Author's note: I know this pairing has to catch on eventually P Please R&R! And again, please check out Trust by CaptainMeds, Barbossa's side of the story. Oh, and I apologize if the dialog isn't exactly correct -- I based it off my memory and what I could find online, but sadly it wasn't all around.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me.

To the Ends of the Earth: In the End, Grief is a Lot Like Love.

"I've got a special job for you, Bootstrap Bill."

Bootstrap no longer cringes away from Davy Jones as he might have just a few years ago. He is stronger now, and it has been a long time since the captain has had reason to hurt him.

He turns to him and even through the dark, murky water it is possible to see how Bootstrap has changed, the growths on his skin, small, moving creatures extending from his cheek, the skin itself darkening like a waterlogged corpse, because in the end that is what he is. A corpse which walks and talks and works and feels, but a corpse nonetheless, eaten and eroded away by the sea. "A special job?"

"Aye. Ye're going to pay a visit to an old friend of yours."

There is a moment of incredible fear and terrible hope. As far as Bootstrap knows, he has only one friend left in the world. And it's impossible to think about him again, when Bootstrap has fought so hard -- not to forget, but to let the memories lie dorment. To only surface when he needs them. But now... Hector, Hector. "I can't--" let him see me like this, let him know what he's done, because if I see him I might tell him the story where he saves me and ask him why it hasn't yet come true and then it never will.

Not that Bootstrap believes it will, but the hope is addicting and he feeds on it. There's this story where you rescue me. It begins where you sail up on the Black Pearl alone and the story has no middle because what you do is impossible, but the end is this: Davy Jones lies dead on the deck in a pool of his own thick ink and I'm in your arms and you smile and tell me you're sorry.

Jones steps forward abruptly, wooden leg reverberating hard on the wood. "Ye'll do what I say, Mr. Turner, and no mistake. Jack Sparrow has been captain of his Pearl for thirteen years like we promised, and now it's time for me to take what's mine."

Jack? Jack Sparrow? "Jack isn't -- the mutiny. Barbossa, he --"

Davy Jones smiles grimly down at him, and Bootstrap's conflicted fear and want turns suddenly to horror and he cannot speak. Could not breathe, if he needed to.

"Why don't you pop over to the Black Pearl and see for yourself? Give him this for me." His tentacles envelop Bootstrap's hand for a moment, then he clicks his claws together and Bootstrap is gone.

Water. Water. Water, then wood, and then it stops. The Pearl.

The room is dusty and cobwebbed and just like he remembers it. He spent two short years aboard the ship, and never loved it near as much as Jack, but it is the closest thing to a home he's had since before he left his home, and it would be nice to be back if every splinter didn't remind him of Hector.

He glimpses a dusty bottle, one of the last, and pulls it from the rack, his fingers closing around it reflexively. It is becoming difficult to move them individually, his fingers, barnacles scraping together and threatening to meld into one. He sits down on a barrel, leaning back against the familiar wood, and barely notices the small creatures which scuttle across his skin, under his clothes and everywhere. He is becoming less and less human with every passing day, and Hector is dead. He must be, for Jack to have retaken the Black Pearl.

There's this time when we were young. When we step onto the Pearl for the first time, still slippery and wet from the ocean from which it has been raised, the long tentacles of the kraken leaving track marks of slime across the surface. Jack strides forward fearlessly, caressing each surface, every piece of wood or rope and cooing gently to her. You stand beside me, and I am foolish enough to mistake that look in your eye for worry when it must have really been greed. I want to touch your shoulder and speak softly, Jack to the Pearl and I to you, that everything will be alright, but I know you won't let me and it would have been a lie, anyway.

And another story -- Bootstrap stares down at the bottle of rum and remembers. He's gone over this before, each nuanced word and glance, picking through for the sign which must have been there, the moment in which Bootstrap missed his chance to fix everything.

There's this tavern in Tortuga. We've stopped for supplies; more rum and a heading, and Jack flirts with a woman named Scarlette while I watch you because I'm always watching you. My hands curl effortlessly around a mug of hot rum, more for comfort than for anything else -- we've stopped sharing a cabin on your insistence and I don't understand why. You're staring at a knot in the wood and I wonder if you're even there, do you taste the rum you're so diligently sipping? Do you hear me? I'm speaking your name. "Barbossa. Barbossa. Hector!"

You turn to look at me finally, and the emptiness of your eyes startles me. Glassy and black, you look at me like you don't know who I am.

"Hector...?" Suddenly quiet.

"Leave me alone, Bootstrap."

"No -- no. What's wrong?"

Speaking low. Gruff. "I tol' yeh to leave me alone."

"Hector --" A gun, pointed. From no where.

"Barbossa." Harsh. Insistent. "It's Barbossa."

In the memory, Bootstrap stares down the barrel of the gun and tries to believe that Hector would ever hurt him, but cannot. Even now. Even now, after everything.

Oh, god. Hector.

There's a light. Bootstrap cannot see him yet, but the drunken scuffle is unmistakable. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to shove the emotions away. It doesn't matter. He has to be warned, and that's all. Another one of his friends cannot die.

"Time's run out, Jack." The words are choked, and water spills from inside him as he speaks.

"...Bootstrap? Bill Turner?"

Jack's face, illuminated and disbelieving, peering at him through the spider webs.

"You... look good, Jack," he says, and it's true. Jack has come out of the past years much better than himself. Infinitely better than Hector, and he hates him for it for the merest moment.

Jack pulls back. "Is this a dream?"

After a moment. Jack -- you killed him. You killed him. "No."

"I thought not. If it was there'd be rum."

And it's so much like Jack that Bootstrap wants to laugh as much as he wants to cry, and he can do neither, so he holds the rum out to Jack, who pries it from his fingers with some difficulty, the digits cracking.

"You got the Pearl back, I see." There is a note of accusation in his voice, although he tries to hide it. He missed Jack, and this is not what seeing him again should be. But -- You killed him, Jack. How could you?

He doesn't notice. Doesn't know, and that makes Bootstrap angry until realizes what it is he's really saying.

"I had some help retrieving the Pearl by the way... your son."

Distantly. "William?"

So they killed him together. Hector must have gone after Will for the gold Bootstrap sent. And Jack... used him, didn't he? To get the ship back. Well. That Bootstrap cannot hold against him -- he knows well who Jack is, and he probably saved Will's life in the long run. "So he ended up a pirate after all."

It's just another thing to add. The grief builds up behind Bootstrap's eyes. This is his fault. If he had been able to stop Hector, if he hadn't sent away the gold... It's he who deserves to be cursed. It was never Hector. He who should be dead.

Jack shrugs, taking a deep swallow of the rum. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your carbuncle?" He is trying to joke, but Bootstrap just wants to be gone. To be back on the Dutchman -- a desire he would never have thought he would feel -- where water will fill his ears and his brain and his soul and he won't have to look into Jack's eyes and remember all that he's missed.

"He sent me." Quick. Blunt. Be done with it.

"Who?"

"Davy Jones."

Jack chuckles, moving back to sit down on a barrel. "Ah. So it's you, then. He shanghaied you into service, eh?"

Bootstrap leans forward, gritting his teeth. "I chose it." He bites the words from the air. "I'm sorry for the part I played in the mutiny against you, Jack. I stood up for you. Everything went wrong after that." Meaning: I should have stayed with him. I should have helped him. I should have tried harder. It's my fault. Jack, you killed him.

A hermit crab scuttles by, and Bootstrap grabs it, biting down on that as well. He wants to kill something. To hurt something. And if it's not this creature, it'll be himself. Don't judge me, Jack. You've done your fair share of evil, and I'd die for you anyway.

"They strapped me to a cannon." They, because he cannot say his name to Jack when Jack's killed him and they both know it. They, because he still cannot bring himself to blame Hector. He won't. "I ended up on the bottom of the ocean, weight of the water crushing down on me, unable to move -- unable to die, Jack. And I thought that... even the tiniest hope of escaping this fate, I would take it. I would trade anything for it."

Jack smiles the way he does in the rare moments when he doesn't know what to say, and hands Bootstrap the bottle. Bootstrap looks at him desperately. Is this all you can give me, Jack? He wants to say. You killed him. You killed him, and you'll hand me rum and expect me to drink. I wish I could hate you, Jack Sparrow.

"It's funny what a man will do to forestall his final judgement --" He begins walking away, but Bootstrap stands quickly, blocking his path. "You made a deal with him too, Jack." He growls. Don't judge me. I did what I had to. "He raised the Pearl from the depths for you. Thirteen years you've been a captain."

"Technic--"

"Jack!" Desperately. Afraid. "You won't be able to talk yourself out of this! The terms which applied to me apply to you as well. One soul, bound to crew a hundred years upon a ship."

"Yes, but the Flying Dutchman already has a captain, so there's re--"

He leans forward, close to Jack, willing him to understand. "Well, then it's the locker for you! Jones' terrible leviathan will find you, and drag the Pearl back too the depths and you along with it." Jack leans back, away. You never listened to me, Jack. Neither of you did. Can't you understand for once that I know better than you, Jack? Please. Please. You killed him. Let me save you. Warn you.

Jack takes a step back, grimacing nervously. "Any idea when Jones might release said terrible beastie?"

He is starting to fade. Jones is pulling him back, Bootstrap can feel it, tentacles wrapping around his mind and heart. "I already told you, Jack. The time is up." He reaches out to grab Jack's hand, because he must and because he wants to. Jack's skin is warm and living, more than anything else, and Bootstrap tries to focus on him, to look into his old friend's eyes. Please, Jack. Find a way. "He comes now, drawn with ravenous hunger, to the man who bears... the black spot."

Jack pulls his hand away, and with the loss of contact, that life line, Bootstrap is pulled back. Wood, and water. More water, and then wood again. Jones stands above him, smiling at his pain, because he knows, he knows, he knows, and Bootstrap cannot last under his eyes. He struggles to his feet and away, hides below in a far corner of the hold and curls into himself and tries to tell a story but none will come.

Oh, Hector. I love you.