Her plan wasn't all that complicated. Not really. At first thought, Jessie had planned on hiding away on the Interceptor and not showing herself until Jack and Will had already set sail. But Jessie lacked the time—and ideas—to find a way on time. So she decided to give herself some more time.
If she informed the Governor of Jack's escape, he would send someone out to stop them sooner than Norrington would when he saw them on his own. They would be stalled, and it would give Jessie time to get on board the ship.
She still didn't know how to get on the ship, because, technically, she was a fugitive—She was an escaped prisoner, after all. So she couldn't really show herself without having a great plan.
But, she'd think of a way to do that later. Right now, she needed to reach the house.
-o0o-
The race for the Governor's Mansion from the jailhouse took longer than Jessie had previously thought. If she didn't get there fast, Jack and Will would reach their destination and be off before she could go with them.
And that wouldn't do at all.
If she didn't get on that ship…Jessie left the thought incomplete as she arrived in front of Governor Swann's mansion.
She had one hand raised to knock on the door when she remembered…The Governor wouldn't be there. He was in the town; fretting over his daughter and looking over the Commodore's shoulders as Norrington mapped out a course to find the missing Elizabeth…
"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!" Jessie held her hands, clenched into fists, to her sides as she jumped up and down in the same spot, cursing herself to Davy Jones' locker at her utter…stupidity.
How could she have forgotten something like that?
Suddenly, Jessie stopped jumping, and stopped screaming. She stood completely still as an idea came to her. She had thought that she'd never reach The Interceptor on time, after wasting so much of it trying to get here, but…
There was still time!
Her plan just needed to be…altered…a bit.
-o0o-
Breathing heavily and gasping for air in a complete un-lady-like way, Jessie came to a stop in front of an astonished Governor Swann. He looked so astounded, she wondered what he would do with her.
Actually, she was more worried about what Norrington would do with her. Know she knew what the expression 'if looks could kill' meant. He was trying to kill her with his eyes. Jessie stood uncomfortably and decided to address the Governor instead.
"Gov'ner." Jessie wished she hadn't been gasping when she said that, so it wouldn't have come out sounding like slang. "Governor Swann…"
Stop to breathe. Jessie did, and then figured now would be a time for a proper curtsey. But she'd run a long way here, and her legs were weak. She wobbled dangerously on her way down and almost couldn't straighten back up. "Begging your pardon, sir, but Mr. Sparrow, the pirate, has recently been…er, freed from the…confinements…"
Screw speaking proper. Jessie never was very good at talking like she was an eighteenth century girl, anyway. "Will Turner helped Jack Sparrow escape from his cell! They're on the way to steal the Dauntless now, sir!"
Better to say Dauntless rather than Interceptor. Jessie wasn't trying to stop Jack from getting out of the bay, only trying to slow him down. It would be bad for all three of them if she gave their plan away.
"Good heavens!" Governor Swann gasped; but Norrington only cast an unbelieving eye on Jessie.
"What makes you think we should take you at your word?" He demanded. "You were, as I recall, in the company of the pirate when we caught you both." He looked skeptical. "Who's to say he's not in his cell any longer?"
"How did I get out, then, Mr. Norrington?" Jessie challenged.
Norrington's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
"Commodore Norrington, are we not required to look for the best in people?" Governor Swann was taking Jessie's side. That shocked not only the girl herself, but also Norrington.
Their surprise flew over the governor's head, though. "Perhaps this girl has had a change of heart."
Norrington looked again at Jessie, who put on her best innocent face and smiled sweetly back at him.
After a moment, the Commodore turned away from Jessie with a disgusted look. But, nevertheless, he ordered his lieutenants, "Men, to the docks! Sparrow has been freed!"
The reaction was immediate; the men grabbed their weapons and started their running march down to the docks.
"Well that was easier than I thought it would be," Jessie remarked casually; deciding to follow the troops as far as the docks before going her own way.
-o0o-
"You know, I actually thought this would be a lot harder," Jessie mused to herself as she waited for the opportunity to creep out from her hiding place under the bridge.
She hadn't thought about it before, but by warning the soldiers that Jack was planning on stealing the Dauntless, they had abandoned the Interceptor.
The wonderful thing about seeing a movie before you live it is that you know about the twists and turns that are supposed to be coming. Jessie knew Jack's ultimate goal was the Interceptor, so she knew not to get on the wrong boat by mistake.
There. Apparently, when Jessie thought she saw Jack turn to ask Will just how far he would go to save Elizabeth, she had been mistaken. And she only knew that because the two men were just now under the boat that they walked slowly towards the water's edge.
"Wait for it…" Jessie resisted the urge to sprint towards the ship now, while it was empty of men waiting to arrest her (helped him or not, Norrington would be happier with her behind bars), and stared intently at the water. The boat had gone under water moments ago, and Jessie waited for Jack and Will to appear in the water soon.
The two men were dots as they climbed up, unnoticed, on the Dauntless, but Jessie recognised their figures as they advanced out of the water.
"Now." Not entirely sure why she was talking aloud to herself, Jessie made a dash for the Interceptor, floating, abandoned, in the bay a few yards away.
She reached the ship, and boarded it too, in no time at all; and once on board, standing on the deck in plain view, Jessie had a problem.
Where should she hide?
She had no idea. She was reluctant to hide below deck, or actually in one of the crates on deck. Even when she was little, and played hide-and-seek religiously, she was uncomfortable, maybe even a little paranoid, if she couldn't see the "seeker" from her hiding spot. Jessie always wanted to hide in places where she couldn't be seen, but could see; and that's what she was trying to do now.
But was there a spot like that on a ship like this?
Just as Jessie was beginning to think that the answer to that was "no", she heard voices…familiar voices.
"Let go of me, you—"
"Close your mouth, Jack. You couldn't even get us out of the bay. You're in no position to be speaking, never mind insulting the men who—"
"Neither of you should be speaking. You'll have plenty of time to converse as you waste away your days in prison."
More surprised than frightened, Jessie dropped down so she was lying on her stomach and, though not entirely hidden, was less visible to the people walking bye. And, just the way she liked it, she could raise her head and peer at the men as they marched by.
Jack and Will were in front of the group of six or seven men, their hands locked in irons behind their backs. One man held onto each of them as they shoved them along the docks. Norrington and another man…. Gillette? It was too far away for Jessie to make out his face, but Gillette seemed to be the most likely man that walked beside Norrington as they followed closely behind, bringing up the rear.
Jessie was surprised. What the heck had happened? She had had it planned out, Jack and Will would board the Dauntless, but instead of successfully taking it over and luring Norrington over there with the Interceptor, Norrington's men would already be there to….
"Idiot." Sometimes Jessie really acted like the dumb blonde her hair colour said she should be. She had planned it in her head that Norrington would slow Jack and Will down, but if she had any common sense at all, she would have been able to realise that by sending Norrington over to the Dauntless, he would be there to arrest Jack and Will as soon as they climbed aboard!
How many times would she mess up today?
Before she could punish herself any further, Jessie heard Norrington address his two prisoners at the front of the group, despite the fact he was in the rear.
"Sparrow, I was expecting some form of an escape attempt, but not one so hopeless as the stunt you pulled; and Mr. Turner, have you lost what little sense you possess? Seeking aid from a pirate is rash, Turner, too rash."
Besides a scoff from Jack as he tried to keep his pride intact, neither the pirate nor the blacksmith showed any signs that they were paying attention. That was, until the Commodore went on.
"And confiding your plans into a young girl was rather daft, don't you think? Seems as if she weren't such a loyal ally as you let yourselves believe."
Jack's eyebrows raised up high, looking more thoughtful at this bit of information then offended or hurt at being betrayed. Will looked more shocked than anything else, perhaps wondering why Jessie would do something like this.
But none of their reactions were like the one Jessie gave. Her mouth dropped open at the way Norrington put what she had done, and after her initial shock, she resisted the urge to bang her head against the deck in frustration. No, no, no, no, no! Will and Jack would never talk to her again! If they merely tolerated her before, how would they treat her now?
Her hopes crushed and heart heavy, Jessie rested her cheek on the cool wooden deck and listened as they footsteps of the small group grew more and more quiet, until she couldn't hear them at all.
-o0o-
Redemption.
If Jessie remembered any of her Language Arts vocabulary at all, she was right when she thought "redemption" was just a fancy word for…
Forgiveness.
And that's all she needed right now, was to find a way to get Jack and Will to forgive her, and like her again…or at least to pretend to like her, tolerate her mostly, as she suspected that's all they had been doing before. Especially Jack.
Except, she needed a way to talk to them first, to catch them alone, to be able to approach them. The time called for another plan, because, contrary to what Jessie had first believed, the movie was not going the way it should, and she wasn't going to be able to follow along and let things play out. She had to try to get this thing back on the right track, meaning getting Will and Jack out of Port Royal, or people's lives—real people, now, not just people in a movie—were in jeopardy. Namely Elizabeth's and, more important to Jessie, Amber's.
She needed another plan; a better plan that won't totally fail due to the dumbest mistake a smart person could make. She needed to be creative.
Or…Jessie thought, maybe she didn't need a plan, really, just a way. There didn't seem to be a difference between the two, but maybe there was. Instead of planning out her next moves, she could just find a way— nothing complicated, it just had to work—that would get Jack and Will out of jail. Instead of predicting everything….
Why not just wing it?
Jessie grinned. She wasn't a huge risk taker, normally, usually let someone else lead the way, planning her movies before doing them, but she could do this. Just make it up as she went along, that's all she would do.
That meant she had to get to her first stop…The Port Royal jailhouse.
-o0o-
"This is your fault, you realize."
"My fault? Lad, Captain Jack Sparrow doesn't make mistakes. Nothing is ever my fault…If I fail, it's only due to someone else's mistake."
"Oh, someone like me, perhaps?"
"Just remember you said it, not me…"
"The only mistake I seemed to have made was trusting you! Freeing you was the mistake."
"Then that was your miscalculation, and the blame of us being in jail now rest entirely upon your shoulders."
"I trusted you to help me save Elizabeth! She may die now, because you couldn't get us out of the bay, and all you can say is that it wasn't your fault?"
"It wasn't. What to know why? You made the mistake of trusting a pirate. Never trust a pirate, boy."
"I trusted you, that's what landed us in jail? Is that what you're saying?"
"Merely stating a fact."
"You're despicable."
"So that may be, but I prefer pirate."
Jessie's head reeled with trying to follow the conversation and search for the speakers at the same time. Thankfully, there was no guard on duty, perhaps all of the soldiers had been ordered to help ready the Interceptor for sea; as she sneaked off the ship, Norrington's men had been arriving, saying that the Commodore stilled planned to set sail today, and that the ship needed to be prepared as soon as it could.
Jessie bounded down the set of stairs that led into the jail, and couldn't see Will or Jack in any of the first few cells. They hadn't been put in the same cell as they one she and Jack had been placed it, probably due to the large, gaping hole in the wall, and more important, the bars that Will had broken.
She might never have found them, except for the yelling Will was doing—Jack was staying calm, perhaps to make Will even angrier—and she could hear them long before she could see them.
Jessie advanced into a particularly dark part of the jailhouse, and turned the corner to see Jack leaning against the wall inside a cell, looking calm and laid back, while Will paced the length of the same cell repeatedly.
Breathing a visible sigh of relief, Jessie crept forward; the men hadn't spotted her yet, so she made her footsteps quieter, and focused on being silent.
"Shut up!" Jack ordered, seeming less lazy than he had while picking on Will, and suddenly alert. He went over to put his face between the bars. "Someone's coming."
Okay, so maybe she wasn't being as silent as she thought.
"It's only me. Jessie," she said, holding her hands up as if to say she came in peace. Suddenly, Jessie was very nervous.
After a quick second, Jack's eyes found her in the dark. "Ah, the two-faced lass returns."
"No hard feelings, eh?" Deciding to take a Jack Sparrow approach, Jessie tried to act as if her helping in the capture of Will and Jack was nothing for them to be mad over.
"There would be no hard feelings," Jack agreed sarcastically. "if you had actually betrayed us."
"I'm glad you realise I did no such thing." Still trying, and probably failing, to be "Jack-ish."
Jack's mouth opened to reply, perhaps to say what he meant—because Jessie was only pretending to play along—but he was interrupted.
Will had stopped pacing when Jack had first spoken to her, and had been watching in a distracted sort of way. He came to stand beside Jack before the older man could speak and addressed Jessie carefully.
"Why?" he asked. "Why did you turn us in? Because we wouldn't allow you to come along? But surely you could not have wanted us to fail. Amber's your friend, I know."
And just like that, Jessie's couldn't-care-less attitude melted away. She had no idea how Jack did it. "It wasn't like that…I didn't…mean for you to be… arrested…." She looked at the wall, looked at the ceiling, the floor, anything but Will and Jack. "I didn't betray you, though, please believe me."
"You can't give away someone's plan when you don't know what they're planning to do." It was Jack's voice, but Jessie didn't understand what he was talking about. She turned her head to look at the captain and saw he was nodding along with his words, agreeing with himself. "No, you didn't betray us."
Jessie's eyes widened, surprised.
Unfazed, the pirate continued, "What you told the Commodore, I don't know and—"he held up a hand to shut her up before she even opened her mouth "—I could care less. What I'm more interested in is how you even knew that were planning to take the ship."
"Jack, she was th…" Will's own eyes widened as she realised that he was wrong; Jessie wasn't there when Jack told Will which ship they were commandeering.
"Care to explain yourself, lass?"
"I…umm…erm…Funny story, actually…You see, uh…uh…umm…" Jessie wished it was Amber standing here, making this up. Jessie was really, really bad at it. She blew through her lips, not looking either of the men in the eye. "…Lucky guess?"
"That was pathetic." Jack didn't even blink.
"What would you say if I told you I was psychic?"
"Mentally incompetent."
"Oh, come on!" Jessie had been trying to remain calm the entire time she'd been here, and she just couldn't do it anymore.
"You have a compass that points to whatever you want most, owe your soul to a man with an octopus head, and are afraid of an oversized squid, but you don't believe in psychics?"
Nearly panting for breath, and trembling a little from her outburst, Jessie grabbed the bars of the prison with both hands for support.
Will was standing in stunned silence, seriously doubting the girl's level of sanity; but Jack Sparrow only watched Jessie in a mixture of shock and curiosity. A smirk found its way onto his lips, and he didn't try to hide how smug he felt.
"Where is it that you come from?" he asked; "And what all do you know, exactly?"
When she caught a glimpse of the gloating twinkle in the captain's eyes, Jessie groaned inwardly. She'd lost her cool for two minutes and she had let all of that slip. She wasn't supposed to know any of that stuff…
The girl gently hit her head on the side of the stone wall. She'd messed up…again…
Things were not going well for her today.
"I'll tell you what, girl." Jack spoke before Jessie, calm again, as if none of what she had said had ever been spoken. "Get us out of here, and I may just let you come along for our little cruise."
"Jack…" Will whispered, and for a moment Jessie forgot her mistake and wondered if he seriously thought she couldn't hear him. "We can't let her…"
"Ah, I think you'll find that we can." Because Jack Sparrow was the boss, and Will Turner had to do what he wanted.
Or at least that's how Jessie assumed the pirate saw things.
"And what if I say I don't want to come with you anymore?" The words weren't true, but something about Jack had changed in the last few minutes, and Jessie wanted to know why.
"The choice is no longer yours, luv." Jack's eyes flashed. "Now get me out."
"So you can kidnap me?"
"There, there," Jack said, almost like he was comforting someone. "Don't look at it that way. It'll be an adventure."
"Jack," Will spoke quickly, taking advantage of the momentary silence to say what he needed to. "If Jessie doesn't even want to come along, why make her? Only a short time ago, you and I both agreed she shouldn't come along. Why have you changed your mind?"
"Curiosity." Jack seemed to like to say that word, enjoying how ominous it sounded rolling off his tongue. "I want to find out what this girl knows, what she's hideing."
"And what makes you think she's hideing anything?" If Will hadn't said it, Jessie would have asked it herself.
"Jack Sparrow knows." With those words of not-so-helpful explanation, Jack ended the conversation; instead, he went on to another topic of equal importance. "Get us out this jail cell, lass."
"How?" Jessie was too weak to fight, too tired to 'wing it', and just wholly exhausted; she decided to let Jack lead things for awhile—if anyone could figure this out, get the movie back on track, it would be him.
"The same way the boy did earlier, when it was you behind the bars." Jack gestured around him. "Find one of those benches."
"I saw one, next aisle over." It seemed that Will, too, had submitted to just going along with Jack.
"I'll be right back."
-o0o-
For the first time in her life, Jessie actually found something quickly.
It was a funny thing, really; normally she couldn't find anything, anywhere—mostly because she was too lazy to look very well. "You wouldn't see the snake if it bit you on the nose," her mother used to scold her countless times when Jessie would say something wasn't there, but her mother would come and search and see it immediately.
But, today, searching for a bench in an eighteenth century jailhouse to bust two good-looking men out of jail, when everything else was abnormal, it only made sense Jessie's ability to look for something was different, too. She found the bench in less than three minutes, and soon had it her hands and was carrying it back to Jack and Will.
In a way, Jessie was relieved that she had found the bench soon. It meant that she didn't have time to think about what had just happened; on what she had said and what Jack thought she knew; all the things going wrong. She didn't have time to think about any of it, and she was actually very grateful. She was too tired to keep trying. She needed a break.
So she would just do what Jack Sparrow wanted her to do, until things got smoothed out and she had some time to think.
-o0o-
"How do I do this, Will?" Jessie asked as soon as she saw the blacksmith and the pirate waiting for her in their cell. She hoisted the bench, surprisingly easy to lift, and balanced against her hip and the stone wall until she knew what to do. "Do I have to apply much pressure?"
"No." Will stepped forward and stood opposite Jessie, instructing her from behind the bars. "The bench is made of lightweight wood. It shouldn't be too difficult for you to position it."
Jack stood back in the cell, watching with dark brown eyes, staying silent as Will spoke to Jessie: "Put that end of the bench here, between these two bars. Fine, fine, that'll do. Now, get a good hold on the other end, put your hand there, and the other here. Perfect."
"I thought you said it wasn't heavy," Jessie muttered on her breath, gritting her teeth to keep the bench held still the way Will wanted it to be. She didn't work out, and her upper body strength, her arm muscles, were non-existent. She could barely do a single push-up, how would she be able to break iron bars?
"You have the bench holding the bars as well," Will explained. "It's going to get a little heavier, but if you push hard one time, just once, the pressure will give way and you'll be able to get the bars to lift free."
"You made this look so easy…You did it in, like, two seconds. It's took me five minutes to get it this way." After she was done ranting under breath, she looked back up at Will, who had been waiting patiently for her to tell him she was ready to move on. "Now what?"
"Tighten your grip." He gestured to where she held it. "This may be harder than you or I thought." He ran a hand through his dark hair. "A young girl should not be doing this," he mumbled.
"I'd like to get out of here before the night's over." Jack was out of patience.
"Right," Will said. He finished his instructions to Jessie quickly. "Lean down on the bench with all your weight. You're smaller than I am, so you may come off the ground a minute. Just keep pushing down. The bars will lift free."
Jessie did. She pushed hard, using all her weight to push the bench downward. There was a split second, when she was standing on her tiptoes, that she thought the bench would crack before the bars broke. But the wooden piece of furniture held together, and after a moment more of applying pressure, the bars split with an awful sound.
"Perfect," Jack exclaimed, not praising Jessie, just expressing the fact he was able to get out. He strode past Will and scrambled out of the cell first. Jessie wondered if it was hard for the pirate captain to be behind bars.
Jack had already gone up the steps, not seeing any need to wait for them, so Jessie lagged behind to walk with Will.
"You did good… Jessie," the blacksmith said awkwardly, uncomfortable complimenting her but too polite to leave her accomplishment uncommented. He stood over her, making the already short Jessie feel even shorter, and asked her quietly. "But are you sure you want to come along? It may get a little dangerous."
"I know." Jessie walked ahead of Will when he stepped aside to let her pass. Slowly, the two of them followed after Jack. "But I don't think Jack would let me not come, now that he thinks I'm important." She scoffed at the irony, and felt an inkling of thankfulness when Will's proper upbringing kept him from asking her if she really did know anything.
"Just be careful on this trip, all right?" In the short silence that followed, with the only sound being their footsteps hitting the stone as they climbed the stairs, Jessie could see he really was worried about her. "Jack and I have our own business to deal with, and we won't be there to protect you."
Whether she was flattered or offended on Will questioning her ability to hold her own, Jessie wasn't sure. She wasn't very in touch with her feelings right now. And, besides that, she didn't even know if she could defend herself in battle or not. Probably not.
"It's okay, Will. I need to come along, anyway," she spoke quietly, wondering why Jack wasn't yelling at them to catch up. "You're focused on saving Elizabeth. Jack, well…"; she didn't want to give Jack's plans away, so Jessie left the sentence unfinished. "Someone needs to make saving Amber their most important goal."
"While I'm still young, you sods!" Jack yelled down from outside the building, not loud enough for anyone to hear unless they stood close, but loud enough for Jessie and Will to speed up.
As terrible as her outburst had been, when she had spilled all she knew to Jack, Jessie was surprisingly grateful that she had done so. She was still stuck in the past, but she was stuck in the past with people she knew, people she trusted. A few hours ago she had been certain she would be left behind, and that terrified her. She needed to be able to come along...because she had nowhere else to go.
-o0o-
If had been a little past three o'clock in the afternoon when Jack and Will had stolen the Interceptor in the movie, the minor setback of being arrested, Jessie figured, would place them at six thirty.
Either way, it was still light outside, for the sun didn't sink into the Caribbean sea until late into the night, and Jack Sparrow wasted no time in telling Will and, more namely, Jessie, just how useless they were to his purpose of getting out of the bay.
"Leave the me, mates," he said with a wink. "Captain Jack'll have us outta the bay 'fore any one of Commodore's men blink eye in our direction."
"And our plan?" Will asked a little suspiciously. "In case you'd forgotten, your last endeavor hardly gots us either one off land."
"How can we help, Jack?" Jessie interrupted before another argument on who was to blame could break out.
"Ah, yes…about that." Jack wasn't one to waste words, so his hesitancy didn't last for but a moment. "Lass, have you ever been on board a ship as anything but a passenger?" His eyes narrowed suspiciously, already knowing. "Can you do anything, anything at all?"
Jessie smacked her lips together. She'd never been on a ship that didn't have a motor. She didn't even know the terms of the different parts of sailing and ships, let alone how to work with them. And she knew better to say otherwise, because Jack's glare told he was certain she could not help. And even if that was just a bluff, and he really knew nothing of her skills, he would find out soon.
"…No. I can't help until somebody teaches me something." She licked her lips nervously.
"No time for that." Jack dismissed her with the short, clipped sentence. "You there, Will, you've sailed upon a ship before, have you or have you not?"
Will told him that he had, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief Jessie might have only imagined. But she was certain he was thinking that at least someone could help him reach Tortuga.
With the matter of skills quickly and, almost, pointlessly talked about and finished, Jack moved on; anyone could see from his jerky movements that he was in a hurry, fluttering about like the birds that shared his name. He was not a stupid man, and even as they walked towards the dock, he and Jessie and Will, he was forming a plan "B". Jessie could see the wheels turning in his eyes, solving all the problems, because she was aware of them too.
Norrington had long ago set sail, just like he had been planning, as if capturing a pirate and a blacksmith with the aid of an annoying you girl was "all in a day's work." The problem with Norrington's departure was that he had taken the ship he's originally been preparing to take…the Interceptor. Jack and Will had not been able to "commandeer" the ship before it was time to leave, and so Norrington had proceeded as usual.
Jack was unfazed in that detail, though. He didn't need the suggestion resting on Jessie's tongue, because he had already had the same thought himself.
"That ship." He nodded in the direction of the Dauntless. If he was distressed at not being able to sail out on the Interceptor, he did not show it. The Dauntless may not be the as fast the latter ship, but she was a fine ship nonetheless. Powerful. Sturdy. The pride of the Royal Navy. She would do, even if she wouldn't be as fast as the pirate would have liked.
"That ship?" Will echoed. "We're going to steal that ship?"
"Commandeer," Jack pointed out smartly. "We're going to commandeer that ship. Nautical term." Jessie watched, amazed that the dialogue was spoken just like it should've, as if none of the previous mistakes had been made.
"One question about your business, boy, or there's no use going." One thing, Jessie noticed, that did change was that, although the conversation rolled along normally, their actions did not. Jack spoke to Will over his shoulder as he motioned both the younger man and her to follow him along the docks. He was well aware of the time, and was unsurprisingly good at the simple art of multi-tasking—talking as he walked.
"This girl," he continued. "How far are you willing to go to save her?" Jack stopped for a quick second, looking over his over interestedly at Will, an inquiring look upon his fine features.
"I'd die for her." The response was confident, completely sure.
"Oh, good. No worries then." And short pause as he thought, then he was walking again. "And you,"—gesturing back at Jessie—"would you die to save your friend?"
Jessie's eyes widened. "Well…I'm not exactly sure I'd….you know…die for…" She trailed off at the twinkling mischief in the pirate's eye.
"Selfish bitch." Jack didn't care to 'mind his tongue' around the 'children' or the 'women', whichever he chose to see Jessie as. Probably the former, annoying, persistent. Along with his words, he grinned wickedly, showing his gold teeth. The smile widened at the obvious shock in Will's posture, his stiffened back at the captain's language used so lightly, for no good reason.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, eh?" Jack said, still grinning, not at all worried about the upcoming 'adventure' and the possible risking of their lives.
-o0o-
There was no hiding under a rowboat this time. It was getting a little late outside, and not many people were out. Most of the officers were off with Norrington to look for Elizabeth, and what small number of naval officers left here were patrolling other parts of the fort.
To sum it up, it was actually quite simple to get aboard the Dauntless. Jack Sparrow was calm, sure, as he just sauntered up the short ramp and stood at the wheel.
"Come along, now," he said mockingly. Jessie and Will exchanged a quick glance of surprise at how easy that had been, just walking right into the open, no sneaking, no nothing, before joining him on the deck of the ship.
Getting it ready to make sail went by quickly; it took a few minutes, Jack giving orders and Will acting them out. The pirate fought of the laziness in him too get it moving along faster, when Will was busy preparing something else, or when the blacksmith's didn't know how to do certain things.
All of it, the orders, the actions, every last bit of it, was over Jessie's head, and even if had not been for Jack's barked command—"Stand here. Don't move, don't cause trouble. Most importantly, don't get in my way."—she probably would've have stood off to the side, as she was now, watching in awe at how effortlessly the men did what needed to be done.
Finally, Jack deemed the boat ready to make sail, and Will made a move to take the wheel.
"Ah, ah, ah." Scoldingly, like a father would do to child still learning. But when Jack came to stand beside Will, pushing against his chest to get him to step back, the pirate captain looked like anything but a patient father. "I'm the Captain. I get to work the helm." Almost laughing, talking in a tone that Jessie could easy see saying, "I'm the best. I'm in charge. I get to drive."
As if the captain could read Jessie's mind, he flashed an arrogant grin at Will. "Savvy?"
Will shrugged indifferently, letting Jack have his way.
The captain grinned gleefully, a little too excited for a man of his age. He set the boat's course, and with just a little luck, all three companions had successfully commandeered a ship of the fleet. From his spot at the wheel, Jack Sparrow looked out at the open sea.
"Now, we got her out of the bay and on 'er way," he said approvingly, before his brow furrowed in momentary confusion. His genuine perplexion could probably be why his words were so badly slurred when he next spoke.
"Y'know that wa'nt supposed teh rhyme, right?"