Freedom

Chapter 2

by

Garnet

But hadn't they come for him already? In the corner of the small cell, Pintel leered at him, his own neck half-cocked over to an impossible angle and raw red marks around his throat. His hand rubbing at the front of his breeches.

"We've not forgotten, Jack..."

Not forgotten. He'd not been forgotten. As if the thought had heralded the action, he heard footsteps then. Coming slowly down the far stairs.

He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again Pintel was gone and all he could see was stone walls and the filthy straw he'd been sleeping on. All he could feel was the weight of his flesh and just how fragile it was, and all he could remember was the snap of the rope, what it had felt like to be dead on the outside and yet still alive. Interesting, yes, but horrible at the same time.

To feel the flesh rotting around you. Your blood lying cold and black in your veins.

A throbbing pain lanced through his head and neck and he heard laughter again as he crawled and stumbled to his feet, using up what felt like the last of his strength in the process. He almost fell twice before he could get over to the window and pull himself up to the bars. His hands trembling the whole time and his legs feeling hollow, hardly able to bear his weight.

Yes, it was dawn and the sky was pale with it, still streaked here and there with gold and soft red clouds, a soft sweet breeze pouring in to touch his face. The horizon was an even paler mark beyond the bay, as if the sky and the sea had finally been able to merge into one. It was lovely, so very lovely, that it stole his breath away. How many times had he turned a ship to the wind. How may times had he tried to catch that distant horizon?

But there were no sails out there today, black or otherwise

Had he really expected there would be?

Had he really thought that the Commodore himself had come to see him last night? That the Governor would actually pardon him? A man he felt complete and utter contempt for. A man whose crimes were entirely clear.

A short drop and a sudden stop...

A pirate's life for me...

But Elizabeth had abandoned him and Will and the Pearl as well and now there was nothing left, nothing left at all.

Nothing but his life and he didn't want to die, after all. Life was too sweet for that, even if everything good had abandoned him. His luck had to turn around. She had never left him for long before, bitch goddess though She could be to some. Even through the curse She had sustained him, so why not now?

He could still escape the noose... return to the sea... chase that horizon... mayhap even get his Pearl back at long last...

He shook the bars, but they had no give to them at all, and then his legs abruptly gave way and he fell hard to the floor. He landed full on his back, his head striking the stone floor a glancing blow that dazed him. Distantly, he realized that the iron on his ankle had torn his skin again, that the chain binding him had rattled loud enough to wake the dead. Except that the dead were already awake, weren't they? They were already here with him.

After all, he could feel their cold breath on the back of his neck. The fog raised by the touch of the other world. The same fog that had dogged the Pearl as she had searched the seas for that cursed gold, town by town, ship by ship, piece by bloody piece. Plundering as she went. Destroying what she could not plunder.

His ship... his ship... lost again, though no longer a ghost...

Nay, he would be the ghost now.

And Jack laid there, breathing hard, shivering even harder, his stomach climbing up into his throat as the ceiling started to slowly turn above him. As the walls and the floor began to spin in the opposite direction. Warm fresh blood trickling down his foot and thousands of dust motes dancing in the air and those footsteps coming to a halt right in front of his cell.

But Pintel was back again, Ragetti peering over his shoulder, his wooden eye rolling in its socket as if of its own accord. A knowing look on his face. A hungry look. A look that said that he hadn't forgotten or forgiven either.

"Captain Sparrow?"

So very polite for someone come to tell him that the gallows was even now waiting for him. And it was strange, but he hadn't heard the usual crowd gathering below... mayhap, they had grown bored with the whole thing at the last. Or perhaps they were down there already, silent and waiting, all their eyes like polished coins, watching that empty noose with an eagerness that would have made any man shudder.

He suddenly decided he would smile at them. Sing Elizabeth's song, perhaps. Strike a pose they'd not soon forget before the rope came round his neck.

Hanged by the neck until dead...

An then you'll be ours...

"Captain Sparrow?"

"Aye," he whispered in response, but the word came out a harsh croak. If it had even passed his throat at all.

He tried to roll to his side, to get to his knees, if not to his feet, but the attempt just made him even more dizzy. It made the dust motes swirl and turn from gold to black. Gathering around him like carrion birds. At this rate, they would have to carry him hand and foot to the block.

He wasn't sure if he was entirely amused by that or no.

But the other two surely seemed to be. They started in to laughing and then their laughing turned into a harsh sound, as if of crows, tar-black birds coming to peck his eyes out, to eat the flesh off his bones... and he could feel their hands on him now, hard, skeletal fingers... and his head was spinning as hard as the walls and ceiling and he was cold, so very cold...

And then burning hot a bare moment later, pistol fire and smoke filling his head, as he felt himself lifted. Grapeshot tearing the flesh from his bones. Black sails moaning over his head, ragged and torn, his Pearl missing him as much as he missed her. Then he heard hushed voices beneath the sound of the crows, beneath the rattle of chains, and the shadow of the noose was falling over him, the blue sky swirling almost lazily over his head, and then he knew nothing more for a long time.

"You can't beat me, Jack," he said, but Jack tried anyway. He had to. He wanted to. Ten years and he had been wanting to kill the other man. Both for betraying him and for taking from him the one thing that had ever mattered.

But the blade sank into him without care and Barbossa just sighed and rolled his eyes. Before yanking out and turning it right around on him.

And Jack felt the steel slip inside him, felt it go right through him, and the sensation was icy-cold, convulsive, the cut of it so very sharp there was almost no pain. At first. He gasped, then looked up and saw a look of triumph on Barbossa's face...

And it shouldn't have hurt so very much, should it have? After all, he was cursed as well. He had stolen one of the Aztec coins. But now he could taste blood in his mouth and somehow the floor was coming up fast towards him. His vision beginning to spin, making him dizzy, forcing him to close his eyes.

No, mayhap not... had he only dreamt taking it then? The gold in his hand, cold and slick as blood. Aye, perhaps he was truly dead now, instead of simply cursed. Dead or dying.

But somewhere strong arms caught him, held him, and now the pain was in his chest as well, behind his eyes, in his head. He couldn't hardly breathe for the blood and he was so thirsty, so damnably thirsty...

"Plenty of water, Jack," he heard Barbossa say as he forced him to the plank. "An none of it to drink. Such a shame to see you go, but go you must."

He pried his eyes open somehow and found himself no longer in the cave on the Isla de Muerta, but on his own little island. The island he had been marooned on. The waves washing in and the white sand burning his bare feet and the Pearl vanishing in the distance as she seemed so very fond of, drifting out of his life like a dream.

Like a dream of a dream.

"No," he said somehow, the words tearing his throat. "Please..."

He went down to his knees on the shore, pleading with God, with the Devil, with any spirit who might be listening. But none were. Or if they were, they didn't care to respond. Because the Pearl was gone already, leaving him all alone on this tiny spit of land in the middle of a vast ocean. Leaving him with no food and no water. Nothing but a pistol with which to take his life when the last of it proved too much.

The sun flashed off the waves and made his head ache and he put a hand to his neck. It hurt, too. It was still badly bruised and sore from when the crew had strung him up the night of the mutiny.

Even now he could still hear the shouting, someone's brayish laughter, as he had swung above them. As they struck his legs with the edges of their blades, cutting flesh and leather and cloth alike. His vision rapidly going black and his pulse pounding hard and fast behind his eyes. The moon spinning high above the sails. The wind in his heart.

"Kick up your heels, Captain!"

"Dance for us, Jack... go on dance!"

Just before they'd abruptly all gone silent and he'd felt a tug on the rope, felt it give way before his weight. Spilling him hard at the feet of his former First Mate. Choking and gasping and choking again as he heard that familiar voice, the voice of the new Captain of the Pearl, as it mockingly chastised what had once been his own loyal crew.

"Now, now, gents," Barbossa had said. "Is that any way to be treating such a fine fellow as our Jack Sparrow here? Surely, even such as he doesn't deserve to be strung up like some common cutthroat."

He had somehow managed to roll half over then and look up, just before a boot came down on his throat, half-cutting his air off a second time. Holding him fast to the deck beneath the weight of the taller man. As the crew had roared in response, half of them in agreement with the sentiment and half still wanting his blood right then and there. But Barbossa had calmed them with a raised hand, oh so elegant and seemingly well assured of his new position aboard ship.

Even as his foot ground down hard and harder.

Until Jack could hardly breathe again. Until even the moon went away.

Barbossa's voice drifting like a ghost in the darkness.

"Well, lads. The treasure lies close ahead of us and I'm in the mood to be merciful. So, let's say we tie our Jack here to the mast and, by the Code, we'll find him a home eventually. Some lovely little isle to be all his own. Where none could say him any different."

All his own.

All alone...

"Water, Jack. C'mon, drink some of it..."

But the water was salt and he couldn't swallow it to save his life. And the blade lodged inside him still was making him shiver and it hurt so bad... every little bit of him hurt. The fish were at his bones right this moment. The birds had already stolen his eyes. His bones, his bones...

The face of a skull was grinning at him.

As he suddenly was on the floor of the cave once more, surrounded by treasure, silver and gold and gleaming, and Barbossa was looking down at him. An amused glint in his eyes that matched any bit of shine. An edge to his smile as sharp as the one he had thrust inside him.

His flesh and clothes gone to rags and rot.

"Monsters, Jack," he said. "I warned ye. You may have escaped from that other isle, but from this island there be no reprieve."

Then he knelt down close, close enough that Jack could smell the decay on his breath, could have put his fingers between his ribs if he liked. If he could have lifted a hand. But he was unable to move, unable to stop him, as Barbossa slid skeletal fingers into his hair. As he put the remains of that rotted mouth to his and kissed the blood off his own lips, sucked it out of his mouth. Taking his time of it. Naked teeth grating against his own. Something foul and slick squirming across his tongue, turning to burrow at the back of his throat.

"Still warm," Barbossa said then, sounding well pleased. "But soon t'will be cold enough. Soon ye'll be joining me, me lad. In Hell if nowhere else."

"No," Jack said, but the other man was laughing. Laughing like only the damned could laugh.

"C'mon, Jack... please fight... please drink this..."

But he didn't want to fight anymore and whatever they were pouring into his mouth tasted foul, as foul as Barbossa's kiss had been. He sputtered and tried to spit it back out, but they had forced his nose shut and his mouth and he was forced to swallow. It tried to come back up straight off, but those strong arms lifted him and held him until the urge passed.

And then he felt gentle-rough fingers touching his face. Pulling his hair back and laying something wet and cool across his forehead. He heard footsteps and another voice, this one seemingly as familiar as the last.

"Has the fever broken yet?"

"No," the second voice sounded right in his ear, worried, so worried, as those arms laid him back down again. Before they laid something heavy over the top of him. "And if not tonight then never, I'm afraid."

"A shame," the first responded. "To be given his freedom, only to die. Perhaps, he was right and his luck has run out, after all."

He knew that voice now. It was Norrington and the other... Will, Will Turner. But what were they doing together, what were they doing with him? It didn't make any sense and before he could try and make it make sense, he saw Barbossa's face again, saw that damned monkey grinning at him—both of them naught but bones and rags and dust—and he turned away from his betrayer, from the hands that were trying to soothe him, and sought the darkness that lay behind them all.

The darkness of black seas and, mingled as ever, the taste of salt-spray and tears.

As he drifted with the Pearl, burning hot one moment and deathly cold the next. Sometimes he were alone on the ship, lost in the fog and the night, sailing on black slate seas, and other times Barbossa stood there next to him. One hand on his shoulder, an almost amiable look on his grizzled face.

The same look he got when he was at his most dangerous.

But then the wind would shift and the Pearl turn with it and he would be alone again.

Feeling hands on him once more and something warm trickling down his throat and his body seeming like an empty shell of itself, an anchor holding him to what he least understood. Let alone was entirely sure he wanted anymore.

But was, still, unable to completely let go of.

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