Guidelines Chapter 5: Interest Rates, a pirates of the caribbean fanfic

"Easy boys, I don't want anyone hurt! And James, don't be so rough on your sister!"

"But don't you see?" He spread his arms in indignation to stare over at his mother from the dock. "She's being rough with me!"

"Tia," Tara sighed, "you heard him – be more gentle with your brother!"

"But he'll live! Henry doesn't complain either!"

"No, he doesn't," Tara muttered, turning back to Kate, "little Turner just deals with it."

Just as quickly as the outrage had ignited a few feet away from them, the dispute was now settled again. As the children continued their fencing exercises, the women all but exchanged amused glances.

"He's such a funny bird …" Kate tried to fan air to herself with her hand as she always did on hot days, though the attempt to cool down by that was ever in vain. "Morals he bends as required, but he's never quite wrong with it in a world like this either."

"Exceptions prove the rule," Tara mumbled. She, too, felt far too warm, it seemed utterly unthinkable to play with swords like the children in this heat … "Tia's like Sparrow when he's one step ahead of everyone," she finally reflected aloud. "But Jay … Jay, above all, is what kept Jack in trouble. And yet I wouldn't change him for the world."

Kate couldn't help it, she grinned. "James or Sparrow?"

Tara just snorted as her friend leaned more over the pier's railing to get a better glimpse at the dock below them. The shallow water reflected the midday sun, glaring and sparkling. At first glance, it might have looked promising, but with temperatures like these, there was no hope for refreshment in the blue bay.

However it didn't the least affect the colourful hustle and bustle at the harbour – pedestrians, vendors and jugglers were all around them. People kept chatting, cheating and arguing at every alley. Laughter here and there, censure, scorn and many a bird's twitter would, in idyllic irony, blend into the backdrop of the stronghold of all vices.

"But Henry, for example," Tara went on, leaning forward as did her friend, "tell me, Katie, what do you think – is he just doing the right thing because he … wants to? Or because Elizabeth taught him to? Because I'm also trying to –"

"Tara, Henry didn't grow up next to Teague," Kate tried to reassure her at once. "And doesn't every boy try to be like his father? There are only tales of righteousness and valiant decisions about William."

"Yes, virtuous indeed." Tara shrugged. "A little boring, too, but virtuous above all …"

"What I try to say is," Kate replied, "that I'm sure James enjoys hearing his father's stories, too."

"They're all insane, though, hence I'm not telling them to him …"

Kate chuckled. "He doesn't need you to tell them. His whole family lives here, and even if you weren't in the Cove – anyone in the Caribbean knows a legend or two about him, no matter how absurd."

"Sea turtles," Tara retorted in exasperation. "Like he came off that stupid island on damned sea turtles. Faith is a blessing, but to believe such –"

"Well, but people love stories like that, and they keep telling them." Kate bit her lower lip, not quite able to hide her glee at this. "And that's certainly an influence on James. It's all he has, and after all, he's his son … Half of him is just –"

"I know, I just thought the name would help a bit more," Tara said and winked. "James Norrington would've been such a good inspiration –"

"Even the former Commodore devoted himself to piracy after encountering the Black Pearl."

"It glitters, but it's not gold, that wretched freedom," Tara said under her breath looking into the crystal clear waters. "You get a taste of it and you want more and it messes with your life, unless you're as outrageously lucky as Sparrow."

"Since when exactly did we even start to talk about him again?" Kate complained in mock-surprise. "We've managed to avoid the subject for years."

"Well, Teague … The other day he told me that I should open my heart. Like it would make his son fall from the sky …"

"Oh." Kate winked. "And do you? Do you open your heart so some little angel can push him off his commandeered cloud?"

"Of course not, what do you think …" Tara let her gaze wander up and down the sharp-edged Devil's Throat. "Most likely he's on the other end of the world, drunk with a smile on his face and not even remembering my name. So in case an angel ventures to push him down somewhere near me, God have mercy on him …"

Meanwhile, a shrill cry escaped a shipless captain not far from the pier, which was nothing to wonder about given how close that thrown knife aimed at him came.

Jack had truly not fallen from the sky – rather rowed through the hellishly narrow Devil's Throat despite the current and the pesky west wind, in a bloody nutshell at that, until he in all seriousness feared his arms would fall off.

Yet somehow he'd made it through. Always did.

He inwardly groaned. He'd already guessed that it'd be an incredibly foolish idea to show up in Shipwreck City in broad daylight – even if since his last experiences there, about three decades had passed.

Three decades.
Good heavens, he was getting old …
And although it was a long time ago, many an unpleasant fellow still vividly remembered him.

He usually left his mark. Even when relatively clueless and only fifteen years old, he'd caused quite a bit of chaos here – and apparently the aggrieved parties were not as forgetful as he'd speculated.

"The next hit won't miss you!" roared … what was even his name again? Antoine? He threw himself and his massive body through the plodding crowds on the pier with all the might he could work up. "I've been waiting for this moment for years!"

Jack had expected one or the other inconvenience, but not that the old hoodlum actually still thought about the Barnacle after all this time. She had been nothing more than a small fishing boat, not in his wildest dreams Jack would have imagined that Antoine still mourned what Davy Jones once called a pathetic excuse for a seaworthy vessel. Antoine was a boat builder, after all, and could always work on much better replacements … Even Anamaria hadn't been that vindictive.

Jack, moreover, had needed the old boat more than Antoine – and the Barnacle had certainly wanted to escape from Shipwreck Cove just as much as he did.
She'd seen a lot with him from then on. All the nautical theory could be tested in practice on her, even if she'd been tiny. Nevertheless, she withstood the curses of the seas like a big one … And anyway, it was better to sail uncomfortably than not at all – the rest was history.

Not that he had the time for nostalgic flashbacks now. Jack pulled the knife out of the wooden box in which the blade had buried itself, then decided that he could surely use the old thing, but definitely not a fight. He therefore simply made his way through the crowds faster than the huge Antoine …

Everything had its season.
Fighting, sure. But currently also … running away.

No, today was certainly not the time for fighting. Not here, where within no time at all other good friends would remember the past and also throw knives at him …

It wasn't because his back was aching, or because he desperately needed a good night's sleep and something to eat. Nor was it because he was still quite hungover – all these circumstances were constant parameters of any fencing match for him.
He just didn't want to be bothered.

Teague might have preferred pulling the trigger rather than crossing a blade, yet he'd put a sword in his hand as a child before a quill.
Jack knew how to fight. That he still had breath in his lungs was testament to it. In the end, he always won somehow, even against opponents with exemplary technique.

Barbossa came to mind. His style had always been an excellent one, a little rigid and form-bound perhaps, but still incredibly effective because it had punching power. Hector fought clearly less dutiful and accurate than William, yet … even the former Commodore would strike dirtier than the whelp …

Everyone operated dirtier than Will. And honourable as that sounded, what good had it done him in the end? The moldy Flying Dutchman forever? A cut-out heart?

Sometimes it was wiser to choose the right battles in advance. Jack was a master of doing just that. He could well defend himself, even the dimwits who'd underestimate him knew that.
But what was the point of even starting something he would rather not finish? Far too exhausting.

So on this day, he preferred to zigzag through the people until he finally squeezed past a stall and stopped there without further ado. A little crouched, hoping Antoine would just pass him like an empty chalice.

But while he was already reminded of hearts … Turner's was in a chest he only saw once every ten years, just as he only got to see Lizzy once a decade.
Downright frustrating.

But he himself wasn't doing much better, actually. He wasn't in almost seven years. It was like a jinx.
Mistakes had been made.

He liked to put it that way, it made him less to blame for things as they were. (He was well aware, despite it, that he himself had made one or two mistakes …)

Once didn't count, but the fact that he'd been stupid enough to believe he wouldn't miss the hell out of Tara twice kept vexing him daily.
As did the fact that he'd given away his compass so carelessly. Like a confused youth …

The old cursed needle used to constantly point to Tortuga, to Tara, to whom he couldn't possibly go back after their second time calling it quits – it seemed like a dead end. And it drove him mad. In the heat of the moment, he had ergo wanted to get rid of the compass.
One of those decisions of the painfully stupid kind.

They could have been anything. Soon it became crystal clear to him.
They would've come to terms somehow – as though she hadn't gone mad anyway had he stayed right under her nose for 360 days a year. After all, what woman didn't long for some peace and quiet after the initial euphoria had faded? What were a few weeks? Time flew once there was nothing new to see.
He could have had the best of both worlds. Her and the Pearl. The ocean and her … Finally a new direction on the compass because she was in his arms.

Bloody irony.

When they initially decided to part ways, he'd really believed he'd never be drawn back to her. But he was. No room for doubts, the compass did not lie.

When he'd left the second time, though, for once, just once, he'd wanted to do the right thing. For her. For once he tried not to be selfish, made an honourable, altruistic decision like William – and sailed towards the horizon for her own good so that she, angry and hurt as she was, could find a much better and more honest man.

Jack hated regrets. But he regretted this silly outburst of goodness. The thought of some much better, more honest man laying his hands on her cost him his last bits of sanity.

Yet she'd probably married long ago. Her pretty, dark skin in a white wedding dress certainly offered plenty of sight to make a man kneel. Unfortunately, though, he wasn't one for bending knees …
She probably already had cute children she raised bilingually and in the Christian faith, with an oh-so-down-to-earth husband – surely a sincere, conservative Catholic Venezuelan like her father, a prime example of a good man. A holy commandment here, another Spanish vocab there.

It literally shook him.
They could have been so much more fun together …

But she was probably happy. And she probably hadn't thought about him for a second in years.

While in the meantime he could not stop looking for her without the adequate means – the compass – because she'd made him happy. Only for as short a time as he had allowed, but long enough to chase that again …

He'd be completely indifferent to any holy matrimony. And surely she'd be, too, if only he found her again.

She'd never slapped him. No, her revenge was to vanish into thin air – and he hated how much more effective this punishment was.

For once, he shouldn't have run away. He should have fought for a little trust of hers and stayed. Just a little longer, just until they had agreed that she cherished her freedom – space, peace from him – just as much, and would hardly miss him if he were at sea for a few weeks here and there.

Blinded by his utterly superfluous purification, he'd voluntarily given up on that. Stupid as a whelp …

Even more stupid, however, had been the fact that fleeting acquaintances soon seemed all too exhausting to him. The names, the entanglements, the red hand marks on his face – the numbness …

Miserable. He'd rather never have known how much more his heart could do in the first place. But as it was, the thought had forced itself upon him irrefutably that he was getting too old and phlegmatic for all that mess.
And that he missed her.
Her, her laughter, her reproaching glances and her eye-rolls, her warm body in his arms and admittedly also what she'd cooked all the time …

Bloody hell, he was hungry.

But it was already all too late.
The woman who'd probably have crushed his heart with her bare hands out of frustration and rage – if it had also been in a chest – had simply disappeared from the face of the earth.

And yet he couldn't get her out of his head.

He was hard to forget as well, and forgiving him was rarely easier. But they might have made it work somehow. After all, didn't people always say incredibly kitschy things about love building bridges?

He loved her. It had taken him half an eternity to realise it, partly because the concept of love was so far from his mind – every cursed stone of every alley of Shipwreck City reminded him of that – but he had loved Tara.
He still loved her.
He couldn't move on even after all these years, and actually he'd always trusted that if one sent thoughts into the universe often enough, they would somehow find their way back into reality. But regardless of where he speculated she was – depending on the search for legends and treasures he had linked the search for her to – she had disappeared.

Like a phantom. As if he had only dreamed that someone could love him with all his chaos and insanity …

Her very existence seemed increasingly fantastic to him. And along with her, that hint of meaning and purpose. Exactly what was increasingly missing from his life, especially with the Pearl in a damned bottle he carried with him at all times.
Like a relic of more promising days.

He was constantly looking for eternal life – but what for? What was left in the end?

If Tara stood before him right now –

"Enough of the hiding!" Antoine cackled before throwing Jack into the middle of the pier.

It was another of those rueful side effects ever since she had turned his head. He was much less focused than before. Far too often he would think about her annoyed smile and that pretty waist …

This time, however, it was not a cry, much more a tired whine that escaped his lips. With the realisation that he would have to use his sword after all, because the shipbuilder – ponderous and rusty – truly seemed to believe that he could benefit from a sword fight …

Like Barbossa, it was brute force from broad arms with every blow, but unlike Hector, Antoine lacked any routine and dynamism – and Jack, to make matters worse for him, was as quick as a fox.

In fact, it was quite invigorating, this tinny song of two blades clashing.

Wasn't this the last thing the East India Trading Company along with the dusty Royal Navy had left of the fighting spirit of these waters?

Henry, Tia and James immediately stopped their own fencing match when they heard the blades. From their jetty, they kept a lookout for the source of the exciting noise and soon watched as the dense crowd on the harbour promenade advanced – with every metallic sound, inch by inch.

Kate and Tara did not look around, there was always someone fighting in the Bay. They kept their gaze on the harbour basin and the midday sun, still leaning against the pier's balustrade, for any superfluous movement took too much energy in this heat.

"Do you hear that?" Kate grumbled, blinking against the brightness of the sun. "Some heroes desperate to sweat …"

"Yeah, pretty stupid." Tara also stared at the water. "That men have to fight all the time. Like it's a pastime …"

"I want my interests!" they heard a man yell behind them, his voice literally cutting through the air.

Tara sighed. "Women would just get sober and talk about it, but no …"

"Didn't that sound a bit like Antoine?" Kate murmured.

"Antoine?" Now Tara also wondered. "But he wouldn't hurt a fly, would he?"

"Someone must have given him a hard time …"

"Tia, Henry!" James whispered a few feet away on the jetty. "Come, let's go there!"

His sister immediately shook her head. "I don't want to see blood – but I'll distract Mamá and Katie for you. Tell me what you saw later."

"Promised!" Henry turned to James, beaming with excitement. "Come on!"

They promptly rushed nearer to the action and noticed how a generous circle had formed in the middle of the cluster of people – no one wanted to catch a stab wound as collateral damage of this fight.

"We need to get closer, I can't see anything," James said, already pushing for his way with Henry to finally get close enough to the duel taking place.

James quickly recognised one of the men as the brawny shipbuilder Antoine. He had grown quite heavy. The other man, however, immediately seemed like a –

"Paradise bird," he said under his breath, aghast. He nudged Henry the very next moment. No one noticed the two of them, but James was completely over the moon. "Henry," he hissed as if he knew some incredible secret, "I think that's my Papá!"

"Slander and Calumny!" the very man shouted to Antoine, parrying his blows with foresight and sufficient footwork. "We never agreed upon interests in written form!"

Tara was struck by the sound of that voice like it was a bolt of lightning.

She whirled around, as did Kate – but they couldn't make out anyone in the dense crowd of the pier.

A bit puzzled, she shrugged her shoulders. "Could have sworn –"

"Me too, for a moment," Kate mumbled. "But … no. No, right?"

"We hadn't agreed on anything in writing," Antoine meanwhile cried, pausing only to catch his breath. "Never again will I … make that mistake!"

"Why, tell me," Jack exclaimed, supposedly interested. "Because by now you've learned how to write?"

Antoine, with new cause for blind rage, immediately wanted to throw himself at him again.

"Good for you!" Jack teased, dodging the most predictable of maneuvers before resuming their sword fight. "I was all too gladly providing you that incentive," he claimed. "It's never too late to learn something, aye? I'd say we're square then!"

"Square?" Antoine turned beet red. "I had to sell heirlooms because of you!"

"He's in quite a bit of trouble, isn't he?" Henry whispered, continuing to follow every fencing move as it happened.

"Oh, I don't know …" James grinned. "Antoine's already exhausted."

"Heirlooms?" Jack asked in much too obvious amusement as he parried the ship builder's weapon with the help of his own. "Oh, come, come, Tony – wouldn't they just be dust catchers otherwise?"

"I'll kill you!" Antoine frowned. "On my soul, I'll kill you!"

"I've got to fetch Tia, it's definitely him!" James whispered as the fencing match proceeded.

"I'm right here," they heard her voice behind them. Tia squeezed in between the two and looked at her brother. "I got curious, and Mamá was somewhat unresponsive – did I miss something?"

"You sure did!" James seemed thrilled. "Our Papá, I believe – look!" He gestured to the crowd, but –

"What do you mean?" Tia asked. "I only see Ace …"

"Ace?" James was perplexed, but indeed by now he was merely pointing at old Brannigan, who had rushed into the middle of the fight and was angrily raising his sword. "What does Ace want?" James mumbled.

"You've owed me money for decades, too!" Brannigan shouted, concealing the target of his anger from their point of view until he moved right next to Antoine.

"Where the hell did you even come from?" Jack looked Brannigan up and down, wrinkling his nose. Thirty years and yet they hadn't been apart nearly long enough. "Nothing for free to snatch, Ace, are you sure you're right here?"

"He looks just like on the wanted posters," Tia whispered to her brother. Pure joy flashed across her face. "Maybe it's really him!"

"Surprised, Jackie?"

"Not at all, mate – anyone could smell you ten miles to the wind," he replied, even if he promptly had his hands full again trying not to get stabbed by Antoine. He hopped to the side and took another step back from Brannigan as a precaution before shouting, "Admit it, the last time you thoroughly washed your hands was when I left this godforsaken spit of land on Antoine's shame of a boat!"

Ace didn't seem to understand. "Soap is expensive, after all!"

Jack nodded. "You didn't change at all."

This statement finally made Brannigan attack with his sword in great disgruntlement as well. Jack would soon have his back to some crates, which didn't seem too clever to him – but out of the corner of his eye he already noticed a cart approaching. Sometimes Fortuna reached out a hand to him after all … Pulled by a donkey and not particularly fast so, the cart was something he could work with, given the right order and timing.

For what had been so much fun with the whelp and the failed Commodore on Isla Cruz was considerably less exciting with these two characters. Especially since there was no wheel of fortune here either, which Jack could use for his own purposes …
Time to leave.

"It was really a pleasure to see you again," he called out while the donkey was already making the first spectators beside them move. Then Jack deliberately let Brannigan and Antoine get damn close until their sword points bore into the wooden crates behind him as a result of his jerky dodging. "But gentlemen, you know it yourselves – one should leave when it's best!"

While the two were still rattling their weapons in the wood, Jack ducked out from under them and through the crowd – until he put the cart between himself and his good friends.

"We have to go after him!" James reached for Tia's hand, Tia in turn for Henry's.

With Antoine and Ace still stuck in the crowd, Jack hurriedly made his way down the nearest side alley – almost as deftly as the children who secretly followed him.

"Tia, tell him to stop – will you call after him?" James asked, quite out of breath, as they turned around another corner.

"Why don't you call after him yourself?"

"I don't know …"

"Why am I always to do what you don't want to, eh?"

"I'm sure our mothers are already looking for us, too," Henry murmured with a queasy feeling.