AN: A belated merry Valentine's Day to ye—I've spent the better part of two evenings rewriting this chapter, 'cos romance? WAY too rushed. This chapter's for you, Cari Shidao—thanks for being such a loyal reader. Take as many imaginary muffin baskets as you wish. Oh, and a quick note: I know there's a lot of really random, unconnected stuff floating around this fic at the moment—and a bit more to come. But trust me, at the end, it will ALL come together. And now, to the chapter!
A Witch's Daughter
Chapter Ten: Three Simple Reasons
"There you are!" Bill exclaimed a tad too loudly — and cheerfully. It made Catriona damn near fall overboard.
"Morning, Turner," she replied coldly, continuing to look out at the nearing island and pointedly ignoring the commotion of the crew as they prepared to weigh anchor. A moment of awkward silence passed. He could never remember a time, in all five years, when there hadn't been a comfortable companionship between them. And now what? He'd bloody saved her life, a rare feat he'd done very few times before, and she'd never held it against him then.
He blamed Jack for this. Besides a drastic relocation, that was the only factor that had changed. Speaking of which… Bootstrap cocked his head as he studied her. Of course she'd have changed in five years, Turner, he reprimanded himself. Just because Jack hadn't in twice the time doesn't mean she'll remain a twelve-year-old as well. Because Jack Sparrow, excluding a few trust issues, really hadn't matured from the unrestrained, impish twenty-year-old Bill had the good (depending how one looked at it) fortune of running into in London one fine day. Of course, he was a bright enough lad then, with an eye for adventure and a zeal for women that had actually left the elder Bill feeling proud.
"You're thinking about Sparrow, aren't ye?" Her almost accusing tone sliced through his musings, and Bill blinked several times before processing the question.
"Aye," he nodded. He saw her heave out a frustrated sigh as she turned her body so she was leaning against the wooden railing and looking directly at him, her lovely hair spilling over her shoulders and shining in the bright early sunlight. He was surprised at how concerned he'd suddenly felt as he cast his mind back to the night before, when she'd answered his knock on Sparrow's cabin door instead of the eccentric pirate captain himself. That one feature, worn so innocently down, elicited a pang of anxiety — hell, even anger — course through him. Almost automatically, he turned towards the helm, where the current subject of conversation was busying himself barking orders.
His left hand is bandaged, he noted with surprise. How in blazes could he have managed that? His brown turned suspiciously onto the blonde girl, who was staring in the same direction with a kind of grudging respect on her face, and all his fears were put to rest.
She wasn't a normal girl — she wouldn't be won over so easily.
"I'm guessing from the expression on yer face ye ain't too fond o' him," Bill observed with a suddenly easy grin.
Her violet eyes turned to look at him in surprise, then guilt. "Do you want me to?" she asked meekly, hands resting on the railing.
He laughed — actually threw back his head and bloody laughed. The reaction caught her off guard. "Bill…" she started warningly, "it's a little too early to be drinkin', you know." He could vaguely imagine Jack's face if he'd overheard that little comment, and laughed harder. "Bill, the men are looking' at ye strangely," Cat pressed.
"Catriona, c'mon," he wheezed out, controlling his hysterical bouts of laughter. "Tell me why ye're so distant all of a sudden?" whom she was referring to. "Catriona," he said gently, all traces of mirth evanesce
The blonde struggled for a moment, still looking worryingly at him, before her face alit with her own grin. "No decent reason, really," she admitted readily. The sudden glow in her eyes died down. "I just…" she struggled for the right words. "I… Oh, hell!" She glanced back up at him. "You're not even worried, are you?" she accused.
Bill didn't have to ask to know to whom she was referring to. "Catriona," he said gently, all traces of mirth evanesced, "they're probably at the bottom o' Davey Jones by now."
"I know," she whispered hoarsely, crossing her arms. "But I don't believe that… I don't want to believe that, Bill!" she continued almost desperately in that low tone. "I don't want to!"
"Calm down," he soothed, edging towards her. "Cat, just calm —"
"Don't you bloody tell me to calm down, Turner!" she almost yelled. "Don't you dare!" Catriona turned away from him, arms wrapped tightly around herself, to look out towards the nearing waterfront of Tortuga, shoulders occasionally shuddering.
Hesitantly, he stepped closer to her, reaching out to rest his palm upom her shoulder. When she didn't immediately shrug him off, he slowly turned her towards him, pulling the silently sobbing girl in a much-needed embrace. "I know, sweetheart. I know."
-x!x-x!x-
Tortuga wasn't as rowdy in the morning as it was at night; there were a few unconscious men, some wondering whores looking for a place to rest until evening, and pirates the worst for wear staggering towards the docks. There were also those few honest people busying themselves with law-abiding employment; it was these last that made up the majority of the morning crowd.
Nevertheless, no one appeared to have noticed the appearance of the sinister, battle-worn ebony ship docking into the bay, or the rabble that waltzed out down the newly-established plank onto the docks.
"Hold up," Jack said, immediately intercepting his best friend and the pretty girl he'd brought as their boots touched Tortugan soil. "I need some help."
"Been telling you that for years," Bootstrap muttered, a grin tugging at his lips.
Jack looked at his long-term companion in annoyance. The female merely narrowed her blue eyes at him in annoyance. It was to her he was addressing. "You're comin' with me, love," he informed her happily.
"I am? Oh, joy," she deadpanned, unconsciously edging closer to Bill.
"I knew ye'd be pleased," he continued, reaching out for her hand.
Woodcraft looked distrustfully at the proffered limb, considering his offer, weighing the very few options she had. He really hadn't a clue why she loathed him so — it wasn't as if her hatred was aimed exclusively at the male species. The piratical captain waited impatiently for an answer. "All right," she allowed, accepting the suggestion with her own hand. She turned back to Bill. "I'll meet you in a tavern 'bout noon," she informed him. "Name one."
"Might I," Jack intervened, gently tugging her to his side and refusing to look away from her, "recommend the Bride?" He turned back to Bill. "You remember The Faithful Bride, don't ye?"
"Ain't that the tavern you'd met Barbossa in?" he queried as Jack silently released Catriona's hand as soon as he was convinced she was not planning on running madly in the opposite direction as soon as he'd loosened his hold on her. He doubted she wished to stay within any kind of proximity to him; an unusual trait in women, he'd found.
"Aye," he confirmed. "But no one else can beat their rum." He heard a snort from the lass to the left of him, but ignored her. "Don't you worry mate, I'll bring your lass back in time for your little rendezvous in one piece."
Bill gave a small smile. "That's not what I'm worried about," he commented, looking at the two of them with an expression that Jack couldn't pinpoint. Protective, perhaps? Envious? It seemed he wasn't the only one to acquire a few trust issues in the past decade.
"Well, we'll just be on our merry way, then," he said in farewell. "If you'll be so kind, darlin'…" And with that, they strolled towards the thriving town.
"Where're we going?" she asked politely. Well, at least she wasn't threatening him with various cutlery. That's an improvement. "Exactly what is it that you need me, a complete and total stranger, to lend a hand?"
"Your hand would be nice and greatly appreciated," he commented. "But that's not what I'm after."
"Oh?" she asked, raising a golden eyebrow.
"Oh," he agreed. "But you're right; I have chosen you as opposed to Bill for one very obvious reason; you, my dear wanted murderer, are a woman."
"Girl," she corrected him, not liking the possible turn this conversation could take, but he shook his head.
"Woman," he insisted. "I wouldn't think so damn highly of you, or indeed have you accompanying at this very moment on this little errand o' mine, if ye were a mere a girl."
He could feel her uncommonly-coloured eyes upon his back. "Well… Legally speaking, I'm still a lass," she persisted.
Sparrow merely shrugged. "Maybe ye are; maybe you aren't," he said. "Somehow I doubt you loyally mark off a calendar every single day whilst ye were aboard the Chimera. You could be bleedin' twenty-two and not even know it."
"This is a pointless discussion," she indicated. "Really, why me? Why'd you ask for me instead of Bill?"
He glanced towards her, a glint in his eye. She felt a sudden anticipation grip her the moment his eyes made contact. "Why'd you think?" he asked.
"I'm…not really certain," she admittedly diffidently.
"Bedding." It was like a cannon had somehow shot out her brains.
"Be — Bedding?" she inquired a little too loudly. Several of the locals, and a good deal more of the sailors, turned to look at them. If she'd been paying him any mind, Catriona would have seen him wearing a very smug smirk at all the attention she'd drew, or rather, the nature of this attention. Several of the blokes gave him looks of approval (it was really too early for catcalls and besides, the pirate wench seemed preoccupied).
It was probably a good thing for him that she didn't.
"Aye, bedding," he validated. "What with you refurbishing me cabin with absolutely no authority, I think it's only fair you help me replace the bed that you'd dismembered."
"I have not dismembered your bloody bed!" she snapped, but Jack merely shrugged.
"To be completely honest with ye, I'd been wanting to redo that room for a couple o' months now," he declared. "Wanted to burn every little thing that bastard Barbossa touched, and since meeting you…" he shrugged. "The bed seems the most logical place to start."
It was a perfectly good explanation. An innocent, honest-to-God, good explanation, and if she wanted to keep it that way, Catriona would have left the matter well alone. However… "What's that supposed to bloody mean, 'since meeting you the bed's the logical place to start'?" she challenged, and Jack's grin stretched even further.
"Three simple reasons," he replied. "One; you've bloody well put a bomb between the covers."
"I did not —"
"Two;" he continued, ignoring her heated defence, "that is very easily the most used piece of furniture in the room. And three…" he trailed off as she patiently looked up at him. They were standing still now, stopping outside a musty workshop, and he grinned down at her, the sunlight glinting off a gold tooth. "Well, we'll just have to see about number three, won't we, love?" He pulled open the filthy door with the jingling of a small bell. "Shall we?"
-x!x-x!x-
Catriona spent that morning traipsing after Jack Sparrow, bearing witness as he flirted his way to one bargain after another; the carpenter's sister had negotiated for a whole new set of ebony furniture (and imported, no less!) for half the regular price; a lonely merchant's wife had arranged for a hefty amount of provisions to be transported to the Black Pearl for a price well past the human definition of 'stupid'; yet another, this time a lawless connoisseur's only daughter, a large order of liquors smuggled from her father's private (filched) supply. In the end, the captain had gained not only enough supplies for several months at sea, but no less than six 'invitations'. A feat that Catriona had refused to acknowledge.
For the most part.
Trailing reluctantly behind him into The Faithful Bride, she was unable to resist one teeny, innocent little comment. "God, Sparrow, if you were born a woman…" Her observation was cut short by a partially gloved hand.
"Not. Another. Word." he advised, glancing warningly at her. She simply shook her head in reply, her eyes travelling over the half-filled tavern. He saw the blue orbs fill with a curious mixture of horror and annoyance.
"There you are!" Elizabeth beamed, scurrying over, her ruffled sun-coloured skirts gathered in her hands. She looked a little more cleaned up since the night before, her dark blonde hair and pulled into a simple bun with loose strands escaping in such a way as to frame her face and accentuate her swanlike neck. Her fiancé sat at a distant table, apparently in deep conversation with his once estranged father, although judging from the way young William's brown eyes flickered in concern to his only love said otherwise. It seemed that both pirates' expressions were one and the same: Good Lord, does that Turner really have no life of his own?
"I was just thinking of you!" she continued excitedly, still looking directly at a slightly awkward Catriona. "Good morning, Jack," she added as an afterthought.
"How bloody charming…"
"How long did you reckon it'll take to do up your Pearl again?" the female pirate asked, desperate to disregard the unnecessarily friendly governor's daughter.
"Four, five days," he answered shortly with a glower. Then, sensing the girl's discomfort, he turned the conversation back to Elizabeth with a malicious glint in his eye. The elder of the women immediately narrow her brown eyes in suspicion. "Now, what was it you wanted Miss Woodcraft" he pushed the resisting corsair towards the gentlewoman roughly "for?"
"Oh, nothing important, really," Elizabeth began.
"Then I'm certain it can wait," Catriona put in hurriedly, starting to move past the well-meaning aristocrat. However, something prevented her from doing any such thing. That something had her gripped tightly by the elbow, inhibiting any escape attempts.
"Now, now, Catriona," Jack chastised a little too sweetly, his fingers gripping her forearm a little tighter as she tried yet again to escape, "be polite. Let Lizzie here speak." Her brow furrowed into a scowl before she turned her attention back to the now indifferent-looking Miss Swann.
Elizabeth's brown eyes bore directly into Catriona's. "Just a little shopping trip," she said half-heartedly, glancing behind her shoulder at father and son. "The only purpose of which is to give Will and his father some time alone together, or I wouldn't have bothered you."
"And where do I fit into this scheme of yours?" Jack, subtle as ever, contributed.
Elizabeth looked at him. "You just…do whatever it is that you do," she ordered unhelpfully, causing a pair of brown eyes to roll. "Well?" she addressed the uncooperative, unwilling pirate blonde.
The golden-haired girl's jaw twitched as she contemplated the pros and cons of shopping with a pleasant, amiable young woman or an afternoon watching a familial bond springing up between father and offspring accompanied by an annoying, enthusiastically vocal captain she knew naught about and loathed. A very difficult dilemma…
"See, she can't bear to part from me," Jack was saying to whomever was listening.
That tipped the scales in Lizzie's favour. "Shopping sounds like a good idea…" she murmured tamely. "Don't even 'ave a crown on me, though…" She was genuinely disappointed.
"Oh, that's perfectly all right!" Elizabeth beamed merrily (a stark contrast to a slightly ignored Jack). She pulled out a small worn purse "Mr Turner was gracious enough to —"
"Give away me gold?" Jack completed for her.
"It's more likely to be silver," Catriona pointed out.
"Despite that minor detail," Jack dismissed with a characteristic gesticulation, "it is still, without a doubt, mine."
"So you're saying my captain was too tight on the purse strings to give Bill a generous amount of coin when 'e left?" Woodcraft challenged. Sensing an imminent clash of wills using that infamous female intuition, Elizabeth automatically stepped towards the younger girl, hand reaching out to grab her right wrist.
"I never said that — don't create a tiff out of an imagined snub, Catriona." He gave a typical smirk. "It's a bit too early for that in our relationship, ain't it?" The patronizing tone was not aiding his…whatever goal Jack had set himself involving her. Elizabeth gave a determined tug on the slender wrist, and those irritated eyes turned instead onto her.
"Yes?" she snapped. "Oh, I know; shopping." She twisted her wrist, and with one last look at a self-satisfied Jack Sparrow, spun on her heel and stormed out.
Elizabeth gave Jack a bemused, exasperated look, before following after the fair-coloured girl. "God help me…" she muttered, before turning back suddenly and ordering sharply for Jack to employ his full capacity for discretion.
"I'm always discreet, love," he replied unperturbed, spreading out his hands in a nonchalant manner. It was as if he was used to dealing with needlessly hostile, emotionally unstable, unfamiliar female corsairs on a daily basis. He gave her a mischievous wink. "Take care, darlin' — and try to come back from this little spree of yers unharmed. She seems a little temperamental this fine morn," he forewarned, not troubling to keep his voice down.
A slight smile tugged at her lips, and she shook her head, giving him a slight nod as a farewell. Ignoring the two exiting figures completely, Jack cautiously made his way to the little scrubbed table, his mind already trying to decipher this latest development. Like why, for example, was this apparently living legend so mistrustful of him? He'd yet to steal her boat and/or seduce her fickle wife, as far as he knew.
And Elizabeth; what of her volatile mood swings? Just this morning he saw traces of shed tears as of the previous evening, and now all of a sudden she was all wide smiles and bright eyes and shopping trips.
There was really only one way to the bottom of this:
A good, strong drink.
-x!x-
AN: What? No scene-shifting to the bad guys? What IS the world coming to?
