Hey, I was a little bit disappointed by the lack of response last chapter, but the reviews I did get were so honestly amazing that I can't stay mad. Those who did review, your comments mean everything to me and I cannot thank you enough for the amazing things you've said. Okay, so can I get maybe…. reviews? not many. and I won't withhold so long this time. And in case anyone wonders, what Jack recites is Shakespeare's 57th Sonnet. Thank you again!
-Han
Jack gave his former first mate, former enemy, former comrade, and again, enemy a stern glance, as if he was disappointed. And he was. He wondered if the powder-caked man before him could sink lower, he wondered if his soul had died. Jack could never understand those who gave up the thrill of piracy, it was like changing the tides with a twitch of a finger. It was unimaginable. But here was Hector Barbossa, shifting the seas to his own whims. Just the thought made a shiver of disgust roll up and down his spine.
"If I may be so bold, why is that man not in chains? He must be manacled at once," Barbossa said in that accent, so proper. His words didn't slur together like they should have and he didn't add that odd cackle to the end of his sentence like he used to. Anna wondered if a piece of him was dead, if that warm center of lust for the sea had been crippled by his swim to Tortuga from the plank of the Black Pearl. She wondered if this was her fault.
"At the center of my palace? Hardly," George said in a slightly scornful voice, his eyes twinkling as if he was amused by the very concept.
"Hector. So nice to see a fellow pirate make good of himself," Jack sneered, his eyes filled with contempt and mistrust, as if he'd enjoyed Barbossa the pirate enemy, better than the shell of a man in front of him. Anna couldn't bring herself to understand the change, what had made him this way, leg gone and eyes vacant and face coated with white.
"Pirate? Nay," Barbossa said lightly, his face pinched in a way similar to George's and Anna wondered if all upper class men must wear that expression. "Privateer, on a sanctioned mission, under the authority and protection of the Crown," he intoned, as if they ought to try it because the benefits were lovely and the sky was blue and things were beautiful from this side of the line.
"As may be," Jack said softly, his gaze flicking between Barbossa's eyes and the wooden leg. "But what has become of the man I called enemy?"
"I lost him as I lost me leg, barren and alone without the Pearl, I had no choice," Barbossa said bitterly, casting his eyes to the woman next to him. "Not that ye gave me one."
Jack's eyes darkened and he took a step forward, as if daring the older man to speak again. "Your misfortunes are not our concerns, and certainly not Annie's," he said quietly, his voice like gravel, rough and real. Anna flicked her gaze to him for a fleeting moment and took a step forward, her body close enough to his to warm his side.
"If I may be so bold," Barbossa said again, speaking to the king. "It may be prudent of us to invite the prince to this culmination of plans for the sake of the kingdom," he said amiably. Anna had frozen and Jack had moved, launching himself at the former pirate.
He was crawling across the table with murder in his eyes, his hands flinging things out of his way, food he had been intent on spattering against the walls like it would in Tortuga. His body burned, a fire he was unaccustomed to taking hold in his heart and pushing outward, threatening to take over and all he thought about was Barbossa on the floor, head lolling in unconsciousness and bruises beginning to arise on his bloody nose and split lip. Jack normally didn't like to fight, without a sword it wasn't much of a dance, but at that moment, he could think of nothing else.
All that mattered to him was making Barbossa pay for Annie's frozen body, her heart beating so loud he could hear it, her eyes blown wide and fingers trembling. He had to make him feel the same pain Anna was undoubtedly feeling at that moment, fear pumping through her body at a rate only she could describe but he could understand. He hated that look, that one she wore when Will was dying. It was the look of a powerless woman who'd given up hope. She didn't think Will was going to survive just like she didn't think she could stand up to her father, could beat him, could push through the fear gripping her body. Jack hated it when he caught glimpses of the woman she must have been in the year between their first adventure and her return to Port Royal.
And he had the cause in front of him. Murder rolling in his stomach and twisted, a snarl rising on his lips as the need to do another human being harm rose and took hold in his body. He felt guards grabbing at him, fingers bruising and rough, but he was pushing onward. This was as close to displays of his affection, his feelings toward Anna, as he got, and he couldn't control them.
And then another set, hands soft and callus's rough as they settled on his shoulder and his neck, insistent and unyielding. He allowed them to turn his head, finding himself lost in Annie's eyes as she looked back at him, pride and gratitude swimming in his eyes and he could see the fear fading, the edges of it folding in on itself as she drowned it out with something deeper, something he could only pray was reflected back at her.
She turned then, glaring at the slightly shell-shocked Barbossa in a way that reminded both pirates of the look she wore when she fought Jones and his army. That feral, animalistic rage and excitement, the mixture undefinable as she moved with the rain and the flow of her sword.
"If you have truly fallen so far from Grace, and sunk so low into the pits of propriety and law," Anna hissed, her voice unforgiving and hard. "Then you are my enemy. And calling upon my father will not save you, when your time runs dry."
"Our sands be all but run. Where's the harm in joining the winning side? And you do meet a nicer class of person," Barbossa said to both of them, contempt still in his eyes. Jack wondered how he'd managed to avoid flinching through Anna's threat. It was something chilling to hear the way her voice turned cold, turned impossibly strong and impenetrable.
"You sir, have stooped," Jack muttered, watching the way the others in the room seemed to come back to themselves, as if their conversation had been private, in a way. But by the way their gaze lingered on the princess, his little Annie standing strongly beside him, he doubted it.
"Captain Barbossa, each second we tarry, the Spanish outdistance us. I have every confidence you will prevail and be rewarded with the high station you so desire," George said with finality, bringing the conversation back to the issues in front of them. Barbossa bowed again, his wig falling in ratty tendrils around his face.
"To serve doth suffice, sir," he said brightly, as if he lived to bow down to another, as if the lust for freedom didn't still burn in his veins. But this was the future; this was what lies beyond the horizon. This was what was beyond freedom. "Maybe someday you'll understand," Barbossa spoke to the pirates, sounding older than he ever had.
"I understand everything," Jack said, subtly moving his arm up and pressing his fingers lightly into her back, a warning he was positive she understood. "Except that wig."
The free pirates leapt into action. Anna had moved fluidly, shifting against Jack's touch until she faced the guards, blocking his attempt to charge her with a punch upwards, followed quickly by her elbow in the same motion. He grunted, making a pained sound that almost made her wince in sympathy. Before he could move, she'd grabbed his rifle, turning in time to see that Jack was doing the same thing, his movements like a dance as he allowed the guard to hold on to his musket, simply wrestling him until the angle was to his liking.
Anna raised the weapon, aiming in the same spot as Jack, her body mere inches from his, and pulled the trigger. The kickback was powerful, and she was sure her shoulder would twinge in pain for weeks after, but she hit her target. A chain from the chandelier above them broke, sending the ornate light fixture swinging as if it were a pendulum. She wondered if prison was the pit.
Jack knocked out the guard with the butt of the rifle, sending him splayed and heavy onto the second. Without wasting time, Jack tugged on Annie's hand and the two of them leapt onto the table, distantly mortified at all the food being destroyed. Jack kicked a plate of food in a guard's face, and Anna quickly leaned over the Carteret, her motion almost a bow as she efficiently snatched a ring from him as he put his hands up in surprise. She grinned, slipping it on her only bare finger and nodded to herself.
Jack had reached the end of the table, flipping over a chair expertly and landing catlike, his movements inspiring something close to envy in Anna as she watched. He continued the movement, reaching behind him and gripping the same chair and threw it. It crashed through the window, shards of glass dancing in the light as they spilled across the floor. Anna watched in fascination as a guard attempted to catch him, only to slip on the handkerchief she'd thrown there and fall through the window, limps flailing as he tried to gain purchase.
Anna shook herself and kicked another guard in the chest, and ran across the table towards Jack. He was gripping a the tassel of the heavy curtains, and was watching her with something close to fascination in his eyes. She reached the end of the table, quickly flipping herself as she jumped, landing with her back to Jack and skidding on the glass until her back hit his chest lightly. He wrapped an arm around her almost unconsciously as a soldier fired and missed, hitting the rope attached to the tassel instead.
She felt her body be tugged upward roughly, and allowed Jack to keep his nearly bruising hold as they were launched into the air. Their feet touched the window ledge precariously, boots slipping against varnished wood and arms flailing as they attempted to retain their balance. Her heart pounded in her ears, the rush of excitement gripping her body like it always did, a never failing high she could count on with the danger of adventure. Her eyes were drawn to the swinging chandelier, a monolith of grandeur and wealth swaying towards them. She jumped. So did Jack.
She could feel bruises beginning to arise on her limbs as she slammed into the gold chandelier, fingers rushing to wrap around the gold spires and prayed nothing would break. Jack seemed to be having similar thoughts, and only she could read the desperation mixed with elation he often wore during an adventure.
She began climbing through the different pieces of the chandelier, gold bars weaving in and out of each other to make the perfect ladder. She found herself on the other side, quickly followed by Jack, and waited. She could feel the royalty's eyes on her, and found herself suddenly not caring. They couldn't hurt her when she was in her element. They couldn't touch her when she was so free.
Her feet hit the balcony in time with Jack's, boots scuffing the floor with their own marks. She laughed, a carefree and unique sound, when he leaned back over the balcony to grab the crème puff still attached to a chandelier spire. He took a quick bite, relishing the explosion of flavor in his mouth, the delicious, and the cream, before ducking into the shadows with Anna's hand gripped tightly in his free one.
At her baffled and insistent look, he offered her a bite, his eyes wide and pouting, cream speckled on his moustache. She smiled, leaning forward and took a bite, sighing in content as her eyes rolled back into her head.
"Worth it," she decided, a smile on her lips. "Can't find somethin' like this in any pirate tavern."
"They could've been more courteous," Jack commented, his nose scrunched as if just thinking about the servants of the crown made him sick. Anna nodded in agreement and pulled his hand.
"I know where to hide," she whispered, tugging on his sleeve in a way that reminded him of a small child, all innocence and imagination. It was something about her that never got old, small glimpses of the child she was on the inside reflected back to him and they were both like that. It was something he could understand and relate to. He let her lead them through the tangled web of ornate hallways and winding staircases, which she passed warily, as if expecting them to open up and reveal a gate to Hell itself.
She took a breath at the top of the stairs, as if it could give her strength, and rushed down them, dragging Jack with her. They moved soundlessly, ghosting down the stairs behind two guards, both carrying their effects and looking straight ahead. It was almost too perfect. A sly look in her direction and Jack moved skillfully towards the soldier on the right, while Anna took the one on the left. Sometimes Jack wondered how she managed to keep up with his mind, as they raised their arms as one and knocked off the hats violently in a flutter of wigs and fabric.
Anna watched the soldiers tense up, a sudden rush of fear flooding through their systems as their minds tried to connect what was happening the world around them. Movement followed a moment later and Jack and her were running, the stairs nearly blurring with her quick steps and she tried not to remember the way her father had thrown her from the landing the last time she'd been in the palace.
He'd gripped her hair, a smile vicious and bleak lighting up his features as he hissed in her ear, white-knuckling his hand to make her cry out. Her body writhed in an attempted to escape, every receptor in her body alive with pain and a fear too deeply embedded in her body.
It was rising in her now, an attempt to make her compliant as Jack pulled her behind a bureau a little too roughly in earnest, pushing her down onto the marble flooring with a smack. She stifled a groan, wondering if a bruise would rise on the tanned skin of her lower back. Images flashed behind her eyes, the authoritative after-burn of a slap to the cheek, the deep ache of a spine held in place too long, the hungry moan of a stomach starved for days. Her childhood was rushing back at her and suddenly she wished she'd never come. She wished she'd stayed behind with the Pearl and let Jack go to Gibbs.
"Love?" he whispered, watching her with wide, empathetic brown eyes that swallowed her under and brought her to the surface of her own thoughts all at once. His hand was rubbing small circles on her back, kneading the sore muscles with tender touches rarely afforded to her in daylight. "Are you alright?"
"M'fine," she muttered, blinking blearily as if just waking from a dream. She wished her past was only a nightmare. Jack held her gaze, eyes boring into hers and searching for something, anything to prove she was really okay.
She nodded almost violently, before shifted, reaching on top of the bureau for their effects, the soldiers having dropped them on the hard-wood surface as they ran down the ornate hallways. She stood, taking Jack's hand again and preparing to lead him through the winding, twisting hallways of her past.
He followed her closely, watching her movements with a critical eye as if waiting for her to collapse in his arms and curl in on herself. He'd been wondering when she would break, when that wall holding back her memories would break, shatter, and flood her mind with a slew of images he couldn't help hold back. He wasn't able to help her, and it made a gnawing chasm open in his chest.
She tugged him quickly into a dark room at the sound of thunderous soldiers running down the hallways, the cling of muskets against their bodies sounding throughout the wing of the estate as they ran by the door. Anna had her body pressed against it, her chest rising and falling too fast, hands shaking as they lay flat against the wooden door. Her cobalt eyes flicked across the room restlessly, and he lost himself in the reflection of the Caribbean sea for just a moment, moving closer to her almost unconsciously.
His body trapped hers against the door, heat wafting off of her skin mixt with the smell of the sea and her own natural perfume. It was intoxicating. He breathed deeply, a coy smile rising to his lips and he wondered when the last time he held her was. It felt like lifetimes, as he leaned closer to her, brushing his lips across her neck, smooth skin like a new brand of aphrodisiac to his senses.
He wanted to take her pain away, to suffocate it under the throws of passion and lust and love in a way that would leave them both spinning. His arm wrapped around her lower back, pressing her body into his as he kissed his way to her shoulder.
"Jack," she whispered, voice strangled and weak and he caught the wince in her words and let go, remembering her recent fall. Curses flew through his mind, but he quelled them, keeping his gaze calm in an attempt to provide comfort. "I-I'm sorry," she whispered, flicking her eyes away from him.
"For what, love?" Jack asked, his voice only a whisper in the dark room, shadows over lapping shadows around them in a blanket of black and suffocation.
"For not letting you in," she breathed back, her head dropping to his shoulder. There was a moment of silence and she sighed, her body shuddering against his before she spoke, and let him into a world he'd never really seen before, never pictured beyond the red haze of hatred and rage and fear for her health. "This was my room."
His head snapped up, eyes scanning the room with sharp, insistent eyes, and a part of him wondered why he even wanted to know. But there was a screaming sensation in his bloodstream, a need to know about the woman he held in his arms. The first thing he saw was a chair in the corner, silk ties hanging from the arms, legs, and around the back. His gaze moved on to an over turned wardrobe, corsets and gowns strewn across the floor under a thick layer of dust, a vase shattered in a corner, dead roses decaying by the bed.
It looked like a tomb; everything was grey, dying or dead, dust covering anything with the hand of a past untouched. No one had been in here since she'd left, her father refusing to open the door to his failure. Jack flicked his eyes back at her, wondering how far he could move into the walled, chaotic mess that was her past. Her life before the sea was closed off, barren to his touch, and he never passed through that veil. It felt like he was hurting her, and he never wanted to do that.
He leaned close to her, his lips parted in a moment of hesitancy, before speaking and opening a hidden reserve to the heart he never let another see.
"Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend," He recited, pulling her body closer to him, the cage of his arms protecting her as he whispering into her hair. Her arms wrapped around his waist, her breathing caught in her chest while he waited for him to continue as if his words were the divine words of a God forsaken.
"Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour," He spoke softly, calmly, as if they weren't under the pressure of the world and the crown and the soldiers rushing through the hallways. His voice was rough on the edges, like he hadn't spoken in years and he was finally showing his voice to the world. Allowing her into the heart he told people he didn't have and showing every scar, every imperfection, every part of him that loved her in a way he was still unused to.
"When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those." She never knew he felt that way. Never knew he viewed her past as some secret chamber of her heart she had refused him entrance to, leaving him on the outer reserves of her soul until she called him in, allowed him to see her scars over scars, ugly skin wrapped around her heart to protect the too-vulnerable emotions, feelings. She'd never thought of her own hesitancy, her own unwillingness to let another person see her as affecting Jack, as impairing his ability to see her the way he wished. All of her, with all faults, wounds, and fears.
Jack hoped she understood, hoped she saw how he viewed her, a temple, a master, a diety to be revered when he did not deserve her. He deserved to lay in waiting for the moment the gates to her heart opened to him. He would never think wrong of her, never hold her hesitancy against her as she learned to lean on him, learned to wrap her arms around his waist and fall into him, learned to be herself. He would bow his body and wait, that enough to prove his own love, adoration, a feeling he'd never experienced willingly drawn from his chest as he ached to show her. Ached to prove that what he felt was real and what he wanted her to understand was unfailing; he was safe, a home she could count on, someone she could trust. He would protect her, and wait for the moment she could show him every wound and scar.
"So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill," he finished with a shuddering breath, the silence that over took them reflecting his own nervous anticipation, as if he was waiting for her reaction. A tear slipped from her eyes, tracing its way down her pale cheek in the dark room like it was declaring its mark on her soul. She shifted, drawing herself up to kiss him lightly, softly, a soul deep connection that could never be fully severed, not even by their own need for freedom. This was comforting, a slip of arms around the waist to contain her as her heart threatened to burst from beating too loudly, the off-tempo sounds reverberating through her body as she allowed herself a moment to forget. The memories of her father slipped past her skin like a morning breeze, followed quickly by the fear she should be feeling for her life at the moment. For a few ticking seconds, there were no guards, soldiers, impending doom, or endless chases. Only her and Jack. And it was enough.
