HEY YOU GUUUYYYYYSSSSS! Anyone who can guess what that is from has my complete and undying respect. Anyway, I'm BAAAAACK. Didja miss me? I missed you guys! Well, this is the first chapter of the Fourth and FINAL installment! This is going to be a slightly slower updating sequence, because I have a lot going on with school and everything. Also, I'm really really proud of myself so I'm gonna gloat for a second; I got two silver keys and an honorable mention in Scholastic (like the biggest highschool writers competition there is) and that means I did really really well in regional's. I'm really proud. :3 okay, so please review, and I wanted to give my sincerest thanks to anyone who's reviewed this or any other story recently, you guys just have no idea how much it means. Keep it up?

-Han

Jack Sparrow had never liked London. It was too crowded, covered in dirt, and the people there were too pressed in, packed tight, never allowing themselves freedom. It was like Tortuga without the soul, which was the only reason he cared for the pirate island. But London, London was suffocating. He couldn't bring himself to understand why he'd ever agreed to leaving The Black Pearl behind to come here. His bonny lass was tucked away in an off-shore cave a few islands from Tortuga, guarded by Cotton and his, thankfully, loyal crew. He and Anna had worked their way to England aboard a merchant vessel, both nearly dying from the withdrawal of piracy's poison.

So Jack was in London, without his ship, and with half of the Royal Navy always after him. Did he mention how much he hated London? Whoever had tried to burn it down all those years ago had the right idea. His hand rose, covered in rings and dirt, to scratch his wig. The powdered grey curls clung to the back of his neck, pressing down on his skin until he was uncomfortable, the robes he wore suffocating. Annie was lucky she didn't have to suffer through this. The spectacles on his nose were impairing his quick, sneaky vision, and he knew they muddled the perpetually coy look his black eyes always carried.

Sometimes, Jack thought it would be best if he wasn't such an honorable man, if he wasn't drawn to helping those he considered 'friend' in the past. If he wasn't such a good man, he wouldn't have to subject himself to the unintelligent bigoted people rushing around the streets selling hanging pirate dolls. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why children would want to see anyone hanging by the neck. He knew he certainly didn't at that age. What was wrong with these people?

Maybe it was something about the city that infected the populace, burrowed into their minds until all they could think of was the tiny little world they were wrapped up in. All that mattered was them, their ambitions, and their city. Didn't they know how much more lay beyond their borders? It was perpetually confusing to the pirate Captain, how someone could stay in one place their entire lives. He could understand Anna's need to be as far away from it as possible, and knew the return to the grey and desolate city was weighing on her far more than it did him. But that didn't mean he didn't hate it with a passion of burning fire inside his chest.

It was too closed in, a labyrinth of rats scurrying over each other in an attempt to get somewhere unimportant and meaningless. Their lives meant nothing in the face of what he did every day, the adventure he face, the horizons he yearned to touch. He was free, they were trapped like carrier pigeons, harboring the ability to fly, but never able to break away. He could do as he liked, move where he wished, he could fly beyond freedom, even, into immortality, into eternity. Jack Sparrow was not held back like the peasants of London.

But he felt like he was, as he walked as calmly as he possibly could down a long, claustrophobic corridor that would lead to the courtroom. He wished he could sway and stumble with his own brand of drunken grace, but he had to wear the act as best he could. He had to hide the suave dark angel of a pirate he knew he was in order to save his friend, his loyal first mate. Though, for the life of him, Jack couldn't understand how Gibbs had managed to land himself in this situation, bound to hang for being Captain Jack Sparrow.

Jack wondered how his first mate managed to get himself in this position, all he and Anna had asked was for him to perform a scouting mission for their next adventure. He was supposed to be gathering information on another way to gain immortality, since the Fountain of Youth fallout. That hadn't been anyone's fault but their own, too honorable to take life from another. Jack would say, if asked, that Anna had talked him out of it, drew him away from eternal life with the gentle touch of a lover. But the truth, he'd lost his lust for it after gaining the knowledge, after understanding what was required. Limitless years meant nothing if it cost another.

No one could know that, just like no one could know that he was a good man at heart, something Anna was helping him believe. He had a reputation to keep up.

He was contradicting that reputation now, as he strode in the impossibly loud courtroom, so alive with the promise of a hanging. For all the bad press pirates got, Jack had yet to meet one so enraptured with the possibility of death. That was reserved for the common folk, apparently, those tied down to their lives by jobs, families, the pressure of royalty and law. They knew nothing of his life, yet they judged it with the force of iron and the strength of a hangman's noose.

His cunning gaze traveled the confined room, landing quickly on Gibbs, who's hands were bound in iron chains. Jack's wrists itched in sympathy, and he remembered all the times it had been him on the other end, trying to talk his way out of his own death. How many times had he escaped? He wondered when his luck would run out. What then?

Anna would be left alone on the rolling waves, a sea she would want to succumb to. He'd made her promise, on the deck of the Pearl, that she would not try to save him. He'd made her promise to call for her brother, to join him on the Dutchman, rather than join him in the crushing oblivion of death. Her arms had wrapped around his neck, body pressed against his in a way that assured him of her existence, in a way that proved she wasn't just a shadow, a ghost, and whispered that she would. Her voice had been low, as if she didn't trust it, when her eyes met his they were tinged with worry, regret, grief.

Jack didn't want to leave her, never did, she was his best friend, but he had to be sure. He had to be sure that no matter what befell him on the rolling seas, the chaotic waves of ever-changing tides that she would live on.

To the outside world, nothing had changed. Jack Sparrow was still the charming, suave pirate he'd always been, gold teeth glinting in the fading sunlight as he downed mug after mug of amber rum, letting himself be taken away among its frothy waves of ambivalence. But he always found his way home, back to his ship without a lass on his arm, he was always faithful. Sometimes, he wondered how he managed it. How he managed to shift his ways into something solid, into something he could climb in bed with day after day and never throw out. Maybe it was because he'd seen her at her best, her worst, her adventurous. Maybe he saw something of himself in her, and he always had admired himself. Maybe it just wasn't as hard as everyone made it out to be, caring, that was.

He found that his tether to her did not tie them down, only kept them connected as they sailed, flew, explored. Nothing changed about him, he pilfered, pillaged, held men and women at gunpoint with a cunning smile, and she was always next to him sword drawn as sharp as her wit. She managed to keep up easily, matching his moves and mannerisms with her own and brining him to earth and the sun at once.

He couldn't for the life of him, remember why he'd been adverse to the idea. So he told himself he never was. That way he'd always been right.

His steps caused the room to quiet, a hush falling over the commoners crammed into the box seats, staring down at him like he was God, or King, or both. At least this side trip had its bonus's, he thought wryly, as he took his preferred seat and adjusted his spectacles. He wondered if the judge ever cleaned them, as he squinted to make out the mutton-chopped ally he'd known for more years than he favored to count.

"Well, what do we have here?" he asked, a flash of gold teeth only Gibbs could see. Jack smiled, a twitch of his lips at the corners, and it felt heavy under the white powder he'd applied to his beard. He felt older. He didn't like it.

"Jack?" Gibbs breathed, shock swimming in his eyes as he leaned forward. The Bailiff reacted, smashing down on his head with a sharp blow that almost made Jack cringe. So much for a fair system.

"Not necessary!" Jack shouted over the answering roar of the crowd, approval for the belligerent act coursing through their veins and he was against the mob. The claustrophobic pack of people intent on their idea of justice. Jack heard once that the intelligence of a mob could be defined by its least intelligent member. He heard the shouts of 'string 'im up!' and knew it would be a long day. "You were saying?" he asked, attempting to hint at Gibbs as subtly as possible.

"…Jack Sparrow is not my name!" Gibbs picked up, as if he'd never stopped speaking, annoyance and mistrust mingling in his eyes. This was the second time Jack had impersonated a judge, and the first had not ended well. "My name is Gibbs, Joshamee Gibbs!"

"Is that so?" Jack asked, thoughtfully gazing at the man below him, a ringed hand rising to finger his moustache. "It says Jack Sparrow here," he said, indicating a piece of parchment he'd only distractingly noticed before.

"I told 'em! I'm not Jack Sparrow, who I would be happy to identify to the court, if it would help my case," Gibbs trailed off in a snarl, eyeing the pirate Captain before him haughtily. Jack wondered when his first mate had grown so comfortable in his presence. It seemed difficult to find proper help these days.

"I think that would be a poor defense unless you want to be bludgeoned again like a harp seal," Jack said quickly, something like a challenge in his eyes as he met Gibbs'. At this point, Jack would have killed for an adventure, a chase, a near-death experience, anything to make London more interesting.

His statement caused a rousing of the crowd, people bent in half over the railing in order to scream their approval, a few in the back corner attempting to start up a chant of Hang Him, Hang Him. And people wondered why pirates were so ruthless. It seemed to him that law abiding people were far more brutal.

Jack banged half-heartedly with his gavel, wondering why it was necessary to equip a judge with a small wooden hammer anyway; it would do virtually no damage should his life fall into danger. It seemed more ornamental than anything.

"The prisoner claims to be innocent of being Jack Sparrow. How do you find?" Jack asked, a grin threatening to break from his lips and incriminate himself. Sometimes, most times, Jack couldn't help but marvel at his own genius, his own ability to twist logic until it suited him. He knew Anna found it fascinating too, only furthering his own happiness with his ability. Others were strong, he was smart.

"No trial? But aren't we here to examine the evidence?" the Foreman asked, as if he was actually concerned with the evidence. He knew as well as Jack did that the conviction rate for pirates was above a hundred.

"Foreman," Jack called, almost in warning, as if to draw this man back into the mob, back into the rolling mass of bigotry and lies. "Your finding. Guilty?" he asked excitedly, like he wanted guilty, like he wanted his first mate with a noose around his neck, rope digging into his flesh until the face turned purple, eyes blown wide and mouth slack.

"Guilty verdict means he'll hang," the man said in that same, unwilling voice, but Jack could see a glint in his eyes, could see the excitement, the energy. The crowd around them erupted, shouts of approval ringing out among them until it hurt his head, reminding him of his first hangover when the sunlight burned his eyes and the voices were deafening shrieks.

"String him up!" another woman shouted, broken teeth and dirt smudges advertised so blatantly as she screamed. Say what you will about Tortuga women, but at least they hid their faults. He wondered if Anna had any at all. He liked to insist that he knew every inch of her body like it was his own, like her skin was the map on his desk, so carefully traced out in the half-glow of moonlight and stuttering candles.

Jack brought himself back to the present, shifting his eyes across the court room until the pantheon of noise quieted, a hush falling over the people as they leaned in, expressions rapt as they waited.

"Guilty?" The Forman made it sound like a question, like he wasn't sure of what was happening around him. That made him perfect for Jack.

"That's not fair!" Gibbs screamed, emptying his lungs into the once again alive crowd, bursting at the seams with noise, approval, shouts that could only communicate the raw, animalistic instinct to do harm unto another being. It wasn't humanities most attractive trait.

"Shut it!" Jack shouted, banging with his useless hammer again until the room hushed, awaiting the words that would make their afternoons interesting. The words that would command people to flood into the streets to watch a man go lifeless. "Joshamee Gibbs! The crime which you've been found guilty of is being innocent of being Jack Sparrow," he listed with the same conspiring grin he wore when he knew he'd cornered another pirate in a battle. Gibbs' bewildered eyes made the pirate Captain want to chuckle lowly, and the sound would vibrate out until it was a drunken laugh. And he was back in Tortuga, a pirate woman by his side, cheating at cards for him, her blue eyes tinged with alcohol and something else, something harder to define. "I hereby commute your sentence and order that you be imprisoned for the remainder of your miserable, moribund, mutton-chopped life," he said with as much contempt as he could muster, grin so pronounced he was sure he was arousing suspicion.

Maybe then he would get the chase he so lusted for.

A cacophony of sound rose up to greet him, furious shouts of the mob burrowing into his head until they were rooted there, HangHimHangHimHangHim. He was taken back to that day, the end of his first adventure with Anna, the gallows swallowing his view and he had been so sure he was going to die, was going to meet his end as a spectacle for the crowd, while a princess was powerless and forced to watch. The moments leading up to the noose around his neck were distant, a rising panic taking hold in his chest he wouldn't feel again until his number ran up a year later. When death would greet him and refuse to leave without him. He could remember hearing Anna's screams, drifting to him on a subtle wind as he tore his wrist from the chain and waited for the beast to meet him.

He never mentioned it, never spoke of the raw, agonized voice that had met his mind when he was swallowed, the tortured soul that made him cringe. He didn't deserve that kind of care, that kind of devotion. He wasn't much of a friend.

He would be lying if he said he didn't still feel like that, like he was too damaged to lay beside her and not make her cry, like he was too broken not to break her, like his touch was too rough not to cause her pain. But she never once complained, never once asked him to stop being anything he was, only made him fly higher, until he wasn't chasing freedom anymore, he was beyond it.

"There!" he said as brightly as he could, banging his gavel once and standing with heavy shoulders, eyes on the ground in a moment of collective insanity, outside and inside. He forced himself to quiet the storm inside his body and walked out as the Bailiff spoke about moving Gibbs to the Tower of London. He could hear the outraged cries of the public, the smack of food as it was thrown into the court. A waste of their pension.

As he walked, he eradicated the stiff backed walk and settled back into the drunken swagger he knew, systematically removing the spectacles, wig, and robes. He tossed all but the last to the side and opened a broom cupboard, glancing in at the judge he'd tied to a chair, his frantic eyes on Jack like his life was passing before his eyes. The pirate laid the robes on his like a blanket, a cheery smile on his lips as he nodded his head.

"Thanks much," he said, the quick smirk reappearing with the grace of a fallen angel spreading black wings to take flight. He took off the scarf and tossed it to the side, walking out a back door with drunken purpose, snatching his hat from a horse and stuffing back on his head like it was the hat's fault it had been so far away from him. "Ta," he said to no one in particular, maybe to the horse, as he jumped in a line of condemned pirates. A guard ushered him on, into a barred carriage as Jack winked at the driver, catching a glimpse of the skull and crossbones inked into his skin.

He was pushed into the carriage alongside Gibbs and a shadowed figure in the corner, resting with his knees pulled up to his chest. The man's wrists were covered in trinkets, charms and silver littering the short expanse of skin between hand and shirt sleeve. Shadow covered his face, but Jack could see the feminine tilt of her neck, slim fingers tapping a mindless beat on her thigh. He grinned, a cat like expression dawning on his features as he wondered who she had to swindle to end up back here, dressed like she always was with all her spoils clearly in view.

"Love?" he asked, just to be sure, watching with trepidation as she leaned forward, shadows melting from her skin like she was emerging from fog and mystery and myth.

"Ello, Birdie," Anna greeted with a wide conspiring grin. Blue eyes glinted mischievously in the low light as Jack and Gibbs took stalk of her. Her limbs looked wiry, sinewy, lean, tan skin containing the elegantly sculpted muscles of a sailor and fighter. Her hair was swept back in a sloppy wrap, tendrils falling into her heart-shaped face. The excitement never died in her eyes, through the months they had been sailing on their own, always alive with a fire Jack could understand. She leaned forward further, tantalizing body shifting like water to bring her face closer to Jack's. "Or should I say, 'The Honorable Justice Smith?"