Hey Guys! Thank you so much to all people that reviewed, it means an awful lot. So, this is the second chapter, and the third should be out pretty soon, with more insight to Anna's thoughts, I promise. I hope this turned out alright, please tell me what you think. Love you!
-Han
Anna leaned forward, a half-empty silver flask clutched between ringed fingers like a life line, that coy smile on her lips digging into Jack's chest, worming it's a way into his veins and setting fire to his blood. She passed it to him without him asking, fingers brushing his in a soft, assuring way, as if to be sure he was there. He swallowed the rum down, the warmth in his chest doubling, fire racing through his body.
"Now the lot of us are headed for prison!" Gibbs muttered, curses slipping under his breath, but Anna could hear him.
"Not to worry, we've paid off the driver," she answered with the same coy look. Gibbs couldn't tell if she'd adopted it from Jack, or if it was of her own brand and making, her own way of looking pretentious to nearly a fault. But if they were arrogant, he was stupid, and he didn't think that.
"Ten minutes, we'll be outside Londontown, horses waiting. Tonight we'll make the coast. Then it's just a matter of finding a ship," Jack took up for her, the conversation flowing so easily between them, Gibbs wondered, as he often did, if they operated on the same wavelength, if they could read the thoughts passing through each other's minds.
"All part of the plan, yes?" Gibbs asked, almost unwillingly sarcastic, but had to be sure nothing would go wrong. In the five months after the pirate war, they had been almost reckless, intent to reach every horizon with a dauntingly familiar smile and a bottle of rum and a poorly thought-out plan. Because they could afford imperfection with a loyal crew, and no terrible force chasing after them. He couldn't count the number of near-death experiences he'd had since the Pearl had left Tortuga with Barbossa shrinking behind them.
"Exactly. We arrived in Londontown just this morning to rescue one Joshamee Gibbs from one appointment with the gallows," Jack said with an almost demeaning look, as if questioning his validity as a pirate, to be caught on a stealth mission.
"Seeing as how you're still alive, I'd say it's all been very successful thus far," Anna added, leaning back against the carriage with a flippant look of pride. They knew what they were doing, even when they didn't, and it was something Gibbs could rely on.
"What happened to you, Gibbs? I'd thought you were otherwise engaged?" Jack asked, real concern drifting into his dark eyes for a moment, before being pushed down again by the brightness of piracy and freedom.
"Aye, an' information's not so hard to come by," Gibbs muttered. "One's only got to be careful who's spillin'."
"Swindle the wrong man for the word, eh?" Anna asked, twisting one of her rings absently. Gibbs nodded sullenly, remembering the exact moment the nobleman had caught him in the act, the moment his bribe fell through. "Did you at least learn anything?"
"Aye, word on the docks is that the little pirate princess of London arrived naught but twenty four years ago by way of merchant ship, carried by a woman with haunted eyes and a sword on her belt. All men knew her to be pirate, but no one spoke of it. She was accompanied by one Captain Wesson," Gibbs relayed with a nearly delighted smile.
"The one the Pearl dispatched on the crossing from England?" Jack asked with a side-long glance, pride mixing in his eyes. He knew she had pirate blood, it had been obvious to him from the moment he saw her on the docks at Port Royal.
"Aye," she whispered, a soft look in her eyes and she tried to wrap her mind around the words. Her mother was a pirate that alone was enough to cause elation to course through her body. She hadn't been built for the life of London, she was born to be what she was.
"Name wasn't willing on the tongue of the man I was speakin' to, but they think she was Captain by the tilt of her chin," Gibbs added, leaning forward to gauge her reaction as he spoke. She nodded almost absently.
"Yes, Calypso did hint at that before we released her," she said thoughtfully, casting her mind back to the quickly whispered words that set her mind aflame with the possibility of a family, of a mother she'd never known.
"But what of the Pearl, Jack? I've had my ear to the ground for any whispering's of the Black Pearl. Nobody's seen where she might next make port - then, I hear a rumor. Jack Sparrow was in London, with a ship, and looking for a crew!" Gibbs explained, eyes shifting between the two.
"Am not!" Jack shouted indignantly, reminding Anna of a small child.
"We left the Pearl in Cotton's hands far enough from Tortuga to ensure its safety. We couldn't risk bringing it this close to the crown," Anna explained, rolling her eyes at the resentful look on Jack's face. She knew he hated when people pretended to be him, it took away his air of mystery, demoted his self-proclaimed stature as the best pirate anyone's ever seen.
"But that's what I heard. Fact is, you're signing up men tonight, pub called Captain's Daughter," Gibbs said as he took the flask from Jack and swallowed, allowing amber liquid to slide easily down his throat.
"Am. Not!" Jack repeated, stealing the flask back and taking another swig. Anna smiled at him, a warm flash of something deeper than friendship that Gibbs didn't miss. He'd started a count of how often they showed affection. In the five months since they'd been spotted at the helm wrapped around each other like they would drown without the other, he'd counted ten. Total. It was a game amongst the crew; try to catch them staring soulfully into each other's eyes or whispering lowly things that made blushes rise on their cheeks. Gibbs quickly accepted that they were unlike Will and Elizabeth, unlike any couple he'd ever seen.
Most didn't believe they were even together, doubted they cared for one another on a level pirates rarely did. They were pirates first, a team second, and a couple third.
"Well, I thought it a bit odd. Then, you've never been the most predictable of sorts," Gibbs said in something close to contempt. Jack wondered when he'd gotten so lax on his crew.
"Tell me something. There is another Jack Sparrow out there sullying my good name?" Jack asked, not bother to acknowledge Anna's smile. They'd long ago accepted their relationship as different. Affection was shown in the cover of nightfall, watching the stars overhead like they were a tapestry of ancient history they could decipher. Smiles were shared as they opened their eyes to the waking world, bodies bathed in sunlight and sheets that smelled of rum and the sea and, now, of Anna.
"An imposter," Gibbs said with a nod, eyes flicking between the two of them as Anna nodded.
"But an imposter with a ship," she reflected, rubbing a hand over her face in thought. she shifted, scuffing her boots on the floor as she reached across Jack for the flask, draining the last of it with a swig that went straight to her mind and made it fuzzy on the edges. Comfortable warmth filled her body as a substitute for Jack's body against hers, constant heat she could nuzzle against in the cold. But she couldn't do that here.
"And in need of a crew," Gibbs added, staring forlornly at the empty flask. "But what of you, Jack? Last I heard you an' Annie were hell bent on the Fountain!"
"Circumstances arose, and forced a compelling insight regarding discretion and the valor," Jack said with a blank look, remembering their adventure through the jungles of the southern amazon to locate a witch doctor, the clear instructions of the fountain he gave them, the immediate disgust he tasted on his tongue in response.
"Meaning you gave up?" Gibbs guessed.
"No! We're still bent on immortality, hellishly so, but the Fountain is not the way," Anna said plainly, eyes flicking to Jack as if in confirmation.
"Though we may find it anyway," Jack said suddenly, a thought he'd been ruminating on for less than a week.
"That's the Jack I know!" Gibbs proclaimed, ignoring the slightly abashed look that flitted over Anna's eyes.
"I'll not have it said that there was a point on the map Captain Jack Sparrow never found," he vowed, serious face broken as the carriage lurched to a stop. "Oh, short trip," he said with a delighted look in his eyes.
Anna swallowed, a sudden feeling of foreboding washing over her. She knew London, knew the distance between one place and another better than she knew her own body. They weren't at the drop off point. On instinct, she reached for her pistol, cocking it with decisive movements as Jack opened the carriage and stepped out. Her heart sped up, images of the Tower of London spinning behind her eyes and the way regimented soldiers had corralled pirates into the prison during the raid, the same one that had shown her the depth of her father's hatred, the one that had bonded her with piracy forever. She often wondered what became of the pirate boy, the one she'd pulled away from soldiers and her father, innocent eyes burdened with fear and panic he shouldn't be feeling.
Dirty blonde hair slathered to his skull, unwashed and stained by the sea and the mud of the London streets. His eyes were his defining factor, she remembered, such raw virtue crumbling beneath the pressures of the world around him, an undefinable blue-green, an aqua light she hoped would be relit. She remembered pushing him into a church, begging for him to claim sanctuary, and breathing easier when he finally did.
She snapped out of it, forcing her body into the present as the door opened completely and she swallowed roughly. A regiment of soldiers surrounded them, muskets pointed threateningly at them, death swimming in their eyes like an invitation. But she knew Death on a first name basis, knew the gripping caress of it against your skin like a lover, she knew the splash of white water it left behind as it sucked a man under. They didn't scare her. Not anymore.
"All part of the plan, eh?" Gibbs asked sarcastically, eyes locked on Jack as he gauged his chances of survival. Finding himself with slim to none, as an officer tossed the driver a jingling bag, Jack turned assuredly to get back into the carriage.
The butt of a rifle rained down on the back of Jack's head like the hand of a god, sending him limp and barely standing to face Gibbs and Annie. He managed a subtle nod at Anna just behind the older man, and returned his eyes to his first mate.
"No," he managed weakly, before succumbing to the darkness around him, allowing himself to be taken under by the rolling waves of unconsciousness and the sea of blackness he knew so well. Gibbs managed to catch him, glaring bitingly at anyone who attempted to touch the Captain. He half turned to look at Anna, surprised to find her eyes blank, devoid of thought or pain or worry, a mask of blue he hadn't seen in a while.
She moved subtly, pressing herself close enough to him to slip the rolled charts into the inside of his vest. "Study it, learn every possible route," she whispered fervently, her voice barely audible above a subtle wind. "Then destroy it and come find us."
Gibbs nodded stoically, watching her eyes flit between the oncoming guards and Jack's unconscious body for only an instant, long enough to prove that she cared. The softness that crept into her gaze was something rare among the many oceans pirates sailed on, but Gibbs had a feeling that in the cover of darkness, it swept over her features often. She met his gaze again, and his look was almost fatherly, a soft thing as he gave her the only blessing he could muster.
"Gods speed."
