Fathoms 8

The ship Tia shifted with a wave, and Jack automatically moved with it in balance, then winced himself as his body reminded him sulkily that he wasn't exactly used to it either lately, what with all that running around the high seas. It also informed him that he was about to regret this for a very, very long time indeed, but at that point the brain told his body to shut its trap, as t'was all worth it. A slow, sated smirk stole across Jack's face as he recalled exactly why that was so.

"Can you at least try to look less self-satisfied, Jack?" Another hoarse mutter from the prone form on the steps, eyes shaded now against the sun.

"T'aint Jack Sparrow who was goin' on 'bout 'complete disposal', Jamie-luv," Jack said innocently, looking out at the faraway horizon, waiting for the ghostly ship of Davy Jones with its monstrous crew.

"You know I only said that to make you stop badgering me constantly. I didn't think you'd actually take me up on it," Norrington said, showing a strong tendency towards self-pity that Jack had first noticed in the tavern where Gibbs had been recruiting unsuspecting souls for Davy Jones. He was reminded how his Jamie's self-pity tended to be accompanied by unfettered violence (perhaps a character flaw there), but was reassured at the moment. Norrington didn't look as though he could get back up to his feet, let alone throw a punch. "Good God. I'm sore in places I didn't even know could be sore."

"Ye learn new things every day, mate," Jack grinned impishly, his eyes drifting over to Tia, who was ignoring them, looking over the side at the waves, and occasionally at the position of the sun. There was an answering, low growl from his Jamie, who then gave it up as a bad job and settled down to sleep, rocked by the waves. Jack also felt exhausted, but was holding himself back from grateful collapse by dint of sheer force of will. He didn't want to miss the first sight of his Pearl.

Close, she had been singing to him, for the past couple of hours. Close, close. Likely nothing else could have dug him out of that inn, actually, with Norrington all to himself and possibly for the last time (not if he had anything to do with it, but one always had to consider the odds). Jack uttered a thankful prayer to whatever deity may have been listening for discreet inns and room service.

Lost in his thoughts, he yelped when Tia seemed to abruptly materialize at his shoulder. She shook her head at him in amusement, dreadlocks swinging, then sobered. "Tia be leavin' when yer ship docks at Tortuga, Jack. She hopes youse can stay out o'trouble. Some people be comin' in th'night t'help you get there."

Jack rested his forehead against one of the spokes of the wheel, tearing his eyes from the horizon for a moment. "Thank ye, Tia. Fer everythin'."

"T'aint all o' it Tia's doin'," she smiled at him, yellowing teeth flashing as she inclined her head towards the sleeping form on the stairs. "But some of th'bad, that was Tia's doin'. She should never 'ave taught woman's magic to white man. He turn it into bad magic, an' he cause you much pain."

"No, Tia," Jack replied, slowly, affectionately. "Davy Jones introduced me to m'Pearl, and even if that be only fer two years an' a wee bit, t'was worth all th'pain that th'world can throw at old Jack."

"Tia afraid he may cause you worse yet." Another glance at Norrington, who had muttered something in his sleep and shifted a little in the sun. "You be careful now." A faint smile. "Boy."

"An' ye 'aven't learned t' be careful," she retorted. "What ye be doin' now?" He's leaving you, her eyes said.

I know. Jack sighed, "I can't leave m'Pearl here on her ownsies while she's fixed. An' ye said Anamaria needs me help over in Kingston. M'going t'get a crew, pick up me first mate, an' then 'ead straight to Port Royal... or wherever 'e may be."

"Tia knows that part, Jack," Tia said impatiently, "That be the easy part. Tia means, afterward."

"M'suppose I'd use me considerable charm t'persuade Jamie t'follow me on an adventure on th'high seas, t'ward the World's End," Jack said, dramatically waving his hand at the horizon. "Even 'as a nice ring to it. An' there could even be treasure o' th'shiny sort, an' th'darin' rescuin' o' pretty damsels in distress."

The voodoo witch laughed merrily as Jack illustrated his words with extravagant and incomprehensible flutters of ringed hands. "Be wishin' you luck then, Jack Sparrow." An enigmatic wink. "Ye'd need it."

Mine, she informed him, playfully, lovingly, when he was close enough to see the scabrous, mussel-encrusted skeleton crew steering her behind the Flying Dutchman. Mine again.

"Aye, missy. Always," he murmured, not caring that Norrington, having roused himself reluctantly upon the excited shouts of Tia's attendants at the sight, was looking at him strangely.

Davy Jones yelled across at them from the Flying Dutchman, directed at Norrington, "Does this meet yer terms, then, sir?"

"It'd be a good time now t'bring you and your crew to the location we agreed, until further instructions," Norrington called back, grimacing as the hoarseness in his voice was still evident. Thankfully, Davy Jones either chose not to comment or didn't notice the difference. The captain seemed to have eyes only for Tia, who was pointedly ignoring him, looking instead with pity at the battered black ship. Finally, he turned on his heel in disgust, barking orders to set sail. The few of his crewmen on the black ship leaped agilely back after weighing anchor.

Jack abruptly heard Tia gasp, and he followed her gaze sharply. Bootstrap Bill Turner, his face lined and old before his time, still undergoing the slow change from something still human-like to a monster like the rest of the crew, was smiling at her, in wry affection. He raised a sand-crusted hand in a wave at the both of them, and then his lips moved.

"'Take care of me son'," Tia murmured, somehow able to hear the words despite the distance, watching as the Flying Dutchman headed out to deeper waters and submerged, smooth as a dolphin cutting the waves. "If youse only knew. Yer son 'as set his mind on takin' care o'you, and Tia can help him no more."

"Who was that?" Norrington asked curiously, a little sharply (jealousy and its ugly head), at the glance Tia and Jack shared—of sorrow, understanding, and loss.

"That, Jamie-luv, is... was... Bootstrap Bill Turner, late of England, born William Turner," Jack said quietly, as Norrington's eyes widened as it dawned on the other man what that meant. "T'was a member of me crew, an' he made th'cardinal mistake o' objectin' to Barbossa maroonin' me on a desert island. An' they tied him to a cannon, an' dropped him into th'sea. After the Aztec curse 'ad already taken hold. Though m'tend t'believe they didn't know that at th'time and so didn't intend t'be condemning him to eternity tied to a cannon on the sea floor, or they wouldn'a 'ave gone through all that business over the kidnappin' an' all."

Norrington shuddered delicately at the thought of being stranded, unable to die, in the depths of the sea. "Pirates."

"Not t'mention t'was a waste o' a perfectly good cannon," Jack said absently, looking over his ship with a practiced eye. "Th'replacement pulls somethin' terrible to the right." He laughed playfully at Norrington's expression of mixed outrage, horror and resignation at his apparent callousness. "M'only jokin', mate. Now... James Norrington. Th'Pearl an' I are extendin' t'ye a formal invitation t'come aboard on inspection."

"Accepted, Captain Sparrow," Norrington said with the same mock formality, though his green eyes seemed cloudy, troubled. Jealous.

The Black Pearl only laughed at him. Mine again, she sang, as he checked the hull briefly, and strode up onto the deck, leaving Norrington to his own devices. The masts at least seemed intact, but the sails and rigging were bedraggled and ripped. More gaping holes in the rails, and part of the deck itself was splintered. Jack, however, found himself drawn to the helm, and the Pearl hummed under his fingers as he took the wheel, patting it gently, his eyes half-lidded in contentment. His Pearl.

"It looks worse than it is," Norrington said, causing him to jerk out of his reverie. The other man stood next to the main mast, fingering a very familiar shackle with a baffled frown, then seemed to leave it alone as one of the ship's mysteries. "The keel is intact, and the structural damage can be repaired." He squinted up at the sails, then at the ruined rail. "But you'd be in Tortuga for a while."

"I knows that," Jack replied, more sharply than he'd intended, and quickly softened his voice before Norrington took offence. "She told me as much, 'bout an hour before she was brought here."

"And it looks like help is on its way," Norrington raised an eyebrow at the explanation but seemed to accept it for the time being, gesturing instead off the side. Tia was accompanying a sloop, packed full of silent men who were surveying the damage professionally and muttering to themselves. Ropes were slung up to deck, which Norrington secured on the remains of the rail—Jack refused to move from the helm. He didn't even appear to notice as the men wandered the ship, checking it cursorily, or Tia return with the sloop to the 'stolen' craft.

Norrington spoke with some of the shipbuilders for a moment, and then went up to the bridge as the last of them disappeared below deck. "Jack."

"I knows th'layabout o' Tortuga like th'back o' me hand, Jamie-luv, not t'worry," Jack assured him absently, distracted by the murmurings of his Pearl. "Can't ye hear her?"

"Here." At his Pearl's request, he took the other man's unresisting hand and placed it on the wheel, then covered it with his own nut-brown palm. "Don't speak. Just listen."

Norrington frowned at him, but humored the request, closing his eyes. Jack could hear his ship purr at all the attention from her favorites, and would have been surprised if his Jamie couldn't—or refused to—listen. Then there it was—Norrington's eyes snapped open in shock, and he murmured, "I don't believe it."

That endearing frown again, and the compliance—eyes narrowing, then he gasped, his gaze swinging to Jack's, wildly. "Jack, I..." he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, or banish something his mind did not want to grasp, then made a low sound. "Oh God. Oh God... I... I think I'm going mad..."

"She likes ye, Jamie-luv," Jack stroked Norrington's arm, the way he would reassure his ship during a storm, or calm a frightened animal. "She don't speak t'just anyone."

A wry smile, though the wildness was still in his eyes. "Who else belongs to this... select club?"

"Meself... mm, mebbe Anamaria, but she don't say... M'think Bootstrap, 'e took th'wheel once for a lark, turned white as a sheet, an' got drunk fer a week... an' Cotton." At Norrington's blink, he added, "The man wi' th'parrot."

"Ah." A nonplussed murmur. Jack warned his Pearl not to shock the other man too much, but she merely laughed at him. "And... and now myself." Norrington looked as though he wanted to pull his hand away, but to his credit, did not. Another shake of the head, then, as if to himself, "At least she calls me James."

Norrington's lips moved, trembling, as if trying to find words, then he let out a loud exhalation. "She... she..." a low moan, perhaps meant to be a laugh, as the man seemed to struggle with his sanity and with the truth before him. "She said... I..." Another wry, trembling smile that made Jack just want to kiss him breathless. "Why don't you ask her yourself, Jack? I shouldn't make you privy to a communications with a lady."

His Pearl informed him primly that he could do very well to learn some 'manners' from Norrington. Jack sighed at her capriciousness. "She won't tell me if she don't feel like."

"Then all the more reason why I shouldn't," Norrington retorted, though it felt as though he was clinging on to their banter like an anchor in a storm. What a delightfully singular man. Talking squidhead dressed in a buccaneer's outfit and commanding a submersible ship: fine. Ship talking in his head: not fine. "I..." A sudden flush, and a glare at Jack, "What have you been teaching your ship, Jack?"

"What? What?" Jack's hands flailed as he took a step back in protest, then he poked the wheel with one dirty finger. "Missy, don't ye be scandalizing Jamie now, 'e ain't used to it."

"Your Black Pearl, Jack," Norrington said slowly, delicately, "And I have permission to say this... is giving me very..." his flush deepened, "Explicit instructions, as to the treatment of your personal well-being."

Jack stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter, so uncontrollable that he stumbled and Norrington had to steady him with an arm. "She... she did what?" Another gasping choke, before dissolving again into mirth.

"And, I may add," Norrington's lips twitched briefly into a smile, the laughter contagious, the wildness in his eyes subsiding, and he bent his head to kiss Jack's sashed forehead with tender affection, "She is very bossy. Get her way too often, does she?"

"Always," Jack replied, softly subsiding in the warmth of the loose embrace. "Ye better watch out." A brief cough of laughter was the only response.

It was with reluctance that he pulled away when the shipbuilders came back up on deck.

"Still does, an' he 'asn't forgiven ye fer sinkin' 'is flagship," Jack pulled Norrington away from the rail. "So ye be careful now, Jamie-luv. T'aint every cap'n in Tortuga on th'same level as Halsh, an' ye don't want no trouble if ye want t'get back t'Port Royal in one piece."

Tia had docked next to them, and Jack watched as she stepped out onto the harbor as queenly as she could, speaking imperiously to a dapper, red-headed man dressed in a loose shirt rolled up to his elbows and paint-blotched pants, gesturing at the Pearl all the while. Jack climbed down his Pearl to join them, wincing at the effort his body had to make just to do that, Norrington following with that damnable curiosity.

"Captain Sparrow!" the red-headed man gasped, all but leaping forward to shake his hand, his Irish accent making his stammered words almost incomprehensible in his shock. "You here, and the Pearl! A miracle, it is!" He looked up at the ship briefly, and then frowned. "But she's been damaged something bad, Sparrow." A shiver, as his practiced eye no doubt noticed the holes punched into the side of the ship could not have been made by cannonballs. "By something big." The man looked over at Norrington, then back at the ship, obviously not recognizing him, and also obviously far more interested in the damaged ship.

"M'know, I was there," Jack waved a hand impatiently at him. "Now can ye fix 'er, or not, O'Malley?"

"Of course I can. She'd be brand new at the end of it, and better, you'd never even notice the difference—I still got some of that fine wood from the last shipment. I'd even get some new sails refitted. But I'm to understand Miss Dalma is paying for it?" He turned to look at Tia, who nodded curtly. "Ah. I'd charge it to your account, then. No problems. Er. I'd be starting now."

The man walked off to speak with the men who had just disembarked from the Pearl, clearly relieved to be putting some distance between himself and the witch. Tia touched Jack on the arm to get his attention. "There be some things on dat ship o' mine, think youse should put them in yer Pearl. Tia don't want 'em, an' youse got problems o' yer own sortin' out supplies." Sure enough, her attendants were already moving the previous contents of the cabin out onto the harbor, and towards a warehouse. "O'Malley allow us some space t'store, fer a small charge."

Jack nodded, obviously impatient to be off to make a nuisance of himself hovering over the shipbuilders.

"An' now Tia be leavin'," she said, leaning up to peck Jack on the cheek, then, to Norrington's embarrassment, did the same to him. "Youse both be stayin' safe, now."

"I'd visit again after everythin'," Jack promised, his eyes drifting inevitably each time to his ship.

Tia laughed playfully, even as she gestured at her attendants, who had finished unloading the cargo, to start preparing for departure. "Don't you be makin' promises youse can't keep, Jack Sparrow! Youse be seein' Tia again only when yer get into 'nother scrape. Miz Dalma, she knows this."

Jack lay awake despite the complaint of his body, listening to Norrington's heart, stroking one warm flank. He tried to concentrate on the simple pleasure of being held, but his mind kept straying. He had gained the Black Pearl, only to lose James.

Temporarily, his Pearl informed him. Jack agreed, but it didn't make it seem any less painful.

Norrington abruptly muttered something unintelligible into Jack's hair, and then reached up to trail fingers over his cheek. "You think too loudly."

"Greedy, Jack," the playful chiding tone was tempered by sadness. "You always want it all."

"No, Jack. You are a rare man." A soft sigh. "And I may be a fool to give you up."

"Nobody said anythin' 'bout givin' up," Jack poked Norrington in the ribs, making him flinch. "M'just lettin' ye go, Jamie-luv. T'do what ye feel is right. But there'd be a day when m'Pearl an' I, we be 'avin' ye back. When there's an opportune moment, savvy."

Another sigh, then lips curved into a faint smile against his forehead. "And I have no choice in the matter?"

"An' don't ye forget that." To emphasize the point, Jack wriggled up until he was on face level with his Jamie, and pressed soft kisses on trembling lips until they parted, tenderness fast becoming something savage, desperate, despairing. Norrington buried his head in Jack's shoulder when they broke for air, with a soft, broken cry, and the pirate cradled him, stroking and petting, and humming tunelessly, soothingly, until the other man was plucked away into sleep.

Jack stared at the cracked wall opposite him; the lines muted in the moonlight, and was glad that the darkness hid the wetness on his cheeks.

'Jack,

I wanted to say good-bye to you but I couldn't bring myself to wake you up. I am afraid that if it came to that, you could far too easily persuade me to stay. Too much has happened that can be graced with a simple farewell, and I wish I didn't have to leave—but as you know, there are others who need me, whom I have forgotten for too long. However, the past few days with you have been the best time of my life.

There is one other matter I could not tell you to your face, but which you likely already know is true. I love you, Jack.

If you value that, if you understand, please, don't come after me. And if all goes well, if I am given back my old life, I ask you again to leave the Caribbean. When Elizabeth broke my heart—twice, I knew you understood exactly what had happened and what it meant in terms of pain. I think I do not need to convince you how it would break my heart again, and worse, if I had to be your executioner.

Stay free, Jack.

James Norrington

P.S Tia lent me the means to charter passage off Tortuga. She meant well, and I hope you won't think ill of her for doing so.

Jack let out an inarticulate sound that could have been part grief, part frustration. He thrust the papers into his coat and jammed the pistol into his belt. His own was missing—likely taken by Norrington as a souvenir—not that Jack begrudged it of him, as he hurried out of the living quarters, blinking in the bright sun. The Black Pearl sat under a mass of scaffolding and busy men, just like the Angry Sky. The pirate swore, knowing that it would take a very long time for her to be fit to sail. A long time before he could go sniffing for ex-Commodores.

"M'can't, missy," Jack leaned against the door, feeling defeated. He had known that Norrington would leave, and that he would be very unlikely to be able to stop him, but the loss still hit him hard. "He don't want me to."

The Black Pearl seemed disbelieving—when has that stopped you—she replied tartly.

"'sides, 'e's a slippery 'un. An' 'e 'as that spellwork from Tia," Jack ignored the strange glances he was getting from O'Malley's passing employees. "So 'e'd be fine."

"M'be fine, missy, after a bit o'rum," Jack knew he was giving lie to his words, but he didn't much care. "An' when yer all fixed, we'd be goin' t'get it all back. All of it, missy, an' t'hell wi' anythin' in our way."

He could sense his Pearl's doubtful satisfaction with that reassurance, but she didn't make any further comment as he wandered off towards town, intent on reacquainting himself with a bottle of rum.

Fathoms 8

Good-byes