Disclaimer: I own a lanyard that I made that has pics from 'Pirates' down one side and from LotR down the other, because my school is stupid and somehow believes these will keep us safe (my friend says it's so they can ID the bodies after the shooting that really and truly would never happen at my home school unless I'm the one who does it) . . .
AN: Not related to story. May be skipped. Weekends are wonderful. I should be doing calc homework. Obviously I'm not. I should get some sleep. Obviously I'm not. I should be enjoying life as a senior. I'm alternating between a bloody good time and the worst time of my life. I think I'm having my first real 'crisis of faith', and I remember why I'm in band. When we sing it's easy to believe in everything, but when the priest is preaching I find myself questioning, and then going off on a tangent that makes me depressed, at which point I start thinking about pirates, blacksmiths, elves, Numenoreans and other such things that have absolutely no place in church, at which point I feel guilty and try to concentrate, when the whole cycle starts again. Oh, well, it put me in the mood to write, so here I am . . .
To Love and Protect
Part 6
"You honestly think he's dead, Will?"
Will paced the floor of their bedroom while Elizabeth watched him, curled at the head of the bed. Ana had been crying off and on all day in between asking for her brother, and she had finally fallen asleep a few minutes ago.
"I don't know what to think. I don't think Hallson would have sent a ship to England saying Jack was dead if he wasn't sure of the fact, but then again, he is Captain Jack Sparrow, and I swear he has more lives than a cat."
"If he did sink the Pearl, Hallson couldn't have given Jack a chance to surrender. That ship could outrun anything the Navy sent at it, and Jack would trade his soul before he risked his ship and his crew."
"If he sank Jack's ship . . ." Will trailed off, and Elizabeth nodded, understanding what he meant.
They had been prepared for news of Jack's death, or so they had convinced themselves, and both had agreed that the pirate would more than likely go when his ship did.
Having thought it through logically and trying to decide if it was true now were two very different things.
"I don't want to believe he's dead, Elizabeth . . .No, not I don't want to, I can't . . .I don't know, it's like I know he's alive, if that makes any sense . . ."
Elizabeth looked up sharply. "You feel it? You sense him?"
Will stopped pacing to look at her. "I don't know. I just . . .he's alive, Elizabeth. He's hurt, and he's in trouble, but he's alive. I know it. Does that make any sense?"
"Your son said the same thing about Ana four years ago and then led us directly to her cell."
Will sat down abruptly on the side of the bed.
"He said he could tell that she was scared and hurt and told Jack that if he was a good man he would go help her."
Will nodded, a small smile on his lips. "And Jack got not only Ana, but me. Not exactly the picture of a usual over-achiever." The smile faded. "I don't have a ship, though, and even if we succeeded in commandeering one based on one of my plans there's no bloody way I could lead you to him. It's taken this long just to make certain that I'm sure he's alive."
"Jack's a fighter, Will. If he's supposed to die, he won't, just so he can upset someone. He'll find a way. At least Hallson is staying at the garrison for the time being. And just because we don't have a ship doesn't mean someone else we know doesn't."
"Brian doesn't know what's happened."
"He might. He's intelligent, well-liked, has our son with him, and Jack couldn't have been too from Johnson when Hallson found him if Hallson is back already. The sea has always favored Jack before. Don't doubt it now, Will."
Will nodded, pulling his wife into an embrace, his prayers that night all spent on a pirate captain, wherever he might be finding himself . . .
* * *
Jack had been right about the storm ending quickly, and somehow they had managed to keep the boat upright and relatively empty of water while still collecting about a quarter of a bucket of not-too-salty water for drinking.
The pirate captain's sudden strength seemed to pass with the storm, a fact that depressed but didn't really surprise Ana-Maria. Jack had lost a good deal of blood, and though no fever seemed to have settled into the gash across his back, the injury to his head would still bleed every time she removed the makeshift bandage to check it. Both his bandana and her makeshift bandage were saturated with his blood. He needed fresh water, food, protection from the sun, protection from the heat and the cold that warred at night on the open water . . .All of which he would have had on the Pearl, none of which she could give him while stranded in a small boat God-knew-where.
She had once been willing to kill him to spare him pain and to protect his pride. Now she had dragged him away from a death that he would have been content with, a place in the tales . . .Had things between them really changed all that much?
Head wounds were always hard to predict. They could kill, blind, cripple, deafen, mute, or drive a man insane, and it was nearly impossible to predict which would happen in which case. With men like Jack, brilliant but not entirely grounded in the first place, it was doubly hard. She supposed that she should be grateful that all he was doing was doing currently was time traveling in his own mind while sleeping, but she couldn't help the bitterness and the anger.
It wasn't fair. It just wasn't bloody fair.
The only thing that had kept him completely focused and in control had been surviving. Over the past twelve years she had seen Jack injured on more than one occasion, and it usually didn't slow him down at all until after the battle was over and won, at which point he would pass out if she, or Gibbs, when he had still sailed with the Pearl, or one of the other crewmen, hadn't noted that he was hurt and so been prepared. She often thought that even if he hadn't stolen the cursed gold, he would still have survived long enough to see Barbosa dead, simply to spite the man.
If Jack died in a firefight, she knew he would take anyone that he could with him. If he had a choice between dying and living, he would live longer than most people believed humanly possible . . .especially if someone he was with needed him and someone he didn't like wished him dead.
Both pirates had fallen into an exhausted sleep with the passing of the storm. When Jack awoke coughing again, it quickly became apparent to Ana-Maria that it wasn't to their current situation as she received a detailed tour of an Indian port that she couldn't have pronounced to save her life. The second time he had come to with a scream, stared at a point on the horizon for about a minute, and gone back to sleep without ever acknowledging that she was there.
The third time she had been awake and staring at the horizon when he stirred and slowly sat up, blinking against the glare of sunlight on water, no longer cut by the kohl that he normally outlined his eyes with.
"You here, captain?" It had become a catch-all question for her.
Jack had responded slowly with a steady stream of words that were definitely not English.
Sighing, she moved to stare him in the eye, only then catching the faint traces of a grin on his mouth.
"It's Spanish, love, means—" He never got a chance to finish as her hand moved automatically, connecting with his cheek with a sharp crack, and Jack had slumped back into unconsciousness. When he came to a second later, it was with a promise to never play with her head again, and after a profuse apology from Ana-Maria the two had laughed and stared at the gently rolling water for a while before deciding to sleep again, as there was nothing better to do and one didn't feel quite so hungry or thirsty when one wasn't awake.
Now, sometime during the fifth day since the Pearl sank, Ana-Maria sat and watched him sleep again, his hands twitching slightly, telling her that he was dreaming and that it wasn't too bad a nightmare, if it was one at all. When things got bad in his dreams, Jack would start mumbling and his hands would latch on with iron strength to anything within reach.
She smiled at the thought that she knew him so well, but it quickly disappeared as Jack began to shake his head and mutter to himself, his fingers gripping his own shirt as though clinging to something in reality could help him fight whatever demons were in his mind.
Before she could move to wake him, he bolted upright on his own, causing the small craft to sway.
When Jack merely sat staring at the horizon, Ana-Maria moved forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face her. "You here, Jack?"
He blinked once before grabbing her hand. "You have to come with me, San. I can take care of you. I can protect you from him."
"Jack, I'm not—"
"Why? Is it because you need to take the little ones? Anna and Thomas, I can take care of them, too, I can, and I wouldn't hurt them, San. You need to come with me. Please." Ana-Maria stared, caught completely off guard, unsure what to say or how to gently jolt the pirate back to her reality.
"Jack . . .Jack, I'm not Sandra . . .It's me, Jack, Ana-Maria . . .look at me . . ."
The pirate captain shook his head slowly, raising his left hand to his temple and pulling it away again, faint red marks on his hand showing that fresh blood had again soaked through the fabric.
"Ana-Maria . . .oh, hell, I'm sorry, love . . ."
She rubbed his shoulder gently. "It's all right, Jack."
"No, it isn't. I'm not doing very well, am I, love?"
Ana-Maria shook her head furiously. "You're doing fine, captain."
"Captain. To be a captain I need a ship and I need to know what's happening around me. I seem to be having problems with both at the moment." He smiled bitterly.
"You were there when I needed you, during the storm, you're here now, and you didn't have the Pearl for ten years but you were still calling yourself Captain Jack Sparrow."
"I might not have had her physically in hand, but I still had her in my heart, and I knew I'd get her back eventually . . .or at least die trying."
"You've got another ship to try for, remember? Or was I the only one who was aware of what you were saying when you were deciding to 'kill Michael and commandeer that British ship, in any order'?"
"So I've got a ship to try for. That doesn't help with the other minor problem, 'less you're going to keep threatening my life to make sure that I stay here."
"If you want me to, I will, but you seem to find your way back all right, and I'm sure it'll get better soon." She squeezed his shoulder before dropping her hand, and he grinned at her before turning his gaze out to sea. The two pirates sat in comfortable silence for a while.
"Jack . . .who was Sandra?"
The pirate captain looked over at Ana-Maria quickly, his eyes dark and hooded. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because that's the second time you've come to with her on your mind, and I like to know my rivals." She grinned to let him know she was joking, but he had already focused his gaze on a point far out on the horizon.
"The only rival you have to worry about is the same one I do, and you definitely shouldn't worry about San. She's been gone a long time."
"What happened?"
"I was supposed to protect them." Jack stopped, his body tensing. "Am I hallucinating again, or is that a ship?"
Ana-Maria followed his line of sight, hope rising in her heart as she picked up on the faint outline of sails in the distance. "Do you think they'll come this way?"
"They seem to be. Can't make out colors or design yet . . ."
The two pirates watched in avid fascination as the ship drew closer and closer.
Jack cursed quietly. "British. Ship-of-the-line."
"We don't have much of a choice, Jack."
"No, I suppose that we don't." The two pirates began yelling and waving their arms, hoping that if they hadn't been spotted yet, they would be.
When it was obvious that the ship was headed straight for them, both Jack and Ana-Maria quieted. "I don't suppose there's a chance that we don't look like pirates, is there?" Jack queried.
"If I look anything like you do, we both look like shark bait."
"Oh, well, that's encouraging."
Sailors and redcoats could now be made out on board the British ship. A line was cast from the ship to the boat, and first Ana-Maria and then Jack climbed up, each greeted by a sea of suspicious faces and a gray wool blanket.
"Cap'n! We've got 'em on board!"
"Thank you, Rollin." An officer stepped through the crowd, a rather young man with sky blue eyes and a scar on the right side of his face. "You are guests on the HMS Intrepid at the moment, and, if you feel up to it, I require your names and an explanation for the state in which we have found you."
Ana-Maria smiled slowly as she realized that Brian was pretending that he didn't recognize them. No one else had screamed out Jack's name, so it was possible that the ploy would work. Turning to Jack, she felt the grin fade, quickly replaced by a look of concern. The pirate captain was pale, sweating, and swaying far more than could be accounted for by the motion of the ship. She realized it was the first time they had stood upright in five days.
"Ja . . .Jacob, you all right?" Jack turned towards her and cocked an eye-brow, the beginnings of a grin on his face, before collapsing onto the deck.
Watching as Brian ordered two redcoats to carry Jack to the captain's cabin for the moment, Ana-Maria felt her own body begin to sway. She was so hungry, so thirsty, so tired, and it seemed so much easier to just do what gravity wanted . . .
She didn't feel a third redcoat catch her right before she hit the deck.
