۞
Will put the wet washcloth back into the basin of water, and sat down in his chair, pulling it up close to Jack's bunk. He leaned over and placed his arm gently across Elizabeth's shoulders as she struggled to stop her tears, gently stroking the back of the captain's quiet hand... much too quiet and unmoving to belong to Jack Sparrow. She finally swallowed hard and looked at her husband... she nestled her shoulders closer to his arm. She finally found her voice.
"Is it any wonder that Jack was so engulfed in madness when we found him? What had he seen in The Locker? What had he been through? I know that we have all moved beyond all that we did to each other, we have embraced each other, and have started over with a clean slate, but poor Jack…we no longer judge him against anyone else because he is like no one else, but little did we know just how different he is...especially now. "
"… there is more, my love, even since leaving Singapore…. did you say something about him, personally, in the past? About cleanliness, or something?" Will had known about Jack and Elizabeth's conversation about curiosity - it had become a joke between them, but Will suspected that there was more to it.
Elizabeth looked guilty. "Oh Will, we were on our way to Isla Cruces, bantering back and forth, like we always do, and when he said that we were a lot alike, I grasped for things that would make us different… and I told him that he had a lack of honor, and decency, and a moral center, and personal hygiene! I didn't mean it! We know none of it is true. It was meant as a harmless joke." Will sighed. He knew that Elizabeth's comment was offhand, but after what he had been through on The Other Side, Jack's mental state was now much less stable than it ever was, before. "It came back to hurt him, didn't it?" Elizabeth said, sadly. "He just said, 'trifles', then, but there's more… isn't there?"
"We have to learn, Elizabeth, that Jack is not like the rest of us. His mind is much more fragile, now. He is cheerful most of the time, but he does have demons torturing him... Do you remember shortly after we had gotten the Pearl back again, and Jack had helped to lift my curse... and you, my love, had rejoined us? Remember the morning that we found him passed out, drunk, in this cabin and none of us knew what had upset him? I saw him in my visions, during the night, sitting here alone at that very table over there. He'd had a bad nightmare that night, and he was so upset that he couldn't think, so he found a bottle of rum and started in. He was very drunk, and was rubbing this dark area that has always been here on the back of his left hand, furiously. He was almost blackening it more with bruising. He had that strange, distant look in his eyes that he gets, and was rocking bath and forth, talking to himself or whoever he imagined was in his cabin with him, saying, '…heathen… they always said I was a filthy bastard child… said my mother was a gypsy whore… '
He then stopped rubbing his hand, and looked down at his scarred arms, and tears were streaming down his face. He was so drunk. He then looked up, at no one, and said, ''Lizabef says I 'ave bad personal hygiene… she thinks I'm dirty an' terrible…I will have t' remember t' tell Izzy that it won't come off…this is th' color tha' I am, not dirt. This spot on my hand is soot from th' night th' Wench went down… I got burned… I thought tha' I didn't really smell all that bad, but 'Lizabef does… maybe Will does, too. I don't want them to think tha'… but… maybe I smell like th' Kraken, now…like a corpse...an'…an'…I keep losin' m' ship… an…' he put his head in his hands, and cried, '… an' my mother wasn't a whore…she was just a young, innocent girl...'
Jack stirred. Elizabeth silently adjusted Jack's pillows, silent tears streaming down her face. Will continued.
"I even saw us just the other night, when Calypso appeared. When he thought that I was rejecting him, he was thinking, 'I'm scum… dirty pirate… I'd hoped we were mates, but I'm not really good enough for th' two of 'em… an' now we're related… Will don't want t' be related t' me…" and his heart actually pained him - he put his hand to his chest when he was looking at me… it was real, physical pain - I felt it. Elizabeth, Jack has deliberately distanced himself from allowing anyone to love him - yet he loves, whether he likes it or not, and he has let us in.
'In his own strange way, he wants us to love him back so much, but isn't sure that we can or will. He is a brave man - he could stare down Davy Jones, and fought the Beast with his dying breath, was sent to the Locker and back, but there is something that he is more fearful of…he doesn't want to be afraid, but he is afraid… of us." Will looked at his wife in complete and utter exhaustion. They looked down at their sick friend to see tears gracefully tracing their way down the captain's fine boned cheeks… had he heard them?
Elizabeth wiped the tears from her face with her shirt sleeve, then from Jack's face, and drew a deep breath. "Well, William, we simply have to convince our Captain Jack Sparrow that he is not filth. He is not all of the terrible things that he thinks he is. He has saved our lives - we can't help but care about him. He has proved himself to us beyond the shadow of any doubt. We are each other's family - none of us really has anyone else - my father is dead, your father can't be here all of the time, and we know we can't count on Teague. The three of us are here. Now. We just have to figure out how to show our cousin how we feel, and help him, without him knowing how we discovered all of these things that he has buried deep down inside for so long." She looked up at her husband. "He is a scoundrel and such a scamp, but he is so worthy of acceptance. Jack accepted us a long time ago."
The young couple unlocked the cabin door and opened it slightly to let in the fresh afternoon salt air. And if anyone came in, they didn't give a damn what they would think. By now, Jack was once again shivering with a cold spell as if ice were in his veins; his lips in a tight blue line, breathing hard, with a small whimper escaping his raw throat. They both carefully crawled onto the bunk, sat carefully next to their friend, pulled the many blankets around him to warm him, and gently rocked him, like a child that he had never been allowed to be.