Having no real sense of eagerness about any of it, Nicolette insisted that if they were going to find Jack then she should first rest. So, after leading him back to the Ol' Sailor, where she enjoyed another couple of drinks and watched Will interacting with the whores as the nights entertainment, she left Will to find his own room and notified him that she would meet him in the morning for breakfast, his treat, and they could go on a jolly looking for Jack from there.
Turner had knocked on her door not too long after dawn obviously and basically forced the eggs down her throat.
"Where are we going? I asked almost everyone here about Jack yesterday and got a different story each time." Will asked, huffing at her as he kept hot on her heels. All he had done is badger her since he first approached her. She was beginning to think that he was never happy and starting to regret even choosing to help him.
"Well then you obviously missed a few. Besides, I've been here for a few months now and you hear rumours." Nic was leading them towards the docks.
News of Jack, now those rumours were easy to come by. In fact there were times where she wondered if Jack himself was sharing three at a time to accumulate the tales she heard. But of the Pearl…different story altogether. Rare to hear so when one caught drift it was important to listen. People didn't hold grudges with ships and ships did t get into funny situations. Rumours were less likely, so news tended to be fact. And a certain fact she had caught wind of not too many days ago.
"This is ridiculous. You're wasting my time and I need to find Jack." Nic didn't reply, she was quickly learning how to drown out his drivel, and kept walking until she turned onto the middle pier.
"You, Captain!" She called out to a man sat half way down the pier next to where a small fishing boat was docked. He was sat upon a couple of crates, fixing a net together.
"Aye."
"We're looking for Jack Sparrow." Will interrupted, stepping ahead of her. Was he being serious? Because if he really wanted to find Jack and save his wife to be then he was going to have to start playing by her terms, at least until they found Jack.
She pushed him out of the way all the while fixing him with a glare and then turned her attention back to the man.
"Looking for a ship. One in particular, The Black Pearl." She smiled at him slightly. "Heard some of your crew had spotted her."
The Captain looked at Will before look back at Nic. "Can't say about Jack Sparrow, but this island just south of the straits where I trade spice for… delicious, long pork. Cannot say about Jack. But you'll find that ship there. A ship with black sails."
Once again, Will was quick to react and she pursed her lips with a sigh when he had his back to her.
"Can you take us?"
"Aye." The Captain nodded but just Will grinned, the man added. "In a month." The boy deflated and barely looked to Nic as he spoke.
"A month, we need to get there now."
"Oh." She pouted. "Perhaps if you close your eyes and wish hard enough you'll just appear their in a poof of smoke…" With a roll of her eyes, she thanked the Captain with a nod of her head and then started to retreat down the plank.
"We need a find a ship and sail there ourselves." Will spoke low as he followed but when Nicolette stopped abruptly and turned on her heel, he had to stop fast as to avoid crashing right into her.
"If you carry on like this you can swim there on your own." The look in her eyes told her she wasn't joking and she started to take small steps forwards, slowly pushing Will to the end of the dock. "Now please…for two minutes can you just…shut it!" As Will's heel became unbalance upon meeting the end of the dock before the sea beneath took over, he remained silent.
She took a deep breath, waggling her slender jewelled finger in his face, and then turned to stare out at the rest of the docks. In the distance she could see a ship of medium size and grandeur with a faded red skull sewn into the mainsail. She didn't want to…and it wasn't her one and only hope, but it was the easier and the quickest. And if it would make the boy shut up…
Nicolette didn't tell him to follow, she assumed he would do it on his own, and she took off towards the ship. Of course, the boy didn't learn, and until she can to a stop below the Bloody Dagger all he did was ask what was happening and where she was going and why she wasn't talking to him blah blah blah. It was only when Matthew called out from the main deck that he silenced.
"Barker? That you?!" He was squinting down at her as if she were a million miles away…if he was aiming something at her she would have been concerned.
"Aye!" She turned with a swing to Will, smirking, and then swung back. Matthew was already making his way down the gangplank, a couple of his men behind him. It seemed she had interrupted him in the middle of preparing to cast off.
"To what do I owe the honour?" He greeted her with a smile Nic returned, his eyes only temporarily narrowing on Will.
"You setting off today?"
"Aye…just about ready to actually. Why do you ask?" Nic cast a glance at Will, deciding how much she wanted to tell Matthew. Thankfully the boy seemed to guess this or he was just too busy trying to work out why she had brought them here, and he kept hush.
"Mr Turner here is in need of help looking for Jack Sparrow." She started. "I'm trying to find the Pearl. I have a heading, I just don't have a means of getting there." Nic trailed off, her brow quirking in the hope of him catching her drift and he did apparently, given by the way he looked so amused at her.
"Where's your heading Nikki?" Matthew asked, his stance becoming more casual as he hooked his thumbs though his belt loops.
He looked more like a Captain now than he did when she first ran into him. For one he had a plain black tricorn hat upon his head and wore a long dark maroon coat fit with flaking gold fastenings and fraud white detailing.
"An Island South of the Straits." She quoted the man from earlier, narrowing her eyes. "Can you take us?"
There was a short pause and Will shifted uncomfortably by her side. Matthew didn't look sure all of a sudden and that set her unsteady.
"South of the Straits you say?" Matthew pushed her, lowering his chin as a long crease marked his brow. "Are you sure?"
"We're sure." Will interjected and for once Nicolette was grateful for it as it gave her the chance to see if Matthew was worried about her going after Jack or to that Island.
"And who might you be?"
"William Turner." The young boy held out a hand which Matthew graciously took, to shake.
"Son of Ol' Bootstrap Bill this one." Nic added with a nodded of her head. "Will, this is Matthew Rathbone. Captain of the Bloody Dagger, an old friend."
"An old friend? I don't know if to be flattered or offended." Matthew laughed and it was then that Will noticed the look the two Pirates were sharing. It wasn't being shared in such close proximity, but it was very alike to the look he had seen Nicolette share with Jack.
"I'd say the former, though who knows…" Nic spoke louder and stepped around Matthew and Will, taking off up the gangplank. "We might be able to drop the 'old' after our little adventure, eh Captain!"
Both men watched as she disappeared onto the main deck, both with raised eyebrows but only one with a bright smile.
"Something else ain't she, that one?" Matthew chuckled, shaking his head and still watching after the spot she had last been seen.
"Aye, you can say that again." Will went to follow in the girl's steps but the Captain stopped him with a flick of his hand. Matthew's smile had turned into wonder and he needed to asked something before he cast off on this adventure.
"Why is it you seek Sparrow?"
Will studied the Captain, still caught in a trance and not meeting his eye.
"He has something that I want." Upon hearing that, Matthew began to laugh. It was a proper laugh radiating from his belly and sounding loud who the men who were stacking sacks ready to be carried onto the ships holds.
"Ah my lad." He cheered, finally breaking his stillness and beginning to walk with Will up the gangplank onto the ship, clapping a hand against the young boys back. "I understand you completely."
After they had boarded, Nicolette had barely had time to give the ship a quick once over before they had cast off and where Matthew had been occupied by his duties as Captain, Will had kept her busy talking about either Jack or Elizabeth.
Thankfully, once night had fallen and the ship was overcast with a blanket of stars and lit by the full moon, Will went below to try get something to eat and get some sleep. The minute she had been left alone with her own thoughts she had released a great sigh, the pounding of her mind instantly relieved of pain. But then she had looked around at the open seas, there were no lights, no other ships, no land. It was just them and she wasn't on the Pearl.
What was she doing? Why was she here? To help Jack? To find out what Will was up to? …Was a small part of her subconscious trying to help Elizabeth?
Either one she was going to find Jack at the end of this with any hope. But then what? Would she hand Will over and leave or was she planning to stay once they found the Pearl?
So many questions.
Nicolette let her head fall back and brushed a hand through her hair with a deep sigh, grateful she had been able to take one last bath the previous evening. She didn't know the answer to any of those questions, she would just have to wait it out.
"So…are you stupid or ignorant?" Nicolette froze, frowning at the sound of someone joining her and it took a moment for her to peak an eye open and find Matthew stood a few feet away, watching her.
"I beg your pardon?" She quirked her brow, amused, and lifted her head.
"That Island Nikki." There it was again, that weird look of worry he had had when she had first told him on the docks. She thought he was going to try a game with her given his opening question but it dawned on her that he was being serious which was very offensive when she thought about it.
"I'm going to have to say stupid because I haven't the faintest idea what you're insinuating."
Matthew's frowned deeper and he took a few steps closer to her, his eyes never once leaving hers.
"You don't know?" He asked but Nicolette just started at him longer with wider eyes. "Cannibals Nikki. On that Island you're heading too. It's home to whole tribe of them." Nic's face was stuck, her lips were opening and closing as she searched for something to say in reply to the information she had just been given but the rest of her face was frozen as she processed it.
"Cannibals?" She managed to spit out, eyes glazing over.
"Aye. The Pelegostos Tribe." They had a name! How well known was this tribe? For ten years she did nothing but search these seas and she had not even heard a whisper about them. "Picked up a lad a drift not too far from the shore once, year or so ago now…" Matthew looked up to the sky in thought as he began his story and took a place opposite to where she stood, flicking his coat out behind him as he sat on the barrel of a canon. "He was the only one left of the crew. Was missing a hand and three fingers from the other. Had bites all up his calf god rest him."
"He was alive?" Her jaw was dropped, her tongue threatening to fall from her mouth as she cringed and squirmed on the spot.
"Was…sickness got him before we made it to port." Nic's teeth was now bared but she pursed her lips together when Matthew turned from the sky and caught her gaze.
His expression was soft and once again serious. She couldn't remember a time she had seen him so serious. When they were together he had been a silly young goofball who just wanted to run and play. He wasn't too much unlike Jack, but he was more sensible. Matthew, unlike Jack, considered the consequences of his actions before he carried anything out and spent most of his time attacking Navy ships and freeing their human cargo than running off looking for treasure and chasing magic.
He had been young though when they had first met, seventeen perhaps, if that. She was the same age as him although now when she looked at him he looked older than her, not in appearance but he seemed to have grown up. A Captain, a saviour of lives. He was a man, and in her head she was still just a girl. Jack however, was a few years older and some part of her believes that is why Matthew had never challenge him. When she had went to him that night and told him she was leaving, with Jack, and that she couldn't marry him he had been a gentleman to say the least.
There had been no uproar, no fight, come to think of it Matthew had not even raised his voice. It was like he had been expecting it all along. Had the roles have been reversed and she was telling that same news to Jack, well it probably would have been a lot worse. Even worse than it had been when he found out she was to be married to Matthew.
There was a fear, deep down, for many months that Jack had only asked her to join his crew that day to get her away from Matthew.
He cleared his throat, breaking the daydream she had somehow spiralled into and she looked at him. The air was much more somber now, it felt just like another curse hanging over her.
"I don't want to return and find you in that same way because of Sparrow." Nic scoffed.
"I don't think it would be Jack doing the nibbling Matthew."
"You know what I mean Nicolette." Matthew said sternly. Oh he had defiantly matured, but then every Captain had to have a good back bone didn't he? "One wrong move and Sparrow would save himself leaving you to the sharks."
"Good job I can look after myself then." She replied, her voice just as stern and she matched his cold expression.
"What's going on here Nikki?"
"What do you mean?" She perked a brow.
"You and a young lad travelling to an island of Cannibals where the Black Pearl is docked? Does non of that seem a little…odd?" Well now that he put it like that… She hadn't really thought about it, then again she hadn't known it was a cannibals island.
"Believe me, if you lived through the last year of my life at the very least you would think this was tame." Nicolette turned so that she leant on the smooth dark wood railing and looked out at the open waters.
There was nothing more relaxing than the sound of waves breaking against the side of the ship but this ship felt different. Even under her hand as she stroked the railing, it felt foreign.
She heard Matthew stand too and closed her eyes, soon feeling his presence at her side. He was so close that her shoulder brushed his upper arm and she felt the pressure growing and falling as the motion of the ship made them both sway.
"Just promise me you'll be careful." He whispered into the night and her breathless chuckle followed as she turned her head and opened her eyes to look at him.
"Always am. I'm not that seventeen year old little girl anymore."
"Oh, I can see that." He laughed whole heartedly, one of the only things which was the same about him. "I've got to admit, ever since I found you in the Sailor that night I haven't been to stop thinking about that fact."
Nicolette couldn't recall how, even as she was doing it, but she soon found herself facing Matthew. They weren't pressed together but she had to tilt her head upwards to look at him how and his breath brushed her cheek.
He brushed his hand over her cheek and goosebumps rose along her arms in a wave. Matthew played with a strand of her hair decorated with a couple of beads and shells.
"You're with him?" His voice was near breaking as he whispered the words so quiet it was as if he was afraid he'd break the air.
"No." Was she?
Nic didn't have time to ask herself properly as before she had even finished saying the word Matthew was kissing her.
Her last night with Jack flashed behind her eyes, followed by the first they had spent back on the Pearl together after Port Royal and then the morning she had awoke from her illness and he had been there.
But even though every memory became more and more reason for her to stop, she couldn't push him away.
Matthew's hand buried in her hair and their deep kiss ended, but he dotted several short pecks against her lips. She could feel him smile and returned it, smiling.
"Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa…" Matthew muttered. "Do I have to become a Pirate Lord to have you?"
"Hmm, it might help." She smirked, laying her hands on his chest.
"I'm not joking." He laughed, pushing her hair back out of her face. "I would in a heartbeat you know. When I saw you stood there on the pier, until I saw the boy I thought you were here to ask to join me crew."
"Oh? And what would your answer have been?" She enjoyed the game, the hunt... However Nicolette could never quite make it to the catch without Jack, there was always an uncomfortable feeling in her gut if it were another man stood across from her, filling her chalice and stroking her thigh. There was a hint of it there now, deep in her stomach, as Matthew's eyes stared into hers.
"Ask me and you'll find out." After a short pause, Nic unwrapped herself and stepped away as a forced chuckle came from her mouth sounding more like a croak. As handsome as he still was, as much as he had matured and as good and fitting as he looked being Captain, joining his crew is not what she wanted.
His turn in seriousness had ended the game and she wasn't playing anymore.
"I'm sorry Matthew." She whispered, her arms wrapping around herself. Suddenly the breeze felt cold and the lack of cloud made her feel more exposed than it had earlier. "This is…it's not right."
The man watched her for a minute, lowering the hat on his head which had been disturbed by the forgotten kiss. The furrow on his brow deepened to create a thick crease and his lips pursed.
"When you're done with him. You're always welcome here."
'Done with him'. Matthew wanted to scoff at his own words. Twelve years since he had first said those words and there he was right back in the midst of waiting for her to be done chasing birds.
She gave Matthew a final smile over her shoulder although it never quite reached her eyes. "I'm going to go get some rest. Goodnight Matthew." He just nodded as by the time he would've replied, she would have already been gone.
