Rescue
He rubs the salve into Will's striped back. The boy flinches but doesn't make a sound, holds to the silence he's kept since they dragged him out of Maguire's stinking brig. The only time he broke it was when they set fire to the pirate ship from the safety of the Pearl's guns; he asked Jack if he could watch and then, staring at the wreckage, he said hollowly, "Elizabeth." Her body went over the side a week before, or so the cook claimed before Jack ran him through.
Now Will turns his head to the side, looking at Jack out of one eye. His eyes are frighteningly blank. Jack lets his fingers soothe, gently stroking where the lash didn't tear and strip, avoiding going too low; Will has more torn flesh than is visible, and Jack will do nothing to remind him.
Will murmurs something and Jack leans down to hear. "What was that, love?"
"Should have done something," Will whispers, closing his eyes. "When they took us...when they took her away from me..."
Jack takes the boy's hand in his own. "Shhh, William. There was nothing you could've done, not for any of it." He pauses, waiting for Will to speak again, but he merely buries his face in the pillow.
When his wounds are tended, Jack gets up slowly, thinking Will is asleep. But a hand gropes for him.
"Don't leave me alone?" Will lifts his head to blink up at him, his eyes still too dry and too empty. Jack settles against the head of the bed, sliding his legs carefully up beneath the covers. He draws the pillow onto his lap and Will's head follows it. He is asleep almost immediately, while Jack strokes his hair and waits for the horrors to wake him, grateful that Will is going to let him be there to suffer it as well.