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honoratby Honorat
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Anamaria, the crew of the Black Pearl, Commodore Norrington
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does? Supposedly for the “Bar” challenge at Black Pearl Sails, but this ain’t no drabble, pilgrim!
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geek_mama_2 for the beta help.
1 Ambush
* * * * *
2 No Regrets
Anamaria watched as Captain Sparrow made his way along the plunging decks as though he were glued to them. In calm weather, and especially on land, the captain walked like he was five sheets to the wind on a storm-tossed ship, but when the seas rolled high and heavy, an uncanny stillness seemed to flow over him. Everyone else fought the storm, but Jack became it—or had been it all along and was only now returned to his rightful element. He was trailing one hand along the ship’s railing.
She grinned at the familiar gesture. When he’d first got the Black Pearl back, Jack hadn’t been able to take his hands off her, as though without the evidence of his fingers, he couldn’t believe his eyes or his ears that she was really there and his. As though, if he just once let her slip through his fingers, someone would separate them again. He’d walk entirely around her deck rather than let her loose in order to cross it. Even yet, he never took her wheel without a caress of the silken wood and that luminous look of a bridegroom coming to his beloved. The grin left her face as she considered what Jack must be thinking now.
Her fists clenched, needing to be shedding some Navy blood more than anything, but in the absence of that delightful option, she needed to be doing something. She whirled on Gibbs, spoiling for a fight, any fight, but that scabrous dog had fled back to his watch, his sense of self-preservation being second only to Jack’s.
Through the pelt of rain, Jack was becoming an indistinct shadow up by the bowsprit. Then he disappeared entirely. He would be crawling out on that pitching spar, Anamaria knew, slipping down between the Black Pearl’s windblown wings and lying there communing with his ship. She’d known him to spend hours there. She had no idea if the ship ever had anything to say back.
They didn’t have time for such indulgence if this ship was to be ready to meet the Dauntless and her companion in combat on the incoming tide. But it was throwing words to the wind trying to make Jack Sparrow see sense. Sometimes she was convinced he wasn’t quite occupying the same world as the rest of them. She scowled down the deck. Jack had given no orders to prepare the guns. She wondered if she should take the initiative.
Anamaria decided she’d climb to the maintop to prevent herself pulling out one of those cannons and blowing a hole in something or someone just to improve her temper. She’d take a look at those Royal Navy ships herself. And maybe wish really hard for a hurricane to plunge the two of them right to Davy Jones’ Locker. Bloody bastards threatening to take Jack from his ship or his ship from Jack. Anamaria enjoyed a good fight on the open sea, but this would be a slaughter—not a sporting engagement at all. As the wind high on the mast whipped her hair across her face, she clung to that swaying spar and glared across the heaving seas to where the indistinct forms of the warships bobbed on the ocean—but they did not catch fire and explode.
As her feet hit the deck again, she saw Jack returning slowly from the bow, his face drawn into even finer, sharper lines than usual. His hand, no longer willing to brush lightly along the rail, gripped it with whitened knuckles.
She didn’t know what to say to him. He hadn’t had that look in his eyes since she’d met him before he’d stolen her boat, when he’d told her about losing his ship.
But he said simply, emotionlessly, “Anamaria, muster the crew, will you, love?” passing by her without pausing and continuing on up to the Pearl’s helm.
Anamaria turned to see him relieve Mr. Gibbs of the watch. Then Jack took the Black Pearl’s wheel, not with his usual caress, but with a fierce, protective hold, pressing up against her, his head bowed so that the rain ran off his hat and over her spokes like tears.
Damn Commodore Norrington and every last one of those Navy dogs to the deepest circle of hell!
Anamaria ran to call up the crew, her strong voice pitched to drown out the storm and the ship and any dreams of sleeping men. Everybody jumped when Anamaria bellowed.
“All hands! All hands on deck! Haul your lazy, good-for-nothing carcasses up here, ye scurvy varmints!”
As the crew straggled to the deck below the helm, the rumours had already spread. There’d be bloodshed between the Black Pearl and the Royal Navy before nightfall. They looked belligerent and a few of the more gifted seamen looked worried.
Anamaria wondered what the captain had decided.
It turned out he hadn’t. He was going to call for a pirates’ vote. Jack explained the situation succinctly enough, with none of his usual flamboyance. The number of worried looks increased.
“So what’s in your mind, Cap’n?” Duncan called out.
“The way I see it,” Jack began, “we’ve got at least three choices.”
He’d found a third choice? Anamaria wondered.
Hands waving at about a quarter of the enthusiasm he normally displayed, Jack demonstrated their options. “When the storm dies down and the tide turns, Norrington will bring his little boats across that bar. At that point we can blast them with our cannons until we run out of shot or men, while they blast us back with twice the cannon and six times the men. Then they take the survivors for gallows ornaments and Cay decorations, eh?” He paused, looked down, and stroked a hand along the ship’s wheel. “And the Pearl will be scuppered.” There was an unaccustomed tightness to that statement.
“Don’t sound too partic’lar appealin’, Cap’n,” Duncan called out. “What else y’sellin’?”
“Well, now,” Jack recollected himself. “Choice number two. We wave the white flag—Do we have a white flag? Anybody got any clean smalls? No? Well we’ll think of something. Anyways. We wave something white and go peaceable with the ol’ Navy boys. That’ll mean most of us learn to dance a lot faster’n we might have hoped. Got such a list of crimes it’d take a t’gallant to write ‘em out on. Yes, Marty. You know I’m talking about you, you blackguard!”
Jack pointed at the short pirate in the front circle of men. The rest of the crew roared with laughter. It was far more than the joke deserved, but they needed some sort of release. Jack laughed too, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
He continued earnestly, “But some of you haven’t been pirating long enough to get a record of charges to live down. They’ll likely just do something highly uncomfortable to you, but if you promise to see the error of your ways, you’ll be alive to complain, as it were. Some of you might even be able to plead coercion—you know—boarded by dastardly pirates, given the choice serve or be shark bait, innocent victims of tragic circumstances—you know the song. You’d likely get off free, particularly if the Navy is short on hands and needs to press some able-bodied seamen, savvy?”
The men looked at one another. How many of them could avail themselves of such lies?
“That might be our best option for any sort of survival, men. And the Pearl would have a new career as a Navy prize. Believe me, I’ll be dumping all the swag in Davy Jones before letting those scoundrels board her. The only gold the Navy’ll be getting out of me, they’ll have to pry out o’ me teeth!”
Yes, either of those options was death for Captain Sparrow, Anamaria reflected. The British would never let him escape again.
“That’s gettin’ a bit better, Cap’n,” Duncan called, having appointed himself spokesman. “But ye’re not at the top of yer form there, mate. You said a third option. What’ll that be?”
Jack was silent for a moment, surveying his men. “Not a good one at all, mates. I’m sorry.”
The crew stared back at him soberly. They were hearing Jack Sparrow admit to defeat, something not a one of them had ever expected.
“We’re listenin’,” Duncan said quietly.
“Any port in a storm!” added Cotton’s parrot.
“Aye, it’s a storm, right enough,” Jack mused. He raised his head a notch and looked out towards the crashing surf in the channel.
“Option number three—we take the Black Pearl and cross that bar before the tide turns.” He pointed to the seething tumult at the mouth of their harbour.
“’E’s definitely lost it this time,” someone said reverently.
The murmurs rose above the wail of the wind in the Black Pearl’s rigging as the men debated the seriousness of their daft captain. Jack held up a hand, and gradually they fell silent again.
“Understand, I’m not offering escape this time. All I’ve got to offer is a chance to die like a man and a pirate rather than a dog and a landlubber, savvy? There’s no skill in this world or the next that’s going to make a bit of difference to those seas. If there’s any chance of coming out on the other side, it’ll be in the hands of the gods, not mine. If our luck is in, we might make it through. There’ll still be the Dauntless and her mate out there to blast us to kingdom come, but there’ll also be sea room. We might get a chance to run for it. However, it’s not likely we’ll make it. I’ll not lie to you.” Jack’s gaze raked his crew.
“Ye’re a lousy merchant, Jack Sparrow,” Duncan said calmly. “Ye need some better products.”
“One death,” Jack answered with a hollow grin. “That’s all I’ve got for today. You choose. Which one is it to be? Won’t cost but all you have.”
“What’s your preference, Captain?” Mr. Gibbs finally spoke, watching Jack carefully.
Jack slicked the rain off his face with both hands before answering. “You all know there’s only one outcome for me in this. So if I were to choose, I’d prefer to go out over that bar rather than meet that rope again.”
He met Gibbs eyes and held them for a second. The older man nodded and turned away. Jack motioned for his first mate to dismiss the crew
“Alright, you lot of mangy curs,” Anamaria hollered. “You’ve got time to jaw this over and then we’ll vote.”
“And if any of you comes up with a better plan,” Jack added. “I’d be willing to entertain the notion.”
The crew scattered apart into little knots of serious discussion. Anamaria scanned them critically. She couldn’t guess what would be their decision. Well, some of them she could guess. Mr. Cotton for example.
Mr. Cotton’s parrot hunched on his shoulder, looking disgruntled, shifting from one foot to the other, his blue and gold feathers ruffled out against the rain. Cotton himself was watching the captain with that fond hero-worship that always made Anamaria want to slap Jack just to balance out his character. There was never any doubt which way Cotton would vote. Captain wanted his ship and crew in ol’ Davy Jones’ Locker? Aye, aye, sir! Cotton would follow Jack Sparrow to hell and back. Sure enough.
“Dead men tell no tales!” the parrot offered.
No, nor dead women, either. Anamaria shivered as though someone had walked over her grave. She wished she could come up with a more useful plan than Jack’s. Something that would keep the Pearl and her captain safe and in one piece. But no inspiration occurred.
Through the entire time, Jack Sparrow stayed motionless at the helm of the Black Pearl, except for occasionally drawing random little patterns in the raindrops on her wood. He looked up when Duncan pulled apart from the rest of the pirates.
“We’ve made our decision, Cap’n,” Duncan said gravely. “We all agree. Ye’ve never steered us wrong in the past, no matter what the ruckus ye’ve mired us in. And none o’ us is any too fond o’ givin’ the Royal Navy the satisfaction o’ nailin’ our carcasses t’ the wall. So we’ll be followin’ ye if ye want t’ cross that bar. It’s a good death, Cap’n Sparrow. That’s all we’re askin’.”
The incandescence of Jack’s face made Anamaria check to see if the sun had come out in spite of the rain that was trickling irritatingly down her neck. The men around her grinned, pleased with themselves.
As if he were his own statue come back to life, Jack re-animated.
“It’s an honour to sail with you gentlemen,” he crowed, all his wild waving returning. “Norrington and his little ships can bob about out where it’s sure to be safe. Let’s show these Navy dogs what a feckless pack of cowards they are!”
“And what a maggot-brained pack of devil-may-cares we are!” Anamaria muttered to herself. But she was happy to see Jack re-lit with the sparkle of some impossible caper that would have any sane man on his knees saying his final prayers.
Besides, she had no bloody desire to feel the noose around her own neck. Jack was right. Better the sea that they loved than the Royal Navy that hated them. She bared her teeth in a fierce, hungry smile. Let’s show them indeed. Norrington and his men would see a show the likes of which they’d never seen before.
* * * * *
Bounding down from the quarterdeck, Anamaria set the Black Pearl’s crew to scurrying. The ship had to be made as ready as possible for her ordeal. Her cargo and guns had to be lashed down so no gyrations of her hull would shift them. Her hatches had to be battened down. And every man had to be sure of his task when her anchors should be weighed and her sails set.
When she was satisfied that she’d stirred the men to an appropriate level of frantic activity, Anamaria returned to the quarterdeck. Joining Jack by the helm, she asked him, with a sarcastic curl to her lip, “So, do I get to die like a man, too?”
Jack turned to her, his mind apparently already out on that bar. “You’ll take the helm with me, Anamaria?” he asked.
Anamaria was stunned into silence. In those seas, Jack would need a second set of hands on the Pearl’s wheel. She just hadn’t imagined he’d ask her. Not trusting her voice to answer, she nodded.
Jack grinned at her. “It’s been an adventure, hasn’t it love? They’ll never forget the Black Pearl.”
“Aye,” Anamaria managed. “Nor her daft as a loon captain.”
With a faraway look in his eyes, Jack wondered, “Why did you stay on, Anamaria? I’d have given you that ship.” He glanced back at her and smirked. “You could have been your own shipmaster, above the law, and looking forward to being a wrinkled old gray-haired harriden with a thousand grandchildren instead of setting out to be the prettiest pirate to decorate Davy Jones’ Locker, eh?”
There were a number of answers to that question, most of which would be drowning with her. Anamaria avoided them all. “What? You’re not planning on going down with your ship, Jack Sparrow?”
Jack’s smirk increased. “What, flattery, love? Ain’t I conceited enough for you?”
She punched half-heartedly at his arm. “Fop!”
“Virago!” he shot back.
Jack looked out over the sea to that horizon that seemed farther away today than it had in years. “No regrets?” he asked her.
Anamaria had so many regrets they’d be here through two more tides.
“You?” she asked.
He was silent a moment, playing thoughtfully with his braided beard with one hand, the other still touching the Black Pearl.
Finally he turned to her. “Just one.”
She couldn’t read his expression.
With his swift grace, Jack drew so close that she could see the raindrops clinging to his eyelashes and sparkling on his moustache, could see the silver tracery of rain on the angles of his face. Before she could back up, he took her face in his hands, his fingertips like chips of ice against her flesh.
Anamaria froze and ceased to breathe. Her startled eyes flew to his. Jack Sparrow’s eyes. There ought to be an eleventh commandment against a man having eyes like that she thought wildly.
And then she ceased to think.
She could only feel the touch of his lips on hers. Feel the death-like chill of them, the rain-wet brush of his beard. And oh, feel the glowing, smoldering embers at the heart of that kiss—as though his flesh were already relinquishing life, but the soul of him burned all the more fiercely with its immortal fire.
Jack’s pulse drummed in his fingertips on her face. She could hear his breath catch and shatter against her lips. Her own breath seemed to have been stolen away by the wind that lashed around the two of them, tangling their salt-soaked hair together. Anamaria felt the stinging clamour of Jack’s beads strike her cheek.
From far away, over the hurricane roaring in her ears, she could hear the whistles and catcalls of the Pearl’s crew.
Then Jack released her slowly, drawing away and leaving only cold behind and the memory of fire. His fingers brushed the rain from her cheeks. His eyes on her were molten.
“Now, I have no regrets,” he said.
The crew waited patiently for Anamaria to slap the captain. Anamaria always slapped the captain when he got too bold—which was a powerful lot of the time. “But you make it so irresistible, love!” he’d complain. Captain might as well get her handprint tattooed on his face, was the general opinion. He was a braver man than they were.
In a way, a spat between the captain and the first mate would be a relief—restore some semblance of normality to a nightmare situation.
But Anamaria did not slap Jack. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and bring back the warmth of life into that chill of death. She wanted to pull out a pistol and shoot the bastard herself and save the sea the trouble. She wanted to cry for all those lost regrets and all the impossible futures. She did none of those things. Instead, she just stood there, staring at him.
A small smile teased the corner of his mouth, but he turned to the crew that had been collecting on deck as they completed their tasks. They were a soggy and bedraggled bunch for men who would be making such a desperate last stand. Every one of them a good man and a good pirate.
“This is it, men!” he called to them. “They’ll tell this tale from here to Zanzibar!”
The crew cheered wildly.
But Jack’s face was dead sober when he said softly to them, “Thank you.”
The men looked abashed, and a few of them shuffled self-consciously.
“Ye’re welcome, Cap’n,” Duncan said for them all.
“Very well then.” Jack nodded, meeting each man’s eyes once. Then he waved his arms in energetic circles. “All hands aloft to loose canvas!”
The decks cleared like magic.
Jack set his hands on the Black Pearl's wheel again and drew a deep breath. Still standing by the captain but trying to ignore him, Anamaria took hold of the ship as well. Instantly, the Pearl was alive under her hands—different from when Anamaria was alone at the helm. As though when Jack was touching the Black Pearl, she was something more than a ship. A frisson almost of fear crept up Anamaria’s spine.
* * * * *
“Commodore.” The lookout Norrington had posted was calling down out of the fighting top. “Something’s up over on the Black Pearl, sir. I can’t quite make out what.
So, Sparrow was having a Plan, was he? Norrington decided the situation merited his personal attention. Trying to match strategies with Jack Sparrow was like trying to predict the wind. One needed every last scrap of available information. The storm had borne the Dauntless far enough from the harbour mouth that he could not see his quarry from on deck. He’d have to join his man aloft. The corner of the commodore’s mouth quirked. He didn’t often have a legitimate excuse to indulge himself in the pleasure of a jaunt into the rigging. With alacrity he scrambled up. Reaching the narrow platform, he raised his glass and trained it on the sleek, deadly form of his adversary’s ship.
The rough tossing of the Dauntless kept interfering with his focus, but in between his ship’s slide into the troughs of the heavy seas, Norrington received the impression that the Black Pearl’s rigging swarmed with pirates, that in fact, they were moving out along each of her yards—as though Sparrow had ordered not only storm canvas unfurled, but every last shred of sail she carried. Surely not, Norrington stared in disbelief. But even as he thought it, he saw the sable sails come tumbling down, whipping in the wind as the tiny figures desperately fought to sheet them home. Even Jack Sparrow couldn’t be that daft, could he? The only possible reason for spreading canvas in this gale was that Sparrow had decided to run that bar. And such a course was madness, suicidal even. The Black Pearl was a bonny ship, but those cannonading seas across that bar were rising between twenty and fifty feet. One such broadside and she would turn turtle and be pounded under.
Regaining the deck of his ship, Norrington tried to imagine himself inside Sparrow’s head but failed miserably. What did that Bedlamite imagine he could do?
And yet, Norrington considered, this was the man with the temerity to pilot the Dauntless through that impossible ship’s graveyard to Isla de Muerta. And this was also the man who had backed over the battlements of Fort Charles. Whether the timing had been intentional or not, Jack Sparrow had definitely planned to make that jump into the crushing seas below, risking the rocks for his freedom.
The commodore came to a decision. If the impossible happened, and the Black Pearl came across that bar, the Dauntless and the Defender would be waiting for her. His men would question his own sanity, but Norrington was never going to underestimate that pirate again. This time, he swore, if Sparrow would not surrender, he would take that beautiful ship apart plank by plank and send her to the bottom of the sea, if it took every pound of shot he possessed and every ounce of powder, too.
TBC
3 The Judgment of the Sea
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Anamaria, the crew of the Black Pearl, Commodore Norrington
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does? Supposedly for the “Bar” challenge at Black Pearl Sails, but this ain’t no drabble, pilgrim!
Thanks to
geek_mama_2 for the beta help.1 Ambush
* * * * *
2 No Regrets
Anamaria watched as Captain Sparrow made his way along the plunging decks as though he were glued to them. In calm weather, and especially on land, the captain walked like he was five sheets to the wind on a storm-tossed ship, but when the seas rolled high and heavy, an uncanny stillness seemed to flow over him. Everyone else fought the storm, but Jack became it—or had been it all along and was only now returned to his rightful element. He was trailing one hand along the ship’s railing.
She grinned at the familiar gesture. When he’d first got the Black Pearl back, Jack hadn’t been able to take his hands off her, as though without the evidence of his fingers, he couldn’t believe his eyes or his ears that she was really there and his. As though, if he just once let her slip through his fingers, someone would separate them again. He’d walk entirely around her deck rather than let her loose in order to cross it. Even yet, he never took her wheel without a caress of the silken wood and that luminous look of a bridegroom coming to his beloved. The grin left her face as she considered what Jack must be thinking now.
Her fists clenched, needing to be shedding some Navy blood more than anything, but in the absence of that delightful option, she needed to be doing something. She whirled on Gibbs, spoiling for a fight, any fight, but that scabrous dog had fled back to his watch, his sense of self-preservation being second only to Jack’s.
Through the pelt of rain, Jack was becoming an indistinct shadow up by the bowsprit. Then he disappeared entirely. He would be crawling out on that pitching spar, Anamaria knew, slipping down between the Black Pearl’s windblown wings and lying there communing with his ship. She’d known him to spend hours there. She had no idea if the ship ever had anything to say back.
They didn’t have time for such indulgence if this ship was to be ready to meet the Dauntless and her companion in combat on the incoming tide. But it was throwing words to the wind trying to make Jack Sparrow see sense. Sometimes she was convinced he wasn’t quite occupying the same world as the rest of them. She scowled down the deck. Jack had given no orders to prepare the guns. She wondered if she should take the initiative.
Anamaria decided she’d climb to the maintop to prevent herself pulling out one of those cannons and blowing a hole in something or someone just to improve her temper. She’d take a look at those Royal Navy ships herself. And maybe wish really hard for a hurricane to plunge the two of them right to Davy Jones’ Locker. Bloody bastards threatening to take Jack from his ship or his ship from Jack. Anamaria enjoyed a good fight on the open sea, but this would be a slaughter—not a sporting engagement at all. As the wind high on the mast whipped her hair across her face, she clung to that swaying spar and glared across the heaving seas to where the indistinct forms of the warships bobbed on the ocean—but they did not catch fire and explode.
As her feet hit the deck again, she saw Jack returning slowly from the bow, his face drawn into even finer, sharper lines than usual. His hand, no longer willing to brush lightly along the rail, gripped it with whitened knuckles.
She didn’t know what to say to him. He hadn’t had that look in his eyes since she’d met him before he’d stolen her boat, when he’d told her about losing his ship.
But he said simply, emotionlessly, “Anamaria, muster the crew, will you, love?” passing by her without pausing and continuing on up to the Pearl’s helm.
Anamaria turned to see him relieve Mr. Gibbs of the watch. Then Jack took the Black Pearl’s wheel, not with his usual caress, but with a fierce, protective hold, pressing up against her, his head bowed so that the rain ran off his hat and over her spokes like tears.
Damn Commodore Norrington and every last one of those Navy dogs to the deepest circle of hell!
Anamaria ran to call up the crew, her strong voice pitched to drown out the storm and the ship and any dreams of sleeping men. Everybody jumped when Anamaria bellowed.
“All hands! All hands on deck! Haul your lazy, good-for-nothing carcasses up here, ye scurvy varmints!”
As the crew straggled to the deck below the helm, the rumours had already spread. There’d be bloodshed between the Black Pearl and the Royal Navy before nightfall. They looked belligerent and a few of the more gifted seamen looked worried.
Anamaria wondered what the captain had decided.
It turned out he hadn’t. He was going to call for a pirates’ vote. Jack explained the situation succinctly enough, with none of his usual flamboyance. The number of worried looks increased.
“So what’s in your mind, Cap’n?” Duncan called out.
“The way I see it,” Jack began, “we’ve got at least three choices.”
He’d found a third choice? Anamaria wondered.
Hands waving at about a quarter of the enthusiasm he normally displayed, Jack demonstrated their options. “When the storm dies down and the tide turns, Norrington will bring his little boats across that bar. At that point we can blast them with our cannons until we run out of shot or men, while they blast us back with twice the cannon and six times the men. Then they take the survivors for gallows ornaments and Cay decorations, eh?” He paused, looked down, and stroked a hand along the ship’s wheel. “And the Pearl will be scuppered.” There was an unaccustomed tightness to that statement.
“Don’t sound too partic’lar appealin’, Cap’n,” Duncan called out. “What else y’sellin’?”
“Well, now,” Jack recollected himself. “Choice number two. We wave the white flag—Do we have a white flag? Anybody got any clean smalls? No? Well we’ll think of something. Anyways. We wave something white and go peaceable with the ol’ Navy boys. That’ll mean most of us learn to dance a lot faster’n we might have hoped. Got such a list of crimes it’d take a t’gallant to write ‘em out on. Yes, Marty. You know I’m talking about you, you blackguard!”
Jack pointed at the short pirate in the front circle of men. The rest of the crew roared with laughter. It was far more than the joke deserved, but they needed some sort of release. Jack laughed too, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
He continued earnestly, “But some of you haven’t been pirating long enough to get a record of charges to live down. They’ll likely just do something highly uncomfortable to you, but if you promise to see the error of your ways, you’ll be alive to complain, as it were. Some of you might even be able to plead coercion—you know—boarded by dastardly pirates, given the choice serve or be shark bait, innocent victims of tragic circumstances—you know the song. You’d likely get off free, particularly if the Navy is short on hands and needs to press some able-bodied seamen, savvy?”
The men looked at one another. How many of them could avail themselves of such lies?
“That might be our best option for any sort of survival, men. And the Pearl would have a new career as a Navy prize. Believe me, I’ll be dumping all the swag in Davy Jones before letting those scoundrels board her. The only gold the Navy’ll be getting out of me, they’ll have to pry out o’ me teeth!”
Yes, either of those options was death for Captain Sparrow, Anamaria reflected. The British would never let him escape again.
“That’s gettin’ a bit better, Cap’n,” Duncan called, having appointed himself spokesman. “But ye’re not at the top of yer form there, mate. You said a third option. What’ll that be?”
Jack was silent for a moment, surveying his men. “Not a good one at all, mates. I’m sorry.”
The crew stared back at him soberly. They were hearing Jack Sparrow admit to defeat, something not a one of them had ever expected.
“We’re listenin’,” Duncan said quietly.
“Any port in a storm!” added Cotton’s parrot.
“Aye, it’s a storm, right enough,” Jack mused. He raised his head a notch and looked out towards the crashing surf in the channel.
“Option number three—we take the Black Pearl and cross that bar before the tide turns.” He pointed to the seething tumult at the mouth of their harbour.
“’E’s definitely lost it this time,” someone said reverently.
The murmurs rose above the wail of the wind in the Black Pearl’s rigging as the men debated the seriousness of their daft captain. Jack held up a hand, and gradually they fell silent again.
“Understand, I’m not offering escape this time. All I’ve got to offer is a chance to die like a man and a pirate rather than a dog and a landlubber, savvy? There’s no skill in this world or the next that’s going to make a bit of difference to those seas. If there’s any chance of coming out on the other side, it’ll be in the hands of the gods, not mine. If our luck is in, we might make it through. There’ll still be the Dauntless and her mate out there to blast us to kingdom come, but there’ll also be sea room. We might get a chance to run for it. However, it’s not likely we’ll make it. I’ll not lie to you.” Jack’s gaze raked his crew.
“Ye’re a lousy merchant, Jack Sparrow,” Duncan said calmly. “Ye need some better products.”
“One death,” Jack answered with a hollow grin. “That’s all I’ve got for today. You choose. Which one is it to be? Won’t cost but all you have.”
“What’s your preference, Captain?” Mr. Gibbs finally spoke, watching Jack carefully.
Jack slicked the rain off his face with both hands before answering. “You all know there’s only one outcome for me in this. So if I were to choose, I’d prefer to go out over that bar rather than meet that rope again.”
He met Gibbs eyes and held them for a second. The older man nodded and turned away. Jack motioned for his first mate to dismiss the crew
“Alright, you lot of mangy curs,” Anamaria hollered. “You’ve got time to jaw this over and then we’ll vote.”
“And if any of you comes up with a better plan,” Jack added. “I’d be willing to entertain the notion.”
The crew scattered apart into little knots of serious discussion. Anamaria scanned them critically. She couldn’t guess what would be their decision. Well, some of them she could guess. Mr. Cotton for example.
Mr. Cotton’s parrot hunched on his shoulder, looking disgruntled, shifting from one foot to the other, his blue and gold feathers ruffled out against the rain. Cotton himself was watching the captain with that fond hero-worship that always made Anamaria want to slap Jack just to balance out his character. There was never any doubt which way Cotton would vote. Captain wanted his ship and crew in ol’ Davy Jones’ Locker? Aye, aye, sir! Cotton would follow Jack Sparrow to hell and back. Sure enough.
“Dead men tell no tales!” the parrot offered.
No, nor dead women, either. Anamaria shivered as though someone had walked over her grave. She wished she could come up with a more useful plan than Jack’s. Something that would keep the Pearl and her captain safe and in one piece. But no inspiration occurred.
Through the entire time, Jack Sparrow stayed motionless at the helm of the Black Pearl, except for occasionally drawing random little patterns in the raindrops on her wood. He looked up when Duncan pulled apart from the rest of the pirates.
“We’ve made our decision, Cap’n,” Duncan said gravely. “We all agree. Ye’ve never steered us wrong in the past, no matter what the ruckus ye’ve mired us in. And none o’ us is any too fond o’ givin’ the Royal Navy the satisfaction o’ nailin’ our carcasses t’ the wall. So we’ll be followin’ ye if ye want t’ cross that bar. It’s a good death, Cap’n Sparrow. That’s all we’re askin’.”
The incandescence of Jack’s face made Anamaria check to see if the sun had come out in spite of the rain that was trickling irritatingly down her neck. The men around her grinned, pleased with themselves.
As if he were his own statue come back to life, Jack re-animated.
“It’s an honour to sail with you gentlemen,” he crowed, all his wild waving returning. “Norrington and his little ships can bob about out where it’s sure to be safe. Let’s show these Navy dogs what a feckless pack of cowards they are!”
“And what a maggot-brained pack of devil-may-cares we are!” Anamaria muttered to herself. But she was happy to see Jack re-lit with the sparkle of some impossible caper that would have any sane man on his knees saying his final prayers.
Besides, she had no bloody desire to feel the noose around her own neck. Jack was right. Better the sea that they loved than the Royal Navy that hated them. She bared her teeth in a fierce, hungry smile. Let’s show them indeed. Norrington and his men would see a show the likes of which they’d never seen before.
* * * * *
Bounding down from the quarterdeck, Anamaria set the Black Pearl’s crew to scurrying. The ship had to be made as ready as possible for her ordeal. Her cargo and guns had to be lashed down so no gyrations of her hull would shift them. Her hatches had to be battened down. And every man had to be sure of his task when her anchors should be weighed and her sails set.
When she was satisfied that she’d stirred the men to an appropriate level of frantic activity, Anamaria returned to the quarterdeck. Joining Jack by the helm, she asked him, with a sarcastic curl to her lip, “So, do I get to die like a man, too?”
Jack turned to her, his mind apparently already out on that bar. “You’ll take the helm with me, Anamaria?” he asked.
Anamaria was stunned into silence. In those seas, Jack would need a second set of hands on the Pearl’s wheel. She just hadn’t imagined he’d ask her. Not trusting her voice to answer, she nodded.
Jack grinned at her. “It’s been an adventure, hasn’t it love? They’ll never forget the Black Pearl.”
“Aye,” Anamaria managed. “Nor her daft as a loon captain.”
With a faraway look in his eyes, Jack wondered, “Why did you stay on, Anamaria? I’d have given you that ship.” He glanced back at her and smirked. “You could have been your own shipmaster, above the law, and looking forward to being a wrinkled old gray-haired harriden with a thousand grandchildren instead of setting out to be the prettiest pirate to decorate Davy Jones’ Locker, eh?”
There were a number of answers to that question, most of which would be drowning with her. Anamaria avoided them all. “What? You’re not planning on going down with your ship, Jack Sparrow?”
Jack’s smirk increased. “What, flattery, love? Ain’t I conceited enough for you?”
She punched half-heartedly at his arm. “Fop!”
“Virago!” he shot back.
Jack looked out over the sea to that horizon that seemed farther away today than it had in years. “No regrets?” he asked her.
Anamaria had so many regrets they’d be here through two more tides.
“You?” she asked.
He was silent a moment, playing thoughtfully with his braided beard with one hand, the other still touching the Black Pearl.
Finally he turned to her. “Just one.”
She couldn’t read his expression.
With his swift grace, Jack drew so close that she could see the raindrops clinging to his eyelashes and sparkling on his moustache, could see the silver tracery of rain on the angles of his face. Before she could back up, he took her face in his hands, his fingertips like chips of ice against her flesh.
Anamaria froze and ceased to breathe. Her startled eyes flew to his. Jack Sparrow’s eyes. There ought to be an eleventh commandment against a man having eyes like that she thought wildly.
And then she ceased to think.
She could only feel the touch of his lips on hers. Feel the death-like chill of them, the rain-wet brush of his beard. And oh, feel the glowing, smoldering embers at the heart of that kiss—as though his flesh were already relinquishing life, but the soul of him burned all the more fiercely with its immortal fire.
Jack’s pulse drummed in his fingertips on her face. She could hear his breath catch and shatter against her lips. Her own breath seemed to have been stolen away by the wind that lashed around the two of them, tangling their salt-soaked hair together. Anamaria felt the stinging clamour of Jack’s beads strike her cheek.
From far away, over the hurricane roaring in her ears, she could hear the whistles and catcalls of the Pearl’s crew.
Then Jack released her slowly, drawing away and leaving only cold behind and the memory of fire. His fingers brushed the rain from her cheeks. His eyes on her were molten.
“Now, I have no regrets,” he said.
The crew waited patiently for Anamaria to slap the captain. Anamaria always slapped the captain when he got too bold—which was a powerful lot of the time. “But you make it so irresistible, love!” he’d complain. Captain might as well get her handprint tattooed on his face, was the general opinion. He was a braver man than they were.
In a way, a spat between the captain and the first mate would be a relief—restore some semblance of normality to a nightmare situation.
But Anamaria did not slap Jack. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and bring back the warmth of life into that chill of death. She wanted to pull out a pistol and shoot the bastard herself and save the sea the trouble. She wanted to cry for all those lost regrets and all the impossible futures. She did none of those things. Instead, she just stood there, staring at him.
A small smile teased the corner of his mouth, but he turned to the crew that had been collecting on deck as they completed their tasks. They were a soggy and bedraggled bunch for men who would be making such a desperate last stand. Every one of them a good man and a good pirate.
“This is it, men!” he called to them. “They’ll tell this tale from here to Zanzibar!”
The crew cheered wildly.
But Jack’s face was dead sober when he said softly to them, “Thank you.”
The men looked abashed, and a few of them shuffled self-consciously.
“Ye’re welcome, Cap’n,” Duncan said for them all.
“Very well then.” Jack nodded, meeting each man’s eyes once. Then he waved his arms in energetic circles. “All hands aloft to loose canvas!”
The decks cleared like magic.
Jack set his hands on the Black Pearl's wheel again and drew a deep breath. Still standing by the captain but trying to ignore him, Anamaria took hold of the ship as well. Instantly, the Pearl was alive under her hands—different from when Anamaria was alone at the helm. As though when Jack was touching the Black Pearl, she was something more than a ship. A frisson almost of fear crept up Anamaria’s spine.
* * * * *
“Commodore.” The lookout Norrington had posted was calling down out of the fighting top. “Something’s up over on the Black Pearl, sir. I can’t quite make out what.
So, Sparrow was having a Plan, was he? Norrington decided the situation merited his personal attention. Trying to match strategies with Jack Sparrow was like trying to predict the wind. One needed every last scrap of available information. The storm had borne the Dauntless far enough from the harbour mouth that he could not see his quarry from on deck. He’d have to join his man aloft. The corner of the commodore’s mouth quirked. He didn’t often have a legitimate excuse to indulge himself in the pleasure of a jaunt into the rigging. With alacrity he scrambled up. Reaching the narrow platform, he raised his glass and trained it on the sleek, deadly form of his adversary’s ship.
The rough tossing of the Dauntless kept interfering with his focus, but in between his ship’s slide into the troughs of the heavy seas, Norrington received the impression that the Black Pearl’s rigging swarmed with pirates, that in fact, they were moving out along each of her yards—as though Sparrow had ordered not only storm canvas unfurled, but every last shred of sail she carried. Surely not, Norrington stared in disbelief. But even as he thought it, he saw the sable sails come tumbling down, whipping in the wind as the tiny figures desperately fought to sheet them home. Even Jack Sparrow couldn’t be that daft, could he? The only possible reason for spreading canvas in this gale was that Sparrow had decided to run that bar. And such a course was madness, suicidal even. The Black Pearl was a bonny ship, but those cannonading seas across that bar were rising between twenty and fifty feet. One such broadside and she would turn turtle and be pounded under.
Regaining the deck of his ship, Norrington tried to imagine himself inside Sparrow’s head but failed miserably. What did that Bedlamite imagine he could do?
And yet, Norrington considered, this was the man with the temerity to pilot the Dauntless through that impossible ship’s graveyard to Isla de Muerta. And this was also the man who had backed over the battlements of Fort Charles. Whether the timing had been intentional or not, Jack Sparrow had definitely planned to make that jump into the crushing seas below, risking the rocks for his freedom.
The commodore came to a decision. If the impossible happened, and the Black Pearl came across that bar, the Dauntless and the Defender would be waiting for her. His men would question his own sanity, but Norrington was never going to underestimate that pirate again. This time, he swore, if Sparrow would not surrender, he would take that beautiful ship apart plank by plank and send her to the bottom of the sea, if it took every pound of shot he possessed and every ounce of powder, too.
TBC
3 The Judgment of the Sea
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-24 08:35 pm (UTC)When might the next part be ready for posting? Because this fic is just mmm mmm good.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-24 09:17 pm (UTC)Woohoo! Go James!
Sorry, it happened again, didn't it? I can't help it, I know that it's not going to happen but he's *so* close I can practically taste it. I feel a bit sorry for Anamaria though. Doesn't she know that Jack has only one true love and it's not her?
I enjoyed the scene of putting the decision to a vote, very piratey. And I liked the fact that some of the pirates might have been able to talk their way out of being hanged and into a berth on a Navy ship, yet decided to stay and fight anyway. No wonder Jack is so stoked, after being more accustomed to betrayal than loyalty.
Carries on rooting for the wrong side.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 03:04 am (UTC)Yes, Anamaria will never win out over the Pearl, but I think she knows it, which is why she always decks Jack. Here, however, when they might not make it, the might-have-been's win. And Jack will always take what he can.
The pirate vote was more fun to write than a unilateral decision would have been. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And yes, Jack has finally got his hand-picked loyal crew.
Carry on rooting. There's still hope for the Navy.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-27 09:46 pm (UTC)Wow ...
Date: 2005-11-27 04:02 am (UTC)I just left you a review over at Black_Pearl_Sails, in which I basically hyperventilated about how awesome this story is shaping up to be. Mate, any time you get the urge to write some 'raving sailing', I hope you pile on all canvas and let the muses run! *G*
What a treat it is to find a good, plotty tale interwoven with artful characterisations that make everyone come brilliantly - and sympathetcially - alive. I find it a stroke of genius that even though Norrington is fully prepared to destroy Jack and the Pearl ... you've drawn him in such a way that he is not truly villainous. It is, as someone else said, a clash of titans, a meeting of highly worthy opponents. It is a duel of sail with death acting as second, and man, I cannot WAIT for the next installment. The fingernail marks in the starboard rail will be mine ... *G*
Well done!
Cheers ~
Erin
Re: Wow ...
Date: 2005-11-27 09:57 pm (UTC)Two reviews on the same story! I must have done something right! These drabble challenges are going to shred my canvas if they keep doing this to me!
Before I was ever into PotC (There was such a time?)I had researched the challenges of crossing a bar when I was teaching Tennyson's poem of that name. So when Trinity picked that word I'd suggested (because there are dozens of different meanings), this story started to heave up out of my subconscious. I've never really come up with a plot before, so this is proving educational.
*Bounce* You like my characters! Characters are my favourite thing. Norrington was the first one whose POV I wrote. He only becomes more sympathetic even as he stays determined to annihilate Jack. I love complex characters so much more than villains.
Fingernail marks! On my ship! *Scrubs at marks* No one is allowed to destroy my ships but me! LOL. I'm so glad you're impatient. I'll research as fast as I can. More dueling ships coming right up.
Thank you so much for taking the time to commment. It means a lot to me.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 06:26 pm (UTC)Hornblower and Bolitho
Date: 2005-12-18 11:25 pm (UTC)"The rough tossing of the Dauntless kept interfering with his focus, but in between his ship’s slide into the troughs of the heavy seas, Norrington received the impression that the Black Pearl’s rigging swarmed with pirates, that in fact, they were moving out along each of her yards—as though Sparrow had ordered not only storm canvas unfurled, but every last shred of sail she carried." ..just said it all. I could see it so clearly.
And the relationship between Jack and his crew is very touching.
I'm so glad there's a part three for me to rush on to.
Re: Hornblower and Bolitho
Date: 2005-12-18 11:37 pm (UTC)Re: Hornblower and Bolitho
Date: 2005-12-19 02:37 am (UTC)Re: Hornblower and Bolitho
Date: 2005-12-19 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 07:44 pm (UTC)Everyone else fought the storm, but Jack became it-or had been it all along and was only now returned to his rightful element. He was trailing one hand along the ship's railing.
Love this image (especially that hand just barely touching the railing) - Jack walking along, totally at ease, while everyone else is holding on for dear life.
slipping down between the Black Pearl's windblown wings and lying there communing with his ship
Speaking of loving images, I've got no words for how beautiful that is.
So, Sparrow was having a Plan, was he?
Perfect Commodore. *grins wildly*
*watches between fingers as crews of Dauntless and Defender make ready*
*whimpers*
no subject
Date: 2005-12-30 01:57 pm (UTC)In that storm on the Interceptor everyone was washing up in the scuppers, while Jack was planted at the ships wheel and having a grand ol' time. I'm glad you liked how I tried to capture that aspect of him here.
That image of Jack finding that private space to be with his ship was one that refused to leave me alone. I'm happy it worked for you.
I do love Norrington's contemplations of Jack. It's fun to write conflict without villains.
I'm afraid this gets much worse before it gets better. Trim your fingernails and mind the upholstery!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-09 06:08 pm (UTC):-D :-D :-D :-D
I wish I had time to read and comment more, but I guarantee I'll be back. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-09 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 11:16 pm (UTC)Everyone else fought the storm, but Jack became it—or had been it all along and was only now returned to his rightful element. YESSSS!
Jack took the Black Pearl’s wheel, not with his usual caress, but with a fierce, protective hold, pressing up against her, his head bowed so that the rain ran off his hat and over her spokes like tears. I nearly blubbed.
I don’t know if you care about typos on old stuff – they don’t matter, really, at all, but I get the feeling you’re a perfectionist like me, and maybe you want to know? There’s a rogue apostrophe in ‘devil-may-cares’ and a ‘bourn’ that should be a ‘borne’. But they didn’t mar this in the slightest. This is COOL.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 12:23 am (UTC)How I love me a bit of melodrama!
Me too! Writing this fic has been a huge self-indulgence. I'm afraid I'm on a power trip. I can do whatever I like! Mwahahahaha! Except these characters keep running away on me and doing whatever they jolly well please.
I do love writing Jack's relationship with the Pearl. I'm pretty much in love with this ship. I keep tissues around this story for
You nailed the perfectionist tendency. I do care about typos and go back to correct any that are pointed out to me. I had noticed my tendency to mispell "borne," but hadn't corrected it yet. And I'm always dumping in unnecessary apostrophes and having to take them out or leaving them out when they should be in. I do know better, but my brain is not always the most cooperative, so I thank you for pointing out any miscreant spellings.
And thank you so much for another long and detailed comment.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 08:59 pm (UTC)I like this.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 07:42 am (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed this story. Thank you for commenting.