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The Scythe's Song	By : hallowedmaiden Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > Het - Male/Female > Jack/Elizabeth Views: 2815 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own POTC or the characters and I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
It was a strange thing, watching something fall apart and being unable to do anything about it. Almost freeing, in a way, until the loss hits, until the tragedy strikes, until you have to start rebuilding everything that you had so painstakingly worked to construct.
He had no shortage of messes that he had to clean up, but this mess, this involved so much more than just a quick erasure job. The moment that Izumi had shot Ishii was a catalyst, something that set off a chain reaction of more magnitude than he was comfortable with.
They simply couldn't allow the police to learn that it was Izumi, and not Ramos, that had killed Ishii, because that would bring so many other things to light, things that were tied to their Russia operation, sinuous threads, all leading back to them. He was prepared to take any measures necessary to shield the Yakuza.
Reliability was something that he had always found flimsy, so it was extra troublesome that it was so often the crutch that everything depended on. The two officers at the department in the UK had been tasked with that box, under orders and payment to see to it that it remained safe and within their possession.
Then, the worst case scenario happened, something that they had not prepared for, a curve ball as the Americans liked to call it.
When he had seen the broadcast, the streets clearing around the department, the 'level 5 security threat' banner, the evacuation, he distinctly remembered his hands shaking with both shock and anger, cold dread slithering through his body.
Someone that they had no prior knowledge of had been...tasked, by the Cartel most likely, to steal the evidence, and it burned him that he hadn't been able to prevent it, that he hadn't been able to choose people that couldn't fail him.
It was a fairly flimsy case to begin with, pinning the crime on Ramos, but it was the only choice they had at the moment. He would be damned if it fell apart now.
"Sasaki-san."
He continued to glare at the cup of sake in his hand for a few seconds more before he acknowledged Izumi with a slow look.
"We need to go to Britain," Izumi continued. "This situation needs to be stopped in its tracks."
"...I'm aware. Tell Tsubasa, Koji, and Naoki to pack whatever they feel necessary, and also tell them to choose...someone to be their companion. I want you to do more research into Scotland Yard. We leave tomorrow night."
He was a man of strength, a man known for his steadfastness in the face of impossible situations, and he tried to remain confident that this situation wouldn't get away from him.
"And Izumi?"
The man turned to look at him just before he headed out of the door.
"In case this fails, I want you to think of any way that we can recover. Any other angle we can pursue."
"Gōi, Sasaki-san."
The sharpening of the knife in his hands was putting her on edge. None of the usual cartel goons were around, so for a rare moment, she and Arturo were alone in his little dump of a house, sitting at his kitchen table, again. It made her want to go take a shower.
It was 7:30, her flight was at 9, and she had wisely decided to coordinate with him before she left.
"I appreciate you making a side trip to speak with me before your flight."
"I don't imagine you would appreciate it if I didn't."
"Indeed. We have plans to make."
"Plans?"
He tapped the knife against the sharpener several times in an impatient manner.
"We are going to go with you to Britain. Well, not with you, but we are traveling there as well."
She had half expected that, but it annoyed her that he didn't trust her.
"I see you are still paranoid as ever."
A gurgly chuckle bubbled up from his throat, a smoker's chuckle.
"I just don't trust anyone but me to transport that box back here. We will have a drop-off point for you to bring the box to once you collect it."
"...you're not worried about the mess that Jack made?"
"Niña tonta, I don't care how he got the box, I only care that he succeeded."
Drumming her fingers on the table, she let out a short sigh.
"There is something...that I didn't tell you about, on Jack's end."
The only reaction from him that she could detect was the corner of his bushy eyebrow raising.
"Well?"
Hesitating for only a second, she prayed that he would understand why she had made the omission in the first place.
"Jack...had help. Someone else is involved."
"Someone else," he echoed. "I don't like it when things are kept from me."
She kept her face devoid of any reaction, knowing full well how gangs didn't like things being kept from them.
"He has a...partner, a girlfriend of some kind I think. Elizabeth Swann."
If Arturo was angry over it, he wasn't showing it.
"And this Swann woman knows about the case, and about the evidence?"
"I believe so."
"I don't like this. I don't know her."
"She seems...trustworthy enough. If Jack trusts her, I wouldn't get too paranoid about her."
"Jack Sparrow normally trusts no one, and cares about others even less, so that makes me question whether he does truly...trust this mujer."
From what she had been able to see, Jack had felt far more than trust for her. She had never seen him pull his gun as quickly as he had at that party. And Jack rarely stuck his neck out for anyone even a little bit. He was a man that played for himself, and only himself.
"Oh, know Jack well do you?"
He leveled his gaze at her from across the table.
"I know Jack well enough. Just like you know Jack well enough. Why do you suppose you didn't tell him the real reason that you hired him?"
"I did-"
"No, tu escucha, you told him you had something stolen, but you didn't tell him what it was. Por qué?"
The muscles around her eyes were starting to hurt from glaring at him.
"I...didn't think he would do it."
"Exactamente, didn't think he would do it-"
"That, and I didn't think it was necessary for him to know the details. As long as he did the job, that was all I needed from him."
"Derecho. Have you met this Swann?"
"Briefly, in India. Jack threatened my life over her, at the business end of a Beretta."
"Is that so? Can't say I have ever heard of him doing that for anyone."
"He is rarely inclined to be protective. Pulling a gun on someone though, he does that plenty, but normally, they end up dead, instead of sitting here in front of you."
"And why do you suppose he didn't kill you?"
"Truthfully, I don't know. We have a history. But, maybe it was because he was too interested the situation, you can never really tell with him."
Their history. A one night stand in '07. Both of them had been...not quite sober, and it was a mere aligning of events that had even put them in the same place at all. It meant nothing, but it was a bit of fun to distract from the chaos of the world. Although, she had the distinct impression that he hadn't enjoyed it nearly as much as she had, judging by how he had immediately got in the shower without saying a word to her, and opted to sleep on the couch rather than in the bed.
"Well, if this...Elizabeth becomes a problem, at all, it's on you. You will take care of her, si?"
She didn't have a hope of "taking care" of Elizabeth Swann anymore than she had a hope of taking down the entire cartel, with Jack protecting her. She didn't think anyone had a hope of even getting close enough to harm the woman that Jack loved unless someone took Jack down first.
"Obviously. So, now that I have held up my end of the deal, are you going to hold up yours?"
"Obviously," he mocked.
"Am I going to collect-"
He cut her off before she could finish.
"Gabriella will be coming with us as well. Once you give the evidence to us, you will be given directions to go and get her. Then our deal is encima."
"And you're telling the truth?"
"Suzuki, when do I ever lie?"
All the fucking time.
She pushed her chair back, nodding at him as he blew smoke at her from the cigar that was now in his hand.
"I'll see you in Britain, then."
"Adios, Suzuki."
She sat at the kitchen table, stirring sugar into the cup of coffee she had made, wearing a hoodie, Jack's hoodie that she had plucked from his closet, appreciating the quiet of the house when Chris walked in looking like he was still half asleep, glancing over at her in confusion, then looking in the direction of Jack's bedroom.
"Where's-"
"Still sleeping."
He stared at her for a couple more seconds, before she raised her head to answer his unspoken question.
"I can wake up before Jack, and get out of bed while he's still in bed. I'm not physically attached to him."
A quiet "not right now anyway" slipped out under his breath, earning him a tired eye roll.
"How long have you been up?" he asked, starting coffee for himself.
"Only for about twenty minutes or so. Listen, um, can you...can you keep a secret from Jack?"
The anxiety had hit her like a train the moment she had opened her eyes this morning, about the job. It just seemed like something was going to go wrong, and she couldn't shake the feeling. Of course, the ruminating about that had led her to ruminate about everything else that had been bothering her, namely, the so close yet so far away possibility of getting the Pearl back.
His hand faltered on the coffee pot as he side-eyed her. The suddenness of the question looked like it confused him.
"I...probably can, but I'm not sure I want to."
She sighed, clutching her cup a little tighter, crossing her legs under the table.
"It's nothing...that he would be angry about if he were to find out. I just need to talk about it with someone else."
"...Alright, what's up?"
"You know about Jack's ship?"
The chair opposite her made a scraping sound against the floor when he pulled it back to sit at the table with her.
"Yeah, the Black Pearl. He's talked about it a few times. When he found that little model ship he has in his bedroom, he lectured Shawn and me about the differences between that one and his for like an hour. The sails on the little one were 'all wrong' and the figurehead was 'completely retarded' compared to his."
She nearly spilled her coffee with how quickly she started giggling.
"Of course Jack would complain about it still. He loved that ship, the real one. When it sunk, it broke my heart as much as it broke his. I had never seen him that lifeless, that...empty. Haven't since…"
"Well, I reckon that you're the reason he pulled out of it. I don't know what the fuck he would do if he ever lost you. You're not allowed to die. I'm not equipped to deal with a madman Jack Sparrow."
"...I'm not sure what I would do if I lost him either," she said quietly, gazing out of the window. "And I'll try my best to not get killed. Anyway, I came across this...article a few days ago that...some props company in the US is rebuilding historic ships...they're investing-"
"Holy mother of christ," came out of Chris in a rushed whisper, cutting her off, and she looked up to find him staring at her with awe. "Are you...are you saying that you want to rebuild...you're saying you want to rebuild the Pearl?"
A sad little smile made its way across her mouth.
"Yeah, it was an idea I had. The only problem is, it would cost about 12 million, and I don't have that kind of money."
His breath left him in a whoosh.
"12 million...damn. I don't...damn."
"Yeah…"
It took him a moment to say anything else, and she had secretly hoped that he would commit himself to helping her find the funds.
"You...you realize that we need to find a way to get that money, right? Can you imagine…"
"Oh I can," she said wistfully. "I just can't believe that I never thought of doing it before."
"Just...where would we put it?"
"He...he has a little cottage cabin sort of thing in Jamaica. Actually, it's quite close to where my old mansion used to be, well, my father's mansion really. There's a beach with a fairly large plot of land a few miles from the mansion that just sat there for the longest time, then Jack and I were visiting one day, and out of the blue he was just like 'I'm going to put a cabin here'. And he did.
"The beach has a little cove, an inlet, with a lovely rock formation that creates a tunnel, well, it's hard to explain unless you see it. Jack built some stairs going down to that part. The cove is big enough to dock his ship in, I believe."
They both sat there, thinking about...everything.
"Can you imagine...the reveal?"
That was the moment that she had been daydreaming about since the idea had entered her head.
"You know...I say I can, but I really can't."
"Lizzie, if you brought that man down those stairs and he saw the Pearl sitting there, I think he would go into cardiac arrest. You should probably wait to show it to him until you get onto the beach because he could just faint too."
The mere image of Jack fainting sent her into a fit of laughter.
"It would be a beautiful moment, and before you ask, of course we can have one of you hiding to take pictures, but please, keep them tasteful. Jack doesn't like his privacy invaded, so if at any point I feel like that's happening, I'll give you a signal to back off."
"Fine, fine. What about when he proposes to you?"
She nearly choked on her coffee at that.
"When...he proposes?" she whispered once she had a good enough handle on her voice.
Chris looked at her like she was stupid.
"You sound like you didn't have any expectations of that happening."
After sitting there in shock for as long as socially acceptable, she looked at Chris like he was stupid.
"You...you do realize that we spent almost 300 years just working up to being in a relationship, right? Don't ask me to regale you as to why it took that long because we'll be here all day."
"Yeah, I do realize it, and it boggles my mind. Stubborn idiots."
"Well, let me just say that it was a combination of insecurity, self-doubt, constant time apart, anxiety, not wanting to ruin what we already had. You know, once we...or I let it go on for so long, I just built it up in my head so much that it became this...monster that I wanted to bury, rather than face."
He rolled his eyes at her, sipping at his coffee.
"Whatever, you're both still idiots. Back to what we were talking about. If you think that man has no plans to propose to you, you're crazy."
Images of Jack getting down on his knee, holding a ring up to her, was something that her mind just couldn't process.
"I...he once said that he didn't like the idea of marriage, a long time ago, before we found the Fountain even. Said it was-"
"Do you wanna know how I know?" he asked, cutting her off.
She looked at him expectantly, but she wasn't sure if she did want to know.
"When you were gone, this happened a few years ago, like…'10? We were sitting in a bar in Belize, nursing rum, of course, and he was just intoxicated enough to open up a little bit. He said, and I quote: "I wish she was here still, you know. Looking back on it now, I really see how stupid I was, how I should have worked a little harder to keep her around. Proposed to her or something, I don't fucking know. Should have told her I loved her, fucking something."
It hit her like a train, and she knew immediately that Chris had not planned on revealing that.
"Are...are you s-"
"Swear to god. I told you he went to some pretty dark places. Every time he got drunk enough, he would always...talk about you, how much he regretted never telling you, how he thought he finally drove you away because of it. I honestly thought that he was going to turn to heroin again a few times. The last time, I put my foot down and told him to knock that shit the fuck off."
The culmination of the fragile emotional state that she was already in because of her worrying, combined with this new information was making her head swim, and she could feel the pain behind her eyes, the tell-tale ache of oncoming tears.
"I need to go to the bathroom," she announced suddenly, pushing her chair back, hiding her face from him as much as possible. He watched her go, looking a bit panicked.
"Hey, I wasn't trying to make it sound like it was your fault-"
"I know...just...I know," she threw over her shoulder as she retreated to Jack's bedroom, stepping through as quietly as possible, glancing at him to make sure he was still sleeping, and then crossing the room to the bathroom, closing the door behind her without making a sound.
She couldn't stop the tears as she slid down the wall, and she hated herself for it, hated that she couldn't just put it behind her, hated that she had to keep bringing it up. But just knowing how awful Jack had felt without her...she couldn't get past it. Couldn't get past the images of him, eyes dead to the world, uncaring about anything. Her body shook with emotion as she cried silently, not wanting to bother Jack, not wanting him to get annoyed with her, or...she didn't even know what…
It was all just so stupid. The lack of money for the Pearl, this stupid job, their stupidity with each other. Every time she went over everything again, every time the thought cycle started again, the tears would gain new life, and it became harder and harder for her to keep quiet.
Suddenly she heard rustling in the bedroom, and she prayed that he wasn't going to try and come in here. The door to the hallway opened and closed after a few minutes and she nearly choked on her relief.
He padded into the kitchen, glancing at Chris who was sitting there looking like he had killed someone.
"...What's wrong with you? Do I need to help you hide a body?"
"...Uh...no…"
"If you say so," he said, grabbing a Coke out of the fridge. "Have you seen Lizzie? She apparently woke up before me."
Rather unusual, for her.
"...Yeah...she was just in here. She's in your bedroom now-"
"Nope, was just in there, obviously. Unless she can go invis-"
Chris's face grew tight with frustration, as though he was battling with himself.
"I...dammit...I told her more about when she was gone, about...about you…"
He froze with the can halfway to his mouth, making a mental note to strangle the man.
"...fucking Christ," he whispered softly, his shoulders dropping in defeat. "She went in my bedroom?"
"That's...that's the direction I saw her go in."
The can of Coke was left on the counter forgotten as he immediately headed back.
The bedroom door opened again and she froze, listening.
A quiet knocking made her jump, made her heart accelerate frantically.
"Lizzie?"
The door wasn't locked, and she knew that he was going to come in whether she answered or not, so she buried her head in her knees and tried to make herself, her anguish, seem as hidden as possible, since she couldn't fucking tell him the root reason that she was upset anyway. The gargantuan concept of him proposing to her, of him thinking of it, of the entire thing, was something that she couldn't wrap her head around yet. And she couldn't fucking tell him about the Pearl either...
Air rushed past her when the door opened, and she heard a quiet "hey" when he knelt next to her, tugging on her arm. She shook her head, paralyzed with panic.
"No love, you don't get to hide from me," and then he was pulling her up and into his arms, keeping her there despite her lame attempts to struggle. When she accepted that he wasn't letting her go, she melted against him and cried until her tears started petering off slowly, as though he was repelling them.
"I'm sorry, I just-this job, the stupid separation between us, our stubbornness-"
"What-" he paused to wait until she was listening to him. "What the fuck are you apologizing for?"
She looked up at him, at his worried expression, then looked away again, a hot blush of shame spreading through her face.
"I just hate to keep being so emotional, I'm not normally-"
"Stop," he said, shaking his head. "You never need to apologize to me for feeling. You can cry on me all day long if that's what you wanna do. I don't care."
"I know, I just feel like I'm beating a dead horse at this point. I didn't want to annoy you-" she argued, trying to struggle out of his grip again.
"Hey, hey, look at me." He stopped until she made eye contact with him. "I don't care if we talk about something a hundred times, if it still bothers you, or if it starts to bother you again, you need to tell me."
A few beats went by while he waited for her to absorb what he said.
"...Okay?"
She wiped away the rest of the tears on her face and nodded.
"Okay."
"Good," he said, kissing her cheek. "Let's go sit on the bed."
The last few hiccups escaped her as she followed him, climbing up to sit in front of him while he sat against the headboard, rubbing his hands over his face.
"Chris...he said he told you...things."
"He um," she paused to fidget with the comforter. "He said that you would always talk about me, talk about how you regretted not telling me you loved me, that you thought that's what made me leave. He said...he said you almost turned to drugs again..."
He suddenly had a far away look in his eyes, as though he was reliving things, going through memories.
"I'm...I'm not going to lie to you. There were several times when I almost picked up the needle again, and the first couple of times I was able to stop myself, but that last time, Chris literally found me in the garage at like four in the morning about to shoot up. He looked like he wanted to beat the shit out of me. Probably would have if I hadn't let him take the drugs.
"I'm also not going to keep it a secret that I was...I don't even think depressed is a strong enough word for whatever the fuck I was. More like dead, maybe. I just kind of walked through life...with a really apathetic attitude, except for the times where my brain just wouldn't let me ignore all of the shit that bothered me. But, you have got to stop feeling like it's all your fault-"
"I just can't help but feel so...guilty that I made you that miserable-"
"Lizzie, listen to me. I could have picked up the phone as easily as you. But I was just as stubborn as you were. I didn't think you wanted to talk to me, I didn't think that there was a point, I didn't think..look, we can go around and around in circles about it, but at the end of the day, we were both just stupid."
She looked him and then looked away, focusing her attention on the mural behind him.
"I...actually wanted to ask about something...something before any of that. It's what really sent me into the bathroom, I think."
"What's that?" he asked scooting closer to her to take her hands in his, playing with them.
"A few nights ago, you told me that you thought I knew that you were in love with me. If you thought I knew, then you must have thought that I was just stringing you along for fun. So...why did you stay?"
His fingers faltered on hers, and he started tapping one on her hand in contemplation.
"Maybe I should rephrase that. I didn't think you knew outright and was just ignoring it. I thought...I thought I was expressing it well enough for you to pick up on it, but there was no way in hell that I was ever going to ask if I was or not…because I'm an idiot sometimes, you know."
Dammit, Jack.
"...Oh."
He stretched his legs out in front of him, patting his lap.
"C'mere."
Her body reminded her of how much it ached when she crawled forward to arrange herself on top of him, straddling his hips.
"I...I didn't know, Jack. I...I was always so afraid to ask, to-"
"-Change what we already had? Me too. I figured that I would rather have you as a really close...friend over scaring you away. Obviously stupid looking back…"
A giggle bubbled up over his choice of the word friend. Even back then, the concept of being friends had always been alien to them. They were more enemies than friends in the beginning, always bickering about something, or dueling back and forth with sarcastic comments. Then their physical relationship went far beyond anything that friends would do.
"Think I could write a dissertation on all of the ridiculous reasons that we never just ended our struggle?" he asked, smiling softly at her.
"Maybe."
"We're together now love," he said, brushing her hair away from her face. "Happily forever after and all that-"
Her laughter at that cut him off, and he just smiled instead, pulling her in for a tight hug.
"What else is bothering you?" he asked when he drew back.
"This job...I just can't shake the feeling that we aren't taking it seriously enough. Like something terrible is going to happen…And you act so nonchalantly about it…"
His entire body seemed to sag like someone had just deflated it.
"I'm...I'm worried too, a lot more than I let on. But like I said before, whatever happens, we can handle it. I won't let anything happen to you, darling."
They sat together for a little while, listening to the sounds of the morning, then the sounds of rain as it started to fall lightly.
Suddenly, her face brightened, and he stared at her impatiently.
"...are you going to tell me why you suddenly look like a kid in a candy store?"
She swatted his shoulder, leaning in for a kiss. A distraction is what they needed, some kind of escape from the mess.
"I know what we can do."
"...what?"
"How do some chipotle grillers sound?"
An excited grin spread across his face, and she knew that he was grateful for the distraction too just from the way the tension left his body.
"I like the way you think love."
How in the fuck was she going to explain this?
She hadn't found an answer yet, and she had been sitting there, in the conference room for an hour waiting for everyone to arrive.
The man on the phone, his voice, she couldn't get it out of her head. Everything he said kept replaying like some kind of damaged tape that someone had forgotten in the player.
"Inspector Trivoly?"
Being outsmarted sounded unlikely, almost impossible to her, and then this man, this stranger managed to pull the wool over her eyes with one phone conversation. It made her want to hand over her badge and gun to become a farmer in the middle of nowhere because she clearly didn't deserve this job.
"...Inspector Trivoly?"
And the smooth tone of his voice, the confidence with which he spun his manipulations...it was masterful, almost toxic in its ability to make you listen. And listen she had, even when she had wanted to hang up, even before the threat, she had listened more closely than she had in a long time to anything. She couldn't recount a single thing that the radio said this morning, but she could damn near recite the entire conversation she had with him.
"...Monica."
Her head snapped up to find the room full, of people, all staring her like vultures eyeing a steaming corpse, as though she had all of the answers, as though she was the solution to all of their problems.
"Right, sorry. The purpose of this conference is to expand on what was discussed briefly in the post-emergency briefing yesterday and to gather any new information that we can. I would like to set this up in a question answer format, that way we can take it slowly and keep omission at a minimum."
Cyril nodded in support from her left, standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, acting like he was Jaime goddamn Lannister, and she was Cersei.
She did not need a protector.
"This all started with a phone call," Cyril began, glancing at her. "A man of unknown identification made the call around noon, 12:02 to be exact. We have the recording of the call here for all of us to listen to."
The click of the player made her lip curl in annoyance. The last thing she wanted to bloody do was listen to the damn conversation again.
It was like it had hypnotizing powers, as everyone in the room listened, without making a sound, hanging on every single goddamn word. Some of them even looked disappointed when it was over.
"Inspector Trivoly, can you describe the phone call in your own words please?"
She couldn't stop the glare she sent Cyril's way, and he put his hands up in a 'sorry, it's protocol' gesture.
"When he first started talking, he sounded like he was trying to establish a relationship with me, asking if my day was busy, and then he transitioned right into getting information once he had me listening. It was almost like...he had something else going on besides the threat he was about to make. After he finished that, he went back to talking about me. I think...that he was trying to figure out how I was going to react to it. It was as though he wanted to make...sure that I was going to be able to handle it."
"But it didn't occur to you that the threat was a diversion at that point?"
"No, it didn't. When he talked about the drums of oil, he said it in such a serious tone, as though he was announcing that a meteor was about to strike Earth. He was probably making sure that I was going to treat it like a serious threat."
"Right," Cyril said, smirking at her dry humor. "Okay, first course of action. Write this down, people. We need to figure out who made that call, where they made it from if possible, and where the person is now."
The scratching of pens on paper was one of the best sounds in the world to her. It meant that there was progression, that there was something happening.
"Monica, what happened next?"
She made a huge fool of herself.
"I immediately pressed the emergency alarm button and had Rilkes get you on the phone. I then proceeded to follow evacuation protocol and directed everyone as per your instructions to the HMRC building. I called SO13, and ordered Unwin and Slaymaker to transfer the critical evidence to Hampstead."
He turned to address the room.
"We stood in the HMRC courtyard while the two bomb teams swept both buildings, finding nothing. The threat, as we know now, was fake. But, there was a reason behind it. Monica?"
"As I said, the man on the phone sounded like he had something else going on, but I also said that it hadn't occurred to me that the threat was fake at that point. We have since learned that the threat was made as a catalyst to get the evidence transport in motion. Unwin, Slaymaker, can you please tell the room what you experienced?"
The two men stepped forth. Unwin looked like he wanted nothing more than to escape for lunch because he kept glancing outside, and Slaymaker looked like he just wanted to die.
"We began the evidence transport, as usual, mum, then just as we made it onto Park Lane, two sports cars boxed us in, one in the back, and one in the front."
"Can you identify which car models they were?"
They both fidgeted, sweating nervously.
"Sorry mum, we're not sure. All we can tell you is that the front one was a darker color, green or brown maybe, and the one in the back was black."
"That's fine. Did you get a look at who was driving them?"
"No, we didn't."
Of course not. Anything to make her job more difficult.
"Alright, what happened next?"
"We...we can't remember clearly, but the back door of the truck was opened somehow, and then we saw a person, can't remember what they looked like. After that point, it's all blank, until we woke up."
"And where was the truck parked when you woke up?"
"An industrial park a little past the Marble Arch."
She had sent out a team to search for the truck as soon as she had been able.
"Thank you, constables," Cyril said. "We have combed the truck for any evidence. Unfortunately, one of the suspects shot out the front camera, so that can't help us. Nothing much for evidence either. They covered their tracks well. The solution used in the tranquilizer darts had memory inhibitors, which accounts for the lack of recollection."
"We have retrieved both the truck and the evidence that was still inside," she continued for him. "There was only one box taken from the scene. Unfortunately, it was the most critical. The box containing the evidence that links the Sinaloa Cartel, Martin Ramos specifically, to a murder in Japan of a prosecutor, and to a possible sex trafficking ring involving the Yakuza and the Russians, was taken. It is our hypothesis that the Cartel is behind the theft somehow."
"Our goals now are to identify who made the threat call, figure out where the evidence is, and if it has been damaged, reassess our case. When the identification of the suspect is made, do not make contact until I have been notified. That's all."
"We do not believe there is any further threat to the police or the surrounding area at this time, but we will continue to monitor any signs of danger. We also do not believe that any of the suspects will make an attempt to contact the police again, so finding them is completely our responsibility."
Her current mood was a far cry from the turmoil that she had been in in the morning. She felt like that was a strange dream, worlds away from the warmth and contentment she was basking in now.
But she still couldn't get the idea of him proposing out of her head. It felt odd to think about, as though it was something that she should have considered but had just...not. Of course, it was the logical next step in a relationship for most people, but for whatever reason, she hadn't imagined him doing it.
Until now.
The very thought sent butterflies into her stomach, turning her into feeling like she was stuck in some kind of romantic comedy, and she rather loved it, the thought of being married to Jack.
'I'm so ready to be married.'
She still remembered saying that to him all those years ago, sitting on the steps of the Pearl, nursing the bottle of rum that he had offered her, with his sly grin and hopeful eyes, just before he had in fact...proposed to her, in a fashion.
'You know...Lizzie, I am captain of a ship. And being...captain of a ship, I could, in fact, perform a mar-ri-age, right here, right on this deck, right...now.'
God, it was like it was yesterday, and she also still remembered the temptation of his offer, as the very idea of being in his cabin, on his bed, with him, had felt like something that she had no choice but to gravitate to. How she had managed to wait until she did, that night in Shipwreck Cove, she had no idea.
"What are you thinking about, love?"
She had vaguely heard the door open, had vaguely heard him walk in, but she was so caught up in her reminiscing that she hadn't really registered it.
"The time you tried not so subtly to get me in your cabin."
He stopped scrolling his phone and glanced up at her.
"Oh? Well, there was more than one, so which are you referring to?"
A little smirk adorned the corner of his mouth, and she knew that he knew exactly which one she was referring to. She acted out his little 'we are very much alike, you and I, I and you, us' line, deepening her voice as much as possible, and giggled when it nearly made him fall over with laughter.
"I mean...was I wrong?" he asked once he calmed down a bit, crossing the room to search in his shelves.
"No, I suppose not. I'm honestly not sure how I survived waiting."
"Waiting?"
"For you."
"I can't tell if you mean me, or this," he snarked, turning halfway towards her to point at his midsection.
"Well, I have always been waiting for this," she motioned her finger at the two of them, "but I was referring to that, among other things."
He shrugged, a little infuriating shrug that had her glaring at him.
"Hey, not saying that it's your fault, but you had a hundred opportunities. I wasn't going to complain regardless of when you chose to end your frustration."
A little blush stained her cheeks when she remembered the real reason she had put it off after Will had left.
"I was actually waiting for you to make a move. I had this fantasy of you seducing me in like...the hallway, or somewhere, then once I succumbed, you would carry me to-"
She stopped when she realized that she was staring at her with an incredulous look on his face, his mouth just barely hanging open.
"Are you telling me that all I had to do was kiss you silly against a wall or something, maybe sneak my hand in your breeches, and you would have let me carry you to my cabin?"
"I mean, yeah-"
"Lizzie, I was trying to be a gentleman by letting you control everything, though I will admit, by the time you did drag me to your cabin, I was getting a little worried."
"You, a gentleman? You spent half the time before Will left trying to come on to me!"
"Only half? And that tactic didn't seem to be working too well, so I figured that if I let you come to me, you would be more inclined-"
"Oh hell, so when I actually wanted you to come on to me, you decided to retreat? You're infuria-"
The rest of the word was cut off when he finished crossing the room to where she was sitting on the edge of the bed, catching her mouth with his, pushing her onto her back, going down with her. Her legs spread to give him room as he laced his fingers with hers, pinning her hands above her head, the weight of his body sending small thrills to her core.
"It was certainly worth the wait though, wasn't it?" he asked when he broke away from her lips to give her neck attention as she giggled.
"More than worth it, I think."
Then she realized that he had carried something over with him from the shelf.
"What's that?" All she could see was the color of it, a sort of...elvish green.
"My photo album. Since we are apparently on the topic of reminiscing, I figured we could amend the loss of your photos by looking through mine. That is unless you would just rather have sex."
She gazed up at him, playing with his hair.
"I think we can put that off until we get that stupid box out of our house."
"...our house?"
The slip didn't register with her until he repeated it, and another blush invaded her cheeks.
"You're mine, so I figure that your house might as well be mine too."
Her arms came up to clutch at his back as he leaned down to kiss her again, sending sparks flying through her body.
"No argument from me, darling."
She watched him, smiling, as he arranged himself to sit across from her, flipping the book open.
The first photo was an 8x10 of her leaning against a palm tree.
"Oh, this was in the Cayman Islands, wasn't it? I was a little tipsy there, I believe."
"You did have some rum in you at this point. And yep, the Caymans. We had just finished a job, this was the one that we weren't aware we were both hired until we both showed up at the same spot after trying to sneak around each other for a half hour-"
"Oh yeah, I remember. Scared the shit out of me when you snuck up behind me. You figured out it was me before I figured out it was you."
"'Scared the shit out of you' here meaning that I pushed you against the wall and kissed you until you couldn't think straight."
It had been a job to steal the inventory books from a museum in '68, kind of odd since she was normally stealing the items from museums, not documents. As it turned out, someone else had hired Jack to steal them as well.
"You were lucky that I knew your kiss so well. You could have ended up flayed to-"
"Lizzie, I took your knife before you could even think to use it on me. Didn't particularly fancy getting cut to ribbons."
"And kissing me is worth the risk?"
"Of course it is, darling."
He flipped to the next page, and she found herself looking at two 5x7's. The top one was of them swimming in the ocean, and the bottom one was of them sitting at the bar in the little restaurant close to where they had been swimming.
"Oh god, how could I forget that top one. I swear I saw a shark in the water-"
"And I kept telling you it was just a shadow, and you didn't believe me, wouldn't even listen to my argument."
"There was a shark, in the water. I know there was. You were crazy to stay in there."
"I mean...did I get bit? No. I even continued to try and convince you in the next picture, at the bar, and you still wouldn't listen. Though, the argument became far more amusing the more alcohol you had."
She rolled her eyes. Of course, he would remember that detail.
"Yeah, of course you would remember how I forgot how to pronounce the word shark at one point, so I started to substitute S words in its place-"
"Yeah, like sword, sun, shit, sandal...oh my god I thought I was going to die from laughter."
As he flipped to the next page, she crawled across the bed to open the nightstand drawer, finding what she was looking for.
It was the 5x7 of her laying on the lagoon shore, completely naked and freshly ravaged. Jack snapped the book shut and leaned over to look with her.
"See? The way the sunlight is coming through the trees. It highlights you. It's a gorgeous picture."
"It could be to do with the fact that we just had sex, too."
He chuckled against her shoulder, his hand slipping under her shirt, circling around to cup her breast.
"Possibly. Mmm, we could try and recreate that photo. Maybe not with the lagoon, but my...our bed would do just fine I think."
The prospect met no argument from her when his fingers started to play with her nipple, teasing it to a hardened point. She reached down and lifted her shirt off, twisting around to let him climb on top of her, thrusting her chest at him.
"God I love these," he whispered as he descended to take a nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it in hot circles, teasing it with his teeth. A rush of moisture pooled at her core when she felt his erection, hardening against her through their clothes with each undulation of her hips.
"...Jack, Jack…"
He teased the other breast with his hand, a saucy chuckle escaping him at her impatience.
"You have words, darling."
"Words? Words, oh god don't ask me to use words right now, just…"
It turned into a moan when he worked her gray gym shorts down just far enough for him to slip his hand inside, finding her center immediately, sliding two fingers inside her wet heat. Her back arched at the contact, the knot in her stomach already tightening as she drew in breath without exhaling, then his thumb found her already swollen clit and she cried out in satisfaction.
Somehow she found the focus to work his gray trousers down with her feet, freeing his cock from its confines, her hand diving down to wrap around him, earning her a hiss of approval.
He freed her nipple and arched up to whisper in her ear. "I need your mouth, darling."
It wasn't often that he stopped her pleasure to ask for his own, but she didn't mind, since having him in her mouth was intoxicating in and of itself.
"Roll over then, needy."
He chuckled again when he complied, raising his hips to help her relieve him of his trousers. Not wasting any time, she leaned down and let his length sink into her mouth as far as it could go, dragging her lips back up slowly, sucking as she went. His hands immediately tangled in her hair.
"...Oh god darling…" was all he managed as her mouth worked him, her tongue playing, running over the underside of his cock, teasing around the swollen tip when she nearly let him pop free from her mouth, before sinking back down.
The noises he made when she pleasured him like this. Little whines, deep growls, her name in a hiss, beautiful velvety moans, they all sent spikes of pleasure through her. He hardened even more inside her mouth as her strokes sped up, and he started to thrust lightly, before she held him down with one hand, glancing up to meet his glazed over eyes with a slightly dangerous quirk of her eyebrow. He gave her a soft smile before he was swept away again.
"...oh love, almost, almost…"
The black sheets became clutched in his hands as he started to chant her name under his breath, breaking off into nothing but puffs of air when she wrapped her free hand around his sac, massaging it. Then his body went taut, jerking up once, twice, before he was coming inside her mouth with a moan that sent another jolt of pleasure through her.
When he finally quieted, she crawled back up his body and laid her head on his chest, listening to his frantic heartbeat.
"I fucking love you," came out of him as he exhaled, his body giving one last shudder.
She giggled, playing with his nipple, her laughter increased when he twitched, giving her a small yelp.
"Sensitive, it's-"
Whatever he was going to say was cut off when she rolled onto her back and tugged his hand back down to her core. He rewarded her with a sly grin, and just as he slipped his fingers back inside of her, curling them up, his thumb finding her clit, they heard Chris's voice from in the kitchen.
"I think Suzuki's here."
Her disappointment came out of her mouth in a quiet snarl, but he kept his fingers inside for a couple more seconds, taming her with a sweet kiss.
"Right when we get back in here, darling, I promise."
- 15
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The Scythe's Song