Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean.
A/N: This is my second fic in two days; I'm on a roll! I'm actually quite proud of this one, I really like it. The writing style is slightly different from what I usually do, but it was fun to write. It's basically Jack's thoughts at the end of the third movie, so it's probably been done a thousand times, but when inspiration hits... Originally it was going to have mentions of slash between Jack and Will, because I love to write them, but when it was being written it came out completely canon. So yeah, no problems there.
Warnings: Spoilers for At Worlds End, and canon pairings: so Will/Elizabeth with very mild undertones of Jack/Elizabeth. And a curse word or two, but nothing major.
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Eternity
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The heart is pounding in his hands. It's cold, too cold for any living thing, but it beats, obscenely, an even tempo that doesn't falter, doesn't change. It is a loop, repetition; beating over and over again for all eternity, until the seas dry and the stars fall.
Jack stares at it, the pounding muscle that seems more purple than the deep red it's supposed to be. The temptation is great; words whisper in his ears: 'stab the heart, stab it, live for eternity,' and damn but he wants that. He wants the sea and his Pearl and his freedom until the world turns to dust and humans are a long forgotten memory.
The dagger in his other hand is hot with promised destiny, with dreams waiting to be fulfilled.
A cry draws his attention. Elizabeth; resplendent in her pirate garb, blood on the sword at her side and flecked upon her hands and clothes. Half an hour ago she was the King, she amassed an armada like nothing ever seen in the history of Pirates, and led them with fire in her bones and death in her eyes.
She's close to crying now though; not a Pirate, not a warrior woman and certainly not the King. She's just a woman, on her knees beside her dying husband, filled with desperation and a bone aching loneliness that is consuming her even with Will drawing ragged, hoarse breaths beside her.
It stabs him, to see her so undone.
Will is at deaths door; pale and growing paler, breaths rattling in his lungs like Tia Dalma's scrying bones. Jack stares at him as his eyes flutter, his lips gape for life he can't draw in, and his blood – crimson upon the weathered deck, against his snow pale skin, staining his clothes a macabre scarlet – wells from his body and slips away.
Davy Jones' heart is screaming 'eternity!' and the dagger is pleading 'stab it! stab it!' and Elizabeth – woman, wife – is crying, begging with her soul while Will's disappears.
And Jack stands there, staring, caught between his wants, his desires and the life of a man and woman he holds affection for.
He owes old Bootstrap, to an extent, and Will is an idiot he doesn't want to see die. Elizabeth is too strong to break, but he can see her, thirty years in the future, old and wrinkled, weathered by a life on the sea but bitter, bitter for a life lost an eternity ago.
And he sees his future; an eternity roaming the ocean and all he can see is himself and the Pearl, alone, standing alone in the face of time. Does he want that? Does he? He doesn't know.
Will gasps, loud, the last cry of the living, and then he stills, muscles slack and eyes closed, utterly silent in the midst of the roar of the storm and the battle and Jack's own beating heart pounding so much faster than the one in his hand.
Elizabeth wails – or her soul does at least – he can feel it battering at him with all the force of heartbreak, fiercer than Calypso's storm and more painful than death.
And Jack is moving, falling, clutching Will's hand – already becoming cold (as cold as the heart in his hand) and slack, so horribly slack - around the burning dagger, and it is a relief to have something between him and the fire of eternity. He turns and stares at Davy Jones' – look, look, I don't want to be you – and then the dagger and Will's hand is falling, piercing the unnatural heart and shattering the perfect, unending rhythm.
Will's hand is still slack, but the dagger has stopped burning, the heart in his hand has stopped beating and all around him – even in a maelstrom of shouting and cannon fire and raging seas – Jack is encased in silence.
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Authors Request: I really hope you enjoyed my fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you could leave a review I would really appreciate it! ^.^