Disclaimer: PotC and associated characters are not mine to play with or abuse, and I'm not making any money doing so.


XXI.
Chains

How hard is the place of confinement
That keeps me from my heart's delight
Cold iron and chains bound all round me
And a plank for my pillow at night.

--"Farewell to All Judges and Juries"


Pain.

Will's awareness begins and ends with pain; it swamps him in wave after steady red wave.

Struggling through the waves toward wakefulness, he manages to open his eyes; and then tries to open them again. He wonders if perhaps he has gone blind. He sees nothing but darkness...a damp, foul-smelling darkness, at that. His breath sounds harsh and shallow in his own ears. He tries not to panic. He does not know where he is, how he has come here; he tries to think, but a haze of agony confounds his mind and leaves him choking back nausea.

He wonders if this is Hell.

But Hell sways gently, like a ship at anchor, and the pain subsides slightly, concentrating itself somewhere around the back of his skull and pulsing with his heartbeat. He seizes on that: he has a heartbeat. He is alive. This, then, cannot be Hell.

He spreads his fingers slightly, feeling what can only be dusty straw beneath them, and under the straw, boards. Under the boards, he can hear water sucking at the wood of the hull. He is aboard ship. What ship?

Pushing himself upright on one arm, he recognizes the cold grip of metal on his wrists. Chains rattle, pull taut. Shackles. His attempt at movement immediately brings on another wave of sickness, and he turns his head to retch into the dirty straw.

He is a prisoner. Why?

When his nausea ebbs to a tolerable level of discomfort, he attempts once more to sort through his brain for some clue to his current situation. In the shambles, he finds the last clear memory seems to be of a raging storm, and a loose sail, and the small, slender figure of an unknown deckhand climbing the topmast to lash it. He worries at this image for a little while, unable to lay a finger on its significance.

What had happened after they'd hit that bad weather off the southeast coast of Jamaica?

The flash of gold teeth, and a knowing wink from a kohl-smeared eye.

Jack Sparrow?

Norrington's voice, suddenly echoing through his mind like a death knell.

"You lost her, didn't you."

"Elizabeth," he says suddenly, into the darkness of the brig. What about Elizabeth?

Panic rises in his chest again. He cannot remember. He has done something terribly wrong, he is atoning for something, something to do with Elizabeth, and he cannot remember.

Her face floats to the surface of his embattled memory, her laughing eyes cast sideways, away from him, veiled, elusive. Perhaps she is laughing at him.

This overwhelming sense of loss cannot have come from nowhere. Something terrible has happened, if he can only remember, and nothing will ever be the same again.

"What have I done?" he whispers. And then, "Elizabeth, what have you done?"


What in Heaven has she done this time?

Seated on an upturned bucket by the Black Pearl's starboard rail, Elizabeth scowls at the inextricable tangle before her. She rotates the snarled mass in her hands, finds a likely lead, tugs on it experimentally.

Nothing. If anything, the mess has become more hopelessly knotted than ever. She wipes away the sweat beading on her face with the back of one grubby hand; though she managed to find a corner partially shaded by canvas and rail from the glaring late afternoon sun, a syrupy, stifling warmth weights the air today, and the weak breeze blows fitfully, sometimes leaving the sails limp and sending half the crew below to row.

She should be able to solve the damn Gordian Knot in front of her; after all, she tied it herself in the first place.

She was pacing earlier, fretting that they were losing too much time to this beastly calm, her uneasiness magnified by the simmering heat, when Ana intercepted her sixth traversal of the deck. The quartermaster declared sharply that as Elizabeth was setting everyone else on edge by "prowlin' about" she should find something to do with herself forthwith or go below. Elizabeth, however, could not bear the thought of enduring the even more stifling, redolent atmosphere below decks. What she actually wanted to do was talk to Jack Sparrow, though she wasn't entirely sure why or what about; but the captain was nowhere to be found, having vanished sometime in the early morning hours after escorting her back to her cabin. She assumed he was asleep.

So, rather than compromise her pride by seeking him out, she accepted Ana's challenge to "learn a bit of seaworthiness," and after a half-hour or so under Ana's gruff but expert tutelage she was left alone to practice various sailor's hitches. But her mind began to wander back to conversations held on ships' decks under the stars, and her adherence to Ana's simple instructions became increasingly haphazard. She has been struggling to unravel the result of her woolgathering without success for some ten minutes now.

The coarse fibers of the rope have irritated her palms and roughened her skin, but not enough to prevent her sweaty fingers from slipping as she yanks at another loop in a vain attempt to loosen it. She curses under her breath, tears of frustration pricking at her eyelids, the muscles of her back tightly knotted as the tack in her hands. This reminds her of nothing more strongly than learning to embroider: an activity she detests as much today as she did as the young tomboy she was, forced to wear lacy dresses, sit in one place for hours, and sew small pink letters that spelled out some pious sentiment or domestic truism.

"You're going about it all backwards, y'know." The mild drawl vibrates with amusement.

Elizabeth jumps, and drops her clump of knots, flushing. "Jack!"

"Not difficult in the least to catch you unawares, is it now?" He's standing not two feet away from her, that irritating half-smile pulling at his lips, head tilted in mock assessment.

"Well, perhaps you oughtn't creep about so--"

As if he hasn't heard her, he continues, "That shall have to be remedied, love, if we're to make any sort of decent pirate lass of you."

Recovering herself and her disastrous project, she glares at him. "How long have you been watching me?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am." He saunters over to pluck the hopeless mess from her grasp. "I was doing no such thing."

"No?"

"Not at all," he says. She finds herself fascinated by his hands as he runs them absently over the knots, testing an occasional loop here and there. They are rather nice hands, despite the callouses and tarry nails, clever and fine-boned; she tries not to remember just how clever they can be on her skin. "I simply wandered past on me way somewhere else, and happened to notice a damsel in need of assistance, which I am now endeavoring to provide. Ah." In one deft movement the snag vanishes, the rope coiling politely under his touch as if it had never snarled fractiously for her. He presents it to her with a flourish.

"How did you do that?"

"Quite simple, really," he says airily. "Just pulled the right end, is all. See--" he squats down facing her, and helpfully transforms the tack into another unfathomable tangle to show how she went astray before unraveling it once more and following the steps correctly. But his animated, tangential explanation quickly loses her; again, she fixes her attention on his swiftly moving fingers, until she realizes he has stopped speaking altogether.

She looks up, disconcerted, to find him studying her, that same trace of a smile playing across his features. She squirms a little under his scrutiny.

"Oh, for the love of--What is it, Jack?"

"Nothing," he murmurs, and grins at her suddenly and brilliantly, startled out of some odd Sparrowish reverie. "It's only--you've a smudge, just here," and he indicates his own forehead.

The handkerchief he produces appears unexpectedly clean; nonetheless, she regards it, and him, with suspicion. He makes a peculiar noise, then, and captures her chin in his hand before she can escape him. But he only wipes her brow gently with the cloth.

"There," he mutters. "Off the rope, I expect. Although I must admit you look quite fetching, with that kerchief over your hair and tar on your face...rather a better look for you than one might imagine. Will you kindly cease your twitching," he adds testily as she attempts to move away from him, and holds her jaw firmly still. He is, she realizes, inspecting the partially-healed scratch on her throat.

She'd forgotten the kerchief Ana had lent her this morning to keep the sun, and her unruly curls, off her face; but she finds surprisingly little ire left for his assertion that it looks "fetching" on her, nor his tendency to cross standard boundaries of physical contact. Perhaps, she thinks, she's become accustomed to these ways of his, his strange compliments and abrupt half-caresses, though she cannot decide what to make of them.

"How did you come by this little souvenir, again?" he inquires. "Got yourself grabbed from behind, is that it?"

She nods reluctantly.

"Thought as much. Well, no matter." Letting her go, he stands in a single fluid motion. "You just need more practice at it, I suppose."

The smile he tosses her is pure mischief as he stretches out a hand in invitation.

Always a bad sign. "Practice at what, exactly, Jack?"

"Why, being grabbed from behind, of course."

"Jack!"

"Naturally, the lady is scandalized, and I've not so much as cast a wink her way," he complains bitterly to sea and sky. "No, Miss Priss, I am merely offering to tutor you in the art of evading scoundrels and pickpockets who mean to slit your throat, or worse. At the very least, it would greatly benefit my of late much-eroded peace of mind. Savvy?"

He beckons impatiently; somewhat chastened, she allows him to pull her to her feet.

"Excellent. I promise to behave myself to the best of my ability." She opens her mouth to express her doubts regarding this ability, but he shakes his finger at her. "Hush. Now pay attention."

He outlines a few simple self-defense principles and techniques, taking her wrist to demonstrate the various points where she might apply pressure to loosen an opponent's grip or, in one instance, to cause excruciating pain. His touch remains light, brief and carefully businesslike; apparently he has taken his promise seriously.

"Right," he says, after she's able to repeat the basics of his lesson back to him with passable retention. "Let's have a go, then. Turn round."

"What, now?" Several crew members have paused in their work, she notices, to surreptitiously observe their captain's exchange with the "high-bred lady," as she's occasionally heard them refer to her despite her increasingly un-ladylike clothing and appearance.

"Aye, now," he answers brusquely. "Practice, m'dear, makes perfect." He motions her to face away from him. "Go on then, I haven't got all day."

She complies, not without a sense of trepidation; which is borne out an instant later when he seizes her from behind, pinning her arms against her side. She struggles, to no avail.

"Ah, you see? You're panicking," he says, his breath warm on her ear, body pressed against her back, and she recalls unexpectedly a moment on a Navy dock years ago: It is Elizabeth, isn't it? "All of that wriggling about, while...entertaining for me, is of no benefit to you at all." He ignores her indignant exclamation. "Remember what I've just shown you, now. Thumbs, elbows, instep--Bloody sodding hell!" Her elbow drives sharply into his ribs, and he releases her abruptly; she looks round to find him doubled over, clutching his side and swearing profusely.

"Oh!" She rushes to his side, hand over her mouth--half in consternation, half to hide an unkind giggle at his expression. "I'm so sorry, Jack. I'd forgotten about your injury--"

"It's quite all right," he says, breathless. "So had I."

Elizabeth cannot resist. "That's not to say I don't think you deserved it."

"I may have, at that." He straightens up, hissing slightly between clenched teeth; his face has gone alarmingly white beneath his tan.

"Are you sure you're all right? Perhaps I should have a look at the dressing..."

"That won't be necessary," and he plucks her fingers from his shirt. "God's teeth, woman, don't fuss."

"But the bandage should be changed every day to--"

"Sod off," he growls; surprised, she takes a step backwards. "You will note that I have managed to survive perfectly well up to this point, even in the absence of feminine meddling."

"They do say that God watches over fools and children," she retorts, stung. "I don't recall you putting up any objection to being cozened a few days ago, when you lay flat on your back and beguiled me into bringing up your grog like a common maid."

"Beguiled you, darling?" His emphasis drips incredulity. "I merely requested a favor, and you deigned, in your customary haughty way, to provide it." He stops, then adds, near-inaudibly, "The circumstances were rather...different at that time, I might add."

Mystified, she stares at him; as usual, she cannot read the meaning in his dark eyes. She thinks, though, that she sees his Adam's apple bob, as if he has swallowed the rest of a difficult speech. In the heavy silence between them, the billow of canvas and snap of taut stays fills the air.

Jack lifts his head, breaking eye contact, and inhales deeply; she can see some of the tension drain from the line of his shoulders. "Finally..."

The strengthening breeze brings the Pearl to life around them; it brushes lightly across Elizabeth's cheek, relieving the heat of exertion and pique that has risen there, though the air itself is warm, almost hot. Around the ship, the glassy sea wrinkles, small waves breaking here and there under the wind. Elizabeth stands still, watching Jack as he climbs to the bridge steps to speak with Anamaria. He does not glance back; but she could swear his quartermaster's gaze meets her own as the two confer at the helm. Ana's expression seems to consist of equal parts cool amusement and grave concern.

Elizabeth turns away, picking up the coil of rope she'd been working with, now neatly ship-shape courtesy of Captain Sparrow. She examines it idly, until she realizes she's seeking clues not to the formation of the knots themselves, but to the mind of the man who shaped them. What has come over me? she reproves herself. She should be thinking of her husband just now, her honest, steady, forthright Will Turner, who always says exactly what he means and wears his every emotion plainly on his face for her to read at leisure.

She fixes her attention on the Western horizon, where the sun has begun to drop rapidly towards the water. Somewhere out there, Will is waiting for her. She shuts her thoughts against any possibility except that in which he is safe and alive and ready to forgive her.

But she cannot shut out the memory of that untranslatable look she'd glimpsed in Jack Sparrow's eyes; though she's not sure that she wants to know its meaning, after all.


"She's not here." Commodore Norrington's curt tone disguises the utter weariness that overwhelms him as he steps from the skiff to the deck of the Dauntless. "We have no excuse to tarry."

Lieutenant Hayes nods and turns to the crew. Without further ado, Norrington walks straight through the small knot of officers and soldiers on the quarterdeck, scattering them in his wake; he hears the lieutenant's commands taken up by the rougher voice of the boatswain and the answering shouts of the men. Hayes might make a good Navy man yet. The midshipman is wise enough at least to see that his Commodore has no more patience or will left tonight to deal with the technicalities of getting the Dauntless under way. In fact, Norrington wishes above all things to shut himself into the drab solitude of his cabin and forget all the troubling events of the last few days, perhaps with a drop or two of laudanum added to his wine to ease his headache, and his conscience.

He's taken only a few steps toward this end, however, when his path is blocked by the considerable bulk of Turner's first mate. Feet planted wide, brawny arms crossed over his chest, the big black-bearded Scotsman confronts Norrington, chin jutting belligerently.

"B'ain't ye forgettin' somethin'?" he growls. "Or mayhaps, someone?"

"I beg your pardon." But Norrington's heart sinks; he knows what the man's after, knows the question he must ask is the one for which the Commodore least wishes to find an answer.

Sure enough, the man points towards the starboard bow to where the village of Navidad is sliding past, rapidly turning to rocky cliffs as the Dauntless tacks about to face the harbor mouth. "'Tis a hard soul 'ud abandon a mate t' th' hands o' a foe like that blackguard Dago back there." Behind him, the grubby remnants of Will Turner's crew stir, muttering agreement.

The Commodore sets his jaw. "I had no choice. Now stand down, man."

"Ye mean t' leave him, then?"

"Hayes," Norrington snaps. "Remove him."

Hayes moves forward, but the privateer holds his ground. "Ye wait just one minute, son." He speaks with such authority that the cadet pauses. "Master Norrington, ye know young Cap'n Turner, d'ye not?"

"I know him." Something in his challenger's tone has prevented him at the moment from signaling Hayes to march this man and his associates down to the brig. He hates to punish a sailor for loyalty and love for his captain, and it would seem a rude irony to a prisoner so recently liberated.

"Friend of your'n, might ye say?"

You might say that. Norrington is surprised by the thought, and made rather more uncomfortable by it. He gestures irritably for the man to continue. But the huge Scotsman says nothing more; glowering, arms still crossed, he steps aside only a fraction so that the Commodore must brush past him on his way to the forecastle.

The Dauntless is, of course, outgunned and outnumbered, a lone Naval ship in hostile waters under the dubious auspices of a cease-fire agreement with that Spanish bastard. He has his officers and his crew to consider, and he cannot justify risking so many men to rescue one civilian; one civilian who volunteered his own person in ransom.

...for the sake of a prisoner who was not in fact released, and possibly never held.

Norrington slams his cabin door shut behind him; an uncharacteristic expression of frustration that will later, he knows, embarrass him.

All of this for the lovely, thrice-damnable Miss Swann.

--Turner.

Poor bugger. He flings himself into the room's single chair. Will never had a choice, nor a chance against her, no more than Norrington himself. And here they still were, chasing after the very same damsel, as always; committing the same ridiculous, even indefensible acts in her name and the name of heroism, and compromising their own interests in the process. The lady's welfare at all costs, though the lady herself consistently placed that costly welfare at deadly risk on a whim and a fancy.

For Will, that whim would likely cost him his life.

Norrington rises abruptly. He finds he's suddenly moved to issue a few more orders, before he can rest.


Twilight has already begun to deepen when Nichole D'Bouvoire finds the mark her plan requires. He is young, homely, and proud of his very first post with the Spanish Navy--on La Venganza. Nichole tucks her flaming, unbound hair back behind one ear, leans in very close to him, and tells him in disarmingly parochial Spanish that she has always wanted to set foot on a real Navy man o'war. She strokes his bicep while she says this.

It's really far too easy; almost disappointingly so.

As he leads her up the gangplank, arm tight about her waist, her other hand slips down to feel the pouch hidden among her skirts, to trace the outline of the tiny vial of belladonna secreted within. Not to make sure that it's still there so much as for the satisfaction of it.

When the young cadet's mates, on deck for guard duty and envious of the rest of the crew's night off on the town, begin to pass a jug of grog around, she pretends to become extremely tipsy. When the jug runs out, she offers to decant more from the galley, if someone will show her where it might be.

The men are snoring before they have a chance to realize that she has not returned. Meanwhile, Nichole decides she rather likes the young cadet who did her the favor of getting her on Morena's ship in the first place, despite the fact that he sleepily attempts to get his hand up her skirt as soon as they are alone in the darkness of the hold. It is only because of this irrational affection that the tiny dart she jabs into his neck, as she giggles and slaps at him playfully, bears a substance formulated to produce almost instant heart failure in lieu of complete waking paralysis.

She catches the dead weight of him before he falls, and lowers his limp body gently to the deck, seating him against the hull as if asleep. The skirts he was so eager to bypass follow him onto the dirty boards; after a pause for consideration, she wads them up and tucks them under his lolling head, smiling at her own whimsy.

A few moments later, a slim, black-trousered figure slips soundlessly down the hatch into the bowels of La Venganza.

Time now to play the waiting game, again. It's not her favorite; but it will do, for a little while. The risk, of course, is that he will not come tonight. But Nichole is most certainly a gambling woman, and her grand plan is riding on these odds. She likes it that way. Makes things more interesting.

None of which, however, means she doesn't have an alternate method in mind to beat the odds, should she, by some strange chance, "lose."