Chapter 3: 1741 - Lost To Be Found

A strange sight presented itself to him as the "Pearl", still carried forward by thousands and thousands of small, white crabs, slid over the dunes and down the beach into the sea.

So strange was the sight that for a split second he even forgot how relieved he felt about finally being back at sea, even if this meant that he'd have to sail these unknown waters in the middle of nowhere for an eternity.

So strange, that his mouth dropped open for a moment or two.

Jack, however, quickly recovered from this unexpected surprise and frowned at this sight he had not been prepared for in the least.

He hurriedly grabbed his spyglass and had a look through just to make sure he could actually believe his eyes - whatever that might be worth in a place like this where nothing seemed to be what it seemed.

From his lookout up high on the main mast of his beloved vessel, he was able to survey the beach for miles, and having done this both with his own eyes and through his spyglass, he really didn't know anymore what to believe.

Scattered all over the sand lay the remains of a wrecked ship which crew were apparently stranded on these shores, and some rather puzzled-looking figures were staring at the "Pearl" as staggered as he was staring at them. But after having had a second look through his spyglass, a wide grin appeared on Jack Sparrow's lips: There was no doubt he knew the castaways.

The question he asked himself, though, was not, if he knew them or not, but rather, whether all of this was real, or whether the faces he thought he made out down on the beach were once again nothing more but another hallucination, tricking his already overstrained mind into believing that he saw what he had so desperately longed for: Company!

Jack's grin died away at that thought, but quickly found its way back: What, if his unexpected visitors were actually real?

What would that mean for this place and for everything that mysterious stranger had told him in the Turkish prison about Davy Jones' Locker being everyone's own personal hell?

If this endless white desert filled with loneliness and desperation was meant to be the eternal punishment for him only, how did the others get here?

Had they been able to find a way that would take them to places not marked on any traditional sea-chart, or had they been able to find what he had been looking for for so many years:

World's End?

He would certainly have to have a word about that with the captain of the illustrious company down there.

Determined to get to the bottom of the matter he finally pushed the spyglass together, swung down from the mast onto the deck and got the dinghy ready.

If there was anything that would at least take some of the terror out of this otherworldly place, it was the fact that the damage the "Pearl" sustained during her last sea-fight against the "Flying Dutchman" and Jones' scary monster from the deepest depths of the sea were no longer existent.

Something Jack would have wished for the other world, the real world, too, because repairing and overhauling a ship always cost a lot of sweat and time. At least if one did it conscientiously.

As soon as he sat in the dinghy and rowed towards the beach, his thoughts began to race again, for with every stroke of the oars it became more evident that the debris lying about, and the unexpected visitors who seemed to be waiting for him, were no illusions.

And so he finally placed his tricorn on his head, threw the oars into the boat, and walked as confident and determined along the beach as he could.

However, his plan to bluntly ask all the questions he wanted answered at that moment, got immediately destroyed, as Joshamee Gibbs and a certain Dutchman rushed to meet him. Both relief and surprise were written on their faces and they didn't even let him speak.

"Slap me thrice and hand me to my momma! Jack!"

For a moment it looked like Gibbs was about to pull him into a fierce hug, but in the end he was too much his captain's first mate to really do it.

Van Dijk on the other hand felt fewer restraints when it came to openly showing his joy at finding Jack. He wrapped both arms around the younger man, hugging him tightly to his chest for a moment, and then looked him in the face with a big grin: "Call me soppy, lad, but I'm glad to see you again and in one piece. We already feared the worst!"

Jack returned the grin, although with a small twitch of his cheek: "Believe me, my friend, the worst you can imagine still bears no comparison with what this place really is..."

That said, he broke away from the embrace, squared his shoulders, let his gaze wander over the field of debris and the stranded in front of him and addressed his first mate: "Mister Gibbs!"

"Aye, Captain!"

"I expect you can account for your actions? After all, there has been a perpetual and virulent lack of discipline upon my vessel! Why? Why is that?"

Gibbs and van Dijk exchanged a confused look, not sure what to think of Jack's sudden change in tone and demeanour. So Gibbs made an attempt to remind him: "Sir, you're in Davy Jones Locker."

Jack turned on his heel, looked at him, and said: "I know that. I know where I am and don't think I don't. You would too, if you'd have been imprisoned in here for something that feels like weeks ... months ... years..."

Without waiting for another reply, he turned back to the others who were still idly hanging around, but the voice that spoke to him now made him stop short first and then frown: "Jack Sparrow!"

He could have said he was puzzled by the sight of the one addressing him but of all those who had been washed up on these shores, his presence made the most sense: "Ah! Hector!"

Jack grinned - for two reasons:

On the one hand, because he now knew that he had not been wrong, when he discovered the devious pirate's lifeless body in Tia Dalma's cabana.

On the other hand, because Barbossa certainly hadn't gone looking for him with the others without a good reason.

And so he quickly added: "It's been too long."

Barbossa nodded: "Yes, Isla de Muerta, remember? You shot me!"

"I did not," Jack answered back: "I prefer calling it having freed you from a curse, eh?"

While Barbossa still pondered what Jack had just explained to him, he continued his exploration and stumbled upon the next familiar face: "Tia Dalma, out and about! You add an agreeable sense of the macabre to any delirium."

She didn't say a word in reply, just looked at him questioningly, with a mixture of astonishment and thoughtfulness expressed on her face. It was Will Turner who tried giving an explanation for Jack's strange behaviour: "He thinks we're an hallucination!"

"Ah, William!" Jack headed straight for the boy: "Tell me, have you come because you need my help to save a certain distressing damsel? I mean, damsel in distress? Well! Either one?"

"No...!?"

"Then you wouldn't be here, so you can't be here, Q.E.D, you're not really here."

Jack didn't know if or what to believe anymore. For too long the desire for company, his hallucinations, and the loneliness of this place had sapped him and nearly drove him insane. He wanted desperately to believe that everyone he had spoken to was really here, but then he was afraid that once again he would open his eyes and they would all be gone.

"Jack! This is real. We're here..."

He blinked a few times at these words, and raised his gaze, just to stare into that single pair of eyes he'd looked into the last time when the shackles locked around his wrist, which had doomed him to remain aboard his ship for better or for worse.

In front of him stood Elizabeth Swann and he wasn't sure if he could bear to look at her as a number of emotions got reflected in his eyes: Recognition, fear, distrust, confusion, realisation...

All this was really real!

He didn't reply to the young woman and returned to Gibbs and van Dijk: "The Locker, right?"

The memory of the moment in which Elizabeth had left him to his fate, grabbed him with icy claws and made him shudder. She had given him no choice, not even a chance, to explain that he would have stayed aboard anyway.

He knew she still thought he was an adventurer who only cared about his own benefit. And not even the fact that he had told her about all the things that had been done to him had been able to change that. Nor that she, along with Will and Groves, had saved him from the gallows.

Of course she was right: The Kraken had been on the hunt for him and his "Pearl", but he would have wished for Elizabeth to listen to him just one more time. Then she would have known what he had wanted to do, and she would not have felt the urge to force him to do it.

"You should have come with us, son," Van Dijk looked him deep in the eye: "We certainly would have found another way to escape..."

Jack shook his head: "It's not about that, van Dijk..."

But before he could complete his sentence, he heard Elizabeth speak again: "We've come to rescue you!"

Jack couldn't hide the slightly cynical undertone in his voice, when he finally decided to give her his reply: "Have you now? Well, that's a good one. But it would seem to me as I possess a ship, and you don't, you're the ones in need of rescuing and I'm not sure if I'm in the mood..."

Barbossa interrupted him: "Well, I can spot my ship over there..."

"Where?" Jack glanced in the direction his former first mate was pointing: "Can't spot it. Must be a tiny little thing hiding somewhere behind the 'Pearl'..."

Both measured each other with looks, and they were on the verge of another heated argument, but again it was Will who intervened: "Jack, listen. Cutler Beckett has the heart of Davy Jones. He controls the 'Flying Dutchman'..."

"Prove me wrong, but if I remember correctly, that's exactly what I warned you about on Isla Cruces, wasn't it?"

"Beckett is taking over the seas...," Elizabeth added.

"Does he? Well, as far as I know, I told you that more than once after you showed up in Tortuga to hire aboard the 'Pearl', eh?"

The next to try to convince him was Tia Dalma: "The song has been sung. The Brethren Court is called."

Jack grinned: "And yet you are here? You are braver than I thought."

A slight frown told him she understood what he meant:

The fact that the Council had been summoned jeopardized her well-kept secret, and it could not be overlooked that this thought made her feel uncomfortable.

Jack gave himself half a second and then added: "I leave you folk alone for just a minute, and look what happens."

Gibbs nodded: "Aye, Jack. The world needs you back!"

"And you need a crew," Will pointed out.

At that, Jack turned around and sank his gaze into the boy's. He was seething, and it took quite some willpower to keep up the facade he'd built around himself - in which he succeeded to just a limited extent.

Walking past them all - Will and Elizabeth, Pintel and Ragetti, Marty and Cotton, Tia Dalma and Barbossa, and last but not least Gibbs and van Dijk - he remarked: "Why should I sail with any of you? Most of you are here because it says in for a penny, in for a pound. Four of you have tried to kill me in the past..." His gaze wandered from Barbossa to Pintel and Ragetti, and finally settled on Elizabeth: "One of you succeeded."

Jack was surprised when nothing but embarrassed silence followed this opening.

All eyes turned to Elizabeth and her face turned ashen.

So it was true: Nobody had ever come to know why he hadn't gotten into the longboat with them...

Will stared at Elizabeth in disbelief, but all Jack said was: "She hasn't told you? Then you'll have lots to talk about while you're here."

That said, he was about to get down to sending his crew over to the "Pearl", when he suddenly faced the Asians, who had been aboard the wrecked ship together with the others.

"Oi!" He flinched briefly at their sight, but caught himself immediately and asked: "And who are you?"

"Tai Huang! These are my men! Good sailors!"

"Where do your allegiances lie?"

"With the highest bidder."

"I have a ship."

"That makes you the highest bidder."

Jack hesitated for a moment.

Something about the man bothered him he just couldn't say what it was. This Tai Huang seemed strangely familiar to him, but he couldn't and wouldn't remember where he had met him before.

Therefore he decided to put those thoughts aside for the time being and motioned for the men to get aboard with him: "Weigh anchor! All hands! Stand by to make way!"

"You seem to have forgotten about one thing, Jack!" It was Barbossa: "What course do you think you will set?"

With that he pointed to the rolled up nautical charts he had tucked under his arm, and, proudly, like a Spaniard, walked past Jack and over to the boat.

Jack had to restrain himself from reaching for his pistol and from sending a bullet after Hector Barbossa again.

"Why did you have to bring him back, of all people," he hissed as he rushed past Tia Dalma.

It was van Dijk who stopped him before he could get on the boat and the Dutchman grinned from ear to ear as he remarked in a low voice: "You do know that you've got a damn good crew there, don't you?"

Jack smirked and replied: "Of course I know, mate! And I wouldn't want to miss any of them..."