Disclaimer: I don't have permission to be writing this, mate.

AN (2/14): Happy Single's Awareness Day! But that's totally irrelevant. I've decided to pick this story up again…just for my amusement. I really didn't stop writing when I wasn't updating…I was working on a story I hope one day to maybe get published…

Oh, and I'd like to thank Katie for giving me the inspiration about the thing…at the end. You'll see.

And…forgive me. I'm not a musician, nor a composer, nor anything remotely like that. I wrote some of the lyrics to the opera last summer, so…anyway, try to enjoy.

Chapter Seven: The Precarious Pirate and Pâquerette

Ten minutes to show time. Jack hated this time, right before a performance. It seemed as though everything was going in slow motion while moving at an incredibly fast pace all at the same time. He seemed to be able to feel the world spinning slowly and it was making him rather nauseous. It didn't help that…well, he was about to do something that could kill him.

Jack stood on stage on one of the wings, holding a pistol that was one of the numerous props for his ornate opera about a pirate who'd had enough. This particular pistol was to be Kenneth's prop for a vital scene in the opera that was truly the turning point for the antagonist, interestingly enough. Jack didn't like how stories always seemed to emphasize the plight of the protagonist and show the antagonist merely as a bad person…it was a quasi statement about his feelings on the matter of redemption. Pirates were not all inherently bad people; most of them had nothing else to turn to in the daily battle with death all poor faced. Stealing from the rich wasn't as wrong as stealing from the poor, as the rich did…

He slowly set the pistol down onto the portion of the table reserved for Kenneth. There was no sense in him thinking about what he was about to do; he just needed to do it before he lost his nerves. He was still the infamous pirate Jack Sparrow, after all, and spending a season singing opera shouldn't make him lose his nerve! He was just going to battle against a particularly mean and ugly pirate captain who wished to see him dead. This was practice for his inevitable meeting with Barbossa.

Sighing softly to himself, Jack cleared the phlegm in his throat and reached for his own props. The show would be starting very soon and the others were already in their places. It was time for him to become a tragedy. No one in the opera house would ever forget the matinee of The Precarious Pirate

The curtain opened for the final scene of the second act. Jack had taken special care while writing this particular part of the opera; it was meant to be the turning point of the antagonist and it was meant to shock audiences. The ending for the opera was almost too unbelievable, which was why Jack stuck this little scene in. Plus, it allowed just himself and Kenneth to be on stage at this particular time. That was a vital ingredient to his plan. Kenneth had thought it was merely a good scene, full of raw emotion. A climax, if you will.

Jack stood on stage right, dressed up as the typical pirate. He wore kohl, but that was only part of his stage makeup so that his adoring fans would be able to tell he had eyes. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, a style favored by most laymen and pirates. He wore only two articles of clothing from his days of piracy, his hat and his bandanna. The rest of his eccentricities were tucked away in a knapsack that was part of his costume. Kenneth stood near him in the center of the stage. He was dressed as the typical pirate captain, complete with the large hat with an ornate feather. His costume was darker than Jack's, indicating that he was the villain of the story.

There was an almost tangible tension between the two on stage. The audience were all watching avidly. They hadn't been to an opera this interesting for ages and were completely astounded by what had happened so far. It was clear this was already a success among the people of New Orleans.

"You crazy and deluded fool!" Kenneth sang with his voice full of emotion and admonition. He was quite into his part. He genuinely seemed to be angry with Jack. Jack might have been affronted if he didn't know that Kenneth was merely acting. He did seem like a formidable foe; if Kenneth were an actual pirate, he would be quite good at scaring the sailors of the ship he would attack.

"You've no idea what I've been going through-"Jack rejoined. It was very obvious to him that he'd written these lyrics in an attempt to work out some of his own frustrations. The women had been turning boring and Faith had been getting rather clingy when he started writing this… Plus, he couldn't help but find himself on that godforsaken spit of land every time he thought of his past.

"You were supposed to be in my crew." Kenneth took a step towards Jack and the audience seemed to all inhale at once.

Jack's character, Jonathan, was supposed to take a step towards Kenneth at this point. Jack really would've rather backed away, but he did what had been blocked. "I am done now."

"You can't give up, you can't give up. I won't let you!" Kenneth moved closer.

Jack faltered for a moment before taking a step back. It was all choreographed, but the audience seemed surprised anyway until Jack took another step away, turning his back on Kenneth. "I am through with this! I am through with you!"

Kenneth laughed evilly as he took another step towards Jack. "If you will not join me, I will be through with you."

"You wouldn't dare to!" Jack sang as he turned to look at Kenneth again. This was homage to the deadly game that all pirates played each time they decided to become pirates. You couldn't turn your back on piracy. Once you made a pact with him, you couldn't turn away from it. It was your life, even if your life was meant to last only a year longer. The only way to escape piracy completely was to die. Jack had felt himself being hunted for the last little while.

"I could." Kenneth's voice was cold and hard and it reminded Jack forcefully of Barbossa.

However, Jack couldn't let the audience know that. Instead, he shook his head with a large gesture of indifference. "You wouldn't dare to!" he taunted.

"I would." Kenneth pulled out his pistol and slowly cocked it. Jack could see slight worry in his friend's eyes. To counteract that, he nodded very slightly. Then Kenneth aimed the pistol at Jack's chest.

"You couldn't." Jack smiled very slightly at Kenneth while his body appeared to recoil in horror. The audience seemed to be holding their breath, now.

"I will." Kenneth looked very worried indeed to Jack. To the audience, he merely looked like an angry pirate with a gun. He shook his head slightly as he placed his finger on the trigger.

Jack nodded quickly, encouraging Kenneth to do as he'd promised. "You…" He took an abrupt step backwards moments after the sound of a pistol discharging reverberated around the opera house, accompanied by the screams of adoring fans and proper ladies. A small speck of white hungrily spread out from his chest as Kenneth pulled the trigger again and Jack stepped back once more, his face white with pain. "did." He staggered backwards once more and then fell down to the stage, unmoving.

Kenneth looked absolutely aghast as the curtains began falling. Jack had told him to shoot twice. The first shot was supposed to be the fake one and the second shot was the real one…but unless he was very much mistaken, both of those shots had been very real. The audience was wildly applauding. Most hadn't seen anything this exciting in their whole life. Many were on their feet because of how real it had seemed.

Kenneth, however, motioned towards the man lowering the curtains and put his hands up. "Is anyone here a doctor?" he asked as he rushed to Jack's side. The pirate's white shirt was now stained crimson and he was barely breathing. When he kneeled over Jack and tore open his shirt, Kenneth realized just how close he'd come to shooting Jack in the heart. If his friend truly did survive this, it would be a miracle.

"I am," a man conveniently seated on the front row said quickly, rushing up the stairs to Jack's fallen body. The audience seemed to sense that something serious had just happened, so they all fell to their seats. The "doctor" gave Jack a look over. "I'll be surprised if he survives this one," he said seriously as he looked to Kenneth. "But don't worry. All the more credence to his story." He winked at Kenneth and then said loudly, "Jack Moineau is dead."

"Jack, why do you look so unhappy?" Pâquerette asked softly, glancing up at Jack as she lay on her bed in the captain's quarters. Her vivid blue eyes seemed full of tears, making her seem a human rather than some demonic torturer. "You didn't even care," she accused, sniffling.

"Yes I did," Jack objected, vainly trying to make her see what he meant. She'd just lost their child, not just hers. Sure, he hadn't intended on being a father any time soon, but that creature inside the red demon's womb had been partly his. It had been the reason he'd been putting up with Pâquerette's antics for so long. And now it was gone. Jack felt as though the last six or so months of his life had been absolutely pointless. He was still trapped in the same place and manner he'd been trapped in after drinking that stupid cognac. And he had no plan for his escape. To make matters worse, he'd alienated a lot of the help he might have had from Faith…

"You did not!" Pâquerette insisted, spitting upon the floor. "You would rather I die than 'ave your child. I'm not stupid, Jack, I know that you do not love me." She sniffled again, sobs shaking her shoulders to the point that Jack vaguely hoped she'd fall apart.

"Of course I don't love you!" Jack said hastily, glad she'd finally seen the truth. "You're-"

"Shut up!" she yelled, striking his cheek. "You should love me, Jack Sparrow, as I am the only woman that is for you!" Her tears were now rapidly disappearing as anger enveloped her. "You need to learn how to love me!" There was a hard, cold look to her eyes as she pronounced his sentence: "Go out on deck and stand there, doing absolutely nothing, until you learn to love me!"

The sun was hidden behind several large clouds, making it quite a pleasant temperature in the normally blistering heat during the summer in the Caribbean. Jack had been standing on deck for the past few hours, doing absolutely nothing. A grim look was on his face, as he'd been wearing it when his loving wife had ordered him to do nothing. Things did not seem as though they could get any worse, mostly because his nose had started to itch a few moments ago and he was unable to move his hand to scratch it. As he stood there, a seagull overhead decided to bestow some good luck upon the degraded captain. He stood and watched, helplessly, as the white goop traveled down his forehead and dripped off his nose. Since it was such a large present, he didn't even have to cross his eyes to see it succumb to gravity down his face.

As the material slowly worked its way down his face, he realized something. He could now get rid of his wife. The only reason he hadn't tried to do anything more than say a word or two against her was because of the baby. Providence, or Lady Luck, or fate or whatever you wanted to call it had given him the opportunity to get rid of something he loathed without suffering from conscience hiccups now and again. His child was dead and his wife no longer needed to continue to live. She'd been too cruel to him to merely request a divorce or annulment…the only way to be free again was to kill her. He felt like one of the marionette dolls he'd seen spoiled children play with. Pâquerette was controlling nearly every aspect of his life, just like the way those children controlled practically every move their puppets made. He wasn't free to think for himself, really, because he was always at her beck and call. This punishment was meant for him to learn how much he was supposed to love her, but it was impossible for Jack to love anyone who felt they had the right to steal his freedom from him. In a way, it was poetic justice, the fact that he'd been forced to marry a woman who domineered his life after spending all those years and nights with women, using them to fulfill his own desires.

The more Jack thought of it, while trying to relieve the itching on his nose without thinking too much of the trail of foul fecal material down his face, the more he realized that this sort of imprisonment was infinitely worse than the time he'd watched Hector Barbossa sail away on his ship. There seemed to be no way out and he couldn't even off himself. He had no friends aboard the Phallic Destroyer. In fact, at times, they seemed envious of their captain. What woman wouldn't want a man who couldn't think or protest or do anything but fulfill their every desire? Jack just hoped that other women weren't able to make the same sort of pact as his 'beloved' wife. Otherwise, well, men of the world were in for a life of absolute hell.

After the large present finally hit the deck, Jack realized he needed to change his tactics. He'd been so stubborn and stupid, he'd forgotten the best way to handle women! It seemed ridiculous he hadn't thought of this before, actually. His eyes smiled and his lips appeared ready to turn into a grin at any moment for the remainder of his sentence.

Pâquerette had calmed considerably during their time apart and had invited him back into the cabin, clearly anxious for some sort of physical contact. She'd lost a part of her, a thing that would've become something spectacular if only she hadn't miscarried. Her despair was incomprehensible to a man and she felt she needed Jack to try and drive all of the emotions swirling in her mind away. So, she'd been more than happy when he came back and passionately kissed her, convinced he'd finally learned his lesson. "Jack," she murmured softly. "You've learned!"

About an hour after Jack had placated Pâquerette, his plan was complete. She was asleep, peacefully, wrapped in her silk sheets with an angelic look on her face, as she thought her troubles were at an end. She believed that Jack had finally learned to appreciate her, especially after that wonderful time together. There was no reason for her to feel anxious in his presence. She'd ordered him not to shoot her or stab her with a knife and had removed anything that could be used as a weapon from their shared cabin.

Jack held one of her corsets in his hands, however, and was rapidly cutting the whalebone out of it. Corsets, while constricting, also strove to correct a woman's posture by making her back as straight as possible. They often included whalebones, shaved down to size, to help a woman appear the correct way. Pâquerette's vanity suffered whenever she wasn't wearing the latest fashions in Paris, which was why she bothered wearing a corset at all. The rest of her crew generally only had stays. But it was the perfect weapon. Jack had a knife that he could use for cooking and, since Pâquerette had never expressly forbidden him, sharpening.

Once the corset was ripped apart and the shining white whalebone in his hands, Jack took his knife and slowly started to sharpen it to enough of a point to get through her skin. She slept angelically during the entire procedure, too exhausted physically, emotionally, and mentally to hear Jack curse when he accidentally slipped and cut his hand with the blade.

His task complete, Jack set the knife down, slowly crept over to the bed, and looked down at her with outright hatred in his eyes. She had tormented his life for far too long and no part of him felt anything resembling remorse as he plunged the bone into her black heart, surprised to find that she actually did have human blood running in her veins. She didn't stir as the bone hit her chest and smashed through her heart, retaining the deceptively angelic look on her face until life disappeared. He stabbed her a few more times for good measure.

Once he was sure she was dead, Jack grabbed the whalebone, his effects, and his pistol, rushing out of the cabin like a madman. His white shirt was stained with blood, her blood, but he couldn't get rid of the euphoria he felt as he finally escaped his tormentor and felt freedom again. It was sweet, freedom. The only thing that could have made it better would be to have his prized Pearl back. Feeling on top of the world, he rushed to the longboats to make his escape and begin forgetting the Phallic Destroyer and his demon tormentor. He was now single and just himself.