Gravity

by Dove

Fandom: PoTC    Rating: PG-13    Pairing: Jack/Will/Pearl    Full Header   Proprietary Rights - 5

For ten years Jack has not been whole. For ten years, he has been an empty shell. He lost it all--ship, crew, best mate--and was left with only an empty, aching space inside him. There is only room for the betrayal in that space, and it cuts at him from the inside, leaves him raw and bleeding. It is not blood that pulses in his veins anymore, but vengeance.

In a dark and dirty jail cell, Jack looks into the eyes of a new William Turner, and feels his heart beat for the first time in a decade.

~~~~~

The first time Jack took the wheel of the Pearl, she spoke to him right away. She whispered of adventure and glory and the kind of loyalty one could only expect from a woman hewn of wood.

Ten years later, every creak and moan is a curse, every shuddering groan of her timbers speaks of infidelity. If Jack were ever unsure of Barbossa's death, he'd have proof in the way the bastard's ghost haunts his ship.

Jack wakes up every night, gasping and sweating, clutching at his hands. It takes some time before he can force them into the moonlight.

~~~~~

He should be happy. He's got his ship back, and he's got his crew--loyal, sure, and a better lot you couldn't hope for. Barbossa is dead and the mutineers were punished and Norrington was not only bested, but forced to admit that he liked Jack--at least enough to let him escape.

He should be jubilant, but Jack is restless and unsatisfied instead. He roams the decks of the Pearl at all hours, looking for someone to unleash his anger on. Anamaria's best--she fights back.

But there's something he can't find on the Pearl's smooth planks or in Anamaria's hiss. He doesn't know what it is, but there are nights he wakes, reaching for it, and he can almost see it at the tips of his fingers. Almost.

Jack's at home on the water, and he never has felt quite settled on dry land. He doesn't trust its stillness under his feet, its indifference to the rhythm of his walk. It's odd, then, for him to be ashore when he finally feels this agitation inside him go quiet and still. It's been there so long that it feels strange when it stops, and he spends a moment trying to figure what's gone wrong. He nearly misses the warm brown eyes, the familiar face in a town where no face has a right to be familiar.

"Ah," thinks Jack. Now he knows why he's come to this festering little town. Now he knows what he's been looking for.

When he lays Will out in the moonlight, Will asks whether he is trying to prove Will's humanity, or his own. If he knew the answer, he'd give it freely. His hands slide over blessedly solid flesh, exploring this newest treasure with a delight that borders on rapture.

"Will," he whispers, "Will, Will, William." It's a name that has meant loss and betrayal for over ten years, and Jack's hands reshape it with Will's flesh, pull and prod and stroke it into something beautiful, something comforting, something entirely his.