12.

Jack came to, finding himself descending into sea, less troubled by the matter of falling, but more so concerned as to the why. He couldn't remember a thing and, for no discernable reason, his eyes were fully open, comfortable in the depths instead of squinted and burning. And the fall itself was, confoundingly, pleasant. Welcomed even. If his mind was not so focused on frustration towards himself for not knowing why he was there on the first place, he would imagine it a kind of safe haven. Whatever black magic he was under, it was manipulative, charming, allowing him to breathe perfectly fine in the gentle waves swallowing around him.

Magic.

He remembered her dark, black-rimmed eyes first, then her painted lips forcefully pressed against his own. Esmeralda.

Jack cursed himself for letting a woman send him to an unknown fate once again. Once again? His mind stalled, coming up short at what woman slighted him before. No matter, the need to hate the woman who slighted him all those years ago, the need to hate Esmeralda surpassed any need to recall a most likely imagined woman. Jack mentally cursed Esmeralda, then he cursed the never-ending decent, now recalling it created by Esmeralda's hand. Just as he finished his unspoken curse, a practiced, remaining, reliable memory, he felt a cool, hard surface materialize beneath him. Was this it then? The end of the line? The bottom of the ocean?

Jack palmed at earth beneath him, his eyebrows drawing together. Land. He was entirely dry as well. It was nonsensical. Jack sat upright, taking in his surroundings, positively confused.

He noticed a forest, unsure why the sight made his chest ache. Glowing white magic hovered over the bark of trees, illuminating and circling through curving pathways. There was a quiet beauty there, the beauty of a quiet beginning, but a beginning of what?

Jack reached into his pocket, his thumb drawing over thin fabric. He pulled out a ribbon he was sure someone tied his hair back with, patiently, perhaps even lovingly. He tried to call upon the memory, coming up short again. He gave up dwelling on the matter, but not until after tying the ribbon upon his wrist, then made to walk through the forest in his lazy gait. Jack stalled only at the sight of what appeared to be himself.

Jack shifted from foot-to-foot, noticing the shadow shifted in the same manner. The shadow stilled in time with his own form. Eventually stepping forward, so did his shadowed self, revealing himself in a pool of light. Jack made a regretful noise, his upper lip curling. He was sure he should know why this incarnation of himself would have a set of eight eyes. Something about a chest, something about a set of eyes forcibly painted on him, something about a life line that he now wasn't even sure was his own. He detested this lock on his mind.

"Yes, it is I, the one and only," he threw a wink that progressed down the set of eyes, "Captain Jack Sparrow."

Jack drew a fist to his mouth, momentarily distracted by disgust. He pulled a face then lowered his hand, schooling his expression and squaring his shoulders. "Is that how insufferable I sound?"

"You'll forgive yourself for it." The shadowed Jack stepped forward then plucked the ribbon from Jack's wrist to tie it around his own, inspecting the work thoughtfully.

"Oi—"

"Finders keepers, mate. No hard feelings, right? After all, I'm you." Jack looked into his own eyes, and the thought would be eerie enough, however, the eeriness amplified when forced to stare into eight sets of them. "After all, you stole her from the whelp first."

"You'll forgive yourself for it," Jack blurted his own words back at his inner-self, allowing himself the childishness until he actually registered the words. "Her?" he echoed, drawing his eyebrows together. A ship? No. Why would a ribbon be of significance to a ship? "'The whelp?'" Jack frowned at the grass beneath his boots. He couldn't remember anything helpful, but he did remember his disdain for land. He redirected his hatred at himself. "You're maddeningly unhelpful, you know that?"

"So I'm told by, well, everyone."

"Won't you help a mate out?"

"No one can help you but yourself." The shadowed Jack tapped the side of his head and Jack muttered an expletive under his breath. He felt the need to shoot something.

"I am you," Jack replied, his words weighted with irritation. "Idiot."

"You?" All eight eyes looked Jack over then rolled and the corner of Jack's shadowed self's mouth curled up as if he knew something Jack didn't. "I would never find myself in such pathetic circumstances. Not mention I'm admittedly much easier on the eyes."

"I hate you."

The other Jack laughed, ignoring the declaration. "If you did, you would have put yourself out of your misery long ago, you know that—Though you didn't have to cut it so close those few times." The shadowed Jack wore a sympathetic expression, and Jack was unsure if the look was honest. He couldn't even remember the "times" referenced. "Come on, old Jack. Will yourself to remember."

"You can't even manage a lick of help, can you? A bloody riddle or clue?"

"Don't you see? That was it." Jack smiled back at himself. "Will," he took a short breath, "yourself to remember." With that, the other Jack made to leave.

"Oi! Come back here," Jack shouted, following behind in an unbalanced walk. "Worthless git, bloody waste of skin," Jack muttered. He followed along, ever out of reach for a while until finally stopping, accepting that if he continued he would go on, ignored by his inner-self forever if he kept this up. "Fine! Leave, but I swear I'll remember. I can. Will." he corrected.

The shadowed Jack stilled, turned, then walked towards him, that same knowing smile returning to his lips.

"Will you now? I'll believe it"—The other Jack plucked one of his eyes out, breathing on it and shining it against his shirtfront, causing Jack to cover his mouth at the sight and make a nauseated sound—"when I see it."

With one last wide, glinting smile, Jack's shadowed self tossed the eye into Jack's hands, which he caught on instinct. Jack's tongue drew out of his mouth, repulsed, and he turned his head away only to eventually peek down at the eye. When Jack looked back up, he watched himself start back through the seemingly endless forest, swinging the piece of fabric that rested around his waist absentmindedly.

Jack glanced back at the eye, his mouth pulling to the side, unimpressed.

"What am I to do with this?"

Jack's shadowed self continued on shuffling away, not bothering to turn around.

"Make up your mind. Use your mind's eye, Jackie."

Jack didn't like how much his own voice sounded like his father's just then.

"I thought you were supposed to, I don't know, embrace your shadow self," he called out, "or something."

"I don't embrace other men, not since I bargained myself off that isle—you know that," the shadowed Jack called back, throwing a left set of three winks, his remaining ones, over his shoulder before walking into the mass of foliage, tossing his compass rhythmically. Jack shook his head. His inner-self was still a liar even in the flesh.

"Sparrow," Jack muttered his own dreamt up moniker with acid in his voice. "Vainglorious, extremely unhelpful, and unreasonably flirtatious," he paused, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully. "I now understand the collective dislike."

Jack brushed the back of his hand over his face, jarring a bit when he remembered the human eye in his fist. He looked down, staring at the eye then the set of trees he watched his own form retreat into moments before. What did he say about stealing "her?"

"I imagine she's a person!" Jack shouted. "A woman can't be stolen away," he finished, softer, trying to understand. But the other Jack was long gone, and he was left alone, alone in a mess he imagined was his own doing, although he couldn't be sure. He still couldn't remember anything clearly save for Esmeralda.

Jack tossed the eye for a moment then sat cross-legged in the forest, watching the white light inch along the trees. What else had he told himself?

Will yourself to remember.

"Will yourself to remember." Jack huffed. "So unhelpful." He closed his eyes, his fist holding the eye gently drumming against his brain. "Will yourself to remember. Will yourself to remember. Will yourself. Will. Will. Will. Will."

He heard the word in a woman's voice, the name threaded with care.

"Will."

Jack suddenly remembered why the forest was familiar, why the forest was a beginning, why he ended up in the landscape of his own mind, landlocked.

He was there to save Will. He promised Elizabeth. Elizabeth.

Jack remembered her now, Elizabeth, in all of her ineffable beauty and unmatchable passion. His ears thirsted for her voice and then thirsted to hear his own voice speaking power into her name. Elizabeth. What a name. He then called upon memories of her speaking his own name, sounding a little enamored, shy even.

Jack let memories from their shared voyage wash over him—his palm pressed to Elizabeth's, stepping in time with her at the ball, rehearsing with her in the drawing room, her hands comfortingly braiding his hair, her crying into his chest in the very forest he now found himself trapped in. The beginning. Every beginning must have an ending.

Jack called upon more distant memories. Drunk out of his mind to cast out overwhelming guilt in Tortuga. Helping Will stab the heart and fating him to the Flying Dutchman. His father's turn of a ring and meeting his eyes with regret, as if being caught abandoning all sense of love is what made the act regrettable instead of the act itself.

Abandoning all sense of love. Did he love Elizabeth?

Jack opened his eyes, sure of what he must do. No matter what, he would ensure Elizabeth's safety, and her love, once again. Even if he was left out of the equation.

Jack looked down at his open palms, his life lines.

"Ought to do something about that life line, Jack," his father told him.

"You'll have the chance to do something… something courageous," Elizabeth told him.

"I hoped you would one day free yourself of that bad habit to play the hero," Esmeralda told him.

It was an awfully bad habit, Jack reasoned. However, he could manage with those. He had so many already—What would another do?

Jack's open palms became a jarring sight when he realized the loss of the eye. His right palm pressed against his forehead at a terrible sudden headache, and he made a startled sound when the eye fell from his forehead back into his hand. Jack glanced up, finding his inner-self standing before him once again, his head thoughtfully tilted to the side.

"Could have done without that whole bit, couldn't we?" he asked, tossing the eye back. "The unusual makes me squeamish."

Jack's shadowed self rubbed off the eye and popped it back into the empty socket, making a contented sound. He then shook his head at Jack then pulled him to his feet and into a tight embrace.

"Go to her, you pathetically in love git." The shadowed Jack stepped back to tie the ribbon around his wrist. "And when the time comes, give Lizzie a parting kiss for us both, would you?"

Jack gave himself a slow nod and salute. "I knew I liked you."

The pair shared a mirrored smile, glinting with hints of gold.