A/N: This, my dears, is the final chapter. I am so appreciative of your reviews. They kept me going. This has, by far, been the most challenging, the most entertaining, and the most rewarding story I have ever written, including my original works. It's sort of a sad day because I feel that I am saying goodbye to all of you, and to Jack. Being inside his head for so long was quite the experience, but I guess I still have the movies and all your works, which are wonderful. Thank you for your time and your comments, and I hope you've enjoyed The Sparrow's Journey. - Willofthewisp
The sea turtles shuffled little hash marks into the surf on their way to the ocean. Propping up their front flippers, they wiggled over to the magic point where the sand and the sea merge and disappeared into it. Jack smiled, recalling the legend of the sea turtles coming to his rescue on that island, wondering how anyone could believe little babies like those could pull him. When they all waded into the water and let it carry them away, he read Teague's note for the sixteenth time. No man had handwriting like that, more like the scratches that formed ancient runes rather than the spidery penmanship of a man who purported to be a British gentleman.
Pirate King needs you. Puerto Rico.
He wished he could have sent Gibbs ahead to scout Fort San Felipe del Morro, not too far away, but he came alone, prepping to listen to whatever story Teague offered up, return his mother to him, and never see the tippler again. Folding his arms, he looked out onto the horizon, the sun beginning to sink out of view.
He walked along the beach down to the harbor. The ships lay still, their masts leaning over and whispering to each other every few moments when a breeze came. He'd know the Golden Queen if he saw it, bloody hell, he'd sailed it, but any other ship would be unrecognizable. All but one, he corrected himself, kicking the sand at the thought of the Pearl, still succumbing to Barbossa's hands on her helm, his boots walking up and down her deck. I'll find you, he'd promised her three years ago from inside a dinghy. I'll find you. The legends that preceded it often flooded his ears, some lone chap in a bar retelling the story of the ship that tackled the Flying Dutchman and ended the life of Lord Cutler Beckett all in one battle.
Believing anything Teague said required a certain amount of trust Jack simply did not possess, let alone anything Teague said about Elizabeth. He'd visited last year, to make sure she and her boy were, were…well, the time he had visited before that, Lizzie lay in bed, paler than he had ever seen her, dark circles under her eyes providing the only color. Being with child turned her thin neck into a gaunt one, but yet she greeted him with a smile and let him hold a pink little baby in his arms, little William. No, Billy, she had corrected him, insisting he wouldn't want to be called William. Last year, mother's intuition proved itself as the little pirate ran up to Jack and hugged his knees, introducing himself as Billy, claiming Jack's heart in an instant. Lizzie followed him in fine form, sunned and fierce as ever. Legends about her began circling and Jack especially enjoyed the one about Pirate King Elizabeth refusing to turn her ship around in battle, pointing her sword right at Captain Teague's throat and ordering him to stay on penalty of death.
So wrapped up in his memories, Jack did a double take when he spied the Black Pearl making her way into harbor, her maidenhead staring right at him, sending the bird in her hand over to him. She glided through the glittery waters, silhouettes of crewmen setting the anchor. They exited her one by one, tying her off and slapping each other's backs all the way down the pier and into town. He didn't know a one of them. He bit his lip at the thought of needing to thank Teague for the Pearl, if he chose to give her back to him.
Brushing his coat aside, his fingers found the butt of his pistol still in its holster. A few more nameless faces ran past him, but he waited for the face of the good captain. About to run up and take the offensive position, Jack hesitated.
Instead of Teague, Elizabeth stretched her legs out on the pier, hair loose under a black tri-corner hat. She waved over at him and made her way towards him.
"What are ye doing here?" he asked.
"What am I doing here? Is that any way to talk to the person who found your ship?"
Jack said nothing, reaching out and feeling the Pearl's helm, petting her the way he had petted his dogs when he was little. It was really the Pearl, cleaned and patched and warm from the Caribbean sun.
"You, you didn't kill Barbossa for her, did ye?"
"No!" she laughed, amused at his reaction. "Hector's quite reasonable when one is in a position to make demands of him. But you see he did take great care of her. He promised me he did. And I inspected most of it myself." She led him back up to the deck, but he marched straight into his cabin. Sighing at the sight of his books, his charts, his rum all intact, he smiled back at her.
"And he left it just how I like it," he said, gesturing at the stack of papers spilling over the desk.
"Unfortunately."
"Where's Billy?"
"He's at Shipwreck Cove, staying with your father for the time being." Elizabeth shut the door of the cabin, but so casually Jack didn't notice. He kept circling around the cabin, running his hands over everything to prove it was real. He thought he couldn't love her anymore than he did three years ago when she read his mind and substituted him for Will, but bringing him his ship, his ship at last, made him wish he would forget she was married and throw her down on his bed.
"Thank you," he breathed, turning back to face her, raising his eyebrow at the closed door.
"Jack," she said, inching closer. "I've received some news. I thought you should know it."
He raised an eyebrow at her sudden timid manner. He swayed over to the desk and sat on top of it, motioning for her to take the chair. Picking up a bottle, he uncorked it and poured the contents into two glasses.
"None for me, thank you."
"Relax, love. No one's trying to get you drunk." He set the glass in front of her, about to sigh at her stubbornness, when she passed a folded piece of paper to him. For once, he couldn't read the expression on her face. He held his breath as he opened it and read silently.
My dearest Elizabeth,
I hope these three years have been good to you, providing you the adventures you deserve. I hope even harder that Billy is well and doing all that you ask of him. He must be such a comfort to you. The pictures and scribbles he sends me always bring a smile to my face, and to my father's face.
I will come straight to the point, Elizabeth. I have met someone. I won't fill your heart with any more sadness than it has already seen, so I will spare you the details of how I found her. But I found her clinging to a dark piece of driftwood, half alive. She was the sole survivor. She was young, and in many ways, she reminded me of you, the fight in her eyes. I couldn't bear to lead her to the afterlife so I offered her a position on my ship, and it was a gratifying decision. Surely now Mr. Gibbs would agree with all of us that a woman aboard a ship is not bad luck.
That was not too long ago and I feel I must tell you the truth—which is that I love her. I will of course take advantage of my privilege to step on the land seven years from now, to see you and to see Billy, but I cannot bear to see you alone and sorrowful.
What my prayer has been every night since my first night on this ship is that you will have a happy life, a full one. No one deserves to be King of all the pirates more than you, and no one deserves as wonderful a son as you. I still hold you in my heart, Elizabeth, but I have moved on and if one day you feel the same way about someone else, don't hold back. Let him know and give him your heart in full. There is much in it.
Jack folded the letter and handed it back to her, maintaining an outward illusion of complete calm. It seemed obvious what she wanted, but he'd gotten his hopes up so many times, hoping for her, he refused to do the same thing now. She would tell him the purpose of all of this and he would have a good laugh at himself later for thinking it could be anything otherwise. "I trust then you won't be needing me to drop you off anywhere to see any supernatural ships then."
"If that's all you have to say to that, I'll take that drink." She picked up the glass, but it came nowhere near her lips.
Jack tried to think straight, knowing that she came here, confided in him, for one of two reasons, one of them being that this letter was recent and made her so despondent she desperately sought out someone to take second place and listen to how she wasted the best years of her life on as unworthy a man as the captain of the Flying Dutchman. Too afraid to consider his options, if that was the reason, he started praying it was reason number two.
"Lizzie," he began, rolling his tongue inside his mouth. He wanted to ask if it upset her, but he knew it did no matter what she felt. He wanted to ask her what she wanted him to ask. "Lizzie, have you missed me?"
"Jack, I should be counting the days until Will steps on land, and instead, I've been counting the days in between your visits." She reached across and rested her hand on top of his, grasping his fingers as if the tips themselves were what caused her blood to flow through her body. "You know you were always more than a second place, don't you?"
She climbed up onto the desk and settled into his lap, straddling him so they faced each other. This wasn't true, he told himself. It's in your imagination, Lizzie curled up in your lap. She looked into his eyes, her lips trembling at the strain of formulating sentences. At last she gave up and pulled him to her, a stream of kisses following. "I love you, Jack," she said in between them. "Is it too late?"
Unable to speak, he opened his mouth and kissed her harder, almost falling backward off the desk. It wasn't true. It was a dream, kissing her in his own cabin.
"Stay with me," he murmured, lifting the two of them off the desk. His lips dropped to her throat, his fingers running up to her scalp and crinkling her hair, eliciting a deep moan from her. Her eyes were closed, but he could see joyous tears dripping out of them. "I'll go mad if you leave me again."
"Not to worry," Elizabeth said. Her hands released his back and clung to his belt. She tucked her fingers in and brushed his hip bone. Oh, how well she knew his mind and his heart and now his body. Groaning at the touch, he cupped a breast and sat on his bed, still kissing the woman on his lap. She let an excited giggle erupt when he unbuttoned the last of the buttons on her blouse and slid the garment off of her. The sound sent him over the edge and he pulled her down to him.
"That's it, love."
XXX
Seven years later…
Jack opened his eyes, wanting nothing more than to shut them and sink down into his mattress and pillow. But not today, he thought, reaching a blind arm across to the ledge for the only timepiece on the Pearl. Still pitch-black save for a candle or two over on the desk, he could take a guess at the time. So early, he said to himself when he squinted his eyes just enough to see the time. Un altro giorno.
Rolling over, he threw his arms around her waist and let a leg drape over hers. Burying his face into the back of her neck, he breathed her in, suddenly happy he was awake. There had been so many days when he doubted they'd last this long, that one of their tempers would finally drive away the other one, that a tropical storm would wash one of them away, that a distant pirate in some far-off land would be quicker, more skilled, and one would have to watch the other one…he held her tighter.
"It's like a corset," she sighed in a groggy voice and rolled over to kiss him. She stroked his jaw and almost toppled onto him. "What was the time?"
"Too early, if ye ask me."
"I'm surprised Billy hasn't jumped in here to wake us up."
"You don't hear that?" he asked. He hovered over her and knocked on the bulkhead. In the smaller adjoining cabin they'd built for Billy and Cora, a knock answered them. "He's been doing that, testing you, for over an hour. I'm just old enough to block it out."
She tumbled over him and threw on some clothes. He smiled at her kept promise to him to never wear anything to bed while she gathered her hair and pulled the sides up into a bun.
"What do you have planned for you and Cora today?"
"No idea." He spread out his arms and exhaled, knowing he would not be able to go back to sleep. He scolded the selfish part of him that felt like his Lizzie and his boy were leaving him, even for just a day. But it had been his idea, hadn't it, he remembered, to give them this day to have for themselves.
"It's not too late to come with us. Will certainly won't mind seeing you."
"If he's not bringing his lady, there is no way I'm going and watching you throw yourself at him," he teased, gripping her skirt when she walked by. She stood over him, giving him a loving smile. He pulled her down and touched her lips with his, his body begging her to throw off her frock and come back to bed.
"It's you who will probably throw himself at someone today," she played back, as always. "I have one day to let my son meet his father and as soon as the sun sets, I'll come back to find you in some whore's arms."
"And in her nether-regions. Don't sell Captain Jack Sparrow short." Another knock came from the other side of the bulkhead and Jack knocked back. "Tonight," he whispered to her.
"Tonight, what?" She whispered back, leaning into him.
"Elizabeth Catherine Sparrow, you know better than to press up against me unless you have any intention of following through."
"Tonight," she whispered again, kissing him one more time before she left.
XXX
After finally convincing Cora she wouldn't drown if she let her whole head slip under the water, Jack pulled her up into his arms and slipped under the water with her. She giggled, had her mum's laugh, and repositioned herself so he looked down at her back. Holding her waist, she kicked her legs and paddled her arms, her stroke growing more and more competent, and her father growing prouder and prouder.
It had been a long time for Elizabeth to have another baby. For such a long time, it was just the three of them, and now, a little four-year-old girl tugged on his hands, rambling on and on about how well she did. He grinned at her, climbing all over his back and chest until she was on his shoulders. Tonight, he would hear Billy talk nonstop about Will, and he had to admit, he looked forward to it. He'd sent the boy along with his own hat, finally beginning to see Lizzie's point that he looked like Will. For years, Jack only saw Lizzie in Billy's face, but now he could see William, that determined, sharp look William had always had. And then also tonight, he'd get his wife back, eager to tell him that it was such a relief she and Will still maintained such a strong friendship and that he hadn't aged a day. Then she'd tell him how, even if it was only a day, she missed Captain Jack Sparrow with an unrelenting longing and would entwine with him.
"Papa," Cora said, spitting out some seawater. "Billy taught me a song."
"What's that, love?" he teased her by pretending he didn't hear. "You got me so wet I can't hear properly."
"I said Billy taught me a song! He taught me your song. 'We burn up the city, we're really a fright…'" she trailed off.
"Oy! Did you forget the best part?"
"I want to hear you do it," she whispered shyly. Hard to believe this is the same girl what tossed his charts all over the place yesterday, pretending it wasn't her who drew all over them when he opened the door and caught her, well, drawing all over his charts and then tossing them as if that turned back time. Lord, how she looked like her mum.
"If you insist. 'Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!'" It was quite a life, a married pirate lord with the very King for his wife, both of them now with heirs to pass their Pieces of Eight to…it was a pirate's life for all of them.
The End