Chapter 2: My Guess
From the helm, Joshamee Gibbs had a good view of Jack. His captain was amidship, where he had been standing staring out not particularly anywhere for a long while. Jack had originally come up on deck holding the Davis quadrant, but Gibbs guessed that at this rate, the sun's altitude will not be measured that day, perhaps the moon's. There was a bottle of rum in his other hand, but that ended having the same fate as the quadrant, Jack'd given it no consideration.
The younger pirate's behavior unnerved his first mate and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were more sure than not off course on their way to the Golf of Guinea and that after a non scheduled stop due to the hurricane. After an initial perk up in Jack's demeanor attributed to the happiness of seeing his favorite first mate back on the Pearl again, Jack has succumbed to something that was seemingly taking control of him from the inside out. Acting strange, that was Jack, but this was an acting strange in a way that wasn't Jack. If anything, the captain seemed more normal than ever, none of his extreme jocund pretenses, no endless blabberings about nonsense, hiding destinations or the purpose of the journey from the crew. Which meant something was wrong with the captain. At first he thought Jack was ill. He wasn't eating much, his eyes were even darker and Gibbs doubted he would've needed kohl to make them look so, especially against his pale skin. He didn't do much and was sleeping more than usual or at least spent his time in his cabin saying he was sleeping.
All in all, Gibbs had well founded doubts about the health of the captain, but as time passed on he began to see the patterns to his indispositions and became convinced they were more of a mental, than physical nature and that his losing weight came from not eating and not an illness.
With him, Jack was unusually distant and the older sailor figured it was some sort of unhappiness, a deep melancholy that took hold of his friend, although he couldn't imagine where it could've come from. They had the Pearl, they did a few successful raids, they were on sea, had the charts to the fountain amd rum. Many times he'd tried to cheer him up, but it didn't seem to have much more than a momentary effect, if that. It wasn't how he knew him at all. He never really had to fear for his wellbeing before, not when he was marooned, not when he fell behind, he knew Jack'd bounce back, that his sharp enthusiasm'd always give him a way out. Jack thought people who despaired, coward and not those who ran away. Gibbs admired him for it. How could it be that all the battering Jack got from life finally found a way to get to him and was it that at all? If it boded ill for Jack Sparrow, it boded ill for all of them, and for him the most. Seeing him like that was like half losing him already. Not to mention if it continued like this Jack will get ill sooner of later and a quest for immortality was under the circumstances just as unimaginable as Barbossa as first mate. He had to confront Jack about it, again, even if he'd done it numerous times before, even if Jack'll be unhappy about it. He will have to keep doing it until Jack can't brush him off anymore.
Gibbs waved Mullroy over to the helm, he was one of the sailors Jack kept after he got the Pearl back from Barbossa. The ex navy was harmless, he only mutinied because he was too afraid to argue with authorities as he will be now too. Jack thought Mullroy should learn to swim though.
The former boatswain of the royal navy gave the former employ of the East India Trading Company an encouraging slap on the back. It was quite usual for navy servicemen who were disgraced or deserted to become pirates, but the first mate liked to give some further assurance to him and his friend Murtogg, remembering those first times he was aboard a pirate ship having feared them just recently before that. Of course then he met Jack and the world has fallen into place in his head. But because of the condition the captain was in lately, roles could reverse. He climbed down the stairs from the stern and wandered over to Jack. He put a hand across his friend's shoulders giving in to his urge to reach out for him after having watched him for that long without having been able to do something for him. "Ye be all right Jackie?"
It took great effort from Jack to pull himself out of his state of mind with a deep breath, enough to trace the voice from beside him. He found himself staring into the troubled face of his first mate and it wasn't hard to figure out he was reason for the older man's troubles. Jack's eyes were still distant and his body was shaking. Not feeling like an answer while their eyes locked, he turned his head back to stare out at the clouds colored by the setting sun.
"There's no living wif her after this..." He whispered on a colorless voice that made Gibbs shook his head rather clueless as to what he could do, unless Jack told him what was wrong. He rubbed his palm over Jack's shoulder lightly. "Is there anyone else ye'd trust more than meself?" He tried.
Jack closed his eyes for a moment before drawing himself back to reality again and looking at him. This time his gaze was searching. Surely, Gibbs has been his most loyal friend, but that even was only relative. However, it didn't matter all that much if Gibbs knew about his suffering or not, at least not in the sense of endangering him or anyone. If he was so concerned about him he will tell. "The locker."
"The locker?" Gibbs echoed. His gratefulness and ease over Jack talking to him only lasted a moment. The locker? Certainly he'd been surprised in that past that Jack'd been able to shake an experience like death and a maddening purgatory so easily as he had seemed to be, but for it to come out and so powerfully after such a long time?
"The beastie's meant to kill, right? Do ye know how many people perish at sea every year? There were dozens I could see passing, just where I was. They all went to the locker and stayed for a very short time till death came to take them somewhere, a place Tia Dalma could extract anyone from easily. Yet I stayed. Why?"
"Davy Jones wanting to punish ye I'd think."
"No."
"No? He didn't want to punish ye??"
"I was there in that personal hell because of Lizzie."
"Aye, I know that."
Jack shook his head, "ye don't. Tell me the story of Davy Jones."
"But Jack, ye know that better yerself."
"Just tell me Joshamee, what ye know."
Gibbs squinted at Jack wearily, not understanding the purpose of the exercise. However, if that was the price of Jack finally talking to him he'd have to go along with it. "David Jones was once a great sailor, who fell in love with a sea goddess. Davy agreed to ferry the souls of those lost at sea into the afterlife. To carry out this task, Calypso gave Jones a ship. Jones devoted himself faithfully to this duty for ten years, awaiting the one day when he could be reunited with his love. However, when he returned to the living world, he did not find Calypso waiting for him. Jones felt he had been tricked into his duty and could not escape his service. Enraged, Jones allied himself with pirates, telling them how to bind Calypso in human..."
"No."
"No??!"
"No, yer no doing the parts that matter. He was obsessed with revenge and most importantly, he was obsessed with traitors. Of the woman kind to be exact, and those who have been tricked and yet still in love wif their traitors..."
Gibbs' eyes widened and his head shot up, "I always suspected that..." Jack has given up too many things for Elizabeth for it to have been a coincidence. Yet it still didn't explain the state the captain was in. Thankfully, he continued.
"I can't say I met Davy Jones in the locker, but I believe he's directed some of me hallucinations at the beginning. I thought about them as that, hallucinations or in fact I tried to ignore them aft. But now I know that those early suggestions of his are true. At the moment of the ship going down, he'd bound us together for eternity, Lizzie and me, our destinies doomed without each other, the same as it was with him and Calypso. He'd transferred some of his pain on me, for me to feel without Lizzie the way he felt without his goddess. I felt none of it while she was with us, but as she's further and further away I know Davvy Jones' death didn't change the curse one bit. Nothing can change it till she's truly regretful, till she's mine."
"One person might have the same powers as once Davy Jones," Gibbs pondered, "to quash the curse."
"The whelp should know nothing of this!" Jack panicked. Was it a mistake to tell Gibbs about this? "He's to ferry peacefully, no to become the next Davy Jones cause his wife's loved by another and she loves him back. Joshamee, on yer mother's grave and I'll kill ye too, Will Turner's never to know Lizzie's child's no his."
"Careful Jack," Gibbs hushed him, "we're on sea. If he's looking in, he might be able to hear us."
"No," Jack pointed at some driftwood in front of them, remains of what was a ship not so long ago, perhaps victim of the very same hurricane that forced them to the closest harbor earlier. "He's busy with non survivors right now."
tbc
