Stabbing the Heart

[bringmethatnpc]

He'd almost made it. Jack had been sneaking across the Dutchman's deck, chest secure in hand, when Jones and his crew had spotted him.

"Looky here, boys -- a lost bird that never learned to fly!"

As they advance on him, Jack backs up against the edge of the deck -- then leaps up on the rail and wraps one hand in a particular lanyard. His sudden grin is filled with manic amusement.

"Never too late to learn, aye?" With no more warning than that, he slams the chest against the half-rotten wood brace securing the line and is promptly yanked aloft.

Unfortunately, Jones doesn't need any such trick to go wherever he wishes to on this particular ship, and as Jack turns to make his swaying way toward the tenuous safety of the mainmast, he finds himself facing the Dutchman's furious captain over the point of a sword.

"The chest-- hand it over!"

Jack backs up a step, drawing his own sword, and there's something strangely knowing in the black eyes.

"I can set you free, mate."

"My freedom was forfeit long ago!" Jones snarls, and strikes.

Now, as one battle rages on the decks below, another takes place on the yardarm of the Flying Dutchman. With a wild slash, Jack sends several wiggling tentacles from Jones's beard falling to the deck below -- one of them still clutching the key to the chest. He receives a blow in return that sends him staggering backward, and as he brings his sword up in defense Jones snaps it in two with his claw.

Having no other defense left, Jack counters the next strike by using the chest itself as club, which in turn brings it within reach of Jones, who promptly grabs it. As Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones engage in a strange tug-of-war over the chest that contains Jones's heart, Jack can't help but grin.

Bloody ridiculous, is what this is.

Evidently Jones agrees, for with a particularly harsh, violent swing, he manages to yank Jack from his perch and send him flying through the air in truth.

It's a stroke of fortune that the air's so full of invading fishy pirates, however, and as he falls Jack collides with one swinging across on a rope. In the ensuing scramble for a good grip, Jack notices a pistol shoved in the other man's belt. Black eyes widen in shock.

I know that gun!

On the instant, Jack snatches Mal's pistol free and delivers a hard blow to Clanker's head with the butt of the gun.

"Oi! My pistol!"

As the stunned pirate falls, Jack swings himself around, searching for Jones--

--there!

BANG!

Jack's a good shot, and as Mal Reynolds could tell anyone who asked, it's a good gun. The bullet goes true, knocking the chest from Davy Jones's hands and into the chaos below.

Comments

[bringmethatnpc]

Mullroy offers a hand to Murtogg as they finally decide to risk climbing over the side of the Black Pearl. Fortunately, no one seems that interested in engaging the two in combat in their struggels to escape the tangle dragging both ships down.

Chain shot fires straight up and through the uppermost masts, cutting through the mess to free the Pearl, and eventually it sails free.

Now if only they can find a way to continue to escape notice...

[byhisbootstraps]

There's nothing to be done: Jones is dead, and Will -- his son, his brave son, here because he made a promise -- is dying. Jack Sparrow is watching in silence; Elizabeth is kneeling by his side, in tears; and neither of them is doing anything at all, because there's nothing to be done.

No, that's not quite right. There's one thing.

Bootstrap's hand wraps around his knife and pulls it out of the railing.

[turned_captain]

It doesn't hurt anymore.



Elizabeth is holding him, crying hysterically and begging him to stay. But he's not going anywhere: he can't go anywhere because his legs don't seem to want to work. He tries to lift his arms to hold her to him, but somehow they're not working either. She's so upset.



He tells her he loves her. That he's not afraid. That he's glad he chose her. That he'd do it again and again, only this time he'd never be a fool to believe she doesn't love him. He tells her he's sorry he doubted her, that he's sorry he left her to come over to the Dutchman. He tells her he's sorry he failed. He smiles and kisses her tears away, and tells her he's going to stop anything from hurting her ever again.



He does all this in intention, but all he has the strength to do is open his eyes as far as they'll go and take in everything about her. To stay with her for as long as possible. To make her the last thing he sees. To fill his last breath with Elizabeth Turner.



Then his eyes droop shut, and he sighs for the last time.



He's not afraid.

[try_corsets]

Jack stabs the heart, and Elizabeth thinks He'll live. Davy Jones, that murderer, whispers a name and topples into the sea, and Elizabeth thinks He'll live.

To think otherwise would be to give up, and Elizabeth is ever determined.

For a heart-wrenching moment, with Will's eyes open wide and full of his deep, unshakable love, a love she relies on like she needs air to breathe, Elizabeth almost believes he'll recover. Trembling fingers lightly smooth the sides of his face as if she can convince him to stay through gentle touch alone. Her breath catches; there's too much she wants to say, so much more than the denial and pleas to stay, but other words stick in her throat like sand.

I love you.

His eyes close and, with a sickening, hollow certainty, she knows they won't open again.

"No," Elizabeth whispers, fingers tightening on his (lifeless) face. "No. No! NOOOOO!"

[pirate_jack]

That's not how it was supposed to work, he thinks, almost numbly. Jack remains still and quiet, watching the two of them.

A second or two later, it's the low rumbling of a muttered chant that catches his attention.

Jack turns his head and spots Bootstrap, and black eyes widen suddenly.

[byhisbootstraps]

He steps forward, the knife in his hand, dimly aware of the others gathering around him in singleminded unison. The murmuring chant goes up: part of the ship, part of the crew. part of the ship, part of the crew.

[try_corsets]

Hearing nothing but her own sobs, Elizabeth clings to Will.

"Don't leave me!" she cries frantically, even though he's already gone.

[pirate_jack]

The realization of what's happening crashes over him with the force of a wave.

The Flying Dutchman has never been a place for the living.

Jack leaps to his feet and grabs Elizabeth by the shoulders, dragging her roughly away from the body of Will Turner.

"Come on!"

[try_corsets]

Elizabeth fights, struggling and kicking and reaching for her husband, her Will. She isn't aware of anything outside her grief and has no intention of lettiing this be goodbye.

"I won't leave you!"

It's a shriek full of desperation, but Jack's grip is far too sure. Despite her best efforts, he rips her away from Will.

[pirate_jack]

He's got one arm around her now, ignoring her struggles as he pulls her across the deck. The look in Jack's eyes is almost wild.

I won't go back there -- we've got to get free before she goes down--

It doesn't take long to spot what he needs. First the lanyards, which he yanks loose with grim desperation, then the musket, snatched up from the deck...

[byhisbootstraps]

Countless voices murmuring behind him, part of the ship, part of the crew, part of the ship, part of the crew, all one voice. All the Dutchman.

He kneels beside the body of his son and raises the knife.

It was always in my blood to die at sea. But that was not a fate I ever wanted for you.

"The Dutchman," he says softly, "must have a captain."

And quickly -- he can do that much, at least -- he brings the blade down.

[pirate_jack]

He catches the flash of motion out of the corner of his eye, barely in time to yank Lizzie around so that she can't see.

"Hold on!"

As she clings to him, Jack fires the gun at the line securing the rigging, then lets the musket fall and wraps both hands in a tangle of rope as the small topsail falls free of the mast.

A 'parasail', Wellard had called it once, when he'd been explaining tricks that might be used to make his own ship fly. Jack spares a second to think that he'll have to thank the lad for showing him this one as the canvas billows out into the wind of the storm, lifting them into the air and free of the sinking ship's deck, just as it's supposed to do.

(Even the blasted monkey, which scurries toward them in time to leap and catch the tail-end of the rope.)

As they soar higher into the air, Jack looks down at the maelstrom below, watching as the Flying Dutchman is dragged down to the sea's depths--

(a captain goes down with his ship)

-- and as Will Turner goes with her.

[try_corsets]

Eventually, the same indomitable sense of self-preservation that led Elizabeth to chain Jack to the Pearl forces her to abandon her struggles and cling to him instead. If it were any other time, any other situation, she'd be tempted to smirk and remark on the very idea that Jack would pull her from a sinking ship; but it's not, and the irony warrants only the briefest of thoughts. She doesn't know what he plans to do -- doesn't even care, really, seeing as how he is often at his luckiest when it seems all hope is lost -- but slowly, as if surfacing from a blinding fog, Elizabeth hears the crew and is all too aware of what is happening to Will.

(If he saves me, he loses you)

In the end, Will had tried to secure the best possible outcome for everyone, but it hadn't mattered. The choice had been taken from Will -- from Jack -- by Davy Jones. And now they are taking his heart, locking it away from her, and he very well might be the next captain of the Flying Dutchman.

(I had a meeting with Destiny)

Elizabeth doesn't finish watching the Flying Dutchman sink beneath the rapidly calming waves. She buries her face in Jack's chest and trusts him, just this once, with his own still all too mortal life at stake, to see her to relative safety. There's no need to watch; her imagination is already far too sharp. Captain William Turner will be at the helm of his new ship, his new love, and Elizabeth wonders what she'll see in his eyes if it all worked and husband and wife somehow meet again.

(No course is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it)

The vicious winds have become nothing more than a bad memory as a gentle breeze lifts the hair off her neck and ceases to fill the sail above them. Jack and Elizabeth plunge into the sea not far from the Pearl, and she closes her eyes and lets the water clear her head for a moment before she starts to swim.