Why?

So, it is down to this - my honour, or your life.

One or the other must be lost.

It had not, he thought, been so very hard to choose. Silently he unlocked the cell, paused for a heartbeat, and left.

Sparrow stared after him.

Why?


...
...

There was a sparrow perched on the windowsill when he got home that evening. He fed it breadcrumbs, smiling ironically.

The bird flapped away in alarm when a pirate clambered through the window.

"Sparrow. You're late."

"Better late one way than the other, luv. Thanks for that." Sparrow peered at the Commodore, searching, and drew back in confusion - maybe a trace of hurt - at finding naught but hostility. "No. Ye' don't like me." He cocked his head. "So why...?"

"Perhaps I felt like it, Sparrow. I suggest you leave." Impatience, disdain - nothing there to explain…

"No." Sparrow looked rebellious. "I want to know why you let me go."

"Get used to disappointment."


...
...

"I have friends. I had no desire to see them hate me."

"But they wouldn't have. They wouldn't."

"I know that, pirate. But they would have been miserable, and I would have been the cause."

"So you… what? Just let me go?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't that go against all your fancy ideas of honour or something?"

"Yes." A heartbeat's silence. "Go away Sparrow."


...
...

Eventually, Jack started to wonder why James let him stay.
...


By: Order of Chaos.
...