Chapter Ten - Useless History
"You know, Elizabeth, my offer still stands, now that I am once again captain of a ship."
Her face was shocked for a second before she forced disgust onto it.
"Will is just down the stairs, Jack," she hissed, "shut up!"
"Doubt he'd be that bothered, darling."
He gestured towards the ex-blacksmith, who sat on the hatch cover below them, completely absorbed in sharpening his small knife. Anger flashed in her eyes, she opened her mouth then snapped it shut, whirling around to half-run down towards the main deck. Will barely noticed her, head jerking up in half-annoyance as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
It was like watching a ship go under, he thought, waves ensnaring the deck to drag her down even as the crew clamoured to reclaim her, and despite the screams he could almost hear, Jack couldn't tear his eyes away...
She was perched on the stern rail when he finally overcame the cold, clothes shrugged back on hastily. He struggled for the right words to say to her. Oh, he'd had women who'd regretted it, who'd cried and slapped him, but he'd never felt this strange nausea when they walked away from him. He'd been seasick only once, during his first storm somewhere out in the Gulf of Mannar, and had decided not to do it again, but he felt close to that pitiful retching now, though the only storm was in his head... with tailwinds that tugged at something in his chest.
There was a silence between them as he approached, and it was disturbing that he had no other words to describe it. Was it awkward? Congenial? The kind where what needs to be said has been, or where it lurks dangerously like an unseen reef, waiting to shipwreck them both? She seemed unwilling to look at him, but then there was nothing more for her to see now- nothing of skin and sinew at least.
Still his own eyes couldn't leave her, that dirty red westkit doing little to cover over memories that burned in his mind's eye... muscles running like currents under the pale of her skin, but unlike the waters of the sea he had pulled in return, arching them away from the lines of the map with the barest trace of a finger. She was intoxicating; he had struggled for control of himself, struggled to be gentle when those still waters concealed a rip that threatened to drag him far beyond his depth.
As the silence stretched out and the storm surged he wondered if he wasn't drowning already…
The early morning wind whipped through the rough-cut ends of her hair as the Sophia tacked across it. Elizabeth's chapped lips stung from the salt that seemed to get everywhere at sea; her body was aching from days spent in the rigging and nights curled uncomfortably on empty sacks over bare boards, but every time she felt a wave surging the ship upwards a tingle ran down her spine.
The Sophia managed to remind her of every ship she'd sailed on- the bold purpose of the Dauntless, the energy of the Interceptor, the clipped warmth of the Edinburgh Trader like her captain's brogue, and on the clearest nights and fiercest days she even had something of the mystery of the Black Pearl.
She kept largely to herself on board, constantly aware of the need to maintain her disguise. She didn't doubt that, were she discovered, she would be reasonably treated, but they would not allow a woman to hang suspended between sky and merciless sea to trim sail, to roughen her hands with rope and splinters, and never to climb the dizzying height to the crow's nest and laugh for the joy of nothing but open water everywhere around.
The hardest part of all was keeping a hold of the giddiness that soaked her veins more thoroughly than rum ever had. London seemed a drab memory from long ago compared to this, a pale dream blanching further at reality.
She glanced up from her bucket and brush towards the quarterdeck, where Master Wright stood in conversation with the captain, the pair of them examining some paper he had stretched between his hands. The captain was quite aloof, certainly never deigning to converse with cabin boys, but the crew seemed quite contented under his leadership. Simms, the ship's cook, claimed that Captain Turner was the best navigator ever to sail the Atlantic, and even without the man's trademark exaggeration it seemed accurate.
Captain Turner. Elizabeth shook her head slightly as she turned back to her task. Fighting down the double- nay, triple- take she'd almost done at the name had been very difficult, but mostly it caused her to wonder why thoughts of Will had not preoccupied her like... other thoughts... since he'd left her.
She'd had dreams of him too, of course, of sneaking visits to him at the forge when he still stammered through 'Miss Swann', of his daring attempt to rescue her from Barbossa, ill-fated as it was, of their secret fencing lessons, of his proposal, all sweeping hands and bended knee... they came coloured softly, like a dream of a memory of a dream, the quivering vibrancy of her dreams of Jack making a stark comparison.
Watching the dirt lift away from the deck under her scrubbing she wondered where he was now... possibly right beneath this very ship, unnerving as that thought was. Morbidly, her mind painted a picture of him half-mutated into some awful sea creature, like the rest of the Dutchman's crew. It was disturbing, but not as painful as it might have been, once.
Before I stopped loving him.
Elizabeth blinked at the thought, though without pausing in her work. It was entirely true; she'd never acknowledged it so clearly, but she could not dispute it. She had loved Will once, with a fierce passion for the forbidden, for a blacksmith who turned pirate for her alone, like her own personal swashbuckler always ready to be called upon when she needed to feel adventure in her blood again.
Was it when he left her imprisoned without even a goodbye kiss that the change began- when she made an adventure of her own? Was it on stealing her coat and tricorn in Tortuga, on relieving another man of his sword and feeling its hilt so natural against her palm? Or was it kohl-darkened eyes boring into her own, the touch of a hand...
She drew breath, and focused fiercely on a particularly mucky patch. Those thoughts were still dangerous. She did not try to ignore them, knowing far too well how fruitless that would be, but it was another thing entirely to dwell on them, let them be drawn out into feelings she had buried very deep indeed, feelings that would shake apart a lot in the unearthing.
There was little light in the rough-hewn passageway, save for the yellow flickering of a torch further behind them. Elizabeth's eyes looked strange with pupils dilated, her breath catching slightly as she gazed into the murky blackness before them.
"This is the right place, you're sure?"
"As eggs is really bad eggs, Lizzie. 'Course I was a much younger man when I came here last, and the occasion certainly wasn't so great, but this is definitely the place."
"So which way do we go?"
"Ah."
She raised her eyebrows as he tried to look purposeful. After a few seconds he pulled out the compass, opening it with an elaborate hand gesture and watching the needle twitch, then spin surely to- bugger. His eyes flicked up from it briefly to look at her, then back down, as he snapped it closed and stowed it away again, returning to his aimless casting around.
She rolled her eyes at that.
"Honestly Jack, are you completely incompetent?"
He narrowed his eyes and took a step towards her.
"May I remind you, young missy, that were it not for my 'incompetence' you would have not the faintest idea where to start looking for your precious missing fiancé? Perhaps you would like to give the compass a try, hmm?"
In the firelight he could still see the flush that rose in her cheeks.
"No thank you."
"Pity," he murmured, taking another step, she moving back in tandem, except that now she was backed up against the rough, rocky wall. He leaned towards her, placing hands either side of her shoulders. "Such a pity."
"Jack..." she gasped, and there was a note of desperation in it that was not protest. His eyelids slipped closed as their lips brushed, like flint striking flint to light another flame in the darkness, when-
"Cap'n?"
"Cap'n?" Gibb's voice at the door in echo of the dream jerked him awake, limbs flailing for a moment in unexpected loss of dream-Elizabeth... memory-Elizabeth... whatever she was. He screwed his eyes shut, then forced them open again, clambering out of the blankets to stumble towards the door.
Wrenching it open, he stuck his head out.
"Yes?" Gibbs looked slightly taken aback at his tone. Serves him right for always bloody interrupting.
"Erm... well it's a fair way past dawn, and I thought ye'd want to be away from Jamaica by now."
"Oh. Yes." He looked sleepily up at the sky, which was now completely light. "Ah... set sail back to Tortuga... or something. Where do you feel like going? Let's go there." Before the first mate could give voice to the bewilderment on his face Jack had closed the door again.
For some reason those dreams, those memories, were the worst of the lot- the times he'd come so bloody close to having her, to completely breaking down the walls she constructed and showing her exactly how she really felt about bloody stupid Will, and where they both knew the compass would point. Why they never altered in dreams, when most other memories would shift and break during his sleep, he couldn't fathom.
He could feel the Pearl beginning to move as he dressed himself properly. Where she was headed for the moment truly wasn't of much importance... he realised he was pacing the floor, and sat himself down at the table. However disobedient his sleeping mind, there had to be something in these dreams, in his inability to contemplate that the compass was not pointing at her, had not been resolutely and unyieldingly pointing at her since he awoke to her concerned face that day at the end of the world.
"But what am I supposed to bloody do about it?" He bounced his fist off the table, scowling. "I did what I had to, did what was best for her anyhow. If went after that ship she's on I'd probably run into the husband, maybe even a little Lizzie on the way..." No, no, no, god, why was it so bitingly painful to think of a child with that rum-coloured hair and someone else's eyes?
He'd done what was right; he'd needed to get her away from him before he could really hurt her, before he could push her aside like every other woman... or before she wormed her way too deep into his head, his heart. Before the thought of leaving her made him too sick to carry it out.
He bit his lip, glancing across to the compass that was currently piled untidily with his other navigation tools. Maybe he ought to just give the blasted thing to Gibbs, or Pintel, or any other crewman who still seemed to remain an actual pirate, rather than a vexed idiot.
Maybe you ought to follow it, murmured a voice in his mind.
A/N: Complete proof of my insanity (or devotion to you, my dear readers) - I am up at quarter to three in the morning posting this when I need to be up in four hours so I can wait for my new laptop to be delivered. But at least then I may write Sparrabeth anywhere in the house, so hurrah.
Her face was shocked for a second before she forced disgust onto it.
"Will is just down the stairs, Jack," she hissed, "shut up!"
"Doubt he'd be that bothered, darling."
He gestured towards the ex-blacksmith, who sat on the hatch cover below them, completely absorbed in sharpening his small knife. Anger flashed in her eyes, she opened her mouth then snapped it shut, whirling around to half-run down towards the main deck. Will barely noticed her, head jerking up in half-annoyance as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
It was like watching a ship go under, he thought, waves ensnaring the deck to drag her down even as the crew clamoured to reclaim her, and despite the screams he could almost hear, Jack couldn't tear his eyes away...
She was perched on the stern rail when he finally overcame the cold, clothes shrugged back on hastily. He struggled for the right words to say to her. Oh, he'd had women who'd regretted it, who'd cried and slapped him, but he'd never felt this strange nausea when they walked away from him. He'd been seasick only once, during his first storm somewhere out in the Gulf of Mannar, and had decided not to do it again, but he felt close to that pitiful retching now, though the only storm was in his head... with tailwinds that tugged at something in his chest.
There was a silence between them as he approached, and it was disturbing that he had no other words to describe it. Was it awkward? Congenial? The kind where what needs to be said has been, or where it lurks dangerously like an unseen reef, waiting to shipwreck them both? She seemed unwilling to look at him, but then there was nothing more for her to see now- nothing of skin and sinew at least.
Still his own eyes couldn't leave her, that dirty red westkit doing little to cover over memories that burned in his mind's eye... muscles running like currents under the pale of her skin, but unlike the waters of the sea he had pulled in return, arching them away from the lines of the map with the barest trace of a finger. She was intoxicating; he had struggled for control of himself, struggled to be gentle when those still waters concealed a rip that threatened to drag him far beyond his depth.
As the silence stretched out and the storm surged he wondered if he wasn't drowning already…
The early morning wind whipped through the rough-cut ends of her hair as the Sophia tacked across it. Elizabeth's chapped lips stung from the salt that seemed to get everywhere at sea; her body was aching from days spent in the rigging and nights curled uncomfortably on empty sacks over bare boards, but every time she felt a wave surging the ship upwards a tingle ran down her spine.
The Sophia managed to remind her of every ship she'd sailed on- the bold purpose of the Dauntless, the energy of the Interceptor, the clipped warmth of the Edinburgh Trader like her captain's brogue, and on the clearest nights and fiercest days she even had something of the mystery of the Black Pearl.
She kept largely to herself on board, constantly aware of the need to maintain her disguise. She didn't doubt that, were she discovered, she would be reasonably treated, but they would not allow a woman to hang suspended between sky and merciless sea to trim sail, to roughen her hands with rope and splinters, and never to climb the dizzying height to the crow's nest and laugh for the joy of nothing but open water everywhere around.
The hardest part of all was keeping a hold of the giddiness that soaked her veins more thoroughly than rum ever had. London seemed a drab memory from long ago compared to this, a pale dream blanching further at reality.
She glanced up from her bucket and brush towards the quarterdeck, where Master Wright stood in conversation with the captain, the pair of them examining some paper he had stretched between his hands. The captain was quite aloof, certainly never deigning to converse with cabin boys, but the crew seemed quite contented under his leadership. Simms, the ship's cook, claimed that Captain Turner was the best navigator ever to sail the Atlantic, and even without the man's trademark exaggeration it seemed accurate.
Captain Turner. Elizabeth shook her head slightly as she turned back to her task. Fighting down the double- nay, triple- take she'd almost done at the name had been very difficult, but mostly it caused her to wonder why thoughts of Will had not preoccupied her like... other thoughts... since he'd left her.
She'd had dreams of him too, of course, of sneaking visits to him at the forge when he still stammered through 'Miss Swann', of his daring attempt to rescue her from Barbossa, ill-fated as it was, of their secret fencing lessons, of his proposal, all sweeping hands and bended knee... they came coloured softly, like a dream of a memory of a dream, the quivering vibrancy of her dreams of Jack making a stark comparison.
Watching the dirt lift away from the deck under her scrubbing she wondered where he was now... possibly right beneath this very ship, unnerving as that thought was. Morbidly, her mind painted a picture of him half-mutated into some awful sea creature, like the rest of the Dutchman's crew. It was disturbing, but not as painful as it might have been, once.
Before I stopped loving him.
Elizabeth blinked at the thought, though without pausing in her work. It was entirely true; she'd never acknowledged it so clearly, but she could not dispute it. She had loved Will once, with a fierce passion for the forbidden, for a blacksmith who turned pirate for her alone, like her own personal swashbuckler always ready to be called upon when she needed to feel adventure in her blood again.
Was it when he left her imprisoned without even a goodbye kiss that the change began- when she made an adventure of her own? Was it on stealing her coat and tricorn in Tortuga, on relieving another man of his sword and feeling its hilt so natural against her palm? Or was it kohl-darkened eyes boring into her own, the touch of a hand...
She drew breath, and focused fiercely on a particularly mucky patch. Those thoughts were still dangerous. She did not try to ignore them, knowing far too well how fruitless that would be, but it was another thing entirely to dwell on them, let them be drawn out into feelings she had buried very deep indeed, feelings that would shake apart a lot in the unearthing.
There was little light in the rough-hewn passageway, save for the yellow flickering of a torch further behind them. Elizabeth's eyes looked strange with pupils dilated, her breath catching slightly as she gazed into the murky blackness before them.
"This is the right place, you're sure?"
"As eggs is really bad eggs, Lizzie. 'Course I was a much younger man when I came here last, and the occasion certainly wasn't so great, but this is definitely the place."
"So which way do we go?"
"Ah."
She raised her eyebrows as he tried to look purposeful. After a few seconds he pulled out the compass, opening it with an elaborate hand gesture and watching the needle twitch, then spin surely to- bugger. His eyes flicked up from it briefly to look at her, then back down, as he snapped it closed and stowed it away again, returning to his aimless casting around.
She rolled her eyes at that.
"Honestly Jack, are you completely incompetent?"
He narrowed his eyes and took a step towards her.
"May I remind you, young missy, that were it not for my 'incompetence' you would have not the faintest idea where to start looking for your precious missing fiancé? Perhaps you would like to give the compass a try, hmm?"
In the firelight he could still see the flush that rose in her cheeks.
"No thank you."
"Pity," he murmured, taking another step, she moving back in tandem, except that now she was backed up against the rough, rocky wall. He leaned towards her, placing hands either side of her shoulders. "Such a pity."
"Jack..." she gasped, and there was a note of desperation in it that was not protest. His eyelids slipped closed as their lips brushed, like flint striking flint to light another flame in the darkness, when-
"Cap'n?"
"Cap'n?" Gibb's voice at the door in echo of the dream jerked him awake, limbs flailing for a moment in unexpected loss of dream-Elizabeth... memory-Elizabeth... whatever she was. He screwed his eyes shut, then forced them open again, clambering out of the blankets to stumble towards the door.
Wrenching it open, he stuck his head out.
"Yes?" Gibbs looked slightly taken aback at his tone. Serves him right for always bloody interrupting.
"Erm... well it's a fair way past dawn, and I thought ye'd want to be away from Jamaica by now."
"Oh. Yes." He looked sleepily up at the sky, which was now completely light. "Ah... set sail back to Tortuga... or something. Where do you feel like going? Let's go there." Before the first mate could give voice to the bewilderment on his face Jack had closed the door again.
For some reason those dreams, those memories, were the worst of the lot- the times he'd come so bloody close to having her, to completely breaking down the walls she constructed and showing her exactly how she really felt about bloody stupid Will, and where they both knew the compass would point. Why they never altered in dreams, when most other memories would shift and break during his sleep, he couldn't fathom.
He could feel the Pearl beginning to move as he dressed himself properly. Where she was headed for the moment truly wasn't of much importance... he realised he was pacing the floor, and sat himself down at the table. However disobedient his sleeping mind, there had to be something in these dreams, in his inability to contemplate that the compass was not pointing at her, had not been resolutely and unyieldingly pointing at her since he awoke to her concerned face that day at the end of the world.
"But what am I supposed to bloody do about it?" He bounced his fist off the table, scowling. "I did what I had to, did what was best for her anyhow. If went after that ship she's on I'd probably run into the husband, maybe even a little Lizzie on the way..." No, no, no, god, why was it so bitingly painful to think of a child with that rum-coloured hair and someone else's eyes?
He'd done what was right; he'd needed to get her away from him before he could really hurt her, before he could push her aside like every other woman... or before she wormed her way too deep into his head, his heart. Before the thought of leaving her made him too sick to carry it out.
He bit his lip, glancing across to the compass that was currently piled untidily with his other navigation tools. Maybe he ought to just give the blasted thing to Gibbs, or Pintel, or any other crewman who still seemed to remain an actual pirate, rather than a vexed idiot.
Maybe you ought to follow it, murmured a voice in his mind.
A/N: Complete proof of my insanity (or devotion to you, my dear readers) - I am up at quarter to three in the morning posting this when I need to be up in four hours so I can wait for my new laptop to be delivered. But at least then I may write Sparrabeth anywhere in the house, so hurrah.