By Kitty =^.^=
A/N: Bonjour mon chéries! Luckily, this chapter comes the week after I last updated. Aren't you happy? silence Well??? silence Hello?! reaches out from the screen and knocks you on the head Is this thing on? Dear readers, it is CHAPTER 12!! Are you not proud of me? silence quietly growls Alright fine. Yeesh, you all had better be more peppy at the end of the story! swishes cape I'll be back! scurries off into the shadows
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"Why don't you want to talk about the past?" Jack quietly argued. Even with her face turned away to the side, Jack could see her clench her teeth and her lips quiver. He lifted his right hand and, placing his forefinger on her cheek, gently turned her head back to face him. She tried to shake his hand off and back away from him, but he caught her chin between the side of his finger and the tip of his thumb, securing her head in place and making her eyes meet his own. She looked as though she might burst into tears but she stayed strong.
Jack leaned forward, leaving almost no distance between them. "The past isn't going to go away, luv. We're gonna hafta talk about it sometime." Talk about how you betrayed me, Jack thought with wounded pride. Talk about how I offered you ev'eyfthing in the world you wanted: a ship, riches, adventure... Jack reached up with his free hand and gripped Lela's shoulder. ME. Lela's lips trembled more despite her efforts to still them, and for once in her life she couldn't convey what Jack was thinking. Jack's grip tightened. I gave you myself to you. My heart. One last time, Jack asked the girl he held so dear the question she most feared. "Why did you want to find me, Lela?"
HASHEEN!!!
Now it was Lela who could not move or think. Her mind was racing, her palms were sweating, her mouth had gone dry; Jack had her cornered and there was no way that she could back out. He probably had already figured out the answer so why was he asking?
Lela opened her mouth to say something, anything, but no sound came. Licking her lips and taking a quiet breath, she tried again. "But why would you need to ask me, Ja--Sparrow?" she scoffed, trying to feign blasé unconcern. "Surely you already know the answer?" Jack almost smiled. Almost. She really hadn't changed at all; she still tried to deflect a question she didn't want to answer till the very end, even when it was already too late.
"I might," Jack answered, leaning even closer to Lela's face. Beneath his fingers, he felt her arm grow stiff and rigid, and a quick glance downward told him her hands were clenched. "But..." His forehead was barely a scant millimetre Lela's. "...I thought I moight ask you. Ya know," Jack ignored the dizzying fragrance that drifted from her hair, "jest to be sure I was right. You know how I can't stand to be wrong." He saw her eyes glaze over, and just when he thought he'd caught her...
"I do," she spat back, roughly pushing away his hand that held her face captive. "Quite well, actually."
Lela turned away and folded her arms across her chest, causing some of her hair to fly back and hit Jack in the face. Closing his eyes to the black whips that lashed against his face, he walked forward and quickly pulled Lela's right arm behind her back. When she struggled, he brought her left arm up, his fingers locking around her wrist. She tried to kick him, but his ankle shot in front of and around hers, bracing it into immobility.
A little less than a minute passed while Lela struggled like a bird trying to fly away from a hunting cat, and Jack just kept knocking her back down to the ground. She kept struggling, but Jack would not let her go.
She felt the barrier that she had built up over the past years, the one that held back her tears, held in her anger, and shut out anything she didn't want, was weakening, deteriorating, eroding. At any moment she felt it might shatter and break altogether.
Her exertions became more and more exhausted and they were fewer and farther between. Lela's shoulders thrashed from side to side and her eyes wanted to close to flush out the tears. She finally bit her lip to keep it from shaking. Everything was blurred and swimming before her eyes, her breaths coming in short shallow pants. She slowly and finally stopped moving but still tried with one last bit of energy to walk away.
Jack wouldn't have it; he let go of her arms and her leg and crushed her back against him, preventing any escape. His right hand clutched her left shoulder, while his left hand grasped her right hip.
Bowing her head in shame, Lela knew she couldn't win.
She'd lost. She'd lost the day, the hour, the minute, the second she'd fallen in love...with Jack.
Lela sighed and half-closed her eyes. Her muscles ached from all the fighting and she was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of denying. Tired of lying. Just...tired. She had given in to nothing for so long, except for any distraction that would make her forget. She had given in to everything, except for anything that would make her admit what she did not want to.
Jack held her close to him, refusing to let her go without an answer. In spite of himself, he nuzzled his nose and chin and forehead against her soft hair and neck. Even if he'd said he'd hated her, even if he'd thought that he'd never love her again, Jack knew that it wasn't true. Maybe it had been foolish, a future-pirate falling in love with such a beautiful, spirited, intelligent girl, or even falling in love at all. But it had happened; he had fallen in love with her. Partly because...he'd thought... I thought she loved me too.
The room was spinning. Lela was hardly breathing. Her vision was becoming blotchy and she felt faint. Spots swam before her eyes and her chest heaved in and out, hard, and her mind threatened to black out on her. With sheer force of will, Lela brought her breathing under control. And at long last after seven years, Lela closed her eyes and those salty drops that she hated so much called 'tears,' fell forth, slowly, unbearably so, down her cheeks, darkening her pale skin.
Outside, thunder rumbled from the sky, and shook the ship. Soft, placid drops of rain showered down, as though heaven itself were crying, trying to wring out the pain through the clouds.
Jack pressed close to Lela, with almost no fury left in him, but a desperate need to know the truth. His right hand lifted from her shoulder and he reached to touch her cheek. Although he was surprised and perplexed when he felt his fingers touch hot wet streams of tears, he brought his lips next to her ear, closed his eyes, and quietly repeated his question in one word: "Why?"
Lela tightened her eyelids together and she began to hyperventilate again. She wanted to stay strong and give him his answer without crying like a little girl so he wouldn't think less of her. But she felt her legs starting to give way, and her feet began to slide to their respective sides. No, she thought distraughtly, I'm not weak, I'm not. Her calves followed her feet and slid down to the wooden floor. Stupid, you are weak. If you weren't weak, you'd have told him already and not hid from him like a coward. Lela's knees were almost touching the floor. Fine, I am weak. But Jack can't know!
Jack was worried at seeing Lela like this. It seemed her very frame was crumbling away. Of course he'd known that she wouldn't give in easily, she was too headstrong and iron-willed. That was one of the reasons he loved her so much. But she looked like she was being murdered and he felt as though he was the one breaking her. To try and comfort her, as well as himself, Jack sank down to the floor with her, his fingers involuntarily stroking her damp cheek.
Barely noticing that he had not let go of her or loosened his grip on her, Lela continued to collapse to the ground. I don't want him to think I'm weak, but... Lela's legs were finally flat on the floor. But I want to know if he still... The continuous motion of Jack's fingers rubbing her cheek finally reached her. If he still loves me. "I wanted to find you," Lela quietly began, "because..." Her voice faltered but she tried again. "Because..."
"Be-cause?" Jack offered, whispering. Lela's hands wanted to fly up and cover her face but she refused them.
"Because...I...I..."
"You...?"
Lela face tilted forward, her hair creating a veil around her, and she answered. "Because I love you."
Behind her, Jack was filled with happiness. He wanted to kiss her he was so overflowing with ecstasy. But then, he was confused. If Lela still loved him, then why...why had she been... The old anger rose up again, but it had softened. Lela was telling the truth. He knew it. She did love him. As hard as he knew it was for her, he was going to have to ask her more questions. But if he could have seen Lela's face at that moment, he would've known that his time for asking questions was over, and her interrogation was about to begin.
"There," she choked out. "You have your answer, Jack." Even though he was happy that she was using his name again, he was confused at why her voice sounded angry. "Now I have a question of my own." Lela slid from his arms and did her best to stand straight while he was still sitting on the floor. Trying to point an accusing finger at him while keeping her arm still proved hopeless, so she ended up holding her hands out to the side in a questioning, bewildered, and pleading pose. "Why...?" Lela took a breath to keep her voice from quavering. "Why did you leave Sleego, Jack?" On the floor, Jack's forehead creased in confusion. "Why did you leave Ireland?" Lela pulled back her hands and she hugged herself, head hanging, her tears dropping freely down to the ground. "Why did you leave me?" she whispered, the pain evident in her murmured sobs. Jack hesitated for a moment, but finally answered.
"I felt I had to leave," he said quietly, his hands hanging at his sides. "I didn't want to have to face you."
"But why?" implored Lela. "I don't understand. What happened that would make you want to not see me?"
Jack's eyes shot up and looked at her. "What happened?" he said, louder than before. "What happened?!" Springing up from the floor, Jack stood straight and glared at Lela, his ache and sorrow and rage and anguish rekindling. Her confession had been the spark, and her question was the fan that set the fire ablaze. "You betrayed me!" Lela looked up with miserable confusion on her face. "You deceived me, belittled my trust!" Lela's eyes burned hot with anger and levelled her stance to stare Jack in the face.
"What the hell are you talking about?!" she screamed. "I never lied to you, not once!"
"Maybe not to my face you didn't," Jack responded, "but ye certainly did a good job of it when I wasn't around!"
"You're mad, you're bloody fucking mad!"
"Am I?!"
"Yes!!"
"Wicked girl!"
"Idiot boy!"
"Good-for-nofthing wench!!!"
Slap!
Jack's head whipped back, his hands flying up to soothe the stinging blow. Looking back at Lela, her hand was raised in warning, should he choose to malign her like that again.
"I've told you: NEVER, call me a wench!"
Jack looked away nearly ashamed of what he'd done. Maybe that one...he did deserve. Suddenly he hissed in pain, and his hand drew back from his cheek. Gazing down, he saw a thin line of blood marked on the palm of his hand. Lela turned back to Jack instantly when she had heard his pained grunt. While Jack rubbed the blood off his hand, Lela plainly saw the cut to his cheek. She held up her right hand and regretfully saw a speck of blood on the opal of the silver band that enclosed her ring finger. Sighing, she walked to her desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a pure white cloth. She took her ring off and wiped it clean, set it on the desk, then walked back over to Jack, who was incessantly touching the cut and cringing in pain. Gently, she pushed him onto a chair while she sat on the table.
Before Lela could try and touch the gash, Jack flinched and pulled back. "Wh-what, what're ye doin'?" Lela tried again to place the cloth against his cheek.
"Tryin' to get the blood off yer cheek."
"I-It don'mattuh, leave it be!"
"Don't be such a baby!"
"I am not a baby, luv."
"Then sit still." With his continued refusal, Lela made one last statement to still him. "Ye wannit to crust up and fill with pus and ruin yer looks forevuh?" For some reason, Jack froze and didn't make another move. Lela smirked. "Thas'wha I thought." Since he was finally not moving anymore, Lela began to tenderly dab at the wound she'd inflicted. Jack winced every so often, but didn't move. "I'm sorry, by the way," she murmured. "I shouldna slapped ye." Lela reached onto the table and dipped the cloth into a bowl of water. "It weren't right of me." She gently washed the blood from Jack's cheek and wiped it clean. "I'm sorry."
Jack was confused. One minute they had been at each other's throats, the next, she was tending to the cut on his cheek, that she'd given him, like she was a mother fussing over her little boy. And he was acting like a little boy too. He thought about how funny it would be if he hugged her and said, "It still hurts, kiss it and make it better." He started to chuckle softly and Lela looked up from her work.
"Whas'so funny then?" she asked, wary because she wasn't in on the joke. Jack shook his head, still smiling although it hurt his cheek, and Lela put down the cloth.
"Nofthing," Jack answered most innocently.
"Nofthing?"
"Nofthing."
"Are you sure?"
"No."
"Jack!"
"Sorry, sorry, meant nofthing of offence, luv, nofthing of offence."
Lela smiled and lightly knocked Jack on the head as she got up. She'd missed that: joking around with him. Life had seemed so much duller without Jack, even when she was firing cannons, steering ships, and fighting with pirates. It was odd though, how they seemed to switch from almost killing each other to teasing each other. It was odd...but fun. Sighing, she walked outside to the deck and looked over the Gremlin Flame. "Conleth!" she called. After a moment, the first mate looked back at her from the wheel.
"Aye, Cap'n?" he yelled back.
"How long do ye'spose it'll be a'fore we'll be at Isla de Muerta?"
"Mayhap an hour or so?"
"Right then." Lela walked back into her cabin and closed the door. Turning back around she saw Jack casually lounging in his chair. He was picking at his nails concentrated very hard on them... "Whaddid ye do?" Lela asked accusingly. Jack looked up at stared innocently back at her with big naïve eyes.
"Whaddya mean 'whaddid Oi do'? I didn't do nofthing." Lela narrowed her eyes and marched over to Jack and leaned over the table till their noses were almost touching.
"Oh really?"
"Really."
"Hmm..." She reached forward and tilted Jack's chin up, completely capturing his attention, and gazing deep into his eyes. His mouth slightly opened and closed a few times as though he were trying to say something but couldn't quite get that accomplished. Lela whispered, "Then..." and she held up her opal ring. "What's this doin' in yer pocket?" Jack's eyes shifted from side to side for a moment, but then they opened wide and he frantically looked around and waved his hands.
"Wh-where am I?" he shouted. "What am I doin' 'ere?!" Lela rolled her eyes and pulled back while Jack continued to wander around hysterically asking to no one in particular where he was. She moved her hand to put her ring back on her finger...but she no longer had it.
"What the...?" She looked around on and under the table and turned her hands all around to try and find it. Suddenly she remembered Jack roaming around, and she closed her eyes tightly and touched her forehead lightly. On the ground, Lela turned around sitting with her legs folded under her and she looked at Jack. After a moment he noticed she'd finally looked back at him. He stopped with his back facing her, and he turned to the side slightly and held up the vanished ring, waving it back and forth and smiling with that horrendous, devilish smirk of his.
"You're not the only clever thief on this ship, luv."
Lela shook her head, rolled her eyes again, and sighed, raising her hands in defeat. "Whatever ye say, Jack, whatever ye say."
"Absolutely, whatever I say, glad to hear you finally figured it out." He laughed and swayed over to sit down next to her. "Here." Lela held out her hand, palm up, thinking he was going to give her the ring so she could put it back on. But he didn't give it to her. Instead, he turned her hand over lifted it up a little, seizing the finger the silver band belonged on. She raised her eyebrow and looked a little tense but didn't really move.
Jack started to slip it back on her finger, but stopped and held it back up to his eyes. Lela squinted her eyes trying to see whatever it was that Jack found interesting in her ring. It held two tiny diamonds studs adorning the rounded opal in the centre. The fine, thinner-than-hair cracks and fissures refracted the light creating streaks of dappled colours against the milky white jewel. Jack bit at his bottom lip. "I gave this to you...didn't I?" Lela gulped, hesitating for a moment before she slowly nodded.
"Um, yeah. Ye did. It was a, um..." Jack laid her right hand on her knee and lifted the left one, running his fingertips against the smooth sharp edges of her nails. "It...it was...well, you gave it to me as..." Lela watched apprehensive and nervous but almost excited, and Jack put his hand under her fingers, raising the second to last one. "As a..." Jack placed the ring at the tip of her finger and gazed at it through half-closed eyes. "...wedding ring," Lela breathlessly finished. Jack looked up from the ring and into Lela's eyes. A wedding ring... He had given it to her as an engagement gift, so she would always remember how much he loved her. No standard, ordinary, plain diamond rings for his girl, no. This ring was special and unique, just like her. Not gold, it was too conspicuous and bawdy. Silver; soft, delicate, beautiful. Just like her.
"Lela..." Jack whispered, almost as a question.
"Y...yes?"
"I..." Jack barely got the one word out of his mouth before he stopped, and leaned forward slightly. Lela was scared and her mind was screaming, Don't do this!!! But she was too...what, entranced? Yes... Lela began to lean forward too. Entranced by Jack. Who cared about what had happened? She didn't. And Jack didn't seem to either. Her eyes fluttered more a second and slipped closed as Jack reached up to hold the side of her face...
Knock, knock.
"Who's there?!" screamed Lela, flying back away from Jack.
"Cap'n?" It was Conleth.
"Damn it to hell..." she muttered. Still sitting on the floor, she called back, "What is it then?"
"Isla de Muerta is in sight. We'll be there within a quarter-hour." Lela looked towards the door, confused. An hour had passed already? But she and Jack had been there for what only seemed like...just a few minutes. Time just flies when you're having fun dunnit? Lela clenched her teeth and would've slapped her mind had it been a real person.
"Right then," she yelled, but softer. Jack and Lela listened to the heavy footsteps grow quieter as Conleth walked away and then across the plank back onto the Gremlin Flame. Lela glanced back to see Jack's fingers recede from hers over to the other hand. He replaced the ring to its original spot on her right hand, and then pulled away and looked down. Had he been looking, he would've seen the tears returning to Lela's eyes.
Before he saw her coming, Lela had leaned forward to him, practically falling into him, and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her legs had straightened out and then loosely curled up against her while her head laid against Jack's chest. He was too surprised and confused to say anything so he did the one thing he could think of: he hugged her back. Each tightened their grasp on the other, Jack laying his head on top of Lela's, and Lela snuggling further into Jack's embrace. There they stayed for a number of minutes unknown to both. The world stopped for a moment and the past and present was forgotten. There was only Jack and Lela. And each wished to be lost in that single moment in time for the rest of forever.
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A/N: Yay, c'est fin. Well, not completely the end, I'm FAR from being done. The chapter's done. What did ye fthink luvs? Remember to review. Oh yeah, I wanted to throw in somefthing directly in the chapter, but I didn't want to ruin the moment. Remember when "she felt the barrier...was weakening, deteriorating, eroding"? I couldn't help but think of Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty when he said "Eroding! Eeerooooding!!" Lol, one of my favourite parts. Ah well... Tune in next week for another exciting chapter of I Can't Ever Leave You!!! thoughtful blank stare I just sounded like an announcer off a daytime TV soap opera, didn't I? hangs head in shame Oh, dear...
Fare thee well, safe journeys, and I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye!!
Drink and be merry and bed many-a-fair lad!! (Or...ye know...'lass' for any guys here...ahem...yes...)
Love,
~*Kitty*~
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