Lord Knows I Can't Change

Chapter Sixteen

            "Find your daddy yet, dear William?" Will watched as Barbossa tightened the arm that he had wrapped around Jack's neck and mutely reminded himself that Barbossa was cursed. "Certainly you have not given up… -Or have you, William Turner? Have ye given up?" Will was dimly aware of the hand that had wrapped itself around his wrist in an effort to keep the blacksmith from lunging forward and trying to hurt a man that could not be killed.

            "You lying bastard." The hand tightened its strong grip. "You cold-hearted lying bastard!" Barbossa chuckled.

            "Don't dare impugn me, William Turner, for I am not the one to be blamed here, now am I?" Will was sure that, if Elizabeth had not been holding onto his wrist, he would have committed a drastic futile act that would only result in some form of pain for him.

            "You lied, Barbossa. You are the guilty one."

            "Yes, I did lie, and you helped me to finish my lie." Will narrowed his eyes in confusion. "My words, William Turner, you believed my words and you ignored your acquaintances. You are the one that was lying, William, believing me and believing that your father was still alive. Bootstrap is dead, let me assure you." Barbossa grinned even as he was speaking the words. Two down and three to go. "So, in actuality, you are the lying bastard, William Turner, not I."

"You're not a simpleton, Will; you know damn well that he pushed William off of this ship. You know that, Will. Don't let your pain cloud your mind as Barbossa let his greed cloud his. You see where it led him, Will, who's to say similar fortunes won't happen to you?"

Will was the one to break his and Barbossa's stare.

            "Let Jack go, Barbossa." Will rose his eyes back to Barbossa when he heard Elizabeth's voice. The older man smiled.

            "Now, lass, why would I be wantin' to do a thing like that? Jack has something of mine, Jack is a thief, and thieves deserve punishment, no?" Elizabeth's eyes widened and she could feel her mouth opening faintly in shock.

Barbossa knew that Jack had his coin.

            "So I'll be taking back what's mine and then punishing the thief with pity on you two."

            "What?" She questioned.

            "I could very well pull this trigger right here and allow you to watch your friend die, but I won't." He grinned. "That is a moment that I want to savior alone."

            "We won't let you kill him, Barbossa." Barbossa was unfazed by the girls' words. The arm that was wrapped around Jack's neck snaked down to the man's pocket and he pulled out the cursed coin. He reached down beside him, pulling Jack along with him, and snatched up some rope that lay sprawled out by his feet. Throwing the rope at Will, and shutting his hand securely around the coin, he wrapped his arm around Jack's neck again and watched Will and Elizabeth's confused faces with delight.

            "I never said that I wouldn't kill him in front of you two."

            "What the hell are you getting at?" Will looked up from the rope to the man and had to keep from charging forward when he saw that deceptive smirk playing across his lips.

            "Because, unlike you, dear William, I am no simpleton and believe you when you say that you won't allow me to kill Jack, and so, being that you won't allow me to kill him, you two will willingly tie yourselves together and then let me tie you to the railing to assure that you won't allow me to kill him. And if you don't," his smirk grew, "then you're allowing me to kill him and I'll do so rather quickly and in front of you. Savvy?" Will dropped his eyes from Barbossa to the pirate captain and frowned. Jack looked out of it, looked as if he would fall unconscious any second. There was no way that the pirate would be able to defend himself in his current condition. Barbossa would be able to kill him effortlessly.

He turned around to Elizabeth and started to tie her wrists together with the rope.

Elizabeth didn't protest. Will figured that she must have glanced at their friend at some point as well.

A few seconds later it was Elizabeth's turn to tie the blacksmith's wrists together.

Soon both were bound by the wrists and glaring at Barbossa.

            He pushed Jack forward. "Tie them together." When the pirate didn't move, clearly refusing to bind his friends, Barbossa pulled the trigger on his pistol and a bullet went soaring between Will and Elizabeth. "Next time I won't miss, Jack." He pushed him forward again and Jack said nothing as his clumsy hands went about looping the rope through and out of the ropes that already bound their wrists together. He soon had the two tied together and Barbossa pulled him back before pushing them down onto the deck. Barbossa leaned down and took what remained of the rope and looped it over the railing of the Pearl a few times before tying a knot tightly and effectively trapping Elizabeth and Will.

            "I thank you kindly for your cooperation. Now, if you excuse me, I have business to attain to."  Ignoring the fuming shouts and threats, Barbossa turned on his heel and dragged the pirate captain to the smaller boat that was attached to the right side of the Pearl.

Barbossa smiled when he saw Isle de Muerta in the distance.

Two down and three to go.

* * *

Jack winced when he felt fresh blood seeping out of the wound to his shoulder.

Having rammed it into a thick wooden door for an hour and now having to row a boat was not helping.

            Jack vaguely wondered how he could even row the boat as effectively as he had been.

The pistol pointed to the back of his head probably had something to do with it.

            He didn't even really remember all that had happened. All he knew was that Barbossa had murdered his best friend and had made him tie together two other vital people in his life. Now he was holding his pistol to the back of his head and forcing him to row him to the shore of Isle de Muerta where he would murder him and then more than likely break himself free of the curses clutches.

Jack did not even want to begin thinking about what the man had in store for Elizabeth and Will.

            "I must admit, Jack, I'll miss you. You are fun to bat around."

            "Not goin' 'where." Barbossa chuckled and for a split second Jack was nearly positive that the sound would make him sick to his stomach.

            "You can barely speak, Captain Jack Sparrow, exactly how do you plan to escape?"

            "Answers in the question, mate."

             "Indeed, Jack, indeed." Jack frowned at the man's reply and rested his eyes on the water. Was he to die like this? Die in a dual because of two gashes and a bump on the head? He had a friend's death to avenge. He had two other friends' to save. He had a ship to captain and a horizon to chase.

No, he was not to die like this.

Captain Jack Sparrow and death would not be acquainted today.

            The small boat hit land with a soft thud. "Ready, Jack?" Jack threw aside one of the oars and turned around with the other. He threw his weight into the smack that connected with Barbossa's head and then pushed the man out of the boat. Jack got to his feet and jumped over him and landed, with a minor sway, a few inches in front of him.

            He watched as Barbossa got to his feet and unsheathed his sword. "No, I'm not." He answered with a small smile.

            "You can't beat me, Jack."

            "And you can't beat me, Barbossa." Barbossa growled and lunged forward. Jack blocked his sword with the oar and started to steadily work his way back to where the chest was. The older man side-stepped and Jack hurriedly jumped to his left just as Barbossa's sword met the air where the pirate had been. A gleam caught the pirate captain's eye and Jack looked down at Barbossa's left hand.

He was holding the coin.

            Looking back at Barbossa, he hastily brought the oar back up and blocked another blow from his sword. He slammed the oar into Barbossa's left arm in an attempt to make him drop the coin, but the man only tightened his hold.

            "Like I said, Jack, ye can't beat me." His sword connected with the oar once more and Jack ignored the fact that, within a few more blows, it would snap in two and he would be weaponless.

            "And like I said, you can't beat me." Jack kicked at the other man to distract him as he slammed the oar into his left arm again. His hold didn't budge. Angrily, Barbossa rose his sword and slammed it down onto the oar. It quickly broke in two and Jack jumped backwards as Barbossa tried to ram his sword at the pirate. He landed on his back and rolled to his right and snatched up a piece of the broken oar. He dodged Barbossa's sword as he got to his feet and embedded the object in the older man's abdomen.

            Barbossa sighed in irritation. "When will you learn, Jack?" Barbossa pulled out the blood covered wood and hurled it at the pirate captain. Jack gasped softly and ducked as the wood went flying by. He jogged forward and rammed his fist down onto the hand that held the sword and Barbossa mechanically dropped it. As he was leaning down to get it, Jack lunged at him and grabbed his left arm, trying desperately to get to the coin. The wood had his blood on it and if Jack could just get the coin he could easily rub it against the wood and return it to the chest, thus breaking the curse and being able to kill Barbossa once and for all.

The sharp pain in his leg caught the pirate captain completely off guard.

Barbossa removed his sword from Jack's leg and pushed the man down against the chest.

            He rose his sword and held the tilt to Jack's throat. "Well, Captain Jack Sparrow, isn't this interesting?" Jack winced when Barbossa's monkey screeched from the chest where he had been sitting throughout their fight. "So very interesting." Barbossa rose his arm as he prepared to pierce the pirate's throat and kill number three on his list. "Like I said, Jack, I'll miss ye." Jack closed his eyes…-

And abruptly opened them when he heard the older man gasp.

A sword had been lunged through Barbossa's left side and the tilt had run clear through.

Out of shock, Barbossa dropped his coin and it landed in the chest next to Jack.

Barbossa turned around and narrowed his eyes before turning back around to reclaim his coin.

His eyes widened.

Blood was dripping from the tilt of the sword.

A drop had landed on the coin.

By blood begun, by blood undone.

            Bootstrap smiled at the man. "See you in hell, Barbossa." Pain washed over Barbossa's body and he fell into the chest on top of Jack. The monkey screeched as Barbossa's dead weight crushed him.

Bootstrap had run a sword through Barbossa's heart.

            A small gasp drew his attention to Jack and the older man ran to his friends' side. "Jack! Are you alright?" He helped the pirate captain into a sitting position and Jack looked over at him.

            "Can you not die?"

            Bootstrap grinned. "Hell keeps spitting me back out." The hug that the younger man embraced him in caught Bootstrap off guard. None the less, he tightly returned the gesture. He pulled away when he felt Jack wince and looked at his leg. "Did he stab you?"

            "Slashed." Jack answered dryly. "He has this thing with slashing. Help me up?" Bootstrap nodded and helped his friend up, automatically wrapping his arm around him and letting him lean against him, knowing that the younger man's pride would keep him from doing it on his own. "Come on, we have to untie your son and his rum burner."

            Bootstrap rose an eyebrow. "Untie?... –Never mind, I don't want to know." Jack laughed softly and watched as Bootstrap walked back to the chest and rolled Barbossa off of it. He hit the ground with a thud and then fell silent.

Bootstrap pushed the lid onto the chest.

Wrapping his arm back around his friend, the two slowly made their way back to the Pearl.

To Be Continued…

AN: Yey! Barbossa's dead! Anyway, hope you enjoyed this one and I hope the fight scene between Barbossa and Jack was okay. Two more chapters to go and we shall be finished and then, of course, a sequel. Look for chapter seventeen around Wednesday. It shall explain how Bootstrap survived and got to Isle de Muerta, don't worry.

Thanks to everyone that has read and reviewed or just read!

Please review on your way out. :)