Little Sparrow
Summary: "Now up is down," was the last thing any of them heard before the rush of water drowned everything else out. Later, waking up on a random, deserted island, they almost immediately notice that something was not right with their Captain. Sparrington, Salazak, Willabeth, maybe others mentioned.
"Oh bugger."
No sooner than had those words left his lips did the all too familiar - to him - alarm bell started ringing, shaking the entire Cove with it's too loud sound. The pirates all looked up in panic, the Keeper's men grimly tightening their hold on their weapons and Ivan and Ian stepping closer to Jack as all the Pirate Lords reached for their weapons. Said pirate found himself sandwiched between Will at his front and Elizabeth at his back, Frederico and James flanking him like shields as more yelling started around the room.
"Our location has been betrayed!" Sao Feng called out to his fellow Pirate Lords, halting further arguments with his loud and authoritative voice. "Davy Jones is under the Command of Lord Cutler Beckett. They're on their way here."
''Who is this betrayer?'' Jacord demanded angrily, slamming his mace of African dark wood against the big table threateningly, murmurs rising around the meeting chambers.
''Who else, but the most silver-tongued of them all?'' The Singapore Pirate Lord turned his gaze to Jack, who was as pale as a sheet. He wasn't even paying attention to what was going on around him, just looking at the moving needle of his faithful Compass and trying to comprehend what it was showing him.
Elizabeth jumped in to defend him since he didn't seem keen on doing it on his own. "That's preposterous!" She exclaimed, cocking a gun at one of Tai Huang's men that came too close, thinking he had went unnoticed. "Jack has been in Davy Jones Locker for the past year, since his death, and he's been with us day and night ever since!"
"We all know how very ... resourceful Jack Sparrow can be." Sao Feng sneered, leering at the youthful Caribbean Pirate Lord, who was still not paying them any heed or attention. "I am sure that, to save his own hide, he would gladly sell our necks to the enemy."
"Not to the likes of Beckett!" Both Swann and Turner protested and even Barbossa nodded in agreement. He had met Sparrow after the man's dealings with Beckett and he knew part of the general story of what went down. If there was ever a man Sparrow, who never really held a grudge and forgave all too easily, hated, than it was that midget Lord, Cutler Beckett.
"Besides, Capt'n be too young to even know of Beckett!" Gibbs threw in, being perhaps the only one other than Tia Dalma that knew the exact moment Jack had turned to piracy for good. "He has no memories past his eighteenth summer and that be a long year before he met Beckett!"
"And it was him who told you his age, was it?" The Chinese man persisted, glaring over Will's shoulder at the still dazed Sparrow.
"Witty Jack did not even know wot be happenin' when 'e woke up." The voodoo witch spoke up, glaring death at Sao Feng. "Him be no traitor. Not when Beckett be de one ta take somethin' most precious from 'im."
That had the desired effect and Jack's head snapped up while the Pearl's voice hissed in his ear. The Compass was momentarily forgotten, as was the impossibility heading their way, in light of the one thing no one had been able or willing to tell him since he woke up and saw his ship was now entirely black because it was covered in sooth. His eyes went straight to Feng as the man continued trying to make his case to the Brethren Court, who looked unsure as to what to think or do. For they knew of Jack's exploits against the EITC's best interests and they knew his motto was freedom. It seemed almost impossible it could be him, but they had seen stranger things happen in their lives.
"And how do you know he was not faking it, his lack of memory? Hm?" The man approached the group, not at all fearing the guns and swords pointed at him, nor the archers and snipers still hidden somewhere just out of sight on the balconies overhead. He met Will's glare with a smirk of his own before his eyes slid to Jack. "If you know the Code so well, then I do believe you know what is done to traitors."
Jack met his gaze unflinchingly, black eyes hard as onyxes. "And what makes you so certain that I am the betrayer? Have you any proof to present to the Brethren Court besides sending men to infiltrate my crew, mutiny and take over my ship before handing us all over to your waiting hands?" Cries of outrage came from the Keeper's men upon hearing this and Jacord and Mistress Ching looked neigh uncomfortable at this turn of events, as well as very, very angry. Jack's smile was razor sharp. "How did you like the company of Captain Finch and his Code-breaking crew of miscreants? Tried to rob you as well?" He boldly pushed William out of the way and came to stand chest to chest with the older man, ignoring his crew's and friends' protests. "If you're going to betray the Brethren Court, mate, do be less obvious about it that even the Spanish catch on."
"So you are playing for two sides, Sparrow." Sao Feng tried to redirect the growing ire of the Brethren Court from himself to Jack. Unsuccessful, it was. Piteous, really.
"Far from it being playing for two sides if information is given freely by a good friend." Jack took out his pistol and pointed it at Feng's face before the other man could blink. "All the conformation I needed was from a few more aquatic friends of mine. You really should keep a weather eye on the horizon, mate. You never know who might be listening and the sirens do have big ears."
Sao lunged for him but Victor, appearing out of seemingly nowhere, ran him through the shoulder before he could reach the youngest Pirate Lord and Feng went down with a cry of pain.
Jack looked down at him dispassionately. "And I do know the punishment for betrayal. Pray to all gods that will listen that it be me who punishes you and not the Keeper. You won't like him when he's angry." He walked past the downed figure of the Singapore leader and instead faced the enraged Brethren Court. "I fear he might be right as to our locations having been found, ladies and gentleman. But it matters not how they found us. The question is,'' He paused, meeting each of their eyes in turn to express how grave the situation was. Oh, they had no idea. "What will we do now that they have?"
Murmurs broke out in the room before Elizabeth, brazen youth that she is, boldly spoke up, seeing that no one seemed to have any idea as to what they should do. "We fight!" She was nearly laughed out of the room.
Mistress Ching at least took pity on her fellow she-pirate to explain, although her voice was somehow half mocking, half patronizing as she said it. "Shipwreck Cove is a fortress. A well-supplied fortress. There is no need to fight if they cannot get to us." Which was, of course, more than true. Shipwreck Cove was used as the center of all 'political order' among pirates for this very reason. If there was ever a safe port for all pirates, no matter what was going on, it was Shipwreck Island, its Cove and the Tow within it.
Babrossa discarded her suggestion and gave his own."There be a third course." That got their attention and Hector used it to the best of his abilities, making quite a thetric scene of it all. He had learned from the best, after all, after being around Jack Sparrow for how long he had. "In another age, at this very spot, the First Brethren Court captured the sea goddess and bound her in her bones." The Brethren Court nodded along, knowing the story well, interested to see where he was going. Babrossa nodded with them before almost sneering at them in half pity, as though he saw them as idiots. "That was a mistake." At the shocked and indignant faces they were making, he hurried on before they could interrupt him. "Oh, we tamed the seas for ourselves, aye. But opened the door to Beckett and his ilk!"
No one could argue his point and so they stayed quiet. Jack wanted to applaud him, only he knew this won't lead them anywhere but towards more bickering. The matter of Calypso was closed ages ago. Although they might change their minds if they knew what Jack now knew. He was just waiting for the messenger to come and confirm what his Compass was telling him. They were near. Jack could feel it and excitement and dread both coursed through him. He could not decide which was winning.
"Better were the days when mastery of seas came not from bargains struck with eldritch creatures, but from the sweat of a man's brow and the strength of his back alone. You all know this to be true. Gentlemen. Ladies." He nodded to the few female pirates present as he placed his hands, clasped, in front of himself, feigning calm and confidence in the face of the possible bad reaction hi words might result in. "We must free Calypso."
There was an immediate uproar when what he said registered, all the Pirate Lords calling that he was mad, for his death or tongue cutting or tongue cutting and his death. Barbossa, for all that he had braced himself, still seemed surprised that it was that bad of a reaction and started looking a bit worried.
"I agree with Barbossa!" For all that Sao Feng was technically a traitor and should have been killed by now, he was still one of the current Pirate Lords and he was, at least at the moment, needed, so he had been let up by the overzealous to kill him Victor sometime during Barbossa's speech with a prompting from Jack's glare. It wouldn't do for the Keeper's own men to be breaking one of the most 'sacred' laws of the Code regarding the Brethren. He was still held at arrow point by the archers, as were all of his men, so it was okay for the ground pirates to let him be. For now.
"Calypso was our enemy then, she will be our enemy now." Jacord argued reasonably.
"It's unlikely her mood's improved." Chevalle agreed with a nod, grumbling about women under his breath in French. Jack hoped Tia Dalma didn't hear him.
"I would still agree with Sao Feng. We release Calypso." Eduardo Villanueva said, slamming a pistol down on the table, looking up at the tall Frenchman from his low statured point of view with a fierce glare.
"You threaten me?" Said French Pirate Lord sounded both incredulous and enraged at the audacity of the shorter man.
"I silence you!" When the Pirate Lords started clobbering each other again, Jack got sick of it but stopped from doing anything as a messenger ran in to the room, nearly bumping into him when he saw Jack's youthful appearance, mouth going agape.
"M-master Jack?"
"What have you to report, lad?" Jack ignored that the 'lad' was at least seventeen years his senior and instead arched his eyebrow to get him talking. It worked, of course, and the man actually saluted him like a proper Navy man, giving a report to his superior officer. Jack wondered where they got this one.
"An armada heading our way, sir, led by two extremely fast ships hauling a big one behind them, sir." The man immediately said, not caring about the chaos going on around them. "The Watch has counted over a hundred and fifty ships all together and they have identified the Flying Dutchman, sir, and the Endeavor, sir." He avoided a man flung their way with practiced ease, Jack's own self moved out of the way by the Russian twins that served as his shadows. "The other ship hauling the Endeavor, sir, well ... You're not going to believe this, sir."
"And as I am now is anymore believable than whatever the Watch saw, how, exactly?" Sparrow asked with wry humor that at least made the man relax a little.
"I see your point." He nodded before steeling himself for the news he was about to share. "The Watch said the other ship was actually a shipwreck, manned by ghosts. And their sails, tattered as they were, were said to be depicting a bird, Mater Jack, sir."
"An eagle, no doubt." The Captain of the previously Wicked Wench now the Black Pearl didn't need to hear any more. The messenger blinked at him in astonishment.
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Because that, mate, is none other than the Silent Mary." It took a moment for Jack's words to register before the messenger went white as a sheet. He looked ready to star shaking or go through a mental breakdown due to fear. Jack couldn't let that happen so he grabbed the man's shoulders and looked at him gravely. "Tell the gunning crew that defenses are to be on alert. Inform everyone. Keep quiet about the Mary to anyone not on the immediate need to know list. I'll deal with this lot, here." When the man scurried away to do as he was told, Jack pulled out his Compass again. They were close.
"This is madness," he heard Elizabeth say and he couldn't help himself.
"This is politics, Lizzie. Pure politics."
She paid him little heed. "Meanwhile, our enemies are bearing down upon us." The woman said grimly as she and Will pushed away a burly Italian man that made as if to stab them, Frederico finishing him off before he could attack anyone else.
"If they not be here already." Barbossa said pessimistically. He then jumped up onto the table a shot his gun once, twice in order to get the Brethren Court's attention, glaring at them all and looking rather silly on the table. Jack frowned at the marks his dirty boots left on the wood. "It was the First Court what imprisoned Calypso. We should be the ones to set her free. And in her gratitude, she will see fit to grant us boons." He sounded persuasive but Jack pipped up from where he was still glaring at the boots on hte table.
"Whose boons? Your boons?" He looked up at the glaring Caspian Sea Pirate Lord, grinning innocently. "Utterly deceptive twaddle-speak, says I."
Barbossa kept glaring at him as he stepped down."If you have a better alternative, please, share."
Jack opened his mouth but then closed it, as his Pearl giggled words into his ear, something that she insisted his older self would say. As he thought it over, a smile had to tug at his lips lest it turn into a smug smirk. Maybe he hadn't changed that much in the past twenty years, if only he started hiding his true self. "Cuttlefish."He resisted the urge to grin with childish glee at the utterly stunned looks on the faces of his fellow Pirate Lords and every other man and woman in the room. "Aye. Let us not, dear friends," he said as he started walking around the room, through the crowds of pirates, towards the other end of the table, unoccupied by anyone else. "Forget our dear friends, the cuttlefish. Flipping glorious little sausages. Pen them up together, they'll devour each other without a second thought. Human nature, isn't it? Or... Or fish nature."He leaned into a China man's face who was looking at him with that particular look in his eyes that Jack knew he could take advantage of. He easily bypassed the man and came to stand behind Mistress Ching, placing his hands on her tense shoulders, giving her a little massage so she wouldn't protest while her men went for their swords. Not that it would help. An arrow was faster than a sword can ever be and Shipwreck Cove's archers were some of the best in the world. "So, yes, we could hole up here well-provisioned and well-armed. Half of us would be dead within the month. Either because we cannot get along or because the Keeper will get fed up with us all invading his home 24/7. Which seems quite grim to me, any way you slice it. Or..." He made to go through a crowd of African pirates, but they glared t him. Jacord was nice enough to push his chair in a little more so he can walk around them, past the Pirate Lord of the Atlantic and towards Eduardo and his men. "As my learned colleague so naively suggests, we can release Calypso, and we can pray that she will be merciful." He leaned in to Eduardo and one of his shorter, chubby pirates."I rather doubt it."
He leaned up and continued on through the pirates as he made his case, aware that some of the Frenchmen were glaring daggers at Villanueva and his men who had guns trained on his back. He paid it no mind. "Can we pretend she's anything other than a woman scorned like which fury hell hath no?" He answered his own question before either Sao Feng, Barbossa or Villanueva could say something stupid and utterly suicidal at this point. Jack knew how to work a crowd, how to manipulate people. He had the audience. He held court here, thank you very much. "We cannot. Res ipsa loquitur, tabula in naufragio." He finally turned to face the room at large, enjoying the smug satisfaction on Chivalle's face and the utter flabbergasted expressions on everyone else's but Frederico's, Tia Dalma's and those who work in the Cove. "We are left with but one option."
"And what be that, Sparrow?" Sao Fenge sneered from his place at the other end of the table, sharing it now with a wary Barbossa.
"I fully agree with Miss Elizabeth Swann. We must fight." He could see the protests rising and pitched his voice lower, losing all good humor and turning as serious as death itself. "If we wish to survive." Elizabeth, who had been beaming that he had taken her side, felt her smile slip as she registered his grave tone of voice.
"You've always ran from a fight!" Barbossa protested, trying to shake Jack's argument. Sparrow looked at him as though he had grown a second head.
''Right. Tell that to the crew of the Silent Mary. They're waiting outsid-" Jack clamped his mouth shut and put both hands over it for good measure, for he had not planned to let that slip. "Uh, can we pretend I never said that?" Utter panic broke lose, people screaming, pirates jumping off of balconies, running towards the closed council chamber doors where the guards were still keeping them closed until the meeting was dismissed. "Guess not." He grumbled to himself before putting two fingers between his lips and giving out a loud, sharp whistle that made them all flinch.
Barbossa, was predictably, trying to use this new situation to his advantage but Jack wasn't going to have any of that. Of course, Barbossa seemed ready to fight fire with fire and called upon the one thing he had learned Jack will never go against, for whatever strange, inconceivable reason. "As per the Code, an act of war, and this be exactly that, can only be declared by the Pirate King."
Jack went as stiff as a board, glaring at the older captain of the Black Pearl. Gillete looked aghast. "You just made that up."
"'Fraid not, Philip." Sparrow's reply went unheard due to Barbossa's louder one.
"Did I, now?" Jack braced himself, knowing what will follow. "I call on Cap'n Teague, Keeper of the Code." A heavy silence fell across the room at those words and Jack tried not to show any outwardly reactions. Well, this was going to be interesting. And tense. And awkward. May he fellow heathen gods help Tia Dalma, for Calypso or not, she had not yet faced a force of nature that was an overprotective Captain Edward Teague.
One of Sri Sumbhajee's, foolishly bravely and blindly loyally spoke then in the stead of his Captain. "Sri Sumbhajee proclaims this all to be folly! Hang the code. Who cares a-" He was cut out by a sharp, deafeningly loud shot of the pistol before he fell to the floor, dead, shot through the heart. The petrified pirates all looked towards the staircase behind Jack that he knew was there and led to a private office of the Keeper where he reviewed any and all reports of breaking the code from all around the world and dispatched his men to go and take care of it accordingly. He had climbed those very same stairs countless times in his childhood and briefly wondered when he had ascended them the last time before his death by Kraken.
An old pirate in an elaborate, red, leather coat and a big, captain's hat with a feather climbed down the stairs slowly, his gun still smoking. He had tanned, age wrinkled skin with a scar or two on his cheeks, a beard very similar to Jack's with fuller mustache, his hair, slowly graying, also fashioned in dreadlocks and decorated with trinkets, most of them crosses and simple, white beads. His steps were confident and precise, still holding some swagger of his younger days, back proud and unbent by time. Had he not been dressed in worn and slightly dirtied clothes, he might have been mistaken for royalty.
"The Code is the law." He said as he blew at his gun before replacing it at his belt. He came up behind Jack and gestured at his men to bring forth a gigantic tome before, for the first time, acknowledging Jack's presence there. "You're in my way, boy."
A sharp pain pierced through Jack's heart. He did as he was told, ducking his head a little so the Keeper won't notice his youthful face. So they had had a falling out over the years, it would seem. Teague's voice had never been like that with Jack, even when they were trying to hide any association between them from the rest of the world. Brisk and cold was not a treatment Jack was used from the old Pirate Lord of Madagascar.
The Pearl was whispering soothingly in his ear as the Code was placed upon the table, heavy and well locked with only good ol' Doggy coming up to him with the keys. He watched as Teague made a show of searching for the right sentence when Jack knew he had the entire book as well memorized as Jack did. "Ah. Babrossa is right," he said, tapping a certain line on the big page.
Sick of being ignored, Jack frowned and stepped forward, shocking those who didn't know his relationship with the Keeper at his audacity. "Wait a minute." He made to also pretend to be reading the book when the older man whirled around at the sound of his voice, his face shocked, the impassive mask gone.
Two pairs of equally black eyes met for the first time in many years (not that the eighteen year old Jack knew that).
"Jackie?"