Sorry for the wait; here ya go!

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Chapter 5

Jack woke up the next morning feeling unusual. He spent a few moments laying on the pallet in the wigwam where he had slept trying to puzzle it out. It wasn't a lack of rum - he had personally seen to it that the party last night was well supplied - but neither was it an excess. The food the Indians had prepared seemed to agree with him. Jack was feeling bad, but it was a new kind of bad, and he didn't know what to do about it.

Eventually, the memory of a confrontation came back to the groggy pirate. Ah yes, he had tried following the Indian girl, Pocahontas, determined to find the gold. She had insisted again there wasn't any. Then he'd said something... something about a knight and the Pearl... he shook his head because he couldn't remember. Whatever he had said, it was entirely in jest. So why had she fled from him with tears in her eyes?

The emotion coursing through Jack now revealed its' name: guilt. Normally, Jack would have scoffed at such a rediculous sensitivity, but he couldn't help feeling genuinely sorry for what he had said. Try as he might, he couldn't think of how that could be. Something in this Pocahontas just pulled him to her. I must have had too much rum last night, Jack thought, shaking his head again. He would never have such preposterous thoughts otherwise.

In the end, Jack sat up and stretched. Too much rum or not, he had to find Pocahontas and apologize. She's the key to the gold, he told himself firmly, Nothing more. He squashed down the little voice trying to tell him otherwise as he swung his legs out of the pallet. After lacing up his boots, he set out to look for her.

Searching for the girl turned out to be a real chore. It soon became apparent that she wasn't in the village, so Jack had to go tramping through the forest. Though the pirates' navigational skills were unrivaled on the open sea, he was completely confused in the tangle of trees. Jack hated the claustrophobic feeling. The farther he went, the more irritable he became. His frustration peaked when a tree branch fell and hit him on the head. Cursing loudly, he massaged the promising bruise and squinted up through the leaves, trying to see the culprit.

"Sorry!" A familiar voice called. A figure leapt down from the tree in a cloud of black hair. That voice and figure belonged to none other than his quarry, Pocahontas. She seemed to be in a much better mood than last night. One look at Jack though, and her face fell. Her mouth formed an O of surprise. They spent a moment staring at one another.

"On second thought, I'm not so sorry." All her anger seemed to have returned as she narrowed her wide eyes at Jack. She started to walk away, trying to push past the pirate, but he blocked her path.

"Don't be like that, love. I just have one thing to say to you, and then I'll be off." Jack tried to sound nonchalant, not desperate.

"There's nothing I want to hear you say," Pocahontas spat.

"And that's fine," Jack assured her, "But as long as we're both here, and I've been trying to find you all morning, we might as well just get this over with. Savvy?"

Pocahontas glared at him. For an awful second it looked like she would just walk away from him. When the moment thankfully passed, she siged and said, "I'm listening."

"I just wanted to say," here, Jack paused to swallow his pride, "that I'm sorry about last night." Pocahontas' eyes widened in surprise. "It was never my intention to made a pretty thing like you cry. Whatever I said, I'm sorry."

Those black eyes fixed on the ground between them, hair falling across her face. After a short silence, she quietly said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jack replied awkwardly. These niceties and honesty just didn't become a pirate. He thought it best if he just cut to the chase. "Now, about the gold -,"

"I told you," Pocahontas' head snapped back up, "There isn't any."

"I know you've told me, darling, but I just wanted to be sure -,"

"Augh!" An exasperated noise escaped Pocahontas' throat as she threw her graceful arms into the air. "You white men are all the same. Always you want more gold, more land, and what you aren't given, you take by force!"

"Yet last night you said I was unlike someone," Jack countered, suddenly remembering, "Who aren't I like, love? Who am I so different from that you can't even stand me?" Pocahontas' eyes closed as if she was in pain. Jack waited a long moment for her to open them. When she did, she looked directly at him. The intensity of her gaze staggered him, and he blinked.

"John Smith," she murmured at last, and looked at the ground again, "He was a white man, like you, who arrived here on a ship like you did. Yet... he saw this land for what it really was after he realized it wasn't what he thought it would be. And," here, Pocahontas bit her lip, "And he got shot, and..." She blinked furiously and didn't say any more.

Another foreign emotion bloomed in Jack: pity. "So, this... John Smith... is he dead, then?"

The Native American shook her head. "No, but... I don't know... he went back to England to heal but I haven't heard from him since. For all I know, he could be." She pressed her palms to her eyes. "And I've lost... oh, I've lost the compass he gave to me. I've been looking for days but I haven't found it."

Jack, though still full of rum, was sharp enough to read between the lines of her story. She had loved this John and was clearly devastated by the loss of him and his compass. She's so brave, trying not to show it. That thought startled him, and he shook his head to clear it out. Thankfully, Pocahontas' head was still down and she didn't see. She looked so lost, standing there like that. If only I could help.

An idea struck Jack just then. "Come here, love." Pocahontas looked up, her eyes glistening and confused. Jack held up his left arm and gestured it, "Come on, let me show you something." She stepped toward him warily, as his right hand dove into his jacket pocket. His arm fell around her slim shoulders as his opposite hand flipped open a small square something...

"A compass!" Pocahontas gasped.

"That's right, love." He looked down at her, but her attention was fixed upon the compass. "Every knowledgable sea-goer has one of these beauties in his pocket. But let me tell you a secret: this is no ordinary compass." Pocahontas turned her puzzled eyes at him. "This compass," he looked at it, then back at her, "doesn't point north. It points to the thing you want most. To the north of your heart, if you will. Here."

Jacks' left hand let go of her shoulder to grasp both of her hands. Lifting them up, he pressed the compass into her small fingers. "You need a bit of direction, my dear." Pocahontas looked up at him again, a mixture of reluctance, thanks, and wonder on her face. Jack, who wasn't used to being so compassionate, turned and walked away without another word.

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Next chapter is where the fun begins ;D It'll be up soon! R&R please!