Times of Gallantry

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Four: Into the Locker

As they sailed further and further away from the world that they knew and closer to the one that held Jack Sparrow captive, the cold weather slowly began to warm and Arianna watched the dark and dreary waters as they sailed. Finn walked up behind her as she sat next to the edge, staring over into the seas as night began to fall upon them again.

"I never talked to you about what happened back at Port Royal, did I?" he asked softly as he wrapped his arms around her. She leaned back against him, suppressing a small sigh.

"Finn, I told you," she said softly, "I know what happened. You know that I see things that others can't. I saw what happened to the people there, in a vision, right after Jack died."

"That's not what I meant," Finn replied dryly, "although that strange way you have of seeing things does tend to make me uneasy. It's okay," he said with a grin. "It just makes you all the more stranger and that's just the way that you are. And I would not change you for the world."

Arianna grinned slightly as her husband kissed her forehead. "What did you mean then?" she asked seriously.

There was a long pause and then Finn sighed, pulled away from her and she turned around so that she could look at him properly. "Finn, what's going on? What happened?"

"After you three left," Finn said with a sigh, "Lord Beckett was determined to extract information about you three from me, because he knew that we had been involved." He shook his head. "No matter how much my father pleaded for me to give him the information, I couldn't do it. My father was furious with me, so was Lord Beckett. Anna . . . those last few months were some of the hardest of my life."

Arianna nodded, remembering how she had felt when they had been apart. She had loved him so much that sometimes it hurt too much, remembering what they had and lost.

"But I felt your presence calling out to me, telling me to hold on," Finn said. "I really wanted to believe that we would find a way to be together, away from everything that we went through. Arianna, I couldn't stand the thought of never seeing you again, never hold you or kiss you . . . you were in my every thought, always right there beside me.

"A couple months ago, Lord Beckett finally told me that I could either give up the information that I had or my father and I would be walking to the gallows. Father asked me why I continued to be so loyal to you, knowing who and what you were."

"What did you tell him?" Arianna asked him, drawing her legs underneath her as she looked at him. His green eyes met her sea-blue ones and he smiled, stroking her cheek gently.

"I told him," he answered, "that I could never betray you, because the moment I saw you, my destiny unfolded before me." Arianna blushed as she looked away. "And that I could never betray you because you would never betray me. If this was the price for my loving you, then I would take it. Death was nothing to what he had put you through. The course of true love never did run smooth and I was prepared to fight Beckett for everything I was worth if that was what it took to find a way back to you." Finn sighed. "My father didn't say anything for a minute, but when he did, all he said was, 'Your mother was the same way.'"

Arianna stared at him in amazement; Mrs. Warren, Finn's mother, had died giving birth to his younger brother, who had died because he was born too early. Finn had been three or four at the time and didn't really remember her a whole lot. "What happened after that?"

Finn smiled faintly and shrugged. "Well, my father stood up, walked out of the room, and the next morning, I got a visit from Lord Beckett, telling me that my father was on his way to the gallows. I was to be released, because my father had been trying to force me into an arranged marriage that I wanted no part of."

For a full minute, Arianna didn't understand. "What?" she asked before realisation set in. "Wait a minute . . . he . . . he told them that he wanted you to marry me, so that you could pretend you didn't know me that well and . . . and—"

"And be able to stay alive long enough to find you," Finn agreed as Arianna stared at him before looking away towards the ocean, hardly able to comprehend what she was hearing. Mr. Warren, the man who had hated her for being an unruly woman and a pirate, had saved his son by lying to the authorities and letting him escape to her side? It hardly seemed possible.

"If we see him here," Arianna said at long last, "I'll have to thank him. I never would have expected it from him."

Finn smiled as he wrapped his arms around his wife, laying his head on top of hers. She sighed, feeling content just as she heard footsteps running by and she looked around to see her brother racing past them. Arianna jumped up and ran after him, Finn right behind her as Will came to a stop next to the captain at the wheel.

"Barbossa!" he barked. "Ahead!" Arianna looked towards the bow of the ship, but she could see nothing but darkness ahead of them.

"Aye," Barbossa agreed, looking almost glad to see whatever Arianna was missing, though a foreboding sensation ran through her veins. "We're good and lost now."

"Lost?" Elizabeth exclaimed. The rest of the crew had been attracted by the noise and clamoured around the deck to see what was happening.

Giving a small shrug, Barbossa merely smiled. "For certain you have to be lost to find a place that can't be found," he explained. "Elseways, everyone would know where it was."

"We're gaining speed," Gibbs observed as Finn looked over the edge, his eyes going wide at the sight.

Arianna joined her husband and her mouth dropped open as she saw what had attracted her brother's attention. She hurried forward to the bow of the deck to get a better look, but her first glance had been accurate; they were headed straight for a gigantic waterfall.

Will was issuing orders behind them, but Barbossa cut his orders off. "Nay! Belay that! Let her run straight and true!"

Elizabeth took one look at the waterfall and then rounded on Barbossa, furious. "You've doomed us all!" she cried out.

"Don't be so unkind," Barbossa told her with a sadistic smile. "You may not survive to pass through this way again and these be the last friendly words that you'll hear." Elizabeth gave him a dirty look before she looked around to rejoin the crew as they moved to stop the ship before she went over the edge, but even as they worked quickly, Arianna knew it would do no good.

The ship toppled over the edge and down to the dark oblivion of Davy Jones' Locker.

--

Arianna wasn't sure how long it was until she hit the bottom, plunging beneath the ocean water. It could have been hours, it could have been days, or it could have been a few minutes. There was no way to tell, really. That was the fate that awaited within the Locker, where time had no meaning, just stretched on forever, just plagued a person with their worst torment.

All she knew was the moment that she reached land, there was only a barren wasteland that awaited her eyes. She gaped at the horrible desert that lay before them as the crew all climbed onto the beach, staring at scene which met their eyes.

Arianna shivered slightly as Finn walked up behind her, staring around them incredulously. "I've seen graveyards cheerier than this place," he said softly, looking around. "If I get killed, remind me to do it so that I don't have to end up here."

"That's not funny," she said softly as she looked around as Elizabeth walked up, looking crestfallen.

"I don't see Jack," she said. Arianna wasn't sure whether she was angry with Elizabeth or not after Will's revelation to her. "I don't see anyone."

"He's here," Barbossa replied, looking dishevelled, but no more so than Arianna, Elizabeth, Finn, Will or anyone else. Everyone on the beach was wet, unkempt, and unruly from the fall down the waterfall. "Davy Jones never once gave up that what he took."

"And does it matter?" Will demanded as he walked up to Barbossa. The pirate captain barely even looked at him. "We're trapped here by your doing, no different than Jack."

Arianna glanced down just as crabs started crawling down the beach, right up to Tia Dalma. She was smiling slightly as she cradled one of them. "Witty Jack," she said, "is closer than you think."

Looking up on the horizon, towards the mountains of sand and dirt, Arianna gasped in surprise as she saw the silhouette of a familiar mast rise higher and higher until the whole ship was seen. "The Black Pearl!" she exclaimed. "Look, it's Jack!"

Captain Jack Sparrow, indeed, was riding on the mast as the ship rode through the sand, carried by crabs, and into the sea. Arianna looked towards Finn, who was wearing a disbelieving look on his face. "After everything you've seen so far, this is what surprises you?" she asked dryly. Finn managed a weak laugh as the crew started running towards their captain as Jack returned to the beach in a small boat.

"Mr. Gibbs!" Jack commanded as he took a look at the crew at large. "I expect you're able to account for your actions, then."

Gibbs looked bewildered and Arianna cocked an eyebrow; this was not exactly how she had thought the reunion with Jack would be. "Sir?" he finally said, confused.

"There has been a perpetual and virulent lack of discipline upon my vessel," Jack told him. "Why?" Arianna shook her head as Finn looked towards her, an amused look on his face. "Why?" Jack repeated as Gibbs looked shocked. "Why is that, sir?"

"Sir, you're . . ." Gibbs lowered his voice, casting a quick glance around them. "You're in Davy Jones' Locker, Captain."

Jack looked torn between confusion and bewilderment at this statement as he looked around him. "I know that," he said firmly. "I know where I am. And don't think that I don't. Ah, Hector," he added, looking towards Barbossa as he approached. "It's been too long, hasn't it?"

"Aye, Isle de la Muerta, remember?" Barbossa responded as it seemed Jack's memory wasn't entirely intact. "You shot me."

"No, I didn't," Jack insisted before moving down the line. "Tia Dalma, out and about, eh? You add an agreeable sense of the macabre to any delirium." The mystic didn't look entirely happy at his statement.

"He thinks we're a hallucination," Will told her. Jack turned to him and his eyes travelled to move on to Arianna before returning to her brother as he walked up to him.

"William, tell me something," he said, "have you come because you and your sister here need my help to save a certain distressing damsel—or rather damsel in distress? Either one," he added.

"No," Will told him flatly.

"Well, then you wouldn't be here, would you?" Jack replied. "So you can't be here. Q.E.D., you're not really here."

"Jack!" Elizabeth appeared next to Arianna. "This is real, we're here."

The captain looked at her for a minute, then to Will and back again before hurrying away from them and returning to Gibbs and speaking in a hushed tone that nonetheless carried back over to them. "The Locker, you say?" he asked him. Gibbs nodded.

"We've come to rescue you," Arianna told him as she climbed up the beach back towards Jack, who turned to her.

"Have you now?" he replied. "That's very kind of you, but seeing as how I possess a ship and you don't, you're the ones who are in need of a rescue and I'm not sure as I'm in the mood."

"Don't even start on that again," Arianna told Barbossa as he opened his mouth to say something. "Quiet."

"Jack, Cutler Beckett has the heart of Davy Jones," Will told him. "He controls the Flying Dutchmen."

"He's taking over the seas!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"The song has already been sung," Tia Dalma said. "The Brethren Court is called."

"Listen to you people," Jack said, slightly annoyed as he walked away from them. "Leave you alone for a minute, look what happens. Everything's gone to pot."

"Jack, the world needs you back there," Arianna insisted, glaring at him. "And you need a crew to get back."

He turned to look at all of them, somewhat upset. "Why should I sail with any of you?" he asked. "Four of you have tried to kill me in the past. One of you succeeded."

Automatically, Will's eyes shifted to Elizabeth, who looked down in shame. "Oh, she's not told you," Jack said, seeing the exchange. "Well, then, you'll have loads to talk about while you're here." Arianna sighed as Jack walked over to Tia Dalma, taking her in critically. "As for you . . ." he began, but she smiled flirtatiously at him.

"Now, don't tell you that you didn't . . . enjoy it at the time," she told him in that familiar, mystical voice.

Jack blushed, but shrugged, conceding her point. "Fair enough. All right, you can come," he told her moving on to Pintel. "Don't need you, you scare me. Gibbs, you can come. Marty." He winced, passing over Ragetti. "Cotton," he added and the parrot squawked. "Cotton's parrot, I'm a little iffy, but at least I'll have someone talk to. Arianna, I have no complaints about you at the moment," he said, nodding to her. "Who's this?"

"Finn Warren, her husband," Finn responded dryly.

Eyebrows went up and Jack glanced at her. She held up her left hand to prove the point and he nodded. "You're on board," he told him before moving over to the Chinese crew. "Who are you?"

"Tai Huang," the Chinese pirate said and nodded to the crew behind him. "These are my men."

"Where do your allegiances lie?" Jack questioned.

"With the highest bidder."

"I have a ship," Jack said brightly.

"That makes you the highest bidder," Tai Huang told him.

"Good man," Jack said. "Weigh anchor, all hands! Prepare to make sail," he said as he looked down at his compass. Arianna grinned as she glanced over his shoulder to see the spinning dial.

"Jack?" Barbossa was holding the navigational charts. "Which way you be going, Jack?"