Title: Grace

Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean

Character: Captain Jack Sparrow

Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean.

Summary: When Jack goes, he goes with grace.

Sometimes, he wonders what life is all about. How fickle it truly is. One minute you are right there in the moment, and the next, the sky blurs and the ground tunnels towards you –seeming to swallow you whole-, and there you are, hearing nothing, smelling nothing, touching nothing, seeing nothing but the endless shadows of the death hounds coming to collect you.

Death, he knew, was an inevitability of life; he knew with unwavering certainty, just like the smell of Tortuga would never change and the sun would go on rising and falling each day. He also always knew that his love for piracy will never cease, and he'll continue down its dark and twisted path until the light from his eyes are extinguished. What a way to die, in a blaze of fire, booze and gold.

A chuckle escapes his grinning teeth, his tongue pressing against them. Lying on the swaying grass, the faint dampness of them seeping into his ragged tunic, he feels the breeze playing with the leaves; one of them tenderly brushing against an unshaved cheek. The wind orchestrates a roughly violent yet somehow soothing dance with the waves in the background; he knew the dance they performed intimately. Eyes gazing at the dark sky with intensity that he never really ever released before –unless you count the first time when his first-mate betrayed him- he stared at the stars.

Those stars have been a guide to him for most of his life, if you can actually call the life he's lived throughout these years a 'life.' He was a dead man walking as soon as he had become a pirate, with the military hunting down all unlawful citizens.

'Well, at least that term isn't literal,' he thinks with his lips curling to a wicked smirk. 'Those poor bloody bastards that betrayed me got their due. They genuinely were the walking dead.'

Then, the sinful grin on his face fades a bit. 'That one time when I held the Aztec coin in my hand to fight with the traitor does not count. That wasn't even more than 10 minutes!' This, he whines in his head for a second before the thought leaves him.

Idly, he connects the stars into constellations, very much like what he had done when he was naught but a cabin boy in his younger years when he was bored. It offers some sort of cool comfort at this moment of contemplation of everything and anything.

Contemplating about his reason of existence had been a topic he delved upon these last few days, and so, his mind once more reaches for the matter again. He supposes, on a minor scale, that he was there to help the world dispose large quantities of booze –rum, he preferred-, be a slapping post for the ladies of pleasure –not just Tortuga, he had found out- to release their stress upon, and most importantly, be a pain in the arse for the navy…especially the navy.

He feels that it is his duty, no, his obligation, to be there to aggravate them. Although standing on the Pearl and the wheel under his callous hands is already euphoria in itself, the adrenaline that floods through his veins when the navy pursues him is as close to heaven he's ever going to get, and he treasures these moment close to his immoral heart with sadistic pleasure. And when it's the Commodore that tails his Pearl's black shadows, he would never grin as wide as he would at those moments. It's the chase he thrives on, the addictive drug he consumes.

He's pretty damn sure that the Commodore thinks of those instances just the same, even just a bit.

'That bloke probably smiles in his sleep about catching me in the end,' thinks the captain with a humourous eat-shit glint in his dark eyes.

He was pretty sure the Commodore thinks the same because every time he is close to catching him, when their eyes meet for a split second across the opposite sides of a fight between their crew on a random ship –never his Pearl; he would never allow her to be damaged in any way-, the silent message that the Commodore constantly sends is one that says, 'This is the day that Captain Jack Sparrow almost got away.'

The message has never come true yet.

As he lies on the soft grass that cushions his aching back, he stares up at the black, black sky, he thinks that it has never been more beautiful that tonight; that the stars have never shone has bright as it has now. His eyes are slowly glazing over and as he closes his eyes –only to rest them for a bit, mind you- his infamous smirk that promises dark things graced his face once more; the violent burgundy colour of blood decorates his lips and down his chin.

A flash of pain rushes in his abdomen, but he endures it with grace. He knows the injury is fatal, as the blood pools down his sides and dampens the grass even more, which soaks the back of his tunic. He hears the baying and howling of the death hounds pulling the chariot for the dead coming closer and closer still, and he know his time is near at hand.

When he goes though, he goes with the image of the Black Pearl and her beloved black sails raised seared to the back of his closed eyelids and the knowledge that although it was he that dealt the fatal blow, the Commodore did not win the game. For when Jack Sparrow goes to be ferried away to the After Lands, he goes as a free man that passed quietly on the grass of his own free will and not hanging in the gallows as was predicted those hundreds of time. This is a day that he knows with perfect clarity that the Commodore will recall for the rest of his days, for this is the day that Captain Jack Sparrow did get away.

So, a bit of angst and a sense of poetic quiet and peace from the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow who was always known in life as one of the brightest suns that ever shone.

I wrote this a pretty long time ago, about a year perhaps. I was thinking about making a series of ten one-shots that would somehow tie together Jack's life and explain slight shades of his character and thus, the lead to his end – which would have been this story – but nothing came to mind (maybe I will in the future…). And so, I present you with this.

Please read and tell me what you think! Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Year!

-Proofread while listening to the soundtrack of the first movie-