Disclaimer: Yeah, I'm just not ever going to own it.
A/N: Thanks so much to the people who reviewed, i enjoy your comments and I really appreciate the feedback. And guys, please, I enjoy writing and I really appreciate hearing comments on the story, so all you 250+ hits out there, please drop a line.
Italics: indicate flashback
Chapter Three
Dusk slowly faded into night. There was still the faintest orange-pink light glowing on the vast horizon, but the moon had conquered the sun and hung high in the sky, half-full and shining. It cast a milky glow on the water, more peaceful this time than spooky, and as she glanced about her, Elizabeth found only men milling about after the day's duties—not the gruesome skeletal figures of before. Though that sight hardly would have drawn a flinch from her now. She'd welcome skeletons over what she saw in her dreams.
There were starting to take more notice of her now, when things had quieted down. During the hustle of pushing off from Tortuga, she'd been just a curious figure leaning against the side of the Pearl, someone who happened to be wearing a dress, but they really hadn't the nerve to make an outcry or stop and question when there was business to be done. But now, safely out to sea with Tortuga only a strip of land in the near distance, the glances and double takes were becoming outright stares. She couldn't say it actually bothered her. Most did not recognize her, though a few did. These were the ones with whom she'd been in closer quarters with; Master Ragetti had wasted barely a moment in greeting her with a enthusiastic ''ello poppet!' that came after he saw her, dropped a crate on his never-far-from him balding partner Pintel and waved. The over-the-top greeting diverted her, as she wondered whether he actually remembered he'd been on the kidnapping side of the spectrum the last time. But bygones were bygones and the past was going to stay in the bloody past.
She rested her chin in her hand, leaning against the ship's side and staring over the vast ocean. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon, falling down her back to keep it out of her eyes. She really should just chop it off and be done with it…but that was something she just couldn't bring herself to do, for no particular reason. She didn't blink as she gazed unseeingly, hearing words in her head.
"'Til death do us part."
"…for better or for worse…"
"I will love and honor you for all the days of my life."
STOP.
She shoved them to the back of her mind, not daring to bring those thoughts, those memories to the front of her thoughts. Think of anything but that. Anything but him.
But that was all there was. She could think about England, about her mother, about her father, about Tortuga even…but all of it, everything, led back to and somehow connected with that. This was sickeningly ironic, as she'd explicitly forbidden herself to ever go there again. Why dwell on those demons when her subconscious plagued her with the re-runs every night? She spent her days in Tortuga gambling, drinking, flirting with whoever paid her to do so, buying the exquisite goods that the pirates brought in, prancing around and cattily provoking Scarlett and her lot with offbeat remarks alluding to their waning desirability as she slowly took over their territory. She couldn't help but allow herself a small smile as she thought of Scarlett's reaction to Jack Sparrow's entering the Faithful Bride with a pouch full of gold pieces and walking straight pass her. But Scarlett had never really rankled her; she'd simply amused herself with the rival girl's quick temper and unintelligible ranting. You had to have something to amuse yourself when you existence was men and cigarettes.
But here? Here there was open sky. Rolling ocean. Blistering sun. Rain clouds and birds. Maybe twenty-five people at the most. There was nothing to distract, no men to entertain, to use as tools to block the crushing nostalgia. She pressed her nail absently into the cigarette burn on her wrist, her eyes stinging slightly at the pain. Well, there was that. There was rum. She supposed she could drink herself into a constant state of inebriation though the captain had, by all observations, already claimed that stunt as his.
"I should have told you every day from the day I met you. I love you."
"I love him, Father."
"Why can't we fix this?"
"You've ruined everything!"
"I don't even know you anymore…"
"Everything is your fault!"
"I HATE you!"
Words, words, loud; deafening and reverberating around her skull. She smacked her palm against the wood to jolt her ears with the news, resisting the urge to cover her ears and scream. That would certainly draw more attention from the crew than she wished to have directed at her. She dug her nails into the wood, hating the feeling, eager for distraction and almost giving Mr. Gibbs the lap-dance of his life when he unknowingly provided it.
"Miss Elizabeth? Are ye hungry?"
She turned to face him quickly, her hair escaping from its bow and a few curls falling to frame her face. She wasn't aware of how wild her eyes looked; but he stepped back a bit when he saw the not-yet hidden despair in them.
"You all right, Missy?"
She swallowed, running her hand up her arm to get rid of the goose bumps.
"Quite all right." She answered sharper than she'd meant it. Still, it didn't at all bother her that she'd so far come off to everyone as detached, arrogant, and cool. The less friendly they thought her the less questioning she'd endure. Better to be unapproachable.
"The crew be takin' dinner in the hold, if ye want to join 'em. Or ye can eat in Cap'n's cabin if ye wish for a bit less of a spectacle." Mr. Gibbs informed her, giving her quite the searching look. She realized it was probably this man even more than Jack who was stunned at her transformation, at the knowledge that Jack had visited his usual haunt and come bag with her. He had, for all his bluster about even miniature women being bad luck, tolerated her following him around and questioning him about pirates and the like. She took pity on him and softened her face a little, giving him a smile.
"I should think it would be the more practical idea to eat in Jack's cabin." She answered, glancing around suddenly. "Where is he?" she asked, the thought suddenly occurring to her that she'd be taking dinner with him and that prospect wasn't all that appetizing either, considering.
"He's just left doing sum'in, he said that…" Mr. Gibbs trailed off suddenly, bringing a smirk to her face. Chances were, if he didn't want to repeat what Jack said it was either highly offensive (meaning amusing) or vile. How sweet that he didn't want to repeat it to her…sensitive ears.
"Thank you, Mr. Gibbs." She said, walking past him without another word towards the cabin at the other end of the ship. She had a sudden curiosity to poke around in Jack's cabin and dig up some of his secrets. That would provide excellent distraction.
It was a different atmosphere than the last time she'd been in this room. That is, this time she wasn't tied in some revolting dress and held captive by that charming Hector Barbossa. Jack's taste was a bit less gaudy, not to say the pirate actually bothered with decorating his space, but the room just wasn't as covered in fine things bought to fill the emptiness of half life as it had been previously. There was a knock on the door and she stepped away from it, giving enough swing for the knocker to enter the room.
It was one of the men who didn't recognize her. He carried a tray with him, and gave her a curt nod as he set it on the table in the room, leaving almost immediately. She felt the sudden annoyance that always flared on being served as if she couldn't lift a finger to do her own work, but pushed it back down, knowing very well she could have walked down to the hold and gotten her own damn dinner.
She swung the chair out from the desk that doubled as a table and straddled it, resting her chin on the back. She reached over it and picked at the food, unsure if she was hungry or not. She finally stabbed a piece of mutton with the fork he'd left for her and ate, for want of anything better to do. She looked around the room with interest. There were trinkets from where she could only assume was all over the world; curious looking things she'd never seen and beautifully crafted ornaments. She wondered if they were keepsakes to him, if they carried any meaning, or if he just fancied beauty in everything, not only his women. Elizabeth looked down again and nudged her plate over, her attention caught by the paraphernalia the man had placed it on.
A captains log, an inventory sheet, a stub of charcoal, a half empty ink pot and a dull quill. But most catching to the eye, piles and piles of expertly drawn maps, with markings on them that weren't on any other map she'd other seen. Landmasses she'd never studied, odd longitudes and latitudes with foreign names. She put her finger on a long line drawn from one place to the place labeled Isla de Muerta. Isle of the Dead. Probably where it all began.
She got up suddenly, her stomach all of the sudden empty and hollow, and glanced around his room, looking for what she knew had to be hidden somewhere. It rolled over and hit her slippered foot as she thought about it. Shaking her head, she bent down and uncorked the rum bottle, seriously contemplating the notion of drunkenness. She settled for a long drink instead, and reached around behind her for the apple someone had placed on her plate. Something amused her when she found it was red.
She pulled her foot up and rested it on her knee, a very unladylike position that gave off a masculine air. She tilted her head back, rocking the legs of the chair, giving the innocent ceiling a killer glare. She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut. It was silent. It was too quiet.
Blood on the sheets. Blood on her nightgown. Blood on the rags. She was pale and hurting and sick and she wanted him to hold her and wipe her tears and tell her it was okay. He came in, his hair looking like he knotted his hands in it over and over outside her door; the doctor had gone.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry."
He put a hand over hers, resting on the top of the quilt, clammy.
"What happened?"
"I don't know." Her voice was a sad whisper. She raised her circled eyes to him, begging for comfort. He looked at her solemnly, rubbing his thumb in circles over her hand.
"You should be more careful, sweetheart."
The endearment didn't mask the hit of accusation she heard in his voice. It took her a moment to recover from the remark; she had the feeling that it wasn't born out of concern for her person, or worry for the future of her health.
"It isn't—it isn't my fault, Will." She whispered, her shoulders shaking with the force of holding back more tears. The thought of his—of his blaming her…
"I didn't—I wasn't saying. Elizabeth. You misunderstood."
"You sound like you're blaming me." Her voice was soft and hurt. She met his eyes and then looked away quickly, odd thoughts starting to form in her head.
"You're being ridiculous." He said. "You're just tired. Next time, Elizabeth. Next time you just won't be so careless."
He didn't know how much his incriminating words crushed her.
Elizabeth let the chair slam to the floor and threw the apple across the room, desperately hoping for it to hit something that would break with a shatter and a crash. It was one of the more benign memories, but it was no less like a blunt knife carving through skin to get to the heart. It had been before she'd begun to see it. The edges had just started to fray when he said those words and after that the fabric began to rip and the wholes showed everything and sorrow and grief and hate. The first loss of innocence. The rudest awakening. An inexplicable loss that was nobody's fault until he had turned it into an excuse. I can't take it anymore, Elizabeth.
If I have to hear his voice in my head one more FUCKING time…
She wasn't actually aware that she'd hissed the words aloud until Jack grabbed her wrist and wrestled the bottle from her raised hand, obviously in fear for its life.
"Hearing voices in yer head, Miss Swann?" he asked coolly, setting the bottle down far on the other side of the table and out of her destructive reach. "Ye seem to have a fetish for doing harm to me alcohol stores." He added, referencing the--in his opinion--fiasco on Rum Runners Isle.
"That bottle you adore so much will collide with your bloody head if you sneak up on me like that again." She lashed out without thinking, what she only assumed was a fetching snarl gracing her face. He seemed surprised for only a moment at her outburst and cleared his throat.
"'M not much of a psychiatrist, but I'd hazard a guess that ye've got something uncomfortable stuck up yer arse, love." He fired back, in possibly the most carefree, friendly form of sarcasm she'd ever heard spoken by human lips. How was it possibly to sound that frightfully charming while delivering an insult? She almost stuck her tongue out at him. Instead, she opted for another expletive.
"Bastard."
"Music to me ears."
She glared at him over folded arms and slowly turned in the chair, taking back the rum bottle that he actually had not placed out of arms reach. He watched her with a raised brow that indicated mild surprise at her behavior. She ignored his stare, letting copious amounts of alcohol burn down her throat, still reeling from the memory that had just accosted her. He watched her for a minute and then walked across the room the back of the cabin, kicked open a trunk, and deposited his coat in it, leaving him in his v-necked shirt, still ruffling through something.
"You know, by means of fleeting observation and certain rumors gleaned from the Tortuga elite, I'd wager a guess that you've had a complete change of personality." He turned around with another bottle in hand, gauging her reaction. She toasted him sardonically.
"Isn't that the discovery of the bloody century."
"You've acquired a rather colorful vocabulary." He pointed out unnecessarily.
"Should I clean it up for your highness or would you rather sod off and allow me to continue my conversation with myself?" she heard her words and almost succeeded in surprising herself at the outright bitchiness. Almost.
"I'm interested to meet the you that's making you angry enough to inflict damage on me innocently bystanding bottles of rum."
She wasn't actually sure that merited a snarky reply or not. She covered the silence, and the—for some reason—laughter bubbling in her throat, by pouring more rum into her mouth and waited for his next jab. The angrier he made her, the safer she was. Anger was her friend.
"Did you eat?"
"Why'd you bring me with you, Jack?"
"What the hell happened, love?"
The exchange was so fast they were both left staring at each other with nothing to say, having both asked their questions at nearly the same moment. What, indeed.
Neither one of them spoke. She didn't know what his answer was and she sure as God in heaven was not going to tell him hers.
"Where am I sleeping tonight Jack?" she asked challengingly, smiling with the bottle between her teeth as she tipped it back again. She was going to drink him dry before he got the next port. That, or there was the growing possibility that she would induce someone to strangle her over the next few days.
"Where do you want to sleep, Elizabeth?" he answered equally, his voice patronizing.
"Which of your able-bodied crew would you consider most friendly?" she asked mockingly, blatant insinuation behind her words.
"That's enough," he snapped, slamming his own bottle down on the table next to her. She surprised herself by jumping a little at the force of it. "As amusing as I find this avant-garde act you're putting on, I'll be drawing the line at you rutting with the crew. Tha's not why I dragged you off that island."
"Why did you bring me on your ship, Captain?" she repeated, turning defiant eyes up to his as he leaned down over her chair, his face hard and searching.
"I couldn't stand to see you in that bloody hole." The words came out as a growl.
"How thoughtful." She sighed sarcastically, almost regretting the tone she used as a reflex. Why did it bother him so much? She was someone who'd been a moment in his life years and years ago, who at that had done nothing but cause problems and get in his way with her foolishness. Still, she looked at him with a little less mockery and didn't get up.
"Yer sleepin' in here." he said with finality, shoving off from the table and turning around, snatching his compass from the far end of the table as he stepped back. She hadn't even noticed the thing there.
"I suppose sleeping with the captain is to be considered an honor?" She couldn't stop the words that came out of her mouth; she'd just been so conditioned to quick, protective remarks that hid everything. That habit wasn't changing anytime soon, and that guard wasn't coming down. Not on her watch. "Thank you." She added as an afterthought. He grunted in response.
"See you've taken to drinking the rum rather than burning it." He commented, an edge still present in his voice.
"Are you trying to make conversation Captain Sparrow?" she asked bluntly, twirling a lock of hair around her index finger and letting it spiral down her shoulder. "Because it's not a required commodity. Feel free to leave me to myself." There was the acidic quality again. She didn't know if she wanted him to leave or if she wanted him to kiss her again.
"I prefer to stay on and continue our little game of verbal abuse." He replied evenly, tossing the compass up and, upon catching it, hooking it onto his belt. "There's that, and the nagging inkling I have that it would be less-than-smart to leave you," he jerked her wrist up suddenly and jammed down the sleeve, revealing not only the recent cigarette burn but a serious of thin, red scars up to her elbow. "by yourself." he finished with a snarl, pulling her out of the chair and looking closer.
Elizabeth stiffened and attempted wrenching her arm out of his grip but her clutched her tighter and twisted slightly, causing her to bit her lip from whimpering in pain.
"Are you bloody stupid?" he asked, putting his rough finger on one of the scars and tracing it. She wondered when he'd seen them, how he'd known. If things continued to go like this, it was all going to fall apart. Again.
"Let me go." She hissed in a low voice, her eyes threatening. She didn't dare wrestle her arm from him; it wasn't above him to break her arm keeping her still.
"Why do you do it?" he demanded, looking up from the unsightly scars and glaring at her. There was disgust in his voice but there was something else there too. Imperceptible and it reflected in the farthest reaches of his cocoa eyes. Anguish. Disappointment. Sadness? But anyone who walked in now would see only the more prominent sarcasm and anger.
Trying to get him off of her back, she graced him with possibly the most honest answer she'd given all day.
"It numbs all the other pain that's there." She said quietly. "Being able to bleed means I'm still alive." She saw the near horror in his eyes and it satisfied her. One of the most disturbing things she could have said, and maybe it would compel him to stop asking.
"That's sick," he croaked, dropping her arm. She jerked her sleeve back down and stood still and rigid, feeling naked and exposed in front of him. "You'll kill yourself." Her defiant, empty eyes gazed back at him and she responded acidly
"What a tragedy."
He looked as if she'd spoken in a different language. She noticed his fingers flex and he squeezed his hands into fists at his side, his knuckles turning white. Jack dug his fingernails into the padded skin of his palm. Her skin tingled and she refused the instinct the either throw something at him or bolt from the room. He was seconds away from overstepping the boundaries into dangerous territories. She saw it in his eyes. She saw him thinking and processing and guessing.
"What did he do to you? What did the bastard do?" he demanded, his voice low and irate. She came dangerously close to snapping. Look behind you Jack, there was the line.
"Get out." She snarled.
"Something went wrong. What did Turner—"
"GET. OUT!" she screamed, covering the name with her voice, her cheeks flushing. She lashed out at Jack, shoving him with all her might. She never should have let it get this far. He hardly stumbled at her force, and was quick enough to catch her arm as she swung it back to smack him hard across the cheek.
"I'm not the one you want to hurt." He said sharply, throwing her hand down and leaving the cabin, slamming the door behind him so the wood shuddered. Elizabeth grabbed her hair and screamed, sinking to the floor against the just-slammed door and dug her nails into her scalp, squeezing her eyes shut against the flashing images before her eyes.
That Chapter was harder to get up. Next up are Jack's thoughts. Review, please.
Scars-- Papa Roach