DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?
Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).
Author's Notes: As before, I've only seen the movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me.
Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.
Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Eight: In Which the Gallant Ship Endeavour Engages the Black Pearl in Battle.

"There's nought upon the stern,
There's nought upon the lee,"
(Blow high, blow low, and so say we;)
"But there's a lofty ship to windward
And she's sailing fast and free,"
(Cruising down along the coast
Of the High Barbaree.)

The sun was sinking low in the sky ahead of them, its long fiery trail across the water like a pathway home, when Matelot spotted a patch of white to windward of the masthead when Will, standing beside Jack at the helm, found himself being hauled toward the wheel.

Jack seized both his hands, forced them around two of the spokes, and hissed, "hold her steady on this bearin' and don't move your hands a quarter-inch or I'll keelhaul you." Then he was at the mizzenmast shrouds, swarming up them with such speed that Will could suddenly see why Barbossa had named his monkey "Jack."

"Use both hands, you idiot!" Anamaria bellowed from her canvass deckchair. She was sitting by the leeward rail, arm still suspended in a sling, and was eyeing both Will and Jack jealously. Inactivity seemed to chafe her mercilessly.

Will, standing nervously with his hands locked round the spokes of the Pearl's wheel, watched Jack's ascent with horror. He was nearly to the crossjack yard, clinging to the ropes with fingers and bare toes. "He's going to fall and kill himself," he breathed. "We'll be swabbing bits of pirate off the deck planking."

Anamaria snorted. "I've seen him go aloft dead drunk in the middle of a gale to reef topsails. He never falls." She stood from the deckchair and strained up onto her tiptoes, craning her neck to try and catch sight of the aforementioned sail. "Blast this arm," she muttered to herself. "I want a look too."

Will shifted his grip on the wheel slightly, bracing his arms against the weight of the water on the rudder. It took a lot more strength than one would think. "Ah, you aren't going to attack whoever it is, are you?" he asked tentatively. "Because if you did, that would make me an accessory, and I don't think my father-in-law would like that." Nor would he. Sailing with a pirate crew was all well and good, but attacking innocent vessels… He shifted his grip on the wheel again. The wood beneath his fingers was smooth as silk, polished by countless caresses, and touching it felt oddly intimate. Jack's fingers had been resting here only moments ago, and the wood was still warm from the heat of his hands. He wished Jack would get back down there and take over again.

Anamaria grinned, her features taking on an almost wolfish look. "That depends on who it is, Blacksmith."

Beautiful. Will sighed. Tortuga lay several day' sailing behind them, and Port Royal and its attendant boredom waited just beyond the western horizon. Why couldn't this other ship have waited a few days before crossing the Black Pearl's path?

He was about to protest again when Jack suddenly came sliding down one of the shrouds, letting go while still several yards above the deck and landing in a sort of roll, coming to his feet afterward like a performer.

"Show off," Anamaria muttered. Then she caught a look at his face and fell silent.

"What is it?" Will demanded. Jack looked decidedly less than happy, maybe even a touch uneasy.

"Yon ship," Jack waved his right hand at the three masts that were now visible to windward, "is a British ship of the line."

"Which means-" Will started to ask, but Anamaria was already talking over him.

"Are you sure? Oh, bloody hell, of course you're sure. What do you want me to do?"

Jack closed his eyes for a second, bringing his two hands together before him as if praying. Then he spread them wide, placing one on Anamaria's shoulder. "Go roust out everyone below. Tell them to run out the guns." He grinned, a familiar, crazy grin that made Will's heart sink. "If they manage to catch us, we'll make them wish they hadn't."

Anamaria darted off. Her collarbone might still be healing, but there was nothing wrong with her feet. Or her voice. "Clear for battle and run out the guns," she bellowed as she went, voice carrying from one side of the ship to the other.

Jack, meanwhile, was ordering the pirates on deck aloft, yelling at them to clap on every shred of sail they could. Will, still manning the helm and feeling more uneasy by the minute, watched the sudden flurry of activity with deep misgivings.

"Jack," he asked, knowing his voice sounded strangled and wishing fervently that it didn't, "what's going on?" And come and take the helm back, you bastard, he added silently.

"You see that pretty ship over yonder, lad?" Jack waved at the other ship again. The entire thing was visible over the horizon now, though only the sails had been showing a minute ago. "Well, she's a British man o' war, a first rate, and since Port Royal's the only place this far west and south that one of those would be stationed, her captain'll recognize the Pearl the moment he sees her. And then it's three gun decks' worth of broadsides and twenty-four pound roundshot for us."

Will felt his eyes widening and his eyebrows going up. "I thought we were the fastest ship in the Caribbean. Surely we can outrun them."

Jack shook his head and sighed, as if correcting a rather slow student. "With the wind blowin' from this direction, she'll make better headway than us, savvy? Unless the wind takes it into its head to come about a few points, she'll close on us before sunset." He grinned again, hands on hips. "You think you can stand to fight beside pirates, mate?"

"I have before, haven't I" Will said, stung that Jack would doubt him. Then he realized what fighting with the Black Pearl's crew would mean. If he took up arms against a ship of the Royal Navy, he would be a pirate as certainly as any man with a brand on his wrist. There would be no returning to a respectable life in Port Royal then. He'd been pardoned twice already, and he had a feeling that the third time was definitely not going to be the charm.

"Right then." Jack reclaimed the wheel, laying a hand on Will's shoulder as he did so. "Go and pick yourself a gun crew to join up with."

And Will went. Elizabeth would understand. Had she been there, she would have done the same.

The other ship moved far more quickly than Will could have wished, and by the time the rim of the sun was touching the water, she was nearly upon them. There was no view of her from Will's place at the second of the stern chasers, but McTaggart, who kept bending to peer expectantly out of the gun port, kept them all abreast of her position. He had apparently been a man o' war's man himself once, and thus was able to provide a sincerely less-than-encouraging estimate of how long they had before the Pearl came in range of her guns.

"Any moment now," he opined, pulling his head back from the open port. "For what we are about to receive," he intoned solemnly, placing one hand to his breast in an attitude of mock prayer, "may the Lord make us truly thankful."

Scarcely had he spoken when the sound of distant gunfire ripped through the air, followed by a substantial splash to larboard.

"Fire!" Anamaria yelled down through the hatchway, and Twigg touched the match to the pan. The powder went up with a flash, followed by an earth-shattering boom as the nine-pounder went off, slamming back against its houseings with the force of the explosion. Will leaped forward to sponge her out while McTaggart stood ready with cartridge and shot.

They ran the gun out again and fired it a second time, but Will couldn't see whether or not the shot struck home. Then they were heaving it about to the left with handspikes, following Twigg's directions as he peered out through the gun port at their enemy.

"A few more inches should do it. She's coming about for a broadside."

And then the air was split by a shattering bang, all too familiar to Will from the fight aboard the Interceptor, and something struck the Pearl a solid blow. He winced, picturing Jack's reaction to the damage being done to his ship, then winced again as they fired the chase gun a third time. His ears were never going to recover from this. Never.

Through the ringing in said abused ears, Will dimly heard a crow of triumph from above.

"Ha! She's shifted three points! Take that, you bastards!"

Will risked a glance out the gun port, and saw the navy ship's sails slacken slightly. The wind was changing. He felt like crowing himself. They were going to get away.

They fired the long nine a final time, but the last ball fell short, the other ship already dropping behind them as the Pearl picked up speed. Once he and McTaggart had the gun run in again, Will left his post and went back on deck, looking about with a bit of trepidation to see how bad the damage was.

Compared with the aftermath of the battle with the Interceptor, it wasn't too bad. Several spars were hanging loosely, and the mizen had a large hole right through the middle, but most of the force of the broadside seemed to have missed them.

Jack was still at the wheel, making a rude gesture back at their erstwhile opponent, which was quickly diminishing to stern of them. He grinned broadly when he saw Will, and beckoned him over.

"You're a real pirate now, love," he said, gesturing at Will's powder-smudged clothes. "Fired on one of His Majesty's ships and everythin'. You all right?"

Will nodded, his ears still ringing slightly. "You?"

Jack made a face. "My coat needs mendin'." He plucked at a rip on the sleeve of his coat, just above his left elbow. "And it's me only one, too."

Will followed Jack's gaze to an ugly gouge in the larboard rail, where a ball of roundshot had punched through. He swallowed. Had it come through couple of yards to the left, there would be no more Jack. A couple of feet to the left, and the splinters would probably have done more than just rip his coat.

"You sure you're all right?" Jack asked, swaying closer to him to peer up at his face. Dark eyes studied him closely. "You look a bit sick."

"No, I'm fine," Will countered quickly. "How badly are we damaged?"

A question about the Black Pearl could always drag Jack away from any other concern. "Most of the shot went overhead-like. I think one or two of them hulled her, though." He patted the wheel gently, almost as if he were consoling a wounded animal. "We'll lay alongside there," he pointed to a small island just visible off to leeward, "and put things right." He gave Will a disarming smile, gold teeth glinting. "Next time you fight with us, I'll see you get some sort of reward afterward."

Twilight was deepening the blue of the sky to purple when the Black Pearl finally reached the little islet, which turned out to be a rather ugly mound of barren rock inhabited solely by seabirds. They dropped anchor, and as the crew began clearing the deck of debris and preparing to bring down the torn sail, Gibbs approached Jack and Will to announce, "There's two foot of water in the hold. I've set some lads on the pumps, but someone needs to go and find out where we've been hulled to stop it coming in."

Jack made a face of total and ostentatious disgust, and muttered something absolutely filthy and extremely creative under his breath. In response to Will's inquiring look, he added aloud, "Somebody's got to go over the side, and I'm the only man aboard who can swim." Suddenly, a thought seemed to strike him, and he turned large, innocent, pleading eyes on Will. "I don't suppose you can swim, by any chance?"

Will looked back into those dark, liquid, khol-smudged eyes, and answered, "If I could, I'd be a fool to admit it."

Gibbs made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh. "He's got you there, Cap'n."

As Jack began stripping off hat, coat, and boots, muttering darkly to himself all the while, the crew began to drift over curiously.

Jack had his hand on the rail when a voice--it sounded like Hopkins--remarked, "How many sharks do you think there are hereabouts?"

Jack's hand drew back from the rail as if someone had slapped it.

"Dunno," McTaggart answered, leaning one elbow on the rail and peering speculatively down into the dark water. "A dozen? Two dozen?"

"The next person who mentions sharks," Jack announced, in conversational tones, "will get to man the bilge pumps all by his onesies. All the way to Port Royal and back to Tortuga." He stripped off his pistol and handed it to Will, who already had all of Jack's other "effects" piled in a neat heap at his feet. "Take this. If you see a shark, shoot it, savvy?"

"Ah, right." Will nodded, looking at the firearm doubtfully. He might be the best swordsman in Port Royal, but when it came to pistols, he doubted he could hit the broad side of a building at twenty paces. Especially not with Jack's gun, which had most definitely seen better days.

Jack dove into the water so cleanly that there was hardly a splash and surfaced to tread water alongside the Pearl's hull, trailing one hand along her timbers. Will kept a dutiful watch for sharks, praying that he wouldn't actually see one and deciding that if he did, he would hurl his sword at it rather than risk shooting Jack by accident.

Jack spent upwards of thirty minutes in the water, diving and re-surfacing, his white shirt a spot of pale color against the deep blue of the sea. Finally, he waved an imperious hand up at the watching pirates, and Gibbs let down a rope.

Jack swarmed up it with alacrity, glancing back over his shoulder once--probably to check one last time for the absent sharks. Will, his mind suddenly fastening on how cold that dark water must be--it was still only March, after all, ducked aft into Jack's cabin quickly, coming out again in time to hear Jack say:

"There's a hole right underneath the waterline. About a dozen feet forward of the stern. We can probably patch it from the inside. Hopkins, McTaggart," he added, "You're the ones who had to go on about sharks like a pair of idiots. You can do it."

Hopkins made a face, and McTaggart seemed about to object, but a nudge from the man beside him sent him heading for the hatchway. Gibbs went after them, presumably to supervise.

"Where's Will got to?" Jack asked of no one in particular, glancing about the assembled crew. Water was dripping from the ends of his hair to pool on the deck about his feet, and his soaked shirt clung to him, outlining the muscles of his chest and arms.

Will stepped forward then, holding out his prizes from Jack's cabin.

Jack plucked the blanket and the bottle of rum from his hands eagerly. "William Turner," he proclaimed, as he slung the patched expanse of wool around his shoulders, "I love you. If you didn't have a mustache, I'd kiss you. In fact," he added, as he broached the bottle of rum and took a healthy swig, "I might just make an exception and do it anyway."

Sometimes, it was difficult to tell when Jack was joking and when he was being serious.

A damp arm was slung over Will's shoulder, and a loud, slightly slurred voice proclaimed, "bring my effects, will you, I'm going below to put on something dry," directly in his ear. Will ducked out from under the arm--too late to save his shirt from getting wet--and scooped up Jack's coat, hat, ect., following him into the cabin that had once been Barbossa's. Now that the entertainment was over, the rest of the crew was scattering, some of them pondering aloud what the best method might be of catching a few of those confounded noisy seabirds for a hot dinner as they drifted away.

Will set his burden down on the table and turned to see Jack pulling off his dripping shirt. He wrung the soaked linen out, sending a shower of water down onto planking, and tossed it over the top of a sea chest, then stretched his arms up and out, rotating his shoulders.

He'd never seen Jack shirtless before, Will found himself thinking absently as his eyes traveled over the expanse of wet, tanned skin. There were a handful of thin, white scars scattered across his back, though nothing like the mess of scar tissue that had turned McTaggart's back into a ragged horror--he had abandoned his career as a British tar after a particularly brutal flogging--and he had a tattoo on his left shoulder blade, a sea serpent coiled into sinuous loops and biting its own tail. There was another tattoo on his right bicep, a beautifully detailed compass rose with fancy, almost calligraphy-like letters marking the cardinal directions, but Will found his attention caught not by the artwork (which was fairly tame compared to some of the things the other pirates sported) but by the way the light from the hanging lamp gleamed of Jack's swarthy skin, the way little beads of water ran down the muscles of his arms and stomach… He was totally different from Elizabeth, dark where she was pale and with hard angles where she had soft curves.

He blinked, and shook himself out of his reverie. "Where do you keep the spare shirts?" he heard himself ask.

"Chest in the corner." Jack waved a languid hand, then dropped down onto the bed, leaning back against the bulwark and taking another swig of rum. Swallowing did interesting things to the muscles in his throat. "Leave that alone and come here."

Will came, bringing a dry shirt with him. "Getting wet can make you sick, you know," he told Jack, as he handed the garment over.

Jack accepted it, but didn't put it on right away. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. I never get sick. Well, except for that one time I had the yellow jack, but your father and Barbossa pulled me through that one. That was before Barbossa turned into a vicious, mutineerin', ship-stealin' bastard," he added.

"Does yellow jack really make your skin turn orange?" Will asked, curious in spite of himself. He had never had the disease, though it was endemic farther inland among the cane plantations.

"Aye."

"And does blood really come out of your-"

"Aye, it does," Jack nodded. "'Least, it did accordin' to Bootstrap. I don't remember that bit."

"That's disgusting."

"That's what he said." Jack offered Will a smile, and added, in a quieter and more serious voice, "You did a good job today, you know. Old Bootstrap would have been proud."

Will shrugged, feeling a bit awkward. "I didn't do much. Just helped out with one of the guns."

"You're gettin' to be a decent hand aloft, too. You never answered my question back in Tortuga, y'know."

Will didn't have to ask which question. He responded with a question of his own. "What's that?" He touched a finger to a line of ink on Jack's left forearm. It looked new, darker and bolder than his other tattoos.

Jack angled his arm slightly so that the lamplight fell across his skin, picking out the skull inked half-way between his elbow and wrist. There was a scarf tied about its bony forehead, carefully filled in with red ink.

Will very nearly recoiled. "Why did you get that?" he demanded. "It's horribly creepy."

Jack looked deeply impressed. "D'you know, you're the first person to realize what it's s'possed to be?"

"It's disturbing!" Will wasn't certain why he was being so vehement, but considering the way skeletal pirates had figured in his nightmares for weeks after their adventures with the Pearl's curse, he figured he had an excuse. "It looks…" He shook his head. "Why?"

Jack began pulling his dry shirt on. "There's an old saying," he said, voice muffled by the fabric. "In Latin, from back when everyone spoke like a Spanish mass all the time." His head popped through the neck of the shirt and he turned to look at Will. "Memento mori. Means, don't forget you're gonna die." He twitched his sleeve back and fingered the tattoo, which really did look disturbingly like he had while under the curse. "This is sort of like a… memento, savvy?"

"I savvy, but I think it's daft. Daft and unspeakably morbid. Elizabeth will love it," he added.

"Of course she will." Jack smirked. "No woman can resist a tattoo. You should get one."

Will managed to keep from cringing at the thought, but only just. "I'd rather get earrings."

"Those too." Jack grinned, and rose to fetch his damp shirt from its place across the sea chest, swaying back and forth in time with the motions of the ship, which was rocking gently at anchor. "You're all over dirt." He began dabbing at Will's face-still smudged with the evidence of his stint as a gunner--with the edge of a wet sleeve, heedless of the mess it was making of one of his few shirts.

"Stop it." Will tried to fend him off, with little success. Jack's hands seemed to slid around his, intent on their irritating mission.

"Can't send you back to Elizabeth all grimy." The makeshift wash rag flicked the end of Will's nose. "No matter how dashing you look in grime."

"I do not look dashing in grime. No one looks dashing in grime."

"You do. It makes you look all dangerous and determined, like a proper scallywag."

Will felt absurdly pleased at the backhanded compliment. He supposed it was a compliment, anyway. He tried not to let it show. He didn't want to look like a "proper scallywag" he reminded himself firmly. He wanted to look like a blacksmith. A respectable, successful blacksmith.

"I really could kiss you, if you didn't have a wife and a mustache." Jack gave Will's face one last swipe--right along the edge of his gaping jaw--and stood up again, tossing the shirt, which was now dirty as well as wet, into a corner. "Let's go see if Hopkins and McTaggart have scuttled her yet."

^_~

Mizenmast: The aft-most mast on a three-masted ship (the one closest to the stern).

Crossjack yard: lowest yardarm on the mizzenmast.

Ship of the line/first rate: the largest class of British warships (three masts, three gun decks). Pirates usually avoided them like the plague.

Chase guns: smaller guns mounted at the stern and/or bow of a ship, to fire directly behind or in front of her.

Larboard: The left-hand side of the ship, when one is facing the bow. Opposite of starboard (can also be called "port").

Points: The direction of the wind was defined, not by angles, but by compass points.

Mizen: lowest sail on the mizenmast.

Yellow jack: Yellow fever. It ran rife in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, to the point where some island postings gained a reputation as death traps. Yes, it really does turn the skin orangy-yellow (hence the name). In advanced stages, it causes victims to vomit black bile and bleed from the nose and mouth. If you ever go to South America, get a vaccine.

Scuttle: to sink a ship (usually by knocking a large hole in her bottom).

^_~

Who else thinks a compass rose would be an awesome tattoo for a sailor to have? So much sexier and more original than an anchor. Oh yeah, and anyone else recognize that slightly spoilerish skull on the movie poster?

Next up, Chapter Nine: In Which the Endeavour Closes with Her Enemy.

Warfare and mayhem on the high seas, part II!