This is about Captain Sparrow's time marooned on the rumrunner's island after the mutiny. My take on it is, I think, a bit different from the usual more quirky, lighthearted fics. "Three days sitting on the beach and drinking rum?" "... welcome to the Caribbean, luv." You can't always take Jack's descriptions of things at face value. I think Gibbs' depiction of it was the more accurate one. That island changed Jack. Everything he loved had been stolen from him and he was left to die. What kind of hatred must it have taken, to resolve to die slowly of thirst and starvation rather than use that bullet on anyone but the man who put him there?
Because that's the part everyone seems to forget. He didn't know that he was going to be rescued. For all he knew, he was going to die there.
Cookies, love, and thanks to Nytd for beta-ing, 18th century medical terms, and for figuring out the math of people's ages for me at ungodly hours in the morning.
Captain Jack Sparrow dragged himself the last few steps onto the beach, then finally let himself stumble and fall. The ground caught him- Handy thing, that. You can always count on the ground to catch you in the end.
He'd always assumed that the ground that would greet his end would be at the bottom of the ocean. He'd taken it as a sure thing, really. He was a seaman. Where else would it be? Why would he ever have imagined he'd die stranded on a godforsaken spit of sand like this one? He'd been a good captain, an excellent one. He'd known his business, kept his head in the midst of chaos, treated his crew a damned sight better than any other pirate captain he'd heard tell about. And his instincts had been almost legendary—the risks he took paid off, without exception. He had a sense of timing that… well, he'd never really been able to explain his sense of timing.
He called it 'waiting for the opportune moment,' but it was more than that. Twigg had asked him, once, how exactly to tell when it was the opportune moment, and he hadn't a single rational answer.
Oh, he had answers, all right, but none that he would have felt right saying aloud. You know because time slows down a bit, and suddenly you see a pattern that wasn't there before, and you wait a moment more and the pattern just… opens up to let ye in. An' once you're inside, you can feel the balance of things, and how a step, to this way or to that, will shift it. An' then the dance begins.
But that sounded too much like superstition, and he didn't encourage superstition among his men. Tradition, yes, that was a respectable and important thing to mind, but superstitions had always seemed too much like rules to him. No shooting this or that kind of bird, no rescuing a drowning soul, no carrying a priest or a woman on board. Senseless, arbitrary rules.
He'd greatly appreciate a woman around right now… and not for the usual reasons. Women, with their cool hands and soft voices and weird concoctions, knew how to make pain go away. It wasn't technically the worst pain he'd ever felt, mind you. He'd been in pain this bad before, on a few memorable occasions, but he was far from happy to be back in that phase where his consciousness seemed to be rising and falling on jagged waves of agony.
But he wasn't losing consciousness- oh, no, that would have been far too easy. Despite the incredible beating they'd given him, they'd taken care to avoid blows to the head, lest an overenthusiastic blow leave them with the murder of a comrade on their souls.
He should have known. He should have followed his instincts more closely, or perhaps he shouldn't have followed them at all; it was difficult to say. Something had begun to feel wrong about Barbossa ever since Jack had promoted him to first mate. He'd felt vaguely uneasy in the other man's presence. But Barbossa had nerves of steel, a strong hand at the helm, and nearly half again Jack's own experience. He should have felt reassured to have a man like that at his back, or so he'd told himself right up until about six hours ago.
But perhaps the crew wouldn't have actually risen to mutiny under him if Jack hadn't gone with his instinct and had chosen their next venture differently. Jack hadn't liked the odds of going for the semi-mythical Aztec treasure of Isla del Muerta that Barbossa and many of the crew had been pushing for since they'd obtained that old map. It wasn't that it sounded too difficult, but that it sounded too easy, which meant that there were risks they wouldn't be prepared for, going in. That, and a dark feeling in the back of his mind, but even without the feeling, he'd have had reservations. If there was one thing in life he knew for sure, it was that nothing that valuable ever came without a price. He liked to know what the price was before he committed himself to paying it.
He ought to have weighed that against the price of displeasing so many of his crew with his decision.
A brief, hopeful check revealed that he was still not losing consciousness. Bugger.
Now more than ever, he wished he'd taken the time to learn meditation. He'd always toyed with the thought of doing so, as there were nights when he just couldn't fall asleep, no matter what. But though the promise of being able to get those extra hours of rest had been tempting, there was something essential about the sea at night, something that a part of him fed off of. The darkness, the ocean, the taste of something wild and secret in the air. He'd suspected that night watches just didn't come frequently enough to satisfy that part of him, and that maybe that was why he found himself lying awake some nights.
It occurred to him that now he would never learn meditation, and the thought stung. There were a lot of things that he'd never, now. He'd never see one of those kangaroo creatures in the Australian colonies. He'd never sail through the glaciers at the end of the world. He'd never have his own fleet of ships. He'd never read the rest of Shakespeare's plays, or learn to speak Arabic, or eat snails like the French did… well, it wasn't so much that he wanted to eat snails as it was that he would have if he'd ever gotten the chance, just because he could.
He was only twenty-eight years old, for God's sake. He'd known he hadn't a long life ahead of him, but he thought he'd known when he was going to die, known to the exact day and hour precisely when Davy Jones would call in his debts. He had thought he had ten years. Ten bloody years.
That traitorous bastard. Which part of hell did they say mutineers went to? It ought to be the worst. Actually, he thought he recalled that it was the worst… no way to be sure. No way to be sure of anything now except that this was the end. He'd use the pistol, sooner or later. Probably later, when he was dying of thirst. But now, what he needed wasn't death. It was unconsciousness.
He pulled himself to his feet. It took longer than he'd expected, and by the time he was standing, he'd guessed that he had at least two broken ribs, a broken finger or two, and probably a cracked collarbone. They hurt, but everything hurt. It was all he could do to hold a single, meandering stream of thought in his head against the crashing waves of pain. But he did hold it, because it would be his only escape from the agony, short of using the pistol; he had to pass out. And to do that, he had to make the pain worse for a short time, exhaust himself. He didn't think he was capable of anything more strenuous than walking, in the state he was in, so he'd walk.
It was an exercise of willpower and concentration to stand erect and put one foot in front of the other. Jack had suffered a bad earache seven years back that had done noticeable and inexplicable damage to his sense of balance, and had learned to compensate, but the extra movement that it required was torturous to his aching body. His steps became a rhythm of a sort, and what was left of his mind put words to it after a while.
Traitor. Bastard. Traitor. Bastard. Traitor. Bastard. Traitor. Bastard…
It felt like hours that he'd been walking, but the angle of the sun hadn't changed. Traitor-- Minutes, maybe. –-bastard.-- He'd have to stop, soon. – traitor-- Even the pain before had been more bearable than this. –-bastard… There was a tree trunk in front of him; he'd have to go around. Bloody stupid tree in his way. --traitor… Good thing about the ocean, no trees. He wished the ground would stop moving already. It hadn't any right to. –bastard… He wondered what his mum and dad would think, if they ever found out what had come of him. That he'd died here, marooned on this godforsaken island –traitor… on the ground. Dying on the ground was very bad, wasn't it, because the ground wasn't the ocean. –bastard… Because… because the ocean was where he belonged, it was where freedom happened, and… freedom happening, that was the thing, that was life, that was… that was Jack Sparrow…
Merciful unconsciousness took him, and when he hit the ground, already unaware of anything but the darkness behind his eyes, it gave slightly beneath him, then slowly, slowly collapsed inwards, sending his limp, battered body crashing down into a cellar of sorts, where he lay senseless for a long time.
I'm still alive, was the first thought that formed, followed by It's dark. He let his eyelids crack open slightly to verify this, then, when they were met not with blinding sun but with fuzzy darkness, opened them the rest of the way. The blurry colors and shapes surrounding him coalesced, becoming walls, a dirt floor, crates, and an opening above him through which he could see stars.
Walls… floor… crates. Did someone find me here after all? A rush of hope gave him the strength to sit up and look around. He seemed to be in a sort of storage cellar. With an effort that burned his broken ribs, he got to his feet, then laboriously climbed a couple crates to get a look at what lay above.
And saw only sand, beach, and his own footprints, leading to the edge of the rather ragged opening. He was right where he'd fallen when he'd lost consciousness; he'd just happened to fall into a bloody hole. He hadn't been brought here by some mysterious rescuer. He'd fallen into a hidden smuggler's cache.
Quietly, steadily, he cursed, beginning with every profanity known to the English language, then moving on to various obscenities in Hindi, Bengali, Spanish, French, Cantonese, Dutch, Portugese, and Greek. Finishing the final phrase of these, he turned and punched one of the crates with a clenched fist, cracking the wood as he spat out the last word. Then he shook his hand, put his bleeding knuckles in his mouth, and sank down onto a lower crate, his throat burning with rage and despair.
He took out the pistol and looked at it for a long while in the starlight, turning it over and over in his hands. He supposed the idea of using it on himself would become easier to accept with time... but all he could think of was that out there, sailing his beloved ship, was someone who deserved that bullet a thousand times over. He tried to take comfort in the idea that at least Barbossa was seaman enough to treat her well, keep her in good repair, but all he could muster was a black, seething hatred. The Black Pearl was his ship. He'd sold years of his life to the service of the East India Company to be able to afford her, and he'd sold all that remained of it after he'd lost the beautiful creature to have her raised from the depths of the sea. He'd almost rather she be returned to the depths before falling into the hands of the vile scum he'd once called his First Mate.
He'd even be content to face his death now, if only he could make the bastard pay.
He'd dared- He'd dared!
The mutiny had been so coldly and precisely executed, down to the last detail. Barbossa had been planning this long before the treasure map had come into their hands. He deserved vengeance. He wanted to feel the twist of his sword blade in Barbossa's guts. He wanted to watch the look on the man's face while he did it.
Jack kicked a crate and was surprised by the clattering sound from inside. It was almost familiar… It was tricky, to open one of these sorts of crates without a bar or tool to pry them open, and the broken fingers made it even harder, but he managed it after a few minutes of effort and found it filled with bottles. A moment's examination showed that they contained rum. Well… waste not, he decided, and used his teeth to pull the cork from it before taking a sip.
It was better quality than the stuff he was used to, sweeter and mellower, and the heat it kindled inside of him was pleasant in the cool night air. Normally, he was not one to get drunk; oh, he'd swill mug after mug of grog with the rest of his crew, but he'd always had a high tolerance for spirits, so he was able to keep a clear head, and preferred it that way. But they were no longer 'his crew,' he realized. No, they were Barbossa's crew now, and the bastard was welcome to them, bloody mutinous rats that they were. And a bloody lot of good sobriety had done him when they'd turned on him. He took another mouthful and savored the burn on the way down. Besides, it would help the pain.
Half a bottle of rum later, the rage had dulled some, and his thoughts had begun to form slow patterns. The fact that the rum was here meant that someone would be returning here eventually. One didn't just leave first-rate rum stashed on an island and not come back to it. His guess would be either Dutch or Spanish smugglers. Since they'd not be taking a full cargo of it on each run like legitimate merchants would, that would mean fairly frequent trips back and forth. Of course, they probably had several other similar caches on other islands, so who knew when they'd return to this one? Still, it was highly unlikely, but there was a sliver of a possibility that the owners of the cache might return before he starved.
The odds weren't in his favor. But while he had any odds of survival at all, he'd not fire that single bullet. In fact, if he ever got back, he'd return it to Barbossa himself—right through the heart. The idea was an appealing one. He savored it as he finished the rest of the bottle.
As he started on a second one- after all, what else had he to do while he waited for a rescue that most likely wouldn't come in time?—he thought about what he'd say to Barbossa when- if- they met again. It wouldn't do to kill someone in cold blood without delivering a crushing set-down of some sort as you did it. Just shooting them lacked sophistication. It was how cowards and thugs killed.
"You will always remember this day as the day you almost weren't killed by Captain Jack Sparrow!" he paused and thought about that. "Perhaps not. Ye should have killed me while ye had the chance!" Another pause, another mouthful of rum. "Or rather, if ye were smart ye'd have killed me while you had the chance… no. Bugger. This isn't working." He fell silent and drank the rest of the bottle, savoring the feeling of the world becoming smooth and strange, and shifting around him like an ocean. He'd not been this drunk since he was… nineteen, perhaps? It was considerably more interesting than he remembered it being. He wondered if this was what meditation was like, this sort of inner stillness and freedom from everything around you.
A kind of freedom, at any rate-- not the kind he lived for, the pure joy of a deck under his feet and the wind on his face, knowing he was beholden to no one. This was a different freedom, a soft, lulling, separateness from the rest of the world, just watching moments as they passed by. A freedom from caring.
He slept then, wrapped warmly in freedom, rum, and a distant dream of vengeance.
When the rumrunners' ship arrived three days later, they found a very peculiar man waiting for them, sitting atop an empty crate with a bottle of rum in his hand, sunburned, filthy, every visible part of him bearing dark, ugly bruises. When he eloquently explained his presence on the island—an obviously invented tale involving a sea serpent and a lovestruck young viscountess who had followed him to sea disguised as a cabin boy and inadvertently caused the ruin of both ship and crew—he did not speak like a drunken man, though it was plain from his unfocused eyes and unsteady movements that he was three sheets to the wind and then some. Though he declared himself relieved to see them, he seemed strangely unconcerned about the entire affair. He allowed their ship's surgeon to examine and treat his wounds, which had proven, despite his general filthy state, to be healing cleanly without festering.
The crew, after an initial curiosity, silently and unanimously decided to leave him alone. He was plainly stark raving mad. He had nothing to his name save a single pistol, yet he firmly insisted on being addressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. He told fantastical stories that would continue for hours if given the slightest bit of encouragement, yet every time he was asked about his past, the asker was told a different tale. He drank as if the rum—and it had to be rum; he had refused offers of brandy or wine as if insulted by the very idea—were a storm anchor, keeping him steady in the water. He seemed to exist in a perpetual state of detached amusement at the world, but every once in a while, he'd look off into the horizon and his eyes would become sharp and dangerous and he'd caress the pistol tucked into his belt as if it were the hand of a lover.
Creepy, it was. But being marooned was apt to do strange things to a man. Why, the other day, the madman had even told the captain, a tall, angular man with a beard, that from certain angles, he looked quite like a sea turtle.