Jack doesn't do a lot of things.

He doesn't do fair nor kind.

He doesn't do regret nor longing because he fights and claws and often deceives to get what he wants.

He doesn't do sentimentality unless soaked in rum which is what he in turn becomes sentimental about. The joy of it when it's there and the absence of joy when it's not. Rum is something to get sentimental about because eventually it will always come back to you if you have a bit of coin, or swift fingers, and know where to go.

Unlike people who you very well may lose and never find again.

To be sentimental about them is a waste of time and that's another thing Jack doesn't do, he doesn't waste time, although it may appear to some that that is all he does.

Jack doesn't do need. He doesn't need anything because he procures, or what some less understanding folks may label as "steals," what he needs. He doesn't need anyone because the only person to have always come through for Captain Jack Sparrow is Captain Jack Sparrow so what was the use of anyone else in the end?

Jack doesn't do love. Not the love of family, nor friends, nor lovers. All they are is wholly unreliable. They leave you, they never come back. They betray, they die. They run off to marry their English strumpets.

They leave you alone.

Jack doesn't do any of those things because those are the things that make you weak. Make you lose sight of what is real—the Pearl, what is important—freedom, and what is reliable when nothing else is—yourself.

They distract and they disappoint.

Their absence makes you cold.

And Jack is not pirating the warm Caribbean seas filled to the brim with sweet warm rum to be cold.

So it often takes Jack by surprise when, soaked in rum, he begins to wax sentimental about the distinct sound his blade made as it skimmed the length of another. The shivering slicing sound it made as it teased an entirely too uptight and righteous blade in a surprisingly unforgotten smithy in a port that should have long since been dismissed.

Jack also begins to wonder why he remembers one particular night in Tortuga when he had talked about leverage. He wonders why he remembers that night most of all for there have been some momentous and memorable nights in Tortuga, certainly more momentous and memorable than that one. The one he spent squashed into a small bed, his back pressed against the solid and straight back of that too uptight leverage, as Gibbs snored away on the floor. And what he wonders about the most now, and worries about as well, is why exactly he needs to always have his bed pushed against the wall of his cabin. Why he needs to be able to press his back against the wall, something as solid and equally unyielding as the back that belonged to the too uptight leverage, in order to sleep the night through.

Jack may wonder, and worry, but only for a moment then he moves on because those are two more things Jack does not do.

Wonder.

Or worry.

He is always sure so he needn't wonder and he's always confident so he needn't worry.

So he fails to wonder, or worry, about why he's so moved when the uptight whelp comes back—albeit tied to a pole—and does exactly what he asked of him. Like he somehow knew he would. And it isn't any wonder why he quirks his lip up in secret delight when the whelp starts straight away with the nagging and heroics the moment they set two feet apiece down on the deck of the Pearl after escaping a group of far too hungry people.

He is nattering on and on and on about doing the right thing, about saving his troublesome strumpet and surprisingly Jack is fine with that. Even though Jack doesn't do the right thing, or to be quite honest—very rarely but it has happened a time or two—he knows Will does.

Will always does the right thing.

So Jack considers it a well rounded plan to have Will there to do what is right when Jack would inevitably have done what was wrong.

Jack stops himself before he can wonder why a slip of uptight leverage can nag the day away at him and only succeed in amusing, rather than irritating him. He stops before he can wonder why Will's nagging and blithering has become like the cadence of the sea.

Always there in his head and endlessly comforting.

Because Will is so eager to rescue his bonny lass, which is something Jack could monumentally care less about, he feels no regret when he sends the whelp over the side of the Pearl and in to the tossing sea. He hasn't a qualm telling him, when all else fails, to mention to Davy Jones that Captain Jack Sparrow had sent him to settle his debt. Not one single ounce of regret.

Not one.

Not one.

Jack doesn't do regret.

Or heartache.

He doesn't.

So it is not either one that he feels when weeks and weeks later, after being swallowed and spit out by a creature of the very sea herself, he sees for the first time the damage his lack of regret has done.

It is not regret that makes him gasp when he sees the lines crisscrossing that solid and unyielding too uptight back for the first time when the whelp sheds his shirt in the heat of the day on their way back from the end of the world.

It is not heartache he feels when he rushes straight away to his cabin below decks and falls to his knees, choking, as the bile rises in his throat.

It is neither of those things that make him curl into himself on the hard boards of the floor in silence, not moving for hours, until those above begin to wonder where he is and send Will to fetch him.

It is neither of those things that shudder through his body and fly away like the sparrow of his namesake when the too uptight whelp allows himself to let go as he lays down on the floor behind Jack and whispers,

I forgive you Jack.

It isn't sorrow, nor regret, nor heartache that leave him in that moment.

And it isn't relief, nor joy, nor love that fill him in their absence.

Because Jack doesn't do those things.

He leaves them up to Will because Will does all kinds of things that he shouldn't.

Like the right thing.

And forgiving the unforgivable.

And loving the unlovable.

Soon Will comes to realize that doing the right thing means keeping his feet firmly planted on the deck of the Pearl as it pulls into the port that should have long since been dismissed.

It has nothing to do with the fact that after finding Jack alone in his cabin, tied down to the floor with the weight of his non-regret, Jack's lips ran across each and every line left behind in relief that he had been forgiven and in relief that Will was still there to do the forgiving.

It has nothing to do with the fact that the night before they pulled into port, when he should have long since been asleep, Will hears a faint and nearly indecipherable don't go and he forgets all promises and all long ago wishes for a quiet life away from the sea.

It has nothing to do with those things because that would not have been right.

And Will always does what is right.

He leaves doing what is not right up to Jack.

They come to an accord.

Jack doesn't regret nor want because there is nothing to regret as he has been forgiven and there is nothing he needs because he now has everything he wants.

Jack doesn't love nor wax poetic because there is nothing Will wants him to admit that he doesn't already know and there is no need to state the obvious.

Jack doesn't do those things because Will is there to do them for him.

The only thing Jack does do is be glad Will is there to do them.