Jack purposefully roamed the dirtied streets of the seaside city Barcelona, his brisk pace indicating to passersby that he was in a rush. That he was, but not to lose the English soldiers that were following several paces behind him, out of uniform but not unarmed. Spain was a dangerous place for the English, and it had taken a lot of persuasiveness on Jack's part to get Porter to even consider going near the coast of Barcelona, and Jack had been taken on land with a few armed guards with the naval ship far out of range.
Porter was no dummy, he knew that this would be a perfect escape for Jack, for he knew that coming close to land with an English warship to retrieve the pirate should he go back on his word was as close as declaring war. So, Gibbs was kept on board with the promise of death to the pirate should Jack fail to come through on his oath.
Now pirates are not generally associated with loyalty, and it would take only a sharp turn and a good hit or two to take out the four men following him all too obviously, but Gibbs had been Jack's loyal companion for a very long time and had grown on him, and Jack found it would be one of the hardest things he would ever have to do to let him go.
And so, he found himself strutting down the cobblestoned roads of Barcelona, Spain, without a single thought of escape. He did have a target in mind, and whether the mysterious person would be willing to cooperate or not depended on how he went about the negotiations.
Besides, if the price was right, he'd forgive his worst enemy, what would make this person any different from him? They were from the same soup, they were. Made from the same stuff, and those are the sorts of people you could never trust, because they were just like you. Naw, you're much worse, Jack thought to himself briefly as he accidently kicked a scampering rat.
After a few more complicated turns down the dirty streets, he finally found what he was looking for. After a glance to make sure he was still being followed, for if he lost his trackers than Gibbs' life was at stake, Sparrow pushed open the wooden doors and swaggered in.
Men were hanging off the wooden beams, singing slurred whore songs in Spanish and fighting awkwardly in a small alcove between the large jugs of cheap beer. The one thing Jack loved most about taverns, no matter where he was, they always acted the same. The occupants were of the usual villainy and toe rags, but he kept an open eye out for a sign of lost respect, of worn sensuality, of hopes ruined by the very man searching.
"What'll it be?" the barman asked in Spanish, sending up an unthought-of warning sign. Jack had never been good with accents, and replying back to the man's question would give it away that he was an Englishman. Or, from England… originally.
So Jack swallowed and lent in close to the barman. "Not a drink, thank you." He leaned back and watched the barman's face change from bored to livid.
"Yer a-," the barman choked out through trembling lips, his egg shaped face the bright shade of a tomato. The light tuff of hair on his head didn't help the illusion, and it took all Jack's willpower to remain serious. The words came, seemingly unused before, from the man's mouth, and his Spanish accent swallowed them up until they were almost unrecognizable. Luckily, Jack could speak angry and understood the tone.
"I'm quite aware," Jack raised his hands before moving one finger to his lips, indicating for the man to shush up. "Now, I don't mean any trouble, so it would be a good idea to keep quiet." The barman looked like he wanted to argue, but saw the loaded pistol hanging in clear view from the pirate's pockets and decided to drop the issue. He growled at the lost opportunity to squash an Englishman, but decided it was well worth it to keep his head fastened on his head. While there were plenty of men in the bar more than willing to trample the arrogance from the pirate's eyes, the rent still needed to be paid.
"If you don't want a drink, then what do you want?" he asked grumpily, spitting into an already dirtied goblet, his words coming out slow and angry.
"Information. You wouldn't happen to have a girl wandering around here, now would you?" the pirate winked at the barman, and despite himself he found himself smirking back.
"Now yer talking! We've got all kinds' o girls, short ones, thin ones, ones that ain't English, but they can sure do a good impression o' one…"
Jack shook his head, trailing a finger through one of his dreadlocks and picking out a feather that had been there for God- knows how long. "Not interested in any o' yer slave company, I'm talking about a girl… a real woman. Real Spanish, if you know what I mean," he winked at the barman, feeling the sick feeling of disgust well up in his stomach when the man smiled knowingly back at him. So, you got there first, but not last, eh Jacky?
"Oh, her. She's in back, but unluckily for you, she's not accepting any… visitors."
"All gentlemen are the same, always thinkin' with their… hearts. Anyhow, she'll accept me, we're old friends," Jack picked at some dirt on his fingers and stared up at him.
The barman chuckled, his deep voice making several other, mostly hungover, men growl in agony and hold their throbbing heads in pain. "A lot of men have thought like you, and many of them haven't come out very satisfied."
"Don't worry about me, I'm easily satisfied. Now would you direct me to where this black widow lies in her web?"
The booming laugh of the man echoed through the bar again and several patrons looked up. He pointed a grimy finger at one of the doors near the back, not visible at first glance. "Good luck, friend. An' if she asks, wasn't me who sent ya." Jack winked at him and tossed him a coin he'd found on the street. It wasn't much, but it was much appreciated in this part of town.
The inside of the living quarters weren't anything special, at least that's what Jack assumed. After striding purposefully through the threshold, he was met by darkness. The only light in the room at the moment was directed towards him, and he knew it was so the woman could see him before he saw her.
"Miss me, lovely?"
"You shouldn't have come here, Jack. You know Spanish waters are dangerous for… your kind." The voice of the woman seemed loud in the seemingly empty room, the only noise coming from the honeyed sound that was her voice and the muffled scuffling of footsteps as she walked. Jack remained silent for a moment, deducing where she was in the room by the sounds, resting one hand on the doorknob just in case her mood was less than friendly.
"Shouldn't be anything harder than I've experienced before, and I've experienced some. You know that."
"Better than anyone. Have you come here alone, then?"
"No," he replied simply to the figure, knowing that the truth would get him farther than any well constructed lies. Not with this person, anyway. "No, I haven't."
"Is the place surrounded?"
He grinned, choosing now to bend the truth a little. "Every entrance and exit. Yes, including the one on the floor, I've had a tussle in this bar once or twice before."
"Unsurprising, you would have disappointed me otherwise." The voice betrayed no anxiety at being cornered. "Lucky for you, had you not been I might have killed you right where you stand now."
"I figured that, 's why I came prepared."
"You left me to die, Jack." Angelica, the attractive and obviously Spanish daughter of the famous, and now dead, pirate Blackbeard, accused heatedly. She came out of the shadows, her figure closer than Jack thought she sounded. She looked like the night, her wardrobe changing almost entirely to black. Strangely, and somewhat inappropriately, this reminded Jack of his corruption of this girl. Angelica was almost at the point of being a nun when he met her, and once they met, her acceptance into the holy ranks was forbidden and impossible. She'd held that against him, and he didn't blame her.
"I know, love."
Angelica's face, for a brief moment, portrayed the vulnerability she was feeling in some corner of her heart, but it was quickly tossed aside for the emotion that had clouded her thoughts for the majority of the past few long months; anger. "Why did you do it?"
Jack smiled, not really meaning it, his face softening. "Self- preservation, I sure as hell wasn't about to stick around while you stuck a bullet through me skull fer killin your dearly departed father, now was I? Anywho, I knew you would make it out spick and span."
"You couldn't possibly have known." Angelica's newfound attachment to her father had run deep, yet some of the joy of having discovered him leaked out when it became obvious that her attachment was far greater than that of her father's. Instead of choosing the paternal instinct to save a child, he chose to kill his daughter to save his own life, a plan which had failed due to some quick thinking by none other than Jack Sparrow. Yet another reason for Angelica to have Jack on her hit list, but the more she thought about it, the unhappier she was with the short time she had spent with her biological father.
"Oh, but I did." Jack took the opportunity to inch closer to Angelica, his dark eyes never leaving her own. Hypnotizing her, she looked back. "You see, we're the same, you and I. We always get what we want, and fer us, it's survival. I want to survive, you want to survive. That's how I knew you'd find a way out."
Angelica broke the spell by casting her eyes down to her feet. Taking a moment to breathe, she looked back up, the fire in her soul spitting ash and Jack could hardly breathe in the smoke. "You are nothing like me."
Knowing that flattery would get him nowhere, Jack squared his jaw and readied himself for a punch. "I need your help."
The sound of flesh swiping across flesh reverberated around the room, and Jack closed his eyes trying to shut out the pain. This wasn't the first time he'd been slapped by a woman scorned, but would try his best in the next few minutes to make damn sure it would be the last.
"What in hell could make you think…"
"Money," Jack answered shortly, resisting the urge to rub his throbbing cheek. "A ship full of it."
Angelica narrowed her eyes, the anger still coursing through her veins like an electrical wire. "And where, may I ask, is this money coming from? I will not have to kill anyone important for it, will I?"
Jack shook his head solemnly. "Important is a broad term, love. You may have to, shall we say, cut a few threads, but yer in a bit of a sorry state yerself. It's my personal opinion, and forgive me if I'm wrong, that yer in desperate need of gold. And I happen to have access to lots of it."
"You didn't answer my question. Where is this blood money coming from?"
"The pockets of hardworking Englishmen."
"I do not accept English money!"
Jack frowned, not understanding. Money was money, no matter where it came from. Who did she think she was to refuse such an offer? "And pirate money is so much better."
Angelica arched an eyebrow. After a moment of mulling over her options she squared her shoulders and stared straight into the pirate captain's dark eyes. "What port?"
"Now we're talkin'!"
"This is the Regal Stargazer."
Her ship was not as well kept as most, but it could move and it was this sturdiness that Jack was counting on. Angelica had managed to find a few sailors that owed her a debt or two, and after a matter of hours she had conjured up a fairly decent crew. Jack was impressed by the looks of them, but kept himself on edge from the moment he walked onto the ship. With his hesitant English bodyguards behind him at all times, he needed to only contain Angelica until they reached the Vengeance and only then would Jack feel more comfortable being surrounded by nationalistic Spaniards. They argued in loud voices about the English, and while Jack had never been the patriotic sort, he still found it rather uncomfortable.
The Vengeance was still a while out to sea, and after a while Jack began to get a bad feeling about the large man consistently following him about the poop deck. He could smell the stench of bad eggs and tobacco before a giant forearm cut off his air. Jack leapt into action, reaching for the knife he had taken to carrying around out of sight in case something like this should ever happen. Whipping it out, he only wished to stun the large man, not kill him, so he ran the blade lightly across the man's arm. Howling in pain, he released the pirate, who ran down the stairs.
"Angelica!" He shouted furiously. "Your crew is mutinying!"
"No," she answered calmly. "We're proving a point. The point is, we don't get our money at the end of whatever the hell we've signed up for, you're going to end up like your friend." She gestured to a corner of the ship where one of the English officers was lying, presumably dead, with the other two trying their hardest to revive him.
Jack's face hardened as he surveyed the scene, the large members of the crew surrounding him, flexing their muscles, waiting for Angelica to give the orders. He finally turned to look at her. "You've changed."
"Yes, thanks to you."
Jack couldn't disagree with her. He looked out to the sea, trying to ignore the moans of the men he was supposed to take care of behind him, and he saw a rippling in the waters below.
Suddenly, the bow of the Flying Dutchmen burst out of the water before his very eyes. The waters parted and Angelica gasped next to him. "What's that?" she asked, before turning around to her crew. "Man your stations!"
"No, don't!" Jack called, waving his hand furiously at her. "They're friendlies."
The grinning figure of Will Turner looked at him from his spot, hanging on the ropes from one of the shrouds. "All right there, Sparrow?"
Jack smiled, and for a moment he was able to ignore the pang in his heart at the thought of Angelica's betrayal. "I am now!"