Any Port In A Storm
Chapter IV : Made of Chances
[ colloquial title : death becomes him ]
***
A blind man would have seen it coming. The village idiot would have known it to be foolish. Of course Norrington's men were going to come; the Black Pearl was unmistakable, and God only knew how long I'd been missing. They might have been waiting outside the doors all morning for us, for all I knew.
I'd been a fool; a hopeless, lovesick fool. We could have left the moment the storm let up. He'd been drunk, and cold, but Jack was a pirate. We could have left before sunrise. We could have been leagues away from here, by now, but like a fool I had kissed him when I should have carried him. Like a fool, I'd offered him the safety of my arms when there was no safety to be had. I'd trapped him here with love. Now they had us at the door; and neither Jack nor I had even a split second at our disposal.
Jack is, by no means, a weak man. No one else I know could have taken down three of the six soldiers before they even got a swing in edgewise at him. No one else could have withstood the force of the blow that Gillette struck to his jaw with the butt of his gun. No one else had the iron to spit the blood back in Norrington's face, even as they shackled him. He never even flinched.
I wanted to kill them. I would have killed them. I would have torn them apart with my own teeth if it would have stopped them, but I could not; indeed, it was in the moment they used to grab me that Jack launched his vicious yet short lived assault. I remember it now as though it all happened very, very slowly, when in reality it could not have been more than thirty seconds between the time we opened the door of the smithy and the moment that Jack spit in Norrington's face.
I'd never seen either of them so angry.
Those moments are surreal to me. If any words were spoken, I do not remember them now; but never for a second was I uncertain of the charges against me. The hand with my wedding ring had been in Jack's. Elizabeth, and perhaps Elizabeth alone, was the only reason that I had gone a free man after our first escapade aboard the Black Pearl. Now I had forsaken her for the very worst thorn in Norrington's side. I was a traitor thricefold -- not only to the law, now, but to the very heart.
I couldn't bear to look at him, as they marched us through town, but I had to. Jack walked with his back very straight and his head very high -- more dignified than I could ever hope to be, despite the blood now pouring down his chin and the gun barrel aimed steadily at his back. There was something burning behind those darkest of dark eyes that I'd never seen there before. He was no longer my Jack. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate and predator; and though each and every one of the Commodore's men -- including the Commodore himself -- were taller than him, Jack somehow seemed larger than life compared to the rest of them. He was more beautiful now than ever.
Governor Swann was waiting for us at the garrison. He looked absolutely horrified. From the very beginning, he'd questioned Elizabeth's decision to marry me; only boundless love for his daughter brought his blessing to the union in the first place. Now he regarded me as though I were something fearsome, incomprehensible.
"I didn't want to believe it, Will," he said.
"A year ago, I granted you clemency. A year ago, I gave my blessings to you. I gave my *daughter* to you. And this is how you repay me? You bring.. *him* here?"
"Begging your pardon, Governor," interjected Jack, his timbre, tone, and enunciation shockingly smooth and even through a mouthful of blood, "but you're giving the boy a bit too much credit, mate. Will didn't 'bring' me anywhere."
"Shut up," hissed Norrington, shoving Jack sharply. He gave the Commodore a decidedly indignant glance over his shoulder, but lapsed back into silence nonetheless. The governor acted as though he hadn't heard him at all.
"I trusted you, Will Turner. Against my better judgment, I trusted you. Elizabeth trusted you. What am I to tell her now, hmm? That her husband has run off with a dog?"
"Tell her," I said quietly, leveling my eyes on his with determination and lifting my chin,"...tell her that a very dear friend of ours showed up in the night. I'm sure she'll be happy for news of him, as she's missed him nearly as much as I."
Governor Swann was shocked. Commodore Norrington was seething. Jack, however, was smiling through the blood. "Tell her, Governor, that Captain Jack Sparrow sends his most heartfelt regards."
"Shut UP, Sparrow!" roared Norrington, dealing him another fine blow to the back of his head and snapping "out with him," to his subordinates; two of which snatched Jack up by the elbows and dragged him backwards. He would be all right. He *had* to be all right. There was nothing I could do for him at the moment. I could only scream to him with my eyes as they dragged him away, scream "I love you" in one last, silent gaze before they pulled him 'round a corner and were gone.
Only now did the governor seem to regain his capacity for speech once more.
"I cannot let this pass, Will. I cannot allow my daughter to take back a traitor into her household. You are young. Youth is malleable. I had hoped, last time, that you would learn from your mistakes. I see now that this was foolish optimism on my part. Take him away."
I didn't have time for any last words; in moments I'd been seized and dragged in very much the same manner as Jack, 'round a corner and down a very long hall that lead to a flight of stairs. It was Gillette that had my right arm, and a man I didn't know on my left; a very burly man with four fingers on his left hand. He was missing his ring finger.
I didn't realize that I had been staring until the burly soldier shoved me roughly towards the stairs. "Keep your eyes front, boy," he growled. Every instinct I had told me to whirl around and choke this man with my very shackles -- but logic kept me calm and complacent. I allowed them to escort me to the dungeons. The closer to Jack, the better -- on our own, maybe neither one of us had a chance in hell; but together, well ... it had seemed impossible last time, too, but we'd made it through alive, had we not?
It was too dark to see anything right away; I hit the floor with a thud, rolled onto my back, scrambled to my feet immediately and made a charge at the door of the cell as they slammed it shut. No use. The four fingered man laughed as he turned the key in the lock.
"Bad Blood indeed. S'in you too, don't think I can't see it. You lot--"
"That is enough, Spencer," Gillette said, a tense chord of warning in his voice. With one last little snarl, the burly man departed behind him. I peered after them a moment, then looked around. Nothing but the dim blaze of torch light down here to see by -- it took my eyes a moment to adjust, but once they did I began to realize the extent of my predicament. At the end of the hallway was a bolted door, no doubt guarded on the outside by soldiers. The only windows provided only ventilation, too narrow and deep set to let in much light at all -- indeed, at this hour, with the sun quickly dropping, they were dark. The doors were much heartier than the ones in the upper cells. There was no good way out of this place.
As if mimicking my thoughts, a voice said from the darkness, "You're wasting your energy, mate. Best chance we've got is to wait 'till they bring us out to hang us."
Jack sat against the far wall of the adjoining cell, his knees drawn up and his shackled wrists draped casually across them. He rolled his head back against the cold stone to turn and look at me. His lips were still caked with blood, but he smiled anyway. "It's just you and me, darling."
"Jack... I'm so sorry--"
He cut me off with a dismissive flip of one hand. "No worries, luv."
"I should have brought you back to the Pearl. We could have been gone by now. But I kept you here, and now--"
A soft, low chuckle -- the last thing I expected -- and then Jack said, "You underestimate me, William Turner."
"You seem to be confusing me with your darling Elizabeth. My sensibilities aren't so ... easily swayed ... by rum and kisses. I was awake at dawn. I watched you sleep. I could have left Port Royal without even waking you. I didn't. Why? I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep next to you for a while longer. I wanted the luxury of it, and chances be damned. I'm a pirate, Will. My life is made of chances; but chances are made of choices, savvy? And I chose to stay."
I can't say that I was not shocked; in fact I fell silent for many minutes to pass, letting his words ring in a steady reverberation inside my head. Could have left. Chose to stay. Could have left...
All at once he was kneeling before me, only inches away despite the bars that separated us. His features were shrouded primarily by shadows and a bit by the blood, but the scant torch light seemed to collect in his eyes, reflect back at me in the darkness. "I chose you, Will. I chose you before I knew who you were. You want the truth? I would have brought you aboard the Pearl, willing or not; Elizabeth, too, if I could have. The fact that you decided the same on your own only seals it. I was right to stay here; even if it means that we only die together... I was right."
He took my hand through the bars ... kissed my fingers. "You're mine, as well, Will Turner. If I have to die to have you, I'll do it. Death doesn't scare me. It never has. And the selfish man that I am, I'm willing to take you with me into it. Because I love you. And if I cant have you, no one will. If we die, we die together."
"We're not going to die here. Not like this." I reached out and cupped his face in my palm, pressed my own face to the bars of the cell. "By their swords, maybe, but not by their nooses. My father died a pirates death. And so shall I. And so shall you. Let it come when it may, but mark my words, it won't be on their gallows. I'm with you, Jack. Its just us, now. All us, now."
"They don't know what they're up against," he whispered; and then he kissed me through the bars; drew up close, closed his eyes, and kissed me as he'd kissed me that first night, on the deck of the Black Pearl.
Our shackles wound together, wrapping hopelessly 'round the bars between us until we were nearly tied together. Didn't matter. I kissed him for hours in the darkness, and chains be damned -- he was mine, I was his, and we were locked to each other 'till death do us part now. This was marriage, true marriage -- marriage of the soul, an unbreakable bond formed of love and hate and necessity, of sweetness and softness, of blood and of metal. Made of oaths, made of history, made of fate. This was destiny.
"Tomorrow ... when the sun rises, they'll come. Mark my words -- they always come at dawn. Do nothing, absolutely *nothing* to rouse their suspicions. It'll take them three days to write up the formal decree. Complacency is key until we're literally on the gallows, savvy?"
"Wait until the opportune moment."
"Exactly. Now get some sleep. Sometimes they'll say things they shouldn't when they think you're asleep."
Long before dawn, however, the dungeon door swung open. I'd heard them all the way down the hall -- loud, drunken voices and stumbling footsteps. Now over half a dozen soldiers came staggering through the door -- all highly intoxicated and slightly disheveled, as though they'd been wandering around in such a state for the better part of the evening. I stayed very still, cracking only one eye through which to watch them. Nearby, Jack's breathing remained slow and steady, but something in it told me that he was as wide awake as I was.
"-- worst bloody thing I've ever seen, mate. 'Er screamin' haunts me even now, I'll tell ye-- ahh. The man himself. See here, gents, this is where the tale takes a twist; for it was yonder scurvy dog who done it."
A four fingered hand gestured to Jack in the torch light.
The pack of soldiers grew suddenly silent. I could almost hear Jack's eyes open.
"Six years ago it was, but I 'member 'im as though it were yesterday. You don't forget the man who burns yer house, rapes yer daughter, and takes yer bloody wedding ring from ye, finger and all."
***
- to be continued -
Chapter IV : Made of Chances
[ colloquial title : death becomes him ]
***
A blind man would have seen it coming. The village idiot would have known it to be foolish. Of course Norrington's men were going to come; the Black Pearl was unmistakable, and God only knew how long I'd been missing. They might have been waiting outside the doors all morning for us, for all I knew.
I'd been a fool; a hopeless, lovesick fool. We could have left the moment the storm let up. He'd been drunk, and cold, but Jack was a pirate. We could have left before sunrise. We could have been leagues away from here, by now, but like a fool I had kissed him when I should have carried him. Like a fool, I'd offered him the safety of my arms when there was no safety to be had. I'd trapped him here with love. Now they had us at the door; and neither Jack nor I had even a split second at our disposal.
Jack is, by no means, a weak man. No one else I know could have taken down three of the six soldiers before they even got a swing in edgewise at him. No one else could have withstood the force of the blow that Gillette struck to his jaw with the butt of his gun. No one else had the iron to spit the blood back in Norrington's face, even as they shackled him. He never even flinched.
I wanted to kill them. I would have killed them. I would have torn them apart with my own teeth if it would have stopped them, but I could not; indeed, it was in the moment they used to grab me that Jack launched his vicious yet short lived assault. I remember it now as though it all happened very, very slowly, when in reality it could not have been more than thirty seconds between the time we opened the door of the smithy and the moment that Jack spit in Norrington's face.
I'd never seen either of them so angry.
Those moments are surreal to me. If any words were spoken, I do not remember them now; but never for a second was I uncertain of the charges against me. The hand with my wedding ring had been in Jack's. Elizabeth, and perhaps Elizabeth alone, was the only reason that I had gone a free man after our first escapade aboard the Black Pearl. Now I had forsaken her for the very worst thorn in Norrington's side. I was a traitor thricefold -- not only to the law, now, but to the very heart.
I couldn't bear to look at him, as they marched us through town, but I had to. Jack walked with his back very straight and his head very high -- more dignified than I could ever hope to be, despite the blood now pouring down his chin and the gun barrel aimed steadily at his back. There was something burning behind those darkest of dark eyes that I'd never seen there before. He was no longer my Jack. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate and predator; and though each and every one of the Commodore's men -- including the Commodore himself -- were taller than him, Jack somehow seemed larger than life compared to the rest of them. He was more beautiful now than ever.
Governor Swann was waiting for us at the garrison. He looked absolutely horrified. From the very beginning, he'd questioned Elizabeth's decision to marry me; only boundless love for his daughter brought his blessing to the union in the first place. Now he regarded me as though I were something fearsome, incomprehensible.
"I didn't want to believe it, Will," he said.
"A year ago, I granted you clemency. A year ago, I gave my blessings to you. I gave my *daughter* to you. And this is how you repay me? You bring.. *him* here?"
"Begging your pardon, Governor," interjected Jack, his timbre, tone, and enunciation shockingly smooth and even through a mouthful of blood, "but you're giving the boy a bit too much credit, mate. Will didn't 'bring' me anywhere."
"Shut up," hissed Norrington, shoving Jack sharply. He gave the Commodore a decidedly indignant glance over his shoulder, but lapsed back into silence nonetheless. The governor acted as though he hadn't heard him at all.
"I trusted you, Will Turner. Against my better judgment, I trusted you. Elizabeth trusted you. What am I to tell her now, hmm? That her husband has run off with a dog?"
"Tell her," I said quietly, leveling my eyes on his with determination and lifting my chin,"...tell her that a very dear friend of ours showed up in the night. I'm sure she'll be happy for news of him, as she's missed him nearly as much as I."
Governor Swann was shocked. Commodore Norrington was seething. Jack, however, was smiling through the blood. "Tell her, Governor, that Captain Jack Sparrow sends his most heartfelt regards."
"Shut UP, Sparrow!" roared Norrington, dealing him another fine blow to the back of his head and snapping "out with him," to his subordinates; two of which snatched Jack up by the elbows and dragged him backwards. He would be all right. He *had* to be all right. There was nothing I could do for him at the moment. I could only scream to him with my eyes as they dragged him away, scream "I love you" in one last, silent gaze before they pulled him 'round a corner and were gone.
Only now did the governor seem to regain his capacity for speech once more.
"I cannot let this pass, Will. I cannot allow my daughter to take back a traitor into her household. You are young. Youth is malleable. I had hoped, last time, that you would learn from your mistakes. I see now that this was foolish optimism on my part. Take him away."
I didn't have time for any last words; in moments I'd been seized and dragged in very much the same manner as Jack, 'round a corner and down a very long hall that lead to a flight of stairs. It was Gillette that had my right arm, and a man I didn't know on my left; a very burly man with four fingers on his left hand. He was missing his ring finger.
I didn't realize that I had been staring until the burly soldier shoved me roughly towards the stairs. "Keep your eyes front, boy," he growled. Every instinct I had told me to whirl around and choke this man with my very shackles -- but logic kept me calm and complacent. I allowed them to escort me to the dungeons. The closer to Jack, the better -- on our own, maybe neither one of us had a chance in hell; but together, well ... it had seemed impossible last time, too, but we'd made it through alive, had we not?
It was too dark to see anything right away; I hit the floor with a thud, rolled onto my back, scrambled to my feet immediately and made a charge at the door of the cell as they slammed it shut. No use. The four fingered man laughed as he turned the key in the lock.
"Bad Blood indeed. S'in you too, don't think I can't see it. You lot--"
"That is enough, Spencer," Gillette said, a tense chord of warning in his voice. With one last little snarl, the burly man departed behind him. I peered after them a moment, then looked around. Nothing but the dim blaze of torch light down here to see by -- it took my eyes a moment to adjust, but once they did I began to realize the extent of my predicament. At the end of the hallway was a bolted door, no doubt guarded on the outside by soldiers. The only windows provided only ventilation, too narrow and deep set to let in much light at all -- indeed, at this hour, with the sun quickly dropping, they were dark. The doors were much heartier than the ones in the upper cells. There was no good way out of this place.
As if mimicking my thoughts, a voice said from the darkness, "You're wasting your energy, mate. Best chance we've got is to wait 'till they bring us out to hang us."
Jack sat against the far wall of the adjoining cell, his knees drawn up and his shackled wrists draped casually across them. He rolled his head back against the cold stone to turn and look at me. His lips were still caked with blood, but he smiled anyway. "It's just you and me, darling."
"Jack... I'm so sorry--"
He cut me off with a dismissive flip of one hand. "No worries, luv."
"I should have brought you back to the Pearl. We could have been gone by now. But I kept you here, and now--"
A soft, low chuckle -- the last thing I expected -- and then Jack said, "You underestimate me, William Turner."
"You seem to be confusing me with your darling Elizabeth. My sensibilities aren't so ... easily swayed ... by rum and kisses. I was awake at dawn. I watched you sleep. I could have left Port Royal without even waking you. I didn't. Why? I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep next to you for a while longer. I wanted the luxury of it, and chances be damned. I'm a pirate, Will. My life is made of chances; but chances are made of choices, savvy? And I chose to stay."
I can't say that I was not shocked; in fact I fell silent for many minutes to pass, letting his words ring in a steady reverberation inside my head. Could have left. Chose to stay. Could have left...
All at once he was kneeling before me, only inches away despite the bars that separated us. His features were shrouded primarily by shadows and a bit by the blood, but the scant torch light seemed to collect in his eyes, reflect back at me in the darkness. "I chose you, Will. I chose you before I knew who you were. You want the truth? I would have brought you aboard the Pearl, willing or not; Elizabeth, too, if I could have. The fact that you decided the same on your own only seals it. I was right to stay here; even if it means that we only die together... I was right."
He took my hand through the bars ... kissed my fingers. "You're mine, as well, Will Turner. If I have to die to have you, I'll do it. Death doesn't scare me. It never has. And the selfish man that I am, I'm willing to take you with me into it. Because I love you. And if I cant have you, no one will. If we die, we die together."
"We're not going to die here. Not like this." I reached out and cupped his face in my palm, pressed my own face to the bars of the cell. "By their swords, maybe, but not by their nooses. My father died a pirates death. And so shall I. And so shall you. Let it come when it may, but mark my words, it won't be on their gallows. I'm with you, Jack. Its just us, now. All us, now."
"They don't know what they're up against," he whispered; and then he kissed me through the bars; drew up close, closed his eyes, and kissed me as he'd kissed me that first night, on the deck of the Black Pearl.
Our shackles wound together, wrapping hopelessly 'round the bars between us until we were nearly tied together. Didn't matter. I kissed him for hours in the darkness, and chains be damned -- he was mine, I was his, and we were locked to each other 'till death do us part now. This was marriage, true marriage -- marriage of the soul, an unbreakable bond formed of love and hate and necessity, of sweetness and softness, of blood and of metal. Made of oaths, made of history, made of fate. This was destiny.
"Tomorrow ... when the sun rises, they'll come. Mark my words -- they always come at dawn. Do nothing, absolutely *nothing* to rouse their suspicions. It'll take them three days to write up the formal decree. Complacency is key until we're literally on the gallows, savvy?"
"Wait until the opportune moment."
"Exactly. Now get some sleep. Sometimes they'll say things they shouldn't when they think you're asleep."
Long before dawn, however, the dungeon door swung open. I'd heard them all the way down the hall -- loud, drunken voices and stumbling footsteps. Now over half a dozen soldiers came staggering through the door -- all highly intoxicated and slightly disheveled, as though they'd been wandering around in such a state for the better part of the evening. I stayed very still, cracking only one eye through which to watch them. Nearby, Jack's breathing remained slow and steady, but something in it told me that he was as wide awake as I was.
"-- worst bloody thing I've ever seen, mate. 'Er screamin' haunts me even now, I'll tell ye-- ahh. The man himself. See here, gents, this is where the tale takes a twist; for it was yonder scurvy dog who done it."
A four fingered hand gestured to Jack in the torch light.
The pack of soldiers grew suddenly silent. I could almost hear Jack's eyes open.
"Six years ago it was, but I 'member 'im as though it were yesterday. You don't forget the man who burns yer house, rapes yer daughter, and takes yer bloody wedding ring from ye, finger and all."
***
- to be continued -