Okay, this took me forever, but I'm updating! Thank you guys so much for all the Favorite Stories and Authors and Alerts, you guys are amazing! To those of you who reviewed last chapter, thank you so much, your words really do make my day every single time I read what you have to say. I did have a winner on the plot twist guesser, so I WILL be writing that scene and I'm 99% sure I'll put it in the story. SO, Please review guys! PLEASE!
-Han
"You know when I feel closest to our Maker? When I see suffering, pain, and anguish. That's when the true design of this world is revealed," Blackbeard said with reverence, watching fire engulf the small boat, the screams of the man inside drowned out by the roar of flame. The feared Captain's face was drawn in a calm serenity, one that seems to reach into the darkest pits of the man's chest, where a soul should reside. Instead, murky blackness resided there, pulling at his body and begging him for the carnage it loved, for the screams he needed to hear. Blood stained his hands and he liked it that way. The fire glowed against black water, and the look in his eyes was almost adoring, like he could read messages in the flames that spoke of love and heaven and beauty.
Anna had lost her fight, her body bent in half, head hanging towards the ground and her midsection caged in by Gunner's reanimated and grey arms. She hung limp, like a doll, her hair shielding her face as it hung around her. Jack thought he heard her praying.
"And I see it revealed when in times of hardship and tragedy, kindness and compassion are shown to those in need," Phillip said strongly, moving to stand in the firelight, his face bathed in heat and cast in half-shadows. The night around them seemed to suck him under, drown him, but he had to say something. His blue-green eyes were narrowed in an unwilling rage. He was supposed to love everyone, care for everyone, his God had asked it of him and he promised himself he would answer the call. But this man was a demon, a shadow on the planes God had molded, a scar on Earth.
"Perhaps you should pray for him to be unharmed, yes?" Blackbeard taunted, raising his hand for a second signal.
People were frozen, no one moved but Anna. Her body bucked, curses spewing from her lips as she tried to break from her human cage. Gunner held her tightly, her hair tossed back with the force of kicks, using the deck as leverage.
"You bastard! You heartless evil son of a bitch!" She shouted, her eyes watering and her midsection aching with the force of her capture's grip. His arms were bruising, her newly healing ribs screaming, but she refused to still.
The crew watched with grief, an array of gazes turned from the dissipating fire and everything was silent, everyone was still. Blackbeard stared with contempt, a smile peeking on the edges of his mouth.
A Bible tightened in the grip of a young missionary when Jack broke from the ranks of terrified sailors and approached the woman. Aqua eyes watched his steady movements, lacking the drunken sway Sparrow normally adopted. His brown eyes were endlessly sad, a grief that seemed to reach his soul and every loss he'd ever experienced was rushing through his mind, just at the sight of those eyes. Phillip's breath caught when Jack kneeled before Anna, still wrapped up in the automaton's arms.
Jack's movements were careful, slow, and so gentle. His hand brushed her cheek, he felt the wetness stain the palm of his hand. Her head jerked up, her blue eyes rimmed red and self-hatred laced in the hunch of her shoulders, the helpless limpness of her body. She'd gotten him killed, an innocent life, a comrade, someone she had worked with, forced into fighting for her and it was Will all over again. A sword through the heart or drowned in flames, it was her fault. She couldn't fix that.
The rest of the world faded away, and nothing mattered but this hole in her chest and the way Jack's hand felt against her cheek.
Angelica watched with mounting horror, her plans hinged on the notion that he could pull Jack back in, could whisper and nudge and sway and draw his attention and his feelings. Even she wouldn't go as far as to claim love, the thought was ridiculous. But when Anna went limp, tendons standing out on her neck from the strain of being bent in half, her brown hair falling in her face, and her eyes on the suave and charismatic pirate, Angelica doubted she could win this. Dependence swam in the apprehended woman's eyes, like Jack was the only thing that could put her back together when everything in her body wanted to die.
"Please…he…he could still be alive," Anna whispered, though she didn't believe it. He was dead, an old man she'd never gotten to know, a martyr for her cause. Her fight was drained away, pushed down by the absurd need to hope. To have something to believe in.
"Again!" Blackbeard shouted, grinning victoriously in the night. Anna choked, shuddered, another torrent of fire set free in the night, reflecting off of the tracks of tears. Phillip gripped his Bible tighter, white knuckling the broken-backed book. The words printed there couldn't help this man, but he prayed for salvation, for any hope left. His eyes found the girl again, the woman he didn't want to remember when streets were dirty and a church was the first home he had.
Gunner released Anna, roughly dropping her body to the deck. Jack caught her at the last second, gripping her forearms with an iron grasp that sent jolts of pain through her body. It was enough to keep her grounded.
The moments spent on deck as Blackbeard laughed the crew stood still in terror were some of the longest of Jack's life. Anna was nearly dead weight in his arms, guilt coursing between them, shared, and he knew she had expected to save him in time. She had intended to win and the grief weighing on her was heavy. She'd promised a little boy that it would be okay and now it amounted to lies and empty words. Anna had needed to prove something to herself, to Angelica, to Jack, to Blackbeard, to anyone who doubted her. She'd needed to prove that she could do something right. She failed.
But she didn't speak, or scream, or cry. Her body shuddered lightly, the only indication that she felt anything other than numbness. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, bent over so low no one else could see. Her breath caught, and he couldn't stop a small smile from rising to his face.
"This isn't good," Anna muttered, a shaky laugh that sounded nearly hysterical breaking from her chest. An anger rolled in her blue eyes, the fire that engulfed an innocent man. Revenge was on her mind and it was burning, taking hold in her chest. She couldn't go down this easily, not when Jack could remain strong. Not when he could be there for her and everyone else could be stoic. She wasn't that weak. "Not good at all."
"Look at it this way, love," Jack said brightly, slapping a hand to her back like he would any other sailor. His gold caps shone in the light, a grin that didn't seem all there. "It can only get better."
Xx
A knife sliced through the fabric of his sea-stained shirt, pinning him to the wall. Jack smiled shakily, hoping the winning grin could pull some favorable emotion from the walking carcass that was the Quartermaster. The walking dead man grunted in response, glaring at the pirate with cold eyes. Anna rolled her own from her position, shoulder to shoulder with Jack.
"Can only get better, huh?" she asked sarcastically, throwing a look at her best friend as he gave a shaky shrug.
"Well, at least we're never boring," Jack responded dryly, focusing his attention on Blackbeard as he breezed into the room. The older Captain maneuvered among cluttered dream catchers and incense and talismans. He was paranoid, Jack could work with that.
"Well, sir, we actually have no interest in the Fountain whatsoever, so if your heart is set, you may drop us off anywhere you like," Anna said as amiably as she could when hatred was rising in her system, begging her to be let out, needing to avenge the life of a man who didn't have to die, one she should have saved.
"That'll be all, Quartermaster," Blackbeard said calmly, his back turned to them. The monster stalked off, sending a last chilling glare at the two bound pirates. "Your words surround you like fog, make you hard to see," Teach commented with a careful blank look. Anna couldn't read him, but Jack's mind was racing, trying to find the best way to play this.
"And what of you? The mighty Blackbeard. Beheaded, they say. Still, your body swam three times around your ship then climbed back onboard." Jack spoke with a reverence he didn't know he could accomplish, and he was quoting Anna from that first adventure, stories told to Cotton when she thought no one else was listening. When she believed she was just an extra in her own tale. "And here you are. Running scared," Jack jeered, hoping to hit something, anything that could give him leverage.
Edward Teach stalked closer, his eyes roaming over Jack and Anna as if hunting prey, venom swirling just beneath his calm. He was dangerous and they should remember it. He's killed more than they could dream, slaughtered for the sheer impact of it. They couldn't stand up to him and a missionary couldn't reform him and nothing could stop him.
"Scared," he scoffed, turning back to his desk, odds and ends scattered across the rich wood and detailed maps. His ash-stained fingers wandered over charms and amulets, stolen from around the world to extend his life, keep the sea air flowing into his lungs and the blood pumping through his body.
"To the Fountain," Anna answered, her blue eyes impossibly hard, and it was hard for the Captain to believe she'd been so broken only minutes before. She was a fighter, convinced to come back time and time again and every time she was hit she'd be ready to get you harder. But Teach had found a weakness, one Jack shared with her. People dying for them weighed heavily on their minds and in their hearts and he'd use that, kill them with it.
"The Quartermaster sees things before they happen," Blackbeard said softly, almost to himself. "He has foreseen my death, the oversight of such an event seen by my greatest foe. And so the fates have spoken. The threads of destiny woven."
Blackbeard's words were soft, rough, and the reluctance with which he spoke of death struck within Jack. He was afraid, no matter how impenetrable he appeared to be, the thought of death consumed him, drove his every movement, word, twitch. He was possessed by the Otherworld and his reluctance to reach it.
"You have a ridiculously high regard for fate, mate," Jack said truthfully, and it sounded almost like a warning, a promise to use the fear against the man if the time came. Anna's fingers danced over her shoulder, gripping the handle of her knife with careful movements, blue eyes flicking to Blackbeard as he sunk into his chair.
"And you?" Teach asked, directing his question at both of them, something Anna found refreshing when Angelica blocked her out continuously.
"I don't believe in destiny," Anna said plainly, her words filled with complete conviction. "I wouldn't have become a pirate if I did. Freedom is the whole point; nothing can define you but your own choices. Pretending otherwise is only an excuse for your own mistakes." Venom laced her words but her eyes were calm, blank.
Blackbeard's eyes narrowed, his lips pressed in a thin life, gaze was like daggers on her skin and Anna was reveling in the hostility, it fueled her anger, made her stronger. It blocked away the pain and made something in her body rise, take hold, a desperate need to protect herself, to beat the bad guy and win something.
"I'm skeptical of predicting any future which includes me," Jack added helpfully, grinning despite the taught tension between the three others. He reached for his own knife, wiggling it skillfully. He realized that Anna had already managed to sneak hers behind her back.
"It be foolish to battle fate, but I'd be tempted to cheat it," Teach admitted as Jack managed to pull the knife from the wall. "I will reach the Fountain. You will lead me." His words were a command, and there was nothing they could do about it. "I will not fall to a half a man under the eyes of that Irish slut!" Composure was lost for a moment, broken, fractured.
The two pirates paused in their slow, even steps towards his desk, knives in hands at the rough, deadly timbre of his voice. They were not expecting that. Jack woke up first, Anna still stuck on his last words with a confusion she couldn't understand.
"That knife will serve you no better than the mutiny you devised," Blackbeard said flatly. Jack paused, waiting for Anna to stand closer to him before he spoke again.
"Mutiny served me well. It gained me an audience with you," Jack reminded, and he hoped Anna knew what he was thinking, prayed that she was still with him. That she would always be right with him, that this wouldn't be their slip up, their mistake.
"Oh?" Blackbeard asked curiously.
Anna slammed her knife down on the table, laying the blade flat, her fingers drawing away almost reluctantly. "To warn you," she whispered, the peace her voice carried a stark contradiction to her movements. "Regarding your…superb First Mate, who pretends to be persons she is not."
"Do tell," Teach growled.
"She is not your daughter," Jack answered irrefutably, conviction coloring his words. Shock passed over the Captain's features for the first time since he walked from his cabin doors. Silence engulfed them for a moment, the light wavering dangerously with the quick intake of breath from Edward, the candle flickering, wavering.
"You dare to speak thusly of my flesh and blood?" Blackbeard demanded, anger, rage, and something remarkably like hurt tearing through his voice. Anna stepped back slightly, her eyes wandering the scattered collection of treasures, most appearing to be good luck charms, trying to ward off his inevitable death. She let her fingers draw over them, catching worry stones and mystic amulets that took her back to Calypso's hut when a Tia murmured over bones and watched the patterns they made.
"Sir. The woman is consummate in the art of deception. I know. As I mostly unwittingly set her on the wicked path," Jack related in a devastated voice and Anna was left wondering how close he got, how far Jack fell into the Spanish beauty. She wondered if her reappearance would upset their already precarious balance. With her emotions still scattered from Will's loss and the war and her father and her past coming up to take her under, she was a wreck and she knew it. Jack was supposed to be the stable one, if that made any sense. "Though I cannot claim credit for her existing abundance in natural talent," Jack added with a conspiring look that left Anna grinning. He was an actor, if nothing else, and she couldn't really doubt him. Not when he turned those endless eyes on hers with a quick glance her way.
Blackbeard shifted, rolling a thread-bare doll over in his hands, a contemplative look in his eyes. "Angelica. My beloved daughter, the one true good thing I have done in this life and you claim to be the one who corrupted her?" he asked, feigning calm and Jack was smart enough to know when he was in trouble. Another flick in her direction and he was sure that Anna wasn't paying attention. She was browsing parchment now, reading correspondence with quick eyes, gather as much information as she could.
"Sir. What she is, is pure evil. More to be feared than a wild beast. Hungry wild beast, with gnashing teeth! Vengeful, hungry, from hell, beast," he was rambling and he knew it and he would have kept going, a panicked attempt to cover his slip of information. His stumbling attempts to clean up his mess were cut off as Angelica barged into the room.
"Father!" she called, clearly having listened in. Her eyes were wide, doe-like and innocent and Anna didn't believe it for a moment.
"Sweetness!" Jack called excitedly, a glass grin set over his face and Anna could see through it, could sense it was ready to shatter.
Jack's body froze, his mouth opening in a kind of anguish she could feel from even that distance. She turned, dropping the letter about his greatest enemy, and reached for a weapon, anything she could find. She collapsed a moment later, a twisting agony gripping her spine and twisting. She twitched, her body trying to deal with the pain against her will.
Jack couldn't move to help her, couldn't do anything, when his body was seized in an electric shock of pain that held him perfectly still. Something twisted and he fell to his knees, his body crumpling to the floor only feet from Anna's. His head turned slowly, rapt on Blackbeard's contemplative look as he spun a knife into the back of a voodoo doll dressed as him, down to the bandanna. Another, smaller doll with blue ink splotches for eyes and a curly mop of brown hair lay face down on the desk, another knife pressed into the back.
"No need to hurt them. They will help us, won't you both?" Angelica asked dangerously, leaning in close to Jack's face. Her eyes were quick, smart, and Jack had taught her too well and he knew it. He couldn't speak, even if he wanted to.
"You see? Even now, she attends to your welfare," Blackbeard said contemplatively, as he pulled the knife from the voodoo doll's back and allowed the man to stand. As soon as Jack hauled himself up, reaching an arm out to Anna, Teach pressed the knife into the doll's chest, carving out a symbol. Sparrow refused to show the pain until Anna stood next to him, dropping her hand like it was burning and ripping open his shirt. "Giving lie to the claims you make of her."
The Devil's pitchfork was bleeding over his tan skin, only a breath away from the two bullet wounds he sported. Blood tracked its way down his chest and Anna watched it with mounting horror, her back still singing with pain.
"You will lead us to the Fountain," Angelica sneered, her upper lip drawing back dangerously. Neither of them responded, vicious glares their only way to fight back. They were stuck and all they could do was bide their time. They couldn't move now.
"Put another way. If I do not make it to the Fountain in time..." Blackbeard warned, holding Jack's voodoo doll over the burning candle until the smell of burning hair filled the cabin and all Jack could hear was the crackle of a flame against his head. He cradled his head between his head, trying to hold himself together when he felt like he was going to explode. Everything hurt and Anna could only watch in horror. "neither will you."
"We will have a wee look-see at those charts straightaway then, shall we?" Anna asked with a shaky grin, placing a soft hand on Jack's shoulder as he clutched his head. Blackbeard grinned, something dark that struck an unwilling fear deep into her soul.
Moments later, when they were beneath the blanket of night and finally, blissfully alone, Anna drew her fingers over his chest, lightly brushing against his new cuts. He hissed and she frowned, her eyes crumpled in sadness.
"Birdie, you are far too fragile," she said, attempting a grin but she meant it. Sometimes she liked to believe he was invincible. He rolled his eyes and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. His smile was soft, genuine, and she could see something beyond just the pirate, just the front. The pain he felt went deeper and the loss of the Cook, the innocent man they unwittingly condemned. He felt what others assumed he couldn't, he was deeper than just the grin, the sword, the smirk. He was real and he was breakable. And that was frightening to her.
"The best of men feel pain, it's how we remember we are still among the living."
