Chapter fifteen: Good times, Bad times

I suddenly taken from behind and hauled back to my cabin by the first mate, Hank, and without another sound, he shut the door, and locked it. Great.

"What's going on?" Tara asked sleepily, forgetting her silent mantle she had taken on before.

"Pirates." I was too shocked myself to say anything else. I wanted to be on deck, to look at that man and ask him why he left without ample cause. I wanted to kiss him, and punch him. I wanted to touch his face, and mar it. I wanted to make love to him, and I wanted to kill him. It was such a dangerous amount of emotions that I had to sit down quickly.

"Jack?"

"Yes." There was a loud boom. Cannon fire. I shot up to my feet once more, almost screaming in protest. They were fighting, with passengers aboard! Not only were the guns of the Pearl resounding off the walls, but the ship would occasionally give a lurch at returning fire. The ignorance of the captain for firing, and the hatred of the first mate who locked us in made me let out a scream of frustration. Tara sat up, and quickly donned her gown. The gray and brown of the convent she had lived in her life. I looked down at my own, feeling suddenly ugly.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I went to the vanity, and looked at my reflection. Licking two fingers I tried to slick back some loose tendrils of hair, but to no avail. My black eyes were bright with emotion. I needed to be free of this cage, before exploding the magazines in the artillery.

Suddenly, the ship gave another large lurch, and I was thrown across the room. In the millisecond before hitting the floor, I damned myself for getting up. Then, I hit my head on the dresser, and remembered nothing else.

"Mack? Holy shit! Captain! Its Mack!" My eyes fluttered open in time to see Jack come rushing in, a look of anger, shock, and affection, ever so brief, crossed his face, before he walked up to me, picked me up, and tossed me over his shoulder.

"Who are you?" He asked savagely of Tara.

"Her sister." Jack nodded to the crew member who recognized me, and he too swept up Tara over his shoulder.

"Let me down!" I screamed, kicking. This was not the way I wanted to meet him. I wanted to be standing cool and calm, a look of dignity on my face. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness claimed me, and I was quelled.

"Put that one in one of the holding cabins." Jack muttered the other person, and they carefully walked across the gangplank and parted ways, one going below, and the man carrying me to his cabin.

"Let me go!" I said in one last attempt. Suddenly I went flying again but this time landed on the large plush bed.

"There." Jack stood before me, harsh and shrewd. Not the man I loved, but some sort of monster. He put his fists on his hips, his legs spread a shoulder width apart.

"Why did you leave?" I asked in a small voice, looking down from the scene. A light was suddenly lit, and I saw him move from the lamp and into his chair. He drew from his pocket a small letter, then tossed it at me. Instantly, I knew what it was.

With shaking hands, I opened it, and read.

Dear Jack,(it read)

By the time you read this, I will be long gone. I found what I needed, and no longer must I cling to you. I have been a nuciance, and only in my sleeping hours have I realized that I played on your love, making you do my bidding, being my personal captain with a ship at my disposal. I am sorry for any pain I may have caused you.

Mackenzie

I looked up from the letter, feeling tears on my cheeks.

"How in the hell did you believe this!" I exploded after a moment. "I mean come on! Does it sound like me? What the hell? And look at how the name is signed! I don't sign my name like that, or even spell it like that! Are you that daft?"

"Well what was I bloody supposed to think?" Jack yelled right back at me, jumping to his feet to pace the cabin. The ship was slowly sailing away from the wreckage of the other, smaller ship. "I didn't see you anywhere, and your ring was there too!" I was so pissed, I laughed.

"Jack..they took it from me! I was in the room, in that same hallway, calling out for you! You were only a few yards away! They locked me in a damn room, and just"– What was that? I was crying now. I just started sobbing horrifically. I put my head in my hands, no longer wanting to be there. I wanted to be back in that small hovel. With my ma and da, and just, happily poor.

"Oh." I felt the bed sag as Jack sat down besides me. Then, yes. What I had been hoping for. He put a gentle arm around my shoulders, and drew me to him.

"There is nothing I can say. There really isn't," I allowed him to enfold me in his embrace, and then, fell into a deep sleep that rendered me dreamless.

But questions still went unanswered.
(Three days later)

"You know...when I was little, my father would always say 'When you get a gift horse, walk up to it, pat it, maybe give it a carrot, then wrench open it jaw and look in its mouth'." Jack mused, sitting at the long galley table, in between bites of his stew I had made, grudgingly.

"Sounds like good advice," I smiled at Steve, who was the crew member who spotted me. He shrugged his shoulders, not knowing where his captains musings were coming from, and shot me a look of confusion.

"Yes...but my father was always wrong!" Jack exclaimed, and chomped on a piece of crusty bread. I contended my stomach by eating a small piece of cheese, and a kiwi I had found in one of the cabinets lining the large galley.

"Aren't you not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth?" Tara voiced from the other end of the galley, eating the same stew. It was around lunch, but only us four seemed to occupy the room. Tara was still sore about "being locked up", as she put it. Although Steve repeatedly told her, it was only for a night(Jack and I..er..sorta forgot about her) and that she slept in a better bed then him, and no harm came to her, and the brig was far less comfortable.

"Well, thats how the massacre with the Trojan Horse began." I spoke up, not liking the looks going on between her and Jack. Steve had a look of bemusement on his face, and watched the conversation go. He was good looking, but not handsome. His long and lean face held a few scars that only heightened his looks, rather then mar them. He had sun bleached hair, and it would be a given to say that he was tan...everyone was. Including myself now.

"Wind in the sails!" All of us looked up as one, as Cotton came ambling into the galley, his parrot looking popeyed and happy.

"Ah Cotton!" Jack exclaimed, obviously eager to get off the subject track he had put us on, "Try some of this great stew that Mack and the lovely Tara made." Cotton sat down, and I quickly got up to fix him a plate. The mute nodded thanks, and his bird screeched, "Anchors away!" I smiled at them both, then excused myself to leave.

We still had quite a while to go back to the Caribbean. When questioning Jack later on, I had found that he was around Africa, not wanting to sail all the back home, in hopes that he would spot me. He befouled ships, just for his own blood lust, and was afraid if he didn't hurt something, he would hurt himself. It all sounded rehearsed, but I payed it no attention.

I was back, but it felt like the glass veneer of myself and him started to crack, ever so slightly. And one day, I figured it might just break.