Disclaimer: I own the Brotherhood, the kids, and no one else, though considering how many times I pictured Will and Jack to get a 'real' smile for my senior pics, I think that I deserve to own a small portion of them . . .
AN: I've decided that God doesn't hate me. He just thinks I can take a lot more than I really can. After I went outside and screamed at the sky (well, it was at God, but I was facing the sky), which was still dropping water on me, that it wasn't fair that my family life is screwed up, my possessions are getting ruined one by one, and that now even my senior things, which I have finally stopped procrastinating on, were getting ruined, it stopped. I think I also convinced the neighbors that I'm a total nutter, but at least it made me feel better, the rain stopped and I was able to get my senior pics.
AN2: Sorry I didn't post this last night. A friend called, one who's life is even more screwed up than mine at the moment, and asked for safe haven, and I gave it to her. Don't flip until you've read the entire chapter and stay tuned for more, which might come sooner or later depending on what sanctuary I need to offer.
Trust Me Still
Part 13
"No." Will barely heard the word, his mind and body still tied to the sword and the brotherhood, but he knew he was the one who had spoken.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He had been fighting. The pirate had disarmed himself, robbing the sword-bond of one of its arguments for his death.
The pirate was Jack, a friend, a good friend, and Will didn't kill his friends.
Nerla pulsed eagerly, more an extension of his arm than a separate entity now, drinking in the blood that flowed over her. Will could sense what she sensed, the heat of a warm body, the liquid wash of blood that pulsed strongly through the artery that she had sliced, the weakening throb of the heart less an inch below the blade.
Nerla was satisfied with the kill. It wasn't as clean as it could have been, but it was a kill nonetheless.
"No!" Will screamed his denial, separating his mind from the blade, staring through his human eyes at Jack Sparrow. The pirate reached up to touch the blade where it had entered his chest and then looked at his fingers curiously, now dark red with blood.
"Oh, God, no." Will pulled Nerla back, cringing at the sound of metal sliding through flesh. Jack stood a moment more before his knees buckled and he collapsed, the entire front of his body now slick and dark with blood. Will caught him before he hit the ground, vaguely aware of Nerla, still clutched in his right hand, pulsing behind the pirate's back.
Will placed his left hand over the injury in a hopeless attempt to stem the flow of blood. "Jack, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."
"Not . . .you. You're . . .good lad . . .good man." The pirate coughed and choked as blood began to flow from his mouth and nose with each shuddering breath.
"I didn't mean to. I tried to stop it . . ."
The pirate raised one shaking, bloody hand to Will's mouth to hush him, leaning forward and whispering the words practically in his ear. "I'm . . .a good . . .distraction."
The pirate coughed violently again before finally falling into unconsciousness.
Will continued to hold him until the shuddering breaths ceased and the pirate's body went completely limp.
I'm a good distraction . . .I'm a good distraction . . .I'm a good distraction . . .
The words kept playing through his mind, pushing at Will, forcing him to understand. He realized that they could only have meant one thing.
Jack hadn't come alone. Ana was safe. His family was safe. Jack had bartered his life for the life of Will's child.
"Congratulations . . .brother."
Will stared up at Daniel, standing a foot behind where the pirate captain had stood and sneering. Still clutching Nerla, Will stood and faced the other man, his shirt dripping blood, streaks of drying crimson running across his face.
"I didn't get to choose. You broke the rules."
"The 'rules' are to protect your brothers. He's no blood of yours. Every pirate in the Caribbean knows of Captain Jack Sparrow. We also know he has no family."
"He has my family. He has me . . .and my wife . . and my children . . .and you had no right to interfere!"
Nerla pulsed angrily in his hand. Will stared fixedly at the blade for a moment, red and sticky with the already-drying blood of his friend.
Then he screamed in inarticulate rage, despair, and grief. Ignoring the pain that it brought to his head, chest, and hand, he hurled the blade at the rock wall, where it slid down to the ground.
For a moment nothing happened. Then a primal wail sounded through the corridor and the sword split into three parts, one jagged crack separating the blade from the hilt while another split it into two unequal sections.
Will curled into a ball on the ground, pain filling every fiber of his being, and clutched at his chest as his own blood mingled with Jack's in what seemed to be a never-ending flow.
Light exploded behind his eyes, bright and pure, and he shuddered, accepting the fact that he was dying.
At least he was dying with a clean soul, free from Nerla. Even meeting his maker with his friend's blood on his hands was better than meeting him with his soul attached to that monster.
The light faded and Will cracked his eyes open, surprised that death felt so very much like life. Turning his head slowly, he realized that he was still in the home of the brotherhood.
Will sat up gingerly, one hand still clutched to his chest. With trembling fingers, he opened his shirt, wondering what he would see.
A half-healed cut slashed its way horizontally across his chest, but there was no sign of where Marcus had stabbed him with Nerla. Raising his hand to his lip, he felt a split in it where Daniel had slapped him. A dull pounding in his arm told him that the cut that Jack had made was present again.
He was injured. Injuries meant that he was alive . . .and truly mortal again.
Marcus's voice broke the stillness that had fallen over the brotherhood. "Daniel, you bloody fool, you've destroyed us."
Daniel's face was pale and his voice shook. "I don't understand. I know that Sparrow has no blood relatives left. They're all dead! He has no family . . ."
"Not all family comes from blood, Daniel. The gods apparently accept him as the lad's family . . .meaning that you had no right to interfere. You didn't heal the brotherhood, Daniel. You've destroyed it."
"What's happening to us?" Will watched in morbid fascination as lines of blood appeared and began to drip from slashes on various parts of the once-pirate's body.
Marcus sat down, his back against the wall. Will could see blood snaking it's way down the once-soldier's arms, and bloodstains were appearing on his shirt. "Pull your sword, Daniel."
The panicking man attempted to do just that, grasping the hilt and tugging, but the blade was no longer attached.
Cries of pain and pleas for mercy told Will that the rest of the brotherhood was finding the same thing.
Daniel stared at the hilt for a moment before dropping it and sprinting back down the corridor.
"Oh, the jealous, bloody fool."
Will turned his full attention to Marcus, trying to ignore the cries of the rest of the brotherhood.
A jagged gash had appeared on the man's left cheek and another dripped blood into his eyes from his forehead, but he seemed to ignore both.
"I don't understand, Marcus."
"You broke it. Daniel cheated you of your choice, even though it wasn't his blade that killed your friend. The grace of the gods has fallen from the brotherhood. We'll die, all of us, when the unmaking of the blessing gets back as far as the first piercing of our hearts, some even faster if someone struck them a mortal blow during one of the raids."
"Then why aren't I dead?"
"You still bore a scar. You still didn't belong to us, not fully, and apparently they, or he, or she—" Marcus gestured vaguely towards the ceiling. "Didn't want your blood." Blood began to drip steadily from the edge of the man's pant leg.
Will tore his eyes away from the sight. "I'm sorry, Marcus. You don't seem like such a bad man."
"I'm the worst type of man there is, lad. I sold my soul for my life. I betrayed my country, my friends, my family, everything that made me who I was when I was human. Daniel hates you, lad, because he killed his brother, but you, you wouldn't kill your daughter, and you were fighting killing your friend. You're by far the stronger and the better man. Better than Daniel, better than me, better than most men that I've ever known." Marcus placed a hand to his side, where the fabric was soaked through with blood.
"Tell that to Jack when you see him." Will closed his eyes tightly, fighting back tears.
"Any friend of yours won't be going to the same place I am, lad. Don't . . ." Marcus stopped mid-sentence as blood suddenly poured in a crimson tide from his chest. His eyes closed slowly and he smiled slightly before sinking back against the wall, completely limp.
Will realized that there were no longer any sounds at all in the corridor besides the ones that his own breathing and slight movements made.
He was in an underground labyrinth with two-dozen dead men, one of whom was a friend dead by his own hand, on an island god-only-knows where, with a ship that he couldn't sail by himself.
Something about the entire debacle suddenly struck him as hilarious and he laughed until the laughs turned to sobs, and then he cried until he couldn't cry anymore.
Finally collecting himself, he staggered upright on unsteady legs and moved back to where he had left Jack's body, grabbing Jack's sword off the floor as he went.
Kneeling next to the man, he gently picked up the man's ring-bedecked hand.
"You were more than worthy, friend. Far more than worthy."
Will frowned. The pirate's hand was still warm . . .not just warm, but hot, nearly as hot as it had been during the two weeks when he had tossed in delirium in Port Royal while his body fought the fever that had settled into the many wounds Almorte had inflicted on him.
Will knew that by now the body should have started cooling.
His fingers shaking again with a strange mixture of hope and despair, he leaned forward to pull the pirate's blood-soaked and stiffening shirt away from the site of the deathblow.