Soaring Scarlet: Chapter Six

"That dirty rotten scurvy son of a bitch." Jack spat furiously through tightly clenched teeth. "Yes! That is a problem!" He told Bretta, smashing the half-empty rum bottle down of the floor. The shards of glass flew every which way, and he regretted the action momentarily until he realized that Bretta's bare feet hadn't been cut by the explosion.

"Why?" She asked, looking only mildly interested at his violent outburst. She had replaced her shirt, much to Jack's disgust. She really was a pretty little thing, and although he hadn't bothered acknowledged it at the time, she had lovely skin. She was now sitting in the chair at his desk, looking completely relaxed; more relaxed than he'd seen her so far. Apparently the expulsion of such a tremendous secret had calming effects.

"My father worked with her." He muttered, almost under his breath. He loved his father as a son should, but for God's sake, he'd made some bad decisions.

"Oh, oh!" Bretta said, suddenly alert and waving her hands, and he knew she understood why he was so angry. "Your father? That was him? My mother was sleeping with him."

"I know." Jack gave her a look that betrayed his surprise at the revelation. Odd that the girl would know of her mother's lover. "How d'you?"

"How do I know? She told me about it." Bretta laughed softly and shook a stray strand of hair from her face. "Your father was an extremely handsome man."

"He was married." Jack said quietly, the pain of hearing his parents fight constantly in his voice against his will. His mother refused to leave him until the day she died, but it ate her up inside that she didn't seem to be enough for the man she loved. "My mother was a wonderful woman."

"Sorry, Captain Sparrow." Bretta told him kindly. "Men get like that sometimes."

Jack blew out a sigh of airy frustration at bygone events. He knew all about how men got. He was a man. "It's all in the past now, no sense in rehashing, I suppose. How old were you when you got that tattoo?"

"Ten years old." Bretta said, with a confident incline of her head. "Our parents worked on the map for many years before then. They felt that they needed a place to put the completed copy that would remain a secret. So they asked me. I agreed. I would've done anything for my mother."

"Where's your mother now?" Jack asked, curious. He considered this an incredible coincidence that out of the clear blue sky, he would meet the daughter of the woman who had destroyed his parents. He held no grudge, however, for it wasn't Bretta's fault that his father was a total idiot.

Bretta paused for a moment, then took a deep breath as if mentally preparing herself. "She's dead. My father killed her just after I turned thirteen."

"Oh, Bretta love, I'm sorry. That's terrible." Jack said, really meaning it. The death of a parent was bad enough without one hurting the other intentionally. "Who's yer father?" He wasn't sure why he was asking; it didn't really matter. He just found himself curious about this girl and her history, since it was so obviously intertwined with his.

Bretta grinned suddenly, a look of dawning comprehension crossed with amusement on her face. "You mean you haven't realized?"

"No." Jack said slowly, unsure of how he would've known who her father was. As much as he occasionally liked to pretend, he wasn't clairvoyant. "Should I?"

"Well, you just met him, Captain, I would've thought for sure you would have worked it out." She leaned back a bit farther in her chair, clearly pleased as punch with herself.

"Oh, the man at the bar, right, love? That's why he was trying to kill you." Jack said, thinking that he was catching on. If he'd killed her mother, it would've made sense that he'd want to kill her too. He was so damn smart, he sometimes surprised himself.

"No." Bretta said, giving him a funny, vaguely condescending look. "He wanted to kill me, because I killed his dog a year ago. The damn thing was about to bite one of my hands off, so I shot it. He's an unforgiving man… eye for an eye sort of thing."

"Oh." Jack was a little confused. More than a little confused. This whole ugly day had been one enormous puzzle. He had many questions, mostly concerning how Connaught had found him, and how his crew had entered the Pearl without anyone noticing. Probably no one was in the crow's nest again, just like usual. The problem was the work ethic of his crew. If only he was one that keelhauled people for messing about… They'd soon learn. "Who's it then?"

"Why is Captain Robert Connaught of the Bloody Temptation so interested in the map to Inis Foghlaí Mara?" Bretta asked him with a sly grin.

"No!" Jack said, his eyes going wide at her knowledge of the man. "That's ridiculous!"

"Not ridiculous." Bretta shook her head at him in what seemed like impatience now. "Improbable, yes. Impossible, no."

Jack got up from the bed, prowling the room in restlessness, watching her the entire time. "Connaught's your father?" He had a hard time believing that. He'd known Connaught for many years, and he'd given no sign that he had a family of any kind (not that he was a family sort of man). However, Bretta's mother being murdered by her husband made all sorts of sense now.

"Yes." Bretta told him, locking gazes with him. He believed her now. Just as he'd known that she had lied about her name the first time he asked, he knew now that she wasn't lying about this.

"Why didn't he recognize you?" He figured it was a good question. Fathers tend to recognize their children, regardless of the state of the relationship.

Bretta shrugged. "It's been years. The last time he saw me, I was eight years old, at the oldest. When he killed my mother, I was hiding behind a stack of crates. He didn't see me then, otherwise he would've killed me too."

There was a double knock on the cabin door, interrupting their conversation. Jack pulled it open to reveal his first mate, Gibbs standing there, obviously uncomfortable at the intrusion, wringing his hat in his hands. "Cap'n, what should the crew be doin, if'n ye don't mind me askin'?" He said, squinting into the dimness of the cabin.

"Good question, sah." Jack said, gesturing for Bretta to leave the cabin. She did, and Jack followed, watching her brown hair sway. Turning back to Mr. Gibbs, he grinned, a little bit like a lunatic, he knew. "Follow them."

'But Cap'n, they said they'd kill Ana if we follered." Mr. Gibbs said, scratching his head in confusion.

Jack was still grinning. "Then we'll do it real quiet like."

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A/N: Thank you to all of my reviewers. I didn't keep up on thanking people individually, and now I've forgotten who I've talked to. So thank you, and as an apology, you all get a weekend pass to The Mounted Animal Nature Trail. You'll love it. :-P

Abby