Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all related to Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't own Johnny Depp (sadly enough). So please, please don't sue me.
Part the First
Jack watched Barbossa's eyes as they glazed over, the face suddenly losing all of it's anger, all of it's rage. For a split second, Jack could see the face of his first mate staring back at him, the way it had been all those years ago. That was before the curse, before the mutiny, before.... well, back when life had been simple. Barbossa had been younger then. So had he, Jack mused. Much younger. Too young. Apparently Barbossa had thought so too, tired of working under a man decades younger than he. It hadn't mattered that Jack was a gifted sailor. He just didn't kill enough for them. Or had that been it after all? Jack had stopped trying to figure out reasons. It didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was him and Barbossa, facing each other in the former first-mate's last moments, the gun still warm in his hand.
"I feel...cold," Barbossa said, his voice suddenly low, confused, but free. Jack felt relief flood through him as Barbossa fell to the ground, and yet there was a tinge of regret. He had been friends with this man once. He had trusted this man with his life before, had drank with him, shared a love of the sea with him. But that all changed that fateful day. Oh, Jack would never forget that, nor forgive. Barbossa had thrown away comradery for greed, and that could never be taken back. He had waited a long time to get his revenge, to pay Barbossa back for all those years of pain, years he didn't want to think back on, but always managed to come forth uncalled in dreams. Yet that one flicker of regret still tinged his heart. He turned his back to Barbossa's corpse. He would think on it no more. That time was past. The crew that had betrayed him, they were gone now. He had a new crew, a crew who respected him and who he respected in turn. It was time to start anew. He turned on his heel, wondering suddenly how long he had been standing there, staring at the body of his former first mate, trusted advisor, friend, brother of the sea. Will and Elizabeth were talking in the distance, he overheard some, but found it hard to focus much. He rummaged through the gold and jewels to occupy himself, as not to barge in.
When Elizabeth turned to walk back to the ship, to her commodore, he entered, coming up to Will's side. He leaned in slightly.
"If you were waiting for the opportune moment, lad, that was it." No more. He could not offer more. It was up to Will now. Once Jack had been young, but his luck in relationships hadn't much improved. He was no figure to look up to, whatever the rumours said. He was only human, as he had realised more than once in the last decade of uncertainty. He only wished he could be, somewhere deep inside.
Bootstrap in the past had been his hero to look up to, his best friend. Will was so much like his father, and the sting of loss was opened anew in Will's presence. During the bad times through all those years, Bootstrap had been his lifeboat, his sanity. Jack smirked slightly. Perhaps it hadn't been the loss of the pearl that had made him 'crazy,' but the loss of his friend, the thought that he had been betrayed by him (he might have expected it from Barbossa, but never William), the realization that Bootstrap was dead and gone. Aside from the Black Pearl, Bootstrap had been the one constant in his life. But once again, times were different now. Bootstrap wasn't here; he never would be. Jack had tried to come to terms with that long ago. Will was. Here, that is. Bootstrap, like Barbossa, was gone.
"Now if you don't mind," he said, breaking his inner revelries, I would like it very much if you would drop me off at my ship!" he declared loudly. Forget Bootstrap, forget Barbossa, forget those ten long, weary years. Nothing mattered now, nothing but him and the Black Pearl. His ship, the only thing that remained from the good things in his past. That ship had been as much a part of Bootstrap, of Barbossa, as it was him, and it carried their memories. Now it was his. And he'd be damned if he ever let it out of his sight again. He almost smiled at the thought of being back on the sea, back on the Black Pearl, his home. Where he belonged. Or so he would have liked to believe.