Advice for the Martyred
Fanfiction: Pirates of the Caribbean: CotBP
Rating: K+ for mild suggestiveness
Characters: Elizabeth and Jack
Disclaimer: Me steal the PotC plot and characters? Actually- *smack* Borrowed! Borrowed without permission. But with every intention of bringing them back to you (except James. He's mine.) All credit to the big-eared mouse.
Companion piece to 'A Martyr's Choice'. Elizabeth's gone to talk to Jack, but his advice is not only not what she expected, but infinitely more helpful.
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She wished there was someone she could talk with about this, someone that could help her get her thoughts in a manageable order. Estrella understood her better than most, but this was hardly a conversation she could have with her. No, someone a little less bound by the rules, someone who understood desperate moves, someone who...
She sat up suddenly. Jack! Of course! She would talk to Jack Sparrow! He was odd, bizarre and at times stark raving mad, but he seemed like someone who might actually have some advice that wasn't biased.
Elizabeth glanced out the window at the constant deluge doing it's best to drown Port Royal in the sea. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would see if she could get down to talk to Jack. And after that she would see what she could do to get him freed. And then...well, then she would have to make a choice...
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Jack was sprawled lazily in a corner when she arrived, hat cocked low over one eye, seeming either half asleep or half somewhere else.
"Jack?"
He lifted an eyebrow and the hat moved with it. "Hmm? Oh!" He sat up and swept the hat across his middle. "Elizabeth! Come to visit me in my charming captivity, ay?"
"In a manner of speaking. I'm not exactly supposed to be here. And it's Miss Swann."
"Aha! So you've been thus incapable of conniving a way of convincing or otherwise persuading your fiancé to spare me a noose? Tried getting him drunk yet?"
"Jack. That's not why I'm here."
Jack slumped back again, propping the hat on his knee. "That's not very helpful."
"I'll do what I can, I promise you."
"You're runnin' outta time, love. They tried me this morning."
"What?"
Jack shrugged, appearing unconcerned. "Not much of a to-do, I'm ashamed to say. Rather quick, actually. Can't say the outcome surprised me much. Shame they couldn't get my name right though. I mean, how hard is it to say 'Captain Jack Sparrow'? Captain! It's not a hard word."
"They found you guilty?"
Jack grinned, flashing gold teeth. "Love, was there anything else they could find me? Tomorrow," he clarified, "Tomorrow morning."
"I-" Elizabeth stammered, appalled, "I-I'll try, Jack, I'll-I'll talk to him, they-they can't do this!"
"Much obliged, but-" He grinned. "Rum's a powerful persuasion. Even on Commodores. You sure you can't get him drunk? Of course, being a bonny lass," he shot her a devilish look and waved his hands suggestively, "you have other methods of, er...persuasion."
"Jack!"
He raised his hands defensively. "We're down to desperate measures, love. Or were you intending to spring me now?"
"I'm sorry." She crouched down in front of the bars, her face serious.
Jack sat up with a soft grunt. "Am I to understand you're here for a reason, then?"
"Yes. I wanted to talk with you."
Jack made a soft sound of amusement that Elizabeth ignored.
"It's about a...decision I made."
"Ah," said Jack softly, "Still thinking on that, are you?"
"I don't know what to do." She studied him as she spoke. He was sprawled at the back of the cell, apparently at ease, but the look in his eyes was thoughtful, almost sympathetic. He didn't seem crazy for once, merely tired, and a little bit devil-may-care.
"And I'm to tell you? Elizabeth, you made a choice, and good or ill, it's you as made it. Desperate measures, ay?"
"He would let me go, if I asked."
"Ah..." said Jack slowly, squinting at her vaguely. "So that's it. You want to know if you should ask. Can't help you." He propped the hat back over his face.
"Jack, I wanted your advice!"
Jack's voice was muffled under the hat. "Elizabeth, life can not be coddled. Someday, you will have to field your own choices, instead of waiting for someone to do it for you."
"That's what I'm trying to do! All I want most is to know what to do!"
Jack sat up slowly, pulling the hat from his face. His face was cunning. "Is that really what you want most?"
"Of course!"
"So, to reenumerate your problems, you want to know most what it is that you want, which is to say what you want most: to stay with your fiancé or go gallivanting after William Turner. You also know which is approbatically right in all senses of the word, but not which you, Elizabeth, want most. Aye?"
"Yes."
With a crafty smile, Jack pulled a compass from his belt. He shuffled over, placed it in her hands and flipped open the lid. The needle immediately swiveled to her right and toward her, then came about to point left. It did this several times.
"What-? I'm not trying to find-"
"Elizabeth," Jack interrupted, "could you tell me where your darling Will is at this particular moment?"
Elizabeth frowned at him, confused. "No, I- I have no idea."
Jack sighed. "Where is he most likely to be?"
"His shop."
"And where is that?" Jack prompted.
"It's up there," she pointed, poking her finger up the stairs to her left, "on the main street, you know where it is."
"Knowing and knowing are two separate things, love. And the Commodore, where is he?"
"In the fort somewhere, I think, probably his office."
"Which is where?"
Elizabeth glanced around, trying to get her bearings. "Umm..." She wound up gesturing at the wall behind her. "Above us, kind of that way..." she trailed off, staring at the compass, which was pointing toward her and a little to the right.
"Will," she muttered experimentally, concentration on her face, and the needle swung around to point left again.
Elizabeth stared at Jack. "You're not serious!"
"Believe your own eyes, Elizabeth."
"So what I want most..." She glanced down at the needle, which was now revolving slowly. Jack backed slowly away.
"I suggest you take your time, love. I'll want it back when you're done, though."
Elizabeth staggered backward, her eyes glued to the compass, and fell onto the bench there. She sat for a very long time, thinking, watching the needle tilt first one way and then the other. There was a minor crisis when James evidently got up and went somewhere and for awhile was headed in a general left direction as well, but he returned eventually and Elizabeth returned to her thoughts.
She spent what felt like hours considering all aspects of her decision, all aspects of the men themselves, while Jack mumbled to himself and sang snatches of the pirate song she'd taught him, and played with his hat, and the compass resolved it's own little north with greater and greater certainty.
After awhile, the needle barely wavered, and finally, when she was stiff from sitting there and Jack had fallen asleep, it no longer moved at all, but bobbed with gentle conviction on one point. She shook it, making sure, but sure herself in her soul.
"Done!" she declared, jumping to her feet.
Jack awoke with a start, and pushed the hat off his face. "Done?" he repeated, sitting up blearily.
Elizabeth closed the compass with a snap, rattled it around and tossed it through the bars at him.
"Figured it out, eh? Took you long enough. See, you didn't need my advice after all."
"No, just your compass."
Jack smiled. "And?" he urged.
Elizabeth just smiled mysteriously and a little sadly.
"Now, that is just bloody unfair."
"You're a good man, Jack."
"We'll see if the hangman thinks so. I still think I should at least get some share of the knowing, as it's my compass was so useful."
But Elizabeth just shook her head, smiling sadly. "I'm sorry, Jack, I-"
"I don't care who the devil she is," yelled a voice somewhere above, "or whose authority she says she's got, get her out of there!"
"Looks like he's not buying your lie, love," Jack commented dryly.
Elizabeth gave a frustrated sigh. "I really am sorry, Jack, I-" But whatever she intended to say was interrupted by several red coated Marines who promptly and rather roughly escorted her away.
Jack stood at the bars for a very great while staring down the long cell block, turning the compass slowly in his hands.
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