Entry tags:
PotC fic: Keepsakes (Jack/OFCs, PG-13, 2/5)
Title: Keepsakes
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shyaway
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/various OFCs
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean and its characters belong to Disney.
Summary: Five women reflect on what Jack Sparrow left behind, with laughter and regret, with gratitude and dislike...
Juanita could not forget him. In her heart she did not want to forget him, though she knew that for convenience's sake it would be better to. It would be best in fact if she had never met him.
It had happened shortly after her husband had died. Poor Miguel. It had been a shock when the other fishermen brought his body home; she had cried and swooned and the days afterwards passed in a dark blur. The funeral left her with hazy recollections of people pressing around her offering condolences, solace, an arm to escort her home, anything she might need. It was exhausting.
Juanita accepted the escort home and then, having persuaded her well-wishers that yes, she would be all right and they could leave her alone, looked around at all the paraphernalia that needed to be sorted out. Some things would be sold, some things would be returned to her husband's family, and some things she would take with her when she went back to her family home inland, to start the search for a new husband.
She and Miguel had never had very much while he was alive. Now that he was gone everything seemed to have multiplied, as if to take up the space that he had left. Sorting through it all seemed a hopeless task. The very thought tired her. She could have accepted the well-wishers' offer of help, she supposed; but their wearisome fussing would have made the job even more of a burden than it already was.
And when it was done, she would have nothing to look forward to from her family except more solicitous enquiries about her health that would give way to expectations of help around the farm and disingenuous questions as to whether she thought this young man had good prospects, or if a new arrival was more handsome than the local men. As little as she felt inclined to this, she knew that there was really no choice. She couldn't stay where she was. There was no work open to women in that town that would enable her to support herself. No reputable work, anyway. The only alternative was too distasteful to think about. It was sinful. It was certainly not for her. Still, all that she had to look forward to was being a dependent widowed daughter at home, and having been mistress of her own home, small as it was, that was not a pleasing prospect.
Unless she married again. She put a hand over her mouth and tried to quell a sob. No, no, it was too soon. She had no mind to exchange her widow's weeds for another wedding dress.
With a heavy heart, Juanita picked up a dishcloth and folded it. It was a start.
---
After that feeble beginning, Juanita made good headway. The cleaning became an end in itself. Thoughts of a dismal present and a cheerless future were briefly subjugated by a fierce desire to ease the pain of Miguel's absence by removing the reminders of his lost presence. Every time she opened a drawer she found something else that had been his, or that he had given her, or something that in some way held a memory of him. She came to resent the stabbing, shooting pain these mementoes caused and averted her face as she dropped them into the waiting boxes and bags.
Finally it was done. All that was left was the furniture, which she was to leave with the house for her father-in-law to deal with, and the essentials that she would need until the cart from the farm arrived to take her home. That would be in four days. She would need another box for those things. One of the market traders who had been friendly with Miguel had supplied her with crates. She would fetch the extra one from him. It was market day, and getting late in the afternoon, so for want of anything better to do she set off immediately.
The market traders were winding down their business for the day. As she drew near the fruit stall, Juanita realised that the man attending it was not her benefactor Fernando, nor anyone else she recognised. He was tall and blond with skin reddened by the sun. He nodded to her as she halted. She smiled in return and explained that she was a friend of Fernando's, that he had said she could use his crates for packing her belongings, and that she had come to get another one.
Throughout her brief explanation, the man stared at her blankly. When she stopped talking his expression became akin to panic.
"Do you understand me?" Juanita asked. Perhaps the last few solitary days spent thinking about the dead had left her unable to communicate with the living. She might have become an otherworldly being herself, able to speak with ghosts, no longer barred from being with her husband.
Or perhaps the man was a halfwit.
He seemed to be fumbling for the right response. "English," he said eventually.
A halfwit, then. Fernando must be out of his wits as well to leave this great oafish monoglot in charge of his stall. "Where – is – Fernando?" she asked, enunciating her words.
He had no answer. They stared at each other helplessly.
Juanita looked around, spied an empty crate of a size that she could manage lying by the stall, and decided to take the bold approach. She darted to the crate and tried to seize it before the man could stop her. He grabbed the other end with a scowl. She pulled. He hung on. His strength was much superior to hers. It occurred to her how ridiculous they must look, tugging the box to and fro between them.
A shadow fell over the crate.
"Is there a problem here?" an English-accented male voice asked. Not another one, Juanita thought, turning to look at the new arrival. The sun was getting low in the sky; she squinted into the sunlight.
"Is this man bothering you, senorita?" the newcomer inquired. Realising that here was a possible translator, maybe even a champion, Juanita stood up so that the sun was no longer in her eyes and she didn't have to screw up her face unattractively. She might be able to appeal to his sense of chivalry.
"The stall owner and I have an arrangement…" She explained it all again. Her supporter nodded and addressed himself to the blond man. From his tone, Juanita gathered that he had said to give the lady the box or else, and added some dark insinuations about the man's parentage. This diatribe was accompanied by much unnecessary hand-waving. Then he made a move to draw his sword. At that the crate was surrendered.
"Thank you, senor," she said, for the first time looking her new friend in the eyes and noticing that they were outlined with – kohl? How odd.
"Captain Jack Sparrow," he announced with relish.
"Thank you, Captain."
He smiled, warm gold glinting. If she had lived more in the world she would have recognised that smile as predatory, but she hadn't, and for a moment the noisy, dirty marketplace melted away as he said, "My pleasure, senorita."
Consciousness of her surroundings came rushing back. "Senora," she corrected, tasting ashes and dust, aware again of the wasteland in her heart. "Juanita Moreno."
He looked her over, no doubt taking in her dress of mourning and the way her face had fallen at being addressed as an unmarried woman. He cast a glance at her hard-won crate. "That's quite a weight for a lass to handle. Would you like a hand?"
She opened her mouth to demur. She wanted to be alone to rest.
"It's no trouble, really."
The last remnants of the energy stoked by her cleaning fervour and the fuss over the crate left her. She was so weary and it would be nice to be helped.
She accepted.
---
They walked to her house at a leisurely pace. Under happier circumstances it would have been pleasant. It was a warm day and Captain Sparrow was good company. He did most of the talking, waxing poetic about the ship of which he had been captain for only two months. La Perla Negra. The Black Pearl.
"Dark, beautiful, powerful. This girl could sail round the world and then take on a whole fleet, easy. And she's fast. If that fleet were too much for her, she could turn and outrun 'em all. There's never been a ship like her. Never."
He was vague when she asked how he had become captain. "The sea gave her to me." Juanita supposed that that was an English idiom that didn't translate well.
She would rather not have heard about nautical matters – all that she needed to know of the sea was that it had sent her husband back dead – but she liked listening to his voice and having someone talk to her about something other than death.
They reached her house. Captain Sparrow brought the crate inside. He looked round at all the packing cases and glanced at her in silent query.
"I'm going back to my parents' farm inland," she stated.
Carefully, he said, "You are in mourning for –"
"My husband." She took a deep breath. This was the first time she had related it to a stranger. "He was a fisherman. Twelve days ago while he was out at sea there was an accident – a freak wave – it swept him overboard and he must have hit his head – the others got him back on board – but –" Her voice trembled and tears started to fall. Not again, a part of her mind thought hazily.
Captain Sparrow squeezed her shoulder gently. She found he was holding a flask to her lips. She swallowed. Rum. Rum, present at parties, weddings, funerals, a sweet salve for every pain. He took the flask away. He tilted his head towards her quizzically – he was going to ask if she would be all right – and then his mouth was on hers.
It took her an alarmingly long time to gather her thoughts. "What do you think you're doing!" she exclaimed, pushing him away.
"No harm meant, lass …"
He was such a picture of wide-eyed contrition that her indignation faded away, leaving her feeling more despondent than ever. She had been just as surprised when Miguel had kissed her for the first time.
Quietly, she thanked him for his help. He correctly took that as his cue to leave and bade her farewell; but, as he got to the door, she heard herself issuing an absurd invitation to stay for dinner.
---
It was because of that kiss. That touch, an intimacy that had previously been shared only with her husband, had left her wanting to stave off the loneliness.
All that she could provide for dinner was bread and cold meat. Juanita began to regret her rash invitation. She shouldn't have offered her guest dinner when there was barely any dinner to be had. Embarrassed, she apologised for it to Captain Sparrow, who just insisted that she call him Jack and said that he was glad of fresh food because they didn't get much of it out at sea.
That was precisely the subject she wished to avoid. She looked down at the tabletop. The honey-coloured wood had been worn silky-smooth. She lifted her head to see that he was studying her intently. "What do you know about Cortez?" he asked abruptly.
"Hernando Cortez?" Juanita could think of no one else by that name.
"The conquistador, aye."
She considered the peculiar question. "Cortez did great work for Spain," she said. "He explored the Americas and found fabulous riches."
"What kind of riches?"
"Gold. Statues and jewellery and – why are you asking this?"
"I just want to know more about one of your countrymen, love." He leaned back in his chair and smiled lazily. There was that gold glint again. "More about your heritage, as it were. This treasure. Would it be Aztec?"
Juanita assented, still puzzled by the turn the conversation had taken.
"And your Cortez took it by force."
"Some of it, but –"
"Did you ever hear of the Aztecs trying to buy him off?"
"No." Juanita paused. There was only one story about Cortez that she knew in any detail. "They welcomed the Spanish, honoured them, gave them gifts. The Aztec emperor made them guests in his city. Cortez and his men marvelled at the emperor's riches, and for a while they were happy to stay there. But soon they realised that their hosts were not as peaceable as they seemed. The Aztecs' heathen gods demanded human sacrifice. The priests cut out the living hearts of their victims and called it divine will. When they learned this, the Spanish became afraid that their hosts were planning to use them as sacrifices and that their hospitality was like the kindness a farmer shows to a pig in fattening it up for slaughter.
"They decided to escape. Knowing that the emperor would not allow them to leave, they chose to go at the dead of night, carrying the gifts they had been given with them. They were spotted, and quickly surrounded. The Aztecs slaughtered more than a thousand Spaniards that night, which came to be known as the night of tears."
Jack mulled it over. "Bloodthirsty gods," he said, not really addressing her.
Juanita did not want to think about death and destruction any more than she wanted to think about the sea. She got up to clear the plates away. Jack must have perceived what she was feeling, because he got up with her and, murmuring some words of comfort, took her into his arms again. This time she let him hold her.
"Not so bad, is it, darling?"
"Not bad …" She let out a shuddering breath. Jack stroked her hair and touched his lips to her temple. She pressed her face against his chest. He moved his left hand in a caress to the small of her back, and then lower, but not quite far enough for her to protest. His other hand was between her shoulder blades, rubbing gently, making her weak. All the while she was revelling in the solid human warmth of him. She was dizzy with his presence. The only way for him to steady her was to kiss her – again – and again – and –
… and she knew it was wrong, knew it was a sin, but when she opened her mouth to tell him so he smoothed her hair and hushed her and she couldn't remember why it was wrong, nor how they got to the bed.
---
She had finally grown accustomed to waking up alone, so when she opened her eyes it took her a moment to remember why that morning she should not be by herself.
He wasn't there. His clothes were gone. There was no sign of him downstairs. Peering through the windows, she couldn't see him outside, either. He was so thoroughly not there, in fact, that Juanita began to doubt that he had ever been there.
By the time she had washed and dressed she had decided that it had been an incubus, a spirit that came to women and lay with them while they slept.
Once she had cleared the plates away she was confident that it had not even been a spirit. It had all been a dream. Grief and solitude were making her imagine strange things. After all, she could not possibly have behaved in the way she imagined she remembered behaving last night. She could not have lain with a man who was not her husband, could not have invited him into her marital bed, could not have sinned with him. It had not happened. She was not one of the loose women who flaunted themselves like Jezebel before Jehu.
There was that box, though.
I went to get it myself, Juanita thought. No one helped me – did they? No. They didn't.
All the same, when she next went into her bedroom she eyed her bed mistrustfully and decided to wash the linen to purge the presence of her remembered dream.
---
She went home a few days later. Her family flapped around her just as she had thought they would. She surprised both them and herself by being more eager to help with the chores than she had anticipated.
So it was unfortunate that she felt faint when churning the milk. She told herself that it was because she had become unused to the job.
She felt sick when she woke in the mornings. She told herself that it was the different meals, that she had become unused to eating anyone's cooking other than her own.
When her monthly blood didn't come, she told herself that she had miscounted, and waited another week. Then another one. All the while she told herself that it had only been a dream conjured up by her grief and loneliness. It couldn't possibly follow her here. She couldn't have done such a thing.
At length, when she still failed to bleed, she was forced to the knowledge that she had and that the consequences – of a kind that no dream could have – were yet to come. It could have been an incubus, that evil spirit that soiled women's chastity while they slept. But … he had been too tangible, too solid, for that. He had been earthy, not ethereal. Whatever he had been, she had not refused him.
Hand pressed against her still-flat stomach, she knew that there would be incontrovertible proof of her sin. No one else would realise it. Only she was aware that her last blood began a few days after Miguel's death. That was known only to her and to God.
She must confess. She must repent, which God had to know she already did, do her penance, and receive absolution. For that she had to confess to a priest. She had to tell someone.
She could not bear the thought of making her confession to the padre in the village, the old man to whom she had confessed as a little girl when she had disobeyed her mother, so she went further afield. Hoping to be forgiven this weakness, she went to a parish where the priest was unknown to her. He was not really surprised to hear a young woman confess to fornication.
Juanita went away relieved of that sin, but her conscience was still troubled by the knowledge that from then on, every confession of her sins would include lying by omission.
---
Jack had liked the girl, he really had. He'd hated leaving so abruptly like that. It was just that the Black Pearl had been calling to him and he had been away from her long enough as it was.
He got back to the ship at first light. He bumped into William almost at once. Jack hoped he had been to bed – the man had a pronounced protective streak in him and it was a distinct possibility that he had stayed up all night watching for his absent captain. At times Jack wished that the younger William Turner was with them so that Bootstrap could mollycoddle his real son rather than Jack.
"Where the hell have you been? Everyone else who went out provisioning came back hours ago. I was ready to send out a search party!"
"Is that any way to talk to your captain?"
"I knew he'd turn up sooner or later," Barbossa interjected. "Did ye get what I asked for, cap'n?"
"They didn't have any apples," Jack said blithely. "No bananas, either. There's no fruit to be had anywhere on the island."
Barbossa looked at him in that suspicious, narrow-eyed way that Jack was coming to know quite well, and sighed.
William sighed too. "What was this one like?"
Jack grinned. "A pretty Spanish minx by the name of Juanita. She needed a helping hand … or two. Lovely girl."
"Bring her with us," William suggested.
"Pearl wouldn't like that."
Barbossa rolled his eyes and walked off to attend to the casting off. William gave Jack a long, hard look. "You could come back and visit."
Jack just looked at him. Why ever would he want to do that? He had had his fun with the girl and given her a bit of a diversion. There was no reason to go back.
If he had understood at the time how she had felt, he would have been kinder to her. Bereavement had been foreign to him then. He had had no conception of what it would be like to lose what one loved most.
After he learned, he remembered the girl and hoped that she had forgiven him.
Author:
shyawayRating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/various OFCs
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean and its characters belong to Disney.
Summary: Five women reflect on what Jack Sparrow left behind, with laughter and regret, with gratitude and dislike...
Juanita could not forget him. In her heart she did not want to forget him, though she knew that for convenience's sake it would be better to. It would be best in fact if she had never met him.
It had happened shortly after her husband had died. Poor Miguel. It had been a shock when the other fishermen brought his body home; she had cried and swooned and the days afterwards passed in a dark blur. The funeral left her with hazy recollections of people pressing around her offering condolences, solace, an arm to escort her home, anything she might need. It was exhausting.
Juanita accepted the escort home and then, having persuaded her well-wishers that yes, she would be all right and they could leave her alone, looked around at all the paraphernalia that needed to be sorted out. Some things would be sold, some things would be returned to her husband's family, and some things she would take with her when she went back to her family home inland, to start the search for a new husband.
She and Miguel had never had very much while he was alive. Now that he was gone everything seemed to have multiplied, as if to take up the space that he had left. Sorting through it all seemed a hopeless task. The very thought tired her. She could have accepted the well-wishers' offer of help, she supposed; but their wearisome fussing would have made the job even more of a burden than it already was.
And when it was done, she would have nothing to look forward to from her family except more solicitous enquiries about her health that would give way to expectations of help around the farm and disingenuous questions as to whether she thought this young man had good prospects, or if a new arrival was more handsome than the local men. As little as she felt inclined to this, she knew that there was really no choice. She couldn't stay where she was. There was no work open to women in that town that would enable her to support herself. No reputable work, anyway. The only alternative was too distasteful to think about. It was sinful. It was certainly not for her. Still, all that she had to look forward to was being a dependent widowed daughter at home, and having been mistress of her own home, small as it was, that was not a pleasing prospect.
Unless she married again. She put a hand over her mouth and tried to quell a sob. No, no, it was too soon. She had no mind to exchange her widow's weeds for another wedding dress.
With a heavy heart, Juanita picked up a dishcloth and folded it. It was a start.
---
After that feeble beginning, Juanita made good headway. The cleaning became an end in itself. Thoughts of a dismal present and a cheerless future were briefly subjugated by a fierce desire to ease the pain of Miguel's absence by removing the reminders of his lost presence. Every time she opened a drawer she found something else that had been his, or that he had given her, or something that in some way held a memory of him. She came to resent the stabbing, shooting pain these mementoes caused and averted her face as she dropped them into the waiting boxes and bags.
Finally it was done. All that was left was the furniture, which she was to leave with the house for her father-in-law to deal with, and the essentials that she would need until the cart from the farm arrived to take her home. That would be in four days. She would need another box for those things. One of the market traders who had been friendly with Miguel had supplied her with crates. She would fetch the extra one from him. It was market day, and getting late in the afternoon, so for want of anything better to do she set off immediately.
The market traders were winding down their business for the day. As she drew near the fruit stall, Juanita realised that the man attending it was not her benefactor Fernando, nor anyone else she recognised. He was tall and blond with skin reddened by the sun. He nodded to her as she halted. She smiled in return and explained that she was a friend of Fernando's, that he had said she could use his crates for packing her belongings, and that she had come to get another one.
Throughout her brief explanation, the man stared at her blankly. When she stopped talking his expression became akin to panic.
"Do you understand me?" Juanita asked. Perhaps the last few solitary days spent thinking about the dead had left her unable to communicate with the living. She might have become an otherworldly being herself, able to speak with ghosts, no longer barred from being with her husband.
Or perhaps the man was a halfwit.
He seemed to be fumbling for the right response. "English," he said eventually.
A halfwit, then. Fernando must be out of his wits as well to leave this great oafish monoglot in charge of his stall. "Where – is – Fernando?" she asked, enunciating her words.
He had no answer. They stared at each other helplessly.
Juanita looked around, spied an empty crate of a size that she could manage lying by the stall, and decided to take the bold approach. She darted to the crate and tried to seize it before the man could stop her. He grabbed the other end with a scowl. She pulled. He hung on. His strength was much superior to hers. It occurred to her how ridiculous they must look, tugging the box to and fro between them.
A shadow fell over the crate.
"Is there a problem here?" an English-accented male voice asked. Not another one, Juanita thought, turning to look at the new arrival. The sun was getting low in the sky; she squinted into the sunlight.
"Is this man bothering you, senorita?" the newcomer inquired. Realising that here was a possible translator, maybe even a champion, Juanita stood up so that the sun was no longer in her eyes and she didn't have to screw up her face unattractively. She might be able to appeal to his sense of chivalry.
"The stall owner and I have an arrangement…" She explained it all again. Her supporter nodded and addressed himself to the blond man. From his tone, Juanita gathered that he had said to give the lady the box or else, and added some dark insinuations about the man's parentage. This diatribe was accompanied by much unnecessary hand-waving. Then he made a move to draw his sword. At that the crate was surrendered.
"Thank you, senor," she said, for the first time looking her new friend in the eyes and noticing that they were outlined with – kohl? How odd.
"Captain Jack Sparrow," he announced with relish.
"Thank you, Captain."
He smiled, warm gold glinting. If she had lived more in the world she would have recognised that smile as predatory, but she hadn't, and for a moment the noisy, dirty marketplace melted away as he said, "My pleasure, senorita."
Consciousness of her surroundings came rushing back. "Senora," she corrected, tasting ashes and dust, aware again of the wasteland in her heart. "Juanita Moreno."
He looked her over, no doubt taking in her dress of mourning and the way her face had fallen at being addressed as an unmarried woman. He cast a glance at her hard-won crate. "That's quite a weight for a lass to handle. Would you like a hand?"
She opened her mouth to demur. She wanted to be alone to rest.
"It's no trouble, really."
The last remnants of the energy stoked by her cleaning fervour and the fuss over the crate left her. She was so weary and it would be nice to be helped.
She accepted.
---
They walked to her house at a leisurely pace. Under happier circumstances it would have been pleasant. It was a warm day and Captain Sparrow was good company. He did most of the talking, waxing poetic about the ship of which he had been captain for only two months. La Perla Negra. The Black Pearl.
"Dark, beautiful, powerful. This girl could sail round the world and then take on a whole fleet, easy. And she's fast. If that fleet were too much for her, she could turn and outrun 'em all. There's never been a ship like her. Never."
He was vague when she asked how he had become captain. "The sea gave her to me." Juanita supposed that that was an English idiom that didn't translate well.
She would rather not have heard about nautical matters – all that she needed to know of the sea was that it had sent her husband back dead – but she liked listening to his voice and having someone talk to her about something other than death.
They reached her house. Captain Sparrow brought the crate inside. He looked round at all the packing cases and glanced at her in silent query.
"I'm going back to my parents' farm inland," she stated.
Carefully, he said, "You are in mourning for –"
"My husband." She took a deep breath. This was the first time she had related it to a stranger. "He was a fisherman. Twelve days ago while he was out at sea there was an accident – a freak wave – it swept him overboard and he must have hit his head – the others got him back on board – but –" Her voice trembled and tears started to fall. Not again, a part of her mind thought hazily.
Captain Sparrow squeezed her shoulder gently. She found he was holding a flask to her lips. She swallowed. Rum. Rum, present at parties, weddings, funerals, a sweet salve for every pain. He took the flask away. He tilted his head towards her quizzically – he was going to ask if she would be all right – and then his mouth was on hers.
It took her an alarmingly long time to gather her thoughts. "What do you think you're doing!" she exclaimed, pushing him away.
"No harm meant, lass …"
He was such a picture of wide-eyed contrition that her indignation faded away, leaving her feeling more despondent than ever. She had been just as surprised when Miguel had kissed her for the first time.
Quietly, she thanked him for his help. He correctly took that as his cue to leave and bade her farewell; but, as he got to the door, she heard herself issuing an absurd invitation to stay for dinner.
---
It was because of that kiss. That touch, an intimacy that had previously been shared only with her husband, had left her wanting to stave off the loneliness.
All that she could provide for dinner was bread and cold meat. Juanita began to regret her rash invitation. She shouldn't have offered her guest dinner when there was barely any dinner to be had. Embarrassed, she apologised for it to Captain Sparrow, who just insisted that she call him Jack and said that he was glad of fresh food because they didn't get much of it out at sea.
That was precisely the subject she wished to avoid. She looked down at the tabletop. The honey-coloured wood had been worn silky-smooth. She lifted her head to see that he was studying her intently. "What do you know about Cortez?" he asked abruptly.
"Hernando Cortez?" Juanita could think of no one else by that name.
"The conquistador, aye."
She considered the peculiar question. "Cortez did great work for Spain," she said. "He explored the Americas and found fabulous riches."
"What kind of riches?"
"Gold. Statues and jewellery and – why are you asking this?"
"I just want to know more about one of your countrymen, love." He leaned back in his chair and smiled lazily. There was that gold glint again. "More about your heritage, as it were. This treasure. Would it be Aztec?"
Juanita assented, still puzzled by the turn the conversation had taken.
"And your Cortez took it by force."
"Some of it, but –"
"Did you ever hear of the Aztecs trying to buy him off?"
"No." Juanita paused. There was only one story about Cortez that she knew in any detail. "They welcomed the Spanish, honoured them, gave them gifts. The Aztec emperor made them guests in his city. Cortez and his men marvelled at the emperor's riches, and for a while they were happy to stay there. But soon they realised that their hosts were not as peaceable as they seemed. The Aztecs' heathen gods demanded human sacrifice. The priests cut out the living hearts of their victims and called it divine will. When they learned this, the Spanish became afraid that their hosts were planning to use them as sacrifices and that their hospitality was like the kindness a farmer shows to a pig in fattening it up for slaughter.
"They decided to escape. Knowing that the emperor would not allow them to leave, they chose to go at the dead of night, carrying the gifts they had been given with them. They were spotted, and quickly surrounded. The Aztecs slaughtered more than a thousand Spaniards that night, which came to be known as the night of tears."
Jack mulled it over. "Bloodthirsty gods," he said, not really addressing her.
Juanita did not want to think about death and destruction any more than she wanted to think about the sea. She got up to clear the plates away. Jack must have perceived what she was feeling, because he got up with her and, murmuring some words of comfort, took her into his arms again. This time she let him hold her.
"Not so bad, is it, darling?"
"Not bad …" She let out a shuddering breath. Jack stroked her hair and touched his lips to her temple. She pressed her face against his chest. He moved his left hand in a caress to the small of her back, and then lower, but not quite far enough for her to protest. His other hand was between her shoulder blades, rubbing gently, making her weak. All the while she was revelling in the solid human warmth of him. She was dizzy with his presence. The only way for him to steady her was to kiss her – again – and again – and –
… and she knew it was wrong, knew it was a sin, but when she opened her mouth to tell him so he smoothed her hair and hushed her and she couldn't remember why it was wrong, nor how they got to the bed.
---
She had finally grown accustomed to waking up alone, so when she opened her eyes it took her a moment to remember why that morning she should not be by herself.
He wasn't there. His clothes were gone. There was no sign of him downstairs. Peering through the windows, she couldn't see him outside, either. He was so thoroughly not there, in fact, that Juanita began to doubt that he had ever been there.
By the time she had washed and dressed she had decided that it had been an incubus, a spirit that came to women and lay with them while they slept.
Once she had cleared the plates away she was confident that it had not even been a spirit. It had all been a dream. Grief and solitude were making her imagine strange things. After all, she could not possibly have behaved in the way she imagined she remembered behaving last night. She could not have lain with a man who was not her husband, could not have invited him into her marital bed, could not have sinned with him. It had not happened. She was not one of the loose women who flaunted themselves like Jezebel before Jehu.
There was that box, though.
I went to get it myself, Juanita thought. No one helped me – did they? No. They didn't.
All the same, when she next went into her bedroom she eyed her bed mistrustfully and decided to wash the linen to purge the presence of her remembered dream.
---
She went home a few days later. Her family flapped around her just as she had thought they would. She surprised both them and herself by being more eager to help with the chores than she had anticipated.
So it was unfortunate that she felt faint when churning the milk. She told herself that it was because she had become unused to the job.
She felt sick when she woke in the mornings. She told herself that it was the different meals, that she had become unused to eating anyone's cooking other than her own.
When her monthly blood didn't come, she told herself that she had miscounted, and waited another week. Then another one. All the while she told herself that it had only been a dream conjured up by her grief and loneliness. It couldn't possibly follow her here. She couldn't have done such a thing.
At length, when she still failed to bleed, she was forced to the knowledge that she had and that the consequences – of a kind that no dream could have – were yet to come. It could have been an incubus, that evil spirit that soiled women's chastity while they slept. But … he had been too tangible, too solid, for that. He had been earthy, not ethereal. Whatever he had been, she had not refused him.
Hand pressed against her still-flat stomach, she knew that there would be incontrovertible proof of her sin. No one else would realise it. Only she was aware that her last blood began a few days after Miguel's death. That was known only to her and to God.
She must confess. She must repent, which God had to know she already did, do her penance, and receive absolution. For that she had to confess to a priest. She had to tell someone.
She could not bear the thought of making her confession to the padre in the village, the old man to whom she had confessed as a little girl when she had disobeyed her mother, so she went further afield. Hoping to be forgiven this weakness, she went to a parish where the priest was unknown to her. He was not really surprised to hear a young woman confess to fornication.
Juanita went away relieved of that sin, but her conscience was still troubled by the knowledge that from then on, every confession of her sins would include lying by omission.
---
Jack had liked the girl, he really had. He'd hated leaving so abruptly like that. It was just that the Black Pearl had been calling to him and he had been away from her long enough as it was.
He got back to the ship at first light. He bumped into William almost at once. Jack hoped he had been to bed – the man had a pronounced protective streak in him and it was a distinct possibility that he had stayed up all night watching for his absent captain. At times Jack wished that the younger William Turner was with them so that Bootstrap could mollycoddle his real son rather than Jack.
"Where the hell have you been? Everyone else who went out provisioning came back hours ago. I was ready to send out a search party!"
"Is that any way to talk to your captain?"
"I knew he'd turn up sooner or later," Barbossa interjected. "Did ye get what I asked for, cap'n?"
"They didn't have any apples," Jack said blithely. "No bananas, either. There's no fruit to be had anywhere on the island."
Barbossa looked at him in that suspicious, narrow-eyed way that Jack was coming to know quite well, and sighed.
William sighed too. "What was this one like?"
Jack grinned. "A pretty Spanish minx by the name of Juanita. She needed a helping hand … or two. Lovely girl."
"Bring her with us," William suggested.
"Pearl wouldn't like that."
Barbossa rolled his eyes and walked off to attend to the casting off. William gave Jack a long, hard look. "You could come back and visit."
Jack just looked at him. Why ever would he want to do that? He had had his fun with the girl and given her a bit of a diversion. There was no reason to go back.
If he had understood at the time how she had felt, he would have been kinder to her. Bereavement had been foreign to him then. He had had no conception of what it would be like to lose what one loved most.
After he learned, he remembered the girl and hoped that she had forgiven him.