shieldofrohan | For drinkupmehearties

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For drinkupmehearties

It's been a month. A month of waking from dreams of the Capitol, of clinging to Faramir as though he may vanish any moment. He doesn't understand it, she can see it in his eyes. Why would he? For him, no time has passed. For him, she slept one night and had a vivid dream, and although he is the last to deny the importance of dreams, he cannot understand the importance of this one. He cannot understand a year of being imprisoned, to a heart that so longs to be free.

She's stopped talking to him about it. It hurts too much to see him try and fail to understand, see him straining to put himself in her shoes when he has no frame of reference. She lets herself believe it was a dream, and the memories are already fading a little, leaving only the dull ache of a remembered hurt. She dreams of Arya and Firo and Roland, the family she made for herself far away.

She goes back to work. In the Houses of Healing, she tends to broken bones and minor hurts, and tries not to remember a place where they could all be healed with the push of a button. She applies herself to learning, spends night and day in study, and when she is not studying, she rides, and when she is not riding, she seeks Faramir out, and holds him close as if she can make up for a year of his absence in a few weeks.

It's been a month. It turns out it's also been a week since two ships clashed off the shores of Gondor, a trading vessel and a corsair. She knows a little of this through her husband, but it isn't strange enough to pique her interest, not even when she hears it had black sails. The corsairs of Umbar have black sails, and there are enough of them still on the seas to make it unremarkable. But when the corsair captain is brought to Minas Tirith, and Faramir orders him taken to the cells to await the King's return... Éowyn only catches a glimpse of him as he passes, but a glimpse is enough.

As soon as her work in the Houses of Healing is done, she hurries to the cells. They are better-appointed than what Jack will be used to, probably; furnished sparsely but with care, and scrupulously clean. Gondor treats its enemies well, when it can afford to.

Éowyn sweeps in, gowned in white with her hair pinned under a cloth, and with a few brisk words compels the guard to let her into Jack's cell. The door closes behind her, and for a moment, she can't find a single word to say.

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No one had believed him. He'd awoken on the familiar berth in his captain's cabin, head filled with a dizzying blend of unbelievable and nightmarish memories, but otherwise physically no worse for wear. Describing the Capitol -- the gladiatorial games, the glitzy Capitolites, the Tribute tower, cars, anything -- had received disbelieving chuckles and a hearty slap on the back. Gibbs and the rest of his crew were convinced that it'd been a nasty fever dream, brought on by a bad batch of grog or from imbibing too much the night before.

And eventually, wanting to forget the entire torturous ordeal, Jack had started to believe that too. He had his beloved Pearl back. Nothing else really mattered.

But sometime during the dead of night, when the late watch had been distracted or passed out drunk, they'd sailed deep into strange waters. And not long after that, after a scrap with an unusually foreign ship, the pirate had found himself captured and hauled off to jail. With not much else to occupy his time, he's spent most of his imprisonment patiently waiting, marking time, thinking up absurd ways to escape from his cell.

This time, Jack is half-reclined on the simple bed that'd been provided for him, tricorne hiked down over his eyes and arms folded across his chest. He doesn't move when the door to his cell opens and closes, but merely drawls out a flat, "Ah. You've brought out the rum this time, I hope." When no one answers him after a moment, Jack thumbs his hat up to take a look at who'd entered -- and starts. He pulls himself up and swings his legs around and off the bed, bewilderment knitting his brow.

"Eowyn."

"I had started to believe I dreamt you." Her voice is steady, but there's still an echoing kind of shock in her eyes. "That I dreamt it all."

And, suddenly, she's fighting back tears. She isn't prone to crying, not in the least, but it all seems too much. All those months of captivity pile back down on her at once, all the losses and heartache she's been forcing herself to forget. But how can she forget it happened, when the living proof of it sits before her, calling her by name?

She swallows, hard, and brushes down the front of her skirt, more for something to do with her hands than anything else. It's a moment more before she trusts herself enough to say, quietly, "How came you here?"

He doesn't answer right away, dark eyes studying Eowyn as if she were a specter or illusion that might vanish on him at any moment. But here she is, living, breathing, speaking, all too real. As if she'd stepped straight out of those dreams and into this cell.

Jack scratches a couple fingers over his mustache, faintly frowning, his tone soft. "I thought much the same. Blimey."

Then he shakes his head, lifting one shoulder in a useless shrug. "I don't rightly know, to be honest. I woke up on my ship, before, with me crew, under way to Tortuga. By and by, next day, we were sailin' unfamiliar waters. Then I found meself here." A beat passes, and Jack regards her. "Where is 'here', in any case?"

"Minas Tirith." It's all the stranger, saying it out loud. She frowns a little, as if she's questioning even that; one hand goes out and brushes her fingertips against the cool stone of the wall, as if to reassure herself it's still there. "Capital of Gondor. My husband's city. You were brought in by one of the King's ships." Then, feeling the silence drag out (although, honestly, it lasts only a second or so), she adds for something to say, "They must have noted that you look unlike a man of Umbar. It explains why they brought you here."

His eyebrows arch with sharp surprise. "Bloody hell, this is your world. How is that even possible." Certainly, the Capitol had the technology to pull people to Panem. But to link two different worlds like this? Was that within their power too? And why do it?

She most likely wouldn't have the answers to that, so Jack doesn't bother to ask -- especially because there's another pressing issue. "Your husband's city. Does that mean you can get me out of here?"

"He is Steward, not King," she says slowly. "And it would look ill indeed, to use my position so." Which isn't a no. Worrying at her lip, she crosses the cell to sit beside him on the bed, smoothing down her skirts again. "...Did you attack the ship, or did they come upon you? I can speak in your defence, if the second, for you have committed no crime in our lands, and so they cannot hold you."

"O' course."

Then Jack hesitates. His first instinct, of course, is to lie and claim the latter, hoping no one would think too hard on the details. But that wouldn't benefit him, ultimately, once the truth of it was inevitably found out; the ship had been a simple trading vessel and had no motivation (or real firepower) to attack Jack's ship first. And lying would only serve to distance Eowyn, the only person that might be able to help him.

He grimaces, not quite meeting her gaze. "We may have -- in an unfortunate and brief lapse of judgement, mind you -- fired the first shot." His gaze flicks back to hers. "As it were."

After so long at sea, having done little actual pirating for so many months, his crew had been anxious to earn their coin and fill their coffers before arriving at Tortuga. The trading vessel, even though it'd been foreign and in unknown waters, had been perfect prey.

Éowyn sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Of course you did. Against a ship without guns, I can only guess." A fair guess, since none of the ships of Gondor have guns. She only knows what they are from her experience in Panem. "I will speak with the King and Queen, Jack. I will do what I can on your behalf. But I make no promises, cannot promise."

Raking her hand back through her hair, she looks at him. "I cannot promise," she repeats, a little more quietly, and sighs. "Oh, Jack. Of all the ways to meet again..."

A very fair guess. The Pearl's crew had even questioned the absence of cannons the closer that they'd gotten to the other ship, wondering why someone would dare to set sail without any protection. The vessel's crew had also been notably lacking in gunnery of any kind, but that'd only made it all the easier to subdue them and haul over the cargo to Jack's ship.

He clasps his palms together, an appreciative gesture. "Thank you, luv. I'm very much obliged." Then slowly his expression tempers, quiets, the corner of his mouth pulled into a faint, pensive frown. He's faced the hangman's noose in the past and escaped from it; he's certain that he can do the same this time, too. He has to, after finally escaping all the insanity in the Capitol.

But that solemn expression eventually fades some, replaced with a half-hearted upward perk to his lips. "Unfortunate as it is, in the least, I'm glad to have set me eyes on your lovely face again. I'd wondered about you." The last time Jack had seen Eowyn she'd been imprisoned in the Detention Center, looking surprisingly brittle and brimming with a dangerous hatred towards the Capitol.

"As well you might." Something hardens in her expression at that reminder. She hasn't entirely forgiven him for working for the Capitol, even if time and distance have dulled her resentment a little. "They locked me up alone for a time. In a cell without light, without company. I could have wept." She did, actually. She couldn't help it, when she was locked up with nothing but sick fear for company. But could have is as close as she can come to admitting it, even without the Capitol listening in.

But that was the past, and it is far away now, even if it sometimes still makes her wake in a cold sweat. She shakes off the thought with a little sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I had wondered what became of you, as well," she admits after a moment. Much as I tried not to. "I fear I cannot say I am glad to see you. I had hoped it was a dream, that might fade in time."

The subtle shift in her demeanor isn't too hard to miss; Jack had imagined that she'd still harbor resentment, judging from their last meeting and what he knew of her temperament.

"It's a great fortune that you were able to escape from that damned place as well." There's sympathy present in his gaze, care for what she'd gone through, definitely, but he's still not remorseful about his choices in the Capitol. He'd justified it to himself, back then and even now, and that was what had ultimately mattered in his mind.

"As had I hoped. Alas, it seems fate would not have it that way." It would've been better to forget what had happened back in Panem, to move on with his life and continue sailing to the Fountain, to find a way to shut the door on death forever. But now that was out of reach, again.

After a moment, Jack looks to her. "By the by, how fares my ship? Have they done anything to it?"

"I know not. Nor what may have become of your crew." She shakes her head, looking up at the ceiling as though the answers might be written there. "I doubt they will have broken it, if that is your fear. Why waste a good vessel? If I were to guess, I should imagine they will take it to the shipyards, fit it with the colours of Gondor, and set it on the waves again." There's a certain dryness to her look. "Then again, as you may remember, I am no mariner. I will ask the King, when next I see him."

"They're a stalwart bunch, my men." Hopefully, at least. Jack knew that they'd been in much worse, much more dire situations in the past. They could hold their own. And it wouldn't be the first time someone had taken his beloved ship and outfitted her to their liking, then sailed away with her.

"O' course, I'm aware of that." He catches the dry look she gives. "Is there still some grievance you hold against me, from before? I know we didn't part on the most amiable terms."

"I am not prone to forgiveness," she says. Then, with a little sigh, "Yes. Yes, I was angry then, and I am angry now. You would sooner save your own skin than hold to some more noble cause. That is grievance enough."

She looks down at her hands, worn with work, and frowns. "Yet what you did was no more or less than most men would have done. I knew that even then. I was..." A deep breath. "I was frightened. And frustrated, and angry. You were not the cause of it, and I ought not to hold it against you." Which is the closest you're going to get to an apology, Jack, and even that clearly cost her a lot of effort. Apologies, like feelings, are not Éowyn of Rohan's forte.

The corner of his lip twitches a touch, his gaze briefly following Eowyn's down to her hands. He's a selfish bastard, certainly, but at least he's well aware of it. "Aye I would. And I would sooner not fight their bloody war for them, either. I hadn't ever asked to be involved in their damned mess."

After a moment, though, he sighs too, gaze returning to her face. "Nevertheless, still and all," He's waving his hand a little with this, "I'd wager you had just cause to be angry. And frustrated." And that's probably about as close to an apology Jack could muster himself.

She's quiet for a long moment. Then she nods, and reaches over to touch his arm. "It is in the past," she says, as much to herself as to him. "In the past, and in another land. And there it ought to stay."

It isn't forgiveness - as she said, forgiveness has never come so easily to her. But it's something. It's an admission that she ought to forgive, that she'll try to. She recognises his half-apology, and what it costs to make it, just as she hopes he recognised hers.

"I will speak to my husband," she says after a moment longer, letting go of his arm, "and to the King. If aught can be fairly done to see you freed, I will do it."

"Rightly so." He had indeed recognized it; it's perhaps the only reason he'd made an attempt at it himself. And dwelling on the past, dwelling on what had happened in that wretched place, isn't something that Jack plans to do.

When she speaks again, he gives an appreciative flash of a smile. "You're a doll, luv. I appreciate it, truly." He can only hope that it'd be enough to get him out of this new mess. But if not, and in the meanwhile, he'd be working out a backup plan or two.

She hesitates a moment before answering the smile. "If I were you," she says, her voice a little lower now, "I would hold off calling me love. There are those here who might take it amiss, and it is not only the hurt we did each other I would leave in the past."

She knows that wasn't how he meant it - but she knows, too, that if questions are raised by how he speaks, she will feel obliged to answer them honestly. And she isn't at all sure she can stomach hurting Faramir that way, for all her intentions of being honest with him.

Jack pauses, briefly, considering, then taps a couple fingers to his temple.

"Fair enough, then. That might be wise." It's more habit than anything else, but he's willing to do anything, honestly, if it'd better his chances at making it out alive in this situation.

She nods, standing. "I will visit again," she assures him, tucking her hair back. "Tomorrow, if I can. When I have spoken with Faramir - and with the King and Queen, if they have the time to spare."

She would be lying if she said there wasn't a certain savage satisfaction in leaving him in a prison, the way he left her the last time they spoke. But she does her best not to feel that satisfaction. Leave it in the past, where it belongs. "If you wish, I will ask what became of your crew."

It's certainly hard not to be mindful of the parallel; that satisfaction she'd feel, he'd surmise to himself, would probably be deserved. That was usually the case when it came to him. But Jack nods in return, pulling himself back onto the bed to stretch out and recline like he'd been before she'd come in.

"That'd be lovely if you could. Haven't heard a peep from the guards about 'em since I got here." No doubt Gibbs, provided he'd been locked in the same cells, would be keeping the crews' spirits up. The man had a knack for making even the worst of torments bearable with those stories of his.

Jack adjusts his hat back down over his eyes, crossing his ankles, then adds, "Good night and good morrow, Eowyn."

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For drinkupmehearties

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Did you plurk me about this? I feel like you did, but I can't find it.

i did indeed, would pm be better

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