Chapter: Forgotten
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"We climbed up, he first and I behind him, far enough to see, through a round opening, a few of those fair things the heavens bear. Then we came forth, to see again the stars."
- The Inferno, Dante
(And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason why Mr. Dante Alighieri is the master.)
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The first thing Jack noticed as he stirred from his slumber was a familiar scent. Nothing was familiar in the place he was supposed to be; it was all rock and dirt and decay. But this, this was sweet. A woman. How was it possible that he could smell a woman? He was imprisoned. He was as good as dead. Women did not come to this place.
God, he hurt. Every muscle, every joint, ached like nothing he had ever experienced. That's fever, idiot. You know what it's like to have a fever. A voice. Clarity. Maybe he could open his eyes. Something had changed, he knew. Something was different. He creaked one eye open, squinting beneath the pale light of the lamp overhead.
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Sophia awoke when her pillow moved. Pillows don't move. She bolted up, staring wide-eyed at the distressed man before her. Groaning, she passed a hand over her forehead as the grogginess slowly abandoned her and she began to think more coherently. It was still night, for outside darkness still covered the sea. Damn. Jack was awake and staring at her with a surprisingly clear gaze, his brows furrowed in confusion.
It took Sophia several moments to understand that he didn't recognize her, and one glance at his flushed and sweaty skin convinced her that his fever was at fault. Without a word, she pushed aside the bedcovers and crawled across the bed towards his side. Touching his wrist lightly, she sighed. "This is three times, Jack. Three times you've woken and failed to know me."
Jack's confusion melted, and now he remembered. They had rescued him. She was here. He opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound that escaped him was a dry rasping noise that signaled his thirst.
Guilt swelled up in Sophia's gut as she realized that she had forgotten to give the poor man water or nourishment of any kind. She really was a terrible nurse. "God. . . I'm sorry, Jack," she breathed, her voice laced with despair. She rose and poured him a glass of water from the pitcher that someone had placed on the desk adjacent to the bed and lifted it to his lips while he drank eagerly. Sophia only allowed him one glass—she knew what could happen to men plagued with thirst who indulged their yearning for water too quickly.
Jack cleared his throat several times before speaking, his voice a raspy parody of its previous rich tone. "How did you find me?"
Sophia busied herself with clearing away the mess that she had produced while cleansing his wounds. "You'll have to thank Will for that. He overheard several soldiers speaking about your. . . condition. It took some asking around but eventually he discovered where you were being held. I provided the money and he found a ship for us."
Jack absorbed all of this silently but focused more on Sophia's posture and way of speaking than anything else. Her shoulders were tense and hunched and her sentences short. She was guarding herself and it made no sense to him.
She looked nearly the same—he could see that even through his fever-haze. She still possessed the pallid skin that contrasted darkly with his and those black curls, haloing her face like a shadowy hood. At second glance he noticed that she was thinner than he remembered and her eyes lacked the spark that characterized her vibrant personality. They were cold and dusky. Oh Sophie. . .
Sophia lowered her eyes awkwardly and felt her chest constrict as he nearly leveled her with his gaze. Why was this so strange? She thought that after seeing Jack for the first time in five years she would have been ecstatically happy, but now that she was here the uncomfortable silence reigned so thickly that she could have collapsed under the pressure. She glanced up again, her eyes meeting Jack's, and the old emotions that resurfaced threatened to overwhelm her. She had to get out.
Hurriedly she dampened a cloth and, pushing Jack down to a reclining position on the cot, placed it over his balmy forehead. "Your fever's gone down a bit," she informed him. "I'll go fetch some food for you. . .be back in a minute." She was out the door before Jack could say a thing. He sighed faintly as the cold compress quelled his dizziness, although the lack of it only made his hunger more apparent to him.
He didn't understand her at all. Granted, it was a bit bizarre to see her again after such a long time of only viewing her face in memories and wishing she could be beside him, near him, anything, but she was acting as if he was a complete stranger!
Norrington. Bloody hell, how could he have forgotten? She was married. She probably had children.
Jack groaned deep in his throat as his hopes shattered.
She didn't want to remember.
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Sophia slid down to a seated position against the wall and sobbed pitifully into the skirts of that ridiculous green dress she was still wearing because she had forgotten to change. Her rampant emotions leaked out in torrents from her eyes, years of suppressed lamentation surfacing at last. It took only a look from him to draw the sadness out of her. A look. How was she to handle months on a ship with him?
His eyes had been blank when they gazed upon her—there was no warmth of affection, no remembered intimacy. She was one of many conquests. In the five years since their last embrace he had probably forgotten all about her.
The thought of it only made Sophia cry harder, an ache in her chest a constant malady. So this is what it feels like as one's heart breaks. I'd forgotten. It had been so long ago and she'd effectively numbed her emotions since then, but the sight of Jack, so familiar and yet such a distant enigma, brought all the heartbreak and pain back into sharp relief.
And yet her weeping disgusted her. There are so many others who have a greater and nobler reason to cry than you and yet do not. You are weak.
These sorts of thoughts, Sophia had realized some years ago, meant that she was no longer a child. Children believe that their problems actually have significance to every other soul on the planet, and that their woes are the most serious of all. Sophia highly doubted that any more than three people in this world cared that her heart had just shattered in her chest.
And so she waited until her breathing slowed and the muscles in her chest relaxed and then grew quiet. Her tears dried and she went to the galley to retrieve some food for Jack because her problems were nothing. A five-year-old slip of parchment inscribed with long-forgotten words of promise whisked away by a wind smelling of sea salt.
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Jack opened his eyes as he heard the door creak open and a rustle of skirts as Sophia sat beside him once more. He watched her carefully as she wet the compress again and placed the renewed coolness on his forehead. Her expression was tense and Jack thought he saw a faint puffiness and flush around her eyes.
Sophia tore off a chunk of the bread she had brought and dipped it in a mug of ale for easy chewing before handing it to Jack, her eyes averted as his fingers brushed hers when he took it. He did not wolf it down as she suspected, but instead chewed thoughtfully as if savoring the first food that wasn't foul he had eaten in months, which was probably the case. Sophia couldn't bear the silence. "This should do for a while. If you eat too much too quickly you'll be even more sick than you are already, and—"
"'Ave you been crying, Sophie?"
"—that could be life-threatening. We'll have to be careful for at least a fortnight until you can regain your strength. Bread is gentle enough on the stomach as is ale and you should be able to digest it well enough. You'll need your dressings checked soon, although none of the wounds are too serious, thankfully. The worst is your hand. I'm afraid you may not regain the full movement of your fingers, but—"
"Sophie. . ."
"—that's the best we can hope for, really. Other than that there are numerous minor scrapes, including a rather nasty one on your face. You've also been beaten quite badly, which I'm sure you're aware of, and one of your ribs is cracked and there is extensive bruising. The bruises and scrapes should clear up in several days as your strength gradually returns, so we'll want to keep you hydrated and your hunger satiated as long as—"
"Sophie!"
"Don't call me that!" Sophia was breathless and trembling; she had been speaking very quickly. She felt drained and powerless, as if her random tirade spent all of her energy and she was now an empty shell. She knew she sounded like she had finally gone absolutely mad, but she needed to fill the stillness of the room. Now, with Jack calling her by the nickname only he had used and his barefaced question about her emotional state, her calmness had all but flown right out of the porthole.
Jack stared at her. Never in his life had he seen Sophia so unraveled. Angry? Sad? Exasperated? Of course, more times than he could count. But this? Never. Her eyes were distant and he knew that she barely understood the slew of words that had just escaped from her mouth. Slowly, as if approaching a spooked horse, he reached out a hand to trace the rough pad of his fingertip down her forearm, sensing that she needed something to draw her back to the present. She drew back as if his touch burned.
Sophia needed out. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm afraid I'm rather tired. I'll leave the food with you and you may finish it if you like. Goodnight," she whispered, before rising shakily to her feet and moving in a daze towards the door.
Jack let out a long sigh as she shut the door and quickly finished the bread and ale. Despite his calm exterior, Jack felt nearly as unbalanced as Sophia sounded. Blood was whirring in his ears and he knew it wasn't from the fever. The sound of her voice and the texture of her skin set his mind in motion and the realization that he couldn't have her, that she wouldn't let him have her, all but killed him. The thought of her was the only thing that had kept him alive in that dark prison. The memories kept him sane.
He had realized too late that he loved her after her departure, five years ago, from the Black Pearl. Yes, he loved her. It took her absence for him to understand that what he felt for her was, in fact, that dreaded emotion, and he had wanted to hurl it into the sea along with any memories of her only to save himself the pain. She'd left, it had been weeks, and he still expected to see her face at the end of each day when he returned to his cabin. He still waited for her to come for him in his dreams. It took nearly a month for him to stop expecting. To stop waiting. To loose hope.
And now, any hope that might have been rekindled since his rescue was dashed away with one glance at her face, closed to him.
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Will found Sophia sitting on the stairs that led to the ship's wheel just as the sun was beginning to rise and transform the sky from the darkest blue to a delicate pink. She had her face buried in her hands. She looked very much the noblewoman, with her dark green dress and her hair just beginning to fall out of its containment at the crown of her head, and Will found it strange against the backdrop of the ship. He was surprised that she had not changed into her customary breeches and blouse and sat beside her, the stair creaking quietly as it accommodated to support his bulk.
She was still silent although he was sure she would have noticed him. He was still for a time as well, although soon he found the silence too strange to bear. "How did things go with Jack?"
Sophia heard him, of course. She didn't want to leave the comforting darkness that the shield of her hands created around her eyes or speak lest the suppressed sobs in her voice give her mental state away. Go away, Will.
"Sophia?" He questioned, worry now hinting at his voice. "Is everything alright?"
With a sigh Sophia spoke, her tone oddly calm. "Yes, of course everything is alright. Jack is doing wonderfully and I gave him both food and water. His fever has gone down and my guess is that it will be gone by the afternoon as long as we keep him healthy."
Will was not convinced. She looked so small, her exposed shoulders drawn forward in a protective stance and her knees drawn to her chest. Hesitantly, he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her towards him. "Are you alright?" He asked softly.
This cracked Sophia's already weak defenses completely. She let out a dry sob and turned her face to Will's chest, curling into him like an injured animal. She clung to him, her back shaking with silent tears, all the while apologizing over and over as she cried. "I'm sorry, Will. I'm so sorry. . ."
"Hush," he insisted, stroking her hair away from her neck and sighing as he remembered the times that his Elizabeth, his wife, had cried similarly against him. After Jack and Arabella were born and she experienced the strange flux of hormones of new mothers and was struck down with tears at odd moments during the day. When her father died. Once the great rust stain on the sheets grew enough that she realized that her life would end and she would not be able to watch baby Elizabeth grow up.
But this was Sophia, who was crying for a very different reason. He spoke softly to her, reassuring her that she had done well, that Jack appreciated her help, that he and her cousin loved her.
Eventually she calmed, breathing gusts of warm, humid air against his skin as her heart slowed. Sophia felt absolutely exhausted and ashamed, once again, that she had allowed herself to cry. She spoke, finally, her voice raspy. "He doesn't. . .he doesn't. . ." Love me. She couldn't bring herself to say the words.
Will withdrew so that he could look into her eyes, his own a kind liquid brown against her flat gray. "Don't worry yourself with that now, Sophia. You need rest. Go back to your cabin and have a nice long sleep and I'll look after Jack for a bit."
Sophia nodded mutely and stood haltingly, her legs cramped after sitting for so long, and made her way blindly back to her cabin. She fell asleep almost immediately, whispers of past demons and present heartache singing songs in her head.
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"Serious delirious imperious weary us deleterious ways."
- The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingslover
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Author's Note: I couldn't resist the "singing songs in her head" line. That comes from being too familiar with the Phantom of the Opera, I confess.
There is absolutely no excuse for the lateness of this chapter save for total lack of inspiration. This was not writer's block, for I wrote many words down in many different ways. The problem was, they were just that. Words. I had nothing interesting to say and it was all, in a word, crap. Melodramatic (although it still is melodramatic, I admit) crap. Still, as I said, this is no excuse. This is the longest I've ever gone without updating and it quite frankly disgusts me. I'm so very very sorry.
Anyway, on with the show. Poor Jack and Sophia! A mutual misunderstanding, no? The poor dears. Hopefully everything will turn out right. Hopefully. . .
No, I wouldn't submit you guys to the torture of another unhappy ending. I'm not that evil.
Or am I?
(I'm not)
It is far, far too late to be doing anything but sleeping.
