Disclaimer: (Looks around) Shh! I'm hunting for Jack Sparrow! This means he's not mine…yet.
AN: Yay, the Turners are back! And of course they're going to help their friends. Don't worry, there'll be much fun in kicking Gerry's ass, but you'll all have to wait until Jack finds Rose, first! So patience, my beloved readers, and I promise that it'll be worth it. Thanks, and please review!
Chapter 20: A Little Help:
It had taken Jack almost an hour to calm Elizabeth down after telling her the news about Rose. Mrs. Turner had practically run him through with her cutlass when she found out her friend had been kidnapped, and had promptly begun yelling and lecturing him before Will had jumped in, declaring that she should calm down and that they should listen to Jack before judging him.
"Alright, Jack, what happened?" Elizabeth snapped after she had calmed herself.
Meanwhile, Jack was impatiently waiting for Gibbs to haul his arse back to the cabin. He'd sent his first mate into the galley for refreshments, and the man still wasn't back yet. Honestly, what was he waiting for, the next century to dawn?
'Then again, he's probably hiding from Elizabeth's obvious fury,' Jack thought with an inward wince.
Thinking back, Jack realized that most of his crew had ducked-and-covered the moment that Elizabeth had found out that Rose had been taken. They were all probably hiding down below in the galley with the barrels of rum and provisions, hoping to survive the hurricane known as Elizabeth Turner.
"Lizzie, please do me a favor," Jack pleaded to his friend. "Try not to frighten my men with your displays of fury. It'll be a very long journey if I can't get my men to come out of hiding and help crew the ship, and by then, Rose and I will be old and fading by the time I catch up with her!"
What looked like a cross between a frown and a smile tugged at Elizabeth's lips, showing how trapped she was between amusement and annoyance. "Alright, Jack," she said with a sigh. "After you explain things to me and Will, I'll go down and apologize to your crew, alright?"
Jack nodded as the door to the cabin opened and Gibbs slowly shuffled in, a tray holding food, two bottles of rum, and one wine bottle in his hands. "Well, it's about time, man!" Jack retorted. "Where were you and what were you doing down there, making the bloody rum yourself?"
Gibbs nervously cleared his throat. "Sorry, sir," he said, glancing out the corner of his eye in Elizabeth's direction. "Had a bit of trouble finding something both the Turners would like to drink, seeing as they dislike rum and all."
"Thank you, Mr. Gibbs," Elizabeth said, her voice soft and amazingly calm. "I apologize for upsetting you and the men earlier with my outbursts. You can tell the crew of the Black Pearl that my angry tone of voice will be reserved only for Captain Sparrow and the man who took my dear friend."
"Aye, ma'am," Gibbs said, nodding as he began to back out of the room. "I'll be down below if you need me, Cap'n."
Jack sighed as he watched his first mate vanish out the door. "There, you see?" he said with a gesture towards the door. "Next time, just bring a few kegs of rum with you as a gift. After that, they won't remember they're afraid of you, let alone why." He began pouring out two cups of wine for his friends and uncorking a bottle of rum for himself.
This time Elizabeth did smile and laugh. "Alright, I'll do my best," she said, the smile very slowly leaving her lips. "In the mean time, why not tell us about this Captain Hastings?"
Sighing once more, Jack launched into detail about what he knew about his former friend, including everything he had known before and after Rose's abduction. It made his blood boil to talk about how Gerry was now in the market for a wife, and that Rose happened to be the unfortunate chosen bride. To calm his nerves, Jack began to take a few deep drinks from his rum bottle, and by the time he was finished with his explanations, half the bottle was gone. Feeling slightly relaxed, he leaned back in his chair and looked at his friends' expressions.
Elizabeth was the first to speak afterwards. "A noble-turned-pirate…well, it isn't the first time such a thing has happened, considering that I, myself, am one such person," she said, tapping the table with her fingertips. "Still, nobleman or not, I don't like the idea of Rose being held captive by him."
"We have to get her back," Will said, his eyes darting over to his wife. "We can't let this Captain Hastings keep her for any reason, and we can't let him force her into marriage."
Elizabeth nodded. "If Rose tells anyone that she's married to Jack, she will be hanged as a pirate," she said, one hand moving to clutch at her goblet of wine. "Even if Gerard Hastings forces her into a marriage anyway and swears her to secrecy on her previous marriage, there's always the chance that someone will find out that she's Mrs. Jack Sparrow and arrest her for polygamy."
"Either way, she can't really win," Will muttered while staring down at the table. "We have to save her, Jack." A small smile played on his lips as he looked up at his friend and fellow captain. "I trust you have a plan?"
"You mean besides putting a bullet into Gerry's head once I catch up with him?" Jack sarcastically asked before taking another gulp of rum. "Sorry, Mr. Turner, but I'm afraid that I have nothing."
For a moment, both of the Turners sat there and stared at him. "What do you mean you have nothing?" Elizabeth blurted out. "You're Captain Jack Sparrow! You always have something up your sleeve when things like this happen!"
Jack shook his head. "Apologies, Lizzie, but it's mostly luck, good timing, and bloody-good reflexes when it came to getting myself out of dangerous situations," he said, leaning back in his chair. "However, I do know where to find Rose, thanks to this little thing."
A moment later, the black compass lay open on the table, its needle pointing in the direction that Rose either was heading or had landed in. So, true enough, they knew where to go, just not what to do after they got there.
"I know that this is going to sound like a bad idea, Jack, but I'm thinking that perhaps we should forgo the gunfight until after we know a bit more about the situation," Will said, his eyes carefully studying Jack's face for a reaction. "We'll obviously follow the course that the compass sets, but perhaps it would be best to get more information before we charge in, pistols firing."
'Bloody hell, the Whelp's right,' Jack thought to himself as he took another gulp of rum. At this rate, the bottle would be empty in less than ten minutes.
Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and tried to think things through. William was right; even though he was a pirate, Jack knew that he couldn't charge into a port and attack Gerry's ship, demanding the safe return of his wife. His actions would, at best, get him arrested by the local navy; at worst, he would be blown out of the water by either Gerry's small fleet or the other ships in the port. While blowing Gerry out of the water would certainly make him feel better, getting his wife and crew killed in the process was just plain selfish and stupid.
'We need more information,' Jack thought, his eyes focused on a knothole in the wood of the table.
But where could they get it? The seas all around Europe were Gerry's territory, and he likely had spies and riffraff everywhere that would notice someone asking questions about the whereabouts of the Storm Chaser. Where could he possibly find anyone willing to give up information on their employer?
"That's it!" Jack yelled as he leaped from his seat. Why hadn't he thought of it before?
For a moment, he was a bit disoriented, given his rum intake of the past hour, but it wasn't something he couldn't handle on his own. After all, before meeting his wife, Jack had spent a great deal of his life drunk off his arse, so he was quite used to it. Meanwhile, Will had jumped up to help him regain his footing, but Jack waved him aside.
"No time for that, Whelp," he said. "I happen to have a prisoner in the brig that used to work for Hastings, so we'll see what else we can wring out of the man!"
Stumbling out the door of his cabin, Jack could hear his friends following him across the deck, down the ladders and steps, and into the dark depths of the brig. Jack hadn't yet released Alex from his cell, primarily for the reason he was heading down there this moment; he had thought that Alex might have some detail or two about Hastings that he'd forgotten in his drunken haze, so Jack had ordered Gibbs to keep the man fed, watered, and give him a bit of supervised time walking around the lower decks.
"You, Alex!" Jack said, banging his fist against the door.
The man sat up from where he'd been napping against the wall and looked up at his visitors. "Aye?" he asked, still a bit drowsy. "Oh, you brought friends…and one of them is a woman!"
"That would be Elizabeth Turner," Jack explained. "But we're not here to talk about her; we're here to talk about my wife and the slimy dog that has her."
Alex groaned. "Alright, Captain Sparrow," he conceded. "What else do you want to know about Hastings?"
"We want to know where he's going to take her," Will replied, his arms folded over his chest as he impatiently glared at the prisoner.
"Ah, now that's something I'll gladly help you out with, given that's something I know quite well," Alex said happily. "Turns out he's taking the lass back to her home port, though I've no idea where that place is. And since Miss Rose's home port is where Captain Sparrow discovered her, there should be no problem in you getting there."
Jack growled. Hastings had discovered where Rose's home port was, probably through his connection to the nobleman Rose had been arranged to marry when Jack had first met her. But why was he heading back there? Why was that port so important? He asked his prisoner that very question.
"Well, I should think it was obvious," Alex replied, surprise written all over his face. "It's the place where her parents are, and since they're wealthy merchant folk, they're sure to have some sort of reward for the safe return of their daughter. She did vanish on her wedding day, after all, so it's safe to assume that her family believes her to have been kidnapped from it."
"Oh, God," Elizabeth said, her hands reaching out to clamp onto her husband's arm. "Hastings is going to take Rose back to her parents, and as a reward for 'saving' her from pirates, he's going to ask for her hand in marriage!"
Meanwhile, Jack was seeing red once more. "That's not going to happen, Elizabeth," he said, his tone flat as his eyes narrowed to slits. "If I have to, I'll destroy every single ship in Gerry's fleet in order to get to Rose."
"Fleet? What fleet?" Alex asked, confused. "The fleet's long-since broken off, all of the ships going back to their usual sailing routes. All there's left is the Chaser, though she's fully armed and ready."
Jack slowly turned back to his prisoner. "Gerry's fleet has dispersed," he said, keeping his calm despite his anger at just now being told this new piece of information. "Why did you not mention this beforehand?" Both Elizabeth and Will placed a firm hand on his shoulders, hoping to prevent any "incidences" from happening…especially those involving Jack, his pistol, and the prisoner's head.
"Well, I was a tad bit drunk at the time, sir," Alex blurted out, hurrying to cover his mistake. "I thought I'd already told you that, given that I'd told you so much already…"
"It's alright, Jack," Elizabeth said, keeping her voice soft. "Besides, we have the information now, and with it, we can plan a rescue for Rose."
Jack took a deep breath to calm down. "Right," he said, turning away from the cell. "I'll give William the coordinates for Rose's home, and we'll leave with the evening tide." He turned towards his friend. "I hope you still have that mirror that you bought in India, Whelp, because I've got a feeling we'll be doing lots of chatting as we sail."
"Yes, we've still got that mirror," Elizabeth confirmed. "And since we've already restocked the Horizon's Flame, we're ready for a long voyage."
"Excellent," Jack said, rubbing his hands together. "Now, Alex, you make yourself comfortable. You'll be off the Pearl the moment we get my bonny wife back, but in the mean time, I need some rum if I'm going to cool my temper before we set out."
From the deck of the Chaser, I watched as we passed dozens of ships and their crews, heading for the nearest open dock. I was in a plain green dress, a black cloak, and brown leather slippers that had all been forced upon me by my captor. Apparently he refused to return me to my home in breeches, which he thought would be inappropriate for my 'reunion' with my family.
Along with the new clothes, I wore an expression that openly declared my defiance to the world. On the inside, however, I was screaming in terror. As I looked up and spotted my parents' home standing there, high on a hill above the port, I felt like a woman being led to the gallows. I would once again be wrapped up in silks, lace, and powder, the last of my freedom torn away as Captain Hastings spun lies about how he had come to return me to my worried family.
'Oh, Jack,' I thought as a tear slid down my cheek. Flashes of dark brown eyes lined with kohl filled my head and made me want to weep.
The one thing I would miss most about my days as a pirate, besides my freedom, would be my loving husband. Jack had always been so good to me, even before we realized how much we cared for one another. I would miss his smile, his stories about his adventures, and the way he waved his hands about whenever he talked. I would also miss the way that Jack's hips would sway as he walked around deck, calling out orders to the men and performing his duties as captain.
Another tear slid down my cheek, only to be stopped by a hand on my face. I turned my head to face Gerard Hastings, his eyes intense as he studied me. He was standing there in a nobleman's outfit of a blue coat trimmed with gold, white shirt, black boots and pants, and a large feathered hat. I suddenly felt as though the weight of the world were on my shoulders, and he was the one that put it there.
"Feeling sad, sweet Rose?" he asked, brushing aside my tear. "You've nothing to be sad about. Soon, you will be home, and in a few months, the two of us will be wed."
I reached up and slapped his hand away. "I refuse to marry a selfish monster like you, especially since I am already married to someone I love!" I snarled, my lips curling into a sneer.
Green eyes flashed in anger before simmering down to an eerie calm. "You will not find marriage to me all that bad, Rose," Hastings replied, tucking his thumbs into his belt. "After we leave here, I can still give you the freedom that Sparrow would have. You will have your own house to raise our children, and have many servants to command, giving you a great deal of time to do whatever you wish." He then gave me a smile, though I could see a touch of steel behind the soft look he presented.
Huffing, I turned and walked away, refusing to give him an answer. No doubt the man thought that the promise of many servants and a huge house to manage would appeal to every woman. I was not like that. Give me the sea, the Pearl, the wind in my face and hair, and Jack by my side, and I was perfectly happy. Well, perhaps one other thing could complete that portrait of happiness…
'Such as a few little Sparrows running around the deck…' I thought dreamily.
What would it be like to give Jack a son that shared his love of the sea? Or would he want a pretty little daughter to spoil and protect against suitors that would want her hand in marriage? I could just imagine the kind of father that Jack would be, as he was a very good, intelligent man. I could see him now, patiently showing our little ones what it took to keep the Black Pearl in ship-shape and telling them how important freedom was.
Just then, the Chaser gave a lurch to the side and I was forced to grab onto the nearest rail for support. A great shudder went through the entirety of the ship, and I looked up, my heart sinking down to the bottom of my feet at the sight of the dock pulling closer. The moment I set foot on solid ground, my days of freedom would be over. I would once more become a pretty display piece for my parents, and once Hastings had his way, I would become mistress of a manor I didn't want, and a mother to children who wouldn't be Jack's.
Tears began to flow down my face just as I felt a firm, strong hand on my arm. I looked up into the satisfied face of Captain Hastings as he stared down at me, a pleased smile on his lips. "It's time to go," he said. "I'm sorry to say that I must call you Miss Nelson before your parents, but you will always be fair Rose to me. Now, shall we?" He offered me his arm.
Refusing to answer him, I merely took his arm and allowed him to lead me off the ship. Once again, I appeared calm, but inside, I was screaming for my husband to come and save me from this nightmare.
AN: Rose is back home, and her parents will appear next chapter. Don't forget to review!