Disclaimer: I do not own POTC, or any person, object, logo or other trademarked item associated therewith. I do not own or live on any Caribbean islands, though I'd really like to. Preferably on the same one as Johnny Depp.
A/N: I don't remember where this idea came from, but I'm writing it anyways, even though it's rather a massive departure from what I usually write for this website. But a writer's entitled to that sometimes, no? That's just about all I have to say...except "review!" Oh, yeah...and character death beyond this point...uh...sort of... you'll understand if you read it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFE AFTER DEATH
Will Turner had years ago returned to Port Royal. He was not like his father, and certainly not like Jack: there was more in him than ships and sea and swords. He was the son of a pirate, but he was still himself. He had left the sea, left Jack and his Black Pearl to be with Elizabeth in Port Royal to raise his family.
Wandering on the Port Royal beach, the sudden thought of Jack- Captain Jack Sparrow- reopened the recent wound: he had just gotten word of Jack's death. It was Anna-maria and Gibbs, coming briefly into port in a small sloop that was conspicuously not Jack's beloved Pearl who had brought him the news.
He'd gone down with his ship, they'd told Will, Jack and the Black Pearl shared a great, salty grave. And it wasn't the navy that got him either-not the British redcoats, not the Spanish, not the French-it was the sea it's self that took him. Will was glad they never caught Captain Jack Sparrow. Never would, now. It seemed appropriate. Will had always thought that the greatest friend he'd ever had, Jack, was like the sea in human flesh: so many different personalities, great and yet somehow grim, he could not be predicted, always changing and surprising. And just like the sea, sometimes capable of great violence. And who can catch the sea?
It had been a storm that had taken Jack. Well, Will mused, actually the storm had taken the ship, but why pretend that it wasn't the same thing? The ship held out bravely- and probably just as loyal a vessel as when Will had sailed on her alongside Jack himself. But nothing is-or was- immortal-not even the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow and his fabled Black Pearl. The ship was damaged beyond repair and survival, and every hand aboard was prepared to go down with her. A friendly ship came just in time, and in better shape than the Pearl, already taken a beating from a battle just hours before. The crew was taken onto the newer ship. Jack was everywhere at once, Will had been told, getting every man aboard to safety. It had not been too late for him, and they called across for their captain.
Will had been told that Jack had a considering look just then. Gibbs and Anna-maria did not know what was in his head, but Will knew exactly what he'd have been thinking: the Pearl was getting old, yes, but so was he. Still more fit than any many his age, aye, but his bones had started to ache on morning after raids. A great leader of men still, aye and say again, but he was falling into routines in battle, his creativity waning. And aye, he could still cut down anyone he wanted, nearly, but not as snake-strike quick. Handsome as ever, lasses say aye and sure, but his dark-coffee hair was showing wolfishly grey. He was getting old, just like his ship, and no two ways of it. Jack would have known what happened to men who lived a life like his who got older by much than he was then-they sit in the tavern, maybe in Tortuga, too young for the crypt and too old for the sea, telling half-lied to younger men who half listen and dream of their sea.
God be thrice damned if that would ever be Captain Jack Sparrow.
Will was told that Jack had tied himself to the helm, the wheel of the ship, o they'd go down together. As the ship went down, he'd looked out to the horizon-probably thinking how he'd chased it so long, and now he was going to catch it, surmised Gibbs. Will thought he was right. His lips had been moving until they last saw them, and Anna-maria guessed he'd been speaking to the ship the whole time. Will knew she was right.
Will wandered the beach where he felt close to his friend. A plainer man would have a grave to visit, but for a man like Jack, only a grave as wide as the sea would do. Larger than life, Jack had always been. Yes, Will though, had been.
Logically, there was no reason Will should feel so depressed. Jack had lived countless years longer than could be expected for a man of his profession. He'd lived life, say aye, and been one of the few men to gather more than a lifetime's of legends about him in less than a lifetime. He'd lived life to the fullest and lived for the legend: hundreds of tales with thousands of versions, and millions of endings, sometimes supplied by tellers other than himself. Sometimes, it's rumoured, Jack himself lost track of what was true and what was the legend.
From a rocky spit behind him, a rough, cunning, accented voice spoke to Will.
"Well, that's just about the longest face I've seen without a horse attached to it!"
Will whirled around, grabbing for a sword that was not at his hip. On the pile of rocks, sat Jack. Jack Sparrow. Captain Jack Sparrow.
"Stroke o' luck, finding ya here. I was just wondering who to ask when I got here and just how. See, one moment I was on the Pearl. I rescued me crew, but couldn't save myself or the ship, and I was tied to the helm and..."
"Jack! How...I mean..."
"Spit it out, lad!"
"Jack, you're dead!" Will hadn't meant to be so blunt, but there it was, and it was what he meant.
"Dead?" Jack sounded surprised, and looked like he was contemplating events deeply. "Aye...aye, now, well that makes sense. Much more sense, now, doesn't it?" Jack sounded like he may have been talking to himself.
"Jack?"
"Aye?"
"What's it like dying...and being dead?"
"Well, the fact that I hadn't noticed should give you some indication, lad."
"Well, I guess so...but I thought the dead went to..." Will trailed off there. He was about to say 'heaven' but that seemed rather unlikely to Jack, and his raised-in manners weren't about to tell the ghost of his best friend that he should be in hell.
"Well, aye, I should have. Gone to hell, I mean." Jack had no qualms about saying it. "But you forget- by rights I also should have been in a cell. But then again, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."
"I think death and being arrested are...different..."
"Apparently not."
"But...how..."
Jack shrugged.
"Because I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."
"Well, why are you here? You're dead, no one escapes that heaven or hell. The only other option would be purgatory and you aren't there either."
"I just told you lad, and you're forgetting already: I'm Captain jack Sparrow. I can escape from anything."
"But death is..."
"And it's not all bad news, being dead."
"Well, where's the good part?" Will said, far to mystified to feel anything else.
"Don't you see it, lad? I'm dead, and so I can't die, for one thing. And for another, I went down and no navy ever caught me-at least caught me and held me long! I beat them all, they never caught me!"
Will smiled slightly. A ghostly, un-kill-able, un-catch-able Jack Sparrow prowling the Caribbean. Wouldn't Norrington be ever so pleased.
Jack grinned, gold teeth glinting vaguely as he concluded his entire outlook into a find phrase.
"You see, lad? I've won! They'll never catch me now!"