Ten Years Gone 1

by Gloria Mundi

Pairing: Jack/Barbossa
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Property of Disney. Have taken what I can: giving nothing back. See no profit in this for me.
Archive: Imagin'd Glories: list archives / sites where posted. (Others please ask first.)
Originally Posted: 1/21/04
Note: This would never have been written without the assiduous encouragement of webcrowmancer, who asked for Barbossa's version of events and then cajoled, begged, teased and hand-held until she got it. Thanks to her, and to ladymoonray and cinzia, for beta, comments and constructive criticism. Follows Scarlet, Crimson, and Cursed Pirates, and will make little sense unless you've read at least the last of those.
Summary: Ooooh, guess who we found in the cells at Port Royal, Captain? ... On curses, betrayal and nemeses.

Continues from Cursed Pirates

The Turner girl was pretty enough, and fiery, but he'd lost the taste for women these ten years gone. Even before the curse had begun to bite, he'd wanted something different, other, more.

And he'd found what he wanted. He'd had it and lost it: thrown it away, traded it for the Black Pearl and the captaincy and an empty decade of blood and gold and haunting dreams. Now he sat in the captain's cabin, counting out the gold sols and doubloons from Port Royal. Elizabeth Turner's medallion lay, still on its chain, in a pool of light before him. The ghosts in the shadows gibbered, but he was immune to them; all but the one who grinned and winked at him, like an invitation.

The crew were raising sail and bickering over the spoils. The Turner girl was locked away in the stern-cabin, at least until they were out of sight of land. The monkey, Jack, was sleeping on his perch: and someone rapped on the door.

"What is it?" called Barbossa.

"It's me, Captain. Twigg. I've some news you'll want to hear."

Barbossa doubted that. Tonight, after ten years, he'd seen the last of the Aztec gold come back to him. Whether it lifted the curse or not, that was welcome news for the crew, and thus for him their captain. No hope of better news that that.

But Twigg would not have dared disturb him for nothing.

"Come in, then, and let me hear it."

Twigg entered the cabin, eyes—Barbossa was pleased to see—lowered. Like the rest of the crew, he had learnt not to stare at the gold, or to peer at the shadowy ghosts in the corners of the big cabin.

"Tell me," Barbossa invited. Twigg's excitement was palpable, like a scent (a familiar scent) in the air. He had brought his news like treasure to lay before Barbossa.

"Never guess who we saw in Port Royal, Captain."

"The King of England?" Barbossa enquired, for form's sake. "The Virgin Mary? The Pope?"

Twigg shook his head, grinning.

"Why don't you be tellin' me, then," suggested Barbossa.

"We was looking for the armoury, see," Twigg explained. "An' we must've took a wrong turn, or those redcoats told us wrong, 'cause we ended up in the gaol instead."

"Then I'd guess you found some prisoners there," said Barbossa, impatient already. "Some ne'er-do-wells. Some of the Brethren, maybe? Out with it!"

"They've got Jack Sparrow locked up in that fort, they 'ave," said Twigg.

It was no surprise—he'd always known that somehow, despite everything, Jack would still be alive—but something, some emotion, must have shown on his face, because Twigg was looking at him with satisfaction.

"You remember," he said. "Him as was captain afore ye. Him we marooned. Fancy-lookin' bloke. Gold—"

"I know who he is," said Barbossa softly, and Twigg flinched. "Is he still there? Did ye not free him?"

"Free him, Captain?" At least he was speaking more respectfully now. "Why'd you want 'im freed? Happen the Navy'll hang 'im and finish the job."

"He's still there."

"Aye, Captain."

"Well," said Barbossa. "Jack Sparrow, alive alive-oh." Something in the shadows moved, and he turned his head to look at it. So, with a guilty fascination, did Twigg.

"Off with ye!" Barbossa roared, gesturing, and Twigg turned and fled.

Jack Sparrow, alive. They'd heard stories, from time to time, but nothing Barbossa would credit: Jack Sparrow cheating the harbourmaster at Savannah, impersonating a Spanish nobleman in Jamestown, raising the dead in New Orleans. Nothing that could be proved. Nothing that another man couldn't have done.

They had sailed back to the nameless island where they'd left him that grey morning, but his bones were nowhere to be found, though Barbossa had wanted to break them into pieces to lift the curse. All this time Jack had haunted him, whispering and gesturing and smiling, reminding Barbossa (waking or sleeping) of that one last night they had spent together. All this time his ghost had taunted him with what he'd lost; the one ghost of the Black Pearl to whom Barbossa was still not, and never would be, indifferent.

Who wasn't a ghost after all.

He had lost count of the gold, and he didn't care. Let them say what they liked, out on deck: it was not the gold that was cursed, but the mutinous crew who'd left Jack Sparrow to die. Not all the gold in the world could lift that curse.

But Jack Sparrow, more alive these ten years than any man aboard the Black Pearl, could set them free. If he cared to do so. If he thought it worth his while.

Barbossa found himself remembering again. Never a day that he forgot: Jack's face, pretty as a girl without the beard; Jack's eyes widening at the feel of Barbossa's hand on him; Jack's mouth closing around Barbossa's cock. The feel of Jack Sparrow under him, letting him—

Barbossa cursed, and monkey-Jack leapt from his perch and swung wildly between the beams.

He wanted—needed—to go back and retrieve Jack Sparrow from the cells at Port Royal. If he was even still there, of course; Jack Sparrow had been able to talk his way out of most things, when Barbossa had known him before.

But then, ten years can do strange things to a man.

He stuffed the Turner medallion in his pocket and beckoned Jack-monkey to his shoulder before he opened the door and went out on deck.

* * *

If Pintel objected to waiting on Miss Turner, he was clever enough not to say so. Ragetti, everyone agreed, wasn't clever enough for anything very much; but he let himself be guided by his friend's behaviour, and that was probably what had kept him alive, back when any of the Black Pearl's crew could be slain.

The two of them stood biddably in the captain's cabin, waiting for their orders. Ragetti's wooden eye seemed drawn to the darkest corner, by the bed, but Barbossa was almost sure that it saw nothing there. No matter, anyway.

He had kept the crimson silk dress close by, all these years. Neither Pintel nor Ragetti remarked on that; but then, they had no reason to remember this dress, and they had not seen—

"Take this to Miss Turner," he instructed, holding out the armful of crimson silk. He could still smell Jack on it, sweat and musk as fresh as ever, but the stains hardly showed any more. He had never let any of his other captives wear it: but tonight, after all, was a special occasion. "Tell her she may do me the honour of wearing it to dine with me."

"An’—an’ what if she says no, Captain?"

Barbossa bared his teeth. "If she says no—if she is disinclined to acquiesce—then she is at liberty to hand the dress back and dine with the crew."

"N-naked?" said Ragetti, with a leer.

"Shut up!" snapped Pintel, elbowing him. "It's not like we're able to—"

"Ah, but Miss Turner won't know that," said Barbossa, chuckling. "Tell her she may dine naked with the crew, if she'll not honour me with the pleasure of her company."

He let them go and sat back, reaching again for the medallion that Miss Turner had worn. The girl was tall like her father, Bootstrap Bill, though otherwise there was not much resemblance. Light bones, she'd have, like a bird. Maybe she'd eat from his hand, like Jack had done. Maybe she'd suck the rich sauces from his fingers, and put her slender arm around his neck. Maybe—

There was almost a taste, a sour bitter taste, in Barbossa's mouth.

* * *

Dinner had been good sport, and Miss Turner had looked fine—though not as fine as Jack Sparrow—in the crimson silk. She'd taken the story of the Aztec curse quite well, all things considered, after her stroll on deck had cured her of her disdain for ghost stories. There was no use in telling her of Jack Sparrow's curse: and no profit to be found, either, in driving her mad. That little trick with the knife ... well, she'd more spirit than her father had shown at the end. The life had gone out of Bootstrap—Barbossa smiled grimly to himself—after the mutiny, after he'd stood by and let Jack Sparrow be driven out.

Barbossa remembered that day: Bootstrap Bill half-conscious and calling down the curse upon them, even while Twigg and the Bo'sun had been tying him to the great gun that had carried him down to the depths. He'd have to tell Miss Turner what had befallen her da, for sure. Just as soon as the moment was ripe.

But that moment was not yet. He lay in his wave-rocked bunk, safely away from the treacherous moonlight again, and banished thoughts of Bootstrap Bill's fate with his sovereign remedy. The events of that long-ago night were strung out in his memory, moment by moment, like pearls on a thread.

Sometimes, it seemed, he could even remember how it had felt.

Jack Sparrow had invited him to dine that night ten years ago, and Barbossa had gorged himself, not on meat or drink, but on sensation. First had come the sight of Jack, practically glowing in the lamplight, teeth gleaming and skin shiny with sweat, and the luxurious sheen of the crimson silk wrapping him. Then the sound of Jack's low voice, asking him, begging him for more: and, better, the sound of his voice when at last he'd gone beyond words. And the smell of his skin—that scent still fresh, by some miracle, on the silk: but Elizabeth Turner wore the dress now, and Barbossa frowned at the thought of her female scent overlaying Jack Sparrow's musk and spice and salt.

He'd tasted that on Jack's mouth, tasted his own seed and Jack's, too: and Jack, shameless, had licked more than just rich sauces and oils from Barbossa's fingers. It had felt ...

It had felt. Had been enough to drive him to distraction (and Jack Sparrow to his ruin, Barbossa reminded himself). But that was lost, for now: and the feel of his hand, instinctually on his cock, was no more than the knowledge of skin against skin.

The news that Jack was alive and well—oh, better by far than his mutinous first mate—made Barbossa almost wistful, there in the bed. For a moment he wished for company. Elizabeth Turner had asked to know the fate of the dress's last owner. Maybe he'd have her brought to him, and he'd bid her sit and listen while he told the tale of how a pirate captain had begged when Barbossa slid his hand up under the warm silk, feeling the heat of Jack's body like a furnace ... Who knew what Elizabeth Turner might be brought to do, in that red dress that stank of semen and sweat and Jack?

But it would feel like nothing, now. Everything did. All he wanted tonight, all he'd wanted for years, was release—any release at all, let alone what he'd felt with Jack Sparrow before Jack stole his heart and his nerves and his life. That one night had been more than any man might hope for again, but there'd been other times, simple times, times when they'd pressed together eagerly in the dark, hands comfortable on one another's bodies, bringing each other off just for friendly favour.

All gone now, and no way back to it. And he couldn't simply turn the ship and head back to Port Royal: the crew were mad for this notion of lifting the curse, and they'd rise up against him if he stood in their way. And, after all, there was no harm to it: just another voyage to the Isla de Muerta, and another little game with Miss Elizabeth Turner, and another futile attempt at freeing the Black Pearl's crew from the curse.

Oh, but if the curse were lifted, to seek out Jack Sparrow: to make his claim...

Barbossa snorted, and monkey-Jack on his perch chittered in surprise. Jack Sparrow wouldn't come to him again, not the way he'd come that night before the mutiny: not willing and eager and filled with heat.

But maybe, for all that, there was a way that he would come.

* * *

Even years after the mutiny, with Jack Sparrow surely dead and his vanished bones ground to sand, he'd come to Barbossa in dreams. Usually his ghost would say nothing at all, but just reach out his hand to touch Barbossa's face with spectral fingers that drifted over his skin too lightly to be felt. Or, sometimes, he'd take Barbossa's hand in his own and trail the bony fingers over his own skin. And Barbossa would not be able to look away as Jack's face reflected the sensation of every caress, every nerve ending, every scar that snagged against his skeletal fingers. Dead, Jack Sparrow still felt more than Barbossa had for years.

* * *

Dawn was dull and grey, and the waters around the Isla de Muerta were shrouded and flattened by sea mist. The crimson silk was the colour of spilled wine in the dim light, and it drew the colour out of Elizabeth Turner's face. She looked pale and afraid and altogether less fiery than the night before. Barbossa, wracked by dreams, was glad of it.

In the depths of the cavern, the treasure seemed to glow with its own light. This was the closest he came to warmth, any more. Just being near to so much wealth seemed sufficient to brighten the humour of the crew as they gathered to watch the last of the blood-payments. Already, even while they laboured to bring in the harvest from Port Royal, they were murmuring of what they'd do once quit of the curse: sensual pleasures, wine and women and lying in the sun. They'd be rich men. They would spend, not hoard. They need never work again.

Elizabeth Turner was silent and fearful at his side, but he cared nothing for her any more. As soon as the curse was lifted—or, as he suspected, when the curse did not lift—he'd be free to seek Jack Sparrow and exact his own payment, or claim his reward.

"Gentlemen!" he cried. "The time has come! Salvation is nigh! Our torment is near an end!"

The men cheered.

"For ten years we've been tested and tried, and each man-jack of you here has proved his mettle, a hundred times over and a hundred times again!"

More cheering. They were his, all his, and loyal to him as they'd never been to Jack Sparrow. There was a kind of glow to that too, a prideful glow, and for a moment he wished that this trembling girl could truly be the remedy to their ills. So much hope washing over him, so much desperation ...

It was a shame that Miss Turner's blood wouldn't save a single one of them.

"Punished we were, the lot of us, disproportionate to our crime." He had played this scene over and over, now, and the words came to him like an actor's speech on the stage. The men were his audience, then, caught and captivated by the familiar phrases: held by each word he spoke. There was a glory in this eloquence, however empty it turned out to be.

One hand to the carved stone lid of the chest: "Here it is!" Cast the lid aside: that first time, it had felt heavy, but now it was hardly an effort at all to throw it down. "The cursed treasure of Cortez himself." The gold shone, calling him, and he ran his hands over the coins in the chest. They were neither warm nor cold. They simply were. "Every last piece that went astray we have returned…" He gestured at the medallion around Elizabeth Turner's neck. "Save for this!"

Perhaps the Aztec priests had woven this magic with their words. Perhaps their heathen followers had shouted and exclaimed at every phrase they spoke. The Black Pearl's crew had no use for priests now: they followed him.

"And who amongst us has paid the blood sacrifice owed to the heathen gods?" he called.

"Us!" they chorused.

"And whose blood must yet be paid?"

"Hers!"

At his side, Elizabeth Turner whimpered. For a moment he wanted to reassure her: for another moment he wanted her blood to be the key, after all, so that he could feel her skin, her touch … Truth be told, there was much he missed of life, and a woman's touch might not be so very great a loss.

"You know the first thing I'm going to do after the curse is lifted?" he asked. "Eat a whole bushel of apples."

And then, as they roared, so easy to grasp her hand and slit her palm with the stone knife that he'd used on every man-jack of the crew. "Begun by blood, by blood undone!"

Blood on stone: blood on gold: gold on gold, and Miss Turner demanding, "That's it?"

"Waste not," said Barbossa, with a private smile. He closed his eyes and waited to come back to life.

"Did it work?" said Koehler at last, into the taut silence.

"I don't feel no different," Ragetti complained.

"How do we tell?"

Barbossa sighed, and dragged the pistol from his sash. He hardly bothered to aim before he fired.

"You're not dead!"

"No," said Pintel, wonderingly: then his expression hardened. "'e shot me!"

"It didn't work," said Twigg. "The curse is still upon us!"

Barbossa scowled. He'd expected this, and it almost proved him right at last, almost proved that this was Sparrow's curse. He hadn't told them that tale yet, though. The only tale they'd heard was the Aztec curse, with simple rules that, followed, would set them free. Thus here they were, with Bill Turner's child, and Barbossa had known that the girl's blood on the coin wouldn't lift Jack Sparrow's curse on his mutinous crew.

But damned if he wouldn't play by those rules, their rules, for it was himself that they'd followed in mutiny. He'd be loyal to them in return.

Elizabeth Turner looked entirely too pleased with herself.

"You, maid!" he demanded, taking her by the shoulders. "Your father—what was his name?"

Elizabeth Turner looked at him and smiled, and said nothing.

"Was your father William Turner?" Barbossa said harshly, shaking her: and behind him the men began to murmur as the suspicion hit home.

"No," said the girl triumphantly. Well-spoken for a maid, now that he thought on it ... and 'twas all, damnation to it, to be done again: another bloody child traced and found and brought to the gold. It was all Jack Sparrow's fault. Even the confounded brat they sought was the child of Jack Sparrow's good friend Bootstrap Bill Turner, who'd sent the gold home to England to keep the curse alive. "We deserve that curse for what we done to Jack Sparrow," Bootstrap had said. Much good Turner's loyalty had done him, but he'd surely be laughing now at the confusion he'd caused.

Never mind the heathen gods. The crew needed Bill Turner's blood to lift the curse.

"Where's his child? The child that came from England eight years ago, the child in whose veins flows the blood of William Turner?" He could see her jaw tightening, holding back whatever it was that she knew. He'd get it out of her. He shook her again. "Where?"

She said nothing, and his fury overwhelmed him like cold water. He backhanded her and turned away even before she came to rest, unconscious, by the water's edge.

The crew were bickering amongst themselves. "You two!" cried the Bo'sun, rounding on Pintel and Ragetti. "You brought us the wrong person!"

"No! She had the medallion. She's the proper age."

She'd known about the Black Pearl, too. Claimed she'd seen the ship that day they'd attacked the Dorset Rose, the merchantman that—they'd all felt the pull—had carried a piece of the Aztec gold on its voyage out of Bristol. No survivors, they'd thought, but the gold was not to be found; and with His Majesty's Navy prowling the wreckage, Barbossa had let the mists hide their retreat.

If he'd known Bootstrap's brat—whether it be this girl or another—had been on board, he'd not have rested until the child was slit and filleted at his feet, and the gold (Bootstrap's last trick) safe in his hand.

And after all this, it was Twigg who had the nerve to turn on him. "You brought us 'ere for nothing!" he shouted, and Barbossa wished for the curse to lift from this one man first, so that Barbossa could watch him die.

"I won't take questions! No second guesses now, not from the likes of you, Master Twigg!"

"Who's to blame?" cried someone else, and they were turning on him like a pack of feral dogs. "Every decision you've made has led us from bad to worse!"

"'Twas you sent Bootstrap to the depths!" chimed in another.

"And it's you who brought us here in the first place!" the Bo'sun yelled. None of them were looking at the gold—the gold he'd led them to—any more. None of them were hanging back, as men had hung back (Barbossa did not forget) on the morning they'd relieved Jack Sparrow of his command.

Rage, oh, rage felt good; rage felt human and real and alive.

"Any coward here dare challenge me, let him speak!" he roared, bracing himself for their attack: and no one, not a single one of the craven bastards, spoke.

Still his.

"I say we cut her throat and spill all her blood, just in case," said Koehler after a moment; and that met with their approval. And truly, 'twas a fine idea: let Miss Turner, or whoever she was, pay the price for trying to fool Barbo—

Monkey-Jack gibbered and gestured from the rock where he sat, and Barbossa turned on his heel.

The place where she'd fallen was empty again.

"The medallion! She's taken it!"

Could they do nothing without him?

"Well, after her, you pack of ingrates!" he bellowed: and they turned and ran like dogs.

* * *

The Isla de Muerta was riddled with caves and passageways and blind tunnels, like a weevil-infested cheese, and the maze echoed with calls and exclamations as the pirates hunted their prey.

And oh, what prey, what prize. God rot the girl, and the Devil take the Aztec gold, for here was a treasure greater than either: Jack Sparrow, alive, alive-oh.

Whenever Barbossa thought of Jack, he saw him alone in the cabin that night, in crimson and candlelight and gleaming gold. He'd forgotten how slight Jack Sparrow looked beside Twigg or Koehler or the hulking Bo'sun. It was all show, for sure: deceptive as whatever Jack Sparrow was about to say.

"Jack," he said slowly, playing to the crew and yet wishing them to Hell. The two of them should be alone...

"Barbossa," said Jack, with that ready, obsequious smile that he'd kept for strangers.

There was a small silence between the two of them, never mind the breathing and shuffling of the men, and the far-off echoing halloos of the hunt for the girl. Barbossa could read nothing in Jack Sparrow's eyes, but he glittered and swayed as enticing as ever, even while the men held him captive. Touching him.

Too much and never enough: this yellow-bellied crew would not see him soften.

"How the blazes did you get off that island?" he demanded instead.

"When you marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land, you forgot one very important thing, mate."

Barbossa looked at him, bewildered: and Jack Sparrow smiled, full of charm and duplicity as ever, the same as ever, and it was—

"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."

—too much. Barbossa wanted to get his hands on Jack's throat, bear him down, throttle him, make him kneel and repent. Make him resign that title, for it was Barbossa who was captain now, though the Black Pearl had never quite been his own the way she'd been Jack's.

Jack Sparrow's smile drove him mad, and said that Jack knew it.

Barbossa bit back his spleen. "Ah, well," he drawled, moving closer to Jack. "I'll not be making that mistake again. Gents, you all remember Captain Jack Sparrow?"

Let them be his own, let them not remember being Jack's crew.

"Kill him," said Barbossa, and the racket of muskets primed and pistols cocked and swords grating free from their scabbards was triumphal. Break his bones and the curse will lift. Let him die, that we may—

Barbossa turned away: and from behind him Jack Sparrow said, louder than before, "The girl's blood didn't work, did it?"

"Hold your fire!" Barbossa roared, and scowled when their obedience was less rapid. "You know whose blood we need?"

"I know whose blood ye need," drawled Jack, not quite mocking him.

"Why don't ye just be tellin' me, then, Jack?" said Barbossa, smiling, for this was the game all over again. "Tell me the name, and I'll let ye go free."

"Come, now," said Jack Sparrow, walking towards him. The men let him go, and though they held his cutlass and pistol, Barbossa knew there'd be blades concealed in sleeves, boots, sash. But Jack Sparrow would know better than any that no blade could harm him now; and with a knife, like Elizabeth last night, he'd be so near and so warm...

"Come now," said Jack again. "Have you given me any reason to trust you, lately? You're forsworn, Barbossa, you most of all: you pledged me your loyalty, and then you cast me ashore to die."

"And is that all, Jack Sparrow?" said Barbossa, his smile broadening as he let himself think again of that night. Did Jack hate him for that? Had Jack thought of it too, all those long nights since the checkmate of their last game?

Jack looked back at him, perfectly at ease despite the goad. "Is that not enough?" he said.

"Had you rather we spoke of this ... alone?" said Barbossa, leering.

Jack shrugged, and Barbossa's eyes narrowed. Insolent as ever; and for a moment he was minded to tell the tale after all, and let the men make what they would of it. They'd be jeering, jealous, wanting the same but cheated by the curse ...

But there was no shame in Jack's expression, no distaste. It was as though he felt nothing, remembered nothing of that night, or as if he cared nothing for the consequences of Barbossa's threat.

"The girl's gone, Captain," said the Bo'sun, emerging from one of the tunnels at the back of the cave. "She's—"

He stopped short, mouth still open, as he caught sight of Jack Sparrow.

"You—you're dead!"

"So everybody keeps telling me," said Jack brightly. "But not all the stories are true, you know. For example, that one about the girl who—"

"Back to the Black Pearl with ye all!" Barbossa shouted, scowling furiously at Jack Sparrow.

But already a couple of the men were smiling, willing to be won over by wit and charm and Jack Sparrow's voice. As he'd wooed and won them all before.

He'd not let Jack Sparrow cheat him again.

Continue to Part 2