Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Normally I don't write for this fandom, but I saw At World's End and really couldn't resist. The style was intentional- poor Bootstrap, he really lost it.

Part of the Crew

Oh god his son his son his son. Dead. Dead, dead, dead. His son. Dead. Elizabeth sobbing. His son. Dead.

The Captain. The Captain had done it. The Captain had killed his son. Killed his son and now he was dead and his woman was sobbing over his dead body.

And now he was feeling mutinous and mutinous was the word and he was attacking the Captain because the Captain had killed his son.

But all of a sudden the Captain was dead. Dead. He could feel it. Part of the crew, part of the ship. The ship had no captain. He could feel the vacancy. All the crew could feel the vacancy. They were coming.

It wasn't Sparrow who killed the Captain. Not Sparrow. His son. His son. The Captain had killed his son and now his son had killed the Captain. His son would be the Captain. The mast was coming down and the ship was sinking but that didn't matter because the ship needed a Captain.

His knife was stuck in the railing. Where Will had stuck it. He could use it. Had to use it. Will had to be the Captain and he wouldn't live but he would be. The sword protruded from his son's chest and his body was already cold from the rain and the wind. Sparrow was dragging Elizabeth away and the crew was coming with the chest and the ship was sinking. But nobody could do anything because they needed a Captain. The Captain.

Part of the crew part of the ship and the ship had to have a Captain.

As the Dutchman went under he made the first cut. Jagged; a maelstrom was no place for this sort of delicate work. His son would always have a scar there.

Always would be a very long time for him.

Oh god. Elizabeth. Will should have chosen Elizabeth. Now Will would lose Elizabeth because what woman could love a man she could only see one day every ten years.

But it didn't matter; couldn't matter because part of the crew part of the ship and the ship needed a Captain. He who kills the Captain must replace him. Those were the rules. The rules.

He did his best not to think about Elizabeth as he continued to carve his son's heart out.

And then he was holding it in his hands, his son's heart: the Captain's heart. He could do it, stab that heart, save Will from eternity at sea. He owed Will. Will could be with Elizabeth for always in fifty years, instead of five times in the next fifty years and then not again until he himself passed on. Nobody could guarantee that he would, either.

Except he couldn't stab the heart because then his son would be dead and dead for good. And that was that. Instead, he placed Will's heart into the chest and pressed the key into Will's palm.

There was light filtering down from above, and in that light he could see that Will's eyes were open. He didn't gasp or even draw breath- they were underwater after all- and of course he had no pulse but he was back and that was what mattered.

As a father, he was ecstatic that his son wasn't dead, but on another level he was happy because part of the crew, part of the ship and the ship had a Captain again. He could see that Will understood this too, as he tied a bandanna around his forehead, tucked the key into his boot and walked to the wheel.

Will gave the command to surface and they did. Captain's orders. And it was even more than that, he realised as the ship broke the surface. The Captain had a purpose. The ship was no longer corrupt. The crew was returning to human form. Already the barnacles had faded and the starfish was peeling loose. And the insanity was ebbing.

The rules were being followed. If it wasn't all right now, then he felt, for the first time in a long time, that things might eventually be all right.