Chapter 13: Nothing New
I found myself wrong again
Staring out my window
Wondering what it is I should have said
Oh I can only be myself
I'm sorry that's hell for you
There was nothing to do now, nowhere but here to hide, beneath the warmth of a woven quilt at the window seat of her cabin. They had taken off on the open water hours past, drifting in exile, squandering slowly into oblivion. She had only hoped that she could have spent the day out on deck, helping the crew, applying the necessary feminine touch to the work load and proving herself as fit as any of them, but she couldn't face him after all. The night before had proven to be a difficult mental process to shake, all of the words exchanged, the looks, two slaps, his hold on her, the tension of his growing need for her sexually, the one she knew was only rising at the body of a female and not for her personally. Jack Sparrow couldn't like her anymore than he had to, he couldn't match her feelings for him, however shadowed by disgust. And because of this, she remained curled against the window, the sweet burn of the quilt's aging scent raising a curiosity in her, but never arriving at much more than that.
Elizabeth watched as the waves curled down below the hull of the ship, a grey tint to the glass doing little to provide her with the actual hue of the sun and sky, but she knew enough from memory to imagine it so. There were a few moments of thought and reflection before a knock on wood stirred her from place to glance back at the doorway of the room. There was a shadow outside of the window, a swaggering, waving shadow at that. She didn't get up; instead she rested her head back against the cushioned edge of the wall and pulled the blanket closer to her nose. Another swift knock, a tapping boot, and the blanket made its way over her head completely, drowning out the light and paying little attention to the sound of him. Go away, Jack. Just go away from me…
And he did only seconds later, dropping something against the deck outside of the door, and taking off in a saunter. When she was certain he was gone, she left for the door, checking it twice, a third time, and the creaking it open to reveal a pair of boots, her boots. I thought I lost them at the tavern, she reflected with a smile, he found them. It didn't make her any happier with him, but did remove some guilt on her own heart as she slipped them inside of the door again, locked it, and returned to her thinking.
From where Jack stood at the helm he could only slightly make out the space between the side rail and her doorway, but in the gleam of the present, falling daylight, he saw that they were gone. The boots had found their owner again, their miserably dramatic owner at that. But he accepted his good dead, turning back out to the waves, the skies, the endless possibility stretching before him. He guessed Barbossa would come trolling out any moment, giving him useless instruction, purpose, point blanking for the journey, and that was fine enough. Because he had the wheel, the one place he thought he'd be unable to rise to on this morning. The drink had only lingered so long beyond the actual pain this time, even rum couldn't be used as antidote against Elizabeth Swann anymore. And that scared him more than the world itself.
I found myself wrong again
Staring out my window
Wondering what it is I should have said
Oh I can only be myself
I'm sorry that's hell for you
Looking through his worldy porthole upon his crystal palace, the sanctuary where the heavens meet the liquid earth, he thought about everything he'd said to her, all the wrong things of course. Practically cursing her marriage, idiot. Laughing at her obvious pain, git. And leaving her in a whirlwind of torment, pirate. And now, that subjective title seemed to do him no good, only worsen the situation. Being a pirate, how it had ruined anything and everything they'd ever been. If it wasn't him playing the rouge, it was her, in which case he would always return with something worse. The night prior was no different; it was the epitome in fact. The closest he had yet gotten to telling her the truth, all the things he should have said, all the trinkets of pleasure he meant to leave with her.
Jack didn't know if Elizabeth would ever leave that cabin again, at least not until they hit land, a soft place to run. All of the evils of the world would be at her disposal then, giving her the room she needed to be the person she was, the person he frankly adored beyond all aspects of reality, the young woman who'd blamed him for being a bandit one minute and then turned around and shot him out in the dark with her shady capabilities. God help me if I don't see er' face again soon. I need t' see that face.
Lyrics by: Ashlee Simpson