Thanks to Julie for your continued attention and support… and especially for your criticism when things don't flow the way they should, and thanks to Narsil for supplying some of Ana's dialogue in your review. Couldn't have said it better myself, and didn't even try.
Chapter Seven, Confessions
"This is about Bootstrap." Jack said.
"What about him?" The night silenced, apparently holding its breath in anticipation for the answer to Will's question.
When things are hidden, there is often a reason, and usually it is because what is hidden is either too precious or too horrible to be shown. When it comes to people and their pasts the same rules apply, and for Jack both the horrible and precious deserved equal protection from the outside world. The things he kept inside belong to him alone, and he considered them the only things in life that could not be stolen. Ana Maria understood this because he explained it to her at length one night while they worked through several bottles of rum, and she knew Jack hadn't intended on spilling his messy past all over Will and Elizabeth.
Just how he had intended to manoeuvre his story around it she didn't know, but she didn't feel particularly sorry about ruining his plans.
Jack sat down and lay back in the grass to stare up at the sky. "This is where I met your father, William Turner. He was just a lad himself at the time, merely a cabin boy on the smugglers ship, but he saved my life. Course, that may be seen more as a curse than a blessing, but nonetheless, he meant well."
The wind picked up and Jack sat up to regard Will more closely. "That's what this is about lad. William Turner could be compared very closely to his son, not so great in the brains department, but his heart sat in the right place." His gaze shifted slightly left of Will and towards one particular palm tree that appeared as only a shadow in the surrounding darkness. Ana understood the significance of his attention but she didn't give anything away, to all concerned Jack stared at nothing other than the past.
"Through good and bad William Turner followed my lead, he followed as we took control of the little smuggling business camped out on my beach here, and then he followed me into the fine art that is Piracy." All stood riveted to Jack's history lesson. Even Ana who heard the story before paid close attention. "The point is the late William Turner trusted my lead. Remember what I said about the brain thing, cause if he was smarter he'd have known what was to come next.
"He warned me about the Aztec gold, and if I had listened to him, we'd all be somewhere else then where we are right now, and your father would be alive. I'm sorry. If I could do it over, it would be different."
Ana couldn't help it any longer; she knelt beside her friend, and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "You should not feel guilty, no one could have predicted Barbossa's betrayal." Unfortunately, she touched his left shoulder and the touch she offered in comfort made Jack flinch in response. Caught up in the drama of his story she forgot about his recent injuries.
Jack swallowed more rum and experimentally rolled his shoulder, but his eyes remained riveted on the shadows behind Will. "Bill predicted it, he warned me and I did nothing. In the end, that is where the blame lies. Even after the mutiny, he convinced the others to simply drop me off on the little island rather than just end the game with a bullet, and what did he receive in return? A fate far worse at the bottom of the ocean, that's what."
Sitting in close proximity of Jack, Ana Maria could feel heat radiating off his body. She missed seeing it earlier because of the poor light, and now she began to truly worry. Though the night felt somewhat cool, Jack's hair and clothing were damp from perspiration. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, but Ana Maria could see them shaking slightly from chills.
"We need to get you back to the Pearl."
He ignored her. "You're a good man, Will, just like your father. He'd be proud of you if he were here." Jack barely finished the sentence before being overtaken by harsh raking coughs.
A long silence followed after the coughing ceased. Will and Elizabeth were now both staring in the same direction as Jack. Ana felt a tightening in her gut as her stomach turned. The shadows moved slightly as something within retreated back into the forest.
"What was that?" A small knot of fear crept into Elizabeth's voice. The story of ghosts seeking revenge crept back into her thoughts and the idea of it being truth didn't seem so ludicrous while standing in a graveyard.
Will turned to Jack. The look on his face said more then words ever could. "You weren't talking to us. This entire time, you were talking to him, weren't you?"
"Aye."
"How long have you known?"
With less then normal grace, Jack stood up look Will in the face. "Heard the first rumours about five years ago, and suspected since seeing the lantern."
"You knew my father was alive and didn't think to share that information with me? You didn't think I'd want to know, didn't think I had a right to know?" Will's hand descended to the sword on his belt, but he did not draw, at least not yet.
Jack shifted and his feet found a comfortable stance, ready to move quickly should a sword start swinging in his direction. "If it is you're father lad, then trust he's got reasons not to be found. It's best to respect that."
Elizabeth finally pieced together the puzzle. "So it's Bootstrap who's keeping the lantern lit. Why would he do that?" No one answered her, and she got the distinct impression she might as well not have spoken at all.
"Respect? Coming from a pirate?" Will laughed bitterly. "I heard before that you keep things close to the vest, but this? You had no right to keep this from me."
"Firstly, I didn't even know you until a few months ago, and secondly I didn't even know for sure his identity until last night. Therefore, as for the right of being informed your argument runs a mite thin." Jack stepped slowly to the right away from Ana Maria and Elizabeth.
He did it to protect them, and there was nothing Ana Maria hated more then chivalry. In her thinking, it came from ignorance and male arrogance, and she refused to be locked within the category of useless female ever again. She stepped forward and placed herself directly between Jack and Will.
"Save the sword play to impress your girl, Will Turner. Once you're alone with her you may stroke your hilt as often as you please, but don't do it here." She waited a few seconds for her speech to break through the barrier of masculinity emanating off the whelp. As soon as his white knuckled grip on the sword relaxed, she continued her rant. "As for Bootstrap Bill, I've never met him, but I can bet that running around in the bushes at night obsessively tending lanterns isn't part of a healthy personality. He's lived in hiding for a long time, and before that spent god knows how long drowning and unable to die at the bottom of the ocean. An experience like that is bound to change a person."
Now she turned her attention towards Jack. "As for you, you're an idiot." She stepped right up to him and poked her finger at his chest. "Somewhere along the way you got the impression that the world is out to spoil every scheming plan you've thought up, well I'm here to tell you you're wrong." She took a step back and softened her tone. "You've got to start trusting your friends Jack, or they're not going to trust you."
"Why bring me here now?" Will asked.
"I saw him last night." Jack started slowly. "In the five years I've been coming here looking for him, last night was the first time I actually saw any proof he's not just a ghost or wishful thinking on my part. I thought coming here, to this spot, would catch his attention, and I hoped that seeing his son would help get through what ever it is making him keep his distance."
"I'm sorry your plan didn't work as you intended." Will stepped up beside Ana and offered a hand to Jack in truce.
Jack took an unbalanced step backwards and didn't accept the offer. "No more then I expected."
"But less then you deserve." Will answered.
Ana didn't see it coming. Jack swayed again, and stumbled backwards as his legs gave out from under him. On the ground, he sat with one arm held close to his side and the other braced against the ground to keep him upright, and he looked pale and couldn't seem to catch his breath. Ana knelt beside him but wasn't sure how she could help, because she didn't even know what was wrong.
He coughed painfully into his hand for a minute and once he stopped both he and Ana Maria stared in horror at the dark spots of blood left in his palm. Jack quickly wiped his hand on his pants and tried to stand up, but Ana placed a hand on his shoulder holding him still.
"Lay down."
For once he didn't argue and allowed her to help him lie down on his back, Ana then carefully unbuttoned his shirt. The bruising on his left side looked darker then it had before and seemed mostly concentrated just under the rib cage. She gently probed the area with her fingertips and Jack flinched in response.
"What happened?" Elizabeth knelt on Jack's other side and held the lantern in a position to offer Ana the best light.
Ana wouldn't answer. She could barely think a comprehensive thought past the mantra of, this can't be happening, echoing over and over through her mind. She placed a hand on Jack's forehead, then picked up his arm and wrapped her fingers around the inside of his wrist. The skin on his arm felt cool and damp, and the pulse raced. "He's bleeding." She said finally.
Elizabeth frowned. "There's no blood Ana."
"I mean on the inside." Ana whispered. "I've seen it once before. I saw a man fall from a crow's nest a few years back, and everyone thought it was a miracle that he survived with just some bruises. At first he seemed okay, but he soon started feeling dizzy and coughing blood, and after that he died."
"That's not what's happening to Jack." Elizabeth insisted. "He was fine until just a couple seconds ago."
"When did you start feeling light headed?"
Jack met Ana's accusing glare and forced a grin. "Sometime this afternoon."
Thinking about it now, Ana kicked herself for not seeing it sooner. She thought Jack's lack of balance was just from being tired and sore, she thought maybe he was coming down with a cold or something, but nothing serious and definitely not this. She thought that after finding him alive on the beach the worst of her worries were over, she never considered the possibility that that worst was yet to come.
Authors note: Hi! What do you think? Post me a line and let me know how it's going.
attackrat2002@yahoo.com