Disclaimer: Until Disney puts up Pirates of the Caribbean for sale and I buy it, I don't own anything it. Also, any insults against Captain Jack Sparrow written here are entirely untrue (except for maybe the drunken pirate and crazy pirate ones) and only there for the sake of the story. Will Turner insults on the other hand . . .
Summary: Ummm . . . . When Will decides that Jack is a pirate and thus deserves to hang, he doesn't reckon with Elizabeth's opposite view of the situation. Taking action of her own, the ending of POTC is given a twist.
And now, the feature presentation . . . For What It's Worth! (Applause all around.)m1 m2
As he knocked loudly on the door, the Governor called out, "Elizabeth? Are you all right? Are you decent?" He waited a moment for an answer, then tried again. "Elizabeth? Are you still abed? It's nearly noon."
Weatherby waited for a minute, and then sighed. "She deserves to sleep in after the horrible incident with the pirates." Turning to the servant accompanying him, he said, "Please inform me as soon as my daughter wakes up. I would like to breakfast with her." He smiled. "The way it is, perhaps I will have lunch with her."
"Yes sir." The servant nodded. "I will."
The Governor turned and walked back to his study, his mind resting on the matter of his daughter for barely a moment. She would wake up in an hour or so and that would be that. Now, about those proposals . . .
"Commodore, an officer outside is demanding to see you. I know you ordered me not to disturb you in less of an attack but he's insisting on seeing you."
Commodore Norrington looked up from the papers on his desk. It seemed that he could not have five minutes to himself without a disaster happening. Since the attack on Port Royal and subsequent rescue of Miss Swann, he had been swamped with paperwork, not to mention the incessant requests to fix this or that he was inundated with when ever he was in public. Adding to the burden, had yet to figure someway of dealing with Sparrow besides hanging him. It was as though he let himself be captured in order to provide the most annoyance. Apparently, Miss Swann's plan to free Sparrow hadn't worked, or rather, hadn't even been tried. There had been no commotion or news of a jailbreak and his hanging was in less than an hour. In fact, Sparrow should be in irons right now.
He almost felt pity for the pirate. If he had had to die, Sparrow should have least have had the chance to do it fighting or at least not for doing a good deed, as the infuriating man had pointed out. But a pirate was a pirate, and as Commodore, he hanged pirates. Even telling Miss Swann as much as he did could be construed as treason.
He sighed and reluctantly said, "Send him in."
"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Nicholas Myles, Norrington's second-in-command, and go-between for the rest of the Navy, nodded, and ducked out of the room. In his place, a short, thin officer appeared.
"Commodore. The prisoner has escaped." He reported frantically.
"What?"
"Sparrow. He's not in his cell. We went to put him in irons and he wasn't there. The cell was all locked and secure. It's as if he just disappeared into thin air. Like magic."
"Don't be foolish. He's not some kind of magician. He must be somewhere. Mount a search." The Commodore barked out angrily. Inwardly, he was surprised and slightly relieved. Miss Swann had pulled it off and far better than he expected.
"We have, sir. Three squads are searching the streets."
"Well done. Go see to it that no ships leave the harbor with out being searched." The Commodore ordered. "When was Sparrow last seen?"
"Late afternoon, sir." The officer barked out. "He was there for dinner. When the guards changed, no one thought to check on the prisoner. There had been no way to get out."
The Commodore mulled over that for a second. Talking to himself, he said, "So he must have disappeared sometime during the night. Well," He said to the officer, "He won't be able to run anywhere. There's no where to go but back to the noose. Dissmissed."
"Aye, sir." The officer turned and left. This emergency dealt with, Norrington mentally saluted Elizabeth's success, then tried collect his thoughts and return to his paperwork before another crises could arise,
When Will heard the news of Jack's escape, his feelings were mixed. Part of him was glad that Jack Sparrow would live. He had saved Will's life and Will could not wish that he die. On the other hand, he was a pirate, and that made him deserving of the gallows, good deed or not. And even if Will's instincts were telling him to trust Jack and forget that he was a pirate, Jack had put Elizabeth in danger. And that, that was unforgivable.
Before Norrington could collect his thoughts and return to his paperwork, another disturbance entered. "Commodore, the Governor sent me."
Looking up, he saw one of the Governor's servants standing there. "Yes?"
"It's Miss Swann. She's . . .She is—"
"Is where?" Norrington said sharply.
"Well, that's the problem. No one knows. Nobody has any idea where she is."
Norrington had one; it involved a ship with black sails heading towards Tortuga. Not good. Not good at all. Trying to quell his desperate thoughts, Norrington questioned the servant, "She's not still abed, or at an acquaintance's house?"
"No, Commodore. Messages were sent to anywhere we thought she might be and no one has seen her."
With a feeling as though this wasn't going to be enough, he replied, "I will send out patrols to look for her. This may not be necessary. She may simply have taken a walk and forgotten to tell anyone. Do not over react. Please inform the Governor's that I will send out patrols to search for her. I will inform the Governor as soon as I receive any news about her wherabouts."
"Yes, sir. I will inform the Governor of that."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you may go. Please ask Lieutenant Myles to come in as you leave."
"Yessir." The servant bowed and left the room In his place, Myles appeared.
"You asked for me?" Lieutenant Myles inquired.
"Yes. Inform the squads searching the city for Sparrow, to keep an eye out for Miss Swann. It appears that she is missing."
"I will, sir. Is that all?"
"Yes."
Norrington turned back to his work. He looked up. Lieutenant Myles was still hanging hesitantly in the doorway.
"Is there something else?" The Commodore asked.
"One thing, sir. It might be nothing. We checked with the guards to see if they could get a later time that Sparrow was definitely in his cell." He stopped, looking at Norrington. "Sir, Sometime around sundown, a priest named Brother John visited the prisoner to pray for his soul. One guard says that after he came, Miss Swann visited as well. The other said that she was never there."
Norrington felt his heart sink. "Has the priest been found?"
"No, sir. We checked. There's no Brother John in the church here. And as far as we can tell, that's the last time anyone's seen Miss Swann. The report of her might be false, though. That particular guard has been known to . . .indulge in a bit too much ale occasionally."
"I'll keep that in consideration. But I fear the worst. Send word to the governor but reassure him that she probably left before Sparrow escaped. Dismissed."
This time the lieutenant left. When knew that he wasn't coming back, Norrington put his head in his hands. Why would Elizabeth go with Sparrow? For she must have. But for what reason.
Tired, frustrated and wondering why everything must turn out to be so complicated, Norrington tried futilely to finish some of the paperwork before he learned that pirates were attacking or that there were giant carrots falling from the sky. With the way things were going, you never knew. Maybe tomorrow he'd wake up and find this had all been a nightmare. On the other hand, he might wake up to find that there had been a huge blizzard.
"But where could she be? What could have happened to her?" The Governor said wildly, as he paced about his study. Ever since the news of Elizabeth's disappearance had arrived, he had been unable to keep still. He had sent servant to inform the Commodore, sent messages to anywhere he thought she might have been and questioned all the servants about when they had last saw her.
All he knew was that Elizabeth had disappeared sometime last night and had not been seen since. She was not at a friend's house or in her own house. She wasn't at the market or about the house.
To make matters worse, Jack Sparrow was loose again. Who knows what he might have to do with Elizabeth's disappearance. After all, there was that time he threatened her, and the day on the island . . .
Without knowing exactly what was going on, the Governor could do little but pace and hope that soon news would come.
When Will heard of Elizabeth's disappearance, he had no mixed feeling. No matter what had happened between Elizabeth and him, he would still die to save her. Only taking the time to put away his blacksmith's tools, Will picked up a sword, and began to walk very fast to see Commodore. Whatever it took, he would to save Elizabeth.
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