It wasn't an unusual experience for a sailor to sleep the hot hours of the day away while in Tortuga, but Jack was rather ashamed of himself for having done so. He'd had many years to negotiate with his body and often managed to convince it that it didn't actually need the things it wanted, such as food, water, or sleep. When they had returned in the dawn light from their night's excursions, however, he fell onto the bed in his rented room and didn't wake till after dusk. It wasn't a pleasant sleep, either, being plagued by dreams of a dark, nasty fog and James crying his name through the mists. He was quite content to leave that world, wherever it was, behind him.

Claire and Aiden were in the next room over, discussing their plans for the night. He helped himself to supper leftovers and occasionally offered his advice. Mostly he sat and rolled his eyes over their circular arguments. Claire was bored with Tortuga and wanted to find new hunting grounds, while Aiden thought they should give the town one last sweep before they found passage elsewhere. Jack considered taking them to a near port, but in truth, he didn't want the girl anywhere near his Pearl. He liked her all right, but she was a magnet for trouble.

Around midnight, he got up for a stretch and offered to buy a round from the tavern below. Barely glancing up from where they were stabbing fingers at a grubby book, they nodded to him.

Jack pouted for a moment – when he'd said he would treat, he hadn't actually meant from his own pocket. As neither had offered to pay, he supposed he didn't have much of a choice if he wanted to make this long night any more bearable.

He was approaching the bar when he froze in the middle of the crowded room. A man with short brown hair stood there, conversing with the barkeep. His coat was plain brown rather than blue, but Jack recognized him right away.

"Theo, lad!" he said, clapping James's second lieutenant on the back. "What a fine surprise this is. Grown weary o' that little firebrand, have you? Well, I've got just the –" He broke off at the look on Groves's face. "What's happened?"

Groves pulled on one stiff sleeve. "It's James –"

Before he could say another word, Jack grabbed his arm. The other man protested this rough treatment, but he followed Jack up the stairs. The door connecting the two rooms was still open; Aiden and Claire looked up, startled, as he slammed it shut and locked it. He spun, leaned against it, and ignored the knocks and muffled curses from the other side.

"Tell me," he said shortly

Sinking down on the bed as if he had no more energy to stand, Groves said, "He's - he's not well, but it's not from any sickness so far as we can tell. Last night, he tried to kill the Turners' child."

Jack rotated his little finger in one ear, sure that he had misheard. "He what now?"

"I know it sounds absurd, but it's true. Elizabeth and Will said that he simply wasn't himself – that it was as if he became another person. Andrew and I have noticed strange behavior too, in the past few days, but only small things. He's distracted easily, he looks badly rested, he can't remember where he laid something only a moment before – nothing like this. Jack, he's —" Groves looked down at his lap. "He fell into some kind of sleep and can't be woken."

Of all the men under James's command, Theodore Groves was the jolliest and the most likely candidate for pulling a prank. He was also the one Jack knew the best, and when he was being honest, there was no mistaking it.

He thought of the many times he'd crept into the commodore's bed and welcomed him back from sleep. It was an easy enough task, especially since Jack was very creative.

As if he could follow the progress of Jack's thoughts, Groves added, "He was asking for you right before. We thought perhaps if you were there...or that you might know something, somebody that could help, with all you've seen and done..."

Jack, at the moment, was running through each and every memory he could summon, discarding the irrelevant ones and combing what remained for any useful scrap. He started at the beginning, so he quite forgot about the pair he'd met so recently. Just then, Claire obliged him by kicking down the hallway door.

Groves stared at her as she stormed in, hands planted on her hips, imposing in bearing if not in height. "Just what was the meaning of that, Sparrow?"

Aiden came in more quietly, but he too looked vexed. "Really, Jack, if you have a visitor, all you need do is ask for privacy."

Leaping forward, Jack grabbed the slayer by the shoulders, barely aware of her flinging his arms away. "I've got a new assignment for you, love." He gave Aiden a tight, fierce grin. "An' for you, mate, a tale for the annals of history, if you can suss it."

"Jack, who are these people?" Groves wanted to know.

Jack flicked an irritated hand at him. "Can't be bothered with niceties, we haven't got the time. All you need know is that we're taking them to James. Now I'm off to find me crew, and I shall expect to meet you three in front o' the Pearl in exactly two hours."

He left them to make their own introductions – the girl had no social graces, true, but her young man was cordial enough to please the king, and Theo was a bright boy. Jack had bigger fish to fry.


James was six years old and small for his age. In school, the other boys pushed him into the dirt. His two older brothers cleaned him up when they got home, but did nothing to stop it. They said that there were rules on the playground, and they were different than the rules at home or school or church. James spat on Tom's shoes and right then and there, decided he was going to live his life according to only one set of rules – the right set, which he knew he would find someday

In the navy, he advanced quickly because he recognized his ideal rules as those governing the officers. He was eager to leave the drudgery of the lower ranks behind, and he did it through his own hard work and integrity, without ingratiating himself into rich families the way Charles did in the army. And the work pleased him; this was what he had been made for, and a man could not change how he was made. Not the dumb sailors under his command, not the sinful women at the docks, not the pirates he hunted across the wide Caribbean.

The world refused to bend to his rules when he encountered the crew of the Black Pearl, but the governor did. He was of a mind to grant Will Turner clemency, but the things James had seen in those few days made argue forcefully against it. The boy had been born a washerwoman's son – which could hardly be helped – and he had taken up with the basest manner of man alive – which certainly could have been avoided. If he did not have the character to resist the lure of piracy, James reasoned, there was nothing to be done. It was a hard task, but one allotted to them by duty and Providence. He gave little thought to the pirate Jack Sparrow besides being sorry that his rope had been the same length as Turner's, because Sparrow was lighter and thus took longer to die.

He tested the limits of his own strength by forgiving Elizabeth the dishonor that had come upon her being in the grasp of pirates. She kept her word and he took her into his home as his wife. He was not cruel to her, so he didn't understand why she insisted on becoming so sullen and withdrawn. Even allowing her to name their firstborn son William earned him nothing in her eyes. When she slit her wrists in the bath one summer afternoon, he mourned the senseless waste of life. Clearly she had not been as sound of mind as he had once thought.

"But it didn't happen," James cried out, falling to his knees on the bare rock. "None of it happened!"

"None of it?" The voice came from every possible angle, light and interested.

James peered up at the gray sky. "Not like that."

"Ah, but it could have happened like that," said the voice. "It's not so far-fetched."

The clothes on his body were his own, but they were in tatters. He wrapped his arms around himself, though not because he was cold – this strange landscape gave off neither heat nor chill. "Who are you?" he demanded, his voice restored to some of its usual resonance. "Why are you doing this?"

"You cannot comprehend all the things I am," the voice replied. "Let us say only this: I am stronger than you, the things I show you are greater than what you have made of your life, and I will break you."

"I am a commodore in His Royal Majesty's navy and I –"

"Your rank is attractive, but it will not save you. I know you, James Robert Norrington." His head whipped to the side, for it had seemed to whisper right over his shoulder, oily and dank. "I know what lies within your heart, your thoughts, your memories, the dreams you have given up and those you have clung to."

He saw the Interceptor explode, as he had made Jack describe it one night – Jack –

"Yes," the voice rumbled, "there is that man, again and again. There are others you love, but none so greatly as him. And yet he is anathema to everything to which you have pledged yourself. Doesn't that thought ride you in the darkest hours of the night?"

Heaving himself to his feet and stalking a short distance away was, he knew, futile – but as a gesture of defiance, it was the best he could manage. "He is a good man," he said, finishing the thought with, And I do love him.

It was what he had feared for a long time now, but to his astonishment the fear burned off like morning fog. Was it really so simple as that?

"No," the faceless thing told him with a chuckle. "You know that it is not. You know that if he were standing in front of you right now, you'd never tell him. You know that this will not last. All human flames fade away so quickly, of course." Its tone was almost reflective. "But yours especially. Gone as if it never was, with one or both of you dead, and neither better off for the dalliance."

James said nothing, tried very hard to think nothing. If it thought it could bait him, he would show it what earning that uniform had meant.

"Arrogant, aren't you?"

I am not, James though, offended.

It laughed again, a low, cruel, thundering sound. "We shall see. It will depend on how long you last. When your pirate arrives, I might ask him what his opinion is, if you're still alive."

James was considering probing further about what exactly it was, and what was being done to him, when the pain hit.

It was like being pounded by some invisible surf. Dimly he was aware of falling, of the dust rising in a cloud around his body, but the ache coursing through him caused him to spend long minutes just trying to breathe. He thought the white noise in his ears might have been his own voice.

Six years ago, he'd gotten shot in the left arm during a skirmish with a French privateer. The Dauntless' doctor had been busy trying to save the life of a midshipman with a neck wound, so James had employed Groves' steady hands to pluck the shot out. Because he had ignored it for longer than he should have, it was not easy to extract it. Adrenaline and pride made him turn away liquid fortitude, so that he went straight from near-blissful ignorance to the worst pain he'd yet felt. To keep himself from passing out, he had gone over the battle in his mind, second by second, filing away blows, close calls, strengths and weaknesses in his crew, what would need repairs, and so forth. Groves told him later that he'd been muttering under his breath the whole time.

Now he forced his mind to review everything that had happened – the brutal details of that first vision, the too-familiar taste of the second, and his conversation with an entity he couldn't see or locate. It had taunted him with his own fears, mostly about Jack – that was not surprising. He had always known how dangerous a secret that could be, if it fell into the wrong hands. It seemed male to him, but there was no way to prove it that was so, or if it was female, or if it was neither. It had spoken of humans in a way that led him to assume it was not human itself. This thought gave him pause. Even the pirates that would not die had been human, in the end.

What was most significant – and, James thought, rather thoughtless on the part of his tormentor – was its claim that Jack was on his way to Port Royal. He supposed it might have been a ruse; he had no idea how much time had passed, whether they would have been able to get word to Jack, who was no doubt sulking in Tortuga right now. More sobering was his uncertainty as to whether Jack would be angry enough to ignore whomever had been sent to fetch him.

There was no way to tell for sure, and he didn't know if he in fact wished for it to be true. He wanted Jack near, wanted his dextrous wit and his sense of self-preservation and the simple comfort of his presence. At the same time, he accused himself of selfish cowardice and hoped Jack was far away for the sake of safety.

He put this conundrum aside and went back over his main points. He hadn't learned much, but it was better than nothing. If the thing had been processing his thoughts, it gave no indication of it.

As the pain started to seep into his conscious mind once again, he gritted his teeth and willed it away with Elizabeth's pirate song - Billy's favorite lullaby. Time passed, and with it went his body's misery.

Released, he lay on his stomach, breathing in the gray dust and choking on it. He had only enough energy to heave himself onto his back.

"Hmmm." He got the impression that it was circling him. "Stubborn, too. I admire that. It marks you as worthy."

"And what," James managed to gasp, ignoring the burn in his lungs, "might I be worthy for?"

"Ah, but that would be telling. Wait here." He could have sworn he heard it smile. "Understanding that I leave you no choice, of course." And it was gone.

James had time enough to wonder what had called it away before awareness of anything eluded him.


She could feel the girl coming from a distance, but at first did not think this to be odd. Instead she occupied herself with wondering why Jack was bringing a woman aboard. It was unusual, so already being cross with him, she brooded.

Not until they arrived did she realize why this one stood out. It had been a long time since anyone except Jack had burned bright to her eyes. This one shone so hard that all the others, even her own beloved, were eclipsed. It was an ancient light, unmistakable for any other – that of the slayer line.

Curious, she watched; she had never met a slayer before, though she had learned of them from her kind before she was called Black Pearl. The girl sensed her in return, although she was not able to define anything beyond a sense of unease. She forgave that, as a slayer was generally only familiar with spirits intending harm. And she forgave the blow to her pride as well – she had spent long years in this form, it was only natural that the watcher observed no sign of her.

Besides which, she forgot all about the other two when she reached out to Jack. He was not her brilliant, dashing trickster now; this was Jack as he'd been nearly thirteen years before, the last traces of him as she sailed out of his sight and began to get an inkling of what a mess she had gotten herself into.

He was afraid.

To the others, he was manically cheerful, daring them to question the windstorm in his eyes, but she knew better. He was distracted, wouldn't speak to her, didn't whisper praises and endearments like he always did after he was away. She was much too worried to be insulted.

Soon enough, she learned the reason why. The slayer asked him about "this James," whether he was a relative, or a friend, or...and she trailed off, reluctant to pry further because of the way his jaw tightened. "Friend," he replied. The man, who had understood far earlier than his charge, spoke to her quietly and drew her away from the wheel.

Possibilities presented themselves, vague discomforting thoughts that had been raised in her mind for hours now. She set them aside for the moment, seeking to console him. He breathed in the salt air and listened to her song, but it was not enough. He could at least get some much-needed rest, she thought, but though his eyes grew heavy, he would not leave the helm.

With what power she had, she pulled him closer to sleep, into that world where she could appear to him, touch him, take him in her arms. At the same time, she made sure the wheel was steady beneath his slackened fingers. He would not remember this when he woke, not really; he never could. But he would know she was there, with him somehow, and that was why she loved him.

In his dream – her dream – he clung to her and whispered, "James." It hurt, as it always did, but she let it go.

When his mind had eased somewhat, she left him blinking into the distance and gathered her strength for what she was about to do. It was within her limits, but she knew it would test them. She had never felt a need to do this, except when she had left Jack behind, and then the curse had shackled her. He needed her now, and if that meant going to the man who vied for his heart, then so be it.

She stretched across the shrinking distance between herself and Port Royal. It was tiring, and she got lost a number of times, and once she retreated completely to check on Jack. When she reached James, watched over by the girl she quite liked and the boy who made her nervous because he smelled of fire, she was not surprised at what she found. Dismayed, but not surprised.

She stepped into the land it had constructed for itself, calling it by the human name nearest to the bond between them: "Hello, brother."