The passing days thereafter presented a new feeling for Fareeha as she sat there in the hold, still with an arm strapped back behind her head. Before, it had been merely a bore down here, the incessant silence ringing in her head like some cantankerous white noise, unable to drown it out for fear of having nothing to spark her senses. Then, after the affair with the Hanamura, her books had offered a respite, though it was still a doldrum of an existence down there, much unlike her journeys as a captain herself, commanding her crew and being everywhere at once.
After her night with the captain's daughter of all people, Fareeha found herself, quite often, with the vague feeling of being watched, which, considering what activity Angela had partaken in just above her, it didn't take the former captain much thought to figure who might have had their eyes on her between some wayward strips of lumber surrounding her. She assumed, given Angela's incredibly deliberate lack of knowledge surrounding such things, that the woman was finding this time to peek upon her in some playful show of some strange action, though for Fareeha, it was, ultimately, nothing more than a minor annoyance, particularly when the back of her neck would chill at the feeling.
She found it much more odd that Angela hadn't returned for quite some time, at least in person. Fareeha figured that she might just be saving face in the eyes of the crew- after all, she'd spent a considerable time in the hold, at the behest of Fareeha's own musing lips no less, and might be avoiding the former captain to throw off suspicion, which Fareeha preferred anyway.
The last thing she needed was to be on the bad side of the man currently controlling her fate.
Fareeha passed the time as she'd done before, lost in her books. Her destination being far too vague, she made sure to pack enough novels to lose herself within no matter the distance, particularly since her reading comprehension wasn't exactly stellar. Thalia had taught her something of written English, a form of the language that Fareeha had always found to be rudimentary, and wanting to continue her understanding, she'd brought along a few English books to accompany her Arabic ones, hoping to improve upon the high seas, even catching herself at times quietly repeating phrases, trying to put certain letters to the presumed sounds they created.
Her eyes narrowed in focus as she turned to reach for a primer she'd bought at a marketplace that explained written English, resting her novel in her lap as she leaned over to her crate, sifting through the small stack of ever-thicker books before zeroing in on the correct one, pulling it over and flipping through pages until finding what she was looking for.
"Th-There upon the…" she whispered to herself, finally rolling her eyes as she easily finished the sentence in her head, "Duh."
Reaching up to brush her jet-black hair from her face, Fareeha then slid the primer away, returning solely to her book. Having already worked her way through half of the tale, Fareeha still hadn't ascertained why Thalia had enjoyed it herself so much, almost as if she were deciphering its letters, words, meaning, like Thalia had left her a coded message in the book itself. The obvious idea was that she'd simply left Fareeha a book she'd enjoyed, but by now, the only thing keeping Fareeha interested was the prospect of some insight that might be gained from reading into the read itself.
She went on, her lips trembling with silent sounds that she formed from the words at her eyes, slowly continuing along when her body suddenly shook in surprise from a THUD that escaped from the entryway into the hold, Fareeha's head immediately jolting upward to catch the rectangular space of blackness that stood across the hold, her brow curling with curiosity. It almost sounded like empty glass upon wood from the sound of it, though she couldn't be sure, her gaze remaining in place just to be sure that it wasn't the sound of a visitor, one far less careful than her normal guest.
Fareeha remained steadfast in her careful watch, though her face turned into a look of confusion as none other than the captain of the ship sauntered wearily into the hold, his hand clutching the neck of a wine bottle while his other hand was clasped along the lids of two shallow glasses, their sides rubbing into a pearlescent sort of grinding sound as his steps teetered forward toward Fareeha.
Still unsure of how to take this particular development, Fareeha nonetheless pointed out the obvious, "You're drunk."
Jack grinned, "No, not drunk. I tad sauced, if that, but not drunk."
"Then why are you-"
"I don't think I properly thanked you for what you did; saving my daughter and all," Jack interrupted, his inebriation inevitably impairing his ability to hear the stowaway's words, "I had some of this sugarcane rum left- figured I'd offer you some."
His footsteps wavered as he shrugged, "Besides, what's a drink between two- you were once a captain, correct?"
"That I was," Fareeha answered skeptically, figuring it better to simply go along with the man in charge of whether she lived or died.
Jack nodded, eyeing her wrapped up wrist, "That new knot isn't too tight, is it?"
Fareeha tilted her head in indifference, "I can't tell, anyway."
"Understood," Jack replied, turning his back to the wall beside Fareeha, sliding down carefully until he hit the floor with a relieved groan, "So long as we're helping you out, I doubt you'd try to escape again, but I can't very well take that risk, you understand."
"I do," Fareeha nodded, "You've done plenty in accommodating a stowaway."
Jack gritted his teeth before speaking up, "See- I just don't get that. A captain for crissakes, resorting to being a stowaway."
He chuckled as he readied the two glasses, "You must'a been in some deep shit. Like, deep shit."
"It wasn't my first choice to stow away," Fareeha clarified bluntly, "Just so you know, even respectable people grow desperate."
Jack popped the cork and began filling up a glass half full, handing it to his once-unknown personnel, "I would have taken you to be superstitious, not respectable."
Fareeha grew confused, turning toward Jack who lifted a finger from wrapped around his own glass, tapping below his right eye as he took in a sip of rum. She realized he was referring to her tattoo, returning to her drink and taking an almost unwilling sip of her own.
"Respectable, huh…" Jack muttered under his breath quietly, "Tell me, how does one as respectable as you become a stowaway?"
Fareeha thought for a moment, shrugging, "Extenuating circumstances."
Chuckling at such a vague response, Jack shook his head, "Well you need to drink some more, I suppose, to open up. Come on; what're are a few words between captains?"
He turned a wary stare toward Fareeha, who watched with uncertainty, "We both take the wheel. We both-"
"In your state, I hope not," Fareeha blithely replied, earning a sincere laugh from her interrogator.
Jack shook his head, "No, no; Jesse has the ship at its helm. I'm a captain three hundred and sixty-four days of the year; I can afford to take this single day off."
With a piqued interest, Fareeha turned to speak, though Jack caught her quickly enough, raising his index finger from his glass and sticking at at his lips to quiet her, "Who's asking the questions here?"
Fareeha sighed as her eyes rolled, allowing Jack to chuckle through another swig if his rum, groaning forcefully as the taste overpowered him through his subtle laughter, leaving him tilted forward as he ran his sleeve across his mouth, "Goddamn, that stuff packs a punch if you're not ready. What's the- Oh, it's that old. If I didn't know them to be so kind, I'd have thought we were awarded this with the hope that we'd choke on the stuff."
He shook his head like a dog just in from the rain, sitting the bottle at his side before resting his back against the hill once again, staring up toward the rafters as he rested his glass-holding hand atop his knee, "Just as well. I don't usually drink so much."
Noticing Fareeha's distant glance, alongside her nearly forgotten beverage, Jack asked, "Do you not drink at all? Pretty rare out here."
"No, I do," Fareeha answered, preparing to go on before Jack took the reigns first.
He shrugged, "I never really, you know, enjoyed it. When I first became a sailor, it was all we had to drink, so it was mostly just for sustenance. My wife came along though; she was really the one who got me into the different types of alcohol, trying new stuff. She made it fun, I guess, though I never went out of my way for the stuff. I've watched enough sailors trying to siphon some out of a barrel only to tap turpentine and find themselves dead; I don't usually- Well, only today."
Fareeha's eyes narrowed suspiciously, though, already inebriated, Jack wasn't in the proper mind for tact, simply speaking plainly, "She died today. Em. So I drink to remember her. and forget."
He sighed coldly, his lips turning as his head rolled to the side to eye Fareeha, "Tell me. You ever lose somebody close to you?"
Warily, wholly unsure of this man's knowledge of her and his daughter, Fareeha paused for a minute to ensure her own ambiguity, "Once."
Jack nodded, "Ah. Then you know how empty it makes you feel."
Fareeha felt her brow wane at the man's words, turning to find Jack shivering for a moment as he pulled his glass away from his face, "You know. She, Emmy, she let me name our daughter."
He chuckled, reaching up his free hand to rub at his scraggly chin, a lump running down his croaked throat as he swallowed, "She said she'd given me a child; the least I could give was her name. All those months… Had I any clue of the years I'd have that girl in my life, squandered by my own worry, leaving her home. Y'know, I feel so guilty when I see her doing so well; I feel like I've deprived her of her home for my own sake- god, can she ever tie a slip knot in a moment's notice."
These grumblings of a drunk man might have had little effect of Fareeha had he not been referring to the woman she'd been with not a week or two earlier. She figured that, being a captain at one point, the man might have figured she knew something about discretion, though Fareeha couldn't help but think his motives, even while drunk, were still being withheld.
"Our first nets casted, not a single fish. What a way to begin a journey, I tell you," Jack grumbled, turning a lazy glance toward Fareeha, "They have albatrosses where you sailed?"
"Not many," Fareeha answered before accepting another swig from her own glass.
"They have those superstitions about 'em where you're from?"
Fareeha shrugged, "I'm familiar with them. I wouldn't by them for a harbor dime though."
"Really?" Jack smirked through a chuckle, "I'd have thought by your tattoo there on your face that you'd be quite the superstitious one. You just like the way it looks?"
Fareeha's eyes narrowed, "No. but I'm not superstitious."
"Heh heh," Jack laughed heartily, "You are quite the enigma, you know. No wonder you agree-"
He trailed off as he brought his glass up once again, throwing his head back as he drank the last of the rum, gasping for breath as he returned to normal. He examined the streaking tears of alcohol that slipped toward the bottom of the crystalline glass, his eyes dropping sadly as he did so.
"She'd have loved this stuff," Jack muttered, relinquishing the glass as he sat it to the side, groaning uncomfortably as he adjusted his sitting position, bringing his legs up closer to his chest, "How'd they pass?"
"Pardon?" Fareeha asked, confused.
"The one you mentioned. That died," Jack clarified bluntly, "What, was it a parent? sibling?"
Fareeha treaded carefully, "Lover. Not unlike you and your wife."
As though chuckling at her wording, Jack grinned childishly, "Odd way of putting it."
"Drowned," Fareeha answered, her voice far more stern than it had been, warding off any further questions, "Tried saving one of our peons. Rough waters took 'em both."
Jack shrugged, shaking his head warily as a longing sigh left him, "I'm sorry for your loss. I understand, all too-..,"
His voice trailed, his face contorted in an anguished curiosity, "My Emmy, she was the best deckhand this side of the tropics. Easily the best on my crew."
His fingers curled into the rugged fabric of his pants, "If… If you're in a storm, carrying a load of cargo- the whole ramshackle operation is your entire life. You've got a baby at home. One of the crates gets unwound, it's rolling all over the swamped deck, threatening not only its own contents, but that of every other crate…"
"Your lover volunteers to handle it. They're the best at it," Jack asked with a chill in his breath, seeking confirmation, "Do you send them out there to do so?"
Fareeha silently thought of Thalia, a dread overcoming her as she visualized the captain's dilemma. She knew the answer, though she couldn't be sure which one this man, the one controlling her fate, was seeking for himself.
"I don't," Fareeha muttered quietly.
A short kind of chuckle left Jack as he lowered his head, shaking it regrettably from side to side, "Heh… It's torture to think I made the wrong decision."
"Just because I'm too weak to let go," Fareeha noted quietly, her eyes rising up to watch Jack's dim profile, "That doesn't make my decision the right one."
Jack shut his eyes, his fingers tightening along the top of the empty glass in his hand, thinking so cryptically of that frigid night so long ago that still so marred his mind. Those rushed steps of his wife as she dashed off into the darkness upon deck; her visage disappearing off the edge of the very ship he kept in shape. Their own wooden kingdom.
"I know you've been giving my daughter food," Jack muttered, sending Fareeha into a cold sweat as she nervously lowered her torso forward almost as if to bury herself within her lap.
Jack's eyes grew glazed, "I saw her eating on some pastries that we never brought aboard. I don't know if you're intending to bribe her, or if the two of you are simply carousing down here, but I know Angela has been sneaking down here to see you."
Fareeha felt cotton balls settling in her throat as her mouth began to dry at the fear welling up within her, rendering her unable to speak. Her wrist tensed up at the rope that kept her bound, though she suddenly froze as Jack turned to stare at her with a piercing gaze.
"I know nothing about you, save for the fact that you've left enough trouble behind you. Trouble that turned a woman like you desperate enough to stow away on my ship- on this ship that my wife and I built our lives upon. And in the face of my wife's work, I wouldn't dare allow my daughter to fall into such trouble."
Jack returned to watch the ground and he lazily worked his way up to his feet, grabbing at his empty glass with his free hand as the other clutched the empty bottle, turning to Fareeha as he stood on unsteady footing, "Look at me."
Fareeha did so, slowly.
"I don't want you two seeing each other. At all," Jack spoke coldly.
Fareeha couldn't find the will to reply, the gravity of the situation strickening her with a fear that ran like a tourniquet within her chest as she sat there. Jack walked slowly toward the exit, knowing how drunk he was, carefully taking his steps and grappling onto whatever object allowed to him within arm's reach. Her head lowered, Fareeha couldn't help but think she'd somehow escaped some regretful fate, feeling a shiver running down her spine as she took a-
"But I know my daughter," Jack suddenly muttered, clutching onto a crate in the middle of the hold, as though his body was too heavy a weight to carry, Fareeha's head slowly rising to stare at the man in such a ghostly silhouette.
"I know she'll return to see you. no matter what I tell her," Jack sighed, shaking his head, "She's always been so easily caught by flights of fancy and mystery."
His clutch tightening to hold himself steady, Jack turned in place, watching Fareeha with dim-lit eyes, "Just promise me. When you step foot off of this ship- you'll know to let go. It's better for her."
Fareeha felt the glance of a man so far along the path between his grasps of both reality and of whatever world his deserved wife resides within. It was such a distant expression, held onto by such cold, lost eyes.
Slowly, and quietly, Fareeha nodded, "Promise."
Jack replied with a nod of his own, raising his empty glass toward Fareeha before sloppily murmuring, "Capt'n."
With that, the older man returned to his pace, cautiously making his way toward the open doorway of the hold, vanishing into the darkness with a wobbling gait until Fareeha was left alone, with nothing but her crate and the nearly-empty glass in her hand, her eyes now narrowed in contemplation.
Carefully, she sat the glass down, pushing it away at the tips of her fingers until it was out of reach, it's viscous, liquid contents sloshing around wildly in time with the movement even as she returned her hand to her lap. The rum had suddenly lost its taste, she realized, only feeling the bitterness that now rested upon her tongue.
The man had already offered enough without having brought her any of it.
A/N: I do sincerely apologize for my lengthy absence. Work has been hectic with the holidays, and a promotion (!), and alongside that, P5D came out, so I have to finish P3 so I can play P3D, and then Let's Go Eevee is a thing (that I don't particularly care for D:) but then Smash Bros. Ultimate is a thing (that I DO like D:) and Spider-Man DLC will be a thing- there's just so many things!
Plus, I've just been generally burnt out when it comes to writing, which I suppose is to be expected after two years of writing fan-fiction almost non-stop xD Even this chapter, for such an important scene in the story, I can't help but feel it's slightly 'bleh', but hopefully that's just a result of my burned-out-ness; it just seems a bit uninspired :( So don't be surprised if I redo this later, or any future chapters for that matter (of course, I'll notify you guys in the notes here.
In any case, I do appreciate and adore any of you who have been waiting for this story's conclusion- I hate being left on cliff-hangers myself, so I hate to have left you all on one, but hopefully I'll be able to get the rest of this out :D We're on the final stretch, sort of, so at nearly 300 pages, it's been a fine little story to write, and I hope I can do its ending justice for you all reading this :)
Thank you, so very much, for reading :)