Prompt: Settling Debts; originally posted 4/5/07.
A post-At World's End AU in which Barbossa did not marry Will and Elizabeth.
Jack honours the debts he chooses.
To this end he spent thirteen years avoiding one debt and ten seeking to settle another, but he never expected to feel beholden to this defiant slip of a girl, proud and ruthless and only less bewitching than the sea; or to experience the unsettling notion that he owes something to Bootstrap's son with his swords and his ideals and his honour. They had been leverage, pawns, a means to Jack's ends; and if they helped to temporarily improve the scenery while serving his purposes, that was, of course, all to the good.
And then she started burning rum, and he returned with a big, heroic gesture and an even bigger hat, and ever since, there has been nothing but they saving his life and he saving their lives—after his own fashion—and probably a few mutual savings of life that the young pair indulged in on the side.
Of course, she also sacrificed Jack and his Pearl to the Kraken and he has kept her heart's love; which unfortunately means, according to their limited definition of morality, that her slim body and eager lips and vibrant spirit are all for bloody Will, too, blast it. So, really, it was only fair that they should journey to the ends of the earth to rescue him.
Yet looking into their faces—no longer naive, but still so hopeful, and radiant once more—he cannot help but feel as though he owes them something…which is ridiculous. And still…he watches them for a moment more, kohl-dark eyelids almost closed, an instant's regret passing across his face before being buried in his soul. He brings his fingertips together, pressing the index ones against his lips; his glance falls in their clasped brown hands, her left in his right, and he pauses, thoughtful.
"You know," he begins whimsically, "I am the captain of a ship…"