Act II

It was Christmas Eve and a frosty night.

Except it wasn't really, never was in the Caribbean. Will near-skipped his way down the gangplank, ignoring the dispersing crew's jibes. He grinned at Howells, who was beside him, moaning about excitable youths.

"The Pearl's due in tomorrow!"

"So y' keep saying." Howells steered Will into the nearest tavern and settled them both down at a table opposite two women involved in a heated game of cards.

Will was almost giddy as he grinned around at the tavern. "I love this place, you know. When Jack took me I thought it was hideous, but now… It's more a home than Port Royal ever was."

"I should 'ope so," sniffed Howells. "Port Royal's full o' Navy-types with rods stuck up their arses." He grinned. "No offence, mate."

Will smiled into his drink. "None taken."

"Although that Norrington bloke let Jack go, didn't he? Maybe they ain't all bad. Oh, stop it."

"Stop what?"

"You're twitching! They're not due till tomorrow, right?"

"Right."

"Right."

Will tried to keep still, he really did, but it was so very difficult when every blonde head that swept by could be Elizabeth. He craned his neck to look past Howells and out of the window, but the bay was ink-dark and still and the small sloops weren't anything near the size of the Black Pearl.

"For Christ's sake, lad." Howells turned to the two women seated next to them. "Know when the Black Pearl's due in, girls?"

The dark-skinned one snarled and turned on him. "We're trying t' play here!"

Will blinked at her, recognising the feral twist of lips and the sparking eyes in a second. "Anamaria!"

She gaped at him and then smiled, although it didn't look very friendly. "Will Turner." Her eyes turned to Howells. "And this is?"

"Captain Howells, ma'am, at y' service."

Anamaria scowled and turned back to her game. "Don't 'ma'am' me. Y' make me sound 'bout forty."

Will felt a bolt of panic seize him. "Has the Pearl been in already?"

"Nah." She gestured out the window with one hand and picked up a card with the other. "Jack always repays his debts, just took him a while is all. He commandeered me a pretty little sloop docked out in the bay."

"Commandeered, eh?" Howells grinned. Anamaria ignored him; he glanced over at Will. "Don't s'pose y' know when the Pearl's comin' in?"

"Full house," she announced. The girl opposite her scowled and handed over a small sack of glittering jewels before gathering up her skirts and stalking away. Anamaria took her time collecting the cards and then turned and fixed them both with serious eyes. "They'll be delayed, Jack and Elizabeth. They… I heard there was some trouble, Ivory Coast way, a run in with the Trading Company."

Will stared at her. "Are they safe?"

"Don't know. I hope so. The Pearl's still around, last I heard, but…" She shrugged and cut her eyes away. "Haven't heard from Jack."

"Or Elizabeth," Will murmured. His hopes had been raised and dashed to the ground only to be raised again so many, many times in the past months that he couldn't believe that Elizabeth wasn't coming, that she might be… He wouldn't believe it. "She'll be here," he said, more firmly. "She'll be here."

Christmas Day was spent at the docks, waiting, as was the day after that. And the day after that, the week after that, even the week after that one. January passed without any sighting of the Pearl and, when Will refused to rest, Howells knocked him out with the flat of his own blade.

The next evening, Will awoke to Howells shaking his shoulder. He squinted through the darkness and tried to will his head to stop throbbing long enough to make sense of the words tumbling out of the man's mouth. "…the Pearl, Will, it's the Pearl, she's floating in the bay -- William!"

Will was gone. He ran, ran out of the tavern, through the streets of Tortuga, darting down the conspicuously empty streets, following the voices, because there was a din of sound right up ahead, up at the dock. He dodged through the crowds and came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the pier. The Black Pearl was there, anchored out in the bay, dark sails snapping in the wind.

"William!" He turned in time to watch Howells leap into a longboat. "Come on, son!" The next moments were a blur of oars slapping on water, the excited screeches of the crowd and the rocking tilt of the boat as it moved further and further away from the pier.

When they reached her, Will didn't pause before scaling up her hull and flinging himself over the rail. The deck was shadowed and deserted; he was reminded of when she was a ghost-ship crewed by the damned. But now Jack had her back he couldn't imagine why her timbers were creaking so mournfully.

A flurry of movement caught his eye and he spun, sliding out his sword in time to parry a vicious blow to his neck. His attacker leapt backwards and Will had time to right his balance before having to deflect another swipe, this time aimed for his stomach. The other man was short and light, perhaps not even male, and Will could probably overthrow him with weight alone, but he was fast, attack not letting up for a second, so that it was all he could do to defend himself. Parry, parry, spin, parry, duck, parry. He was sweating (he hadn't had a proper partner to practice with since Elizabeth left) and was being slowly backed up, cursing himself as he stumbled against the railing, guard down for a precious second that allowed his attacker to slide their blade against his throat.

He stilled, breathing heavily. Eyes were glaring at him from under a wide-brimmed hat, mouth opened to speak. Only it gasped. The eyes were widening, a hand coming up to whip off the hat, releasing a coiled braid of sun-bleached hair that fell down to his -- to her shoulder.

Will stared. "Elizabeth?"

"Will!" The sword dropped and stuck in the deck with a dull thunk as Elizabeth threw herself at him, hands grasping at his back, at his neck, running over his face. He tugged her close, burying his nose in her hair, gasping out her name along with a stream of other nonsensical things that he could never have made head or tail of, let alone expected her to. She was back. She was back.

"I love you," she murmured, pulling back to press her nose against his. "I love you, I love you, I love you. And I've missed you so much."

"I know," he muttered, over and over and over, because words didn't matter any more and so he kissed her and she made a small, happy noise -- somewhere between a sigh and a squeak -- that he loved and would have to tease out of her again, sometime soon.

Will pulled back, trailing kisses along her nose, before tucking her head under his chin. "I was told the Pearl got into some trouble with the East Indian Trading Company. Is everyone all right?" Elizabeth was so still so very suddenly against his chest that he wasn't even sure if she was breathing. He coaxed her head up, frowning as she tried and failed to speak. "Elizabeth?"

She closed her eyes, pressing her nose against Will's jaw. "It's Jack."

It was little wonder that the Black Pearl's deck was deserted: it seemed that everyone was gathered outside the doors of the captain's quarters. Will recognised a handful of them -- Marty, Cotton, Gibbs -- but most were new faces, although all looked equally anxious. Gibbs offered a weak smile in greeting, but Will couldn't quite conjure up one in return. Instead, he nodded and asked, "How is he?"

"Come and see for yourself, lad." He looked past Will. "I see you found him, Miss Elizabeth."

"Actually, he found me."

Gibbs nodded, took a swig out of the flask clutched in his hand, and swung open the doors. The dining room they entered was huge and ornate, swathed in a rainbow of bright-coloured silks.

"Barbossa decorated this room with blood and gold," said Elizabeth absently. "Him and his horrid monkey. Jack hated it."

Will nodded at the door hidden in the far corner of the room. "Is he in there?"

"With Anamaria." At Will's look Gibbs shrugged. "She turned up just before you two, said she could hear the Pearl sighing leagues away."

"The Pearl knows," said Elizabeth cryptically.

"Don't," snapped Will, and pushed his way into the room.

First, he saw Anamaria in the unlikely position of nursemaid, roughly scrubbing a damp rag over Jack's face. Jack. Will moved towards the bed. Jack was awake and appeared quite alert, ducking away from Anamaria's hand.

"Jack, stay still!"

"Bugger off." Will laughed, relief surging through him. Jack attempted to turn towards him, but the move was aborted with a yelp of pain as Anamaria shoved him back onto the pillows. Jack glared at her and waved Will and Elizabeth over, a weak fluttering of his hand. "'S good to see you, Will."

His voice was rough and as Will knelt down beside the bed the relief faded a little. Jack's face was flushed and sweating; he pushed at the pile of blankets on top of him, beckoning Will closer. "She's trying to kill me off," he announced. "First, she throws herself at me with a mind for strangling (I fought her off bravely, of course), then she tries to smother me, and now she's attempting to drown me with a rag."

Anamaria swiped at him again with the cloth. "It's you who's going to get yourself killed. Getting stabbed! Letting it fester! You're a damn fool, is what you are."

"He got stabbed?"

"Boarding a Company vessel," whispered Elizabeth. "They attacked us first."

"Bloody right they did, the bastards," growled Jack. "They've always had it in for me and my Pearl."

"And then," she said, raising her voice, "he didn't tell us about it and left it to get infected." She reached over to let her hand hover above Jack's body. "Gangrene. It's his leg."

"Unfair," Jack gasped out, his eyes snapping shut. "You don't attack a lass for no good reason."

"It was meant for me." Elizabeth chewed her lip, dropping down on her knees next to Will. "The knife was meant for me, but Jack took it."

"Like I said," snarled Anamaria as she turned her glare on Elizabeth. "Damn fool."

Jack moaned and turned his face into the pillow. "Ladies…" He gritted his teeth on the rest of the sentence, body arching under the blankets.

"He's been like this for a week," hissed Elizabeth, pulling Will onto his feet and away from the bed, "but it's getting worse and the next respectable doctor is in Port Royal and we can't take him there."

"William!" Will turned back to the bed, feeling his heart wrench as Jack bit back on a gasp of pain. "How did you get here, mate?"

"Does it matter right now?"

"It matters. Just…just talk to me, savvy? It's… Come here, I can't see you properly."

Anamaria looked frantic, but stood from the chair, gesturing for Will to sit down. He did and took hold of Jack's hand, lifted it from where it lay, a dead weight on the covers. "I met a man called Howells, Jack, Billy Howells. He said he knew you well."

Jack frowned. "Never heard of him."

"You must have done. He was the captain of the rumrunners who got you off that island."

"The rumrunners delivered me straight into the hands of the East Indian Trading Company." He coughed. "Bastards, all of them."

Will stared at Jack. The other man seemed so convinced… But he was also ill and feverish and not terribly lucid. "He's my height," Will insisted, "lighter hair, with a ship called the Fia-Nuala and a tattoo of…of something in Latin on his shoulder. He said you'd understand that."

"Libertas."

"That was it! You do know him!"

Jack tried to struggle up, but his arms wouldn't hold him and Will watched helplessly as he knotted himself further into the blankets. "Bill!" The word was half-gasped, but Will still caught it, and by Elizabeth's frown she did too.

"What?"

"Bill!" Jack's hand twitched, fingers flexing around Will's. "'S Bootstrap."

"He's delirious." That was Anamaria, sounding uncharacteristically worried. Will stared at Jack. His eyes were bright, his breathing short gasps that echoed off the walls. "He… He's bleeding again!"

Anamaria's screech brought Will snapping back. Jack was ill, feverish, and his blood was soaking through the blankets.

"But we must have put four layers on top of him!"

Gibbs had slipped into the room and was peeling back the covers, his fingers coming away sticky and dark. Anamaria paced the other end of the room, hand covering her mouth; she looked like she was about to be sick. The cloth being twisted between her fingers was not a rag, Will realised, but Jack's headscarf. Elizabeth… Elizabeth was kneeling beside Jack's head, running trembling fingers over his face. But Jack wasn't looking at either of them.

"Will, give Anamaria the Pearl. They like each other."

"Jack! Jack, don't do this."

"You -- you two look after each other." His breath hitched. "Tell… Tell Bill 'libertas'. Tell him that for me, Will."

There wasn't anything for Will to do but nod. Nod and try to blink the burning at the back of his eyes away. "I will. I'll tell him."

"Good lad. Good…" Jack's eyes shut and he shuddered, falling still, his hand lax in Will's. The Pearl groaned, a shriek of timber that sounded to Will as though the world had shattered.