Death and the Captain
by Trinity Day

Summary: "Old Nick? That's nothing. Every pirate worth his weight has met Nick at least once. Now I've a story worth hearing. I once met Death yet here I am, alive to tell the tale. There's not many that can claim the same."

Disclaimer: Jack (and Will, Elizabeth and Gibbs) belong to Disney. Death is stolen from Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

Notes: Crossover with Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. If you haven't read it (and you should), then what do you need to know to read this story? They are the Endless. They are not gods, but rather anthropomorphic personifications. They are, in order of age (but not birth, because they were never born in the proper sense of the word): Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium.

Actually, almost none of that comes into play in this fic.

Posted: Wednesday, May 5, 2004

On his first day on the island, after he'd finished cursing, after he'd finished stomping and raging, after his ship had sailed away, leaving him there to rot or die, Jack Sparrow took into his hand the pistol his treacherous first mate had left him.

And he stared at it.

On his second day on the godforsaken island, having been left there by his treacherous first mate and mutinous crew, left there to rot or die, Jack Sparrow took into his hand the compass that said mutinous crew and treacherous first mate had so kindly left for him. They knew the coordinates to Isla de Muerta. Jack himself had told them. They didn't need it anymore.

And he threw it.

It wasn't a good throw. It wasn't bad either, but not as good as it could have been had he not used his left hand.

The pistol was still in his right.

Still, good throw or not, the catch was magnificent. He had unknowingly lobbed it right at her chin – unknowingly, seeing as he hadn't even an inkling that she was there. She put her hand up and caught the compass neatly, not even flinching through she didn't stop it until it was scarcely an inch from her face.

"Hello there," she greeted. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

"The sun, the heat, the fact I've lost my ship and been marooned on this godforsaken island – I don't think there ever was a day as lovely as this," Jack said.

"The sun's a bit bright," she said. "And I forgot my sunglasses today. Still, can't complain."

At least, Jack thought she said sunglasses, although he couldn't figure out what she could mean by that. But he could see why she was wary of the sun. The girl was the paler than a lass had a right to be while still alive. Highborn women who had never stepped foot outdoors had nothing on her. Her skin was pure white.

She also showed enough of it that he was surprised he couldn't see her burn as she stood. Jack had seen half-dressed whores that wore more clothing than she did, in her men's trousers and black shirt held up by only the flimsiest of shoulder straps.

"Doesn't the kohl work?" he asked.

"What, this?" She gestured to the dark lines that circled her eyes, culminating in little spiral that rested on top her right cheek. "It's not kohl."

"Tattoo?" Jack asked.

"Something like that."

"So what are you doing on my island, luv?" he asked when it became apparent that she wasn't going to offer an explanation on her own.

"I thought I saw someone so I came over to check it out."

"Tha's interesting," Jack said dryly. "Because I thought I din't see someone here." On this godforsaken island where he had been marooned by his treacherous first mate and mutinous crew. "An' I explored the island – all six inches of it."

"Oh, I wasn't here earlier," the girl told him.

"You weren't?"

"No. I had some business in the neighbourhood and decided to drop by when I realized someone was here."

"What sort of business has brought you to this tropical paradise?" He spread his arms out to take in the entire godforsaken island that his treacherous first mate and mutinous crew had marooned him on. It didn't take much. It wasn't very big.

She did not respond to the bitterness in his voice, nor did she seem concerned with the pistol that was still in his hand, which he was waving about carelessly as he pointed out the sights, as monotonous or maddening as they were. "A sea turtle, actually."

At this point, Jack Sparrow began to wonder if this was, in fact, all in his imagination. Maybe the sun had gotten to him and he had become delirious, imagining a girl as any enticing as any oasis was to a parched desert wanderer traveling the shifting sands, dry and barren, devoid of any water for leagues around. There was water enough here – very little but water. None that Jack Sparrow could drink, not unless he wanted to hasten his death and there was an easier and faster way to do that. He was holding it in his hand.

Maybe he had already taken that option.

Or maybe it wasn't just now that wasn't happening. Maybe he'd got his comeuppance and received more than just some quick pleasure and a mild case of the clap from the ladies he found so pretty and so irresistible. He'd seen the pox take the best of men, seen the most sensible fight windmills to their last when they'd loved the wrong lady. Or maybe he'd been in the cups a little too heavily. Maybe he'd drunk more rum than even he could handle and was now sleeping it off.

Maybe it was all just a dream. Maybe he was dreaming it all, the girl, the marooning, the mutiny. Maybe he was still captain of the Black Pearl.

But Jack Sparrow didn't think that was the case. The woman, as beautiful and enticing as the most beautiful and enticing whore he'd ever seen – the ones that only appeared to Jack in his dreams – was not a dream herself. She was something entirely different.

"A sea turtle?" he asked, after all those things had come to his head and then left again. "An' what matter of business did you have with a sea turtle?"

However, by now she'd had enough time to walk over and sit down beside him. She was examining the compass, twisting her wrist from side to side to watch the needle swivel frantically in order to keep pointing in one direction. "Where does this lead?" she asked, evidently tired of talking of sea turtles.

"To an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is and to a treasure so great that kings will give up their kingdoms, holy men will forsake their vows and loyal crews will mutiny against their captains, just to catch a glimpse," Jack recited.

"The Aztec gold of Cortes," she guessed correctly.

"You've 'eard of it."

"I have. I thought it was cursed, though. That's what Cortes' men said, at least. Maybe you're better off without it."

"If there is a curse, and I'm not saying that I believe that there is a curse, but if there is a curse, they say that those who are cursed never die. They neither eat nor sleep nor die. How's that better than me, stuck 'ere, just waiting to die?"

"Oh, they die all right," the girl said, sounding darker and more serious than Jack had thought her possible of sounding. "Everyone dies. Some take a little longer than most, but in the end, I see everyone."

It should have been a revelation. He should have felt shock or disbelief or something that this little slip of a girl was calling herself Death. But the only surprise that Jack Sparrow had was that he wasn't surprised at all.

"You're Death," Jack said, trying the words out. They didn't sound as ridiculous as he felt they ought to.

"And you're Captain Jack Sparrow," Death said.

"Jack Sparrow, if you please. Can't be a captain if you don't have a boat."

"Why not?" she asked. He was sure she wasn't trying to vex him, but the honest curiosity that she displayed infuriated him more than it could if she had set out to deliberately incense.

"Because then you don't have a boat to captain," he explained scathingly.

"My sister would say that doesn't matter," Death said. A second later she dropped the condescending demeanour and admitted, "Okay, so my sister is a captain if she thinks she is, or a fish or a rainbow if that's what she wants. It's not even that she can be, but that she is whatever she fancies herself to be at the moment. But still, she does have a point."

"I don't see why it matters. There's no one here but you and me. An' that's not even the case for much longer."

"Know something I don't?" Death asked lightly.

Jack was taken aback, but answered anyway. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

She shook her head. "No. And trust me, I'd know."

"Then I'm dying. About to die."

"Sorry." She offered a smile in consolation. "It's only your second day here. You haven't had time to starve. And you're healthy otherwise. I'm not here for you. I told you that. I just decided to stop by for a chat. I'll be on my way soon, unless you're planning to use that pistol of yours."

As he thought about that, Jack lifted said pistol to take a closer look at it. His eyes flickered back to her. "Don't you know? If I use this or not?"

"Why would I know?" she asked, also eying the pistol.

"You're Death."

"And you're Captain Jack Sparrow. It's up to you, isn't it?" she asked quietly.

Still, Jack hesitated. "What happens next?"

"There's only one way to find out. All you have to do is take my hand." She held her hands out, staring at him with eyes that were deeper than the unfathomable depths of Davy Jones' Locker and older than the ageless stars that sailors had been using to navigate since time immemorial.

It took Jack Sparrow an eternity to tear himself away from her awesome gaze but at last he did it. He looked away from her and back down at the pistol.

And he decided.

On his third day on the godforsaken island, marooned by his treacherous first mate and mutinous crew, left to rot or die, one way or another, Captain Jack Sparrow whistled a lively tune while exploring the remaining two feet of the island he'd missed the previous two days. He found a cache of rum and spent a few lovely hours until some rumrunners came and took him away. Jack still held the pistol in his hand, but had an altogether different purpose for it in mind.

After all, in the end, Death came to everyone. King or beggar. Sea turtle or mutinous pirate. Curse or no curse.

But his time wasn't now and Captain Jack Sparrow wasn't one to sit around and wait for his own death. Savvy?

"And that, mates, is how I met Death. She's the most beautiful creature you could imagine. I'm still 'alf in love with her meself." Jack took a long drink of his rum, uncharacteristically reflective.

"You met Death," Will Turner stated, his eyebrows raised slightly.

"That I did," said Jack.

"I've never heard this before," Elizabeth said, a little more warmly than her fiancé, although that wasn't saying much. William had more suspicion that Jack had rum. "I thought I'd heard all the stories about the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow."

"It's not one I tell often," Jack admitted. In fact, he hadn't ever told it before, but he wasn't about to tell them as much. "It's probably mighty bad luck to meet Death." It was a fair imitation of Gibbs, especially considering how much rum he'd had to drink.

"Tell me Jack, was this before or after you roped a couple of sea turtles to escape from the island?" Will again, proving himself even more the fool than Jack originally thought. "You can't meet Death, Jack. There's no such person as Death."

"Now, I didn't say she was a person," Jack reminded him. "But she is real. As real as you or me. Maybe even realer."

"You must admit, it does sound a little farfetched," Elizabeth said, as diplomatically as Jack would expect one of her station to be.

"Farfetched?" Jack said. He grinned so that the candlelight caught his gold teeth. "That's downright believable. Are you or are you not the very same Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann who accompanied me to Isla de Muerta? Who fought undead pirates to break an Aztec curse? An' you're telling me I couldn't have met Death?" He didn't give them time to answer before adding, "If it's a farfetched story your after, you should hear about the time I met Death's younger brother, Dream. Now there's a farfetched story if I ever heard one."

The End