Broken Wings
A Pirates of the Caribbean story by Merrie
Disclaimer: I still don't see my name in the credits no matter how many times I watch them, so I guess that means they aren't mine. Damn.
Summary: Captain Jack has lost his ship, his crew, nearly his life, and now his sanity to a horrible new curse. Will this Sparrow be able soar again after his wings have been broken?
Characters: Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Commodore Norrington, and a few special guests just for fun.
Author's Note: Continued thanks to Miss B. for betaing, gypsy and Halia for lending their much appreciated support, and to all of you for reading my not so little fic any longer and letting me know that you like it. Thanks a million!!! The cyber rum is on me!!!
Rating: This story is rated PG-13 for bloody violence, naughty language, and pure undiluted angst in the worst way. I make no apologies for it.
Chapter 8: Separation and Shattered Psyches
Furiously coughing bitter tasting seawater out of his lungs, Will Turner raised up on his hands and knees and laid his heavy head on the wet sand, not caring that his face was now most likely covered in the stuff. All he wanted to do was to rest, to sleep for a year. He had never felt more exhausted in all his life. All he had to do was close his eyes......he shot up suddenly as he remembered himself, and what he was doing. Taking a look around him, he saw that he had washed up on some sandy beach. But where was Elizabeth? And Norrington! "Oh God, I let her go. I let her go," he moaned to himself, not seeing a glimpse of either of them. He would be saddened if Norrington had been lost to the sea, but Elizabeth.......just thinking about never being able to see her face again broke something deep inside of him that he didn't think he could live without.
Rising to his feet, refusing to give into the nausea that threatened to topple him back onto the sand, he squinted in the now bright sunlight, the storm only a distant nightmare on the horizon. He looked up and down the beach, but when he saw no sign of either Norrington or Elizabeth, his heart dropped to his stomach.
"Oh God, where are they!" he muttered to himself. "Elizabeth! James! Where are you?" he shouted at the top of his lungs, praying that someone would hear his call. He cast a backward glance at the sea and saw no sign of the Saviour. But wait.......a flash of something in the water. "Oh God," Will moaned as he got a better glimpse of what it was. Turning and running as fast as he could into the crashing waves he swam out to where he had seen the body.
His face lack and motionless, Norrington floated about 30 feet from shore, his body bobbing and down in the relentless surf. Will swam out to him and grabbed his shirt collar firmly, dragging the both of them back to shore. He then pulled Norrington as far up on the beach as he could with his waning strength before collapsing back on the sand to catch his breath. Something he noticed Norrington wasn't doing.
"James? Are you alright? Come on, talk to me. You're the sailor here, not me. I'm only a blacksmith, no matter what's in my blood. You're the one who's supposed to take to the water like a fish, not me. Although, breathing in the water like a fish wasn't such a good idea on your part, man. Now come on, it's not that hard. Just breathe. You've been doing it all your life, I know you know how," Will pat Norrington soundly on the back and nearly fell over in shock when he heard the other man cough hoarsely.
"You're right; I am the sailor here, Mr. Turner. And don't you forget it," Norrington mumbled into the sand almost too quietly for Will to hear. A bright smile lit up Will's face for a moment, but it quickly fell away as Norrington started coughing furiously, and he remembered that Elizabeth was still out there somewhere.
"Are you alright, James?" Whatever answer Norrington might have given was prevented by the horrible hacking his entire form was currently engaged in. Just looking at him shaking under the force of the coughs made Will wince in sympathy. "Do you think you can stand up and come with me? We both need to get dry. And soon,"
"Where----where is Elizabeth?" Norrington finally managed to say after taking a few wheezing breaths that worried Will more than he was willing to admit at this point in time.
Will frowned and cast an eye back out into the sea. "I don't know, James. I fear she may be lost to us."
***
Elizabeth sat up on suspiciously solid ground and looked around. "This isn't a ship. Oh God, what happened to the ship!" she shouted, turning her head quickly from side to side, scanning the ocean hoping to get a glimpse of the Saviour. That turned out to be a mistake as the back of her head and shoulders screamed pain-filled exclamations in her ears. 'What had happened? Where were Will and James?' The sea offered no answers, and the storm that had assailed them was long gone. The last thing she could remember was screaming as she looked up and saw the looming figure of the main mast bearing down on her. She shivered at a mixture of the cold and of the memory, and crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself tight. "Where is everyone? Was I the only one to survive? Oh God, that can't be true. Will, James. Where are you?"
After sitting on the wet sand for a minute or two longer, tears running down her cheeks at the thought of being on this seemingly deserted island alone, she thought long and hard about her situation and got decidedly angry at herself. "What am I doing just sitting here on the beach crying like one of the simpering morons back home? I've got to get up and do something about this! I don't know for sure if Will and James are gone! I haven't even bothered to look for them yet!" Rising to her feet, a purpose in her eyes and her wet skirts gathered in her hands, she chose a direction to walk down the beach and got walking. She wouldn't stop until she had traveled the length of the whole island, even if she died trying.
***
Sitting on the sand next to the lined up bodies of his friends and crewmates, Jack stared at what the specter had called its creation, a souvenir on his left arm, flexing his now black middle and ring fingers and hand. It didn't look like any tattoo he had ever seen before, and although it hadn't changed while he had been looking at it, he thought it should have for some reason. He knew though that if he stared at it long enough however, his eyes would indeed trick him into thinking that it had changed when it hadn't, so he took his eyes off of it and looked out to sea.
Putting it out of sight didn't necessarily put it out of mind however, and Jack couldn't help but wonder what its purpose was. The specter had said it was a souvenir from the time he had spent inside of him, but was that all it was? Or did it serve some darker purpose of which Jack was yet unaware? And did he have any way of preventing the specter from entering his body, or was he merely helpless to stop its onslaughts? All important questions, but the sea offered up no answers. She merely remained the inconstant and ever changing force that it always had been, reluctant to give up her secrets even to someone as loyal to her as Jack was.
Jack was somewhat annoyed at the sea's apparent tight-lipped mood about his questions, but he had hardly expected otherwise. While she had treated him well so far, the sea was a fickle mistress to be sure, and not to be taken lightly. He turned toward his beloved Pearl, merely to reassure himself that she was still there, and his eyes widened in shock. "No, it's not possible. This is that accursed specter's work, I know it. Don't let it get to ye Jack. It isn't real," The Pearl's sails were once more torn ragged and an ill-looking fog seemed to emanate from the ship itself, cloaking it in mystery. She looked just has she had under Barbossa's reign. She was the ghost ship of legend once more.
Jack shut his eyes tightly, trying to will the vision away. He tried to picture the ship as she was now. Her sails full and beautiful, an ebony cloud above a clear blue sky, the dark wood that with the dark sails helped give her her name gleaming in the sunlight. This was what his ship looked like. This was her glory. But as hard he tried to picture the Pearl in her prime, his thoughts kept returning to how she had been; a ship that with her tattered sails seeming to sail on dark magic alone. Cracking an eye open, hoping to see his beloved ship once again how she was, not how she had been, he was assailed with yet another horrible image rowing up on shore to greet him. "It's not possible," finally muttering to the man who now stood before him while struggling to his feet.
"What was it ye said, Jack? Ye've such a way with words. Ye always have. Oh yes, I remember, it's not probable. Yet here I am," the man smirked at him, turning to pet the chattering monkey on his shoulder at the mention of *his* name.
"You're dead, Barbossa. I bleedin' put the shot into you all by my onsies, and if you think I'm gonna fall for this ye bleedin' specter you don't know Captain Jack Sparrow!" he shouted, doing his best to ignore the form of Hector Barbossa, his late mutinous first mate.
"I always knew ye were mad, Jack. A mad sparrow that is what you are. I know nothing of specters, but I do know something or other about curses. And thanks to Jack here, I live again when I should have died," he petted the monkey who shared his Christian name and gestured to the single piece of Aztec gold suspended on a silver chain from his neck. It was dissimilar to the one Elizabeth had, but oh so familiar, and it made Jack groan. "And that's not all," he walked back down the beach to his boat and viciously pulled another figure out of it and up the sand that Jack had not noticed.
"Elizabeth," he whispered, not believing his eyes. She was sopping wet, her clothes tattered and torn. She looked as if she had been through hell. "What has happened to you?"
"Oh Jack, I'm so glad you're alright," a stern glare from Barbossa cut off any other comments she might have made about Jack's health, but she went on speaking anyway. "We were coming to rescue you. Will and even Norrington, if you can believe that. But we were caught in a terrible storm, and our ship was destroyed. I don't know what has happened to Will or James, but I fear they may both be dead," she finally said, stifling a sob.
The notion that one of his few surviving friends might be dead chipped away another piece of the narrowing ledge of sanity that Jack found himself precariously balanced on. A few more hits and he would tumble into the abyss, most likely never to return. "Are ye sure, Elizabeth?" he asked quietly, and Barbossa laughed to hear the frightened tremor in his voice.
"I tell ye this, Jack. I've seen no signs of the ship they supposedly sailed on, I had to walk meself," Jack didn't know what to make of that statement, but Barbossa went on without explanation. "I found young Miss," he paused and looked at her. "You're not Miss Turner lass, just who are you?" he asked, having never considered that he didn't know her real name before.
"My name is Elizabeth Swann you bastard," she cursed vilely, spitting at the ground at Barbossa's feet, and it lightened Jack's heart to see her stand up to Barbossa so.
Barbossa however was unamused, and backhanded Elizabeth viciously across the mouth, sending her sprawling to the ground, spitting a bloody tooth onto the sand. "Looks like I'll have to get my first gold one like you now, Jack," she joked with a musical laugh, causing Jack to smile widely at the thought, showing off all his own golden teeth in the sunlight. Barbossa cut off her laughter quickly as he pulled her to her feet by her hair, causing her to gasp in pain. "Unhand me you bastard!" she shouted through the pain.
"Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely insulted, was that I found young Miss Swann her walked the beach, searching for your lost comrades as it were. I could not just leave her unattended, t'would be ungentlemanly of me, so I thought it'd be best to pick her up. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Pearl in the harbor and ye yerself sitting on the beach clear as day, Jack. I had always thought it was you who had the unexplainable luck, not me," Barbossa said with a laugh.
"I don't care what it takes, Barbossa. I will kill you again, and this time I'll make sure and burn your body to ash and scatter it among all the seven seas," Jack spit out, still not fully believing that Barbossa was real, but not fully disbelieving it either. He had seen stranger things in his life, only one of them being undead cursed pirates.
"Ah Jack, I didn't know ye cared. Warms the cockles of me dead heart to hear ye'll be taking care of my body so faithfully. 'Course, ye'll not be having that chance since ye'll be dead, now will ye?' Barbossa said, pulling his pistol out of his belt and aiming it at Jack's chest.
Jack didn't have time to move, Barbossa had him in his sights. The game of life and death had been played, and Jack had finally lost. With a quick glance at Elizabeth, he felt some relief. At least he wouldn't die alone on this godforsaken island with only Barbossa and a specter for companions. 'Where is that bleeding specter anyway? Why hasn't it showed up to gloat?' All these thoughts took place in merely an instant, his body racing with adrenaline as his last card had been played. He was going to die.
Barbossa smiled coldly and put his finger to the trigger. Jack refused to close his eyes, determined to meet his fate like a man. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, for God's sake! He would not go gently into the night. "Ye know what Jack, I've changed my mind. I'm not going to shoot you after all," Barbossa said with a smile, lowering the pistol a little. Jack frowned, not believing his ears, his eyes focussed on the second pistol at Barbossa's belt. If he could just get to it, or to one of the crew's pistols....... "I think I'll shoot the lovely Miss Swann here instead for all the trouble she caused me." Before Jack could make a move against him, Barbossa had turned and fired the weapon towards Elizabeth. At such close proximity, there had been no chance of missing, and Elizabeth fell down to the sand, the front of her dress a torn and bloody mess.
"Jack," she whispered, a trail of blood running down her chin from her open mouth. "I'll be sure and say hello to Will for you, in heaven. Kill Barbossa. For me," and with that final command, she fell back onto the sand, lifeless, her beautiful brown eyes staring up at the clear blue sky above her, seeing no more.
Jack broke. There was no other way to describe it. Seeing Elizabeth's body go still upon the sand caused something to crumble to pieces behind his eyes. Perhaps it was the last remnants of his sanity.
Barbossa could see what was happening behind Jack's eyes, and he didn't like it one bit. The man had never looked as dangerous before as he did now. Barbossa found himself taking a step back before he knew what he was doing, taking the second pistol out of his belt and aiming it at Jack. Somehow, the position of having a pistol aimed at his former captain didn't seem as safe now as it had before he had killed Miss Swann.
"Now Jack, ye don't want to be doing anything stupid now. I've still got the pistol and I've no qualms 'gainst sending you to join Miss Swann." If Jack had heard the threat he paid it no mind. He merely walked over to where Elizabeth lay, closed her open eyes with a gentle swipe of his hand, and walked back over to where he had laid the dead bodies of his crew mates. He stopped in front of Annamaria's body and knelt over her. Kissing her on the forehead, he whispered something that Barbossa couldn't hear. His arm trembled as Jack stood with Annamaria's sword clenched in his hand. He then turned and made his way back down to Barbossa, his dark eyes cold and lifeless, his long black hair fluttering behind him in an unfelt wind.
If Barbossa had been a religious man, he would have crossed himself upon seeing the sight of his former captain bearing down upon him, sword in hand like some kind of avenging angel. His finger pulled tight against the trigger in fear, a completely new experience for him. Never before had he truly felt fear. Not until he met Jack's eyes and saw for the first time what a man who had truly gone insane really looked like. The pistol went off loudly, the bullet whizzing by Jack's head close enough to take a long strand of his ebony hair with it. But Jack never made a move. He continued his slow walk towards Barbossa as if he had just shot a kiss at him instead of a bullet.
Now weaponless save for his own sword, Barbossa pulled it out hurriedly and waved it a few times in front of Jack who didn't even look down at it and merely kept on coming. "Stand back, Jack! Ye know I'm a better fighter than ye are!" Barbossa yelled, hoping to talk some sense into this mad looking zombie of a man before him.
"Ye're nothing. Ye're dead and so am I. This is hell and I'm the guest of honor," Jack finally spoke, stopping to stand in front of Barbossa before swinging his sword at him with all his strength. It was everything Barbossa could do not to drop his sword onto the sand under the pure raw power and rage behind Jack's swing.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him as he was defending Jack's ever increasingly vicious blows. He couldn't die. A sword could not kill him. Jack could not kill him.
"Give it up Jack. We've been through this already, ye can't kill me. And now ye don't have a piece of the treasure like last time. If I kill you now, you don't come back. I find I rather like the sound of that," he moved in to thrust his sword through Jack's body as he had done in the treasure cave, but then Jack did something unexpected.
Barbossa's severed head went flying through the air, hitting the sand and rolling a good distance before finally coming to rest, an utterly shocked look still on its face. Barbossa's body slumped to the ground, and went still.
Jack laughed maniacally, his bloodied sword falling from his fingertips. He then slumped to the sand and clutched his head between his hands. "Come back from that, ye bleeding bastard!" he shouted at the top of his lungs through his laughter. He had fallen off the edge and he no longer cared. There was nothing else left in the world that he cared about. Nothing else was worth living for, and everything in the world was worth dying for.
His laughter finally abating somewhat, Jack felt a moment of lucidity wash over him and knew what he had to do. He crawled over on his hands and knees to where Ana lay and grabbed the pistol out of her belt, whispering thanks and kissing her on the forehead once more as he had done when he had taken her sword. It was only right that he die by Ana's weapon after all. "Goodbye my friends," he said to the bodies of all that lay on the beach. He even included Barbossa in the salutation, for he had indeed once been a trusted friend. "Hopefully I'll see you all again someday. Perhaps even today," he cocked the pistol and placed the muzzle under his chin, the beads of his plaited beard clinking against the metal of the gun.
"Jack! My God, what are you doing! Give me the gun!" a voice shouted at him breathlessly from the beach. He didn't turn. He wouldn't turn. It had sounded like Elizabeth and she was dead. They were all dead and not coming back. He placed a finger on the trigger.
***
Elizabeth had been walking up the beach for what seemed like hours with no luck. She had seen no trace of Will or James and she was about to give up hope when she heard a voice. At first, she had thought it was her imagination playing tricks on her because for a second there it had sounded an awful lot like Jack's.
Her pace increasing in case her ears weren't playing tricks on her, she raced towards the sound and instead of fading away like illusions do, it merely got louder and louder the faster she ran. It sounded as if Jack was arguing with someone. That, or he was merely talking to himself for however close she got to the sound, and however more clear it became, she could hear no answer to his arguments.
"Jack! Is that you?!" she called down the beach. If Jack had heard her however, he made no answer. That was of course assuming that it was indeed Jack's voice she heard. She prayed fervently that it was. Suddenly, an image presented itself to her eyes about one hundred yards away. Jack was swinging something shiny in the sunlight that must have been a sword. He looked as if he was having a fight with someone, but there was no one there fighting with him. "Oh Jack," she whispered and sped her pace up considerably.
She nearly sobbed relief as she saw that Jack wasn't an illusion the closer she got to him. He was real, and when she turned her head out to sea she saw the Black Pearl in all its glory firmly anchored in the bay. It was truly him! She could hear him still arguing with whatever he was fighting with, although she could still see no other person there besides him, and then the laughter came.
Oh God, if she never heard such a thing in her life every again she could die a happy woman. Jack slumped to the ground laughing insanely, and it sent a chill through Elizabeth's form. When he yelled, "Come back from that, ye bleeding bastard!" Elizabeth gasped in shock, but didn't slow her pace any. If Jack truly had gone insane, she had to get to him as soon as possible.
Finally reaching him, she gasped once more again in shock to see Jack holding what certainly looked like a loaded pistol underneath his chin. "Jack! My God, what are you doing! Give me the gun!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. She couldn't believe it! Captain Jack Sparrow actually giving up and resorting to suicide! What had happened while he had been gone? Her eyes traveling to the ground beside him, she saw the lined up bodies of Jack's crew, a hand flew up to her mouth in shock and she had to hold back a wretch at the horror of it all. 'This would drive any man to suicide,' she thought with a grimace. But she wasn't going to let it drive this man. Running with all her might as she saw that Jack had ignored her and not dropped the gun, she barreled into him just as the pistol went off.
Elizabeth lay on top of Jack, using all her strength to pin him to the ground lest he get up and find another pistol, her chest heaving as she attempted to catch her breath. If she had been any slower Jack might have been dead. Finally raising herself up on her arms, she leaned over Jack and saw that he had his eyes closed and his head turned to the side. What she saw on his face told her exactly just how close he had come to doing himself in.
A deep bloody groove tore its way up Jack's cheek where the bullet had traveled. If she hadn't moved his arm any further, that bullet would have been lodged in his brain and not flying up through the sky. "Oh God, Jack. Why did you do this? Elizabeth asked him as she tore a long strip from the edge of her skirt and placed it upon Jack's ruined cheek. He moaned under her fingertips.
"Ye're not real, no one's real. I'm not real. We're all dead and this is hell," Jack murmured, opening his eyes to look up at her. Elizabeth recoiled at what she saw when she looked into them. This was no longer her friend, Captain Jack Sparrow. She didn't know what had happened to him but never before had he truly matched what the books had written about him.
Falling backwards in shock, she got up on her hands and started backing away from him as quickly as she could in her long skirts. Jack had gone truly mad. More so than ever before, and it didn't look like he would be coming back from it any time soon.
"What's wrong, Elizabeth?" he asked mockingly as he raised up and crawled towards her, the makeshift bandage sticking to his bloodied face. "Ye're not real, ye have nothing to be afraid of. Also, this being hell and all, neither of us can die, savvy?" he chuckled. "Savvy, savvy, savvy," he said over and over again, repeating it to himself like a small child.
"I am real Jack, please listen to me. This isn't hell. We're both alive and you're frightening me," she said with a small whimper of fear. She kept backing up down towards the crashing waves of the beach, but she really had no defense if he decided to turn on her.
Suddenly though, Jack stopped all movement, save for his eyes scanning wildly across the beach. "What have ye done with them?" he asked, and Elizabeth might have believed he was quite sane were it not for the look in his eyes.
"Done with whom, Jack?" Elizabeth whispered, doing her best to humor him.
"Barbossa. And the other you," he motioned to places on the beach vaguely. "They were right here. What have ye done with them?"
"I didn't do anything with them Jack. There's no one there," Elizabeth whispered, her voice trembling with fear.
"What have ye done with them?!" Jack yelled, grabbing Elizabeth's shoulders on either side of her body and shaking her roughly.
"Jack please, you're hurting me!" Elizabeth yelled sitting up so she could raise he hands to push Jack away. "There is no one else here but us! Now I don't know what's happened to you, but I'm your friend! You don't want to hurt me," she said the last softly, trying to reinforce this into Jack's shattered mind.
"No, I would never want to hurt Elizabeth," Jack agreed, again in a childlike manner that made Elizabeth's skin crawl. "But you're not real, are you? If you're not real, then I can't hurt you. Right?" Jack shrunk in on himself at the question. "I don't want to hurt Miss Elizabeth," he whispered. "I never want to hurt any one again. I just want it to stop. Everyone's dead, why can't I be too?" he moaned and placed his hands against his head and rocked back and forth slowly. "They're all dead. I'm alone. God, I don't want to be alone."
"You're not alone, Jack," Elizabeth said, and with a deep breath moved closer to him. He seemed to be calmed down a little at least. Still insane, that seemed to be unavoidable for now, but at least he didn't seem to be angry anymore. And seeing him in such a childlike and vulnerable state, the indomitable Captain Jack Sparrow, made her want to hold him close to her chest and sooth his fears away.
She reached out tentatively and placed her hand on his shoulder. "I'm here Jack. I'm not going to leave you. We'll get through this together," she vowed. He turned to her and his liquid brown eyes locked with her own, and she gave a small smile.
"You won't leave me then?" he asked again in that same frightened little boy voice that made her soul ache.
"No, I won't leave you, Jack. I promise. Now let's see if we can do something about that cut," he merely nodded and let her look at it, while she prayed fervently that wherever Will and James were, they would find them soon.
TBC
A/N: Oh wow, that chapter was a bit of a doozey, huh? And 10 pages long, dear me. Sorry for any emotional trauma reading this chapter might have caused you. It certainly caused me a boatload to write it. Anyway, please send me your reviews. I greatly appreciate them!!
A Pirates of the Caribbean story by Merrie
Disclaimer: I still don't see my name in the credits no matter how many times I watch them, so I guess that means they aren't mine. Damn.
Summary: Captain Jack has lost his ship, his crew, nearly his life, and now his sanity to a horrible new curse. Will this Sparrow be able soar again after his wings have been broken?
Characters: Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Commodore Norrington, and a few special guests just for fun.
Author's Note: Continued thanks to Miss B. for betaing, gypsy and Halia for lending their much appreciated support, and to all of you for reading my not so little fic any longer and letting me know that you like it. Thanks a million!!! The cyber rum is on me!!!
Rating: This story is rated PG-13 for bloody violence, naughty language, and pure undiluted angst in the worst way. I make no apologies for it.
Chapter 8: Separation and Shattered Psyches
Furiously coughing bitter tasting seawater out of his lungs, Will Turner raised up on his hands and knees and laid his heavy head on the wet sand, not caring that his face was now most likely covered in the stuff. All he wanted to do was to rest, to sleep for a year. He had never felt more exhausted in all his life. All he had to do was close his eyes......he shot up suddenly as he remembered himself, and what he was doing. Taking a look around him, he saw that he had washed up on some sandy beach. But where was Elizabeth? And Norrington! "Oh God, I let her go. I let her go," he moaned to himself, not seeing a glimpse of either of them. He would be saddened if Norrington had been lost to the sea, but Elizabeth.......just thinking about never being able to see her face again broke something deep inside of him that he didn't think he could live without.
Rising to his feet, refusing to give into the nausea that threatened to topple him back onto the sand, he squinted in the now bright sunlight, the storm only a distant nightmare on the horizon. He looked up and down the beach, but when he saw no sign of either Norrington or Elizabeth, his heart dropped to his stomach.
"Oh God, where are they!" he muttered to himself. "Elizabeth! James! Where are you?" he shouted at the top of his lungs, praying that someone would hear his call. He cast a backward glance at the sea and saw no sign of the Saviour. But wait.......a flash of something in the water. "Oh God," Will moaned as he got a better glimpse of what it was. Turning and running as fast as he could into the crashing waves he swam out to where he had seen the body.
His face lack and motionless, Norrington floated about 30 feet from shore, his body bobbing and down in the relentless surf. Will swam out to him and grabbed his shirt collar firmly, dragging the both of them back to shore. He then pulled Norrington as far up on the beach as he could with his waning strength before collapsing back on the sand to catch his breath. Something he noticed Norrington wasn't doing.
"James? Are you alright? Come on, talk to me. You're the sailor here, not me. I'm only a blacksmith, no matter what's in my blood. You're the one who's supposed to take to the water like a fish, not me. Although, breathing in the water like a fish wasn't such a good idea on your part, man. Now come on, it's not that hard. Just breathe. You've been doing it all your life, I know you know how," Will pat Norrington soundly on the back and nearly fell over in shock when he heard the other man cough hoarsely.
"You're right; I am the sailor here, Mr. Turner. And don't you forget it," Norrington mumbled into the sand almost too quietly for Will to hear. A bright smile lit up Will's face for a moment, but it quickly fell away as Norrington started coughing furiously, and he remembered that Elizabeth was still out there somewhere.
"Are you alright, James?" Whatever answer Norrington might have given was prevented by the horrible hacking his entire form was currently engaged in. Just looking at him shaking under the force of the coughs made Will wince in sympathy. "Do you think you can stand up and come with me? We both need to get dry. And soon,"
"Where----where is Elizabeth?" Norrington finally managed to say after taking a few wheezing breaths that worried Will more than he was willing to admit at this point in time.
Will frowned and cast an eye back out into the sea. "I don't know, James. I fear she may be lost to us."
***
Elizabeth sat up on suspiciously solid ground and looked around. "This isn't a ship. Oh God, what happened to the ship!" she shouted, turning her head quickly from side to side, scanning the ocean hoping to get a glimpse of the Saviour. That turned out to be a mistake as the back of her head and shoulders screamed pain-filled exclamations in her ears. 'What had happened? Where were Will and James?' The sea offered no answers, and the storm that had assailed them was long gone. The last thing she could remember was screaming as she looked up and saw the looming figure of the main mast bearing down on her. She shivered at a mixture of the cold and of the memory, and crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself tight. "Where is everyone? Was I the only one to survive? Oh God, that can't be true. Will, James. Where are you?"
After sitting on the wet sand for a minute or two longer, tears running down her cheeks at the thought of being on this seemingly deserted island alone, she thought long and hard about her situation and got decidedly angry at herself. "What am I doing just sitting here on the beach crying like one of the simpering morons back home? I've got to get up and do something about this! I don't know for sure if Will and James are gone! I haven't even bothered to look for them yet!" Rising to her feet, a purpose in her eyes and her wet skirts gathered in her hands, she chose a direction to walk down the beach and got walking. She wouldn't stop until she had traveled the length of the whole island, even if she died trying.
***
Sitting on the sand next to the lined up bodies of his friends and crewmates, Jack stared at what the specter had called its creation, a souvenir on his left arm, flexing his now black middle and ring fingers and hand. It didn't look like any tattoo he had ever seen before, and although it hadn't changed while he had been looking at it, he thought it should have for some reason. He knew though that if he stared at it long enough however, his eyes would indeed trick him into thinking that it had changed when it hadn't, so he took his eyes off of it and looked out to sea.
Putting it out of sight didn't necessarily put it out of mind however, and Jack couldn't help but wonder what its purpose was. The specter had said it was a souvenir from the time he had spent inside of him, but was that all it was? Or did it serve some darker purpose of which Jack was yet unaware? And did he have any way of preventing the specter from entering his body, or was he merely helpless to stop its onslaughts? All important questions, but the sea offered up no answers. She merely remained the inconstant and ever changing force that it always had been, reluctant to give up her secrets even to someone as loyal to her as Jack was.
Jack was somewhat annoyed at the sea's apparent tight-lipped mood about his questions, but he had hardly expected otherwise. While she had treated him well so far, the sea was a fickle mistress to be sure, and not to be taken lightly. He turned toward his beloved Pearl, merely to reassure himself that she was still there, and his eyes widened in shock. "No, it's not possible. This is that accursed specter's work, I know it. Don't let it get to ye Jack. It isn't real," The Pearl's sails were once more torn ragged and an ill-looking fog seemed to emanate from the ship itself, cloaking it in mystery. She looked just has she had under Barbossa's reign. She was the ghost ship of legend once more.
Jack shut his eyes tightly, trying to will the vision away. He tried to picture the ship as she was now. Her sails full and beautiful, an ebony cloud above a clear blue sky, the dark wood that with the dark sails helped give her her name gleaming in the sunlight. This was what his ship looked like. This was her glory. But as hard he tried to picture the Pearl in her prime, his thoughts kept returning to how she had been; a ship that with her tattered sails seeming to sail on dark magic alone. Cracking an eye open, hoping to see his beloved ship once again how she was, not how she had been, he was assailed with yet another horrible image rowing up on shore to greet him. "It's not possible," finally muttering to the man who now stood before him while struggling to his feet.
"What was it ye said, Jack? Ye've such a way with words. Ye always have. Oh yes, I remember, it's not probable. Yet here I am," the man smirked at him, turning to pet the chattering monkey on his shoulder at the mention of *his* name.
"You're dead, Barbossa. I bleedin' put the shot into you all by my onsies, and if you think I'm gonna fall for this ye bleedin' specter you don't know Captain Jack Sparrow!" he shouted, doing his best to ignore the form of Hector Barbossa, his late mutinous first mate.
"I always knew ye were mad, Jack. A mad sparrow that is what you are. I know nothing of specters, but I do know something or other about curses. And thanks to Jack here, I live again when I should have died," he petted the monkey who shared his Christian name and gestured to the single piece of Aztec gold suspended on a silver chain from his neck. It was dissimilar to the one Elizabeth had, but oh so familiar, and it made Jack groan. "And that's not all," he walked back down the beach to his boat and viciously pulled another figure out of it and up the sand that Jack had not noticed.
"Elizabeth," he whispered, not believing his eyes. She was sopping wet, her clothes tattered and torn. She looked as if she had been through hell. "What has happened to you?"
"Oh Jack, I'm so glad you're alright," a stern glare from Barbossa cut off any other comments she might have made about Jack's health, but she went on speaking anyway. "We were coming to rescue you. Will and even Norrington, if you can believe that. But we were caught in a terrible storm, and our ship was destroyed. I don't know what has happened to Will or James, but I fear they may both be dead," she finally said, stifling a sob.
The notion that one of his few surviving friends might be dead chipped away another piece of the narrowing ledge of sanity that Jack found himself precariously balanced on. A few more hits and he would tumble into the abyss, most likely never to return. "Are ye sure, Elizabeth?" he asked quietly, and Barbossa laughed to hear the frightened tremor in his voice.
"I tell ye this, Jack. I've seen no signs of the ship they supposedly sailed on, I had to walk meself," Jack didn't know what to make of that statement, but Barbossa went on without explanation. "I found young Miss," he paused and looked at her. "You're not Miss Turner lass, just who are you?" he asked, having never considered that he didn't know her real name before.
"My name is Elizabeth Swann you bastard," she cursed vilely, spitting at the ground at Barbossa's feet, and it lightened Jack's heart to see her stand up to Barbossa so.
Barbossa however was unamused, and backhanded Elizabeth viciously across the mouth, sending her sprawling to the ground, spitting a bloody tooth onto the sand. "Looks like I'll have to get my first gold one like you now, Jack," she joked with a musical laugh, causing Jack to smile widely at the thought, showing off all his own golden teeth in the sunlight. Barbossa cut off her laughter quickly as he pulled her to her feet by her hair, causing her to gasp in pain. "Unhand me you bastard!" she shouted through the pain.
"Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely insulted, was that I found young Miss Swann her walked the beach, searching for your lost comrades as it were. I could not just leave her unattended, t'would be ungentlemanly of me, so I thought it'd be best to pick her up. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Pearl in the harbor and ye yerself sitting on the beach clear as day, Jack. I had always thought it was you who had the unexplainable luck, not me," Barbossa said with a laugh.
"I don't care what it takes, Barbossa. I will kill you again, and this time I'll make sure and burn your body to ash and scatter it among all the seven seas," Jack spit out, still not fully believing that Barbossa was real, but not fully disbelieving it either. He had seen stranger things in his life, only one of them being undead cursed pirates.
"Ah Jack, I didn't know ye cared. Warms the cockles of me dead heart to hear ye'll be taking care of my body so faithfully. 'Course, ye'll not be having that chance since ye'll be dead, now will ye?' Barbossa said, pulling his pistol out of his belt and aiming it at Jack's chest.
Jack didn't have time to move, Barbossa had him in his sights. The game of life and death had been played, and Jack had finally lost. With a quick glance at Elizabeth, he felt some relief. At least he wouldn't die alone on this godforsaken island with only Barbossa and a specter for companions. 'Where is that bleeding specter anyway? Why hasn't it showed up to gloat?' All these thoughts took place in merely an instant, his body racing with adrenaline as his last card had been played. He was going to die.
Barbossa smiled coldly and put his finger to the trigger. Jack refused to close his eyes, determined to meet his fate like a man. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, for God's sake! He would not go gently into the night. "Ye know what Jack, I've changed my mind. I'm not going to shoot you after all," Barbossa said with a smile, lowering the pistol a little. Jack frowned, not believing his ears, his eyes focussed on the second pistol at Barbossa's belt. If he could just get to it, or to one of the crew's pistols....... "I think I'll shoot the lovely Miss Swann here instead for all the trouble she caused me." Before Jack could make a move against him, Barbossa had turned and fired the weapon towards Elizabeth. At such close proximity, there had been no chance of missing, and Elizabeth fell down to the sand, the front of her dress a torn and bloody mess.
"Jack," she whispered, a trail of blood running down her chin from her open mouth. "I'll be sure and say hello to Will for you, in heaven. Kill Barbossa. For me," and with that final command, she fell back onto the sand, lifeless, her beautiful brown eyes staring up at the clear blue sky above her, seeing no more.
Jack broke. There was no other way to describe it. Seeing Elizabeth's body go still upon the sand caused something to crumble to pieces behind his eyes. Perhaps it was the last remnants of his sanity.
Barbossa could see what was happening behind Jack's eyes, and he didn't like it one bit. The man had never looked as dangerous before as he did now. Barbossa found himself taking a step back before he knew what he was doing, taking the second pistol out of his belt and aiming it at Jack. Somehow, the position of having a pistol aimed at his former captain didn't seem as safe now as it had before he had killed Miss Swann.
"Now Jack, ye don't want to be doing anything stupid now. I've still got the pistol and I've no qualms 'gainst sending you to join Miss Swann." If Jack had heard the threat he paid it no mind. He merely walked over to where Elizabeth lay, closed her open eyes with a gentle swipe of his hand, and walked back over to where he had laid the dead bodies of his crew mates. He stopped in front of Annamaria's body and knelt over her. Kissing her on the forehead, he whispered something that Barbossa couldn't hear. His arm trembled as Jack stood with Annamaria's sword clenched in his hand. He then turned and made his way back down to Barbossa, his dark eyes cold and lifeless, his long black hair fluttering behind him in an unfelt wind.
If Barbossa had been a religious man, he would have crossed himself upon seeing the sight of his former captain bearing down upon him, sword in hand like some kind of avenging angel. His finger pulled tight against the trigger in fear, a completely new experience for him. Never before had he truly felt fear. Not until he met Jack's eyes and saw for the first time what a man who had truly gone insane really looked like. The pistol went off loudly, the bullet whizzing by Jack's head close enough to take a long strand of his ebony hair with it. But Jack never made a move. He continued his slow walk towards Barbossa as if he had just shot a kiss at him instead of a bullet.
Now weaponless save for his own sword, Barbossa pulled it out hurriedly and waved it a few times in front of Jack who didn't even look down at it and merely kept on coming. "Stand back, Jack! Ye know I'm a better fighter than ye are!" Barbossa yelled, hoping to talk some sense into this mad looking zombie of a man before him.
"Ye're nothing. Ye're dead and so am I. This is hell and I'm the guest of honor," Jack finally spoke, stopping to stand in front of Barbossa before swinging his sword at him with all his strength. It was everything Barbossa could do not to drop his sword onto the sand under the pure raw power and rage behind Jack's swing.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him as he was defending Jack's ever increasingly vicious blows. He couldn't die. A sword could not kill him. Jack could not kill him.
"Give it up Jack. We've been through this already, ye can't kill me. And now ye don't have a piece of the treasure like last time. If I kill you now, you don't come back. I find I rather like the sound of that," he moved in to thrust his sword through Jack's body as he had done in the treasure cave, but then Jack did something unexpected.
Barbossa's severed head went flying through the air, hitting the sand and rolling a good distance before finally coming to rest, an utterly shocked look still on its face. Barbossa's body slumped to the ground, and went still.
Jack laughed maniacally, his bloodied sword falling from his fingertips. He then slumped to the sand and clutched his head between his hands. "Come back from that, ye bleeding bastard!" he shouted at the top of his lungs through his laughter. He had fallen off the edge and he no longer cared. There was nothing else left in the world that he cared about. Nothing else was worth living for, and everything in the world was worth dying for.
His laughter finally abating somewhat, Jack felt a moment of lucidity wash over him and knew what he had to do. He crawled over on his hands and knees to where Ana lay and grabbed the pistol out of her belt, whispering thanks and kissing her on the forehead once more as he had done when he had taken her sword. It was only right that he die by Ana's weapon after all. "Goodbye my friends," he said to the bodies of all that lay on the beach. He even included Barbossa in the salutation, for he had indeed once been a trusted friend. "Hopefully I'll see you all again someday. Perhaps even today," he cocked the pistol and placed the muzzle under his chin, the beads of his plaited beard clinking against the metal of the gun.
"Jack! My God, what are you doing! Give me the gun!" a voice shouted at him breathlessly from the beach. He didn't turn. He wouldn't turn. It had sounded like Elizabeth and she was dead. They were all dead and not coming back. He placed a finger on the trigger.
***
Elizabeth had been walking up the beach for what seemed like hours with no luck. She had seen no trace of Will or James and she was about to give up hope when she heard a voice. At first, she had thought it was her imagination playing tricks on her because for a second there it had sounded an awful lot like Jack's.
Her pace increasing in case her ears weren't playing tricks on her, she raced towards the sound and instead of fading away like illusions do, it merely got louder and louder the faster she ran. It sounded as if Jack was arguing with someone. That, or he was merely talking to himself for however close she got to the sound, and however more clear it became, she could hear no answer to his arguments.
"Jack! Is that you?!" she called down the beach. If Jack had heard her however, he made no answer. That was of course assuming that it was indeed Jack's voice she heard. She prayed fervently that it was. Suddenly, an image presented itself to her eyes about one hundred yards away. Jack was swinging something shiny in the sunlight that must have been a sword. He looked as if he was having a fight with someone, but there was no one there fighting with him. "Oh Jack," she whispered and sped her pace up considerably.
She nearly sobbed relief as she saw that Jack wasn't an illusion the closer she got to him. He was real, and when she turned her head out to sea she saw the Black Pearl in all its glory firmly anchored in the bay. It was truly him! She could hear him still arguing with whatever he was fighting with, although she could still see no other person there besides him, and then the laughter came.
Oh God, if she never heard such a thing in her life every again she could die a happy woman. Jack slumped to the ground laughing insanely, and it sent a chill through Elizabeth's form. When he yelled, "Come back from that, ye bleeding bastard!" Elizabeth gasped in shock, but didn't slow her pace any. If Jack truly had gone insane, she had to get to him as soon as possible.
Finally reaching him, she gasped once more again in shock to see Jack holding what certainly looked like a loaded pistol underneath his chin. "Jack! My God, what are you doing! Give me the gun!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. She couldn't believe it! Captain Jack Sparrow actually giving up and resorting to suicide! What had happened while he had been gone? Her eyes traveling to the ground beside him, she saw the lined up bodies of Jack's crew, a hand flew up to her mouth in shock and she had to hold back a wretch at the horror of it all. 'This would drive any man to suicide,' she thought with a grimace. But she wasn't going to let it drive this man. Running with all her might as she saw that Jack had ignored her and not dropped the gun, she barreled into him just as the pistol went off.
Elizabeth lay on top of Jack, using all her strength to pin him to the ground lest he get up and find another pistol, her chest heaving as she attempted to catch her breath. If she had been any slower Jack might have been dead. Finally raising herself up on her arms, she leaned over Jack and saw that he had his eyes closed and his head turned to the side. What she saw on his face told her exactly just how close he had come to doing himself in.
A deep bloody groove tore its way up Jack's cheek where the bullet had traveled. If she hadn't moved his arm any further, that bullet would have been lodged in his brain and not flying up through the sky. "Oh God, Jack. Why did you do this? Elizabeth asked him as she tore a long strip from the edge of her skirt and placed it upon Jack's ruined cheek. He moaned under her fingertips.
"Ye're not real, no one's real. I'm not real. We're all dead and this is hell," Jack murmured, opening his eyes to look up at her. Elizabeth recoiled at what she saw when she looked into them. This was no longer her friend, Captain Jack Sparrow. She didn't know what had happened to him but never before had he truly matched what the books had written about him.
Falling backwards in shock, she got up on her hands and started backing away from him as quickly as she could in her long skirts. Jack had gone truly mad. More so than ever before, and it didn't look like he would be coming back from it any time soon.
"What's wrong, Elizabeth?" he asked mockingly as he raised up and crawled towards her, the makeshift bandage sticking to his bloodied face. "Ye're not real, ye have nothing to be afraid of. Also, this being hell and all, neither of us can die, savvy?" he chuckled. "Savvy, savvy, savvy," he said over and over again, repeating it to himself like a small child.
"I am real Jack, please listen to me. This isn't hell. We're both alive and you're frightening me," she said with a small whimper of fear. She kept backing up down towards the crashing waves of the beach, but she really had no defense if he decided to turn on her.
Suddenly though, Jack stopped all movement, save for his eyes scanning wildly across the beach. "What have ye done with them?" he asked, and Elizabeth might have believed he was quite sane were it not for the look in his eyes.
"Done with whom, Jack?" Elizabeth whispered, doing her best to humor him.
"Barbossa. And the other you," he motioned to places on the beach vaguely. "They were right here. What have ye done with them?"
"I didn't do anything with them Jack. There's no one there," Elizabeth whispered, her voice trembling with fear.
"What have ye done with them?!" Jack yelled, grabbing Elizabeth's shoulders on either side of her body and shaking her roughly.
"Jack please, you're hurting me!" Elizabeth yelled sitting up so she could raise he hands to push Jack away. "There is no one else here but us! Now I don't know what's happened to you, but I'm your friend! You don't want to hurt me," she said the last softly, trying to reinforce this into Jack's shattered mind.
"No, I would never want to hurt Elizabeth," Jack agreed, again in a childlike manner that made Elizabeth's skin crawl. "But you're not real, are you? If you're not real, then I can't hurt you. Right?" Jack shrunk in on himself at the question. "I don't want to hurt Miss Elizabeth," he whispered. "I never want to hurt any one again. I just want it to stop. Everyone's dead, why can't I be too?" he moaned and placed his hands against his head and rocked back and forth slowly. "They're all dead. I'm alone. God, I don't want to be alone."
"You're not alone, Jack," Elizabeth said, and with a deep breath moved closer to him. He seemed to be calmed down a little at least. Still insane, that seemed to be unavoidable for now, but at least he didn't seem to be angry anymore. And seeing him in such a childlike and vulnerable state, the indomitable Captain Jack Sparrow, made her want to hold him close to her chest and sooth his fears away.
She reached out tentatively and placed her hand on his shoulder. "I'm here Jack. I'm not going to leave you. We'll get through this together," she vowed. He turned to her and his liquid brown eyes locked with her own, and she gave a small smile.
"You won't leave me then?" he asked again in that same frightened little boy voice that made her soul ache.
"No, I won't leave you, Jack. I promise. Now let's see if we can do something about that cut," he merely nodded and let her look at it, while she prayed fervently that wherever Will and James were, they would find them soon.
TBC
A/N: Oh wow, that chapter was a bit of a doozey, huh? And 10 pages long, dear me. Sorry for any emotional trauma reading this chapter might have caused you. It certainly caused me a boatload to write it. Anyway, please send me your reviews. I greatly appreciate them!!