When they entered the kitchen, Elizabeth saw that Jack had moved, just a little. He wasn't hugging his knees to his chest anymore, but was resting his elbows on them instead.
Giving his wife's hand one final squeeze, Will separated from his now-stalwart bride. They flanked Jack, Elizabeth sinking gracefully to her knees on his left, Will pulling up a chair to his right.
"Hello, Jack," Will began.
Jack acknowledged him with a short salute of his rum bottle before taking another long draught.
"I understand things have taken a rather nasty turn," Will plodded on, heedless of his friend's less than welcoming hello. "Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm not bloody hurt," he rasped, "and I'm not in the mood for bloody stupid questions either."
"Well then, what are you in the mood for?"
"Rum, and lots of it," came the sure reply.
"Well, that's the only bottle we have in the house," Elizabeth interjected. "You'd best make it last."
"Aye," was all he said.
Will watched his friend with concern. It wasn't like Jack to wallow in his troubles. "Jack, can you tell us what happened?"
"What happened?" Jack snorted. "What happened. The bloody hurricane, that's what happened!" The beads in Jack's hair clicked noisily as he tipped his head back to take another long swig of amber oblivion. It burned on his tongue and down his throat to fuel the fire in his gut.
"So, it was the storm."
"Aye, it was the storm. Angriest waters I've ever seen in all me years at sea. Waves a hundred feet tall if they were an inch." Jack's eyes glazed over with memory, a painful one from what Will and Elizabeth could see. Nodding their agreement, both Turners thought back on what they had heard. The natives had said it was the worst storm in a century. A third of Port Royal laid in ruin and debris, and that had been on land. Neither of them could imagine what it must have been like to face at sea. Jack's grip tightened on the neck of his bottle, his only comfort, and as he stared off into nothingness, he began to tell his story.
"I knew. I knew straight fr'm the time I stepped on deck, we were in for a bit of a blow. Dawn came, and the bloody sky was red. That's never a good sign. We started for the nearest port-here, ironically, but I knew Norrington would be too busy with the ruddy storm to worry about the Pearl."
Jack shook his head, but his gaze remained out of focus, lost in the events of the previous week. "We were an hour out, maybe two but no more, and it hit..."
It was only a few hours past midday, but the sky was already turning black. A slight breeze danced across the bow of the ship making the baubles in her captain's hair click softly.
The storm was coming.
If there had been no other indication, Jack would have known the cyclone was gathering strength simply by the smell of the sea air. It was stagnant and thick. Too calm. Much too calm. This was going to be a big one.
A wall of grey rain had been visible in the distance for a few hours now. Everything that wasn't nailed down had been moved below decks, and everything there had been secured as best as was possible. The hatches were all battoned down. Most of the crew were out of harm's way below decks. They were as ready as they would ever be.
"Best be trimmin' up those sails a bit, eh Cap'n?" Mr. Gibbs said from behind him at the helm.
"Just a bit," he answered without taking his eyes from the ever-approaching torrent. "Need full sails long as we can." Jack reached over and took the wheel from his Quartermaster, and the portly sailor went off to order the few crew members left on deck to take in the sails, at least a bit. They were in a race, now, to make port before the storm hit, and it didn't look good.
"Just hold off a bit longer," Jack whispered into the stillness. "Just long enough."
But the sea, the stubborn pirate's temperamental mistress, wasn't listening.
"Cap'n, look!" Ladbroc shouted, pointing off to port.
Jack followed his lead and breathed in deep. There she was.
"Reef the sails," Jack bellowed, hearing Gibbs repeat the order as he scrambled over the rigging. "And here we go," he grunted, planting his feet.
The sky opened above them and a surge of icy needles buffeted the deck. Jack set his hat more firmly on his head and tightened his grip on the helm.
Pounding rain, coming in more from the side than from above, slammed into the ship, and anyone unlucky enough to be above deck. The nine sailors, Jack included, who remained on deck were steadfast in their positions, holding tight to the ship, and praying that the Pearl would see them through this. The Pearl, and her captain.
Sparks flew from the sky in great shattering bursts, striking the rushing waves like an angry god.
"Get out of the rigging!" Jack shouted. The lightning was far too close, and the mast would present far too inviting a target.
The sailors hastened out of the lines, grabbing hold of anything they could to avoid being thrown into the water by the jerking of the ship. The water crashed over them in frozen curtains, drenching them to the very bone as they fought the moving vessel and the whipping wind for purchase. The bow dipped dangerously low, and the ocean sprang up over the gunwale.
It was a battle, as fierce as any war had ever been, and with a monumentally more powerful opponent than any man they could ever face. Jack Sparrow could just make out Anamaria wrestling with the winch as another tsunamic wave towered over the Pearl like a solid wall of ocean, and then dropped down on them in a single vicious beating.
He looked up, and the sight that met his eyes filled him with trepidation. The mainsail was shaking. Not just shaking, fighting. Gibbs had seen it too.
"Let it out, lads!" Gibbs shouted, fighting to be heard over the roar of the storm.
"It won't hold! It won't hold!"
"The mainsail is comin' loose!" Matelot yelled.
And with a piercing, gut wrenching CRACK, the line broke, and the port corner of the mainsail broke loose from its gaff.
The unbound corner of the sail thrashed, struggling violently to free more of itself. Another line snapped free, and another, lashing the deck and the sailors on it with the force of the very hurricane propelling it. Jack cringed as a heavy, rain-sodden line struck Marty full on, and started forward as he watched, helpless, as the small man tumbled over the weather rail and into the frothing sea.
A different line stuck Matelot, and he, too, could not keep his footing. He fell to the deck amidships and dug into the planks with his fingers, narrowly averting being swept overboard himself when the next swell burst over the Pearl.
Those bloody lines! Jack's thoughts raced. He had to get those lines secured! But someone else had thought the same, and faster than he.
Squinting through the rain pelting his face, he could just make out a figure climbing the rat-rigging. An awfully familiar figure at that.
"Get down! You bloody fool woman!" And she says I'm daft, he thought fleetingly. "Get down here!"
But Anamaria wasn't listening. Those flailing lines had already killed Marty. She was going to get them tied down. Bloody stupid woman! It was his job to be foolhardy and reckless. In another moment, Moises and Ladbroc had started to climb up after her. Good lads. She'd never be able to fight that sail down alone, not in these winds. She slid down a foot or two on ropes Jack knew must have been slippery as hell, but then regained her hold and started climbing. Jack watched, his throat too tight to even breathe.
A bolt of lighting sizzled down to strike the sea only a few yards from the ship, and the thunder sounded with it, a huge earsplitting sound, rumbling like cannonfire. Anamaria jumped, startled, and nearly fell. Gripping the gaff more tightly, she steadied herself, and looked to check that Moises and Ladbroc were still clinging to the lines as well. Miraculously, they still were.
His heart thudding in his chest, Jack couldn't take his eyes off the three sailors perched precariously on nothing more than a few slippery ropes, battling the uncontrolled flapping of the sail and the screaming ferociousness of the hurricane winds.
A sudden gale came up, shoving at the vessel like the very hand of Triton. The ship beneath them started to list violently to starboard. She was rolling!
"Grab hold!" he shouted, and gripped the helm for all it was worth.
The Pearl rolled to starboard, and kept rolling. Gibbs and Duncan clung to the port weather rail. Matelot found a grip amidships, and the three sailors on the mast held on for nothing short of their own dear lives.
The Pearl just kept on rolling, until the deck was nearly perpendicular to the sea. And then, with precise certainty, it began to right itself, picking up inertia and speed as it did. Duncan lost his grasp and began to slide to starboard, but she flipped to port, nearly capsizing them, and Jack saw Duncan skid along the almost-vertical deck, bump on the port weather rail onto which he had previously been holding, and disappear over the side. Panting with exertion he maintained his own grip on the helm, his fingers white with the strain. The waves crashed up and flooded over him, but still he fought to hold on. The sea wouldn't take him today!
But as the ship began to right itself again, Jack's heart stopped. There was no one on the mast. All three sailors had dropped into the sea. Anamaria!
"Gibbs! Take the helm! Now!"
As the deck became horizontal once more, Gibbs stumbled forward, pelted by stinging drops of bitter rain, and managed to grab hold of the King's spoke. Before he was even fully positioned behind the wheel, Jack had produced a length of rope, seemingly from nowhere, and was tying a secure bowline around the weather rail. Seconds later, he had disappeared over the side of the ship, the free end of the line held tightly in his grasp.
To say the Caribbean water was uncommonly cold would have been a grave understatement. Jack felt it like a thousand tiny daggers piercing at his skin, tempting him into numbness. Salty sea water filled his mouth, and he struggled not to swallow too much as the Pearl loomed, a giant overhead. He scanned the churning surface of the water, and seeing no one, he dove under the crests, searching. With eyes throbbing from the pressure, he fought the stormy waves and swam through the swells. Finally a shadow in the waves appeared before his vision. He swam to it with strong, sure strokes, despite the whitecaps the broke over his head, and grasped it tight. It was a body, all right, but whose? Not Marty's, though, and not Anamaria's.
Lightning illuminated the water, and Jack hissed at the form in his arms. It was Duncan, but it wasn't. It was his body, but it would never be Duncan again. When he had 'bumped' on the weather rail during his fall, he had hit his head, and badly. The bleached white of his skull was visible where the flesh had split away on contact.
Jack tried to take a deep, steadying breath and nearly choked as water surged into his mouth, threatening to find its way into his lungs. With a silent farewell, he released the body of a man he had once called 'mate' to the final care of the sea, and started scanning the swells again, hoping for a glimpse of someone he cared about.
There was no one. The mighty ocean had given back all she was willing to give to Jack Sparrow, and there would be no more mercy for him today. With painstaking effort, he began to pull himself back onto the Pearl. There would be time for mourning later. Right now, there were still twelve men to see safely through the storm, plus, there was the Pearl. She was counting on him too, and he had let down just as many people as he was going to today. Hand over hand, he fought the pull of the ocean and the wrench of the waves, but he was making little progress. A huge crest washed over him, and he felt the rope straining his hands. Expecting to see crewmates heaving on the rope to help him aboard, he looked up.
The ship was moving away from him, rolling to starboard. Oh God... she was going to pitch pole again. The motion jerked him up from the water, and thinking fast, he braced his feet against her hull. While the ship lay on its starboard side, Jack scrambled up the port hull, taking in the extra line as he went. He managed to slip over the weather rail just as the ship began rolling in the other direction. He braced his feet against the port weather rail and wrapped the line around himself.
"Jack!" He heard Gibbs shout his name, obviously in surprise, but still holding tight to the helm.
"Stay there!" he yelled in response.
The ship rolled to the port. Jack was submerged in water up to his waist, but he kept his feet planted on the rail and held firmly to the rope that would save him if the worst happened. But the worst didn't happen. The Pearl righted herself again, and Jack was able to stand and fight the stinging wind back to his place at the helm. Gibbs had called other crewmembers on deck: Cotton, minus the parrot of course, Crimp, Quartetto, Briggs, and Paulus. They had finished the job that Anamaria had started, and were furling the sails completely to ride out the rest of the storm, any hope of reaching Port Royal for a reprieve dashed to pieces. The thunder crashed and Jack shuddered, freezing cold.
"You should go below," Gibbs shouted to his captain over the roar of the wind, but Jack would have none of it. The Black Pearl was his ship and the storm was too fierce. It would be his hand that would guide her through it, and his responsibility to see the rest of his crew safely to port. His responsibility and his alone. Just as the deaths that had already occurred were on his shoulders, and no one else's.
So, with gigantic waves sloshing around the deck at his feet and the most bitter of rain pounding at his eyes, he sailed his ship through the deafening hurricane, with the garish flashes of lighting and his sailor's instincts as his only guides.
Continuity Note 1: According to the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), Jack's crew consisted of himself, Mr. Gibbs, Anamaria, Marty, Moises, Matelot, Duncan, Ladbroc, Cotton, Kursar, Tearlach, Crimp, and Quartetto. I add to that 5 of my own original character sailors to bring the numbers where I felt they needed to be: Briggs, Masters, Paulus, Parker, and MacLeod. Just so you know who came from the movie and who came from my head.
Continuity Note 2: Christ's Church was indeed the name of the church in Port Royal. It was destroyed in the quake of 1692 and St. Peter's was built on its foundations in 1725.
Author's Note: First of all, I have to thank all those who have taken the time to review, even if I've had to browbeat you into it (ahem... Erin). It was an overwhelming response and I hope that I can continue to provide you with a reading experience that you enjoy.
I have to again say a big huge thank you to Patrick, the wonderful sailing instructor who spent 3 days and 5 hours on the phone and on IM listening to this ranting author pummel him with sailing questions. Big thanks to droolingfanfemme for giving me a taste of a storm on the high seas. Extra special thanks go to JackFan2, and EstelWolfe for holding my hand through this chapter and just being really great spiffy women. And thanks again to all the beautiful writers who help me out, here and there, even if it's just to calm me down when I'm freaking out over a paragraph that doesn't work: AhiFlame, blackflagDiamant, J.L. Dexter, and Aithne. I used their usernames instead of their real names because these are some very talented ladies, and if you haven't read their stories, you really should.
Thank you to the non-ff.net people who proofread for me: Michael, Erin, Karin, and of course, Adam. Your input is greatly appreciated.
Lastly, one more thank you has to go to Julie, Michael, and Erin, who really took the time to help me hammer the plot bunnies in my head out into a relatively smooth and coherent outline. The story wouldn't be the same without you.
Love and good wishes to all!