3 hours earlier.
Jack Sparrow. His name didn't escape the lips of noblemen much anymore. Women had grown tired of his Caribbean loving. They said they could find so much better. He wasn't so much of a threat these days. A fire didn't so much burn as an aura around his frame any longer. The edge had crumbled.
And what injured and struck him was not one of those things. His hair, once dark, full, and mangled, fell almost to nothing as gray and thinning settled in. No, he wasn't old. He was worn out. Worn out through endless years of running. Worn out with the lack of a woman to reel him in and hold his place. Worn out by the lack of will to run anymore, for where did it lead him? Through more and more hoops to overcome more and more obstacles that only led to another? Such a life, he found, was not of the best interest to him.
Certainly, his wisdom overrode everything of the sort. He knew of things that children wondered at. He was aware of things those who are deceased find only once they have died. He knew of mysterious powers and strange ways of life that philosophers of his time had only dreamed at. And he beamed when he recalled such things.
He sat at the kitchen counter with a thin layer of coffee at the bottom of his mug. He sat for quite a while after the Admiral had left, had sat in silence with the same blank stare in his eyes. And with some very strange desire, his eyes decided something and it was up the stairs he clambered.
It smelled of a nobleman when he unfastened the closet doors. He closed his eyes as the fulfilling scent of the sea and the power of goodness swept over him. Beneath a mass of overcoats he found an old cigar box littered with past medals. He sat right there, smack dab in the center of the floor of the closet, with the box atop his lap. He ran his calloused fingers over each individual one's designs (for he made it a point to).
'James is a wonderful man,' he thought to himself as he shuffled through the box. He appreciated every ounce of James' being, ever feat he had accomplished and every falter he had lifted himself from. He respected the man's dire determination which he fully believed, at a time, mimicked his own. And now, now he considered James' soul so much greater than his.
And no, his purpose wasn't to admire what he could not attain, nor was it to pity his being. It was to change his attire. His calloused hands licked the wardrobe as he fumbled through it. Each shirt was firmly pressed and near identical. All buttons gleamed in the light and breeches were creased in only the proper places.
And no, there was no ruckus when he exited the mansion or when he darted through the streets. And the guard was kind when he barreled through the prison door. Everyone knows not to disrupt the path of a man on a firm mission. He was that man. --