Author's Enormous Apologies: Oh my gosh. I am so flippin' sorry for the delay, everyone. This has been a very difficult chapter to write. Unfortunately, the next one may take up to a week to complete. So sorry for the inconvenience.
ShallowWaters, here's your debut! Hope you like how I've set you up as a character. Suggestions are always welcome, from all of you.
Disclaimer: I no own.
THE VIOLINIST
Chapter Nine - Whisper
The day that the pirate captain Lyset Andrews of the notorious ship Harlequin walked aboard the Black Pearl thinking that she were about to take it as her own, making the first steps of her dream of captaining a small armada come true while escaping one hell of a bounty, she made a mistake. Not merely in underestimating the captain and crew, but in not taking into account the events that had occurred before her arrival.
One could not blame her for thinking so lightly. After all, how could she have recognized that she was stepping in during the aftermath of tragedy?
And a tragedy it had been, indeed. Oh, mournful day, it had been a tragedy indeed.
Venice became vaguely aware that morning of someone shaking him awake.
He made an odd noise, like a muffled grunt, only longer than a grunt has any right to be. How dare someone awake him?
Venice was always awake before four o' clock in the morning, and so this intruder must be waking him at an extraordinarily unreasonable hour of the morning.
It wasn't as if Venice had been particularly enjoying his short sleep. He had dreamed, something he hadn't done since he was a child. But, he groggily realized, it wasn't a dream.
It had been a nightmare.
God, what a nightmare.
It was a viewing of the murder of his parents, but he wasn't himself. He had been Captain Jack Sparrow himself, murdering the Turners in an insane rage. And, try as he might, he could not stop himself.
Damn Jack for bringing the thought of his parents into his mind.
At the mere thought of actually being Jack, Venice shuddered awake, rolling over in bed so that his bare chest peeped out from behind his scratchy bed linens.
The scar of a bullet hole glared angrily from his left shoulder, just a few inches above his heart. It looked like a misshapen spider bulging with pregnancy, and it was a shade of pale pink, contrasting with his otherwise tan skin.
Venice propped himself on his elbows, blinking the sands of sleep from his honey-brown eyes. When his vision cleared, he saw Mariana leaning over him, her brow wrinkled in a deep expression of worry.
Venice made a little yelp and jumped backwards, a barrage of thoughts streaming through his mind. None of them were very good. He sputtered out the most predominate and fearful one:
"Did I sleep with you?"
Mariana rolled her eyes in disgust and grabbed his wrist, dragging him out of bed. He hastily buttoned his pants with one hand as Mariana urgently dragged him out of his room and down the hall, ignoring his feeble questioning.
The clouds of groggy waking began to clear in Venice's head as he quickly realized where they were going. "The captain's quarters?" he whispered.
He instantly planted his feet firmly of the ground, causing Mariana to falter and stumble backwards a bit. She turned angrily, her unkempt black hair whipping into her face as her dark eyes burned with anger. Venice took a deep breath.
"Look, I know you don't like me much, Mariana," Venice said softly, and she placed her hands on her hips urgently. "But you are Baby's girl, so…you have to let me know what the bloody hell is going on. I mean, I don't expect you to talk or anything…oh, dear, that came out wrong, I'm sorry…"
Mariana stomped her foot angrily and mouthed two words very clearly: "It's Baby."
Even Venice understood that. He padded forward suddenly, taking Mariana by surprise. His steps were long and deliberate as he made his way down the hall, his heart thudding in his chest, threatening to break through his ribcage.
What could be so urgent that she would wake him so early could he be dead or dying what was Jack doing oh gods…Thousands of thoughts littered themselves carelessly about Venice's mind, not a single one of them relatively coherent.
Venice found himself in front of Jack's bedroom door. He grasped the knob to the captain's quarters and turned it slowly, cautiously. His heart seemed to stop, but it was certainly no kinder than the god awful frantic beating that had actually caused his chest to moan in pain.
Venice realized he was terrified of what he might find. As he had every right to be. For what lay inside the cabin was beyond his imagination, and it left him stupefied.
Baby sat in Jack's mahogany chair, his fair hair disheveled and dirty. His blue eyes were wide, like that of a caged animal's. In his mouth was a pistol.
Venice's eyes traveled up the pistol. The safety was clicked off, and the hand that grasped the weapon was caked with dirt and, Venice realized for the first time, traces of blood. A tattoo shone from the forearm, but it seemed to have lost a great deal of its majesty. A scarred chest with two bullet holes connected to the arm, and Venice gazed upon the infuriated face of his captain.
The teenager felt a presence behind him and peered sharply over his shoulder. Mariana's eyes were wide with fear and her bottom lip trembled uncontrollably. It never registered with Venice that the reason her lip quivered so was because the girl was trying desperately to keep from sobbing.
Jack looked at Venice inquisitively, his own eyes burning into the boy's. "Well?" Jack said dangerously, turning out so that his pistol was still in Baby's mouth, but his body was facing Venice and the rigid Mariana.
Venice blinked.
"What do you think of all this, lad?" Jack asked softly, calmly, as if this were but a daily routine. "I'm about to kill Baby here. What do you think of that, eh?"
Venice blinked again, the shock taking complete hold of him. He felt hopeless. He commanded his legs to move. They laughed at him, blatantly refusing his simple request.
"Speak up, lad," Jack barked, his eyes momentarily blazing with fury.
Venice blinked again. "Why?" he forced himself to whisper pitifully. Jack raised an eyebrow at him.
"Why?" he repeated mockingly. "A damn good question, my boy. But to answer that question, I shall need to borrow the lovely lady behind you."
Venice felt Mariana tense up behind him and he stuck his arm out instinctively, as if to protect her. Jack cocked his eyebrow even higher and then his expression flashed to screaming fury. He lashed one hand out and grabbed Baby's messy blonde ponytail, yanking it upward and making the man with the gun in his mouth wince.
"I could kill him now, Mr. Turner," Jack declared conversationally.
"Jack, please," Venice sputtered, forcing the words to his lips, which were thin with confusion.
"Jack, please," the pirate captain mimicked mockingly. "Give me the lady, Venice."
Still Venice held his arm outstretched. He didn't know why he did so. He made no conscious effort to do the thing; it just happened. And though he willed his arm to go down, it joined his legs in laughter of disobedience.
Suddenly, Mariana stirred behind him. She touched his forearm, as his mocking limbs suddenly responded to her touch. His arm snapped back down to his side and he looked at her. She wasn't a great deal older than him; only two years his senior.
But there was something inside her that made her appear much, much older. The burdens she carried had wiped away any childish tendencies she had ever possessed. She was beautiful, yes, but old inside. The whole situation made him feel very inferior, indeed.
She walked past him, very slowly, very gracefully, her loose white gown hiding her dirty toes as it swept across the floor, stirring up dust and grime at her feet. Mariana's head was held high, but she never made eye-contact with Jack himself. She kept her gaze fixed upon Baby. His eyes, in return, were locked in hers, wide with worry. His expression pleaded with her to turn round and close the door behind her. But Mariana would have none of it. She stood in front of Jack, a full head shorter than he was.
Somehow…she appeared far more diminutive than she was.
Jack roughly grabbed her chin with his free hand and yanked her face so that her eyes now met his. Her expression was blank. Jack had learned that she did this whenever she was around him: she put on what his Shadow Man called her "Mask."
Jack hated the Mask.
"Now, Venice," Jack said, his speech slightly slurred with habit. "You cannot remember this, for you were not aboard our lovely ship when it happened. But Baby here," he shook the pistol in Baby's mouth for emphasis. "He was. Does this lovely lady remind you of anyone, Baby?"
He jerked the weapon out of Baby's mouth and the young pirate moved his jaw around to get the feeling back. God only knew how long that pistol had been there.
"Yes," Baby finally answered, knowing not to disobey Jack in his present state.
"And who does she remind you of, lad?"
Baby looked at Mariana, who was still locked in Jack's gaze. "She looks like Anamaria, Captain," he sighed quietly.
Jack blinked and then nodded. "Aye, that is right," he said. "The only woman I ever loved, you know," he continued, now directing his conversation to Venice, who still stood frozen in the doorway. His eyes clouded over. "They took her away from me. Shot her in the center of the forehead, they did."
He aimed at Baby's to illustrate and the younger pirate flinched.
"Pride of the King's Navy, indeed," he mumbled angrily, his nostrils flaring.
"Jack…" Baby began warily, but the captain quickly interrupted him.
"And now this woman comes in," Jack went on, his voice starting to strain with anger. "The perfect image of my Ana. Haunting me. Tormenting me." He glared at her and shook her head roughly. "Have you a reason for haunting me?" he asked Mariana.
The woman only blinked. She wouldn't have replied even if she could.
"Jack, please…" Baby begged in a voice hardly above a whisper.
Suddenly Jack shoved Mariana backwards. She stumbled and crashed into Jack's bedside table, sending a stinging sensation searing up her spine. Venice started to her, but his captain shot him a deadly glare and the young pirate stopped dead in his tracks, glancing worriedly at Mariana, who was curling into a little ball on the floor. Her eyes were squeezed shut as the sharp pain tingled up and down her back.
Jack whirled on Baby, his eyes ablaze with rage. "Why should you have love when I cannot?" he roared, aiming his pistol once more. "Why should anyone have what I cannot?"
Baby didn't answer. He didn't know what to say.
"I shan't let you torment me any longer," Jack said, his voice shaking with fury. "Not you nor your lady. I won't let you, damn it all…"
Now his hand shook as well, like a man with Palsy. He could feel that unfamiliar, wet, stinging sensation gathering at his deep brown eyes. He dimly recognized them as tears, but he could not for the life of him figure out what they were doing in his eyes. He wanted Baby dead. He needed for Baby to be dead.
And yet his finger would not squeeze the trigger at let the bullet fly freely.
"You and your woman have ruined everything," Jack hissed. "Taken me and torn me down to nothing. Why should you live while my heart has died?"
Still Baby would not speak. What could he say? He knew that Jack was serious…he was really going to kill him…and yet, he thought of no plan to wiggle his way out of it. He could think of nothing to say or to do that would put Jack out of his stupor of insanity.
He was out of luck, ideas, and hope.
"If you are to kill me, Jack," Baby said softly, not quite meeting his captain's gaze, "than I must tell you something."
Jack tried to steady his hand, but it only made the spastic shuddering worsen. "Say what you must, Mr. Fischer," he whispered dangerously, trying desperately to blink the hot, stinging tears out of his eyes.
Baby nodded briskly, casting a glance at Mariana, who was still curled into a ball on the ground. He then glanced at Venice, who stood paralyzed in the doorway. His younger comrade's eyes pleaded with him to find a way out, but Baby's firmly insisted no.
"I have always thought that you were once a great man, Jack," Baby admitted carefully. "But all has since turned to ash and blown away in the sea breeze."
Jack's lips tugged at the corners. "You're probably right, Baby," he said. He finally steadied his hand and pointed it at the center of Baby's forehead. "Godspeed, lad," he hissed and let the bullet fly.
In the moment in which Baby Fischer was killed, several things happened. The first of these was that Venice Turner dashed up the stairs to the deck to inform the other crewmembers of the murder.
The second thing that occurred was that the captain of the Harlequin gave the first order to begin cannon fire on the Black Pearl, fairly confident that she would take it as her own.
It was in the moment of Baby's death the Jack's Shadow Man took him over.
It was also in this moment that Mariana, a girl who once called home an abandoned barn on an island just south of Spain, clenched a knife in her hand and drove it with all her hatred and fury into Jack Sparrow's unsuspecting back.
In the aftermath of the fight for the Black Pearl, the notorious ship Harlequin sank into the depths of Davy Jones's Locker. The captain, a beautiful, feisty, and all around bothersome young redheaded woman, was taken hostage, along with those of her crew who survived the attack. She fought and kicked and screamed her way to the holding chamber in the lower regions of the Pearl, knocking a good deal of the men out.
"How dare you!" she roared as she was jostled about, her hazel eyes blazing with fury. "You think you can take me just like that! No one captures Lyset Andrews and lives to speak of it. I'll kill all of you!"
And in the captain's quarters lay three limp bodies: One belonging to a handsome man with a bullet hole in his forehead; one of a woman obviously knocked out; and the last was a captain that some folks may have recognized as the great Captain Jack Sparrow with a knife in his back and an expression of heartbreak plastered onto his tanned, dirty face.
Closing Notes: Suggestions are always welcome. Sorry again for the immense wait.