Chapter XIX - The Shy One Speaks
 
 

    It was an hour from dawn and the pillaging and riots of Bombay had still not abated. The fires set the sky aglow like daybreak; no one bothered with them. It was more light to see by, so the damage was not their concern.
    Jack walked the damaged streets with not quite the same spring in his step as in the recently departed evening. After pulling the Other Jack away from the docks, he'd run into Fezzik and a man identifying himself as Westley, who both offered to take the fallen man back to the ship along with some of the under wounded. Jack had let them, albeit a little unwillingly. It felt oddly like handing over half of himself.
    He was far too tired to think about the circumstances surrounding the other man's existence. At this point it made more sense than many other things, namely what he was doing here, so far from the waters that had borne him, so far from the time that had harbored him as well. It all seemed horribly strange now that he was witnessing the destruction of a city at the hands of sailors hand-picked for their brilliant combination of ethics and prowess.
    Right then all Jack cared to do was go back to his ship and be with his other self. Yes, just himself, and his Black Pearl, and the dark, everlasting ocean... Just that, forever...
    He knew it was just fatigue that was causing him to think in this way. He felt like he hadn't slept in weeks.
    Jack was halfway over a hill of rubble when he became aware of a sort of hearty, drunken laughter, quickly followed by a strong hand grabbing him by the arm and spinning him around.
    "We did it," Inigo said exuberantly, his flushed red face and energetic eyes a half inch from Jack's, and the alcohol on his breath even closer. He reached up and framed Jack's face with his hands, giggling. "We did it, we actually did it!" Jack glanced to either side, a little nervous of the close quarters, which only made it worse when quarters got even closer half a second later when Inigo embraced him in a full mouth kiss.
    Jack flailed his arms until he got them to work successfully, and pried Inigo's face off his. "Get - off - me!" Jack growled. "What the hell was that?"
    "Er..." Inigo said awkwardly, noting for the first time the color of the other man's bandana. "Jack? Sorry, I thought you were your da--"
    "Quit while you're ahead," Jack snapped quickly. "And where is Delphine? Is she around here?"
    "Probably somewhere. Would you mind if I still--"
    "No!"
    "Oh."
    They watched the sky as they walked; only the brightest stars showed through the glow of the fires, which had turned the entire velvety darkness into a hazy orange. The streets were somehow quieter now, as the internal clocks of five hundred old pirates were slowly winding down and calling it quits for a few hours.
    Jack scratched his cheek for an itch that didn't exist. "So, you, ehhhr... You an' the Jackal gettin' on well?"
    "What? Well, I--" Inigo stammered, blushing. "Well-- no, not really-- I mean, I'd like to-- I mean--"
    I knew there had to be something he's not adept at, Jack thought sourly, but why'd it have to be this? I mean, y'wanna talk embarrassing...
    He coughed loudly. "Well... y'know, if that's where yer at with it, I 'spose I'm as well-suited to give me permission as anyone, being as I'm the girl's... captain. Yes, captain. Ehr..." He took an abrupt interest in his shoes. "That... bloke that led the attack back at the fort..." he began.
    "Yes," Inigo said.
    "Only, it didn't really seem that way, on account of she was missin'..." He held his hands out a little ways from his chest, and then, blushing furiously, hooked them to the sides of his belt. He coughed again. "Well, I guess she wasn't very much to show in that area to begin with, but what really got me was the, er, when, she, er, pinned me down under her, y'know, ah..."
    "Packed straw. It was Westley's idea. Same with the paint and the false beard."
    "Brilliant," Jack said weakly. He swallowed a painfully dry throat. "Well played."
    "Does that change anything for you?"
    "I told him-- her-- that I wanted her as a comrade in arms."
    "Well? Don't you?"
    Jack shook his head quickly, bead strands clattering. "Y'know I can't even if I wanted to, mate. I told you that someday she'll figure out..."
    "So tell her. She's at least as accepting as her brother and even moreso when she's drunk. Oh, how we found that out..." Inigo muttered, cringing at the memories of the past few days.
    "I can't," Jack answered quickly. "She just-- She..."
    "You want to know what I think?"
    "I'm not sure I want the words of a drunkard."
    "They're the best words you'll ever find. You know that." Inigo waved a finger materly at his fellow pirate. "I think you should tell 'er who you are. Who you really are. Not to the world, not to your crew, not to Gracie or Will or me or anyone else. Who you are to her. She can't just turn away from that."
    "No, I... Dammit." He strode out ahead of Inigo and turned back toward him, spreading his arms. "I liked her better when I still thought she was me!"
    "She is you," Inigo insisted. "That's just the thing. The gun just gave her the extra boost of confidence."
    Jack threw his arms down again. "Oh, bloody hell..."
    His companion crossed the distance between them and patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. "It's been a long day."
    "It's been a long century," Jack said bitterly, mostly to himself.

    "Saw the whole thing, me," Bonney said, sliding into a chair beside Delphine's bed, pushing a tin of soup into her hands. She and her counterpart were back in normal men's clothes now, which was a welcome relief. "Cutlass in each hand, dagger 'tween yer teeth, you were a real sight, believe me-you." She smiled. "Takin' on five men at once, droppin' 'em like flies, you were."
    "No kidding?" Delphine asked in wonder. She took an experimental sip of her soup. It was tomato soup. That was a great comfort to her and she didn't know quite why. "What happened after that?"
    "After that you climbed up on the rafters, right, swingin' across like a real buccaneer. And then this yellow bastard took a coward's shot to yer shoulder, the one you were holdin' onto the rope to, on account of the other one bein' the one holdin' yer swords, and down y'went. It was ages afore we saw you again."
    "Knocked out, poor duck," Read cooed, stroking the Jackal's hair. "A great thing your head's fine all but for that. Where would we be elsewise?"
    Delphine grinned, golden teeth glinting in the lantern light. She reached up a hand with the sleeve bunched up in her fist, rubbing at an itch on her cheek. She examined it when she pulled away, perplexed.
    "Why's I've got paint on me?"
    The two older women exchanged frantic glances.
    "You, ehr, fell into a painter's workshop," Read said, nodding.
    "Aye, paint shop," Bonney confirmed quickly. "Bits of wood and canvas broke your fall. Bloody good luck, yours."
    "Did we get 'em all back all right?" Delphine asked eagerly. "Jack and all them?"
    "Jack? Jack as well never left, dearie," Read told her, leaning over and kissing the girl's cheek, on the place where her sleeve had rubbed away the paint hiding her scar. "Now you rest up. You've earned a break, I daresay. I think we all've."

    When Jack stirred next it was not to the sound of knocking on his cabin door. He awoke spontaneously into late-morning silence, waves sloshing against his ship's hull outside the window, the acrid scent that had tainted the air for so many days almost gone without a trace now. He stared into space for a while, still resting on his arm like a pillow in a bed that had grown unfamiliar in his absence, in a room that was nearly stripped of all of his old possessions that had been sold and bartered off just in the effort to rescue him. That was no matter; there was plenty of treasure. Too much, really.
    He stretched a little, subconsciously aware of a lot of strange aches and pains in muscles he didn't even know he had. He breathed, and it hurt his lungs. He blinked, and his eyes hurt. So he kept doing it until it felt all right again.
    Then there came a knock.
    "Nnn," he said and reply, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk and sitting upright, before immediately hunching forward with an aching back. He rubbed his eyes as the small patched-together remains of his door creaked awkwardly inward, and a small, blue-eyed creature, barely more than a child, shuffled in timidly.
    "Oh," Jack said, with a raw throat. He stood up and met the diminuitive man near the doorway where he still stood. "You're Lunaseer's boy, aren't you?"
    The first mate Tikalus nodded. He glanced back at the door and slapped the frame experimentally, listening to the shuddering creak this generated. "Sach mal undas lemhfelp essu quenya, ha?"
    Jack laughed nervously. "Yeah, I guess Munchausen got a bit overenthusiastic."
    "Vir wigental meskzehn allet noeun fertun fere," Tikalus said speculatively, studying the damage.
    "Only if it's no trouble to you. I mean, I'm sure I could just stop by the island sometime and have it done there."
    "Veleks ezunda meru," Tikalus said dismissively, waving a hand. "San da..." He bowed his head shyly and extracted something from the pocket of his coat, holding it up for Jack Sparrow to see.
    It was a necklace, of some glittering blue stone, ornamented with a large star-shaped pendant. It caught the light filtering in through Jack's grimy window and sent small flecks of light across the walls.
    "Heh!" Jack exclaimed, impressed. "What's it do?"
    "Veleks zir mak zayn," Tikalus said. "Er nandasma zu essu forgant?"
    "It doesn't do anything?"
    The other pirate sighed exasperatedly. "You people. A trinket simply can't exist unless it's magical, can it?"
    Jack stared at him. "Hold on," he said, as it slowly dawned on him just what his ears had witnessed, "you're tellin' me I spent all that time figuring out your godforsaken backwards language and you could speak English the whole while?"
    "Really. Did it never occur to you that being capable of understanding even the obscurest of slang might suggest that the listener would have even a moderate grasp of the language?"
    "Well, then why put everyone through the trouble?" Jack demanded.
    Tikalus shrugged, brushing a lock of long, dark hair back before it cascaded right back into his face again. "Tradition. Or Ansoni's bloodymindedness, you can take your pick." He indicated to the necklace again. "This is his apology to Lady O'Malley for the trouble we caused her back at Madagascar. Well, he caused. I'm not sure he realized at the time that she'd think she was doing all those spells..." He let the pendant and chain fall into Jack's upturned palm.
    Jack didn't pull his hand away once he had the necklace clasped in his grip. Instead he reached forward, curiously, and pushed back a lock of the boy's hair with a finger, revealing a distinctly inhuman-shaped ear.
    "I'll be," Jack said, surprised. "You're a real--"
    "Undine, yes," Tikalus said quickly, pulling away from him.
    "Full or half?"
    "Half."
    "You're very powerful for one."
    "No. The world is weak. That's all."
    "Ain't it the truth... You're sure the necklace doesn't do anything?"
    "Oh... Listen, we can't really be handing out magical artifacts all the time. We could get in trouble for it. Besides, we're already repairing the door."
    "You let me filch that gun," Jack pointed out.
    "Borrow. You're borrowing it."
    "No I didn't. I snatched it right from under Lunaseer's nose."
    "Yes, but I've convinced Ansoni otherwise."
    "Ah. Good man. But look, can't you...?"
    "All right, all right," Tikalus said quickly, flustered. "One favorable wind. But that's all I can do for you, truly. It's not even my element to control."
    "Fat lot of good a favorable wind will do us," Jack said. "We've not any place to go even. All of the other Brethren have left now, Kidd's gone..."
    "Why not go after Kidd, if I might ask?"
    "Would you fight him?" Jack challenged.
    Tikalus spread his arms. "As members of our people, Ansoni and I cannot. However, you must, mustn't you? Or else the thing is not finished, and the circle is not completed. You of all men should know that small things left unchecked have large repercussions."
    "It does come back to haunt one as far as debts unpaid go," Jack said, reflectively scratching his chin. Suddenly, he dropped the hand to his side. "But what can we do? He has the Queen Anne's Revenge on his side, and even the Pearl can't match that."
    "She was the older sister. She lacks her counterpart's refinements."
    "Aye, that might very well be, but she's got the raw power to outclass us and that's all Kidd will need in a scrap."
    "Then form a plan. You're good at plans. You're notorious for them, I daresay."
    "But why bother?"
    The undine cast Jack a chilling blue stare that washed over him like an ice-cold wave of water. "Why bother?" he echoed. "You should ask why my captain troubled himself to intervene through that Gaelic girl, an effort that saved your friend Roberts, who returned to save not only you but hundreds of men he'd never met, purely on a principle of moral conduct. You ask 'why bother?' Then why bother have any consideration for other human beings?"
    "You know I don't mean--"
    "I'm not finished telling you what I mean," Tikalus snapped, eyes flaring. "Do you remember when you first gained the Black Pearl on our shores in far-off times?" Jack looked up. "Do you remember the promise you were bound to as part of your pact with my people?" Jack parted his lips. "Do you remember to what you owe your allegiance, Captain Jack Sparrow?"
    "The ocean," Jack whispered.
    "The ocean," Tikalus confirmed, nodding. "To us."
    "Kidd threatens you. He threatens what you stand for."
    "Freedom. You cannot let this stand."
    "No, I can't."
    "Are you found now, little bird?"
    Clutching the jeweled necklace in his fist, Jack, very slowly, nodded.
    "Get Roberts."
    "Which one?" Tikalus said, smiling.
    "Both of 'em will do."

    They held the meeting on deck, although it wasn't much of a meeting and you couldn't say they were holding it, so much as just tenuously stringing together a couple key people and the conversations therein. Sailors aboard the Black Pearl not included in this gathering hovered around the small meeting of officers, hanging from the masts and clustered by the stairwells and railings. The officers --which consisted of Jack Sparrow, Inigo Montoya, Westley, Fezzik, Stede, Israel Hands, Granuaile, Lunaseer and Tikalus-- might or might not have been oblivious to their audience, but in either case were completely ignoring it, as Jack talked animatedly to the group, sometimes using gestures.
    "Bill's got the entire world of pirates at 'is heels now," Jack said excitedly, "and the only place he'll know where to turn is where he knows he'll get protection, meanin' the next major English colony over."
    "China," Westley interpretted.
    "Aye," Jack said, nodding. "Hong Kong, s'my thinkin'. We get a good wind to our sails--" he gave the slightest of nods toward Tikalus "--we can catch him up in a few weeks' time at longest."
    Most of the group tried and failed to be impressed.
    "But then whadda we do when we get there?" asked Stede.
    "We fight 'em. Sink the Q.A.R. if we have to."
    "How?" Inigo said drearily. "It's stronger, faster, and better armed than we are. Hands could tell you better than me, I've no doubt. How are we to win up against that?"
    "Presume for a moment that Kidd hasn't any idea how to work any of Blackbeard's more 'ingenious' weaponry," Hands told the Spaniard calmly. "Some of them are particularly difficult to operate. Without training, he has better chances of destroying his own ship than he does damaging yours."
    "That's still a gamble," Westley said. "Gambles can't be relied upon for anything."
    "Loaded dice, maybe," said Jack.
    "You're looking for a way to tip things in your favor?" the former Dread Pirate Roberts said, addressing Jack directly. "It'd have to be rather creative. I don't think our trickery back in Bombay will work twice."
    "Aye, but that trick did show that Kidd gets scared," Captain Sparrow pointed out.
    "So would anyone, seeing two of you," Inigo muttered beneath his breath.
    "What was that, Montoya?"
    "Nothing, nothing."
    Jack dropped the subject and went back to the matter at hand. "The Pearl does run quieter in water, that's a fact. It does generate fog when it feels like it, that's a fact too. If we could time our arrival right and sneak up on Kidd on a moonless night..."
    "I don't believe this," Westley said with dismay. "Both of you feel you can get by on the element of surprise?"
    "And improvisation. And improvisation."
    "That would never work. Something like that never, ever works."
    "What the hell do you know?" Jack retorted. "You're just a kid."
    "Kid?" Westley demanded, growing red in the face. "You're younger than I--"
    "Westley," Inigo said quickly, catching him across the shoulders before he could make a single step forward. "You don't want to get into it with him. Trust me."
    "You're all missing the point anyway," Granuaile said, speaking up for the first time. "The fact is, we must go after Kidd. We are called to this. We might try and succeed or we might try and fail, but either way we must try." Beside her, unnoticed, Tikalus beamed. "Besides, we have the might of the Brethren on our side."
    "Um. Actually, no we don't, Gracie."
    "What?"
    "Most of 'em have left, if y've noticed."
    "Just gone home?"
    "Can you blame them?"
    "YES!"
    "Calm down," Hands said bracingly. "We still have Misters Lunaseer and Tikalus here."
    "Ulta verpkintu essu nin," Lunaseer told him.
    "No, you don't," Tikalus translated, to his captain's chagrin.
    "I'm sorry, Mister Sparrow," Hands told the Black Pearl's captain, "but I don't think we can do this after all."
    Jack gaped. "Fifty men against a city holds no terror for you, but that same against one man and his bumbling crew and you're ready to turn tail and run?"
    "Broadly, yes. Surely you understand why the situation is different, when it's just him versus us on the open seas. Nothing will convince me that the odds are in my favor, Mister Sparrow. I can't do this, you see."
    "Not for revenge."
    "No."
    "Nor for honor."
    "No."
    "Nor for money," Jack concluded. He waved a finger at the young man. "But you will come because I tell you to."
    Israel Hands's expression froze halfway to one of contrariness, and then morphed itself into bewilderment. His mouth parted and closed a few times in the effort of saying something, and then he looked back and forth across the circle at the other officers, desperately trying to confirm whether this was some kind of joke, and then, finding no help there, he deflated and gave up. "How are you so sure?"
    "Sure? Have I any reason not to be?"
    Now the whole group was exchanging glances with each other.
    "Exactly," Jack said with satisfaction. "Now, I'd say the sooner we get started on this the better, so the first thing I want everyone to do is--"
    He was interrupted, firstly, by a loud but short scream, this itself cut short by an even louder WHAM as a body coming down from above connected with the floorboards by the officers' feet. Many of the gathered leaders backed away, startled.
    Jack looked up until his eyes fell upon Delphine sitting on the main mast, whistling innocently.
    He tore his gaze away and crouched down beside the prone figure, prodding his shoulder with a finger. "Will?" he tried experimentally. "Hey-o. You in there, young Master Turner?"
    A thought struck Jack as beneath his hand the boy shuddered back into consciousness. He stood up as Will lifted his head off the floor and turned until he found Jack through his hazy, warping vision. "Will Turner..." Jack said, like he was trying out unfamiliar syllables, "it's about time I saw to something I've put off for far too long, isn't it?"
    "What?" Will croaked, still seeing doubles.
    "I still need a first mate, Will. I kept the spot open for yer dad even after I knew it was too late for both of us. What say you rise to that now, mate?" Jack Sparrow asked the boy. He reached down with a hand extended, palm up. This, for whatever bizarre reason Will was presently not in the frame of mind to discern, swam into crystal clear focus when everything else still blurred. He noticed for the first time the old scar streaked across it.
    With some effort, Will stuck out his own hand to grab Jack's, and found himself pulled up onto unsteady feet.
    He was dimly aware that some people were cheering for him.

    In another place...
    The Turner household, cold and still in the darkness, was broken into consciousness with the start of a horrible scream. Lights soon flooded the hallways, with Will Turner, Jr. racing along them in circular paths, dizzied and confused by the untracable sound. He came eventually to the children's nursery, the door ajar and the room dark within. Candle in one hand, Turner pushed the door aside and golden light flooded the floor, across the tousled rug, onto the figures of his wife Elizabeth clutching their wailing child.
    "What is it?" Turner said frantically, rushing to her side. He knelt beside her, prying an arm from around his son Jack's shoulders. "He's far too old for night terrors."
    "I have no idea," Elizabeth moaned. "He just started screaming--!"
    Jack Turner writhed in a futile attempt to escape his mother's hold. He flailed his arms and legs, screaming, sobbing hysterically. Something on one of his palms glinted in the candlelight and Mister Turner reached out, catching his small hand by the wrist. There was a livid red cut across the palm, freshly cut.
    "How did he..." Turner began.
    "Will," Elizabeth said, eyes on her own palm. She offered it forward for her husband to see, the old scar which had for some reason decided to split open anew, ruby-red blood running down her knuckles and pooling on the floorboards below her.
    For the first time, Turner became aware of a stinging sensation in the hand holding onto his son's. He released his grip and examined his palm, which, too, was cut and bleeding profusely from an old, forgotten wound.
    Not forgotten, though, that was the thing. They'd never forget the circumstances behind those scars, the singular instigator of it all, to where they could only conclude one thing about what it meant now.
    The couple met each other's eyes.
    "Jack," Elizabeth whispered. And both of them knew she didn't mean their son.
 

End Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XVIII