The return of Captain Jack Sparrow! Had to just throw him in again for kicks. I don't own anything. Please review, everyone!

Part 3: Three Days to Live

19. An Unexpected Rescuer

The next thing James knew, he was floating just below the surface of the Caribbean, watching brightly-colored fish flit about his face in the shimmering light of the dawn. With a gasp, his head broke the surface of the water and the clear tropical sunlight fell on his face for the first time in over ten years. James, treading water, stared up at the deep blue sky shot with streaks of morning gold for a minute, and then he began to laugh, kicking his legs to propel himself through the warm seawater, feeling his heart send blood coursing through his veins once more. He felt something on his head and pulled off his hat and wig, both of which had reappeared along with the admiral himself due to the fact he had been wearing them at the time of his death; impatiently, he threw both off into the waves and watched them bob away before lazily doing a backstroke through the water. It was wonderful to be alive again.

At that same moment, he also realized that he was adrift at sea with no means of getting to shore and no idea where he was going. The other disadvantage to being alive, James decided as a stitch in his side made him gasp in discomfort, was that it was all too easy to die, and he had not asked the goddess to let him come back to the realms of the living just so he could go through that unpleasant experience again.

Panting for breath, James was almost resigned to his inevitable immediate death when he became aware of a large ship looming up behind him. To his great relief, he heard someone shout, 'Man overboard!' and the next minute a rope was thrown down, which he grasped gratefully as the strong hands of the crew pulled him up and over the edge of the ship.

Dripping with salty water and coughing up more of the same, James pulled himself clumsily to his feet and looked up to thank his rescuers, and received quite a shock.

'Mr Gibbs!'

The bewildered sailor blinked in disbelief. 'Commodore?' he said in amazement. His face was as sunburnt and whiskery as ever, but all of his hair was salt-and-peppered now, and his beard was almost completely white.

James grinned. 'No, not anymore, Mr Gibbs, haven't we had this conversation before?'

'I… I thought you were dead, sir,' said Mr Gibbs, scratching his head. 'Miss Elizabeth said she saw you die.'

'And so she did,' agreed James, 'but as you might have noticed, Mr Gibbs, people in these waters do have a knack for coming back to life, do they not?'

Mr Gibbs stared at James, then back out to the horizon, and began muttering something about a green flash under his breath.

'What's all this here, Mr Gibbs,' called an all too familiar voice, ' "man overboard," did I hear you shout?' James shut his eyes at the irony as Jack Sparrow sauntered into view and stared perplexedly at James for a moment. He hoped full well that there had to be some good reason for him to have ended up on this ship, other than for Calypso's amusement, that was.

'Throw him back over the edge, mate,' muttered Jack to Mr Gibbs, gesturing towards the railing with his thumb.

'Sparrow!' James cut in before Mr Gibbs could do anything.

Jack turned back to James and made a face at James's shirt; James too looked down and noticed that his shirt was stained with his blood, presumably from the impaling Bootstrap had given him, though James could no longer see any wound.

'You look bloody awful,' said Jack, wrinkling his nose, 'what are you doing here?' James vaguely remembered having had a very similar conversation once with this same man. 'I thought you were dead.'

'Oh, I was,' James assured the pirate. 'However, when one is offered a deal with a sea goddess, it's often best not to pass it up.'

Jack stared at James again, and then began to weave his way towards the cabins. 'You'd best come explain all this to me, mate… for once I'm having a bit of trouble putting two and two together,' he said to James, who followed the pirate in mild amusement, watching the breeze billow the huge white sails of the ship against the brightening sky and cherishing every moment of this second chance at life.

A dark-skinned woman wearing baggy pirate's clothes was sitting in the cabin that Jack led James into, reading a map by candlelight with her brow furrowed and fiddling absently with a strand of her wavy black hair. She looked up as the door clicked shut behind her and immediately leapt to her feet, drawing her sword at the sight of James's naval uniform.

'It's all right, love, he's not an admiral any longer!' said Jack hurriedly, waving his hands. The woman continued to scowl at James, but sheathed her sword and moved to stand next to Jack, her eyes still suspicious. 'This, dear former-admiral, is my lovely wife, Anamaria.' Jack threw an arm about her shoulder, which she slapped off playfully, smiling and allowing her eyes to flicker affectionately towards Jack for a moment before fixing themselves back on James. 'And this, love, is James Norrington, formerly known as the man who spent half his time trying to kill me, and, incidentally, also the man whose actions indirectly managed to kill me.'

By this point James too was scowling, though not nearly so much as Anamaria who confronted Jack and shouted, 'In the name of heaven, Jack, why on earth did you let him on the ship, then? I won't allow him to stay on a moment longer, and don't you even think of arguing with me,' she snarled, pointing her finger at Jack, who was trying his best to assuage her with a winning smile.

'Anamaria, dear,' he said, gently pulling her hand down and still grinning a bit nervously, 'it just so happens that said ex-admiral has a very powerful, very dangerous sea goddess on his side, and any move we may try to make may result in death and destruction for the entire crew, and we wouldn't want that now, would we?' Before she could respond, he began to steer her towards the door. 'And now, if you don't mind, I need to take a moment or two to discuss some business with our visitor, so if you'd step outside…' Despite her heated protests, Jack closed the door firmly behind his wife, and turned to James. He gestured to a pair of chairs facing each other across a table, and the two men sat down.

'Rum?' asked Jack cheerily, uncorking a half-filled bottle. James shook his head stubbornly. Jack shrugged with one shoulder and took a swig. James suddenly realized that even Jack Sparrow had aged – his eyes, though bright as ever, shone from a face that was more lined than James remembered, and flecks of gray were beginning to show in his carefully braided beard. For some reason, the idea of Jack growing old made James feel even more mortal than he had felt at the time of his death.

'So, mate, what's this about Calypso, now?' Jack asked, leaning back in his seat and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

James opened his mouth to reply, but the next second the door swung open again and a small, dark figure with a smudge of dirt on her nose and wide-brimmed hat perched jauntily on her head flew into the room.

'Ooh, Mum's mad something fierce, what'd you do this time?' asked the little girl eagerly, bouncing over to Jack. It was only then that she took note of the stranger in their midst. 'Who's he?' she asked, narrowing her sparkling black eyes in a suspicious look very much like the one James had been fixed with moments before.

Jack gestured wearily towards the young girl. 'Norrie, my daughter, Ariana Sparrow,' he explained to James, 'and, Ari, this is…'

'James Norrington, at your service,' replied James with a polite nod. He hadn't much liked Jack's last introduction, and was quite certain he didn't want to make any more enemies aboard the ship than he already had. The little girl nodded curtly at him.

'Well, there you have it,' said Jack airily to his daughter. 'Off you go, now!'

Ariana stayed where she was, arms crossed defiantly. 'You're not captain aboard this ship, Mum is – you can't order me anywhere!' she argued. 'Now, come on, Papa, tell me what Mum's mad about!'

'Ari,' said Jack impatiently, 'out! Shoo!' He waved her towards the door.

Sighing melodramatically, Ariana made a face at her father and slid out the door, closing it behind her.

'Kids,' groaned Jack, rubbing his forehead. 'Word of advice, Norrie – steer clear of them. Women too… well, in all fairness, only the ones who want to marry you.' James got the distinct impression that Jack was acting much more miserable than he actually felt.

'Why'd you do it, then?' he asked Jack. 'Get married, I mean.'

'Why?' Jack scratched his chin, looking as though he hadn't thought about it in a while. 'Well, first off, I owed her a ship. Paid her back with your bloody Interceptor, but then Barbossa blew it up, so she considered the payment null, and seeing as Barbossa went ahead and bloody stole my Pearl, I couldn't find any other source of payment. Besides, I knew she'd taken a strong liking to me first time she met me. Suppose it had something to do with the fact I rescued her from slavery… from the clutches of your mate Beckett, in fact.'

James frowned at the association. 'Not my "mate," Mr Sparrow – never my "mate." '

'Ah, well…' Jack shrugged in apology. 'At any rate, enough of that. What's this about Tia Dal- Calypso, rather, then?'

'What, indeed.' James sighed and leaned forward a bit. 'The fact of the matter is, I've been dead for the last ten years until Calypso brought me back to life today, and I have exactly three days to find Elizabeth, or else go back to my dreary existence in the Locker. And, seeing as you've already spent some time there, I'd imagine you'd feel a bit of sympathy for anyone trapped there alone.'

Jack raised his eyebrows. 'You mean there was only one of you?' he asked in interest.

James had no idea what Jack was talking about, and honestly did not want to take the time to find out. 'Look, what I really need is for you to sail me to wherever Elizabeth is and just drop me off there.'

'What's in it for me, then?'

James looked at Jack, startled. 'What?'

Jack grinned, his gold teeth glittering. 'Pirate,' he said by means of explanation. ' "Take what you can, give nothing back," and all that. In this world, mate, everything is a matter of leverage.' He spread his hands in a nonchalant shrug. 'So, tell me, why would I waste two whole days ferrying you about to wherever dear old Lizzie is, when I could be actively pursuing my stolen ship?'

'You said it yourself, Sparrow,' James reminded him grimly. 'I have a very powerful, very dangerous sea goddess on my side, and any move you may try to make could result in death and destruction for the entire crew.'

Jack opened his mouth, found nothing to say, and nodded in defeat. 'Fair enough, then, mate, only…' He rose to his feet. 'I for one have absolutely no idea where Elizabeth is, seeing as the last time I encountered her it was a complete accident. So if you have any brilliant ideas for how to track damsels in distress, or else maps courtesy of your sea goddess, I suggest you share before said sea goddess sends the ship and us down to the depths, savvy?'

James smiled smugly. 'Oh, I think I can take care of that, Mr Sparrow. Your compass, please.'

Surprised, Jack hesitated a second before pulling the compass from his belt and handing it to James. 'Once upon a time, you refused to believe me when I called this compass unique,' he reminded James, watching as James flipped the compass open and watched its needle swing with his brow furrowed.

'Once upon a time, Mr Sparrow, I was a very different man, and, what's more, I was at the aforementioned moment a very drunk man.' The needle stopped and Jack peered over James's shoulder to look at the bearing. The two men looked at each other, James with a rather self-satisfied look, and Jack with a widening grin.

'I should have known you'd come over to my side eventually,' he said gesturing for James to follow him up to the deck.

'Beg your pardon?' James raised his eyebrows. 'I'll have you know that I blame that entire mess on Tortuga and what followed on an excess of rum and disappointment.'

Jack stopped and turned to face the former admiral on the stairs. 'And that, mate, is where you're completely wrong. You'd always been intrigued by the idea of piracy, admit it – the motivations behind the actions, the men behind the dreadful reputations. And when you finally escaped that prison they call the British Navy, you decided you wanted to see how it felt to live without any rules.'

'Oh?' James snorted, trying to sound disdainful while internally assessing how much of what Jack had said was true. 'What makes you so confident?'

Jack grinned. 'One word, mate. Curiosity. You longed for freedom. You longed to do what you wanted to do because you wanted it. To act on selfish impulse. You wanted to see what it's like. Face it, mate, you weren't able to resist.' He shrugged, ignoring James's confused stare. 'Course, I probably should've seen the whole betrayal coming. Important part in any pirate's life, mate, your first betrayal – defining moment, if you will. And, being a man of action, I should've guessed you'd want to make that leap as quick as possible.'

'And where did it get me, Sparrow, further into piracy or back out onto a respectable path?' James's head was reeling from trying to figure out exactly what Jack was saying. It didn't help any when Jack turned to him with a smug expression and said, 'Ah, is it the "dark side of ambition" or the "promise of redemption," that what you really mean? What do you think, mate?'

James tried to think of a clever retort and failed.

'See,' smirked Jack. 'Pirate. And if you don't believe me, Norrie, keep in mind that pirates make a living of taking what rightfully belongs to someone else.' He gave a bewildered James another cheeky grin before turning and heading back out onto the deck without another word.

Yeah, and sorry to all you Sparrabeth fans out there, but I always like Anamaria in the movies and was sad when she didn't come back - I always thought she and Jack would have been cute together. (And, Sarah, I'm sorry, I know you don't approve of Jack falling in love, but hey, it's MY fic, and I get to decide what happens!) And, just thought I'd mention this - I actually started writing this chapter BEFORE I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so the name choice of Ariana for Jack's daughter was completely arbitrary and has nothing to do with Ariana Dumbledore (no hidden symbolism or any weirdness like that, and I'm not trying to rip off JK Rowling either!)