Adrift

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Thank you, everyone, for being so very patient with me. I'm sorry it took so long to post this chapter (apologies, Lynne!), but I had some God-awful writer's block on this one. Thank you, Faeritales and Ero Sennin for your continued reviews as well. Without further ado, then...here is the next installment!

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Tendrils of fog wound through Hector and Elizabeth’s legs as they made their way back towards Norrington’s safe house, their steps silent except for the occasional crunch of a shell or the snap of driftwood beneath Hector’s boots. The Jeep’s engine hummed steadily behind them and Jones sporadically called out snide comments through the mist as they walked side by side. The caustic words were intended to unnerve the hostages but Hector paid it no mind. Sound and fury, nothing more.

Elizabeth had remained silent since they had started back, and she glanced down time and again at the blood that had dried on her fingers. His wound hadn’t taken long to stop bleeding and in fact had already begun to close, but the sight of the scarlet stain on her fingers seemed to transfix her. Or perhaps it was just that the blood brought back the image of Sparrow face down in the sand. He grimaced to himself, wishing she hadn’t had to witness that particular horror.

He couldn’t tell by watching her if she was angry, frightened or if her recent experiences and revelations had sent her slightly over the edge. Only the day before, he’d have taken her in his arms and tried to take her distress upon himself. Despite the regrets she’d expressed only moments earlier, though, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do so…wouldn’t allow himself to do so. What she’d said, she said out of relief at being found and nothing more.

It was enough that he’d located her alive and unharmed and keeping her so was his only aim. He’d deal with the rest when Jones and Beckett had been vanquished and sent back to Hades to burn for eternity, or until such time as the devil saw fit to inflict them upon the world once more.

“Hector, why do you heal so quickly? I don’t remember that always being the case,” she asked out of the blue, turning her palm to examine the dried red streaks on the top of her hand. “Why didn’t you die when Marilyn shot you?” Elizabeth stared at him as though trying to figure out his very nature with a look alone.

“A strange line of questionin’ given our situation, missy,” he answered, more than just a bit taken aback at where her stream of thought had unexpectedly taken her.

“She wanted me to know, but why? What was it about that particular ability did she think would scare me?” Elizabeth pressed.

Hector slid her a sideways glance and huffed. Perhaps she needed to keep her mind occupied with thoughts of something other than what they might face at the hands of their supposed captors. Fair enough, he’d give her that – he couldn’t risk letting on that the danger was only an illusion. He checked over his shoulder to ensure that the Jeep was far enough back that they’d not overhear as he answered. “The healin’ be only a part of it. If ye give it some thought, sure I be that ye’ll figure it out fer yerself. Always said ye was bright, as ye might remember.”

Elizabeth tilted her head, her expression quizzical. “You heal, no matter what the injury is?”

“Short of losin’ me head in the most literal fashion, aye. So long as no part of the weapon remains embedded within the flesh, the wound will always mend. ‘Tis why ye had to cut the bullet from me leg.” He touched his face and looked at his fingers as though to check the veracity of his own words. No fresh blood flowed from where Jones had sliced into him; in fact, the gash could barely be felt. Of the wounds he’d suffered through his life, it was nothing more to him than a scratch – as sharp as the knife had been, Hector had barely felt it at all.

She reached out and took his hand, looking closely. Gently she ran her fingers over his to check for blood and his heart leapt unexpectedly at the soft touch. He angrily tugged his hand from hers and started walking slightly faster, disgusted at how easy it was for his body to betray him despite his determination to keep her at a distance. “Quit yer pawin’ at me,” he growled, rolling his fingers up into fists.

“Aw, are the love birds having a spat?” cried out Davey Jones from behind them, his tone venomous. “Perhaps we shot the wrong one, Beckett. Might be she had her fickle heart set on Sparrow instead. Might be she’d not care if we used Barbossa for shark bait after all.”

Not willing to let him leave her behind, Elizabeth doubled her steps until she was striding beside him once more. She walked along without speaking for a few minutes, lost in thought and ignoring what had come from Jones’ mouth. “What about getting sick? If your body heals itself so quickly...,” she finally blurted.

“Don’t get sick, not e’er. There be no illness, no infection, not a poison as can take me life. Nothin’ except maybe bein’ questioned to death,” he said unkindly, giving her a cruel look to ensure his point was well received. Sorry he was for telling her to think on it at all. Might do him no harm to have her know, but it would likely do him no good either.

“Nothing...” she said quietly and then stopped walking. Hector continued on for a few steps and then stopped to look back at her. She stared at him with what looked like the dawn of understanding, at least until Beckett laid on the horn and caused her to jump where she stood.

“You can either keep walking, Miss Swann, or I can drag you behind the Jeep with a rope tied ‘round your wrists,” the haughty little toad hollered at her. Elizabeth resumed her plodding path forward but had withdrawn into her own thoughts again.

Hector left her to herself as long as he could stand it, but in the end his curiosity won out. “And what is it ye think ye know? Let me see if yer as smart as ye have me believin’.”

“How old are you, Hector?” she asked softly, daring a quick look back up at him again. She knew, or at least had guessed at part of the truth. That much he could tell.

“Old enough to know better than to say.”

“Tell me,” she insisted, her attention returning to the bloody smears on her palm.

He stayed silent for a moment, deciding finally that he hadn’t any secrets as needed to be kept back, not now. “All depends how yer countin’. When Sparrow shot me dead on the Isla de Muerte, I was nigh on two score and ten, so far as I e’er kept track of such things. And well ye know how many of those years were spent beneath the weight of the curse.” He waited until her gaze had returned to meet his to continue. “Two years after ye went ashore with yer beloved Will, I took a draught from magical waters as gave me back that decade lost and restored me health.”

“Magical waters?” she said, perplexed. “What, like the Fountain of Youth? A fable, Hector - a myth. If any such thing existed, do you really think the whole world wouldn’t know it?”

“With all ye’ve seen, ye’d doubt me on this?” he challenged. “It existed, every bit as much as blighted Aztec treasure and monsters from the depths. Gone now, like so much of that world. Likely paved o’er long ago.”

“And so you gained back ten years. How is it that you are here now?” she whispered, a waver in her voice.

“If the findin’ of said fountain had come to me through any means but Calypso, that’s all I’d have had. Ten years younger and I might have lived to sail a wee bit longer than most upon the seas. Instead, I’ve stolen three hundred years thus far – and remained young, frozen in time as it were.”

“You never died, only to be reborn in this century? You’ve just always...been,” she concluded, not looking as if she was quite ready to believe him.

“As Jack has often said hisself...died once, didn’t much care fer it,” he crooned with a wry grin.

She sniffed, not charmed by his attempt at humour. “And so despite your bold words in front of the Brethren Court, you went ahead and struck a deal with Calypso to make your newfound youth eternal?” Elizabeth’s mouth bowed in what seemed disappointment. “What happened to making your way with, ‘the sweat of a man’s brow and the strength of his back alone’?”

He felt his jaw tighten as his phrases were flung back at him, ‘though on some level it impressed him that she’d remembered exactly what he’d said. “Tell me, then, even as ye judge me: do you remember yer own death? Perhaps t’was different fer one so fair and so righteous as ye, but there weren’t exactly choirs of angels singin’ me to me rest when I fell in the cavern. I weren’t about to go back to what did await me on the other side.”

“What was there? Where did you go?” she said quietly, her tone no longer needling.

Hector sucked in a breath, steeling himself to entertain thoughts he’d successfully pushed to the back of his mind for many a year. Why he cared what her opinion was, he couldn’t quite fathom, but he needed her to understand his decision.

“There was nothin’. A great, grey vastness where there was naught to see, no sound to hear. There was neither light nor dark; no smell nor anythin’ to touch or taste. It was the curse again but much more so. Truly, it made what Sparrow endured in the locker seem a paradise.”

Even to his own ears, his voice sounded haunted and hollow. There was no way to explain the emptiness in a way she’d really understand, no way for her to know the horror of being trapped in such a place. It had been only a year in living time but in the void, it had seemed forever.

She gasped and looked down at her feet, as though ashamed at having pushed him to reveal something so deeply etched upon his soul. “I don’t remember anything at the end except fatigue and regret,” she said with a small voice. “And loneliness. That was the worst part of it.”

Hector sighed heavily. “Happy I would be to say that life eternal offered an escape from them things, but t’would be a lie.”

Elizabeth slowed her gait and he grabbed hold of her elbow, grasping her only long enough to propel her forward again. They didn’t need to set Jones or Beckett on edge, not yet. “I guess it makes sense in retrospect,” she went on. “You are almost exactly the way I remember you from so long ago. Your stance, your voice, the way you talk. You’ve stayed yourself…”

Suddenly she turned and clutched at his arm. “But you’re not the only one, are you? Oh my god! You and Jack! You’re exactly the same!”

Hector shushed her harshly, casting a worried glance back at the vehicle following them as he did so. “Keep yer voice down, ye daft wench! And I’ll be thankin’ ye to keep such opinions to yerself. Sparrow ain’t nothin’ like me and well ye know it.”

She ducked her head and tried unsuccessfully to hide a smug smile at having puzzled it out while he stewed in the unjust comparison. “Ye ain’t entirely wrong,” he gruffly admitted. “’Aye, ‘tis true. Jack was granted the same boons by the goddess…as was me crew.”

“Does that mean that Jack isn’t really dead?” she asked, the look in her eyes far too hopeful for his liking. What did he care what she felt for Sparrow, though? It shouldn’t matter, done with mooning over her as he was.

“I’d not be so lucky,” he muttered. A better man would have hoped that the bullet had gone all the way through so that the crew wouldn’t have to dig it loose while Jack squirmed in agony. Vindictive as he was, though, he took some consolation in the fact that at the very least, there’d be no small pain in recovering from such an injury as Sparrow had received. “T’was part of the deception; nothin’ more. We knew that once Jack told them where to find ye, there was every chance that Beckett would perpetrate his own betrayal.”

“Wait…Jack told them where to find me?” she hissed incredulously, her good mood forgotten. “If you knew where I was, why in hell wouldn’t you just have come ashore and helped me escape? Do you know what I went through to get away from them in the first place? Christ, just look at me – I’m an absolute wreck! What is wrong with you two?”

Her voice was getting louder again and Hector grabbed her elbow forcefully, squeezing hard enough to garner her attention. “Sure and we could have done so, Miss Swann, and ye’d have been safe fer another day. But they’d not have stopped huntin’ ye and forever ye’d be lookin’ over yer shoulder in fear. Had to draw ‘em out, didn’t we? Too long has this gone on – it ends today.”

“So you used me as bait?”

“Could think of no sweeter enticement than to serve up that which they’d been seekin’ all along,” he responded bluntly. “But never were ye in any real danger; ain’t just me an’ Sparrow as come lookin’ fer ye. Even now we be under the tender watch of me Blackhearts. Would not have rolled the dice if the fix weren’t already in. Be vexed if ye like, but in my place, can ye truly say ye’d have done different?”

She opened her mouth as though to deliver a sharp retort, but a gunshot broke the silence before she could speak and Hector turned to look back. Both Jones and Beckett were crouched down as low as they could get in their very exposed position, and Jones was looking around wildly for the shooter, his pistol at the ready and clearly prepared to return fire. He dared to stand a bit higher, but a bullet winging past his head soon discouraged a repeat attempt.

Another shot rang out and Jones dared return it with one of his own, shouting incoherently back at the unseen assailants in the trees. Hector cringed as a bullet whizzed close by – they were too near the line of fire. He grabbed Elizabeth’s arm unceremoniously, and half-dragged her across the sand and nearer to the cover of the mangroves. He dropped her to the ground and hunkered down beside her. “We’re close to the house – get to the forest, there be a footpath just off the beach that will lead ye there. Stay low and stay quiet ‘til ye’ve found it. Two of me men should be there with Jack; they’ll take ye to the ship while we finish our business here.”

He expected to see fear on her face, but there was only anger and defiance. “No. I’m not running from a fight. If we’re going to put an end to all this, then I’m damned well going to have a hand in it.” Elizabeth’s jaw was set stubbornly and her fist clenched with rage.

“I’ve not got time for yer grandstandin’!” he barked at her in disbelief. “Ye’ll do as I say and get yerself to safety! Can’t do what needs be done if’n I’m forced to watch yer back!”

“I never asked you to!” she yelled back, getting to her feet and pointing a finger at him as though scolding him. “It’s my life that they’ve destroyed and I’m going to return the favour today! And frankly, I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else!”

“I be Captain and ye’ll follow me orders!” he bellowed, standing up and towering over her, his eyes hot with his own rage. “I’ll brook no argument from the likes of ye, little girl!”

Gunfire was erupting in bursts now and a quick look back showed him that both Jones and Beckett had taken shelter on the far side of the Jeep, taking what cover was offered by the body of the vehicle. “You think you can pull rank on me?” Elizabeth went on, her fists settled squarely on her hips. “Well, so far as I know, I’m still ‘King’, and what I say goes! And I say get me a weapon so we can put these two slimy little bastards down for good!”

“There ain’t no Brethren Court, so yer title means naught! Ye’ll be returnin’ to the house if’n I have to get one of me men to toss ye o’er his shoulder and carry ye back!”

Another bullet whined past his ear and struck a tree in front of him. Hector grabbed Elizabeth’s shoulders and forced her down to the sand once more. He glanced back to see that despite the battle, Jones had not forgotten his captives. A barrage of shots sent the former captain of the Dutchman ducking back behind the security of a tire, but it was only a matter of time before he’d set his sights on them again.

Elizabeth slapped at his chest, trying to free herself from his hold as he turned back to her. Angry tears rimmed her eyes and her teeth were bared in frustration. “Let me go! I’m in far more danger out in the open than I’d be with a gun in my hand and the trees around me for protection. I am neither a delicate flower nor a pampered lady of the town. I was a pirate – am a pirate – every bit as much as the rest of you. You trusted me then to settle my own scores – you must trust me now to do the same.”

Her words struck him hard. It was true; she’d been a warrior then and just as vicious in battle as any man he’d ever commanded. And yes, it was her right to wreak vengeance against those who would have taken her life without a second thought. Letting her get some of her own back, it was the only honourable thing to do.

As bad as Turner, he was, seeking to shelter her and make her out to be something she wasn’t. But the thought of the peril in which she was placing herself still caused his heart to thud in his chest. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as past loving her as he had tried to convince himself.

Hector released his hold on her and moved away, giving a deep sigh that gave voice to both resignation and pride in her courage. “Yer free to choose yer own fate. I’ll not stand in yer way.” He gave her a long, hard look before turning and making for the trees, gesturing at her to follow. She scrambled to her feet and did so, staying close behind him once he found the path back towards where his men were positioned on the edge of the forest.

Trekking silently through the brush, Hector could hear the shouts of his men and the elation in their voices, happy to once again be engaged in combat. The smell of cordite tinged the air around them and the promise of revenge caused a buzz of excitement that he could nearly feel. It was what they’d been born to and most of them had grown restless in the complacency of their modern lives. All they’d been called upon to do was to pin down the enemy until such time as Barbossa himself could dispatch them, but even that small danger had gladdened their hearts and brought new purpose to their lives.

He and Elizabeth came upon the first small contingent of Blackhearts, and Hector signalled for two of them to hand over their weapons. Crouching down in the greenery, he reloaded the pistols he’d confiscated from his men and handed one off to Elizabeth. The weapon looked too big for her small hands, and he hesitated before letting her take it from him.

“I can do this,” she assured quietly and confidently.

“Don’t doubt that ye believe that to be true,” he replied, checking the settings on his own piece. “But many a year has passed since ye’ve been called upon to fight. How many men have ye slain, girl, since ye last stood upon the deck of the Pearl?”

She tilted her chin at him and looked down at him haughtily. “I’d like to think that ‘though I’ve not been moved to kill in recent memory, the ability to do what is necessary has never left me.”

Her bold assertion caused him to grin to himself. “Could be yer right. I suppose this’ll be yer opportunity to find out.”

“If there is enough at stake, Captain,” she said coldly, “you’d be surprised at that of which I’m capable.” Elizabeth stalked away from him and strode off to find an opportune vantage point from which to acquire her targets.

Hector watched her for a moment before he followed close behind. The crack of guns all around him sounded out a staccato tattoo that brought forth a sense of foreboding. Whether it was doom for their enemy or for themselves, he had no way of knowing.

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I will start working on the next chapter right away, never fear!