Time seems to trickle through his fingers as if in slow motion. But it doesn't.



So, it is down to this—my honour, or your life.

One or the other must be lost.


It had not, he thought, been so very hard to choose. Silently he unlocked the cell, paused for a heartbeat, and left.


Sparrow stared after him.


Why?



There was a sparrow perched on the windowsill when he got home that evening. He fed it breadcrumbs, smiling ironically.

The bird flapped away in alarm when a pirate clambered through the window.


"Sparrow. You're late."


"Better late one way than the other, luv. Thanks for that." Sparrow peered at the Commodore, searching, and drew back in confusion—maybe a trace of hurt—at finding naught but hostility. "No. Ye' don't like me." He cocked his head. "So why...?"


"Perhaps I felt like it, Sparrow. I suggest you leave." Impatience, disdain—nothing there to explain...


"No." Sparrow looked rebellious. "I want to know why you let me go."


"Get used to disappointment."



"I have friends. I had no desire to see them hate me."


"But they wouldn't have. They wouldn't."


"I know that pirate. But they would have been miserable, and I would have been the cause."


"So you... what? Just let me go?"


"Yes."


"Doesn't that go against all your fancy ideas of honour or something?"


"Yes." A heartbeat's silence. "Go away Sparrow."



Eventually, Jack starts to wonder why James lets him stay.