Pirates of the Carribean
The Pirate's Code
E.L. Weil

Pairing: Unrequited Jack to Will and Elizabeth

~~~

When Jack Sparrow first heard the news, he had laughed.

And he hadn't been the only one with that reaction. Anamaria, deep in her cups, had fallen off her chair, laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea. Gibbs had nearly choked on his own drink with laughter. Cotton had merely shaken his head with a grin, while his parrot bobbed up and down on his shoulder like a cork in a storm, repeating, Dead men tell no tales!

Various other members of the crew had run the gossiper out of the tavern with their scorn and fun, and proceeded to mock the British Navy and their reaction to the supposed event. Marty had done a remarkably good imitation of the Commodore, musing over how much of a prick he would need to be in order to properly keep up his image - despite their three-foot difference in height.

That, Jack had thought in retrospect, was a fine evening indeed.

But then a ship from Hispaniola had berthed in their nameless harbor the next day, telling of the vicious tidal wave that caught them two miles off-shore and damn near decimated their ship. More than half of their goods were lost or destroyed in that maelstrom of water and air, one that they were lucky to survive - more than half the crew did not. Three other ships that had been with them were gone once the water calmed. Untold amounts of damage must have been done to the harbor once the wave had run aground.

Gibbs had looked a mite worried at the tale, but Jack had thought it could just as easily have been gas. He only smiled and sipped his drink, unconcerned.

To what point was it headed? Gibbs had asked.

Nor'east, the sailor had replied.

Gibbs had looked to him then, but Jack only shook his head. Tales, was all he said, and returned to his rum.

It was four days after they had originally heard the news when the first of the Naval Fleet sailed by without giving the Black Pearl so much as a cross look. Which annoyed and intrigued Jack Sparrow all at once - what captain of the Royal Navy would just ignore the Terror of the Caribbean and sail on by?

Perhaps one as knows naught of us, Gibbs had suggested. From the Mediterranean.

Maybe, Jack had replied doubtfully.

To what point was it headed? Gibbs asked then.

Southwest, had been Jack's reply, and when they spotted the second Naval vessal, holding tack in the same direction, he began to think maybe he had been wrong to react the way he had. Dead wrong.

Anamaria had argued vehemently against his course once they saw how many ships flew the British Flag outside Kingston Harbor, one week after they first heard the news. Suicide, Jack! she had schreeched at him in some vicious parody of Cotton's parrot. I'll not have you sail me into a hornet's nest of British soldiers! I like the length of my neck!

So do I, Jack had leered, and when she slapped him it did little to distract him from the sickness that was starting to boil in his stomach.

Funny, he had thought at the time. I don't remember the last time I was sea-sick.

The illness only grew stronger once they caught sight of the city that had been Port Royal.

~~~

Silence seemed to envelope the Black Pearl as she sat in the harbor, as though some kind of bubble had seperated the ship from the carnage and action that surrounded it. No one paid attention to the black-sailed bark that sat nestled amongst dozens of the brighter ships that made up the British Fleet. Jack Sparrow was a good enough captain that he could sail his ship in among the others without mishap, avoid those ships that had sunk in the bay, set anchor, and stare, all without being touched by the sounds of the soldiers as they struggled with the bodies they had uncovered.

Port Royal was... gone. Which, perhaps, wasn't the best description of the scene. The city was there, all right, but not in the sense it had once been - it was a mess, ruined, a catastrophe. Palm trees had been uprooted and tossed about like matchsticks thrown from a careless hand. The rowboats that flitted back and forth from shore to ship were careful to avoid the many that floated in the harbor and banged against painted hulls, fronds swaying in a liquid breeze.

Wood stuck up at awkward angles from the rubble that decorated the land, threatening the sailors and ships more than thirty fathoms off-shore. The harbor had ... changed. Inexplicably. The contures of the land had melted and reformed in a gruesome parody of what once had been, forever altering the ocean floor and how ships would now have to sail over it. There, where he had fallen off the fort battlements, and there, where he had drug Elizabeth out of the ocean and himself into the Commodore's custody... and there, where the forge once stood... and there, where the Port Royal chapel had once stood... and scattered across the new cliff side was where the govener's mansion once stood...

"Good Lord," Gibbs whispered, and Jack jerked his gaze away from the landslide of brick, stone, and sand, away from the bodies that were laid out on the shore like discarded dolls, over to the man who had stepped up beside him. "What... caused this?"

No one answered. Jack felt Anamaria come up on his other side, joining him at the forward rail. Other sailors had paused in their workings, hands on ropes or stays, feet on deck or in rigging, but Jack didn't think to reprimand them for it. The Pearl tugged hard at her anchor with her sails still at half-tack, as if she wanted to sail straight into that rubble and...

And what? Jack asked himself. And what?

"Lord have mercy on their blighted souls," Anamaria said to his left, and Gibbs crossed himself quietly to his right. He said nothing, did nothing, staring silently at the carnage laid out before them.

His mind screamed at him for action. Jack Sparrow, it was said, had a word for every occasion. But no words came to mind, no eulogy for the dead, no damnation to scream to the sky. Jack Sparrow, it was said, was never caught unaware, but this event had broadsided him - it was a sucker-punch to his soul, to his very heart. The reactional part of his mind demanded he drop a boat and row to shore, order his crew to the rubble and sift through it with the rest of the soldiers, allegiences be damned. His fingers and arms tingled, but instead of turning about and raising his voice to be heard across deck, he stayed where he was, clenching the railing hard enough that he thought he heard it crack. He couldn't move, despite what he wanted, despite his heart thundering in his chest like mad fury, invisible bands constricting his lungs and making it hard to breathe.

Think like a pirate, he told himself, to dissuade himself from actually giving the order to lower the boats. Think like a pirate ­- but all he could think about was what it must have been like, the earth suddenly fluid beneath him, moving, flowing, shaking down bricks and morter, alive with the intent of swallowing him whole and dragging him, kicking and screaming, into the night. Did it hit them during the day, when it was hottest, and everyone lay in their beds or shops, sweltering and thinking about the breeze they wished would blow into the harbor? Or at night, when they were safe in bed dreaming, never knowing that their death was awaiting them? How many woke up to the nightmare of being buried alive? How many dreamt on, doomed never to wake? How many sailors drowned when their ships capsized, pulled down by the tidal wave caused when Port Royal sank into the sea?

He didn't tell us when it happened, Jack realized, thinking back to the first man who had spoken of Port Royal's demise.

Someone spoke his name, but he ignored their words, not allowing that sound to distract his gaze from the dark shapes that moved awkwardly across the trees and stones and debris scattered on shore. We should have came, he knew now, as soon as we first heard. I never should have laughed. I should have thought: "Will's in Port Royal." I should have thought: "Elizabeth's with him." I should have ordered my drunk self out of that bar and onto my ship and off to Jamaica without a second thought. I should have thought of them dead -

But he couldn't think of them as dead, not even with this mess laid out before him. He could only think of how Elizabeth had looked when she went from Elizabeth Swann to Elizabeth Turner, of the look on Will's face when he first caught sight of the woman he would finally get, to have and to hold, through sickness and health, til -

And oh, he had been irritated at the reaction he had gotten. He had gone to incredible lengths to get into Port Royal for that occasion, more than well aware that Captain Jack Sparrow was not invited to the ceremony. Not by the best man and father-in-law, at any rate. And even Anamaria had admitted, if reluctantly, that he had done an excellant job at disguising himself - going so far as to cut the dreadlocks out of his hair, pull out his trinkets, trim off the braids in his beard (those he had been sad to see go), soak in lye soap for hours to get the tar out from under his nails, giving himself the image of a psuedo-gentleman just to get into that damn wedding and be put down.

Put down gently, yes, but put down all the same. He had hoped for - wished for, even yearned for - an affirmative to his proposal. Will himself had admitted it was something he had thought about, but with a marriage on his hands, he now had to think about his responsibilities. To Elizabeth, to his home, to his forge. Elizabeth herself admitted she missed her time on the sea, even if most of it was spent with half-dead pirates, and the look in her eyes told him she remembered their night on the island quite clearly. But she had responsibilities - to her marriage, to her father, to her home.

Hang responsibilities! Jack had said vehemently. Out on the sea you won't have any bloody need for decorum or corsets! You two can been the first married pirates on the sea - like Morgan and Anne Bonny, only, y'know, spliced. You can go anywhere - name it, I'll take you. There's more'n enough swag left over. You could even get your own ship, if you wanted. 'Cause if you don't leave now... maybe you never will.

He had looked between them then, not daring to breathe but not daring to let go of his cocky Jack-attitude. I'll only ask you once, he tried to tell them silently, but knew inside that he'd go down on his knees and beg them if that was what it took. Well, maybe less so the kneeling and more so the begging. But he wanted them on his ship. Wanted them almost desperately. And, it was said, Jack Sparrow always got what he wanted.

But he had asked, Do we have an accord? and they had said, No. So he put Jamaica to his rudder and hadn't returned since, cursing them for denying him their presence and cursing himself for being such a pansy-assed excuse for a soft-hearted pirate and cursing - well, just about everyone and everything in sight. If there ever was a time for his crew to mutiny it would have been then.

He should have come back before this. When he had heard of the birth of their boy. Or of their girl. Or of Governor Swann's death. A hundred opportune moments that he never took advantage of when he should have, a hundred subtle we miss you's hidden in the letters they had written him and he had never replied to. It wasn't that he couldn't write - he could quite well, thank you very much - but he simply couldn't think of a thing to say back. Four years of letters lay bound in a desk drawer in his cabin, four years filled with their happy chatter and his angry silence. They had never reproached him for it. Maybe they didn't think a pirate literate - or maybe they knew him better than anyone else did. Maybe they knew, like him, that if ever once they had written come back, he would have done so unerringly, regardless of distance or time. Maybe that's why they never wrote it.

"Jack!" Anamaria hissed, and he looked to her, following the point of her finger, not bothering to correct her use of his name. There, to his port, back ram-rod straight - how could he have missed the Commodore's colors or the sleek lines of the Dauntless? He had anchored the Pearl at her starboard side, without a thought of recognition beyond "Royal Navy". Norrington was too far away to hail, but even so his features were distinctive. Then, so were Jack's to him; but the Commodore seemed in no hurry to sink Jack's Pearl. He was certainly well positioned for it.

Anamaria's eyes were wide as she stared at him, waiting for him to give the command to attack or run. But he did nothing, said nothing, merely remained staring at Norrington. Was he a bit slumped, there, Jack wondered, a little less straight, a little more bowed than before? A heavy mantle of guilt on his shoulders, maybe, thinking of the soldiers in the fort and civilians in the town and sailors on the water whose lives had been lost?

Commodore, he wondered suddenly. Do you know if they are dead?

He did his damndest not to connect 'they' with anyone specific in his mind, but only partially succeeded.

"Captain, we need t'leave before they take it in their head t'do somethin' about us," Gibbs murmured behind him.

"They have bigger fish t'deal with," Jack said distractedly. Norrington turned away and headed aft, disappearing among the rigging and men on the Dauntless, and Jack was not surprised that no action was taken against them.

It must be a heavy burden, he thought, to have this war to wage. A battle for life and death and no one to fight against. Trained for battle and incapable of putting those skills to use. What must it have been like for him to walk out of his cabin as they sailed into a harbor full of bodies?

Jack did not envy the Commodore. Not one bit.

"Ahoy!"

He looked down, and floating beside the polished hull of the Pearl was a small dingy. Her captain carefully kept his distance from said hull, as though perhaps worried he'd catch the curse said to trail the Black Pearl.

Anamaria distastefully eyed the British seaman, and Gibbs did little better. He sighed.

"What can I do for ye, sailor?" he called down. He was surprised at just how tired he sounded.

"The Commodore sends his regards," the sailor called back, "and wishes to inform you that Port Royal's funeral will be held two weeks past this Sunday at the mouth of the harbor. All ships that attend are asked to fly the colors of mourning."

The colors of mourning. Jack lifted his head, tilting it back and staring up at his sails, past the brim of his tricorne. The sailors had finished reefing those sails while he had stared at the ruins, black strips of night against the bright summer sky. He had requested the sails black in order to set the Pearl apart, make her part of legend, strike fear in the hearts of those who saw her on the horizon. Of course, it was a bitch to get them all replaced at a time, as Gibbs had proclaimed more than once. But never had he seen the black sails as mourning colors, not even when Barbossa had been at the Pearl's helm.

We've come well equipped, then, he thought tiredly.

"Shall the Commodore expect you there?" the sailor asked.

Jack looked at Anamaria, then to Gibbs, and was not surprised to see amazement on their features. Commodore Norrington, extending the crew of the Pearl an invitation to anything, much less a funeral that was not their own, was a legend that would go down in story books.

But despite his priggishness, Norrington was a good man, and to Jack this invitation meant the one thing he had not wanted to hear.

Will was dead. And Elizabeth. And their children, whom he had never met. And he wished, desperately, that he had given up on his idiotic pride and come back. If only once.

"Jack?" Gibbs asked cautiously, and he turned his eyes back to the dingy below.

"No," he said after a long silence. "And..."

And what, Jack? he asked himself. And what?

"Give the Commodore my thanks," he said finally. This time he could not appreciate the surprise on the faces of his crew.

After the sailor had rowed far enough away, he ordered the anchor hoisted and the crew to their respective positions, once more taking up his place at the helm. The bubble of silence that surrounded them since they had entered the harbor never faded, the sounds of his orders echoing across the quiet deck.

The tiller was cold against his palms, despite the summer heat, and it was all he could do not to rest his forehead against it and drink that cold into his fevered skin. His fingers were light as he sent the Pearl out of her position to the mouth of the harbor, but inside he felt heavy. Heavy like the cannon that had sent his old - and at the time, only - friend to the depths.

Jack turned to give Port Royal one last look. He had looked once after he had escaped death, seeing Elizabeth and Will on the wall that stood no longer, and was happy that they were happy. He had looked once after he had left their wedding, wanting like mad to see them chasing him, having changed their minds - but they hadn't, and he had been angry that they were happy and he was not.

What are you looking for now, Jack Sparrow? he asked himself. They are back there, somewhere, but now they will never leave again. Just like you warned them.

Something burned inside his chest, something he had not felt in a long, long time, and he wasn't sure how to deal with it. Wasn't sure what to think of it.

Think like a pirate.

Jack turned forward once more, to the horizon he no longer cared to chase.

Anyone who falls behind... is left behind.

~end

..go back..