Note: A chapter by Marvel. This is a couple of years later when Pearl has been sailing with Jack for some time. She is about 14 here.

Chapter 5 A Woman Scorned

Pearl awoke in the gentle way she'd become accustomed to in the last month since agreeing to take on the night shift. Without her father snoring next to her, or rolling her out of bed depending upon his state of wakefulness, and with the whole bed to herself, she had the leisure to just lay a few moments in the gentle sheets and enjoy the gentle rolling of the sea.

The open window to her right painted orange light across the far wall as sunset crept into the room. Jack generally called the night crew on around an hour after dark, sending the day crew scurrying to the mess for their supper and rum where they would spend the evening plotting how best to spend their booty and boasting over which Tortuga harlot they would employ.

Pearl chuckled, avoiding putting on her boots long enough to sit in the window seat and enjoy the colors around her for a few moments. Her mother figured in those discussions often enough. Not that it bothered her, and she did have a grudging respect for the crew (with the possible exception of the two with a fondness for calling her 'poppet') but when it came down to it she preferred the open night air and the dark deck with only the scant night crew around her.

Out of habit she reached out with her internal sight, a maternal gift in her family, running a hand over the air flows stirring above her and the rather more predictable shifts of water below. The wind was against them, had been for nigh unto a fortnight, but the current was with them. Without her steady hand, leaving the mere mortals to navigate by compass as best they could, they had drifted from the strongest of the liquid pull. She could feel it, twisting off to the east. She could ease them back into it without effort through the night. It was yet another reason she preferred the night shift-it was an opportunity to wrest the wheel from her father's overly protective grip.

Something caught at her awareness as soon as she was satisfied that there was little possibility of a storm descending on them through the night. A slight pull in the sea off the port side of the ship. She had no view of that side from her current position. She further examined the disturbance as she pulled on her boots. Reading the flows was more work than she generally let on, the smaller the disturbance the harder to see, and her brain was only starting to wake. It was a small tug, something she felt more in the movements of the ship than the actual sea-motion itself. She wrinkled her nose. It felt almost like a ship following them, but if they were about to be attacked or go on a raid she would have been sent for, and the cannons certainly would have woken her. All remained silent around her. Couldn't be a ship.

The smallest ripples she had ever felt were created by a group of sharks going mad in chummed water. But Jack didn't dispose of crew that way, as some did, and certainly nothing should be chumming the water. The sharks weren't vicious enough to randomly attack any men who fell overboard and Cookie didn't slaughter animals on the ship.

She scratched at the back of her neck as she moved toward the door. It was a mosquito bite in the back of her brain now, that disturbance. A school of dolphins perhaps? A whale? That was less than likely, but she couldn't think of any other causes.

Her stomach growled loudly as she moved into the hall. She glanced up at the deck. The view afforded her only a look at the starboard side of the ship. She considered going up on deck to see if she could see the problem. If the rudder had broken loose, or an anchor slipped perhaps ... no, she dismissed those ideas. Jack knew the ship and would never allow such a thing to happen.

Deciding it was no big thing, and certainly not worth risking loosing the opportunity to eat, she stayed below, moving toward the mess. Cookie was used to her turning up hungry before her shift, and often saved a morsel or two for her.

She heard voices as she approached the mess, and paused. The night crew generally ate before taking the shift, but they didn't often beet her to it. Jack would not approve of a crewmember sneaking off to munch. Was someone ill?

As she drew closer she recognized one of the voices as Jack's. Well, at least no one was avoiding their responsibilities, she reflected as she drew closer. The second voice sounded vaguely familiar. It wasn't Barbossa – he should have been at the helm anyway if Jack were below. Bootstrap was the only other crewman she could think of Jack would be chatting so familiarly with. She smiled, a new spring in her step.

She liked Bill, had since she was a young thing despite the fact that he seemed to believe she was his daughter. A poor substitute for the son he had left in England, she didn't doubt. Truth be told she didn't mind overly much. Whatever she might say she still liked being coddled now and again. Thirteen may have been plenty grown up, but she was still aware that she was also plenty young.

She moved easily into Cookie's domain, and stopped when she pushed open the door.

Both men turned, one to smile, the other to nod at her. Jack's grin was positively evil. Next to him, instead of Bill's smooth hair and fairly well-kept clothes, sat the man she liked considerably less despite his truer claim to coddle her. Her true father, the man she referred to as Uncle, sat resplendent as ever with his plaited hair lined with beads – the same sort she had in her own hair – and his bare back showing off the ink buried under the skin.

The odd current made sense now. His ship had to be riding next to them, disturbing the waves just enough to incite her awareness. She kicked herself for not considering that. Hal came around so seldom it simply hadn't occurred to her.

"Hello Hal," she greeted coldly, sweeping past the table they sat at to call for Cookie.

"Sit," Cookie called from the kitchen. "I'll have it for you in a minute."

Pearl sighed, resigning herself to sitting across from the two men. Just a touch of nervousness appeared in Hal's remaining eye, a frown tugging down a corner of his mouth, elongating the scar she had given him some five years before, while he was turning the glass in his hands.

Jack ignored the tension as only Jack could.

"Any storms coming up on us?"

Pearl shook her head. "Not through the night, anyway. I don't like the looks of a disturbance to the north, but we're too far yet for me to tell you anything specific. Ask me tomorrow morning." She reached up to sweep her hair out of her face, fingering the cool beads before sequestering the mutinous locks behind her ear.

"So, Hal, aren't you impressed with how my own lovely daughter has grown?" Jack asked. Pearl nearly winced. She had no doubt Jack knew exactly how uncomfortable that line of conversation made both parties. He simply didn't care.

"She looks very much like her mother," Hal commented a Cookie dropped a plate before her. "Although I must say much of her good looks seems to have come from her father."

She coughed as the ham she'd begun to gnaw on lodged itself in her throat. Jack agreed, grinning as he heard nothing but a compliment in the words. Pearl glared at her uncle. She didn't appreciate jokes at Jack's expense, even when he was too ignorant to recognize it as such, much less the reminder that the less pleasant of the two brothers, in her opinion, happened to be her father.

Hal chewed a bit at the rings in his lips. She considered for just a moment that he hadn't meant the comment as an insult to Jack, but dismissed it. Any opportunity he had to one-up her she had no doubt he would take.

"You all right, luv?" Jack asked as she chewed at the gristle she'd managed to dislodge from her throat.

"I seem to have lost my appetite," she answered, tossing down the food. "I should go check on that storm. I'll get the rundown from Barbossa." She paused to throw a sickly sweet grin at Hal. "So you may just enjoy our company."

She paused outside the door long enough to hear Hal sigh heavily. "Brother, she really doesn't like me."

She could hear Jack's dismissive shrug in his voice. "You know what they say, a woman scorned."

"I never did anything to scorn her, wilfully," Hal objected.

She nearly snorted, but decided instead to preserve her current station as eavesdropper instead.

Jack laughed shortly. "A little advice for you, little brother. Easy as it is to forget, deep down inside, beneath the pirate, she's a woman. She doesn't need a reason to dislike you. Look at me. Slapped from one side of Tortuga to the other. But they always come back, bless their hearts."

"Your daughter is no harlot, Jack."

Jack shrugged again. "You might be surprised."

Pearl shook her head, taking a bite of the ham she had spirited away with her. That man was impossible. Both of them where.

-

Pearl sat tailor-style on the box in front of the Black Pearl's wheel, her eyes closed, the compass open behind her. She was aware of her uncle, standing on the stairs looking at her. Did he suspect she had fallen asleep? She hoped desperately that he knew better than that. Jack would never leave someone at the wheel as would fall asleep on the job.

She waited patiently. For him to take the hint and return to the cabin or come closer. Which did she prefer? For him to go. Certainly. That was the smart move. Less likely to start a fight that would leave him bleeding again.

But he didn't move. Just stood there, watching her. She certainly couldn't be that interesting. What did he see?

He had to be comparing her to the girl he knew five years ago. She mentally compared the reflection in the mirror to what she remembered of herself at seven. The biggest change was in the clothing. Skirts were a thing of the past for her. She nearly smiled, remembering her joy when she first discovered the movement men's clothes gave her, but remembered herself at the last moment and kept any reaction from her face.

She had grown, certainly, reaching what she feared was the extent of her height. Taller than her mother by a few inches she had drawn exactly even with Jack. It had helped fill out her body as well, the rest of her catching up with her comically long limbs that had given her a coltish look. The hard work of a ship had lined them with firm muscles, helping further dispel the image. Her bust had filled out, remaining fairly petite to match her body as she ate up any stored fat on muscle. Her mother would disapprove, just in case something happened that threw her back into her Tortuga's business of choice for women, but in all she was just as glad not to have them in her way. Her freckles had faded away under a hard-earned tan. She hoped they weren't returning as she took her set of night shifts. Her long full hair had been cut boyishly short, probably her greatest regret, and filled with jangling beads. Did he approve, she wondered?

Still he didn't move. He just stood there. It was interesting, as she cast about to feel the winds, how mobile her senses made him seen as he stood perfectly still. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but her preoccupation kept pulling her away from the storm she monitored to focus on him. The simple rush of his breathing, some sort of bizarre hurricane, wind rushing out only to be sucked back in. The brine in his veins circulating just the way the tides did. And yet the shell of his skin didn't move an inch.

Finally she gave up the pretence as lost. "Did you mother never tell you its impolite to stare?" She didn't look at him, remained perfectly still herself, and fought irritation as she sensed a smile on his lips. Did he feel he had won, getting her to speak first?

"If she did I don't recall." He moved at last, standing next to her and look out over the ship. She opened one eye to glance up at him, but looked away when she met his, allowing her concentration to slip and both eyes open.

"You can't sleep?"

"Not used to Jack's snoring anymore."

"You could have returned to your ship." She could still feel the ripple of their wake, behind them now.

He didn't look back. "I prefer to spend the time with Jack."

Pearl made a non-committal sound of agreement. Reaching behind herself she removed the looped rope from the wheel, shifting it just a bit to the left. Moving the ship move in line with the pull of the flow beneath them.

Hal glanced over her shoulder at the compass she still couldn't see. She kept it there for Jack's sake. Something he insisted on so he could know which direction they were going despite her less rational style of navigation. It made him feel better, he said, although he trusted her.

The needle rested in a random setting, somewhere two tick marks short of east, a heading few could follow.

He gave her a curious look, asking without accusing (without saying a word, in fact) if they were off course.

"This way's faster," she answered.

"If you say so," he said, still no accusation in his voice.

"Your navigator will be able to follow?" she asked, careful to be equally respectful by making it a pure question.

"Amad should manage."

She nodded. Firmly back in the stream she preferred she straightened the wheel again and returned the rope to its place. "How long do you intend to stay with us?"

He shrugged. "Long as it feels right."

She rolled her eyes and snorted. "Specific as always."

"Do you prefer specificity?" he asked.

"I prefer precision."

"Your course would suggest otherwise."

She glared at him, met his mild gaze and turned away. "I dislike surprises. Having to plan around sudden changes of course."

"Being around Jack I would have expected you to pick that sort of thing up along the way."

"Being able to do it and seeking it out are two very different things. I am not my father." She winced as she said it. Her fault, bringing up a subject she had intended to completely avoid.

"You most certainly are not," he agreed mildly, his voice betraying none of his thoughts. He paused to look over the ship along with her. "Why have we never gotten on, Pearl?"

She shrugged, glanced up at him as if searching for the answer he wanted. "We got off to a rather poor start. I cut you open the first time we met."

"I don't believe you recall the first time we met," he said. "You were young. Two or three, perhaps. I'm a poor judge of age in children."

One corner of her mouth drew up in a familiar smirk. "If we're counting times I don't recall, it could be argued that you were inside my mother the first time we met."

She grinned fully as she saw his eye widen marginally. 'Score,' she congratulated herself.

"That was below the belt," he informed her, something like disapproval in his voice.

"Literaly." She couldn't help but giggle.

He shook his head, but chuckled a little himself. Then, he reached up to trace the scar she had given him. "I don't hold a grudge over this."

"Most men would."

"I do not."

"I'm not certain I believe you."

"To believe me or not is your choice."

The smile had disappeared from her face. "I am aware of that."

They lapsed into silence again for a moment. "I never seem to know the proper thing to say around you."

"I'm not certain there is a proper thing to say around me," she answered. "In fact, I'm fairly certain there isn't."

"That would put me at a distinct disadvantage then."

"So it would seem." She chuckled. "Does that make me cruel?"

"No," he smiled, "Try harder." Then, he looked at her oddly for a moment.

"Yes?" she asked.

"It's nothing. You just reminded me of someone for a moment."

"Who?"

"A woman I used to know. A girl, technically. It's unimportant." He sighed deeply. "I should return to bed. I believe I would prefer to be asleep just now."

"I wish you luck," she called over her shoulder. She closed her eyes again, uncomfortably aware that he paused to look at her one final time before returning to Jack.