Chapter Eleven - Deceived
"Yer quite sure we're on the right headin'?"
Ragetti looked offended.
"Course I am! I knows it like I knows the back of me eyeball." He popped the fake organ back in lovingly. Gibbs still couldn't help but wince inwardly, even after seeing it hundreds of times.
"And yer quite sure we won't regret this?"
"No-one ever regrets visitin' me aunty." The skinny pirate put a solemn hand to his heart. "She's the finest woman as has ever lived, finer'n Queen Caroline an' all the ladies o' court shoved in a rum barrel. Took me in an' cared for me proper like, an' only shouted at me a little bit when I told 'er I was off ter sea."
"It strikes me as a slightly strange errand fer a pirate ship." Dougal, a burly Scotsman, quirked an eyebrow.
Pintel broke in for his scowling friend.
"Cap'n said we could go where we wanted, an' Rags 'ad the first idea. An' ye won't be complainin' once ye taste Aunty Maria's baked swordfish."
Gibbs coughed.
"Don't mean to interrupt, gentlemen, but if'n any of us wants to be tastin' this fine lady's cookin' ye might want a little less chinwaggin' and a little more work, eh?" He waved a hand towards the rigging, and the pirates gathered on the quarterdeck dispersed. Gibbs steadied the wheel in his hands, trying to discern any sounds coming from the cabin below. Really Jack ought to take some time at the helm; he'd slipped back into that sullen, ponderous mood since they'd left Jamaica and it was beyond irritating.
"Least now we can say for sure women are terrible bad luck for a ship," he grumbled. The sheer insanity of going to Port Royal was enough to confirm what the crew already knew fairly well, but breaking into the bloody governor's mansion? Former crewman James Norrington might be, but he'd still been more than half shocked to see Jack reappear with all of his limbs remaining. No matter if he could still put on the swagger and swashbuckle; Jack wasn't right in the head. And over a woman. Gibbs shook his head. He'd seen sights enough to use the word very sparingly, but this was definitely strange. Oh, granted, Miss Elizabeth- Lizzie, she'd seemed to like being called- was not exactly your average female, but Jack was hardly average himself.
The great cabin door clattered open.
"Speak o' the devil..."
Jack clambered up the stairs, placing a lazy hand on the rail in front of the helm.
"Good morrow, Mr Gibbs."
"It's the afternoon, Cap'n."
"Same difference." Jack coughed lightly. "So... where are we going then?"
Gibbs screwed his eyes shut in annoyance.
"It's been three days, Jack."
"That's an odd name for a place."
"Three days an' yer only just askin' where we're goin'. On your ship." He looked at the captain, who simply raised his eyebrows quizzically. Gibbs sighed. "Oh alright. We're goin' to St Kitts. Ragetti wanted to see his aunty."
"Forgive me, Mr Gibbs, but since when did visiting one's aunty become the business of a pirate? He should be willing to sell said aunty for a song and a bottle of rum."
"P'rhaps," the first mate replied, his tone dripping sarcasm, "about the same time that mooning over a woman also became the business of a pirate? Cap'n?"
Jack's expression was somewhere between murderous and terrified before he swiftly turned away.
Bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger... Jack paced the deck in the food store, each step punctuated by a mental profanity. The chickens squawked and fluttered as he walked back and forth in front of their cage. He stopped and eyed them menacingly.
"Could fancy one of you for dinner if you don't shut up." No response. Bloody birds. With a sigh, he sat down on a nearby barrel and pulled an apple from the box. How did Gibbs know? How? A dribble of sharp juice ran into the hairs of his beard and down his chin as he bit into the fruit. "I'd rather have Barbossa's cursed lot than a crew of bloody mind readers," he mumbled around the mouthful. "Least there's something useful in being undead."
Idly he wondered if Ragetti's aunt knew about his ten years of living death; how might she have reacted to a nephew who turned into a rotting skeleton at the touch of moonlight? Perhaps he'd only visited her when it was cloudy. Taking another bite, his mind wandered back to the last time he'd seen his own family.
It had been about a year after he'd lost the Pearl, and more than a decade since he'd snuck out of the villa in the dead of night to seek passage aboard a ship. His father had died somewhere in the interim, he discovered, his mother returning to their small, lonely family estate near Epping Forest. She'd almost screamed on waking up to him in her bedroom, then done so properly when he showed her the thin gold ring engraved with the Roe insignia that he had still worn at the time. It had taken a hour of answering personal questions before she would believe that the terrifying pirate who had broken into her house in the dead of night hadn't simply murdered her Jonathan and stolen the family ring.
The whole thing had been terribly awkward; hearing about his sister's wedding and his brother's military promotion, when all their names conjured were memories of uncannily similar ten year olds laughing when he said he was going to become a sailor. His mother had looked much the same as he recalled her, only slightly shrunken, as if the years had caused her to contract slightly as they sucked most of the colour from her hair. She'd tried to persuade him to stay, even as she winced at the sight of the brand that marked him out for the grave, at least long enough to see his siblings again, but he'd slipped away in the early hours of the morning. He'd felt in a black mood for months after that too, morosely pondering on how he might have lived had he stayed Jonathan Roe, never become Jack Sparrow the sailor, cartographer, navigator, captain and finally pirate.
He waggled his tongue, trying to remove a bit of apple peel that had caught between his teeth. Was he doomed to become increasingly maudlin as the years wore on? He'd be writing some godawful self-indulgent poetry next, or trying to engage the crew in discussion on the purpose of existence. Ragetti might enjoy that, if no-one else, especially since that missionary they'd kidnapped in Ceylon taught him to read a little of the Bible, but it was hardly... piratey.
He grimaced, remembering Gibbs' earlier words. Letting Elizabeth Swann... Lizzie... so far into his head was about as far from ‘piratey’ as one could get. Pirates didn't get flustered over women; they enjoyed their company when in port, and thought nothing of it when out at sea... perhaps enjoying one anothers' company if needs must. Maybe sometimes they were lucky enough to encounter a woman who didn't mind a deck beneath her feet, though Anamaria's blunderbuss had made it quite clear where the limits of... companionship... were to lie with her.
But Lizzie... she'd had him all in a spin, half pirate and half lady- he still couldn't decide whether that 'dress or nothing' comment had been entirely truthful on his part- half demon and half demure. She'd picked up quickly enough on the effect she had on him, and no matter that he seemed to do the same to her, when she let her mind wander from that engagement ring anyway. Doubtless things would get even worse if he were to ever get anywhere near her again, and the Pearl had a troublesome enough captain as it was.
He'd locked the compass away in a chest in his cabin. It was too much of a temptation.
Leaning up against the hull of the ship, Elizabeth wondered why she couldn't sleep. It wasn't cold, here between the wool bales, and the gentle rush of the sea that wood and tar protected her from had been a soothing enough refrain every other night. Sighing, she pulled her makeshift blanket higher over her body, and tipped her head back, one hand loosening the stubby ponytail that her short hair was tied into. The ship was fast, they'd be at sea only a few more weeks. She still had little idea of precisely what to do once they reached Charlestown. Disguising herself as a young boy was not going to be possible forever, but finding a ship that would openly accept female crew might be only marginally less difficult.
"Haven't really thought this through," she murmured ruefully, picking at the soft, greasy fibres of the cargo. She'd actually got used to the smell of the stuff now; doubtless she herself stank like a sheepfold, but this was a far more comfortable spot to sleep than on the upper decks. When she could sleep.
She wasn't having second thoughts about leaving London, she didn't doubt it would have killed her eventually, whether she continued to appear alive or not. And she'd never really expected to stay on honest vessels for too long either; pirates had fewer qualms about women aboard, if they proved their worth like any other crew member, which she was perfectly capable of doing. Even Gibbs had seemed to overcome his misgivings when she'd served on the Black Pearl and the Orpheus.
Sighing again, thoughts of that final voyage on the Pearl began to exacerbate her insomnia. That night with Jack... she shivered in spite of herself, the strange fire that had scorched through her limbs beginning to ignite again at just the memory of the way his dark eyes had glittered in the half-light. Far more feral, far more tempting, than the sparkle of her engagement ring that had dredged up thoughts of Will when she surfaced again from sleep. It had seemed suddenly so wrong to have abandoned all propriety- to have abandoned herself, she had half-thought at the time- in the arms of a pirate, when her fiancé was so recently... well, he might as well have been dead. And she couldn't have stayed, not when those feelings were warring with the desire to abandon all propriety again, to throw propriety overboard and be done with it for good. Though it hadn't been long before she'd begun to wonder, as she did now, whether she hadn't allowed the wrong emotion to win out.
Elizabeth squirmed, and shifted to lie down on her side. Jack hadn't seemed too concerned at the time; when he finally came out of the cabin he'd only stared silently at her for what had seemed an age before telling her she was welcome to stay on as crew. He'd seemed almost afraid of her, which made absolutely no sense because she was hardly going to sell his soul, or burn all the rum again, and in her experience those were the only things which could make Jack Sparrow fearful enough for it to show.
A stray wisp of hair tickled at her nose and she brushed it away irritably. The whole journey he'd been like that, oscillating between indifference and a strange, hungry look, and of course all the while keeping her and the rest of the crew completely in the dark about the reason for their heading. She trailed one finger across her lips as she remembered literally walking into him on the ladder; the way his mouth had twitched as he leaned in towards her almost unconsciously before jerking away. She'd spent plenty of nights more sleepless than this, endlessly reworking in her mind all the perfect things to say to him that would have made everything right... if she'd only found the opportune moment...
The Sophia creaked and murmured as the watches of the night wore on and Elizabeth drifted through grey dreams that brought little rest.
A/N: If you were wondering, the backstory!Jack that I reference in this chapter (as well as previously in the story) is based on my short fic Ruins, written for je_challenge.
Ragetti looked offended.
"Course I am! I knows it like I knows the back of me eyeball." He popped the fake organ back in lovingly. Gibbs still couldn't help but wince inwardly, even after seeing it hundreds of times.
"And yer quite sure we won't regret this?"
"No-one ever regrets visitin' me aunty." The skinny pirate put a solemn hand to his heart. "She's the finest woman as has ever lived, finer'n Queen Caroline an' all the ladies o' court shoved in a rum barrel. Took me in an' cared for me proper like, an' only shouted at me a little bit when I told 'er I was off ter sea."
"It strikes me as a slightly strange errand fer a pirate ship." Dougal, a burly Scotsman, quirked an eyebrow.
Pintel broke in for his scowling friend.
"Cap'n said we could go where we wanted, an' Rags 'ad the first idea. An' ye won't be complainin' once ye taste Aunty Maria's baked swordfish."
Gibbs coughed.
"Don't mean to interrupt, gentlemen, but if'n any of us wants to be tastin' this fine lady's cookin' ye might want a little less chinwaggin' and a little more work, eh?" He waved a hand towards the rigging, and the pirates gathered on the quarterdeck dispersed. Gibbs steadied the wheel in his hands, trying to discern any sounds coming from the cabin below. Really Jack ought to take some time at the helm; he'd slipped back into that sullen, ponderous mood since they'd left Jamaica and it was beyond irritating.
"Least now we can say for sure women are terrible bad luck for a ship," he grumbled. The sheer insanity of going to Port Royal was enough to confirm what the crew already knew fairly well, but breaking into the bloody governor's mansion? Former crewman James Norrington might be, but he'd still been more than half shocked to see Jack reappear with all of his limbs remaining. No matter if he could still put on the swagger and swashbuckle; Jack wasn't right in the head. And over a woman. Gibbs shook his head. He'd seen sights enough to use the word very sparingly, but this was definitely strange. Oh, granted, Miss Elizabeth- Lizzie, she'd seemed to like being called- was not exactly your average female, but Jack was hardly average himself.
The great cabin door clattered open.
"Speak o' the devil..."
Jack clambered up the stairs, placing a lazy hand on the rail in front of the helm.
"Good morrow, Mr Gibbs."
"It's the afternoon, Cap'n."
"Same difference." Jack coughed lightly. "So... where are we going then?"
Gibbs screwed his eyes shut in annoyance.
"It's been three days, Jack."
"That's an odd name for a place."
"Three days an' yer only just askin' where we're goin'. On your ship." He looked at the captain, who simply raised his eyebrows quizzically. Gibbs sighed. "Oh alright. We're goin' to St Kitts. Ragetti wanted to see his aunty."
"Forgive me, Mr Gibbs, but since when did visiting one's aunty become the business of a pirate? He should be willing to sell said aunty for a song and a bottle of rum."
"P'rhaps," the first mate replied, his tone dripping sarcasm, "about the same time that mooning over a woman also became the business of a pirate? Cap'n?"
Jack's expression was somewhere between murderous and terrified before he swiftly turned away.
Bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger... Jack paced the deck in the food store, each step punctuated by a mental profanity. The chickens squawked and fluttered as he walked back and forth in front of their cage. He stopped and eyed them menacingly.
"Could fancy one of you for dinner if you don't shut up." No response. Bloody birds. With a sigh, he sat down on a nearby barrel and pulled an apple from the box. How did Gibbs know? How? A dribble of sharp juice ran into the hairs of his beard and down his chin as he bit into the fruit. "I'd rather have Barbossa's cursed lot than a crew of bloody mind readers," he mumbled around the mouthful. "Least there's something useful in being undead."
Idly he wondered if Ragetti's aunt knew about his ten years of living death; how might she have reacted to a nephew who turned into a rotting skeleton at the touch of moonlight? Perhaps he'd only visited her when it was cloudy. Taking another bite, his mind wandered back to the last time he'd seen his own family.
It had been about a year after he'd lost the Pearl, and more than a decade since he'd snuck out of the villa in the dead of night to seek passage aboard a ship. His father had died somewhere in the interim, he discovered, his mother returning to their small, lonely family estate near Epping Forest. She'd almost screamed on waking up to him in her bedroom, then done so properly when he showed her the thin gold ring engraved with the Roe insignia that he had still worn at the time. It had taken a hour of answering personal questions before she would believe that the terrifying pirate who had broken into her house in the dead of night hadn't simply murdered her Jonathan and stolen the family ring.
The whole thing had been terribly awkward; hearing about his sister's wedding and his brother's military promotion, when all their names conjured were memories of uncannily similar ten year olds laughing when he said he was going to become a sailor. His mother had looked much the same as he recalled her, only slightly shrunken, as if the years had caused her to contract slightly as they sucked most of the colour from her hair. She'd tried to persuade him to stay, even as she winced at the sight of the brand that marked him out for the grave, at least long enough to see his siblings again, but he'd slipped away in the early hours of the morning. He'd felt in a black mood for months after that too, morosely pondering on how he might have lived had he stayed Jonathan Roe, never become Jack Sparrow the sailor, cartographer, navigator, captain and finally pirate.
He waggled his tongue, trying to remove a bit of apple peel that had caught between his teeth. Was he doomed to become increasingly maudlin as the years wore on? He'd be writing some godawful self-indulgent poetry next, or trying to engage the crew in discussion on the purpose of existence. Ragetti might enjoy that, if no-one else, especially since that missionary they'd kidnapped in Ceylon taught him to read a little of the Bible, but it was hardly... piratey.
He grimaced, remembering Gibbs' earlier words. Letting Elizabeth Swann... Lizzie... so far into his head was about as far from ‘piratey’ as one could get. Pirates didn't get flustered over women; they enjoyed their company when in port, and thought nothing of it when out at sea... perhaps enjoying one anothers' company if needs must. Maybe sometimes they were lucky enough to encounter a woman who didn't mind a deck beneath her feet, though Anamaria's blunderbuss had made it quite clear where the limits of... companionship... were to lie with her.
But Lizzie... she'd had him all in a spin, half pirate and half lady- he still couldn't decide whether that 'dress or nothing' comment had been entirely truthful on his part- half demon and half demure. She'd picked up quickly enough on the effect she had on him, and no matter that he seemed to do the same to her, when she let her mind wander from that engagement ring anyway. Doubtless things would get even worse if he were to ever get anywhere near her again, and the Pearl had a troublesome enough captain as it was.
He'd locked the compass away in a chest in his cabin. It was too much of a temptation.
Leaning up against the hull of the ship, Elizabeth wondered why she couldn't sleep. It wasn't cold, here between the wool bales, and the gentle rush of the sea that wood and tar protected her from had been a soothing enough refrain every other night. Sighing, she pulled her makeshift blanket higher over her body, and tipped her head back, one hand loosening the stubby ponytail that her short hair was tied into. The ship was fast, they'd be at sea only a few more weeks. She still had little idea of precisely what to do once they reached Charlestown. Disguising herself as a young boy was not going to be possible forever, but finding a ship that would openly accept female crew might be only marginally less difficult.
"Haven't really thought this through," she murmured ruefully, picking at the soft, greasy fibres of the cargo. She'd actually got used to the smell of the stuff now; doubtless she herself stank like a sheepfold, but this was a far more comfortable spot to sleep than on the upper decks. When she could sleep.
She wasn't having second thoughts about leaving London, she didn't doubt it would have killed her eventually, whether she continued to appear alive or not. And she'd never really expected to stay on honest vessels for too long either; pirates had fewer qualms about women aboard, if they proved their worth like any other crew member, which she was perfectly capable of doing. Even Gibbs had seemed to overcome his misgivings when she'd served on the Black Pearl and the Orpheus.
Sighing again, thoughts of that final voyage on the Pearl began to exacerbate her insomnia. That night with Jack... she shivered in spite of herself, the strange fire that had scorched through her limbs beginning to ignite again at just the memory of the way his dark eyes had glittered in the half-light. Far more feral, far more tempting, than the sparkle of her engagement ring that had dredged up thoughts of Will when she surfaced again from sleep. It had seemed suddenly so wrong to have abandoned all propriety- to have abandoned herself, she had half-thought at the time- in the arms of a pirate, when her fiancé was so recently... well, he might as well have been dead. And she couldn't have stayed, not when those feelings were warring with the desire to abandon all propriety again, to throw propriety overboard and be done with it for good. Though it hadn't been long before she'd begun to wonder, as she did now, whether she hadn't allowed the wrong emotion to win out.
Elizabeth squirmed, and shifted to lie down on her side. Jack hadn't seemed too concerned at the time; when he finally came out of the cabin he'd only stared silently at her for what had seemed an age before telling her she was welcome to stay on as crew. He'd seemed almost afraid of her, which made absolutely no sense because she was hardly going to sell his soul, or burn all the rum again, and in her experience those were the only things which could make Jack Sparrow fearful enough for it to show.
A stray wisp of hair tickled at her nose and she brushed it away irritably. The whole journey he'd been like that, oscillating between indifference and a strange, hungry look, and of course all the while keeping her and the rest of the crew completely in the dark about the reason for their heading. She trailed one finger across her lips as she remembered literally walking into him on the ladder; the way his mouth had twitched as he leaned in towards her almost unconsciously before jerking away. She'd spent plenty of nights more sleepless than this, endlessly reworking in her mind all the perfect things to say to him that would have made everything right... if she'd only found the opportune moment...
The Sophia creaked and murmured as the watches of the night wore on and Elizabeth drifted through grey dreams that brought little rest.
A/N: If you were wondering, the backstory!Jack that I reference in this chapter (as well as previously in the story) is based on my short fic Ruins, written for je_challenge.