A Rebel's Treasure

Chapter Six

Eleanor struggled against the two men who were dragging her sister and her towards the plank. Bosun, the man who grabbed her before, took her by the shoulders, and made her watch her sister get pushed onto the plank. She was shoved on just moments later. Will was struggling in the arms of some of Barbossa's men, with Jack nearby. Eleanor knew that he was next to fall into the water – straight after her. She needed to find a way to escape. To save Elizabeth and get back to Port Royal. Away from these cunning and ruthless pirates.
"Go on, Poppet, go!" Pintel grinned at Elizabeth. "Walk the plank!"
Will thrashed in his captor's arms, glaring vengefully at the Captain. "Barbossa, you lying bastard! You swore she'd go free! That they both would!"
Barbossa turned around, his face alight, as he hissed back, "Don't dare impugn me honor, boy. I agreed they'd go free, but it was you who failed to specify when or where." Barbossa nodded towards one of Will's captors, who quickly placed a gag in his mouth, stopping any further insults. Barbossa looked back at them both, "Though it does seem a shame to lose something so fine, don't it lads?" The pirates all cheered and clapped each other's back. Eleanor glared back at him, steeling herself for whatever he had in store. Barbossa addressed Elizabeth next, "So I'll be having that dress back before you go."
Elizabeth gaped as all the pirates chuckled and cheered in delight. She looked towards Eleanor, before she started to undo the clasps at the front of the dress. She threw it back towards him with venom, "It goes with your black heart."
Barbossa grinned, sniffing it and rubbing his face on the fabric. It make Eleanor feel sick to watch. ""Ooh, it's still warm." He threw it back to the creew behind him, who all fought over holding it.
"You are disgusting!" Eleanor yelled towards him. Her eyes were slitted and her face turned savage. "A despicable bastard who deserves to rot in Davvy Jones' locker!"
The crew grew silent, watching Eleanor and Barbossa with apprehension. Jack had grown still, his eyes wide as he stared at Eleanor. He knew that Barbossa did not take kindly to such slews – especially when thrown by a women.
But then Barbossa did the unexpected, he laughed. The crew, looking around at each other, began to nervously laugh from behind him – with Jack eventually joining in. Then, just as suddenly as he started, he stopped. Eleanor gulped, trying her best not to show just how scared she was. "We'll be needing a matching dress to go with your sisters."
Eleanor blanched, "I'm not wearing one you can have."
Barbossa raised his eyebrow, "Oh? And what do you suppose that material draping your body is called?"
"Take it off!" the crew started to chant.
"That's stealing!" Elizabeth cried. "That was never yours."
"We're pirates!" Barbossa cried out with glee. Eleanor hugged the Navy jacket around her tighter. "You can keep that piece of scrap, but the dress, that's ours." More cheers rose up from behind him. Eleanor looked briefly towards Jack who was staring back at her with worried eyes. He gave her a slight nod, barely noticeable to anyone who wasn't watching. Suddenly, Barbossa pulled out his shotgun and pointed it towards Elizabeth. Will started to struggle further. "You've got ten seconds to take it off or she drops with a hole in her pretty little head." Eleanor looked at him with an expression that could only be described as 'you-can't-be-serious'. "One." He was.
Eleanor hurried to take off her jacket, chucking it towards Elizabeth, who held it to shield her sister's body.
"Two."
Eleanor ignored the catcalls from behind her as she looked out towards the sea, stripping out of the underdress.
"Three."
Elizabeth pulled the back strings lose.
"Four."
She wrapped Eleanor in the Navy jacket.
"Five."
This wasn't just a struggle to get her sister's dress off, it was to keep herself alive.
"Seven."
"YOU SKIPPED SIX!" Eleanor yelled back, stepping out of the dress.
"Eight. Nine!" Barbossa yelled. Eleanor heard the click of the gun as she whipped around, chucking the underdress back at him. It hit him square in the face. "Ten," he muttered. There was a moment where Eleanor and Elizabeth didn't breath. Barbossa smiled, looking at Eleanor as she buttoned the Navy jacket and pulled it as far down as it would go. "You've got yourself some nice legs, Miss Swann."
Eleanor spat at him.
"Off you go!" one of the pirates yelled, coercing them to jump. "Come on!"
"Make the jump already!"
"Jump! Jump! Jump!"
Elizabeth turned to look out at the sea, she sent one last look back at Will. Eleanor stared back at Jack, seeming unable to break the connection between them. It was in this moment, of life or death, that she felt drawn to him. The chemistry that had been building the few days they had been travelling together, reaching a point she could no longer contain. She knew right now, Norrington was not the man she wanted to be with...it was a pirate with dreads, tattoos, and one hell of a nice jawline.
"Too long!" Bosun yelled, slamming his foot down on the plank so it shook. It caused the two girls to wobble off and fall into the water. Eleanor hit the water, gasping as she resurfaced and looked around for Elizabeth. Elizabeth bobbed up beside her, coughing up the water she had swallowed. Eleanor looked up as she saw Jack get pushed onto the plank. He seemed to be having one of his discussions with Barbossa.

"Jack.... Jack . Did ya not notice?" Barbossa said, grinning. He relished seeing Jack facing, yet again, the drop of shame. "That be the same little island that we made you Governor of on our last little trip." He pointed towards the distant island.
Jack looked at it and then spun back around to Barbossa, "I did notice."
Barbossa grinned, "Perhaps you'll be able to conjure up another miraculous escape...but I doubt it." He unsheathed his sword from his belt and brandished it at Jack's throat. Jack's eyes widened, as he leant away from the blade. "Off you go," Barbossa encouraged.
"Last time," Jack said, moving his hands as best he could in handcuffs. "You left me a pistol with one shot."
"By the powers, you're right." Barbossa looked behind him at the crew and called, "Were be Jack 's pistol? Bring it forward." Jack's pistol was passed towards the Captain.
"Seeing as there's three of us, a gentleman...would give us more than a one pistol," Jack stated.
Barbossa frowned, his smile never seeming to move, "It'll be one pistol as before, and you can be the gentleman and shoot the lady you like least, bludgeon the other, and starve to death yourself." He threw the pistol into the sea and Jack wasted no time jumping in after it. Eleanor watched him as he disappeared under the water.
"Start swimming," she instructed her sister. "We have a long way to go before we reach the shore." They both started to swim, Eleanor knowing that Jack would appear again soon with a pistol in hand.

Eleanor stumbled upon the sand of the small island, Elizabeth just in front of her. She heard the sloshing of water of Jack wading in behind her. She would have turned around to look at him but her legs were weak and she felt like all the energy in her body was gone.
Jack gripped his pistol in his hands, chucking the ropes from around his wrists in the ocean. He looked ahead of him, he had to admit that Barabossa – for once – was right. Eleanor had some bloody great legs. He watched her as she hugged the Navy jacket closer around her, the dampness only making it stick to her body more. And it was one bloody good body. "That's the second time I've had to watch that man sail away with my ship."
"But you were marooned on this island before, weren't you?" Elizabeth said, turning around to watch him as he stormed past. "So we can escape in the same way you did then."
They followed Jack as he walked across the beach and towards the palm tree clusters, "To what point and purpose, young missy?" Jack spun around to look at Elizabeth. He made a gesture towards the horizon where the faint outline of a ship was sailing. "The Black Pearl is gone and unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice," he looked at Elizabeth for a brief moment before taking in Eleanor. She swore she saw him take a small gulp, " – unlikely, with one of you not even wearing a dress - young Mr. Turner will be dead long before you can reach him."
Elizabeth wasn't taking no for an answer, "But you're Captain Jack Sparrow." They watched as he started to knock on trees before jumping and staking four steps then jumping up and down a couple of times. "You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company. You sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot. Are you the pirate I've read about or not? How did you escape last time?"
"Eliza..." Eleanor said, trying to calm her sister out of her hysterics.
Jack crouched down, though he took a quick moment to look up at the girls, "Last time...I was here a grand total of three days, all right? Last time," he opened a scret cellar door from beneath the sand, "...the rumrunners used this island as a cache. Came by, and I was able to barter a passage off." He looked up at Eleanor to see how she was reacting to his story. She had her arms crossed and was looking down at him with slight concern. Not what he was expecting, so he changed tact and looked at Elizabeth instead. "From the looks of things, they've long been out of business. Probably...have your bloody friend Norrington to thank for that." He climbed out of the cellar with three bottles of rum in his hands.
"He's not my friend," Elizabeth said. She looked over at her sister, whose face was one full of alarm. Jack raised his eyebrow, trying to make it look as if he didn't care much for the logistics, however he wanted to know the connection between Eleanor and Norrington more than he would admit. "He's Eleanor's fiancé."
Jack did a double take. Eleanor shook her head, "No. No he's not. I never accepted." She took one of the bottles of rum from Jack's hand, uncapping it and taking a giant gulp. "Thanks to your little fall," she pointed at Elizabeth before walking forwards to tap Jack's chest with one of her fingers. "And your dramatic escape. I never had to say yes."
"I believe the question is, then, will you?" Jack raised his eyebrows.
Eleanor looked at him for a moment, very aware of just how close they were standing. She was also aware of Elizabeth standing behind her, and how long she had remained silent. She splayed one of her hands on Jack's chest, feeling his heart beat through his thin shirt. Jack gulped, staring down at Eleanor with fascination and slight apprehension. "Does it matter?" she whispered at last.
"I think you need more rum," Jack whispered.
Elizabeth threw up her hands, storming off towards the beach again. "I'm making a bonfire!" she called back. "We need some kind of signal! Find me when you're both sober..." she muttered.

The bonfire roared with life, as Eleanor, Elizabeth, and Jack danced around its flame. They sung at the top of their voices, "We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up me 'earties yo ho!" Eleanor swung her arms colliding into Jack. "Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me."
"I love this song! Really bad eggs!" Jack said, drunkenly falling to the ground. He pulled Eleanor down with him. "When I get the Pearl back," he mumbled looking out at the water, "I'm gonna teach it to the whole crew, and we'll sing it all the time!"
Elizabeth fell into the grass just beside Eleanor. If Eleanor had not been halfway through her own bottle of rum she may have noticed just how many times Eliza tipped the contents on the sand without a single sip. "And you'll be positively the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main."
"Not just the Spanish Main, love," Jack told Elizabeth, leaning forwards further. "The entire ocean. The entire wo'ld!" He leant back on the sand, tilting his head to the side and looking at Eleanor. He reached towards her, catching a lock of Eleanor's hair in her fingers. Eleanor connected eyes with him. "Wherever we want to go, we'll go," he said, hoarsely. "That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails that's what a ship needs but what a ship is...what the Black Pearl really is...is freedom."
Elizabeth frowned at her sister, as she leant towards Jack Sparrow. She pushed herself back up from the sand and walked through the trees. She wasn't going to watch as her sister fell harder for a pirate.
Jack's hand brushed Eleanor's cheek, "Miss Swann – "
"Call me, Eleanor," she whispered, moving closer to Jack.
Jack grinned, "Eleanor...from the moment I laid eyes on you – " He lowered his voice to just above a whisper, relishing as Eleanor bit her lip, "I thought you were extraordinary."
"And I thought you were the stupidest and most un-piratey pirate I had ever seen," Eleanor grinned back.
Jack chuckled, cupping her cheek, "You could join me on my ship – forever."
Eleanor felt a rush of desire, "Oh, shut up." She pulled Jack towards her, crushing her mouth against his. It took his only half a heartbeat to respond, and when he did Eleanor felt like she was on fire. Everywhere that Jack touched her, Eleanor felt with a rush of heat. Her body was alight and she wasn't going to give that up any time soon.
Eleanor moved so she was straddling Jack's lap, running her hands over his chest and gripping his shirt with vigour. Jack moaned, moving his lips to make a steady trail of kisses down her neck and to her chest. His hands brushed along her thighs, pushing the hem of the jacket up. Eleanor shuddered with pleasure, pulling him closer to her. "Jack..."she whispered in delight. He chuckled against her neck, pressing his lips hard against her nape.
She pulled at Jack's shirt, pulling it easily over his head. Jack looked up at her, his eyes full of lust and desire. Not one thought in his head appropriate for a lady. But Eleanor was no lady. She had always thought herself different from the proper women of Port Royal. She looked for adventure and thrills, and anything that could make her heart pick up speed. She wanted to grab life by the reigns and fight against death. And Jack had somehow unleashed the side of Eleanor she had not tapped into before.
Jack's hands hovered over the buttons to Eleanor's Navy jacket. He brushed his finger in-between the fabric, teasing Eleanor's stomach. Eleanor pulled back from him. "I may be an unconventional lady, but I'm still not breaching my virginity for a pirate."
Jack nodded, skimming his lips along her jawline, "And if kissing is all we do, so be it."
And the bonfire continued to raw on as the night changed into day.