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A screaming, ragged breath emerged from cold lips, filling air-starved lungs, as blood that had grown cold and thick suddenly warmed and surged again. Nerves jolted, muscles contracted and twitched. Life returned.
Hector blinked and found his eyes painfully dry. Of course they were, he had died staring upwards, wide with shock. Most of him was still numb and cold and lifeless, but things were twitching spasmodically as death gave up it's hold on him. He stared wild eyed and crazy around him, awake but unable to see; blind in the dark. He was dead. Or had been. That death, to have come after so many long years of a cursed life had almost been welcomed. Now he was ripped from it and brought back to this wretched place of damp and darkness and ill gotten gold. A hand was on his heart, over the place where he had been shot. It was a strange touch and he did not recognize it at first.
"Breathe deep de air, Hector Barbossa, and remember what it is to live." a voice said to him from somewhere in that blind dark. Sight began to return, a hazy mist of shadows at first, followed by bit of color and vaguely recognizable shapes. And then a face.
Tia Dalama knelt over his body, smiling at him with her black lips and huge all seeing eyes. Hector knew her. Not just as the voodoo witch he had encountered in his youth with Teague and Jack Sparrow, but for what she really was. The Sea Goddess, bound in human flesh. Hector stared at her for a few more long moments, feeling his pulse begin to rise, then closed his eyes and returned to that shadow of death known as sleep.
***
Sleep had not the timelessness of death, only the disorientation of it. Barbossa woke again, not knowing if he had been gone for hours or days, to find himself far from the inner caves of the Isle De Mureta, and instead laid in bed inside the hovel that the sea witch called her swamp home. She was not at his side, but he could hear her somewhere beyond the trappings and hangings that surrounded him in the bed, as it was shielded by a webbed canopy of net and various beads and trinkets that dangled from it and clacked and tinkled when he touched it.
The smell of the swamp was like a blanket itself, filling his lungs with the smell of damp moss, rotting trees and mud, mixed with the smells of the witches' potions and whatnot that she brewed below. He heard her faint footsteps moving up the stairs to the little room where he laid, and he looked for he expectantly, wishing he had a gun.
"It would be ill advised to bite the hand that feeds you, Barbossa," she drawled as she entered the room, carrying a bowl of something hot and foaming. He struggled into a sitting position, his lose, fading red hair falling across his shoulders. She chuckled as she sat the concoction on a bedside stool covered in dripping candles. "Ye have not regained your voice?" She sat herself neatly beside him, skirts rustling and the bones and beads around her neck and in her hair making little clinking, clunking noises as they rattled together. She reached out and laid a hand upon his throat lightly. Hector felt at once a hot tingling there that made him cough and choke until his eyes watered before managing to growl; "Send me back...give me back the death I was promised!"
She shook her head. "It is not your time, foolish man."
Barbossa leered at her. His body had never felt so weak, it was like being an infant again. He was not even sure he could walk if he tried. Again she saw his mind and knew this, "It will return to ye. Sometimes death's grip is harder to break than others." She handed him the concoction and Barbossa forced it down in two ragged gulps, and though the taste revolted him, he felt a little of his old strength returning. "Why...?" he managed.
Tia Dalma stroked his cheek and moved her fingers through his hair. Hector felt a shiver run through him. He hadn't felt another human touch in so long, although it was dubious to call Tia Dalma truly human. "You have forgotten your purpose, Hector Barbossa. Corrupted you were, by jealousy and greed. Ye turned from your charted course and lost your way. I am here to put ye back where ye belong."
The old pirate scoffed a little, eyeing the dark skinned woman curiously, no idea what she was talking about. "Not that I be ungrateful...but I think you're mistaken."
"I am never mistaken." She replied. Her hand trailed down his chest, moving aside the open edges of his shirt to reveal the deep red scar over his heart. "You came to me with a divided heart. Never have I seen one like yours. So full of wantin', so desperate to know it's place. I should not have trusted ya to find the way alone." He felt pressure inside his chest as though she were gripping the beating muscle itself in her palm and it winded him. "Your divided heart turned black and cruel. Ya cast aside all that had meant da world to ya, and so you strayed from the path designed and brought a curse upon yourself and all who served you."
Her hand drew away and he gasped and clutched at his ribs in pain. She opened her palm and showed him the small round bullet that had pierced it. Jack's bullet. "But I have removed the blackest part. Now you will see clear."
Hector reached for it and took it in his own hand, turning it over in his fingers. A single shot. That was all he had left Jack on that island with; a means to put an end to his suffering after the torment he had left him in. For ten years he carried that shot, to return the favor. He remembered clearly now the look on the man's face when he had fired. Hector hadn't even felt it. Not until it was too late. And when he saw that he was bleeding, he saw too that look in Jack's eyes. That look of loss and pity. Of regret.
"Where be the token that I had given ya?" she asked, and her eyes flashed with a warning of danger if he answered wrong. His memory stirred, and he recalled an all too distant encounter, when he was still young and naive, a mere deck hand aboard a forgotten ship under the flag of Captain Teague. She had seen something in him then, something he himself did not even understand. She had bestowed upon him a gift of her favor...a wooden eye, whose keeping he was charged with. The eye that now called home inside the empty socket of the hapless pirate Ragetti.
"Probably dangling from a gibbet, along with it's master." he muttered. For a moment an angry look passed across her features like a storm cloud over water, and Hector remembered what fear was. But it passed and she touched his arm. "Then you shall go and collect it, and the man what has kept it safe for ya. You'll be needin' a crew."
The blue eyed man looked puzzled. "A crew...? What for?"
She smiled again and leaned over him, kissing his forehead. Hector sighed at the sensation, feeling peaceful and tired. "You'll see in da proper time. For now, rest here. I will teach you all ye need knowin'."
***
Days turned into weeks, and soon a month had gone by and more. Hector saw little day light in the swamp as he remained Tia Dalma's perpetual house guest, recovering his strength. For all that long time, the curious witch of the swamps said very little to him, though she was always kind, keeping him fed and comfortable.
Barbossa despised the lack of freedom, and his weak body for trapping here in this swamp. If he were himself, he would have taken what he needed and left long ago. But there was no thought he had that she did not see, and she reminded him that he was here at her behest, and for all intents her servant. To spite her generosity would lead to grave consequences. For the time being, he would do nothing to anger her. If she could restore life to a dead thing, certainly it would be far easier to take it away. Yet for some reason she needed him.
One day, as he sat in her main room among her trappings peeling potatoes for a meal, his pet monkey little Jack curled at his feet, safely away from her lurking python, he ventured to ask her; "If a simple sailor may be so bold as to ask," he began, always the gentlemen, "what be ye needin' this old sod for? Surely there's younger, stronger, more able bodied pirates what can do yer biddin'."
"Younger and stronger, perhaps..." she cooed from behind her table where she sat playing with bits of bone upon her marked table. "But rare is da a human who can see me for what I am. You were never fooled by my appearance." She gave him another black-gummed smile. "I knew then you'd be my champion."
At this Hector scoffed, snorting loudly and startling little Jack so that he shrieked and clambered upon his shoulder. "Champion? What would a woman of your power be needin' the help of a lowly mortal such as myself for?"
The bones in her hand clattered against the table top once more and she examined them carefully before speaking. "When the tide is right...you will stand before yer peers and fellow ne're do wells of da Brethren Court. And you will propose my freedom."
Barbossa was so shocked that he forgot about the potato in his hand that he was peeling and carelessly cut his thumb. Blood dribbled to the floor, but he barely registered the sting. "'Free you'?" He gasped. "A more impossible task I couldn't name."
"You will find a way." she nodded. "It is your purpose. Your destiny." She got up then and used a bit of the shawl around her waist to clean his bloody hand. "But you can not do it alone. You'll need a ship and a crew..." She gave him a wicked grin. "And a compass."
Hector soured at ounce. "Ye dare not be referring to one Jack Sparrow, I assume? Because if ye think I'd take up with the rotten sod what shot me dead, yer more batty than I–!" As his temper flared he forgot himself, but she pressed her hand over his heart again and Hector felt a cold rush through him. "A hateful, vengeful heart will no longer serve you! Defy me again and I will teach you how cruel I can be!" Before he could speak Hector felt a jolt of bone-jarring pain ripple through him and he screamed, dropping to the floor. The woman stepped back, surveying him as he gasped and winced in the wake of it, her ire passed. "Please...no more...!" he gasped, trembling and sweat soaked.
She pulled him into her arms, suddenly full of warmth for him. He had learned that she was everything she claimed. One moment tepid and sweet, the next cruel and spiteful, just like the sea Goddess she claimed to be. Her calm waters held treacherous currents below them. "My Hector," she cooed. "Can ye find no peace, even now? No forgiveness in yer heart for the one ye once held so dear?" He laid his head on her shoulder, but did not speak. He'd had ten long years to brood in his miserable cursed body about the state Jack Sparrow had left him in, how he'd betrayed his love for another and cast his trust and friendship aside. Hector had exacted a cruel punishment upon him; stealing his beloved ship, murdering his new lover, and abandoning Jack to die upon an island with no hope of rescue. Or so he had thought. He wondered if Jack's escape had been some of Tia Dalma's doing as well, but he didn't voice the thought.
Seeing Jack again when he had so long believed him dead had set off a conflict in Barbossa that he thought long over with. The war between his sense of self preservation and his love for Jack. And he did love him, even if that love had turned cold and hateful. He had been almost proud of Jack when he had found his way back to him, for managing to survive on his wits for that long. But when he had discovered a new man in the picture, a younger William Turner, Hector's jealousy sprang to life again. It was not as though his haunting decision to murder Bill Turner had ever left him. Turns out Bill always was a bit more clever than he let on, even to Jack. He had gone to the depths with a bit of that cursed gold around his neck, damning them all and forcing Hector to spend a life time searching for his bloodline. Barbossa considered the irony of how his life mistakes never really went away.
He said nothing again for a long time, lost in his head and his memories. He had spent ten years this way, but it wasn't quite the same. Odd how death provided one with rare hindsight. He began to realize that much of the old hate he had carried was fading from his mind and his heart. He simply couldn't shoulder the weight of it anymore. Without the curse of the Aztec gold to drive him to brink of insanity (perhaps beyond) he began to recover the man he had been before the mutiny. It all seemed to matter so little now.
He remained only half dressed, wearing his same old breeches, tunic and waistcoat with his sash, other affects put aside to be forgotten. They still had stains, and he had sown a patch over the ruined bit of his shirt where the shot had struck him, tearing and burning it, not to mention the blood stain. It was a grisly reminder to sit around looking at the same clothes you had died in. But Hector had seen a lot of grisly and otherwise unsavory things in his life time to be overly concerned with them.
Little Jack rolled on his bed, playing with a severed pickled toe he had stolen from a jar. Barbossa had given up trying to take it away from him. "I'd sell my soul for the feel of The Pearl under my feet again, and the smell of salt water and feel of wind in my face." he said to the little primate, who chittered and cocked his head towards him. "Too long we've been trapped in this mire and muck." He glanced around the corner to the open door way that lead down to the main part of the shack that was only covered by a bit of gauzy cloth. "But I daren't risk a jail break, Jackie. She'd turn me to stone."
The monkey nodded in affirmation, chewing on the toe's nail. Hector cringed and finally tore it from his paws, chucking it out the window. "Give me that! Disgusting little..." but as he peered out the window he caught sight of traveling lights. Hector leaned out the window, pushing the shutter aside to have a better look.
He saw boats traveling through the thick black waters, torches lit at each end. While it was not unusual to see people traveling this way, Barbossa had come to know the difference between the swamp dwellers going about their daily tasks and strangers. He squinted in the dark, trying to make out the faces in the dim light.
There were six men that he could see. One was smaller than the others, looking almost to be a child in size. As the drew nearer and the torch light grew stronger he could see that in fact it was a bald, mean looking midget. One he'd seen before. More became clear. The men at the rear of the boat were two of his old crew, the short balding mean looking belligerent Pintel and his constant gangly one-eyed companion Ragetti. Hector's heart jumped a little. He sincerely hoped the buffoon still had his wooden eye. The fourth man, with a bushy white bit of beard and mutton chops he recognized as Gibbs, Sparrow's new first mate. And then there was Jack himself.
Sparrow was at the front of the boat, and even from this distance Hector could see he was tense and unnerved. The sight of him sent Barbossa into a torrid of mixed feelings. Part of him wanted to jump from that window, fall upon Sparrow and drag him into the water and drown him or worse. The other...he couldn't quite identify yet. There was something of relief, mixed with a tinge of elation. Jack never failed to impress him with how he managed to survive off his cleverness alone. Though he wondered what sort of trouble he must be in to venture this far inland to Tia Dalma's swamps.
And then there was the sixth man whom he could not yet identify. This unknown made the pit of Hector's stomach squirm. Who had Jack taken up with now? Another pirate or some other thief and miscreant to whom he owed a favor? Lord knew there were plenty of those lurking about in the world. Jack had made more promises than he could ever possibly fulfil. One day it would catch up to him.
Ducking from the window so not to be seen he scrambled over the bed, misplacing little Jack and sending him screeching below to hide beneath the bed, he reached for his weapons. Barbossa felt it time he paid dear ol' Jack back in kind for that bullet through his heart.
"Tia Dalma!" he heard Sparrow's voice exclaim warmly below, and another thrill passed through him. Jack was so close, so unsuspecting. This would be too easy. He'd kill 'im, and take the compass and press gang the rest into his new crew. Then he could finally be aboard the Black Pearl and rid of this stench-ridden swamp for good.
He lingered in shadow just beyond the door way upon the third step. From here he could see into the witch's sitting room as she greeted her surprise visitors. And then the sixth man came to light. It was almost like looking at a ghost. The whelp of a boy he'd discovered in Port Royal, young William Turner, looked more like Bootstrap than he had first guessed. And the sight of the two of them together set Hector's blood to boiling...
He cocked back the hammer of his pistol and laid in wait, listening intently to the conversation below...
From his hiding spot, he saw the Turner boy present to the woman a scrap of leather, upon which was drawn an odd symbol. For a moment she had no words, then looked sharply to Jack. "The compass you barter from me, it can not lead you to dis?"
Jack looked up, uncertain, perhaps embarrassed. "Maybe..." he muttered. "Why?"
Tia Dalma's face split into another knowing grin and she cackled, "Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants!" She found the idea all too amusing, which only vexed Jack more.
Barbossa found this an intriguing turn of events. Jack's precious compass, almost as dear to him as the Black Pearl herself, had never failed him before. Strange that it should now, when he seemed in most dire need of it. He could see a change in him. Gone was the devil-may-care smile, or the confidence and savvy he had displayed even while he held him prisoner on his ship. Jack had a harrowed, haunted look about him, as though he had seen something too grim for human eyes. Barbossa would dearly like to know what that could be.
"Yer key go to a chest," Tia Dalma was saying then, drawing him from his thoughts. "And it is what lay inside the chest you seek. Don't it?" As Turner, Sparrow and the others looked on, she spun the tale of Davy Jones himself. Fairer of the Dead for the poor souls who were lost to the sea, he had carved out his heart and hidden it away from the world in a chest; all because of his unbearable love for a woman he could not have.
Hector heard the words but barely took them in. His eyes were on Jack, waiting for a clear shot. He almost had it...then Turner was suddenly on his feet, glaring at the pirate. "You knew this?"
Sparrow gave him one of his trademark disarmingly coy smiles. "I didn't know where the key was. Now we do. So all we need do is climb aboard the Flying Dutchman, get the key and send you back to Port Royal to save your bonny lass, eh?"
Damn it all, if only that blasted boy would move! Hector was getting frustrated, he had a mind to shoot them both through the head, when Tia Dalama stood up. "Let me see your hand."
Sparrow gave her a nervous look, skittered for a moment or two, then surrendered his bandaged palm to her. The hidden pirate looked on interest. A black mark unlike any he had seen appeared upon Sparrow's palm. The others jumped back, rightly in fear. And their reaction gave Barbossa the clarity he needed. The Black Spot.
Jack had been marked for death. He lowered his pistol then, absorbing this new piece of the puzzle. While Jack's misguided bunch of ninnies crossed themselves and performed all manner of anti-jinx methods, Hector found himself rolling his eyes at the same time as Jack. The Black Spot was a mark that could only be bestowed upon those marked for death; it wasn't a disease that could spread from man to man. And only one being was said to able to bestow it upon the condemned...Davy Jones himself, or one of his messengers.
Tia Dalma turned then and pushed her way through the covering towards where Barbossa was hiding. She discovered his lurking and scowled; "Get back up there ya wicked beast!" she shouted, pushing and swatting at him until he was forced to retreat. Little Jack skittered below out of sight to the amusement of the men below.
Once she had shoved him back into the room he had occupied and snapped at her; "Ye wanted me to get back that damn compass, an now you come to discover it's broken. Let me finish Sparrow and I'll be taking his ship like you wanted!" he snapped.
She put a hand over his mouth and Hector found to his shock that his voice was utterly stolen from him. Cry out though he might he could not make a sound. "Do not pretend to know the mind of the Gods," she warned him softly, sitting him down upon the bed. "Behave yerself. And keep your silence." She chuckled, knowing he had no other choice.
Furious, he reached for his pistol again but found she had stolen that as well. Hector tore at his hair and overturned several little boxes and tables, sending their contents crashing to the floor. She cursed back at him in Haitian before returning to her guests below.
"Tia Dalma darling, are you...entertaining someone up there?" Jack asked curiously, moving towards the stairs. "That be none of your concern." she reminded him.
"You certainly are doing a lot of entertaining these days." the pirate winked at her, thinking back to her sudden intense interest in Will when they had entered the hovel. She shoved into his arms a large jar filled with dirt and sand. "Davy Jones can not make port. Cannot step on land but once every ten years. Land is where you are safe Jack Sparrow, and so you will carry it along with you."
Hector returned to lurk in the stairwell, listening as the witch and her unwitting pawns chartered a course to the reefs where the Flying Dutchman could be called upon. He had almost fallen asleep when Jack spoke up again;
"Well, it's been lovely as always, but we really must depart." Hector peeked through the moth eaten holes in the curtain obscuring his view, eyes falling on Jack's face. He was alone with the woman, the others had already gone out. Seeing him standing alone somehow made him look less...Hector wasn't sure if "threatening" was the right word, but "vulnerable" seemed to be the correct foil. Despite the fear that was etched in his features, the redhead could not help but notice that Jack was looking quite well otherwise. Time never seemed to affect him. His face had less of the wholesomeness of their youth, but he couldn't see a line or a wrinkle upon it. Beauty was bestowed upon a lucky few, and Jack seemed to have had more than his fair share in that department.
"Ye know why it doesn't work, correct?"
The tan skinned pirate blinked back at her with his dark, kohl-lined eyes. "I took good care of it, if that be what you're insinuating." he replied, a bit defensively. "It just...stopped working." She folded her arms across her chest, slinking towards him; the hems of her petticoats scraping along the floor made the sound of waves on the shore. "Do ya remember what I told you when I gave it to you?"
Jack rolled his eyes, "Aye, aye, yes...that as long as I knew what I wanted the compass would point the way."
"After that."
"Oh...well, I might have missed that part."
She sighed and twirled her finger around a long dread of his dark hair. "Two hearts linked serve the compass's magnetic core. But if one of the poles were extinguished, the needle will never serve you." Hector listened with great interest, eyes widening, but Jack looked more perplexed than ever. "Oh that. Didn't understand it the first time. Besides, I don't see how anyone could kill a pole."
She took his hand in hers and held it to her chest. "Ah, but you shot him through him heart."
Hector found himself breathless then, and clutched his own chest, palm over the wound that was still healing there. The compass had failed because...he had died? His heart and Jack's...? Hector had never really believed in the compass's magic, even when it had proved itself invaluable time after time. He had even come to hate it, for it once revealed what was in his heart when he himself did not know. But he had never realized that it was because of that damn trinket that he and Sparrow had found one another in the first place. He could hear no more and moved up the stairs into the little room again and hid his head beneath the pillow, trying to drown out everything.
Below Jack seemed as confused. "You mean Barbossa? Him? That mutinous, rotten–!" She put a finger to his lips and he fell silent. "Bark all ye like, it will not change what is. I can not help whom your heart has chosen."
Jack pouted for a moment. Hector was dead and there was nothing he could do about it. The sad, confused look in those ocean colored eyes of his still haunted him in nightmares, and he knew as long as he lived he would never be able to live that memory down. He'd had his revenge, and regained his ship. But he had lost something else. For good this time it seemed.
"Maybe I need a new heart then." Jack replied. "Luckily, I know just where to find one." He bowed and blew her a kiss, tucking the charts and his newly acquired jar of dirt beneath his arm and was gone.
Soon after, the lady emerged above again, finding Barbossa huddled upon the bed. "Ya did not like what ye heard, is that it?" The red haired pirate shot a scathing look at her though she moved towards him all the same and leaned in to give him a kiss upon the lips. Hector gasped, feeling his stolen voice return. "You bitch!" he found himself barking, leaping away from her. "Ye knew that little detail all along, and neglected to share it!"
"Does it change anything?"
"Why should it?" he muttered. "Jack Sparrow is still just an obstacle to be overcome."
"Are you loath to admit, Hector Barbossa, that part of your heart you lost him long ago. Maybe you wish he had returned it." She bent and began picking up the scattered and broken bits of the items he had destroyed in his frustration. The pirate sat upon the bed, staring down at his hands. "What you said, about Jones and the woman he loved so much that he cut out his heart...it was you, wasn't it?"
She nodded, her own wild hair sliding across her naked shoulders. "Yes. Him love me. With all him heart."
"And you didn't love him?"
"No! No...I love him, always." She looked infinitely sad. "That is why I know the pain you cling to. To love a man so much ye loose yer very self in 'im. But I am not a woman to be tamed. Neither is your Jack Sparrow."
"Jack is far from some wily woman. He's a blight unto himself and everything he touches!" But his face softened as she placed something in his hand; a bead Jack had once traded to her. He held it tightly in his hand, trying to remember all the good things about Jack that he had so long pushed from his mind.
"Maybe so." she grinned. "But would ye have 'im any other way?"
Hector would not look at her. She touched his hair, drawing it back with a bit of string into a loose ponytail. "Ye've a long road ahead of you, Barbossa. And ye will see yer path clear before then, de'nota worry."