Disclaimer: No, really, not mine, or this Study Abroad trip I'm heading for wouldn't be breaking the bank.

Protetector of Life

Part 10

It was cold, so bloody cold, freezing, burning, and he was shivering, driving razor-pointed teeth further into his shoulder.

"Damn you, Sparrow." There was agony in the creature's voice, pure, undiluted and unhidden. "Hold still."

He couldn't. Much as he'd love to stop injuring himself more, his body had other plans at the moment.

"Where…" He struggled to open his eyes, found only a swirling, tumultuous sensation of movement in place of sight and decided that had been a bad idea.

"Between. Try not to… think on it too… much."

The force biting into his shoulder redoubled, earning a brief cry of pain that distorted, changed, came back to him as light and color.

"Didn' take this long… before."

"Further." A mewl of pain broke through the great cat's answer. "Maybe… too far… so many doors…"

Even as the cat spoke, Jack could see them, twisting, turning; not even doors, but passageways, possibilities, probabilities… It was exhilarating, terrifying, breath-taking, above all senses-shattering.

It was almost certainly why he didn't hear the jaguar's cry of mingled despair and satisfaction.

He checked both pistols to ensure that they were clean, loaded, and in perfect working order before slipping them into his belt, one for each hand. They wouldn't be able to do much, not at first, not until he pinned the bastard down and cut him, forced the metal into the wound to find the blood that sat still inside, never moving.

It would move tonight. A hell of a lot of blood would move tonight.

Turner's boy had dropped his coin and fled from the whole sordid affair three years ago, looking back twice, the first time with fear, the second with compassion. At least he had the presence of mind not to wish him luck.

"You're goin' to get yourself killed." The words were spoken in a normal conversational tone, not an accusation, but he could still sense the fear behind them.

He didn't turn to see if the fear was present in her face, as well. He'd rather not know.

"What makes you think that, love?" He pulled his sword from its sheath, turned it to the light, ensuring that the razor-thin edge he had placed there two hours ago hadn't somehow managed to vanish into thin air.

"The fact that he's undead and you're not might have something to do with it."

"Just a temporary state of affairs."

"You've been chasing him for three years. You've been riding him so hard he decided he'd rather stay cursed than end up permanently dead immediately after being freed." Voice falling to a whisper, she moved closer to him, one hand reaching out to tentatively touch his shoulder. "I just want you to remember that you've still got something to live for, even once this is done. That things can go back to what they were… before."

"Can they, love? Can they really?" Grinning, laughing, though not from mirth, he turned to face his first mate. "My ship's gone. Don't go tryin' to tell me the Interceptor can be just as good, either. She's pretty, but she'll never be the Pearl. I've got a half-crew of real cutthroats. I've killed men in cold blood to get to this point. Nothing's going to undo this."

"Dying isn't going to undo it, either." The desperation in her voice, on her face, in her grip hit him like a tidal wave, but he let it flow past.

She didn't really know everything he'd done to drag the chase to this point. If she did, she wouldn't be quite so desperate to keep him.

"I'm going to kill Barbossa before I ever rest. This is my chance. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind about this." He softened his tone, his voice, calculating exactly how much he had to give to get her to back off.

The blow was close-fisted, and it drew blood.

"Nice, love." He dabbed at the blood running sluggishly from his upper lip and nose. "Didn't think you'd do that."

"Don't patronize me, Jack Sparrow." Sheer rage was all he could see on her face now, but he knew it still stemmed from desperation.

Gibbs had been easier. He had simply nodded, clapped him on the back, downed a shot and said he hoped to hell Jack reached heaven before the devil knew he was dead.

"Please. Just… promise that you'll try to get out of there alive. That's all I ask."

That was it? That simple? Damn, but the woman was being dense if she thought a vow would stop him now.

"I promise." The words didn't catch in his throat, didn't sear his mind as they once would, and he knew beyond a doubt that he'd managed to kill the man she really wanted back.

"You mean that, Jack Sparrow?" The faintest of hope shone from her eyes, sitting alongside the deepest suspicion. "You mean you'll try to get out of there alive?"

"I mean it." He pulled her down onto his lap and stole a brief kiss. God, but this was easy. "I'll try to get out of there alive."

She didn't say anything after that, just disentangled herself and left. She turned back once, opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it again with a faint grimace of distaste and closed the door.

It wasn't really a lie. If he could get out of there alive, he would.

But he couldn't. Lady Luck would have to be rolling sevens on a six-sided die for him to get out of there alive.

Before dawn broke, he'd be with his dark lady again.

He was yowling, howling, and he couldn't stop himself. It was unbecoming for one of his stature. Even the mortal ones who shared his form didn't howl their grief to the sky. That was for the wild, slinking canids of the north… for the brutal beasts that the enemy brought with them, set upon his people…

Not his people. Not anymore.

His tongue rasped over the jagged holes in his charge's chest, though the blood and powder had long since been washed away by similar ministrations. One paw gently, almost reverently nudged the prone man's face, urging him to wake, to move.

He wouldn't. He couldn't. He had been dead for almost half a day now.

Another cry tore itself from his body as he crouched down, panting, over the man. Predators had been drawn by the sweet, cloying scent of fresh meat, but he chased them away, his sheer size and ferocity and apparent madness causing them to turn tail and run before he even reached them.

It was good that they ran. Good that they hadn't yet worked up the courage to swat at him and thus discover his inability to even touch them. He had been bound to the idol and the man for too long, far too long, and his connection to the world beyond them had faded almost to the point of non-existence.

Soon, even those creatures who saw him now, those pure and untouched by the madness of the humans who shared their realm, would sense him as little more than a ghost.

"Little one."

The voice was gentleness, kindness personified, but he responded to it with the coughing roar of his earth-bound brethren.

She was responsible for this. She was the reason his mind was tainted, touched and troubled by these twisted reactions.

"I am so, so sorry, little one." One hand was stretched toward him, steady, not trembling a bit despite the grief that was etched into her face.

He was trembling. He was shaking, shivering, shuddering, and he hated the feel of it, hated the fact that he couldn't stop it.

"Please, young one. Come home with us."

"Home?" The word was a low growl, barely recognizable for the tongue it was. "Do you truly think my home still lies with you?"

"It does. It always has, and always shall." The woman's hand dropped to her side. "We would welcome you. Your brothers and sisters have missed you greatly."

"I am bound to this, or have you forgotten?" One paw snagged the idol where it lay on the man's still chest, lifted it into the air without snapping the chain.

"The bonds we have wrought are weakening, and you were as much bound to him as to the metal now. If you wish to return with me, you can."

"They betrayed him." His voice shook with suppressed rage as he crouched down again over his charge, one paw resting protectively, proprietarily on the man's chest. "They sold him out to the invaders for a few false promises and perverse creatures."

"They are afraid." With a heaviness of action and step that he had never seen before, the woman settled to the jungle floor, legs crossed beneath her. "Our people are dying. They have been dying for a very long time, but only now do they recognize their trouble."

"Not our people. Not my people." A long, low hiss accented the last word.

"Your people." There was actual harshness in her tone and face now, something he had rarely elicited from her. "They gave you life, they give you power."

"He was my people. You are my people. He gave me purpose. You gave me the strength to fulfill my mission. And now I have failed… though I gave all I could, I failed…"

Despair threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed it aside, searching for another option. It was easy to think, with his lady beside him, life-giver, lord of the mind. Her power flowed into him again, heady, exhilarating… and he realized what he could do.

"Little one… that is not the answer…"

He ignored her, sinking his teeth into his charge's—his friend's—shoulder, struggling not to cry out again as the snap of bone reached his tender ears. He had not been cautious enough, gentle enough to account for his human's weakness.

A vicious swipe of his claws tore a window through the air, and the trembling became even more pronounced as exhaustion added itself to his other problems. He had reached almost too far this time, though it was less than he had done before. Such things mattered little now, though. He would see his priest interred properly, by his own people… and then he would see the ones who had caused this pay. All of them.

"Blood is not the answer."

"Blood is always the answer." He shifted his grip on his burden, not turning to look at the woman. "I will not betray you, my lady. I will not break your word."

"You will do this, no matter what I say." She turned her face from him, resigned. "Mayhap I should have left you to Itzamna's care. He knows your kind far better than I."

"I will not betray you, Mother."

He was silent then, merely dragging the body through the window.

After all, there was nothing more to say.

"Temp 95.6, BP at 90/50 and dropping… multiple lacerations to the right arm and leg, as well as a GS to the upper chest, means we'll have to call in the cops…"

The voice was a woman's, but it was firm, steady, like Ana-Maria's. It was the perfect match for the lightly calloused hands roving across his body, skipping over injuries with a practiced ease.

"God, look at this guy's clothes... that gun. There some kind of ren fair in town?"

"Doesn't matter right about now, Danny. Let's get this guy started on an O- drip, see if we can clean him up, get him stable for surgery."

Light suddenly exploded in front of him as someone pried one of his eyes open, a light that was far too steady to be a lantern, far too subdued to be the sun. He instinctively flinched away, blinking in an effort to bring something into a more coherent form than colored blobs.

"Pupils dilated but with some responsiveness to light." The same hands firmly moved his head back to where it had been as an unfocused face slid into view. "Sir, can you hear me? Do you have any medical allergies or conditions we need to be made aware of?"

Other than the obvious ones like multiple sword wounds and a shot in his chest again, not really. He tried to decide whether speaking or moving was more likely to hurt more, given that breathing was still painful.

A weight he hadn't been aware of was removed from his chest, the drag of a silver chain over his skin making it painfully obvious what the object was.

"No." He tried to shout and lunge for the idol, but it was more a pathetic squirm. Still, it caught the woman's attention.

"Sir, we're not going to keep it. It will be placed with your other effects and returned at discharge."

"No." He shook his head frantically, trying to emphasize the too-weak word. He was having a hard enough time of things as was; taking the idol God-knew-how-far from him, after the cat had apparently made a very specific point of placing it with him… he'd really rather not see what that would do to him. How to make these people see it, though… "Religious. Please. I need…"

A flicker of understanding and compassion flashed across the woman's face, and she hesitated.

"Please. Religious."

"Danny, scrub it down and put it in his left hand. Will that be sufficient?"

The pirate nodded gratefully, eyes slitting as the adrenaline surge that had given him the strength to even attempt movement faded. "Thank you."

Someone touched the still-throbbing hole in his chest where the shot had struck home, and darkness washed over his vision yet again.

The first thing he was aware of was that he felt significantly better than the last few times he woke up. In fact, the only thing that hurt was his left shoulder.

Opening his eyes tentatively, he found himself nose-to-nose with the jaguar. Biting back a curse, he staggered up from his position on the vegetation-strewn floor, never moving his gaze from the cat.

The fact that the cat was apparently comatose made no difference as to his analysis of its threat level.

"Yes, he is quite the dangerous young thing, isn't he?"

The woman looked as though she had always been sitting there, running one hand down the silky fur, caressing between the creature's eyes, but he was certain she hadn't been there when he woke.

"I was here. Wherever he is, a portion of me will always be." She didn't stop her stroking of the great cat as she raised her eyes to meet his.

They were gorgeous eyes, of a hue he had never seen before, a rich brown that somehow seemed to borrow from other colors. He had never seen anything like them before. As was to be expected, of course, from a god.

"I thank you for the compliment, brave little bird, and commend you on your deductive skills." A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, causing small wrinkles to appear at the corner of her eyes, and Jack upped his estimate of her form's age by a few years.

"It doesn't take much intelligence to figure out that it takes a god to appear and disappear at will… or that you're probably the 'lady' he refuses to betray." Jack bowed slightly, hands together. "For that, I am inde—I thank you."

"A nice save, Jack Sparrow. Never tell a god that you are indebted to them. You never know when they might call in the favor." The smile faded as she dropped her eyes to the jaguar prone on the ground before her. "I give you points for intelligence because you are not panicking. You are not attempting to say that this cannot be happening. You are not trying to call on one of your gods in my realm."

"Well, y'see, I kind of try to avoid messing about in the whole god business to begin with. Causes nothing but grief, I think."

"And yet you have seen the power of many gods in your time, been involved in many of their plans. A most curious thing."

Curious was one way to put it; frustrating and annoying was another.

The woman began to laugh, the sound rich and lilting, though a hint of sorrow still lay beneath it. "Ah, if more of the world felt as you did, I feel we would have much less to do."

"You can read minds." It was a statement of fact, nothing more.

"Yes. The mind is my realm." Her return was equally steadfast, a simple assertion of truth.

"So how are you able to—"

"Though he gives me the credit, much of the power comes from him. I was always able to see the different paths that might be taken, as were those loyal to me; some could even walk a different path in dreams. To physically cross that boundary, though… one with a strong will and power of his own had to be bound to me."

Memory stirred to sluggish life as he continued to meet the woman's gaze. "You're Alaghom Naom. One of the mother goddesses, responsible for creativity and intellect. But you were one of the—"

"Lesser gods? Perhaps. You, of all people, should know the power of the mind, Sparrow."

"I meant no disrespect." He hadn't, either. He had been more thinking out loud than actually speaking to the woman.

"No. Not at the moment. You are too busy attempting to find a way to reclaim your life to actively seek to offend potential allies." There was gentle chiding and a calm acceptance mixed in her voice, rather than the cold fury that had filled Billy's as he made the same—accurate—claim.

"Your pet did invade my mind, threaten my crew with bloody death, and me with insanity. I think a desire for escape is somewhat expected."

"Yes, you have more than a right to anger and a desire for escape. I would not try to argue that point." She stood abruptly, moving away from the prone cat and toward the pirate. "If you would truly seek escape, though, an effective escape, then listen to me. Several others have managed to get as far as you have. It speaks well to your character. All who came before have perished, though, and those around them by their hand."

Right. So it was going to be one of those games, speaking enigmatically in circles around a very simple concept. "So tell me what to do."

"I will not tell you what to do, because I cannot. Not and save the godling who entrusted himself to my care." A bitter smile touched her mouth and was gone. "Yes, he is a god in his own right, or would have been. So very young, he was, and so very strong. Born on the same day as a talented young man who grew quickly to become a leader among our people. None could argue that it was fated they work together to attempt to heal the fractured nation."

"So you gave him some of your strength, your power to help him." Something was tugging stridently at the back of his mind, a memory, a recollection, but it felt… awkward, like it didn't belong.

"While you were within the cold between worlds, you saw how that union ended… among other things." There was compassion in her eyes as she reached out one hand to touch him. "I will not tell you how to free yourself, because I am selfish and would use you to heal him."

"Heal him." It seemed every conversation he had had with the creature had ended in pain for him, and she wanted him to…

"Yes. If you can help him through the hate and horror and hurt that is the other side of loving a mortal, then you will have more than earned your freedom." Her hand trailed along the side of his face, into his hair, touching the trinkets that he had woven there throughout his life. "You are a good man. Not an honest man, not a lawful man, but a good man, and for the most part a content man. If you succeed, he will bring you home and I will tell you how to send him home. If you do not… there are none in this world that you know, and thus none that it will truly hurt you to kill."

He almost argued, almost pointed out that the people here might be a tad bit upset about dying, but there was a hardness in the goddess's face that made him hold his tongue.

"They are not my people, little bird. You are not my people. He is. Though I do not desire to see more blood shed, I would see all the world shaded in red before losing him." Turning away, she paced back to the cat and sank down beside him. "You will wake in an unfamiliar world. You will strive to do what I ask because you desire life. I am sorry if what happens causes you injury, and I hope that we meet again."

He didn't bother asking what it would mean if they didn't see each other again. It was far too obvious, as was the cold fury he felt towards the woman… a fury she would know he held.

At least the cat was honest in its desire to inflict pain.

"You think me cruel." Her eyes rose once more to meet his, her head cocked to the side as if she, too, were a cat. "You think I toy with you as he does. Perhaps it is cruel, but one thing my people have learned, very well, very quickly, is that if they do not stand beside each other as protectors, none will stand beside them. Even when they do, far too often it is too little, too late."

"If you can't help him, what makes you think I can?"

"Because you are mortal, and are thus born into the pain. Because to survive this long, you remind him of the one who came before. Because if I cannot help him, and none that he chooses can help him, I have lost both of them for naught. So I do truly hope we will meet again, Sparrow, and even if it is a false hope… it is hope." For a moment longer she simply knelt at the side of the cat, and it was impossible to read all that flew across her face. "Now, Jack Sparrow… it is time for you to wake."