A trick of the light.
"If any one of you even thinks the word 'Parlay', I'll have his guts for garters!"
Captain Barbosa smiled, fingering the Aztec medallion as he watched the H.M.S. Interceptor slowly sink into the deep blue sea.
Today was turning out to be a fine day indeed. Not only did they have the final gold piece needed to release the curse, and a fine crew of pirates to send to Davy Jones locker, they also had the pleasure of the presence of Jack Sparrow.
And a pair of women to... entertain, later.
How Jack made it off of that island, he couldn't begin to guess. Barbosa made a mental note to ask Jack, before they left him on that godforsaken piece of land again. He was sentimental that way, Barbosa was.
Sentimental, yes.
If he had been a bit less sentimental, he may have not tied that cannon to Bootstrap's bootstraps, and shoved it off of the ship personally. But Bootstrap had crossed him, and worse, threatened the control he had over the crew, and that simply wouldn't have done. The look on Bootstrap's face wasn't worth the horrible curse of the Aztec gods.
Not quite, anyways.
Fingering the gold coin again, he wonder that, if he had come back from the dead, as it were, every time he was wounded, would Bootstrap have too? Would he have challenged Barbosa to one duel after another? An endless loop, over, and over again? All to avenge the supposedly doomed Jack Sparrow?
It would have been a moot point, since Sparrow had most decidedly not perished on that island.
What would the expression on Bootstrap's face been, then, if he had lived to see Sparrow stumble into that cave? Shock? Anger? Anger that he had remained cursed, fighting endlessly for ten long years, to avenge the death of a man who looked like he had just stumbled out of a tavern?
What would Sparrow's expression been then? Shock, Barbosa decided. Shock, and horror, at the twisted look of his dear, somewhat departed friend's face.
Ah, if only he could have seen Bootstrap's face, just one more time. Just to see his look of shock, that his dear Captain Jack had survived. Why, he would have given a life to see that. Not his life of course, but, he did have several prisoners aboard. Now that was a theory to test.
There was some noise from his crew, not that Barbosa cared, and running footsteps, perhaps one of the prisoners was trying to make a last ditch effort to kill him. How quaint.
It was then that the Interceptor exploded, shattering into burning splinters, and raining down on the sea.
"You've got to stop it!" Turning, Barbosa grabbed Elizibeth's hands, holding her arms away as she tried to claw at his face. "Stop it!"
"Welcome back miss." Barbosa smiled unkindly. "You took advantage of our hospitality last time. It holds fair now you return the favor." Sill smiling, he shoved Elizibeth back, into the waiting arms of his crew, who held her, and laughed, and groped at her with filthy, rough hands.
Ah Bootstrap, if only you could-
"Balbosa!"
Nearly as one, the pirate crews of the late Interceptor, the Black Pearl, and their respective captains, all turned to stare at the figure.
Dripping with sea water, clothes and hair matted to his body, looking as if he had clawed his way from the depths of the ocean floor, was Bootstrap Bill. The sun shone bright behind him, cutting away the mist formed by the ghost ship, giving the man an aura of majesty.
Dropping from the ship's rail, Bootstrap took a step over to the pile of weapons seized from the crew of the Interceptor, and snatched up a flintlock pistol.
If Barbosa had been alive, his heart would have frozen as cold as it was now. Had Bootstrap come back from beyond the grave? An avenging angel sent from on high to claim holy revenge?
Raising the pistol, Will cocked back the hammer, and aimed it squarely at Barbosa's chest. "She goes free."
No, the voice was close, but wrong.
Scowling, Barbosa walked towards Will, chiding himself for a moment of craven weakness. The whelp was barely old enough to grow fuzz on his chin. To think, that for a moment, he, Barbosa, Captain of the Black Pearl, had thought that this, flea would have been the death of him...
"What's in your head, boy?"
"She goes free." Will's voice was quieter this time, but there was no less iron in his tone.
It had just been a trick of the light. This boy wouldn't be his undoing.