(no subject)
Jack Sparrow missed nothing. He couldn’t afford to. And so it was with great surprise that he had personally witnessed the night time goings-on aboard the Dauntless. When they were convinced no one was watching, the Commodore and Elizabeth came together and sparks flew. He had been sure she loved Will. Did she? Or had her fickle heart turned to bloody Norrington himself? Was the minx leading both men a merry chase until she discovered which horse would win the race? His attraction to her grew exponentially. Was she manipulating them both? What a tempting thought. As someone who would do anything to get what he wanted, he admired the trait in others. The question was not if, but when, he would confront her. And he would do so when it was of the greatest profit to him.
Isle de Muerta was plainly visible in the daylight; it wouldn’t be long. He certainly had his own reason for wanting to return. Barbossa. He couldn’t think of lifting skirts right now, his thoughts were filled with murder. When the long boats were launched, he would have a prime seat.
As for Elizabeth, her day was made watching James captain the Dauntless. He was such an able man, it was amazing to watch him work and see how much his men loved and admired him. He gave an order only once, and sometimes he didn’t need to give them at all. And occasionally their eyes would meet and he would shyly smile and look down, only to suddenly look up to make sure she was still watching him. His men watched all this with amusement, though they kept their tongues. Just pluck her and get it over with, they thought, but still kept silent as a tomb.
James kept his own counsel as a proper gentleman did, but was close to bursting in more ways than one. His appetite was whet - for catching those pirates which in itself caused a fire in his blood, for putting Mr. Turner back in his place, and to take out all his frustration by futtering Elizabeth until she was incapable of doing anything but crying out his name over and over…and over. God, he needed to find those pirates fast.
She came to him again that night. He knew he could avoid it by not standing by the railing at the time she generally approached, but he didn’t want to. She wrapped her arms around him, just like usual, and whispered in his ear. “I can’t wait to be your wife.” “You are a fine man.” “I cannot wait until our wedding night.”
“Elizabeth, you must stop this”, he said.
“I want you. I cannot help myself”, she said, turning those big brown eyes on him.
“You push too far”, he said, dragging her against him and kissing her soundly. “Do you know what it is like for a man to hear the woman he loves tell him she wants him? I am going mad with want of you.”
“We’re to be married, what’s the harm?” she asked.
“I want to do the right thing, and I could never dishonor your father”, he said.
His blasted honor was more than she could take sometimes.
“Tomorrow night, we’ll be on our way back to Port Royal. Once you’re my wife, a barred door couldn’t keep me away from you”, he said.
“Promise me that if it becomes serious…if you cannot get the pirates, just get Will out of there, and return to me. Do not risk your life”, she said.
Life. Dear God, she could not believe it had slipped her mind. “James! There is something I must tell you, I cannot believe I forgot. The pirates…they’re immoral, they can’t be killed.”
He looked at his beloved as though she had lost her mind. She must have been more traumatized by her experience than he thought.
“Anyone can be killed, now don’t worry about it, or me. You don’t worry about me, remember?”
“That was before I remembered. The pirates are cursed!” she said.
“You know that cannot be true, Elizabeth, your imagination has simply gotten the better of you”, he responded.
She wanted to hit him. “They are cursed. My medallion, it was Aztec gold! Their old gods put a curse on it!”
She seemed convinced of what she was saying. He didn’t like it.
“You don’t believe me”, she said, “You think I’m lying.”
“I would never think you were lying”, he said, “I just think that perhaps, you may be…confused.”
“Will always believed everything I told him”, she said.
He grabbed her arm. “Will?” Anger borne of jealousy and frustration was coming to the surface. “I’ve heard quite enough about Mr. Turner. Will you continue to recite the man’s name after you become my wife? I will not allow it.” His thick, dark eyebrows snapped together and she understood why so many feared this man.
She pulled her arm away. “At least he thought highly enough of me to believe me”, she said, “He respected me.” She stormed off.
Didn’t she see? He thought in desperation. Didn’t she understand that he was responsible for everything? Responsible for his men, responsible for his ships, responsible for the lives of everyone in Port Royal, all of whom he had failed that night of the attack. He was also responsible for her, only he loved her, and his responsibility to her was greater than to anyone. He nearly had had to tell her father that she was gone. She was soon to be his in every way. If he was a tad possessive, if he was a tad overprotective, if he was a practical man who didn’t believe in ghosts and couldn’t afford to humor her by frightening the hell out of his men with her preposterous story, couldn’t she see it was necessary? If he was weak, even for a moment, innocent people died. If he didn’t catch every pirate, they would continue to sink ships, kill men, and ruin young women. Couldn’t she see the weight of the world was on his shoulders? His shoulders were broad enough to carry the load of Atlas, but didn’t Atlas even get a moment to be loved unconditionally, even if his grip slipped from time to time?
He didn’t have time to ponder the unfairness of his life. They had arrived and preparation must be made for the morning.
He didn’t say good-bye to Elizabeth. She wasn’t speaking to him. He knocked gently and called her name, but received no response. The longboats would be launched at dawn.
But dawn never came. It came, but no one noticed. The pirates had known the Dauntless was floating just off shore and climbed onto the deck, in the darkness of the night.
Elizabeth was roused by a loud knock on the door. She opened it to find Gillette.
“We’re under attack, my lady”, he said, covered in blood, and ran immediately to join the fray.
She ran out on deck, clad only in her nightgown, but by the time she had arrived, it was over. The deck already ran red with blood as sailors fell to the wooden deck, the wood soaking it up. The boards would remain stained for years until the sun bleached them again.
The full moon revealed the pirates for what they were - monsters.
James had little time to filter the knowledge that she had been right. His fatal skill with the cutlass proved to be of little use against pirates who couldn’t die. His men had been 50, then 30, now he could count barely 15 heads.
There was only one way this could end. With everyone aboard dead. He hoped Gillette had gotten to Elizabeth and told her to take a lifeboat and go. There was nothing she could do here, but die. He hoped only that in her memories of him, she knew how much he had loved her, and that he hadn’t meant to doubt her…only protect her.
Barbossa saw Elizabeth and grabbed her by the arm. She screamed the sound snapped James’s head around. “Ah, Miss Turner”, Barbossa laughed. “Another lying whore.”
Barbossa raised sword to Elizabeth. “Put ‘em down, Commodore.”
James had never felt so helpless. He looked around. He had lost so many good men. He met Gillette’s eyes.
“Put them down”, he said.
“No”, Gillette said. His Captain never gave in to threats; he had trained them to be true to their mission and their honor, even at the expense of his own life and theirs.
James refused to lose another man. And well…honor was only good for so much. Next to Elizabeth, it was a fair trade.
“Drop your weapons, men”, James repeated.
The quiet night echoed with the sounds of swords clanging to the deck.
Barbossa’s face turned to the grin of the devil, having captured another soul. He walked over to James, grabbing him by his cravat and pulling their faces close together. James said nothing. Only a persistent twitch in his tightly clenched jaw revealed what he was feeling.
“You may not know me, Commodore, but I know you. The Scourge of Piracy. You know what we do to a Navy man”, he said to his crew and they groaned and laughed hysterically.
“Tonight ye will be paid back for all our suffering.”
His men hollered with joy.
Elizabeth paced in the sunlight on the deck of the Black Pearl. Jack was being held somewhere - she hadn’t seen him since the day before. Voices were coming her way and she looked up to see three men leading James onto the deck. He was bare-chested and barefoot; only his white breeches remained, buttoned below the knee. He was so fair-skinned next to the pirates, having been protected from the sun for years by long sleeves and heavy wool coats.
“James?” she asked, her voice already trembling with fear.
“Take her away. That’s the deal; I go willingly, but she doesn’t watch”, James said.
Barbossa joined them. “There is no deal; ye have nothin’ to bargain with.”
“Babossa, please, please, I’ll do anything…” she said, hitting her knees on the wood deck. James couldn’t take it. The finest woman of his acquaintance, the Governor’s daughter, knelt before a pirate, and all to save him.
“Ye had your chance to cooperate long ago…Miss Turner”, he said with a laugh.
“I’ll see that you get pardoned. My father is the Governor”, she said.
“We need no pardons, missy, we’re free men”, Barbossa said, and his men cried out fiercely.
James was tied to the mast, his hands shackled and roped above his head. She had planned to be strong, but she was weeping already.
The bosun coiled his whip and let it go with the force of well-honed muscles. Elizabeth could not believe how loud the sound was of leather striking flesh. She saw a violent red stripe on James’s back and blood run down the backs of his legs.
“Stop, please, stop…” she yelled.
The whip came down again. James remained silent. They would not have the pleasure of hearing him scream. But most of all, there was Elizabeth. If she knew how much pain he was in…she couldn’t know.
The whip came down again and again. She screamed, but finally went hoarse, collapsing in a pile of tears onto the deck.
His back was one big mass of vicious cuts and blood. As they struck the same marks again and again, James finally groaned and a scream escaped his lips.
“A tough one, but nobody’s that tough”, the bosun said, releasing the whip again.
Elizabeth howled like a wounded child.
“Get her out of here”, James growled. Even Barbossa seemed moved at the hysterical woman at his feet. She wept like a baby.
“Elizabeth!” James cried out. “Be strong.”
“James!” she cried, not happy that he was lucid. He would be unconscious soon and the pain would fade.
“Take me!” she cried out.
“Elizabeth, you must be quiet!” James said, nearly crying himself. The thought of her pain was worse than the reality of his.
James squeezed his eyes closed. “Was that your worst?” he asked in a shaking voice that betrayed his words. “Keep going.”
The bosun lashed out twice as hard and James screamed. Anything to keep their minds off her.
“I love you”, she called and James closed his eyes. With those words, he could take anything.
“I love you”, he said, voice shaking. “Always remember that. Never forget.”
James found entire minutes gone, as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
“You’ll kill him!” she cried.
“That’s the idea”, the pirate next to her said, but his heart wasn’t in it. Even the pirates were not enjoying the spectacle as much as they had. Her howls and wails were getting under their skin. The fun was beginning to ebb.
First it was one pirate, then another. “Cut ‘em down.”
Barbossa hadn’t kept his command by ignoring his men. He felt the tide turn.
“That’s enough!” he cried, as if it were his idea. “Cut the Scourge down.”
Elizabeth got to her feet. They cut his bonds and he fell like rag doll to the deck. She rushed forward, but the pirates held her arms.
“Let me go to him!” Like a wild woman, she smacked and hit and screamed, and they backed off.
She ran to him and fell to the deck. She lifted his head into her lap, kissing him and tasting the salt of his sweat.
“Wake up, wake up, please”, she said, rocking him back and forth like a baby. The pirates hefted her to her feet unceremoniously and lifted James.
They tossed him on the bed in his cabin and flung Elizabeth on the floor next to the bed.
“If ye be needin’ anything, madam, go to hell”, the pirate said.
“I need sea water”, she said. “And you will bring it or so help me God, I’ll cut your throat in your sleep.”
The pirate rushed from the room. A different man returned with a bucket and dropped it, letting some splash over the sides. The door was slammed.
Elizabeth tore off part of her nightgown and dipped it in the water. She moved James until he was lying face down and his raw back was visible to her. She patted each wound with the salty water, soaking herself with his blood.
He came awake with a gasp. “I know it hurts, darling, but we must clean the wounds and the salt will keep them from getting infected.”
He let out a sharp intake of breath as she washed his cuts again. “I’m alive”, he said.
“Yes, yes, you’ll be okay”, she said, finding herself crying again, and kissing his cheek.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Only you, James, only you, would ask that now”, she said, kissing the back of his neck and stroking his dark hair.
“I shall have to make you worry about me everyday” he said, laughing, but it hurt too much. “It’s worth it.”
When his wounds were clean, she laced her hand in his. “Go to sleep, my love”, she said, “I’m watching over you.”
James knew he would be asleep in moments whether he liked it or not. Staying conscious was too hard of an endeavor at the moment.
But his mind kept circling around the same question. How had the pirates known the Dauntless was there? And where had Mr. Turner been during all this?