Author note: An extremely long chapter, if I don't say so myself, so I hope
you think it was worth it, the fights not quiet finished yet though, I am
sorry to say. Lol, oh well, it'll have to be a two parter.
Elizabeth Swan/Turner: I was so tempted, I was so so tempted, to make the
sword, cuz it would have been so cool, but it went against my evil plans,
lol, but I think Jack might make a few confessions to a extreamly injured
Ana, (he will NEVER say those words) but you might have to wait till the
next chapter to read them (I am so evil, hehe).
Mallory: Yes mum. Ew. I can't believe you wrote mucus (shakes her head), anyway, yes, I'm feeling kinda better. well, better enough to go out tonight, I mean, stay at home and um, eat cheese cake and get better, yes that's what I'll be doing. Ahem. But I did take your advice and hid my computer, but then I got itchy, with all these thoughts and lines running around in my brain, so I was writing this chapter on paper, which is really illogical, cuz hello, have a computer. But here, I wrote an especially long chapter because of me being sick, and I hope you like it!
Jack fan 2: How good is Don Juan? Omg! Did you see him with his shirt, and oh, and don't have words for how sexy he is, I'm like damn I wish I was his tutor, I would consent all day long. but seriously, I loved the line where he goes "There a four questions worth asking: What is sacred? What is the human spirit made of? What is worth living for? And what is worth dying for? The answer is the same: Love." Loved it, love him. I actually used that for inspiration for Jack's history in the Making of Jack Sparrow. Loved the picture, my god, love my computer now (gives it a hug). Front row tickets to the fight? Lol, I know, Ana and Jack finally get to battle it out, I'm actually quite surprised at the way it worked out. (I suck at writing action, I'm sorry everyone)
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She pushed herself of the cold chest, dropping her head to one side. She tugged at the cord around her neck, allowing the cloak to fall in a puddle around her feet. She stepped gracefully away from the matt of velvet, her feet bare on the cold stones. She held out her arms, as though showing Jack herself. She was wearing just her white slip, her arms naked in the chilled night. No jewellery ordained her, not the cursed medallion or Jack's ring, and her hair fell around her naked shoulders.
"Jack," She said, walking towards him, stepping daintily across the broken stream that ran through the passage. Will started, his eyes widening, as he saw the long scabbard and blade in Ana-Maria's hand. Jack held out a halting hand to Will, allowing Ana-Maria to come meet him.
"You seem a bit inappropriately dressed, love," Jack said, his hand moving from Will, to beacon Ana-Maria to him, much as if she were a wild anima. Ana-Maria looked down at her dress and laughed, her fingers moving to clench the material mid thigh length.
"Well," She said, tilting her head, only a few steps from Jack now, "You usually don't bring company Jack." She raised her eyebrows at the joke, and then nodded towards Will. "Why don't you let the boy run along?"
Jack looked to Will as though considering this, the traces of a smile on his lips and one hand on his beard. His other hand went to his blade, which he drew lingeringly, a hefted from one hand to the other, weighing up her offer.
Then he drove the blade straight into Ana-Maria's chest, a snarl parting his lips.
"You might want to get onto the same page as the rest of us, love," He whispered, and kissed her head. "I didn't come here for a fuck." He released the handle of the blade and watched her stagger backwards.
Her face crumbled with pain, her hands touching the hilt of the blade as though not believing it possible. She staggered again, her feet getting wet, her mouth opening wordlessly. She bit her lip, and then slowly drew the blade out of her stomach, ignoring the red slit the formed on the front of her slip. She threw the blade onto the rocks, and placed her hands on her hips.
"Now Jack, you must have known that wasn't going to work." She said, and the moon passed out from behind a cloud, tearing away Ana-Maria's skin and all the beauty from her face.
Will looked away in disgust at this self-imposed curse. Jack was still, though his hands went to the knife in his belt. The hum of the sword hitting the rock still resounded through the hall, as did Ana-Maria's laugher.
"Jack, sweet sweet Jack, I suppose you think I should be afraid, or that I'm foolish not to be." She raised her arms, stepping back into the shadows, feeling the skin wrap back around her bones. "I mean, isn't this were you took down the great Barbossa?" She queried triumphantly. "How could I stand against you when such a fearsome man could not?" She finished sarcastically.
Jack's sad look put her off slightly.
She was so thin, he thought. Her skin barely covered her arms even in the shade, her eyes large and frightening in her head. She must have forgotten to eat; now she feel the need for it. So strong, and yet so very frail. He felt he could break her with his hands if he wanted to, this small doll like figure, but all he wanted was to hold her and somehow make this okay.
"Where's Elizabeth?" Will said suddenly, pushing past Jack, and glowering at the black slip of a girl. For a moment something like compassion flashed over Ana's face, and Jack saw a weakness. She was redeemable. Then her face-hardened and she laughed again.
"Don't like what you see, do you boy? I wonder if you'd like seeming your Elizabeth, stripped of her skin like me, a decrepit and haunting corpse to torment you waking days and sleepless nights." She spat. Jack noticed how the moonlight rested gently on her hand, turning it to bone and dirt, while the rest of her remained human. He watched this sadly, and noticed how she drew her other hand to her breast, her fingers clutching at the stray black strands of hair that rested there.
"So she is like you." Will said softly, and his eyes dropped to the floor, his lips moving slightly, remorse and weariness evident in his face. Jack could tell he was thinking of the opium, the lovely bliss of it all, the green dreams that he had rode to escape this world. And I have bought him back, Jack thought sourly. I tried to save him, but again for my own ever- selfish reasons.
"Would that make you feel better? That you could rescue her? That you had been able to hurt her enough to drive her to me? You're a fool, and an imbecile and not worthy of her." Ana-Maria said scathingly. Will reached for his sword and she laughed, gesturing to Jack's already fallen blade. "What'll you do? Carve me up? Thought you were a blacksmith, not a butcher." She glanced at Jack. "That title we reserved for Jack."
"If you do not tell me," Will said lowly. "I will run you through so many times that I will give you a new definition of pain."
"Wow," Ana-Maria said, smiling. She pulled a face. "I like this boy when he's off his leash." She looked at Jack's cold unmoving face, and turned away, raising a hand as if defeated. She pushed herself up on the chest, and for a second it looked like a coffin. "I grow weary of this. You think I'm a monster, don't you boy? I know Jack does."
Will glanced at Jack, who was staring off into the distance as though he could not hear nor see. Will pushed back his shoulders and spoke with soft defiance.
"We are the choices me make, cur," He said. Jack looked up at this insult to Ana-Maria but said nothing. Ana-Maria nodded, looking away for a moment, pursing her lips.
"How true, Will. How true and naïve." She said, and laughed, but softly and sombrely, not the mad chaotic laugh of the day she had been hanged, but a mournful one. A laugh of someone who believes they are going to die.
She whipped her hand over her nose, and pushed back her hair.
"Do you know the story of Cortez Will? Did Jack ever tell it to you?" She watched his face, the tanned and ever innocent man he had grown to be. "Of course he did, you were there that first time. Do remember Jack, how we made love the night after you got the pearl back, how we talked of the past, of the future. Did we talk of love that night Jack, or was I just a fool?" She asked, and then shook her head, shaking these thought out.
"That a long time ago." Jack said, obstinately staring at the flowing water in the cavern.
"Time? I thought you said time didn't matter to us. Ten years, but no," She said, and closed her eyes for a second too long. "No, that's not what we came here to do, did we Jack Sparrow?" She scratched her head, and lipped her lips. "No, back to my story, Cortez's story. Do you remember? Blood money, for Cortez's ambitious men, who were cursed because of their greed." She paused and leant forward.
"Do you think, honestly Will, that Elizabeth was ever greedy? Or the unborn child within her?" Will's head snapped up at that.
"Child." He stammered. He looked to Jack, and Jack nodded. "How many secrets would you keep from me Jack."
"The child may not be mine." Jack said gruffly. "The higher chance is that it would be yours, since you two were." He started, raising his hands and leering slightly towards Will.
"Shut up, just shut up." Will said softly.
"Cortez's gold was for the greedy and the weak, the weak like me," Ana continued, unfazed by the effect her words were having. "The curse was never made for mothers and children."
"Mothers and children." Jack repeated, and the true horror of the curse on a pregnant woman became apparent to him. He raised his eyes in terror. Will glanced at Jack and then at Ana-Maria again.
"Elizabeth was immune to it." The black girl finished, and shrugged. "It seemed there was no help for her here either."
"Where is she? I want to be gone from this cursed place." Will said. "Lets get this done." Ana-Maria nodded, and took in a breath that she did not need.
"In an apartment, above a bakery, in Mexico," She looked at Jack, and he raised his eyes, knowing what was to come. "I believe it was your home town Jack, where I put her. As I said, I provided for her like you couldn't, boy." She finished softly and Jack nodded as though he'd expected this.
"Jack, we know what we came here for," Will said. Jack looked at him. Didn't Will know what Jack had truly come here for? The Pearl, the treasure, it was irrelevant. "Jack, we must end this." Will said lowly, pulling Jack's arm. He shook the old pirate until his eyes would meet the blacksmiths. They were a whirlwind of pain and sorrow. This reunion with Ana had shaken Jack more then he had expected.
She still moved like his Ana, with catlike grace and her vipers tongue had not stilled. All the anger of the years, all her scorn and sharpness that he had loved as part of her essence, the meld of love and anger that drove her, it seemed to have been amplified. All that was left of her was her rage.
"He's right Jack, this must be ended one way or another." She said, pushing herself of the chest, and picking up Jack's sword. She tossed it to him. Jack caught it, raising his eyes to the all-revealing heavens, and smiled briefly.
"Can you feel this Ana?" He said, waving Will to the side. He ran his hand up the sheath of the sword, his haggard fingers stroking every etching, every scratch, his blackened nails tapping slightly on the golden hilt before he continued. "Feel this sword, the strength in it. The moon, I know you can feel that, but what else? Do you miss perhaps, the touch of the moon on your skin, rather then on your torn and bleached bones." He stepped forward, as if to embrace Ana-Maria.
But she had stilled, her body stiff like a blackened marble statue, her eyes showing no recognition. He saw the weakness in her, the vulnerability, and he leap forward, hoping that this was an opening, that she could be reasoned with.
"Ana, come back to me. Remember, when we left singapre, when you said you weren't sure you were going to come back to me?" He asked, coming closer. She nodded, her head bowed in thought. "Do it, come back to me. Do it now, while you still have the strength of mind." He entreated.
"Come back to you?" She repeated, as though breathless. She laughed at him. "What a fool you are Jack. It seems you have come here to fuck after all." She raised her chin, and drew her blade, spinning it in her hand.
Jack nodded slightly, grinning without mirth, and drew his own blade. His beads clanged as he automatically bent into a fighting pose. The muscles in his taunt shoulders pulsed as he tightened his grip on the sword, his body tensed, ready for Ana-Maria's attack.
"Jack, they say you can only truly know a man through three things." Ana-Maria said, stepping into the moon's hollowing light. "The way they dance, the way they fuck, and the way they fight." Jack took this in and his moved his lips as if musing on this.
"Well," He started, grimacing, but Ana-Maria lunged, her blade narrowly missing his chest, sliding in though his slightly raised arm and his body. Jack looked down with surprise and then back up again at Ana- Maria.
"Shall we try two out of three? I don't believe we ever danced did we, Jack, and I don't remember how you fight. Would you like to remind me?" She said sharply. Jack raised his blade, automatically falling into the pattern of battle. Her sword met his, match for match; the clashes overhead caused a ringing through the caverns. Ana-Maria met each duck and attack of Jack's with a simple passiveness. He pushed her back, off the larger rocks and into the stream. Her bare feet stumbled occasionally on the smooth stones, but Jack was unwavering, and with the skill of a cat found each footfall in the stream easily.
Finally, Ana-Maria tripped, falling back onto the rocks. Her legs fell from beneath her, her sword falling out of her hand, and her head hitting one smooth stone with a sickening crack. Jack, startled, paused, and held out his hand help her up. She snarled, spitting at him, sitting up without his help.
"You think you can beat me Jack, with your fine words and your injured bloody pride. You've been wronged yes, and you wear it like a batch." She snapped, her fingers grabbing her small dagger, drawing it out of her belt. She leap forward, the bones in her neck snapping back into place with a fluid motion, and drove the blade into his thigh.
Jack roared, staggering backwards. His fingers fell onto the emerald hilt of the dagger, and the pooling blood around the wound. Will yelled from somewhere behind him, and the world spun slightly.
"Bitch." He spat, and strengthened his grip on his sword with on had. With the other, he drew out the blade in his leg, and paused, gazing at it. The emerald on the hilt, the carved patterns. How close that blade had come to killing him, so many many years ago, another time and place when Ana- Maria had been so mad at him.
"This is mine." He said through clenched teeth. Then, spinning it in his left hand, threw it with calculated aim at Ana-Maria's chest, were it dug into her breast with its steel teeth.
"And you've given it to me once again I see." She said, and tossed the dagger onto the rocks at Jack's feet. "So what's it to be Jack, I stab you, you stab me, until there's no blood left in you?" She asked, petulantly, stepping forward, becoming a skeleton again.
"Maybe then we'll be equal," Jack spat, and attacked her again. He drove her up out of the stream, the blood from his thigh running down his leg, covering his breeches. "You bloodless bitch." He grunted, and wielded his sword with such enthusiasm that overcame his injury.
"Jack!" Will cried, feeling foolish. "Do you need any help?" He asked, itching for a fight. Watching this proceeding was driving him mad, but he could not leave Jack alone with is immortal monster.
"This is my battle Will. I think I can take care of one little girl." Jack cried over his shoulder, his face especially near to Ana-Maria. She laughed derisively. With her spare hand, she attacked him with her dagger. Court off guard, Jack threw his shoulder to block the blade, causing it to slice the skin there.
"One little girl Jack?" She said, kneeing him in the groin and pushing him away from her. Jack groaned, turning his shoulder towards he defensively, as he clutched his royal jewels, wincing. The pain in his leg and in his shoulder throbbed. "I was a pirate while you were still chasing skirts in Mexico."
"Ana, you should never kick someone in the.." He started reproachfully.
"You're just drunken," She kicked him in the chest; grabbing his hair by the handful and pulling him back to expose his neck and his face. "Indulgent, foolish buffoon. You're not better then me, I could destroy you." She said, kicking him again. She released Jack, and he feel to the floor, his leg aching. Something felt broken. His ribs ached from where she had kicked him, and he had not the strength at the moment to hold himself up right. He crawled away from her, his leg dragging on the stone floor. His fingers scrabbled on the rocks, his blade having fallen away.
Ana-Maria watched his halted process with scorn. He was halted by the stone wall with he reached, using his strength to twist, arching his back, until he fell into an upright sitting position, his eyes half closed with pain.
"Not immortal, are you, the great bloody Jack Sparrow?" She said, stepping daintily forward, the bottom on her dress still wet, her hair falling over her shoulders and across her skin above her bosom.
"Not all of us have the trick of stealing jewels." He wheezed. His strength was coming back, but his leg was troubling him. He gripped the gash on his thigh, a long scratch, the blood flowing now sourly, matting his breaches to his leg. Ana-Maria stared down at him, her face twisting between contempt and anguish. He ran his tongue over his teeth, checking that they were all there, his face turning away as he winced with pain.
"Ana," He said faintly. "Come here."
But she was as unmoving as the dead.
"Where is your plan Jack? Did you have none when you came here? You thought that your presence was enough to melt my heart, did you my dear Jack? You will die here." She said, almost as though this could upset her.
"If I die here, I die by your hand. I always said you would be the death of me." He said laughing, remorseless even in his pain. "The details, they matter little."
"You romantic fool." She said, but without the bitterness of earlier. "Why? Why would you do this? You're a fool." She stepped back a step, as his foolishness was infectious, and touched her frail dead hair and dead face. "You should have come for the pearl, the title of captain. You shouldn't have come back for me."
"But I did come back for you. Come back to me." He whispered again, as though he was loosing the train of the conversation. His finger grip on the stone failed, his fingers becoming loose.
"Come back to you? Come back to you?" She whispered, and the repeated in a low shriek. She bent down so that he could look into her face, his head lolling slightly. But his eyes were not hazed, and he was pretending.
She could not know that, and she was close enough to drive the blade into his heart if she had so wished. Behind them, Will moved silently, he could be still no longer.
"Aye, Ana, tis what I want."
"What you want?" She repeated, and then her face fell into an angry wonder. She raised her hand and struck the pirate full across the face. He grimaced, rubbing his cheek as he had done a million other times. "Do you think I care what you want? Come back to you? To being what, exactly? What do you think I am?"
"You're Ana-Maria," He said groggily. She pushed herself up to standing, using her knees to gain strength.
"I've heard what they've said, in the bars and the quiet nights. I am Jack Sparrow's whore," She yelled defiantly, flinging out her arms as she pronounced this, her dark eyes tearing into Jack's soft flesh. "The black nameless whore in his bed when he come back from his battles. Is that all I've been reduced to? A whore, a toy for you bed, a joke to pirates all over the Caribbean. You, you go out and your ego and your fame grows each day, with each battle we undertake, but I am forever in your shadow. You, you robbed me. You robbed me of my identity." She knelt again, clasping his chin in her hand, her lips moving so close to him that the edges of his beard tickled her skin.
"I will never come back to being the great Jack Sparrow's side kick." She said succulently. Jack looked at her, and then dropped his head back against the stone, and started to laugh.
"Ah, Ana," He said, shaking his head. "If I'd known it was simple ambition that drove you, I would have left you to rot."
"We'll see who rots." Ana-Maria said defiantly, and lifted up her dagger. But Will was there behind her, and he whacked the hilt of his sword on Ana- Maria's temple, sending her reeling away from Jack Sparrow.
She lay on the floor, her temple bleeding from the blow, which would have surely killed her if she had been mortal. Her fingers scrabbled at the rock, but she rolled over, bending her knees, and feeling the rays of the moon on her, relishing again in her own immortality.
Will held out a hand, and helped Jack clumsily to his feet. Jack leant on Will's shoulder heavily, and the pair hobbled to where Ana-Maria lay, her bones exposed for all to see, and Jack tried to imagine that skull smiling and failed miserably. He pushed Will away, and tested his leg. He could walk. The blood had clotted now, and the pain was, well, bearable.
"Where is it?" He said wearily. Ana-Maria arched her back on the floor, a low giggle coming out of her.
"Where is what, Jack?" She said shrewdly. Jack growled, pushing her knees apart and crouching between them. His hands clutched the bone of her legs aggressively. His hat had fallen off, and his hair flowed free and jaggedly around his face, his good luck charms and tokens seeming frivolous in the face of this moving skeleton.
"Where is the medallion?" He said angrily.
"Why the hell should I tell you?" She said, pushing herself of the floor, so that they were face to face. Jack snarled.
"Damn you Ana. Stop this now." He snapped and grabbed her up in his arms, skeleton and all, holding her to his chest. She screamed and bit his arm like a cornered animal. Jack threw her frail form over his shoulder, dragging her kicking and screaming to the Cortez chest. He slammed her on top of the marble, were she lay stunned for a second. She sat up, ready to start another verbal war with him.
Will had not moved, his face showing the shock he felt at Jack's violence.
Jack gripped the marble top, and with almost miraculous strength, yanked it off, so that Ana-Maria slid off it, and fell back onto the golden medallions. The marble lid flew out of Jack's arms, and crashed on the rocks, shattering as it did so that pieces fell into the stream and in- between the endless rocks and gold.
Jack grabbed Ana-Maria's skeleton ankles, the moonlight directly above them, and pulled her towards him, so that she lay flat out on the golden bed. He paused, breathless for a moment, glowering down at her. Ana-Maria was too stunned to move.
Then he gestured to Will, who threw him his personally crafted sword. Jack lifted it up and drove it into where Ana-Maria's soft skin should be, the gap around her abdomen, covered by so little white material, down between the medallions, until the tip of the blade hit the marble bottom and chipped.
Ana-Maria howled, arching her back around the sword, her fingers tensed as she reached out to touch it. She could not move, skewered as she was by the sword. She glanced desperately up at the sky, and turned her head to Jack.
"What are you worried about love?" Jack said softly. "Skeleton's don't bleed." He said, and then paused. He had those words before, and they passed out of his lips as though through a dream.
"Jack don't. Release me, before a cloud passes over the moon." She said quickly, breathlessly, and for the first time that night, panic was obvious on her face. She arched her back again, as though trying to get her bones not to touch the gold, as though it was poison.
Jack leant on the edge of the chest contemplatively.
"Now, love, your going to tell me where that pretty medallion is, Savvy?" He said sourly. "Because I believe it's on your person." Ana-Maria's skinless face quivered, her dry cracked hair falling over the bones, and she turned her face away from Jack. Her hands dropped from the sword, to the white fabric of her torn dress, up her rib cage, to where her heart should be.
"It is." She said brokenly.
"Where?" Will said, shocked. Ana-Maria turned to look at him, so much pain evident in her eyes.
"It's here." She said mournfully, touching her heart. She pulled back the material on her chest, to reveal her ribs, and beneath them the twisted gold chain, which she had carried inside her body for the last three months. The glittering medallion lay there undisturbed.
And coiled around it, another chain. And on the end of the chain, a ring, a small gold band with an ornate pattern of roses and thorns on the outside, speckled with diamonds. With a sparrow carved on the inside.
"Its here Jack," She said, drawing out the medallion and the ring which where entangled. "I keep them here, inside my heart." She leant up as she put them in Jack's hands. "But you see Jack," She whispered in his ear. "I no longer have one."
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Mallory: Yes mum. Ew. I can't believe you wrote mucus (shakes her head), anyway, yes, I'm feeling kinda better. well, better enough to go out tonight, I mean, stay at home and um, eat cheese cake and get better, yes that's what I'll be doing. Ahem. But I did take your advice and hid my computer, but then I got itchy, with all these thoughts and lines running around in my brain, so I was writing this chapter on paper, which is really illogical, cuz hello, have a computer. But here, I wrote an especially long chapter because of me being sick, and I hope you like it!
Jack fan 2: How good is Don Juan? Omg! Did you see him with his shirt, and oh, and don't have words for how sexy he is, I'm like damn I wish I was his tutor, I would consent all day long. but seriously, I loved the line where he goes "There a four questions worth asking: What is sacred? What is the human spirit made of? What is worth living for? And what is worth dying for? The answer is the same: Love." Loved it, love him. I actually used that for inspiration for Jack's history in the Making of Jack Sparrow. Loved the picture, my god, love my computer now (gives it a hug). Front row tickets to the fight? Lol, I know, Ana and Jack finally get to battle it out, I'm actually quite surprised at the way it worked out. (I suck at writing action, I'm sorry everyone)
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She pushed herself of the cold chest, dropping her head to one side. She tugged at the cord around her neck, allowing the cloak to fall in a puddle around her feet. She stepped gracefully away from the matt of velvet, her feet bare on the cold stones. She held out her arms, as though showing Jack herself. She was wearing just her white slip, her arms naked in the chilled night. No jewellery ordained her, not the cursed medallion or Jack's ring, and her hair fell around her naked shoulders.
"Jack," She said, walking towards him, stepping daintily across the broken stream that ran through the passage. Will started, his eyes widening, as he saw the long scabbard and blade in Ana-Maria's hand. Jack held out a halting hand to Will, allowing Ana-Maria to come meet him.
"You seem a bit inappropriately dressed, love," Jack said, his hand moving from Will, to beacon Ana-Maria to him, much as if she were a wild anima. Ana-Maria looked down at her dress and laughed, her fingers moving to clench the material mid thigh length.
"Well," She said, tilting her head, only a few steps from Jack now, "You usually don't bring company Jack." She raised her eyebrows at the joke, and then nodded towards Will. "Why don't you let the boy run along?"
Jack looked to Will as though considering this, the traces of a smile on his lips and one hand on his beard. His other hand went to his blade, which he drew lingeringly, a hefted from one hand to the other, weighing up her offer.
Then he drove the blade straight into Ana-Maria's chest, a snarl parting his lips.
"You might want to get onto the same page as the rest of us, love," He whispered, and kissed her head. "I didn't come here for a fuck." He released the handle of the blade and watched her stagger backwards.
Her face crumbled with pain, her hands touching the hilt of the blade as though not believing it possible. She staggered again, her feet getting wet, her mouth opening wordlessly. She bit her lip, and then slowly drew the blade out of her stomach, ignoring the red slit the formed on the front of her slip. She threw the blade onto the rocks, and placed her hands on her hips.
"Now Jack, you must have known that wasn't going to work." She said, and the moon passed out from behind a cloud, tearing away Ana-Maria's skin and all the beauty from her face.
Will looked away in disgust at this self-imposed curse. Jack was still, though his hands went to the knife in his belt. The hum of the sword hitting the rock still resounded through the hall, as did Ana-Maria's laugher.
"Jack, sweet sweet Jack, I suppose you think I should be afraid, or that I'm foolish not to be." She raised her arms, stepping back into the shadows, feeling the skin wrap back around her bones. "I mean, isn't this were you took down the great Barbossa?" She queried triumphantly. "How could I stand against you when such a fearsome man could not?" She finished sarcastically.
Jack's sad look put her off slightly.
She was so thin, he thought. Her skin barely covered her arms even in the shade, her eyes large and frightening in her head. She must have forgotten to eat; now she feel the need for it. So strong, and yet so very frail. He felt he could break her with his hands if he wanted to, this small doll like figure, but all he wanted was to hold her and somehow make this okay.
"Where's Elizabeth?" Will said suddenly, pushing past Jack, and glowering at the black slip of a girl. For a moment something like compassion flashed over Ana's face, and Jack saw a weakness. She was redeemable. Then her face-hardened and she laughed again.
"Don't like what you see, do you boy? I wonder if you'd like seeming your Elizabeth, stripped of her skin like me, a decrepit and haunting corpse to torment you waking days and sleepless nights." She spat. Jack noticed how the moonlight rested gently on her hand, turning it to bone and dirt, while the rest of her remained human. He watched this sadly, and noticed how she drew her other hand to her breast, her fingers clutching at the stray black strands of hair that rested there.
"So she is like you." Will said softly, and his eyes dropped to the floor, his lips moving slightly, remorse and weariness evident in his face. Jack could tell he was thinking of the opium, the lovely bliss of it all, the green dreams that he had rode to escape this world. And I have bought him back, Jack thought sourly. I tried to save him, but again for my own ever- selfish reasons.
"Would that make you feel better? That you could rescue her? That you had been able to hurt her enough to drive her to me? You're a fool, and an imbecile and not worthy of her." Ana-Maria said scathingly. Will reached for his sword and she laughed, gesturing to Jack's already fallen blade. "What'll you do? Carve me up? Thought you were a blacksmith, not a butcher." She glanced at Jack. "That title we reserved for Jack."
"If you do not tell me," Will said lowly. "I will run you through so many times that I will give you a new definition of pain."
"Wow," Ana-Maria said, smiling. She pulled a face. "I like this boy when he's off his leash." She looked at Jack's cold unmoving face, and turned away, raising a hand as if defeated. She pushed herself up on the chest, and for a second it looked like a coffin. "I grow weary of this. You think I'm a monster, don't you boy? I know Jack does."
Will glanced at Jack, who was staring off into the distance as though he could not hear nor see. Will pushed back his shoulders and spoke with soft defiance.
"We are the choices me make, cur," He said. Jack looked up at this insult to Ana-Maria but said nothing. Ana-Maria nodded, looking away for a moment, pursing her lips.
"How true, Will. How true and naïve." She said, and laughed, but softly and sombrely, not the mad chaotic laugh of the day she had been hanged, but a mournful one. A laugh of someone who believes they are going to die.
She whipped her hand over her nose, and pushed back her hair.
"Do you know the story of Cortez Will? Did Jack ever tell it to you?" She watched his face, the tanned and ever innocent man he had grown to be. "Of course he did, you were there that first time. Do remember Jack, how we made love the night after you got the pearl back, how we talked of the past, of the future. Did we talk of love that night Jack, or was I just a fool?" She asked, and then shook her head, shaking these thought out.
"That a long time ago." Jack said, obstinately staring at the flowing water in the cavern.
"Time? I thought you said time didn't matter to us. Ten years, but no," She said, and closed her eyes for a second too long. "No, that's not what we came here to do, did we Jack Sparrow?" She scratched her head, and lipped her lips. "No, back to my story, Cortez's story. Do you remember? Blood money, for Cortez's ambitious men, who were cursed because of their greed." She paused and leant forward.
"Do you think, honestly Will, that Elizabeth was ever greedy? Or the unborn child within her?" Will's head snapped up at that.
"Child." He stammered. He looked to Jack, and Jack nodded. "How many secrets would you keep from me Jack."
"The child may not be mine." Jack said gruffly. "The higher chance is that it would be yours, since you two were." He started, raising his hands and leering slightly towards Will.
"Shut up, just shut up." Will said softly.
"Cortez's gold was for the greedy and the weak, the weak like me," Ana continued, unfazed by the effect her words were having. "The curse was never made for mothers and children."
"Mothers and children." Jack repeated, and the true horror of the curse on a pregnant woman became apparent to him. He raised his eyes in terror. Will glanced at Jack and then at Ana-Maria again.
"Elizabeth was immune to it." The black girl finished, and shrugged. "It seemed there was no help for her here either."
"Where is she? I want to be gone from this cursed place." Will said. "Lets get this done." Ana-Maria nodded, and took in a breath that she did not need.
"In an apartment, above a bakery, in Mexico," She looked at Jack, and he raised his eyes, knowing what was to come. "I believe it was your home town Jack, where I put her. As I said, I provided for her like you couldn't, boy." She finished softly and Jack nodded as though he'd expected this.
"Jack, we know what we came here for," Will said. Jack looked at him. Didn't Will know what Jack had truly come here for? The Pearl, the treasure, it was irrelevant. "Jack, we must end this." Will said lowly, pulling Jack's arm. He shook the old pirate until his eyes would meet the blacksmiths. They were a whirlwind of pain and sorrow. This reunion with Ana had shaken Jack more then he had expected.
She still moved like his Ana, with catlike grace and her vipers tongue had not stilled. All the anger of the years, all her scorn and sharpness that he had loved as part of her essence, the meld of love and anger that drove her, it seemed to have been amplified. All that was left of her was her rage.
"He's right Jack, this must be ended one way or another." She said, pushing herself of the chest, and picking up Jack's sword. She tossed it to him. Jack caught it, raising his eyes to the all-revealing heavens, and smiled briefly.
"Can you feel this Ana?" He said, waving Will to the side. He ran his hand up the sheath of the sword, his haggard fingers stroking every etching, every scratch, his blackened nails tapping slightly on the golden hilt before he continued. "Feel this sword, the strength in it. The moon, I know you can feel that, but what else? Do you miss perhaps, the touch of the moon on your skin, rather then on your torn and bleached bones." He stepped forward, as if to embrace Ana-Maria.
But she had stilled, her body stiff like a blackened marble statue, her eyes showing no recognition. He saw the weakness in her, the vulnerability, and he leap forward, hoping that this was an opening, that she could be reasoned with.
"Ana, come back to me. Remember, when we left singapre, when you said you weren't sure you were going to come back to me?" He asked, coming closer. She nodded, her head bowed in thought. "Do it, come back to me. Do it now, while you still have the strength of mind." He entreated.
"Come back to you?" She repeated, as though breathless. She laughed at him. "What a fool you are Jack. It seems you have come here to fuck after all." She raised her chin, and drew her blade, spinning it in her hand.
Jack nodded slightly, grinning without mirth, and drew his own blade. His beads clanged as he automatically bent into a fighting pose. The muscles in his taunt shoulders pulsed as he tightened his grip on the sword, his body tensed, ready for Ana-Maria's attack.
"Jack, they say you can only truly know a man through three things." Ana-Maria said, stepping into the moon's hollowing light. "The way they dance, the way they fuck, and the way they fight." Jack took this in and his moved his lips as if musing on this.
"Well," He started, grimacing, but Ana-Maria lunged, her blade narrowly missing his chest, sliding in though his slightly raised arm and his body. Jack looked down with surprise and then back up again at Ana- Maria.
"Shall we try two out of three? I don't believe we ever danced did we, Jack, and I don't remember how you fight. Would you like to remind me?" She said sharply. Jack raised his blade, automatically falling into the pattern of battle. Her sword met his, match for match; the clashes overhead caused a ringing through the caverns. Ana-Maria met each duck and attack of Jack's with a simple passiveness. He pushed her back, off the larger rocks and into the stream. Her bare feet stumbled occasionally on the smooth stones, but Jack was unwavering, and with the skill of a cat found each footfall in the stream easily.
Finally, Ana-Maria tripped, falling back onto the rocks. Her legs fell from beneath her, her sword falling out of her hand, and her head hitting one smooth stone with a sickening crack. Jack, startled, paused, and held out his hand help her up. She snarled, spitting at him, sitting up without his help.
"You think you can beat me Jack, with your fine words and your injured bloody pride. You've been wronged yes, and you wear it like a batch." She snapped, her fingers grabbing her small dagger, drawing it out of her belt. She leap forward, the bones in her neck snapping back into place with a fluid motion, and drove the blade into his thigh.
Jack roared, staggering backwards. His fingers fell onto the emerald hilt of the dagger, and the pooling blood around the wound. Will yelled from somewhere behind him, and the world spun slightly.
"Bitch." He spat, and strengthened his grip on his sword with on had. With the other, he drew out the blade in his leg, and paused, gazing at it. The emerald on the hilt, the carved patterns. How close that blade had come to killing him, so many many years ago, another time and place when Ana- Maria had been so mad at him.
"This is mine." He said through clenched teeth. Then, spinning it in his left hand, threw it with calculated aim at Ana-Maria's chest, were it dug into her breast with its steel teeth.
"And you've given it to me once again I see." She said, and tossed the dagger onto the rocks at Jack's feet. "So what's it to be Jack, I stab you, you stab me, until there's no blood left in you?" She asked, petulantly, stepping forward, becoming a skeleton again.
"Maybe then we'll be equal," Jack spat, and attacked her again. He drove her up out of the stream, the blood from his thigh running down his leg, covering his breeches. "You bloodless bitch." He grunted, and wielded his sword with such enthusiasm that overcame his injury.
"Jack!" Will cried, feeling foolish. "Do you need any help?" He asked, itching for a fight. Watching this proceeding was driving him mad, but he could not leave Jack alone with is immortal monster.
"This is my battle Will. I think I can take care of one little girl." Jack cried over his shoulder, his face especially near to Ana-Maria. She laughed derisively. With her spare hand, she attacked him with her dagger. Court off guard, Jack threw his shoulder to block the blade, causing it to slice the skin there.
"One little girl Jack?" She said, kneeing him in the groin and pushing him away from her. Jack groaned, turning his shoulder towards he defensively, as he clutched his royal jewels, wincing. The pain in his leg and in his shoulder throbbed. "I was a pirate while you were still chasing skirts in Mexico."
"Ana, you should never kick someone in the.." He started reproachfully.
"You're just drunken," She kicked him in the chest; grabbing his hair by the handful and pulling him back to expose his neck and his face. "Indulgent, foolish buffoon. You're not better then me, I could destroy you." She said, kicking him again. She released Jack, and he feel to the floor, his leg aching. Something felt broken. His ribs ached from where she had kicked him, and he had not the strength at the moment to hold himself up right. He crawled away from her, his leg dragging on the stone floor. His fingers scrabbled on the rocks, his blade having fallen away.
Ana-Maria watched his halted process with scorn. He was halted by the stone wall with he reached, using his strength to twist, arching his back, until he fell into an upright sitting position, his eyes half closed with pain.
"Not immortal, are you, the great bloody Jack Sparrow?" She said, stepping daintily forward, the bottom on her dress still wet, her hair falling over her shoulders and across her skin above her bosom.
"Not all of us have the trick of stealing jewels." He wheezed. His strength was coming back, but his leg was troubling him. He gripped the gash on his thigh, a long scratch, the blood flowing now sourly, matting his breaches to his leg. Ana-Maria stared down at him, her face twisting between contempt and anguish. He ran his tongue over his teeth, checking that they were all there, his face turning away as he winced with pain.
"Ana," He said faintly. "Come here."
But she was as unmoving as the dead.
"Where is your plan Jack? Did you have none when you came here? You thought that your presence was enough to melt my heart, did you my dear Jack? You will die here." She said, almost as though this could upset her.
"If I die here, I die by your hand. I always said you would be the death of me." He said laughing, remorseless even in his pain. "The details, they matter little."
"You romantic fool." She said, but without the bitterness of earlier. "Why? Why would you do this? You're a fool." She stepped back a step, as his foolishness was infectious, and touched her frail dead hair and dead face. "You should have come for the pearl, the title of captain. You shouldn't have come back for me."
"But I did come back for you. Come back to me." He whispered again, as though he was loosing the train of the conversation. His finger grip on the stone failed, his fingers becoming loose.
"Come back to you? Come back to you?" She whispered, and the repeated in a low shriek. She bent down so that he could look into her face, his head lolling slightly. But his eyes were not hazed, and he was pretending.
She could not know that, and she was close enough to drive the blade into his heart if she had so wished. Behind them, Will moved silently, he could be still no longer.
"Aye, Ana, tis what I want."
"What you want?" She repeated, and then her face fell into an angry wonder. She raised her hand and struck the pirate full across the face. He grimaced, rubbing his cheek as he had done a million other times. "Do you think I care what you want? Come back to you? To being what, exactly? What do you think I am?"
"You're Ana-Maria," He said groggily. She pushed herself up to standing, using her knees to gain strength.
"I've heard what they've said, in the bars and the quiet nights. I am Jack Sparrow's whore," She yelled defiantly, flinging out her arms as she pronounced this, her dark eyes tearing into Jack's soft flesh. "The black nameless whore in his bed when he come back from his battles. Is that all I've been reduced to? A whore, a toy for you bed, a joke to pirates all over the Caribbean. You, you go out and your ego and your fame grows each day, with each battle we undertake, but I am forever in your shadow. You, you robbed me. You robbed me of my identity." She knelt again, clasping his chin in her hand, her lips moving so close to him that the edges of his beard tickled her skin.
"I will never come back to being the great Jack Sparrow's side kick." She said succulently. Jack looked at her, and then dropped his head back against the stone, and started to laugh.
"Ah, Ana," He said, shaking his head. "If I'd known it was simple ambition that drove you, I would have left you to rot."
"We'll see who rots." Ana-Maria said defiantly, and lifted up her dagger. But Will was there behind her, and he whacked the hilt of his sword on Ana- Maria's temple, sending her reeling away from Jack Sparrow.
She lay on the floor, her temple bleeding from the blow, which would have surely killed her if she had been mortal. Her fingers scrabbled at the rock, but she rolled over, bending her knees, and feeling the rays of the moon on her, relishing again in her own immortality.
Will held out a hand, and helped Jack clumsily to his feet. Jack leant on Will's shoulder heavily, and the pair hobbled to where Ana-Maria lay, her bones exposed for all to see, and Jack tried to imagine that skull smiling and failed miserably. He pushed Will away, and tested his leg. He could walk. The blood had clotted now, and the pain was, well, bearable.
"Where is it?" He said wearily. Ana-Maria arched her back on the floor, a low giggle coming out of her.
"Where is what, Jack?" She said shrewdly. Jack growled, pushing her knees apart and crouching between them. His hands clutched the bone of her legs aggressively. His hat had fallen off, and his hair flowed free and jaggedly around his face, his good luck charms and tokens seeming frivolous in the face of this moving skeleton.
"Where is the medallion?" He said angrily.
"Why the hell should I tell you?" She said, pushing herself of the floor, so that they were face to face. Jack snarled.
"Damn you Ana. Stop this now." He snapped and grabbed her up in his arms, skeleton and all, holding her to his chest. She screamed and bit his arm like a cornered animal. Jack threw her frail form over his shoulder, dragging her kicking and screaming to the Cortez chest. He slammed her on top of the marble, were she lay stunned for a second. She sat up, ready to start another verbal war with him.
Will had not moved, his face showing the shock he felt at Jack's violence.
Jack gripped the marble top, and with almost miraculous strength, yanked it off, so that Ana-Maria slid off it, and fell back onto the golden medallions. The marble lid flew out of Jack's arms, and crashed on the rocks, shattering as it did so that pieces fell into the stream and in- between the endless rocks and gold.
Jack grabbed Ana-Maria's skeleton ankles, the moonlight directly above them, and pulled her towards him, so that she lay flat out on the golden bed. He paused, breathless for a moment, glowering down at her. Ana-Maria was too stunned to move.
Then he gestured to Will, who threw him his personally crafted sword. Jack lifted it up and drove it into where Ana-Maria's soft skin should be, the gap around her abdomen, covered by so little white material, down between the medallions, until the tip of the blade hit the marble bottom and chipped.
Ana-Maria howled, arching her back around the sword, her fingers tensed as she reached out to touch it. She could not move, skewered as she was by the sword. She glanced desperately up at the sky, and turned her head to Jack.
"What are you worried about love?" Jack said softly. "Skeleton's don't bleed." He said, and then paused. He had those words before, and they passed out of his lips as though through a dream.
"Jack don't. Release me, before a cloud passes over the moon." She said quickly, breathlessly, and for the first time that night, panic was obvious on her face. She arched her back again, as though trying to get her bones not to touch the gold, as though it was poison.
Jack leant on the edge of the chest contemplatively.
"Now, love, your going to tell me where that pretty medallion is, Savvy?" He said sourly. "Because I believe it's on your person." Ana-Maria's skinless face quivered, her dry cracked hair falling over the bones, and she turned her face away from Jack. Her hands dropped from the sword, to the white fabric of her torn dress, up her rib cage, to where her heart should be.
"It is." She said brokenly.
"Where?" Will said, shocked. Ana-Maria turned to look at him, so much pain evident in her eyes.
"It's here." She said mournfully, touching her heart. She pulled back the material on her chest, to reveal her ribs, and beneath them the twisted gold chain, which she had carried inside her body for the last three months. The glittering medallion lay there undisturbed.
And coiled around it, another chain. And on the end of the chain, a ring, a small gold band with an ornate pattern of roses and thorns on the outside, speckled with diamonds. With a sparrow carved on the inside.
"Its here Jack," She said, drawing out the medallion and the ring which where entangled. "I keep them here, inside my heart." She leant up as she put them in Jack's hands. "But you see Jack," She whispered in his ear. "I no longer have one."
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