Captain of the Bloody Rose

Jane nodded silently, looking out the window to see the sky darkening ever so slightly.

“Drop anchor, batten down the hatches, secure everything, and pull the sails up and tie them down, otherwise they’ll tear. We’re in for a hard one tonight.” She said, her eyes turning to look back at him.

“I want all the in injured moved down into the storage rooms down below once everything is secured. They’ll be safest down there. The rest I need on deck fighting the storm and keeping the ship floating. I’ll stay down below and help with the injured.”

Before he could protest she held up a single finger.

“I am Captain of this ship Joseph. I can’t hide away in my room while my men are at risk.”

"Aye, then Ma'am." he said, closing his eyes in a sort of defeated sign. He wouldn't argue with her. He wouldn't devalue her. He would just worry, in his own mind.

When he reopened his eyes he side stepped from her and moved to the door. He tossed it open and headed up the steps, whistling loudly. It was almost ear-piercing, but it got the attention of the men alright. "You've all been to sea long enough to know the drill! Drop anchor! Bring down the sails, batten the hatches! We'll be ridin out this storm! Anyone injured, get below deck and outta the way!" he barked, his voice loud and thundering.

He himself walked off, knotting a near by rope to begin dropping the sails to be tied down.

Jane stood there for a moment watching where he had disappeared up the stairs before sighing and limping out the door. He was right of course, the longer she stood on her leg the more it hurt and pained her. This would be a long night.

She immediately began to bark out orders when she reached the storage area, calling men to make double sure that all their supplies were tied down. Then she started putting together cots and hammocks for the injured, gathering the supplies she would need to help keep them as comfortable as possible as well as healing properly. Collins was down there to help assist her with the patients, and when she finally was able to sit down and elevate her leg for a moment, the wind was already howling and her leg was throbbing painfully.

“Miss, perhaps you should just rest.” Collins said anxiously, looking at her leg. It had started bleeding again and she was changing the bandage.

“Come off it Collins. You need my help.”

“That may be so, but I fear for my life if you should lose that leg because I didn’t at least try and make you rest.” He said solemnly, thinking about Joseph at that moment. The man had never threatened him, but he had the distinct feeling if the Captain got worse on his watch he would be in deep shit from the younger man.

She waved him off, but remained sitting for a while, perching her injured leg up on a barrel so the blood would flow out of it. Of all the bloody nights for a storm, it had to happen after a big battle. She hadn’t even had a chance to interrogate her prisoners yet. They would spend quite a terrifying night chained to the wall in the brig.

Joseph was in rare form by the time the storm hit. the waves salty water kept crashing over the deck, stinging the slash across his back. Not a pleasant feeling for anyone really.

He looked up hearing a 'ping ping' noise and swore. "You two! Grab a rope- hold it down!" he bellowed, already scaling the rope latter of the mast. One of the top sails had begun to snap free... Whoever hadn't tied it well should be keelhauled in his opinion.

One man watched with a frown before headded below deck. Noone seemed to favor Joseph as the new first mate.... Their captain seemed to like him too much anyway.

"Cap'in!" he called as he entered the storage. "A sails broken free- Joseph's bein a nutter and tryin to tie it down!"

Jane stood abruptly, dropping her injured leg to the floor with a thump that made Collins shudder in sympathy pain. Though Jane didn’t show the pain in her face, no instead there was a look that Collins had learned to easily recognize and fear over the years. She walked, more like strode over to him, somehow still looking intimidating with a limp that the man swallowed, hard.

“And you’re coming to me why?” She asked dangerously. Pointing to her leg she said, “I’m in no position to run up and help him now am I? Without that sail we’re stuck here, unable to leave and will mostly die on the sea.”

Reaching out she grabbed the mans collar, and actually hoisted him up to his tip toes, the look of terror on his face priceless.

“So rather than coming to me and bitching, get your slimy ass up there and help him tie down that sail you useless piece of sea scum!”

She let him go and watched him scamper off. Sighing she turned to Collins and he immediately knew what she was going to do.

“Capn’ you can’t…” He tried to protest before she simply shook her head no.

“Take care of these men Collins.” She said before leaving and heading up to the top deck. They were rebelling against him whether he saw it yet or not. That’s the only reason that man came down there to talk to her.

When she reached the deck was starting to get pelted by the rain she grimaced as the sea water splashed on her deep leg wound. The men working around her froze for a moment when they saw her, finding it unbelievable that she was there at all, especially with her injury.

“What the hell are you doing!?” She screeched. “Tie down that sail! Get those cannons fastened tightly! I want this ship tied tighter than a hog at slaughter!” The men immediately jumped too, fighting to finish task Joseph had already set with a new vigor to them. No longer was it some upstart telling them what to do, but their beloved Captain. She watched silently as the sail was tied down properly, luckily with no damage to the sail or the men tying it.

She made her way to the helm and watched the man struggle with the wheel. His whole job was the keep the ship pointed towards the storm so that the waves wouldn’t capsize her. He was having a hard time of it so she limped forward and wordlessly took the helm, letting him slump next to her breathing hard. He was terrified, being but a boy of 17.

Joseph worked like a monkey, one arm and leg both entwined with the robes to hold in still as he tied the sail on top, the rain blinding him and making it hard to get a good grip on anything.

Stupid Tempest.

He swore loudly when a rope whipped back up at his face, smacking him hard- though the wind carried his words of frustration off like nothing.

He finished the task and began his decent form the mast, the least favorable place to be during a storm. One good gust and he could be gone.

He made it down and grabbed the man nearest him, slamming him against the wooden post. For a moment it looked like it was because he was pissed- then the wave hit, knocking nearly everyone on deck off their feet.

"TIE YOURSELF DOWN, YOU IDIOT!" Joseph shouted after spitting water out of his mouth. he thrust a rope into the mans hands, stumbling across the deck, fighting the wind and slick floor. He had spotted jane at the wheel. That was where he was headed now.

Quickly she turned the wheel at just the right moment into another wave, saving them from a massive pounding from the side. Now that she was staying the helm, the amount of water crashing onto the deck was less, allowing her men to work more efficiently. She was so focused on the waves and the storm itself she didn’t notice Joseph approaching her.

Turning to look down at the kid she yelled, “Go down below and help Collins with the injured.”

It was a rare act of mercy on her part, but a necessary one she felt. The look of heartfelt gratitude in his eyes was enough for her to grit her teeth and turn the ship hard again, meeting another wave head on. This was her ship. Her home. There was no way in hell she was going to let a storm take anything more from her. Her crew was her family, and she would protect them with everything she had.

Joseph came up behind the captain helping her brace the ship by placing his hand on top of hers, holding the wheel in place. even with his help the last wave nearly sent them spinning.

"You were supposed to be down below!" Joseph called over the wing. He didn't sound angry. He sounded worried.

[ohhh! the crew hates him XD should one of them un-tye his rope? the one holding him to the ship? And a wave sweeps him off and Jane finds him like... 2 months later at a port?]

((OOOO that would be mean! We’d have to do a time skip….I kinda like that idea though. He could find her or something drinking herself to death, or something else very Jane like.))

Jane braced herself hard, holding on to the wheel tightly. She took comfort in his strong body behind her, helping her hold herself in place. The wind howled around them and for the first time Jane wondered if this just might be it for her ship and her crew. She quickly squashed down that thought and held on tighter, turning the ship again into another wave to help cushion it’s blow.

“I got the feeling I was needed more here.” She called out over the howling gale, understanding that he was worried about her and not trying to reprimand her.

Joseph braced himself, in tern bracing Jane as they hit another wave. "This storm'll tear us apart!" he called. "It might be wiser to try and find a port!"

On deck, two men were motioning to one another, and Joseph. Both apparently having the same stupid, down right evil idea.

“We lift anchor and this ship is gone.” She called back, pointing to the sails and the fact that lifting anchor would put them at the mercy of the sea. She looked up at the sky, frantically searching for the tell tale sign in the clouds that would tell her that the storm was reaching its end.

Then three things happened simultaneously. First she looked back down to see Josephs rope trailing on the deck, untied from its post. Then she saw a great wave crop up poised to hit the ship, and thirdly she felt his grip loosen just a little bit as he tried to adjust himself to better brace the waves.

Then the wave struck, taking Joseph down quickly and sweeping him off the side of the ship his rope trailing along behind him with nothing to hold him to the ship at all. The last thing Jane saw before she screamed in horror was Joseph’s surprised eyes as he went head first into the angry sea.

Joseph had attempted to ceatch himself, but to no avail. the sea swallowed him and tore him away, helplessly from the ship. It tossed him into unconchiousness, and eventually into a harbor.

Leave it to the one and only Dread Pirate Roberts to survive, single-handedly, in the ocean during a hurricane...

-5 months later-

Port Diablo was a rather newly constructed pirate safe haven. A place to restock supplies, rest and drink your liver to death at. And not a noose for miles around. It would seem only natural that that would be the place a captain would go while trying to gather a crew.

A man sat with short shady brown hair in the corner, taking names for a copper coin each, his hat pulln down over his eyes so as not to scare any prospects off and cloths rather dingy; though nice compared to the others around. The Dread pirate Rodgers himself, hiring himself a crew. He sat with a walking stick between his knees, the ocean having been quite the horrible missus on his back. Still, his eyes were sharp and deadly, his skin sun kissed and callused, and his boots tall and shined. Plus he paid.

All over the port people were talking about the Captain who would only take people onto his crew who could answer his question correctly. And the Bastard changed it for each person. With only a fistful of spots left open on the ship, it had become a sort of game to be accepted.

"I'm tellin you the answers gold. The answers always gold."
"An' I'm tellin yar its grog!" two pirates bickered. "Hows can yas be on a ship with outs any grog!"
"I still say it's ladies." another man hiccuped; all trying to decide the answer to give the curious captain.

Jane had screamed in horror, loud enough that her crew had heard her terrible cry and the blood nearly froze in their veins. She couldn’t believe what her eyes had just seen. It couldn’t be happening. First Skip and now this. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

Steadily the storm died down, leaving the crew battered and the ship worse for wear, but they had survived. Except for Jane. Collins said the double shock and severely disrupted her mind. She lay in her bed for three days straight, not talking or eating at all. All she did was stare at the ceiling of her quarters, her eyes blank and listless. She even let Collins touch her and check her wounds. Her crew didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t giving any orders and there was no one in command to tell them what they had to do next so they were as listless as she was.

Three days passed and many started wondering if she would ever come back. Then on the fourth day, she emerged from her cabin, dressed, polished and suddenly she was a woman they had never seen before. She was demanding, harsh, and took no excuses. Punishments were doled out for any kind of infraction and she quickly took to wearing a whip, so that it was at hand any time it should be needed. The prisoners they’d captured were interrogated though she told not a soul what they said. She left the mess of cleaning up the bodies to others.

When they finally made it to port Jane stood before them all and made one last final speech.

“My crew is like my family. They are to trust each other and with that trust each man knows that he is safe when among his crew. That trust has been shattered. Someone on this ship let a fellow crewmen fall into the sea to his death. In fact they untied that rope so that it was certain he would die. I don’t know who that man or men is, but as your Captain I can no longer trust any of you. You are all dismissed. “

With that she gathered her own belongings, made sure all of them were off the vessel, and made a quick sale of the Bloody Rose. She had loved that ship, but it didn’t feel like hers with Skip gone. More importantly, with Joseph gone she couldn’t stand being on it and all the places that would remind her of him. It was the last time that anyone could for sure say they saw Calamity Jane. That very night she disappeared.

~5 Months Later~

Jane had made it to Port Diablo without too much trouble, remaining anonymous as always. She had grown more wild in appearance since her days on the Bloody Rose, her hair longer, her skin paler since she wasn’t out on a ship in the sun every day. The only thing that was still unmistakable Jane was her green eyes, brilliant with color and still deep and troubled as before, if not more so now.

From the moment she’d made it to port she’d heard about some new pirate searching for a crew. It meant very little to her. There was always Captains looking for crews. But this Captain seemed interesting to her. Asking questions for the crew to join. That was definitely odd. She hadn’t cared about the various Pirates on the seas for quite some time, but she’d never heard of a Captain like this. For once curiosity got the better hold of her and she asked where she could find this Captain. When she heard he was at the pub she figured she’d kill two birds with one stone. Find out some more about this guy, and get piss drunk at the same time.

When she entered the bar she immediately went to the bar and put down a gold coin. The man looked at her and nodded, understanding immediately that this was to pay for all her drinks that night. She took one look at the glass of ale and shook her head. The bartender raised an eyebrow until he saw where she was indicating with her eyes, and smiled.

“There you are miss.” He said, handing her a full bottle of rum and a shot glass. She poured herself a shot and downed it in one clean motion, gaining approving smiles from the bar goers around her.

"Aye- miss." one of the drunken men looked ot jane as she drank. "What says you. what's the most important thing to a pirate?"
"I says it be gold. this lout says it be rum. And 'e thinks it be ladies... Seein as you is a pretty lil flow I mights be agreein..."

Joseph looked over and frowned, hearing the men who had asked him for a job apparently address a woman. He blinked, then stared for a moment across the way. No way. No way in all of the seven seas.

He pulled his hat off and stood up, making his way over, sitting a few stools away, glancing over.

Jane ignored the man for a moment while she poured herself another shot and downed it, thinking about the question he had posed. Part of her wanted to kick him hard where the sun didn’t shine but she held back that impulse. She didn’t want to get kicked out of the bar yet, not when she was only on her second shot. Of course that meant she’d have to try and be civil.

She poured herself another shot and drank it down before turning to the man, her green eyes flashing as she smirked. “Loyalty.” She stated simply, answering his question and making the men around her go silent at her response. “The most important thing to a pirate is loyalty.”

"Bravo." Joseph spoke up from where he sat.

His two toned eyes were locked on her, sitting far enough way that in the dim lighting he doubt she could tell they were tw shades. That with the fact that his hair was short and he had a new scar trailing across his blind eye, courtesy of the rope around his waist in the storm, he doubted she would recognize him. His voice was pretty much the same, if but a little horse form shouting orders to the new crew he had already recruited.

Jane turned to look at this new voice, and her green eyes narrowed slightly. That voice was familiar, as if from a distant memory, and yet she squashed the thought immediately. She’d survived all this time by forgetting those memories, by refusing to think of him. She couldn’t think of him. She’d never cried for his death, those three days that say lay in that bed she had tried. Tried to come to grips with his loss. Tried to mourn for him like she’d mourned for Skip. But she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t think about him without losing all feeling in her body and feeling nothing at all. So she pushed the thought down and away from her mind quickly, her only survival method.

So she looked away and drank another shot before she replied to this voice, her voice flat and unemotional. There was no fire like there had been those many months ago. Jane had become a walking doll, emotionless and cold.

“You must be the new Captain people are talking about. Good luck with your new crew.” She said quietly, raising another glass slightly in toast before taking the shot. This would be her fifth shot, and the bar was watching her expectantly waiting for her to be piss drunk. There was only one woman that could drink like that, and it was Calamity Jane, though that fact didn’t click with the bar goers.

"Well, you answered the question right, Miss.... If you like, you're welcome among my crew." he said, allowing for his accent to show full swing. "Seeing as how I kept my promise, I at least deserve a glance from you."

He moved one seat Closer, the lantern beside him illuminating his eyes.

He kept one hand at all times on his stomach. Being tossed around at sea with only a few stitches hold his insides together... He was lucky a doctor had been the one to find him. It seemed her curse had rubbed off on him, and his on her.

Jane froze, knowing at that moment that she recognized that voice for certain now. There was no denying it, no pushing this back. Her eyes widened as the memories unfurled in her mind like a river breaking through a damn. This man, she had to know. It couldn’t be possible, she’d watched it all happen, but that voice. So familiar.

She turned slowly, her eyes wide as they locked with his. His two colored eyes met hers, the eyes that she couldn’t stop seeing whenever she slept. The eyes that had shown her so much in a single glance. His words drifted through her mind. “Kept my promise…” she whispered, staring at him hard, seeing the familiar features on his face that she remembered so well.

She stood abruptly, knocking over the rum bottle. Somebody darted forward to pick the bottle up before too much spilled but she could have cared less. Her eyes were still locked on his, her entire body tensed. This couldn’t be happening. She had to be losing her mind now. This was it she was cracking.

“No…” She whispered, more to herself than to any of the patrons. “I saw you die…”

Before he could say anything she fled, leaving the pub so quickly that she knocked over chairs and patrons as she went, nearly falling over herself in her haste to get out. She ran around the corner of the bar and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily her eyes shut tight.

“I’m hallucinating. I had too much to drink again. Too much… Fuck I can’t do this.”

Joseph frowned when she ran off and sighed, getting up. He couldn't run. Not with his back as screwed up as it was. Like Collins had said when he first took the pain away; at least once a month. It had been about 6 now. A good month before he had been tossed overboard..... then tossed like a ragdoll as he was.

Yeah, Joseph was worse for wear. But he would still kill anyone who crossed him.

"Capin' you want me to-"
"No." he said to the man who went to stand. "I'll see you back at the Serei." he said before walking off, relying on his walking stick.

Most eyes in the bar were on him as he moved. Why? Well.... Just two days ago they had seen him take down four fully armed men with no problem. Today he moved like an old man.

He wouldnt bother her again. He wouldnt try and upset her. He just wanted to make sure she got to wherever it was she was going in one piece.

She didn’t notice him leaving the bar. She was too busy hyperventilating behind the building. Tears ran down her cheeks unabashedly as she staggered away, not drunk in the slightest but her mind reeling from the shock. Jane was slowly losing her mind this way, and Collins was afraid to watch it happen.

He’d been searching for Jane since the day she’d disappeared. She’d been very hard for him to find, but when he had a month ago he hadn’t let her out of his sight. When she’d caught him she’d pushed him coldly away, but he couldn’t just leave her. If there was one thing Collins was, it was insanely loyal and he couldn’t just leave her on her own when she was obviously cracking. She was going to kill herself this way.

But he had noticed one thing about this particular night that was different than before. She’d hallucinated before but this time a man left the bar after her, a man with a stoop that looked too familiar for the old man to ignore. So he left Jane for a moment, knowing she would make her way to an inn and probably stare at a wall for a while. He followed the stooped man for a few blocks, trying to stay as silent as he could in his pursuit. He had to be sure who this man was. Was Jane really cracking up worse than usual?

Joseph finally stopped walking, leaning against a building breathing hard. Not from being winded per se, bur rather the pain shooting up his spine. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to sink to the floor, pulling a bottle off his hip. He took a swig of the nasty brew and nearly gagged on it- though given a few minutes it would work, just like always. It would numb the pain.

He heard something behind him and frowned, grabbing the pistol off his opposite hip. "I would suggest not coming any closer." he said, not bothering to turn to see who it was.

Collins froze. There was no mistaking that voice. He’d slept in the same room as the guy after all for quite some time before the storm had hit. Hell he’d been the one help nurse the man back to health after he’d taken a knife to the gut. Remembering how good said man was with a gun, Collins decided to call out before approaching any further.

“Joseph?” He asked, taking a step out into the light of the street. Collins scar seemed to be even more obvious in the dim light.

Joseph paused, then swore, pulling himself to his feet with the use of the walking stick. He turned around to face Collins and frowned. "Long time no see." he greeted, the discomfort in his voice obvious and thick. The way he stood gave the man a good clue as to what the matter was as well. "Where did Jane run off to?"

Collins sighed, and scratched his head nervously.

“Can’t say I right know for sure.” He said quietly, not sure what to say really. There was so much that had happened so much to say really that he didn’t know where to start.

“I see that no one’s been able to fix ya back for ya either.” Collins said concerned, seeing the amount of pain on his face. “Come on to me room at the Mermaid Inn. I’ll fix ya up and then ya can tell me who the hell ya survived.”