See part one for disclaimers. If reading that sort of thing over and over and over again really does it for you.
......................................................
"There's a pretty little mousy. Come 'ere, little mousy. Come 'ere. 'Ave a little bit o' bread."
It was hotter than hell, their cell in the Port Royal prison smelled like low tide and feet, and Ragetti was talking to the fucking rats again.
The lanky blonde pirate was pressed up against the cell door, one arm stretched as far through the bars as he could manage, a tiny piece of bread pinched between thumb and forefinger; an offering for the scrawny brown rodent that was scavenging along the dusty floor between the cells. What Ragetti wanted with the rat, Pintel had no idea. He might have wanted a pet. He might have wanted a snack.
"Mousy mousy mousy!"
He was going to start whistling in a minute or two, and when he did, Pintel was going to grab him by the neck and beat his head against the metal door until his other eye came out.
It was almost enough to make a man look forward to getting his neck stretched. A few more weeks in this hole and Pintel might offer to tie the knots himself.
Pintel and Ragetti had been rotting – in the metaphorical, non-decomposing sense of the word -- in the prison ever since their capture, along with the other remnants of Barbossa's crew who hadn't yet made the trip to the gallows. Though they were down to eight now, there had been quite a few of them to begin with, and the cells were slow to empty. It seemed Commodore Noble-Out-the-Arse Norrington, the pretentious bastard, was adverse to simply offing them all as quickly as one corpse could be cut from the gallows and replaced by another, and had been absolutely adamant that there would be no mass graves, on land or at sea, at his post. Each of the condemned men was to get a proper burial, and wouldn't be sharing his patch of earth with anyone but the worms.
Each of them, that was, except for Jack Sparrow. He'd gotten a one-day head start. Three months ago.
Pintel's face twisted into a snarl. Wasn't it just like the little shit to go and get himself saved, all flashy-like, snug enough in the good graces of the governor and the commodore that they just let him fly away? Hadn't even locked him up like the rest of them beforehand, because the governor's little bitch of a daughter had ranted and raved and raised hell at the idea when they were disembarking from the Dauntless. No, even when he was waiting to be executed, Sparrow got superior treatment. Held under guard in private quarters.
Personally, Pintel would have liked to see him held under water. Until the bubbles disappeared.
And then, because fate seemed to have decided she liked kicking them in the balls, Sparrow didn't even hang. That bloody Turner brat went and sprung him, and the lapdogs of the Crown let him go.
Pintel wasn't sure what was contributing more to his bad mood – the fact that he was going to hang sometime in the next few days, or that Jack Sparrow had evaded the noose.
Or that Ragetti was whistling at a fucking rat.
"Rags! You wanna shut the hell up, maybe?"
The blonde pirate glared at him, a hard thing to do effectively when his eyes went off in two different directions. "What's the matter with you, mate?"
"What's the matter with me? I'm sittin' on me hands waitin' to get strung up like a hooked fish, and on top of that I have to listen to you makin' conversation with the bloody vermin! Do a soon-to-be-dead man a favor and shut yer bleedin' mouth!"
"Will you two give it a fuckin' rest, already?" Twigg's voice grumbled from the next cell down, punctuated by an annoyed kick against the bars dividing them.
"Keep quiet down there!" a guard's voice shouted from somewhere up the stone stairs.
"Go bugger yourself!" Pintel shot back.
"Yeah!" Ragetti chimed in. "This 'ere's a private conversation!"
"Terribly sorry, gentlemen." An officer's uniform entered, topped off with a white wig and a smug face. Lieutenant Gillette sauntered in, hands clasped behind his back, mouth twisted snidely. "Please, carry on. Wouldn't want anything detracting from the pleasure of your stay with us." He cast an exaggerated glance around the various cells. "Though it looks as if you've at least got a bit more breathing room now, hmm?"
Pintel curled his lip and spit on the floor. Gillette was, as far as Pintel was concerned, one more entry on the list of reasons he'd like to bend Jack Sparrow over a barrel. Sparrow's absence from their company lied at the heart of Gillette's malcontent, and as Pintel and the rest of the condemned former crew of the Black Pearl were suffering the backlash, it suited Pintel to lay blame for Gillette's mood on the escaped pirate.
Gillette had not exactly kept mum how he felt about the commodore's decision to leave Sparrow be. Not at first, anyway. Not until Norrington thanked him for his concerns and assured him that if and when Sparrow presented a threat to Port Royal, Norrington would deal with him, making it clear that was the end of the discussion.
Gillette had dutifully said nothing more, but his displeasure, now accompanied by a healthy dose of resentment after being put in his place, found other outlets. With Sparrow out of reach, and Norrington a superior officer, that left the last dregs of Barbossa's crew as the unlucky recipients of Gillette's petty torments.
"If you fellows over here on the left are getting bored with the atmosphere, I could probably arrange to have you all moved over to the other side. Nice unobstructed view of the gallows over there, isn't that so?" Gillette grinned at the prisoners to his right. "Not that you won't all get a chance to see them up close, of course."
Ragetti's rat crawled a few steps closer, and he snatched it up, drawing a startled squeak from the creature. "I dunno," he said, cupping the struggling animal firmly in both hands, holding it near his face, almost nose-to-nose. "I think I like the sideshow that comes through right in here. Not every day it is ye see a talking pig."
There was rough laughter from the rest of the crew, and Gillette's face reddened.
"Mind your tongue, filth," Gillette said, stepping closer to the bars in what was probably intended to be a menacing manner.
"Why? What you gonna do, hang us?" Niperkin demanded.
"Nah, mate. He'll do worse," Pintel put in. "He'll get us pardoned so's we have to listen to him talk some more."
"Fuck me, no. I'll slit me own throat, first."
"If you're that eager to come to your ends," Gillette said tightly, "perhaps we can do something to hasten them on."
"Once you get the commodore's say so, you mean?" Pintel sneered. "Good luck with that, mate. Seems you've not had much success swayin' him to yer way of thinkin', am I right?" Sidling up to the bars, Pintel gave the lieutenant a sly half-grin. "Now person'ly, sir, I wouldn't mind seein' Jack Sparrow meet the business end of yer pistol. I think you've got the right of it, wantin' to hunt the mongrel down, never mind what ol' Norrington says."
The pinched expression on Gillette's face pinched a little more, but he kept his voice near bland. "Sparrow will come to the same end as the rest of your ilk, in due time."
"Oh, sure, mate. Sure. Long as you're in no hurry, seein' as how the good commodore don't seem to be."
Gillette's eyes darkened briefly, and his lips pressed together in a bloodless line before he spoke again. "Commodore Norrington may not have his eye set on the Black Pearl at the moment, but rest assured, gentlemen, he's not the only man in His Majesty's Navy capable of dealing with pirates."
"'Course not. After all, he's got you here overseein' our cages, whilst he's otherwise engaged. Sure he wouldn't leave none but the best to that task," Pintel went on, barely smothering a chuckle at the flash of indignation that passed over Gillette's face. It almost ain't sporting.
Not that Pintel had ever been one to let that stop him.
Gillette gave a haughty sniff then, his feathers smooth once more, and cast a distasteful look at the group around him. "As pleasurable as this conversation has been," he said coolly, moving away. "I have other duties. But I'm sure I'll be talking to you again." He paused mid-step. "Well, some of you, anyway," he amended, before trotting up the steps and out of sight.
"'Some of you, anyway,'" Ragetti parroted in a high-pitched voice. "Someone thinks they're bloody clever, don't they, my mousy?" He made kissing noises at the rat, which had by now stopped squirming and hung frozen in his hands, beady black eyes huge, the only movement the furious quivering of its nose and whiskers.
"What were you on about with all that, Pintel?" Twigg demanded.
Pintel gripped the bars of the door, leaning against it and studying the stairway the lieutenant had departed by. "Just making a bit of me own amusement, Twigg me lad," he replied.
"Yeah, well, just so's yer amusement don't get any of us flogged. If I'm gonna hang I at least wanna hang in one piece." Twigg glanced at Ragetti and made a disgusted noise. "Jesus, man, either eat it or let it go."
"He ain't for eatin'!" Ragetti shot back, indignant. "I'm gonna feed him up and make friends, and then I'm gonna send him out to steal the jailor's keys."
"Bleedin' hell. I don't believe what I'm hearin'."
"Did ye hurt yerself comin' up with that one, Ragetti?"
"What's wrong with it?" the blonde demanded, inadvertently giving the rat a sharp squeeze. "Rats like li'l shiny things."
"That's crows, you halfwit."
Ragetti slumped down, scowling in silence, rubbing his thumb on the top of the rat's head absently.
"Crows?"
"Aye."
Ragetti pondered this. "Well, what do rats like?"
"Apparently shit-for-brains one-eyed pirates."
"You're this fuckin' close, mate, I swear on me mother." The fist that Ragetti shook at Maximo was, unfortunately, the one that was still around the rat, and at that point the animal decided it had had enough, and sank its teeth into the pirate's hand. Ragetti dropped it with a yelp, and the rat darted quickly out of the cell, disappearing into the shadows at the end of the hall. "Dammit!" he bellowed, and slapped one hand against the floor in frustration.
"Oh, pity. Guess we won't be escapin' after all," Twigg commented.
"If you ain't got something helpful to say, keep your bloody mouth shut," Ragetti growled back. He shook his stinging hand and glared at the tiny, deep lacerations left by the rodent's wicked incisors. "Bloody rat. Next time I will eat you, you bastard!"
.....................................................................
Bill Turner stared at the faint, half-circle scar on his right forearm, the remnant of a nasty bite. He'd received it on the day he'd first met Jack Sparrow. He had, in point of fact, received it from Jack Sparrow.
The ship Bill had been serving on as quartermaster had come upon another vessel dead in the water. Literally dead; the entire crew had been slaughtered. There had only been one survivor; a seventeen-year-old stowaway who'd been rather badly wounded and had come over a bit skittish and resistant to Bill's attempts to coax him from his hiding place. The lad had been bedraggled and bloody and half-starved, and Bill had, before long, come to the conclusion that he would make more progress by simply reaching in and removing the boy, rather than waiting for him to emerge on his own.
It had seemed like a good, expedient plan, right up until the point when Bill had actually touched the kid, who'd looked small and meek and injured, right up 'til the point when he touched back. With his teeth.
Bill ended up needing four stitches in his arm. It had been the first and last time he ever underestimated Jack.
Later on, much later on, it had amused Jack immensely to tell people, when Bill was asked about the scar, that Jack had given it to him when Bill tried to touch him inappropriately. After about the third time, Bill had ceased to be mortified by this, as Jack's tale-telling grew more elaborate the more distress he managed to wring out of Bill with it. That, and the fact that people never seemed to fully believe anything Jack Sparrow said. He could've said rain was wet and gotten dubious looks.
Staring at the silvery scar, Bill suddenly realized he was smiling, and as soon as he realized it the expression froze and shattered. He jerked his shirtsleeve down, covering the old wound.
Strange, how he'd thought that one had hurt. That hadn't been pain. Had seemed like it, back then, but Bill knew better now.
...................................................
The small stretch of rocky beach the Black Pearl had dropped anchor off of was named Charity Point on the map Jack had consulted. That was not the place's real name, or at least not the name its owner had given it, but the map had been drawn by a pirate for use by pirates, the land's owner lived six miles inland, and it was a location plenty charitable to Jack and his purposes. Real was what you made of it, as Jack liked to say. Sometimes when no one was around to listen.
"Come back to this beach five nights from now," Jack instructed Anamaria. "I'll give you a light, just before midnight, down at the southernmost end. Wait ten minutes before you give me one back, then put a boat in."
"Why ten minutes?" Ana wondered, her words clipped. She still disapproved, but was now disapproving silently.
"Because if you were, hypothetically, a ship of the British navy, and you happened, hypothetically, to have gotten a bug in your ear that a certain wanted pirate had taken to land near here, and you were keeping a weather eye out for said scalawag when you noticed, in the dead of night, a wee mysterious light where there oughtn't be any such luminescence, and you suspected--"
"Hypothetically?" she interjected, eyebrow arching.
"Right you are!" Jack exclaimed, pointing a jeweled and enthusiastic finger at her. "And you suspected that this may be a sign of shifty dealings involving your wanted man, might you not, cunning military mind that you are, venture that the given signal was awaiting a response affirming the all-clear, and immediately give a signal of your own, so as to lure the criminal into false security?"
Ana considered the possibility that the perpetually tipsy gait was a direct result of Jack not pausing for breath often enough once his mouth got going. "So by not replying to your signal with one of our own straight away, you'll know it's really us, and not someone trying to get the drop on you."
Jack beamed. "Precisely! Not that we have to waste too much energy worrying about such a possibility, what with it hinging, as I said, on a cunning military mind. Running across one of those is a bit like the odds on being hit by lightning. When you're below decks," he amended after a second's consideration.
"All right, Jack, here's a hypothetical for you," Anamaria carried on, drumming her fingers on her crossed arms. "What do we do if there ain't no light twinkling on this beach five nights from now, on account of your stupid ass being all dead back in Port Royal when that horseshit luck of yours runs out?"
Jack gave a dainty, dismissive wave of his hand. "Oh ye of little faith."
"Jack!"
A man could shave with the edge in Anamaria's tone when she was riled.
"Bloody hell, Ana, would you strain yourself showing a smidgen of optimism?" Jack burst out, throwing his arms in the air. "My stupid ass has managed to stay alive through situations a tiny bit more perilous and demanding than a simple social call!"
Anamaria's eyebrow climbed a little more.
Jack sighed, loudly and put-upon, eyes rolling in exasperation "If I don't signal, sail to Tortuga and give it a week to the hour once you land. After that, it's up to you. Satisfied?"
"Yes, I am." Ana actually smiled.
"Only took a bloody tooth-pulling," Jack grumbled.
"Oh, and Captain?"
"Yes, Anamaria?"
"No worries about your Pearl while you're away, all right?" Anamaria patted a hand against the bulkhead. "I'll keep her safe and sound for you."
...................................................
"Bit of an odd one, is Anamaria," Jack mused sometime later, as Cotton rowed him ashore.
Insomuch as it was possible for a mute man currently without his translator parrot to convey a message about pots and kettles while sitting in a boat in the dark, Cotton did so.
"Awfully big on rules for a pirate. Rather like a schoolteacher with a sword, ain't she?"
Cotton didn't argue this, his silence more the "I agree" type, than the "whatever, you dolt, I have no tongue" type.
"I keep waiting for her to take a strap to me knuckles. Woman'd put Barbossa himself over her knee."
There was an extremely pregnant pause as this image sunk in.
"I wish I hadn't said that." Jack absently tapped the heel of his hand lightly against the side of his head and looked disgusted.
The boat slid into the shallows then, before the conversation had the chance to deteriorate any further.
"Well, Mr. Cotton, this'd be where I take my leave, and I thank you for the drop-off." Jack climbed out of the boat, swaying just a bit too far to one side when his feet touched down, then righting himself with an annoyed glance at ground that was jarringly firm. Cotton waited long enough to make sure his captain wasn't going to end up on his ass before handing over the canvas sack that held Jack's signal lantern, among other things.
Jack spared a look into the darkness, where the Pearl was a shadow on black water. For the first time since conceiving this plan, he hesitated, the barest ounce of a doubt buzzing at him like a wasp. He'd laid his plans out with Gibbs, he'd laughed off Anamaria's concerns, and he'd imagined with impish glee the expressions on Will and Elizabeth's faces when he turned up on their stoop. There was naught but a few paces left to take him out of the water, leaving his ship in his crew's hands.
Are you as fuckin' mad as everyone says, mate? The thought struck him, sudden and sharp as a blow to the face.
Ten years, he'd chased her. His Pearl. His heart. His home. Ten years he'd swore he'd have her back, and it would take prying his cold, dead fingers from her helm to make him let her go again.
Wouldn't even take no violence this time. Handed her over just as pretty as you please. All they have to do is not come back.
Whether he hesitated just a little too long, or spoke part of his thoughts aloud, he didn't know, but a slight pressure on his arm yanked Jack back to the here and now.
Cotton's work-worn hand only lingered a moment before releasing its light grasp. The old sailor waited until he knew, even in the darkness, that he had his captain's eye, then he gestured with a quick movement of his head towards the beach.
Jack smiled crookedly. "I'm thinking too much, eh?"
Cotton gave a one-shouldered shrug, and the smallest nod.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right, Cotton." Jack clapped the other man briefly on the shoulder. "Go on with you, old man, before Marty roasts that bloody bird of yours for supper."
He helped Cotton shove off of the bottom, then took those few splashing steps up onto the beach. Jack watched the rowboat melt into the night, and spared one more glance beyond, to the place where the Black Pearl's bulk blotted out the waxing light of the moon. He touched the brim of his hat, a light, flitting brush of his fingertips. "Fair winds find you, old girl. I'll see you soon."
Jack found a sheltered place to stow his lantern, then brushed the sand off his coat and got his bearings. It would be dawn or close to it before he got to Port Royal on foot.
Yes indeed, when the sun came up, things were going to get interesting.
TBC