Marooned

Author: Taluliaka

Summary: My take on the first time Jack was marooned. I have no idea how many chapters or how often, but the basic idea is what happened after the mutiny. Perhaps how that ridiculous legend about sea turtles and a raft told by Gibbs originated. I wouldn't put it past Jack Sparrow to create it just for fun. Some Anamaria. Lots of Jack. His uncanny bond with the Pearl is examined. Some Bill. A few crabs. Frequent humour. Angst. Sparrow moments. I've got it all.

Disclaimer: You can mistrust me less than you can mistrust that other desperate fanfic writer, trust me.

I change POV's quite a lot in this chapter. I apologise. It just happens. Hopefully the pretty black lines will separate the characters. Unless I get mixed up.

Chapter 1: Mutiny

It was an achingly beautiful morning, heralded by the slap of iridescent waves against the hull of the Pearl. Her sails billowed clean and white in the Caribbean sun, which was arching in all its fiery magnificence over the ocean, crowned in the shreds of clouds. Anchored, she was content to tug lightly at her bonds, her nose facing the open ocean in patient expectance.

But blaring voices shattered the silence, rough yells of triumph and hate and cruel amusement. The same breath of air that lifted the Pearl's sails also carried their drunken shouts out over the lapping of the waves. Blood smeared the deck of the ship, streaking the boards and the railing, the hands and even the clothing of the crew, draping them in scarlet glory. The hatred and enjoyment that warred in their eyes matched their gory costumes, as though they were corpses languishing in the perverse pleasures of Hell.

Barbossa stood in brooding silence in the background, the sunlight that trickled down from above disappearing into the eternal darkness of his sinful aura. A smile twisted itself onto his ravaged face as he turned to survey the man who stood motionless in the bow, staring out over the frolicking waves. As Barbossa approached, he became aware Bootstrap was muttering, the tension in the bunched muscles of his back visible even beneath the loose shirt.

Bill struggled to block out whatever was happening on the deck behind him. A terrible sense of guilt and betrayal nagged at him every time his ears caught a muffled groan or a loud outburst of merriment amongst the mutineers as something hard hit yielding flesh.

They were all mortal and the shroud of immortality that had always fallen around his friend was finally ripped away under the harsh sunlight. The flash of gold in his sudden smile and the madcap warmth in his kohl-smudged eyes could not protect him from bodily harm. Captain Jack Sparrow could bleed like any other man and it was proved by the overlapping dried-and-fresh bloody stains that he refused to tread upon. But he had promised and promises, although hard to bear, deserved to be kept.

So he stared out at the figurehead, hoping to find some sense of distraction in the woman's flowing lines, the loveliness of her outstretched hand, the beauty of the bird released from her fingertips. However, it gave him no peace. Spray dripped down the lady's frozen cheeks like tears and the sparrow's flight held a sense of desperation identifiable in each feather, each carved sinew of its straining wings.

The Pearl gave a sudden lurch as a current somewhere below shifted and the groan in her timbers held accusation. The lady 'always knew when something was wrong', or so Jack had promised him while smoothing the wood of the helm with a lover's caress.

And this was very wrong. So wrong he could feel his heart tearing. Jack and his ship held a strange accord between them. She was his dark lady, his queen, the only beauty that he truly revered in this world and now he was being torn from her by the rough hands of those who had once cared for his Pearl and gave her wings.

He felt a flash of hatred for what had once been the first mate, who was approaching. Rather than turning around and impaling the man on his dagger, he gripped the rail with white knuckles, one hand stroking the wood in an unconscious echo of Jack's.

Barbossa stood beside him a while. He did not understand men who talked to ships. His eyes flickered to the figurehead, which was where Bootstrap's gaze seemed to be focused. He waited for any hint of mutiny, any implication of his impending murder. There was none. Tossing a careless glance sideward where his men were sporting, he waited a few seconds longer. Bootstrap's fingers whitened. Then they relaxed and he bowed his head in dejected submission.

"Jack would have been proud, Bootstrap." The words were a whisper but they washed over Bootstrap as he knew they would, inexorable as the tide, with a mocking amusement that set the other man's teeth on edge.

Barbossa's next words were a bellow, a command he had dreamed of yelling since he met the former captain and all his equally annoying characteristics.

"Finish your business, lads!"

These words held no significance for Jack where he lay sprawled on the deck of his beloved ship, festooned in thick ropes. But then again, nothing had for the last hour or so. Reality vanished beyond his grasp and his entire world was either bright light or consuming shadow. Flashes of pain knifed mightily across his body, bathing colours behind his eyelids. His eyes were open, he could tell by the salt breeze making them water, but all he could see was flashes of brilliant colour, scarlet, crimson, blood, parrot-reds.

He had never known that pain was red.

They did not touch him and shadows drifted across him every so often, as though he were part of the deck itself. Maybe he wasn't even here, but sinking into the Pearl's planks, finally becoming part of her and all her ruthless beauty. Then somebody thought it might be pleasant to kick him right in the gut. His rapid intake of air burned like ice, reminding him that yeah, he was still alive and regretting it thoroughly. Laughter swirled lopsidedly overhead. Ah yes. His disloyal crew.

Bloody bastards. Damn them all to mutineer's hell. The dirty feckless ingrates, sons of dogs that should have drowned in their bitches' breast milk…Barbossa! You fucking dog! I'll drive that stick you have up your arse through your skull!

Memories flashed past him far too quickly, the smell of blood, the aching pain as something collided savagely with his head, their feral eyes when Barbossa had set his dogs upon him. As he was forced from his cabin to the deck, staggering into the chilly air under the distant stars, he could see only one pair of worried eyes. Bill, the stupid bastard, would have laid in upon them had he not said……something. Something he couldn't quite remember at the present moment.

After that were only sensations, pain, winds strong enough to make the ship jerk under his feet, the grunts of the brutes that surrounded him and his ship quivering in anguish as they bound her to a halt.

Suddenly cold water splashed down hard on his head, dousing his entire torso in moisture that burnt like fire. Reality dawned on him. He was lying on the decking, surrounded by mutinous eunuchs. His clothing stuck to him, creating uncomfortable knots in his back. Barbossa stood grinning down on him and he wished for a pistol to blow that face into chunks of gore. None was forthcoming. They dragged him to his feet, setting him down on the bouncy strip of wood that signified the end.

Oh Jack knew exactly what the fate was for captains that had been overthrown by mutiny. His vision cleared and an island of gaudy colours swam into view, covered in a fierce gold and sinuously shifting in the waving of leathery palms.

That's interesting.

Barbossa was saying something, probably quoting the bit from the code about a pistol with one shot, but he wasn't paying attention. He caressed the Pearl with his eyes, taking in every line, every rope, every sail. She stirred restlessly under the one hand that still held the railing. They were going to have to pry him off his ship.

Once again, he took in every inch of her, every startlingly glorious splinter of wood. She crooned to him when he slept and soared under his hand when he guided her across the endless freedom of the Spanish Main. Through vibrations in her hull, he had communed with the ocean, by the minute ripple in her sails determined the weather ahead and he felt something break in his chest as she yielded to his shaking touch trustingly.

A moment later he felt a pistol shoved into one hand, the other ripped off the rail and he staggered a few steps to the end of the plank. Although rough and crude, it was still a part of her and he savoured its feel in his boots. He wondered vaguely where Bill was. White sails fluttered high above him.

Goodbye luv.

Then he was falling towards the sea with a sense of shock. He tried to force his broken body into some kind of diving position, even to move to a place where he wouldn't hit the ocean with the back of his neck and his vulnerable spine. Nothing co-operated and the slap of the water when he hit it was hard as stone. His gasp quickly turned to a gurgle as the Caribbean tried to force itself down his throat.

From where Bootstrap stood, the splash of his friend's body hitting the sea could have been a particularly large wave hitting the ship's side. Nothing dramatic. Nothing even vaguely unique about it. But the world was coming down around their ears. Every single member of this ship would endure in the deepest circle of hell for this. And he deserved to burn with them. Squeezing his eyes shut to discourage any tears, Bootstrap turned and went below, deliberately not looking over the side to where Jack floated. Or sunk.

He had one fleeting hope that Barbossa's depraved sense of humour hadn't made the pirate dunk Jack in a frequent feeding place of sharks. He had seen enough blood covering the deck to know that Jack would stand no chance if a shark might catch the scent in the water. But there were no screams or an excited lilt to the whoresons' voices.

Water closed over his head, blocking all his senses. Sunlight filtered into the turquoise depths and tiny fish darted away in a sparkle of scales. Immense exhaustion pinned his body down like chains and Jack wondered for a brief moment if he was dying. One lock covered with beads bobbed gently against his face, touching a nasty cut. Ouch. Belay the dying part. Then he heard the siren song of his ship, the deep whine as she sliced through the underwater current, the displaced shifts of water rolling away from her hull. She was calling to him.

Jack surfaced with a flourish, throwing his head back as though somehow he could leap back onto his ship and be united with her once more. This gesture of longing went unnoticed by the crew as they sailed by, jeering and cussing their heads off at him. He swirled and bobbed in her wake like a cork and felt an extreme urge to swim after her. An extremely stupid urge. Their farewells floated after him.

"Fair seas, captain! Hope you ain't thirsty!"

"Bye Jack. We've got your ship!"

And other such stupid obvious observations.

His lip curled in disgust. Those pirates wouldn't know wit if it came up and tore their arses off. With an effort that seemed to be pulled out of the very depths of his soul, he bellowed,

"It's Captain! CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW!"

There was no answer. Even if they had heard, it wasn't like they were going to come back and beat the crap out of him again. At least, he hoped not.

A wave swamped him. And then another. With their help, for all his strength seemed to be draining out of him into the sea, he finally made berth on his island. He crawled up it like a drowned land lubber, struggling to lift his limbs from the sucking sand.

He turned once. The Pearl was just a smudge on the horizon. Something blurred in his vision, something that may have been tears, but then again may have been from his dripping headscarf. Dropping his head back down on the sand, Captain Jack Sparrow tried to convince himself that things weren't that bad. And failed miserably.

A random thought struck him. Where in the blazes was his pistol?Ah, there. His hand was clenched so tightly around it took a few minutes for it to relax enough for him to drop it onto the ground. It made a dull thumping sound, reminding Jack once again that he was on land. He didn't like land.

That dull thud sounded like a death knell. By the emptiness in his body, Jack realised that the Black Pearl was gone. He thumped one fist down onto the sand in fury. Then unconsciousness hit him right between the eyes.

Bill sat quietly on his hammock, listening to the thump of waves against the Pearl as she gathered speed. Timber creaked above his head. The snap of ropes and the barking of orders drifted overhead. All this noisecouldn't block out the faint sound that incorporated all of these elements and yet required none of them to bring forth a voice. Bill had felt enough of the ship's moods to know that Jack's ship was mourning for him. Her weeping echoed in the cries of the gulls and the lonely whistle of the wind.

Spurred on by a new cruel master, she lifted head and tail and fled like an abused horse. But there was no joy in her flight as there had been when Jack was at the helm. Bill dropped his head into his hands and let his tears finally fall, Jack's last words to him echoing in the silence.

Don't do anything stupid.

Next Chapter: Jack is on an island. He doesn't like islands. Injuries are examined. Curses are cursed. Thirst is damned thrice to the blackest oblivion of Davy Jones's locker. Jack's grip on sanity begins to slide. Day 1 of the legendary three days of his maroon-inity.

Random Requests: If somebody could send me the whereabouts of a diagram of a ship in the same era or of the same make of the Black Pearl so I can learn its various parts, I would be most obliged.