Marooned, 9

In Which Jack Fears Drowning

by

Gloria Mundi

It led him to the water's edge, and he stopped short, reluctant to venture into the waves. (Boneless sinuous arms, too many of them, reaching to pull him down.) This was foolish. He was Captain Jack Sparrow. He was not afraid of drowning (but it wasn't drowning, it was being drowned). He was not afraid of the sea.

He was on an island, a low-lying chunk of rock in the middle of the ocean. An island he did not know from any chart. An island that should not exist. And the green sea was all around.

But he was Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack Sparrow: he'd been in worse plights than this, far worse. (Announcing it to the waves and the shadowy figures out on the rocks, Jack was impressed with the certainty and exuberance in his own voice.)

"Barbossa thought to maroon me!" he declaimed. "Set me ashore on a tiny spit of land—not half the size of this charming isle—and thought to see my bones when next he came a-calling. But no! Captain Jack's too smart for him, and drives too nice a bargain, eh?"

The echoes agreed with him.

"And Captain Jack Sparrow always finds a way, eh? A way to take himself right off that little islet: a way to get himself to Port Royal when Barbossa's that way bound ..."

Ah, Anamaria. Dear Anamaria. She'd never quite forgiven him for stealing her boat, but (Jack smirked at the thought) he'd forgiven her everything, all the slaps and sneers and unkind words, even the time she'd sailed away with his Pearl ...

Jack shook his head. Not thinking about that, about the Black Pearl. Stolen away for good: but he wasn't thinking about it.

He picked a smooth stretch of sand, up above the tide-fringe of seaweed, and settled himself comfortably for a distracting review of his memories of Anamaria. Oh, she'd known how to handle that little boat of hers! And so suspicious of him, even when he'd only been sitting at the end of the pier, watching her bring in the ... the Jolly Mon, that'd been her name.

"What you lookin' at?"

"Your lovely boat, and her charming skipper, of course!" Jack'd called, springing to his feet and sweeping her a courtly low bow (a little lower than he'd intended, because of the rum).

And somehow she'd turned common courtesy into an offer to help her unload her catch: but he'd turned that around into an invitation to share a couple of the best fish, grilled on a hot stone on the beach, and another couple of bottles. And then, ooooh, then ... Jack's hand was on himself, but try as he might he couldn't capture the feel of her hand, at once hesitant and strong, or the taste of her mouth that made him hungry for so many things, or the way she just took him, strong and capable and sure of what she wanted as any man, but soft in all the right places and suitably appreciative of his hardness. And the way she'd cried out, at the end, and lifted herself up off him so that his seed had spattered all creamy over her hard flat stomach—

Jack sighed, a long sad sigh, and began to scrub his hand clean in the sand. Poor Anamaria. She couldn't have survived. She was as lost as his Pearl, and he was sorry for it.

He'd wanted to stay, really he had: he'd almost left it too late, the crossing to Port Royal, and it'd been sheer luck that he'd only caught the tail-end of the storm. The compass had spun and spun, and so in truth had the Jolly Mon: Jack hadn't dared to sleep, so much at the mercy of wind and wave in such a little boat, and anyway the fear of waking with a lungful of green water—or never waking at all—had kept him bolt upright at the helm.

"You didn't get me then," he told the waves, "and you shan't have me now."

The waves rolled on, indifferent.

Apologies for delay in posting this episode: was away from internet ...

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