Archive of Our Own ^beta

Around them, the echoes of the waves outside crashed on the cavern walls. He could smell the brine, the moss and algae growing between the cracks as the storm roared outside. They were both shivering, clothes damp and no way to build a fire at the moment. They would have to wait for the storm to pass to find a way out, if the cold didn't kill them first.

Jack could hardly look at Ana without his chest tearing itself apart. Seven years gone and that fire still burned in her eyes like hot irons. He knew he would get singed if he got too close.

She sat by the wall opposite of him, her coat pulled tight around her, to try and keep whatever body heat she still had. They had not talked since they'd gotten off the rowboat.  

But he had held his tongue long enough.

“You might’ve told her,” he said at last, his hands trembling against the stone wall. “That I was her father.”

Ana tensed, but did not look his way. She closed her eyes and let herself rest against the stone.

“Not here, Jack. Not now.”

But he couldn't just let it slide. The bitterness was bubbling in his throat.

“Oh, but you did tell her about Captain Jack Sparrow, didn’t you? The great legend, the bedtime hero. All the tales, all the glory—” He gave her a sour scoff, “If you wanted me gone, Ana, fine. You wanted me to settle down, play house, and you knew that was never going to work. But to strip me from her life, then dress me back up in stories—” 

His voice cracked, and he had to bite his tongue when Ana's head snapped in his direction. He could feel the sharpness of her glare straight through his chest. 

 She stared at him in silence.

Maybe she was deciding whether or not to cut his tongue and be done with it.

He just couldn't bear it.

“...That was cruel,” he rasped. “Even for you”.

Ana scowled.

“You left”.

“You told me to!”

“BECAUSE YOU ALMOST LET HER DIE!”

The scream tore from her, and it shook him to his core. The memory pressed down on him, and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't look at her.

He had. 

They'd been playing in the shallow waters, Isla was three.

He couldn’t forget the moment her tiny head had slipped beneath the waves. Couldn’t forget the siren song ringing in his ears. The way it had wrapped around him, pulling him toward the rocks, so sweet and captivating that for half a heartbeat he hadn’t moved. 

He’d almost let his daughter drown.

Because he'd been haunted by a bloody siren’s song. Because he had wanted to hear what it was like, because he had asked his men to tie him to the mast so he could hear it without jumping overboard. And then it would come back to him randomly through the months that followed. Beckoning him back into the waves. 

And he hadn't found a way to get rid of it. 

And it almost cost Isla her life.

He swallowed a knot down his throat.

Finally, Ana let out a defeated sigh.

“We were never going to work…” she muttered. “because you didn’t want it to work.”

The words hit him harder than he expected.

“I never asked you to change, Jack. Not once. I only asked that you not hurt her,” Her voice softened, but not enough to let him breathe. “And you did it anyways”

He flinched. He couldn’t help it.

“And as for the stories…” she made a pause, enough to make him look up. Ana shook her head. “I didn’t tell her those”. 

Jack blinked, the knot in his throat didn't seem to want to go away.

“Then who—?”

“James,” she simply said.

James.

Jack was suddenly able to picture it. Isla at James’s knee, her big brown eyes wide, hanging on every word. And James weaving his adventures into something brighter, certainly braver than the truth. James keeping him alive in Isla’s world when he himself had chosen to walk away.

For a heartbeat Jack couldn’t speak. His throat was too tight. His chest too heavy.

And for the first time in years, he didn’t know if the weight pressing down on him was anger… or gratitude.

[...]