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Wi' A Wannion	By : GeorgieFain Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 2357 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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I have taken part of this directly from the script of POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl. No profit made. No insult intended, mate.

Chapter Fifteen:

His Matelot Confronted, Mermaids Killed

Year Twenty-Nine

Interesting, the idea of a curse what could strike the entire dastardly crew and its mutineer captain. Finally coming face to face with those dogs while groggy and unprepared was the very soul of calamity itself---Will Turner be damned. He hadn't intended to be taken so unawares. William Turner the younger was nowhere near as savvy and seaworthy as his beleaguered father, Bootstrap, but had all the makings of a pirate, true enough. Every man for himself, eh?

From almost the very moment he'd realized that the curse he'd gotten whispers of was a true one---Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl had been among the living dead for a full ten-year and eight months---he'd played out the angles from which he could use the curse to his advantage. He'd done it without giving any consideration to the fact that he had once held Hector in the highest affections. Nobler emotions wouldn't get him where he wanted to be, now, with the Black Pearl at stake.

While laying in the lush accommodations at the prison in Port Royal, Jack had pondered the situation. If he was Hector, cursed to a half-life, what would he have done? He'd have collected all the gold and put it back. So, that was what had been happening, as it were. Being confronted by and pulled from prison by the earnest blacksmith apprentice had given him the start of a plan. A plan that had been working to everyone's benefit until Will Turner had decided to go rogue. Leverage indeed.

Being frog-marched up the gang-plank of his own ship---what the bloody hell had happened to his beautiful lady?---he'd gotten a chance to scope things out and decide on a new course of action. So, the first plan hadn't worked---saving the girl, rescuing his ship, killing Barbossa---he had another one, this one played much closer to his vest. He was never short on plans. Not true, not entirely true. He'd been short on a plan once or twice; the most telling moment being the day his own lover and first mate had betrayed him, ten years ago.

So, now he sat in the cabin of the Black Pearl and waited on its 'captain', his very own matelot. Jack winced at the thought of it---matelot. He had deliberately not thought of Hector in such terms since the mutiny. He'd worked over those years of mutual service, when they had lived as matelots, and found the consequential flaws necessary to make his mind bitter and hard. He couldn't begin thinking of Barbossa in those terms again. Not good. A weakness, aye.

Easing back in the chair, he put his feet up on the table next to his hat and looked around. No food but the apples---of course, the apples. The great, shiny, sharp-biting apples. But, nothing else. Did no one eat? When he'd been Captain, they'd never lacked for food. He enjoyed eating, he did. The Navy ship he'd taken in Port Royal had been properly outfitted with hardtack, boucan, fresh water, and grog. Not very tasty, after nothing else for a week or two, true...but, food, nonetheless.

For a moment, he could close his eyes and almost imagine that he was Captain once more. The ship felt different, but that could change...she'd remember him, respond to his touch. A month, maybe two, and she'd be his faithful lady again. This time, there would no one to stand between them...no shieldmate, no matelot. No woman or man.

He had been captured in the cave on Isla de Muerta.

He'd demanded parlay, after a fashion. But, he'd been prepared for the cold anger and disbelief from Barbossa. He'd been prepared---he'd had a decade to make calluses and scars of those old and sore and tender wounds.

He would win. He could do nothing else. After ten years and eight months, he'd have his answers soon. Soon, Barbossa would enter the cabin and they could finish the conversation they'd started and never finished, in this very same cabin, a decade ago. If only he had his pistol or hanger, now. Why ever did they search him so closely? Even his knife was gone.

The cave had been a surprise. Ten years of treasure surely made for a mountain.

In his head, he let it play over as he considered the next step he needed to take.

�How th' blazes did ye get off that island?!� Still surly and vicious even in shock, Hector's slanted eyes had snapped with strange fire. The curse had done something awful to him---his gaze was maddened, his face so weathered as to look at least fifteen years older than he ought, even allowing the hard life of a pirate. When had Hector ever dressed in rags or seemed so off-balance?

He'd had time to ready himself, hadn't he? Ten years, abandoned by ship and lover. How often had he considered all the things he might say, in the moment? And when the moment came, he hadn't failed to be witty. Even as he sought for a possible out. �When you marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land, you forgot one very important thing, mate...I'm Captain Jack Sparrow.�

As if that gave him some great mystical power. It did, at that. Didn't it?

He was a living legend, a pirate lord. He'd sailed every sea and ocean, had brought a man back from the dead, and regularly communed with a priestess of the Arawak. He was no mere mortal, was he?

The smirk on Hector's face had shown him something he'd been waiting for. He'd known that he needed the coldness, the anger. And Barbossa hadn't failed him, by ensuring the hostilities remained. �Ah, well...I won't be makin' that mistake again.� Then Hector had swung around to address the scurvy lot of cursed pirates. Dismissing him out of hand, as it were. �Gents, you all remember Captain Jack Sparrow? Kill him.�

Click, all those pistols aimed at his head. Quick thinking had brought it all to him, the pieces of mystery and intrigue in his pot. The knowledge of why Barbossa had taken Miss Swann and why the crew were still a bunch of living dead dogs. Miss Swann had played Barbossa for a fool.

He'd known the wench was more than she appeared to be, when dealing with her on the dock. More than the Governor's daughter, that one. So close to being arrested by the newly minted Commodore and the Governor hisself and yet, in the dangerous moment, he'd found himself fascinated by how very calm and sturdy and sharp the lass was. She'd had a bit of the flash of a rogue, herself.

In the cave, he'd fought to keep his laughter below the words. �The girl's blood didn't work, did it?�

�Hold yer fire!� Long hand on his rapier hilt, Hector had turned to stare at him again, green-blue eyes still alight with that strange glow which seemed so very wrong. The sneer twisted his betrayer's mouth---a mouth he'd once worshiped. �You know whose blood we need?�

Then, he'd let the ace drop with a smile. �I know whose blood you need.�

And he had. He was curious, though, to know why he couldn't see Bootstrap among them. Why hadn't the curse been ended before then? It was obvious that Bootstrap was no longer among the crew----which meant that Barbossa had realized a need to find the replacement Turner. Except, aye, that Miss Swann had the missing gold. How had she come by it? Had young Will given it to her as a token of his affections, such as they were? He hadn't quite put that piece into the pot, yet. But, he would. It was merely enough for him to know that the blood needed to come from Will Turner.

Who'd he would've happily gutted, at that moment.

Opening his eyes, he looked around the cabin; outside, he could hear Barbossa shouting at the crew. Preparations were being made to capture the pirating crew of the HMS Interceptor. He'd have to think out more angles for his plan. He couldn't let the Turner boy be killed---no matter how satisfying it might seem, now---the lad was Bill Turner's son and that was a good enough reason, for the moment.

But, if he could gain the upper hand with Hector...

Jack stood up and began moving, studying the shelves and the bed and the books. It seemed that Barbossa had added to the collection, since marooning him. He saw new ones among the novels and charts he'd put on these shelves with his very own fingers. The bed was neatly made---did Barbossa have a cabin boy? It came to him, then, the whispering of thought---perhaps Hector didn't sleep in the bed. Perhaps Hector didn't sleep anymore. Perhaps Hector couldn't sleep. Or wouldn't sleep.

It chilled his blood, the thought. He couldn't imagine ten years of no sleep---t'would ruin any man's mood, aye. But, perhaps regret drove his old matelot to forgo the bed's comforts? Nay, that would be too easy. But, he could play on it, if need be.

Now, the doors opened and closed with a bang as he stood by the wide mullioned windows, holding a dusty volume in his fingers, studying its pages as if he still owned the cabin and its contents. He didn't turn at the sound of Barbossa's bootsteps.

"Jack...Jack Sparrow, I must say ye never cease to surprise me." It was coquettish.

He kept his back turned to the scallywag what had stolen his life and his heart and his peace. Leafing through the pages, he flexed his right hand, enjoying the momentary stretch of the leather he wore on it. He kept his words lazy. "Hector, if ol' Jack Sparrow ceased to surprise, this world would be unfit for pirates the likes of you and me." Now, he shifted on the deck and glanced over his shoulder, cocky smile in place. "Oh, I apologize. This world is already unfit for the likes of you, aye? You being cursed and all."

Barbossa's snarled laugh was hollow and rumbling.

The bedamned monkey was on Hector's shoulder. Damned beast. It chickered and chirped, quickly climbing down off Barbossa's coat and scampering across the deck to take the table in one leap. Where it promptly began playing with his hat. He decided to ignore that. Was it the same monkey as what Hector had pampered, ten years ago? Possible, he knew. The creatures lived amazingly long lives.

His old lover nodded at the table, his bearded face almost lost in the gloom beneath the large, feathered hat he wore. "Care to join me, then? You asked a parlay, you shall have your chance. I want an end to this curse an' you want to live."

"I want more than my life, Barbossa." He put the book back on the shelf and tapped at his belt as he approached the table. "I want the Pearl and my life...while you want the gold piece and the blood sacrifice you need, to end the curse. For that, you need a name. You're looking for Ol' Bill Turner's child, aye?"

"Of whom I'm sure ye know." Barbossa sat down and slouched, looking for all the world like a fallen angel once again, in the afternoon light that came through the windows. Only, now, his betraying matelot was more the image of Prideful Lucifer after The Fall. "Ye were close to Bootstrap, Jack...ye must know somethin' of his child's location in th' Spanish Main."

Oh, he did. He just wasn't going to go down with ease this time.

He circled the table's edge, coming to stand almost at Hector's side. He wouldn't answer, yet. It would only madden Barbossa, make him nervous. He had a question. "What's it like, eh? Being cursed? Don't you find yourself enjoying it even a little bit, mate? Im-mor-tality."

Head tilting to follow his movement, Hector's gaze narrowed hard on him and the other man's lips twisted up in a nasty way. "Not that it�s yer business, boy, but I've enjoyed nothin' o' this. I can't feel anythin' but want everythin'. Food and drink cannot nourish, nor can I taste, even as I dream o' gorgin' meself at th' table. I've not been satisfied in this long while---perhaps ye should not push me, Jack me lad."

That was almost worth backing up a step for. The expression on Barbossa's weather-beaten face had changed, gone dark and reddened with emotions he still yet recognized.

"Bad enough, I think, to suffer a curse that takes away everythin' good an' right about bein' alive. I'm glad now I believed ye dead." Hector said, watching every twitch he made with that same sharp gaze which had once made him mad with lust. "T'would've been worse to see ye ev'ryday an' not be able to take me pleasure o� ye."

He tipped his head back and looked down at his old mate with a smirk of contempt. "Aye, well...I'm not in the habit of fucking those what betray me for their own ends and then steal my bloody ship. I don't fuck dead men, either, for that matter. I truly draw the line at a man who's one and done the other. I'll not be making an exception for you. Matelot."

He tossed it out, knowing the word might bother Hector as much as it bothered him. It did, if Barbossa's face was anything to judge by. "Shut yer scabrous hole an� stow it. Dead men cannot love. I'm not quite dead, Jack. I can�t die. I suffer the torments of the damned. Be careful how ye speak o' what we once were."

"You deserve to suffer the torments of the damned." He taunted, his own voice going icy. "You stole everything that was right and good about my life."

"Ye never knew all o' me reasons. If ye must know---" It was a hiss, broken with time and emotion. Hector's now-craggy face went tight with the cruel bitterness of a man who knew he'd made a bad choice and was, even at the end, unable to change the tune of its play.

The bedamned monkey---it wore tiny clothes of its own!---fled back to its master's shoulder, curling in close against Hector's neck. The thing chittered again, little paws clenching and unclenching, as if it would make fists at him.

From Hector, the words were almost an apology, but made with time-coarsened voice and weary tone. "Ye always were a mad fool an' a coward, to boot. Once they knew ye were...odd, t'was finished. If they'd known ye were mine own matelot...?...dead men, th' both o' us. Ye could've stayed on that island, alive, for months. I chose it for that reason. But, when I came back for ye, ye weren't to be found. I thought ye surely dead, lost to Davy Jones. Soon, I knew meself cursed. What chance, then, with a curse an' ye dead?"

Jack steeled himself; interesting knowledge, to be sure, but he wouldn't be twisted away from his path. He didn't want to believe that bit about the island and a possible rescue. Here and now, at the table, it was irrelevant. The Black Pearl was his ship and he would see this man pay for the loss of this last ten years.

"Let's get down to business, mate, shall we?" He moved away, swaying as he walked to the other side of the table. Best to catch Hector off-balance in this moment, almost unarmed by a show of emotion. It would be to his advantage, as it were. "I know the name you want. You have my ship. I'm thinking a trade is what we need, here."

He set his hands on the table's top and leaned in over it to watch Barbossa.

His old mate's eyes had hardened into shining jewels. But, the moment of emotional exposure was finished. It was enough that he'd seen. The capuchin monkey hunched down and then up, as if trying to find a better position on its master's shoulder. Did the nasty wee thing sense Barbossa's moods?

Hector nodded, bearded jaw working in consideration, one hand resting like a splayed starfish on his wide black belt. "Aye, a trade. How shall we come to an accord, then? I suggest...we catch up to that Navy ship an', once I've th' gold piece in hand, ye give me that name an' I'll let you have my ship. Me crew can sail th' Interceptor, then."

He shook his head, the beads in his plaits tinkling as he disagreed and countered. "Nay, that won't work. Bad plan. Too easy to betray me again, aye? How about...we put in at an island, any island, and you take your crew off my ship. Then, I'll give you the name and sail away. We need never cross paths again. What say you to that?"

His mutineer matelot scowled at the idea. "So, ye expect to leave me standin' on some beach with nothin' but a name an' yer word it's th' one I need an' watch ye sail away in my ship?"

"No, I expect to leave you standing on some beach with absolutely no name at all, watching me sail away on my ship and then I'll shout the name back to you. Savvy?" Jack swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He needed a drink.

"But, that still leaves us with th' problem of me standin' on some beach with naught but a name an' yer word it's th' one I need." As of yet, neither of them had brought up the idea of how he was going to sail the Pearl without a crew, under this plan.

He would cross that ocean when he reached its latitude.

Jack mused over the bowl of green apples and chose one, deliberately. "Of the two of us, I am the only one who hasn't committed mutiny, therefore...my word is the one we'll be trusting. Although..." He swung himself to sit down now, all royal and imperious. "I suppose I should be thanking you because, in fact, if you hadn't betrayed me and left me to die, I would have an equal share in that curse, same as you." He crunched into the fruit, savoring the taste as he saw how his actions sank into Hector like a knife blade. "Funny ol' world, idn'it?"

He smiled around the firm flesh and then offered the apple to his old matelot.

Hector nodded, sourly bemused at his logic.

***

Year Fifteen

In exchange for the compass he wanted, the mad Arawak witch Tia Dalma had demanded payment of a mermaid's tongue. With things quiet among the Brethren, he had agreed to the barter. They had time, aye? Captain Morgan wasn't planning anything bold at the moment, so he and Hector lazed about Port Royal while The Victorious was beached and given an overhaul.

Things were swinging in his favor, though; he was gaining a reputation for his tactical skills in fighting Spanish ships. Captain Morgan treated Barbossa as an equal, as they were both pirate lords and things were good and marvelous for them. They had all the swag they could possibly spend at the moment.

As Hector's matelot---as Morgan called him to the amusement of all who heard it, an embarrassment that he accepted with as much grace as he could muster---he was treated to nearly the same consideration as the pirate lord of the Caspian Sea. So, down time, spent gambling and drinking while the ship was re-fitted, they'd let go of their crew with the knowledge that, when it was time to sail again, they'd have no trouble hiring.

Bill Turner was always available, but the only one of their crew to stick close to their side was Anamaria, who now openly went about as female in men's gear. She dressed better, with more shine in her pockets. None dared to challenge her right---she was a dab hand with knives, swords, and pistols, not to mention anything else she could lay fingers on in a tussle. Once she'd been promoted to rigger on The Victorious, the lass had declared herself and he'd stood behind his decision to keep her, even as the other pirates raised Hell and tried to vote her off ship. With Captain Barbossa feeling generous to the girl what had helped bring him back from the dead, Anamaria had never again needed to fear being marooned.

He found her to be an interesting lass, at that. At sixteen years in age, she drank harder than many men he'd known and fought just as hard, when the fights came. Her skill at Liar's Dice was prodigious. His own fault, he feared. Captain Henry Morgan, never one to allow women among his Brethren, had turned a blind eye to the fact of Anamaria. Perhaps it was the breeches and sark or her strength of character. He knew it couldn�t be her talent for drinking; she liked the drink, but was rarely drunk.

In Port Royal, it was a good night when he and Hector Barbossa joined up with their brown-skinned lass and spent the evening going from tavern to tavern, looking for the best games and the best times. He'd woken more than one morning to find himself naked and sandwiched between the two in a creaky-broken bed barely big enough to hold them all. For the first time since he'd accepted his lot as a pirate, he felt solid and true. He'd come into his own, aye?

But, then one evening, Anamaria hadn't turned up. Thinking their Creole mulatto woman had found better prospects for the night�s entertainment, he and Hector had done their tavern crawl without her company. A week later, though, he'd become a bit concerned. No one in the inns and taverns had seen the halfbreed and couldn't recall the last time she had slammed a cup of dice. The only man who could say anything of Anamaria had told him of seeing the bold woman with a pair of Arawak men from up the Pantano River. He'd immediately thought she might be simply visiting friends she'd left behind when she had taken to the sea.

Three months after, when the outfitting was finished on The Victorious and she hadn�t yet turned up, he had decided that it might be something worse. They couldn't sail without their best rigger. He wouldn't sail without the lass and told Hector so. Muttering about his womanish whinging, his surly lover had agreed to help him find Anamaria and they'd set off up the Pantano. Strange country, that. He'd had dealings with the Arawak and Maroons that lived along the bayou and always come out fairly, so he hadn't feared.

But, when they'd finally located Anamaria, they'd found her in the company of a wild-eyed priestess witch what had seemed to recognize both hisself and Hector Barbossa at first glance. While casting the bones of sea creatures on her bench, Tia Dalma had held an infant in her arms---a creamy brown girl babe with pale eyes that could never have come from an Arawak. The witch had declared that his destiny would be great...dark and great. The same had been said for Hector. There was a ship, she had said, that would lead them both to that greatness�a bold ship, the fastest ship.

He'd chosen to say naught about the babe. Neither had Barbossa or Anamaria.

Tia Dalma, dressed in her faded finery and with canary feathers tied in her dread-locks, had told him---him, in particular---that she could offer a gift that would bring fame and fortune, all that he could wish for. A compass what would point to his heart's desire. But, she wouldn't give the compass for free; she wanted a barter.

A mermaid's tongue. He'd agreed to the venture. Hector had tried to talk him out of it. Anamaria, unusually silent, had said naught. What self-serving pirate wouldn't want a compass that could ensure fame and fortune?

They'd hired a crew and sailed for Barbados, where mermaids were rumored to frolic under the waves in this season. Under way, Barbossa had informed their crew carefully of what to expect.

Mermaids were not a creature to take with the proverbial grain of sand. Davy Jones' own wicked handmaidens, the monsters were man-eaters...as dangerous as tigers. Hector had frightened the men with the stories of what it took to catch one of the things; blood in the water, a net made of iron chains, a man what could resist their siren's song...for mermaids sang a magic that could draw an unwary sailor to his bloody, ugly death. Being run upon a reef and sunk was the least of the matter, wasn't it? It was what happened to the living man caught by the mermaids when the ship was sinking.

Hector had relished telling the tales...

As they'd neared the tail of islands, Jack had come up with the plan.

Sealing their crew's ears with wax---save for him and Hector and Anamaria---Jack declared them to have reached the right waters when he finally spotted, with the spyglass, the swishing watery shadow figures that swam deep under and along The Victorious' hull. The men worked on, only barely able to hear the shouted orders. The Bo'sun held the helm.

"Right, then. I'll just take care of the bait, aye?" He stripped off his shirt and boots on the port side. Binding his blue scarf tighter against his loose hair, he flashed Hector a grin. "You just be ready, mate, with that net. I don't fancy being some mad water-maid's snack."

"Yer not goin' in." Hector drawled at him, eyes shaded under the brim of his large hat. Hands on knife and sword, his lover disagreed, approaching quickly from the Captain's cabin. "I won't have ye riskin' yerself so foolishly on somethin', Jack."

Not a very pirate thing to say, really.

Then, he saw what Hector meant. Anamaria came along behind his matelot, dark eyes cast down and almost meek. She was already stripped down to naught but a pair of white silk pantaloons tied at the knee with white ribbons. Wound around her ribs, the lass wore a tight band of the same color that hid her breasts. She was plaiting her long hair, tying it up under a white scarf made of brocaded silk. She held a knife between her white teeth.

Ah, so that was the way of it, then. Jack shook his head, arguing. "Not this time, lass. Hector---" He deliberately used his lover's name. "It'll be you or me, but not her. You said it, these creatures like a man. If you've failed to remember, she's not. A man."

"They'll like fresh meat. Go on then, missy." Barbossa nodded at Anamaria, who went on preparing. "They'll like it better if the meat's bleeding."

She was tying off a very long rope to the rail.

Jack dodged in close and pushed their lass back. "No."

Anamaria looked up and met his eye, unflinching. She offered him a flat stare as she took the knife from her teeth and bent just enough to score a long cut along her left leg. The blood ran, pooling fast. Her words were just as flat as her stare. "He's Captain, sir. You're first mate."

As if that explained everything.

He turned, raising his hands to argue with Hector again. As he did, Anamaria took the rope and tied it off to her waist; at its end was a large iron hook that hung against her skinny, brown belly. She was not only the bait but a link in the retrieval of their prey. She began lowering herself along its length, a regular rope net in her grip. Down the port side of the ship's hull, she went.

"Get that net ready, Jack." Barbossa ordered. I'll get th' weapons."

"You---" He growled, waving his arms as his heart began to panic. "She's---"

Hector turned swiftly and moved in very close, to look at him with a darkened frown. His lover's voice was a loud whisper, an accusation he felt to the very bottom of his guts. "Is it because ye love yer, Jack, or because she's a lass?"

The words struck home. Instantly, he went to work. With Bootstrap's help, he dragged the chain net to the side and they stood watch with trepidation oozing from every pore, ready for the opportune moment.

Only one bell rang before he saw what happened when a bleeding body was dragged along beside the ship when the mermaids swam. Shy and hesitant at first, the mermaids came to the surface and began dancing in the water, circling closer and closer to the bloodied mulatto rigger. That was when the singing began.

It was unearthly. Something he could never have anticipated, the sound of magic.

He felt an urge to jump overboard and swim in the warm, salty sea. All his dreams of the ocean and the wind and tall ships with fine sails played out in the tune that rose from the waters on both sides of The Victorious.

Immediately, Hector responded, shouting out. "Sing, damn ye---sing over them!"

Jack and Bootstrap---who'd opted for wax in his ears---began to sing. It was obvious that Bill felt as unnerved as he; neither of them were on-key, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the hunt. And not getting killed in the process.

He noticed that Hector didn't sing. But, his lover didn't seem to be affected, either.

Soon, one of the gleaming, fish-scaled creatures leaped from the water and latched onto their lass. Anamaria's scream galvanized Jack---he put a foot on the rail, his hands slipping on the long rope. Bill grabbed him, pulling. As they watched, Anamaria went under, her brown-skinned body flailing, dragged by hands that seemed more claw than finger. Even from where he stood, at the rail, he could see the monster's body and face. Beautiful, cruel, scaled like a silver-fish from the waist down, with a mouth of teeth that would've seemed more appropriate for a shark---

"Now!" Bill pointed it out to him.

Anamaria had used the attack to swath the mermaid in the net she held. The hook on her rope had been caught through the open loops. The mermaid was screaming, fighting Anamaria's knife and hand and net. Because of the rope tied at her waist, the lass was pressed belly to belly with the monster.

"Haul!" Hector shouted.

Jack began pulling the rope hard. Bootstrap hauled with him. Doing so, he lost sight of their lass as she rose along the ship's side, still fighting the mermaid's claws and teeth.

"Ready, ye blaggards! Stand ready!" His lover commanded the men.

At last, the bulk of the net and its catch arrived at the rail, Anamaria struggling to escape even as she howled curses in Spanish. Jack and Bill hauled one last time, putting their backs into the last---all in one pile, the mermaid and Anamaria landed on deck.

Risking himself, Jack jumped forward and used the fallen knife to cut the rope that held their brown-skinned rigger. He gripped her arms and dragged her backward over the slick deck, away from the monster she'd caught. She was bleeding in a dozen places and screaming profanities that could turn a man's hair white with shock. She seemed lost with the pain, struggling to get away from his touch. She was alive---that was what mattered.

Out of the monster's reach, he fought to hold Anamaria still as he watched.

Bill and Hector managed to get the silver-tailed mermaid wrapped in the iron chain net---and the men began to stab it with the spears. Iron tips. Iron was, they'd been told, a bane to the wild man-eaters of these waters. The screams were unbearable to him---as unbearable as the singing that continued rising from the sea.

His gut churned and his breath stuttered; Barbossa jumped forward with a boarding axe and ended the screaming with a fast, slashing cut. The mermaid's head rolled free, long, wet green-yellow hair almost hiding the snake-like face. Almost. The body continued to flop, soaking everything and everyone with black ichor and salt water. The same black ichor spurted from the neck-stump while the head continued to chomp and snap its fierce teeth, as if it could still devour any man within reach.

Out of its reach, the men began to cheer.

Hector now stopped, the fanged monster's head only a half-yard from his booted feet, and looked up at him with a regal grin and that infectious laugh. "Aye, Jack. Imagine gettin' one o' these ladies in yer bed! Any man who lived to tell th� tale could be th' king o' pirates!"

He nodded, slumping to the deck with Anamaria in his arms; she was whimpering in pain. He used his free hand to wave Barbossa off. "And they call me mad. You take that to bed, if you like. Come morning, we�ll raise a glass to you---but I'll be a fine captain, you know."

***

After the sun went down over the sea and the ship was rocking, lulled by the quiet evening, the men all seemed satisfied. They'd removed the wax in their ears and hacked up the mermaid's body for a prize. Bill Turner had taken the helm.

"I can't, Tia---it not be my nature---" She whispered, her eyes rolling under their shiny lids. Tears leaked, unbidden, and rolled down her high cheekbones and into the dark gleaming sea of her hair as she turned her face toward the lantern's warm yellow glow. "If not you, die then---drown---"

"I know, love, I know you couldn't. No one's blaming you." He murmured, hoping that he could offer her some comfort for whatever crimes she felt it worth crying for while unconscious and babbling. He held one of her fevered hands, their fingers laced together. She squeezed tight at him and he winced, but didn't pull off.

Jack was in the hold, sitting in the glow of two lanterns as he drank rumbullion and wondered if the compass would be worth the life of their most talented rigger. For, Anamaria seemed likely to die from the bites she'd suffered. She lay on the pallet at his side, shivering and coated in cold sweat, clutching his hand as if it could keep her in the land of the living. She hadn't really woken since lapsing into unconsciousness in his arms on the deck. He'd brought her here for a bit of flat, private space.

"Si, Papi, I hear---" Anamaria whined, twisting her body from side to side. "I will---"

Having stripped the young woman of clothing and covered her with woolen blankets, Jack didn't know what else to do. He'd used what few simple medicines they had, on ship, in the chest of herbs and bandage-cloth. Now, he was reduced to swabbing the Creole woman down with wet rags in an attempt to force the fever to break. He was failing miserably. He knew what he could do, if he had the right medicines---he'd been in China and India and Malay too long for him to not know. But, those things were not on The Victorious.

"Shh, love." He offered, petting sticky strands of her hair back from the curve of her jaw. "It's just me, you know---just Jack. We'll ride this storm out, we will. We get back to Port Royal, you can go up the river and visit. Your babe, Tia...all the Arawak what lives in the swamps...just you believe ol' Jack..."

Anamaria seemed likely to die...all for the sake of a mermaid's tongue and the compass it would win him. He knew that he couldn't blame Hector Barbossa---his matelot and lover had only asked the woman to be the bait. The final choice had been hers, after. Now, she wouldn't wake up and tell him why.

The cuts and bite-marks were turning black, like bruises. But, they oozed.

"Kissed her, I did..." Anamaria gave a weak smile, her eyes slitted to show only the whites. She arched up a little at the ribs, whispering an eerie, breathy laugh. "...she believed me, out for my first...kissed her, I did, before...there are ways, boy-o, aye, ways..."

Face swiped clean of dirt and kohl after hours of sweating in the thick warmth of the hold and feeling as if he hadn�t slept in a year, Jack raised the bottle to his mouth and wished he knew how to pray.

Bootsteps came closer, down the steps, across the hold. He looked up, swallowing rumbullion, enjoying the flavor of it against the gold and silver in his mouth. There stood Barbossa in shirt sleeves and breeches. His lover looks scrubbed clean, shaven, and at ease. He felt a twinge of resentment...until he saw the worry in the other man's pale blue-green eyes.

"Bootstrap said I'd find ye here, tendin' our missy."

He sighed, rubbing his leather-covered, scarred wrist along the line of his brow, wiping away his own sweat. The scarf didn't seem to do any good, now, soaked as it was on his head. "Hector...she's going to die, I think."

"She won't die." Hector grunted, lowering himself to the deck at Anamaria's other side.

It sounded so cock-sure, he felt instantly and uncharacteristically enraged. Letting go of the woman's hand, he barked. "You don't give a damn if she does or not! You put her out there as bait! What's one more pirate, eh? She's not just ours, mate, she's Tia Dalma's---if she dies, that mad ol� woman will gut us both! Did you think of that?!"

"She knew what she was about, Jack." Hector was by no means contrite. Sun-kissed waves of blonde-brown hair fell against each angular cheek as his lover leaned over Anamaria, close enough to study her closely in the lantern-light. "Missy gave her babe to th' witch an' came back to th' sea---she took th' risk, her own choice. She's a pirate, th' same as us. To treat this pirate as naught but a woman---t�is a dishonor to her."

The babe. He hadn't considered that, in the moment.

It silenced him. He stared at Hector and then down at Anamaria, who had grown quiet and seemed to be sleeping fairly at ease now. She was, he found, still fevered---still sweating cold.

His lover and matelot gave a chuffing sigh, sitting up once more to face him. He saw the understanding and comprehension in Hector's sun-burnt, freckled face. "She won't die, Jack. She's yer creature, aye? She won't die without yer permission. Tell her she has to live an' she will."

"I didn't give you permission to die and you did---"

It came quick and he stopped, reeling back at the realization of what he'd said.

In his confusion and pain, Jack picked up Anamaria's hand once again, giving it a light tug. The Creole mulatto moaned, nearly turning over in her sleep.

Hector sounded sourly bemused. "Aye...an' I didn't go very far, did I?"

They sat talking of other things for a while as the lanterns sputtered. The rumbullion was passed between them. They each took a turn at wetting the rags and using them to clean their lass' gleamingly wet golden-hued skin.

At last, Hector Barbossa broke the quiet. "Help me get the lass up, Jack. We'll put her to a proper bed. I've some of that poppy juice still. She could use a bit, might ease the pain."

Together they worked in near silence and Jack knew they were both thinking on how easily death could find them. By the morning, Anamaria's fever was greatly reduced and the mermaid's bites had turned a grayish-blue, running clear with no sign of growing infection. She would live, after all, it seemed.

But, it lingered between them again, the knowledge that Hector had been to the other side and come back a changed soul. Something had happened in death which Jack had no understanding for. As his lover didn't talk of it, all he knew was what few words had been given him to hear.

�I was lost.�

Those remembered words were of no comfort.
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Wi' A Wannion