Grace and Works

After spending twelve hours avoiding the Captain, Jo admitted to herself she was being ridiculous. She was flustered enough to respond in French three of the five prior times Anamaria had asked her to check a wounded crewmember, and even young Tom knew her distraction had something to do with the Captain. Still, she was surprised to see a leather-covered flask thrust in front of her face.

"'Ere lass. You're making the rest of us jumpy now." Gibbs moved the flask even closer. Jo cast her eyes around to see Anamaria and Tom watching what she'd do. She took the flask and popped the cap, thinking how appalled the sisters would be.

"Merci, Monsieur Gibbs." He grinned at her. Tom snickered. She took a hearty gulp and focused a moment on breathing instead of grimacing or coughing. Apparently she'd managed not to give away her shock at the burn and gritty aftertaste of the rum; Gibbs' grin widened. "My brother, he was right I think."

"How's that, lass?"

"He said I would prefer the taste of rum to wine." At this Tom openly guffawed, and Anamaria cracked a smile.

"Aye. Never did understand why you'd turn water into wine if you could turn it into rum." Gibbs looked off pensively. Jo turned to him, as did Tom and Anamaria, who'd given up all pretense of work.

"Monsieur Gibbs! It is not for us to question!" She added to the effect of her mock outrage by placing a dramatic hand over her heart, but couldn't hold the laughter long enough for Gibbs to respond. "It is only for us to be thankful that we have the rum, yes?" She giggled.

"Shoulda passed tha' rum to her this morning, mate," Tom said.

"And to you as well?" Anamaria pinned Tom with half a glare.

"'S only Christian." Tom nodded seriously. With that Anamaria joined the laughter. Mason hobbled over to the ruckus.

"You lot got the Captain's attention, now." He mumbled as he passed. Jo stood and brushed her hands on her skirt.

"Yes, there is work to be done." She turned back to the three, "but should you feel Christian again sometime, Monsieur . . ." She trailed off as she turned, intending to begin work in the galley. Instead she locked eyes with the Captain, who had approached while she was turned. Looking at him directly again made a blush fly to her face that she knew every crewmember on the ship could see. She acutely felt the need for more of Gibbs' rum.

"A word, Jocelyne?" It was not a request. She followed him to his cabin. To her surprise, he pulled out a chair for her. She sat assuming he would follow, and was surprised to see him reappear at the table naked to the waist. She blinked stupidly until her mind chose finally to focus on his bandages, which were some the worse for wear. She popped out of the chair and gestured for him to sit. He didn't. She worked to control the urge to grimace.

"Has it become more painful?" He had positioned himself such that she was stuck between him and the table edge and had to be very close to his chest to untie the knots in the bandages.

"Not much." She got the knots loose and started to pass the strip of cloth around to his back, telling herself it would be less mortifying to stand behind him for the rest of the process. But he was standing stubbornly with his arms at his sides. She wrinkled her eyebrows.

"Raise your arms, please."

"Anything you want, luv." She started to thank him for cooperating, but shortly after he moved his arms out of the way he dropped them on her shoulders and clasped his hands behind her neck. She gasped and her eyebrows shot nearly to her hairline. She knew from the weight of the arms on her shoulders that he was beyond strong enough to hold her there if he wanted. Her mind raced. She looked up at him. "Going to get on with that?" He glanced down at her still hands, clearly amused. Her mouth set in a line. She started removing the bandages with a little more speed than necessary, but slowed at the thought of having to restitch him.

For a moment she thought he would release her when she had finished removing the cloth, but instead he shifted around to her side and sat, placing her on his lap. Keeping a firm arm around her shoulders, he placed a finger to his lips and seemed to look for something in the room. He then turned to her with a keen eye. "Since we are…associates…there are a few matters we will attend to." He seemed again to be looking for something in the room. "McLaggen."

At the name Jocelyne couldn't keep herself from flinching. It was tiny, but she knew he felt it. He turned to her with an unreadable expression. "Oui?" She tried to force out her normal voice, but the sound seemed small in the room.

"Y'see luv, I've not got the only map." Jo's brow wrinkled. "As his attempt to join the gentry failed," he turned to her conspiratorially, "tragic, that," he waved a heavily ringed hand, "ol' McLaggen has gone to sea."

"To sea?"

"Aye. With a copy of the very map that I had thought, previous to our encounter with the gentlemen in the brig, was known to none but me," the Captain's gave an oddly feminine gesture towards his heart, then brushed his fingertips against her cheekbone, "and your lovely self." Jo's spike of fear at her former husband's name blossomed as she thought of meeting him here where she could not flee to the sisters. She had the strong instinct to run. The Captain seemed to feel it, and tightened his grip. Jo squeezed her eyes shut, and was blessed with an idea.

"But he does not know any French, Capitaine. None at all. I used to curse at him; he never knew what I said." Jo stopped her fear-induced babbling at the Captain's laugh.

"Then it seems he's not much good without his little wife, eh?" Jo winced.

"He is not much good."

"Be that as it may," the Captain smirked and gestured again with his jeweled fingers spread wide, "you are going to get me Pearl to that treasure before McLaggen." Jo nodded. The Captain looked steadily at her for several moments, then released his grip on her waist. She stood and moved several steps away. After she put a fresh bandage on the wound she left with orders to return after the evening meal. She was going to start translating the map.


Jo spent the remaining daylight in the galley trying not to slice her hands as the ship pitched. Anamaria walked through the door just as a lurch sent Jo's head into a supporting beam and she let out the accumulated curses from a half an hour of similar injuries. She cringed when she heard her boots clunk through the door.

"You learn that in the convent?" She smirked.

"Non, I learned that from five brothers." Jo smiled back and seemed to consider for a moment. "And one suitor."

Anamaria's forceful laugh filled the galley. "Only one for all that?"

"Mmm…I was only counting the one who made it past my brothers." Jo considered, grinning. "The others, my brothers took care of them."

"Took care of them." It was a question, though the intonation was that of a statement. Jo replanted her feet and turned back to her chopping for a moment.

"Most of them, they stop trying when five men sit them down, yes?" Anamaria nodded. "Too much trouble for a woman. But this one, he was rich and he thought my brothers could not touch him. So they tricked him. They sent him letters saying how much I loved him, how much I could not wait for his proposal. Then they set up a meeting." Jo paused, looking Anamaria in the eye.

"They set up a meeting with our cook, dressed in one of my dresses. She was over sixty years." Anamaria smirked. "And the cook, she was like my mother, she did not like this one. She said he was like a child. So she meets him and she tells him how she is in love with him. She pretends to be me. And what can he say? He has never truly seen me. He knows this woman is not me, but he is uncertain. What if I observe this meeting? He does not know. So he tries to talk to her about his suit anyway." Anamaria grinned widely.

"Here he is with this old woman in a garden at night telling her how lovely she looks in the candlelight and all this. How honorable a wife she will be." Jo laughed gently. "But that is not the best part. My brothers, they had taken all their friends with them to watch this." Anamaria guffawed, and Jo giggled in response. "He was so angry! He sent the most ridiculous letters. Some of them, I was so young, I had to ask my brothers what the words meant." Anamaria snorted. Jo had a sense that Anamaria had never been too young to know those words.

"You miss them." Anamaria straightened as she delivered the line with her usual certainty.

"I do," Jo nodded, "But there is no sense in that."

Anamaria looked at her shrewdly for a moment, then nodded. Jo felt as though she'd passed another test, as she had by drinking the rum. "Captain wants you to join him in his cabin after supper." Jo could only hope she'd kept her face neutral as a fresh wave of worry about her incomprehensible relationship with the Captain swept over her. She looked up at Anamaria and nodded firmly.


Jo was not very surprised to find Gibbs' flask in reach again at supper. She took it without comment this time, but noted the eyes of both Tom and Anamaria on her as she took a short swallow. Bravery, she said to herself. Bravery.

Anamaria, of all people, broke the tension of her inner dialog. "You're already drinking and cursing like a pirate, lady," she said, with a thoroughly concealed grin under her usual smirk. Jo had to swallow carefully around the surprised snort she nearly let out. Tom perked up at once.

"Been at cursin' without us?" Tom asked.

Gibbs took his flask back, amusement in his eyes. "It's bad luck to curse alone, Miss Jocelyne."

"It is?" Anamaria smirked as Jo laid an innocent tone over her words. "Then I must teach you to curse with me; I do not know many curses in English."

"Then ol' Tom here's just the pirate you want to see," Tom puffed his thin chest out a bit at Gibbs' compliment.

"Aye. Set me mother rolling in her grave and all." Tom said.

"Then you will be happy to know many French curses do not involve your mother, yes?" Jo batted her eyelashes at them. Anamaria and Gibbs guffawed. Tom extended a dirty hand to her. She took it with some uncertainty about what was happening. He shook her hand, smiling at her. Jo thought she would ask Mason about this later.

That started an exchange in which Tom said things that ought not to be uttered in front of a lady, and Jocelyne translated them into their French counterparts as nearly as she could. She then gave a French curse and the closest English translation she could manage. Some of these terms required pantomime to get past Jocelyne's limited vocabulary, to the chagrin of Tom and to Anamaria's great amusement. Jocelyne's hands flew to her mouth at several of the English curses and the assembled pirates laughed uproariously at some of her brothers' French favorites. Not for the first time Jocelyne thought of what the sisters might say and decided she didn't really care.


Please review. I'm on the fence about continuing this and could use some feedback. Thanks.