Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean.
A/N: Another POTC fic! It seems that this is officially the fandom I like to write the most in. Again, this is a fic from Jack's pov; it was going to be Jack/Will, but it turned into more of a Jack/Pearl. ^.^;;
It's basically AU after AWE, but it's been a while since I've seen any of the movies, so please forgive any discrepancies!
Either way, I had fun writing this one, trying to do well with my descriptions and all that. I hope you enjoy it!
Warnings: Sort of Jack/Pearl, if you want to take it that way, and major character death; that's sort of the whole point of this fic. A few minor curse words are thrown in there too.
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Death of the Heartless
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The day Jack Sparrow died was the day that the Black Pearl sunk into the sea, ablaze in a fiery storm that painted the surface of the raging water red.
He stood on her deck, as the last of the billiard rats he had called crew jumped overboard to escape the scorching heat and smoke ridden air, and curled his ringed fingers – ignoring the trembling in his hands – around the spokes of her wheel. The Pearl had always been faithful to him, even as she sailed under the hands of the traitorous bastard Barbossa – and that name rose like bile to his lips, bitter and biting, rage for having what was his stolen full and hot in his belly and throat, spilling from his lips in a wordless snarl that was swallowed by the fierce crackling of the encroaching flames.
He had promised himself to his ship upon first laying eyes on her: his one and only Lady.
She screamed now; her mast alight, her black boards and sails reflecting an unholy scarlet and thrown into stark relief by the unflattering flames. He couldn't see the tops of her masts and the far side of the ship was non-existent, so clogged with cloying black smoke was the air, but golden embers cut blazing trails of light across the backs of his lids as he squinted and closed his stinging eyes. The Pearl was groaning ominously, painfully, tossed to and fro upon the raging waters and being eaten alive by the fires of hell.
He couldn't breathe; his lungs were full of noxious smoke and his throat burned as he coughed violently, bent nearly in half under the weight of the burning heat, and, as the world spun and the Pearl screamed, he wished, for a deliriously clear moment, that he had some rum to soothe his throat and deaden his mind further.
He giggled, gasping great lungfuls of smoke as his vision turned white, lacking the coherence to even curse Barbossa's name – he who murdered his darling, his only. He would die before letting the Pearl go to her grave alone – he had known that for a good many years. But still – but still, his mind gasped, grasping for words and air that just weren't there.
The flames were licking up the wheel, flickering over his white-knuckled hands with brutal exaltation, leaving burning stripes of pain that stood, too clear and over bright, at the forefront of his rapidly slipping mind. The Pearl was dark and her pain was overshadowed by the cackling mirth of the fire which glowed so brightly – brighter than a horde of snarling demons conjured by too much drink or a great bonfire on a pasty white beach, or even, he thought disjointedly, the noon sun shining on the tropical waters of the Caribbean.
But still – he grasped at the tail end of the fleeing thought.
His Pearl was screaming as her mast fell and her insides filled with salty water, and his heart was shaky – too fast, then too slow as it skipped several beats altogether. His hands – arms, feet, legs – were burning – Yo ho, he mumbled (thought he mumbled) and wondered where all the rum had gone – and his mind was an endless white plain filled with rocks – crabs – then in the next moment it was a fathomless black sky with thousands of small, impartial stars – a pirates life for me.
But still, but still, he mumbled as his body and heart (his Pearl, his Lady, stolen – have to get her back!) were burned alive in a fiery storm upon the crashing waves of the only home he had ever known.
But still - !
His mind slipped away before he could catch the elusive thought.
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When he woke he was sitting in a tiny rowboat, startlingly lucid and holding a small wooden replica of the Black Pearl in his hands with an empty bottle of rum at his feet. In the calm, softly flowing water around him there were a few other such boats, holding people that were nothing but pale and emotionless, disjointed imitations of themselves.
In the distance Jack could see the hulking shadow of a ship that he recognised and, if he squinted his eyes and strained hard enough, he thought he could see the figure of a captain standing at her helm in the form of a boy he once knew.
He watched, silently, impassively, as the ship approached across the still waters. The sky above him was painfully clear, lit only by millions of tiny stars. For a moment he wondered where the white plain filled with nothing was, and looked around searchingly for his doppelgangers. But the rowboat was empty save for him.
By this time the ship had drawn abreast of the small group of boats, and was letting down a ladder. One by one the occupants of the boats were invited aboard and helped up her side, where a man with chocolate curls and kind eyes stood waiting for them, saying to each one, "Welcome aboard the Flying Dutchman. Unfortunately, you're dead, but we're here to safely transport you to the other side."
Yes, Jack thought vaguely, he definitely knew this man who was once a boy.
It came his turn to board the ship, and he struggled up the ladder with the replica Pearl clutched tightly in his hand. He left the bottle, because he had obviously already drunk it all: his mind was as dead as it could get. It vanished along with the rowboat as he stepped out of it.
The man's eyes widened as they landed on him, and Jack wished for a moment that he could remember the man's name.
"Jack," the man breathed in overwhelming surprise and welcome.
The words, "It's Captain Jack, if ye don't mind," rose to his lips as naturally as a breath, but they got caught on the sharp edges of his teeth and fell back from whence they came.
The small, fragile replica Pearl left burning stripes across his palm when his hand convulsively tightened around it, knowing how easy it would be to crush it into a thousand different pieces.
Maybe after it lay, shattered and broken, he would set it alight and watch it burn.
Silence lay upon the ships' deck like a heavy cloud of black smoke, broken only by the rhythmic creaking of the wooden boards and the soft lapping of the waves. The sounds were familiar, and Jack thought that once upon a time he may have smiled at hearing them. But now his lips lay still and he waited.
He was keenly aware of the replica Pearl that lay small and brittle in the palm of his hand.
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He didn't have a heartbeat anymore.
He couldn't hear it, couldn't feel it. The waves were no longer mapping the rhythm of his breaths, keeping time as he breathed in ... and out. Now it was just crash, crash, crash as the waves roared with incomprehensible power and incessant finality.
Idly, he wondered what it would be like to fall in, over the sides of this ghostly ship and to sink under the waves. He wondered what it would be like to fall down, down, down, until the sandy bottom dug into his feet and buried his toes. He wondered what it would be like to be surrounded by the roar of the sea, consumed by it.
He didn't have a heartbeat anymore. He didn't even know if he had a heart lying dead and still in his chest.
Either way, he couldn't bring himself to care.
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"Jack."
It was the captain again. The man was all furrowed brow and concerned eyes. His hands were big and callused; blacksmiths hands, Jack thought. Then: hands that were meant to be wrapped around a sword.
He'd always preferred a pistol, himself. He fingered his own with his free hand and knew there would only be one bullet in it. It was a pity he had never used it.
"Jack," the man said again, "what happened?"
Flickering flames and a ship's dying screams answered.
When silence was all that fell between them the other man turned and walked away.
Left alone, Jack hefted his pistol and stared at it, taking in the ugly black smudges from where it had been licked by flames and the thin coat of salt from where it had been beaten by the ocean.
He tossed it over the rails of the ship and watched silently as it was swallowed by the sea.
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He didn't notice his hat until a careless man bumped into him and it went flying out, onto the crashing waves.
For a moment he had the ridiculous urge to shout, "Man overboard!" and to jump in after it himself.
But the sea was still roaring, his heart still silent and his breathing still out of time. The endless ocean scared him, so he just watched as his hat floated away and vanished.
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The replica really is well done, he mused quietly to himself.
Every small piece of wood was elegantly carved and exceptionally well proportioned, even the tiny spokes of her wheel. Her sails were made of fine black cloth, and the jolly rodger was painstakingly painted in intricate detail onto her flag.
"Yo ho," Jack hummed, his voice hoarse and broken. His throat stung like he had just stuck a burning hot poker down his throat. "A pirates' life for me."
He resisted the urge to laugh hysterically.
The replica really was impeccably done and almost perfect.
Along her side, right where the elegantly carved words "Black Pearl" should be, a gaping black hole was blown right through her soul.
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"Jack."
Jack looked up into the captain's eyes and waited patiently for whatever he had to say.
"We're here, Jack," the man said, gesturing to the foggy land only a score of metres from where they were docked.
The other dead souls were already disembarking, climbing down the ships' sides and onto the white boards of the single pier.
"You know," the captain said hesitantly, "you could always stay here, for a while; on the Flying Dutchman. We can always use an extra pair of hands and it might help if you're given a bit of time to adjust."
Jack considered it for a moment, vaguely. This ship had a soul he wasn't drawn to and the sea had become a stranger to him. The sharp edges of the replica's masts dug into his palm. He couldn't see any reason to stay.
He shook his head silently and walked past the other man.
"Jack!" The man pleaded, reaching out and grabbing Jack's arm. Jack jerked, eyes flaring as pain bloomed where the captains hand grasped his arm. He could feel the oppressive heat of fire and smell the bitter stench of smoke.
His arm was let go and his eyes peered into. For a fleeting moment the name Will blazed through his mind before it was gone again, leaving sun streaks behind his eyes and cold embers weighing down his thoughts.
He turned again, and walked away. The captain didn't say anything, didn't follow, didn't speak. Jack thought that that was probably best because he didn't know if he'd have been able to hear him anyway; the flames were cackling in his ears again.
The rope ladder was coarse and salt stiffened in his one hand and under his boots as he awkwardly climbed down while still grasping the small replica as well as he could.
He stood, finally, on the whitewashed boards of the dock; listening to the lapping waves and watching the last of the other souls disappear into the fog.
With the roaring sea around him, the creaking ship behind him and the unknown stretching before him, Jack clasped the replica Pearl to his unmoving chest, and for the first time in his short death, he felt keenly that he was very alone.
He felt again the ghostly whispers of vivid flames licking at flesh and the cloying smoke clogging up his lungs. The shattering heat cocooned him and sweat slid down his sides. Flames cackled wickedly in his ears, and the roar of the sea beat at him.
His hands grasped convulsively for the spokes of his Lady's wheel to hold, and his feet instinctively slid apart so he could brace himself against her boards.
The raging maelstrom inside his head was vanquished abruptly with the sharp and ear-shattering crack! that wrenched the air and bid the world to silence.
Within his charred hand the replica Pearl laid, her mast snapped and her back broken. The cloth of her sails was torn and pierced with slivers of painted black wood. Her wheel had bent and snapped completely from her deck.
Jack stared at it, this broken imposter, this shattered traitor. He stared and rage bloomed, fiery hot and flowing like lava through his veins.
With a deranged shout he threw the shards of wood into the sea, hating them more than he had once hated Barbossa.
He lunged to the side of the dock after them, watching them fall and slice the water like tiny knives. They bobbed and spun, drifting lazily with the waves, submerged one moment then floating the next. They weaved towards him, then drew back, then came again, backward and forward and backward and forward until his rage had drained away leaving only ash in its wake.
Clumsily he laid down on the whitewashed wood of the dock, head pillowed by his arms as he watched the hypnotic sway of the shards as the ocean played with them.
He laid there so long that this upside down world turned to day then back to night, then day again, and the ship that had delivered him there was long gone.
He remained unmoving so long that cold seeped into his bones and turned them to lead, until he couldn't even remember the heat of a bonfire on a pasty white beach, or the sun against the Caribbean, or even the fires of hell eating the heart out of him.
He lay there so long that waves teasing black painted wood was a long forgotten memory, vanished like everything else into the infinite depths of the sea.
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Fin.
A/N: That's that! I hope you enjoyed it; I'm proud of this one. ^.^
Authors Request: Please, I would love it if you left a review – even a short one-liner would make my day! Thanks!