Part Three
Irrational thoughts flooded through Jack Sparrow's mind: the Dauntless…Port Royal…Will and Elizabeth…they were here to rescue him…he'd taught Will well…the lad had commandeered the Navy ship…
He walked out onto the beach and was halfway down the sand to the shore when he suddenly pulled up short. His eyes widened with horror. Two boats were being rowed towards the island, boats full of men in the unmistakable uniform of the British Navy.
"There he is!" one of them shouted, pointing straight at the pirate.
"Bloody 'ell..." Jack wheeled around and ran for the trees.
His waterlogged boots were hindering, making it near impossible to run on the loose ground. Without stopping, Jack reached down to tug one off and ended up with a mouthful of sand. He hurriedly pulled off his boots and scrambled back up onto his feet. Spitting out the sand and deserting his boots, he ran blindly through the wood.
The beach on the far side of the island was just coming into view, when Jack suddenly felt light-headed. He dizzily fell against a tree trunk. His forehead was screaming at him, blocking out all other sensations and sapping his strength. The bandanna around his head was wet with blood as well as water and passed it onto the hand he pressed against the pain. His chest heaved under the grubby white shirt that hung from him, sticking to his skin where it made contact.
"Find him, men! That pirate will not miss another appointment with the gallows!"
Jack recognised Commodore Norrington's voice and it was enough to make the pirate captain push away from the tree and stumble on. Blackness loomed at the edge of Jack's vision, but he wasn't done in yet, not Captain Jack Sparrow. He wasn't about to give up his freedom.
Suddenly, a bright gold light burned into Jack's wide pupils. He gasped in pain, cringing and holding up his hands as a shield.
"We've got him, Commodore!"
Jack's legs buckled and he fell to his knees. With his eyes screwed up into slits, he strained to make out the figures behind the lantern. Slowly, he adapted to this sudden tremendous increase in light and he could see the commodore's face clearly when he arrived.
"Ah, excellent!" Norrington said, smiling. "Mister Sparrow shall elude us no more. Stevens, bind his wrists."
"No…" Jack muttered, fighting to keep consciousness. "No!" Shutting his eyes against a stab of pain that shot through his forehead, he fell backwards.
The hard impact against the sand brought him back into lucidity. With his ears ringing, he found himself looking up at the familiar star patterns above the island he'd been marooned on far too many times.
Hell, he hated this island.
The sky had tired of its battling and the grey clouds were thinning, revealing the stars Captain Jack Sparrow knew so well. Off to his left, the almost-full moon hung, casting him and his forsaken island in ghostly silver light. The only sounds Jack could hear were that of his slightly strained breathing and the calm and soothing push and pull of the tide against the close-by shore. Finding himself suddenly alone on this island no longer surprised Jack. He struggled with the vertigo that swept over him as he sat up and cradled his sore head.
His throat ached for a drink…the rum, why, oh why, was the rum gone? Damn woman. Damn British Navy. Damn island.
Jack pushed himself unsteadily up onto his knees. Dimly, he recognised the beginnings of dehydration and remembered lying on this side of the island drinking during his first stay. As far has he knew Elizabeth had only raided the underground store and hadn't searched for discarded half-drunken bottles of rum dotted around the island.
To his delight Jack found a dented tankard stuck half on its side in the sand close to the sea. He carefully picked it up and sat down on some nearby rocks. Looking longingly into the mug, he licked his lips at the sight of the dark red-brown liquid within. He breathed in the potent smell of the alcohol as he lifted it to his mouth, his throat awaiting the customary burn. The drink slipped between his lips and into his mouth towards his throat -
"'Uck!" Jack Sparrow choked and spat out the foul tasting liquid. He looked into the tankard again and saw the reality his taste-buds already knew: salt water of the Caribbean Sea. Dismayed, he threw the mug away from him.
"What's the matter, Jack? Can't ye hold yer liquor anymore?"
Jack's head snapped around to face the owner of the voice he instantly recognised. Barbossa.
"This isn't real…" Jack muttered, rubbing his head. "You're dead."
"Oh, I be alive," Barbossa told him, darkly. "Ghosts don't die, they live on in yer mind. Yer'll never be rid of me, Jack Sparrow."
"Captain Jack Sparrow," Jack corrected, distractedly.
Barbossa laughed nastily.
Dreaming, he had to be dreaming. Jack rose sharply to his feet, swayed and toppled back down. The rough surface of the rock grazed his hand. Ok, so he wasn't dreaming, Jack decided as he rubbed the stinging out of his palm. Hallucinating. However, realising it didn't appear to make it stop.
Barbossa looked down at Jack with a cruel grin on his straggly-bearded face. "Ye may have the Black Pearl fer now. But how long do ye reckon it'll be before yer crew realise they'd be better off without ye?"
Captain Jack Sparrow glared at his former mutinous first mate with hatred, as he growled a reply, "My crew will never betray me, savvy?"
"Oh, come now, Jack," Barbossa admonished, still smiling. "Ye know as well as I do, sooner or later they'll mutiny jus' like yer old crew did."
Captain Jack Sparrow turned from the phantom projected by his mind and strode away.
"They won't come fer you!" Barbossa yelled after him. "They'll leave ya to rot on this island!"
*
On the outskirts of the wood, Captain Jack Sparrow heard the Navy officers behind him in the trees and he hurried out onto the empty beach.
"Oof!" Jack found his mouth full of sand again, having just tripped over his boots. Realisation was quickly followed by confusion and fear. He'd left his boots on the beach he'd been swept up on… Hadn't he just been on the other beach on the far side of the island? How the Hell did he get here?
He couldn't hear his pursuers anymore and, in fact, he couldn't see the Dauntless anywhere on the moonlit waves. Jack looked down at his trembling hands and knew he needed to do something about being so cold. He turned back into the trees and searched for fuel to make a fire. However, the storm hadn't left a single measly twig dry and he soon pronounced his search as hopeless and sank down onto the beach. Exhausted, Jack lay back.
It wasn't long before a voice rejoined him.
"Lovely island this," Barbossa said, conversationally, and sat down beside him.
"Oh, I know," Jack agreed, sarcastically. "I just can't seem to stay away."
"Shame 'bout that storm. It's made everythin' all wet, so ye can't make a fire."
"I noticed."
"Ye look cold, Jack. Some rum'll warm ye up." Barbossa offered a glass bottle to him.
Jack angrily smacked the bottle away from his face and jumped up onto his feet with his sword drawn. He pointed the blade threateningly at Barbossa's chest.
Barbossa grinned and rose swiftly to his feet, bringing up his own weapon to meet Jack's. Metal clanged and grazed against metal, emanating high-pitched sounds, as the two men fought aggressively. Barbossa was slowly backing Jack up towards the sea, as the younger but injured man tired almost at once. Yet, Captain Jack Sparrow drew strength from his anger and frustration, and refused to give an easy fight.
With a well-angled powerful sweep, Jack managed to knock Barbossa's sword out of his hand. However, weak as he was, he then stumbled badly and dropped his own sword. Barbossa seized the opportune moment, snatched up Jack's blade and plunged it into his stomach.
Déjà vu wove through Jack's mind, as he staggered back. He looked down at the hilt of the sword thrust through him in the same place as Barbossa had stabbed him once before…in the treasure cave on Isla de Muerte. Something else was worryingly similar…the lack of pain.
"Well, that's interesting…" Barbossa said, as if he also remembered the previous scene.
"Very interesting…" Jack mumbled, fearfully.
"Perhaps ye be cursed," Barbossa suggested, with a tone of pleasure.
Jack was already thinking the same thing as he hesitantly lifted his left arm into the moonlight. The flesh instantly disappeared and all that remained were pure white bones partly covered by his shirt. Horrified, Jack flexed the bones in his hand and listened to the crackling of his joints. He swallowed.
Barbossa merely laughed, enjoying Jack's suffering. Jack ignored him and pulled the sword out of himself, then watched gloomily as the wound quickly healed.
Captain Jack Sparrow stumbled away, his blood dripping from his sword onto the sand.
*
The sun was slowly appearing at the horizon, casting weak red-orange rays over the gentle waves of the sea and streaking pink across the lightening sky. There was still no sign of the Black Pearl. Jack staggered aimlessly along the beach, willing his waking-nightmare to end. He was cold, so very cold, and the pounding in his head refused to even slow down, let alone stop.
A figure wandered out of the trees ahead of Jack and paused on a grassy patch to look along the beach towards him. It was a young slender woman with long brown hair, wearing a white under-dress…and she was very familiar.
"Jack?"
"Elizabeth?"
"Jack!"
"Bloody 'ell! You're here after all!" Jack cried, hurrying over to his friend.
Elizabeth Swann frowned. "What do you mean? Why are you here?"
"The storm it - "
"Jack! You're bleeding!" Elizabeth cried, aghast.
Jack followed her trembling forefinger and saw that his shirt was soaked with blood where Barbossa had stabbed him. "W-what?" He looked up at Elizabeth's blanched face. "What's going on? Why…" Movement caught Jack's eye in the gloom beyond the girl's shoulder and his expression became horror-struck. "Look out!"
But it was too late. Barbossa's blade dove into Elizabeth through her back. Her face contorted with surprise and pain, as Jack caught her by the shoulders. Barbossa pulled the sword free and vanished back into the darkness, leaving Jack to gently lower Elizabeth to the ground and helplessly watch her die.
Shakily, Jack Sparrow stood up and stepped back. He looked down into her blankly staring brown eyes, shock clamping his body into immobility like a vice.
"Elizabeth!"
Running footsteps followed the sound of Will Turner's voice, but Jack Sparrow appeared to be unable to look up.
"Oh, Elizabeth! No! No!" The young man came into Jack's view, as he knelt beside Elizabeth and pulled her head into his lap. "J-Jack, what happened?" Will choked out, looking up at the pirate. Suddenly, the boy's face froze and his eyes iced over. "You…You killed her!"
Jack Sparrow finally shifted his gaze and saw that Will was staring at the bloody sword he held at his side. Comprehension and alarm filled Jack's features and he backed up, as the enraged lad rose to his feet.
"You killed Elizabeth!"
"N-no! Ye've got it all wrong, mate," Jack protested, raising his empty hand. "It was Barbossa!"
"Barbossa's dead, Jack," Will said, his tone cold and hard, as he drew his sword.
Fearful, Jack stumbled back a few more steps. "He's not! It's my blood on the sword. He stabbed me too. Here, look!"
But Jack's shirt was its usual grimy white colour. His fingers pulled frantically at folds of the bloodless shirt. There wasn't even a slit in the cotton, and there was no sign of the sewn-up tear from where Barbossa had stabbed him on Isla de Muerte either.
"I don't understand…"
"I do! And I'm going to kill you!" Will cried, and plunged his sword towards Jack.
Jack moved just in time and brought his sword up to meet Will's. Horrified, he found himself forced to fight his friend.
"I practice three-hours a day. So that when I meet a pirate I can kill him!"
"I know…" Jack muttered, his confusion only dwarfed by his sorrow.
Behind Will a grey shape was growing larger and larger as it approached at an incredible speed. A familiar old grey donkey let out a ferocious cry, lowering its head in preparation for making contact with its target: Jack Sparrow.
Jack cursed and, his blade abandoning Will's, he turned to run.
Seconds later, a hairy mass hit Jack squarely in the back and sent him tumbling to the ground.
*
"Lazin' around again, Jack? Yer not gonna get off this island by sunnin' yerself on the beach."
"Go ta hell, Barbossa…"
"Ain't ye heard? Hell spat me back out."
Jack Sparrow groaned and pushed his palms into the sand, in attempt to rise. His arms shook and refused to bare his weight. He rolled onto his back and raised a hand to cover his eyes, surprised to find the sky bright and pale blue. Slowly, he tried to sit up and this time managed. Beside him his sword lay in the dry white sand, its blade clean and glinting in the morning sun.
Jack's gaze shifted to the sea and his eyes widened at what they saw. His hands rose to rub his eyes, but when he lowered them the view hadn't changed. On the blue waters there was a ship. Captain Jack Sparrow knew that ship: she was the Black Pearl.
"I see him!" Anamaria shouted.
Gibbs followed the girl's outstretched arm and saw the sorry-looking figure swaying across the sand towards them.
"Captain!" Gibbs called, as he and Anamaria hurried up the beach towards Jack.
The pirate captain raised a weak hand in welcome. "Gibbs. Am I glad to see you, mate."
Jack grinned stupidly, and collapsed to his knees.
Concerned, Gibbs knelt down and gripped a tight hold of the woozy man's arm. Anamaria regarded her captain with scrutiny and placed a palm over his forehead.
"Christ, he's burning up!" she cried, yanking her hand back in surprise.
Captain Jack Sparrow swallowed, his eyes rolling up into his head and then settling back in focus. His bloodstained bandanna was soaked and sweat beaded on his pale face and chest.
"If I ever see this bloody island again…" Jack muttered, and promptly passed out.
