when you become a memory you can never lose a fight

JACK

"An' you could always just take mine," Jack retorts, his smile little more than a bitter curl of his lips. But more on that another time apparently, because when The Ark lists again and Flora pins him with that glare, he has to stop himself from petulantly raising his hands as if to demonstrate that, despite the obvious, he really is nowhere near the wheel. "Works for me," he mutters; he'd much rather not have soldier boy crawling all over his deck in any case.

And he does follow in his own sweet fucking time, yes, spending a second or two with a warm palm against the doorframe of the chartroom and a private smile on his face. When he leaves for the deck at last Flora has already disappeared back to the Sugartide, and Jack calls out the warning to expect more stars than usual in the sky very shortly. Code for don't do anything really complicated that might get you injured in the next few minutes.

By the time Flora - and Kai, presumably - return to the deck of her skyship, Jack will be sitting casually on The Ark's rail beside the rope ladder that's now fluttering like a ribbon over the side of her hull. His boots dangle precariously into the abyss below, but if the height bothers him, it doesn't show in his expression. "In your own time," he drawls around his peppermint bark.

we've gone way too fast for way too long
and we were never supposed to make it half this far

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!