Playlist: 'The Might of Rome' from Gladiator. 'Hold the Ice' from King Arthur 2007.

7

Oh whiskey straight and whiskey strong
Give me some whiskey and I'll sing you a song
If whiskey comes too near my nose
I tip it up and down she goes
A glass of grog for every man
And a bottle full for the shantyman.

"What Code is Gibbs to keep to if the worst should happen?" Will asked in an anxious tone, eyeing a particularly nasty looking skull as Jack rowed his best, feeling quite exhausted.
His arms hurt, and his chest ached.
Why was the whelp asking stupid questions now? Surely he knew they had other priorities.
Still. Looking out for his own well-being. Made sense.
"Pirate's Code." Jack huffed, "Any man that falls behind, is left behind."

Will raised an eyebrow in what could only be a disdainful look.
"No heroes amongst thieves, eh?"
Cheeky bugger.
"You know," Jack retorted irritably, "for having such a bleak outlook on pirates you're well on your way to becoming one. Helped commandeer a ship of the Fleet, sailed with a buccaneer crew out of Tortuga."
"Practically at gun point."
"You had your own reasons an' all, don't deny it."
A flash of gold leapt up from the water and struck their eyes. Will stared at it intensely.
Jack knew the feeling.
All this gold was really his. Soon he would be able to hold it in his palms, pass it onto other hands in exchange for rum, good company, perhaps a hot bath...
"At any rate, it appears you're completely obsessed with treasure." he chided.
"That's not true. I am not obsessed with treasure." Will hissed with repulsion as they landed the boat and tied her off.

Jack could see the great gathering of pirates just ahead, in the gap between a mound of gold and the rough, low cave ceiling. His eyes flew straight to the chest of Cortes, to the two figures standing behind it.
She was alive, so far. Wearing a gorgeously soft-looking, carmine-coloured dress, with her hair flowing loose and her mahogany eyes wide with terror.
For a brief second he felt that he had gone back to the dream, a dream turned nightmare.
The circumstances had changed, but the effect she had on him hadn't.
"Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate." he replied distantly to Will's comment, eyes riveted on her.
His mind was racing, trying to decipher the best way out, the quickest, with her in one piece.
He had considered it before, in passing, half-heartedly - taking her with him at the end of all this.
But now he hadn't a choice. He had seen what he most desired, and he was grimly determined to have it, if only for a while, even if by force.

What he most desired? Wasn't that the Pearl?

Of course it was the Pearl. Pearl first, wench second.
But now, for planning, and action.

Opportune moment. Secure Will, barter with Barbossa, get the flamin' hell out of there with the Pearl before this lot were lifted of the curse and perhaps decided to go back on their bargain.
Can I save the whelp?
Should I bother?

A nagging gut feeling told him that he should.
A distraction scheme, then, to get them all out? Pretend to leave Turner with them - but somehow not. This was a bloody challenge, an' all.

'The Might of Rome'.

He and Will crept up the gold heap, gazing down on the scene.
Barbossa was delivering a typically melodramatic speech to rile the crew's spirits.

"For ten years we've been tested and tried, and each man jack of you here has proved his mettle a hundred times over," an approving roar, "and a hundred times again!"
The place erupted in agreement.
"Punished, we were. The lot of us - disproportionate to our crimes! Here it is - the cursed treasure of Cortes himself. Every last piece that went astray, we have returned - save for this!"

Will made to move up the stacks of coins. Startled, Jack pulled him roughly back down, grimacing. Why couldn't the stupid blighter just let the plan go to plan?
"What?" the boy whispered angrily, "Why aren't we attacking - negotiating - whatever it is?"
"We wait for the opportune moment." he warned, keeping a wary eye on Elizabeth. The moment Barbossa bent her over the chest to slice her throat, his time would be up. He had to think on his feet, he needed more time - she complicated things. It would have to be rushed, messy, possibly a failure.

"What opportune moment? What are you waiting for? What are you going to do in there anyway?"
"Look, it's not important to you -"
"But it is! What am I here for, Jack? You needed me before because there were no other - pirates." he argued with a hint of shame, "Now you've got a whole boat full of pirates and you've still brought me. Only me. What's so special about me?"

"Don't make me have to work this out with you unconscious, lad. It'll prove far worse for the both of us. I'm trying to figure a way to get us all out -"
"Out? Was I ever not going to get out?" Will asked challengingly, aggression showing in the sudden set of his jaw.
"Look, son, you're part of the bargain, so just work with me -"
"You think I'm going to just go along with this and hope you have good intentions?"
"Yes, yes, exactly that -"
"Not good enough!" William rushed to arm himself with an oar, "I want to live, thanks very much."

Jack sighed and pulled out his sword reluctantly.
"You are getting in my way, boy. Again." he murmured, as a last warning.
"I should have seen this coming." the whelp swung for him powerfully. Jack deflected the blow, surprised by its force, "What do you want me for, Jack?"
"I just need your blood, tha's'all!"
"Oh, comforting!" another blow, another parry. They circled one another.
"You're the key, William, that can lift their curse. That's all they're after. They need your blood and they need it badly enough that they'll give anything for it."
"Sounds perfect for you."
"Well, yes."
"And what if they want more than a few drops?"
"I was trying to think up a solution to that before you decided to turn all iffy -"

"Blood begun by blood - by blood undone!" Barbossa cried.
Jack gasped involuntarily, and abandoned the fight to search for Elizabeth, to see what they were doing to her. He was about to run up the gold mound to interrupt the ritual with or without Will's help -

Music Stops.

A dull thud echoed against the back of his head. His eyes crossed, and the last thing he felt was his body slamming to the floor in an ungainly manner.

Bugger.

"That's it?" Elizabeth choked, startled.
She looked at the long, smooth cut in her palm. If it weren't for the huge relief she felt, she would have been a bit disdainful. It wasn't all that piratey.
"Waste not." Barbossa smirked at her.

It didn't work.
How could it not work, if they'd brought her all this way?
The crew was in uproar, understandably.
And despite the clench of fear in her stomach, she felt triumphant. She had somehow prevented these criminals from achieving their goal.
Perhaps, she thought - her inner adventurous spark flaring up - perhaps that would be worth dying for, to know these disgusting, immoral men would be cursed forever.

Barbossa turned to her, fury in his eyes.
"You, maid! Your father, what was his name? Was your father William Turner?"
"No." she snarled back aggressively.
"Where's his child? The child that sailed from England eight years ago, the child in whose veins flows the blood of William Turner! Where?"

She tried not to show recognition as the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
They had rescued Will, from a shipwreck - because he was out at sea, looking for his father - his father the pirate.
Well, she would never give him up anyway. Rather she than he who died. He was innocent in all this.

Barbossa backhanded her violently, and she tumbled down the golden slope, abruptly losing consciousness.
Not for long, however. After a few moments, the roaring crowd jerked her back into reality. They were livid, ready to shed blood, any blood. She had to get away.

"I think she lied to us!"
"You brought us here for nothing!"

Spotting the medallion in the dirt beside her, she grabbed it, and lowered herself into the lukewarm water, drifting away behind the gold heaps as quietly and quickly as she could.
She headed for what she hoped was the entrance, once out of the pool and safely out of sight.

"William?" she gasped, rounding a corner.
He turned to stare at her. There was an odd kind of anger smouldering in his dark eyes.
"What are you doing here? You need to get away, they're looking for you, you can't be here!" she whispered in panic.

It was only then that she noticed the figure lying prone on the floor.
"What?" she said in a hollow voice, disbelievingly, "You were coming to rescue me? Really?"
"No, he wasn't." Will said with vehemence, "He was here for his own schemes. Let's go."
"We can't leave him here!"
"We can." he went to grab her wrist, but she darted away, suddenly wary.
"William. We have to help him. He was going to stop them from hurting me -" she looked at the oar in Will's hand, and the blade case aside by Jack, "and you prevented him?"

"It's not like that. Trust me, you will be glad once I explain it to you."
With that, Will pounced on her, practically lifting her off her feet as she struggled silently. He dumped her into the boat, gathering all the oars from the others and piling them in before setting off.

'Hold the Ice'.

She sat sulkily looking behind Will, watching Jack's body getting further and further away.
He couldn't have been here just for his own ends.

"Where did you get that medallion?"

He had said it. And his eyes had lit up wide as he'd heard her utter William's name.
He had known.

"Why don't you give it to me though, jus' to be on the safe side?"
"Once... upon a squiffy bloody time, there was a Captain of a ship, whose crew had betrayed him."

Could it be?...
But in his grand plan of bartering Will's blood and the medallion for his ship back - (she wondered that it suddenly comforted her that she had been aboard his ship, ghostly and horrific as the crew had been) - in his grand schemes, where did she fit?
What was he thinking?

Somehow she felt that she was a part to be considered at the end of things. Logically, if things went Jack's way, and she was left over after Barbossa's crew were mortal, and Jack had his ship back... she was at his mercy.
Perhaps he planned on transferring her safely home.

Perhaps he would have made her an offer of some other kind.
In any case, he wouldn't have abandoned her on the island. He just wouldn't.
Firstly, there would be no point in it.
And second - well, the second was more a fragile hope than anything.

A hope she did not want to have. She swatted the thought away, furious with herself.
A pirate? A dirty, drunkard, conniving, sly, wretched criminal?
She was the Governor's daughter. She deserved much better.
She deserved a Commodore.

"Ever tasted adventure? Felt the wind at your back, the spray on your face?"

She shuddered.
It wasn't the criminal that she saw in him. It was the free man, the adventurer, the discoverer of wild unexplainable things who would sail to the ends of the earth to gain his heart's desire.
Who loved the sea.
Anybody who loved the sea couldn't be that bad.

She scolded herself for even thinking about him at a time like this. It was never going to happen now.
He was on the island, and the crew were going to find him, and if they really were his mutineers, they would probably kill him on the spot.
The thought of his death seemed ridiculous. He was Captain Jack Sparrow. He couldn't die.
Perhaps he would find a way out by himself.

"Hey, boy, where be Jack?"
Will gazed hard at Gibbs for a moment.
"He fell behind."
Then he took Elizabeth's arm and led her below deck, his shoulders rigid with simmering rage.

She had imagined her rescue to be a lot less painful than this.