Waki 34

One more chapter of happiness, my friends. Note- I have many chapters of this written already, but they may be running out surprisingly quickly, and life seems to have bought a monopoly on my time and is not letting Life have any of it. In other words, there is no time for me to write in the foreseeable future. I'll keep posting until I run out of chapters, but if the situation hasn't changed by then, then I'll have to go on a temporary haitus. Much apologies.

With love, Jiia

"BILL!!!" Jack sat ramrod straight, little fists clutching the bed sheets so tight they left permanent marks.

Wait… said his brain. Bed sheets?

He was in the captain's bed. Only it was his bed now. He was captain. All because some random person who sounded like Bill, only not, had said so. So they had carted the old captain's body out and thrown it rather unceremoniously into the ocean, and scrubbed his blood from the floor, and washed the bloody sheets in sea-water until they were almost white again and smelt of nothing so much as tears. And Jack had gone inside the room that was supposed to be his, and slept in the bed which he was to call his own, and had slipped into darkened dreams of the one to whom this blood-stained room would always belong.

And he had woken up screaming Bill's name, and for the first time in four years, Bill wasn't there.

He put his head down into his hands and began to weep.

"Hush, little one." A woman's voice said from the gentle shadows outside the windows.

He froze. Slowly turned his dark eyes towards the shimmering silhouette. Soft curves like the swell and lull of a calm ocean, tumbling dark hair braided into seaweed dreadlocks, wide dark eyes that glittered like the moonlight off the ocean… She was the very reincarnation of the sea itself.

And, to his surprise, he found he knew her.

Mother.

She smiled, floating through the dirty glass to sit beside him on the captain's bed. Her long, spindly fingers reached out and brushed his cheek, pulling the salt of his tears into the salt of her body and leaving behind only the lingering heat.

"Do not cry, little one." The spirit whispered, and her voice was the sound of the surf upon every distant shore. "Dis shall be de one and only night you spend in dis place. Tomorrow, you shall go home."

Jack frowned, looking up at the nymph with the innocent confusion only a child can project.

"But… I have no home."

"Oh, but you do!" The woman tapped him gently one the nose, letting loose a laugh like the crashing of waves against a hull. "You just have not found it yet. You will see, little captain. Tomorrow, de sun shall rise upon de edge of de world, an' you shall find your freedom driftin' o'er de waves."

"How do you know?" Jack blinked, letting his fingers curl around the beaded tassel of her dress.

"I know." Her fingers took up the tassel to which the boy had attached himself and began to untie it. "I know dis, because it is I who will be bringin' it to you."

The string of beads came free, and then the nymph began to braid it tenderly into his thick, dark hair. Jack looked to nothing but her face, struggling to inscribe each and every feature, each soft line, each ritual scar, into his memory.

"You are beloved by de sea, Captain Jack o' de Sparrows. Remember dis, and she shall never fail you. You have but to wish, Jack, and it shall be yours." The spirit finished her task and allowed her cool fingers to linger upon the quiet warmth of his face.

She slowly, slowly pressed him back into the tearful sheets and pulled the crisp fabric up over his little shoulders. She tucked him in, with enough love and caring to almost, almost make up for a lifetime of loneliness and hate. She smiled once more, and began to fade away, back into the secret shadows of the midnight sea.

"And now, little one, it is time for you to sleep, for tomorrow will come all too quickly."

And then she slipped away, and so did Jack. And he dreamed of the ocean, and of the rocking of the waves, and a little brown bird sailing out of a sunrise into a bright new day.

And then he awoke to the sound of a seagull singing hallelujahs to the first rays of the dawn, and all that remained of the woman of the sea was a string of beads tied into his hair.