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Here's Luck To You
Written for the 'Luck(y) Charm' Drabble Challenge

by Honorat
First post November 11, 2005

1 The Luck Holds

“Bloody hell, Jack!” Bill swore, ducking his head away from his captain’s persistent attempt to sponge off the blood running down his face. He instantly regretted the sudden motion as the quarterdeck of the Black Pearl fractured into a thousand multi-coloured pieces and spun like a compass on top of magnetic north. His stomach made an urgent escape attempt.

“Hold still, you daft idiot!” Jack snapped at him. “Don’t you dare muck up the deck of my ship any more than you already have!”

He had significantly mucked up Jack’s pristine decks. The shot had plowed a groove right through his skull as Jack had informed him in the blister of creative profanity that always accompanied his captain’s getting shaken.

Wincing, Bill gritted his teeth and endured. “So, did we win?” he asked, to take his mind off the fact that Jack was removing his head one piece at a time and planting explosives behind his eyes.

“Aye,” Jack answered shortly.

Bill’s hand went to the small ivory amulet on the chain at his throat. “The luck still holds.” He grinned recklessly at Jack, who was smoking and fuming more than the haze of gunpowder still hanging over his ship and the crackle of fires the crew was rushing to douse.

“It had better,” muttered Captain Sparrow darkly. “I’m not doing without you, William Turner. That’s an order.”

2 Don't Do Anything Stupid

When he’d first found himself locked in the stores, he’d thought it was an accident, and he’d pounded on the hatch, yelling. Then he’d decided it was a prank and somebody was going to die, excruciatingly, the minute he discovered the culprit. His shouts grew more and more obscene. When no one came and it seemed like hours of darkness pressed in on him, Bill began to worry.

Something was very wrong.

He began to cast about for some means of escape. At first he tried to be careful. Jack was tolerant about anything but damage to his ship. However, as the minutes dashed by and he seemed no nearer to prying open that hatch than before, Bill threw caution overboard and gouged great splinters out of the wood. If Jack was in on this, he deserved to have his bloody boat smashed. But if he was not . . . Bill doubled the fury of his attack. If Jack didn’t know, he was in terrible danger.

Finally, the hatch gave way with a crack Bill was sure could be heard on the fighting top. Rather than wait to see what it stirred up, he scrambled out through the shattered wood and melted into the shadows.

Until he knew what was in the wind, he didn’t want to see anyone or, more particularly, to be seen by them.

His circuitous route to avoid any other crewmembers produced only the overheard information that something had gone wrong between the captain and the first mate. Bill felt a chill even in the sweltering heat belowdecks. Barbossa was as crooked as Jack, without the saving grace of a good heart that made Jack such a surprising pirate. Usually, Jack knew just how to manipulate his obstreperous mate, but if Barbossa had come to blows with the captain . . . Bill needed to find Jack.

He was creeping through the brig when he noticed one of the cells was no longer empty. Its occupant was not moving, so Bill was edging cautiously on by when something about that still silhouette whispered familiarity. He moved to where he could get a better view and his throat closed in horror. The man in the brig was Captain Jack Sparrow. All Bill’s fears hailed down on him like grapeshot. This was not a quarterdeck squabble. This was mutiny! He rushed to the bars and knelt, gripping them until his knuckles gleamed white.

Jack lay, frighteningly still, one eye swollen closed and cut, his moustache and beard bloody from a punch to his mouth. He was curled around his arms, knuckles raw from fighting, knees pulled up as though he’d been kicked in the stomach or worse. A dangerous gash on one thigh was contributing to a terrible pool of blood on the cell floor. They’d practically murdered him!

Rage and guilt cannonaded in Bill’s head. He should have known. Somehow, he should have known. He should have stopped this.

“Jack,” Bill called softly, hoping no one could hear. “Jack you rotten scoundrel, you bloody bastard. Don’t you dare be dead.”

He started back in shock when Jack came instantly to life and lunged for the grating.

“Bill!”

He felt Jack’s shaking hands grip the sides of his face.

“I thought you were dead,” Jack whispered. “I thought, if you hadn’t gone along with this, they’d have killed you.”

“If you thought for one instant, Jack Sparrow, that I’d be party to this . . . to this . . .” Bill seethed, holding Jack’s wrists and feeling the racing pulses in them with relief. “I really will kill you.”

Jack laughed and then doubled over in agony, hands clasped again to his stomach. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Bill,” he gasped.

“What in the bloody blazes happened, Jack?” Bill demanded, feeling ill himself.

“Those miscreants tried to take my ship,” Jack spoke through gritted teeth. “I objected. We had words on the subject.”

“Words? You look like someone nearly murdered you.”

“Several someones. I think I may have murdered some of them. I don’t quite remember that part. Takes a lot more than a mutiny to do away with Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?” Jack said, trying for an airy tone.

The words were bold, but Bill saw that Jack was shivering, and at the mention of mutiny, he’d looked like he was going to be sick.

“Are you all right?” At Jack’s incredulous look, he emended, “I mean are you going to be all right? What did they do to you?”

“Nothing time and a good bottle of rum won’t cure. Do you happen to have a bottle of rum?” Jack asked hopefully.

Bill shook his head, exasperated. Jack Sparrow was impossible. “That’s going to leave a scar.” His hand hovered over the ruin of Jack’s eye.

“Not as big a scar as I left on that bastard Barbossa’s face,” Jack smirked, rejuvenating into his usual annoying self more rapidly than Bill would have thought possible. “Meant to take off his head. Must be getting rusty. Pity about the rum.”

“What are they planning to do to you Jack?”

“The usual. Maroon me on some god-forsaken spit of land with a pistol and a single shot. Could be worse I suppose.” Jack shrugged insouciantly, but Bill had never seen a bleaker look on his captain’s face.

What Jack was really saying was that those scum were going to leave him to die and steal his ship. Bill couldn’t even imagine Jack without the Black Pearl.

“I’ve got to get you out of here.” Bill looked around frantically for some means of gaolbreaking. “And then we are going to murder Barbossa.”

“Wait just a damn minute.” Jack gripped his wrist with cold fingers. “Don’t be going off half-cocked, you crackbrained fire-eater. This is no time for ham-fisted heroics. You’re like to get us both killed. Besides,” he admitted. “I’ve already tried that. Didn’t work.”

“Just what do you propose we do then?” Bill growled. He was feeling strongly like shedding the blood of some mutinous pirates.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing! What do you mean nothing? Did they crack you over the head too hard?” Bill was seriously worried. Jack Sparrow had never been the type to give up.

“Yes, but that’s beside the point.” Jack waved dismissively. “You can’t go and get yourself killed on account of me, you maggot-brain. Use that head of yours for something besides a hat rack.”

Bill opened his mouth to protest, but Jack forged on. “Aren’t you forgetting a little something here? You’re a father and a husband. You’ve got no business being stupid on my behalf.”

Bill shut his mouth with a snap. Jack was right.

“Barbossa and his minions will let me off at whatever little island they’ve got in mind,” Jack continued, managing to make the most appalling alternative sound reasonable. “I’ll have myself a little tropical vacation, while you go pirate some treasure. Then you can scurry back and pick me up, and then,” Jack bared his teeth in a shark’s smile, “and then we murder Barbossa and every last one of these traitorous bastards, savvy?” He held out his hand. “Agreed?”

There was a long pause while conflicting impulses fought a best two out of three falls. Bill didn’t want to stand by and watch Jack Sparrow be marooned. Nor did he want to deprive his wife and child of his support. Chances were, the ship would go down on the trip to Isla de Muerta anyway. But if they didn’t, his share of the gold of Cortez would surely garner him the resources to provide for his family and rescue Jack who would be safe on an island. And Jack was right. The two of them couldn’t defeat the entire crew of the Black Pearl. Especially since it looked to be all his captain could manage just to sit up and speak with him. It felt strange to be thinking about Jack as the prudent one.

Finally, he answered, although the words wrenched his heart, “Agreed.” He shook Jack’s hand, careful not to grip too hard.

“Good man.” Jack brightened. The effect was very odd on his ravaged face. “Now one other thing. I don’t want you on deck when they dump me off.”

“Jack.”

“No arguments this time. I know it’s difficult for you, but please, try not to do anything stupid.” There was a hint of pleading in Jack’s voice for a moment. “You’ll be more likely to keep that temper of yours if you can’t see what they’re doing. I want you belowdecks. That’s an order, Bill.”

That last had been Jack’s command voice—cold and stern and brooking no dissent.

Bill froze up slightly. “Aye, Captain,” he said stiffly, resentment in every lineament of his frame.

But Jack wasn’t letting him pull back. He gripped Bill’s shoulder with one battered hand and leaned his forehead against the bars of his cell. “I’ve made a right mangle of this, Bill. I’m sorry.”

The resentment leaked out of Bill. The fact that Jack Sparrow was apologizing scared him more than anything else that had happened so far. This could go very badly.

Impulsively, he dragged his amulet on its chain over his head. He shoved it through the bars. “Take this, Jack.”

“That’s your good luck charm!” Jack objected, trying to refuse.

“I know. Take it,” Bill insisted, pressing the bit of ivory into Jack’s resisting palm. “You’ll be needing all the luck I can wish you where you’ll be going.

3 Down on His Luck

Captain Jack Sparrow knew he was dying. He just didn’t believe it. In spite of his injuries, he’d dragged himself over every grain of sand on this island. There was no water. Well, there was lots of water. The whole bloody island was surrounded by water. He just couldn’t drink any of it.

How many days had he been here? He’d lost count. And he hadn’t always been entirely conscious. He thought maybe it was two days, possibly three. Did it matter? He’d been collapsed in this spot for a long time now. His leg had finally given out, revolted, mutinied. Dumped its captain in the sand of a desert island. Refused to let him climb a coconut palm, although he knew there was liquid far above his head. Bloody stupid leg.

God, he needed water.

The sun glared off the sand, baking his skin. His shirt had long since been commandeered for bandages to keep his leg from traitorously bleeding him to death. His eye, which he still couldn’t see out of, ached. His jaw ached. All his bruises ached. He thought he might have a broken rib. Lots of broken ribs, maybe. He hurt inside. And now his head was aching.

“This is not funny!” he yelled at the brassy, indifferent sky. It didn’t answer. He flung hoarse curses in every language he knew, and a few he didn’t, at Barbossa and his crew and fate and this island. It didn’t help. And now his throat ached.

Whoever was in charge of the universe must really hate him.

Jack pulled out the pistol and contemplated it. A single shot. One would be more than enough. Jack had killed enough men with similar pistols to know exactly how to do the job right. He was perfectly capable of hurrying along his inevitable demise. Which was what Barbossa was counting on. Well, that bloody bastard could go straight to hell. Captain Jack Sparrow was not going to do his work for him, the lazy sod. He would live every moment of his life, however much there was left of it, and spit in Barbossa’s eye. He shoved the pistol back into his sash.

For a time he amused himself putting dents in the muscles of his forearm, watching the dehydrated flesh rise back more and more slowly. That’s interesting. He thought he might be losing his mind—what was left of it. He wished it would just hurry up and go. Then he wouldn’t have to remember that his ship was gone. His Black Pearl. He would have wept for her if he’d had any water left for tears. Barbossa had better treat her like a lady or he’d murder the bastard. He curled his fist around the butt of his pistol. The thought of that vicious wretch with his filthy hands on Jack’s beautiful ship made Jack’s blood boil. Or perhaps it was the heat.

Suddenly he doubled over, cramping. Which served the purpose of taking his mind off Barbossa and his crimes, nicely. Jack couldn’t think of anything for an unconscionably long time. When someone finally eased off on the grapnels dragging his guts out and ripping his limbs off, and he could think again, Jack noticed that he was not sweating and he should have been. Not good.

He lay in the sand, praying the cramps would not return, shivering in spite of the heat. The small ivory amulet bit into the side of his neck mockingly. If this is your idea of luck, Bill, you can keep it.

Thinking about Bill, stupid, honest, loyal Bill, in the hands of that bunch of mutineers was not a good thing. Surely Bill could manage to keep his nose clean and his mouth shut and wait for the opportune moment to come rescue his captain—surely. Somehow Jack didn’t have a good feeling about that. Come to think of it, he didn’t have one good feeling about anything to rub together with another one.

Even if it was impossible, he needed to move. Now. Pain would be an improvement over thought. In the temporary absence of cramps, Jack lurched off around the island again. Maybe something had been added to it while he was sitting. You never knew. He’d go back and forth across it this time.

If he could just stay upright, he amended, struggling to his feet again after his fifth fall. His joints ached like he was an old man. Someone was hitting him over the head with a topsail yard. And he was dizzy. Bloody stupid land.

About half way through his fine-combing of the island, Jack’s mind packed its trunks and set sail for parts unknown. He kept seeing mirages of water and friendly natives and sea turtles. But nothing was ever there when he walked through it. He tried to hold a conversation with the natives anyway. Told them all about the Black Pearl. Prettiest ship in the Caribbean—in the world. And the fastest. But the natives disappeared. He tried to catch the sea turtles, a process frustrated mainly by their non-existence. He staggered along calling, “Here turtle. Nice turtle.” They disappeared too.

He wondered, if he talked to himself, whether he would disappear.

He thought he saw the Black Pearl brought to on the calm sea, so he wandered into the water. But, to his confusion, she disappeared as well. Although the salt stung his wounds, it was blessedly cool. Since his mind had skipped ship, as it were, Jack dipped his hands into the shimmering, tantalizing, deadly liquid. At first he was only aware of its coolness in his mouth, its wetness on his tongue. He buried his face in its lapping embrace and took great gulps.

Inspired by the momentary decrease of thirst, his mind returned. Jack was horrified to discover what he was doing. He spun about and staggered back to shore. He hadn’t got far from the sea before he began to feel as though he’d swallowed a live eel—several eels, and they weren’t getting along. By the time he reached the palm trees, he was vomiting. When he’d finished retching up the last of his forbidden drink, he reeled to his feet, took three steps, felt the land swoop under him, and collapsed again, exhausted, to the gritty earth.

Swoop? Jack no longer trusted his physical sensations, but land just didn’t do that, did it? It stayed right where it was all the time—in the absence of earthquakes. That was one of the things he hated about land. Jack only trusted things that moved. You could negotiate with things that moved. Land was too unequivocal, too final. But this land had definitely done something. Experimentally, Jack wobbled to his feet. Someone set off a twenty-four pounder in between his ears, but he ignored it for the moment.

He took an unsteady step. Nothing happened. He brought the foot back. His bad leg threatened to pitch him to the ground again. He took another step in a different direction. This time his leg made good its threat. Down he went. And something moved. That was very interesting. Since standing up had ceased to be an option, Jack stayed on all fours and began to burrow. Sand flew and frustratingly slid back, but eventually his broken nails scrabbled on something that was not sand. Wood. And not rough, irregular driftwood. This was shaped, planed wood. Splintery. Jack sucked on one grimy finger that now sported proof of the splinters.

Under the stimulation of the mystery, his mind ran up a white flag and agreed to parley with him. What would planks be doing in the ground? A cache of some sort? Jack began searching until he found the edge of the wood. He followed it around until his fingers grasped an iron ring. Excitedly, he yanked on the latch, ignoring the protests submitted by his shoulders. With a dusty groan, a door lifted, exposing a dark, square hole into which a rough stairway descended.

Time to go exploring. Jack made a move to get up, received notice that his legs were not going to cooperate, and scooted down the stairs on his backside. Reaching the bottom, he peered into the gloom. Crates. Barrels. Bottles? Bottles! Forgetting about his injuries, Jack made a dash for the bottles, fetching up on his nose in the sandy floor, but well within reach of them. His nose had begun to bleed again, but he dismissed the minor inconvenience. With bated breath, he lifted one of the glass containers. Liquid sloshed.

Jack thought he might pray. He was definitely feeling religious. Trembling, he gathered himself into some semblance of sitting up. With fumbling fingers he pried out the cork. His sense of smell was temporarily out of commission, so he tilted the bottle to his lips. The cool liquid slid over his tongue and down his throat, burning pleasantly.

Rum! Rumrumrumrumrum! Rum!

Hallelujah! Glorious rum! Now Jack really did pray. He thanked God, and then he thanked every other deity he could think of so that no one felt left out.

A rumrunner’s cache! How lucky could he get? There was enough rum here that he could bathe in it if he wanted. No, he did not want. He would drink it. All of it. He would pickle himself in rum.

A sudden thought crossed his mind. He lifted the charm from around his neck and stared at it in wonder. Then he looked up in the direction of Isla de Muerta. Thank you Bill.

Raising his bottle, he saluted his friend. “Here’s luck to you, William Turner.”

4 Doing Something Stupid

Bill Turner contemplated the moonlight glittering on the mouldering bones of his hand. No matter how familiar the sight was becoming, he couldn’t repress a shudder of horror. His other hand crept to the cursed medallion chained to his neck. One finger made a chilling click as bone brushed gold. Nightmares. That’s what we are. That’s all we deserve to be.

He wondered if Jack was dead yet.

There had been no water on that island. It had been too long. Barbossa had made sure there’d been no opportunity for any secret partisans to jump ship and mount a rescue. And Jack had been so badly injured when they’d driven him off his ship. The rusty stains where they’d dragged him had refused to come out of the Pearl’s deck. Bill always refused to step on them.

He could no longer feel the warm wood under his feet, no longer sense the direction of the wind, no longer stroke the smooth page of his last long ago letter from his wife, with the wobbly line from little Will at the bottom. But he could feel anguish like molten lead consuming his bones. And he could feel guilt like blocks of granite crushing his lifeless heart. He could never go home now. He had failed every person he had ever loved.

Tomorrow they would make port again searching for the gold to break the curse. Tomorrow he would find a way to send this medallion so far away Barbossa would never find it. Tomorrow he would have his vengeance.

Then he would find a way to sail to that island where they had marooned Jack—to say good-bye. He pulled out a flask of rum he could no longer taste and splashed it onto the deck of the Black Pearl. For Captain Jack Sparrow. Here’s luck to you, Jack.

If Jack was dead, he’d probably already talked his way out of Hell and was driving the angels to pulling out their feathers in Heaven. And at least one of the Pearly Gates had gone unaccountably missing. If there was a heaven.

Bill knew for a fact there was a hell.

5 No Luck At All

The dingy, seedy little tavern, identical to any number of equally disreputable dives in Tortuga, was packed tonight thanks to the deluge going on outside. The drum of rain lent an unreal air to the snatches of conversations and rumbles of rum-induced brawling that rose over its incessant noise. Occasionally the door would blow open, and a drenched specimen of humanity would stagger in, shedding gallons of water and curses, while the other customers would protest the rain driving in until the door closed. The fug of tobacco smoke, candles, grease on the stove, and dozens of steaming bodies had nearly forced out all breathable air.

In one far corner a customer, who had been there long enough that he was actually dry, nursed a single mug of rum that must surely have gone stale he’d had it so long. No one had dared join a man with such a glower, and the barmaid was eying him askance for taking up space a higher-paying, more generously-tipping customer might have occupied. Just now, he was contemplating with dreary fascination the small goat that was daintily picking its way along the bar counter, nipping at the remains of meals and drinking the dregs out of flagons.

Jack Sparrow, formerly Captain of the Black Pearl, newly deserted from the rumrunner’s ship where he’d bartered his services as navigator and expert on naval patterns and secret harbours in the Caribbean for passage off a small desert island, now captain of nothing in particular, was listening for information, just as he had in dozens of bars on dozens of nights. Tonight listening was heavy going, what with the downpour and the fact that there was a leak right over his table. Indeed, the barmaid hadn’t twigged to the fact that the reason his flagon was staying so full was that he was catching drops as they plinked down over his head. He wasn’t drinking anymore, just pretending. He didn’t even want to think what was up in that thatched roof.

Jack wasn’t really expecting to learn anything new. Rumours of the Black Pearl and her new captain had informed him that his ship had survived and was out there somewhere, and her crew was spending the Treasure of Cortez like it was water, though he’d heard nothing definite about where she might be. Nor had he heard any whisper of the fate of one Bootstrap Bill Turner. No one seemed to have seen or heard of Bill since before the mutiny. So the casual mention of his ship’s name did not set his heart to beating faster, as it had done when he’d first begun his hunt. Nevertheless, he did strain his ears to catch any useful information that might be forthcoming. He recognized the speakers as pirates, so they might be expected to know about another member of the Brethren.

And this time, indeed, the story was changed. Barbossa had apparently gone mad they agreed. First he’d spent the fabled gold; now he was trying to get it back. He’d begun to sack towns like he was the Scourge of God—or the Devil, they laughed. No, one little man opined seriously, even the devil would have nothing to do with a man as evil as Hector Barbossa. Give hell a bad name, he would. Any town the Black Pearl had made port at in the last year could expect to find that ship, black as sin and spitting hellfire, razing it to the ground sooner or later. Nothing could stop her it seemed. Perhaps she had gone down on that impossible journey, and she was a ghost ship now. Captained by something worse than the devil himself. Why, had they heard how Barbossa treated even his own men?

They had heard, they agreed solemnly. They were all plenty glad they hadn’t been on that ill-starred voyage, no matter how much Aztec gold had been at the end of it. Poor old Bootstrap. Everybody who’d known him had liked him. A good man. A good pirate.

Jack sat frozen to his table. This was the news he had come to hear. This was news he had never wanted to hear.

Several of the pirates had not heard the story, so Jack was treated to all the horrifying details, unable to escape from what was surely a nightmare. How Bootstrap had objected to the marooning of Jack Sparrow. How he’d stolen something of Barbossa’s, no one was sure just what it had been, and had refused to give it back or reveal its location. How, in a fit of temper, Barbossa had chained his legs to a cannon and dropped him off the Black Pearl straight to Davy Jones’ Locker. And how even that hadn’t been enough for Barbossa who was now searching for Bootstrap’s child, presumably to continue his vengeance. The pirates shook their heads sagely. Starkers he was, mad as a Bedlamite. A good man to avoid.

They wandered off to other topics, leaving Jack, his bronzed face gone gray, calling for the barmaid. She finally showed up, not particularly enthused, only to discover that her worst customer had become her best. He’d even drunk the rainwater, oblivious, before she began the constant refilling.

Jack did not remember anything more about that night. How he’d gotten out of that tavern. Where he’d spent the night. It was all a darkness. When he came to himself, he was wandering the shore north of the town. All his gold was gone, he’d apparently been in a fight, judging by the state of his body and his clothes, and he had a headache that rivaled the one on that never-to-be-sufficiently-despised island. And then he remembered. Bill was dead.

The morning was dawning pearl-gray and rose blush, setting the emerald foliage alight with diamond fire after the night’s rain. The wash of sand stretched like white silk before him. Gulls wheeled in the sky catching the light of the rising sun on their glittering wings like sparks. Veils of mist thinned and drew up into the air like curtains lifting, revealing the silver-turquoise sea and amethyst headlands in gradual stages. But Jack saw none of the beauty. He heard only the sob of the waves against the sand that whimpered under his feet as he ran, the wail of the sea birds, and the keening lament of the rising breeze. He saw only Bill’s face as they’d said goodbye in the Pearl’s brig that day nearly a year ago.

Falling to his knees in the sand, Jack ripped off the amulet he’d worn since that day. Bill’s good luck charm. He’d given it to Jack, who’d survived when surely he should have died, and then Bill had gone to his death himself, when surely he should have lived. Hands shaking with rage and grief, Jack stripped the bit of ivory from its chain and threaded it onto one of the cords tied into his ratted locks. For an absent friend. Then he threw the abandoned chain as far as he could into the sea.

He drew his pistol and aimed it at the surf. A single pistol and a single shot. It would be enough. Hector Barbossa would pay—in blood.

6. Here’s Luck to You

His Black Pearl was gone—again. And with her, hope had fled. Captain—yes he was still her captain—Captain Jack Sparrow leaned back against the bulkhead of the Dauntless, knees pulled up, hands hanging limply across them and stared dully through the bars of the brig. The view, in the light of the single swaying lantern, was singularly uninspiring. He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling the swell of the sea under the ship’s decks. It was beginning to look like he was shortly doomed never to feel it again—on the Black Pearl or any other ship for that matter. The motion soothed him a little, each rise and fall like the beating of his heart, a rhythm to which his soul moved.

He had never believed that he would die on land. If he thought about it at all, he had always imagined he would die with his Pearl—in the glorious conflagration of battle, in the cold slide into the dark violence of a storm, or if he should predecease her, at least with his life’s blood draining out onto her decks, soaking into her timbers, becoming a part of her soul. But now it looked like the “short drop and a sudden stop” was his fate, Elizabeth’s Commodore seeming hellbent on ridding the Caribbean of pirates in general, and Jack Sparrow in particular. He snorted to himself and smiled. His lovely little rum-burner was likely to make the Commodore suffer for that decision. Good. He hoped she’d blow up his powder magazine—the bloody little pyromaniac—or better yet, his wine cellars.

Jack was too damned sober to think straight. He wished he had some of that rum Elizabeth had incinerated. A man needed a little blurring between himself and the clear sharp lines of the gallows etched against the grey sky of his mind.

Since his own mind was proving to be such bad company, Jack turned to the other occupant of the cell. Not that young Will Turner looked to be in any condition to provide cheerful conversation. Right blue-deviled he was. Not particularly surprising.

Will seemed to become aware that he was an object of scrutiny.

“Jack?” he asked softly. He did not look up. Hadn’t really met Jack’s eyes since he’d caught that tossed sword in the treasure cave.

“Aye?”

“Why wasn’t my father marooned on that island with you?”

Jack had asked himself that question a thousand times. That decision—it had seemed like the right one at the time—had cost Bill his life. But through all of his self-recrimination, Jack could not see how they could have made any other choice. And now Bill’s orphaned son wanted to know why his father hadn’t escaped Barbossa as his captain had. On second thought, Jack decided he’d rather contemplate being hanged.

But now Will turned to pin him to the wall with those dark eyes that reincarnated Bill every time Jack looked at them. He couldn’t evade this truth.

“Tryin’ to obey his captain’s last orders, son—something along the lines of ‘I know it’s difficult for you, Bill, but stay here and try not to do anything stupid.’ He had a wife and kid, see.” Jack said, attempting a light tone. Unfortunately Bill hadn’t been any better at that than his son was.

Jack expected some kind of accusation, some blame or anger to match his own self-judgment, but instead, Will winced at the memories those words recalled. After a long silence he glanced up at the pirate. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

“For what?”

“For hitting you over the head.”

“’S alright, son. All my friends do.”

Will looked startled, and Jack let out a breath that might have been a laugh and might not. He closed his eyes. I couldn’t save you, Bill, but I’ve saved your son.

Jack’s hand drifted up to brush the amulet in his hair. Here’s luck to you, Bill Turner. Coming to a decision, he worried the knot free and unwound the leather cord from the ratted strand. Will was watching him, puzzled. Jack retied the cord so the charm could be worn around the neck again. He held it out to the boy.

“What is it?” Will asked, taking the warm ivory in his hand.

“It’s a gift. From your father. He would have wanted you to have it. It always brought him luck.”

The End.

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