yer legs will hold ye up and ye can't tell starboard from port side, but it's somehow different, it has more of a feel of . . ." It was Jack's turn to pause for contemplation.
"It's more – wholesome." Will said, to which Jack quirked an eyebrow. "It's more like a dream. None of it seems real. And she's just so beautiful. So strong, yet so fragile . . ."
"She's like a porcelain doll . . . that could kill you. Quite alluring actually."
Will was about to speak again, then blinked twice at Jack's metaphor. "Are we talking about the same thing?" He asked, for the first time coming out of his own little world.
"Most likely not." Jack shrugged.
Before Will could as Jack to what he was referring, the loud crack of gunfire was heard from the other side of the deck. They both spun quickly to see Tudor holding a blunderbuss reverently in her hands.
"It's, it's like a little, miniature hand-held cannon. Carter would have loved this!" She said, a child-like gleam in her eyes as she reloaded and made ready to fire again. The kickback, which would have thrown down many men, barely moved her as she fired again. "Excellent!" She said, grinning madly.
"I had best stop the wench before she burns off all our powder stores!" And with that, he ran in the direction of the loud booming, waving his arms in the air and exclaiming. "No, no, no! I've got plans for that!" leaving Will to figure out their conversation on his own.
