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A Word In Private
For the 'Revenge' Drabble Challenge

by Geek Mama
May 19, 2005

They come to him, again, as sunset fades. Gibbs looking worried, Anamaria annoyed.

“Give over the helm,” Ana says. “I want a word with you. In private.”

Well, he can’t keep at it much longer, anyway. Not after the day he’s had. So, for form’s sake, he eyes her and lifts a provocative brow. “That right? In private?” Predictably, she scowls, and he leers a bit.

Gibbs chuckles, and lays a hand on the wheel. “I’ll take care of ‘er for you, Captain. You go with Ana, now.”

Jack nods, leer fading. He has to. Has to rest. But…

His ship. The Pearl is his.

He’s careful to give no outward sign he’s tearing himself away, perforce. He follows after Anamaria to the Great Cabin, admiring the view, which gets him to thinking of that night they’d had, before he’d borrowed her boat. A dangerous train of thought—she has a bad habit of reading his mind about some things. But better that, just now, than the niggling dread…

But she opens the doors, and he follows her in, and it’s all right. “You’ve cleaned it up.”

“Of course we did,” Ana snaps, as she shuts the doors behind them. “Bloody hell, d’ja think we wanted Barbossa’s stench lingering?”

He gives a laugh, but it’s cut short. He hadn’t permitted himself to look at things too closely when he was here with Barbossa a fortnight past. The whole ship had been rotting, his cabin included.

His cabin. With some of his old things still intact, even after ten years.

He can’t help himself. He walks over to the case that was built into the bulkhead for his books (smiling to remember the carpenter—Goose Dunnigan was it?—grousing about that unpiratical piece of work). Runs his hand over the leather of the bindings.

“Don’t think Barbossa touched ‘em,” says Ana, at his shoulder. “Lotta dust on ‘em, but we cleaned that off.”

“Did you now?” he murmurs, and turns to look at her.

She makes her face hard, but he can see her eyes. “There’s some supper, there on the table,” she says gruffly. “And rum. Sit and have some.”

He glances at the table—there’s a meal, laid out for him. He makes a show of frowning and looks at her again. “Thought you wanted ‘a word. In private’.”

She grinds her teeth, and then spits, “I do! You’ll sit down there and eat, Jack Sparrow, an’ then you’ll get some sleep. I didn’t give the word to go back an’ fetch you so’s you could drop dead like some lovesick fool!”

An ultimatum? She ought to know better than that.

He says nothing for a minute. Thinks how it could have gone this morning. Thinking how all this—this whole day—has surprised him. To put it mildly.

Finally he says, “Didn’t think you’d give that word. Why did you?”

She rolls her eyes, but her voice is less impatient as she replies. “I told you this morning. The Black Pearl is yours.”

“I owed you a ship.”

“The Swann girl tell you about that?”

He just looks at her.

So she goes on, resigned. “You don’t owe me, or anyone, the Black Pearl. An’ I figure a couple o’ weeks rottin’ in gaol, an’ bein’ almost hung is plenty of revenge for what’s between the two of us.”

He studies her some more, for long, slow moments. Then, seeing as she’s off her guard, he does what he wants to do. Grabs her, and pulls her against him (the eyes in that beautiful, dark face!), and kisses her.

On the cheek.

Her startled gasp fades, along with her furious intent to shove him away. Instead, she stills, tense and alive in his arms, under his hands, and he’s able to brush his lips back against her smooth skin and say in her ear, “Thank you, Ana.”

A lot of the fight goes out of her at that. But he kisses her cheek again, and releases her.

She backs away a step, cheeks red, working hard at indignation. She tilts her chin up, and says, severely, “You’re bloody mad!”

He grins. “So they say.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’d better watch it, Jack Sparrow!”

He narrows his, too, and tips the corner of his mouth up. “It’s Captain Sparrow, lass.”

She gives a little snort that starts out derisive, but doesn’t end that way. “Aye. So it is.” She shakes her head a bit: not disagreement, just wonder. “Now: if we’re through havin’ words, Captain, come an’ sit, and eat your supper.”

~.~

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