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Hector Barbossa does not die in this one.
There, hanging on for dear life to the cold, waterslick chain of the Pearl’s anchor, Jack sees Hector grab Carina, sees him loosen his grip on the chain and knows immediately, that he is going to do something very, very stupid. Hector has always been shrewd, but at the end of the day he has always been a bleeding heart and that makes you dumb. Jack knows this. And so, when he sees him grab for Henry’s cutlass he shouts his name, but it’s too late. The old captain is falling, sword in hand and over the roaring sea you can barely hear the sound of the blade ripping into Salazar’s skin, slicing down his body, the momentum enough to make him lose his grip as well. And then both are tumbling into the abyss and all that Jack can do is watch in horror, as one of the only constants left in his life falls to his death.
But Hector Barbossa does not die in this one. Later people will joke that Barbossa is just enough of a bastard to have pissed Death off so much that It refuses to take him.
No one sees what happens, they don’t have time to grieve yet, they must climb ever upwards before the ocean can close around them.
And so, they do not see Barbossa getting picked up by a stray wave and pushed against the chain again, barely in time for him to resurface half drowned, desperately clutching the iron.
They think he is dead, when they lay him out on the deck and there is something vicious in Jack’s voice when he snaps at the crew to stay away from the body. Carina seems to be exempt from this as she kneels beside the old pirate, trying to shake the life back into him. Jack does not approach. There is something unreadable in his expression as he stares at the pair of them on the ground.
The quartermaster halfheartedly kicks at a small white crab that had scuttled out of Barbossa’s clothes, as they all stand and wait for any sign of life. And then finally he gives a cough, water spluttering out of his mouth. Coming to, he twists out of Carina’s grasp and throws up water onto the ship.
When Jack turns away and flees to his cabin, most assume that it is his disappointment in not having the last laugh in this now legendary decade old rivalry. This is a new crew after all. They have only ever heard the stories, twisted further and further from the truth over the years. Most who have seen them happen are not alive anymore today.
And so, it is known today that Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Hector Barbossa have always hated each other. Ever since a mutiny and especially since Jack shot Barbossa through the chest with his last bullet on a cursed island. It is said that Barbossa only brought Jack back from the dead so that he would be the one to end Captain Jack Sparrow’s life.
They do not know that the bullet had never left the barrel. That Jack had not been able to bring himself to shoot when he finally faced his old enemy back on that island. They don’t know that it was Will’s blade that slid through Barbossa’s chest from behind, when he saw his father’s old friend hesitate, the raised pistol shaking in his hand. They don’t know that Hector Barbossa had never actually died and come back to life. That he had merely survived a near fatal injury, nursed back to health by a witch who might have been a sea goddess. No one ever told that version of events.
A bullet saved for the right occasion makes for a much better story after all.
Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa hate each other and always will. It is known.
When Jack doesn't join the celebration, they know that it is because he must be furious at his old enemies survival.
At night a sailor is awoken by heavy, stumbling steps but he thinks nothing of it, some poor sod always drinks too much. The sailor turns around in his hammock and goes back to sleep.
In the sickbay (if you can call the small room that), Barbossa is slipping in and out of consciousness, awake just enough to hear heavy steps and then the creak of leather that hasn’t fully dried yet, as someone crouches next to his bed. He does not have the strength yet to properly open his eyes or welcome his nightly visitor. He feels calloused fingers on his cheek, pushing his hair out of his face, where it had been tickling his nose for the past hour, and tucking it carefully behind his ears.
Rum-heavy breath hits his face hotly and much too close and barely audible he hears: “You have to stop doing this Hector, I have no more favors I can call in and my old heart can‘t take another close one like this.” Hector tries to grumble out “You’re younger than me” but his words don’t obey him and all that he manages is a small, pained grunt. “Don’t strain yourself” says his visitor, “I am furious with you.” The words are smudged by alcohol, but he can make them out well enough.
It takes Hector every bit of strength to press out a mumbled “Di'n' know ye cared”. He was going for teasing, but he is not sure that came across. It earns him a huff and he instinctively pulls back from the cloud of of stench that comes from it.
“Never stopped, love” his visitor says quietly. Hector tries to smile at that and to ignore the hint of resigned sadness in those words.
A hand reaches out to him and tugs on his ring finger. It gives the ring that Barbossa has kept there for more than 20 years now a tentative twist. It had belonged to the visitor once, exchanged drunkenly months before a mutiny and a marooning. When the hand pulls back, Hector surprises them both, by grabbing it and holding onto it tightly. Before he slips back into unconsciousness, he can feel the hand shift in his, adjusting the angle, and hears a thump, as his visitor settles on the floor by the bed.
In the morning, when Carina comes to see how he is doing, his visitor has long since left.
He spends his days relearning how to breathe, listening to Carina tell him about herself, answers every question she has for him and on one memorable occasion sends Henry running from his quarters with a well-placed glare.
He spends his nights being held by and holding a man who, he has been trying to convince himself for twenty years, he doesn’t love. Not really. And for almost that long he has known it to be a lie. If one of them suddenly holds on a little tighter and starts silently shaking, gasping muffled sobs into the other’s hair or chest, they don’t mention it and just tighten their arms around the other in return.
Barbossa wakes alone every morning and when he begins to walk the deck of the ship again, the Pearl’s two captains don’t acknowledge each other. Whenever the crew see Captain Sparrow look at Captain Barbossa, there is barely concealed rage in his eyes, and they figure that the rivalry is alive and well.
Jack returns to Hector every night. There is no alcohol on his breath after that first time.
They don’t talk. Not yet.
When one night Jack does not come, Barbossa gets up and goes to the deck. It is a new moon. The night is pitch black save for the small lantern over the captain’s door.
Jack is standing at the wheel, having taken the night watch after weeks of finding excuses not to, when he hears the soft thud of a leather boot and the hard plonk of a wooden peg on the stairs.
He smiles a little and lets himself relax into the warm body that has come up behind him and wrapped its arms around him. Lets his head fall a little to the side to touch, when a chin settles on his shoulder.
They stay silent like this. Until they don’t. Until they talk. All the grievances and betrayals of the last decades finally aired out and smoothed over in quiet whispers. The kind of talk that you can only have hidden in the dark of night, where you cannot see the other.
It doesn’t take one night, of course it doesn’t, and they don’t talk when they are in bed together, only ever holding each other, a silent promise to never let go again.
But they do talk, always hidden by the dark night, never looking at the other, until there is nothing to talk about anymore. Until all the silent anger and lost trust and hurt, oh how much hurt there was, is gone. Replaced by something new, something quiet and calm. Safe.
When Jack hears the plonk of the wooden leg come up the stairs again, on a fresh new moon black night, and feels Hector take his usual place behind him, he turns. Finally, finally looks at Hector, really looks at him and it feels like an eternity, where they just stare at each other, barely visible in the sparse lantern light from below them. And then they finally, finally crash together, waves meeting and breaking each other before they can ever reach the shore.
They carefully hide what they are to each other from the crew. Let them have their stories, no need to complicate them.
It is not hard to hide, they have mastered the art of bickering long ago after all and everyone knows that Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa hate each other.
The crew cowers under their glares, desperate to reach land so that Barbossa might finally leave the ship, they are loyal to their captain of course.
They don’t know about the clever contraption Barbossa has thought up, which muffles the noise of his wooden leg, when he makes his way into the captain’s quarters every night. The bed there is much more comfortable after all.
They are joined for a short while by a vessel that the older sailors say reminds them of descriptions of the legendary Flying Dutchman. But surely such a thing does not really exist. Even before it raises the white, Captain Sparrow orders his crew to wait for it, they do so without questioning it, by now used to his oddities. They are quite surprised by the young man who soon boards the ship, wraps first Jack and then Barbossa into a big hug that they reciprocate with enthusiasm. He then steps back to look at the two captains, grins and tells them “Took the two of you long enough. Now where would I find my son?”
It is soon agreed that Carina and Henry will continue their journey on the Dutchman “No relation!” the young captain assures the Pearl’s crew. This sends both Jack and Barbossa into silent laughter, which leads to speculation below deck later. Nobody really knows who this Will Turner is, except for Henry’s father apparently. But that first night the Pearl’s two captains are invited to dinner on the other ship.
When the ship leaves them again, Carina has Barbossa’s assurances to stay in contact with her as much as he can. Both of them seem to be excited to finally make up for lost time.
Even before reaching land, they capture a small English transport vessel, whose crew surrenders easily enough. It is the first and only time the crew of the Pearl sees their captains working together in terrifying unison, without exchanging a single word.
Surprising everyone, Barbossa agrees to take the smaller ship without laying any claim to the Pearl. And with him leaves half of Jack’s crew. They are loyal to their captain of course, but they have also quickly come to the conclusion that between Jack and Barbossa, the latter seems to be at least a little saner. The two ships sail together until they reach port. The small boat that travels between ships in the night soon stirs rumors that there must have been star crossed lovers amongst the crew who were split up in the captains’ rivalry.
As soon as they reach port the crew descends on the local taverns and brothels. Their aging captains wave off the invitations to join.
They have lived through too much to still feel at home amongst people who have not seen what they have.
They also have other duties to attend to.
After two weeks Barbossa’s new ship sets sail again. He has used his time at port to track down the Queen Anne’s revenge and is set on taking it back as soon as possible.
Barbossa leaves with a red cloth tied around his wrist and a compass tucked safely into his coat pocket.
Jack leaves with the Pearl, a stolen hat and looks strangely naked without the bandana he has been wearing for as long as anyone on his ship has known him. He does not need a compass anymore; the Pearl will always find her captain.
Over the next few years, the Pearl and the Anne’s Revenge cross paths every so often, sometimes they sail together for a few months before separating again, or lay in Port together, their crews exchanging stories of their travels, their captain’s never joining them on land. It is not as noticeable when they are out at sea, but on land it is quite obvious to their crew that there is something odd about them, something almost inhuman. Though this suspicion is never uttered aloud and quickly put aside. Most sea captains are a little odd, aren’t they?
And they seem happy. Both of them, especially when the ships run across each other, a little too often to be coincidence maybe, but it goes unquestioned.
In all his quests for immortality, Jack now realizes that he would be quite content if he could grow old like this, out at sea with his husband not far behind. Both he and Barbossa might say that those final years at sea are the best years of their lives.
But there is no getting around the way they are both aging. Especially Barbossa who is after all at least ten years Jack’s senior is beginning to feel his old bones creak now without a supernatural crisis around every corner to keep him busy. They talk about this of course every time their ships meet, what to do about it, maybe it is time to go off the account? No of course not, they refuse to settle down somewhere. It‘s not who they are. They are going to stay at sea for as long as they can. Bitterly clinging on to that last bit of freedom this affords them in an ever-shrinking world, most pirates disappearing, accepting royal pardons.
They stay sure of this for another six years, but then Barbossa gets injured. He himself doesn’t know how it happened, maybe he was too slow in a fight, maybe his bad leg gave out. The injury is bad and he is so old now and it just won’t heal as well anymore and he already has one wooden leg and now he has a back injury that requires constant attention.
And so, he decides that maybe it is finally time to lay anchor somewhere for good. He has after all amassed quite a large fortune over time. He does not tell Jack about it, who had been furious when he learned that Hector had been injured.
Their crews have caught on to their relationship by now, how could they not have. And they bore the brunt of Jack Sparrows rage before he was let through to Barbossa recovering in his cabin. They had placed themselves before their captain, who had been in no state to calm his husband. Jack Sparrow has never reacted well to Barbossa getting hurt, they have learned. And so, they took Jack’s fear turned to anger and his worry turned to yelling about how they could have let this happen. Because Barbossa is too tired, too old now to give back as good as he gets. The days where they settled their arguments with a sword fight on equal ground are over now and the crew protects its captain.
When Jack had finally been allowed to see his husband, his anger was gone. What remained was fear and sadness and the knowledge that their days of freedom might finally be coming to a close. The crew ignores the sobbing they hear from the cabin.
So no, Barbossa does not tell Jack about his plans yet, even though they are currently laying at the same port, waiting for Barbossa to recover.
He supposes he could settle in shipwreck cove although he is not sure he belongs there at this point to be quite honest. Elizabeth would welcome him with open arms of course but it is too close to his life before Calypso and before the trident. Too many familiar faces he is not eager to spend the last years of his life with. It would also guarantee that Carina’s letters would not be able to reach him. She has been writing to him diligently over the years and he has not had the heart to tell her that he never actually did learn how to read. He has made Jack read him her letters and dictates his response.
Shipwreck Cove is not an option then. So he decides on the next best thing, which is to conquer Tortuga for himself.
Only after he has thought this through, does he bring it up with Jack, who has been itching to get back to sea. He would never have admitted it, having tended to Barbossa all this time without complaint, but Barbossa knows that he is getting restless, that Jack Sparrow was never made to stay on land.
After having explained his plans, businesslike, bearing no room for argument, Barbossa steels himself for the hard part. He offers Jack to set him free, to let him sail off to sea again and leave him behind without being bound to shore by anything. He doesn’t owe this old man anything he tells him.
He doesn’t quite understand why Jack looks at him equal parts heartbroken and insulted upon this offer.
Until Jack asks him if Barbossa seriously thinks that he is a burden on him and that Jack hasn‘t been around him entirely of his own free will for the past years.
And that Captain Jack Sparrow does not need to be set free from a situation he chose to put himself in thank you very much.
It is ridiculous really, that even after all this time, after everything they have been through, this is the moment in which Barbossa truly realizes just how much Jack Sparrow loves him. That it had never just been humoring an old man.
Barbossa hadn’t even known that there had been a small part of himself that had been doubting this whole thing, despite everything. He only notices it now because it is slowly fading away, as Barbossa watches his husband scoff and start to cut an apple, as Barbossa’s hands aren’t as nimble as they used to be. All the while mumbling to himself about idiot old men.
So Barbossa takes over Tortuga. Impressively quickly, but that is what a name, a legend and most importantly masses of gold get you. Jack does not stay with him of course; the sea calls him home not soon after he had accompanied Barbossa on his final journey to Tortuga. But he does find himself a new task. He takes great delight in racing the Pearl across the sea, hunting those who have wronged his husband. It is not the fastest ship in the Caribbean for nothing. Sometimes he comes to Tortuga to excitedly tell Barbossa about a treasure he wants to find and sometimes he returns with it and sometimes without.
He is not as young anymore, but he wears it better, his body not betraying him yet.
Barbossa has returned the compass to him. Just in case he ever finds himself lost at sea.
They settle into this new life surprisingly easy and find that they quite enjoy it.
But they know that it is borrowed time. That things are slowly coming to an end now. And after another seven years, in which Barbossa somehow manages to amass an incredible fortune, age finally, finally catches up to him. Jack has not been straying far from Tortuga for a while now, but he is still quite a while away, when a ship reaches him, bringing news that his husband has fallen sick, that he is dying.
Only once has Gibbs seen Jack close to being this desperate. And that was when he was trying to outrun Davy Jones years ago. It‘s different now though, there is nothing Jack can do to outsmart this.
And maybe Calypso senses his desperation and grants him a final favor because the Pearl flies back to harbor, where there has always been a space kept free for her. To where Barbossa has greeted Jack for years when he returned from a hunt.
Barbossa does not die from this sickness. Stubborn old bastard that he is, but they both know it will not be long now. That this was a warning, an alarm to get Jack back to shore in time. They have a few more weeks together and they are quiet, settled. Barbossa shows Jack the garden he has been working on and they sit in the sun together, silent because there is nothing that needs to be said. Sometimes they talk for hours on end deep into the night. Barbossa will tell Jack the town gossip and Jack will laugh and tease but remember the names better than Hector. When Hector Barbossa dies, it is not because of sickness. It is his old body slowly giving up. When he and Jack realize that they have started to worry Barbossa might not wake up in the morning, they send for their friends. Barbossa is sure this time. Unlike last time, when he only sent for Jack. Not a week later, Elizabeth arrives with Will, Henry and Carina. No one is quite sure how they got there this quickly. Suspicions about the remaining magic properties of the Dutchman remain unsaid. Elizabeth is heartbroken to see her best friend dying, Carina is terrified to lose her father and yet both of them try to pry Jack away from his side at least for five minutes, only to eat, “just a little bit please Jack”.
Jack is not doing well. He doesn’t sleep, barely eats and he has started drinking again. Jack Sparrow has never coped well with the prospect of losing Hector Barbossa.
This goes on until Elizabeth gently takes him aside and tells him that seeing Jack like this is breaking Barbossa‘s heart and if this is really how Jack wants his husband to see him for the last time.
Jack takes better care of himself from then on. But he never leaves Barbossa’s side, taking his meals with him, only sleeping, when someone else is watching Barbossa.
Word has reached every corner of the world by now, that the great captain Barbossa is dying.
You would expect there to be some plays for power, old rivals creeping out of the woodwork to fill the vacuum Barbossa will be leaving.
But the whole world seems to hold its breath. There are quiet whispers about legends that Barbossa is too much of a bastard for Death to take him, but they are quickly hushed.
You don’t want to make a noise when the Pirate King’s best friend and Jack Sparrow‘s husband is dying.
For two weeks after Elizabeth’s arrival from shipwreck cove the world lies in wait.
It is a cool morning, still very much dark outside, when Barbossa asks Jack to see the sunrise. Properly, at sea, like the captain he still his.
And Jack lifts him into his wheelchair, gods he hadn’t noticed that his husband has become featherlight in this time. He plans to take him to the Pearl. They carefully wake Carina who has been sleeping on a cot in her father’s room ever since she arrived. “Let’s go on one last adventure.” They whisper conspiratorially. She does not bother getting dressed properly, only throws on a dressing gown and a jacket to go over it. As they leave the room, they stumble upon Elizabeth, who has been guarding the door to their room, not daring to move far away from it. The noise wakes Will and Henry and the three of them join them quietly as they make their way through the empty streets to the harbor.
And Barbossa is unusually cheerful today, far more energetic than he has been lately.
He is filling the silent streets with stupid jokes, reminiscing over stories from his glory days and making lewd comments about his husband. His husband who is barely holding it together now but still stops the wheelchair every time to lean down and kiss him.
The Pearl waits for them in the dark, swaying slightly on the silk-soft water.
They leave the wheelchair at the pier; Barbossa can still walk a little and wants to stand on deck of a ship at least one last time. They pull Barbossa on board with the pulleys usually reserved for the lifeboats. He finds this delightful. And then they sail the Pearl out to sea with five people, while Barbossa sits by the steering wheel. In his favorite chair on the Pearl that Jack has carried out for him.
He falls silent as they sail towards the sunrise and lay anchor.
The sun is starting to rise in earnest now and as the Pearl quietly floats on the waves Barbossa asks Jack to help him up from the chair and down to the ground, so they can sit together.
He and Barbossa sit next to each other then, their backs against the railing and holding hands and watching the first rays of light peak over the horizon. Barbossa‘s head on Jack‘s shoulder and Jack holding onto him as tightly as he can without it hurting.
Carina soon joins them and sits on Barbossa‘s other side and lays her head on his shoulder, Henry by her side, quietly holding her hand but not interrupting. Elizabeth and Will sit with them now too, huddled together for warmth. Will pulls Henry in for a one-sided hug. He gives in easily enough but never lets go of Carina’s hand.
At some point Barbossa produces a flask, from who knows where, “At least it’s not the leg again,” Jack says. This earns him a chuckle from the others but soon the silence takes them again. They pass around the flask and warmed by the rum they sit.
And they watch the Sunrise.
When Hector Barbossa dies, it‘s not spectacular, he only grabs Jack’s hand a little tighter, huddles a little closer and breathes out for the last time.
He hasn’t closed his eyes, he didn’t want to miss this sunrise.
It is going to be a beautiful day today, not a cloud in sight and only a gentle breeze blows over them.
This is the last journey the Black Pearl takes.
Because when Barbossa is dead, once they notice, Jack carefully lifts him up and sits him in his chair by the wheel, so that his hands can reach it. And then he tells the tiny crew of the Pearl that they are going to sink the ship. They barely protest, following the orders of their captain one last time.
His eyes are dry, but when Elizabeth looks at him, she finds that there is a light that has gone out from them.
They pour the rest of the rum on Deck, they find some more in Storage and once the Pearl is properly drenched, Jack gives his husband one last kiss on the top of his head.
Jack is the last to leave the ship, blazing torch in hand he stands on deck for a little while longer besides the body of his husband and looks out at sea. “Keep him safe for me old girl”, he tells her, and he can feel the ship reassuring him that she will.
The others watch from the small boat they have let down to the water, as Captain Jack Sparrow sets fire to the sails of his ship, then flings the torch to the far end of it, allowing him time to leave.
They have to hurry now, because once the fire reaches the room where the gunpowder is stored, they do not want to be near the ship.
They watch as the sails catch alight, as the first licks of flame climb up the wooden railing and they watch, as Jack slowly climbs down the ladder to the boat. And they have never quite noticed how old their friend is, how frail he has started to look until the moment they saw him hesitate just now, only for a second, before he climbed over the railing to the ladder.
Will rows them to a safe distance, far enough from the Pearl that she cannot suck the tiny boat down with her, and they watch. Carina is silently crying, Henry’s arm around her only a small comfort. Elizabeth is clearly holding herself together with everything she has. Jack and Will seem strangely unmoved at first glance, their faces still as stone as they leave the burning ship behind. Both have been touched by Death so many times in so many different ways. Will grits his teeth and rows. He will not be picking up Barbossa’s soul and ferry it to the afterlife. The curse is broken, his job is done. Today is the first day where he wishes it wasn’t.
Jack seems strangely untethered now, the otherworldliness he has carried with him for most of his life now clear to see even out on the water. He only watches with hard, dry eyes, as his ship lights up the horizon. They don’t dare to reach out to him with a comforting touch. He looks a little like he might dissolve under their hands if they did.
In the end, the Black Pearl burns again.
She hasn’t been only Jack’s ship for decades now, and he has handed her over to Hector now. A final gift of parting, a ship to weather the stormy seas of whatever comes next. The best ship the world has to offer.
When Tortuga rises that morning, there is a black pillar of smoke to be seen on the horizon and those who have been up since the early hours before sunrise tell of how they saw the Pearl leave harbor this morning. And this is how Tortuga knows that Hector Barbossa has finally died.
Only when they come closer to shore and the familiar houses come in sight, does the spell on Jack break. He seems a bit more solid again, a bit more there. He knows that he will settle Barbossa’s affairs in town, hand the keys to the house with the small garden to Carina, as was Barbossa’s wish and only then, when it is all done will he allow himself to break. After, he will find a new ship, a new crew and hopefully a few more adventures. But he knows he isn’t long for this world now. He hasn’t properly belonged to it for a long time now anyway. And he has always followed Hector eventually. He will set out on his own when he feels the sea calling, on a small ship, with his compass. He knows Calypso will try to offer him the Dutchman again, no curse this time, she has done so before. He knows that he will decline the offer one last time and that he will sail the way his compass points him. And he knows what will be waiting for him there. And so he will only be asking her for safe passage, when the time comes. He hopes that the sea might mourn him then. That she did in the end love him as much as he loved her. He loses himself in this thought a bit, until from behind him, Elizabeth reaches out a tentative hand to touch his shoulder. “How do you feel now?” she asks carefully, her voice flat from tears she hasn’t allowed to fall yet.
Jack turns around to answer her, he can’t see her properly in his grief “I feel,” he says, and his voice is not his own anymore.
“I feel … cold?”
And he can’t see her properly and the voice that comes out of his mouth is not his own and there is the smell of gun smoke in his nose.
His back does not ache from years at sea now and the ground beneath his feet feels different and he is standing, arm raised high.
And the Black Pearl was burning, and he is standing somewhere else now, young again, arm raised, gun smoke in his nose. He thinks he might have just shot somebody.
There is a green apple laying at his feet. Jack has never felt such bone deep terror before. Not even when he had seen Hector fall into the abyss all those years ago. He thinks he might die from it.
He is standing in the dark, arm raised, gun smoke in his nose, a green apple at his feet and beside him stands Death. An old acquaintance who looks at him and says “This is what could have been. Oh, the life you might have lived.”
And then It is gone, and the darkness with It and Jack is standing on cold stone, gold scattered on the ground, a green apple at his feet, gun smoke in his nose and the shot is still ringing in his ears and before him Hector Barbossa falls, crumbling onto a pile of cursed gold.