"Maria!" Jack called from his place on the deck of the Pearl. He scanned the deck, and then turned his eyes upwards to the crow's nest and rigging. Night had fallen upon the sea, making it difficult for Jack to see anything clearly. Mariana heard his call, and sighed, wishing he'd use her full name, even though she had already resigned herself to being called Maria for the duration of her stay on the ship.
"I'm up here!" she called from the foremost sail.
"Come down, lass. Time to get some rest!" Jack called back in her direction. Maria nodded and looked around, looking for the quickest way down. She saw a rope and grinned, reaching out for it. "But not that way Ma-" Jack shouted as Maria grabbed the rope and jumped off the sail, sliding down towards him. She landed right in front of the captain with a small thud, looking very pleased with herself. "Aye, an' no more of that showing off tonight, lass," Jack said, smiling himself as he led her down into the great cabins.
Once inside, she took a few moments to allow her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room, and found it to be larger than she imagined, and highly decorated. Jack led her to the back of the room, where another door was. He opened the door, revealing another private room, smaller than the first, but still much better than Maria had expected on the ship.
"These will be your quarters," Jack beamed as Maria looked around. "No-one will bother you in here, so there's no fear of that."
"Thank you," Maria said, smiling gratefully.
"Just so you know, luv, I left something so that your parents'll know you're with me. They'll understand, so you needn't worry about them." Jack then hovered by the door for a few moments, not knowing what else to do with the child that he had brought into his care. He smiled once more and turned to go, but stopped when Maria said, "Jack, can I ask you about something?"
"What?" he asked, sounding a little suspicious.
"How long have you been planning this for?"
"Planning what, luv?"
"All of this. Coming back to Port Royale, taking me and sailing off before I even had a chance to refuse."
"Planned? No, this was all on impulse. What makes you think otherwise?" Jack asked.
"Just wondering," Maria said innocently. "It's just that someone told me you'd been dropping into Port Royale every once in a while for quite some time now. I just wondered if you'd been doing that in preparation for this."
"Not exactly," Jack said, avoiding giving a straight answer. Mariana raised her eyebrows, asking him what exactly he had been doing. "Well, kind of," Jack said, uneasily.
Odd, Maria thought, He's never seemed awkward before.
"If you must know," Jack continued at last, "I was popping in to see you. To see how you were, how you were getting on."
"But how did you even know I existed?" Maria pressed, now more confused than before.
"I'm a friend of your parents, luv. I already told you that. They didn't really want me around after a while for certain…reasons. But I've always been watching you, looking over you every now and again, just to make sure you were alright," he said uncomfortably, as though admitting that he cared for her made him embarrassed.
"Jack, I remember you, from when I was a little girl. As I went to sleep, I used to see a man watching me from the window. But as I got older, I realised that I must have been dreaming. And eventually, you stopped coming," Maria admitted, those midnight memories suddenly making sense.
"I never stopped coming, luv. Never. I just came later when you started staying awake after your parents said goodnight," Jack explained, his genuine feelings of care for Mariana showing. She wondered why this pirate could care about her so much, when he had never even really met her until that day, but decided not to press that matter. Instead, she just nodded.
"But Jack," she began after a few moments silence. "Why didn't my parents want you around after a while? Why did they try to stop you from coming? And why wasn't I ever allowed near the sea?"
"That I can't tell you," Jack said quickly, edging towards the door.
"But Jack-" Maria began to protest, but was cut short.
"Goodnight, Maria," and he closed the door before she could say anything else.
Mariana sighed and stood, pacing over to the small window. Outside, the moon lit the seemingly infinite sea, casting a pale light across her face. She looked out across the ocean, wondering how many things had been hidden from her during her young life, and why Jack was so unwilling to share what he knew. She looked away from the window, surveying her room. Seeing a closet, she went over, and opened the doors. Inside, she found a nightdress, spare shirts and one red dress. Apparently, this trip had not been entirely unplanned. Quietly, Maria slipped out of the loose shirt and breeches, and put on the light nightdress. She smiled as she spotted a hairbrush lying on top of the one set of drawers in the room, and brushed her tangled hair through. At last, she settled down into her bed, which she found to be pleasantly comfortable, and lay down, finally drifting off to sleep with many questions in her mind.