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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Will, Jack/Will/Elizabeth. Some James/Jacques, José/Anamaria.
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones, etc.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me.
Notes: Ripping off every movie ever seen by the author that involved something going on beneath the U. S.-Mexican border. Modern-day AU. Jacques is a kind of fandom-owned original character that looks like Brad Pitt. José Gaspar was a real person; here he looks like Antonio Banderas just because the author said so.
Summary: In which we have climaxes where you don’t expect them and the beginning of what is not so much a beautiful friendship as an invitation to future mayhem.
***
Anamaria found him in the bar. To be specific, she found him behind the bar, sprawled out on the floor with a rum-bottle in one hand and a big gun in the other. When Jack saw her, he tipped her a slosh that actually didn’t angle towards his mouth. It spoke volumes about his internal conditions—externally, he didn’t look all that different from the usual late night.
She put her elbows on the bar and glanced over her shoulder: the bartender was gone, and for that matter, so were the three to five background fillers. A quick sniff told her that they weren’t dead, or at least not in the near vicinity, so she chanced taking a seat. “Jack, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Were you with me tonight, or were you just powdering your nose while your body stumbled round?”
He saluted her a second time with the bottle. It was a lot sloppier, and that didn’t look intentional. “Anamaria, love, I’m just taking a breather. Taking stock of my options from this point, so to speak.”
“Yeah, well, should’ve done that before you gave the hornets’ nest that last kick. Barbossa’s going to be in town in another half-hour. If he isn’t already,” Anamaria snorted, giving the bar a kick. The resulting thud was hollow and echoing, and made her glance around again out of sheer reflex. “Goddamn little brats wouldn’t give me exact time for less than fifty, and I wasn’t about to give them it because we can handle that ourselves. If you get off the damn floor.”
Jack drained the last of the rum. His eyes narrowed over the rim, so he was doing some actual thinking, but he still wasn’t getting up.
Anamaria put her head in her hand and did a quick rundown of things capable of distracting Jack from a vengeance jaunt that’d been nine years in the making. It wasn’t that long of a list. “For God’s sake, you said you knew what you were doing with Turner. You said you’d get him, have a fight with him so he’d take the car out of the country where it was safe. You said he’d take care of it like it was his baby and bring it back when we needed it.”
“Aye, love. That, I did.” And then Jack did a somersault to the end of the bar to avoid the glass Anamaria had just tossed at the floor. He flipped his hands around like that’d keep the flying glass from hitting him. “Anamaria!”
“Call me love again and I won’t miss,” she snapped. “Well? It all worked out, didn’t it? I didn’t believe any man would be so easy to play out, but you made it work.”
After a moment, Jack nodded. He kicked away some of the bigger glass shards, then got onto his feet. He was moving a bit stiffly, but Anamaria didn’t feel any guilt about that because she knew it wasn’t her fault; she’d seen Jack take worse. “It did that, all right.”
She knew what that little glint in his eye was and for a moment, she didn’t know whether to slap him or hand him another bottle. Of all times for Jack to develop a conscience, or at the very least, an attachment to something that wasn’t strictly necessary…
“Well, I’m done. Let’s get going,” Jack said. He put one palm flat on the counter, then easily vaulted the bar. Then he bent over to retrieve his case, which he’d stashed where the wineglasses were racked.
Anamaria raised her eyebrow. Then another realization caught up with her and she whipped out a hand to drag Jack back. “Wait a minute. You don’t mean to tell me that Will’s still got the car…I thought we were setting it up for the outskirts of town. Less people, less mess, you said. And I’m thinking that girl of Will’s ain’t gonna settle for no flea-bait motel that far out.”
Jack didn’t answer, which was as good as a nod.
Sometimes she just wondered what went through Jack’s head when he pulled stunts like this. It couldn’t really be remorse, not with how he kept on doing it. He couldn’t be that stupid. “Y’know, in my honest opinion, you deserve whatever Will tosses at your head next,” she said.
“Aye,” Jack said. He didn’t look too happy about it, but he wasn’t slowing down any. On the contrary, he was speeding up. “It’s still for the same place. Eventually. You call everyone?”
“Well, yeah, but now I’ve got to call ‘em again and tell them about the change of plans. You’re a right pain in the…” Anamaria trailed off because she wasn’t talking to anyone anymore. She didn’t count a dust cloud as ‘anyone,’ even if it was Jack-shaped. “Goddamned men.”
But no point in crying over spilled milk, so she got out her cell. At least somebody had to make sure what needed to be done was done.
“Gibbs? Yeah, it’s Anamaria. Listen, Jack’s still attached to that damn college kid he picked up last summer…”
* * *
James put down the binoculars just as the first large black car pulled up to the hotel’s front entrance. He quickly ducked beneath the balustrade and twisted around to find José and Jacques still having their argument over whether Will Turner was a willing participant or not. José thought no, Jacques thought yes—more to irritate José than anything else, James suspected—and for some reason they seemed to think this was a crucial detail. To James’ eye, the time would have better been spent figuring out how to steal the infamous Black Pearl in the middle of a turf war. Or perhaps how they were all going to justify this to their respective superiors.
“You were right. The two of them are sharing a room,” James interrupted, speaking to José. “Second from the left.”
The other man frowned, then grabbed the binoculars from James and scooted over to take a look. He shook his head. “No, third from left. I don’t know what they’re doing in there, but that’s not the room they…oh. Well. I see Jack will have his work cut out for him. Will seems to have developed other interests.”
“Or he’s doing it on Jack’s behalf,” Jacques suggested.
José appeared to be trying very hard not to bite his tongue in two. “Just because you allowed Sparrow to temporarily buy your services in exchange for sex does not mean everyone does. For that matter, Will and Jack haven’t seen each other in a year.”
“You cannot mean to tell me that Will would come back and not expect this. Does he really think Jack would have let him steal that car, of all cars? With no guarantee at the time that he’d bring it back?” The expansive gesture Jacques made to illustrate ended in his knocking his hand against the balustrade. Fortunately, right then someone started shooting, so no one actually heard.
James left the two men to their argument and instead concentrated on snapping together his portable rocket launcher. He got most of it done in a timely fashion, but when it came to the very last few pieces, he seemed to be missing a screw.
No, the launcher was missing a screw. Whereas James’ head was perfectly fine, and would remain perfectly fine as long as he found the damn thing in the next five seconds and slotted everything together. Because given his personal calculations, there was no way to get down there and take the car himself, so he’d have to make sure Will and that girl had a chance to get it out of the area.
“Jack’s overly optimistic sometimes about his manipulative abilities. And I believe Will’s surprised him more than once,” José muttered, huffily crawling up next to James. He pushed his hair out of his face and squinted through the railing. “Have they broken in yet?”
“Right there. And Will and the girl bolted—presumably for the stairs, if they’re sensible.” They were out of sight now, but they had to emerge sometime to get to the car, which was…oh, there was the screw. James picked it up, finally got the gun together and swung it around to look through the scope.
“Are they in any state to make an escape?” Jacques asked, suddenly right up against James’ other side. It was all James could do to keep himself from elbowing the other man in the face, and by the way Jacques smiled, he was clearly aware of that. “You said…”
At that point, a window just over where the Black Pearl was parked shattered. No one fell because Will had sensibly used a chair, and moreover, had picked a window leading out to a fire escape. The Pearl wasn’t a convertible, and anyway, jumping down like that was for idiots with horses and iron prick guards. Instead Will and the girl, whose long hair prevented James from identifying her, skimmed down the steps and got into the car the normal way, albeit at a very great speed. Since they were being chased by half-a-dozen cartel men, and more of the same were jumping into cars behind them, that also was practical.
James aimed, pulled the trigger, and then pretended very hard that he’d been expecting the launcher to kick just that much. It was worse than a bloody sniper rifle. “I know what I said, and I think they’ve just answered your question for you.”
“Snippy.” Jacques rolled over as James stood up, eyebrows raised. “You disapprove?”
“If my place were to comment on Turner’s relationship choices, I’d be in some office somewhere raking in fees as a therapist, not putting up with your inanities. No wonder your agency sent you here on a long-term mission,” James snapped. He started to disassemble the rocket launcher, then stopped. On second thought, it might be better to keep it around. He smelled a high-speed car chase coming up, and those always seemed to require excessive firepower.
* * *
“Look, I just wanted to make sure we’d have a way to get around! How was I supposed to know they’d follow us instead of Jack? Isn’t he the one causing all the trouble?” The more Elizabeth yelled, the crazier her driving got.
Which wasn’t really necessary, considering that the Pearl had bulletproof glass installed, but then again, both of them were crouched down in their seats. Another rattle hit the back window and Will couldn’t help but scrunch lower, though intellectually he knew that he didn’t have to worry. “Don’t crash the car, and don’t let them shoot out the tires.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t see them—oh, my God!” Elizabeth had been creeping up to take a peek, but suddenly a red flare exploded by the side of the car. She threw herself back down and in the process she let go of the wheel.
The car skewed left. Will made a frantic lunge and whipped the wheel around, going on gut instinct and how the screams of the people on the sidewalk changed in tone. He didn’t feel them hit anything sizable, so it seemed that it worked.
“I was worried about you! Doesn’t that get brownie points? I mean, God, I could’ve just driven off, but I really like you and so far you’re living up to it except for the part where you yelled at me for this stupid car! Which wasn’t even really my fault!” She kept slipping in and out of her dumb-blonde persona, which made her yells sound even odder. A car roared up on their left and Elizabeth promptly slammed on the brakes.
Will threw up his arm just in time to use it as a brace to keep his face from implanting itself in the dashboard. He was a little less successful in wedging himself in place before Elizabeth spun the car on one wheel and zipped off around whatever car had just shot by them. His head cracked against the door, momentarily stunning him.
“Where are we going?” Elizabeth shouted.
“Um—” Right. They couldn’t keep this up forever, and especially not if they needed to get out and work through a couple issues by yelling more coherently at each other. Which Will suspected they did, given the strength of his desires to find Jack and punch him again, hightail it immediately out of Mexico, scream at Elizabeth and hold her. He didn’t need a diagram to know that at least two of those were mutually exclusive and that he had some tough choices to make.
But first, where the hell to go. The next time they took a turn, Will let the acceleration swing him back onto the seat. He wrapped his arm in the seatbelt and hung on till he figured out where they were—not fun, considering bullets kept throwing sparks up against the glass—then dropped back. They were still in the center of town, but rapidly nearing the highways, which led to his first choice: either he could beat it or he could go out and circle back into town.
The first idea was tempting not only because it’d get him far, far away from Jack, who always seemed to mess up Will’s logic, but also because staying would naturally involve pulling crazy shit and Will had just about gotten his fill of that. But by this point, he knew running would just postpone the crazy shit, and if current events were any guide, later on he’d be even less well-prepared for it. So it was the second idea, and therefore he needed to come up with the crazy shit pretty fast. “Hey! What was that big fireball back there?”
“I don’t know! I thought you did it! Explosives definitely aren’t my thing—too much dirt.” Elizabeth shuddered as another burst of gunfire raked along the side of the car. “Oh, God. Is the gas tank bulletproof, too?”
Will had no idea, but what he did know was that Jack’s annoyance at seeing what all those bullets were doing to the paint job definitely wasn’t going to be.
Well, the bastard deserved that too, Will thought. He couldn’t just shove a gun at Will and—
--“That son of a bitch!” Will blurted. Gun. Jack had planned this. A lot of it.
“What?” At the same time, Elizabeth accidentally spun the wheel so they nearly hit something that was dangerous enough to make her squeal. Once she’d maneuvered away, she shot a look at Will. It was hunted, all her lightheartedness stripped away, and her skin was blanched. “Will. I can’t do this for much longer,” she hissed.
“Oh. Oh.” Will shook himself, pushing away both his newly-risen levels of rage and his shock at seeing Elizabeth that way. “Well, you don’t have to. Not if I know Jack. Steer for the business freeway and circle back in to the south end of town.”
At least the realization made it a little simpler, if not easier. It was Jack’s plan, so all Will had to do in order to figure out what came next was to think like Jack. Though doing so gave him a bad taste in his mouth, and God, Jack was getting the first screaming fit. Just as soon as Will had a spare moment.
“Okay. Okay, I can do that,” Elizabeth muttered. She said it like she was trying to convince herself of it, and suddenly it occurred to Will that she’d never really answered his questions about her background. Granted, the situation was a little—a lot beyond the norm, but Elizabeth had done pretty well with the other weird incidents that had cropped up over the course of the night.
They zipped onto the freeway and promptly had three near-misses with semi trucks. Kind of surprising, since Will figured that at this hour even the truckers would’ve pulled off the road for a nap, but no time to be surprised. He hooked the strap above the door and yanked himself upwards against the wild spins through which Elizabeth was putting the car. The next time he swung near it, he ripped open the glove compartment. He just managed to catch the gun inside it before it hit the ground.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth snapped. She shoved handfuls of hair out of her face, then threw a scared look over her shoulder.
“Getting them off my back. Do exactly as I say, all right?” Will didn’t wait for an answer before he kicked his feet into the space between the seats. When they were wedged good and tight, he opened the door and hung out, aiming for the wheels of the car behind them.
A bullet cracked past him and he flinched, then forced himself to hold steady. Well, as steady as he could given Elizabeth’s driving; he wasn’t going to have a chance to reload, so he needed to aim and aim well. “Drive straight for a second!”
“But the wheels—”
“Don’t worry about them!” Will shouted. Actually, they should, but they couldn’t do much about those right now. Either they risked them being shot out or they risked them blowing out soon on the rough roads.
The car steadied. Will aimed. Something whisked a burn over his cheek, but he ignored it in favor of shooting. At first there was only a small pop, but then the front left tire of the car closest to them exploded. That car skewed, then flipped across the road so the other chasing cars had to quickly pull up. And Will probably should pull himself inside right about now…
He got halfway, then got his knee wedged the wrong way so it wouldn’t move. “Shit!”
“Oh, for…” Apparently Elizabeth was recovering, because instead of hauling him in—which probably would’ve thrown her too far off-balance—she twisted the car so the acceleration spun him back.
He just avoided getting his head slammed by the closing door; Will stomped his heel into the floor and righted himself as Elizabeth wheeled the car down an exit-ramp. In a few moments, they were driving peacefully on the edge of the city.
Will wasn’t exactly sure where Jack had been expecting them to end up, but he figured it’d be big and flashy with courtyards and tall buildings from which balconies people could swing. So he directed Elizabeth towards a small, squatty bar and had her park by the curb. Then they both flopped into their seats and let out relieved sighs.
“All right. Maybe taking the car was a bad idea,” Elizabeth finally said. Her hand bumped up against Will’s, and when Will looked over, Elizabeth was already cuddling up to his side. She shivered a few times, then pushed herself off before he’d gotten an arm around her. “Now what?”
“Now we wait for Jack.” After a moment, Will remembered to put the safety back on his gun. It was a miracle he hadn’t accidentally shot anything while flailing around half-out of the car. “I’m sorry I yelled…you were really good with the driving back there.”
Surprisingly enough, this actually seemed to make Elizabeth’s mood worse. She groaned and threw an arm over her face, sinking down in her seat. “Thanks. Now that makes it all better. God, I’m an idiot.”
Will eyed the neighborhood, wondering how long before the anonymous grungy passersby made it to a phone and rang up Barbossa. He decided not too long and ducked under the seat, then came back up with the shotgun and the other handguns. He gave both pistols to Elizabeth and kept the shotgun for himself.
She took them with a puzzled look, but that didn’t last long. “Oh, great. We’re waiting for Jack and you hand me these. That means we’re about to get into worse trouble, doesn’t it?”
“It means I am. Listen, that friend of mine that has the other car? He’s only…three blocks away.” Loading the shotgun kept Will busy for a good few minutes so he didn’t have to think about how this was really not the best way to deal with everything. He could still taste Elizabeth in his mouth…and his attempt to ignore the various anvils circling his skull really wasn’t working. “You can get there in about ten minutes.”
“Will, are you doing this because you’re concerned about me or because now you’re embarrassed that we had sex and you don’t want to see me?” For once, Elizabeth’s bluntness wasn’t dressed up in an airheaded coo. Instead she had the kind of expression on her face that made Will wish he’d waited a little bit longer before handing her a pair of guns. “Were you lying when you said it had nothing to do with Jack?”
“No!” Will immediately replied. But he couldn’t keep eye-contact with her stare for very long, and in the end, he had to switch to watching the gearshift between them. “Not really. Look, I’ve been crushing on you since you spilled coffee on my notes our second lecture together, but this whole trip…really hasn’t gone like I planned. I…Jack’s a problem. I don’t think I’ve dealt with him very well.”
Which was a nice way of saying that he hadn’t dealt with him at all, but instead had let first his frustration and then his fear take over. He needed to sit down and seriously figure out what was going on there, then get things settled once and for all. Right after he figured out how to make Jack stop manipulating events so he actually could sit down to do that without wondering when the next group of bad guys was going to shoot at him.
“Do you still want him?” Elizabeth gave a half-smile at Will’s look. “What? I’m not stupid. You came down here for other reasons besides he wouldn’t stop calling.”
“Yeah, well, I’m thinking you came down here for reasons besides you wanted fun,” Will muttered. A moment later, he regretted it, but he had a feeling Elizabeth wouldn’t take an apology too well—maybe it was the way her hands had tightened on the pistols. He coughed and tried to explain. “You looked scared earlier…what is with you, anyway? You’re like the mysterious woman that walks into the detective’s office—always with the surprises.”
This time she gave him a full smile, but it still wasn’t very happy at its core. “You mean bar, right? And she gets the bartender in deep shit.”
“I think it’s the other way around for us. And speaking of, we should get out of the car…” Will peered around, decided it was still safe, and opened his door. When he didn’t get shot at, he got all the way out and went around to help Elizabeth get out.
She hooked her arm through his as they quickly but quietly walked down the sidewalk, Will’s shotgun half-hidden between them. “You’re really sweet, you know. When you’re not losing your temper.”
“You’re dodging my question again,” Will said. After looking around, he figured they might as well go into the bar. It was a cliché and it was definitely going to let people know where they were, but at least the bars around here tended to have multiple backdoors. The only other real choice was a fleabag hotel and Will didn’t feel like losing another room deposit.
Elizabeth let out a sigh. Her gaze prickled the side of Will’s face, then swept over the road in front of them. “Well, you do what you have to, right? Learn what you’ve got to…let’s just say that sometimes that can be a real pain.”
“This have anything to do with your parents?” They took a seat near the door, keeping their backs to the wall. Will propped up the shotgun beneath the table and ordered a couple beers to keep from looking too weird, though he pushed them away once they’d come. In this kind of place, they probably pissed in it before they served it to white tourist-looking types.
“The longest I’ve ever been in one place was when I enrolled in college. Hard to hold onto things,” Elizabeth muttered, which was a tacit ‘yes.’ She hadn’t been joking when she’d talked about her parents being intelligence operatives. Not much, anyway. “But easy come, easy go, right? Only not really, and I think I’m still a little drunk from before.”
That might have been true, but wasn’t likely given the red light that was streaming in through the door: it was nearly dawn. They’d been at this all night.
She laid her head on Will’s shoulder, startling him. But instead of yelling at him for bumping her, Elizabeth just resettled herself and slipped her hand into his. “It’s really hard to find a guy that doesn’t freak out at what I can do, even when I’m making a joke of it.”
“I’ll bet.” Will turned his head just a little to press his cheek against Elizabeth’s hair, which smelled of the fruit that went into a piña colada. “I do really like you. And can I excuse myself as drunk if I say I wanna find out what else you can do, only my life’s a bit messy right now?”
“No. You’d damn well better be sober,” she said, abruptly twisting around to look at him. Her face was very close to his, and her body was very pliant against him, and this was so very much easier than trying to sort out his feelings about Jack.
Jack. Damn it. Beneath the taste of Elizabeth, Will could detect a hint of rum on his tongue, and it was enough of a reminder. “Listen. I need to—”
--toss them beneath the table because something very big had exploded outside.
* * *
Right on schedule, Barbossa rolled into town. He did so in high flashy style, just like he’d always had a hankering for. It was enough to make Jack roll his eyes, for honestly, if a body was really that important, they didn’t need to try half so hard to be noticed. But oh, well. It wasn’t the time to comment on Barbossa’s taste.
Jack crouched lower on the rooftop, sneaking sideways looks at the group he, Anamaria and Gibbs had pulled together. They littered the buildings on either side of the street, all patiently waiting as Barbossa’s motorcade slowly, deliberately snaked its way below. Near the end of the street was the Pearl, parked in front of a small bar. It didn’t look like anyone was inside, but there was no sign of Will or Elizabeth, which was mildly worrying.
At the rate Barbossa was going, nothing was going to happen for another two minutes, so Jack decided to skulk forward, get a better look. He moved and Anamaria, who was across the street, somehow detected it. Her glaring face briefly popped up over the railing of her roof and she furiously gestured for him to move back.
He ignored her and kept going, crawling till he’d reached the end of the roof. The bar was the next building over and was about three stories shorter, which would make a jump damned obvious. But at least from here Jack could get a better look at the car, which…was very, definitely, without a doubt empty. Damn it all, where was Will? The last thing Jack needed, after working so hard, was Turner coming out of nowhere at exactly the wrong time.
Stay up, go down. Stay up, go down, and Jack was spending an awful lot of time deliberating over Will. It really should’ve told him something sooner. But no time to regret that because the cars were stopping, and out of the biggest and the blackest was stepping Barbossa himself.
In nine years the man hadn’t changed much. His skin looked a little more wrinkled, the yellow of his eyes a little more jaundiced, but otherwise he’d kept in shape. Bad news for Jack, who’d been hoping that so long as a mid-level nobody had dulled the man. But no, the bitter, dissatisfied glint in Barbossa’s eye was as intelligent as always.
There wasn’t time to go back, so Jack raised his hand and passed on the signal to proceed as planned. He just hoped that Will wouldn’t be an idiot.
Below in the street, Barbossa’s men fanned out to cover all angles of the car, but Barbossa himself remained aloof. He slowly spun around to look around, eyes narrowed against the brightening light of dawn. Once he paused while staring up in Jack’s direction and Jack nearly thought they’d been caught out, but then Barbossa’s gaze moved on.
“Boss?” one of the men said.
“All right, all right.” But as his man approached the car, Barbossa continued to stare in other directions.
Jack’s hand was still up. He let it hang. Through it he could feel the tension of the passing moments wind tighter and tighter, till he thought he might be able to snap it just by flicking his finger. It was tempting, but he’d waited too long to indulge in such nonsense now. He waited.
Somebody else shot first.
“Rum and hell!” Jack whipped down his hand and at the same time, swung up his rifle. He took aim, fired once, and then threw himself over the side of the building just as Barbossa swung around.
“Sparrow!”
* * *
James knew it was the right street as soon as he got a good look at it. Lots of little bakeries and other food shops that should have been beginning to open up, yet all the doors were firmly shut and the streets were empty. And even though the hour had just changed, the church bells weren’t ringing.
“I think this is where the showdown will be,” Jacques said. Somehow the other man had managed to claim the passenger seat despite James’ best efforts to get José, who respected boundaries, up into it. Also Jacques was sitting more on the gearshift than on the actual seat.
“Of course this is it. Haven’t you noticed that flash car parked over there?” The car being question of course was Sparrow’s infamous Black Pearl, which in turn had once taken part in a MI6 fiasco which rectification would look very nice on James’ record. Oddly enough, no one seemed to be in or near the car.
Not being an idiot, James neatly avoided the question of what to do with the gift horse by parking in an alley away from it. Then he turned and looked at Jacques. “All right, I think I’ve been very patient so far. Now I think I deserve to know what help you’re providing and to whom.”
“Or else?” Jacques dropped into an elegant slump and raised an eyebrow.
“Or else I’ll finally let José shoot you and offer him an official position in MI6. He’s far too skilled to keep in this backwater, tonight’s performance notwithstanding,” James calmly replied. He watched as Jacques’ eyes widened—José had silently nudged the man’s head with a gun—then narrowed.
After a moment, Jacques smiled. For once, he looked intelligent while doing so. “And start something with France?”
“I’m currently wavering on whether you actually are with them. You don’t seem terribly professional.” But nevertheless, James remained wary of actually dismissing the other man. A thread of something disconcerting ran through Jacques, and James was nothing if not careful about such things. Journeymen mistakes were barely acceptable when made by journeymen, which James hadn’t been for some time. “What are you doing here?”
“Perhaps I’m just an observer.” Jacques’ eyes flicked to past James, staring out the window. “Speaking of, here comes Barbossa.”
James could already hear the sound of the cars; he bit back a curse and waved José to sit back—not that he needed to, since the other man had already changed targets. “Damn it.”
“One thing you may be sure of—I don’t intend to interfere,” Jacques said. His tone was mild and his eyes were steady, and for once it wasn’t with libidinous interest.
It was probably the last that swayed James. He gritted his teeth and took the risk, but he still got out of the car and around to the trunk while keeping his front presented to Jacques. “Then if you get out of the car, I’ll consider it a breach of promise and act accordingly.”
A soft laugh followed James as he walked around to the trunk, where José was waiting. “That man is excessively—”
“Grating?” José suggested, amused. When he saw the contents of a few of the duffel bags in the trunk, his amusement was replaced by a slight trace of awe. “What exactly are we doing?”
“As I see it, my primary responsibility is to right the MI6 mission that went wrong and recover the lost…er, funds. Which requires making sure that car is intact until it yields up said information. I don’t particularly care who wins the turf war.” James picked up the rocket launcher again and looked at José, who nodded. He handed it to José and took up a pair of Desert Eagles next, whereupon José shook his head. The other man had a point, so James settled on a sniper rifle.
Being the kind of man he was, José didn’t express an opinion on the decision. He merely nodded towards the building next to them, which was directly across from the car. “I think the second floor would be sensible. The roof is probably occupied.”
Which it was, but they were all concentrating on the approaching caravan, so between them James and José had little trouble taking up their positions. James had decided that the most sensible strategy was to ensure that the fight was centered away from the car, then drive over and steal it. He hadn’t yet seen how best to do that, but he set up with the rifle by a window anyway and peered through the scope, hoping that a target would present itself.
One did, but of entirely the wrong type: in the back window of the car rested a familiar purse. James had the damnedest time not sinking his nails right through his rifle butt. “José?”
“Hmm?”
“Change of plans. Turner and Miss Swann are under MI6’s protection,” James grated out. And when he got back to London, MI6 had better have found some decent protection for itself, because he did not find this amusing. A vacation, indeed. It certainly wasn’t his.
Then he’d better get to work. With a sigh, James raised the rifle and shot.
* * *
Elizabeth hit the floor palms first, Will’s weight crushing her the rest of the way down. She automatically breathed, then sank her nails into the tile and clawed her way free. She didn’t head for the door, but for the side of one of the windows so she could see what was going on.
Will whirled up and around just as the backdoor banged behind the bartender, then scrambled next to Elizabeth. “What happened?”
“I think—I think someone shot a gas tank. There’s all these cars—” And there were at least three sides to the gunfight currently going on outside, Elizabeth absently thought. Someone in the middle and people on either side of the road. “Oh, crap—”
They both dropped to the floor just as something came crashing through the window. It turned out to be a man, and the man was still moving enough for Will to have to take care of that with the butt of his shotgun.
“Barbossa and Jack,” Will said. “That goddamned car—it’s got something in it they want.”
“And Jack set you up so Barbossa’d track you? Why are you still bothering with him—God!”
Another man had barged through the front door, guns blazing as he shot up the bar. He’d been blinded by something, maybe the smoke, but he didn’t have the time to clear his eyes before Elizabeth took a barstool to his head. Then Elizabeth hit the floor again as bullets rattled through the shattered window.
“It’s more that he won’t stop bothering me, damn it all,” Will hissed. He looked towards the backdoor, then nixed that idea. They’d still be on foot and they wouldn’t be able to run fast enough. “We need to get outside.”
“What?” Elizabeth looked at him as if he were crazy.
Well, it was a crazy idea, but it’d been smacked into Will time and again that crazy usually was the only thing that worked out here. “No, you stay here and I’ll go out. We need wheels.”
“Then I’m coming. You don’t drive fast enough,” Elizabeth snapped. She was already moving towards the door, as if she was afraid he’d leave her behind.
Will cursed and hurried after her, catching up just as they both reached the front door. Outside it was still a mess, but it’d begun to settle down; the initial chaos was organizing itself into strategies as the leaders got things semi-under control. He could start to see patterns in it. Jack’s people were on the roofs, and Will even could hear Anamaria’s harsh bark if he strained his ears enough; Barbossa’s men stayed on the ground but were seeking shelter in doorways and behind cars.
Barbossa himself wasn’t immediately visible, but as Will fidgeted at the side of the door, the smoke parted to show the man. He was looking right at Will, and though men were falling on either side of him, he wasn’t touched at all. A heavy gold ring gleamed on his left hand and a gigantic handgun did the same in his right. “Turner.”
“Barbossa!” called someone from the roof—called Jack.
And Barbossa looked up. While Will had no idea whether that was his first mistake, it definitely was his last. He jerked as at least three red spots appeared on his front, then slowly collapsed to the ground. His lips moved a little, but not enough for anyone to tell what he was saying.
The gunfire died as if everyone had been cued; Mexican gangsters had a remarkable sense of when they’d lost their bankroll, and not being saints, they scrambled. In a matter of moments, Will could walk out of the bar without worrying about getting shot. Well, by Barbossa’s former men, anyway. The moment he swung his gun around to point in Jack’s face, a series of clicks went around the street.
“Oh, don’t even,” Elizabeth said from somewhere quite close. A quick glance showed Will that she’d followed him out and was standing beside him, only her gun was aimed at the Pearl. “You never said if the tank was bulletproof or not.”
Will looked at Jack, who’d taken a reflexive step forward. “I’d guess it isn’t from this range,” he said. “But Elizabeth—are you nuts? You don’t have to do this.”
“Neither do you, Will,” Jack said. He was still holding his rifle at waist-height and was attempting to smile pleasantly, but his expression kept twitching away from him. He couldn’t stop trying to peer around Will at the car. “I know you’re a bit unhappy right now, and you’ve every right to be, but I’m thinking we could be discussing this in more comfortable circumstances…”
“While you duck and dodge and do everything but answer me straight. No, I think this is the only way I’m going to keep your attention.” Someone else was moving around nearby, their long shadows flickering on the edge of Will’s sight, but he refused to be distracted. He concentrated on not letting his hands shake. “You got me angry on purpose, didn’t you? This whole damned mess was part of your plan to get Barbossa, from the moment we met to right now. You—maybe you didn’t plan it all, but it’s what worked for you. Wasn’t it?”
Jack gave Will a long, unreadable stare. Then he slowly lowered the rifle, and as soon as its weight was taken up by the strap hanging it off his shoulder, he let go of it. He made a point of wiggling his empty fingers at Will. “I told you that first night that the most important thing in my life was taking care of the Pearl, and the second was seeing to Barbossa.”
“I’m just returning the favor,” Elizabeth said. Her hair grazed the back of Will’s shoulder. “You keep up with me, I keep up with you. And I have to say, that’s a lousy excuse Jack’s giving you there. Like that kind of disclaimer really covers everything. It’s about as good as the Surgeon’s General warning on cigarette packs.”
“Girl, I’d suggest you leave this to between me and Will. I admire your pluck, but I have to warn, I’m not in the mood to deal with meddlers.” A nod to the rooftops, though Jack never took his eyes off of Will. “Neither are they, I’d be thinking.”
Whoever had been crossing the road finally made it over, and said shadow turned out to be attached to a man in a very nice suit, who didn’t wear big sunglasses but who did have a cellphone and a rifle. He gave off both an unusual air of competence and one of extreme exasperation.
Elizabeth went stiff and gasped quietly.
The man’s eyes flicked to her, then to Jack. “Actually, Sparrow, I’m afraid you’ll have to. José’s up on the roof taking up a grievance with Anamaria, and I am apparently spending my vacation as unofficial watchdog for Miss Swann here.”
“I thought Daddy said to fuck off,” she snapped. “Look, Norrington, can’t you go fix the world in anywhere except where I am?”
“Believe me, I’ve asked to, but HQ has resorted to sending me to places without even telling me that you’ll be there so that is entirely out of my control. Take it up with London,” Norrington retorted. He had a nice grasp of the subtleties of sarcasm. And he had someone on the other side of the line, because his phone crackled a little and he muttered something into it before settling against the Pearl’s hood. So they had MI6 as a live audience.
Jack twitched.
Norrington sighed. “Also, Sparrow: there’s the little matter of the secret to which something in this car leads. And as said secret rightfully belongs to the British Government, I’ll have to ask you to turn it over.”
“Hey, I’m not done yet.” Will wished he could kick at a door or something to get people’s attention back to him, but he had to settle for loudly clearing his throat. He looked back at Jack, who quickly blinked away…some intense emotion. “You set me up. You set me up and you don’t feel the least bit sorry for it, do you?”
“I do, actually.”
“Of course you fucking…wait, what?” Mind derailed, Will struggled to refocus. He’d had a whole angry, blistering speech worked out but Jack hadn’t given the right cue and now the fury was leaking away. It was deliberate. It had to be; Jack’s favorite ploy was throwing other people off-balance. “Oh, try another one.”
Jack shrugged and took a step forward, then another one so he was right up against the gun. It made his eyes go cross-eyed and for a second a wild laugh rose up in Will. “Will. I’m sorry. Not that I did it, but that I chose you for it. It had to be done, but you were the wrong person.”
“No, I wasn’t. You’re weird, but you’re not stupid. You plan this shit for nine years and then you pick the wrong person to be your moving target?” Will rasped. He didn’t realize he’d taken a step back until he bumped into Elizabeth, but before he could move away, she was leaning against him. And he liked it—needed it. It steadied his hand.
Wincing, Jack nodded at the point. “Well, you were the right one. Smart, if a little rough around the edges, and in dire need of a bit of explanation as to how things work round here…”
“Brilliant. Insult him into shooting you,” Norrington drawled.
“James, shut up or I’ll bring up the time Daddy had you over and you completely disgraced yourself with the punchbowl.” Elizabeth shifted. A second later, she’d turned around so her face was pressing against Will’s shoulder and her arms were wrapped around Will. An interesting flicker went through Jack’s blank expression at that; Elizabeth snuggled close and sighed theatrically, whereupon the flicker was repeated.
Will took a deep breath. “Elizabeth, please knock that off. You have anything else to say, Jack?”
“Well, I was about to say that you were the right one insofar as getting everything to happen, but that I wish you hadn’t been because…you do work well with me. It just flows, doesn’t it?” Jack made a wavy gesture with his hands, and behind them his eyes sparked with a gleam that seemed to be just for Will. A year ago it would’ve made Will’s knees melt and his mouth go bone-dry. “You can take my cues and I can yours. It’s a rare thing and I’m thinking I’d much rather see it in a different setting.”
“That’s nice, but you never exactly took my cues, did you?” Will muttered. His arms were beginning to get tired from holding up the shotgun and the sheer drama of the situation was beginning to get to him as well. This really wasn’t his style, but he’d been desperate. Everything had been spinning out of control and he didn’t deal well with that sort of thing. “You know something, Jack? I’m not going to kill you. I—I’m just leaving. And this time, Elizabeth? We’re also leaving the car.”
Her hand squeezed his arm. “Sounds good to me.”
Very slowly, Will lowered the gun. He didn’t stop staring at Jack even though it felt like Jack’s eyes were filling him with lead. He’d get over it. Elizabeth would help. He was turning around with her arm around him, and they were going to find a bar where they’d pick up where they’d left off on figuring out how to tell each other about themselves. She was willing to try that. And it’d be fun. He’d learn how to have fun without getting his life blown up.
He had a tail. Will swallowed hard so when he turned around again, he could pretend that he wasn’t stupidly hoping.
Jack stood there, and he had to have walked past the Pearl in order to get there. “Will, we’re not done yet.”
“What about the Pearl?” Will had to ask.
It took a visible effort for Jack to answer, and he still glanced over his shoulder. But he stayed where he was. “Barbossa’s gone. She’ll keep.”
“Sparrow?” Norrington called.
Elizabeth stiffened again, her fingers digging into Will’s arm. She leveled a look at Jack that was had some surprising intensity behind it, then gave Norrington a lighter version. “For God’s sake, James. Do you need the whole thing or can’t you just, I don’t know, run it through a really big scanner?”
Will looked at Elizabeth, who gave him a bright smile. “I always wanted to try a threesome.” Her hand-squeeze said a lot more than her grin, and so did her eyes. “Even I can see this isn’t going to get settled right away. I’m interested in staying around to see what happens.”
“You’re definitely an…interesting person,” Jack said in a speculative tone. He and Elizabeth exchanged another set of looks. “Norrington, I’ll be round tomorrow to collect my car and negotiate about the return of MI6’s possession. I’m sure we can come to an agreement of some kind.”
“And is anybody going to ask about my opinion?” Will muttered. He was a little shocked when both Elizabeth and Jack snapped to attention, closely watching him.
And then they waited for him while he desperately searched his brain for a…for some idea of how this was going to go. Once again, the world had spun around and down on him, and he was barely back on his feet, let alone free of eye-swirls, before he was being asked to make a decision that impact the rest of his life. Or at least the next year of it, which was a pretty damn long time.
“I’d rather you didn’t leave just yet,” Jack said simply. His eyes said a good deal more; they were deeper when they weren’t shrouded in a half-drunk, half-brilliant haze.
He was a magnet for trouble and utterly unconcerned about it. He had wrecked Will’s life as it’d been. But…he did something strange to Will, and to the world around them. Everything was brighter and more exciting, and sometimes that made up for the darker shades that inevitably were also created.
“We can talk about it,” Will finally said. “Just talk.”
Jack’s face immediately cleared up and he grinned, but only for a second because suddenly their mouths were together and Will’s knees went. Goddamn it—Will didn’t have weak points because Jack had stolen them all.
“Got you. Kind of. God, you’re heavy,” Elizabeth muttered in Will’s ear. She helped him regain his balance once he’d shakily pushed off Jack. “That was not talking.”
“Wasn’t it?” Jack cheerfully said, taking Will’s other arm. “Now, I don’t suppose Will’s bothered to show you the really good bars in town yet, has he? Shame, shame…”
The world was starting to revolve again, but Will felt a little more grounded. He hoped.
* * *
José stared down at the street in disbelief. “How does he do that?”
“Damned if I know, and damned if I’ll ask.” Anamaria had a headache. She was happy it was all over, but God, Jack was a pain. She needed a drink. “Look, we done here? Because I’m in serious need of something stiff and liquid.”
After considering the empty space below him, José put down his gun. “I suppose it’s pointless now. And I suppose I could provide you with that drink.”
That stopped Anamaria hard enough to make her forget about her headache and think about whiplash instead. “Excuse me?”
He grimaced. “I have a headache and a sudden desire for company that reminds me sanity does exist in this world. As long as you don’t maneuver me into a car trunk again.”
After a bit of thinking, Anamaria decided to take that as a compliment. She waved the men back, then seriously considered the idea. José really wasn’t that bad for his kind, and she wasn’t exactly in the mood to stew in rum by herself, either. “Might as well. Let’s go.”
* * *
After he’d told London a huffy good-bye, James leaned back and considered the car that apparently had been left to his charge. “There has to be more to it than that,” he muttered.
“Of course there is. The map’s hidden throughout the car, but to assemble the parts correctly you need special tools and Jack still has those. He’s also the only one who knows how to use them. He keeps them in a case that looks like it would hold a guitar,” Jacques said. “So you have to negotiate with him.”
“You left the car.” James cocked his rifle, but didn’t turn around. It’d been a very long night and he was already looking at having to explain far too many bodies. Perhaps Jacques’ could wait a few days till James had cleared out his current paperwork backlog. And had had some words with his subordinates who hadn’t bothered to mention that Elizabeth Swann had been who Will had been partnering all night long.
Jacques sighed. “Yes, yes, I know. But are you really going to shoot me? Do let me know so I can inform my superiors that they’ll have to find someone else to mangle drops just right so the cartel doesn’t mind when mid-level enforcers like Barbossa are eliminated. Or haven’t you noticed how little back-up he had?”
James snorted, uncocked his rifle and turned around to grab Jacques’ arm. He pushed the other man towards the car, then got in the driver’s seat. The keys were gone, but apparently that was the car’s natural state of being because when James reached beneath the wheel, he found the wires already prepared. He sparked them together and the engine roared to life.
“What are you doing?” Jacques asked.
“I thought I’d take a vacation in a nice car,” James said. “And if you don’t stop saying such idiotic things, I’ll gag you.”
Of course, Jacques merely slid across the seat and purred, “Really?” Instead of replying, James took a fistful of the man’s hair and thoroughly worked over Jacques’
mouth. By the time he was done, he was certain that the dazed look in the other man’s eyes was sincere.
“Mexico,” James sighed. “This place never makes sense to me.”
But for once, he was going to take a stab at enjoying it.
***