Lord Knows I Can't Change

Chapter Four

Will could do nothing but stare at the man.

            His body language told Will all that he needed to know. He sat motionless as the dead with his legs pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped firmly around them, staring out of the window and at the sea, his expression clearly void of any and all emotion.

This wasn't the man Will had met and befriended two years ago. That man was Captain Jack Sparrow; pirate extraordinaire! -Infamous and exceedingly feared Captain of the dreaded Black Pearl!

Captain Jack Sparrow didn't feel emotion, didn't show pain. This man, this person, wasn't Captain Jack Sparrow. He was simply Jack Sparrow…the boy inside the man.

The boy who looked through a man's eyes and had seen things only men should see, had felt things only men should feel.

The boy who had been suffering in silence over losing not one, but two vital people from his past, people he had most likely considered family.

Barbossa and William Turner.

One had betrayed him, and one had died for him.

            Confusion mixed with remorse mixed with fury mixed with pain had made Jack grow up too fast, and thus, having no one to turn to, probably too far scarred to know and to believe in any form of trust again, he had buried those emotions inside. Those emotions hadn't faded away any of the times Jack had continuously dived into the sea trying to rid himself of them, they hadn't drowned when he tried to drink them away, and they didn't leave when he hid from them.

They were the boy inside of him, the pain he had tried to will away countless times and had failed at doing so countless times.

Will blinked.

            The full moon danced into the room through the window and highlighted various parts of Jack's unmoving body. Will just sighed and leaned against the wall, cursing silently to himself. Jack was usually giddy, always smiling and smirking in his characteristic gold toothed way, walking drunkenly through every day life with a nonchalant expression and a nonchalant tone. He had always appeared as the vaguely insane care free type, even way back when two years ago.

Will closed his eyes tightly when he heard his friend sigh.

            The lying bastard, Will thought to himself and opened his eyes, letting them roam across the wall that was in front of him, as if it would tell him what to do next. What could he do next? It was obvious that the pirate captain missed Bootstrap significantly, possibly even missed Barbossa. Even if the man had killed Bootstrap and had left Jack to die, that last thread of friendship just wouldn't let go. His eyes stopped their pointless roaming and rested on a mirror that hung slightly to the right of where he was standing. When you looked into the mirror from the hallway, you could see basically all of the room behind you, as well as the two walls across from it and the doorway. It was essentially opposite of the doorway, so if someone were to look into it from the room, they could see the walls to the right and left of the doorway in it. Jack was staring at the mirror and in doing so, staring at Will. He returned Jack's gaze through the mirror.

            After a few seconds of the deafening silence, Will asked softly, "What are you looking at, Jack?"

            "The sea," he answered, not removing his eyes from off of Will. The blacksmith merely nodded and shifted, growing uncomfortable at the odd tension between them.

            "What do you see?" Confusion briefly covered Jack's face as the Pirate Captain looked at the lad, one eyebrow raised in slight amusement. It soon vanished though, and his face was once more void of any and all emotion.

            "Water, lad… -Just water."

            It was Will's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Just water?" Jack nodded.

            "Yes, just water." He repeated, minor irritation lacing his tone. Will watched as Jack looked away from the mirror and turned back to the sea. He removed his gaze as well, looking hard at his shoes, remembering what Elizabeth had said, of how it takes a strong man to cry.

            It also takes a strong man to admit when he is hurt, Will thought to himself, eyes skimming over the scuffed wooden floor. Whether he is physically hurt, or psychologically hurt. He studied a scuff mark, his eyes walking on it from the base to the tilt.

            He stopped at the tilt and after a long pause whispered, "I miss him too, Jack." Jack said nothing, and Will merely sighed at the man's stubbornness, his eyes wandering the trail of another scuff mark. "I miss him, and I didn't even really know him, but you did, so you have to miss him, Jack, in some shape or form…" He trailed off and the Pirate was still silent. This did not fool Will. "I wish I could have known him better, I wish that I hadn't been so young that I couldn't retain events. I have next to nothing to remember him by, Jack, aside from a few memories, but even those are blurry." Will paused. "You are lucky to have known him, Jack, even if you didn't get to say goodbye, he was still your friend and you were his… -You are lucky." The blacksmith sighed at the realization of his words… -He really didn't have anything to remember his father by. Memories can't replace being there and living it.

            "He cared for you, William Turner." Will jumped and looked up from the battered floor to the mirror, peering hard at the pirate captain, his expression one of shock. He hadn't expected him to say anything. "He cared for you," Jack repeated, his eyes never leaving the sparkling sea. "He often thought about you, wondered what you were doing, how you were doing…" He trailed off and Will just blinked. "He loved you a lot, wouldn't ever bloody shut up about you," Jack chuckled softly, and Will felt his own mouth turn upwards into a small smile. "Every night he would look up and whisper goodnight to you, knowing that even though he wasn't with you, you would still hear it 'cause you felt the same breezes as him, and they would carry his words to you. He did that every night, Will, every night." Will swallowed hard. Occasionally, on nights that he had had his beside window open, he would hear his fathers whispered words being gently carried in on a breeze with the sweet smell of the sea covering them.

            "I heard them." The young man whispered, his voice drenched with the obvious pain Jack's words were causing him. "I just, I… I missed him. I didn't want a pirate, I didn't want a merchant sailor, I wanted him… -I wanted a father." Will looked away from the mirror and shut his eyes firmly, leaning his head back against the wall as he tried to control his overpowering tears. He lost, and they spilled. "I wanted him, just him…"

            "You had him." Was Jack's simple response. Will shook his head even though Jack wasn't looking at him.

            "Sometimes it felt like I didn't, Jack." The pirate captain tore his eyes away from the sea and sighed, looking down briefly before looking into the mirror, sighing again when he saw the blacksmiths' pained expression and the tears flowing from his closed eyes.

            "But you always did, lad," he whispered, "you always did. He loved you, Will; he loved you a lot… -Far more than I can tell you, far more than words can express…" Jack cut himself off when he heard his friend whimper. Finding it too painful to watch, he looked away from the mirror and at his hands, slowly starting to fiddle with various rings on his slender fingers. "He was a good man, Will, with a good heart… -If you don't believe nothin' else I have said, at least believe that." Will opened his eyes to the wall. Pirate or not, Bootstrap had been a good man with a good heart, and Will knew that he wouldn't have forgotten him, through all the pillaging and plundering, he hadn't forgotten him. The image of a little boy back home stayed in his mind. Wiping away the drying wetness from his cheeks, he looked up at the mirror and at Jack, who was still messing with some of his various rings.

            "He must have been a good friend," Will whispered. The pirate sighed at his hand and looked at the mirror, looking Will in the eye.

Glistening eyes met crying eyes.

            "He was, William, he was…" Jack's eyes looked as they had earlier when the two friends had reunited outside of J. Brown's Armory. "He was my best friend…-Ole' Bootstrap took me in when my parents threw me out; he welcomed me on his crew, onto his ship, into his life! And then he had to go and do something so… so… Stupid! I told him that if the time ever came, I wasn't worth his life, I wasn't worth him suffering…" His voice held such pain, such emotion, that Will found himself on the verge of wanting to cry again. Jack slowly shook his head, as if trying to convince himself that what he was saying wasn't the truth. "When I was standing on the plank getting ready to jump, I looked back at him…" He dropped his gaze from Will's eyes. "I just, I had to see him one last time, I had to see my friend one last time… -His eyes just held so much… -So much fucking guilt, like it was his fault! I couldn't do anything but stare at him like a simpleton as one of the crew members stomped on the board and I fell off. The whole time I was falling, I heard him yelling at Barbossa, at the crew… -I hit the water and I still heard it, I purposely went under and still heard it… -I heard it until I reached the shore to that God forsaken spit of land; I heard it until the ship was out of sight… -He was trying to negotiate with them, trying to save me…" Jack laughed softly and wiped away stray tears, watching as they glittered on his finger from the moonlight pouring in. "He was a good man, William Turner," Jack looked back at Will, "don't ye ever forget that."

            Will shook his head. "I won't, I can't." Jack smiled shortly at him before pulling his gaze away from the mirror. Will watched the pirate captain pull his legs up to his chest again, leaning his head on his arms and watching the sea.

            "Goodnight, Jack."

            "Goodnight, mate." Will smiled softly as well and pulled the door shut with a soft click, walking to his and Elizabeth's room.

The boy was slowly but surely growing up.

To Be Continued…

AN: First off, I'm sorry that this is so long, I needed to get this out of the way for chapter five, which will contain action, I promise!! And to answer a reviewer's question, no this is not a sequel to "Not Much, How 'Bout You?".

Thank you all so much for your reviews on both this story and my other two!! It really means a lot!!

Again, I apologize for the suckiness of this chapter and of chapter three. It shall get better!!

I'll try to get chapter five up before I go back to school Tuesday.

Please R/R on your way out. :)