Pirates Of The Caribbean Fan Fiction ❯ Mirror, Mirror ❯ The Sparrow Lands ( Chapter 18 )

Chapter 18

 

For the next week, Ayse was content to help Elizabeth with tasks around her house and keep her company. Ayse found that she and Elizabeth were delightfully similar in personality, despite their difference in class. In fact, no class barrier seemed to exist to Elizabeth, for she treated Ayse as an equal, and moreover, a friend she had known for years. Elizabeth had been so accommodating and gracious to Ayse, even letting her have a dress to wear so that the latter could wash the clothes she had spent weeks in while traversing across the Caribbean.

When Ayse was not spending time with Elizabeth, she was happy to take her daily walk down by the beach she had discovered and look for useful items while visiting with James. Since allowing herself to become friends with Elizabeth and let go of her animosity toward her, Ayse was able to gain not only a new friend, but have an improved relationship with James. The former Admiral also found that his letting go of Elizabeth allowed him to see Ayse as so much more than his savior; she was quickly becoming his closest confidant. More so, he could now completely see Ayse for the beautiful and determined woman she truly was.

Ayse gazed out toward the horizon with a hand to her forehead to block out the sun. She probably should have worn a hat, but Elizabeth didn't have one on hand. Besides, she probably would have removed it for the sake of being able to feel the wind whip through her long black strands and the salty spray from the high tide crashing on the shore on her face.

“Do you think Jack will show up soon, James?” Ayse asked as she sat down beneath a coconut tree.

“It's hard to tell with that man,” James remarked. “Hasn't it been a week already?”

Ayse nodded. “Seven days to the day.” She sighed. “I've been gone for so long that it's a wonder that the Royal Navy hasn't been sent after me.”

“It's been over a month for you,” James mulled, “and over nine months for me. I'm certain it won't be long until I am declared lost at sea.”

“I thought that would have happened by now,” Ayse said.

“Lieutenant Groves told me when we were back in Port Royal that sailors and officers thought lost after the destruction of the Endeavour have been showing up either on sandbar spits or catching passage back to Port Royal on other vessels, so perhaps not all hope has been lost for me.”

“What would happen if they did declare you lost?” Ayse asked curiously.

“It's hard to say. I have no wife or children, my parents are deceased, and the only relation I have in this world is my cousin Fitzgerald back in England.”

Ayse raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you had no family at all.”

“Er…Fitzgerald is a relation I'd love to forget, if you know what I mean,” he remarked rather stuffily.

Ayse giggled as she thought about her own cousin Mary. “I do indeed know what you mean, James.”

 

 

Late that night, Ayse slept soundly in Elizabeth's spare room as James kept his usual night watch over her as she slept. The moon that was normally high in the sky was clouded over tonight, and everything in the room was shrouded in complete darkness; he could only listen to his surroundings, which were quiet, aside from Ayse's steady, relaxed breathing.

Suddenly, he heard a noise - a slight bump - from what seemed to be the next room of the small cabin. He blinked, straining his eyes in the darkness unsuccessfully. He listened again; was he hearing things? Thump. There it was again! He frowned suspiciously, not knowing whether the visitor was a friend or a foe. In a pirate controlled area, one could never be too certain. He looked down toward Ayse.

“Psst,” he softly whispered. “Ayse…wake up.”

Ayse remained silent and only turned over in her bed, her back turning to the door. To James's horror, he heard the creak of the bedroom door being opened and footsteps quietly making their way toward the bed. The lack of the moon's illumination made it impossible to see who the intruder was, whether he was a rapist, or worse, a murderer - and James would be helpless to protect Ayse from them.

He listened as the heard Ayse's covers shift, and he couldn't take it anymore. He probably should not have even waited that long, but under the cover of darkness, his added voice would fool the prowler into thinking there was more than one person in the room.

“AYSE! AYSE! WAKE UP! THERE IS SOMEONE IN HERE!” James shouted as loudly as he could.

He heard a male voice say, “Eh?”

Ayse's eyes fluttered open, not quite registering the situation, and she was about to ask James why he was shouting so when she turned over and her hand fell upon the body of another person in her bed. She let out a blood curdling scream and so did the trespasser.

Both parties flailed about in the bed before tumbling out, entangled in the bedclothes. Ayse managed to squirm her way loose before grabbing James's sword which had been propped up against the table next to the bed. She unsheathed it and began swinging it, listening to the scuffle of boots in the room.

“HELP!” the other voice shouted. “Ack!”

Ayse had managed to bring the blade about and slice the sleeve of the intruder's shirt.

“Run him through! Run him through!” James cried as Ayse fought her way to the other room.

Elizabeth suddenly flung open her door, as the other man drew a sword of his own, but that didn't dissuade Ayse in the least. Their blades clashed, and Elizabeth scurried in the darkness to light a candle.

Just as Elizabeth found a match and struck it, Ayse had found one of Elizabeth's vases and grabbed it. The intruder had turned to open and run out the door, but Ayse threw the cooking pot blindly and as hard as she could. Elizabeth lifted her candle just in time to see the pot whack the intruder in the back of the head causing him to come crashing down with a loud thud. As she came closer, she recognized immediately the dreadlocks and bandana.

“Bloody hell, Ayse!” she exclaimed, kneeling down next to him. Then, she began to laugh. “You've managed to take down Jack Sparrow in a single blow.”

“J-Jack Sparrow?!” Ayse exclaimed. “Oh, dear, I think I killed him.”

She shook her head, still amused. “It's going to take a lot more than a vase to the head to kill this man.” She stood up. “Though I have to say, he's going to have quite a headache after that.”

Ayse shook her head. “Oh, I feel so horribly. He won't want to help us now.”

Elizabeth put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “He will. Actually, the mistake is mine. I should have told you that sometimes when he visits, he stays in the room you're in. I didn't anticipate him coming in this late, and for that I apologize.”

Ayse shook her head. “I'm just glad that he wasn't a thief or something, but I do think we should let James in on what's happened. He really sounded very alarmed.”

Elizabeth giggled and followed Ayse into the other room where she picked up James.

“Is everything alright now?” James asked, still rather shaken.

“Yes, it's fine,” Elizabeth said. “It turns out it was Jack.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” he said exasperated. “Leave it to Mr. Sparrow to make such a fuss in the middle of the night.”

“Really, James, it was an honest mistake,” Ayse pointedly said.

“He didn't expect her to be in the room in which he normally stays,” Elizabeth explained. “You know Jack isn't by any means a savage pirate.”

James rolled his eyes in response, not quite wanting to admit that Elizabeth had a point; Jack was a pirate, yes, but he wasn't as bad as many of the pirates he had captured in his lifetime. Most of the pirates James encountered were not just plunderers, but they were rapist and killers having done cruel and inhumane things to their victims. He hated to admit it, but he was rather thankful it was simply Jack that had intruded, for there was no way that he could have protected either of the young women from an unthinkable fate. He never liked or trusted Tortuga, and he didn't like the fact that Elizabeth more or less lived alone among people far worse than Jack.

“I suppose we had better get Jack off the floor and put him to bed in your room, Ayse,” Elizabeth said. “Fortunately, there's a trundle bed stored under mine, so you can just share with me if you don't mind.”

“No, of course not,” Ayse responded, though I have to tell you that James will have to come with us.” She went back into the main room where Jack lay on the floor out cold.

“Well, it can't be helped,” Elizabeth said taking Jack's feet as Ayse grabbed his arms. “We'll just wait until morning to sort things out.”

 

 

Jack began to stir late the next morning as he put a hand up to his pounding head. He'd woken up many times in this state, yet, he could not recall drinking heavily last night. Then he remembered what happened - some mad woman had been sleeping in his bed and attacked him. But…he was in the bed now, so what happened to the strange woman that had been in it?

He slowly sat up, holding his pounding head after being bludgeoned with an unidentifiable flying breakable object. He rubbed his head before venturing to stand, staggering a little as he did. Normally, the swagger was from the large amounts rum he consumed on a daily basis, but this time, the rum had nothing to do with it.

Jack opened the door of the small backroom and ventured out into the main room where he found Elizabeth and a strange girl he'd not met before talking with Mr. Gibbs at the table. On the center of the table, there was an open pocket watch. Jack paused for a moment as he observed the conversation in front of him; there were three people at the table, but four voices. He blinked, rolling his eyes, and shook his head making the beads in his bandana rattle slightly.

Elizabeth looked up. “Jack! I see you've finally woken up. How is your head?”

Jack swaggered over and pulled out the last chair from the table. “Hurts like the dickens, but it'll be fine.”

“I really must apologize for that,” the other girl spoke up.”You had given me such a fright that I just instinctively defended myself. Had I known it was you, I wouldn't have attacked you.”

Jack peered at the girl; she didn't seem the least bit familiar with her at all, but from the way she spoke, it seemed that she already knew who he was.”

He lifted a finger. “Uh…I beg your pardon, but…do I know you?” Jack asked.

Ayse laughed softly. “I'm so sorry. I forgot that you're quite out of the loop here. My name is Ayse Thomas, and I have come a long way to find you. You're the pirate Jack Sparrow, are you not?”

“Captain Jack Sparrow,” he corrected.

“Captain indeed!” James spat from his watch.

Sparrow turned his head around quickly, expecting to see some other figure standing in the room. It was the voice that he'd heard before, but he couldn't locate where it had been coming from.

He rubbed his head. “You must have hit me harder than I thought, luv. I could have sworn I heard another voice in here.”

“Oh, you did,” Ayse said. “But it's coming from here.”

Ayse picked up the watch from the center of the table and held it out for Jack to see. The pirate took a closer look and then he shot back in his seat, his dark eyes nearly bugging from his head.

“N-Norrie?!” he exclaimed. “B-bloody hell, you're still chasing me even in death?!”

“Don't be absurd,” James sniffed. “How could I even think to pursue you in this state? And it's Norrington.”

Jack relaxed in his chair as he continued to stare at James. He had never even thought that the naval officer who had spent years chasing him over all parts of the Caribbean would wind up in front of him like…this. Had Jack drank any rum that day, he would have passed it off as being drunk or suffering a horrible hangover, but as he stared at James in his pocket watch prison, he could not deny that what he was seeing was real.

“Norrie…how…did you get in there?” Jack asked, his curiosity taking over.

“It's Norrington!” James barked.

“James!” Ayse admonished. “Do you want out of there or not?”

James groaned. He knew he had better be a little nicer to Jack if he had any hope whatsoever at getting out of his current predicament, but the man irked him so much that he couldn't help but get angry every time he looked at him.

“Fine. I apologize,” he said at length. Then he cleared his throat. “I'll start from the beginning…”

Gibbs let out a groan and rested his head on the table. “Here we go again…”

 

 

Jack was reclined in his chair, balancing it on two legs as he stroked the twin tails of his braided beard. “So…let me get this straight: Bootstrap ran ye through resulting in your death, you were sent to the other side where you awaited passage, then you met up with Turner who is now captaining the Dutchman, and so he sent you back here in a looking glass as payback for saving dear Lizzie over here, and then you wound up in Miss Thomas's possession, right?”

James nodded. “And then…”

Jack cut him off. “And then dear Ayse, who I might add is quite the looker of a woman, decided to help you and you promised to help her out of her mess in return, and so she jilted her fiancée, whom she's not really in love with anyway, and traipsed across the Caribbean in search of me in the hopes that I would help you find Calypso. Right?”

“That's about the gist of it, yes,” James affirmed.

Jack nodded and finally put all fours of the chair back down on the floor. He peered at James. “Ye know I don't work for free, savvy?”

“Of course not, which is why I have prepared an offer that I swear on my honor as a Naval officer I intend to uphold. I…will be in your debt if you perform this task for me.”

Jack leaned forward with interest. “You have me attention, mate. I'm listening.”

James sucked in a breath and exhaled. “I'm fully prepared to call a truce between us and cease pursuing you in any way in exchange for finding Calypso so that she may restore me to my whole self. I'm afraid I cannot offer much more than that.”

Jack leaned back again in his chair, peering at James suspiciously. Norrington was known widely across the Caribbean for his cunningness and his persistent persecution of all pirates, and he had been known to retract his word a time or two to obtain what he wanted.

“No offence, mate, but your so-called honor isn't always that honorable, savvy?” Jack pointedly said. “How do I know you won't arrest me right after she makes you a mortal again?”

James shrugged. “I didn't expect you to believe me, so here it is: I can't arrest you as you are the only person that can get me back where I belong. As I said, this will make me indebted to you, and because of that debt, I would owe it to you to be free.” He sighed. “Besides, I've chased you long enough, and every time I got close to catching you, you always manage to barely get away. And well…” He glanced over at Ayse. “Ayse, I haven't told you this yet, but…I intend to leave the Caribbean and relocate somewhere else as soon as I am able. I think a second chance is about starting anew completely, so I have plans to return to England. If I'm in England and you, Mr. Sparrow, are here, then there will be no temptation to pursue you nor will I have to risk a second death as the punishment for treason in the case that I help you. So, to reiterate, in exchange for finding Calypso, I will no longer trail you. We can call it even and go our separate ways.”

Jack thought this over, but Ayse broke in. “I would even be prepared to offer you a monetary reward for all your troubles, Jack.” She took out her money pouch and placed it on the table. “It isn't much, but it's all I have. Of course, you'll receive the payment when the task is fulfilled, and that you have my word on.”

Jack glanced at her and then to James, Elizabeth and Gibbs, all staring at him intensely.

“What?” he asked, putting out his palms.

“Well?” Elizabeth pressed. “Are you going to help them or not?”

“Well I must say, Lizzie, my dear, that finding Calypso won't be very easy, you know. Now that she's been released from her mortal bondage, she comes and goes as she pleases.”

“D-does this mean…we may not find her at all?” Ayse said, bordering on hopelessness.

“Now, I didn't say that, luv,” he replied. “It's an impossibly possible task, savvy?”

“So…does that mean you'll do it?” Ayse asked hopefully, putting on her most irresistible face.

“Eh, why not? I've got the Black Pearl back, so why not have me another adventure?”

Ayse's face lit up, and she clasped her hands together. “Ah! Thank you Jack! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!”

Elizabeth glanced at Jack with a mischievous grin. “I hope you know that I'm tagging along. Being stuck in this house day and night has got me bored to tears.” She glanced at Ayse who had James in her palm happily celebrating. “And…I'm rather curious to see how things turn out, if you know what I mean.”

Jack smirked knowingly, catching on to her implication. “Aye, that will be interesting indeed.” He stood from the table to help himself to some leftover food that Elizabeth had been keeping warm in her pot. “We leave tomorrow. Gibbs, will you be joining us?”

“Aye, aye,” he said gruffly. “Someone's got to watch your arse.”