Chancing Fate - Jack Sparrow x OC

Part 3 - Chapter 14

A/N: Update

A thick mist lingered over the ocean, blocking sight of nearly everything ahead as the morning sun struggled to break through. Worse than the limited view was the eerie silence that had fallen over the ships. It left Lena acutely aware of every small sound aboard the Pearl, from the creak of the rigging overhead to the occasional shift of boots against the deck. No one seemed willing to speak above a murmur, as though doing so might somehow summon whatever waited beyond the mist. The longer she stared into the endless gray, the harder it became not to hold her breath whenever another indistinct shape seemed to move somewhere beyond it.

Elizabeth stood among the others farther along the deck while Barbossa remained within easy reach of the helm, but Lena had stayed near Jack since coming above, close enough that the back of her hand occasionally brushed his whenever one of them shifted. After everything they'd discussed the night before, there was something almost surreal about standing beside him now with nothing left between them and the battle but a wall of fog. Tomorrow had arrived far too quickly. The thought sent a faint twist through her stomach, but she pushed it aside, flexing her fingers once at her side before forcing them still again as the crew waited at their stations for the first order that would finally break the silence.

They didn't have to wait long before the outline of a lone ship slowly appeared in the distance. Lena narrowed her eyes against the mist, leaning forward almost without realizing it as she watched the dark shape sharpen little by little until masts and sails finally emerged from the gray. Around her, the Pearl seemed to come alive at once. Hands tightened around weapons, bodies shifted toward the rail, and the oppressive silence broke beneath the first eager shouts. Some of the tightness across Lena's shoulders eased with them; one ship was something they could fight.

"The enemy's here! Let's take her!" Marty shouted from his spot in the rigging, his excitement immediately answered by shouts from across the deck.

Then another dark shape slowly materialized beside the first. The brief relief vanished almost as quickly as it had come as another appeared farther back, its sails emerging through the mist before the hull beneath them had even become clear, followed by another beyond it until the shouts around Lena began to die. Her fingers curled slowly against her palm as everywhere she looked, the fog seemed to be giving way to another set of masts. What had first looked like a single ship stretched wider across the horizon with every passing second, dark silhouettes continuing to emerge until she could no longer pretend there might only be a handful waiting beyond the mist.

Beckett had arrived, but he hadn't come alone. The excitement that had swept through the crew only moments earlier disappeared as weapons remained raised and no one abandoned his post, but Lena could see the change in the faces around her while men stared across a sea rapidly filling with enemy ships. A cold heaviness settled beneath her ribs as she swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. She'd known Beckett possessed a fleet. Knowing it and watching ship after ship emerge from the fog were proving to be two very different things.

It didn't take long for the first face to turn toward Jack, then another, until enough of the crew were staring in their direction that there was no mistaking where their thoughts had gone. Lena's attention flickered toward him before returning to the men around them, unease tightening through her stomach for an entirely different reason. She couldn't entirely blame them. Whatever Jack had planned, the impossible odds continuing to emerge through the fog had changed the problem in front of them, and Lena watched him instead as his eyes moved over the fleet before returning to the increasingly hostile faces surrounding him.

Jack lifted his brows. "Parlay?"

The word pulled the faintest smile from Lena despite the heaviness still sitting beneath her ribs. Of course. She wasn't foolish enough to believe Jack had accounted for every ship now filling the horizon, but this at least felt familiar. If the ground had shifted beneath whatever plan he'd started with, Jack would simply shift with it until he found another way through.