A/N: This chapter includes some lines that were inspired by dialogue that the writers, Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio, wrote for the scene between Jack and Bootstrap Bill, but were cut out. Thanks to the reviewers!
Sometime later, we were still in Jack's candle-lit cabin. Jack was still sitting at the table strewn with maps, and I was leaning against the table, half-sitting on its edge. Jack was trying to chart a course using a pair of dividers, but he wasn't having much luck. His compass refused to cooperate. Jack tapped it and the needle swung around slightly in one direction, then back the other way. Eventually, and highly frustrated, he gave up and dropped the dividers.
"Are you sure you know what you want, Jack?" I asked. He gave me a hard look.
"Of course I do. I want to find that bloody key..."
I smirked at the compass. "Hmmm…"
Jack grabbed the bottle of rum that was sitting on the table. He peered down the neck and frowned. Tipping it upside-down, only a few drops fell out. "Why is the rum always gone?" he asked with a sigh.
"Because you keep drinking it all, Jack," I said as the captain rose unsteadily to his feet. He swayed a bit with the Pearl's movement, slightly drunk. He reached for his hat resting on a large globe and put it on.
"Oh," he said. "That's why."
I smiled. "Yeah." Jack grabbed his coat and I followed him out.
We went down below decks on a quest to the rum cellar. Along the way, we passed the rest of the crew, who were snoring in their hammocks. Jack, lantern in hand, noticed that they were all asleep, and seemed thankful for it. "As you were, gents," he told them with a knowing grin and a nod of his head. We went down a companion ladder into the hold, where the food supplies were kept. I heard a goat bleat, but didn't actually see one when I looked around for it. Jack took some keys from one of his belts and unlocked a door. We went inside the dark room, and my eyes darted around the shadows, knowing what was coming, and not trusting the darkness. Jack wasn't afraid, he just wanted more rum. He made sure I was in—how considerate—and then shut the door and hung the keys on a nail.
A large wooden rack lined one wall; a gathering of wooden slots. It was meant to hold bottles of rum or wine, but now it was mostly empty but for a few of the slots. Jack spotted something out of the corner of his eye and raised the lantern for a closer look, and I followed suit, wincing at what I saw. One of the spaces in the rack was filled with sea worms and shells, which closed or retreated inside themselves as Jack and the light neared them, as though they were scalded. We shared a slightly disgusted look and continued on.
Jack finally spotted a bottle resting in the rack. He grabbed it and sand spilled out, as if from an hourglass. Jack look disappointed, but wasn't given the opportunity to grab another bottle, for just then, a rough voice sounded through the darkness.
"Time's run out, Jack."
Jack and I both jumped. It was a little silly; I was expecting the voice and I was still spooked. Jack accidentally dropped the dusty bottle and it smashed on the wooden floor. Warily, the pirate captain raised his lantern and peered into the darkness. I pointed to a far corner and said, with a small, somewhat shaken sigh, "It came from over there."
Together, we saw a hunched shape behind some barrels and a wooden post. It was humanoid, with wet clothing covered in seaweed and sickly looking skin, as if he had lived beneath the waves for years and years. In fact, he had, but Jack didn't know that yet..
I swallowed. "It's Bootstrap Bill," I whispered.
"Bootstrap?" Jack echoed, hunching over. "Bill Turner?"
Bootstrap looked up at Jack. He wasn't exactly a pretty sight, which was easy to tell right off the bat; half of his face and neck was encrusted in barnacles and muscles, while small hermit crabs scuttled up under his cap when the light hit them. His long hair hung limply like seaweed and the outline of a starfish was showing beside his right eye. Water dripped down his face and gushed from his mouth as he smiled lopsidedly at his old friend, "You look good, Jack."
Jack could only stare, open-mouthed. He couldn't really say the same back to Bootstrap, after all. I frowned slightly at the senior Turner. The last time I was in the Caribbean, I had to deal with the sensation of undead pirates with no life-force that I could detect. With Bootstrap, he still had a life-force, but it was much fainter than it should be. I had a feeling it was going to get dimmer and dimmer the longer he was a member of Davy Jones' crew.
After a few seconds, Jack straightened up. "Is this a dream?" he muttered, looking around at his dark surroundings as though trying to find a means to attest to a more dreamlike state.
"No," Bootstrap answered simply.
Jack frowned. "I thought not." He sighed as he put his lantern on top of a barrel. "If it were, there'd be rum."
In answer, and with the slight cracking sound of stiff joints, Bootstrap extended a hand holding a bottle of rum towards Jack. It took Jack some effort to pry it from his hand. I winced, assuming that was painful for Bootstrap, though he gave no sign of pain. He glanced around him. "You got the Pearl back, I see."
"I had some help retrieving the Pearl, by the way," Jack said. He paused, flicking and blowing sand off the mouth of the bottle. I took that to mean he was thinking of me and I smiled. Of course, he was probably also alluding to Will and Elizabeth as well, of course, but it was still nice being thought of. Then, because he couldn't mention me and because I wasn't alone in helping him, Jack added, "Your son." He smiled and pointed to Bootstrap.
"William?" It was hard to tell if Bootstrap Bill was happy or not, though I'm sure he was glad to know that his son was still alive. Jack took a swig from the bottle. "He ended up pirate after all," Bootstrap mused, the bitterness more than evident in his voice despite the fact that he was trying to force it away.
"Well, that depends on your definition of 'pirate,'" I said with a slow grin. It wasn't like Will was out there captaining a buccaneer crew of his own, but he accepted his pirate heritage just the same. While Bootstrap was looking away, lost in thought about Will, Jack slid me a wink.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure of your carbuncle?" Jack asked Bootstrap.
"He sent me," Bill answered. Jack frowned, wondering who it was the old boy was talking about. Bootstrap read Jack's puzzled face and clarified, "Davy Jones."
Then it clicked in Jack's mind. He guessed Bootstrap Bill's story, and a slow scowl crossed his features. "Oh. So it's you then." Jack sat back on a barrel and leaned his back against a wooden post. I also leaned against the post, crossing my arms against the slight chill. "He shanghied you into service, eh?"
Bootstrap gave Jack a hard look, which the other pirate chose to ignore. "I chose it," he corrected. "I'm sorry for the part I played in the mutiny against you, Jack." Jack noticed a small hermit crab scuttling away from Bootstrap. Bootstrap pinned it under his hand as he spoke. "I stood up for you. Everything went wrong after that." Bootstrap popped the crab in his mouth and crunched it. Jack and I made a face.
"Yuck," I muttered.
"They strapped me to a cannon," Bill continued. "I ended up on the bottom of the ocean, the weight of the water crushing down on me." Jack took another swig of rum and frowned. "Unable to move. Unable to die, Jack," Bootstrap said, shuddering.
Jack and I stopped to think about what Bootstrap was saying. Really, the whole reason he was in his current state was because he had stood up for Jack all those years ago. Had he not done that, he wouldn't have ended up at the bottom of the sea, unable to die because of the Aztec curse, but wanting to just so that his torment could end. Jack seemed sad for his old friend, and perhaps a bit sorry.
"And I thought that even the tiniest hope of escaping this fate, I would take it. I would trade anything for it," Bootstrap continued. Jack and I couldn't really blame him...
I bit my lip. "That's the kind of thinking that's bound to catch his attention," I muttered. It was the tiniest bit of hope that Jack could get the Black Pearl back that drove him to make the deal he did with Davy Jones, and also the deal with me. Jack offered Bootstrap the bottle of rum as though it would count for a proper condolence, and he took it. As Bootstrap drank, Jack stood up.
"It's funny what a man will do to forestall his final judgement," he said indifferently, obviously speaking from experience. He walked around a post and Bootstrap leapt up, surprising Jack on the other side.
"You made a deal with him too, Jack," Bootstrap reminded him in a deadly serious voice. "He raised the Pearl from the depths for you." Bootstrap walked forward, causing Jack to move back nervously. I knew Bootstrap wouldn't hurt Jack, not really, but I was still ready to help Jack should he need it. "Thirteen years, you've been her captain."
"Technically-" Jack began, ready to defend himself against this. He had been without the Pearl for ten of those thirteen years, after all.
"Jack, you won't be able to talk yourself out of this," Bootstrap interrupted, shaking his seaweed-covered head. This put Jack at a bit of a loss, since he considered talking his way out of a situation to be one of his strong points, even though he wasn't always as good at it as he thought he was.
"The terms what applied to me apply to you as well," Bootstrap reminded Jack. They were almost nose-to-nose. "One soul bound to crew a hundred years upon his ship."
"Yes, but the Flying Dutchman already has a captain, so there's really…"
"Then it's the locker for you!" That shut Jack up. Every man of the sea knew about Davy Jones' locker, but not every man knew that they could actually go there, and even fewer actually wanted to. "Jones' terrible leviathan will find you and drag the Pearl back to the depths and you along with it."
I swallowed. It was a truly terrifying notion, and one that I knew would unfortunately come true. However, it was to be Jack's goal to do everything possible to prevent that from happening, and it was my goal to help him.
"Any idea when Jones might release said terrible beastie?" Jack asked, trying and failing to put up an indifferent front about this, as though it hardly mattered.
Bootstrap backed off a step or two and took Jack's left hand. "I already told you Jack, your time is up." He slapped his left hand, sickly and green, onto Jack's palm, and curled Jack's fingers into a fist before letting go. "It comes now," Bootstrap growled, walking past Jack and me and into the shadows. "Drawn with ravenous hunger to the man what bears the Black Spot."
Jack opened his hand and looked at it. In the middle of his palm grew a large black circle, like a plague sore. Jack's eyes went wide and a cold fear grew in the pit of his stomach. Bootstrap Bill disappeared to re-join the Dutchman's crew. When Jack looked up, Bootstrap was gone. He looked to me, then back at his hand, now closed in a fist to hide the spot.
"We've got to get out of here," I said, the first tendrils of fear creeping over me. "Get to land. The beast can't get us there."
Jack hesitated no longer. He and I sprinted up to the top deck, Jack shouting all the way to wake the crew. "On deck! All hands! Make fast the bunt gasket! On deck!" In the sleeping quarters, the men tumbled from their hammocks. "Scurry! Scurry! I want movement! Movement! I want movement! Lift the skin up! Keep your loof! Hull those sheets!" By now everyone was running about to follow Jack's orders. "Run them! Run! Keep running! Run as if the devil himself and itself was upon us!" This was closer to the truth than we would like to admit.
Jack and I hid behind one of the masts. Jack whipped out a long strip of cloth and started wrapping it around his left hand. Gibbs ran up behind us. "Do we have a heading?"
Jack turned and jumped. "Ah! Run!" He blinked. "Land." He ducked away again.
Gibbs frowned, puzzled by his captain's odd behaviour. He went around to the other side, and Jack jumped again when he caught sight of him.
"Which port?" Gibbs asked warily.
"I didn't say 'port.' I said 'land.' Any land," Jack corrected.
I spotted, too late, the monkey swinging down towards us. I shouted "Duck!" as a warning, but Jack was too slow. The monkey grabbed Jack's hat and hissed at us from the rigging. Jack hissed right back and the monkey tossed Jack's hat overboard.
Half the crew saw this and ran to the railing. "Jack's hat!" Gibbs shouted. "Bring her about!" he ordered, ready to retrieve it.
"No! No!" Jack shouted. There wasn't time to go back and get the hat; we had to get to safety. "Leave it!"
The crew stopped dead. Now they knew this was really serious.
"Run," Jack told them again and with the nod of his head, and he darted under the stairs that lead up to the helm. I went with him.
Gibbs turned back to the crew and told them to get back to their stations, then he found Jack hiding under the stairs once more, acting as though he was trying to blend in with the darkly-painted wood.
"Jack?"
"Shh!" Jack hushed him, as if afraid that anyone pointing him out would bring the Kraken faster.
"For the love of mother and child, Jack, what's coming after us?" Gibbs demanded.
"Nothing," said Jack with fake sureness. It might have helped Gibbs believe him more if Jack's eyes weren't darting back and forth nervously…
Gibbs sighed and went up to the helm. Jack and I ducked into his cabin, and I took the chance to try to calm Jack down.
"Jack, we're going to be okay. We'll get to land where Jones can't get to us," I said civilly.
"Yes, but how long will we be able to stay on land?" Jack asked me, trying and failing to hide his anxiety.
"For as long as we can," I answered. "Until you figure out some way of fighting this."
Jack looked at his bandaged left hand with a worried expression. "Can I have a look?" I asked, reaching for his hand.
"No," Jack said, jerking his hand away. I gave him a look.
"Jack. It's okay. I just want to see. You won't bring him… or it… any faster just by looking at it, trust me."
Jack hesitated again, but eventually gave me his hand. I carefully unwrapped the cloth and looked at the nasty black mark. "Does it hurt?"
"Not really," he muttered. "Maybe a bit sore."
"Okay." I began to re-tie the cloth, making sure it wasn't too tight. "You're going to be fine," I assured him. Never mind that eventually Davy Jones was going to catch up with us. Jack needed to hear only comforting things right then. He seemed anxious enough at the moment, and didn't need anything else to worry him, and so it was all I could do to give him a reassuring smile.