A/N: Here it is, the long awaited finale of my masterpiece: the penultimate chapter. It is non-canon compliant, BTW, as I couldn't make it work within the confines of the movie, so I tweaked it. Nothing major… on another note, special thanks to TheMarauderBandit and Countcresent for pointing out a major inconsistency in the last chapter… hehe I was pretty embarrassed when suddenly out of the blue Beckett could see again, but it's since been fixed. WARNING: The following contains sap. And now, without further ado, the Fountain of Youth awaits…
The beautiful natural cave we find ourselves in after the mist clears is nothing compared to the beauty of the fountain. A moss covered stone arch covering a stone bowl, into which water drips from the arch… it is surreal to finally look upon that which we have been laboring towards for so long. I take Cutler's hand as I lead us three towards it and say to him quietly,
"I wish you could see this."
"I will, soon enough." I walk right up to the Fountain and run my hand over it, feeling the cool rock and moss beneath my fingers. I swiftly unloop the rope that holds us all together and I retie the mermaid's end to the arch.
"The chalices?" I prompt, and Cutler hands one to me. I approach the mermaid, down to business. "Alright. Erm…" I pause. I can't just say "OK, time to cry now," can I? Though I might as well tell her "time to die" instead. Perhaps that will elicit an emotion. It's worth a shot.
"Alright, mermaid."
"My name is Mannalin," the mermaid says suddenly, her voice startling me. I have not heard her speak once on the whole trip- her voice is sweet and reminds me of a mother's.
"Mannalin, then. I have some news for you. We are going to sacrifice you to the Fountain so Cutler here can get his sight back." I scrutinize her face for any sign of emotion.
"Bit blunt, don't you think?" Cutler whispers in my ear. I shrug. The mermaid is not crying, though. Instead, she is smiling.
"I don't think so." My expression hardens, and I draw my knife to enforce my seriousness.
"Oh, ya don't? Well, waddya think I have this 'ere knife for, then?" Mannalin laughs, a light, warm sound.
"You cannot kill me. You need my tear, and dead mermaids do not cry. I am afraid you have no bargaining chip." I underestimated the mermaid. Seems she has a bit more cunning than I had though.
"Cutler, you're better at this than me. Convince her." He nods and begins,
"I admit you have a point. As long as we are short a tear, we shall not kill you. So here's the plan: you give us a tear, and we set you free." I glance sharply at Cutler, wondering where the hell he's going with this. The mermaid obviously wonders the same thing.
"You swear this?" She asks skeptically.
"I do. And I never go back on my word." At that, I know Cutler is lying. He may be an honest man for the most part, but we have already double-crossed Captain Jack and Barbossa just to get here, and I have no idea how many more people before I knew him. All at once, his plan falls into place in my mind. He does not intend to let her go.
For the first time, a squick of guilt pricks my conscience. Mannalin squirms a bit in her bonds, and then finally nods.
"I will give you a tear," she concedes. Amazingly, she conjures forth a tear with hardly a sob, and I catch it in the goblet. I am momentarily distracted as it slides into the cup, and when I look back up, a cold hand of iron grips my heart in fear as the mermaid triumphantly holds up the ropes which had previously bound her hands together, tosses them aside languidly, and says scornfully,
"I knew you would not keep your promise. I have taken matters into my own hands. Sayonara, my capturers," and darts off, diving head first into a pool a few feet away. In half a heartbeat, she is gone.
"Where did she go? Has she escaped?" Cutler demands of me. My whole body feels like all the air has suddenly been sucked out of it.
"Aye. She's gone, all right. Slippery fish wriggled out of her bonds when we wairn't looking. We have a tear, but no sacrifice." We both sit in silence, pondering our dreadful turn of luck.
"I suppose…" Cutler begins, "we could capture a Spanish soldier…" I look at him in astonishment.
"And what have any of those Spaniards done to deserve death?" I demand. Cutler is silent. "I could understand sacrificing the mermaid, aye, because she and her ilk were right bitches to me in those boats. But I'll not abide murdering an innocent man," I inform him forcefully.
"What's a nameless man's life compared to my sight, though?" He asks. His heartlessness momentarily stuns me. I guess it all comes out, in the end. The good and the bad of a person. That which you hide, or had hoped to have purged. And this is the end. I see now the cruelty that Cutler once possessed in his former life. "Will everything we've worked for be for naught because of this? Can we just turn back, return to the island? What a life for you! Forever waiting hand and foot on a blind man!" he adds desperately.
"No, no, don't you see?" I exclaim exasperatedly, "It's not like that! At first, we were bound by necessity and need, but now it is only love that keeps us together, nothing else! I thought that mattered? Has the past year meant nothing to you?
"More than you can ever know-"
"So how can you stand there and call me a slave? You have forced me to do nothing; everything I did was of my own will- all for you! Because I love you, Cutler! Because I love you, and I would do anything for you!"
I would do anything for you. The words ring in my head and the full truth of them hits me head on like a collision force. I would do anything for him, and that includes taking the mermaid's place.
"I'll be the sacrifice, Cutler," I say quietly with nary a quaver in my voice.
"No," says Cutler, his mouth a thin line and his hands white on his stick, "no, I won't let you. I won't allow you to. Once I may have let you, once regaining my sight would have been everything- but I am not the man I was, Winnifred. Power, control means nothing to me anymore. It doesn't matter if I leave this place still blind, all that matters is that I leave here with you! I won't have you die. Don't ask me to take your life to heal myself. Do not."
"You don't mean that!" I gasp, rounding on him. "I don't believe you! I don't believe for one second that power means nothing to you. Don't pretend you are someone you're not."
I have wounded Cutler with my blatant lie; I can see it in the way his lips quiver for a fraction of a second. But I must. I must break him in order to make him whole again; I have to convince him to let me sacrifice myself for him.
"Are you saying this is an act? That I am still the power hungry tycoon I was before I almost drowned? That is gone! Washed away with the tide! Can't you see that?"
I gasp, trying to hold back a sob. Slowly I walk towards Cutler. I feel the pain I must be giving him with my lies as if it is my own. Before I die, I want to see his face one more time, without the cloth. His hand almost stops me as I unwind it, but I persist and his hand falls back to his side. When I remove the cloth and I behold his scarred visage, I can almost discern how he must have looked before the burns. He is handsome, unbelievably so, even with the scars.
"I won't let you do this, Winnifred," he warns. I think he sees through my lies. He extends a hand as if to stop me. He is facing the wrong direction, though, as I have inched around him and snatched up the goblets myself.
"And I won't let you stop me." I reach to my neck and tear off the cameo of my mother resting there that I took from my father after he died.
"Here," I say, wrapping it around the stem of the goblet with the mermaid tear and thrusting it into his hand. "Me father always said I was the spitting image of my mum. When you can see again, remember me by it, will you?"
Cutler's fingers found the cameo and traced its carvings frantically over and over. He wanted to throw it to the ground. This image was not his Winnifred, it would never be. The woman he loved would always be to him the smell of the sea, the rough texture of her hand in his, the sound of her voice echoing the words of Shakespeare on a lonely night in a quiet hut. He didn't give a damn what she looked like, he didn't give a damn if he ever saw again, he only cared if he could live the rest of his life with her, always and forever together, never apart. Why didn't she understand that?
"Winnifred, don't do this! I won't lose you, I can't! You are my eyes! My love, my love, WINNIFRED!" His voice is all desperation as he pleads with me. I am crying now, but the tears make no difference, cannot weather away at my resolve. I scoop up some water from the Fountain into my cup.
"I won't need to be your eyes once you drink this, don't you understand? I want to do this," I tell him. "Once I drink this, I don't know if I will die immediately or not, so I suggest you drink quickly afterwards so my life energy is not wasted."
"Winnifred-" Cutler begs once more, but I pretend to not hear.
"Drink," I order, and he does, his hand shaking all the while. A faint smile passes over my lips as I follow suit.
The last thing I know is the metallic taste of the chalice against my lips, the cold sluice of water down my throat-
Cutler heard a thump, and even without seeing, he knew it was the sound of Winnifred's body slumping lifelessly to the ground. He dropped to his knees to feel about for her; and his hand found contact with her arm. In an instant he was cradling her against his body, rocking back and forth, and tears were streaming down his eyes, blurring his vision… his vision?
Slowly he opened his eyes…
Winnifred lay in front of him, her large featured face still in death. Large nose, large eyes, large lips. Unkempt brown dreadlocks framed her round face and fell uncut to her waist, bound haphazardly with hemp halfway down. Her skin was sun browned and weather beaten, her arms sculpted and lean, her legs short and her torso long. She was not beautiful. Cutler had seen many a more stunning woman and felt his heart bestir none. Winnifred, on the other hand, had set his heart to beating so many times with just a voice, a touch- but no more. No more.
He brushed a stray lock away from her face and let himself weep, feeling his body shake and quiver with the force of the sobs, his world narrowing down until it was only Winnifred he saw, only Winnifred he registered. It was because of this that he did not notice the stealthy approach of the mermaid coming back, hovering in the water with her arms folded on shore and regarding him curiously.
When he finally did look up and notice her, his grief immediately boiled to rage.
"What are you doing here?" He demanded, his voice breaking. "It's your fault that she's dead, you know!" He accused, practically spitting out the word "death."
"It's the girl's own fault. She took the goblet, and she drank of its contents, in full knowledge of the consequences."
"Because of you!" he screamed at her. "Because you escaped! We had a plan, we had the chalices, the tear, the Fountain, the sacrifice- all ruined in a moment, because you escaped! Betrayed once more, at the last possible moment… betrayed once more…" his voice trailed off as he looked down at Winnifred, tears brimming in his eyes again. "She's dead. I can see her face, but it's for naught, as she's dead."
The mermaid looked at him askance for a moment, and then suddenly drew herself up out of the water.
"You can save her, you know." Cutler's head shot up so fast he cricked his neck.
"How?" The single syllable was dripping with desperation.
"Drink from the Fountain, but this time, give her the tear." Cutler's brows drew together, contemplating her idea.
"Could it work? Can an immortal bring back a mortal from the dead?" And what would happen to me? He added in his mind. He quickly decided that it was beside the point. "Would you lend me a tear?" The mermaid nodded.
"Willingly." To his amazement, before his eyes a tear rolled down her cheek, as if bidden. She caught it in a cup and held both under the fountain for a moment before handing them to Cutler. "Good luck." Cutler nodded, and in one swift moment downed the tear-less concoction. It was harder to get the water down Winnifred's throat, but eventually a trickled permeated. He sat back in tense expectation, every molecule of him primed for some feeling, some stirring of life that might betray the fact that it had worked…
Winnifred's body gave a jerk, spasmed for a moment, and then she opened her eyes
A smile broke out on Cutler's face, a smile happier than any he had ever smiled, and he laughed aloud as Winnifred sat up, a bemused look on her face.
Suddenly I am blinking, and Cutler looms above me, laughing. I have no idea what has just transpired… shouldn't I be dead? Perhaps I have gone to heaven. I could get used to being dead if this is what heaven looks like. But suddenly, as Cutler shouts joyfully,
"It worked! It worked! Oh, thank God, it worked!" I have a suspicion I am not in heaven.
"What worked, Cutler? The Fountain? I though I had cured you… you…" I only notice now his face- his face is free of scars! It is whole, and handsome, and he is looking at me. Actually looking at me! He can see! I throw my arms around him breathlessly and say in his ear,
"You can see, so why ain't I dead? Isn't that what the ritual requires? A sacrifice?" Mannalin answers me.
"You made yourself a sacrifice for him, and he has just returned the favor. Only once have I heard from my sisters of this being done before, but never in my lifetime. A life was traded for an immortality, and now an immortality has been traded for a life. You live once more and your love can see, but neither of you shall live forever."
"Is it true, Cutler? You saved me?" I can feel him shaking beneath my arms. I smooth his shoulders to calm him.
"Yes. As the mermaid said… a debt repaid. God knows I owed you one." I say the only thing I can.
"Thank you." He removes my arms from his neck and holds me at arms length, with one hand tracing my jaw.
For the first time, Cutler can see the woman with whom he has spent a year with. His eyes rake over her features, drinking her in, reveling in his sight one more. The plain, rough-hewn features of the fisherwoman before him are the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He owes much and more to this woman- his life, his sight, and his love. It is the very least he can do to thank her.
"Don't thank me, Winnifred. It is you who deserves it. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times over, for everything."
For once he can see what he is doing and he kissed her, long and hard, tangling his hands in her hair as she slipped her hands around his waist. He heard a slight splash somewhere behind Winnifred. The mermaid, Mannalin, he thinks to himself. He's glad he did not kill her after all.
A/N: Hmmm… I'm not sure if I'm happy the way this turned out, might have been a bit too fluffy… but I guess it's for you guys to decide that.
Put down those remotes, and don't go anywhere, because this story isn't done yet! Wanna find out what happens next for Winnifred and Cutler? Stay tuned for the epilogue, coming up tomorrow! (And don't forget to leave a review!)