Penance
by Luvvycat

- Chapter 1 -
The Haunted Shoals

The survivors of the Hai Peng pulled themselves out of the rushing surf, some collapsing with exhaustion on the shore of bleached-white sand. Debris from their destroyed vessel already littered the beach—barrels of rum, water, and other provisions, wooden crates of weapons and other supplies. But much had been lost to the rapacious, churning waters of World's End ...

Gibbs, never one to be short on words, was the first to recover his breath. He looked around, his faded blue eyes taking in their bleak surroundings. "This truly is a godforsaken place!" he declared, darkly.

Elizabeth came to stand next to Gibbs, her eyes scanning the beach and the swells of sandy dunes beyond it, looking for signs of life—any stray footprint or spillage of sand that would indicate another's presence on these shores. "I don't see Jack," she said, her voice an admixture of disappointment, concern, and frustration. "I don't see anyone."

Barbossa responded, certainty in his booming voice, "He's here! Davy Jones never once gave up that wot he took."

"And does it matter?" Will, at Barbossa's shoulder, retorted, crossly. "We're trapped here by your doing, no different than Jack."

Tia Dalma cast them a sly, sidelong glance, tenderly stroking a small white crab cradled in the palm of her left hand, while its fellows scurried to take shelter under the fullness of her wide skirts. "Witty Jack is closer den you t'ink," she said, smiling mysteriously, turning her eyes back to a particularly high sand dune.

No sooner had the words left her lips, than the top of a mast appeared over the rise of the dune. Everyone gawked in amazement as the Black Pearl—Jack perched confidently on the lower topgallant yard, high up the foremast—sailed over the top of the dune, riding it like the swell of a wave, her bowsprit jutting proudly into the air like a finger pointing to the sky. As she crested then started down the front side of the dune, they could see the shifting masses of white crabs scurrying under her long black hull, propelling her toward, then into, the welcoming arms of the sea.

Sao Feng's man, Tai Huang, stared in open-mouthed astonishment. "Impossible ..."

Ragetti, struck dumb with awe, could only point and say, rather stupidly, "Boat ..."

"Slap me thrice and hand me to my mama!" Gibbs exclaimed, as a rowboat approached, carrying a familiar, dreadlocked figure. "It's Jack!"

A tide of joy washed over Elizabeth at the sight of Jack, bringing a swift smile to her face, and she rushed forward a few steps, as if to follow Gibbs. But then she stopped, her smile quickly faltering as she thought of the inevitable confrontation to come. She turned and glanced guiltily over her shoulder at Will, whose eyes turned to fix on her, closely watching her reaction. There was a guardedness in his eyes that she had grown accustomed to seeing in recent months, a guardedness that had only come into being the day the Black Pearl was taken down, and Jack along with it ...

She dreaded Will, and the rest of the crew, discovering what she had done—how she had tricked Jack and doomed him to a horrible death by chaining him to the mast of his beloved Black Pearl. Even more so, she dreaded Jack's reaction. What would he do when he was reunited with her—his betrayer, his murderer? She had seen the darkness of fury in Jack's eyes before, and it had frightened her, more than she cared to admit. She quailed at the thought of that fury loosed from its reins, and turned full-force upon her ...

She didn't have long to wait, because Jack was stepping out of the boat, striding through the surf, across the damp sand, heading their way.

The rescue party ran toward him, Gibbs and Pintel leading the pack.

"It's the Cap'n!" Pintel cried out, enthusiastically.

"Sight for sore eyes!" Gibbs' great pleasure at seeing his friend and captain again was obvious. "Jack!" he pulled up in front of him, greeting him with outstretched arms and a huge smile splitting his craggy face.

Jack's dark eyes swept over the assembled group, then fixed on his First Mate.

"Mister Gibbs!" he called out sternly.

"Aye, Cap'n!" Gibbs replied, dropping his arms, his smile fading at Jack's rather unexpectedly harsh tone of voice.

"I thought so!" Jack said, frowning. "I expect you're able to account for your actions, then?"

Gibbs looked at him with confusion. "Sir?"

"There has been a perpetual and virulent lack of discipline on my vessel! Why? Why is that, sir?" Jack rebuked, his voice rising to a shout.

"Sir," Gibbs glanced around furtively to the others, then lowered his voice as he explained to Jack, carefully, "You're—you're in Davy Jones' Locker, Cap'n."

Jack's eyes went wide and his upper lip twitched nervously, and a strange expression flitted across his face before it froze, only his eyes moving, the whites showing all around the dark irises as he rolled them from side to side, trying to peer out of their corners without moving his head. Then, as though to prove he wasn't as addle-pated as Gibbs thought him, he quickly said, "I know that. I know where I am ... and don't think I don't!"

"Jack Sparrow!" Barbossa called out, and Jack spun toward him.

"Ah ... Hector!" He strode toward his former nemesis, his expression surprisingly jovial, almost welcoming. "It's been too long, hasn't it?"

"Aye ... Isla de Muerta, remember?" Then he leered at Jack with barely-concealed hostility. "Ye shot me."

Jack's eyes went unfocused for a moment as he appeared to search his memory. "No, I didn't!" he flatly denied, then, subject closed as far as he was concerned, he moved on to another familiar face, greeting her with a golden smile. "Tia Dalma! Out and about, eh? You add an agreeable sense of the macabre to any deliria."

Tia Dalma's pleased smile wavered a bit at Jack's words, a perplexed frown creasing her brow.

"He thinks we're a hallucination!" Will said, being the first to grasp the situation.

Jack turned to him, then approached. "William, tell me something. Have you come because you need my help to save a certain distressing damsel? Or, rather ... damsel in distress? Either one ..."

"No."

"Well, then, you wouldn't be here, would you," Jack said, with smug satisfaction at his clever turn of logic. "So you can't be here. QED, you're not really here!"

Elizabeth finally stepped forward. "Jack!" At the sound of her voice, his eyes snapped to her. "This is real. We're here."

Turning toward her, Jack's mouth opened, and he lifted a finger as though intending to speak, then a look of disorientation passed over his face, and Elizabeth thought she detected a flash of fear and some darker emotion in his eyes for just a moment, reminding her somewhat of a child awakening from a nightmare to discover that the horror he had dreamt about was, in fact, real. And, she supposed, in a way, that was exactly what was happening …

Jack suddenly seemed unable to look directly at her, his eyes going vague, shifting away from her. He moved off, without really acknowledging her, and scurried back to Gibbs.

"The Locker, you say?" he practically whispered, unease written across his face.

"Aye."

Jack wiped a hand across his brow, his expression disturbed.

"We've come to rescue you," Elizabeth added, in explanation. What had happened to him? Had the Locker sapped his wits?

Jack finally turned and fixed her with a cool gaze, then said with mild sarcasm, "Have you now? Very kind of you ... but it would seem, as I possess a ship and you don't, you're the ones in need of rescuing ..." His eyes turned sullen, with a hint of petulant child in them, "... and I'm not sure I'm in the mood," he said, darkly.

Barbossa stepped forward again. "I see my ship ... right there!" He pointed out to sea, where there was but only one ship to be seen.

Jack turned and followed the direction of Barbossa's finger, shading his eyes and squinting out to where the Pearl bobbed on the water. "Can't spot it. Must be a tiny little thing hiding somewhere behind the Pearl."

Before Jack's and Barbossa's exchange could blossom into a full-fledged argument, Will came forth, shadowed closely by Elizabeth and Tia Dalma. "Jack! Cutler Beckett has the heart of Davy Jones. He controls the Flying Dutchman."

"He's taking over the seas," Elizabeth added, urgency in her voice as she clutched at Jack's coat-sleeve.

"De song has already been sung," Tia Dalma said, at his opposite shoulder. "De Bred'ren Court is called."

"Leave you people alone for just a minute, and look what happens! Everything's gone to pot!" Jack said, his voice rising as he turned his back on them and scuttled away.

"Aye, Jack!" Gibbs said, calling out after him, "The world needs you back somethin' fierce!"

"And you need a crew ..." Will added, persuasively.

Jack stopped, then slowly turned around. With disdain, he said, "Why should I sail with any of you? Four of you have tried to kill me in the past ... one of you succeeded." He fixed Elizabeth with an accusatory look, and she cringed at the anger she saw thinly concealed behind his flippant attitude.

Will raised his eyebrows in surprise as the significance of Jack's words registered, and he and the others turned to look pointedly at Elizabeth. At the expression on their faces, in their eyes, she shrunk back a bit into herself, and shot a guilty look toward Jack, as though to say Why did you have to tell them?

At their reaction, and the look on Elizabeth's face, Jack drew the correct conclusion and, walking back to them with that familiar swaggering gait of his, added with snide satisfaction, "Oh, she's not told you? You'll have loads to talk about while you're here." He seemed to take a malicious glee in her discomfort.

He turned a glower upon Tia Dalma. "As for you ..." he said, a hint of menace in his tone.

She gazed steadily back at him, unflinchingly, a slow, sensuous smile spreading across her face as she simpered and fingered his chin-braids. "Now, don't tell me you didn't ... enjoy it, at de time?"

Jack returned her smile, with a nostalgic little leer, leaving Elizabeth to wonder, with an unreasonable, and quite unexpected, flash of jealousy, just what had passed between those two. "Fair enough. All right. You're in!"

As he moved on to Ragetti, Jack's brows descended into a frown. "Don't need you ... you scare me!" he said, dismissively. Ragetti's face fell.

Jack proceeded down the row, eyeing each man speculatively. "Gibbs, you can come. Marty." He grimaced as he came to Pintel, then passed him over without a word. "Cotton. Cotton's parrot, a little iffy … but at least I'll have someone to talk to."

When he got to Tai Huang, he stopped short, eyes widening, peering at the Oriental face in puzzlement. "Who're you?"

"Tai Huang." He indicated the other Asian men standing behind him with a small tilt of his head. "These are my men."

Jack stood up straighter. "Where do your allegiances lie?"

"With the highest bidder," Tai Huang responded, pragmatically.

"I have a ship," Jack offered, smiling hopefully.

Tai Huang smiled back. "That makes you the highest bidder."

"Good man!" Jack declared, then turned and started shouting out orders. "Weigh anchor, all hands! Prepare to make sail!" He reached for his compass, flipped it open, then stared as its hands continued to spin, with no indication of stopping on a specific destination. He frowned.

"Jack," Barbossa said, in an unctuous voice, with an oily grin to match. Jack slanted him a glance, eyes narrowing. "Which way you going, Jack?" He patted the rolled-up charts he held in his hands, his grin widening smugly as Jack's simian namesake, perched on his shoulder, tilted his head and screeched, almost mockingly ...