Tortuga was a vile port but Port-au-Prince was worse, spewing filth and excrement into its streets by daylight, sucking the same into its taverns by night. Commodore Norrington would have preferred to remain aboard the Dauntless, but some nagging, dragging instinct pulled him into the fetid streets, searching for he-knew-not-what.

His rank was of little consequence here, but he carried himself with the arrogance born of blood and breeding. It bought him enough respect to gain a small room in a small tavern, where he might enjoy his drink alone. But he was not alone. Down the hallway, someone was coughing, a terrible, hacking cough that made James Norrington's hand fly to his own throat. It countinued, so long, that he could not bear to hear it and wandered down the dark corridor to find the sufferer. The drink had gone to his head and he opened the door, listening and swaying as the occupant hacked out another bout of that terrible coughing.

He stumbled into the darkened room, bottle in hand, despondant and determined that he could do some good this one night. The chase that had kept him alive these four years was over: the Pearl had not been seen in at least six months. There were rumours that the terrible gale that had swept through the islands had finally brought down the Black Pearl. It was fitting, he thought. She was too fast and too apart from human-kind to be scuppered by something so mundane as cannon fire. Gibbs, Cotton, and AnaMaria had died on the gallows, picked up in Kingston some three months earlier.

And now, lying before him, on a filthy cot, coughing out the rest of his life, was Jack Sparrow.

The man was skin and bone, so thin that every movement of those long fingers was skeletal grace, the bones and joints of his wrists visible as he coughed up great gouts of black blood into a dirty handkerchief.. His face was pale under its tan, lips cherry red, beauty almost luminous in the dark eyes that watched him. There was no surprise in them, no emotion at all. The black depths were mirrors for his own loss and pain. Elizabeth... disgraced and secluded in her father's home. He pushed the thought away.

"Sparrow." His voice was flat and his throat dry and harsh.

The spectre in the bed smiled briefly, ruby lips curving upwards to form great hollows under his cheekbones.

"Yer too late." his voice was a whispering rasp. "Ye'd hafta hoist me to the gallows."

James moved closer and could hear the dreadful wheezing, the struggle to pull a breath into blood-soaked lungs.

He fumbled in the light of the single candle to fill a cup with rum from the bottle he clutched in a trembling hand.

"Here. Drink."

The dark hair was feathery beneath his fingers as he cradled the fragile skull, tipping the cup to those luscious lips. Funny, he thought, how some deaths grant such beauty at the last.

Sparrow pulled himself up a little, fever-bright eyes moving beneath blue lids with the effort.

"Turner?" James asked softly.

"Gone. Went down wi' the Pearl... my Pearl." The whisper clung to him like the skeletal fingers covering his own to tip back more of the rum.

"Elizabeth." his voice was flat, thinking of her, hiding in her black gowns high on the hill, enveloped in her shame.

Sparrow's lips curved again, quirking into a shadow of his old grin, a golden Sphinx's smile.

"Ahh. The island. Yes."

Norrington could see the drink's effect, Sparrow's eyes growing soft and unfocused. Another bout of coughing caught him off guard and he held the sheet up to catch the blood that streamed like rain onto their dingy whiteness.

The dawn was coming up, grey and sullen before the sun broke through. The moments of the day when life was most precarious, when death always seemed closest, he thought.

After a long while, Sparrow stirred against him feebly.

"Take me down t'the shore. I don't wanna die on land."

Moving as if in a dream, he managed, somehow, to help the dying man out of the bed and half-walked, half-carried him down to the shore, a little way from the docks where the fisherman readied their boats for a new day.

Sparrow was gasping as Norrington laid him down, close enough for the waves to race over his bare feet. He sighed softly and lay back against Norrington, his face ashen grey in the growing light.

Perhaps, James thought, perhaps I can still help her. Marry her and take her and her child away, where no one might guess her shame. Perhaps.

Sparrow's great dark eyes opened slowly and he plucked at Norrington's sleeve. The sun was lifting over the grey sky and light began to dance upon the waters.

"Help me up. Please."

Norrington pulled the insubstantial body upright to face the shore, sitting behind and bracing him with both arms. His cheek rested against the masses of black hair that stirred in the breeze.

"Thankee. It were a good run..."

Sparrow's eyes held the seas. "Now, bring me that horizon." he murmured.

Another bout of coughing tore through him, a great wash of blood spilling over his chin, down onto the sunlit sand.

James laid him down, closed the still, blank, beautiful eyes and waited there for the tide to take him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The fatherless child standing on the beach of Port Royal tore away from his lady mother's black-gloved hand and she watched him, her ruined life, running down to the shore. The sunlight glinted off his black hair and, as he reached the foam-ruffled shore, he began to sob, black eyes full and bright, reaching out to the horizon with small, sundark hands, salt tears in salt water, mingling, while the gulls wheeled and circled, crying to the endless skies.

END