Control. That was the treasure Nicki sought to possess, control over her life, over herself, over her circumstances. Control was her drug and the more she thought she had, the more she needed. She had lost control so many times of late, control of her emotions and control of her circumstances. There had been witnesses to her loss of control and that troubled her. She would have to attend to that. But just then, with the deck rolling under her feet as the ship was pushed from its moorings she felt like she could set it aside for a moment. It was a problem for later when she didn’t have so many things to attend to. There were men who needed orders, tasks that needed doing and she was in the midst of it, barking orders and seeing that it was all done to the Captain’s, and her, liking. 

The men knew their work, but that didn’t mean they would always do it to the best of their ability. They were all to a man cut out for piracy and an unfortunate side effect of that sort of personality was a stubborn independence that she could admire as much as she could lament it. But she could work with it and in this moment it gave her focus and pulled her back from the yawning chasm of her mistakes over the past forty-eight hours. 

Her face was stony as she moved about, but as she saw order falling into place in the wake of her commands some of the dead light to her eyes left, replaced by a sparkle that was more her normal light. She passed by the boy brought on just before departure by their lookout. She did not look at him directly, but she was aware of his presence and more than that, his occasional gaze her way. She did not address him because she was uncertain what he was even doing there and the captain had not yet seen fit to inform her. Normally this would have annoyed her and sent her to speak to him about the lack but she could not do so. She was still too shamed by her flight from the party to look him in the eyes. The few times she’d passed him while the ship was readied to leave she’d managed to have her eyes elsewhere and to avoid direct contact. That wouldn’t work forever but for just then it worked plenty fine. She applied similar techniques to Jax who was, thankfully, fully clothed in his customary garb, his shirt mostly done up. The small V of visible flesh of his chest was easy enough for her to avoid looking at for more than a second or two. But she did wonder if he’d done it on purpose to unsettle her. 

She didn’t dwell on the thought long, it wouldn’t do to distract herself even if he cut a very fine figure standing at the helm easing the ship out into the harbor with a skill that was undeniable. For all that he was maddening she could not dismiss his skill with the Skate, nor his affection for the ship. It was an affection she shared for all that she thought it might be time to leave her. The thought pained her and she pulled her thoughts away. There was time enough to consider that later. She grabbed the arm of a passing sailor, Henshaw was one of the more skilled gunners, small and lithe but a little too disrespectful for her tastes. 

“Ma’am,” he asked with only a hint of a sneer in his voice at being stopped. 

“Go to the Captain and see what he wants done with that boy.” She ordered him, pointing to the boy who was trying to see everything at once and was perched well out of the way on a barrel. He wasn’t in the way, but still the fact that she didn’t know why he was there bothered her sense of order and she needed to something about it. 

“Yes, Sir, Ma’am, Sir.” Henshaw quipped and she narrowed her eyes at his retreating back as he darted to the captain across the deck. 

She moved, not wanting to be handy when the captain was asked lest he seek her out when she was not prepared to be sought out. She wound up on the deck not as far from the helm as she would have liked. She realized with a start as she cast about looking for a distracting task that for the moment everyone (excepting the boy) was busy at a vital task, and that all was going according to plan. For a brief moment Nicki had exactly what she wanted, everything was in control. So why was she struck by a sense of being at a loss? Was control not enough? She banished the treacherous thought. She felt confused and empty in its wake. Without conscious thought her eyes sought out Jax and that little triangle of flesh that she was certain he had left exposed to draw her eyes. For a moment, in that little moment of calm, of order she let herself look and long.