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Salvage
A Sequel to Catch of the Day

by Virgo 79
First Post: August 28, 2005

Pipe clamped lightly between his teeth, Bill Turner looked up at Harry Downey's call, lifting one hand from the tiller to sheild his eyes against the glare of the rising sun as he scanned the horizon. "Aye, I've got it," he replied, when he could discern canvas from sky. "Go tell the captain, Downey."

Captain Yearwood emerged just as Bill was tucking his pipe away. "Turner," he greeted gruffly. "What've you boys found for me?"

Bill gestured with his chin, and Yearwood drew out his spyglass. There were several moments of silence, finally broken when Bill spoke up. "What d'you say, sir?"

"Hunh," Yearwood grunted noncommitally. He lowered the glass, the scarred side of his face that always seemed to frown looking crosser, as it always did when he was thinking. He turned his gaze towards the east, where the sunrise streaked the sky in dull crimson, the light spreading out from its source like reaching red-stained fingers.

"Close slow and wide, Bootstrap."

*

"Well, she ain't runnin'," Downey observed, about a quarter of an hour later, when their quarry was close enough that details were becoming visible to the naked eye.

"She isn't moving at all," Bill corrected, tipping his hat down low on his brow. He glanced at his captain. "Except where the waves push her."

Yearwood said nothing, his fingers drumming on his cutlass hilt.

"Sir?" Downey ventured. "Sir, should we raise our colors?"

The captain shook his head. "Don't bother."

Downey looked back and forth from Bill to the captain. "You think they abandoned?"

Yearwood's fingers tapped out their cadence on his sword, but he said nothing.

"If they did," Bill said dryly, his eyes on the ship they neared, "they went in one hell of a hurry. The lifeboats are still secured on deck."

"Fuck," Yearwood hissed. "Get the men up here, Downey. And get the hooks ready."

~ 2 ~

Any doubts Bill had harbored regarding the fate of the drifting ship, declared the Charybdis by the faded blue paint on her side, fled him as the crew's grappling hooks drew taught between the two vessels, and the wind changed.

"Christ," he choked out, turning his face sharply to the side to catch his breath.

Had it simply been the scent of blood, it would have been different. Bad enough, certainly, to be this strong, but blood at least was a scent that could be associated with life, even when both were pouring out too fast to be held in by anyone's hands. What wafted off the silent Charybdis now wasn't just blood. It was meat, and it was all the confirmation Bill needed. Living things didn't smell like that.

He cleared his throat vigorously, for all the good it did, and made the leap to the other ship's deck. He hadn't taken half a dozen paces before he found the first body. It was face down, collapsed near one of those untouched lifeboats, one arm flung out above the head, the other apparently pinned underneath. There was a pistol lying on the deck, just out of reach of the dead man's stiff fingers, and Bill thought it odd that the man's killer hadn't taken the weapon for himself afterwards.

"God, that's a fright of a fuckin' reek," Downey's voice announced from somewhere behind him. Bill ignored him, and reached to turn the body over, gritting his teeth with the effort. The corpse flopped onto its back, and Bill sucked in a loud gasp.

"What y'got here, Bootstrap..." Just over his shoulder, Bill heard Downey's voice fail him. "What in the hell...?"

Bill Turner could deal with death. He didn't much like it, but he could deal with it. He could, in point of fact, be quite adept at dispensing it. It almost always bothered him, but for better or worse, it didn't leave him white and wordless anymore.

Or it hadn't, until he'd turned this particular body over.

He'd been wrong. The right arm wasn't pinned beneath the body. He had no idea where it was, but it wasn't beneath the body. Bill stared at the place where it should have connected, where the splintered ruin of what had been a shoulder joint jutted out, and wanted very much to believe that this man had been dead before the limb had been removed.

Bill finally remembered how to swallow, and right about the time he managed it, he spotted something in the tattered flesh of the corpse's shoulder that was a different white than the bones. His hand moved as it wasn't attached to him, and his fingers worked the object loose.

It was slender and serrated, almost half the length of his little finger, and if he hadn't just pried it out of a man who'd died along with all his crewmates on the dry deck of a ship, Bill would have sworn his last shilling that it came from a shark.

~ 3 ~

Yes, I am aware that the word in that last part should be "taut" and not "taught". I can only claim late night brain drain-induced stupidity, and I seem to be unable to edit the entry. Grrr.

Anyway, on with the story.
*

"Downey," Bill said quietly, turning the tooth between his fingers as if reading his answers in its wicked edge, "send a few of the men back over for bayonets."

"What fer? There ain't no one here to fight."

Bill turned to look at Downey over his shoulder, and the incredulous expression was wiped from the other man's face without a word being spoken.

"Bayonets," Downey repeated. "Right. How many?"

Bill rose from his crouch, tucking the tooth into an inside pocket. "All we've got."

*

Captain Yearwood accompanied the requested weapons over from the Northern Beacon. Bill met him as he boarded, and the captain gave a low whistle as he took in the bodies that had been dragged into something resembling a row. "I don't know what party you're preparing for, Bootstrap," he commented, "but it looks like this one's over." He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the dead with grim but businesslike assessment. "Just these eight up top?"

"That's hard to say." At the captain's frown, Bill explained, his voice low and tight. "There are...we've found some remains that...aren't complete. Makes it difficult to get an accurate count."

Yearwood stared at him, then back down at the bodies. "These aren't the worst?" he asked, studying one that was missing the lower half of its jaw.

"Depends on the size of the box your idea of 'the worst' fits into."

Yearwood's jaw worked, and Bill suppressed a grimace when he heard the captain's teeth grinding. "And below?"

"I'm getting ready to go down now."

Yearwood nodded. "Wonder who it was got to 'em first. Charlie Hess is bastard enough, but he'd 'a burned the ship out from under 'em after."

"They weren't raided."

"Ah, you reckon that poor bloke there split his own ribs open, then?"

Bill carefully quelled his impatience, and gestured to the line of corpses. "For all the bits these men are missing, Captain, they aren't light their weapons. Or their jewelry. Or their *boots*, for that matter." Keeping his voice pitched too low for the other men to hear, Bill continued severely, "Any pirates down on their luck enough to hit a bloody *fishing* vessel might have at least a passing interest in those sorts of things, wouldn't you say?"

Yearwood scowled, but he was considering while he scowled. "Could'a been somethin' personal."

"These men weren't attacked with weapons. They aren't cut up, Captain, they're torn apart." Bill reached into his coat and pulled out the tooth. "I took this out of the first man we found," he said, holding it out to Yearwood. "It was lodged in him where his arm should've been."

The grey-haired captain studied it. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it without doing so. "Shark," he muttered after another moment.

Bill inclined his head obligingly. "I once saw a bull shark take three of a man's fingers while it thrashed around in the bottom of his boat, dying," he recalled, running his thumb over the tooth. "But I'd be real curious to know what kind can hold its breath out of water long enough to rip through a whole crew." He tossed the tooth up a few inches, closing his fist around it when it landed back in his palm. "That's what I would call one fucking formidable fish. Sir."

Yearwood looked again at the line of ravaged bodies, and he nodded. "McLaughlin!" he called sharply, without moving his gaze. "Get those bayonets handed out. No one goes below without one."

*

The smell was worse below, but as far as Bill could tell, it was because it was enclosed, and not because there were more dead than up above. Those that had been slain down here hadn't had the same opportunity to air out that their mates above had.

"Most of them were up top when they died," Bill observed aloud, carefully sidestepping the now-blackened and dried liquid that had spilled down the steps. The unfortunate individual it had once belonged to was sprawled at the top of the steps, his spine glistening through the hole that used to be his throat.

Remarkably, it managed to be less horrible than the damage done to him lower on his torso.

Downey followed, not watching his step as carefully as Bill, and slipped. He caught himself on the bulkhead, swore, and glared down, irritation warring with disgust. "Ain't there supposed to be more inside than this?" he demanded, pointing with his blade-tipped rifle.

"Choice cuts," Bill muttered under his breath.

"Whassat, Bootstrap?"

"Never mind." He made his way forward, the bayonet preceeding him. The sound of the men behind him was all that cut through the smothering, chilled silence; ahead, it was quiet, heavy and unbroken.

And then, abruptly and almost imperceptibly, it *wasn't*.

Bill froze, and held up a hand to halt his crewmates. With their movement paused, the interior of the ship was utterly silent, and Bill tilted his head, listening.

He couldn't even say what it was that he'd heard, so soft had it been. But for a few seconds, the shroud of oppressive quiet had fluttered with...something.

Eyes sweeping the gloom ahead, Bill took a step, then another, and stopped again, his hand still up to hold the others where they stood, his rifle balanced against his hip.

He advanced on the doorway just ahead and to his right slowly, pushing visions of the butchered men laid out in a line up on deck from his mind. The bayonet's tip rounded the corner first, and Bill slid along after it, finding himself in the galley.

Something at the end of the narrow room rustled, and Bill drew the weapon up higher, allowing him to aim slightly downward. There was a large, open crate shoved into the corner of the room, and Bill determined it to be the source of the barely-there sounds he'd heard. He drew a deep breath, and then closed the last of the distance to the crate in three long, fast strides, rifle positioned to be emptied into whatever it held as soon as Bill laid eyes on it.

And then Bill saw, and his jaw dropped.

"Mother of God."

~ 4 ~

"Bootstrap!" he heard Downey shout, "What's happenin'?" It was fortunate, Bill supposed, that the answer to that question didn't involve him being attacked by anything left lurking in the violated ship, since Downey was shouting it from a safe distance and sure as hell wouldn't have been close enough to do anything about it if Bill were presently getting his face eaten off.

Any true annoyance that observation might have otherwise brought with it, however, paled alongside the astonishment that had come upon Bill at his discovery.

Whatever nightmare had crawled out of the sea and claimed the Charybdis, it seemed it had missed one person. Curled limply in the crate was a young man who couldn't yet be out of his teens, watching Bill with hostility so scorching not even his obvious exhaustion tempered it much.

Bill carefully set his rifle aside, never taking his eyes from the bottomless brown ones staring up through the curtain of disheveled dark hair that fell just past the boy's jaw. They flickered away only once, following the movement of the weapon, and then returned instantly to Bill's, feverishly alert and focusing through the lifting fog of shock.

Bill held his hands up in front of him, keeping the set of his shoulders loose and nonthreatening. "It's all right," he said softly, kneeling down beside the crate. "It's all right to come out now."

The boy's chin lifted, barely, and a little more of that glassy look left him, but otherwise he didn't move, evidently not convinced enough to leave his hiding place. Either that, Bill reasoned, or he just wasn't able. Bill took in the boy's boneless posture, the dark, bluish circles under his eyes, and the pale, cracked lips, so parched they had split and bled in places. There were dark stains on his shirt, from what looked to be a head injury, as a section of his long hair was matted with blood as well.

"Jesus, lad, how long have you been down here?" Bill muttered.

The boy pulled his legs in closer to himself, arms wrapping tight around his middle, looking pained. Bill looked him over again, then glanced around their surroundings, frowning as a horrible suspicion dawned.

Bill reached for one of the cupboard doors and gave an experimental tug, which was met with firm resistance. Releasing the handle, his fingers moved down, running over a keyhole. Almost every last cupboard in the galley had one.

The captain of the Charybdis had apparently gone to some trouble to ensure that rations weren't abused.

"Oh my God," Bill breathed, turning back to the young man, who now seemed to be having some difficulty holding his head up. "Come on, lad, we need to get you out of there."

Thick lashes fluttered up enough for the boy to glare flatly at Bill once more, then came down.

Bill caught his lower lip between his teeth in dismay, then pushed himself to his feet, resolved. "All right then, the hard way it is," he sighed, leaning over the crate and sliding his arms beneath the boy's and around his chest. "Not much to you, anywaAAGGGHHSHITSHITHOLYSHIT!"

While the seven colors of the rainbow and a few not normally visible to humans flashed before Bill's eyes, he came to two conclusions: the young man was rather more adamant about not moving from his sanctuary than Bill had anticipated, and every last reserve of the scrawny-looking survivor's strength had taken up residence in his jaw.

Bill got him out of the crate, though. Mainly because his teeth were still clamped onto Bill's arm when Bill fell over. But the end result was the same.

They hit the floor and rolled apart, Bill clutching his bleeding forearm and groaning through clenched teeth, the kid skittering to press up against the bulkhead with a speed that Bill would've found impressive in someone half-starved under other circumstances.

And that was how Downey and the others found them when they decided to show up.

"What the hell is this?" Downey yelped, throwing a frantic look at the bleeding Bill and leveling his bayonet at the boy.

"Put it away, Downey," Bill growled, pushing himself upright. He turned his arm to get a better look, and hissed.

"Who is he?"

"No one you need to be pointing a gun at."

"Sod that, he just bit a chunk out of you, Bootstrap!" Downey moved forward, clutching the rifle so tightly the bayonet quivered in the air. "What were you doin' in here?" he demanded, advancing on the boy.

Bill stepped between them, the last of his patience dwindling. "He was hiding, Downey."

"Ha! What fer?" The bayonet was practically bouncing.

"To avoid being found. 'S generally what hiding is supposed to accomplish. Move."

Bill planted a solid kick on one of the cupboard doors, followed it up with another, and smashed the hinges inward with a third. He knelt and peered inside, then stuck his arm in.

"How d'you know he didn't have nothin' to do with those poor bastards in pieces up there?" Downey shot back, gesturing wildly with the bayonet.

Bill's hand shot up and grabbed the barrel, stopping the irratic movement. "If you don't stop waving that bloody thing around I'm going to bend you over this counter and put it somewhere safe so the rest of us don't have to fear losing an eye."

Downey got very quiet. Someone in the hall behind him coughed carefully.

With one last glance at his shipmate, Bill knelt down again and retrieved what he'd been hunting for: a corked stoneware jug. He pried the stopper out, took a sniff, and looked up to catch the boy's eye. "Come here, lad."

The young man hesitated, and Bill tipped the jug, a quick cascade of clean water splashing down to sluice over the bloody mark on his arm.

The boy made a small noise and propelled himself towards Bill and the offering. His hands shook as they clutched at the neck of the jug while Bill held it steady. "Sip it now," Bill warned. "It needs to stay down to do you any good." He let the boy get two pulls, the second of which was mostly sputtered out when the kid choked on the first and doubled over, coughing uncontrollably. Bill set the water aside and put a hand on one shaking shoulder. "Easy now, catch your breath."

He stood and gave Downey a cool look. He stepped in close, so he could speak almost directly into Downey's ear. "Those men up there were torn apart like they were made of paper, Downey. They were torn apart, and fucking eaten. And from the look of it, whatever ate them wasn't too particular about just how dead they were when it tucked in. This little bit of a bloke here has been sitting in this room the whole time. Listening to them die and smelling them rot -- and probably wondering if the thing that killed them was going to come back for seconds." Bill paused, giving Downey a moment to absorb that. When he saw the other man's throat jump in a hard swallow, he continued. "Have you and the men been all the way through the rest of this ship?"

Downey cleared his throat, and shook his head.

"Well then maybe you ought to get on with that. Because if this lad isn't the only living thing left on this tub, we need to know that. Are you following me, Downey?"

"Aye," Downey nodded. "I hear ye, Bootstrap."

"Good. You go fast, you go quiet. Take whatever supplies or valuables are easy at hand. If you should find any more like him alive, get them up top and onto the Beacon." Unspoken was the unlikelihood of that coming to pass. "You find anything else..."

Downey moistened his lips nervously. "What do you think it was?" he asked.

"Hungry." Bill replied.

*

The boy's coughing spell passed, and he reached for the water again.

"Here," Bill said, sitting beside him and lifting the heavy container. "You have a little more of this, and then we'll get you on your feet and out of here, all right?"

The fingers of one hand waved at him in what might have agreement. Or a muscle spasm; it was hard to tell. Bill let him drink a bit more this time before gently but firmly taking the container away. The boy scooted away, but not very far. He watched Bill warily, swiping his sleeve across his mouth.

"Better?" Bill asked, and this time he got a nod, which relieved him more than he'd been expecting. He had begun to entertain the gut-twisting thought that the boy's mind might not have come through the ordeal as in tact as the rest of him. It was hard to say how he'd fare down the line, of course, but having gotten a look at what the lad had lived through, Bill privately thought that the full eye contact and lack of drooling were encouraging signs.

"I don't know how you endured it," Bill marveled quietly, "but you've impressed the hell out of me, and I haven't known you an hour." He gave the young man a small smile. "What's your name, lad?"

Those dark eyes searched him for a minute, and whatever they found, or didn't find, must have satisfied the boy.

"Jack--" he replied, breaking off and flinching as a dry cough trailed the word. "Jack Sparrow." He accepted the help when Bill moved forward and lifted the water jug for him again, his eyes closing briefly in relief as his throat was cooled.

Then he opened them, and tilted his head as he studied Bill.

"And just what the hell sort of silly name is 'Bootstrap', mate?"

~ 5 ~

Jack was sitting cross-legged on the floor in Bill's quarters, using the last morsel of his bread to sop up the last of what might, by a generous and imaginative soul with a failing to nonexistent sense of smell, be called stew, when Bill returned carrying a bucket of heated water and an armful of clean rags. Taking note of the nearly empty state of Jack's bowl, Bill chuckled. The sound drew the young man's suspicious gaze to him sharply.

"Share the joke, mate?"

"Sorry, lad. It's not you. I just don't think I've ever seen anyone that enthusiastic over my cooking before." He set the water and cloths down on his trunk and took a seat on the remaining space beside them. "Word gets around you got it down that easily, I might have to start pulling my weight in the galley. Half the time they let me off the hook to spare themselves."

"Oh." Jack polished off his bread and set the bowl aside. "Well, if it helps your reputation at all, mate, I didn't exactly take the time to taste it. But if anyone asks, I'll be sure to tell them it was utter crap."

"Thank you, Jack, I appreciate that."

Jack's mouth twitched in a half-smile, and a spark of mischief burned away a few more of the shadows in his eyes.

"If you're done eating, come over here." Bill dunked one of the rags in the water and wrung it out.

Jack made no attempt to move whatsoever. "What for?" he demanded.

"Do you argue every bloody thing everyone asks you to do, or do I just bring out your cooperative side?"

"You were tellin', not askin'." Jack pointed out obstinately.

Bill rolled his eyes, and propped one arm on his knee. "Would you please be so kind as to come and sit over here, Master Jack Sparrow, so I can see to that bump on your hard little head?"

Jack glared, but came reluctantly to sit down on the floor in front of Bill. "It's *Mister* Jack Sparrow. And hadn't you better see to your arm first?"

"I stitched it up already. Thanks for your concern. Turn to face me a moment." Bill instructed, reaching for the lantern he'd re-lit upon bringing Jack to his quarters. "Chin back," he ordered, tilting Jack's face up and holding the lantern close.

"You stitched your own arm closed?" There was far more awe than repugnance in the question. Bill snorted.

"On this ship, lad, I'd have to be a lot braver to let someone else do it for me. Stop squinting."

"Then get that bloody light out of me eyes! What're you doing, anyway?"

"Making sure they're the same size."

"The same size as what?"

Bill bit back a grin. "One pupil bigger than the other's bad. It can mean there's swelling inside, or bleeding." He set the light aside. "Yours are fine. Turn the other way so I can take a look at that cut."

"It's just a scratch." Jack protested.

"Good, less chance we'll have to amputate. Now turn."

Jack stared at him incredulously, and then a giggle slipped out. He rotated so his back was to Bill, and drew his legs up against his chest. Bill pushed Jack's hair away from his ear and began washing the blood that had dried on his neck away with a light touch. He had just started dabbing at the cut itself when Jack's whole body suddenly jerked beneath his hands. Thinking he'd touched something particularly sore, Bill drew back, and realized the younger man's shoulders were shaking slightly.

"Jack?"

Another giggle answered him. Jack curled up, face pressed against his knees to staunch the thin, brittle laughter spilling out of him. He caught his breath in a sound akin to a sob, and Bill waited.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" Jack asked after a moment. "You didn't find anyone else?"

Bill dunked the cloth in the water, watching the droplets patter down into the bucket when he squeezed the excess out, faintly rust-colored. "No. Just you."

Jack's head bobbed as he nodded. "Can't fuss too much over a knock on the head when I got off that easily, can I?"

Bill's eyebrows crept upwards. "That's...one way of looking at it, I suppose."

Jack half-turned towards him. "What's another? I'm alive." He picked at a fraying thread on his sleeve. "I wasn't supposed to be there, y'know. Got found out right before...right before."

Carefully, Bill slid out from behind Jack, and moved to crouch in front of him. "Before what, Jack? What killed them?"

"I didn't see anything. I was where you found me. All along." Jack ducked his face then, letting his tangled hair fall across it.

Bill sat back, folding the rag over and setting it aside. "You know that's the only reason you're alive, don't you?" he said quietly. "Because you stayed where you were. Kept quiet. Kept out of sight." Getting no response, Bill reached out and tucked a knuckle under the boy's chin, lifting his face up until he had to meet Bill's eyes again. "You did *exactly* what you should have done, lad. Understand?"

Finally, Jack nodded, and Bill stood, giving Jack's shoulder a squeeze as he rose.

"Let me get you a fresh shirt to change into, Jack." He looked the younger -- and considerably smaller -- man over once, and the corner of his mouth curled up. "It won't be the greatest fit, but it'll do. Then you can take my hammock for a bit of rest."

"'M not tired."

He sounded so like Will that Bill's hands faltered momentarily as they cleared the trunk off, his breath catching in his throat. "Aye, well," he wrestled to steady his voice, "give it try." He lifted the lid and drew one of his shirts out, and there was a smile on his face by the time he turned to hand it to Jack. "You might find it feels good just to close your eyes for a while."

Jack shuddered visibly, though he tried to cover it with the movement to take the garment from Bill. "Think I rather prefer 'em open, mate."

"Well, you're free to go up topside if you want," Bill said. "When I get back I can see about getting you something to help you sleep, if you're ready--"

"When you get back?" Jack repeated sharply, stopping halfway out of his shirt.

"I have to go back to the Charybdis for a bit."

"Why?" Jack demanded, and Bill swore he could *see* the boy's pulse double its pace.

"The captain wants any supplies they had on board brought over so we can be on our way. It'll be all right." This last in a lighter tone, with a reassuring smile to soothe the anxiety Bill saw boiling up. "It won't take long, lad. And as soon as that's done, we're going."

Jack's expression was surly, but Bill caught flashes of fear glinting through, even as the young man turned quickly away, tugging his borrowed shirt on.

"Jack, it'll be fine," Bill stated firmly. "You were the last thing breathing on that ship."

"Bootstrap." One of Bill's crewmates stepped up to the doorway just then, interrupting them, and casting a quick, bored glance at the extra body in his quarters. "You done screwin' around in here yet? Cap'n wants to get this over with."

Too-long sleeves were methodically rolled back, and Jack walked over and hoisted himself up to sit in the hammock, arms crossed over his chest. "It was a mermaid," he announced flatly, staring at the third man hard for a minute before giving his attention back to Bill. "They pulled a mermaid up in their net, and she got loose and killed them all." Jack didn't so much as glance at the other man when he snorted derisively.

"For Chrissakes. Turner, whenever the hell you're ready."

"I believe you know the way, Parks," Bill replied coolly. "You just scurry on over there if you're in such a rush. Oh, and if you meet anything with a mouthful of teeth like this one," he held up his find from earlier, "shoot it."

Parks went satisfyingly still, his throat working in a painful swallow. Bill couldn't resist a small smirk as he left the room quickly. Turning back to Jack, he arched an eyebrow and nodded in the departed Parks' direction. "Arserag," he confided to Jack, and it took a moment, but Bill got a smile from the younger man. "You put your feet up and relax in here, lad. I'll be back before you know it."

Bill gathered up his rifle once more, and he was almost through the door when Jack spoke again.

"William?" His brown eyes were wide and grave. "I heard her. She sang to herself...when she was done with them. She sang while she..." He trailed off, and raised his chin defiantly. "I *heard* her."

Bill nodded. "I believe you, Jack."

After Bill had gone, Jack twisted himself up onto the hammock and lay down, but he didn't shut his eyes.

~ 6 ~

Despite his will's exertions to do otherwise, Jack found himself bobbing in the shallows of sleep as he lay in Bill Turner's hammock, his vigil over the open doorway sabotaged by his treacherous eyelids. He would stare into the passageway beyond Bill's quarters until his vision started to blur, and the next thing he knew he'd come awake with a jolt, and no grasp of how long he'd been drifting for.

It felt so damn good to let his eyes close, but before they ever managed to stay that way for long his mind supplied him with another of its suggestions as to what he'd find staring him in the face when he opened them again.

He couldn't let go enough to fall into true sleep, but he couldn't force his body upright and out of its gently swaying cradle, either.

The muted voices of the Northern Beacon's crewmen grew fainter, as if Jack was sinking downward, farther and farther away from them. He slowly became less aware of the pressure of his arm beneath his cheek. The tension that had animated him for these last days ebbed as unstoppably as the tide, and he couldn't resist that gentle, insistent pull.

Jack treaded sleep like water, unwilling to let it close over his head. There were things waiting in the deep that would bite.

*

While his shipmates set about retrieving what meager spoils they could from the dead Charybdis, Bill Turner saw to the bodies of her crew. There was little to be done; the last of them had been dragged up from below and laid out on deck while he'd been on the Beacon. He folded hands over chests, at least where the damage allowed it, and located some burlap to cover the worst of them. It was a paltry dignity, but all he could offer.

He felt they were owed words, but was at a loss as to what those might be.

See to their families, God, if any of them left anyone behind.

"You know you're chummier with the dead than you are with the living, Bootstrap." Downey came up beside him, giving the line of bodies a critical eye. "Huh. You reckon that one there has feet about the same size as mine? I been needin' me some new boots."

"Any trouble below?"

Downey shook his head. "Not a peep. Some o' the boys are makin' a last pass through, seein' if there's anything else worth botherin' with."

Bill worried his bottom lip thoughtfully for a moment before nodding. "Good idea," he said, mostly to himself, then clapped Downey on the shoulder. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"To the hold and the bilge."

"I just came from the hold, Turner. We've got everything." Despite this assertion, Downey trailed Bill in his descent.

"Very thorough of you, but I'm not looking for cargo."

"Well then what the hell are you lookin' for, a place to take a piss? You can do that topside. I'll even hold yer gun for you."

Bill smirked, but kept going. They passed by the Beacon's crewmen, all heading in the opposite direction. They got a few curious glances, but no questions.

Around them, the silence of the Charybdis thickened as they moved deeper down, the air almost stagnant, and by the time they entered the hold, it was as if they'd been swallowed.

Well-timed analogy, Turner, Bill scoffed at himself.

"Ah, shit, it's empty. If only someone had been around to tell us that before we came all the way down here."

"You know, Downey," Bill said, making his way to the bilge hatch, "you really ought to work at having a better personality to compensate for what you lack in good looks."

"Did you just call me ugly and unpleasant?"

"Aye. Light that lantern, will you?"

Downey did so, handing it over, and Bill leaned down to hook it just to the side of the ladder into the bilge, his eyes scouring the dim, damp space beneath. Bayonet cradled carefully at his side, he climbed down. Downey knelt, leaning across the open hatch, his own weapon across his thighs.

"You ever wonder how many deaths come about as the result of stupid buggers pokin' around in places they got no call to be pokin' around in?" Downey wondered casually.

"A fair few, I'll wager." He stepped down to stand on the bottommost timbers of the Charybdis, briny water sloshing around his shins. He remained there, quietly, the water throwing rippling light across his face.

After a few minutes, Bill took a step back, and knocked with the butt of his rifle on the hull, four times. He lifted one foot, kicking lightly at the surface of the water, splashing, then stopped.

There was no other sound or movement. Nothing else disturbed the water.

Bill gave it a moment more, than his stance relaxed. "All right. We're done here."

Downey rolled his eyes as Bill turned and climbed up the ladder. "By the time we get up top, somebody's gonna have my boots, y'know."

*

Captain Yearwood was on deck waiting when they emerged. Most of the rest of the crew had already gone back to the Beacon. "You gents done with your constitutional?" the captain asked wryly.

Bill's mouth curled up. "Just making sure we didn't miss anything important, sir."

Yearwood's breath huffed out in a voiceless chuckle. "If I didn't know you had a more sensible head on your shoulders, Bootstrap, I'd say you've been listenin' to that little boy's ghost stories."

Unperturbed, Bill's gaze slid past Yearwood to Parks, who stood at the rail of the Charybdis wearing a trace of a sneer. "Sounds as if he's not the only one telling them. Guess I missed you below, Parks," he called to the other man. "Or have you been up here all along?"

The sneer was wiped away, abruptly, as a murmur of laughter passed through the men who'd heard.

"Anyway, Captain, " Bill went on, "she's as light as we're going to make her."

Yearwood nodded, pleased. "Good. Then let's get the hell out of here. I'm goin' to have to burn this fuckin' smell out of my nose."

*

Jack supposed the fragments of sights and sounds that lapped at the hull of his mind had to be dreams, though he felt more awake than asleep when they came.

The whorl in the wood-grain of the crate that had started to look like a cross-eyed owl after the third or fourth hour he'd been staring at it…>>

His legs carrying him like an unwilling passenger down a dark corridor, eyes blinded and tearing in the fierce brine-scented wind that buffeted his face and made a sound like singing…>>

A drop of cold water on his shoulder. Another on the side of his face. And another…and another…and when he opened his mouth to speak or scream, he coughed out bitter saltwater in choking, burning bursts instead…>>

He lifted his head when he thought he heard Bill's voice calling him, and saw a web-fingered, sickle-clawed hand grasp the doorjamb, down low, near the floor—>>

His body propelled itself from the hammock without pausing to consult his brain, and Jack stumbled when his feet hit the floor. He righted himself in one step and froze in place the next, searching the threshold of the tiny space Bill called his quarters for movement, watching for wet, spidery fingers to appear, listening for the scrape of scales across wood.

You bloody pathetic little coward.

His own voice sneering in his head straightened his spine, forced him to swallow past the painful knot in his throat.

Surely nothing that had ever crouched or slithered in the dark could be as dreadful as being caught fearing it.

There's nothing out there, anyway, idiot, he reminded himself, and drawing a steadying breath, strode purposefully into the corridor.

When he rounded the doorway and collided with a body coming the other way, it was difficult to say who yelped the loudest.

"Lord, Jack, you scared the shit out of me," Bill Turner laughed breathlessly, one hand pressed to his forehead. He dragged it down over his face, groaning. "Don't really fancy picking up any new grey hairs this week, lad."

"Sorry, mate. Got a bit restless." Jack's grin was quick. Almost quick enough to make panic look like nothing more than surprise.

Almost.

The laughter left Bill's face. "I thought you'd be out cold by now, Jack," he said, benignly. "You look like you could stand to keep a pillow company for a day or so, lad. I can get you a nip of something to help--"

"No!" Jack replied sharply. Too sharply; a line deepened between Bill's eyebrows at the edge in the young man's voice. "Not much point to that. It's the middle of the day. If I can't sleep now I'll just…sleep tonight." Jack shrugged one shoulder dismissively, but found Bill's gaze was not so easily shaken. He raised his chin in a promise of defiance when the older man looked about to argue.

Bill Turner would have been a poor pirate indeed if he couldn't read the weather, and upon scenting a brewing storm, he decided to change course – this time. "All right then," he acquiesced, nodding. "In that case why don't you come above with me? I imagine you're a bit tired of looking at walls."

Jack seemed to loosen all over, and a more easily summoned smile lit up his face. "Too right, mate. Let's go."

*

"So did you find anything interesting?" Jack asked some time later, as the two of them made a slow lap around the Beacon's upper decks.

"Nothing to top this," Bill replied, raising his bandaged arm. The younger man grinned, an impish expression that proved infectious, as Bill smiled in spite of himself. "Yeah, you laugh now…"

"Oh, I'll be laughin' later too, mate," Jack assured him.

"Don't be so sure of that, lad. You don't know where this arm's been."

Jack chortled, and Bill felt a startling sense of elation. As the two of them came to stand at the stern, it dawned on him how long it had been since he'd had even a breath of happiness. He looked out across the water, and for the first time since he'd come to the Caribbean, he enjoyed the sight.

This warm, garishly bright place wasn't home, but neither was it the exile it had been just a few hours before, when today had been yesterday and his heart had felt so heavy he couldn't fathom how it held itself up in his chest.

Maybe it was having a reminder of how quickly and cruelly life could end flung in his path. He wondered if any of the Charybdis' crewmen had been cursing their lot before the sea reached into its abundant arsenal and relieved them of their burdens.

Maybe, on the other side of the Atlantic, Kathleen and Will had forgiven him for leaving.

He was tugged abruptly from his thoughts by the sound of the captain's voice. "Well, Turner, let's have a proper introduction." Yearwood's wily blue eyes looked Jack up and down.

"Certainly, sir. Captain Yearwood, this is Jack Sparrow. Mind you don't sneak up on him; he's a biter. Jack, this is Noah Yearwood, captain of the Northern Beacon. Don't make any ark jokes unless you're abnormally fond of heights and would enjoy an extended stay in the crow's nest."

"Captain," Jack greeted respectfully, shaking the man's hand when it was offered. There was a glint in his eyes as he spoke, though. "Never had a problem with heights, m'self. They can be quite exhilarating."

Yearwood snorted. "Particularly when you fall from them."

Bill bit back a grin. If Yearwood's intention had been to chase that spark from Jack's eyes, he failed dismally. It was fanned now, threatening to catch and spread.

Maybe, Bill considered, he'd finally found something in the Caribbean that was worth the grief of the journey.

Yearwood caught him trying not to smile, and ignored it. "So tell me, Sparrow," the captain pressed, "what are you good at besides surviving?"

Jack crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, beaming.

Oh, this ought to be good. Bill took out his pipe, intending to enjoy this conversation to the fullest.

"Where would you like me to start, mate?" Jack prompted.

The End

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