PotC – The Last Day

Title: The Last Day
Author: Atra Materia
Fandom/Characters: Pirates of the Caribbean – Jack
Rating/Warnings: Gen – Character Death
Summary: And then it was just Jack; Jack and his Pearl.
Disclaimer: All content relating directly to Pirates of the Caribbean, including but not limited to its characters, events, and places, is the property of its original creators.

It was only him, now.

Will and Elizabeth weren’t much for the pirating business anymore – hadn’t been, since before their first boy had been born, and young Jack must have been nigh on thirty himself. He was a respectable man, despite his namesake’s efforts to ensure just the opposite, and though there’d been many a time he’d tagged along as a child, it was rare that he showed his face at the docks nowadays – let alone boarded the Pearl. No, he was only interested in the adventures he could find in the shop; he told many a tale of his fine wares, but nary a one did he star in himself.

Mr Cotton had been dust some twenty years (and his parrot quite some time before that), and Gibbs, they’d laid to rest only last summer. Anamaria, she’d gone down with her ship. There was little to be said for the company in Tortuga of late; Giselle had settled in with some old rogue after he’d sown her fertile field, and Scarlett succumbed to the pox – and he’d long ago given up the harlots, anyway.

No, it was only him, now. Only Jack.

Elizabeth had asked him, once, if he regretted any of it; if he had it to do over again, would he still do it all the same.

“Elizabeth, me love,” he’d replied, “if today was me last day on this earth, I’d sail her out and never look back.”

The Pearl – what was left of her, at least – rocked gently upon the waves, a fitting cradle for a child’s soul in an old body. There was a lullaby to go with it, sung in the husky, whispering voice of the sea. She was calm today, her surface rippled by the breeze that swelled the sails and bore Cap’n Sparrow onward to destinations unknown; on toward the sunset that dyed the darkening sky with brilliant hues. Where it reflected off the water, it distorted like Indian silk mistakenly immersed in a hot wash: pink and red and purple seeping, bleeding, spreading into the ocean blue.

His hands, gnarled with work and age, clenched more tightly on the wheel. The Port must have grown small behind him – perhaps even vanished – but he refused to turn and watch distance swallow the isle. He held himself straight at the helm, as straight as his spine would draw, and gazed resolutely into the beyond; great and endless as it was. Will and Elizabeth would likely have realized, by now, but they knew him nearly as well as he knew himself, and they would understand why he’d gone – why it had to be this way; why it had to be –

Only Jack, Jack and his Pearl. She creaked and she moaned, but he knew she would carry him to the ends of the earth if he asked her. She would be with him to the end; the bitter, sweet end.

The sun dipped beneath the horizon, and his hands slipped from the helm. He sat down where he was; the sway and the song lulling him to sleep.

There was just Jack, Jack and the Pearl; and after a time, there was only the Pearl.

Author’s Notes: Written for the Pirates 500 ‘Last’ challenge. Another one that’s not completely DMC/AWE-compliant.