Note: This chapter does contain reference to both the Creek and Calusa tribes of historical Florida, as well as the assumption of rape (details excluded). As far as the tribes go, I've done my research as a good little Cherokee girl lol, and hope that it suits well in enough. The Calusa were a rather feared southern tribe, very independent and they didn't play well with others for the most part, so that is the inspiration here. The names given are genuine Creek/Calusa names as far as I know, and the references will continue as the story moves along, more Native American stuff to come. I hope not to offend anyone by the details of Jack's past, or what's to come, certainly it isn't my intention.

But on a lighter note, I hope you enjoy the chapter, it was definetely a fun one to write. :) And a Thank you and welcome, to Laia Moon for her addition of my story to her favorites. I appreciate it, hope I continue to write well for you!

Chapter 14: Concerning A Past

Having seen the final moments of the day pass by with little more than a streak of orange across a purple sky, Elizabeth decided that that hiding away was no longer an option, that she needed food, she needed to stretch her legs. After finding a fresh shirt and grey pants, she chose to leave her hair in the wild mess it was naturally in a state of, and only pinch her cheeks for a strawberry glow that would assure the crew of her good health. Bare feet were becoming rather a signature in her appearance and again she decided to venture to the kitchen below wearing nothing but her own tired soles.

On the deck there was commotion, lines being shrunken and tied for what seemed to be a night of expected squalls, a few familiar faces attending to these matters, some spread out in lounge form as they broke from a day of work, and Barbossa high above and across, manning the helm as if he had again stolen the lead from Jack. And again she thought of him, not wanting to, but unable to manage it. He wasn't on the deck anywhere, so she assumed him to be in his cabin, fidgeting with maps, gadgets, bottles, the way he always was. This wasn't important to her though, the whereabouts of Jack Sparrow did not concern the hunger rattling against her insides, and so she continued walking towards the galley entrance. She took two flights of steps downward, winding in and out of barrels, nets, crates and livestock to make her way into the kitchen, a rotten stench leading the way. It always smelled terrible, it's distance from open air a minor problem in scheme of cleanliness, but again, she didn't seem to care.

By the time her bare toes came into contact with the wet underground of the ship's hull, she noticed a few scattered lanterns still flickering from the night before, lighting her path to the same broad table that had been there on her last venture. Upon it were leftovers of bread, fruit, some sort of meat, nearly spoilt with the contagious stillness of the corner. But there was no choice, she had to eat, so finding an iron plate she loaded it up with what she could, planning on taking it back up to her room before anyone questioned her absence all day, or before a certain someone found her out of her confined space. Yet no sooner had she turned to go, had a pair of eyes glowered out of the faint light, and a voice broken in to greet her.

"Lizbeth', come t' eat finally, eh?"

"Y-yes, I am starving," she smiled politely, taking a grape into her mouth as Gibbs sat down in a chair beside her. He was handsome for his age in this light, a character of a man in his ways, a strange sort of confidentiality in his form. This is what Jack sees in his friendship, she thought with a grin, taking a seat across from him as they both began to satisfy their hunger. His hands were dirty with the pressure of a full day's work on the rigging, his brow coarse with sweat, and his shirt clinging to him in desperation of a bath, but still she favored his company above any others now. "Believed ye t' be lost in illness, lass. Not but a stitch o' a sound come from yer cabin today…"

"Oh, well…" She attempted before being sorely interrupted with a kind reassurance, "Yet that's t' be expect'd after an evening spent wit' Jack. Rum t' be ad' eh?" He chuckled, downing a full glass of the substance himself while she joined him, "Not t' worry though, this venture'll soon force im' to be a might bit more sober."

Her confusion was instantly formed at his words, "What do you mean?"

Just as their heady conversation was about to commence, Jack found himself the audience to their words, having come along to the cellar in search of a restock to his rum cabinet above. Just as he had reached out for a good enough bottle to suit him, he heard the sound of interest wafting up from the floor just below him. And so as any inquisitiveness of his would omit, he sauntered off to the final stairwell, and kneeled down along the higher steps just over the galley's table. From a cornered chip in the wall he could see the pair of them, eating and whispering, and as he settled his body against the wall with the cork falling out of the bottle, he allowed Lizzie's wonderment in his past adventures to carry him away.

"Ye know, the story o' the lot of red skinned men in Florida?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Oh I thought fer sure ye would ave' read bout it, all those tales ye used t' read on is' travels…?"

"Not that I remember, what is it?" Elizabeth's curiosity deepened as the older man leaned in closely with an excitable whisper, "Well, I'll tell ye all bout' it then. Sure t' be Jack would want ye t' know."

"You think so?" From higher above this questioning brought a smile to the corner of his lip, with a hearty swig of the burning fluid.

"Aye, e' would want ye t' be awares of the danger we face, Liz." She didn't respond to this, only sat wide eyed with a palette of bread settled between forefinger and thumb, awaiting the details she'd so missed in her studies of Jack Sparrow as a child. She knew only what the rest of the world knew about him, not what someone as close as Gibbs could provide her with it seemed.

"Twas' a good fifteen years before today, another time fer pirates, another time indeed…" Stroking his chin he thought back to the venture in concern, the frightening details it held, things he wasn't even sure he could handle to recall, but he did. "Jack had a head in place fer a journey t' La Florida, a place left near t' undiscovered. Most o' the men ou' had found it, ne'er lived t' tell o' it again. They used t' say it was haunted by the ghosts o' the world, a living hell of some sort ye see…"

"Hell?" She repeated for emphasis, thinking on the map in Jack's cabin, the clue to it's meaning, It's hell Jack…and so it was.

"Aye, lass, a place where the dead ad' been sent to live out a doomed sentence..."

"Not more dead people this time…" she groaned slightly, shaking off the tension in her knees from under the table. "No Elizabeth, they aren't dead." Again, stricken eyes and a skip in heart brought her to the demand of knowing what he meant, while Jack sat mesmerized himself by the re-telling of the tale. "Then what are they?"

"Injuns..."

He voice became rough, destructive almost in nature, as if the word alone could be the death of a person. Elizabeth in all of her teachings, in all of her late night scanning of prints and tales, had never once heard of such a man as an Injun. To say she was fascinated would have been to weak of an admittance, she was drawn beyond the edges of the tale, wanting nothing more than to know exactly what it was they had seen, every last minute detail. She wanted to be where Jack had once been.

E'erything was quiet when we came t' the shores, not a sound, only birds an' fish. But something was strange bout it' lass, something was…not as it seemed.

Jack's boots fell into soft sand at the juncture of land and sea, scanning out over the beach with his weary sight, a rustle of palms at a distance, a splash of waves over his ankles. While the crew set about to unloading what they needed, their Captain decided to take Gibbs along in a desperate search for any unwelcome natives to the land, as there always seemed to be by their luck. Their weaponry appeared a useful accoutrement at the time, little did they realize though, that it wouldn't make the slightest difference.

"Why not? What could possibly be more dangerous than the tip of a sword, especially Jack's?" She was enthralled, but then so was the aforementioned and his sword, delighted beneath her statement.

"At' only two points in Jack's life as' e been bested, at least by me own accounts."

"When's that?"

"Once by ye Liz'beth, and once…by these men…" before she could grin at his response, the latter stated persons came upon her as did the continuance of the tale.

Hours of walking, hiking through the trenches of wasteland and inner swamps, had gotten the pair to a sizeable pond, thick with foliage, wildlife, and animals. Human life it seemed was left for non-existent in this part of the land, which was both good and bad. Jack tiptoed around the banks of the water, scanning the sky for signs of rain which there was none, only the heat of a thousand boiling rays. When he had brought his eyes down to ground level again, he could have sworn he heard the cries of a person, but looking back to see Gibbs' mindless stare, he was confused. When it continued though, he knew it to be too 

feminine of a whisper to be anything from his first mate's lips or gut, and trailed off down into the thick trees again where he heard its origin arising.

"Jack! Wot' is it?"

"Don't know…" he answered quietly, falling into the underbrush of ferns to where he now heard coughing, an almost difficult resemblance to choking, and finally, a good thirty five paces out in front of him, a pair of bloodied feet.

"Who was it?"

"Twas' one o' them."

"An Indian?"

"Aye, a girl…" Covering her hand with her mouth for fear of the coming points, Elizabeth kept her eyes peeled to Gibbs', in hopes that perhaps he could subdue anything worse than the truth. She didn't expect him to.

"Hell…" Jack exclaimed, rushing to where laid the bruised, tampered body of a young woman, a dark beauty, something very familiar to him. The girl was much smaller than he was even, with delicate limbs all purple and beaten, a tormented expression in her eyes, blood trickling from lips, hands, and the softness of her thigh where she was left clad in nothing more than a thin skinned material of some kind. Jack had never seen something so primitive before in his ventures, only having been beyond the age of twenty for a few years, he was still only half as knowledgeable in the ways of the world as he would become.

"Mother an' child Jack, wot' happened t' er'?" his first mate chanted from above his shoulders where he kneeled down to the girl, who lacking enough oxygen in her lungs to speak, only cried and whimpered for help, and Jack knew he had to do something. "Ere' mate, old' these…" Handing off his effects one by one to Gibbs, Jack then removed his coat to drape silently over the girl's body, and with a heaving pull, lifted her into his arms and headed from the trees to locate any close relation to her.

Elizabeth couldn't move, her heart had stopped beating for minutes, and Gibbs sat dazed himself by the remembrance of such a thing. "W-what happened to her?"

"Didn't know at t' the time, Jack's only concern was finding help fer the girl."

"He cared…"

"Aye, an' there was a time once, when e' showed it more willingly…" At this, Jack let another chug of the rum induce his tongue, sending him farther into a state of placidity. He had to agree completely with his first mate's statement, he had once been softer at the edges, less secretive. But events like the one being discussed, changed that about him, without much choice.

"Smell that?" Jack pondered openly as they made their way into an open and grassy field, a good mile or so from the pond. Gibbs swaggered beside him, watching the young girl's head loll back and forth with pain, and then sensed the burn Jack spoke of, a wafting smoke just over the tops of the high trees. "Fire, mate. People…come on!"

And he was right, partially at least. There were people, crimson skinned, oily, dark, mysterious men and women alike, even children. They spoke no words as Jack and Gibbs approached, the distressed girl in his arms, they only stared angrily. Coming upon on large man, with smeared pastels of some sort across his arms, neck, shoulders, Jack offered the girl in his direction, insisting upon his finding her hurt in the woods, and the direction from whence they had come. But his eyes only scanned over the two of them, and stepped aside in a strange exile.

"Jack?" Gibbs questioned in a whisper, tapping his friend on the shoulder nearby the girl's head, to which Jack turned around slightly for a reason, "Over there." Together they looked across the tribal grounds and betweens homely draperies to see an older man, cloaked by something made of the land, hair jetting down in silvering strands, beaded, fashioned into an ancient creed. At his side he held a large branch, tangled with numerous tresses of bones, teeth, all sorts of trinkets, to which Jack was immediately fascinated. They walked slowly with the young woman, carrying their weight in haste of the man who appeared to be a chief of the odd tribe they'd stumbled upon.

"A chief?"

"Aye, of the Creek tribe, tis' wot' they called themselves."

"And what did he do?"

Gibbs' smiled but only at the memory of what had occurred, "E' invited us inside this hut of some strange sort as it were, a coiled…rounded tent."

"And then what happened?"

"Well…"

Mumbles of incantations and chants scattered inside of the small tent, two burly warriors of some kind took each man by the arms, tugging them into opposite corners, tying them off at the wrists to grounded poles. "Wot' the hell is this…we were only trying t' help er'!"

The girl was taken by the others instantly, Jack and Gibbs having not a single idea where they might have gone with her, or whether she would be alright. They only sat confined to the dirty space, a dozen or so bodies clouding their view of the outside world…for hours.

"Why did they do that to you both…didn't they realize you were trying to help her?"

"Fraid' not Bess. Seemed t' be something a might…darker occurring."

"Darker…tell me." Jack smiled at her voice this time, primitive in the ways of learning about him, about his stories, especially the darker ones. He hadn't known her interests to be this strong, or perhaps he thought, he might have told her about his past years ago now.

When the sunlight finally came through the skin outline of the tent again, Jack opened his now swollen eyes to the face of a man he half expected was there to kill him, and he jumped slightly. Gibbs too awoke to the man, frightened more than he could say, but trusting in the confidence Jack seemed to hold. The tall figure sat still, but held up his hand with a husky word or two, introducing himself from the looks of it. They didn't understand, and realized their own native tongues to be of little use with this tribe, and so they only nodded in response. That was until the man spoke again, this time, shocking the both of them.

"I, Chitto." A gesture towards himself and Jack sat up further, perplexed by the understanding of it. "You?"

"Sparrow."

"Bird. Large bird, you are." Trying to stifle a laugh he only nodded and revealed his nearly fresh tattoo. An aged ink of only six months, and a recognition of it by the man. "Sparrow."

"Yes. And this…" Jack began, nodding over to Gibbs, "Is my first mate, Gibbs."

"Gi-bbz."

"Aye." The two communicated well despite the rarity of it, and throughout a ten minute span, Jack was informed of his position with the tribe, coming to knowledge of his execution being planned due to his merit in saving the girl of Calusa blood. Their enemy as Chitto announced. "I didn't know, she only needed elp' mate."

"We do not help the Calusa."

"She was urt'. Even then ye don't help?"

"No," was his definitive response, the response of a Creek brave. There was assurance only in the idea that Chitto might find it in himself to help them escape their fate by nightfall.



"Which you did of course."

"As I sit ere' wit' ye today…" Gibbs chuckled, rolling back his head with a final swig of the bottle he had taken to. Elizabeth was shaken up by the story thus far, but felt as if there was an ending he had left out, and pushed for it further.

"But…what happened to the girl?"

"Ah…the girl, Meoquanee was er' name."

"It's beautiful."

"An' so she was Elizabeth. Jack can testify t' that proudly." With a wink she acknowledged the obvious detail of such a rescue by him, but pleaded for the remainder of the story. Which as Gibbs continued, a mere seven and a half steps away, Jack sat bewildered by the memory of the girl, beautiful, dark, helpless. She had been his mother to him, her eyes reaching out for him, her tortured body that of his own flesh and blood, he had rescued her for his heart's sake, for the woman who had raised him with the ways of the Great Spirit.

They had been helped despite the young native's will to follow order, and Jack and Gibbs were able to escape the torture Chitto had mentioned, loss of limbs to be simple enough. By the light of only the moon they were pointed off in the direction from which they had come, and so they started through the backside of the village, keeping to the brush as close as possible, shadows, darkness to cover them. Yet just as they made it into the edge of the tribe's perimeter, Jack heard something that would haunt him infrequently for the rest of his days. A curdling, throbbing call of pain, sprinkling out from a nearby tented space. The screams of a woman, a familiar voice as well, one already previously damaged by neglect.

"Gibbs…it's er'." Part of the older man wanted to continue on, ignore the distress of the girl, only focus on their own freedom again, but he knew Jack would have none of it. And being right, they darted off towards the skinned lining of the hut, a small flicker of light omitting from within, the screams calming, almost invisible now, but the grunts and laughter of a hoard of men peaking his eardrums. He knew exactly what was going on, and also knew exactly what he had to do.

"They were raping her, weren't they?" Elizabeth asked with a pout, trying to dry the corners of her eyes with the sleeve of Jack's old shirt, still hers from the storm.

"Yes, they were, a terrible sight I assure ye. Still haunts me mind…"

"But Jack helped her, he got her out?"

"With naught but the bare strength of is' hands." Gibbs smiled now, proud to have seen Jack in the state he spoke of, proud to be able to tell the story to the aspiring pirate he'd known since infancy. And Jack, the hero as ever he was of his own fables, breathed shortly realizing it to be the final stretch of the account by his first mate. He'd heard Gibbs tell this story before, he'd heard himself tell it before, it ended good, but it ended with a dangerous warning as well, for the return, should it ever come, of Jack Sparrow to the Creek lands. Which to the figuring of his own brow he still had yet to determine, he was about to venture back to, with not only his Pearl again as well as the crew he had finally acquired perfectly, primly, but the woman he had rescued too many times to allow the fates to finally take the oxygen in her lungs.

He stood with the empty bottle in hand, and walked off to return to his cabin before Elizabeth could catch his disguise in the shadows.

"Saved er' he did lass, returned er' south t' her tribe with great compliment and celebration in his honor, and then we returned to the Pearl…an' sailed away with all haste. La Florida is a dangerous place fer Jack an' I, a place that returning to, might prove t' be a dance wit' fate yet again…"