[A/N: I just read Michael Straczynski's Midnight Nation, and there was a lot in the graphic novel that I thought was relevant to the concept of Davy Jones' Locker. I'm not really sure I'll like to do some sort of resurrection fiction, so we'll see how this one goes. : ) The title 'String Theory' is from NBC's Heroes.

FF net edit: for some annoying reason the line breaks didn't work. Here's the reuploads.

String Theory

1

Thieves and scoundrels

Do ye fear death?

James Norrington frowns, squeezes his eyes shut, and rubs his temples with the pads of his thumbs. The wet, oddly accented voice fades, but the scratchy feeling at the back of his mind doesn't. If he listens, he knows he will hear wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG spoken in modulations of anger and tones of despair, and it is not quite a normal thing for a ten year old to hear. He wonders if he is going quite mad.

He tells himself that he is probably just tired. This is his first long voyage, heading all the way from Southampton to Bombay, and he is excited and frightened at the same time. The world seems far larger and more mysterious than he had thought, and at night, at the prow, listening to sailor-talk and wishing he could understand what they were saying, the sea endless and beautiful in a dark blanket around him, he knew. There is nothing to be afraid of; this endless blue is where he belongs.

James knows his brother thinks him quite strange, though his mother merely smiles, seeing the normally proper, quiet child shadow the footsteps of the young Navy Lieutenant in charge of the merchant marine ship and pepper anyone who would listen with questions. That scene feels right, and this, the clear azure sky and the faint arcs of seabird-white that scythe lazily about in infinite circles above them, but if he allows himself to think, he would feel an uncomfortable sense of familiarity. As though he has known this. As though he has seen this.

But that is quite impossible. He says it out loud for his own benefit, quietly. "Impossible."

"What is, child?" His mother's soft, gentle voice, behind him. James turns from where he has crossed his arms with some difficulty on the rail: due to his height, it does not look quite as dashing as he would have hoped. And he blinks, startled, a cold coil of horror under his breast.

He knows his mother is smiling, knows those green eyes, like his own, should be crinkled at the edges with laugh lines, but her face is blurred, like a smudge over a sketch, gray and unformed and flat, and James flattens back against the rail with a sharp gasp.

His mother merely laughs. "Did I startle you?"

James rubs his eyes, hard, and has to force himself to blink them open, his fingers curled tight into his palms. He is overwhelmingly relieved to see his mother's face leap back into focus, every freckle on her cheek present, even the lithe curls of sandy brown teased into escape by the unruly breeze under her sensible hat. James bites back a low, choked sound, and forces himself to smile. "No, no mother. You did not."

"It is not unmanly to admit fear," his mother says playfully, reaching forward to ruffle his hair. "Rather, it is part of being human."

James nods, solemnly, though he feels ashamed. "I think I am tired still. I am not used to the sea."

"Well, that is understandable," his mother looks over the rail herself, soft hands folded demurely, one palm over the other, glancing down at the froth as the keel cut through the waves. "You father is none too fond of the sea, nor is your brother."

"I did not say I was not fond of her," James says quickly, with a child's impulsiveness. "I feel I could love the sea."

"A seaman's life is the saddest of all, I feel," his mother's gaze is fixed on the waves. "One would love the sea first before any woman, or child, and the sea, she is a cruel and possessive mistress. In time one may have children, but never have children."

"I do not understand, mother," James blinks, though he remembers; his grandfather was a marine. And again, there is that scratchy feeling in the back of his mind: wrong, wrong, wrong. He rubs his eyes again, feels tears pricking under his knuckles, until the feeling goes away.

His mother looks up at the birds. "Having children is not the same as loving them in sufficiency, James. But you are young yet to understand the ways of the heart. And it is a long way to Bombay, where you can learn to love the sea." Her smile is indulgent, unjudging, and James forgets the nagging doubt that her words cause him.

--

William Turner, Captain of the Flying Dutchman, Guide of Souls lost at sea, felt a little foolish sitting on the jagged rail of his submersible ship and talking to effectively nothing. The hour just before sundown in the Locker tended to be quiet, jobwise, though there were already poor souls shuffling about his ship, gray and lost and neither seeing him nor each other. Pale ghosts dressed variably in white shifts, or in the clothes they had worn before their deaths; cravats and greatcoats, frocks and tattered breeches. His father stood at the wheel, watching him, then finally wandered over, clearing his throat with a little raspy noise that Will had taken to understand meant Bootstrap had something he wanted to tell him but wasn't quite sure how he'll take it.

"Let's hear it," he said as kindly as he could, his fingers in his lap and staring at the water. "I've been trying to call her for half an… an… I mean, probably an hour, and there's nothing."

It had been at least several months, topside at least, of captaining a ship with only his father for company, and Bootstrap still seemed too deferential. It was uncomfortable, given that the man was his father; but Will understood why. Bootstrap was afraid of losing his son, in any manner or form, however illogical that sentiment may be.

"Calypso isn't here, Will. She's Up there."

"This is still sea, though," Will said stubbornly, waving a hand out at the trackless water. Still an hour, then it would fill with souls lost too deep or long at sea to have enough of their essence to float above the waves. He didn't quite understand the mechanics of floating-on-boat as compared to eerie-underwater-ghost, but he did not quite want to.

"And 'tis very kindly of you, fer sure, t'want t'free all the men caught deep in the Locker, but as I've said, yer predecessor be the architect, not the minder; he don't give nothin' up, so he didn't bother makin' up a way fer himself t'rescue one o' his prisoners. Ye'll need…"

"Supernatural outside aid, preferably of the crab kind, I know," Will agreed patiently. He missed Elizabeth's fire. Disagreeing with Bootstrap sometimes felt akin to putting a boot to a puppy. No small wonder that the navigator had once been the necessary third of an unlikely set of friends. "Hence Calypso."

"She ain't the only sea spirit o' power 'bout the worlds, Will," Bootstrap looked over the side with him. "An' Underside be where magic flows, when it's comin' out of the world above. Sure ye can call someone else. Or somethin'. Calypso be one o' the most powerful, 'tis all. But a lesser spirit would do fer what ye intend. Might even be better for the poor bugger's sanity. Calypso thinks in lines no mortal tends to. The lesser spirits are more subtle."

"Flows? Coming out?" Will turned to stare at Bootstrap, trying to grasp more than one concept at a time and failing.

Bootstrap shrugged. "I heard the old Cap'n mutterin' about it the night after he had t'kill the Kraken. Magic's slowly ebbin' away, from the world above, into this one, by choice, sometimes, but mostly be man's work. There's a little less o' the mystery in the world above, bit by bit, each time somethin' like the Kraken is lost. Soon there'll be nothin' o' magic left topside."

"What happens when it's all gone?" Will asked, fascinated to the point of forgetting why he had stopped the ship here in the first place.

"S'pose the world above will be a real borin' place," Bootstrap smiled without humor. When Will frowned, disappointed by the vagueness of the curious tidbit, he added, with a dry chuckle, "Don't know, Will. I'm just an old pirate with an ear t'the ground. But I've seen the old Cap'n summon spirits up from here before, t'speak to. Didn't seem that hard. Ye just call them by their names. Don't even have t'be a true name."

"I don't know any spirits," Will said, still trying to be patient but now feeling a little nettled. "I'm still really new to all this."

"For anyone livin' in any side o' the worlds t'want to live in the other side, there has t'be a price," Bootstrap said, as though he hadn't heard, looking down at the waves. Still clear, but only for three quarters of an hour more. "Ye pay it twofold: one t'passage, an' one fer havin' to live in a way ye ain't supposed t'be. There be several ways t'pass from here t'Upside without Calypso's aid, an' the Dutchman be one o' them. Sure there be some spirits wot still owe ye debts."

"I seem to remember releasing everybody who still owed the Dutchman or its Captain a debt," Will pointed out.

"Aye, well, sometimes ye don't wash a debt clean simply because the other party don't think it's there anymore," Bootstrap countered. Will gave in.

"But would you know which spirits still think so?"

"Why not just call them an' see?"

"You mean, like," Will stretched his arms out dramatically before him, just a little irritable, speaking in an archly sonorous voice, " 'Oh, spirits of the world under the real world or anywhere else or whatever, you who feel you owe me favors, please appear before me right now and-" The rest of Will's facetious words was cut out in a yelp (that was really more like a shriek) as something amorphous and human-shaped abruptly appeared next to him. And then a splash, as Will fell off the rail following narrative convention.

Bootstrap was trying very hard not to laugh as Will, splashing and coughing in the still, icy waters, abruptly remembered that damnit, he was immortal now and could be anywhere he wanted to on his ship, and rematerialized on the deck.

The newcomer slowly coalesced into a girl who did not look more than fifteen, petite, with chocolate-dark skin and black hair woven into thousands of perfect braids, each ending in a silver bell that made no sound when she tilted her head. Her eyes were unnervingly silver, like the bells, and her lips were a perfect cupid's bow, wine-red. She wore a simple black frock, and she looked past Will to Bootstrap, and grinned in childish delight.

Will was surprised to see Bootstrap's worn face crinkle into an affectionate smile in turn. "Haven't seen ye fer dog's years, missy. Yer lookin' good. How's Jack?"

The girl frowned, sighed, and rolled her eyes. Bootstrap chuckled. "Lost ye again, did he?" When she nodded, he added, "Leastways he has the compass. An' 'tis not like ye aren't fond of Hector." The girl held up a finger. "I knows ye love Jack most, no need t'tell me. Just sayin'."

She grinned then, mischievously, and Will was conscious that he was staring, when the girl slipped nimbly off the rail and embraced Bootstrap, rubbing her cheek against a ratty sleeve, more catlike than human, lips parted, eyes closed. Bootstrap looked a little embarrassed, looking up at Will, though he didn't push her away. "Er. S'pose I should introduce ye. Missy, this is William Turner, my son."

The girl stared at Will thoughtfully, slowly looked him up and down, then frowned up at Bootstrap, first pointing at Will, then fluttering her fingers in an eerie imitation of Jack. Bootstrap coughed. "Ah, I see. No, I'm sure he didn't mean it. No, I'm sure, missy, no need t'get mad." The girl stepped back, pouting and folding her arms.

Will was getting impatient. "Bootstrap, who is she?"

"Ah? Thought ye'll have guessed by now," Bootstrap blinked. "Will, this is the Black Pearl."

--

Few people ever knew that one of the reasons why Jack always kept the compass with him was because it afforded him a source of endless solo entertainment. "Rum." The arrow whirled to the right, where he held a bottle in one hand. "Pearl." The arrow circled, then settled firmly to the left. "Rum."

All in all, Jack thought, settling down in the misappropriated skiff, anchored off the coast of a small island for the night, it could be worse. This time, he had ample leverage on which to get himself back on the Pearl, though ejecting Barbossa was going to be somewhat difficult. "Me ship, indeed. Hah! Can't a pirate have some decent shore leave without treacherous scumdog pox-faced scallywag mutinous whoreson traitors makin' off with their ships?"

He paused, at that point, because of late he was never too sure when he would start answering his own questions, and it was never polite to keep yammering on when there was someone else contributing to the conversation. Besides, even the great Captain Jack Sparrow needed to breathe in the middle of a tirade.

When the cool night air didn't seem to offer him dispute, Jack grunted in satisfaction. "Thought so. 'Course, Jack, see now, not thinkin' was what got ye into this little mess, aye? An' the missy will be right pissed off her foremast at ye even when ye do get her back this time, aye? An' ye only have yerself to blame, 'cos ye knew that Gibbs couldn't be trusted t'keep watch even if his barnacled arse depended on it, aye?"

See, he didn't need anyone around to even berate him, he could do it to himself with much coherence, lucidity and alacrity.

Having fanned his ego further with this unlikely morsel of self-sufficiency, Jack settled even further down on the skiff, rocked by the wave, taking a deep swallow of the remaining rum in the bottle. And he had really been looking forward to having the Pearl back without the threat of giant squid, the Navy or miscellaneous submersible ships over his head, too. Surely he deserved some sort of break. Jack grumbled, tossed the rum bottle over the side, and rolled over onto his flank, staring at the compass. "Rum." The needle pointed to the remainder of the stash. "Pearl."

The needle began to wheel, faster and faster, then it slowed, lazily whirling, as though scanning for something that wasn't there.

Horrified, Jack sat up, sickly sober, picking up the compass and shaking it. "Pearl."

The needle seemed to waver a little to the left, then it began to spin again.

It couldn't be. His ship couldn't be…

"No, no, no," Jack shook the compass, frantic with a sudden dull fear. "No, no. Yer broken, ye stupid compass! Rum." The needle settled toward the stash.

Jack placed the compass carefully on the deck, edged behind the rum, closed his eyes, counted to ten, pinched himself on the arm, and slunk back to the compass with comic caution, as though approaching a bomb. He picked it up between thumb and forefinger, then transferred it slowly and ceremoniously onto the palm of his left hand, visualizing his love.

"Pearl!"

The needle began to spin.

Jack all but dived for the anchor chain.

--

Do ye fear death?

James Norrington knows he is going mad. The voyage seems to skip quickly in time; sometimes he wakes to days a week after the last, and he cannot repress the scratchy sensation in the back of his mind, now. There is an overwhelming sense of familiarity: he has a sensation of déjà vu each time he does even the tiniest actions, such as opening a door, looking out over deck, following the Lieutenant, eating at dinner. As though he has done everything before.

The next 'day', he finds that he can already predict what someone is saying to him, a heartbeat before they actually say it, word for word. It frightens him, and he pleads weariness, to sit on his bunk and sleep and wish it were all a nightmare.

Something about that thought causes him to stiffen, and the hair at the back of his neck prickles. James sits up straight in bed. A nightmare. No, that could not be it: he can smell the oil of the lamp near the bed, a faint scent of salt, fish. "Real." James curls fingers into the sheets.

It is daytime, then it is nighttime, and James isn't sure how he knows it is, nor does he understand how the time seems to have leapt by, but he finds himself turning to slip out of the bed even before the ships shudders as though under some sort of impact, and there is a dull roar, rhythmic, tailed by a splintering sound, and screams. The scratchy sensation in his mind whispers a stream of urgent words of the same incomprehensible jargon that the sailors use; the only term James recognizes is cannon.

They were under attack!

He leaps for the door, just as the words in his mind gasp no, don't, no, don't go out there, don't go, and James bares his teeth. "I must."

You can't stop it. I can't stop it. I didn't. You never did. You won't.

"Then I must try." James supposes the voice in his head is his fear, after all, with a child's logic (it seems quite clear now), and he tries to assume the lofty, cool attitude of the ship's Lieutenant. "Fear is part of being human. A man conquers it."

The scratchy voice seems resigned. Go then, and hate yourself for it.

--

Will stared at the girl. She stared back. The sun set.

In the darkness lit by impossible stars, the soft chime of the worlds' song faint around them, Will muttered, "I knew I was supposed to accept, in principle, several impossible things underneath the real world but I'm really stretching with this one."

The girl turned to Bootstrap and made several gestures in rapid succession. Will recognized at least one of them as being remarkably vulgar. Besides, Bootstrap was fighting a grin. "Did Jack teach ye that one? Thought so. Will be the Cap'n of the Dutchman now. Missy, that one ye don't show in any sort o' polite company. No, I do count as polite company, thank ye very much." Bootstrap looked over the girl's shoulder to his son, apologetically. "Sorry 'bout this."

Will rubbed his temples, sighed, and stalked over to the helm, leaving Bootstrap to his seemingly one-sided conversation. He had a job to do.

It was nearly sunrise when Bootstrap finally stopped speaking quietly to the gesturing girl, and they stood at the rail, looking over the side. The Pearl, Will reminded himself, and tried to get his brain to wrap around the concept. He failed. He leaned his forehead on the helm and groaned, then a thought occurred to him. If the Pearl was here, then what happened to her form in the upper world? Did it disappear? Become just another galleon? Could she return? Wasn't there some sort of price to pay?

Already feeling somewhat guilty for summoning her, however accidental, Will left the helm just as the sun rose and walked over to the pair. "Um."

The girl didn't look up, but Bootstrap turned around. "Aye. Sorry 'bout that again, Cap'n. Old friends, ye ken."

"I can see that," Will said, cautiously, as the girl continued to ignore him. "Er. Is she angry with me? Since I, well, called her down from wherever, and…"

"Don't matter. The black ship'll still be up there, same as ever. Mostly." Bootstrap jerked a forefinger at the sky. "Only one who'll probably notice t'would be Jack, if he were at the helm, an' she be tellin' me he's misplaced her again, anyway."

"You said there was a price to pay, for going back," Will began, with a guilty glance at the girl.

Bootstrap shook his head. "She's already paid that one. This one's her debt t'ye. Aye?"

The girl looked up, and nodded. Her fingers sketched a few signs, but try as Will might, he could not begin to decipher them.

Bootstrap, however, said, "She's willing t'guide one of the lost ones fer ye, but after that she be wantin' t'return upside, seein' as Jack be in a right panic if he finds her gone."

"Great," Will said, extending a hand. The Pearl stared at it as though it were a snake (a rotting, diseased and gangrenous one) until Will lowered his arm.

"She don't much like ye," Bootstrap said unnecessarily. "But she be wantin' t'know who's the lucky man ye wish t'save, so she can get to it."

"Will it be dangerous?"

The girl looked bored. Bootstrap coughed. "She did face down the Dutchman, Will."

"Right. Sorry. Er. I don't know." Will looked helplessly at Bootstrap. "How many people are in the Locker?"

"Not that many. Cap'n only sends a few to it. He marks them out, ye ken."

"Marks them out? How?"

"He'll ask them, 'Do ye fear death?'" Bootstrap frowned, his lip curling. "Last one he said that to was Navy. Wasn't meself at the time, tried t'stop him from savin' yer lady love, an', well, just before he died…"

"What Navy?" Will frowned. Elizabeth had not mentioned any…

"Don't know his name," Bootstrap shrugged. "Everybody called him the Admiral."

"James Norrington." That explained why the man hadn't been on the Endeavor. The warship could easily have taken on both pirate galleons, Will felt, if that had been so. "He is… he was a good man."

"Aye," Bootstrap said, clearly uncomfortable. "I would say, I wish I could have done different, but I've killed many Navy in me time, an' I doubt yer much unlike."

"This one is different," Will turned to the Pearl, who was watching them with a little frown. "You know Norrington, Pearl. He was er, one of your crew, once. Could you help him?"

She held out a hand, and waited. Bootstrap looked down at the small, unmarked palm. "Ye be takin' care now, missy. I know ye knows how, no need t'look at me like that. Will, ye have t'send her."

"Send her? How?"

Bootstrap ignored the way the Pearl was rolling her eyes. "Hold her hand, an' think of the Admiral. Wish her by his side. Magic's not so complicated, this side o' the world."

"That's all? That's… oh. She's gone."

"Beggin' yer pardon, son," Bootstrap said dryly, as Will stared at his own hands in apparent wonder, "But as Cap'n o' the most feared pirate ship on the seven seas, ye ain't very…"

"What?"

"… nothin'."

-tbc-