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Chapter 7
Morgan opened her eyes to an unfamiliar room. Rubbing her red, slightly swollen eyes with the back of her hand, she slowly sat up, careful not to aggravate the dull throbbing of her side. Once again, she found herself stripped of all clothing but her drawers, though fortunately the fresh bandages on her upper body kept her decent. Through the large windows adjacent to the bed, she could see the sun rising over the horizon.
There came the sound of footsteps, followed by a door opening. Morgan turned to her left to find Jack closing the door of the cabin behind him, a gentle look in his eyes. "Sleep well?"
"Yes," she murmured, returning to examining the room. "Where an I?"
"My chambers," Jack replied simply. "Got somethin' fer ye." He picked up a large sheet of white fabric from the large table in the center of the room and laid it on her lap.
It was a sail. "What—?"
"Crew scoured the wreckage," the captain explained, "an' found the main royal hadn't been damaged." He then picked up a small piece of wood and held it up to the light. "They also found this."
Taking it from Jack, she found a red stone embedded in the splinter of dark wood—the eye of the dragon figurehead. Morgan bit her bottom lip and fought to keep from crying again.
Jack put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Got somethin' else. Com'on." Helping her out of bed, he assisted her in pulling a loose slip over her head and led her out of the captain's quarters.
The crew was going about their chores silently, some of them most likely the crew who had brought the Black Pearl to the Cloud Treader, as Morgan did not recognize them. Jack left her for a moment, nodding to Anna Maria, who Morgan recognized from Tortuga, and muttering something like, "Get yer thingie," to the Scottish cook from the Cloud Treader's crew. As he joined her again, the crew stopped what they were doing and stood at attention.
A mournful tune rose from below as the Scottish cook took a deep breath and began to play the bagpipes under his arm. The crew turned, facing the port side, towards the column of smoke that still rose over the horizon.
"Crew salute!" came the authoritative voice of Mr. Miller.
The honest crew snapped their arms up in salute, the pirate crew following a bit awkwardly a moment later.
As the mournful wail of the bagpipe rose over the slosh of the waves, Morgan chewed her bottom lip as tears slid down her cheeks again. But by the end of the song, she found herself smiling in relief as the pressure on her chest began to lessen, eased away by the comforting hand Jack laid on her shoulder. Out of nowhere Jack stiffened and quickly separated himself from her.
"Well… Cotton managed to grab yer trunk," he said while scratching the side of his head, eyes on the floor. "Ye'd best make sure all yer dresses made it." And with that, he headed back to the helm, yelling at the crew to get back to work.
Her heart dropping, Morgan slowly trudged back into the captain's quarters, refusing the gentle hand Walter offered her.
Will you take everything from me, then?
•••
It was late in the evening the next day when Port Royal rose on the horizon, nearly invisible in the fog. Jack sighed heavily, forcing down the feeling that he was letting go of something vital to him. No matter what his personal feelings were, she was not meant for a life of kill or be killed.
His personal feelings… He still didn't know exactly what his personal feelings were.
Morgan stepped out of his cabin dressed in a more form-fitting slip, as she still was not healed enough to wear a corset. She looked so vulnerable, her skin pale, leaning her weight on a cane. Slowly making her way up the stairs, she joined him at the helm, a concerned look in her eyes.
Returning her gaze for a long stretch of time, he finally broke the silence. "What?"
Morgan's brow furrowed as she seemed to be searching for the right words. However, she was interrupted just as she opened her mouth by a crewmember up in the crow's nest.
"Land ho!"
Clearing his throat, he quickly changed to a less uncomfortable subject. "Well, we're as close to Port Royal as we'll be able to get without riskin' attractin' attention," he muttered, ordering the first handful of crewmembers he could find to drop anchor. "We'll take ye over on a dinghy." He then quickly marched down to the lower deck and began rigging a longboat for launch.
Gibbs, Rackham, Corsair, Walter, Morgan, and himself all loaded into the dinghy and were lowered into the misty waters. While Corsair and Gibbs rowed to the docks, he sat at the other end of the boat, avoiding Morgan as best he could. As soon as he set foot on the docks of Port Royal, Jack felt his shoulders tense. He prayed that the dense fog would hold, allowing no one to recognize him and report him to the British Navy fort a few steps away.
Morgan needed extra help getting out of the dinghy, and since he was the only man available, he reached out a hand and easily pulled her onto dry land. Unaccustomed to exchanging her sea-legs for her land-legs so quickly, she stumbled, her knees buckling, and awkwardly fell into his awaiting arms. Clearing his throat at the sudden tightness in his chest, he quickly set her onto her own two feet and put as much distance between them as he could without seeming rude. The party then set off towards her home. Jack sighed heavily, remembering in detail the house he had passed one rainy day at Port Royal; the beautiful woman in the window, to be more precise. How she would soon be back within that cage of hers while he would walk away—probably never to see her again.
It felt as if he was escorting Morgan to her own funeral, up the road to the large manor looming before them, barely a silhouette in the fog. He wanted to sweep his arms around her waist and drag her away, back to the sea where they had enjoyed each others company, if only for a short time. And yet at the same time he wanted to personally deliver her back to her birdcage, out of his reach for the rest of his life so that he'd never again have to see her body wracked with pain, drenched in sweat as the light nearly left her eyes. He had to let go, no matter how much he enjoyed the feeling of her hand in his, her body against his, as if they were meant to be together. No matter how much he loved her.
Jack's eyes widened as he began to realize something crucially important.
An odd, creaking noise rose over the whispering of the wind in the trees, interrupting him even as his mind began to piece everything together. He slowly looked up to see a large object hanging from the tree to the left of the manor. What—? Taking a few hesitant steps towards the tree, he felt the color drain from his face as he realized exactly what was hanging from the tree's branches.
At about the same time, Morgan came to the same discovery, covering her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the horrified scream that slipped from between her lips.
Fitted into a large metal cage shaped exactly like its prisoner was the brutally mutilated body of the man of the manor—Morgan's father, he concluded from her alarm—suspended by a rather thick rope tied firmly to the branch by a knot that only a trained sailor would know. And if that wasn't clue enough, a jolly roger was tied over the man's head like a bag. It had all been executed by a pirate who had no a sense of moral boundaries, pity, or mercy, for that matter. Flint…
Morgan's knees gave, as she collapsed into his arms and sobbed, unable to fathom a blow as sudden as this.
Jack wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders comfortingly, putting aside his urge to separate himself from her. As he rubbed Morgan's back in an attempt to sooth her, he watched as Walter slowly approached the tree, an anguished look on his face. With his signal, Gibbs and Corsair joined him in gently cutting down the cage to give Lord Scarlet a proper burial.
•••
Drying her cheeks with her now moist handkerchief, Morgan gently laid the bouquet of flowers she had gathered on the mount of dirt before her, marked with a decorated wooden cross. Jack offered his silent support by standing at her side the entire time, while Gibbs, Corsair, and Rackham finished burying the bodies of servants who had been slaughtered in no kinder a manner.
Walter stood beside her, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder.
She cried for a long while, losing all sense of time as she came to grasp with the tragedy she had just been forced to endure. But after what seemed like an eternity, with Walter's kind hand on her shoulder, she wiped her eyes one last time with her kerchief and took a deep breath, ordering herself not to cry for her lost guardian, who had always hated to see her cry. He had always said her smile made the sun rise.
"Jack…" she turned to look over her right shoulder where the captain had waited for her all that while. However, she turned to find that the pirates had gone. She looked around in every direction, almost frantically, but they were nowhere to be found. "…Jack…?" She felt a loneliness well up from within her, causing tears to once again cascade down her cheeks. He left…
•••
It was about midnight when Will was interrupted from balancing the sword in his hands by a loud knock at the forge's door, almost as if someone had run into it.
"Is there someone at the door, dear?" Elizabeth opened the door on the opposite side of the forge and stuck her head inside, looking to her husband. Will's teacher, Mr. Brown had finally retired and moved farther inland, leaving the house adjacent to the forge to the Turners.
"I'll get it," Will responded, setting the blade down on the anvil and letting her get back to her reading. He walked to the door and curiously opened the doorway to see who had come so late at night.
A familiar pirate stood within the doorframe, swaying slightly, a bottle of rum in his hands. He looked almost as surprised to see the blacksmith as Will was to see him. "You! What're ye doin' in me cabin?" Jack said in a slurred tone, strutting into the forge as if it were his own home, which he apparently thought it was.
"Jack—!" Will quickly stepped to the side so as not to be run over by his severely drunk friend. "W-what are you doing here?"
"Who is it, dear?" came Elizabeth's voice from behind the door.
"No one!" he answered simply. "Just an old acquaintance!"
"What does that 'ave to do with the price of beans in China?" Jack stumbled into the ditch where the donkey stood half-asleep, almost dropping his rum. He gave the beast a long, almost cross-eyed stare for a few long moments. "That ye, Eliz'beth? The years 'ave… been… kind…" He looked at the bottle of rum in his hand and, worry suddenly flashing into his eyes, quickly hid it inside his coat.
"Jack!" Will said in a loud whisper, dragging the pirate out of the donkey's ditch, the animal staring at him in a rather comical way. He shoved the pirate out of sight just as Elizabeth walked into the room.
"Dear, are you alright?" She gave him a slightly worried, slightly puzzled expression.
"Fine," he answered quickly, giving her his full attention so as not to look suspicious. "I just have one last thing to work on. I'll be with you in a second," he said, hoping that sincere look on his face would be believable enough.
Elizabeth nodded and smiled, turning around and walking out of the room.
Sighing with relief, Will turned around, returning to the issue at hand.
Jack had found his nice feathered hat and had put it atop his head backwards, trying it on for size. "I don' understand how ye can wear this bobble. It sits on yer head weird… An' the plume's jest supperfl—… suferpl—… well, it's jest unnecessary."
Will snatched his hat from Jack, tossing his old tattered tricorn to him in return. "Jack, why are you hear? After a whole year, you suddenly appear, drunk as a…" Will didn't know if anything or anyone could be as drunk as Jack, so his sentence went unfinished.
"Wait, lad!" Jack stumbled to the blacksmith, a more serious look on his face—still clearly drunk, but more serious than before. "I have teh talk teh ye—it's important."
Will studied the captain, lifting his eyebrows as he waited for an answer.
There was a pause. "…Only I fergot it."
Shoulders drooping, Will rolled his eyes.
"A-at the moment!" Jack motioned to him in that large manner that he always had, whether sober or drunk. "I'll remember it… eventu'lly." He took the bottle of rum out of his coat and took another swig. "Ah! That's it! I came 'ere teh invite ye teh me ship!"
Will sighed. "Jack, I can't. I'm married to Elizabeth now, and trying to display myself as an honorable man for Governor Swan and Commodore Norrington."
"So she is a Turner now!" Jack interrupted.
"Yes," Will sighed again, sitting down on a nearby bench. "I can't leave. Even if I have pirate blood in my veins, I'm tied to the land now," he said as he put his hand on the anvil, illustrating his point.
Jack's brow furrowed. "Lad…" he said in a lower tone, "…I need ye… I'm goin' off to bight the fastard who killed me lass' family in cold blood."
Even with Jack's drunken slurring, it didn't impede the shock that came with those words. Will felt his jaw drop as he stared bewilderedly at Jack. "You have a woman?"
Jack smiled his classic gold-toothed grin.
"For how long?" he asked skeptically, not expecting it to be much more than the night before.
" 'Bout a month… maybe more."
Will's shock increased. "A month?!"
Jack's grin widened. "Aye, a good month."
"So how did you come about these other pirates, then?" Will leaned forward.
The drunken pirate surprisingly told the story fairly well. There were a few letters switched around and slurred together, but Will managed to decipher them and found himself shocked. Not just at the hostility of the other pirates, which actually wasn't all together too surprising, but the fact the Jack, from the way he described her and the way they behaved when together, might have found his match. He found himself beginning to feel Jack's pain and anger at this "Flint" character killing his love interest's family.
Still, he couldn't leave his home.
"I-I'm sorry, Jack." Will shook his head. "I just can't go. I've got Elizabeth here and—"
"And we're going to help him."
Will and Jack both stiffened and looked to the right to see Elizabeth standing in the door, arms crossed.
"Eliz'beth, darlin'!" Jack held his arms out wide in greeting. "I knew ye'd see reason!"
"Hello, Jack," Elizabeth smiled moved to pat his shoulder, though the second she smelled the alcohol on him, she quickly distanced herself, hand over her nose. "Still drinking, I see…"
"Elizabeth—" Will stood in protest.
"I'm going," Elizabeth said stubbornly.
Jack quickly stepped between them to break up the argument. "A'right then! Off to me Pearl!" The intoxicated pirate took them both by the shoulders and led them towards the door. Unfortunately, he was a little too drunk for his own good, and ran straight into the wall just beside the aforementioned door.
Sighing heavily, Will helped the captain through the door and down the streets towards the harbor, his wife right behind them.
•••
Awakening to the familiar pound of a hangover, Jack groaned and sat up in bed grudgingly. He could feel the neck of a bottle in his hands and lifted to take another drink to drown his headache, but found the bottle empty. Sighing heavily, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and set the empty bottle on the table beside the bed when something other than the pain and light-sensitivity of the hangover hit him—a kind of homesickness he had never before experienced. But how could that be? He was at home, in his ship, out on the open ocean. His body almost convulsed with the force of it. He slowly leaned forward, cradling head in his hands. He took a few shuddery breaths, forcing the nausea down and steeling himself for his return to life as it always had been. After all, he was Captain Jack Sparrow—he could bounce back from anything. Sitting up straight with a single, deep breath, he stood and opened his cabin door, walking into the dim light of what looked like was going to be a very long, grim day and right into a large figure.
He quickly stepped back, grumbling a, "Sorry, mate," as he stepped around the larger man.
"You really should watch where you're going, Sparrow," the man responded in a familiar low, proper voice. "You'll walk right off a cliff if you keep up like that."
Jack found himself staring up at Scarlet's butler, Walter. "What are you doing here?"
"He's following me," a female voice that sent butterflies winging in his stomach spoke up from behind him, "as usual."
Not wanting to break the spell, Jack slowly turned around, afraid the speaker would vanish the moment he laid eyes on her just like Eurydice.
But she didn't disappear, and the longer he stood there staring at her, the more beautiful Morgan became. The clouds parted, the sun shone brightly—everything seemed to change and yet stayed the same. She simply stood there, smiling at him. Finally she broke the silence.
"He doesn't seem to understand that he's really not my servant anymore," she grinned and shrugged. "His contract was with my father, and I certainly can't pay him. I was wondering if you could get him off my—"
She was cut off by Jack, who covered the distance between them easily and wrapped his arms around her tightly. He buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes, content simply to be there with Morgan by his side again.
Some quiet sniggering could be heard from the crew around them, but they knew quite well not to mess with the captain—much.
After what seemed like both an eternity and an instant, Morgan pulled her head from his shoulder, but only enough so that she could look into his eyes. "So I can stay?"
Jack smiled and sighed. How could he say no? "Aye, luv, an' yer little dog too."
Her smile widened and she hugged him one last time before they released each other. "Will we be stopping at Tortuga first?"
Chuckling, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "You know it."