By Kitty =^.^=
A/N: I'm sorry, m'dears. It looks like Chapter 13 is gonna be one of those 'every other Day of Wednes' chapters. Last week, there were some problems with FFN and I didn't want to take a chance uploading stuff when it wouldn't get on there. Also, I'm working on a movie for theology class and it's been kind of a bumpy ride. I'm sorry last time I said 'next week' and it's an 'ev'ey other week.' It's like that sometimes, every week or every other, it depends on how my week is going.
ERIC: If it's going bad, don't be mean to her! crying She tried so hard!!
Eric, you don't need to cry about it. But thank you.
ERIC: But I do need to cry about it!! falls to knees Why is the world so cruuuu-eell?!?!?
Ugh, stop crying!! Please! I don't like to see you cry! What can I give you?
ERIC: stops abruptly Hmmm... devious smile
Eric...?? edges away Why are you looking at me like that??
ERIC: How about you give me... opens eyes wide and wiggles eyebrows suggestively a cook-ie?
raises eyebrow A cookie? realises what he means Oh no. Oh-ho-ho-ho-hooooooo no! I'm not giving you a cookie!
ERIC: thinks about it How 'bout a cracker?
No. Nuttin'.
ERIC: still won't let go of the idea Mutton?
Grrr... storms off
ERIC: WAA-AAGH!! Wait! Kitty! like "Fee-he-he-he-he-he-he-eeny!" Ki-i-i-i-i-i-itty!!!!
Ah well. Things are mostly the same with me. I'm still forgetful, I still don't have a dog, I still don't own PotC--
ERIC: And I'm still Kitty's Muse!! Bou-ya, baby! Oh yeah, who's yer muse? Oh yeah, who's yer muse?
Oh yeah. sigh That too. Eric's still my Muse.
ERIC: YYEESSS!!!
Ugh, Eric, calm down, we gotta start the chapter!
ERIC: If I calm down will you give me a cookie? wiggles eyebrows suggestively again
No. I told you, I'm not gonna give you a sarcastically "cookie."
ERIC: How 'bout a biscuit??
No. No, cookies, crackers, mutton, or biscuits, I told you ye get nofthing!!
ERIC: Muffins???
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! runs away with Eric chasing her
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"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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Jack and Lela just sat there like that, embracing each other, never wanting to stop, wanting to forget, and silently pleading an impossible request that they wouldn't have to leave.
But the fact was, that time moved forward. They had to stop. They couldn't forget. They had to leave.
Again, before Jack could realise what she was doing, Lela stood up, pulling away from his warm form. Standing tall, she walked to her desk where her hat was and stiffly and formally put it back on.
Jack was still sitting on the floor when she turned around again, and when their eyes met, Jack knew things could never be the same as they once were. She stared into him, obviously thinking the same things as he was. Thinking that it wasn't fair that time could not cease for them, and that things never would be the same. Lela walked back over to him, pulled him up, and putting her hands on her hips stood as imposingly as she could in her present condition.
Her voice cracked slightly as she announced, "When we get to Isla de Muerta, Mr. Sparrow," she savoured his flinch at the informal address, "We are going to clean it out. Anyfthing we can manage to carry, we will. You're going to help my crew and yours along with those Spaniards to form a chain to get ev'eyfthing back to me ships."
She roughly turned him and grasped his hands, pulling them behind his back. She pulled a coil of rope from the pouch at her waist. She began to tie them, tightly, wanting them to leave a mark. "Anyfthing that we can't hold in the ships wivout them sinking, we'll leave," she said as she jerked the rope around his wrists.
"What're ye going to do wiv me crew and...meself, once you get ev'eyfthing ye want from the cache?" Jack asked.
"Dunno," Lela answered honestly. "I moight keep ye wiv us for a lit'ul while and then drop ye back at Tortuga in a few months."
"And what of the Pearl?" he enquired worriedly. "What're gonna do wiv ou...moi...ship?" Lela looked up from her work on tying his hands and stopped for a bit. What had he almost said? He had finished with my ship, but he said something before that, or rather, partially said it. Our ship?
"I'm not ezattly sure yet," she thought aloud. "I moight keep it wiv the Gremlin Flame and the Siren Fire." She smiled and mockingly speculated, "Or perhaps I should sell it. It would fetch a pretty penny. What do ye fthink of that, Jack?"
"Hold on then! Ye're not serious are ye?!" Lela laughed softly.
"Of course not, ye stupid twit," she said. "What kind of harebrained fool would I be if I let somefthing so magnificent get away?" Both Jack and Lela paused for a moment, both wondering about her statement. Both thought of the same double-meaning, and both shook their heads and ignored their thoughts.
"Well that's all foine and good that ye want to keep it," Jack said with a rising tone, "but I intend to escape and take back what's mine." Once more, the two pirate captains thought of an almost hoped-for implication, and dismissed the thought.
"Am I about to lose my mind," Lela began in a playful chagrining voice, "or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?"
"Yes, actually they are," replied Jack.
"Well, be that as it may, Mr. Sparrow, you must remember that your 'cunning plans' are really never that clever."
"Perhaps not all of 'em," Jack agreed abashedly, "but this one's really cunning."
"How cunning?"
"Oooh, it's quite cunning, luv."
"Quite cunning you say?"
"Deviously cunning."
"And what, pray tell, is this...deviously cunning plan you've concocted?" Silence. "What, you're not going to tell me?"
"That is the most cunning bit," Jack answered proudly, licking his lips.
"Ugh," Lela groaned, "you really are still such a cute lit'ul tot."
"Oy! I'm not a tot!" Jack tilted his head and thought for a moment. "However, I shall agree with you that Oi am terribly cute." Lela sighed again.
"And you still have the biggest ego in the world."
"Well, maybe not the biggest," Jack chuckled suggestively. Lela's eyes rose abruptly and flicked the back of his head. "Ow!"
"And you also still have one of the dirt-iest moinds I have ever come across."
"From what I've 'eard, you've come across a lot," Jack whispered icily. Behind him, Lela looked as though she had been stabbed through the heart with an icicle, but her eyes burned hot with rage. Of all the things to say, of all the things to call her...
There were several things one never said to Captain Lela Bratchkep. One: "A woman can't be a pirate." Two: "Wench!" And three was the worst of all that she could not abide under any circumstances: calling her or implying any words that were synonymous with jezebel, courtesan, whore, slut...
"You say that I betrayed you, Jack," she whispered, her voice thick with tears, "and if I in some way did, you have my apology and I ask for forgiveness." Jack grunted quietly in pain and she gave an extra hard tug at the rope encircling his wrists.
She leaned over his shoulder and hissed indignantly in his ear, "But you left me wivout so much as a 'Goodbye, bitch, sod off, I hope I never see ye again.' Nofthing." In spite of herself, she leaned her forehead against Jack's shoulder and tears spilled out of her eyes, soaking several spots on his shirt. "Nofthing," she whispered again, "not a word." Her shaky hands dropped from his wrists and splayed out across his chest. "I never knew where ye'd gone or why," she sobbed quietly, barely retaining comprehensible words. "I never knew if somefthing horrible had happened to ye, or if ye just decided to leave 'cause ye got bored wiv me..."
Jack's eyes widened. All that he was hearing...could she be telling the truth? Or was she just acting? Jack knew she was a terribly good actress and could be an even better liar, but something in the way she was saying those things made him believe her. He felt guilt prickle at the back of his mind. He hadn't said anything to her. He had just upped and left because...
Because you were afraid to face her.
The old psyche imp was once again with him.
Because you were cowardly and terrified of what she'd say.
Jack shook his head slightly, trying to make that stupid conscience go away.
You were afraid of her rejecting you and casting you aside.
The shakes began more forceful while he still felt Lela's tears soaking through his shirt and touching his skin, burning hot.
You didn't want her to leave you and so you took the easy way out and left her instead...to protect yourself.
Jack's mind scoffed at him.
Selfish lit'ul bastard.
Jack tried to reach up and caress her hands but then remembered they had been bound. Instead, he just leaned his head to the side and nuzzled against her hair. "Damn it, luv..." he whispered into the soft black strands. "I was..." Jack ignored the nails digging into his flesh as Lela's sobs became more strangled and she tried to cling to him to keep them in. "I was selfish," he sighed, his self-disappointment evident. "I was afraid that...that you didn't..." He faltered slightly, almost afraid of actually saying it. "I was afraid you didn't...love me anymore..." Jack felt Lela stir and she looked up at him with reddened eyes.
"Not love you anymore?" she repeated, bewildered. "Jack, we were friends all our lives. We began courting when I was but 14. Barely a year later, you...ye..." She hung her head, wounded pride and the feeling of abandonment being revived. "You asked me to marry you," she whispered. "I said yes, Jack. I said yes, and I meant it." She gave a tearful chuckle. "You even tried to discourage me later, saying that you had nofthing, that we'd never live comfortably, and that I should go find someone who deserved me--"
"Even though there isn't such a person," Jack finished for her, "but ye should find someone more worthy than me." Jack took a deep intake of breath and Lela still clung to his rising and falling chest.
"But I didn't leave you, Jack," she reminded him. "I told you--"
"That you'd always love me, you'd never leave me," Jack interrupted again, and finished with, "that you never could leave me..."
"Yes..." Closing her eyes, Lela made all the tears leave her. With one last deep sigh, she stepped away from him, but when he tried to step back, she stilled him and shook her head. "I have to go speak with Conleth," she said quietly. "Just stay here until I come for you." Only after a moment's thought, she leaned forward and gently placed her lips on his cheek, kissing him tenderly. Then, with a reassuring yet acidic tone, she bid him farewell: "And I will come back for you, luv. Whatever happens." And she stepped away and walked to the door, letting Jack barely hear her final whispered word. "Always."
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A/N: marches around waving hands Yaaaay, for Chapter 13! Yaaaay, for Chapter 13! Eric bounds in and spins Kitty around Ack! Eric, put me down!
ERIC: like Cartman NO!
whining But whyyy-hy-hy-hyyyyyy?!?!
ERIC: You didn't gimme a cookie.
Eric, baby, I said I was sorry!
ERIC: You're not sorry. plops Kitty down on couch You're evil!!
Grr, look, if it'll make you feel better, here's a cookie.
ERIC: Yay! Eeeheheheheee... closes eyes and puckers up
sticks a Girl Scout Piñata cookie in Eric's mouth
ERIC: opens eyes muffled Heeey!!
Alright, ev'eyone, time to go REVIEW!! Yaaaay, for Chapter 13! Yaaaay, for Chapter 13! dances away to write more
ERIC: muffled Geh baa heer!! tries to jump up and chase her I'mm gonn geh ye--AAAGH!! falls to ground and notices hands and feet are tied Aaagh, maan, cahm oon!! hops in Kitty's direction
Love,
~*Kitty*~
=^.^=