Eternity and the Sparrow

Onward and upward… Forgive any mistakes you find, I still have no Beta reader. I’ll be making edits as I find them.

Ok, this is a SECOND posting of this chapter, because AFF only decided to take half of it the first time!!!!!!!
Sorry for those of you who have already read the unfinished version!

----------------
It took the Flying Dutchman almost three days to reach Shipwreck Cove, but the small harbor was still teaming with life. It seemed as though none of the pirate ships had departed the area, despite the fact that the battle against the East India Company had been won nearly a week before.

The strangely constructed port was lit brilliantly from within and there were bodies everywhere the eye could see. The harbor had become a second Tortuga.

Jack, Will, and Elizabeth gazed out at the scene from the deck of William’s ship.

“They’ll be like this for weeks… they always are when they’ve had any kind of victory,” Jack mentioned offhandedly. His crew would be there too, if they hadn’t run off with the Pearl yet again. “Well, off you go lass.”

Elizabeth gave Jack a sidelong look, and all but hissed at him, “You have to come with me.”

Perhaps she wasn’t hiding a viper, maybe she’d become one. “Why do I need to be there, I already know yer retiring,” the pirate questioned. Not only did he not want to go, but he also knew that she would leave the chest on board the ship for safe-keeping. It would present a lovely opportunity to snatch it.

“You’re part of the Brethren Court. You have to be there for the Court to convene officially.”

Jack turned to the whelp for backup, but he tossed his chips in with Elizabeth.

“I have things I need to do Jack, it would be best if you went with her.”

Jack glowered at him with the most intense force he could muster, but Will seemed unaffected. “Traitor,” he growled under his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a cocky smirk pass over Elizabeth’s features. She was far too pleased with herself for Jack’s liking. She may have won a small battle, but Jack was bound and determined to win the war.

“Fine, I’ll escort ye to the Courts,” the pirate admitted defeat. Will was SO going to pay…

They took Jack’s dinghy to the docks, but Elizabeth refused to row. Sparrow spent the short trip going back and forth through the sailor’s alphabet and trying to decide which word suited her best. She, however, used her time being incredibly smug and informing him of all the reasons William would choose her over him.

“…I’m far better-looking than you are, oh, and not to mention the fact that I’m a GIRL!”

Jack was going to put a bullet in her head, or put one in his own. Either way, he wouldn’t have to listen to her incessant babbling anymore.

When they reached the dock, Jack got out and tied his boat loosely. He stepped out of the way as a drunkard, or possibly a dead man, fell towards him, and said with some derision, “Tart, you really need to stop this. I’ve told ye at least a dozen times, it’ll never work out between us, so ye need to stop tossing yourself at me feet. It’s degradin’ for ye and embarrassin’ for me.”

The look of shock and contempt on her face was more than enough to make the comment worthwhile. She reigned herself in quickly and the look was hidden behind a simple scowl, but Jack had caught it.

“Jack Sparrow…”

“Captain.”

“Not right now, you’re not. Jack, no matter how strange the situation or unlikely the circumstance, I would never, NEVER grovel at your feet for attention. I would sooner look for company with a pig; at least it would smell better.”

Jack flashed a grin laced with ivory and gold, and pressed, “Hit a nerve then did I lass?”

Elizabeth ‘hmph’-ed and proceeded to ignore him. She made a point to walk a few steps in front of him, head held high and temper dangerously out of control. A drunk pirate let out an extremely boorish cat-call as she passed and Elizabeth stopped to stick him with a glare that could melt metal.

Not bothering to look over her shoulder, Elizabeth addressed Jack, “And where would we find your court so that we might speak with them?”

She got no answer.

Elizabeth whirled to chew Sparrow out for his lacking attention, but he was nowhere in sight.

“JACK!!”

Mrs. Turner’s furious yell rose over the din of the pirate celebration to ring across the open water. It even fell on the ears it was meant for, as Jack rowed back to Will’s ship. “I’m not going to just stand and wait for ye to shoot me girl. I’m smarter than that,” Jack commented. He wasn’t willing to see what idea she had ready for him, so he figured that a good alternative would be to return to William and wait things out. The whelp was just setting sail when he climbed aboard. Not wasting any time, Jack started a sweep for Will’s treasure chest.

The crew bustled about; following their Captain’s barked orders. The stowaway pirate avoided them at all costs. It was quite possible that Will would be a little pissed that he snuck back on board… or he would make him quit his search for the chest. Neither option was a good one, so Jack ducked behind cannons, crates, and tables whenever a crewman came near.

He attempted to think like the tart might, checking tiny hideaways and blocked off crawlspaces. There were far too many places to put such a small object and too little time to examine them all.

For the time being, he shied away form searching the forecastle. He rather doubted that Elizabeth would hide her husband’s heart in the crew’s quarters and there was a much higher risk of being caught there. Instead, he headed deeper below deck.

He scoured the hold, and even went as far as checking the bilge, the smell of the stagnant seawater making his nose wrinkle, but he came up with nothing.

“Where in all the hells…” Jack grumbled as he retied the cargo lines he’d disrupted in his search. He was at a bit of a loss. There was a possibility that she’d left it in William’s quarters, but that was another place he’d rather save until last. He was doubtful that Will would want to listen to something that would never be part of him again anyway.

Defeated, the pirate started his slow journey back to the stairwell. He dragged his feet intentionally, hoping for some epiphany that would lead him to the treasure.

Using his compass crossed his mind, but it was likely that it would just point to the whelp. That was all it seemed to point at anymore. Well, the boy and rum…

The thought of a good drink stopped Jack’s feet quicker than a gunshot would. He executed a swift turnabout and went back to the hold, making a beeline for the crate he knew had more than a few bottles in it. He relieved Will and his crew of some of their drink, settling against a bulkhead to enjoy it.

Jack was through his third swallow when his ears caught a familiar sound. He lowered his bottle and strained to catch it again. The slow, double beat drifted through the underbelly of the ship, pushing Jack to his feet.

“She did put the thump-thump down here!”

He darted in the direction of the sound, pausing only to listen for reference. The technique brought him to the door of the prison. Jack hesitated with his hand resting on the bars, not sure how his instinct could be right. Elizabeth wouldn’t go as far as to hide the chest in the holding cell… would she? It was true that no pirate ship took many prisoners, but it was an absurd idea to stash important treasure in the jail.

Jack pushed the door open, which someone had fixed since he’d escaped under Davy’s watch, and stepped into the tiny room. The heartbeat was decidedly louder, but there weren’t many places for the box to be stashed. Jack crouched and peered under the bench (the lone piece of furniture in the cell). Tucked in the dark corner, hidden under a stained scrap of cloth, was the treasure chest of William Turner.

“There ye are,” Jack almost cooed at the prized chest. He pulled it out from its hiding place and tucked it beneath his arm. “Tart thought she could keep it from me, ha!” The pirate chuckled to himself all the way back to the main deck.

After the first crewman that spotted him jerked to a grinding halt and stared at him, Jack began to suspect that something was wrong. He raised an eyebrow at the gawking seaman and snapped at him, “What?” The man didn’t answer him before Jack sauntered off. Sparrow wondered if maybe the crewman was suffering from some kind of illness, but then he ran into another sailor with much of the same results.

The second broke through his shock with a stuttered, “Mr… Mr. Sparrow…s…sir, what are ye doin’ here?”

“What’s wrong with the lot of ye? Is William doin’ somethin’ I wouldn’t approve of?” Jack asked sharply and pushed past the brawny man. He didn’t make it much further before the entire crew of the Flying Dutchman was looking at him. “Am I really missin’ somethin’ here?”

He looked up to Will to get some kind of an answer, but, when the boy noticed him, he moved away from the helm with the same dumbfounded expression.

“Jack?! What the hell are you doing here?!” he yelped as he trotted down from the quarterdeck.

“Why does everyone have their knickers in a twist? I lost the tart and snuck back on…” Jack paused, his brows knit together, “When did it get dark outside?” He looked at the sheer level of worry on the whelp’s face and started putting things together. “We’re on the other side, aren’t we?”

“Yes Jack,” Will whispered.

Bootstrap Bill came forward, “You’re a damn fool Jack! No living mortal man was meant to see the other side, let alone set foot in it twice. Who knows what it’ll do to you?”

Jack didn’t understand what the problem was. He’d been to the locker and back already with no trouble, so what would make his second trip any different? Although, he had seen multiples of himself for days afterwards.

“I don’t feel any different,” Jack admitted simply.

Will echoed the words of Barbossa the first time they’d crossed over, “‘It’s not getting there that’s the problem, it’s getting back.’ You might not be able to go back to the other side at all. What if you’re stuck here?”

“Then you’ll have to come visit me, mate,” he said with a smile, easily making light of what everyone was so worried about. Jack understood his lover’s concern, after all, he REALLY didn’t want to stay in the hell that was the Locker, but he didn’t think he could be kept in this place.

Jack took note of how quickly the heart tucked under his arm was beating. It was almost sweet how worried William was. He’d have to pin the boy against the wall and show him that he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Almost as soon as Jack thought about the box, Will noticed that he had it, “I take it that’s the reason you came back onboard?”

Jack shifted the chest so he could hold it in both hands. “Well… it is my treasure after all, and she did leave it here…” he ventured, earning a raised eyebrow from the lad. “If it came down to an actual fight, I would win.”

Will put his hand on his lover’s shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze, “I don’t know Jack, she’s very tough.” He left it at that. He could worry endlessly about Jack being claimed by the Locker, but it wouldn’t change anything. Whatever fate chose to do was not up to him.

It took Jack a half a second to realize was the increasingly cocky youth had said. “You don’t honestly think she could beat me, do ye? William, you don’t really think that.”

Will smiled to himself and let Jack fret. He turned to his crew and shouted, “Get everything ready and prepare the bell.”

Captain Sparrow took a place behind Will and continued to grumble, while several of Will’s larger crewmen went below. The rest bustled about, moving things out of the way and setting up what appeared to be a large, wooden arch. They secured the posts into covered holes on the deck, hammering them into place.

Jack set the treasure chest near the helm and leaned on the railing of the quarterdeck. “What are they doin’ whelp?”

Will turned his eyes away from the horizon, where a heavy fog was gathering, and returned, “They’re erecting the Spirit’s Call. It’s the bell that draws the souls to the ship so we can ferry them to the other side.”

Jack whipped his head around, “Wait, I thought we were already on the other side.”

“No. We’re at the midway, the halfway point between Earth and the final resting place of souls. That’s why this was Davy’s job, he had to keep souls from lying stagnant in this place. After staying here long enough, a soul will actually corrode into nothingness and be lost forever. The bell hums when there are enough souls waiting to be ferried across, I’m sure that’s why Davy had it stashed away.”

“That’s interestin’.”

The men who’d disappeared below deck returned with a brass bell easily the size of a figurehead hoisted on their shoulders. One sailor followed behind them, carefully keeping the clapper still. They lugged the giant hunk of metal to the wooden supports and affixed it with a heavy chain. Once it was steady, the pirates moved away.

Bootstrap examined the work and nodded at his Captain, “It’s ready sir.”

The fog hit the ship then, curling around the hull and climbing up over the sides. It was almost a living being as it dodged around the masts and danced on the silent cannons.

“Cover your ears,” Will told Jack firmly, but, being a man that had to argue everything, the pirate didn’t comply.

“Why?”

“Jack, cover your ears.”

The bell swung of its own accord, letting loose a deep sound that was a force in and of itself. A wave spread out around it, pushing the fog away in a massive burst and coursing through the water. The energy shook the pirates to their very bones, but only one felt the true effects.

Jack would have screamed, had he any use of his throat. An invisible hand had taken hold of something deep inside and was wrenching it free. Whatever it was, it was not ready to leave and what proceeded was an imperceptible tug-of-war. Pain tore through his very core and his awareness of things around him narrowed and darkened. Through the cotton barrier of his senses, he felt something strike him, but it was hardly noticeable.

“Jack! JACK!” Will screamed when his companion collapsed.

The boy dropped to his knees next to the fallen pirate and lifted his upper body off the deck. Jack’s obsidian eyes rolled so far back in his head that all that was visible were the whites, but they were twitching slightly, like he was trying to battle against the force that knocked him flat.

Will leaned closer and placed his hand on the other man’s chest, “Jack, come back to me.”

Several of his sailors came up to see what the fuss was about, but none knew how to react. Jones had come to the other side to collect souls so infrequently that they knew very little about the bell or what it did. It called the floating souls to the Dutchman and seemed to have a life all its own, but no pirate on Davy’s ship had ever seen it more than once or twice.

Lights appeared on the horizon while the crew was occupied, a small fleet of tiny ships heading their direction. Beneath the waters, souls writhed and stirred in preparation to board, but they had to wait. The passengers in lit boats would board the Dutchman first, and, if there was any room remaining, the spirits in the deep would get a chance to cross over. It was the way things had always been. If one who lived an untainted life died at sea, then they had a lit path in the midway, but if they led a dire existence, then they could do nothing but float with the tides.

Unaware of the approaching spirits, Will gently caressed the pirate’s face, not sure of what else to do.

“The bell is calling his soul, just as it calls all the others,” Bootstrap offered softly. “He just wasn’t meant to hear it.”

Men were lost all the time; Bill understood that better than anyone. It worried him that his son would take every loss so hard. A good man claimed by misfortune was to be mourned with a cheer and strong liquor, not weeping. If a Captain grieved over every man who didn’t return from battle, he’d go mad.

Bill knew that Jack and his son were very close, because Jack didn’t befriend anyone lightly. The man was as suspicious as one can get, but it was expected after his second or third mutiny. There weren’t many Jack trusted, so for William to be one of them, it meant they were tighter than the seams of the hull.

Since his Captain was currently incapable of making a command, Bootstrap turned to yell at the dormant crew, “Get back to work you dogs!” They shuffled off quickly.

On the main deck, the first few souls had arrived and were standing silently. A soul wasn’t much unlike the body it had once inhabited. They were usually dressed in what they had died in and had no outward signs of how they’d been killed, but it was their faces that gave them away. All of their faces were slack, completely devoid of any emotion or expression. Those who had boarded held their lanterns in front of them as though they were trying to see into some kind of impenetrable darkness.

Then the rest of them started pouring out of the lower decks. The souls that came through underbelly of the ship were ghastly, and easily distinguishable from those who rode in on boats. The ghouls who moved with the tides were stark white, like the ocean had sucked all the color from them. They had the same blank expressions as the pure souls, but their eyes were as pale as their skin and clothes, and their flesh was rotting off the bone.

Bill shivered involuntarily as the second set of beings filled in the space. Even with all the things he’d seen in his life, he would never get used to the leftovers of the sea. He turned back to his Captain and son and froze at what he saw. William was bent over the body of his fallen comrade, but he wasn’t praying for the pirate, which is what he’d thought he was doing at first, the boy was kissing Jack fully on the mouth.

The realization hit Bill hard. Jack wasn’t just close to his son, they were lovers. It wasn’t unheard of on open water, with few to no women available to the average pirate, but he’d met William’s wife. He’d been so sure that Will would chose the lovely young woman over the ocean and over his father, but apparently the sea had more than one draw for the lad.

Bootstrap left his Captain to mourn the loss that was more than just a pirate and friend. If he was grieving for a lover, then Bill couldn’t fault him. The first mate crossed the main deck, moving around and through souls, and joined the rest of the crew.

The Flying Dutchman filled quickly with the spirits of those who had passed. They quietly filed into every crevice they could stand in, until there was nowhere left for them to go. When the ship was full to capacity, the Spirit’s Call let out a second, monstrous tone and pushed the remaining souls back into the deep.

Will ignored the cursed bell and the damn ghosts. The only thing he wanted to be concerned with was the remaining warmth in his lover’s lips. He didn’t cry, but a horrendous agony wrenched his chest. It was a moment he didn’t miss his heart, because the pain would surely be worse if it still beat in his body. No one would possess his heart now, he would toss the box into the sea and let the beasts of the deep guard it.

Will regretfully withdrew from the kiss, but didn’t get far. A strong arm whipped around his neck and jerked him back down into a lip-lock was leaps and bounds away from the one-sided kiss he’d just concluded. Will’s eyes few open, but the kohl-lined eyes scant inches from his own were firmly closed.

Jack was alive!

If the man had been faking, William was going to kill him, but, he’d rather kiss him furiously first. He pressed into his lover’s hold desperately, needing to feel the other man’s heavy-handed touch. Jack parted Will’s lips with his tongue and challenged him to a duel. For once in the time Jack had known him, the boy was submissive and allowed him entrance without a fight. The pirate contently took his spoils before releasing the younger man.

“Well, that was pleasant.”

Will rested his hand threateningly on the hilt of his sword, “If you were faking all that, Sparrow, I swear…”

“Fakin’ what?” the pirate asked, a genuine look of confusion on his face. “You generally have to not be interested to fake a kiss, William. I, however, am always interested in taking what…” Jack puttered to a stop when he realized that they were surrounded by the dead.

Convinced the man had no idea what had just happened to him, Will let go of his sword. He wouldn’t have used it on him anyway, but it was a force of habit when he was threatening someone. He tried to determine how the man had come to, but there was only one thing that came to mind. Since it had been unable to pry the soul from Jack’s body in the time it took to fill the boat to capacity, the bell had released its hold on him when it rang a second time.

Jack’s expression changed to one of mild disgust and fear and he shifted away from the nearest soul. The movement just brought him closer to a different spirit, so he scrambled to his feet and followed Will to the helm, where none seemed to be gathered.

Will chuckled at him, “They’re just people, Jack” He couldn’t completely dispel the nervousness in his voice from Jack’s close call, but the other man didn’t notice.

The pirate curled his lip and tried to shoo a ghost out of his general vicinity. “Slimy, dead people,” he returned a little absently.

Will changed the Dutchman’s heading, to what was loosely known as north in the Locker, and shouted several orders to his crew. They rigged the sails and the ship surged forward with no wind to speak of.

When the initial shock of the ghouls’ presence wore off, Will’s words came to the forefront of Jack’s mind. The whelp hadn’t meant the kiss when he’d been asking about him faking. What had happened? William’s back was rigid with tension and Jack had no clue as to why. He vaguely remembered Turner telling him to cover his ears, but that was all.

Jack glanced down at the main deck to see the crew disassembling the large arch they’d put up only moments before. The bell was already gone, which was strange. Jack wondered why they would bother to lug the giant hunk of metal out from below if they weren’t even going to use it.

Something had happened, and it had upset the whelp enough that he wasn’t willing to talk about it. Jack would find out later. He could ask any of the pirates onboard and he was sure someone would disclose the information he wanted. For the time being, he slipped his arms around William’s waist and rested his head on the boy’s shoulder. The action caused some of the tension to leak out of the young Captain’s body, but not much.

At their feet, the heart in the metal chest slowed to a more blasé rhythm.

When it was back at the steady, lethargic pace it normally beat at, Jack asked, “Where are we headed?”

“Towards the point of Ascension.”

“Wha’?”

Will rolled his eyes to the starless sky. “It’s where we take the souls so they can go to the other side,” he explained easily. Captain Turner leaned back against his partner with a content sigh. His world had nearly capsized, but he was thankful that it managed to right itself again. If Jack was gone, Will wouldn’t know what to do.

He brushed some of Jack’s dreadlocks off his neck, taking the time to run his fingers over the countless trinkets as he felt them. His hand stopped at the tail of one particular lock when it encountered what was tied at the end.

“I can’t believe you put this in your hair,” Will muttered quietly, as he held up the twin-headed key to examine.

“I only put important things in me hair,” Jack admitted with a gold tinged grin.

William let the key drop, “You can’t honestly tell me that all of these little beads mean something.”

“I can’t ‘honestly’ tell you anything Will, I am a pirate after all, but a majority of them have a story.”

More than willing to test Jack’s questionable comment, the Dutchman’s Captain picked a bauble at random, “What’s this one then?”

“That,” Jack started, lifting his hair to take a good look at the trinket, “was a glass decoration on the end of an Admiral’s sword. I pried it off and put a hole in it.”

“And how exactly to you come into custody of an Admiral’s sword?”

“Well, he was drunk and I just happened to be passing through while escaping from his jail. I just borrowed it from ‘im,” Jack claimed with a dismissive hand gesture.

It didn’t have the stink of a tall tale, so Will pointed at another, “And this one?”

“That’s me lucky dice.”

Will chuckled, his lover’s blunt explanation not wholly unexpected, “Care to elaborate on that? I can see that it’s a dice, Jack.”

“Well, I’d wagered a hell of a lot and lost a hell of a lot. Mostly ‘cause the guy figured out I was usin’ loaded dice, but I won everything back on one last roll.”

“And it was that dice?”

“It was.”

Will hummed a soft acknowledgement and stopped grilling Jack. He learned something new about the strange man every day. Most people had a few quarks, but he was beginning to doubt if Jack had anything but. It was curiosity that originally drew him to Jack and it was curiosity, and fantastic sex, that made him stay. Jack was an enigma, one that Will hoped to actually solve one day.

A small point of light appeared in the sky, the first and only star they’d seen since entering the Locker. A small, squirrelly pirate they called Clacker shouted its presence, “The Ascension sir!”

“I see it,” Will yelled back, adjusting the wheel slightly.

Jack raised an eyebrow and scanned the horizon. All he could see, in any direction, was just more water. “Where?”

Will pointed out towards the bow and a whole lot of nothing, “Its right there.”

“There’s naught out there but water, William.”

“In the sky.”

“That’s a star.”

“Not in the Locker, it’s not,” the boy said cryptically.

Jack fell silent. It was easy to forget that the rules were different on the other side, where rocks were crabs, the sun could rise in the evening, and the dead floated about until someone came by to pick them up. Not that the dead didn’t do that on the side of the living, but there they weren’t sitting upright in boats and staring at you from the water.

The point of light traveled slowly across the sky as the Dutchman slid silently along, getting ever closer. When it was almost directly above them, the crew scattered across the ship like ants and tacked up the sails. They coasted to a smooth stop.

“The Pearl didn’t do that when it was here. We didn’t sail anywhere, we just sat,” Jack complained lightly while peering up at the ‘Ascension’, as everyone seemed to be calling it. It still just looked like a star.

“That’s because the Pearl wasn’t ever meant to be on this side,” Will returned.

Unimpressed, Jack turned his eyes back to the dead souls that still littered the ship. “They’re still here.”

“Give it a minute.”

Almost as soon as the words left Will’s lips, every single soul turned its face towards the sky. Those with lanterns held them aloft and the lights inside extinguished. Jack was about to ask what was going on, but William put his hand over Jack’s mouth to quiet him.

His question was answered a moment later as the souls who had lanterns began emitting their own light. The glow started out soft, but grew to a radiant brilliance that was hard to look at. Then, as quickly as it had come, the light was gone, as were all the souls.

“That’s it, just poof and then your job’s done?” Jack asked, quite surprised.

“Yes.”

“That’s all squid face had to do to keep from getting all… squid-y?”

Will shouted an order at his men before responding. “It’s not always this simple. Some days, you have to go back several times to gather all the souls, and they’re not always all in the same place,” Will said. He hesitated before continuing, “Now, we have to go back.”

There was a distinct possibility that Jack wouldn’t be able to cross back over. As his father had said, no man was meant to see the other side, let alone twice. The Locker didn’t like to release any soul once it had possession of it. But, the longer a soul was in the Locker, the less likely it was to escape. So, it would be better for them to leave quickly than debate about it.

---------

On the other side, sitting on the end of a dock and fuming, was the Pirate King. She hated Shipwreck City, or Shipwreck Cove, or whatever the hell they called the pirate den. In the time that Will had been gone, she’d been given cat-calls, had her ass grabbed, and finally just shot a bastard who wouldn’t give up. There was far too much testosterone in the pirating business for her taste.

Elizabeth had searched for Jack for almost a half and hour, but then realized that his dinghy was missing. She firmly labeled him a coward in her mind. If he couldn’t stand up for the punishment she wanted to dish out, then he was hardly a man at all. Although, one could hardly blame him for running, Elizabeth determined that she’d been a bit too obvious with her revenge. But, no matter, Jack and Will would return, because her husband would not leave her in this place, and then she’d call Jack in front of the Courts.

She’d already gathered the pirate Captains together, so all she needed was the missing duo to return. Not having Barbossa was a problem, since the Pirate Lords seemed unwilling to meet without all of them there, but she’d managed to talk around it. They would not meet with two missing, however, so Jack was a pivotal piece in his own downfall. Without him, she couldn’t get things rolling.

Of the edge of Shipwreck Island, in the open ocean, the water began to churn. The Flying Dutchman surfaced, bow first, in a shower of sea-water. The massive brig swayed on the waves it created, settling easily into the ocean.

When it came into the view of the cove’s entrance, Elizabeth stood and crossed her arms over her chest. It would take them a minute to get docked, but she would be waiting for them. Now that Jack already knew he was walking into some kind of trouble, Elizabeth had no intention of letting him forget it.

The Dutchman gracefully maneuvered into the narrow opening of the rocky safe haven the pirate’s cove was harbored in, before dropping anchor and a single rowboat. Onboard the tiny boat, Jack winced slightly when Elizabeth’s severe expression came within view.

“She looks a trite angry,” Jack mentioned to Will, who was seated next to him.

“Well, you did say you were going to escort her, then ran off.”

He reached over to pat Jack’s shoulder. The first thing he’d done upon arriving was check to make sure that Jack was still standing. Much to Will’s relief, The Locker had released for the second time, making the pirate either very lucky, or unsusceptible to the other side’s influence.

On the other hand, while Will was having a dinghy prepared to go to the docks, Jack had pulled aside one of the whelp’s men to find out what had happened while he was out. The answer had not pleased him. It was no wonder the boy had been so worked up.

Jack pushed it out of his head. He had to focus on whatever problem the tart was intent on starting. If he let her have her way, Elizabeth would see him dead before he got the chance to retrieve his Pearl from Barbossa.

Jack hopped out onto the dock next to the ‘charming’ girl, completely ignoring her attempts to kill him with her eyes. Will stood to follow, but Jack stopped him, “Wait a minute mate, I don’t think you can come. Jones couldn’t go where there wasn’t water.”

“Oh… right.”

Disappointed, Will sat back down. He’d completely forgotten about being connected to the Dutchman. He tried to conjure his silver linings to mind, but none came to him.

The sailor who’d brought them over spoke up, “Actually, that’s not quite true.” Three sets of eyes turned to him. “Well, sir, you can go wherever there’s water under your feet. Shipwreck City is constructed entirely on water, so you shouldn’t have any trouble going ashore.”

William looked at the brightly lit city skeptically. It did make sense, but, “What if it isn’t really built entirely on water? What if there’s a sandbar under there somewhere?”

“Then you won’t be able to breathe and there’s a terrible pain until you get back on or in water.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

It really wouldn’t be too much of a problem if he did encounter solid ground, because there were more than a few places he could go that were over water. He joined his wife and lover on the floating docks. “Well, what now?”

----------

TBC…

So, this chapter was really just to explain what Will does when he disappears to the other side. Sorry there was nothing more than kissing in this chapter, I hope to have a few scenes in the next one. Oh yes, and I just figured out that I was spelling ‘dinghy’ wrong…

Leave any questions/comments/concerns/praise/rants in a review if you would!