Here we go then - the extremely late and long after I promised sequel to Fallen. I can only apologise for the amount of time it's taken me to get this up, mostly down to me never quite being satisfied with it. In fact, I'm still not entirely happy with it, but this is probably the best its going to get.
"This is hopeless." Elizabeth, barely able to make herself heard, standing on tiptoes and attempting to crane her neck over the general chaos in an attempt to spot Captain Jack Sparrow. It was the third such tavern they'd tried in the main port on Tortuga, and James would have suspected Sparrow of not being present if it weren't for the sight of the black three masted ship, dark sails furled at the yards.
Elizabeth turned to James, who just shrugged. What was he supposed to do?
"Will told me this was the place he and Jack came to before." It was almost accusatory at her absent fiancé, the way she said it, and James had no need to ask of the before she spoke of.
"Well, we're never going to actually see him in this at all. And how do we know he won't leave as soon as he sees me?" He pointed out.
Not that he was that recognisable. He and Elizabeth had 'borrowed' clothing from the Edinburgh, the merchant vessel they'd stowed away upon and posed as members of the crew. Elizabeth unfortunately had chosen a poor hiding place for her wedding gown, on short notice admittedly, but easily discovered once the ship was underway. Far from endangering their position however, the dress surprisingly aided them. The sailors foolishly believed they could discover the owner of the dress below, subsequently dividing their attention elsewhere. Elizabeth had even come up with a plan to exploit the sailors using the dress.
"And you have an idea?" The corners of Elizabeth's lips began to turn upwards, until she spotted James eyeing a near empty bottle on the table next to them.
"Ah, James?" She said quite nervously, smile abruptly vanishing.
James picked up the bottle, and without hesitation, smashed it hard against the man unluckiest to be near him. Contrary to what James was expecting, he went down like a sack of potatoes and not one person in the tavern took any notice at all, save for Elizabeth who stood with a smirk on her face.
"And your next plan?" Now that was a little smug for someone who hadn't come up with a plan as to find Jack.
He narrowed his eyes at her, glanced around himself and impulsively took a swing at a man staggering towards him, tankard in hand. The man spun, reeling away into a table, knocking it over along with tankards, bottles and several drunks slouched there.
The reaction this time couldn't have been more different.
Those who'd just lost their drinks launched themselves at the man lying across the fallen table and the rest of the tavern seemed to take this as a signal, the whole place suddenly erupting as if on cue. Amazingly, the tavern band struck up a tune faster than the one playing before, almost spurring the mob on.
"Nice plan." Elizabeth yelled, ducking around several flailing limbs. "What next?"
"That." James said, pointing over the crowd at Jack and Gibbs, as he'd hoped, making their way up the tavern stairs and out of the building. He turned back to Elizabeth, pulling out her sword and swinging it at the nearest pirate that approached her. He grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her after him before she had chance to make a bad situation worse, even if it was of his own creation. Swords in small spaces were never a good idea.
He ducked and wove through the mob with ease similar to Jack's - he might not have spent years a pirate but he'd seen his fair share of taverns during his naval career. Most were not what he'd call shining examples of his character either.
He pulled out his own sword, used it to block the descent of another's, and used the man's own momentum to swing him to the floor.
Another behind him obviously thought Elizabeth to be an easy target, and found otherwise when she disarmed him and sent him crashing into the floor. James seized her arm again, nearly receiving a blow to the face himself for it till she recognised him in time.
They dodged several bodies falling from the balcony above before James decided the best exit would be the ground floor. They nearly made it to the door when several men decided that it was James and Elizabeth they wanted to pick a fight with.
Never, in a million years, did James ever think he'd be involved to this extent in a tavern brawl. Then again, he'd probably spent far too much time as a midshipman watching the men clash before the bo'sun came to split them up. Oh, he could fight dirty if he wanted to, but his sense of honour had always won out. Until this moment, when his patience finally snapped.
James kicked the closest in the knee, causing his leg to collapse, and pulled out his pistol. Reluctant to actually use it, he reversed his grip and clubbed the man's head, tucking it away again. James pushed him backwards into the next, ducked under the reach of another, hitting him hard in the belly and winding him. Still holding onto his sword, he parried a few wild slashes from another and spotting an opening, rammed the hilt into the man's nose, hearing it crack loudly. The man hollered in pain, stumbling away as best he could.
James turned to find Elizabeth's attackers rolling on the floor, indicating she hadn't been to shy hitting them in very painful areas.
He smirked at her slightly.
"Let's go."
"Captain Sparrow." James didn't know whether it was habit or nervousness that made Elizabeth lower her voice in an approximation of a boy's as she had done for the past few days now. Sparrow barely glanced over his shoulder at the two of them striding along the dock.
"Come to join me crew sailors? Welcome aboard."
"I'm here to find the man I love." Elizabeth stated immediately. It clearly threw Sparrow, who still thinking Elizabeth was a boy and with his back to them, stopped quite suddenly in his tracks.
"I'm quite flattered son but my first and only love is the sea." James could see Sparrow gesturing to Gibbs in some fashion and resisted the urge to counter on Elizabeth's behalf with a venomous remark.
"Meaning William Turner, Captain Sparrow." James needn't have worried. Elizabeth could give out as good as she received.
"Elizabeth?" Sparrow spun around, relief flitting across his face followed quickly by a look suggestive of a half forgotten memory. As Jack briefly turned to Gibbs, James could have sworn he heard an instruction to "hide the rum".
Ah yes. Elizabeth had burned his stash on the rumrunner's island, providing the means for James himself to come rescue them. This time he found himself, through it all, restraining the urge to laugh despite all the frustration and anger of the past few days.
"You know, these clothes do not flatter you. It should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have," Sparrow turned and gestured in the direction of the Pearl, "no dress in my cabin." He finished, obviously not able to resist his usual innuendo, and somehow completely ignoring James' presence entirely.
And just as quickly James' mood swung back again, as he pushed past Elizabeth to get to Sparrow to grabbing hold of his shirt.
"Look, Captain, we're both here because of you. So start being a little more forthcoming before I really lose my temper." He released Sparrow.
Sparrow, to give him credit, kept reasonably calm throughout this, only the slight widening of his eyes giving anything away.
"Commodore?" Again that golden grin was flashed around, though slightly more nervously this time, James thought. "Never would have expected to see you here." After what James had just said Sparrow seemed to quite suddenly realise that was perhaps not the best thing to say. Fortunately, Elizabeth stepped in.
"Please Jack, not now. I know Will came to find you, where is he?" She pleaded, subtly separating them by placing herself between.
Jack's eyes switched nervously between James and Elizabeth. Suddenly appearing to regain his confidence, he straightened himself up now out of James' grip.
"Darling, I am truly unhappy to have to tell you this but... through an unfortunate and entirely unforeseeable series of circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with me, poor William has been press-ganged into Davy Jones' crew."
Now a laugh did escape James' mouth.
"Davy Jones? Captain of the Flying Dutchman? Oh please." Elizabeth found herself on the outside of what was going on, not being a sailor. To most, he was a superstition, a legend. James, rationally, didn't believe in the existence of the supernatural captain or his ship, but deep down, like all sailors, he wasn't so sure…
Damn it, the events of Isla de Muerta certainly didn't help.
Elizabeth ignored James' outburst. "Please Jack. All I want is to find Will."
Perhaps it was just he, and the deep suspicion he would likely always hold pirates in, but James didn't like the way Sparrow turned to look at Elizabeth upon hearing those words. A quick flick of the eyes in James' direction.
"And him?"
"James is here to help me, Jack." Sparrow appeared to dismiss him, but James knew the man was keeping a very close eye on him. Suspicion ran both ways.
"Well then, are you sure you want to find him? Don't you want to find a way to save him more?"
"And you have a way of doing that?" Elizabeth remained sceptical.
James meanwhile, didn't like the direction that this was heading, but wisely kept his mouth shut. He wanted to see what Sparrow was playing for first.
"Well, there is a chest…" Dear Lord, this was starting to look worse than the compass.
"Another?" He burst out. Sparrow narrowed his kohl-rimmed eyes at this before continuing.
"…a chest of unknown size and origin." Two of Sparrow's crew staggered past with a crate, rattling all the while while the two pirates cursed and muttered under their breath. The shorter, bald one looked up at Sparrow's words.
"What contains the still beatin' heart o' Davy Jones." He said, showing his yellowed teeth as he grinned. The taller skinny one chose this moment as he passed them to imitate the heart with his hand, complete with appropriate noises. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose.
"Whoever possess the chest possess the leverage to command Jones to do whatever it is he or she wants, including saving brave William from his grim fate." Jack finished.
"You don't actually believe him do you?" James couldn't help but say cynically. Sparrow had lied all through the Aztec coin fiasco; there was nothing to say he wasn't doing the same here. Even if there was a warped version of the truth in Sparrow's honey sweet words that were charming Elizabeth, there was something about this whole thing that he wasn't telling them. James wanted to know what it was.
"How do we find it?" Elizabeth persisted.
"With this." Sparrow pulled out that broken compass James had first laid eyes on after Sparrow had rescued Elizabeth from the Caribbean Sea. "My compass is… unique." He told her.
"Unique here having the meaning of broken." James put in. Elizabeth gave him a look that persuaded him to keep quiet, at least for the moment.
"True enough, this compass does not point North." Sparrow countered James' barb.
"Where does it point?" Elizabeth asked curiously.
"It points to the thing you want most in this world."
Really? James himself had held the compass briefly, the day Sparrow arrived in Port Royal, but he'd taken no note of the heading it had pointed to. Had it pointed to Elizabeth? That world seemed an unimaginable age ago now, almost a different world.
"Jack," Elizabeth said, shaking her head, still on the point of disbelief. "Are you telling the truth?"
"Every word, love." Somehow James doubted that. "And what you want most in this world is to find the chest of Davy Jones, is it not?" He continued, handing her the compass, yet keeping his own hands on it.
"To save Will!"
"By finding the chest of Davy Jones." He opened the compass lid, and rushed away, as though frightened of it in some bizarre way. James, moving closer to Elizabeth, noticed the needle swing wildly for a few seconds, before fixing immovably on a destination.
"Mr Gibbs, we have our heading!" Came the rough tones of Sparrow. James started ever so slightly. Where the hell had he suddenly popped up from?
"Finally!" Gibbs exclaimed, turning away and shouting orders.
James followed on quickly behind Elizabeth, before Sparrow's crew got any ideas about his presence. Not that his identity had been revealed, exactly, but better safe than sorry.