Never Say Die

4. Fair Winds

by

Hippediva and Elessil

And a fine wind it was, speeding them at breakneck pace around the Keys and the coast, eastward to the Atlantic.

Jack tired of his latest pose and looked around slyly. James was aloft, giving them as much canvas as the small sloop could carry. When he closed his eyes, Jack could almost believe he was flying.

He opened them again and fumbled for his compass when there was a soft sound at his feet. He looked down and started.

Eyes shifting, he nudged the peanut with his toe. Another glance around and he swept it into his pocket and stood staring at the deck.

Why am I being followed by peanuts? I don't even like peanuts. Much prefer cashews. Or almonds. I like almonds...

There was a thump on the deck as James slid down the backstay from his perch on the crossjack. He glanced up and wandered over to haul it tighter, securing the sheet on the belaying pin. Then he leaned back against the bulwark, one eyebrow raised expectantly. "That should do for a while, if we keep on course. Which I could, of course, tell you, if I knew our course."

Jack started from his reverie with the taste of sugared almonds consuming his memory and the smell of peanuts interfering with it. Understandably irritated, his chin rose and he pointed vaguely east. "Thataway."

"Why yes, since those are our current bearings, I hoped we were heading that way." James idly turned a string of hemp between his fingers then glanced afore, where Gibbs was sprawling on the deck. "Permission to excuse myself, Captain," he drawled.

"While ye're up an' about, I could use a drop." Jack watched James stalk away and grimaced. Not very obligin' sort of fellow. His lip pushed out but his eyes had been following James aloft. Damned fine sailor. He cocked his head to one side, appraisingly. Damned fine...

He dragged his gaze from the naval posterior back to the horizon. No one lookin', might as well.

He opened the compass.

He smiled and gave the wheel a tug. Then he stared and shook it. Not again!

Curiously, it spun lazily between his original heading and just a little way from it, directly ahead. He snapped it shut and carefully opened it again.

Ahh. rum. Of course, the rum.

He returned his attention to the wind and their almost ungodly speed.

James brought him the bottle with a stilted bow and an insolent grin, then trudged fore to the bow.

Gibbs grunted a reply to his dream pig and snorted himself awake. He stretched and yawned, took a nip from his flask and peered at Jack, fumbling with his compass again. He took another nip.

James watched him from a few paces away, turning another bottle in his hands. Sparrow reacted to any questions about their course as he did to rum, taking them in without much reaction. Time for a change of plan.

He padded over to where Gibbs lay and settled himself on the deck. "We're making good speed."

Josh lumbered to his feet and made for the lee rail. "Dear God in Heaven! Is Jack mad? 'Tisn't natural! Bad luck!" He replaced whatever he'd just relieved himself of from his flask.

"Now, now. The Calpyso is a sleek and fast little beauty with a fine amount of canvas. I assure you, there are no sea turtles involved."

Gibbs flask hit the deck. "Don't mention her name! 'Tis the foulest of luck!" He scrabbled after it on all fours.

"It is bad luck mentioning the name of the ship one is sailing? That one is new, I believe." James held out the bottle.

Joshamee looked up from lapping at the spilled rum. "Wot did ya say?"

"Calypso. Portside astern. On her hull."

To James' eyes, it was most definitely a case of being between a fool and an idiot. Gibbs was twirling around in place and spraying the bow with spit. Some thirty five feet away, his captain was dancing at the wheel, compass in hand.

Gibbs leaned close, his breath a blast of rum. "Jack be headin' into the Devil's Triangle an' God help us when he finds it."

James' eyebrow twitched and he barely contained a smirk. "Seems God is not the one we have to worry about," he drawled casually, offering up the bottle and straightening just a bit, a captive audience.

"Mad as a hatter before he set foot in Davy Jones Locker an' now, he's hellbent on the Trials of Neptune where the Devil's water touches the sea." Gibbs' flask was not sufficient and he snatched the bottle, guzzling and making strange signs with his fingers.

It was evident that, as insane as Gibbs might consider Jack, he was inordinately proud of him.

James feigned a grab for the bottle, then left it to Gibbs. "Neptune's Trials? That's a tale to scare children," he snorted, watching the one ambition that Mr. Gibbs had come into play.

"Ahhh, you know the stories, then... those wild waters where ships disappear into fog so thick ya can't see yer fingers before yer face." Josh scared himself, waggling dirty fingers. "An' the sea itself churns against the currents an' winds blow sideways. Where compasses don't work an' the only thing 'tween a man an' the shores o' hell itself is the hope o' a quick an' painless death."

James listened with an eager ear, ignoring turtles and purple porpoises, only interjecting quiet questions or sounds of disbelief when he wanted more information. Finally, Mr. Gibbs' tale, and the bottle, were done, which apparently seemed to warrant another nap. Before the snoring could fade into grunting, James rose.

He stalked aft where Jack was alternatively guzzling from his bottle and cooing to the ship. "So, you intend to take us to the one place where your compass is equal to all others: broken?"

Jack's face didn't change, but his eyes slid sideways. "One man's broken is another's—fixed." he retorted. Very clever, Commodadmiral. Should bloody sew Gibbs' mouth shut wif a sail needle. "Wot of it? It's where we'll find th' Pearl."

Like a card player with a questionable hand, Jack peered once more at the compass. The needle drifted back and forth: east-so-east, then right in front of him. James moved a little ways off and the needle moved with him. Jack's eyebrow quirked.

I do NOT! I don't think I do? Do I? He watched it return to the course, stay there for a while, then slide again to James and back.

James' voice cut into his thoughts. "So it is. But how come I doubt that the chart in your coat denotes the Pearl's position?" Norrington was close, hovering just barely over the wheel, their hands almost touching.

"Ahhhh." Funny how the green eyes could look so hard and be so deceptive. Jack grinned. "How appallin'ly low of you t'be pryin', James. Very ill-mannered indeed. An' very clever." He suddenly snapped the compass closed. "Well, James, I was thinkin' that you should navigate. Wot say you t'that?"

There was an approving giggle in the wind, soft and just a bit drunk, cut short by James' derisive snort. "Now that I know our heading, despite your unwillingness to oblige me, I may as well do the work?"

"No, James, it's only your unwillingness t'take th' helm that's stoppin' you." Sparrow's eyes twinkled as he abruptly tied off the wheel and tugged James down to the deck. He unrolled the chart, spinning the segments with light touches, one dirty forefinger pointing. "There."

James' eyes widened as they followed the length of Jack's finger to the map, the delicate bamboo seeming to shift like waves. He leaned closer, the length of their arms aligning. "Impressive." A small thrill went through him, and something drew his own hand to trace the path to their destination. He looked up. "If you have the map, how do you know Barbossa will be there?"

"Ev'ry sailor alive knows the Devil's Water. He'll be there." Their foreheads nearly touched as they pored over the arcane bamboo. Jack's black eyes were bewitching. "Think of it, luv. In addition, of course, to our original agreement of you helpin' me get my ship."

He pulled back a little, watching Norrington's rapt expression with a wicked grin. "An' seein' as you've really nothin' much t'return to in Jamaica, I'd say new horizons would be most welcome, aye?" His dark face jangled closer, fingers tickling the air. "Think of it, James. Immortality. Not torn out of someone's chest but waitin' for ya, poured an' ready. Think of bravin' through fer that. Course, once we have th' Pearl, yer off yer accord an' free to go where ya like."

"How kind of you." James swallowed thickly. Oh, he'd thought of it, when Jones asked him whether he feared death. When he'd woken drifting in the water, his chest hale and whole except for a longing thrum. But eternity without a place to spend it was as frightening as a borderless limbo. As Jack had put it, there was little left in Jamaica. He'd sailed off under Beckett's command to hunt down ghosts; and then he had returned to a world full of them; ghosts of those he had failed, whose safety he'd thought to provide, and with that, safety for himself. The safety to do the right thing. Was that gone? Was it too late? Had Port Royal fallen into an anarchic mess? There was nothing he could do as one man, without the Navy, without the East India Company, for better or for worse.

But there was the grip on his heart as he looked at the map, a calling as soft and insistent as the sea. Immortality, to make him feel alive. He snorted and tore his eyes away from the chart to watch Jack's beard quiver. "Every sailor alive? That leaves just the question who of us three is," he snorted.

"Does it, luv?" Jack breathed in the wind, sure that he'd been right this time to share the bearings. "More than one way t'skin that cat. So yer in?" He put out his hand over the chart, his lips twitching into a smile.

"I'm already in over my head." Finally, James raised his head and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. If Barbossa was after immortality, that alone was reason enough to sail along. A crew of immortal pirates? He distinctly remembered the ramifications of that. Maybe he no longer had his rank, but he still knew his duty. Another chance to prove himself. His eyes gleamed as he took the outstretched hand.

"You in over your head too, Jack Sparrow. Far over. An' he taller than you." Another giggle drifted in the wind.

Jack grimaced. "I never know where I stand wif you, luv. Lovely wind, tho'."

"Sparrow, you are apparently too drunk to stand anywhere. You are sitting in the lee of the bulwark."

"Wasn't talkin' to—sorry." Jack rose and rolled up the chart. "I don't have any articles t'sign so let's just drink on it." He swayed like a snake. "An' I resent that!"

James shrugged. "And I resent you. So?" He plucked the bottle from Jack's hand and drank from it.

"Speakin' of resentin', I do believe that I've a greater claim to it. You havin' hanged me an' all, and then joinin' my crew an' bein' a mutineer. But—" the long fingers twisted and twitched. "that's all old news, innit? Don't matter now. So I resent th' implications that you consider it fair for you t'be resentin' me."

James smirked "Sparrow, do shut up. That was a lifetime ago. And you are still annoying me now."

Jack sulked as he turned his attention to the neck of the bottle, but his eyes twinkled again. "An' one lifetime is enough innit? I, personally, am very glad t'see you shakin' off the coils, as it were, backwards. I told you I was rootin' fer you!"

"Sparrow. I meant it. Do shut up." James' eyes shone as he took the bottle and emptied it.

"Norrington, ye've never been much of a sociable sort, have ya? Wot happened t'you? Trouble wif girls when you was a lad? Spots?" Jack asked brightly.

"Ah yes. I suppose trouble with girls would explain trouble with you."

"I beg your pardon! I have enough o' that, thank you very much an' I'm startin' t'resent yer implications again."

Moustache quivering, Jack betook himself below to nurse his wounded dignity in a private bottle. He did spend a few minutes really sulking and, for the first time, he missed the monkey. It was such a relief to shoot the creature.

Since Jack's dysfunctional compass was the only one aboard, James steered the Calypso by the stars winking in the darkening sky, humming a shanty to himself as the wind whipped his hair into his face.

It had been far too long since he'd last steered a ship himself, but soon he could feel the familiar rumbling of the waves through the wood in his hands, could hear the whisper of the wind in the sails above him. It was midnight before he called to Gibbs to relieve him.

The single cabin was narrow and stuffy, but there was a bunk with clean sheets and an actual mattress. He stretched out and was asleep before he could wonder where Sparrow had gone.

Jack had been lying propped up against the bulwark where he could watch the stars overhead, islands in the black heavens. He dreamed himself a ship among them, sails billowed with the dust of comets. He heard James' steps, Gibbs heavy tread, and waited until the skies wheeled and turned, Orion lost over the horizon. He slipped below like a shadow and crept towards the bunk, tripped over James' boot and fell into it.

James groaned unwillingly and hugged the blanket tighter. "Isn't there a hammock?"

"Mmmnnnnn," Jack shook his head, hauling the spare blanket over his shoulders and curling on one side. "Go back t'sleep."

James huffed a breath and curled closer to the wall. "Fine. Stop sprawling. And 'm still not your pillow."

"Bloody hell!" Jack snorted. "I wouldn't presume."

"We have an understanding." James' voice was low and drifted back into a soft snore.

Jack sprawled, rolled, turned, kicked and finally entangled himself in the blanket but by morning, he was snuggled against his bunkmate very comfortably. He even lay still for at least two minutes enjoying just how comfortable. Up, mate. Time an' tide. He reluctantly unglued his eyes.

He sat bolt upright, hitting his head. "OWW!"

There was a peanut on his pillow.

He was now wide awake and comfort became discomfort as he tried to sit in the low bunk while suffering the onset of a whole different sort of morning awakeness. He grabbed the peanut with a growl and crawled topside with a fading bulge in his breeches.

James stifled a laugh in his pillow but, when he nearly hit his own head, felt a twinge of sympathy. Only a minute later, he was topside, sniffing at the fresh sea air.

Gibbs was nodding at the wheel and Jack tiptoed up to him, intent on some mischief, when he stopped in his tracks and straightened.

There was no wind. None at all. He held up a finger, sucked on it, held it up again, then made a face.

The sea around the small ship was still as glass, liquid and frozen at once. Jack's lip curled and he looked at James with a smirk. "Mr. Gibbs? I was wonderin', if ya please, could you tell me exactly when the sea STOPPED?"

Gibbs sputtered and snorted. "Cap'n! Wot, sir, I was just—oh Jesus and the saints o' heaven! " He gladly backed away from the wheel.

Jack looked back at James. "Apparently, we have a problem." He squinted into the flat calm, sunlight beating off the water in blinding, shifting sheets. East-so-east, a dot wavered sending ripples through the still water. "Spyglass!"

Gibbs shuffled and James wordlessly took it from Jack's own pocket, holding it up.

A small sail, reddish in the golden light, became clearer, moving oddly, as if suddenly closer and then drifting further away. Jack blinked and squinted, then started as it loomed dead ahead: a fishing boat, nets overwhelming it, filled with eels that slithered in and out of the ropes, a moving mass bulging over its side. In it, a big woman sat, laughing up at them.

"You sail inta waters most fierce." She raised her straw hat, one pale eye staring in her dark face. "See to where you dream, Captain." In her hands, she wove a basket, the kind sold in the gullah markets, fine and fast. But her weaving changed patterns and swirled as she worked. "De Sea rings round the sacred well and three times breath regained. An' when dey hear da choir, dey find cold fire an' de winds turn round again." She cackled.

Jack looked down. "I don't suppose I could ask fer a critical elaboration on that?"

The milkwhite eye fixed on him. "You charm, Jack Sparrow. An' you tongue steal. You see!" Her laugher floated like the ripples of her faint wake as she held up the basket, turning it.

The patterns had become silhouettes, like so many James had seen in fine drawing rooms at home. Three profiles, indistinct, as if half-formed.

"You see far, Navigator. Remember dem eyes that see far miss up close, ehya?" she called over her shoulder as the little craft passed them on the millpond sea. It faded and winked and was gone.

Jack grinned in a wobbly fashion and waggled one hand. "Thanks, luv. Always appreciated. Gibbs, James, either of you happen t'know any heathen weather dances? Wind charms?"

"I hear tying the captain to the bowsprit as a figurehead works miracles," James drawled, his eyes still fixed on the empty sea. He wasn't sure he'd ever grow accustomed to the supernatural, no matter how insistently it chose to invade his life.

He felt a strand of hair tickle the back of his neck and jerked his head up to the tiny flag on the mainmast, raising itself lazily to flutter. "Seems the weather gods agree."

Jack hid his smile and peered overhead. "Seems yer right, luv." His hands flew about at the wheel. "Wot are ya waitin' fer? Go—navigate!" He was about to turn, then stopped and checked their bearing. He considered the results and suddenly tossed the compass to Norrington.

The faint breeze did nothing to dispel the eerie stillness around the little ship and Jack, with his golden grin, seemed a part of its weird allure.

"Tell me, James. Where are we goin'?"

James snapped the compass open and watched the needle quiver. "Hell. Which, according to your broken compass, seems to be starboard ahead."

Gibbs panted to the helm and held out a rope. "Are we still fer tyin' the Cap'n to the bowsprit? Beggin yer pardon, Jack."

James smirked.

Jack sniffed and looked down his nose at them. "Mr. Gibbs, may I remind you of something?"

Josh nodded expectantly.

"Cannibals. Mr. Norrington?" Jack's moustache quivered. "Keep us on course, eh?"

His mouth twitched into a smile. Then he turned, grabbed the rope from Gibbs with a shove and stomped into the bow to enjoy a bit of well-deserved lollygagging.

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