And flights of angels
by Oneiriad
Disclaimer: PotC are not mine – that's all I have to say on the matter.
They gave him a burial at sea.
They did not know him well, did not know if it was what he would have wanted, but – for better or worse – the sea was their choice. He had been a man of the sea, like them and yet so very not like them. It seemed somehow appropriate.
There were those who thought that he should simply have been thrown overboard to feed the ever-hungry sharks – or better yet, that they should have sailed him by, left him clinging to that piece of wood. Not all who held the latter opinion did so out of malice. Surely it would have shortened his pain.
On the day they pulled him out of the drink, Jack had been convinced that he would be fine – and oh so very, deliciously grateful later on. That was before the fever and the delirium, before the gangrene and the carpenter's saw and the screams. Before the darker stains on the Pearl's dark planks.
Not that any of it did any good.
He was never truly awake and aware – it was a blessing, of sorts. Oh, there was once, when his eyelids fluttered and his eyes flickered, and something that might have sounded like "pi…" and might have sounded like "ja…" passed his lips. It was one of the quieter moments, toward the end. Jack had hushed him, let him sip a little water and wiped the salty drops off his cheek. At that point there was little else he could do.
Anamaria and Gibbs helped with wrapping him in the old sail, but it was Jack who had washed him and combed his hair, Jack who had placed silver coins over those staring lumps of cold green ice – "for the ferryman, mate" – and Jack who had stitched the sail closed.
He slipped under the waves – gone. No mermaids rising to gather a fine sailor to their bosoms, no sharp fins racing toward a feast. Simply gone.
Jack had required solemnity of his crew. Some had grumbled. Others had soon reminded them of how it had been before, how it might well be again – slow, choking deaths, the meticulous wrecking of living bodies. The grumbling had stopped.
Jack's handwriting was atrocious and his spelling even worse – he had never been a man of letters. Still, he wrote one now, keeping it short, simple, to the point. After some consideration he addressed it to the Governor.
Governor Swann was in many ways a wise man. When he told his daughter and son-in-law, when he told the officers at the fort, he simply said that he had been given a burial at sea.