November 1687
Sixteen weeks after the Wickedry docked in Noble Bay
I feel... cold.
The pirate dropped to the ground with a thud, and Will Turner's eyes opened into the darkness of his cabin aboard the pirate ship Wickedry.
Blood. Death.
No.
It is only natural that I think of these things. I am on a ship that reeks of death even now. He wasn't sure what the reek of death smelled like, but he imagined it to be just like Wickedry. He stood up, splashed tepid water on his face from the basin near his berth. The ship's rocking and yawning had become almost secondhand to him on this cruise; thank you, Father, he thought with a sad little smile. Your pirate's blood is in me even now.
How Will Turner fell from grace. Gerrarrd had given him free rein aboard the vessel, had even gone so far as to instruct the crew not to hamper him in anything he wished to do. Will could wander as he liked so long as he didn't touch anything... he had even found himself helping tack ship one day. He hadn't liked the job much, but much to his horror he seemed to have an affinity for it.
On the fifth day, he watched a group of sailors trying to repair a broken cannon. No, not that way, he wanted to say. Working near the docks had given Will several opportunities to work on the guns of both Dauntless and Interceptor, and he almost wanted to tell the sailors what they were doing wrong.
Almost.
On the sixth day, a ship with patched sails appeared on the horizon.
"Can't be rightfully identifying her, sir," Dugald said as Gerrarrd took the spyglass from him. "No build as I've seen..."
Gerrarrd handed the glass to Will, who peered through it gingerly. He knew that bow - though admittedly, last time he'd seen it from this angle, it had been surrounded by storm and fog. "I know that ship."
"Black Pearl," Gerrarrd said matter-of-factly.
"Can't be, sir - her sails--"
"It's not so difficult to change a ship's sails, Dugald," he snapped. "Though you may seem to make it so."
"Shall we run out the guns, sir?"
The captain studied the ship for a long moment, and Will held his breath. Jack must have gotten off the island and gotten back to his ship - why else would she be following so closely? And if Jack were there... perhaps Elizabeth was with him - or at least safe in Port Royal, away from this mess.
Gerrarrd smiled. "No. Not unless she starts closing on us. Back to your duties, men," he snarled at the group of sailors who had closed ranks to watch the other ship. "I'll not have ye sittin' about slack-jawed while we be chased. Move along!" When they moved, he lowered his voice and smiled at Will. "So Cap'n Sparrow still has that damningly naive loyalty, does he?"
"You wouldn't kill him, would you?"
Gerrarrd only smiled.
***
Anamaria faced the helm of Black Pearl as Captain Soledad and wondered if the ship hated her.
Gibbs had identified Wickedry nearly the instant she had pulled out ahead of them, though the wind was not yet strong enough to push them any closer. Pearl already carried all sail, making excellent time for most intents and purposes. But not for this one. Not this one. Wickedry already had a good head start and the wind did not feel like cooperating.
Anamaria flagged Gibbs over to the wheel. "What chance have we to catch 'em?"
"Wickedry outguns us, Captain - you remember when last we took her on!" Yes; Jack did not like what they did to Pearl. "If the wind holds--"
"Run out the fo'ard guns," she ordered.
"But Anamaria--"
"Captain Soledad," she snapped, and to hell with what the ship thought of her. "If the wind turns fresh we'll not miss a chance."
"Aye, Captain," Gibbs said wearily, no doubt cursing the deity that had sent him Anamaria Soledad as his commanding officer. He turned to Cotton and Matheson, making a cutting gesture with his hand. "You heard her!"
***
"They're running out their tops, Captain," Dugald reported.
Gerrarrd didn't look up from his maps. "So Sparrow has decided to make a fight of it. Good for him."
Will looked over the aft rail again and wondered if Jack would ever do anything so bluntly obvious as coming from behind. "You have fifteen more cannon than she," he said. Though Black Pearl approached Wickedry much as she had Interceptor all those months ago, she looked distinctly less ominous. The lack of storm clouds around her did wonders for her general appearance.
"Thank you, Mr. Turner, for your informed opinion," Gerrarrd said, snapping the map shut and handing it to one of his subordinates. "Come about."
"Come about?" Will squawked as the helmsman spun the wheel. Wickedry began to heel around, and his stomach reeled in response. "You can't mean to engage them!"
"I mean exactly what I say, Mr. Turner." Ephraim Gerrarrd had a truly horrible smile as he rubbed his hands together. "As you will soon discover."
***
Wickedry made the best of her broad beam, dipping into a trough and forcing her bow around. Aboard Black Pearl, no one needed a spyglass to see what Gerrarrd intended to do. Gibbs squeezed the rail. "She's coming about!"
"Maintain course!" Anamaria yelled from the wheel. "Duncan, take her. Do not back down!"
She joined Gibbs at the rail. "I give 'er three minutes if she takes two seconds," he said. "She has a good even keel and--"
"Prepare to fire!"
"Anamaria!" He recoiled, astounded. "She'll rake us if she can pass us--"
Anamaria had a terrifying feral glint in her eye. "If! Roil out the guns and let 'er feast on what she wants - take her deck!" She grabbed his shirt collar when he made to protest again, hauling him right up against her face. "If blood is to be spilled this day, then we will cut first!" Shoving him aside, she pointed at the gun crews. "FIRE!"
***
The first shot took off Stephen O'Brian's head, and the second tore underneath the decking with a rumble. Will grabbed for a rope, barely staying upright as Wickedry lurched in protest of the violation. O'Brian's head - what remained of it - landed in front of his boots, and fortunately two more shots wheeled by overhead, sparing him from any immediate nausea. Around him, men screamed as they were pierced by splinters or lashed by loose ropes.
His mind swam drunkenly. Jack never aimed for the decks - he went for the rig, for the rudder, for the things that would not harm too many. This much he knew... mostly because Elizabeth turned out to be a veritable plethora of useless information about the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.
Gerrarrd kicked O'Brian's smashed head aside. "Sparrow must have misplaced himself." So he noticed it, too. "Well, lads, give him what he wants!"
No, Will mouthed, no no no...
"Fire!"
***
The first shots splashed wide as Black Pearl steered clear, but two others tore through the sails. Anamaria shouted incomprehensibly, and Pearl turned her head to counter Wickedry's attempt at a broadside. Smoke and flame singed anyone nearby, and Gibbs covered his ears as Pearl answered the call by dropping a full broadside on Gerrarrd's ship.
Wood snapped and canvas gave way, and Pearl's crew cheered as the ship seemed to back off slightly. Could it be done? Reload, reload, Anamaria screeched. Half-deaf from the guns, the men nonetheless went about it as Pearl strove in deeper. Gibbs grinned, his doubts assuaged. Even now, it seemed Wickedry might back away, perhaps damaged under the waterline.
Then her head turned, and he found himself facing the full, fearsome broadside that had so terrified mariners for years.
Or perhaps it is a trick of the wind...
"Get down! Get down!"
Fire bloomed from Wickedry's port side.
Gibbs did not dare hope that Gerrarrd's return volley would be anything short of full force. Pearl staggered as three shots tore her forward hull open, the deck underneath his feet dropping almost instantly as water seeped in through the new wounds. He caught sight of Anamaria's shocked face: did she really think he would not turn on us? Did she really think...
"He has us now," he said. "We can still turn back!"
"Forward hold is filling, Captain!"
If she's killed Pearl, Jack will never forgive her. "Anamaria, we have to go--"
"I won't turn from a fight!"
"Listen to me, woman! This is not your little boat that a bucket will bail out - this is Black Pearl. She's too big to take chances on, and right now that thing is going to get us." The indecision in her eyes flickered, and Gibbs wasted precious seconds by putting his hands on her shoulders and trying to be comforting. "I know you've never run from a fight in your life - but we must fight another day, Captain Soledad. Get him another day!"
The indecision that lingered in her eyes gradually shifted to resignation. "Stand down," she whispered. Gibbs did not repeat the order, but rather nodded to the three sailors gathered around him.
Black Pearl, battered but not broken, turned her back on certain death so that one day she might strike again.
***
When Black Pearl pulled out of the chase, Will's fingernails dug into his palms until blood oozed from the dents. Damn you, Jack Sparrow! Damn you to hell! He'd lost interest, had he? No easy way out, and so he would leave an old friend to rot.
"Bored already," Gerrarrd said. "His attention span was never anything special."
Will didn't respond to him; didn't even look at him. Instead, he turned shortly and marched to the little cabin below that they'd set up for Bootstrap Bill, ignoring the little trail of blood that his torn hands left.
Below, the air was cool and damp, and the only sound came from Wickedry's flanks as she cut through the water. Boostrap Bill had been locked away, though a porthole afforded his cabin plenty of light. Will shoved the door open without knocking, eager for a tussle with the man who had once been his father. Anything was better than standing around lamenting the end of a rescue attempt.
Bootstrap did not rush him. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands. Someone had held him down long enough to give him a shave, and that - coupled with the good food he'd been eating, and regular sunlight - had begun to restore his looks. I do look like him, Will thought ruefully, shutting the door behind him. Or maybe now, he looks like me. "Well, aren't you going to leap at me? Or snarl, or bite, or do something similarly atrocious to make me wonder why I still bother? Come on, this is your big chance! Rip me to pieces, damn you, I couldn't feel any worse than I do now!" When Bootstrap failed to stir, Will balled his hand into a fist, ignoring the shards of pain from his torn flesh, and banged it into the wall as hard as he could. "DO SOMETHING GOD DAMN YOU!"
His voice built to a roar and reverberated off the walls, and as Wickedry dipped into a trough it seemed she tried to lean away from his fury. He almost couldn't hear what happened next over the pounding in his ears.
"Wills?"
The voice was thin, as though it had not been used in quite some time. It moved gingerly over the nickname, testing it - scarcely more than a whisper. Will froze, unwilling to believe. The last time he'd heard that...
Good-bye, dear Wills! I'll be sendin' ye something shiny soon enough, once I make my fortune I'll send for you and your mama, and you be a good lad, now. That's my Wills!
The downcast face lifted, and through the fog of madness in Bootstrap Bill's dark eyes, he saw a touch of warmth - and hope - he had not seen since he was a boy. "Wills?"
All of his anger dripped out of him like the blood from his hands, and he moved mechanically to the side of his father's small berth. Easing next to him, he took one of the limp hands in his own, squeezing it as carefully as he dared. "Papa," he said quietly. "Papa, I'm here."
***
As the sun dipped below the horizon and turned the sky a flaming gold, Joshamee Gibbs came upon Anamaria Soledad in the captain's quarters and tried to ignore her brooding look. "The ship will live, Captain. We've patched the worst of it and when we can put in at Tortuga to fix the rest."
"I almost killed us all today," she said, staring into the goblet. "I'm not fit to command."
"You're fit as anyone, Soledad. We all make our mistakes."
"I almost sank the damned ship, Joshamee!"
The old salt in him longed to lecture her on the merits of women aboard ships, but Anamaria had proven her worth too many times to be taken down like that. Joshamee Gibbs had never fancied himself to be much of a gentleman, but he found it in himself to put a hand on her shoulder, sitting beside her. "So you learned. You can't go runnin' into battle and not expect to get a few lashes. Y'think Jack didn't do the same once? Why, that lad went through two ships before he got t'Pearl, an' she was the first not to sink from under him!"
Anamaria stood up and limped out the door, looking out at twilight over the ocean. "I never knew you could run from a fight. I just... never learnt it."
"We didn't run," he said. "We... had a prior engagement that we forgot about. There's no shame in it, Anamaria. We'll come back and get him."
"Yes... but... Wickedry is a powerful ship. And there will be hell to pay one way or another, but... we may need..." Making up her mind about something, she turned to Gibbs. "Joshamee, I'll be wanting ye to take a missive to the good Commodore right shortly. It's of a great importance, so mind your manners while there."
"Wait..." Gibbs sprinted to catch up with her as she began striding toward the wheel. "Why've I got to do it? The Commodore'll string me up..."
"He knows you, and he's not strung you up yet. He won't meet with me... I'm a woman." The bitter edge to her voice quickly smoothed away. "You, at least, will be able to get through his cronies."
"You're the Captain... Captain. By all rights, it's you he should be speaking with."
She stopped at the stairwell, looking out over the rail at the rolling sea. "If he'll agree to see me, then make it so, Joshamee Gibbs. If not, then I'll be trusting in ye to take him what we know."
Gibbs nodded. "As you say." For a fleeting moment, he wondered if Gerrarrd had broken through Anamaria's rouse - if he knew Jack Sparrow was indeed not on the Pearl. The only way he'd know, though, was if he had killed the man himself...
He opted not to think about that.
"Get comfy, Ephraim Gerrarrd," she said, and he was pleased to see that the defeated look had gone out of her eyes. "Y'may think yourself safe for now... but one day there will come a reckoning betwixt yours and mine. Mark my words on that."
----
Because the movie never really had any set date or even really a season, I took a liberty or two with it... if my November thing seems too far-out, please tell me (meaning the events in the movie would have been March-April-ish). I know it looked very summary in the movie, but I regret I haven't visited the Caribbean during the spring so I'm not sure what it's like.
Calendar - rest assured there will be plenty more!
Vibe - Will can use a bit of gnawing now and then. Uh oh. That sounded sexual.
Raquedan - did I mention your name is intriguing sounding? Yes, I am absolutely out of my mind! It is one of three... I am nuts. But hey, what better than to go nuts over the sweet banquet of the Pirates...
CJ - glad you're enjoying it! Read on.
lostfallenangel - why thank you ;D
Hereswith & Tabbycat2000 - Bootstrap's situation is one of the hardest to write. I'm glad you guys are following it and liking it - I've never tried writing an insane dude before. What poor Will must think of him.
ErinRua - thank you for recommending me! I am honored. :) Some good stuff on that page!
Next time, on Pirates: What do you do with an unemployed pirate?