2 - Marooned again
"What would they do to us?" Asked Elizabeth when the crew left them alone in the brig of the Interceptor.
"If I know Barbossa, and I think I do, he will leave us on some empty Island so to condemn us to death while he will follow the Pearl to get it back before doing the damn ritual." Jack answered honestly to her, knowing that there was no point in lying to spar her feelings, since she will find out the truth soon enough.
"How can they catch up? Wasn't the Pearl the fastest ship in the Caribbean?"
"It is, but the men on boards are only human, they have needs, while that on the Interceptor, that is almost as fast, are undead and have no needs at all but that to follow the Pearl." He looked out from the little porthole, trying to understand where they were going. "What I can't seem to understand is how they can find the sea lane."
After that both stayed in silence, knowing that there was absolutely nothing that they could do to help their friends or themselves.
"Well, Captain Sparrow, Lady Swann, we reached your final stop." Barbossa said, coming down with Pintel and Ragetti.
"Go on, Poppet, go! Walk the plank!" Pintel laughed at the lady while some of the men of the crew pushed her forward on the plank with their sword.
"It does seem a shame to lose something so fine, don't it lads?" Barbossa smirked at her while all around aye come from the pirates. "So, I'll be having that dress back before you go." The men chuckled while Elizabeth took it off, a disgusted look on her face.
"It goes with your black heart." She bravely said while throwing it at Barbossa. He ignored her and pressed the dress on his face, sniffing it.
"Ooh, it's still warm!" He threw it to the crew and Jack thought that it was a shame that it was wasted like that on people that could not feel warm or the smell of a woman.
Elizabeth walked down the plank again while the pirates incited her to jump. She turned around looking back at him one last time. She was afraid that they won't let him go with her and he could understand her well. He gave her a little smirk, trying to reassure her, but he wasn't sure if she saw it because one of the pirates stomped on the plank making her fall.
The whole crew laughed and he laughed with them.
The men pushed him toward the plank, he turned around and tried to see if he could come up with a plan. He recognized that damn Island.
"I'd really rather hoped we were past all this." Jack said to Barbossa that put an arm around him and smirked.
"Jack… Jack. Did ya not notice? That be the same little island that we made you Governor of on our last little trip." He pointed the Island to him and he made a show of watching it.
"I did notice."
"Perhaps you'll be able to conjure up another miraculous escape…but I doubt it." He unsheathed his sword and brandished it at Jack's throat. "Off you go."
"Last time, you left me a pistol with one shot." He needed the pistol. He had to hope to be able to escape the Island again and what better and ironic revenge then using the one shot Barbossa left him with, not one but two times, to kill him?
"By the powers, you're right. Where be Jack's pistol? Bring it forward." Barbossa sheathed the sword and took his belongings.
"Seeing as there's two of us, a gentleman…would give us a pair of pistols." He tried it, even knowing that Barbossa wouldn't do it.
"It'll be one pistol as before, and you can be the gentleman and shoot the lady and starve to death yourself." The Captain said before throwing his belongings into the sea. That he didn't expect. Without too much thoughts about his bound hands he jumped behind them, he could swim very well even in that condition.
He reached his sword, compass and pistol and then started to swim toward the spit of land, easily catching up with Elizabeth.
He freed his hand and turned around, looking again at a ship sailing away without him.
"That's the second time I've had to watch that man sail away with one of me ships." He didn't waste time, he started to search for the place where the rum-runners hid the rum, all the while listening to Elizabeth blab about things she knew nothing about.
"But you were marooned on this island before, weren't you? So, we can escape in the same way you did then."
"To what point and purpose, young Missy?" He turned toward her. He was angry, not at her, but at the situation. "They will take the Black Pearl back and go do their damn ritual, and unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice – unlikely - young Mr. Turner and the whole crew will be dead long before you can reach them."
"But you're Captain Jack Sparrow." He tried to shut her blabbing out while he tried to remember where it was the rum. "You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company. You sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot. Are you the pirate I've read about or not?" She stopped him and looked him in the eyes. He was a little surprised that she read about him, but still that wouldn't let them escape their fate. "How did you escape last time?"
He licked his lips, she was beautiful, then he pushed her back and decided that the truth was the only way to let her see how fucked they were.
"Last time… I was here a grand total of three days, all right? Last time," He opened the secret cellar. "... the rum-runners used this island as a cache." He went down into the cellar and took some bottles. "Came by, and I was able to barter a passage off. From the looks of things, they've long been out of business. Probably…have your bloody friend Norrington to thank for that." He climbed out. She seemed angry with him because his escape wasn't as awesome as she thought.
"So that's it then? That's the secret grand adventure of the infamous Jack Sparrow?" He wanted to correct her, but he let it go because she would probably bite his head off, and while he liked a little bit of pain in his life, that wasn't the kind he was thinking about. "You spent three days lying on a beach, drinking rum?"
"Welcome to the Caribbean, luv." He left her with a bottle and took a swing from his. He will need it.
He started to gather some dry wood to build a fire to warm them when the sun would go down.
Elizabeth came to him sometime later, a contrite expression on her angelic face.
"I'm sorry for attacking you like that. You are right, we can't do much while on this island, so why not to drink and have fun for this night?" She asked him, uncorking her bottle and taking a tiny sip.
Jack looked at her a little skeptical, he could see that she had something in mind, she was very much like him, maybe even a little too much for his peace of mind, but in the end, he decided that he didn't care. Whatever she wanted from him she could probably take it anyway.
"I think that you have a good brain on you, 'Lizbeth." He smirked and took another big gulp from his bottle. "And at what should we drink?"
"At the Caribbean." She hit his bottle with hers. "Drink up me 'earties yo ho." She singed in a whisper with a little smile.
"What was that?" Jack asked liking her voice.
"It's a sea shanty that my mother thought me when I was little." She blushed a little while answering. "My father never understood my curiosity for pirates, but my mother did."
"Can you teach it to me? It seems a lovely one." Jack asked her, wanting to hear her sing again.
"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me 'earties yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot,
Drink up, me 'earties yo ho."
He liked the song, but he was sure that was partially because of her voice. Elizabeth taught him all the stanzas and then they sang it together, dancing and running around the fire.
Jack was a lot drunk when he finally could remember every word of the song right.
"We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up, me 'earties yo ho. Yo ho yo ho, a pirate's life for me." They sang together even after the sun disappeared behind the horizon.
"I love this song!" He screamed while Elizabeth laughed. He took her arms and they spun around, laughing and singing. "Really bad eggs! Ooh!" He fell on the sand.
He was drunker than he thought, but it really didn't matter, he was having fun. He took her arm and pulled her down with him, while she laughed. "When I get the Pearl back, I'm gonna teach it to the whole crew, and we'll sing it all the time!" He was deadly serious; every man of his crew should know the song.
"And you'll be positively the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main." Elizabeth said with a tone that was a little bit sarcastic and a little bit serious. She got too near him, his eyes started to see double, so he got back a little trying to reunite the two Lizzie he was seeing.
"Not just the Spanish Main, luv." He squeezed his eyes, trying not to let her become two again. "The entire ocean. The entire wo'ld." He pointed to the sea, trying to let her understand his dream. "Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know." He wanted to tell her, he wanted to explain to her why the Pearl was so important to him. "It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails that's what a ship needs but what a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is…is freedom." He could feel his heart beating a little faster while he thought about the freedom that the Black Pearl gave him for those short years he sailed on it.
Jack looked at Elizabeth and saw that she was impressed by his speech.
She looked him in the eyes and gave him a little smile before pushing her lips on his. They were so soft and tasted of the rum she was drinking. He was so stupefied by the happenings that he recoiled back and almost instantly regretted it. He was drunk, but he knew that the young lass believe herself in love with the whelp. He wanted another taste if it was to be the only taste he could get of this goddess. Jack kissed her a little less chastely and she kissed him back. He put one of his hand in her hair, enthralled by their softness, the other hand was needed to him to keep his balance and not fall.
She stopped the kiss, needing to breath. They remained motionless for some seconds, only looking the other in the eyes, then Elizabeth traced the profile of his nose and his lips with her thumb. The innocent act making him tremble a little. Never he had been treated like this, like he was precious someway.
Jack saw the exact moment when Elizabeth remembered where she was and with whom. She still smiled at him, but her eyes became sad.
He hugged her to him, letting her head rest on his shoulder.
"Jack, it must be really terrible for you to be trapped on this island." Her voice was so sad. He needed to lift her mood a little. He liked their banter, maybe a little flirting would help, and maybe she would kiss him again. It was a win/win situation.
"Oh, yes." He tried to smirk at her, but he wasn't sure that the effect was right because he couldn't feel his face anymore for the amount of rum he had. "But the company is infinitely better than last time, I think. The scenery has definitely improved." He pulled her nearer his chest.
"Mr. Sparrow, I'm not entirely sure that I've had enough rum to allow that kind of talk." She was smirking back at him and in that second he had a vision of her.
She wore trouser and shirt of fine material, she had a black jacket and her hair where tied so to not get in front of her eyes. She had a beautiful sword sheathed at her belt and she was sailing the Black Pearl with a huge smile on her face.
The vision disappeared as it came. And he remembered that he wanted her to laugh.
"I know exactly what you mean, love." He curled his mustaches and she smiled amused. Jackpot.
"To freedom." He looked at her, and then at the bottle from which she had drunk all the evening.
"To the Black Pearl." He cheered back hitting her bottle before taking a big drink.
He gulped down and gulped down and then all became black.