Joanna's heels clattered down cobblestone stairs. "Jack," she exclaimed, skidding to a stop in front of his cell. "I have --"

Joanna was supposed to let Jack in on her and Will's clever plan, but she promptly forgot all about her mission.

Jack was without his customary headscarf -- it lay innocuously in his lap. That was not remarkable in itself. What was remarkable, however, was the way Jack's longish bangs fell over his forehead and framed his dark eyes. On closer examination, Joanna realized Jack had undone all his braids and tails. The formerly twisted hair floated in wavy bunches, reluctant to let go.

He looked boyish. He was handsome. Joanna was having a crisis.

"What?" Jack asked and sat straighter. He was perched on the stone bench, hands full of loose twine and beads. "'S there something on my face?"

A forehead, Joanna thought. Of course Jack had a forehead; the fact she had never seen it did not negate its existence. This would have been foolish to vocalize, so of course Joanna did anyway. "Your --" she said, and pointed at her own face.

"Hm, I suppose you've never seen me without the accoutrements," Jack mused. He continued, "Thought I'd freshen up 'fore the big day, y'know. Wanna look my best."

"That's..." Joanna began, caught between dreading the hanging and admiring Jack's cheekbones. "Morbid," she settled on.

"What were you yelling about, earlier?" Jack asked absently, distracted by the critical task of organizing ornaments by color and size.

"It doesn't matter," Joanna said, because she could not honestly remember. She was caught up in about ten different feelings. "Would you -- I have a hairbrush you could borrow, if you'd like?"

Jack perked up, smiling at her with oblivious brightness. "If you don't mind."

Joanna fled.

~

She crashed into the smithy and slumped against the door, heart beating out of her chest.

Will, in the middle of the third guard, stared at her from across the room. "Joanna?" He prompted, sword arm wavering.

"Um," said Joanna intelligently.

Will's countenance softened. "So you've realized."

"What the hell does that mean," Joanna snapped, knowing full well what it meant.

Will continued to smirk. Joanna amended all previous statements; Will Turner was not a good person. "Wanna practice?" Will Turner, Bad Person, asked. He invitingly waved his sword.

Like a puppet on a string, Joanna joined him. She deftly caught the sword he tossed her; an elegant shortsword, similar to the one Norrington carried. Joanna let it dangle lazily from her hand -- suddenly, she wished for something heavier.

"Wait one minute," Joanna requested, already halfway to her bedroom.

When she returned, she carried both a hairbrush and an exorbitant Chinese dao.

"That's lavish," Will appraised, studying the sword with a blacksmith's eyes. "Have you had that all these years?"

"No," Joanna laughed. She set the hairbrush on a nearby table and deposited the dao into her favored left hand. "I fought with it at Isla de Muerta. Did you not notice?"

"I was occupied," Will said, the dreamy look in his eyes indicating his thoughts had turned to one Elizabeth Swann.

"I'm sure," Joanna said amusedly. "I've only got a minute, so hurry up and disarm me."

"What's the rush?" Will asked as the two of them perfunctorily flipped through the guards.

Joanna's favorite was vom tag; she sighed into it before answering. "Delivering a hairbrush to Jack," she said. "He wants to look his best for his not-hanging, apparently."

They finished the hasty warm up and jumped into taking each other's heads off. Their blades kissed no more than five times before Will had Joanna's dao clanging to the floor. "Your low guard is atrocious," he informed her.

"Thanks, William," Joanna said ungraciously.

Will's eyebrows wiggled. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"You're the worst," Joanna informed him. Smiling, she exchanged the sword for the hairbrush and departed the smithy.

~

Joanna had recovered her composure by the time she returned to Jack, but her stomach turned to butterflies at the sight of him nevertheless.

"Here," she said, sticking the handle of the brush through a break in the bars. She cautioned, "I want it back, when you're done."

"Would I ever steal from you, Joanna?" Jack asked with large, innocent eyes. He tugged the brush past the barrier and looked guileless.

"Never," Joanna agreed, waving a hand as if the idea were preposterous. She inquired curiously, "Is everything in your hair some type of memento?"

"Aye," Jack affirmed. With a nod of his head, he indicated the legion of beads at attention on the stone bench. He sat beside them and crossed his legs. "I began collecting 'em when I was a lad."

"Why?" Joanna questioned. "Aren't they a pain to sleep on?"

Brush mid-tug, Jack laughed. He continued to wrestle with his tangles as he replied. "You get used to it. Lots o' pirates tie gold into their hair or get piercings as a way to store money. Elsewise, we fritter it all away." He shrugged. "A dead pirate doesn't have much to his name 'sides what he's got on his corpse. A pair of earrings can pay for a funeral."

Joanna didn't reply, staring pensively at the straw littering Jack's cell. "Like I did, for my dad," she said finally.

"Jus' so, darling," Jack pronounced with a grin.

After another pause, Joanna looked shrewdly at Jack's collection of paraphernalia. "Most of that isn't gold," she pointed out.

"One man's trash is another's treasure," Jack quipped. He set the hairbrush aside and perused his ornaments, eventually settling on a vividly cerulean bead. Joanna recognized it -- she had observed him fiddling with it several times in the past.

"What's that from?" She asked. "The bead, I mean. You said every one is a memento."

Jack was already midway through a braid, but he paused. He stared at the bead in contemplation. "This is the first thing I ever bought," he said.

"Really?" Joanna was surprised. "A bead?"

"Thought it was pretty," Jack replied with a shrug. He thrust the bead into the sunlight streaming from the homuncular window; the light bent into stripes of cobalt.

"It is," Joanna murmured, tracking the path of blue light against Jack's nose. She dragged her gaze away. "That's a bone, isn't it?"

With a practiced flourish, Jack finished the delicate braid he had begun. The blue bead winked from beneath his ear. "Ha, yeah," Jack laughed, snatching up the slender bone and grinning at it. "'S the shin of a reindeer."

"A reindeer? What, did you visit the North Pole?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Jack said slyly.

"I would," Joanna responded sullenly. "What about that one, with the chains?"

"The earring? Trophy," Jack replied without much thought. He was sectioning his hair off, wooden beads waiting in his lap.

"Did you...You mean, you killed someone?"

"Oh, not for this one," Jack replied blithely. "I meant from a girl."

"Of course," Joanna said with breezy sarcasm. "Are any of those from dead people?"

"'Sides this one?" Jack cocked his head and grinned, pointing at Barbossa's feather. It was the only ornament Jack had not removed. "Well, the reindeer's dead obviously -- so's the lady who gave me this one," Jack continued. His mouth twisting sadly, he indicated a flat, silver coin. Joanna recalled that it usually hung over his headscarf. "But you know me, Anna. That's it."

"Yeah. I know you." Joanna said softly. The words felt like a sunrise, slow and glowing.

~

Jack's hands were nimble and quick, but it still took about an hour for him to finish his embellishments. Joanna quizzed him on the stories behind every bead, chain, and band; Jack obligingly answered, not at all inconvenienced by the opportunity to talk about himself.

When he finished, he hopped to his feet and joined Joanna at the door. Eyes locked on hers, he tipped her hairbrush back through the bars.

Joanna took it, smiling mischievously. "I'll have to burn this, y'know. You're filthy."

Jack grinned. "Sorry," he said unapologetically.

Joanna was struck with a sudden memory -- standing with Jack in the lower decks of the Interceptor as he tied back her hair, fingers adroit from practice on his own.

"Sorry I couldn't help you, with all of -- that." Joanna said, gesturing at Jack's aggregation of hair and baubles. "Besides my donation," she added with a smirk, tossing the hairbrush from hand to hand.

Jack's expression was both soft and amused. "'M sorry, too," he said. His hands curled around the bars, near Joanna's -- an invitation, she thought. Joanna took it with a smile.

"I was wondering," Jack began with a note of apprehension. Joanna raised an eyebrow, unfamiliar with the tone of his voice. "If I could have something from you, Joanna."

Joanna's face flooded with heat. "Something," she repeated quietly. "Like -- like a trophy." Like the earring.

"No, no," Jack replied hastily, sensing danger. "Like a memory."

You won't need it, Joanna almost said, because Will and I are going to rescue you. You won't die.

She would say so, in a moment, but for now she was charmed by the idea of Jack wearing a piece of Joanna. Proof that their five-day, death-defying adventure was more than a fleeting, chimerical breath of time.

Joanna was wearing a dress the color of toasted bread. Dainty lace, fettered by Joanna's own hands, embraced the edge of the sleeves. Anything Joanna made, she could unmake -- so she tugged in just the right spot, removing the circle of lace so she could give it to Jack.

"How's that?" She asked, scanning him as he studied the sprig of white.

Jack smiled. "Perfect," he said. He gathered his sleeve around his elbow and stuck his hand through the bars, returning the lace. Joanna was confused until he said, "Tie it."

Joanna beamed at him and complied. She gave Jack a bracelet made of lace as he had given her one made of silver.

~

That evening, Will asked Joanna a strange question.

They were in between bouts of sword practice. Joanna was panting and swiping damp hair from her forehead. Will had hardly broken a sweat.

"Are you happy, Joanna?" He asked her, his mien incongruous.

"With how you're wiping the floor with me?" Joanna shot back, climbing to her feet. "No, William, I am not. Let's go again."

Will did not raise his sword, so Joanna did; he batted away with the dao with an irate sigh. "I meant more in general, Jo."

Am I happy? Joanna contemplated. The question confused her. She stared at Will, her brow furrowed. "Why?"

Will's sword swung idly in his hand as he prolonged his answer. "Jack said something," he said finally.

Joanna flushed -- the very important rescue plan had completely fled Joanna's mind in the face of Jack's charisma, so Will had (after much ridicule of Joanna's absentmindedness) ventured to the cell block to fill Jack in.

"What did he say?" Joanna asked dubiously.

"That there's always a place for you on the Pearl. He wanted me to remind you," Will said. He looked cross. "He didn't say the same of me."

"You don't want a place on the Pearl," Joanna told him with a laugh.

Will raised an eyebrow. "And you do?"

Joanna didn't reply because -- well, she wasn't sure.

"That's why I asked," Will elaborated, concern slipping over his surliness.

After a beat, Joanna said quietly. "I don't want to be stuck in this smithy for the next indeterminate spread of time."

"You don't have to be."

"You're going to marry Elizabeth. You will," Joanna insisted before Will could protest. "You don't risk your life like that for someone and then not marry them. That's ridiculous. But I certainly won't be married," Joanna continued sourly, "because I'm considered spoiled goods."

Will's nose wrinkled at the bawdy expression. He unhelpfully pointed out, "It doesn't help that you keep visiting him."

"I don't want to be married," Joanna countered, loud from frustration. "I want to do something besides sit in this damn building and sew dresses for other people. And when you're gone, I'll be sewing in this damn building alone -- my father is dead." Joanna ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "The Black Pearl is an option. It's a -- temptation."

In reply, Will gracefully sheathed his cutlass. He crossed to join her, dropping to sit in a nearby chair. "What are your other 'options'?" Will asked mildly.

"I don't know," Joanna muttered, leaning against a support beam. "I could find other lodging, to escape this particular building, but that leaves the problem of sewing for finer ladies the rest of my life. And I have no other skills."

Will looked contrary; Joanna expected the words that's not true were on the tip of his tongue, but he chose not to say them. Joanna did have other skills -- fencing, cooking, an artistic mind -- but those weren't useful enough for Joanna to carve out a trade.

"If you joined the Pearl's roster," Will proposed with a small, thoughtful frown, "How would you serve the crew?"

"I would learn how to sail, obviously." Joanna fell into a distrait smile. "But in addition to that, I'd be useful for fixing clothes. Most men aren't sewing virtuosos. I suppose I can also cook."

Carefully phlegmatic, Will asked, "What would keep you from piracy?"

Joanna glanced at Will nervously. After a pause, she revealed, "You."

~

Joanna visiting Jack was like twisting the silver bracelet around her wrist -- something she did without thinking. She found herself in front of his cell the next day, picking up a conversation they had not started.

"He told me I shouldn't hold myself back because of him," Joanna murmured. She was in a strange mood, both thoughtful and apprehensive.

"You shouldn't," Jack amiably agreed as he paced his block. He skipped over cracks like they were bad luck.

"I shouldn't." Joanna parroted firmly. She eyed Jack shrewdly. "You're not just saying things to get a new crew member, are you?"

"'S up in the air whether or not I'll get a ship," Jack reminded her. While his eyes had gleamed with excitement since he learned of Joanna and Will's plans, he remained determinedly realistic about his chances. "But to answer your question -- yes, I'd like another crew member. Specifically a particular someone. You."

Flattered, Joanna smiled. She timidly voiced another concern, "Aren't women bad luck?"

Jack waved a hand dismissively. "They'll get over it, luv. 'Specially once you mend all the holes in their socks."

Turning hypotheticals into brisk reality gave Joanna a rush of excitement. She felt like a tropical storm, precipitate and volatile.

"Jack," Joanna began hesitantly, searching for the right words. Jack stopped pacing and bestowed his full attention. "Thank you for everything." She settled on, smiling quickly to belay her honesty. Boldly, she thrust her hand through the bars, palm open for a handshake.

Jack clasped her hand, as he had done with Will so long ago -- "Agreed," he said then before launching she and Will into infamy.

Now, he held Joanna's hand. "Of course," he told her. His grin was cheerful and sincere.

~

jack is shown to wear a lace bracelet in dead man's chest. it's later revealed that it was a memento of his time with angelica, but i repurposed it for my own devious needs. 

thank you for reading! xoxo